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southwest area just beyond the taxiway. The Viet Cong were well dug in, and the security force could not flush them out. On finding themselves pinned down, they called on the Cobras of the 334th Armed Helicopter Company to suppress the guerrillas. Air Force Second Lieutenant John A. Novak, who was in command of the security force, said, "As the Cobras came to our support they swept down about two feet over our heads and fired into the enemy position, knocking out the enemy who were pinning us down. I personally witnessed time after time the Cobras sweep into the VC area and pin down the enemy in the face of heavy fire being directed at them. The Cobras were the turning point in the enemy's destruction."
General Williams and Colonel Fleming had made a complete circuit of the III Corps Tactical Zone to determine first hand information on the situation at the various airfields. Colonel Fleming relates:
In every case we found that everyone had been busy since midnight the night before, both on the ground repelling attacks against their perimeter, and mounting out their gunships, firefly missions, command and control ships, and in many cases conducting air assault operations.
About mid-morning we landed at Bien Hoa and visited the 334th Gun Company and the Cobra NET Team. These guys had had everybody in action since early that morning and perhaps the most spectacular sight was a crippled Cobra approaching from the Saigon area and making a running landing between the revetments at the Bien Hoa heliport.
He had lost his tail rotor drive shaft, had two rounds in the fuel cells, and had a full panel of warning lights, yet he brought it home and stepped out and said, "Put this one aside and give me another one. There are more targets down there."
The Communists had hit in a hundred places from near the Demilitarized Zone in the north all the way to the tiny island of Phu Quoc off the Delta coast some 500 miles to the south. No target was too big or too impossible. In peasant pajamas or openly insigniaed North Vietnamese Army uniforms, the raiders struck at nearly 40 major cities and towns. They attacked 28 of South Vietnam's 44 provincial capitals.
The Tet Offensive at Quang Tri
At 0420 on 31 January, the 812th North Vietnamese Army Regiment and supporting elements launched a concerted attack on the provincial capital of Quang Tri, a key communications hub in the I Corps Tactical Zone. The enemy's timing had been late for a