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Siege of Con Thien Begins

September 1, 1967 - September 30, 1967

1967-09_ConThien-DMZ1
1967-09_ConThien-DMZ1
Map of Northern Quang Tri Province. Con Thien is at the southern edge of the DMZ, 1969. (U.S. Marine Corps History Division)

The North Vietnamese Army lays siege to the U.S. Marine Corps outpost at Con Thien. The post, which the North Vietnamese have tried to overrun previously, overlooks an important infiltration route into the South. The siege lasts for weeks as Communist forces frequently fire heavy artillery barrages at the outpost. The adjacent bases of Dong Ha, Camp Carroll, Cam Lo, and others are also shelled regularly.1

1Gary L. Telfer, Lane Rogers, and V Keith Fleming, Jr., Fighting the North Vietnamese, 1967, U.S. Marines in Vietnam (Washington, D.C.: US Marine Corps History and Museums Division, 1984), 21, 95, 130–36, 139, 220; Graham A. Cosmas, MACV: The Joint Command in the Years of Escalation, 1962–1967, United States Army in Vietnam (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2006), 280, 422; Spencer C. Tucker, ed., The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History (2nd edition; Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2011), 235–36.