The Tet Offensive caused chaos all over South Vietnam. Approximately 5,000 South Vietnamese soldiers were killed, and approximately 45,000 deaths in total in the first phase of the Tet Offensive alone. 14,000 civilians were also killed. This was a crucial turning point for North Vietnam in the Vietnam War. It caused many casualties and forced the U,S the withdrawal. The Tet offensive began on January 31, 1968. It was named after the most important holiday in Vietnam. It was thought to be planned by General Vo Nguyen Giap. They planned to surprise attack the South Vietnamese and U.S forces. Over 80,000 North Vietnamese forces attacked over 100 major cities in South Vietnam. One of these cities was Hue. In February, 1968 North Vietnam …show more content…
It was thought of to be a diversion to get the attention of the U.S soldiers. This battle started on January 21, just before the Tet Offensive was officially launched. Approximately 20,000 Viet Congs attacked the base, causing chaos throughout. Only 6,000 U.S soldiers stood to defend. Heavy mortar fire rained over the base. In return the U.S troops used 39,000 tons of ordnance to help defend them. The North Vietnamese started to withdrawal with 5,000 soldiers killed. The U.S only lost about 700 lives during the battle, that ended on april 8. During the Tet offensive the U.S started to lose support from the people. The Vietnam War in total cost the U.S $173 billion. This caused President Lyndon Johnson to ask Congress for a tax increase, but the only way they would is if he cut $6 billion from domestic spending. This tax increase cause the economy to slow to a crawl. It also damaged the U.S balance of trade. The Tet offensive was considered a success. It was the turning point for North Vietnam. They attacked over 100 cities causing chaos all over South Vietnam. It led to many casualties of both armies. It also caused the U.S to increase taxes and withdrawal from the
Senior Leaders have analyzed wars for years in hopes of finding the most efficient way to conduct war. This paper explores the events of that took place during the Battle of Bien Hoa in 1968. Research was conducted through internet and non-internet sources to provide the most accurate facts concerning this battle. The 29th of January 1968 was the beginning of Battle of Bien Hoa when the Bien Hoa Air Base went under attack. On 31 January the first Tet Offensive began by the National Liberation Front for South Vietnam in order to shift the invading army and regain control by the Vietnamese. A total of 39 encounters were recorded in this battle fought by brave Soldiers from the 17th Calvary, the 11th Armored Calvary, the 101st Airborne Division, the 47th Infantry Division (Mechanized), the 199th Infantry Brigade, the Air Force, Marines, and the South Vietnamese Army, against enemy forces (North Vietnamese Army, and the Viet Cong). Pleiku, Phan Theit, Ban Me Thuot, Thu Duc, An My, and Kontum are some of the cities near the Saigon area where the encounters took place. (Starry, 1931) Before the battle begun there was a huge dilemma about engaging armored vehicles in Vietnam; however once fully engaged the results created an atmosphere of change, innovation, power, and confidence that changed the strategies of war forever.
defeat of the Vietnam War was due to the economy, being there were financial issues at the time due to war. At the time the war cost was very high, and the nation was spending more than what was needed on the war. In one political cartoon from the time (Document 1) it depicts president Johnson with a sword slicing a man's head off. In the image the sword represents war cost, and the man represents Great Society hopes. Great society was a set of domestic programs with a goal to eliminate poverty in the U.S., however due to the high war cost the hopes began to break for such a goal to be reached as it made it more difficult. The war cost that broke this dream was hated by many, as many thought putting so much money into the war was useless. In 1972 George McGovern, a U.S. senator, addressed this, stating he proposed “we conserve our limited resources” and “no longer underwriting the appalling waste of money and manpower that has become such a bad habit”. McGovern along with many others saw the amount of money and troops being dedicated to the war was not only useless, but an issue causing the nation to have problems as it diverted money from the nation's domestic programs and necessities. The financial issues caused by the war was a big trouble to the U.S. during the time and had a huge impact leading to the nation's
The Vietnam War was one of the most prolonged wars in US history. Although there were no exact dates, it is believed that US involvement lasted for around 20 years. The US went into this war hoping they could stop the spread of communism and defeat the northern Vietnamese. The battles were like nothing they had seen before and it was very difficult for the soldiers to differentiate between the enemies and civilians. To make it even more difficult for the soldiers, their “information was based on faulty intelligence”. Võ Nguyên Giáp, a northern Vietnamese general, believed that the US and the southern Vietnamese had an unstable relationship. He hoped that through the Tet Offensive the US would believe they were no longer worth defending. Fighting was done using guerrilla warfare which blurred the lines of legitimate and illegitimate killings and this had effect of bringing peoples morales down. Support for the war had always been split but this battle caused even the government to reconsider their involvement. The Tet offensive changed the US's attitude towards the Vietnam war by leading to further anti-war protests, a credibility gap in America, and for President Johnson to negotiate peace and not seek reelection.
January 31, 1968, NVA and VC launched a series of attacks on major cities and military
...n claims that they it was winning the war seemed inaccurate as the North Vietnamese were able to launch the Tet Offensive in January of 1968. As the American public rapidly began to oppose the war, Nixon began to remove American troops from Vietnam while increasing the bombing at the same time. Nixon claimed he was ending the war, but the United States forces invaded Cambodia in april of 1970. The United States had removed all troops from the area by March of 1973, much later than most Americans believed this should have happened.
On January 31, 1968, the Tet Offensive officially began (Feldmeth). The Offensive began on the first day of Tet, which was the Vietnamese festival of the lunar New Year. The North Vietnamese armies surprised the American and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) armies as they attacked almost every major city in South Vietnam (Battle of Khe Sanh). Although, many of these attacks were resisted, Americans at home saw the Offensive as an American defeat. For the first time in history, the whole war was broadcasted on television, allowing the American public to watch all that occurred in Vietnam. When they saw the Tet Offensive, they realized the power that North Vietnam possessed was greater than they expected. While this brought public opinion of the war down, it also affected their belief in the government. Before this had occurred, military leaders such as General Westmorland were telling Americans that the United States army had everything under control and other sanguine views of the war (What Was the Tonkin Resolution?). This occurrence proved to be contradictory to previous statements made about the war. This Offensive affected President Johnson as well. After the Tet Offensive, he lost popularity as Americans began to question Johnson and his presidency. His loss of popularity increased so much that in the end he decided to drop out of the next presidential elections all together.
...citizens. The war changed the lives of the Vietnamese citizens forever. Some people could never go back to the lives they had before. The Vietnam War had a horrible aftermath on both Vietnam and The Untied States. The Vietnam War is definitely a vital war that changed Vietnamese society forever. This war was definitely a major topic in Vietnamese society and wiped from history. The war gained national attention and caused chaos and pandemonium nationwide. Communism played a key role in the citizens’ lives that they were willing to fight for all the freedom they deserved. The war was clearly a great calamity and caused distress worldwide. The war was so vital that some of the impacts can still be seen in Vietnam today and some people are still trying to recover from it. The war was definitely a remarkable time in American history and will be in our memories forever.
The Vietnam War was one of the longest and most expensive wars in American history. It started from 1955 till April 30, 1975. This war lasted for almost 20 years. According to the article "How the U.S Got Involved In Vietnam" by Jeff Drake the U.S attacked Vietman and this wasn't supposed to happen. This war could have been avoidable. The 58,000 Americans didn’t have to die, nor did the 2,000,000 Vietnamese. The U.S government was responsible for their deaths. What the government told the public from the very beginning was that they were going to war because they had to stop the communist menace in Vietnam or other countries would follow suit; that they had to defend the democratic South Vietnamese government against the gathering Red hordes. While other people say it was an attempt by the U.S to suppress a heroic Vietnamese national liberation movement that had driven French colonialism out of its country (Drake, 1993).
There were many events that lead up the Vietnam War, it started in 1945 with the hostilities between the French and Vietminh. “Geopolitical Strategy, economics, domestic US politics, and cultural arrogance shaped the growing American involvement in Vietnam” (Anderson 1). As a matter of fact, the Vietnam War was several wars, but it was not until 1962 that America had their first combat mission, however, Americans were killed during ambushes by the Vietnamese before the first combat mission. There is much controversy over the reasons for the Vietnam War, supported by the several different books and articles written about the war. “The most famous atrocity occurred in a tiny hamlet called My Lai in March 1968” (Detzer 127). History shows that the reaction of many Americans to the attack by US soldiers on the village of My Lai during the Vietnam War was opposition, and the actions of the US soldiers during the My Lai Massacre will be forever remembered as a significant part of the Vietnam War and American History.
For most of the war, the man who was calling most of the shots for America was President Lyndon B. Johnson and for Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh. In one of the first years of the war, 1964, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution gave American congressional approval to escalate the war on North Vietnam and the Viet-Cong, backed by Robert McNamara, after American and North Vietnamese ships exchanged fire. Four years later in 1968, arguably the most important year of the war, the Tet offensive began. This was a major turning point in the war because it was launched on a holiday and was the largest escalation of the Vietnam war. In this year, the Flexible Response Policy was created which in turn created the green berets as a way to strengthen and modernize American forces. During 1968, General William Westmoreland presented the idea for a War of Attrition leading to America’s withdrawal from Vietnam. This war becomes the first war that America has participated in and has not won, leading to the veterans coming home to be treated terribly. They were spit on, called murderers, most became homeless, and more veterans committed suicide than were killed in the war itself. This has shaped how we treat our veterans today, by welcoming them home and helping them to integrate back into
He started storming temples and by 1963 it got really out of hand. This change in character led the south and many people getting angered. The result of this anger led to the assassination of Diem. With Diem gone, Nguyen Van Thieu and Nguyen Cao Ky come into power. Only a few years later Nguyen Van Thieu is able to get Cao Ky out of the picture. There was a bit of shady business before Cao and Van took over. There was a claim that U.S. maddox was attacked by North Vietnamese. Days later there was another claim that an different U.S. vessel was attacked by North Vietnamese boats again. These attacks named the Gulf of Tonkin incidents really angered Congress and gave Lyndon B. Johnson a choice to officially initiate a war with Vietnam. Things were escalated and got to 500,000 U.S. troops. In 1968, congress told the people they were about to succeed and things seemed to be looking bright. That was until the viet cong coordinated a huge attack to South Vietnam called the “Tet Offensive”. The American people and Congress began to be suspicious of this because LBJ gave false hope on winning the war but then having the Viet Cong coordinate such a secret attack. The United States thought their soldiers could take a
For nine years, the United States were hell-bent in achieving their rightful victory in Vietnam, however, destiny had different plans for them. The Tet Offensive is considered the turning point of the Vietnam Conflict because of the fact that the Vietcong and North Vietnamese Army surprised the U.S and South Vietnam with several sporadic attacks. Consequently, many effects from these attacks were expected, not only for America, but for North and South Vietnam as well. With U.S citizens’ opinions quickly turning against U.S. involvement in Vietnam, South Vietnam faced much disaster. Its government was stricken with humility because of the increased abandonment of their army, leading to the inability to protect its citizens. On the other hand, North Vietnam began accepting great amounts of land along with the power to frighten the rural population.
They killed about 6,000 Vietnamese people. After that, it was only a few weeks before the Indochina War began. The Indochina war between the French and the Vietnamese went on for several years. The Viet Minh used guerrilla warfare to weaken the French. During this time, the United States was developing its foreign policy, known as containment. Therefore, the United States wanted to keep the Viet Minh out of control to keep communism from spreading. So, the US president at the time, President Harry S. Truman, sent military aid and money to the
These were the ultimate outcomes of Tet offensive that is why it is recognized as the " turning point" in the Vietnam War.
As we got further and further into the Vietnam War, few lives were untouched by grief, anger and fear. The Vietnamese suffered the worst hardship; children lay dead in the street, villages remained nothing but charred ashes, and bombs destroyed thousands of innocent civilians. Soldiers were scarred emotionally as well as physically, as