Company C continued to fan out from the III Corps compound, fighting house to house through the city. After months of jungle fighting, the men of Company C suddenly found themselves engaged in World War II-style city fighting. As disorienting as the abrupt change was for the Americans, they adapted to it much faster than their enemy. M79 grenade launchers were used with deadly effect against VC riflemen firing from the upper stories of buildings. When Bien Hoa City was finally cleared by 5:30 that evening, Company C had taken only eight walking wounded. One of the company’s several pet dogs was also wounded when an RPG hit an M113 armored personnel carrier (APC). The troops later obtained a ‘Purple Heart’ for the dog. (Company C had more than its share of dog lovers.)

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While Company C fought to secure Bien Hoa City, Troop A of the 9th Division’s 3rd Squadron, 5th Cavalry, was sent to relieve the attack on Bien Hoa Air Base. The troop, commanded by Captain Ralph B. Garretson, had to move 18 miles down Highway I and run the same gantlet as Company C. At the town of Trang Bom, Troop A was hit by a company-size ambush, but just rolled right through it, the men firing as they went. Ten miles from Bien Hoa, they were momentarily stopped cold when the VC blew a highway bridge after Troop A’s first tank rolled across. The troop’s M113s could ford the stream, but the tanks could not. After a hasty fording operation, Troop A was once again on the move, but with only one of its tanks.

The cavalry column had to fight through Bien Hoa city to reach the air base. It lost two APCs, a loss reducing the relief force to only one tank and eight APCs. As the relief column rolled out of the city toward the air base, the squadron commander, Lt. Col. Hugh J. Bartley, spotted another large ambush from his command-and-control helicopter. At Bartley’s direction, the column detoured around the ambush site, firing into the ambushers’ rear as it went.

Troop A reached the air base and linked up with the 101st Airborne Division’s 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry, which had been brought in by helicopter at dawn. Together they ejected the attackers from the eastern end of the field. The fight took most of the day. Troop A lost two more APCs. Its lone tank took 19 hits and lost two crews, but was still operational when the battle was over.

The fight for Long Binh-Bien Hoa ended on the evening of February I with the arrival of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, after an eight-hour forced march from War Zone C. The 2nd of the 47th Infantry and Troop A of the 3rd of the 5th Cavalry were later awarded Valorous Unit Citations.

The teeming Chinese section of Cholon, in the southwest corner of Saigon, was the Communists’ key population objective inside the Saigon Circle. Initially, the area was attacked by the 5th and 6th VC Local Force Battalions. As the fighting dragged on into days-and then into weeks-elements of every Communist unit known to be operating in Saigon were eventually identified there.

The key to Cholon was the Phu Tho Racetrack. It was at the hub of most of the key streets in the area and, by holding it, the VC could deny its use as a landing zone. Early on the thirty-first, General Weyand ordered Brig. Gen. Robert C. Forbes, commanding general of the 199th Light Infantry Brigade, to send some of his troops to reinforce ARVN rangers in Cholon. The elements from the 199th had to be shifted from their defensive positions at Long Binh, making the huge logistics complex just that much more vulnerable.

The 6th VC LF Battalion had little trouble taking the racetrack. From there, a large number of Communist political cadres fanned out to work through the huge urban sprawl. Some tried to whip up support for the General Uprising. Others went to serve arrest and execution warrants on government figures and ARVN officers in the area. A month-long reign of terror in Cholon had begun.

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