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In the spring of 1972, North Vietnam launched the Easter Offensive against South Vietnamese forces, striking at the north of South Vietnam, the central highlands, and the south near Saigon. The attack came during the process of ''Vietnamization,'' in which the United States was turning the war over to the South Vietnamese army. Fewer than 70,000 Americans remained in the country--from a high of nearly 550,000 in 1969--and few of the Americans remaining fought on the ground. North Vietnam's leaders intended to destroy South Vietnam's armed forces in one massive offensive, and their communist troops overran numerous bases and cities throughout South Vietnam. An Loc, the capital of Binh Long province and 60 miles north of Saigon, was besieged for over a month by North Vietnamese forces, which wanted to make it the capital of South Vietnam's Vietcong rebels. As many as 1,000 shells fell on the city each day, and it was only through intensive U.S. air support that it was kept out of communist hands.In January 1973, representatives of the United States, North and South Vietnam, and the Vietcong signed a peace agreement in Paris, ending the direct U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam War. The tentative cease-fire between North and South Vietnam ended within weeks, and by early 1974 full-scale war had resumed. Without U.S. aid, South Vietnamese forces could not fight back the communist onslaught. In 1975, South Vietnam surrendered, and the country was reunified under a communist government.