196821 January – 8 April 1968 (base abandoned July 1968) · Khe Sanh, Quảng Trị province

Siege of Khe Sanh

Marines at Khe Sanh watch a US Air Force Phantom strike beyond their sandbagged bunkers, 1968 — Archival image: Sgt. Robert F. Witowski, US Air Force. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

From January 1968 North Vietnamese divisions surrounded the US Marine combat base at Khe Sanh, near the Laotian border. Supplied by air and covered by one of the heaviest bombing campaigns of the war, about 6,000 defenders held out for some 77 days until a relief force broke through in April. The base was abandoned that summer, leaving both sides to claim victory.