Battle of Kontum

The lead-up to the Battle of Kontum began in mid-1971, when North Vietnam decided that its victory in Operation Lam Son 719 indicated that the time had come for large-scale conventional offensives that could end the war quickly. The resulting offensive, planned for the spring of 1972, would be known as the Easter Offensive in the South and the Nguyen Hue Offensive in the North, Nguyen Hue being a hero of Vietnamese resistance against the Chinese in 1789. The Easter Offensive would make use of fourteen divisions and would be the largest in the war.

The 1972 Easter Offensive/Nguyen Hue Campaign began with a massive attack on the Demilitarized Zone with 30,000 People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) soldiers and more than 100 tanks. Two thrusts of equivalent size, one towards Saigon and a third to the Central Highlands and provincial capital of Kontum began soon after. The North Vietnamese knew that if they could capture Kontum and the Central Highlands, they would cut South Vietnam in half.

The Battle for Kontum would pit the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) 22nd and (later) the 23rd Divisions under the command of Lt. Gen. Ngô Du and later Maj. Gen. Nguyễn Văn Toàn against the equivalent of three PAVN divisions, the 320th and 2nd Divisions plus combat units of the 3rd Division, B-3 Front, and local Viet Cong forces under the command of Lt. Gen. Hoang Minh Thao.^: K-1

There were two factors that persuaded North Vietnam that all out assaults of this kind could be successful. First, due to President Nixon's Vietnamization policy, there were no American divisional forces in the Central Highlands, only advisers and U.S. aviation units including Air Cavalry helicopter units from the 7/17 Air Cavalry Squadron. By June of that year there were less than 50,000 U.S. forces in all of Vietnam.^: 23

Second, the North Vietnamese had persuaded the Soviets and Chinese to provide 400 PT-76, T-34-85, T-54s, and Type 59 tanks before the spring offensive.^: 120