The Central Highlands Campaign was our key combined arms offensive against the most vulnerable point of the enemy in the Southern theatre. The success of this offensive caused a fundamental shift in the battlefield’s situation, creating a new strategic opportunity for us to shorten the plan to completely liberate the South and unify the nation. This victory marked a significant development of Vietnamese arts of war, including the art of creating and seizing opportunities in battle.

Entering 1974, facing our constant and widespread waves of offensive, the enemy’s plan of “Pacification” was on the brink of defeat. It was almost impossible for them to conduct their pre-planned encroachment operations, and they were only able to maintain and hold on to areas under their control. Besides the decline of fighting spirit and the confusion in combat, another problem the enemy faced was that they had to stretch thin and disperse their forces to deal with us in all directions, thus exposing many weaknesses and vulnerabilities. In the strategic area of Central Highlands, the enemy stationed a very strong force, in which, they concentrated their troops in major towns and important points along critical lines of communication such as Route 14, 19, 21, etc. Aiming to prevent and intercept our offensives from the North, the enemy mainly concentrated their strength in Pleiku and Kon Tum, meanwhile, in the Southern part of the highlands, they only deployed a small force.

On our side, in January 1975, the Politburo and the Central Military Commission met and determined a strategic plan to liberate the South in 1975 – 9175; at the same time, we also anticipated an extremely important plan: “If the opportunity emerges in early or late 1975, we must immediately liberate the South in 1975”. After a careful preparation process, the Politburo decided to choose the Central Highlands (with the Southern area as the focus) as the main offensive direction and the opening blow for our general strategic offensive for the liberation of the South. As we calculated, the Campaign was a resounding success, we were able to destroy and disintegrate a huge proportion of the defending enemy, creating a decisive turning point that led to our ultimate victory in our Patriotic War against U.S. Imperialism. This victory also marked a significant development of our operational art, with many creative and unique features, including the art of creating and seizing opportunity in combat.

First, actively create favourable opportunities in combat. In the Central Highlands Campaign, on the basis of firmly grasping the initiative, we “always proactively create favourable situations to bring about advantageous postures and opportunities”, for example: build and develop an armed force capable of acting effectively when the time comes, along with using all measures to undermine and weaken the enemy; build and deploy the combat posture, conduct operations to create favourable conditions when necessary and limit the enemy’s advantages; and reshape the combat environment and deploy combat equipment in accordance with the operational requirements when the opportunity arises. Among the above factors, the development of our force and posture, and the weakening of the enemy’s force and posture were the most important objectives during the process of creating favourable opportunities for the Campaign. Also, thanks to our correct assessment of the balance of forces between us and the enemy, the Poliburo determined that the strategic opportunity had arisen and concluded that: “It took us 20 years of fighting to have this opportunity, we must seize it to lead our cause of national liberation to a total victory”. Therefore, the urgent task of the time was to strengthen our force and fulfill the material and technical demands for the theatre, and these tasks were considered as the fundamental condition for the success of the campaign. To realise this, the General Command strengthened the Central Highlands Command with additional troops, weapons and equipment to ensure that the main force in this area was capable of conducting a large-scale and rapid combined arms operation. Accordingly, each infantry division was reinforced with more troops and an artillery regiment; at the same time, we enhanced the organisation and developed a strong group of supporting arms for the theatre, including: 02 full-strength artillery regiments, and several tank, air defence, signal, and commando regiments, etc. were quickly strengthen and equipped with more modern weapons and equipment, ready to meet all the demands of a combined arms operation when the opportunity arised.

To ensure a strong disposition for main force unit at key locations, as early as 1974, we used 320^th Division to attack the enemy bases in Le Ngoc and 711^th, 601^st Heights; 25^th Regiment to capture Ea Sup to force the enemy to fall back to areas close to towns and population centres, liberating a large swath of land in the West of the highlands between Gia Lai and Dak Lak Provinces; and 10^th Division to seize Kon Roc, Mang Den District Centre and Dak Pet, forcing the enemy to cluster in Kon Tum Town, creating an initial solid and advantageous posture for us in both offensive and defensive operations. At the same time, to further develop our strength and posture and weaken the enemy, ensuring our success in the initial key battle in Buon Ma Thuot, we actively increased deceptive operations to lure the enemy to Tri – Thien direction and hamper the enemy main force in North Central Highlands, causing the enemy to miscalculate and create favourable conditions for us to maintain operational secret. In addition, we secretly redeployed the 10^th and 320^th Divisions and replaced them with the 968^th Division, and continued to act aggressively in Pleiku direction (built roads in West Pleiku, cut off Route 19, etc.) and Kon Tum (conducted minor skirmishes, cut off Route 14 in the area between Kon Tum and Pleiku, mobilised conscripted labourers to build roads, etc.). When the 10^th and 320^th Divisions and supporting arms units relocated to South Central Highlands, they left behind all of their communication equipment and signal personnel, their communication networks still broadcasted as usual with fake reports and orders to make the enemy think that they were still in the North. Thanks to these effective deceptive operations, the enemy anticipated that our main attack direction was Kon Tum and Pleiku and kept their mobile main force in North Central Highlands. To further enhance our chance of success, we conducted strategic and operational cut-off activities: we cut off Route 19, 21, and 14; and attacked Duc Lap to completely surround and isolate Buon Ma Thuot and block the enemy mobile main force in North Central Highland, preventing them from reinforcing and relieving Buon Ma Thuot; and disconnect the Central Highlands from coastal provinces, disrupting the enemy supply line from their logistical bases in Cam Ranh, Quy Nhon, Chu Lai, and Da Nang. Because of this, we managed to tighten our grip on the enemy, creating favourable conditions for our force to secretly redeploy for the initial key battle of the Campaign.

Second, closely follow the situation to seize and exploit the opportunity in a timely manner to deal the decisive blow. In combat, opportunities to decide the battle arise and disappear very quickly, so seizing and exploiting opportunities at the right moment is very important and critical to the success of a battle. Therefore, we must actively closely monitor the enemy, especially their disposition, and ability to reinforce and relieve their units, anticipate developments of the situation, and effectively prepare for any contingencies. When the opportunity arises, we must fully employ the combat strength of our force to quickly eliminate the enemy to conclude the Campaign, fulfilling all the assigned objectives.

To do this, the Campaign Command and Party Committee made a comprehensive analysis to determine the conditions for a successful elimination of the enemy – or signs of opportunity. These signs were when the enemy’s weaknesses were exposed as they responded in accordance with our deceptive activities; and when our force could form a favourable battle array, all of our units were ready and able to keep operation secret as well as complete all necessary preparations; especially when the Central Highland Theatre was reinforced with two additional divisions, several independent regiments, more artilleries and tanks and supported by a division of the 5^th Military Regions and directly assisted by the 559^th Unit. Thanks to our correct analysis and assessment of the situation, we managed to seize the opportunity and concentrate an overwhelming force compared to the enemy to conduct a combined arms offensive and successfully capture Buon Ma Thuot. The “fatal blow” of Buon Ma Thuot completely upset the defensive posture of the enemy in the Central Highlands, causing a great shock throughout the Southern battlefield, forcing the enemy to organise a relief force, thus creating further opportunity for us to exploit. After that, we continued to seize the new opportunity, quickly redeploying our units to encircle and destroy the enemy’s counterattack force when they had just landed, completely eliminating their 25^th Infantry Division (understrength) and 21^st Ranger Squadron, defeating their plan to recapture Buon Ma Thuot, forcing them to make more serious strategic mistakes such as retreating from the Central Highlands. Faced with an untenable situation, the enemy decided to withdraw 15000 troops via Route 7 to Phu Bon, creating a “chaotic and pathetic rout”. This strategic mistake led to a series of tactical and operational mistakes, and this was a great opportunity for us to destroy their entire force which was fleeing in a state of panic and disorder. To exploit this unexpected opportunity and prevent the enemy to stabilise, we used the 320^th Division, supported by the 95^thB Regiment, the Campaign artillery group, and 01 armour battalion to conduct a lightning operation to pursuit, destroy and capture almost all the retreating enemy troops on Route 7. This is the third key battle and the battle that concluded the success of the Campaign.

Our Central Highlands Victory led to a fundamental shift in the balance of power between our force and the enemy and created a favourable strategic situation for us. The enemy was seriously and strategically weakened, this brought us the opportunity to launch the General Offensive and Uprising Spring 1975 to completely liberate the South. The Central Highlands Campaign left us many valuable lessons in military arts, especially the art of creating and seizing opportunities in combat – this is the issue that needs to be further studied, applied and developed in the cause of national defence today.

Senior Colonel, Dr. DUONG VAN THIEN, Army Academy