The End of the Rope: The Ripcord Campaign and American Disengagement in Vietnam

The campaign around Firebase Ripcord in 1970 was the last major American offensive effort in the Vietnam War. It went badly and is now little known. Elements of the 101st Airborne Division tried to go back to the area where the Hamburger Hill battles had been fought the year before, but they never made it due to a combination of enemy resistance, lack of resources due to reduction in force under Vietnamization, and serious command problems.

Ripcord base was supposed to provide a stepping stone for an incursion into the A Shau Valley, a major North Vietnamese staging and warehouse area in the northern part of South Vietnam. It took three attempts to establish the base due to a combination of bad planning, bad weather and enemy resistance. Once the base was established, the North Vietnamese gradually built up their forces in the area, effectively attacked surrounding units and bases, and eventually isolated it. Instead of simply disappearing as they had done in the past, they stepped up resistance and forced the Americans to abandon the campaign.

In 1970, the Americans were unable to conduct the sort of campaign that they had previously launched. Instead of piling on to overwhelm the enemy, they chose to withdraw to avoid further casualties in an unpopular war. As the Americans were weakening, the North Vietnamese were getting stronger, and had learned much about how to deal with American superiority in firepower and mobility. Beyond that, the American system of rotating officers in and out of command assignments took place without any regard for the situation on the ground, with key commanders changing in the middle of the campaign and new arrivals having to orient themselves on the fly. At the higher levels of command, there was also competition for commands of combat units, as these were necessary for career officers to obtain their promotions. Several of the key leaders in the campaign, notably Lt. Col. Andre Lucas, commander of the battalion most heavily involved in the campaign, had little relevant experience, which proved costly to the men in the field, as well as to himself--he died just as his battalion abandoned the base. At lower levels, most of the officers and men in the campaign performed well, despite the increasing sense that they were risking their lives for no purpose.

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