In previous war, progress and setbacks could be shown on maps; large enemy units could be engaged and destroyed. Guerrilla warfare asymmetrical warfare does not permit such clear-cut data. Westmoreland with a thorny challenge: how to show the American people progress was being made.
Westmoreland adopted a search-and-destroy policy to find and engage the enemy and use superior firepower to destroy him. Every major engagement between U. The body count policy fell into disfavor and was not employed in future American wars; in Vietnam it led officers to inflate enemy casualties.
The VC and NVA dragged off as many of their dead and wounded as possible, sometimes impressing villagers into performing this task during battles, so determining their casualties was guesswork based on such things as the number of blood trails. On the other side, the same thing was occurring, with even more inflated numbers—vastly more.
Both sides were fighting a war of attrition, so communist commanders sent Hanoi battle reports that often were pure fantasy. Marines—near Van Truong, from the VC point of view. On February 7, , the U. Air Force began bombing selected sites in North Vietnam. This grew into the operation known as Rolling Thunder that began on March 2, , and continued to November 2, Its primary goal was to demoralize the North Vietnamese and diminish their manufacturing and transportation abilities.
An air war was the most that could be done north of the 17th parallel, because the use of ground troops had been ruled out. On July 9, , China had announced it would step in if the U. North Vietnamese officers, after the war, said the only thing they feared was an American-led invasion of the north, but the U.
By the end of , there were , American troops in Vietnam, and the military draft was set to call up , young men in the coming year, an increase of 72, over But the war news was hopeful. The South Vietnamese Army was showing improvement, winning 37 of their last 45 major engagements. American troops had won every major battle they fought, and General Nguyen Van Thieu had come to power in South Vietnam in September; he would remain in office until , bringing a new measure of stability to the government, though he could not end its endemic corruption.
Antiwar protests continued across America and in many other countries, but on April 28, , Gen. Westmoreland became the first battlefield commander ever to address a joint session of Congress in wartime, and Time magazine named him Man of the Year. In an interview he was asked if there was light at the end of the tunnel, and he responded that the U. They struck at least 30 provincial capitals and the major cities of Saigon and Hue.
American intelligence knew an attack was coming, though the Army had downplayed a New York Times report of large communist troop movements heading south. The VC was effectively finished; it would not field more than 25,—40, troops at any time for the remainder of the war. The NVA had to take over. It was one of the most resounding defeats in all of military history—until it became a victory. News footage showed the fighting in Saigon and Hue. The Tet Offensive shocked Americans at home, who thought the war was nearing victory.
Initially, however, homefront support for the war effort grew, but by March Americans, perceiving no change in strategy that would bring the war to a conclusion, became increasingly disillusioned. In a February 27, , broadcast he summed up what he had found during his return trip to the war zone. He closed by saying:. To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past.
To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion.
But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could. Tensions between blacks and whites had been intensifying for years as African Americans sought to change centuries-old racial policies. That disparity would decline before the war ended, but the racial tensions at home began to insert themselves into the military in Vietnam, damaging unit morale.
Even white troops were beginning to protest. One day in October , fifteen members of the Americal Division wore black armbands while they were on patrol, the symbol antiwar protestors wore in the states. Earlier, in March , the Americal Division had been involved in what became known as the My Lai Massacre , in which over men, women and children were killed.
Similar, even larger, atrocities were conducted by VC and NVA units—such as an NVA attack on a Buddhist orphanage at An Hoa in September or the execution of 5, people at Hue during the Tet Offensive—but the concept of American soldiers killing civilians in cold blood was more than many Americans could bear.
Support for the war eroded further. Some antiwar protestors blamed the men and women who served in Vietnam, taunting them and spitting on them when they came home. Military personnel, including nurses, were warned not to wear their uniforms in the States. However, polls consistently showed the majority of Americans supported the war. Republican Richard Nixon won the presidency in the fall elections. Creighton Abrams. Security was improving even as American forces were in the process of withdrawing.
Then, on March 30, , the North Vietnamese attacked across the 17th parallel with 14 divisions and additional individual regiments. Better armed than ever before, thanks to increased aid from the Soviet Union, they employed tanks for the first time. The ARVN bent but did not break.
By June they had stalled the invasion, with the help of American airpower. The NVA suffered some , casualties. American drawdown continued, with only 43, personnel left in-country by mid-August. In retaliation for the invasion, and in hopes of forcing Hanoi to negotiate in good faith, Nixon ordered Haiphong harbor in North Vietnam to be mined and he intensified bombing of North Vietnam.
Hanoi offered to restart peace talks, yet remained intransigent in its demands. On January 27, , peace accords were signed between North Vietnam and the U. North Vietnam spent two years rebuilding its military; South Vietnam was hamstrung in its responses by a fear the U. Congress would cut off all aid if it took military action against communist buildup. Its army lacked reserves, while the NVA was growing.
On March 5, , the NVA invaded again. ARVN divisions in the north were surrounded and routed. To its own surprise, Hanoi found its forces advancing rapidly toward Saigon, realized victory was at hand, and renamed the operation the Ho Chi Minh Offensive. On April 30, their tanks entered Saigon. American helicopters rescued members of its embassy and flew some South Vietnamese to safety, but most were left behind. The domino fell but did not take down any of those around it.
Nguyen Ngoc Loan about to pull the trigger of a pistol pointed at the head of a bound VC prisoner; of a naked young girl running crying down a road after an American napalm strike that left her badly burned—these images and others became seared into the minds of Americans on the homefront, and in those of civilians in allied nations such as Australia. Never before or since have journalists been given such complete access to cover a war. The U. Korean War Casualties Nearly 5 million people died.
Almost 40, Americans died in action in Korea, and more than , were wounded. In terms of intensity, Korea was without a doubt, the most intense three years of continuous combat albeit in a small, contained area the United States has ever been involved in.
Vietnam War was officially ended. After the war, Vietnam went back to being one all communist countruy. After the Korean War, the country remained divided with the North still being cmmunist and the south remaining non-communist. The similarities of the two wars were the same ideological background, the confrontation of two super nations, the US and the URSS, and their economic and political systems.
Vietnam War was the prolonged struggle and lasted more than 10 years, while the Korean War — only three. A major similarity between the Korean War and the Vietnam War is that both wars started as civil wars that faced American-led democracy against Soviet-led communism.
Much like its involvement in the Korean War, the involvement of the United States in Vietnam stemmed from its Cold War containment policy. The definition of a proxy war is a war started by two or more world powers, but those powerful countries do not get directly involved. South Korea, however, objected to the continued division of Korea and did not agree to the armistice or sign a formal peace treaty. So while the fighting ended, technically the war never did. Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search.
Press ESC to cancel. Ben Davis May 6, Why was the US involved in the Korean War?
0コメント