>January 8-26, 1967
Operation Cedar Falls
Cedar Falls
After the success of Operation Attleboro, Operation Cedar Falls is launched. The goal of the operation is to rout out Viet Cong base camps in the Iron Triangle. Americans commanders hoped that the Vietcong forces will standand fight. The operation is designed as a classic Hammer and Anvil operation, and includes a number of U.S. and ARVN divisions. The operation is successful in uncovering large caches of arms and other equipment. The Viet Cong do not choose to fight, but 750 Vietcong are killed, as opposed to 72 American deaths and 11 ARVN casulties. In the course of the operation, 5,987 residents of Ben Suc are forcibly evacuated to refugee camps.
Operation Cedar Falls was a major U.S. and South Vietnamese military campaign launched in January 1967 during the Vietnam War. Its primary goal was to eliminate the Viet Cong stronghold in the “Iron Triangle,” a strategically significant area northwest of Saigon known for its dense jungle, tunnel systems, and proximity to the South Vietnamese capital. Over 30,000 U.S. and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) troops participated, making it the largest ground operation conducted by American forces up to that point in the war.
The operation began with a large-scale sweep, involving both infantry assaults and air mobility units dropped by helicopter to encircle the area and cut off escape routes. U.S. forces employed search-and-destroy tactics, uncovering and destroying thousands of tunnels, bunkers, and stockpiles of weapons and food. They also discovered extensive intelligence materials and infrastructure used by the Viet Cong for coordination and logistics. In an effort to deprive the enemy of local support, entire villages, including the town of Ben Suc, were evacuated and then destroyed.
While Cedar Falls temporarily disrupted Viet Cong operations in the Iron Triangle and yielded a large cache of intelligence, its long-term impact was limited. The Viet Cong simply retreated into the jungle or across the Cambodian border, only to return once U.S. forces had withdrawn. The large-scale destruction of civilian areas and forced relocations also fueled resentment among the local population, inadvertently strengthening support for the communist insurgency. Like many search-and-destroy missions during the war, Cedar Falls illustrated the challenges the U.S. faced in trying to achieve lasting success through conventional military means in a guerrilla conflict.