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South Vietnam had been divided into four tactical zones. By the summer of 1967, American troops were fighting in all four of them. But some of the most intense combat took place in I Corps, made up of the five northernmost provinces of South Vietnam, where the Marines bore the brunt of the fighting. General Westmoreland insisted they move further north in I Corps and establish bases close to ...
4 days ago · In 1975 South Vietnam fell to a full-scale invasion by the North. The human costs of the long conflict were harsh for all involved. Not until 1995 did Vietnam release its official estimate of war dead: as many as 2 million civilians on both sides and some 1.1 million North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters.
- Ronald H. Spector
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- Roots of The Vietnam War
- When Did The Vietnam War Start?
- The Viet Cong
- Domino Theory
- Gulf of Tonkin
- William Westmoreland
- Vietnam War Protests
- Tet Offensive
- Vietnamization
- My Lai Massacre
Vietnam, a nation in Southeast Asia on the eastern edge of the Indochinese peninsula, had been under French colonial rule since the 19th century. During World War II, Japanese forces invaded Vietnam. To fight off both Japanese occupiers and the French colonial administration, political leader Ho Chi Minh—inspired by Chinese and Soviet communism—for...
The Vietnam War and active U.S. involvement in the war began in 1954, though ongoing conflict in the region had stretched back several decades. After Ho’s communist forces took power in the north, armed conflict between northern and southern armies continued until the northern Viet Minh’s decisive victory in the Battle of Dien Bien Phuin May 1954. ...
With the Cold War intensifying worldwide, the United States hardened its policies against any allies of the Soviet Union, and by 1955 President Dwight D. Eisenhowerhad pledged his firm support to Diem and South Vietnam. With training and equipment from American military and the CIA, Diem’s security forces cracked down on Viet Minh sympathizers in t...
A team sent by President John F. Kennedyin 1961 to report on conditions in South Vietnam advised a build-up of American military, economic and technical aid in order to help Diem confront the Viet Cong threat. Working under the “domino theory,” which held that if one Southeast Asian country fell to communism, many other countries would follow, Kenn...
A coup by some of his own generals succeeded in toppling and killing Diem and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, in November 1963, three weeks before Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. The ensuing political instability in South Vietnam persuaded Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamarato further increase U.S....
In contrast to the air attacks on North Vietnam, the U.S.-South Vietnamese war effort in the south was fought primarily on the ground, largely under the command of General William Westmoreland, in coordination with the government of General Nguyen Van Thieu in Saigon. Westmoreland pursued a policy of attrition, aiming to kill as many enemy troops a...
By November 1967, the number of American troops in Vietnam was approaching 500,000, and U.S. casualties had reached 15,058 killed and 109,527 wounded. As the war stretched on, some soldiers came to mistrust the government’s reasons for keeping them there, as well as Washington’s repeated claims that the war was being won. The later years of the war...
By the end of 1967, Hanoi’s communist leadership was growing impatient as well, and sought to strike a decisive blow aimed at forcing the better-supplied United States to give up hopes of success. On January 31, 1968, some 70,000 DRV forces under General Vo Nguyen Giap launched the Tet Offensive(named for the lunar new year), a coordinated series o...
Nixon sought to deflate the anti-war movement by appealing to a “silent majority” of Americans who he believed supported the war effort. In an attempt to limit the volume of American casualties, he announced a program called Vietnamization: withdrawing U.S. troops, increasing aerial and artillery bombardment and giving the South Vietnamese the trai...
The next few years would bring even more carnage, including the horrifying revelation that U.S. soldiers had mercilessly slaughtered more than 400 unarmed civilians in the village of My Lai in March 1968. After the My Lai Massacre, anti-war protests continued to build as the conflict wore on. In 1968 and 1969, there were hundreds of protest marches...
During fiscal year 1972, the primary responsibility for offensive ground combat operations in South Vietnam was assumed by the armed forces of the Republic of Vietnam. The main burden of dealing with North Vietnamese aggression lay with the South Vietnamese.
Sep 21, 2021 · At least at first, of Operation Rolling Thunder, General William Westmoreland, the US commander of US forces, called for a greater presence in South Vietnam. In March of 1965, the United States Marine Corps took up positions in and around Da Nang Air Base. This was the first full-scale deployment of US ground forces in South Vietnam.
III. The War in Vietnam. Operations. U.S. Army forces in South Vietnam were substantially reduced as the result of presidential decisions announced on June 8, September 16, and December 15, 1969. Almost 59,000 Army troops and 4 major units were redeployed, reducing Army strength there to less than 310,000.
For nearly a decade, American combat soldiers fought in South Vietnam to help sustain an independent, noncommunist nation in Southeast Asia. After U.S. troops departed in 1973, the collapse of South Vietnam in 1975 prompted a lasting search to explain the United States’ first lost war.
