The FReeper Foxhole Revisits Tet 1968 - Jan. 31st, 2004

http://members.fortunecity.com/stalinmao/Vietnam/VietnamWar/tet.html ^

[snippy_about_it]

Lord,

Keep our Troops forever in Your care

Give them victory over the enemy...

Grant them a safe and swift return...

Bless those who mourn the lost.
.

FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer
for all those serving their country at this time.


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TET OFFENSIVE


1968

Tet: The Turning Point

Four-star General Vo Nguyen Giap led Vietnam's armies from their inception, in the 1940s, up to the moment of their triumphant entrance into Saigon in 1975. Possessing one of the finest military minds of this century, his strategy for vanquishing superior opponents was not to simply outmaneuver them in the field but to undermine their resolve by inflicting demoralizing political defeats with his bold tactics.

Giap was prepared to take a gamble. His divisions had been battered whenever they met the American forces in conventional combat and the VC- if not exactly on the retreat -was at least being pushed backwards. Hanoi was perfectly aware of the growing US peace movement and of the deep divisions the war was causing in American society. What Giap needed was a body-blow that would break Washington's will to carry on and at the same time would undermine the growing legitimacy of the Saigon Government once and for all.

In one sense, time was not on Giap's side. While Hanoi was sure that the Americans would tire of the war as the French had before them, the longer it took, the stronger the Saigon Government might become. Another year or so of American involvement could seriously damage the NLF and leave the ARVN capable of dealing with its enemies on its own. Giap opted for a quick and decisive victory that would be well in time for the 1968 US Presidential campaign.



Giap prepared a bold thrust on two fronts. With memories of the victory at Dien Bien Phu still in his mind, he planned an attack on the US Marines' firebase at Khe Sanh. At the same time the NVA and the NLF planned coordinated attacks on virtually all South Vietnam's major cities and provincial capitals. If the Americans opted to defend Khe Sanh, they would find themselves stretched to the limit when battles erupted elsewhere throughout the South. Forced to defend themselves everywhere at once, the U~ARVN forces would suffer a multitude of small to major defeats which would add up to an overall disaster. Khe Sanh would distract the attention of the US commanders while the NVA/VC was preparing for D-day in South Vietnam's cities but, when this full offensive was at its height, it was unlikely that the over-stretched American forces would be able to keep the base from being overrun and Giap would have repeated his triumph of fourteen years before.

It's highly doubtful that the NVA/VC expected to hold all or even some of the cities and towns they attacked, but the NLF apparently did expect large sections of the urban populace to rise up in revolt. With a few exceptions, this didn't happen. South Vietnam's city dwellers were generally indifferent to both the NLF and the Saigon Government but the VC clearly expected more support than it actually got. The object of attacking the cities was not so much to win in a single blow as it was to inflict a series of humiliating defeats on the Americans and to destroy the authority of the Saigon Government.

When the US/ARVN forces finally drove the NVA/VC back into the jungle, there would be left behind a wasteland of rubble, refugees, and simmering discontent. Stung by their defeats, the Americans would lose heart for the war and what was left of the Saigon Government would be forced to reach an agreement with the NLF and Hanoi which - after a time - would simply take over in the South. This offensive would begin in January 1968 at the time of the Vietnamese Tet (New Year) holidays.



The village of Khe Sanh lay in the northwest corner of South Vietnam just below the DMZ and close to the Laotian border. Khe Sanh had been garrisoned by the French during the first Indochina war and became an important US Special Forces base early on during the second. Its importance lay in its proximity to the Ho Chi Minh Trail. From Khe Sanh, US artillery could shell the trail and observers could keep an eye on NVA traffic moving southwards. If necessary they could call in air-strikes or alert CIA/Meo raiding parties across the border in Laos. Special Forces working with local Montagnard tribesmen also harried NVA traffic in the area and were a definite nuisance to Hanoi. In 1967, the Marines took over Khe Sanh and converted it into a large fire base. The Special Forces moved their base to the Montagnard village of Lang Vei.



Towards the end of 1967, it was obvious that Giap was planning something. Broadcasts from Hanoi were speaking of great victories and of taking the war into the cities of South Vietnam. Two NVA divisions- the 325th and the 304th were spotted moving into the Khe Sanh area and a third was positioning itself along Rout#9 where it would be able to intercept reinforcements coming in from Quang Tn. The two NVA divisions near Khe Sanh had fought at Dien Bien Phu and the warning was clear. Westmoreland picked up the gauntlet and began to reinforce the base despite predictions of upcoming bad weather which could hinder air support and interfere with vital supply planes.

Appearances to the contrary, Westmoreland had no intention of duplicating the French mistakes at Dien Bien Phu. American airpower was capable of delivering devastating attacks on concentrations of enemy troops and - apart from anti-aircraft guns - was unopposed. Helicopters and parachute drops by low-flying cargo planes reduced the dependence on re-supply by road.



By late January, some 6,000 Marines had been flown in to reinforce the Khe Sanh garrison and thousands of reinforcements had been moved north of Hue. The NVA build-up also continued; 20,000 North Vietnamese were ultimately moved in around Khe Sanh but other estimates put the number at twice that. Initially, Giap would position his artillery in the DMZ and then send his assauIt troops against the fortified hills surrounding Khe Sanh which the Marines had captured in the dogged fighting in 1967.

Having captured the hill positions, Giap reasoned, the NVA artillery could be moved onto the heights above the beleaguered base. Then - as happened at Dien Bien Phu - waves of determined infantry would steadily grind away until the defenders were pushed into a corner and finally over-run. The White House and the US media became convinced that the decisive battle of the war had begun. TV news reports were so obsessed with Giap's threatened replay of Dien Bien Phu that day-to-day life at Khe Sanh became lead-story material even when it showed nothing other than anxious Marines waiting for something to happen.



The first attack began shortly before dawn on January 21st, when the NVA attempted to cross the river running past the base. It was beaten back but followed by an artillery barrage which damaged the runway, blew up the main ammunition stores, and damaged a few aircraft. Secondary attacks were launched against the Special Forces' defenses at Lang Vel and against the Marines dug-in on the hills surrounding Khe Sanh but these attacks were aimed more attesting the defenses than anything else. The next day, helicopters and light cargo aircraft flew in virtually every few minutes replacing lost ammunition but the weather began turning worse.



The NVA began a concentrated artillery barrage and moved their troops forward to begin building a network of entrenched positions in which they could prepare for further assaults on Khe Sanh's outer defenses. Anti-aircraft guns and the worsening weather made incoming supply flights difficult running skirmishes designed to break through on Route#9. Air and supporting US forces moved-up to engage the NVA in running skirmishes around Khe Sanh and were intensified and despite the weather- pounded the North Vietnamese hour after hour.

Electronic sensors of the types running along the McNamara Line surrounded Khe Sanh. Seismic and highly sensitive listening devices enabled the Americans to monitor everything from normal conversations to radio communications. Overhead, high-flying signal-intelligence (SIGINT) aircraft intercepted communications traffic over the entire front and to and from command centers in North Vietnam. While the world was watching the drama unfolding at Khe Sanh, however, NVA and VC regulars were also drifting into Saigon, Hue, and most of South Vietnam's cities.



They came in twos and threes, disguised as refugees, peasants, workers, and ARVN soldiers on holiday leave. In Saigon, roughly the equivalent of five battalions of NVA/VC gradually infiltrated the city without anyone informing or any of the countless security police taking undue notice. Weapons came separately in flower carts, jury-rigged coffins, and trucks apparently filled with vegetables and rice.

There was also a VC network in Saigon and the other major cities which had long stockpiled stores of arms and ammunition drawn from hit-and-run raids or bought openly on the black-market. It was also no secret that VC drifted in and out of the cities to see relatives and on general leave from their units. Viet Cong who were captured during the pre Tet build up were mistaken for regular holiday-makers or deserters. In the general pattern of the New Year merry-makers, the VC's secret army of infiltrators went completely unnoticed.

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FReeper Foxhole Armed Services Links

[Darksheare]

LOL!
Shave and a haircut, and a visit from the dentist.

[Darksheare]

YUP.
Amusing when you see a 400 pound guy decide to try to do chin ups on the trailing arm of a car, damaging it and blaming the car - thus failing the car's inspection.

[SAMWolf]

Never let the government disarm you.

[U S Army EOD]

I saw the story in a newspaper we called Stars and Stripes which is a paper put out by the Army overseas about two days after it happened, while I was still in Vietnam. This was toward the end of the Easter Offensive in 1972. The North Vietnamese had been badly beaten and were pulling back into their sancuarys across the borders. Any time their units got cut off they would try to hide in the villages behind women and children so they would not get bombed. They would get as close to civilians as possible to use them for cover. While they were there, they would kill a few unarmed people themselves.

[PhilDragoo]

Thanks for the tip to good reading at Useful Fools, Veterans Against John Kerry. The Michael Moore "desertion" charge was refuted by Peter Jennings of all people.

The aid and comfort Kerry gave to the Communists in 1971 had its counterpart in his suppression of POW evidence in 1993 in order to ramrod "normalization" so his cuz Forbes could get exclusive real estate contracts in Vietnam.

That is as crass a betrayal for personal gain as can be comprehended, and grounds for his trial for treason redux:

The tale of two treacheries has one protagonist and it is Hanoi John Scary.

[SAMWolf]

The aid and comfort Kerry gave to the Communists in 1971 had its counterpart in his suppression of POW evidence in 1993 in order to ramrod "normalization" so his cuz Forbes could get exclusive real estate contracts in Vietnam.

That is as crass a betrayal for personal gain as can be comprehended, and grounds for his trial for treason redux:

people who try to "cash in" on the "war hero" status shouold always be viewed with suspicion at first. John Kerry's Vietnam duty and immediate aftermath doen't hold up to scrutiny IMHO.

[Darksheare]

I still can't believe he's being sold off as a war hero.
And there are people I know of that will buy that hook line and sinker.
*shaking head*

[colorado tanker]

John Kerry - a Manchurian candidate.

[Wolverine]

You will want to read this

 

Interesting comments about Uncle Walter and the Media.

 

http://www.11thcavnam.com/education/americanlegion.htm

SPECIAL ISSUE = The American Legion Magazine = September 2003

 

JIM BOHANNON

Syndicated on nearly 500 stations through Westwood One Radio.

 

Excerpt

 

Without doubt, it can be said the enemy viewed reporters as tools for achieving their goal of victory. "Our purpose is, through a progression of all-out attacks, to cause many U.S. casualties and so erode the U.S. will that the antiwar influences will gain decisive political strength," said Pham Van Dong, former prime minister of North Vietnam. Moreover, Ho Chi Minh famously predicted, "For everyone of yours we kill, you will kill 10 of ours. But in the end, it is you who will grow tired."

 

The biggest single question of media influence on the outcome of the Vietnam War centers on the Tet Offensive of Jan. 31, 1968, and ample evidence shows that headlines dealt a lot more with expectations than fact.

[duy]

the info here has been pretty good, the VC had gone to the house of his best friend's and killed the whole entire family including women and children. Also many more the the General's men had been killed in the fighting because the Police Headquarters was also a major target.

Brig. General Nguyen Ngoc Loan was a national hero. In fact most ARVN Generals because they were REAL soldiers (with the exception of a few)who had fought the VC since they were young.

Personally if someone went and shot my friend and killed his family I would put a bullet in their head too.

Also in Hue, the bodies of the people found in the mass graves were found to have been buried alive. Yes you heard me, the VC decided that they wanted to save their ammunition to kill ARVN and US soldiers, so they buried the people alive instead of shooting them.

The VC were pure evil, they especially hated Catholics. My father told me that when Saigon fell in 1975, they gathered all the priests up and drew a line in the ground. They told the priests to stp over the line and renounce their religion or be shot. This is not "liberation"

My two Grandfather's were sent to "re-education camps" and so was my mother at the age of 16.

It is a common myth that ARVN soldiers did not want to fight for their country and their way of life. I refuse to accept that my Great Uncle who was a Lieutenant in ARVN died for a cause he did not believe in. I also refuse to accept this for the thousands of other ARVN soldiers, airmen and sailors who died protecting South Vietnam.

No words can express the sadness I feel everytime I see footage of ARVN soldiers running across the battlefield or jumping out of a plane or pulling a wounded comrade to safety. These men sacrificed their lives for freedom and ended up getting punished for it when we lost the war. The Military Cemetry where so many of these men were laid to rest has been desecrated by the Communist dogs.