Story of the Vietnam War - Second Edition, 2022

["STORM IN THE USA PICKET SIGNS ANATOMY OF A to many of the primary voters getting behind \u00a9 Alamy; Getty; Kevin McGivern Protesters used strong, VIETNAM Eugene McCarthy, an anti-war Democrat. powerful messages on their picket signs to take a stance WAR In the face of such public opposition, against the Vietnam War. PROTESTER President Johnson decided not to stand for Messages on signs ranged re-election, enabling Vice President Hubert from the peaceful \u2018make US, 1955\u201375 Humphrey to run for office. Despite being an love, not war\u2019 to much more opponent of the war, Humphrey announced in provocative and controversial HELMETS his candidacy speech that he would continue ideas, such as comparing The iconic soldier\u2019s helmet was worn by actress to send troops to Vietnam. In the end his President Nixon to Hitler. Jane Fonda as she visited troops in Vietnam. While promises proved irrelevant, with Humphrey the visit stirred controversy as she sang anti-war losing the race for the White House to Richard BOX OF MATCHES songs with troops, later the Vietnam Veterans Nixon, who swore in his presidential campaign Despite more than 50 Against War movement saw thousands of ex- to effectively restore law and order to the per cent of Americans soldiers uniting against the con\ufb02ict. country following the anti-war protests as opposing the war in well as the rioting in the aftermath of the Vietnam, the government FLOWERS assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. reintroduced conscription, Taking a passive stance known as the draft. while protesting against Unfortunately, Nixon\u2019s war policies only From 1964, students the con\ufb02ict, demonstrators served to further divide the nation. In a speech and protesters carried armed themselves with in 1969 he referred to the anti-war protesters matchboxes with them \ufb02ower power to \ufb01ght the as being a \u201csmall, albeit vocal minority\u201d for burning draft cards in government\u2019s brutality. At who shouldn\u2019t be allowed to drown out the response to the unfair and marches, protesters would \u201csilent majority\u201d of Americans. This was not \ufb02awed conscription for carry \ufb02owers, placing them appreciated by the diligent protestors. such an unpopular war. in soldiers\u2019 gun barrels and wrapping themselves in Tensions were simmering, and unrest was DRUGS daisy chains. driven by incidents of official violence at It wasn\u2019t just a passion demonstrations. More fuel was poured on the for politics that protesters BUTTONS AND BADGES fire in 1971 with the first publication of the became associated with. Young and open minded, many Pentagon Papers, exposing confidential details Alongside their anti-war protesters were politically engaged about the war that previously hadn\u2019t been stance, drugs were a big students. Badges and buttons released to the public. The American people part of the hippie culture. were the easiest way to show their began to further question the government and Legal until the mid-1960s af\ufb01liation with movements, such as US military\u2019s accountability. in the US, some protesters the Resistance, Greenpeace and the took LSD as a means of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. In response to the widespread criticism, escaping the reality of war. the government worked hard to get its side of MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS the story across to the universities. It gave a BOOTS The 1960s and 1970s witnessed an great deal of support to the American Friends Protesters spent plenty of unprecedented music revival, with the likes of Vietnam, a pro-administration group. While time marching and parading of The Beatles and Bob Dylan advocating this group could never compete in numbers or against the con\ufb02ict and its paci\ufb01sm. Protesters united over music, the intensity with the anti-war demonstrators, inequalities, so a sturdy with anti-war folk singers often performing due to the violent consequences of some pair of boots was essential. at rallies. As these sentiments grew, music of the previous protests the government did In fact, one of the largest became more aggressive, and rock took over experience a surge in support, as did some of anti-war demonstrations was from folk as the music of protest. the affiliated companies. held on 15 November 1969 in Washington, DC, with more In the wake of the bloodshed, a record than half a million protesters number of university students from Wisconsin campaigning against signed up to work for Dow Chemicals. The involvement in Vietnam. local newspaper supported Dow, denouncing the students, and the pro-war group Young Americans for Freedom saw a significant increase in enrolment. Large majorities were said to feel that the demonstrations were \u2018acts of disloyalty\u2019 against the soldiers in Vietnam and that the Wisconsin protests had hurt the larger anti-war cause. The protests continued to divide the nation until the end of the war. Nixon\u2019s decision to invade Cambodia in 1970 proved to be the catalyst for protests at over 1,300 campuses, 500 of which were forced to close due to faculty and student strikes. Along with putting an end to Johnson\u2019s presidency, the protests resulted in the voting age in the US being lowered to 18 and, ultimately, forced a once-truculent government to listen to the voice of the people and withdraw from the war in 1973. 101","DEADLOCK IN THE DEPTHS OF THE JUNGLE Wounded men of the 101st Airborne Division are helped down Hill 937. The battle proved a costly victory for the US forces HAMBURGER For ten days in May 1969, American and South Vietnamese forces threw themselves against large numbers of well-defended enemy troops 102","HILL HAMBURGER HILL Right: General Creighton Abrams, who became DONG AP BIA, the new chief of Military Assistance Command, REPUBLIC OF SOUTH Vietnam, in June 1968 VIETNAM 11\u201320 MAY 1969 WORDS MARC DESANTIS T he Tet Offensive of January 1968 had been an enormous blow against the Americans and their South Vietnamese allies, but not necessarily in the way the North Vietnamese had anticipated. While the Americans and South Vietnamese had suffered heavy losses, the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) itself had been mauled and the Viet Cong irregulars in the South had been decimated. Coming out to fight the Americans in the open had proven extremely costly. From now on, the Viet Cong would focus on preserving its strength. Similarly, several regiments of the NVA regular troops had been horribly battered in combat and had needed rebuilding. It was in the realm of public opinion, however, that communist North Vietnam, studiously working to eject the Americans and topple the South Vietnamese Government, achieved its greatest results. Never-ending American casualties for little measurable gain turned the Tet Offensive into a political victory for the communists in American public opinion, which became increasingly negative towards the war. Among the Americans, there was a change of strategy too. General Creighton Abrams was named the new chief of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) in June 1968, replacing General William Westmoreland in the post. That same year, US forces in Vietnam reached a wartime high of 535,000 military personnel. Despite this huge force, the US and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) had come no closer to achieving victory over the communist insurgency than when American involvement had begun years earlier. Abrams introduced a different objective for American forces. Instead of Westmoreland\u2019s \u2018attrition strategy\u2019, which focused on finding and destroying the enemy\u2019s \u2018Main Force\u2019 units, Abrams emphasised \u2018pacification\u2019 of the Vietnamese countryside, which included the protection of the civilian populace. The strategy started to bear fruit, and it caused the communists severe trouble in sustaining their grip on areas they had long held. Abrams, however, did not reject the idea of taking the fight to Main Force units. If they were found, they were to be attacked and destroyed. One heavy concentration was located in the A Shau Valley in the far north of South Vietnam, close to the Laotian border. The mountainous, jungle- cloaked and largely inaccessible A Shau had been a stronghold for the NVA since 1966, when a US special forces base there had been overwhelmed. The A Shau was a North Vietnamese bastion filled with stockpiles of weapons, 103","DEADLOCK IN THE DEPTHS OF THE JUNGLE ammunition, vehicles, food, water and many \u201cIf the NVA behaved The target for the four companies of 3\/187th, other supplies brought there via the Ho Chi as they typically did nicknamed the 'Rakkasans', was Dong Ap Minh trail. This made the valley a prime staging and bolted, they\u2019d be Bia, which the local Montagnards called the area for attacks into the South, including the sacrificing all of the \u2018mountain of the crouching beast\u2019. US military devastating Tet Offensive. Intelligence also myriad supplies that planners knew it by the more prosaic name revealed that the elite 29th NVA Regiment, as would be left behind\u201d of Hill 937, because it rose to a towering 937 well as the 6th and 9th NVA Regiments, were metres in height. currently present in the valley. To root them out, forces there. Frustratingly, the big NVA units MACV initiated Operation Apache Snow. would not give battle, either moving away down On 10 May, a giant aerial convoy of UH-1 the valley or up the steep mountainsides. \u2018Huey\u2019 transport helicopters lifted off and This operation would not be the first US headed into the mountain valley. Lieutenant incursion into the A Shau. In April\u2013May 1968, Apache Snow Frank Boccia, a young platoon leader of Westmoreland had launched Operation Bravo Company of the 3\/187th, compared Delaware, in which the US 1st Cavalry Division General Abrams gave the 101st Airborne the cruising helicopters to \u201ca swarm of had achieved only mixed results against a dug- another chance in May 1969. The objective giant green dragonflies\u201d. The landing zones in communist force amid terrible weather. of Apache Snow was to drive the NVA out of were pounded by American warplanes and the valley. If the NVA behaved as they typically artillery before the paratroopers arrived. Operation Apache Snow would be led by the did and bolted, they\u2019d be sacrificing all of the Huge, 15,000-pound (6,800-kilogram) \u2018daisy \u2018Screaming Eagles\u2019 of the US 101st Airborne. myriad supplies that would be left behind. cutter\u2019 bombs were dropped to blast clear This division had gained immortal fame for its spots for the helicopters to touch down. epic defence of Bastogne during the Battle The attack was to be spearheaded by The Rakkasans landed without meeting any of the Bulge in 1944. It had switched to the 450 soldiers of 3\/187th, or the 3rd resistance on the first day and spent the helicopters and was now termed \u2018airmobile\u2019. Battalion of the 187th Regiment of the 101st night there before launching their first move The 101st had also been to the A Shau before. Airborne Division, which was commanded against the western side of the mountain. In August 1968, during Operation Somerset by Lieutenant Colonel Weldon \u2018Blackjack\u2019 Plains, the division had conducted a helicopter Honeycutt. It was accompanied into the The NVA was in hiding up in the mountain assault into the valley but achieved only limited A Shau by the 1\/506th Regiment and heights of Dong Ap Bia, waiting in a strongly success in making a dent in the communist the 2\/501st Regiment, also of the 101st fortified bunker system for the paratroopers Airborne. US Marines and ARVN forces would to come to them. On 11 May, the Rakkasans Left: NVA regulars moving also take part, in supporting roles. conducted a reconnaissance in force to make along the Ho Chi contact with the NVA, making limited contact Minh trail towards with their enemy in a series of firefights. They South Vietnam would soon learn that their prior assumptions about the willingness of the NVA to stand and fight were wrong. Troops from the US 101st Airborne Division OPPOSING ascend Dong Ap Bia after the battle FORCES US ARMY LEADERS: Major General Melvin Zais, commander of the 101st Airborne Division; Colonel Joseph Conmy, commander of 3rd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division; Lieutenant Colonel Weldon Honeycutt, commander of 3\/187th Battalion ('Rakkasans\u2019) INFANTRY: 1,800 vs PEOPLE\u2019S ARMY OF VIETNAM LEADER: General Ma Vinh Lan 29th NVA Regiment INFANTRY: 800 104","HAMBURGER HILL The NVA had conceived its defence of Dong after time by the ferocious resistance of soldiers were also slain, and losses were likely Ap Bia as a chance to lure in and destroy an the infantrymen of the 29th NVA Regiment. far heavier, but the NVA adroitly managed to take entire US battalion from within the security Known as the \u2018Pride of Ho Chi Minh\u2019, these many of their dead and wounded with them when of their maze of bunkers, which were mostly soldiers opened up on the advancing American they made their escape. protected against the tremendous firepower of paratroopers with AK-47 rifles, rocket-propelled American aircraft and artillery. By allowing the grenades, and many other support weapons. A mountain fortress Americans to come close to their positions, the North Vietnamese also aimed to neutralise In the close confines of Hill 937, the The mountainous terrain of Dong Ap Bia, and superior US firepower by making them reluctant Americans were at a disadvantage against an the A Shau more generally, made the place to use it at all for fear of hurting their own men. enemy who were difficult to spot until they fired. a natural fortress. All of the advantages of The communists said they were \u2018grabbing the The NVA also launched its own counterattacks height accrued to the defenders higher up. The enemy by the belt\u2019 \u2013 that is, holding him close. on the Americans. \u201cMy god, what have we men of the 101st also struggled to get their gotten ourselves into?\u201d Lieutenant Boccia wounded off the mountain in a timely manner. Battle is joined would wonder. The helicopters that granted the US Army unmatched mobility in Vietnam were seriously The 3\/187th was badly mauled on the first day, Elsewhere in the A Shau, the NVA was hindered in the A Shau. The choppers\u2019 long 11 May, in a \u2018friendly fire\u2019 incident in which the not idle. On the night of 12\u201313 May, an elite blades sometimes made it impossible for battalion\u2019s command post was rocketed by assault force of the 6th NVA Regiment struck them to get close enough to the steeply sloped AH-1 \u2018Cobra\u2019 helicopter gunships. Two GIs were at Firebase Airborne, an American artillery ground to land and pick up the wounded. slain and 35 others were wounded. Lieutenant base on the top of Dong Ngai, a mountain 6.4 Intense ground fire also made helicopter Colonel Honeycutt was himself seriously kilometres to the north of Dong Ap Bia. The medevac runs extremely dangerous. One wounded in the accidental strike but remained firebase contained three howitzers and two remarkably courageous pilot, 20-year-old Eric in command of his battalion. 81mm mortars, which were to provide support Rairdon, flew hair-raising missions in darkness fire for Apache Snow. North Vietnamese and poor weather in his tiny OH-6 Cayuse The terrain of Hill 937 heavily favoured the sappers cut their way undetected through the observation chopper to ferry out the wounded. defenders. The approaches to the summit were concertina wires that had been strung around The gallant Rairdon, nicknamed the \u2018Saint\u2019, jungle-choked ridges and slender trackways, their position, and their comrades charged continued his flying heroics until he was hit in with the NVA\u2019s bunkers skilfully sited to cover through in the early morning darkness of 13 both legs during a mission on 18 May. them. On 12 May, the NVA units ensconced on May. With mortar rounds crashing into the Dong Ap Bia revealed themselves fully as the base, the NVA soldiers roamed at will, tossing The terrain was a factor in other ways. Americans ascended. Deadly ambushes were satchel charges and shooting the stunned Because of the narrowness of the paths sprung all over the mountain, and the men of Americans, who rushed to mount a defence. leading up to the summit and the threats the 3\/187th were repelled. that NVA bunkers and other fighting positions The Americans succeeded in beating back the posed, many of the 3\/187th platoons had to The Rakkasans would mount daily assaults assault but only at great cost to themselves. 26 be detailed to guard the flanks and rears of to reach the summit but were stopped time GIs were killed and 62 wounded. At least 40 NVA 101st Airborne soldiers traverse the blasted terrain around Dong Ap Bia 105","DEADLOCK IN THE DEPTHS OF THE JUNGLE HAMBURGER HILL 1969 01 10 MAY: THE RAKKASANS ARRIVE After a heavy air and artillery bombardment of the landing zone (LZ), at 0710 on 10 May, a large force of paratroopers \u2013 \u2018Rakkasans\u2019 from the 3\/187th Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division \u2013 touch down in the mountainous A Shau Valley. 02 11 MAY: RECONNAISSANCE IN FORCE Still unsure of enemy strength, on 11 May the paratroopers of the 3\/187th make their \ufb01rst movement up Dong Ap Bia, or Hill 937, where the NVA\u2019s 29th Regiment is well entrenched. The 3\/187th\u2019s battalion command post is accidentally hit in a \u2018friendly \ufb01re\u2019 incident. 03 12 MAY: THE NVA RETALIATES On 12 May, the Rakkasans make another attack on Hill 937, and the 29th NVA Regiment shows its full strength, opening up from its many \ufb01ring pits and bunkers to hammer the Americans with ri\ufb02e \ufb01re and rocket-propelled grenades. NVA positions are pulverised by American airstrikes and artillery, but the hardened North Vietnamese regulars stay put and will also launch counterattacks from them on the paratroopers throughout the battle. 04 12\u201313 MAY: ASSAULT ON FIREBASE AIRBORNE Led by sappers who cut their way through concertina wire, on the night of 12\u201313 May, NVA assault troops storm Firebase Airborne, a supporting artillery position not far from Hill 937 defended by soldiers of 2\/501st Battalion. They are driven off only after severe losses to both sides. The paratroopers of 3\/187th continue to make daily attacks on Dong Ap Bia. \u201cThe gallant Rairdon, nicknamed the \u2018Saint\u2019, continued his flying heroics until he was hit in both legs during a mission on 18 May\u201d 106","HAMBURGER HILL 05 14 MAY: CHARLIE COMPANY Map: Rocio Espin advancing American units. This meant that the MAULED assault towards the summit could never be Charlie Company of 3\/187th attempts to loop around the as strong as the airborne soldiers would have NVA bunker line but is shredded by NVA \ufb01re on 14 May. wished. Simply spotting the enemy amid the Bravo Company is forced to call off its own assault to help jungle foliage was hard. \u201cThe canopy was so pull out Charlie Company\u2019s killed and wounded. US aircraft dense,\u201d Lieutenant Boccia said, \u201cthat we could continue to strafe the NVA positions, which persists in barely see a few feet ahead of us\u201d. harrying American forces on Hill 937. American firepower, in theory overwhelming, 06 15\u201319 MAY: was also of limited help. A report released after STALEMATE the battle stated that American artillery landed The depleted Rakkasans of the 3\/187th 18,262 high-explosive shells on Dong Ap Bia, are reinforced by the 1\/506th Battalion and that tactical air support had delivered over of the 101st Airborne Division. On 15 1,088 tons of bombs, more than 142 tons of May, the 1\/506th conducts attacks along napalm and 31,000 20mm rounds. Though Hills 916, 800 and 900, which lie to the US warplanes flew many sorties against the south of Hill 937, while the Rakkasans mountain and artillery continuously lashed the again attack up Dong Ap Bia. On 16 May, communist positions, their effect was less the 1\/506th moves against Hill 900 than what the Rakkasans hoped for, and the and is met by a torrent of NVA \ufb01re. The deeply entrenched NVA remained immovable. 1\/506th will be stymied for several days The close proximity of the opposing forces also by the enemy on Hill 900. meant that the Rakkasans were sometimes hit by American munitions. In addition to the Cobra 07 19\u201320 MAY: THE NVA attack on 11 May, several other Rakkasan WITHDRAWS casualties were the result of friendly fire. Unable to continue the \ufb01ght for Dong Ap Bia against relentless American pressure, the 29th NVA Regiment The struggle continues withdraws over 19\u201320 May. The 2\/501st Battalion of the 101st Airborne and the ARVN 2\/3rd Battalion are On 15 May, another battalion, 1\/506th of the committed to the battle on 19 May deploying on the 101st Airborne, started to move against NVA eastern side of Hill 937. positions on Hills 916, 800 and 900, which lay close to Hill 937. It would take days of fighting 08 20 MAY: VICTORY for it to finally get into position for an assault The soldiers of the 3\/187th, on Dong Ap Bia itself, however. On 14 May, an 1\/506th, 2\/501st and the ARVN 2\/3rd attempt by Charlie Company of the 3\/187th to make an attack on Hill 937. Soldiers of the go around the NVA bunkers on Hill 937 turned 3\/187th reach the summit around noon into a fiasco. The NVA spotted the Americans on 20 May. The victorious Americans, and unleashed a hailstorm of fire against having driven off the NVA, themselves them. The Rakkasans\u2019 Bravo Company had to abandon Dong Ap Bia only weeks later. forego its own planned attack up the mountain in order to come to the rescue of the torn-up soldiers of Charlie Company. Lieutenant Boccia was stunned when he found them: \\\"My god, my god,\\\" he said. \\\"Bodies lay everywhere.\\\" Other factors affected the American advance. The heat was awful, reaching 37.8 degrees Celsius. Rain fell hard and turned much of the mountainside into sucking mud. Despite the difficulties, the Rakkasans\u2019 demanding commander, Lieutenant Colonel Honeycutt, kept pushing them onward, making repeated attacks toward the summit. Some soldiers complained about their hard-driving commanding officer to press reporters, who'd heard about the battle for Hill 937 and had begun showing up in the A Shau. \u201cThat damn Blackjack [Honeycutt] won\u2019t stop until he kills every damn one of us,\u201d one said. It was around this time that the reporters learned that the soldiers had taken to calling Dong Ap Bia \u2018Hamburger Hill\u2019. By 18 May, the Rakkasans had taken very heavy casualties, as its companies had done the majority of the fighting. Major General Melvin Zais, commander of the 101st Airborne Division, intended to pull them out and replace them with another battalion, the 2\/506th. Honeycutt vehemently objected to this move. \u201cAfter all the fighting this battalion\u2019s been through, after all the casualties we\u2019ve taken,\u201d he barked at Zais, \u201cif you pull us out now, it will forever be viewed as a disgrace by everyone in the division\u201d. Honeycutt insisted that the honour of taking the summit should belong to the 3\/187th alone. 107","DEADLOCK IN THE DEPTHS OF THE JUNGLE Honeycutt asked for a fresh company as \u201cThe paratroopers 39 men killed. The total losses of the North reinforcements, and Zais agreed to give the were facing troops, Vietnamese, who were adept at withdrawing 3\/187th\u2019s commander one company from perhaps two platoons\u2019 with their dead and wounded, are impossible to the 2\/506th and leave the Rakkasans in worth, that had been know for certain, but the Americans afterwards the fight. In addition, on 19 May even more left behind to make a counted 633 dead NVA regular soldiers. reinforcements would be poured into the battle suicidal last stand\u201d for Hill 937 \u2013 the 2\/501st of the 101st Airborne Almost immediately, questions about the and the ARVN 2\/3rd Battalion. the paratroopers were facing troops, perhaps cost of taking Hill 937 began to be asked. On two platoons\u2019 worth, that had been left behind a tree trunk, an American soldier had put up a On the morning of 20 May, after another to make a suicidal last stand. The Rakkasans cardboard sign with the words \u201cHamburger Hill\u201d punishing air bombardment, the combined blasted any fighting positions they found and written on it. Below them on the sign, another GI strength of the assembled American and South reached the summit at noon. By late afternoon had acidly written, \u201cWas it worth it?\u201d Vietnamese battalions were thrown at Dong the mountain was in American hands. Ap Bia. The summit would fall to the men of After the battle the 3\/187th. The North Vietnamese opened The cost of seizing Dong Ap Bia was high for fire on the Rakkasans with rifles and rocket- the 101st Airborne. 70 paratroopers had been The bloody struggle for Hill 937 was different propelled grenades. The Americans answered killed in the fight for Hamburger Hill and another from most other clashes during the Vietnam with a storm of rifle fire aimed at the bunker 372 wounded. The losses for 3\/187th were War. With a handful of rare exceptions, such openings. The NVA ducked inside and began especially heavy, with the Rakkasans suffering as the battles of Ia Drang, Hue and Khe Sanh, rolling grenades down the mountain towards the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong rarely the GIs, but the advantage now lay with the stood toe to toe with the Americans in a stand- Americans. Most of what remained of the 29th up fight. Most encounters were instead sharp NVA Regiment had already fled to Laos, and firefights that lasted only a short while, with the NVA melting away before the Americans 108","A derivative of the ubiquitous HAMBURGER HILL \u2018Huey\u2019 transport, the Cobra served as a helicopter gunship and Wounded soldiers of the US 101st Airborne provided close air support during Division are placed aboard a UH-1 helicopter the Battle of Hamburger Hill for evacuation from Hamburger Hill. The \u2018Huey\u2019 was the workhorse American helicopter of the Vietnam War A rocket explodes behind an American soldier during the \ufb01ghting on Hamburger Hill could bring their immensely superior firepower On 19 May, Jay Sharbutt, an Associated Yet it was on the same day that Kennedy Images: Rocio Espin, Getty to bear. Most Americans who were killed in Press reporter, filed a story on the costly and spoke against the battle that a press report Vietnam died in one of these short, sharp lengthy fight for Dong Ap Bia. US soldiers announced that US soldiers had christened combats, which occurred on a daily basis all were criticising their own commanders for Dong Ap Bia \u2018Hamburger Hill\u2019. At the highest over the country. their tactical decision-making and the heavy levels, Vietnam policy was changing. As a casualties they were taking at Hamburger Hill. consequence of the notoriety of the battle Hamburger Hill was more akin to the battles This spurred Kennedy to speak out. On the and its costliness in lives, US Secretary of for Ia Drang, Hue and Khe Sanh, and since floor of the US Senate on 20 May, Kennedy Defense Melvin Laird applied tougher restraints it lasted for ten days it attracted attention complained that it was \u201cboth senseless and on further large-scale operations in Vietnam. and scrutiny from the American public that irresponsible to continue to send our young President Nixon himself would announce his tiny firefights, which in aggregate cost many men to their deaths to capture hills and policy of 'Vietnamisation' on 8 June, less than American lives too, ordinarily did not. Despite positions that have no relation to ending this three weeks after the battle\u2019s end. US forces serious opposition to the war, little criticism conflict\u201d. With the Paris Peace Conference would begin withdrawing from Vietnam, and the in the US had been levelled at the actual ongoing, Kennedy said, the US should not be burden of combat operations would be handed tactics that American forces were employing. conducting new military operations. over to the ARVN. Hamburger Hill, with its uphill frontal assaults against prepared enemy positions, attracted Kennedy would be strongly criticised by Hamburger Hill had its greatest impact not heavy condemnation. Republican senators for second-guessing the on the ground in Vietnam but in the minds of military leadership on the ground in Vietnam. American policymakers and voters. In time, the One of the foremost voices raised against The New York Times chided the Democratic costs of the war would be judged to be too high the battle was that of Democratic Senator of senator for criticising military men on tactics to continue, just as the price for taking Hill 937 Massachusetts Edward Kennedy, brother of when he was himself a civilian and 19,000 had been soon after the battle. The men who the assassinated President John F. Kennedy kilometres from the battlefield. died on that hill did not do so in vain. and a strong opponent of the war in Vietnam. 109","CAMBODIA AND LAOS: THE CARNAGE SPREADS Neither of Vietnam\u2019s neighbours were safe from the con\ufb02ict raging to the east B orders aren\u2019t enough to contain WORDS NIKOLE ROBINSON with the West, practically inviting the pursuit conflict, and both Cambodia to of communist forces in Cambodia as long the southwest and Laos to the access and permission to build permanent as his own citizens were unharmed. The US northwest felt the devastation bases, as well as opening ports to supplies Government had finalised plans to bombard of the Vietnam War. Along with from China and the USSR. Though Sihanouk a great loss of life and inhabitable land, still tried to claim neutrality, he seemed to Cambodia under newly elected political upheaval facilitated and fed the rise of have picked a side, angering anti-communist President Richard Nixon, though nationalist-communist groups in both nations, members of his government and dividing the these plans were kept quiet so as causing years of civil war and unrest. opinions of his populace. not to invite international outrage. Cambodia However, by the end of the 1960s These secret bombings, part of Sihanouk seemed to have changed Operation Menu, began in March Prince Norodom Sihanouk took a stance his mind again, feeling the effects 1970, and by the end of April 1970 of neutrality in the Vietnam War, though he of his break with Washington the use of American ground troops was didn\u2019t stop the communists of North Vietnam and the lack of aid from the approved, with South Vietnamese and from using bases or supply routes, allowing US. Wanting to regain some US forces beginning a full invasion of the continued movement of troops and semblance of neutrality, he Cambodia. The American invasion arms through Cambodia. Sensing looked to improve ties a shifting of power, in 1965 stirred support for the Cambodian Sihanouk forged a deal with communist movement, the Khmer China and North Vietnam, Rouge, by appealing to nationalist allowing northern forces full sentiments, claiming the United States was invading to take Cambodia for itself. This movement was only furthered by Lon Nol\u2019s takeover Khmer Rouge \ufb01ghters were armed and supported by North Vietnamese troops 110","Operation Dewey Canyon II preceded Lam Son, CAMBODIA AND LAOS: THE CARNAGE SPREADS clearing routes in South Vietnam The Ho Chi Minh trail ran through both Laos and Cambodia, providing supply routes for the PAVN in a 1970 coup and the creation of the anti- \u201cWith Pol Pot US troops arrive in a Cambodian communist Khmer Republic, forcing Sihanouk of the Khmer town aboard tanks in 1970 to take refuge in Beijing. Pro-American Nol Rouge the victor demanded the removal of North Vietnamese in Cambodia at troops, but at the request of the Khmer Rouge the end of the they instead launched their own invasion in Vietnam War, what had become a full-scale civil war. there was only more death Wanting to stop the spread of communism to follow\u201d in Cambodia, the US commenced Operation Freedom Deal, bombing the eastern half of Souphanouvong and backed by the Viet Minh. north. Following up with Operation Tiger Hound, the country between May 1970 and August In 1953, an invasion of 2,000 Pathet Lao and fire was focused on the Ho Chi Minh trail in an 1973, killing many civilians and leaving much 40,000 North Vietnamese troops claimed attempt to disrupt the supply route and block of Cambodia in ruins. And with Pol Pot of the territory in northeast Laos, beginning a civil war. off access to South Vietnam. Khmer Rouge the victor in Cambodia at the end of the Vietnam War, unfortunately there was The fighting came to a temporary halt Operation Lam Son 719 saw South only more death to follow. with the forming of a coalition government in Vietnamese troops crossing the border on 1957. However, the US was suspicious of the 8 February 1971 to sever the trail from the Laos Pathet Lao\u2019s communist ideals, fearing that if ground. American troops were prohibited from Laos was to fall to communism, neighbouring entering Laos so instead provided air support. Trouble was already brewing in Laos before the states would follow. Backing the Royal Lao Though good progress was made, destroying Vietnam War, with the Royal Lao Government Government and fracturing the fragile peace, supply caches and establishing bases along clashing with the communist Pathet Lao, a within a year the coalition had collapsed. the way, the South Vietnamese were met with guerrilla movement founded by Laotian Prince fierce resistance by the North. The South The Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese turned back on 9 March after taking Tchepone, forces strengthened their hold on Laos with though northern forces tried to cut them off. Images: Wiki; Getty another invasion in July 1958, fighting along Both sides would claim victory, though the huge the border. During this time, the Ho Chi Minh loss of life on both sides offset any gains. trail \u2013 a crucial supply route through Laos that linked North and South Vietnam \u2013 began to By the time the Pathet Lao took power in take shape, allowing much easier movement of 1975, one-tenth of the population had died troops and weapons for the communist forces. in the conflict, with twice as many wounded. Around 2 million tons of bombs were dropped Despite the 1962 signing of the International on the small nation between 1964 and 1973 Agreement on the Neutrality of Laos setting up in American campaigns, making Laos the most a second standstill, peace did not last. Instead, heavily bombed nation in history. With around a CIA-backed \u2018secret war\u2019 began in Laos. The 80 million bombs left unexploded, there are US launched an extended bombing campaign, casualties of the war even today. commencing with Operation Barrel Roll in the 111","STORY OF THE VIETNAM WAR VICTORY FOR THE NORTH 114 The Easter Offensive 114 With peace talks looming, the North took the chance to improve its negotiating position 118 The Paris Peace Accords The summit that enabled America to withdraw 120 The Fall of Saigon An eye witness recalls the day the North secured its hard-won victory 124 What if the US had won? Disneyland Saigon? A McDonald\u2019s on the Ho Chi Minh trail? What would a US triumph have meant for the people of Vietnam? 128 The legacy of the war How Vietnam healed after the guns fell silent 120 118 112","VICTORY FOR THE NORTH 124 128 113","DEADLOCK IN THE DEPTHS OF THE JUNGLE THE EASTER OFFENSIVE With American forces withdrawing, the North Vietnamese saw a chance to win the war and launched an all-out attack WORDS EDOARDO ALBERT 114","TTHHEESEIEAGSETEORFOKFHFEENSSAINVHE NVA artillery in action, bombarding Kon Tum T he Americans were sick of war. of defending itself against attacks from North Meanwhile, the ongoing talks in Paris were President Richard M. Nixon Vietnam after the American military had left. making little progress. Neither side was willing had won the 1968 presidential to concede on their demands. But after the election in part by promising However, while the peace talks were failure of the ARVN attack on Laos, the first \u2018peace with honour\u2019. With a new continuing in Paris, the government of North secretary of the North Vietnamese Communist Vietnam was preparing plans of its own. Party, Le Duan, concluded that a determined election due in November 1972, Nixon needed The armed forces of the South Vietnamese attack on the South would overthrow the government, known as the Army of the Republic government of President Thieu, forcing the to be seen to have delivered on his promise. of Vietnam (ARVN), had faced its first major test Americans to agree to North Vietnamese terms in February 1971 when it attempted to attack or return to the battlefield themselves \u2013 a To ensure that, Nixon\u2019s secretary of state, and destroy a major NVA supply dump across course of action that was clearly politically the border in Laos. impossible for President Nixon. So with Henry Kissinger, had opened peace talks in the political leadership of North Vietnam While the operation achieved some of convinced that military action could either end Paris with the North Vietnamese Government its aims, the part played by the ARVN was the war on their terms or at least give them characterised by confusion among the significantly more leverage at the bargaining while the American military presence in South commanders and timidity from front-line table, the NVA began planning for a major officers; it took huge American aerial support offensive in the South. Vietnam had been scaled down from 550,000 to extricate the ARVN forces. Although the president of South Vietnam, Nguyen Van Thieu, The assault began at noon on 30 March to 156,000 men by the start of 1972, with declared the attack a great success, Hanoi drew 1972, Good Friday in the Christian calendar a different lesson: that the ARVN was a paper (hence the name \u2018Easter Offensive\u2019). The NVA further troop reductions scheduled to reduce tiger that could be brushed aside. the number of American troops in the country to 70,000 by the spring. As the Americans removed their own troops, they were supplying and training the armed forces of the South Vietnamese Government in a process known as \u2018Vietnamisation\u2019. The idea was to ensure South Vietnam would be capable 115","VICTORY FOR THE NORTH An NVA T59 tank captured by the South Vietnamese. American air power was crucial in turning back the NVA Soviet supplies were crucial for the North Vietnamese attack, in particular targeting bridges and supply dumps had committed 14 divisions and hundreds of \u201cThe commander in charge of the defence of tanks to the assault, which was to have three main prongs. the Central Highlands, Lieutenant General Ngo The first, in the North, saw a force of 30,000 Dzu, began to crack under the unimaginable NVA soldiers and several hundred tanks cross the demilitarised zone (DMZ), which separated strain and became increasingly incapable of the North and South Vietnamese forces, and attack the string of ARVN strongholds making any decisions\u201d just South of the DMZ. General Vo Nguyen Giap, the commander of the NVA forces, was Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) therefore faced President Thieu sacked the general aiming to take the towns of Quang Tri and a three-pronged attack, one in the North, responsible for the devastating defeat, Hue, the old imperial capital. The plan was for another in the centre that threatened to cut the installed a replacement and rushed Southern this initial attack to suck South Vietnamese country in half, and a third in the South that reinforcements towards the North. Meanwhile, reinforcements up into the Northern provinces might bring Saigon into the firing line. It was a the weather gods turned against the NVA: the before following it up with further attacks into huge and difficult challenge for an army that clouds lifted and, with clear skies offering the central and Southern provinces. was only just finding its feet. ground visibility, the Americans were able to The second attack, into the Southern In the North, where the attack first began, unleash the full power of their air force upon provinces, began on 5 April. Three NVA the initial response was chaotic. ARVN forces the units of the NVA. divisions, operating from bases within fell back in disarray in front of an NVA assault Operating as a conventional army, with Cambodia, crossed the border and began that was much larger, more determined and tanks, logistics depots and truck convoys, their advance, with the town of An Loc better equipped than anything they had been the NVA was vulnerable to air attack and the as their immediate target. Should An Loc fall led to expect. The NVA had timed their attack American response was nothing short of to the NVA forces, the way would be open to coincide with a monsoon. The low cloud devastating. Waves of B-52 bombers dropped for an advance upon the South Vietnam base that accompanied the torrential rain payloads of bombs on critical NVA supply lines, capital of Saigon. hampered the main military element that while F-4 Phantoms and AC-119 and AC-130 The third phase of could have disrupted the advance: American gunships mounted low-level attacks on NVA the assault plan also airpower. However, ARVN forces began to troop concentrations and artillery bases. With began on 5 April. stabilise their line around Quang Tri with the American aerial support severely hampering \u2013 Two NVA divisions help of American military advisors. and in many cases destroying \u2013 NVA forces as operating from Laos Although American forces had been drawn they attempted to make their way to the front launched an attack into back from front-line combat duties, the newly line, the North Vietnamese attack stalled and the central provinces, instituted ARVN units had American advisors, finally halted on 5 May. with the city of Kon ostensibly to help with training and tactics. Meanwhile, the attacks in the central Tun as the initial target But, in the chaos of the retreat and in many and Southern provinces had also made and the eventual aim of hurried, makeshift defensive actions, the initial progress before being stymied by the thrusting through to \u2018advisors\u2019 became de-facto officers in the overwhelming American aerial response the coast and South Vietnamese army, issuing orders to and stiffening defence by the ARVN. The cutting South ARVN soldiers. In particular, Captain John commander in charge of the defence of the Vietnam Ripley and Major John Smock led the defence Central Highlands, Lieutenant General Ngo in two. and the mining of a crucial bridge carrying Dzu, began to crack under the unimaginable The Highway 1 over the Cua Viet River. However, strain and became increasingly incapable of Army NVA forces managed to bypass the bridge and, making any decisions. This indecision at the of the in conditions of increasing chaos, Quang Tri top of the chain of command was transmitted city was evacuated and ultimately fell to the downwards, and the ARVN units began to NVA on 2 May. disintegrate in the face of the NVA assault. The pathway to Hue now seemed to lay In these desperate circumstances, the General Vo Nguyen Giap, wide open for the NVA to march through. American military advisor John Paul Vann commander of the NVA forces during the Easter Offensive 116","THE EASTER OFFENSIVE An ARVN soldier with anti- tank rockets takes part in the defence of An Loc took over from The three-pronged NVA attack on South Vietnam in the \u00a9 Alamy; Wiki; Pixabay General Dzu and Easter Offensive of 1972 coordinated the defence himself, issuing orders that ARVN officers, Nguyen Van Thieu, President of who were desperate for more determined South Vietnam, in Hawaii for a and decisive leadership, were more than meeting with President Nixon happy to carry out. An ARVN machine-gun outpost Vann identified the city of Kon Tum as waits for the NVA attack the place where the ARVN would make its stand, and he personally helped organise its defences. The attack on Kon Tum commenced on 14 May, and the battle continued for nearly four agonising weeks until the ARVN forces, under Ly Tong Ba, a new and vigorous commanding officer, in concert with American airpower, forced the NVA to retreat. In the South, the NVA succeeded in cutting off and surrounding the city of An Loc. An initial assault on 21 April was repulsed and the NVA instead set about besieging the city, pounding it with artillery and mortars. The defenders could only be supplied by airdrops and 448 missions were flown over the city, dropping much-needed munitions and supplies. The battle became a classic siege but one in which the besiegers were subject to constant American air attacks. The NVA attempted a final attack on 14 May but the ARVN forces repulsed it. Elsewhere, American air attacks were wreaking havoc on NVA supply lines while, in response to the North Vietnamese attack, President Nixon authorised bombing raids on North Vietnam itself and the mining of its main supply port. \u2018Operation Linebacker\u2019, as the air interdiction was called, began to destroy the logistics hubs in North Vietnam that allowed the NVA to conduct the war in the South. With NVA supplies and ground troops being decimated, the ARVN launched its own counterattack, aiming to retake the areas conquered by the NVA. But while the South Vietnamese did manage to regain control of most of the territory they had lost to the North, the ARVN counterattack fizzled out, the South Vietnamese forces not yet having the experience and know-how to launch a successful offensive. In the end, the Easter Offensive did not achieve the aims that the North Vietnamese Government had hoped. The South Vietnamese Government was still intact, its army had, in the end, acquitted itself well in defending the country, and the Americans had demonstrated the strategic importance of airpower in denying the NVA the ability to move troops and material to the front lines. More than 100,000 men had been killed on both sides of the conflict, and with military options now stalled for the time being, both sides had no option but to return to negotiations, and so the Paris talks resumed. 117","VICTORY FOR THE NORTH THE PARIS PEACE ACCORDS The Paris Peace Accords provided the US with an escape route from an arduous war WORDS MICHAEL E. HASKEW 118","THE PARIS PEACE ACCORDS T heir political and ideological Diplomats sign the Paris Peace differences were substantial \u2013 at Accords on 27 January 1973 times seemingly insurmountable. However, a path to peace, to Nevertheless, in the spring of 1970 he ordered An American prisoner of war, \u00a9 Alamy; Getty; Wiki extricate the United States from a controversial incursion into neighbouring released under the Paris Peace the costly quagmire of the Vietnam War, had to Cambodia to eliminate guerrilla bases and Accords, salutes as he comes home be found. supply caches. Later, the president stepped up pressure on North Vietnam with Operation Substantive peace negotiations resumed on Years of virtually fruitless negotiations Linebacker, a sustained bombing campaign in 8 January 1973. A week later, President Nixon between the US and its South Vietnamese response to the communist Easter Offensive of announced a halt to American offensive action allies and the opposing shadow government 1972. In early May, Nixon attempted to jump- in Vietnam, and on 27 January representatives of the National Front for the Liberation of start the talks with a major concession. He signed the Paris Peace Accords at the historic South Vietnam (Viet Cong), along with its would agree to a ceasefire and the withdrawal Hotel Majestic. While the treaty allowed the US communist ally North Vietnam, had frustrated of American troops from South Vietnam while to exit the war, there was no lasting peace. the administration of President Lyndon B. allowing North Vietnamese troops in the South Johnson. The points of contention were to remain there. From the outset, both Vietnamese sides as prominent as the refusal of opposing violated the treaty\u2019s terms. The fighting Vietnamese governments to recognise the The sustained bombing and the failure of continued. Nixon assured Thieu that the US others\u2019 legitimacy and as apparently trivial as the Easter Offensive compelled the North would respond accordingly if the communists the type of table, round or rectangular, at which Vietnamese to negotiate in earnest, and by continued to flout the Accords, but these the negotiators would parlay. the autumn of 1972 a tentative agreement promises proved hollow \u2013 particularly as was reached. However, the South Vietnamese Nixon\u2019s presidency became embroiled in the At long last, however, the Paris Peace Government of President Nguyen Van Thieu Watergate Scandal. Accords, officially known as the Agreement rejected the terms, particularly the provisions on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in allowing communist troops to remain in the The North Vietnamese and Viet Cong Vietnam, were signed on 27 January 1973, South and recognising the Viet Cong provisional subsequently launched a full-scale offensive brokered principally by US national security government. Negotiations were suspended, in the South in March 1975. Within days, advisor and future secretary of state Henry and President Nixon authorised the \u201cChristmas organised resistance disintegrated, and on Kissinger and North Vietnamese Politburo Bombing\u201d of the North to force the communists 30 April the communists occupied Saigon, the member Le Duc Tho. The diplomats were to make concessions while threatening Thieu capital of the South. Images of communist awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for the with the interruption of military and diplomatic tanks bursting through the gates of the achievement, although Tho declined to aid to his shaky government. Presidential Palace and the last American accept. Among the major provisions were the personnel being lifted by helicopter from withdrawal of all American forces from Vietnam, rooftops while throngs of South Vietnamese repatriation of prisoners of war, clearing of panicked in the streets signalled the American mines from North Vietnamese ports, ignominious end of the Vietnam War, a dark withdrawal of foreign troops from neighbouring and convulsive chapter in America\u2019s history. Cambodia and Laos, and a ceasefire followed by precise delineation of zones of control in South Vietnam. The road to acceptable terms for American withdrawal from Vietnam through more than a decade of costly involvement had been frustrating at times, and though President Johnson had called a halt to Operation Rolling Thunder, an extensive bombing campaign against North Vietnam, in October 1968 to invigorate peace negotiations, little progress was made. American public opinion had already turned decidedly against the war, and the resulting turmoil greatly influenced Johnson\u2019s decision not to seek reelection that November. After taking office in January 1969, President Richard Nixon pursued public policies of peace with honour and \u2018Vietnamisation\u2019, increasingly handing over responsibility for their own defence to the South Vietnamese. For several reasons, Nixon also pursued a policy of detente; diplomatic overtures to improve relations with the Soviet Union and communist China. Among them was the hope that the Soviets and Chinese might exert pressure on North Vietnam to bring the war to an end. While negotiations in Paris lagged and worldwide media coverage conveyed a message of stalemate, Kissinger and Tho began their own sluggish discussions out of public view. Nixon initiated steady US troop withdrawals. 119","VICTORY FOR THE NORTH 120","EYE WITNESS THE FALL OF SAIGON, VIETNAM 30 APRIL 1975 WORDS BEN BIGGS B ack in March 1975, photographer with relative normality. DIRCK HALSTEAD Dirck Halstead was taking \u201cAs most books will snapshots of the rich and famous, acknowledge, until the Over the last staying in plush hotels and last week of the war, 50 years, living a \u201cphotographer\u2019s dream Saigon was remarkably award-winning assignment\u201d \u2013 but he wasn\u2019t happy. The war in unchanged. The bars photojournalist Vietnam had passed a pivotal point and now were still open, the great Dirck Halstead the scales had swung firmly in favour of the restaurants were still has worked for communist North Vietnamese army and the [serving]\u2026 The war still UPI and Time documenting Viet Cong. had not come to Saigon several wars, witnessing the and life went on very attempted assassination As they made their relentless march towards much as it had for most of two US presidents and Saigon, the Americans made plans to pull of the last 20 years. But accompanying Richard Nixon out. By 21 April, nine days before the final all you had to do was on his tour of China. One of evacuation, Dirck found himself back in the the biggest moments of his country that had nearly killed him several career, though, was being in years before, with what some from the outside Saigon in the spring of 1975, looking in might find an unusual perspective\u2026 when North Vietnam invaded. \u201cI have had a love-hate relationship with look at the map. The tide Vietnam for many, many years and this is not uncommon. I think if you ask most journalists was inexorable.\u201d that worked there they would say the same thing. Covering wars is about the most fun we Nine days before the final evacuation, Dirck get to do, because even though they can be terrifying, the emotional highs that come with boarded a helicopter to a point on the Saigon- it are equally extreme. I\u2019m not sure that you would find as many fans of covering wars these Bien Hoa Highway where he would see some days as you did then, because now wars are not fought in fun places generally. \u2018bang-bang\u2019. A single ARVN battalion was \u201cVietnam was the exception to that. Vietnam holding back the entire North Vietnamese army was a fun place to be. The food was absolutely wonderful, it was sophisticated. Cocktail at a village called Xuan Loc. \u201cI would say that in hour sitting on top of the Continental Palace or the roof of the Caravelle [both hotels] was that month leading up to the collapse you had wonderful. So there were a lot of creature comforts in Vietnam that other wars did not plenty of chances for excitement \u2013 if you want have. I think that for me it was a formative experience journalistically, as wars are for to put it that way. There were opportunities to many journalists.\u201d get onto helicopters, go into places like Xuan Saigon had been distanced from the front lines for two decades and, with US Ambassador Loc. Everybody wanted to do that \u2013 in fact, I Graham Martin planning to evacuate Americans and refugees under the radar, life went on nearly came to blows with a Time magazine correspondent over getting on a helicopter to Xuan Loc.\u201d At the village, Dirck had a close call. Xuan Loc had been torn apart and was eerily quiet, with just a few friendlies cowering in their nearby foxholes. But as their military escort, led by General Le Minh Dao, moved down the road looking for survivors, gunfire split the air around them and the village erupted. Their escort fled into the only Chinook helicopter available, leaving Dirck and a number of press wondering if that was going to be the end of the war for them, until the chopper returned an hour later to take them away from danger, just \u201cThe invasion had begun in earnest, with gunships streaking across rooftops, gunfire and explosions on the streets\u2019\u2019 121","VICTORY FOR THE NORTH \u201cThey hung around the embassy in throngs, of some of the city\u2019s most opulent houses traded in their properties for a pittance, while trying to squeeze onto the two black the cost of an American visa rocketed. While buses or over the walls\u201d on the streets, a less salubrious scene was playing out: American workers swept down upon young Vietnamese women desperate as the North Vietnamese armoured division to get out by the dozen and the US embassy was bearing down on them. As strange as simply allowed them to sign affidavits vouching it might seem, even at this point Dirck was for their support for these women \u2013 effectively, more embroiled in the unfolding story than in in Dirck\u2019s words, \u201csubsidising a whole flock fear for his life: \u201cI had great confidence in the of instant pimps\u201d. He continued: \u201cCivilians capabilities of the military to get us out of there did everything they could to get out of there when the time came. All of us were privy to the somehow, calling on any help that they could planning, so we knew that at a certain time we find \u2013 especially among the Americans \u2013 to had to assemble at a given point, get picked up escape. Their situation was desperate, but, of by a bus or put on a helicopter. There was no course, we\u2019re professional journalists so we anxiety on that score. don\u2019t get desperate \u2013 we just get more into \u201cWe were all busy and every day the noose the story.\u201d The same day an explosion tore tightened on Saigon. So if you wanted to go see apart the presidential suite in the Majestic some bang-bang, you just had to go a little way Hotel, marking the end of a 40-month period up the highway. The great thing was that even without incident in Saigon. Meanwhile, in the during the last week when, literally, the fighting North Vietnamese compound in Tan Son Nhut was on the bridges coming into Saigon, we still Air Base, the weekly press conference still met for cocktail hour in the Continental Palace went ahead. The representatives from Hanoi terrace. It was very strange.\u201d and its chief spokesman, Colonel Ba, were The climax in the days leading up to Saigon\u2019s answering questions from the gaggle of press final hour was intense. By 27 April, the weight gathered there. Anticipation was ripe and one of the 100,000-strong communist PAVN of the questions repeatedly put to the colonel (People\u2019s Army of Vietnam) was at Saigon\u2019s was who would be safe if they stayed in the outskirts. In the city itself, the fear was that city once it was taken, to which Colonel Ba\u2019s the massacre that had occurred in the city of ambiguous answer was, \u201cAnyone who earns an Hue, perpetrated by the PAVN as the front line honest living will be welcome.\u201d retreated in 1968, would happen again as the Despite the ominous-sounding words of the Flames erupt from a smouldering Americans withdrew. Flights full of refugees North Vietnamese colonel, Dirck remained tank as North Vietnamese troops fleeing to American soil \u2013 both legal and illegal unperturbed. \u201cThe only personal decision that storm the city of Saigon \u2013 poured out of Tan Son Nhut Air Base, owners I felt was incumbent on me to make was the basic one: do I stay or do I go? BIEN HOA There were strong reasons for both options. In my case, because I was The city of Bien Hoa was linked to a contract photographer, I did not Saigon by two major highways. It was necessarily have to go along with a South Vietnamese and American any decision that Time magazine stronghold for most of the war. made, though it was strongly recommended I did. XUAN LOC ATTENTION FROM \u201cAll the staff people, with the exception of the Associated Press The village of Xuan Loc was the THE NORTH \u2013 I think [there had been] an order last stronghold for the ARVN from their New York offices \u2013 had to 18th Infantry Division and the Having conquered Hanoi leave and expedite the evacuation staging point for the PAVN\u2019s and North Vietnam, a of all Vietnamese nationals working advance on Saigon. new Cold War front is for them.\u201d established at the northern TAN SON NHUT AIR BASE border to China, whose The next day, the invasion had government feels threatened begun in earnest, with gunships Saigon\u2019s main air base was used by the US-allied Vietnam. streaking across the rooftops, both as the evacuation point to gunfire and explosions on the the awaiting American ships and streets. Though most of the a press conference venue for the Western press bureaus had cleared North Vietnamese leadership. their people, there still remained a thinning contingent of \u2018die-hard Westerners\u2019 \u2013 predominantly journalists and government officials, clinging on until the very last chopper out of there. Dirck himself was approached by a Vietnamese colleague \u2013 his darkroom man \u2013 trying to get his 122","THE FALL OF SAIGON family out. He told him to fetch his family and the city and clearing the last of the South THE DAY SAIGON meet him back there, but the word to evacuate Vietnamese resistance. Nevertheless, it wasn\u2019t WAS INVADED\u2026 came over the radio as soon as he had gone \u2013 about to let the Americans go without a little \u201cThe temperature is 105 and rising\u201d \u2013 leaving encouragement. Tan Son Nhut Air Base had 03.45AM l Frequent Wind ends Dirck with little choice but to rush for the buses already come under attack and, while the The refugee evacuation \u2013 to the air base without his workmate. helicopters landed to pick up the remaining press workers and civilians, the Marines Operation Frequent Wind Here, the sheer plight of those unable to guarding the compound came under a rain of escape became most apparent. They hung mortar fire. The Swift 22 chopper finally came \u2013 which had started the day around the embassy in throngs, trying to for Dirck, taking him out of Saigon to the safety squeeze onto the two black buses or over of a nearby US command ship. before on 29 April, is halted the walls to the embassy compound while US Marines pushed them back. \u201cThe evacuation for me involved three 03.50AM l The American different ships. The first helicopter that took 04.00AM ambassador Graham When they couldn\u2019t get on the buses, they me out landed me on the USS Blue Ridge, Martin is ordered surged in front, forming a line that blocked its which was the command ship. That\u2019s where a to evacuate path. With a Marine barking in his face, telling lot of the high-profile people like [Ambassador] him to \u201cMove it!\u201d while pressing a handgun into Graham Martin were \u2013 they all landed on the l PAVN 324th his neck, the driver had no choice but to drive Blue Ridge. But the problem with that was Division the bus straight into the mayhem, inevitably that it had no fixed-wing capability, so now my starts to crushing several unfortunate people before whole race was to get this film that was sitting enter Saigon it had cleared the crowd. Well aware of the in the middle of the South China Sea to the final stages of the American withdrawal, the Philippines and then to New York. That was 04.30AM l No more Vietnamese PAVN was focusing its attention on securing a real challenge and we had to petition the evacuees allowed skipper of the Blue Ridge to get us off there, so Under a barrage of explosions, the Marines loaded that we could get to a carrier. 05.00AM l Martin escapes American and Vietnamese civilians, who feared for Ambassador Martin leaves the their lives, on to helicopters that brought them to \u201cI had been forbidden to leave the Blue waiting aircraft carriers Ridge, so when a helicopter came in from the US embassy for a US Navy Coral Sea to deposit some officers, I made a break for it. They were shouting, \u201cStop that ship in the South China Sea man!\u201d, I jumped on the helicopter and yelled at the pilot to get me off there. 06.00AM l PAVN moves into 07.00AM Saigon en masse \u201c[Saigon] is right up there [as a defining moment in my career]. The Nixon trip to China 07.53AM l Final civilians was the biggest story because there was 10.24AM and officials so much competition to get on it and I was leave via the fortunate enough to be selected as one of six Tan Son Nhut photographers to go on that trip. Everything was Air Base brand new and so historic\u2026 But looking back, I feel I was very blessed to have been able to l The majority of embassy go down this path and be there as history was Marines evacuate the being made in Vietnam.\u201d city via helicopter just before 8am l South surrenders President Minh announces South Vietnam\u2019s surrender over the radio, calling for an end to \u2018unnecessary bloodshed\u2019 11.30AM l Ambassador Martin lands safely on the USS Blue Ridge 12.00PM l Independence Palace falls as tanks crash through the gates 12.15PM l New flag \u00a9 Corbis; Alamy; Getty; Ian Moores Graphics North Vietnam raises its colours \u2013 the \ufb02ag of the Viet Cong \u2013 over the palace 13.30PM l Final five Marines are rescued from the city 16.00PM l All American ships leave for home Dirck Halstead on an evacuation ship in the South China Sea as Saigon falls to North Vietnamese troops in April 1975 123","VICTORY FOR THE NORTH WHAT IF... THE US HAD WON THE VIETNAM WAR? VIETNAM, 1955\u20131975 WRITTEN BY CALUM WADDELL DR ANDREW WIEST What would have happened if the United Would they have become involved States had won the Vietnam War? in more conflicts? Dr Andrew There are a lot of academics and historians Yes, I think the US would have been much less Wiest currently who look at Vietnam as a part of something gun-shy during the 1970s and 1980s. Reagan lectures at much bigger \u2013 namely the Cold War. So if the tinkered with it, but that use of force to solve the University US had won, the Cold War would probably conflicts didn\u2019t really come back until the first of Southern have ended a little sooner and the dawn of Bush and then with Bill Clinton. The reason Mississippi and that unilateral superpower controlling things the US did not rely on its military, on any great is the founding would have come quicker. In Southeast scale at least, to solve problems during the director of the Dale Centre Asia, everything would be radically different 1970s and the 1980s was all down to the for War and Society. His \u2013 including a faster and more thorough country\u2019s failure in Vietnam. books include The Boys Of confrontation between the US and China. \u201967: Charlie Company\u2019s War In I doubt China would have sat by and let an When the Vietnam War began to Vietnam, Vietnam\u2019s Forgotten American victory happen without repercussion cross into Cambodia it created the Army: Heroism And Betrayal \u2013 even though they were not exactly fans of the environment in which Pol Pot and the In The ARVN and Vietnam: A Vietnamese either. I don\u2019t think Beijing would Khmer Rouge came to power. What View From The Front Lines. He have invaded Vietnam to repel the Americans, resulted was a four-year holocaust. has also organised trips for as they did in Korea, but it certainly would have Could this have been avoided? Vietnam veterans suffering been the US against China and Russia. And it If the US was ever going to win the Vietnam from PTSD to visit the country would have been a war that was not just cold War it would have been during the Tet Offensive they once fought in. Wiest has but glacial. American politics would certainly of 1968. That was the turning point and that developed a \u2018study abroad\u2019 have been more tumultuous as well. was when the public, back in the United States, programme for US students saw the North Vietnamese were not just going wishing to soak up life in If you look at the US presidential elections to retreat and surrender \u2013 it was literally a fight Saigon or Hanoi. since the 1960s, every one of them has been to the death. fought over Vietnam to one extent or another. 124 It is still the most controversial aspect of a Of course, there was no big, magical controversial time period. Had they come American victory during Tet, but let\u2019s imagine out of that smiling, with another greatest there was. Let\u2019s imagine the US had repelled generation on their hands, US politics would that attack quickly and conclusively and the war have looked quite different. For instance, it is was essentially over as a result. At that point hard to see the Republican revolution taking in time, the Khmer Rouge was not a big player place. Republicans typically have an aggressive in the conflict. It is only after the US began foreign policy, it is one of their tropes, but its military incursions into Cambodia and the if Democratic policy had won in Vietnam \u2013 government in that country began to fall that because it was the Democrats who started the everything became out of hand. A victorious war in Southeast Asia \u2013 that would have taken US in Vietnam would not have required any a lot of heat away from their rivals. entrance into Cambodia and, as a result, you","WHAT IF THE US HAD WON THE VIETNAM WAR? If the US campaign in Vietnam had proven successful, we might have seen an even greater in\ufb02ux of American in\ufb02uence than has already happened 125","VICTORY FOR THE NORTH A SUCCESSFUL CHINA almost certainly would not have seen CAMPAIGN the rise of the Khmer Rouge. They are ATTENTION FROM THE NORTH intrinsically tied to how the Vietnam War BURMA NORTH VIETNAM Having conquered Hanoi and North progressed, no doubt about that. Vietnam, a new Cold War front is established at the northern border to Would we ever have seen a situation like China, whose government feels threatened in Korea where the communist North and by the US-allied Vietnam. the democratic South are split down the middle, even to this day? LAOS No, that was never going to happen. One side was going to reunify the country, no matter IN THE THAILAND A REVERSAL OF FORTUNE what. So if there was a big American victory, CAMBODIA A successful defence of the Tet one situation you have is reunification under BALANCE Offensive in January 1968 spurs non-communist rule. As a result of that, the the US-backed South across the turn towards Asia the US is presently taking With two demilitarized zone into North would have happened then as opposed to now. superpowers Vietnam, resulting in a Westernised, We would have had an immediate conflict with next door to each uni\ufb01ed Vietnam. China. Unlike the North Koreans, the North other, Laos and Vietnamese were much less likely to accept Thailand become ATROCITIES AVERTED the scenario where the country remained fair game for the By avoiding a campaign in Cambodia, split. If you look at their leadership, and their US and China\u2019s the Khmer Rouge don\u2019t gain traction pronouncements and their goals, they were not race for in\ufb02uence in the country, avoiding the genocide going to go for a \u2018tie\u2019. and allegiance in under Pol Pot that would otherwise Southeast Asia. have taken place. Cambodia is In addition, the tactical situation in Vietnam stronger as a result. was much trickier. This is because the border between North and South Vietnam is so long SOUTH VIETNAM and porous that it would be very difficult to police \u2013 and that is why you had the Ho Chi \u201cIf the US was ever going to win the Minh trail, the excursions into Cambodia and Vietnam War it would have been during Laos and all of that other stuff. So it might be the Tet Offensive of 1968\u201d convenient to think that we could replay the Korean War and end Vietnam with a stalemate, but that was never going to happen. People forget the wanted reunification too \u2013 just under different circumstances. If John F. Kennedy had not been assassinated, would the Vietnam War have been avoided? That is a controversial question. There have HOW WOULD IT BE l The Geneva Conference DIFFERENT? France agrees to the decolonisation of Vietnam. Free elections are promised, but the US suspects the communist Ho Chi Minh may win. It installs a brutal dictator, Ngo Dinh Diem, in South Vietnam. He is viewed by Ho Chi Minh and the North as a puppet ruler. 21 July 1954 Real timeline Real timeline l Assassination of Dinh Diem Diem \u2013 whose anti-Buddhist 1945 l Ho Chi Minh contacts policies famously caused President Truman the monk Thich Quang Duc l Vietnamese Declaration The Vietnamese to immolate himself \u2013 is of Independence revolutionary writes to murdered in a brutal but Based on the American Truman asking him to mysterious coup d\u2019\u00e9tat. Declaration of \u201curgently interfere\u201d in the Independence, Ho Chi Minh foreign rule of his country. 2 November 1963 asks the US and the West Truman fears Vietnam to oppose French colonial becoming communist and Alternative timeline l US reunites Korea rule in Vietnam and support instead backs the French. Fears that China would support what will be \u201ca free and the North prove unfounded. The independent country\u201d. 28 February 1946 US manages to push back the 2 September 1945 comparatively minimal army of Kim Il-sung and successfully reunites the two Koreas. Seoul aligns itself as a Western-friendly government. 27 July 1953 126","WHAT IF THE US HAD WON THE VIETNAM WAR? A man suspected of supporting the Viet Cong is arrested and detained A convoy of US by US troops tanks in Vietnam been so many arguments about this \u2013 and, all guns blazing. You have to remember that Had he lived longer, with all of his clout, I think of course, Kennedy\u2019s legacy is such a sacred both Kennedy and Johnson faced the post- that is the best chance we would have had to thing in the States that it is political kryptonite World War II consensus: to fight a difficult, avoid starting a war out there. to touch it. The pro-Kennedy forces argue he problematic and long war against what they wanted to withdraw most of the 16,000 military perceived as a communist threat or to embark Vietnam is now awash with KFC advisors that were over there. However, before on social changes back home \u2013 in particular restaurants, Coca-Cola, multiplexes and Kennedy there were only 600 military advisors the civil-rights movement. I believe Kennedy other examples of American pop culture. over there. He had begun a war over there and was also going to veer toward the civil-rights So who really won the war? I think there are two things that still would have movement \u2013 just as Johnson did. But I don\u2019t Well, that is the thing \u2013 they are now America\u2019s hamstrung him even if he wanted out. think you get both \u2013 civil rights and the end of staunch allies. It shows that, first of all, as Vietnam. That mixture would have brought the Sun Tzu said, the best tool to win a war is not The first is that he still wanted his political Democrats down at the voting booth. always the military. It was American culture party to win another term, and if the Democrats that eventually prevailed. If you look at things had wiped their hands of Vietnam there is a Is there any way you can see that the like Rambo and all these other Hollywood good chance they would not have achieved Vietnam War may have been avoided? movies that attempted to justify the conflict, that. The second is that Kennedy wanted Asking anyone to do the right thing back then it is obvious how much impact it had on the his brother to be the next man in the White was difficult. Had Franklin Roosevelt lived, US. But it was just a blip on the radar to the House. To mess that up, by handing Vietnam maybe things could have been avoided. He Vietnamese. It cost them many more lives, to the communists, would have sunk this. I had a guy on his team who was a communist, but it was all part of a bigger struggle for would also argue that Robert McNamara, who namely Stalin, and Roosevelt was not a fan independence. Today, Vietnam has a huge was Kennedy\u2019s confidant in the first place of European colonialism. So he may have young generation and this is all ancient history and the architect of the Vietnam War, was sided with Ho Chi Minh\u2019s desire to have an to them. They have moved on, but ironically it is going to give him the same advice he gave independent Vietnam, free from French rule. the face of the US they now buy into. Lyndon B. Johnson \u2013 which was to go in with l Gulf of Tonkin fabrication l The My Lai Massacre l Paris Peace Accords l Fall of Saigon North Vietnamese ships are At My Lai, families are raped, Nixon\u2019s government agrees to The war ends with the North reported to have fired on a US tortured and killed by US soldiers. a cease-fire, with US ground Vietnamese taking Saigon patroller, the Maddox, in the South Lieutenant William Calley, who troops and POWs returning by force and celebrating a China Sea. President Johnson instigated the horror, walks home. The reunification of reunified country. Ho Chi Minh, uses the event to justify going free, but world opinion becomes Vietnam is now a matter who died in 1969, remains a to war. Declassified documents opposed to \u2018America\u2019s war\u2019. between the respective Saigon national icon. Saigon is now later confirmed that no attack 16 March 1968 and Hanoi governments. known as Ho Chi Minh City. happened. 2 August 1964 27 January 1973 30 April 1975 l Tet Offensive l Ho Chi Minh at the UN l Gulf of Tonkin fabrication l Failed Tet Offensive On Vietnamese New Year, the Ho Chi Minh gives a rousing Johnson, respecting Kennedy\u2019s The North Vietnamese conduct North surprises the South with speech at the UN, but with opposition to communism a failed attempt to take a sudden offensive. The city of the new Korea becoming in Asia and Latin America, Saigon, Hue and other cities Hue witnesses extensive \ufb01ghting. an international trading fabricates the Gulf of Tonkin in South Vietnam. Forewarned South Vietnam and its allies partner, Western nations side incident to justify entering the about the attack, the US Army suffer drastic losses. with the US on Vietnamese war in Vietnam. quickly repels their enemies. 30 January \u2013 3 March 1968 reunification. December 1956 2 August 1964 30 January \u2013 14 February 1968 l Free elections l Fixed elections? l Kennedy\u2019s speech l Cambodia\u2019s involvement l Fall of Hanoi \u00a9 Daniel Sinoca; Dreamstime Pressured into elections, US fears come true and Ho Chi President Eisenhower releases a Concluding with how close the The White House offers to On Ho Chi Minh\u2019s birthday, Minh becomes president of Vietnam. However, believing statement claiming that, \u201cAfter an world came to nuclear war supply Cambodia\u2019s Communist the North Vietnam capital this would expose the South Vietnamese to communist rule, extensive CIA investigation we can during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Party of Kampuchea guerrilla collapses under the military the Eisenhower government argues the elections were fixed. reveal the elections in Vietnam President Kennedy affirms that fighters in aid and arms if might of the US army. The January 1956 were rigged.\u201d South Vietnam is all communist countries must be they can offer the US details war is over. China becomes to continue with a \u2018democratic\u2019 treated as rogue states. Military of the Ho Chi Minh trail supply so concerned that Mao regime headed by an interim involvement is increased heavily route. The deal is only revealed immediately agrees to a trade coalition of allied countries. in Vietnam. decades later. pact with Coca-Cola. March 1956 October 1962 August 1967 19 May 1968 127","VICTORY FOR THE NORTH THE LEGACY OF THE WAR Vietnam\u2019s road to recovery would start with reuni\ufb01cation and re-education WORDS NIKOLE ROBINSON W ith the fall of Saigon on 30 these casualties on the \u2018winning\u2019 side, if on boats, continuing into the 1990s as the April 1975, North Vietnam you could call it that. Millions more were left new government and economy struggled to emerged victorious in a war scarred \u2013 both physically and mentally \u2013 by a stabilise. Around 800,000 of these so-called that had ravaged both sides war that had seen the entire country become \u2018boat people\u2019 reached a safe haven between for almost two decades. The a battleground. Around 3 million people had 1975 and 1995, though the dangers of fighting had taken a huge toll. Cities, villages no job to return to at the end, and almost overcrowded boats, storms and piracy meant and farmlands had all been decimated by 900,000 children lost their parents. many never made it, with between 200,000 bombings, mortar fire and landmines \u2013 with and 400,000 refugees lost at sea. many of these still live, posing further danger As tanks bulldozed through the gates of long after the war. The weaponisation of Independence Palace, the South Vietnamese With the surrender of the South, the napalm left the lush greenery of Vietnam seat of power, there was a mass exodus of North consolidated power with the People\u2019s blackened and burnt, while use of the chemical South Vietnamese officials, soldiers and Revolutionary Party of South Vietnam, forming herbicide Agent Orange and other deadly other refugees, fleeing in desperation from the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV). They concoctions had infected food and water the repercussions of their opposition to the officially reunified the two halves of the country supplies across the country. North. US troops that hadn\u2019t deserted Vietnam on 2 July 1976, creating the Socialist Republic two years previously played a huge part in of Vietnam. Hanoi became its capital, while The human cost of the conflict was also evacuations, and almost 140,000 refugees Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City in high. It\u2019s estimated that 2 million civilians lost were relocated to the US as part of Operation honour of the revolutionary leader. The CPV\u2019s their lives, while around 1.3 million Vietnamese New Life. Others escaped across the border main goal was to build a strong and prosperous soldiers died for their country, with most of into neighbouring Thailand. Most refugees left socialist state in the image of North Vietnam. 128","THE LEGACY OF THE WAR A soldier views photographs of the Fall of Saigon An all-female team searches for unexploded mines in Vietnam, January 2020 Refugees \ufb02eeing Saigon as a Northern victory begins to look increasingly likely A Vietnamese-American pays his respects at a memorial near Little Saigon in California Renamed Reunification Palace, this was the former seat of power for the Republic of Vietnam However, the war left many obstacles for this The economy had suffered greatly after bringing them into the hands of the state. All images \u00a9 Getty new government to overcome. years of military spending, and when the CPV Former owners were forcefully relocated to came into power inflation was running up to \u2018New Economic Zones\u2019, many of which were Although the National Social Democratic 900 per cent. Though the US had promised to sparsely populated mountainous forests with Front had been dissolved, a considerable pay $3.5 billion in reconstruction aid, with its poor living conditions. Rural families were number of its supporters remained. The CPV pride stung after the South\u2019s defeat, this never organised into agricultural collectives, though feared these loyalists \u2013 who had been fed materialised. The US made life even harder with little profit to be made and surplus anti-communist propaganda for years \u2013 would for the CPV by demanding it pay back millions produce expected to be handed over for form a reactionary insurgency and try to seize borrowed by the old government and imposing redistribution, there wasn\u2019t a lot of incentive for back power. Members of the old government a trade embargo, making imports and exports farmers to work hard. who had not fled were replaced and sent on with the US and its allies impossible. Later \u2018retraining\u2019 courses to better align them with involvement in Cambodia against the vicious With inflation creeping back up, food communist ideals. Khmer Rouge incurred the wrath of China, shortages and strict rationing, it was clear leaving Vietnam with few allies who could socialist measures were failing. In 1986, new South Vietnamese Army officers and provide aid in this crucial time of recovery. leadership turned towards the creation of a soldiers were also told to report for reform socialism-oriented market economy with the and retraining. Those of higher rank or viewed Despite this, the CPV put an emphasis on Doi Moi economic reforms, allowing small as suspicious were sent to re-education reconstruction and the construction of industry factories, businesses and farms to operate for camps, which implemented hard labour, brutal and developing agriculture. They nationalised profit. This would truly allow Vietnam to begin discipline and dire conditions. Some were held businesses and confiscated private property, to heal, but not without a little corruption. without formal charges for over 18 years. 129","THE VIETNAM WAR IN NUMBERS Gravestone: Francielly_Costantin_Senra 2 MILLION Skull icon: Ruedi Luthi; Flag: Derek_Williams_Green Skull icon: Ruedi Luthi; US Flags: Thanga Vignesh, Linseed Studio Soldiers: ProSymbols 58,200 VIETNAMESE CIVILIANS KILLED US AND CANADIAN FATALITIES 1,100,000 VIETNAMESE AND VIET CONG SOLDIERS KILLED Bombs: Adrien Coquet 7.5 Bombs: Adrien Coquet 260 MILLION MILLION 2,709,918 CLUSTER BOMBS AMERICANS SERVED BOMBS IN VIETNAM DROPPED ON VIETNAM DROPPED ON LAOS BY THE US Medal: Adrien Coquet 240 Magnifying glass: Haykam 70% Hands: Adrien Coquet UNITED 1,611 OF US TROOPS All icons provided under Creative Commons STATES KILLED WERE SOLDIERS VOLUNTEERS RECEIVED THE MEDAL AMERICANS STILL OF HONOR UNACCOUNTED FOR","Getty Images","STORY OF THE VIETNAM WAR UNCOVER THE CONFLICT THAT TORE TWO NATIONS APART 9021 BIRTH OF VIETNAM THE PATH TO WAR How the country of Vietnam was shaped Fearing the spread of communism, by invasions and insurrections the US decided to intervene 9000 THE TET OFFENSIVE FALL OF SAIGON Determined to drive the US back, the The seizure of the South\u2019s capital spelled Viet Cong unleashed a stunning assault victory for the forces of the North"]