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483:, a few rushed the RF compound and the 1st Platoon command post and were cut down by the defenders' fire. Most began burning houses and hurling their grenades and satchel charges into family bomb shelters filled with civilians who had fled to them for protection from the shelling. A Marine recalled: "The enemy ran through the village, ordering people out of their bunkers. When they did , they were shot, or else chicoms into the bunker, killing the men, women, and children in them… Very many civilians killed just inside their bunkers, if it wasn't from shrapnel wounds it was from fire where they were burned to death from the satchel charges used."
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405:, South Vietnam on 11 June 1970. The hamlet, which was pro-government and defended by US Marines and South Vietnamese militia, was attacked by the VC in the early morning of 11 June. Under cover of a mortar barrage VC sappers set fire to houses and killed civilians either by shooting or throwing explosives into their shelters. The Marines and South Vietnamese forces engaged with the VC and called in artillery support. By 03:15 the VC began to withdraw and the Marines reoccupied the village and began evacuating the wounded.
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military objective involved in this attack. I say this because first of all there was only light enemy contact directly at the compound. The mortars were fired in such a manner as to restrain any military contact . The VC stayed pretty much out of the area CUPP 9 was operating in. Also, the Ba Ren Bridge, which is a major line of communications on Route 1 was not hit; there was not even an attempt to blow this bridge up."
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devastated by the sappers. The squad reached the CUPP team and in two trips brought the wounded
Marines and PFs to the bridge to be picked up by helicopters. Then, accompanied by the platoon's Vietnamese interpreter, the squad returned to the burning hamlets and began urging the people to bring their wounded to the bridge. By this time, the VC mortars had resumed firing slowly to cover the retreat of the sappers.
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managed to form a perimeter in the blazing village and hold their position. When it became evident that the enemy were concentrating their attack on the civilians and bypassing the CUPP, the PF commander let most of his men go home to try to protect their families, but he himself stayed with the
Marines, as did the PF radioman and mortar team.
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Soon after the attack, the VC began spreading the report that their objective really had been the Ba Ren Bridge and that Phu Thanh and its people merely had been caught in the crossfire. The
Marines countered that the VC had deliberately attacked the village. A Marine Lieutenant stated: "There was no
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For several weeks, rumors had circulated in the village that the VC were planning to attack the Ba Ren Bridge, but neither
Marines nor Vietnamese saw any reason to expect an assault on the hamlets themselves. On the night of 10–11 June, the CUPP unit had taken up a night position within the village.
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In all 156 houses were destroyed and 35 damaged during the attack. Four militiamen were killed and two wounded, ten U.S. Marines were wounded. Civilian casualties were 74 dead, many of them women and children; 60 severely injured; and over 100 lightly wounded. Four VC dead were found, one prisoner
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The defenders fought back as best they could, but the continuous mortar barrage prevented them from counterattacking to save the village. At the bridge, the RF company beat back a minor probe of its compound. CUPP 9 had 10 Marines wounded in the initial shelling, nevertheless, the
Marines and PFs
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unit of 31 members, eight of whom had weapons. Near the south end of the bridge lay the compound of the 323rd RF Company, which had as its main mission protection of the span. The command post of the 1st
Platoon of Company A, which controlled several CUPPs along the highway north of LZ Baldy, was
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The VC had destroyed 156 houses and damaged 35 more, most of them in Thanh My, the hardest hit of the village's hamlets. The attack had cost the
Marines ten wounded, one of whom later died. Four RF and two PF soldiers had been wounded. Civilian casualties totalled 74 dead, many of them women and
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At the 1st
Platoon command post, Marines and PFs repelled a rush by a few of the sappers and answered the mortar barrage with their own 81mm and 60mm mortars. The platoon commander kept the 7th Marines Headquarters informed by radio of the progress of the battle and called for artillery and air
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At 02:00 on 11 June, the VC, later identified as elements of the V-25th Main Force
Battalion and the T-89th Sapper Battalion, launched a coordinated attack. It began with a barrage of 60mm and 82mm mortar fire. The mortars, located north and south of Phu Thanh, dropped a total of 200-250 high
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At about 03:15, the VC mortar fire temporarily slackened as the sappers began to withdraw from the village. The
Marines took advantage of the lull to send a squad into Phu Thanh to find and assist CUPP 9. To reach the CUPP, the squad had to work its way through a part of the village already
506:, to evacuate the civilian wounded. The mortar bombardment ended at about 04:00 and by daylight all the severely wounded civilians had been evacuated and a team of doctors and corpsmen from LZ Baldy had reached Phu Thanh and had begun treating the minor casualties, over 100 in all.
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rounds on the village. They concentrated on CUPP 9, the bridge, the 1st Platoon CP and the RF compound. Simultaneous with this barrage, the VC attacked two other CUPP teams in hamlets south of Phu Thanh on Highway 1, engaging them with small arms,
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children; 60 severely injured; and over 100 lightly wounded. After the fight, the defenders found four dead VC in the wire around the RF compound and the 1st Platoon command post and they captured one prisoner and one
437:(PF) soldiers and government officials, and its people were a reliable source of information about the VC in their area. Because of its proximity to the bridge, Phu Thanh had strong security forces in and around it.
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was taken and one of the VC defected. The VC later claimed that they had been attempting to capture the bridge in the village and that the civilians had merely been caught in the crossfire.
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landed on the bridge around 03:30 and lifted out all the Marine, PF and RF wounded in the attack. Thereafter, a steady stream of helicopters came in, covered by two
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support. The first rounds of friendly artillery began falling on suspected VC positions 20 minutes after the attack started.
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and Thanh My is inconvenient and so have been "airbrushed" out of Vietnamese history.
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The 7th Marines commander arrived at 08:10 to assess the damage, followed at 10:20 by
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William Broyles has written that the communists' massacre of civilians at
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U.S. Marines in Vietnam : Vietnamization and redeployment, 1970-1971
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protesting the massacre and asking it to undertake an investigation.
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655:. History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U. S. Marine Corps.
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This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the
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691:. Embassy of Vietnam (U.S.) Information Office. 1970. p. 5.
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On 15 June the South Vietnamese Government issued a note to the
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Phu Thanh village, a complex of several hamlets, straddled
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441:Team 9, a squad from the 1st Platoon of Company A,
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550:International Control and Supervision Commission
776:United States Marine Corps in the Vietnam War
706:. University of Texas Press. pp. 167–8.
704:Brothers in Arms: A Journey from War to Peace
498:The first medical evacuation helicopter from
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510:Aftermath
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273:Bình Hòa
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238:Châu Đốc
141:Massacre
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