First Battle of Saigon
Introduction:
The Vietnam war was in what could be argued as the 14th year of U.S. involvement when Saigon was attacked by well organized and armed Vietcong and North Vietnamese army. On 30 January 1968, approximately half of the South Vietnamese army’s 350,000 Soldiers were on leave and celebrating the traditional seven day cease fire and “Tet”. In addition to the Vietnamese forces, a large majority of the 400,000 plus foreign Soldiers were relaxing and enjoying the holiday. As we will begin to see, many historians have said that this battle was the turning point of the US citizen’s support for the war in Vietnam. The statistics show 58,220 soldiers were killed and too numerous to be counted were wounded (Chambers …show more content…
involvement in the war in Vietnam. By December 15, 1967 the sole defense of Saigon was turned over to the South Vietnamese military as a gesture of confidence and good faith, which ultimately lead to the downfall of stability in the region ("Fall of Saigon," 2006, p. 1). With the transition of Saigon security to South Vietnam the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and the Viet Cong (VC) began planning in earnest for a large scale attack intended to show the people the control they had. The communist army had been repeatedly defeated in the South since the battle of the Ia Drang Valley in 1965 leading to desperate leadership. Defense Minister Vo Nguyen Giap was one of two men who ever held 4 Star position in the NVA. General Giap had tired of the constant fighting with the better equipped and better trained US Army and decided that it was time to return to guerilla style practice in order to slowly grind down the US’s will to fight.
The key to Giap’s plan involved the borrowed Chinese tactic of a “General Offensive” to use as a turning point for the war. There were three key assumptions Giap had about the offensive and needed it all to happen as planned for it to be a success: The ARVN would crumble after the initial attack and not continue to fight; the people of the south would follow through with a General Uprising; that faced with overwhelming shock action …show more content…
The assault on the embassy began with gun fire and continued with an all out assault using small arms, rockets and plastic explosives. The NVA used a rocket to blast open the gates and enter only to have the sapper platoon leader killed by the two MPs. The sapper platoon never entered the compound but did hold the outside and prevented Soldiers from being inserted by air for three hours. Once the insertion was successful the embassy was secured again and the sappers were killed. On the same day at 0400 five blocks away 16 MPs were killed and 21 wounded when they were ambushed while attempting to provide QRF. Many other battles would occur in the Saigon area but by 10 February 1968 the fighting had subsided enough that surge troops were beginning to be sent back to their areas of responsibility. During the fight it is estimated that more than 58,000 NVA and VC fighters perished when only 4,000 US and 5,000 ARVN Soldiers lost their lives. The Tet offensive of 1968 was not a direct win for Giap but would prove to benefit the NVA cause over the next year.
Conclusion:
The Tet offensive had been such a disaster that military intelligence had information proving the NVA and VC were stretched thin and ready to fall. In early 1968 the Johnson administration leaked plans of a massive attack that was being planned in order to fix and destroy the enemy. The American public was already tired of the years long war and this
Introduction:
The Vietnam war was in what could be argued as the 14th year of U.S. involvement when Saigon was attacked by well organized and armed Vietcong and North Vietnamese army. On 30 January 1968, approximately half of the South Vietnamese army’s 350,000 Soldiers were on leave and celebrating the traditional seven day cease fire and “Tet”. In addition to the Vietnamese forces, a large majority of the 400,000 plus foreign Soldiers were relaxing and enjoying the holiday. As we will begin to see, many historians have said that this battle was the turning point of the US citizen’s support for the war in Vietnam. The statistics show 58,220 soldiers were killed and too numerous to be counted were wounded (Chambers …show more content…
involvement in the war in Vietnam. By December 15, 1967 the sole defense of Saigon was turned over to the South Vietnamese military as a gesture of confidence and good faith, which ultimately lead to the downfall of stability in the region ("Fall of Saigon," 2006, p. 1). With the transition of Saigon security to South Vietnam the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and the Viet Cong (VC) began planning in earnest for a large scale attack intended to show the people the control they had. The communist army had been repeatedly defeated in the South since the battle of the Ia Drang Valley in 1965 leading to desperate leadership. Defense Minister Vo Nguyen Giap was one of two men who ever held 4 Star position in the NVA. General Giap had tired of the constant fighting with the better equipped and better trained US Army and decided that it was time to return to guerilla style practice in order to slowly grind down the US’s will to fight.
The key to Giap’s plan involved the borrowed Chinese tactic of a “General Offensive” to use as a turning point for the war. There were three key assumptions Giap had about the offensive and needed it all to happen as planned for it to be a success: The ARVN would crumble after the initial attack and not continue to fight; the people of the south would follow through with a General Uprising; that faced with overwhelming shock action …show more content…
The assault on the embassy began with gun fire and continued with an all out assault using small arms, rockets and plastic explosives. The NVA used a rocket to blast open the gates and enter only to have the sapper platoon leader killed by the two MPs. The sapper platoon never entered the compound but did hold the outside and prevented Soldiers from being inserted by air for three hours. Once the insertion was successful the embassy was secured again and the sappers were killed. On the same day at 0400 five blocks away 16 MPs were killed and 21 wounded when they were ambushed while attempting to provide QRF. Many other battles would occur in the Saigon area but by 10 February 1968 the fighting had subsided enough that surge troops were beginning to be sent back to their areas of responsibility. During the fight it is estimated that more than 58,000 NVA and VC fighters perished when only 4,000 US and 5,000 ARVN Soldiers lost their lives. The Tet offensive of 1968 was not a direct win for Giap but would prove to benefit the NVA cause over the next year.
Conclusion:
The Tet offensive had been such a disaster that military intelligence had information proving the NVA and VC were stretched thin and ready to fall. In early 1968 the Johnson administration leaked plans of a massive attack that was being planned in order to fix and destroy the enemy. The American public was already tired of the years long war and this