Battle of Kontum 1972
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 9 June 1972 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1972 | 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 |
| Participants | United States | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | 14.3561, 108.0080 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The lead-up to the Battle of Kontum began in mid-1971, when North Vietnam decided that their performance 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 Western media, the 1972 Spring–Summer Offensive (Chiến dịch Xuân–Hè 1972) in North Vietnam, or the Fiery Red Summer (Mùa hè đỏ lửa) in South Vietnam. The Easter Offensive would make use of fourteen divisions and would be the largest in the war.
The 1972 Easter Offensive 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 another to the Central Highlands and provincial capital of Kontum began soon after, code-named as Nguyễn Huệ campaign and Bắc Tây Nguyên campaign respectively. 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 Division, two Armored Squadrons (14th and 19th), the 2nd Airborne Brigade and the 2nd Ranger Group under Lt. Gen.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of Kontum (revision 1378436161), 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
- Battle of Kompong Speu 1970
- Operation Ivory Coast 1970
- Battle of FSB Mary Ann 1971
- Battle of Long Khánh 1971
- Battle of Snuol 1971
- Battle of Loc Ninh 1972
- Battle of Đồng Hới 1972
- First Battle of Quảng Trị 1972
- Second Battle of Quảng Trị 1972
- Battle of Cửa Việt 1973
All 54 battles of the Vietnam War →
Browse more: battles in Vietnam · Asia · Post-1945 battles