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Battle of Kontum

May 2, 1972

Captured PAVN T-59 on display, Kontum
Captured PAVN T-59 on display, Kontum
Captured PAVN T-59 on display, Kontum

As part of the Easter Offensive, two North Vietnamese army divisions, supported by tanks and heavy artillery, launch an assault on Kontum, a key provincial capital city in the Central Highlands. The defending South Vietnamese forces are supported by U.S. Air Force air support and U.S. Army advisers, air cavalry, and attack helicopters. After two months of intense fighting, the allied forces defeat the North Vietnamese units and end the siege of the city.1

1Spencer C. Tucker, ed., The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History (2nd edition; Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2011), 599–600; Graham A. Cosmas, MACV: The Joint Command in the Years of Withdrawal, U.S. Army in Vietnam (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2002), 358–63; Thomas McKenna, Kontum (Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 2011), 32–39, 42-43, 67-68, 89–90.