The Tet Offensive began in full force on January 31 and
ended on February 24, 1968. Poor communication and coordination plagued Hanoi’s
plans. Attacks against several provinces and cities in the northern part of
South Vietnam occurred a day early, alerting the U. S. command. The following
night, Communist forces mounted simultaneous attacks against 40 cities and
province capitals throughout South Vietnam, including the South Vietnamese
capital city of Saigon. Hue, Vietnam’s former imperial capital, was especially
hard hit. Fighting there lasted for three weeks and destroyed half the city.
Hanoi’s plan failed. ARVN forces generally fought well, and
the people of South Vietnam did not support the attackers. In Hue the
Communists executed 3,000 people, and news of this caused many South Vietnamese
to rally to the South Vietnamese government. Half of the 85,000 VC and PAVN
soldiers who took part in the offensive were killed or captured. It was the
worst military setback for North Vietnam in the war.
Paradoxically, the Tet Offensive was also North Vietnam’s
most resounding victory, in part because the Johnson administration and
Westmoreland had trumpeted prior allied successes. The intensity of the
fighting came as a profound shock to the American people. Disillusioned and
despite the victory, they turned against the war. At the end of March, Johnson
announced a partial cessation of bombing and withdrew from the November
presidential election.
Hanoi persisted, however. In the first six months of 1968,
Communist forces sustained more than 100,000 casualties, and the VC was
virtually wiped out. In the same period, 20,000 allied troops died. All sides
now opted for talks in Paris in an effort to negotiate an end to the war.
American disillusionment with the war was a key factor in
Republican Richard Nixon’s razor-thin victory over Democrat Hubert Humphrey in
the November 1968 presidential election. With no plan of his own, Nixon
embraced Vietnamization, actually begun under Johnson. This turned over more of
the war to the ARVN, and U. S. troop withdrawals began. Peak U. S. strength of
543,400 men occurred in April 1969. There were 475,000 men by the end of the
year, 335,000 by the end of 1970, and 157,000 at the end of 1971. Massive
amounts of equipment were turned over to the ARVN, including 1 million M-16
rifles and sufficient aircraft to make the Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF,
South Vietnamese Air Force) the world’s fourth largest. Extensive retraining of
the ARVN was begun, and training schools were established. The controversial
counterinsurgency Phoenix Program also operated against the VC infrastructure,
reducing the insurgency by 67,000 people between 1968 and 1971, but PAVN forces
remained secure in sanctuaries in Laos and Cambodia.
Nixon’s policy was to limit outside assistance to Hanoi and
pressure the North Vietnamese government to end the war. For years, American
and South Vietnamese military leaders had sought approval to attack the
sanctuaries. In March 1970 a coup in Cambodia ousted Prince Norodom Sihanouk.
General Lon Nol replaced him, and President Nixon ordered U. S.-ARVN combined
operations against the PAVN Cambodian sanctuaries. Over a two-month span there
were 12 cross-border operations, collectively known as the Cambodian Incursion.
Despite widespread opposition in the United States to the widened war, the
incursions raised the allies’ morale, allowed U. S. withdrawals to continue on
schedule, and purchased additional time for Vietnamization. PAVN forces now
concentrated on bases in southern Laos and on enlarging the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
In the spring of 1971 ARVN forces mounted a major invasion
into southern Laos, known as Operation LAM SON 719. There were no U. S.
advisers, and ARVN units took heavy casualties. The operation may have set back
Hanoi’s plans to invade South Vietnam but took a great toll on the ARVN’s
younger officers and pointed out serious command weaknesses. Shrugging off its
own losses, the PAVN was encouraged by the performance of its main-force troops
against some of ARVN’s finest fighting units and massive U. S. air support, and
this helped to solidify PAVN plans for an all-out offensive the following year.
By 1972 PAVN forces had recovered and had been substantially
strengthened with new weapons, including heavy artillery and tanks, from the
Soviet Union. The PAVN now mounted a major conventional invasion of South
Vietnam. Hanoi believed that the United States would not be able to reintervene
with ground troops and that PAVN forces were capable of destroying ARVN in a
headto-head battle. PAVN general Vo Nguyen Giap had 15 divisions. He left only
1 in North Vietnam and 2 in Laos and committed the remaining 12 to the
invasion.
The attack began on Good Friday, March 30, 1972. Known as
the Spring Offensive or the Easter Offensive, it began with a direct armor
strike southward across the DMZ at the 17th Parallel, surprising the South
Vietnamese, whose defenses were oriented against an attack from the west, out
of Laos, and who had assigned a newly formed and inexperienced division to man
their critical northern defense line. Allied intelligence misread the
invasion’s scale and its precise timing. Giap risked catastrophic losses but
hoped for a quick victory before ARVN forces could recover. At first it
appeared that the PAVN would be successful. Quang Tri fell after a month of
fighting, and bad weather initially limited the effectiveness of airpower.
However, at Kontum and An Loc, the South Vietnamese forces held out against
repeated PAVN attacks.
In April, President Nixon authorized B-52 bomber strikes on
Hanoi and North Vietnam’s principal port of Haiphong, and in early May he
approved the mining of Haiphong’s harbor. This new air campaign was dubbed
LINEBACKER I and involved the use of new precision-guided munitions (so-called
smart bombs). The bombing cut off much of the supplies for the invading PAVN
forces. Allied aircraft also destroyed 400-500 PAVN tanks. In June and July the
ARVN counterattacked. The invasion cost Hanoi half its force-some 100,000 men
reportedly died-while ARVN losses were only 25,000.
With both Soviet and Chinese leaders anxious for better
relations with the United States in order to obtain Western technology and with
their forces on the front lines beginning to lose the territory that they had taken
during the early days of the invasion, Hanoi gave way and switched to
negotiations. Finally in October an agreement was hammered out in Paris, but
South Vietnamese president Thieu balked and refused to sign, whereupon Hanoi
made the agreements public. A furious Nixon blamed both Hanoi and Saigon for
the impasse. In December he ordered a resumption of the bombing of North
Vietnam and at the same time issued a stern warning to Thieu to drop his
opposition to the peace agreement. The bombing of North Vietnam, the principal
element of which was the use of concentrated B-52 strikes against Hanoi,
Haiphong, and other key targets in the Red River Delta, was dubbed LINEBACKER
II but was also known as the December Bombings and the Christmas Bombings.
Although 15 B-52s were lost during the two-week campaign, by the end Hanoi had
fired away virtually its entire stock of surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and now
agreed to resume talks.
After a few cosmetic changes, an agreement was signed on
January 23, 1973, with Nixon forcing Thieu to agree or risk the end of all U.
S. aid. The United States recovered its prisoners of war and departed Vietnam,
leaving the South Vietnamese alone to face the PAVN. Following the signing of
the peace agreement and especially as the growing Watergate crisis weakened
President Nixon’s hand, the U. S. Congress steadily reduced the budget for aid
to South Vietnam. Tanks and planes were not replaced on the promised onefor-one
basis as they were lost, and ammunition, spare parts, and fuel were all in
short supply. All of this had a devastating effect on ARVN morale.
In South Vietnam both sides violated the cease-fire and
fighting steadily increased in intensity. In January 1975 Communist forces
attacked and quickly seized Phuoc Long Province on the Cambodian border north
of Saigon. Washington took no action. In March the Communists took Ban Me Thuot
in the Central Highlands, and in mid-March President Thieu decided to try to
preserve his forces by abandoning much of the northern half of South Vietnam.
Thieu issued his order to his top generals in total secrecy without informing
the United States and with no prior planning or preparation. Confusion led to
disorder and then disaster; six weeks later PAVN forces controlled all of South
Vietnam. Saigon fell on April 30, 1975, to be renamed Ho Chi Minh City. Vietnam
was now reunited but under a Communist government. An estimated 3 million
Vietnamese-soldiers and civilians-had died in the struggle. Much of the country
was devastated by the fighting, the economies of both North Vietnam and South
Vietnam were in shambles, and Vietnam suffered from the effects of the
widespread use of chemical defoliants.
The effects were also profound in the United States. The
American military was shattered by the war and had to be rebuilt. Inflation was
rampant from the failure to face up to the true costs of the war. Many
questioned U. S. willingness to embark on such a crusade again, at least to go
it alone. In this sense, the war forced Washington into a more realistic
appraisal of U. S. power.
Aftermath – Third Indochina
War
Saigon’s effort to regain lost territory and the passage of
the Case-Church Amendment that ended funding for U. S. forces in Southeast Asia
prompted the Twenty-First Plenum of the Central Committee in October 1973 to
approve “strategic raids” on isolated ARVN bases in order to clear
their “logistics corridor,” cut key communication with Saigon, regain
lost territory, and begin preparation for a culminating offensive to win the
war. Critical to PAVN’s success was the movement of troops and matériel down
the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the construction of an oil pipeline, and a paved highway
from Quang Tri in the north through the Central Highlands to Loc Ninh in the
south. Also important was the aggressive initiative of theater commander
General Tran Van Tra, who persuaded Le Duan to back his plan for attacking
Phuoc Long Province despite concerns over the level of war matériels and the U.
S. reaction.
When the United States did not react to the seizing of Phuoc
Long Province in December 1974, the North Vietnamese government, confident that
the Gerald Ford administration would not send in airpower, pushed ahead with an
all-out invasion of South Vietnam (the Ho Chi Minh Campaign), which they
anticipated would take two years to complete. But South Vietnamese president
Nguyen Van Thieu’s precipitous abandonment of the Central Highlands was the
beginning of a rout as PAVN forces, led by General Van Tien Dung and reequipped
with modern Soviet tanks and weapons, completed the conquest of South Vietnam
ahead of schedule. Saigon fell on April 30, 1975. The North Vietnamese
government also celebrated the victories of its allies in Cambodia and in Laos,
where PAVN divisions were instrumental in the Pathet Lao victory.
Chief of the Soviet Armed Forces General Viktor Kulikov had
hurried to Hanoi after the capture of Phuoc Long Province to offer an estimated
400 percent increase in military aid to complete the destruction of South
Vietnam. Communist Chinese, who had assumed the aid burden for the Khmer Rouge
in Cambodia, also provided critical military aid. During the war years they
provided about 500,000 tons of grain per year to help feed the urban population
of North Vietnam.
Ho Chi Minh Campaign
Event Date: April 1975
The Ho Chi Minh Campaign culminated in the April 1975 attack
on Saigon, which gave the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam)
the decisive victory over the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam) that
North Vietnam had fought so long to achieve. Encouraged by the collapse of the
Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN, South Vietnamese Army) in early 1975 in
Military Regions I and II, the Hanoi Politburo revised its timetable, deciding
late in March that Saigon should be taken before the beginning of the 1975
rainy season rather than the following year. The plan was to achieve victory in
what became known as the Ho Chi Minh Campaign before their dead leader’s
birthday (May 19).
In early April, People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, North
Vietnamese Army) units engaged ARVN forces around Saigon, blocking roads and
shelling Bien Hoa Air Base. While cadres moved into the city to augment their
already significant organization there, sappers positioned themselves to
interrupt river transportation and attack Bien Hoa. At Xuan Loc, some 35 miles
northeast of Saigon, a hard-fought battle began on April 8, the same day that a
Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF, South Vietnamese Air Force) pilot attacked
the presidential palace and then defected.
The U. S. evacuation of Cambodia on April 12 further
reinforced the North Vietnamese assessment that Washington would do nothing to
prevent the collapse of the South Vietnamese government, although some members
of the Saigon government could not bring themselves to believe that they would
be abandoned. Even after the fall of Military Regions I and II, U. S. officials
in Vietnam and visitors from Washington continued to act as if the Saigon
government could successfully defend itself or, at worst, achieve some kind of
negotiated settlement. Among South Vietnamese, however, opposition to President
Nguyen Van Thieu was growing, and talk of a coup was widespread.
As PAVN forces cut Route 1 to the east and prepared to
prevent reinforcement from the Mekong Delta by blocking Route 4 and from Vung
Tau by interdicting Route 15 and the Long Tau River, the ARVN engaged in some
maneuvering of its own. On April 21 President Thieu resigned in favor of Vice
President Tran Van Huong, but all attempts by Washington to support the Saigon
regime with increased aid failed in Congress.
Thieu’s resignation did nothing to stall the PAVN offensive
or buoy South Vietnamese morale. While some ARVN units fought on, leaders such
as Thieu began sending personal goods and money out of the country. Banks and
foreign embassies began closing, and a steady stream of foreign nationals,
including many Americans, left the country, often with their Vietnamese
employees.
Xuan Loc fell on April 21, and by April 25 ARVN forces
around Saigon were under pressure from all sides. The PAVN attack on Saigon
proper began on April 26 with artillery bombardments and a ground assault in
the east, where troops had to move early to be in position to coordinate their
final assault with units attacking from other directions. PAVN forces also
occupied Nhon Trach, southeast of Saigon, enabling them to bring 130-millimeter
artillery to bear on the Tan Son Nhut airport. On April 27 they cut Route 4,
but ARVN forces fought back, counterattacking sappers who had seized bridges
and putting up stiff resistance, particularly against PAVN units attacking from
the east.
As an increasing number of ARVN military and civilian
officials abandoned their posts, on April 28 President Huong resigned in favor
of Duong Van Minh. That same day a flight of captured Cessna A-37 Dragonfly
aircraft struck the Tan Son Nhut airfield, and the Communists pushed forward
their attack, positioning units for the final assault and successfully
attacking ARVN units in bases surrounding the city. U. S. ambassador Graham
Martin delayed beginning a full evacuation, fearing its negative impact on
morale. When the evacuation did begin on April 29, the final U. S. pullout was
chaotic, a poorly organized swirl of vehicles and crowds trying to connect with
helicopters, ships, and planes. In the confusion the Americans left many
Vietnamese employees behind, and as few as a third of the individuals and
families deemed to be at risk were evacuated or managed to escape.
Units around the Saigon perimeter came under heavy attack on
April 29. While some PAVN units held outlying ARVN garrisons in check, other
elements of General Van Tien Dung’s large force moved toward the center of the
city and key targets, including the presidential palace. Although some ARVN
units continued to resist, they could not slow the PAVN advance. On April 30
President Minh ordered ARVN forces to cease fighting. The Ho Chi Minh Campaign
had achieved its goal.
The Vietnam War ended just as students of revolutionary
warfare theory had expected. Drawing upon the power developed in their North
Vietnamese base area, the Communists combined five corps-sized regular army
units with southern guerrillas and cadres in a final offensive that grew in
strength as it piled victory upon victory against a demoralized opposition.
PAVN forces could sustain their momentum in part because they did not have to
detach a significant portion of their strength to administer conquered areas.
That task could be left to local forces and the political infrastructure
already in place before the final offensive began. Against such a strong
opponent, the Saigon government proved incapable of continued resistance without
active U. S. support.
References Karnow,
Stanley. Vietnam: A History. 2nd rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin, 1997.
Maclear, Michael. The Ten Thousand Day War: Vietnam, 1945-1975. New York: St.
Martin’s, 1981. O’Ballance, Edgar. The Wars in Vietnam, 1954-1980. Rev. ed. New
York: Hippocrene Books, 1981. Palmer, General Bruce, Jr. The 25-Year War:
America’s Military Role in Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky,
1984. Tucker, Spencer C. Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky,
1999. Dougan, Clark, and David Fulghum. The Fall of the South. The Vietnam
Experience Series. Boston: Boston Publishing, 1984. Hosmer, Stephen T., Konrad
Kellen, and Brian M. Jenkins. The Fall of South Vietnam: Statements by
Vietnamese Military and Civilian Leaders. New York: Crane, Russak, 1980.
Isaacs, Arnold R. Without Honor: Defeat in Vietnam and Cambodia. Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983. Le Gro, William E. Vietnam from
Cease-Fire to Capitulation. Washington, DC: U. S. Army Center of Military
History, 1981. Van Tien Dung. Our Great Spring Victory. New York: Monthly
Review Press, 1977.
