The Battle of Tong Le Chon took place from 25 March 1973 to 12 April 1974 when North Vietnamese forces lay siege to and finally captured the ARVN Vietnamese Rangers' Tong Le Chon camp.
Background
The Tong Le Chon Camp (also known as Tonle Cham camp was located beside the Saigon River on Route 248, 8 km southeast of the Fishhook (Cambodia) and approximately 14 km southwest of An Lộc. A base was first established here in 1967 to monitor People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) infiltration from base areas in the Fishhook.
Following the end of the Battle of An Lộc, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) 18th Division turned over the defense of the An Lộc area to the III Corps Ranger Command and the 92nd Ranger Battalion was given responsibility for defense of Tong Le Chon.
The ARVN presence at Tong Le Chon forced the PAVN to detour from its preferred logistical corridors from Tây Ninh Province into Bình Long Province and southward along the Saigon River to Bình Dương Province. In March 1973 the PAVN began a siege of the camp.
Battle
The PAVN siege began on 25 March. Soon after that date all resupply had to be parachuted, evacuation became almost impossible, and the bombardment was almost continuous. Helicopters could not land without prohibitive risk, and the PAVN antiaircraft positions around the camp became so dense that even approach by helicopter became almost impossible. In the 16-week period beginning on 25 March, the PAVN conducted almost 300 attacks by fire against the camp, expending over 13,000 mortar, rocket, and artillery rounds. There were also 11 ground attacks and at least 9 attempts by sappers to infiltrate defenses. The PAVN supported the attacks with psychological bombardments, promising over loud-speakers to afford the defenders safe passage out of the camp and appealing to the camp commander to lead his men out.
As of the first week in July, the total strength of the 92nd Ranger Battalion inside the camp and two close-in outposts was 224 officers and men, of whom 34 were out of action because of wounds or illness. Total casualties for the period were 16 killed, 4 seriously wounded, and 192 lightly wounded or sick, including some with beri-beri and malaria. Despite isolation and deteriorating morale, the Rangers held fast and during those 16 weeks counted 86 PAVN soldiers killed and 10 individual weapons captured, including an antiaircraft machine gun, and claimed destruction of one PAVN 105 mm howitzer. During the 16-week period, the Republic of Vietnam Air Force (RVNAF) flew over 3,000 sorties supporting the camp, dropping more than 300 400-pound bundles of food and other supplies, of which 134 were recovered by the defenders while the remainder fell into PAVN hands.
The besieging force consisted at first of a battalion of the 271st Regiment, 9th Division, later replaced by a battalion of the 201st Independent Regiment. Also included in the forces surrounding Tong Le Chon were a battalion each of the 42nd and 271st Antiaircraft Regiments of the 69th Artillery Group and firing batteries of the 28th Artillery Battalion, the latter equipped with 130 mm field guns.