Fighting the Vietnam War

What American and Australian soldiers were up against

Vietnam -Overview

• Longest war in U.S. history• More than 58,000 killed• 300,000 wounded• 14,000 disabled • 800,000 Vietnam veterans

diagnosed as having “significant” to “severe” problems of readjustment.

Overview

• In Vietnam – over 2 million dead

• In Vietnam – 4 million wounded and 10 million displaced from their homes.

Public Opinion

• Two out of three Americans judge the Vietnam war to have been a “mistake.”

• Over 50% do not have a clear idea what the war was about.

• About 1/3 can’t even remember which side we supported.

• 50% of Americans did not know where Vietnam was located

76% of the men sent to Vietnam were from lower to middle class families.

The average age of a US soldier was 19 the average age of NVA/Vietcong was 18.

Most soldiers were drafted – few enlisted.

Soldiers served a “tour of duty” – about 1 year.

“In a typical 12 month tour, an infantry soldier stood a 3% chance of dying, a 10% chance of being seriously wounded, and a 25% chance of earning a Purple Heart.” Longley, Grunts, p.87

How did the North VietnameseFight Back Against the U.S. Invaders?

• The North Vietnamese used classic Maoist guerrilla tactics. “Guerrillas must move through the peasants like fish through sea,” i.e., the peasants will support them as much as they can with shelter, food, weapons, storage, intelligence, recruits.

North Vietnamese Tactics• In areas held by the NLF, the

Communists distributed the land to the peasants. (By 1973, the NLF held about half of South Vietnam.)

• Their weapons were cheap and reliable.– The AK47 assault rifle out-performed the American M16– The portable rocket launcher took out many US vehicles &

aircraft. – They recycled dud bombs dropped by the Americans. Deadly

booby-traps could inflict huge damage on young American conscripts!

“I thought perhaps the enemy might be in civilian clothes, and armed, but at least I’d be able to identify him. Didn’t work out that way. I barely ever saw a live enemy soldier in combat. I always saw women and children and little tiny babies, and after firefights I would see dead enemy soldiers, but to see them face to face was a rare occasion.”

Longley, Grunts, p.94

Protracted War Strategy

• After “Operation Rolling Thunder,” the Communist Party moved to a protracted war strategy: the idea was to get the United States bogged down ina war that it could not win militarily and create unfavorable conditions for political victory.

Search & Destroy Tactics• The United States countered

with “Search and Destroy” tactics. In areas where the NLF were thought to be operating, troops went in and checked for weapons. If they found them,

they rounded up the villagers and burned the villages down – thus these operations were often called ‘Zippo raids’.

• This often alienated the peasants from the American/South Vietnamese cause. – As one marine said – “If they weren’t Vietcong before we got

there, they sure as hell were by the time we left”. – The NFL often helped the villager’s re-build their homes and bury

their dead.

Burning camp A Viet Cong base camp burns as Pfc. Raymond Rumpa of St. Paul, Minnesota, walks away with his 45-pound

90mm rifle in My Tho, Vietnam, April 1968

Traversing the jungle During Operation Hastings, Marines of Company H, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment take to the water as

they move to join other elements of their battalion in Dong Ha, Vietnam, July 1966

M-16 Rifle…Standard issue for infantrymen, fired .223 caliber/5.56mm bullets at a rate of 750-900 rounds per minute on automatic setting, or as fast as a soldier could pull the trigger on semiautomatic. The rifle

had an effective range of about 435 yards. Before a late 1966 redesign, the fussy M16s responded poorly to wet, dirty field

conditions, and often jammed during combat, resulting in numerous casualties.

M16 cartridges came in 20 or 30-round "clips," which could be quickly popped in and out of the rifle's loading port during firefights.

M60 Machine Gun Light enough to be carried on patrol and deadly in a firefight, the M60 fired up

to 550 high-velocity bullets from a gas-

powered belt fed system at a range of over 1,900 yards. The M60 could be

fired from a bipod or tripod or from the hip.

Perhaps its greatest limitation was the weight

of its cartridge belts, which limited the amount of ammunition that could be carried into the field.

Soldiers fire a 105mm howitzer in support of infantry. This was the main artillery piece used by the US Army

ARVN soldiers with a captured VC prisoner after a

June 1962 sweep on a suspected insurgent village…South Vietnamese Marines subject a VC prisoner to on-the-spot interrogation. The

prisoner’s head is held under the water until he’s about to drown. He’s then brought up and questioned. The process

is repeated…

Bell UH-1 Helicopter The Bell UH-1helicopter, popularly known as the "Huey," was the workhorse aircraft for US forces. Well adapted for jungle warfare,

the Huey could fly at low altitudes and speeds, land in small clearings, maneuver to dodge enemy fire, and carry an array of

powerful armaments. Among other duties, the versatile chopper transported troops, equipment, supplies, and support personnel

into the field; provided additional firepower to troops engaged on the ground; and evacuated the dead and wounded.

Operation Ranch Hand• When this failed to break down the jungle cover the

USAF started “Operation Ranch Hand” – the defoliation program, using Agent Orange. – This deadly chemical cocktail, containing dioxin, killed off

millions of acres of jungle to try to weaken the Vietcong – but left a horrendous legacy in Vietnam.

– The dioxin got into the food chain causing chromosome damage to humans. There were hundreds of cases of children born with deformities.

Before/After:B-mangrove forest sprayed with Agent Orange in 1965.

A-1970: the black patches show surviving trees

Operation Rolling Thunder• In early 1965, the NLF attacked two U.S. army

installations in South Vietnam, and as a result, Johnson ordered sustained bombing missions over North Vietnam.

• The bombing missions, known as “Operation Rolling Thunder,” caused the Communist Party to reassess its own war strategy

• During the war the US dropped 8 million tonnes of bombs on North Vietnam – destroy their industrial strength and ability to wage war

• They lost 3800 aircraft • The air war was largely ineffective

B-52 Stratofortress Designed in the late 1940s to carry nuclear bombs on long-range, high-altitude

missions to targets in the Soviet Union. Outfitted with conventional metal bombs at bases in Thailand and on Guam, B-52s flew tens of thousands of low-altitude, high-

density bombing sorties in North and South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. The massive bombing runs did not paralyze the enemy as they might have during more

conventional warfare, but the B-52 proved instrumental in containing or breaking up North Vietnamese offensives, disrupting supply lines, and bringing the Communist

forces to the negotiating table.

Phosphorous & Napalm Bombs

• “Operation Rolling Thunder” was backed up by phosphorous and napalm bombs – the latter causing dreadful burns to thousand of innocent civilians.

The most famous picture of the war.

Children flee a misplaced napalm

strike. The girl suffered severe back burns but

her life was saved by an American doctor… This

child was burned by napalm when US air

force bombers attacked his village, where

guerrillas were thought to be hiding

A NVA soldier reveals the

entrance to a tunnel used as a hiding place by

VC guerrillas

One of the tunnels in Cu Chi

Booby Traps-pungi sticks

Hidden Mines-A favorite spot for a mine was around a fallen tree or log lying across a path… SSgt. James Craig of the 2nd Squadron, 11th Cavalry, gingerly inspects a 22-lb Chinese mine during clearing operations near

Quan Loi on Dec. 26, 1969