Vietnam Studies - The Development And Training Of The South Vietnamese Army, 1950-1972 [Illustrated Edition]

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Text originally published in 1975 under the same title.

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Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

VIETNAM STUDIES

THE DEVELOPMENT AND TRAINING OF THE SOUTH VIETNAMESE ARMY, 1950-1972

By

Brigadier General James Lawton Collins, Jr.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 4

Foreword 6

Preface 8

Maps 9

Illustrations 9

CHAPTER I — The Formative Years, 1950-1959 10

Background 10

Military Assistance Advisory Group, Vietnam 10

Organization and Force Structure 14

Training 17

CHAPTER II — The Crucial Years, 1960-1964 21

The Problem, 1959-1960 21

The Immediate Response, 1960-1961 22

Counterinsurgency Plan, 1961 22

Presidential Support 23

U.S. Buildup, 1961-1962 26

Establishment of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam 28

Years of Progress, 1962-1963 29

Years of Crisis, 1963-1964 29

Training of the South Vietnamese Army, 1960-1964 32

Air Support 33

Role of the U.S. Army Special Forces 35

The Civilian Irregular Defense Group Program 36

Territorial Forces: Civil Guard and Self-Defense Corps 37

Civil Affairs 38

CHAPTER III — The Buildup Years, 1965-1967 41

Background 41

Military Assistance Command Advisory Expansion 41

U.S. Army Special Forces Advisory Programs 45

Financial Support 46

Manpower Resources 47

The Desertion Problem 49

Economic and Social Improvement 52

Force Structure Expansion 53

Limits of Expansion 54

Territorial Forces 57

The Civilian Irregular Defense Group 58

Training and Leadership 59

Offshore Training 63

South Vietnam Schools 63

CHAPTER IV — Vietnamization, 1968-1972 67

Background 67

Mobilization 67

Force Structure 68

Desertions 71

Pay and Allowances 72

Veteran Affairs 73

Leadership 74

Matériel 77

Training Overview 79

School and Training Center Improvements 80

Combined Arms Training 83

Middle Management Training 84

Advanced Technical Training 84

Pilot Training for the South Vietnam Air Force 85

On-the-Job Training 87

Combined Operations 89

Mobile Advisory Teams 90

CHAPTER V — Overview 94

General 94

Training Centers 94

Unit Training 96

Military Schools 96

Summary and Conclusions 96

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 100

Foreword

The United States Army has met an unusually complex challenge in Southeast Asia. In conjunction with the other services, the Army has fought in support of a national policy of assisting an emerging nation to develop governmental processes of its own choosing, free of outside coercion. In addition to the usual problems of waging armed conflict, the assignment in Southeast Asia has required superimposing the immensely sophisticated tasks of a modern army upon an underdeveloped environment and adapting them to demands covering a wide spectrum. These involved helping to fulfill the basic needs of an agrarian population, dealing with the frustrations of antiguerrilla operations, and conducting conventional campaigns against well-trained and determined regular units.

It is still necessary for the Army to continue to prepare for other challenges that may lie ahead. While cognizant that history never repeats itself exactly and that no army ever profited from trying to meet a new challenge in terms of the old one, the Army nevertheless stands to benefit immensely from a study of its experience, its shortcomings no less than its achievements.

Aware that some years must elapse before the official histories will provide a detailed and objective analysis of the experience in Southeast Asia, we have sought a forum whereby some of the more salient aspects of that experience can be made available now. At the request of the Chief of Staff, a representative group of senior officers who served in important posts in Vietnam and who still carry a heavy burden of day-to-day responsibilities has prepared a series of monographs. These studies should be of great value in helping the Army develop future operational concepts while at the same time contributing to the historical record and providing the American public with an interim report on the performance of men and officers who have responded, as others have through our history, to exacting and trying demands.

The reader should be reminded that most of the writing was accomplished while the war in Vietnam was at its peak, and the monographs frequently refer to events of the past as if they were taking place in the present.

All monographs in the series are based primarily on official records, with additional material from published and unpublished secondary works, from debriefing reports and interviews with key participants, and from the personal experience of the author. To facilitate security clearance, annotation and detailed bibliography have been omitted from the published version; a fully documented account with bibliography is filed with the U. S. Army Center of Military History.

Brigadier General James Lawton Collins, Jr., presently the Chief of Military History, US Army, has the wealth of experience required to tell the story of allied participation in the Vietnam War. After having served in Korea as the Assistant Commander, I Corps (Group) Artillery, General Collins had two tours of duty in Vietnam that involved close liaison with all nations participating in the allied effort. In 1964 he was assigned as the senior US adviser to the Vietnamese Regional Forces and Popular Forces, and in May 1965 was named Special Assistant to the Commander, US Military Assistance Command, Vietnam. In the latter capacity General Collins was the personal representative of General Westmoreland to the Vietnamese Joint General Staff on all matters pertaining to the co-ordination of US, Vietnamese, and allied forces operations. For his outstanding service in Vietnam, the Republic of Vietnam awarded him the National Order and the Army Distinguished Service Medal, two of its most coveted awards.

VERNE L. BOWERS

Major General, USA The Adjutant General

Washington, DC 15 April 1974

Preface

In 1954 the Army of South Vietnam was a collection of former French colonial troops with little command experience and no support forces worthy of mention. Gradually and despite a considerable degree of political and social instability, the Army, with strong American assistance, was molded into an effective fighting force by the efforts of Vietnamese leaders. After 1960 the South Vietnamese Army also acquired a counterinsurgency capability, but by 1965 increased political turmoil had undermined its effectiveness and necessitated the intervention of strong US combat forces.

From 1965 to 1968, while US forces bore the brunt of the fighting, the South Vietnamese slowly regrouped and, with increasing American advisory assistance and matériel support, once again became an effective fighting force. During this period the military provided security for the civilian population and administration and, in schools and training centers, laid the basis for a larger and more responsive military force.

The battles of the Tet offensive of 1968 were followed by the general mobilization of South Vietnam and, one year later, by the decision of the United States to begin troop redeployments. These moves set the stage for the third phase in the Army's development, Vietnamization. The years from 1968 to 1972 saw a great expansion of South Vietnam's territorial security forces and militia, and the continual improvement and modernization of the regular Army as it once again assumed complete responsibility for the war effort.

This monograph, covering the three stages in the growth and development of the South Vietnamese Army, highlights the role of the US Army, especially the MACV advisory system. Most of the material presented is based on official historical summaries prepared on a regular basis by the major US military commands in South Vietnam. Special attention is given to the expansion of South Vietnam's training base and her increasingly sophisticated military school system. While such a study can do no more than survey these activities, it does reflect the deep and continuous commitment by thousands of American soldiers to make the South Vietnamese Army a self-sufficient force capable of defending itself with minimum outside assistance.

JAMES LAWTON COLLINS, JR.

Brigadier General, US Army

Washington, DC 15 April 1974

Maps

1. Location of RVNAF Academies, Colleges, and Schools, 1969

2. Location of RVNAF Training Centers, December 1971

Illustrations

US Military Advisory Group Headquarters, Saigon

Civil Guard Basic Training Class

Officer Candidates Train at Thuc Duc

US Army Adviser Trains at Battalion Level

US Army Aviation Supports South Vietnamese Units

Lonely Outpost of Self-Defense Corps

CIDG Unit Training

New Territorial Recruits

Training at Phu Cat

Range Practice With New M16 Rifle

Cadets at Dalat

Rangers Defend Saigon

Instruction at Da Nang Vocational School

Maintenance Classes for New Equipment

Bridge Construction Training, Engineer School

Students at Vung Tau Signal School

Vietnamese Student Pilots, Ft. Stewart, Ga

Signal Training for Vietnamese

MAT Adviser Examines Homemade PF Mortar

South Vietnamese Armor in Cambodia

South Vietnamese Field Operation

CHAPTER I — The Formative Years, 1950-1959

Background

The history of formal U.S. aid to Vietnam began on 1 May 1950, when President Harry S. Truman approved a $10 million grant for urgently needed military assistance items for Indochina. Later, in December, the United States signed a Pentalateral Agreement with France and the associated states of Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam termed the Mutual Defense Assistance Program. Under this program the U.S. government committed itself to furnish military supplies, material, and equipment to Indochina for the purpose of halting the expansion of communism, and an American Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG), Indochina, was formed to administer the support program. From 1950 to 1954 the United States contributed about $1.1 billion to France for the prosecution of the war including some $746 million worth of Army matériel delivered directly to the French Expeditionary Corps in Indochina. However, despite the magnitude of this aid, U.S. advisers exercised little if any supervisory authority. U.S. supplies and equipment were generally turned over to the French, and, until 1955, Military Assistance Advisory Group, Indochina, functioned only as a small logistical accounting group.

Following the Indochina cease-fire agreement (Geneva Accords) of 20 July 1954, the United States became directly involved with advising and assisting the government of Vietnam (south), headed by President Ngo Dinh Diem. The Geneva Accords, a joint agreement between France and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (north), divided Vietnam at the 17th parallel, provided for the withdrawal of all Communist forces from the south, and established strict limitations and prohibitions on the introduction of foreign military personnel and matériel. Its provisions would be supervised by an International Control Commission (ICC) consisting of representatives from Canada, India, and Poland. The Eisenhower administration regarded the provisions as potentially disastrous and the United States did not sign or endorse the Accords. On 15 June 1954 Lieutenant General John W. Iron Mike O'Daniel, chief of Military Assistance Advisory Group, Indochina, had obtained agreement from the French commander in chief for U.S. participation in training Vietnamese units and requested that more men be sent immediately. After the cease-fire General O'Daniel drew up plans for a comprehensive assistance program for the Army of the Republic of (South) Vietnam, but the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff were more cautious and declared it hopeless to expect a U.S. military training mission to achieve success unless the nation considered is able effectively to perform those governmental functions essential to the successful raising and maintenance of armed forces. In opposition to this view, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles underlined the need to bolster that government by strengthening the army which supports it. Dulles was backed up by the National Security Council, and in the end political considerations overrode military objections; shortly thereafter Military Assistance Advisory Group, Vietnam, assumed a new training mission in support of the Diem regime. On 22 October 1954 U.S. Ambassador Donald R. Heath and O'Daniel were authorized to collaborate in setting in motion a crash program designed to bring about an improvement in the loyalty and effectiveness of the Free Vietnamese Forces, and General J. Lawton Collins was sent as a special envoy to Saigon to coordinate the endeavor. The result was a formal agreement in December between representatives of France, the Republic of Vietnam, and the United States to supply direct aid through the Military Assistance Program (MAP).

Military Assistance Advisory Group, Vietnam

Shortly after the Geneva Accords the Military Assistance Advisory Group, Indochina, was split into separate components for Vietnam and Cambodia. The former, Military Assistance Advisory Group, Vietnam (MAAGV) (officially designated as such only in October 1955), was limited by the Accords to 342 individuals. With these few the advisory group had the immense task of raising the military capabilities of the Republic of Vietnam armed forces through planning, developing, and administering military assistance. All plans to be coordinated with the remaining French forces, and in February 1955 a joint Franco-American Training Relations and Instructions Mission (TRIM) was established with thirty-three U.S. and twenty-eight French officers and enlisted men. Headed by O'Daniel, the Training Relations and Instructions Mission was charged with developing a training program that would deal with Vietnamese command and staff organization and procedures, all planning and logistical activities, and both unit and individual training. To accomplish this mission, the team was enlarged and organized in two echelons: a staff that advised and assisted the Vietnamese Ministry of Defense, the Vietnamese General Staff, and the Vietnamese Arms and Service Directorates, and a group of advisers who assisted and advised subordinate headquarters, units, schools, training centers, agencies, and installations. Key staff positions were held by both French and U.S. officers. In the case of the advisory teams, if the senior were French, his immediate assistant was American, and vice versa. These advisory teams were placed within the military geographical subdivisions (regions), the field divisions, light divisions, training centers, and schools. Members of the headquarters staff doubled in duty by acting as advisers to their Vietnamese counterparts in higher headquarters and with the chiefs of the