Captain Pipes immediately realized that his men were in trouble and, upon direction of higher authority, sent the 2d Platoon to the aid of the patrol. The cunning North Vietnamese anticipated such a move, however, and positioned a blocking force in the path of the relief column. The two separated Marine units were engaged in heavy fighting for about four hours before the remnants of the patrol could break contact and withdraw through the positions of the 2d Platoon. Marine tanks rumbled into the southern portion of the compound but supporting fires were restricted by ground fog and the proximity of the combatants. As he pulled back, the patrol leader was hit in both femoral arteries and bled to death before reaching the perimeter. His radioman, Corporal Rolland R. Ball, a full-blooded Sioux Indian, carried the lieutenant's body back to the base. Friendly casualties during the day were 1 killed, 25 missing and presumed dead, 13 medevacs, and 8 wounded but returned to duty; the bodies of the missing men were all recovered. Enemy losses were undetermined. The action on the 25th sobered the men of Company B and there was one predominant thought in their minds. Captain Pipes probably understated the feelings of his men when he said: "We are anxious to repay the loss." Before the siege ended, Company B did just that.[(184)]
The flurry of activity to the east and south of the base led General Tompkins and Colonel Lownds to believe that the major enemy thrust was imminent. Recalling the accuracy of the North Vietnamese lieutenant's previous predictions, they felt sure that the attack would come from the east. From various other reports, they knew that large NVA units were massing around a deserted plantation to the south and an old French fort near the junction of Route 9 and the two roads which tied in with the KSCB. Although the North Vietnamese had not secured the hill outposts according to the first phase of their plan, time was running out. Each day, the skies over Khe Sanh cleared a little more as one of the enemy's greatest allies, the monsoons, slowly abandoned him. If American airpower, unhindered by the weather, were ever fully brought into play, the enemy's task would have been next to impossible. The NVA launched a heavy attack against the base on 29 February; whether it was in fact the main prong of the Communist offensive, historians may never know for sure.[(185)]
Largely because of the quick response by the FSCC and the overwhelming firepower at its disposal, the enemy attack never got up a full head of steam. Early in the evening of 29 February, current intelligence showed that the enemy was on the move. Each succeeding report indicated that the North Vietnamese were heading toward the eastern perimeter. The FSCC sprang into action and called on all assets to saturate the enemy's route of march. Massed artillery, TPQs, as well as Mini and Micro Arc Lights were targeted in blocks to the east, southeast, and south. Flights of B-52s, diverted from other targets, arrived overhead in two and a half hours and added to the carnage before the enemy troops had moved completely through the killing zone.[(186)]
At 2130, a battalion from the 304th NVA Division launched the first attack against the 37th ARVN Ranger Battalion. The South Vietnamese responded with their final protective fires; 1/13 contributed thousands of conventional and special artillery rounds while strike aircraft streaked in and raked the attacking force. The enemy pulled back without even breaching the outer defenses. The first assault was followed by one at 2330 and another at 0315 (1 March); both were similarly stifled short of the wire. The North Vietnamese finally called it quits and withdrew with those bodies which they could retrieve. When the Rangers investigated the next morning, they found 78 dead NVA soldiers huddled in three successive assault trenches a few hundred meters from the perimeter. Some were in a kneeling position as if they had been killed just before going over the top. Many had been peppered by the artillery airbursts and were covered with small holes. Crude devices made from bamboo strips and laced with blocks of TNT lay beside many of the bodies. These were obviously to be used as bangalore torpedoes but the sappers never had the chance. The slaughter along the perimeter, however, was nothing compared to the losses sustained by the NVA reserves.[(187)]
While the S-2 personnel could never ascertain the exact number of enemy killed, they felt reasonably certain that an entire NVA regiment had been virtually wiped out. The eastern approach was saturated with tons of high explosives; the road junction, the plantation, the old French Fort, and all bottlenecks along the enemy's route were heavily hit. Montagnard tribesmen, who inhabit the surrounding hills, later reported finding from 200 to 500 North Vietnamese bodies at a time stacked in rows along the trails and roads leading to the base. It was obvious that they had been caught while on the march and mangled by air raids and piston-like artillery concentrations. While many of the defenders at the KSCB never fired a shot, what was believed to be the long-awaited enemy onslaught came and passed with a whimper instead of a roar.[(188)]
Even though the North Vietnamese continued to probe throughout March, it was obvious that they had shot their bolt on the night of 29 February/1 March. The NVA never mustered another large ground attack against the base; the battle had reached a turning point. Having had their fingers burned too often, the North Vietnamese settled into a wait-and-see strategy. They continued to pound the base with artillery but exerted no major ground effort; instead they lurked in the hills and waited for patrols which ventured too far from the perimeter.[(189)]
The waiting game proved to be just as disastrous for the enemy as had his previous strategy. The month of March was marked by clear skies over Khe Sanh and there were only five days during which weather hampered flight operations. While the overcast had never interfered with Arc Light strikes or TPQs, the retreat of the monsoons was a blessing for the attack pilots and fighter/bombers swarmed into the valley like locusts. The number of close air support sorties in March almost doubled the amount flown the previous month. Any enemy movement within the TAOR during the day invariably drew a flight of sleek jets, prop-driven A-1 Skyraiders, or helicopter gunships within minutes. The trenches and bunker complexes inside the B-52 line were also worked over daily to insure that the NVA stayed at arm's length. What's more, the unrestricted visibility enabled the TAC(A)s and airborne observers to ferret out and call in artillery on the enemy gun positions which had been hammering the base. For the most part, 1/13 had been limited to intelligence-generated concentrations during February, but the good weather in March provided Lieutenant Colonel Hennelly's men with something they could sink their teeth into--observed targets. Enemy gunners no longer enjoyed a reprieve and each round they fired was an invitation to instant retaliation. With Birddogs or Hueys overhead, the enemy seldom even fired and this was no small consolation to the men at the base. The clear skies and accurate supporting fires were a potent combination and the number of confirmed enemy dead recorded in March increased approximately 80 percent over February.[(190)]
The enemy's plight at Khe Sanh was echoed, albeit in veiled terms by his propaganda broadcasts. The Radio Hanoi, English-speaking announcer, Hanoi Hanna--the Communist's anemic version of Tokyo Rose--gradually shifted her theme from, "We will crush Khe Sanh" to "Ho Chi Minh would be unhappy if we wasted our time on only 6,000 Marines." The Communists also attempted to sell the line that 20,000 North Vietnamese had "tied down" the 26th Marines. Such rationale smacked of sour grapes. This illogical reasoning would be similar to a defeated football coach saying that he didn't really want to win the game, only keep the other team "tied down" for an hour or so. At the KSCB itself, there were a few feeble attempts to sway the defenders. On 10 March, an incoming mortar round released about 200 propaganda leaflets. The following day, an NVA loudspeaker blared a message to the 37th ARVN Ranger Battalion which invited the South Vietnamese to "join their brothers from the North in driving out the Americans." There were no takers. The psychological effort was just one more indication that the enemy was hurting.[(191)]
About mid-March, the 26th Marines S-2 began noting an exodus of major NVA units from the Khe Sanh TAOR. Most of these reports came from mountain tribesmen who provided valuable information on enemy troop dispositions throughout the siege. The 325C NVA Division Headquarters was one of the first to pull out toward Laos, followed by elements of the 95C and 101D Regiments which also relocated to the west. About the same time, the 304th NVA Division withdrew several thousand meters to the southwest. The enemy still retained enough troops around the base to maintain pressure and thus the shelling and probes continued.[(192)]
Closely correlated with the enemy's retrograde movement was another large influx of refugees into the KSCB. Most were Montagnards who had inhabited the smaller villages surrounding the base and unfortunately had become the pawns of war. When the fighting first broke out, the Allies advised them to evacuate their homes and move overland to Cam Lo or else they would be exposed to fire from both sides. During the period 23-28 January, 1,050 Vietnamese and tribesmen with their families were air evacuated to Da Nang and then on to Quang Tri City. About the same time, some 1,800 tribesmen completed an overland trek from Khe Sanh to Cam Lo by way of the the Ba Long Valley. Later an additional 3,000 or more attempted to reach Cam Lo, but during the journey, the North Vietnamese intercepted this group and directed them back into the Khe Sanh area. Presumably, the NVA used the Montagnards to screen troop movements and confuse American intelligence. The next surge of refugees into the combat base occurred in early February following the attack on Lang Vei. On 7 March, the tribesmen again started to filter into the base. They were screened, interrogated, and processed for evacuation in the FOB-3 compound. As many as 661 were airlifted to eastern Quang Tri Province in a single day and the total for March was 1,432.[(193)]