USS MULLINNIX DD-944

The Siege of An Loc - 1972

fter mounting massive conventional warfare assaults near the DMZ and in the Central Highlands on 5 April 1972, Hanoi extended the 1972 Easter Offensive, to South Vietnam's Military Region III. NVA forces quickly overran Loc Ninh. One week later, three NVA divisions, supported by tanks and artillery, launched an all out attack on An Loc, the capital of Binh Long Province.

The North Vietnamese could not have picked a better time to attack in MR III. Since the reduction of American troops began in 1969, the region had seen U.S. combat units dwindle considerably. Between February and April 1972 alone, 58,000 troops and advisors returned to the U.S. This was the single largest troop reduction of the war and it came when the NVA were building-up for the Easter Offensive.

When the 5th Viet Cong Division struck Loc Ninh on 5 April, the magnitude of the artillery barrage that preceded the attack was unprecedented and 2 days later Loc Ninh fell. Intelligence reports reported large numbers of NVA tanks north of An Loc.

On 7 April, the NVA overran the Quan Loi airstrip located 1 ½ miles east of An Loc. Route 13 was cut, blocking the main road in and out of town. The city was surrounded. Then, on 12 April, after another massive Soviet-style artillery barrage, the 7th Viet Cong Division, with T-54 tanks and trucks, launched the initial assault on the An Loc.

On 13 [the day Mullinnix steamed out of Norfolk headed to Vietnam] and 15 April, 24 NVA tanks led major ground assaults on the city. The allies stopped them but communist forces held the northern half of the city. Despite total allied air superiority, the NVA continued to pound the city with an average of 1,000 artillery rounds per day.

he NVA launched their last major ground assault on 10 May. The USS Mullinnix DD-944 arrived off the coast of South Vietnam on Tuesday, 16 May, 1972. She had been steaming since leaving Norfolk on 13 April. At times, it seemed to the crew the closer they got to Vietnam the more U.S. ships were being attacked. It was a relieve in someways to finally be on the gun-line to see first hand what they had been reading about in Stars and Stripes for over 3 weeks.

Strong communist forces remained around An Loc during June, but ARVN relief forces were making a slow approach toward the city along Route 13. On 11 June VNAF helicopters began bringing replacements into An Loc, and between 13-14 June, U.S. Army choppers lifted 1,400 fresh troops into the besieged city. Beginning on 18 June, the defenders slowly pushed out of the rubble that had once been An Loc and the South Vietnamese Command declared the siege over, despite the fact that Highway 13 remained closed. The South Vietnamese and their U.S. allies were able to withstand a massive assault by the NVA and save the city of An Loc.

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2 July Saigon (UPI) - ar to the South, Viet Cong guerrillas closed in on a provincial capital within a 3-hour drive of Saigon and government forces reported a 24-hour artillery-ground battle near An Loc, 60 miles north of Saigon.

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