[2] At an address at the National Press Club on 21 November, COMUSMACV General William Westmoreland reported that, as of the end of 1967, the PAVN/VC were "unable to mount a major offensive ...

The sappers had been told by the VC Sub-Region 6 headquarters that hundreds of anti-war and anti-government university students would converge on the embassy that morning to stage a sit-down strike.

As the taxi turned from Mac Dinh Chi Street onto Thong Nhut Boulevard, the occupants opened fire on the two MPs guarding the vehicle gate.

The MPs, Specialist Four (SP4) Charles L Daniel and Private First Class William E Sebast, returned fire, closed and locked the steel gate and radioed that they were under attack.

[4]: 11 Minutes later at 02:47, the VC blew a small hole in the perimeter wall on Thong Nhut Boulevard and gained access to the embassy compound.

The first two VC who crawled through the hole were shot and killed by Daniel and Sebast in their guard post at the Mac Dinh Chi Street entrance.

A second man carrying a rifle came around the building and the two men, later determined to be a pair of embassy drivers, joined the other VC soldiers on the front lawn.

[5]: 329 On the chancery roof, Marine Sergeant Rudy A. Soto Jr saw the VC coming through the wall and tried to fire on them with his 12-gauge shotgun which jammed after a few rounds.

Inside the embassy grounds, the VC opened fire on the chancery building with Type 56 assault rifles and B-40 rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs).

Soto tried unsuccessfully to contact the lobby guard post and, assuming that Harper and Zahuranic were dead, he called for assistance and waited for the VC to reach him.

[4]: 11–12  In the villa at the rear of the embassy compound, Colonel George Jacobson, the Mission Coordinator, was awakened by the firing; searching for a weapon, he found a single M26 grenade.

[4]: 13 When Lieutenant colonel Gordon D. Rowe, commanding the 716th MP Battalion, received the distress call from the embassy, he dispatched several jeep patrols to investigate what was happening.

[4]: 23  At 05:00, a helicopter carrying troops from the 101st Airborne Division attempted to land on the rooftop helipad but was driven off by fire from the surviving VC in the embassy grounds.

[4]: 25–26 As dawn broke on the morning of 31 January, the hole that the VC had blown in the wall to gain access to the embassy compound was located.

At the same time, a helicopter carrying troops from the 101st Airborne Division landed on the roof and proceeded to sweep the chancery building, finding no VC inside.

At 09:15 General Westmoreland and his security detail arrived by car to inspect the embassy while Ambassador Bunker ordered the building reopened for business later that afternoon.

[7] On 4 November 1968, Ambassador Bunker presented a scroll of appreciation to Lieutenant Colonel Tyler H. Fletcher, Commanding Officer of the 716th MP Battalion, for their role in defending the embassy.