Vietnam War

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  • Vietnam was a French colony that defeated the French in 1954.
  • Vietnam was then split into two zones at the 17th parallel; the Viet Minh took the North, and a non-communist government took the South.
  • Ho Chi Minh, the leader of North Vietnam, declared to be socialist in 1954. It attempted to remain neutral but ended up allying itself with China.
  • The US was operating on the policy of containment, and it was afraid that if Vietnam fell to Communism, the rest of Southeast Asia would fall to it.
  • Ngo Dinh Diem was the leader of South Vietnam with support from the US military. He was very unpopular.

The Vietcong

  • Diem's government was so unpopular that the South Vietnamese people turned to the communist guerrilla soldiers fighting to overthrow Diem.
  • National Liberation Front.
  • By 1964, there were over 100,000 Vietcong in South Vietnam and they were killing thousands of South Vietnamese officials a year.

Why did America get involved?

  • The US said it wanted to "save" South Vietnam from becoming communist.
  • Wanted to contain communism, to stop the domino effect.
  • Diem was a corrupt and brutal leader, and the US needed to get rid of him or South Vietnam people would support the Vietcong.

What did the Americans do to help Diem?

  • They gave lots of money and weapons.
  • The US encouraged Diem to force South Vietnam people into "strategy hamlets" (villages that were supposed to be safe from Vietcong attack) which made him even more unpopular.

Vietnamese Tactics

Guerrilla Tactics
  • Fought in small units, avoiding face-to-face fights.
  • Used ambushes, planted mines and booby trap.
  • Didn't wear uniforms.
  • Dug up 200 km of tunnels to hide in.
  • Helped by locals, but most supplies cam down the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which was many different paths.
  • Tried to win over peasants, but tortured officials.
  • Carried out sabotage, especially in Saigon, even US bases.
Fighting Back American Bombers
  • Used anti-aircraft guns, surface-to-air missiles and fighter planes (supplied by the USSR).
  • Over 1,400 US planes were shot down between 1965 - 1968.
  • They also built miles of tunnels to hide.

US Army Tactics

Bombing: Operation Rolling Thunder
  • President Johnson ordered the bombing of strategic military places, like the capital of North Vietnam, Hanoi, bases and supply routes for the Vietcong.
  • Ultimately failed because the bombing was highly inaccurate because of the jungle landscape and no proper targets in North Vietnam.
Escalation
  • President Johnson slowly increased the number of US troops on the ground in Vietnam. In 1965, two battalions of US Marines were deployed to protect military bases at Da Nang. In July 1965, Johnson sent another 100,000 troops and a further 100,000 in 1966.
Air and Artillery
  • US troops were sent on patrol, to be supported by air and artillery if attacked by the Vietcong, This demoralized soldiers, who realized they were being used as bait to draw out the enemy.
Search and Destroy
  • From 1965, the US military began a policy of sending soldiers into the jungle and villages of Vietnam. This often meant that soldiers were easy targets for the enemy. This tactic led to high numbers of civilians deaths and atrocities like the Mai Lai Massacre which ruined the US' reputation.
Technology
  • The USA relied heavily on high altitude bombers to drop the heavy bombs in NV.
  • They used jets to drop napalm, a chemical that burnt the skin to the bone, and Agent Orange, powerful defoliation to destroy jungle cover.

Tet Offensive

  • In 1968, the Vietcong used the cover of the Buddhist New Year (Tet) to change tactics and launch a massive attack on the US held areas in South Vietnam.
  • The attack was successful for the Vietcong because it showed the US that despite all the soldiers, bombs and money spent in Vietnam, they weren't making any progress.

Mai Lai Massacre

  • On March 16th, 1968, US troops killed over 300 men, women and children at Mai Lai.
  • This severely damaged the USA's reputation and many Americans were not happy.

Vietnamization

  • In 1969, Nixon became president and he promised to get the US out of the war in Vietnam. He introduced his idea of Vietnamization in July 1969, and this meant taking out US troops while strengthening South Vietnamese troops.

1970-71

  • South Vietnam Army failed.
  • In April 1970, Nixon announced that Cambodia was to be entered to stop the Vietcong from profiting from supply lines and bases there. Many students across the US protested this, including students at Kent State University. Four of them were killed by the National Guard, and the entire country reacted with pure shock. 

Why was the war so unpopular with Americans?

  • The American media was covering the Vietnam War in a way that the public has never seen before, and so the average household could watch the horrors of war from the comfort of their own living room.
  • The media hadn't figured out yet how to  

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