The Battle of Bến Tre took place during the Tet Offensive of the Vietnam War when Vietcong (VC) forces attacked Bến Tre, the capital of Kien Hoa Province, on 31 January 1968. The battle lasted until 5 February when U.S. and South Vietnamese forces ejected the VC who suffered 328 killed.
In the United States, the battle is best remembered for a quote from an unnamed American Major, reported by journalist Peter Arnett, that "It became necessary to destroy the town to save it." This quote has often been paraphrased as "We had to destroy the village in order to save it." The veracity of the original quote has often been questioned.
Background
Wedged between two branches of the Mekong River and crisscrossed by several smaller canals and rivers, Bến Tre lies 13.3 km south of Mỹ Tho. In 1967 it had a population of approximately 74,544 and was the capital of Kien Hoa Province, an island province surrounded by water with no bridge links to any of its four neighboring provinces.
In January 1960, one of the very few high-ranking VC women, Nguyễn Thị Định, led the first large-scale armed rebellion against the South Vietnamese government at Bến Tre. Định's insurgents captured ten government buildings and assassinated 43 individuals before an Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) force retook the city ten days later. Although Định was unable to establish a permanent liberated zone, the rebellion provided great inspiration for VC insurgents in the south. Because of Bến Tre's significance as the cradle of the southern insurgency, and also because the rural area surrounding it provided excellent terrain for guerrilla operations, the VC utilized this area as an important base for much of the 1960s. Army Brigadier General William Robertson Desobry, the IV Corps advisor, noted in a 1968 debriefing report: "The population is fractured, is dissident and in general has little if any history of loyalty to Saigon. The 7th ARVN Division has had little success in operating here in the past two years."
Despite the heavy VC presence in the Kien Hoa Province countryside, Bến Tre itself was relatively peaceful just months before Tết.
Battle
On 31 January the VC attacked 13 of the 16 provincial capitals in the Mekong Delta and captured large sections of Mỹ Tho, Cai Lậy, Bến Tre, Cái Bè and Vĩnh Long.
At 04:15 on the morning of the 31st, a force of approximately 800 VC from the 518th Main Force and the 516th Local Force battalions began their attack on Bến Tre. On that day the city was defended by two battalions of the ARVN 1st Brigade, 7th Division, and about 70 American advisors from Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) Advisory Team 93 and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) personnel housed in the MACV compound (), a full city block of military buildings surrounded by a tall masonry wall in downtown Bến Tre. Within 16 hours of the first attack, the VC controlled virtually the entire city and a string of fishing villages on the south bank of the Bến Tre River. The only territory still in Allied hands was a four-square-block area surrounding the MACV compound, the Provincial headquarters, the main Republic of Vietnam National Police station and an ARVN logistics compound. Two battalions from the ARVN 10th Regiment were trying to fight their way into town, but the regimental commander had been killed leading an attack. With the U.S. Mobile Riverine Force (MRF) focused on saving Mỹ Tho, Bến Tre's defenders had to rely mainly on airpower and naval gunfire support from Patrol Boat, Rivers (PBRs) of U.S. Navy River Section 534 to keep the VC from completely overrunning their positions.