Việt-Cộng hãy coi chừng!!, a 1967 Army leaflet with a fire-breathing tank

Việt-Cộng hãy coi chừng!! (Viet Cong Beware!) is a 1967 U.S. Army psychological operations leaflet, code 246-111-67, made for the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, the Blackhorse. A tank drawn as a fanged monster breathes fire at fleeing guerrillas, and the text says rallying under Chieu Hoi is the only hope to live (NAID 305342).

What it shows

The drawing is a tank with fangs, breathing fire at guerrillas running away. The Vietnamese headline is two lines. The archive's copy also carries the English text that U.S. personnel typed and attached below the headline, which FRAME transcribes as printed rather than translating it itself.

VIỆT-CỘNG HÃY COI CHỪNG!!

VIET CONG BEWARE!

There is nowhere to run...nowhere to hide! The tanks and armored vehicles of the Blackhorse Regiment will find and destroy you! It is too late to fight. Beware Viet Cong, we are everywhere! Rally now under the Chieu Hoi Program; it is your only hope to live!

Who made it

The maker line is U.S. Army psychological operations, leaflet code 246-111-67, for the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, known as the Blackhorse. The National Archives holds it in Record Group 472, the Records of U.S. Forces in Southeast Asia, as NAID 305342. The audience is enemy forces, and the purpose is coded as mobilizing or securing compliance. FRAME codes the source as openly identified, and the attached English text names the regiment. The archive notes the scan is low resolution.

How to read it

FRAME's tag is fear appeal, and its reading is short: death is presented as certain, and one exit is offered. The leaflet makes no case about the war. It is a threat with a door in it.

Of the kinds of wartime persuasion, this is one of the more honest. The threat is the sender's own, and the offer is the Chieu Hoi program that many other sheets in the archive advertise. The claims "we are everywhere" and "nowhere to hide" are threats, and the record gives no evidence about whether they were true in the leaflet's area or whether anyone rallied because of it.

Compare the seven-flag safe-conduct pass from the same year, which offers the same exit without the monster, and the Marine cordon leaflet addressed to villagers. A leaflet whose photograph does not show who it claims is Trần Độ, alive in the North. More are on the Vietnam War messaging hub.