U.S. II Field Force initiates Operation Attleboro with an attack
by the 196th Light Infantry Brigade against Viet Cong forces
near the Cambodian Border in War Zone C (near Tay Ninh, 50 miles
northwest of Saigon in III Corps Tactical Zone). When the
communists appeared to want to make a fight of it, the U.S.
commander, Lt. Gen. Jonathan Seaman, sent in reinforcements from
the U.S. 1st Infantry Division; the 173rd Airborne Brigade; a
brigade each from the U.S. 4th and 25th Infantry Divisions; and
a contingent from a South Vietnamese division. Before the
operation was over, more than 20,000 U.S. and South Vietnamese
troops were involved, making it the largest operation at that
point in the war. After more than six weeks of hit-and-run
fighting, the Viet Cong forces sustained 1,106 casualties and
fell back to sanctuary areas in Cambodia. Operations like
Attleboro, and others to follow such as Cedar Rapids and
Junction City, were examples of the search and destroy tactic
dictated by Gen. William Westmoreland, comm