|
8th Battalion 4th Artillery Events and History Significant to the Battalion 1972 | |||||||||||||||
1972/03/30 Event: Cease-Fire 1972/04/02 The most infamous example of the death of ARVN leadership was the surrender of the 56th ARVN Regiment by Lieutenant Colonel Phan Van Dinh, its commander, at Camp Carroll after a short fight on Easter Sunday. Many other examples of cowardice occurred during the Offensive, but none was so flagrant or damning. There is little left there except the history, and a gaudy marker commemorating the desertion to the enemy of its South Vietnamese Commanding officer, Col. Ton That Dinh, to the NVA in 1972. He now owns a hotel in Hue. Per Charles Kelley, 2/94 Arty: The ARVN just gave up! They had all kinds of Arty and 1800 troops. . . They just gave up. Only one battery of ARVN Marines did not surrender. They had radioed their higher headquarters that they were not going to surrender. So, as the NVA troops walked up the road to take the hill, the ARVN Marine Battery, Battery B, just lowered their 105's and fired point blank! They fought to the last man!! A personal note: I cannot imagine the rest of the ARVN troops just standing there with their white flags in their hands and watching as that went on. It makes me sick to just think about it. That to me is way above the call of Cowardice!! I do not have a word to describe it! It was also reported that the NVA was so taken back with themselves about the surrender that they took one of the big 175 mm guns, previously turned over to the ARVN by the US Army's 2nd BN 94th Artillery, back to the North where it is still on display in a war museum. 1972/04/06 1972/04/08 1972/04/24 1972/05/01 1972/05/13 1972/08/22 See: New York Post 'Hanoi Jane' - Hanoi Jane Ghosts Scare Fonda from Lawyers Convention. 1972/09/15 1972/12/01 |