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Contact Info
Home Town Auburn, Alabama
Last Address Washington, DC
Date of Passing Dec 30, 2006
Location of Interment Arlington National Cemetery (VLM) - Arlington, Virginia
Frank Butner Clay, 85, a retired Army Major General who was a veteran of two wars and a military adviser to the U.S.-Vietnamese delegation to the Paris peace talks in 1971, died of cardiac arrest December 30 at the Knollwood military retirement community in Washington.
Born in Auburn, Alabama, General Clay was the son of Army General Lucius D. Clay Sr., military governor of the U.S. zone of occupied Germany after World War II, and a grandson of U.S. Senator Alexander Stephens Clay (D-Georgia).
General Frank B. Clay, a longtime Chevy Chase resident, graduated from Millard Prep School in Washington and was a member of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point Class of 1942.
In World War II, he served with the 1st Armored Division in Tunisia and Italy as a platoon leader, company commander and operations executive of the division's 13th Tank Battalion.
After various peacetime assignments and graduation from the National War College in 1961, he was sent to Vietnam, where he served about a year as a senior adviser to the 7th Vietnam Infantry Division. In 1967, he returned to Vietnam, where he served as commander of an advance party of the 101st Airborne Division and then as assistant division commander of the division.
General Clay had also been assistant division commander of the 101st Airborne Division in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and chief of staff at the Army Communications Zone in Europe. In the latter position, he helped with the evacuation of U.S. forces from France after French officials decided to withdraw from NATO in 1967.
His military awards included the Distinguished Service Medal, the Silver Star with two Oak Leaf Clusters, the Legion of Merit, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Bronze Star with V and two Oak Leaf Clusters and the Purple Heart with Oak Leaf Cluster.
After his retirement from active military duty in 1973, General Clay devoted more time to his family, hobbies and interests. He was a football player and captain of his boxing team at West Point and in later years played squash and tennis at Chevy Chase Country Club.
A student of the U.S. Civil War, he visited and gave tours of battlefields.
His first wife, Patricia A. Clay, died in 1972, after 26 years of marriage.
Survivors include his wife of 33 years, Lydie W. Clay of Washington; three children from his first marriage, Frank B. Clay Jr. of Alexandria, Cathleen Ketcham of Germantown and Christine Tanski of Wilmington, Del.; and three grandchildren.
http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/fbclay.htm
Vietnam War/Tet Counteroffensive Campaign (1968)
From Month/Year
January / 1968
To Month/Year
April / 1968
Description This campaign was from 30 January to 1 April 1968. On 29 January 1968 the Allies began the Tet-lunar new year expecting the usual 36-hour peaceful holiday truce. Because of the threat of a large-scale attack and communist buildup around Khe Sanh, the cease fire order was issued in all areas over which the Allies were responsible with the exception of the I CTZ, south of the Demilitarized Zone.
Determined enemy assaults began in the northern and Central provinces before daylight on 30 January and in Saigon and the Mekong Delta regions that night. Some 84,000 VC and North Vietnamese attacked or fired upon 36 of 44 provincial capitals, 5 of 6 autonomous cities, 64 of 242 district capitals and 50 hamlets. In addition, the enemy raided a number of military installations including almost every airfield. The actual fighting lasted three days; however Saigon and Hue were under more intense and sustained attack.
The attack in Saigon began with a sapper assault against the U.S. Embassy. Other assaults were directed against the Presidential Palace, the compound of the Vietnamese Joint General Staff, and nearby Ton San Nhut air base.
At Hue, eight enemy battalions infiltrated the city and fought the three U.S. Marine Corps, three U.S. Army and eleven South Vietnamese battalions defending it. The fight to expel the enemy lasted a month. American and South Vietnamese units lost over 500 killed, while VC and North Vietnamese battle deaths may have been somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000.
Heavy fighting also occurred in two remote regions: around the Special Forces camp at Dak To in the central highlands and around the U.S. Marines Corps base at Khe Sanh. In both areas, the allies defeated attempts to dislodge them. Finally, with the arrival of more U.S. Army troops under the new XXIV Corps headquarters to reinforce the marines in the northern province, Khe Sanh was abandoned.
Tet proved a major military defeat for the communists. It had failed to spawn either an uprising or appreciable support among the South Vietnamese. On the other hand, the U.S. public became discouraged and support for the war was seriously eroded. U.S. strength in South Vietnam totaled more than 500,000 by early 1968. In addition, there were 61,000 other allied troops and 600,000 South Vietnamese.
The Tet Offensive also dealt a visibly severe setback to the pacification program, as a result of the intense fighting needed to root out VC elements that clung to fortified positions inside the towns. For example, in the densely populated delta there had been approximately 14,000 refugees in January; after Tet some 170,000 were homeless. The requirement to assist these persons seriously inhibited national recovery efforts.
