Pedro. An armored task force of 8 M48s and 12 M113s from the ARVN 20th Tank Regiment were despatched from Ái Tử to support the Marines at Pedro. At the same time a flight of RVNAF A-1 Skyraiders arrived overhead and destroyed 5 tanks. When the ARVN armor arrived they destroyed five T-54s for no losses and drove one captured Type 59 tank back to Ái Tử. On 10 and 11 April further PAVN attacks on Pedro were repulsed at a cost of over 200 PAVN estimated killed. On 18 April the PAVN 308th Division attacking from the southwest attempted to outflank Đông Hà but were repulsed. On 28 April the commander of the 20th Tank Regiment withdrew from Đông Hà to deal with a PAVN force threatening the Ái Tử Combat Base, seeing the tanks leaving the soldiers of the 57th Regiment panicked and abandoned their positions leading to the collapse of the ARVN defensive line. The VNMC 7th Battalion was sent to Ái Tử to help defend the base. At 02:00 on 29 April the PAVN attacked the ARVN positions north and south of the base and the ARVN defenses began to crumble, by midday on 30 April the 3rd Division commander ordered a withdrawal from Ái Tử to a defensive line along the south of the Thạch Hãn River and the withdrawal was completed late that day. Quảng Trị On 1 May General Giai decided that any further defense of the city was pointless and that the ARVN should withdraw to a defensive line along the My Chanh River. As the 3rd Division headquarters departed the city in an armored convoy, the U.S. advisors remained in the Quảng Trị Citadel, however the command element finding Highway 1 blocked by refugees and PAVN ambushes soon returned to the Citadel and requested helicopter evacuation. By late afternoon USAF helicopters from the 37th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron and Army helicopters evacuated all remaining forces in the Citadel. By 2 May all of Quảng Trị Province had fallen to the PAVN and they were threatening Huế. Aftermath The fall of Quảng Trị gave North Vietnam its first major victory of the 1972 offensive. The North Vietnamese immediately imposed their authority in the province, as collective farms were set up and strict rules were forced on the villagers. Many victims and villagers eventually fled. According to Gary D. Murfin, one of the lead writers to have done a survey on Vietnamese refugees after 1975, the province was an area of particularly dense Catholic concentration, many of whom were anti-communist. He estimated that 41% fled the area in fear of communist reprisals, 37% feared fighting, shelling, and bombing, and others fled because they were a family related to an ARVN soldier, or were at one point landowners. While the North Vietnamese tried to consolidate their rule over the "liberated zones", South Vietnamese General Ngô Quang Trưởng was drawing up a plan to retake the province. The stage was set for the Second Battle of Quảng Trị which would last from 28 June to 16 September 1972, where the ARVN would retake their positions. Although the North Vietnamese eventually lost most of southern Quảng Trị Province, the northern parts of the Province would remain in their control until the end of the war in 1975. See also Second Battle of Quảng Trị Battle of Quang Tri (1968) References Bibliography Donnell, John C., "South Vietnam in 1975: The Year of Communist Victory" Asian Survey, Vol. 16, No. 1, A Survey of Asia in 1975: Part I. (Jan., 1976), pp. 1–13. Murfin, Gary D., A.