The Loss of Phuoc Long

On this day in 1975, Phuoc Long province, just northwest of Saigon was lost to the North Vietnamese forces.

Administrative map of So. Vietnam before 1975. Source: ngouikesu.com

The battle began in mid-December 1974 and was hard fought and bitterly lost.

Lt. Dam Huu Phuoc, chief medic of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam(AVRN), describes the deployment of his 81^st Airborne Ranger Group after nearly three weeks of fighting:

The morning of January 4^th, the rescue units to Phuoc Long were delayed because weather conditions and the lack of air support for the operation [but at] about the 12:00 hour, the soldiers of the 81^st were lifted off to the hell at Phuoc Long. [emphasis added]

I have often said that the juxtaposition of my family’s experiences against the backdrop of the Vietnam War is simply mind-boggling.

In this case, on January 4, 1975, the nine members of the Welch family were just trying to get back home to Saigon after a “much-needed break.”

We’d been vacationing in Pattaya, Thailand over Christmas and New Year’s. My mother wrote home regarding our hardships that day:

. . . we arrived at the airport on the 4th [and] China Airlines decided that our tickets were not written correctly and refused to let us on the aircraft. So, we were forced to go into Bangkok to get the tickets squared away and were forced to stay overnight there. All this cost about $150 more (about $900 in 2024 value) . . . We have now raised hell [empahsis added] with the people that wrote up our tickets. 

The battle of Phuoc Long raged from Dec 12, 1974-Jan 6, 1975. Photo source.

The two different shades of hell on January 4—one referenced by a South Vietnamese soldier and one by an American homemaker—hardly deserve the same name.

Still, we Americans in Saigon, who had been led to believe that it was a safe place to be, were undergoing our own form of discomfiture.

My mother’s calendar notated the fall of the province as well as the death of “Bennett.” I have searched our family papers and online but have not been able to find out any more about him.

I believe this paragraph in her letter home on January 10, 1975, must have been describing Bennett first and another intelligence officer second:

We had a sad homecoming – – the two men killed were ours!

The one killed by the mine in his house had only been in country five weeks was due to go to Taipei for his first visit to his wife and three children this week.

The other one, in the plane, had his family in the States.

It was a tragedy that no one could ignore and foreshadowed worse to come. In a 2015 article, Intelligence Officer Tom Glenn described it this way:

For me, the story of the fall of Saigon begins in January, 1975, with the North Vietnamese army’s conquest of Phuoc Long Province, some 60 miles north of Saigon.

. . . intelligence indicators of a forthcoming attempt to take Phuoc Long were unmistakable. Nevertheless, the surprise communist victory was an unparalleled blow . . .

2015 Cener for the Study of Intelligence.

As I learned later, North Vietnam was testing American resolve: would we Americans keep our solemn pledge to counterstrike if the North Vietnamese violated the cease fire signed in Paris in 1973? The seizure of Phuoc Long was a gross violation.

We [the United States] did nothing.

Despite the losses and the increased threat, life carried on as before. We went to doctor appointments, saw movies, and cooled ourselves off at the city’s pools and at Vung Tau beach.

We children may or may not have been blissfully unaware of the North Vietnamese Army winding its way toward our city home.

My mother, however, had an inkling of the changes to come. She finished her January 10 letter with:

Keep us in your prayers; it would be a real tragedy if South Vietnam fell.

My narrative nonfiction story, For the Love of Vietnam: a war, a family, a CIA official, and the best evacuation story never heard is available by request wherever books are sold.
Kat-Fitzpatrick.com.