{"id":5849,"date":"2022-04-21T00:37:14","date_gmt":"2022-04-21T00:37:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-118pinsker\/?p=5849"},"modified":"2022-07-05T22:10:59","modified_gmt":"2022-07-05T22:10:59","slug":"the-1968-tet-offensive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-118pinsker\/2022\/04\/21\/the-1968-tet-offensive\/","title":{"rendered":"THE 1968 TET OFFENSIVE"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Long Bui<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\r\n

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Map of battles and attacking directions by the communists during the Tet Offensive incident.<\/p><\/div>\r\n

By the year 1967, the Vietnam war escalated to a scale that had never be<\/span>en before. Almost 400.000 American troops and 750.000 Army of the Republic of Vietnam\u2019s<\/a> (ARVN) soldiers operated across Southern Vietnam\u2019s rural regions to conduct massive campaigns against further communist expansion by the V<\/a><\/span><\/span>iet Cong (VC)<\/span> and the People\u2019s Army of Vietnam (PAVN)<\/a>. [1] Khe Sanh<\/a> became the climax of this confrontation which a hundred thousand tons of bombs and artillery rounds were fired from the defense base every month. [2]\u00a0 However, on the home front, an impending disaster was secretly approaching the US and its allies that would later disrupt the Pentagon’s strategic calculation of the war and weakened US public support for the conflict, later known as the 1968 Tet Offensive.<\/p>\r\n

The author of <\/span>American Dreams, <\/span><\/i>H.W.Brands, indicated that the Tet Offensive severely paralyzed the US strategy in Vietnam since the campaign had successfully \u201crevealed a capacity for command and control among communists that American officers and civilian officers hadn\u2019t suspected.\u201d<\/span> [3] Specifically, the reminiscence of former communist Vietnamese lieutenant, Bui Ngoc Minh, will provide further descriptive insights into how the VC and PAVN infiltrated into southern urban areas and coordinated with each other to launch such a surprise attack. Although Brands stated that the Tet Offensive proved to be \u201ca psychological and moral triumph\u201d<\/span> [4] for the communist camp, from Minh\u2019s perspective, the brutality and bloodshed during the campaign left haunting memories not only for Americans who witnessed the incident but also for the communist soldiers who participated in this camp<\/span>aign, reflecting the desire for an end to a decades-long conflict from both sides.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n

In the summer of 1967, captain (his rank at that time) Minh was then working as a platoon officer in th<\/span>e VI Artillery Regiment of the 6th Division which frequently operated along the Ho Chi Minh trails<\/a>. Surprisingly, he received an order to infiltrate Hue, Southern Vietnam. \u201cAt that time, I was a little bit shocked that a technical engineer like me was ordered to be an undercover agent\u201d- Minh recounted. [5] Ho<\/span>wever, neither did Minh know that he was participating in the most elaborate and influential campaign in the war. In fact, even the MACV<\/a> commander, general William Westmoreland and his staff, acknowledged that the communists were adjusting their grand strategy but never thought of such a magnitude would be unleashed right inside their heartlands. [6]<\/span><\/p>\r\n

According to the plan, captain Minh would lead his platoon along Ho Chi Minh trails to Svay Rieng, Cambodia<\/a>, and then intrude into the Southern Vietnam border. After five years of special operations, Vietnam\u2019s rural areas had been severely destabilized, creating massive refugee caravans in the region. Captain Minh described: \u201cThe refugee caravans were chaotic, running from the warzones and as far as possible. Some moved to the city; some went to foreign countries; and some just wanted to run away\u201d. [7] Therefore, he stated, \u201cThis made us easily infiltrate into the system since American troops hardly ever took serious concern about the refugees due to the human rights crisis\u201d. [8] Taking this advantage, his team gradually walked along the HCM trails, to Svay Rieng, and then arrived at Hue<\/a> just after one month. [9]\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

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\u201cThe Terror of War\u201d, also known as the \u201cNapalm Girl\u201d, is a Pulitzer Prize winning photograph taken by photojournalist Nick Ut, a Vietnamese American photographer who was working for the Associated Press at that time. The picture depicted children were running away from bombarding areas in a countryside of Southern Vietnam.<\/p><\/div>\r\n

Thanks to the lack of attention to the urban espionage process, Minh successfully joined the communist intelligence network in Hue in a short matter of time. Arriving at Hue, he followed the order to wait under the Da Vien<\/a> bridge. After five hours of waiting, a child suddenly approached Minh to give him a small bag, and then the kid ran away. Looking inside the bag, he received his fake ID, other legal papers, money, and a coded letter that had his next mission.<\/span> \u201cMy next task is to decoy as a man named T\u00e1m who owned and operated a small firework business and then won a bid for a firework slot in North West of Hue\u201d- Captain Minh recalled. [10]<\/span>\u00a0The unstable and corrupted condition of the Southern Vietnam government made the deception easier for him to complete this goal. Through intelligence assistance and bribery, Minh quickly approached different local officials in the district. However, as long as he got in touch with these people, he realized that they almost all came from the same family. He indicated: \u201cYou do not need to corrupt them, they were corrupted in the beginning\u201d.<\/span> [11] In fact, the instability in the South had become an intriguing problems that according to historian James H. Willbanks, there are evidence that “weapons arrived in trucks loaded with flowers, vegetables and fruits destined for the holiday celebration (Tet)” and some VC soldiers even “dressed in ARVN uniforms to mingle with crowds of South Vietnamese cilvilian” before the incident. [12] <\/span>Therefore, taking advantages of the situation, he successfully won a firework-operating slot in North West Hue along the main road of Tang Bat Ho.<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n

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The battle of Hue 1968. Although the Red arrows indicates attacking directions of communist forces, there are still communist infiltrations before the battle that the picture does not include. Captain Minh and his platoons were fighting in the furtherst NorthWest arrow.<\/p><\/div>\r\n

Although People in Minh\u2019s team were not firework operators but instead, anti-air artillery operators, they gradually realized the decision behind deceiving the firework systems. He demonstrated: \u201cOnce we got in touch with fireworks, we discovered that fireworks and guns all originated from gunpowders and made the same sound\u201d. [13]<\/span> Then, he continued: \u201cWe then find a way to make the fireworks explode as long as possible to create a decoy for gun sounds abrupting when our comrades attacked the city\u201d. [14]<\/span> In the end, they came up with the plan of interleaving the gun sounds and the fireworks abruptions with each other so that the enemies could not be aware of the attack.[15]<\/span><\/p>\r\n

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Execution of a VietCong soldier by a Southern Vietnamese brigadier during the Tet Offensive in the street of Saigon. The photograph would later become one of the most influential catalyst to anti-war movements in America. (Video<\/strong>: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=csYYBOytkZM)<\/p><\/div>\r\n

The night fell. At midnight the fireworks started and these fireworks lasted longer than any years before. As captain Minh indicated: \u201cI was amazed how synchronized these fireworks happened in every district at that moment. At that time, I couldn’t believe that our comrades were literally everywhere in the city.\u201d<\/span> [16] The sound of fireworks and guns step-by-step became more mixed with each other and harder to identify. The fight became more extreme, spreading across the city. Guns and explosions became more astonishing than the sounds of the fireworks. In the street, many VC and VPA soldiers formerly dressed as civilians regrouped and occupied strategic buildings. Unable to identify the enemies, Hue’s police cadets were confused and acted violently.<\/span> [17] They started to shoot any suspects including many civilians in the street, creating a bloody and chaotic scene in Hue. Captain Minh, with his team, ran into a building to find a shelter between the merciless fires from both sides.[18]<\/span><\/p>\r\n

The street came into chaos and behind gun dust and shootings, a man wearing a VPA\u2019s uniform with an AK-47 in his hand approached him and asked: \u201cAre you captain Minh of 3rd battalion under 6th regiment, comrade?\u201d Realizing the three stars in his epaulets, he understood that he was meeting with general Tran Do, the leader of the 6th regiment, then he stood straight and saluted the general, answering: \u201cYes, I am, general\u201d.<\/span> [19] Then, general Do greeted him and his men for their success and asked them to regroup with the remaining people of the battalion who were fighting in the district. In just several hours, they captured the main road of Tang Bat ho and the surrounding area. The Southern army in Hue and the local forces were stunned by the attacks; they were dispersed across the city to stay with their family and the sudden attack made them unable to regroup and resist the attack. [20]<\/span>\u00a0\u201cHardly any American troops are being seen in the city\u201d- Captain Minh recalled<\/span>. [21] In fact, many of them were encamped several miles South-East of Hue in Phu Bai airbase<\/a> and had not been informed fast enough of the sudden attack.[22]<\/span> According to captain Minh, the attack on Hue was a race. He explained: \u201cIf we were able to take most of Hue when the sun came in, the US would not be able to use their air superiority and bombard the city since the city had many historical sites\u201d. [23]<\/span> Therefore, in the morning, the VPA and VC had been able to capture most of the city and by dusk on the same day, the Communist flag waved on the top of the Imperial Citadel, marking the total collapse of the ancient capital.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n

After the capture of the city, general Do organized a meeting consisting of captains and lieutenants to congrats on the victory. However, he stated that this was not an ultimate victory and we still had more battles to fight. Then, he took out a paper that consisted of names that he condemned as “cruel tyrants and reactionary elements” which should be exterminated. [24] In the beginning, everyone agreed with these decisions but \u201cgenerals were not executives\u201d-captain Minh insisted.<\/span> [25] There were no real trials and the problems of whether their families would take revenge or fight against the newly established regime in Hue became an intriguing question for the top military commanders. As a result, many decided that the victims and their family members would share the same fates with them to prevent further security threats. Once blood is spilled, more blood will be spilled. The universal acceptance of executions became popularized and soldiers began to execute other people for different reasons from personal conflicts to lynching. Consequently, this never brought any peace and the communist forces were being pushed out after 3 weeks of occupation.<\/span><\/p>\r\n