Qualla: 22nd Division (South Vietnam)

22nd Division (South Vietnam): Introduction

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. In early April 1975, Republic of Vietnam Navy craft loaded roughly seven thousand men off Qui Nhơn — two regiments of the 22nd Division and the Bình Định territorial troops who had fought alongside them — and sailed for Vũng Tàu. Colonel Nguyễn Hữu Thông of the 42nd Regiment had just brought his men out of a fighting withdrawal along Route 19. He refused to board, stayed on the shore, and took his own life. His division had held the ground between the Central Highlands and the coast for sixteen years, and its war ended at the water's edge.

Image: Public domain

22nd Division (South Vietnam): Assembled, Not Founded

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The 22nd was put together rather than raised: the 2nd Light and 4th Light Divisions of 1955 — the 4th Light briefly renamed the 14th Light in 1956 — folded into a 4th Infantry Division that was retitled the 22nd in 1959. Its headquarters sat at Ba Gi, inland from the coast in Bìn...

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22nd Division (South Vietnam): Nhong Pass and the New Rifles

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. On 8 February 1965, two companies of the 40th Infantry and a troop of M113 carriers drove north up Highway 1 to relieve Gia Huu and were ambushed in the Nhong Pass, five kilometres above Phú Mỹ. Recoilless rifle fire destroyed two carriers; the armored troop pulled back, then ran...

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22nd Division (South Vietnam): What the Evaluator Wrote Down

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. In February 1968 a Marine lieutenant colonel named William A. Donald, evaluating for MACV's pacification program CORDS, spent time inside one of the division's regiments. He found the commander astute, with "an impressive grasp of VC/PAVN tactics and the military significance of ...

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22nd Division (South Vietnam): Tân Cảnh, 24 April 1972

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. By the spring of 1972 the division held the northern Highlands from Tân Cảnh Base Camp, and shelling had climbed from fifty rounds a day in March to a thousand by mid-April. On 23 April the PAVN 2nd Division opened with AT-3 wire-guided missiles, destroying all five M-41 light ta...

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22nd Division (South Vietnam): The Road Back to the Sea

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The last offensive opened along Route 19 early on 4 March 1975 and closed the highway from the Mang Yang Pass to the coast. The 2nd Battalion of the 47th Regiment lost four commanders killed in succession inside two weeks and came out under a captain at half strength. On 17 March...

Image: Public domain