Battle of Ban Me Thuot 1975
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Year | 1975 | Wikidata P585 (point in time) |
|---|---|---|
| Era | Post-1945 (1946 onwards) | derived from year |
| Location | Vietnam | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Asia | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | Vietnam War | Wikidata P361 |
| Coordinates | 12.6800, 108.0600 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The Battle of Ban Me Thuot was a decisive battle of the Vietnam War which led to the complete destruction of South Vietnam's II Corps Tactical Zone. The battle was part of a larger North Vietnamese military operation known as Campaign 275 to capture the Tay Nguyen region, known in the West as the Vietnamese Central Highlands.
In March 1975 the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) staged a large-scale offensive, known as Campaign 275, with the aim of capturing the Central Highlands from the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) in order to kick-start the first stage of the 1975 spring offensive. Within ten days, the North Vietnamese destroyed most ARVN military formations in II Corps Tactical Zone, exposing the severe weaknesses of the South Vietnamese military. For South Vietnam, the defeat at Ban Me Thuot and the disastrous evacuation from the Central Highlands came about as a result of two major mistakes. Firstly, in the days leading up to the assault on Ban Me Thuot, II Corps commander Major General Phạm Văn Phú repeatedly ignored intelligence which showed the presence of several PAVN divisions around the district. Secondly, President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu's strategy to withdraw from the Central Highlands was poorly planned and implemented.
In the end, it was the ordinary South Vietnamese soldiers and their families who paid the ultimate price, as North Vietnamese artillery destroyed much of the South Vietnamese military convoy on Route…
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of Ban Me Thuot (revision 1370433231), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
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Other battles of the Vietnam War
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- Battle of the Iron Triangle 1974
- Battle of the Paracel Islands 1974
- Battle of Xuân Lộc 1975
- Fall of Saigon 1975
All 54 battles of the Vietnam War →
Browse more: battles in Vietnam · Asia · Post-1945 battles