The Spy Who Loved Us_ The Vietnam War and Pham Xuan An's Dangerous Game ( PDFDrive )

138 THOMAS A. BASS
story broke in the Western press and was written exactly the way
the Communists wanted it written.”
The battle pitted three hundred and fifty Vietcong soldiers
against forces from South Vietnam’s 7th Infantry Division,
which was being advised by Lieutenant Colonel John Paul
Vann. At the disposal of the Republicans were ten Shawnee helicopters,
five Huey “flying shotgun” helicopters, thirteen M-113
“green dragon” armored personnel carriers, and fourteen hundred
troops, supported by long-range artillery, thirteen fighterbombers,
and all the napalm they wanted. Within minutes of the
attack on Ap Bac, fourteen of the fifteen helicopters had been
hit. Four went down and three Americans were killed, with
another eight wounded. A fifth helicopter was downed during
a rescue attempt. At the end of the battle, the Communists
slipped away with thirty-nine wounded soldiers and eighteen
killed. The Saigon forces lost eighty killed and a hundred
wounded, not counting the Americans.
“Emulate Ap Bac” became both a Communist slogan and
method. Diagrams and descriptions of the battle were sent to all
the Communist forces in the south. The engagement was studied
as a classic model for how the Vietcong should fight their
better-equipped opponent. Simply teaching marksmen to lead
helicopters like ducks would result in five thousand of these expensive
machines being destroyed in the course of the war.
Turner speculates that An might have played another role
in the battle. “He would have had enough knowledge of the
battlefield tactics, rules of engagement, logistics and battlereadiness
of both the Vietnamese and Americans in that area at
that time to give pretty good advice on the way to set up a trap
for them. Certainly Ap Bac had the hallmarks of a trap. The
Americans in particular (who at that time were still in an ‘advisory’
role but also providing helicopter support and air cover
for ARVN troops) had been saying that they couldn’t wait for the
opportunity to engage a force of well-trained VC regulars who
were prepared to stand and fight instead of melting away. The