Why was 1968 a turning point in the Vietnam war?

20th Century battlefield 1968 Vietnam

  • On  30th January 1968 the people in Saigon in South Vietnam were celebrating their holiday of Tete when fighting broke out from the communist assault. The Tete offensive had begun. 
How did this happen
  • Since 1965 the US had been fighting in Vietnam since 1965 as the Americans thought if Vietnam fell to communism then rest of south east Asia would fall which was known as the Domino effect.
  • The US had many artillery bases just South of the boarder bombing the North with a demilitarised zone along the boarder.
  • The South was an unstable republic while the North was backed up by China and the USSR and it's leader was the Communist was Ho Chi Minh. He had trained and equipped 500,000 North Vietnamese soldiers and had punished out the imperial French. 

  • The Americans were led by William Westmoreland was in charge of 500,000 US troops and 800,000 South Vietnamese soldiers.
  • The Americans were fighting the North and was fighting Communist guerrillas within the south called the Nation Liberation Front (NLF) or called Vietcong
  • They didn't  wear uniform so you could not tell them apart and they were supplied from the North via the Ho Chi Minh trial.
  • The Americans bombed the North at railways and bridges and along the Ho Chi Minh trial.
  • In the South they would act on reports and information and bomb Vietcong strong points. Many civilians were killed in the bombings. To find the Vietcong the American troops had to go into the countryside in high temperatures carrying all the equipment they need. This was against the Vietcong who could carry light due t supply lines and could hide camouflage well.
  • By 1967 the North Vietnamese army (NVA) was losing troops so Ho Chi Minh decided to fight in larger numbers than before to smash the South back.
  • In December in 1967 there was a heavy build up of NVA troops along the boarder near the American base of Khe Sanh .
  • 20,000 NLF troops gathered in the hills around the base and on the 22nd January 1968 the attack began.
  • The NLF cut off the the roads into the base so Westmoreland ordered 24,000 air strikes against the the NLF there dropping 100,000 tons of bombs costing 1 billion dollars. Johnson carried on the bombing with 5 tons of bombs per North Vietnamese troop.
  • The Khe Sanh base was not the main target for the first time Ho Chi Minh was  going to bring the fight into cities attacking key points to start an uprising. Weapons were sneaked into the city via carts. Troops came into the city via secret tunnels which the Americans built a base on.
  • When on 30th January 1968 the Tete offensive started with the airport, racetrack, general Westmoreland headquaters was under attack, the radio station and even the presidential palace was attacked.
  • The US Embassy was attacked but the attackers was shot. This was symbolic to Americans and turned the tied against the war.
  • Many towns and cities across the country had been attacked from 800,00 NVA and Vietcong. 
  • On the 31st January the city of Hue was capture by the NVA and the US needed to take this city back.
  • On the first day of the Tete offensive in Hue the Americans failed to take back the city.
  • The Americans struggled in the battle of Hue because the marines were not used to fighting in the urban area and they could not use heavy artillery to not destroy the ancient city.
  • It is difficult to fight in a city because there could be NVA  anywhere in any room which eats up manpower of rooms that could have traps everywhere.
  • With tanks and planes the progress started to speed up.
  • It had taken a week to take 800 meters to take the local government building.
  • On the 12th Feb  the South Vietnamese troops called for help tot he Americans. The Americans had to cross by boat to the other side to the ancient part of the city as the bridge had been blow up by the Communist to take the imperial palace.
  • After almost a month of fighting the city was back in the South Vietnamese control.
  • The Vietcong had been wiped out.
  • The war was on American TV's and it was more ugly than expected. An example was an killing of a NVA prisoner by a South Vietnamese general.
  • The Tete offensive proved to the Americans that the communist were a lot stronger than they had been told.
  • Johnson did a speech and said that he would reduce bombing.
  • He ended his broadcast saying that he will not run for a second term.
  • The Tete offensive was a political policy.
  • The American troops were going to train South Vietnamese troops then with draw which they did by 1973 with Richard Nixon.
  • By April 1975 Saigon was taken by the Communist.
  • A million Vietnamese people died. during the war.
  • When the Communist took power many South Vietnamese fled the country.
  • 58,000 American troops died.

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