"‘We Are the Ones You Sent to Fight a War’" Topic

"W. D. Ehrhart is best known as a poet, though over the years he has earned his living as a construction worker, merchant seaman, forklift operator, legal aide, newspaper reporter, magazine writer, and high school teacher. A straight-A student in high school, Ehrhart enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps on April 11, 1966, as he was finishing his senior year. Nine weeks later he put aside four college acceptances to begin active duty, and the following February he shipped out to Vietnam as an 18-year-old marine. "I stopped writing within a few months of my arrival in Vietnam," he says, "when the war became so disturbing that I did not want to think about it." Ehrhart received the Purple Heart Medal (for wounds he received in action in Hue City during the Tet Offensive) as well as other citations and commendations during his three years in the marines…"
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Amicalement
Armand

There it is. H

The USMC kicked the out of the NVA in Hue in close quarters battle. Respect to any Marines that were there.

During Tet US Forces effectively killed so many VC that they ceased to be a real effective force.

Plus it was not until '72, the Year of the Rat, that the NVA could try to go on a major offensive. After taking such a beating at during Tet '68, the hands of US troops and firepower.

Glad you enjoyed it my good friend! (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

The NVA put up quite a fight in, and around, Hue, (it was no cake-walk) in my opinion.

That is very true as it was urban warfare. Which is generally very costly to all involved. Especially if they don't want to give up the town, etc. And not withdraw to fight another day.

Hue was surrounded – there was no getting out. And surrender could often be worse than death.

Massive air support is what carried the day. The city and especially the citadel was pretty much levelled.

Post Tet '68 the character of the war changed. The US soon began to talk of 'Vietnamization'. The peace talks [ongoing throughout the war] began to indicate the US was looking for an exit strategy. [The Pentagon Papers go into this in some depth].

The PAVN and NLF [or their remnants] changed tactics. They had learned well from early losses. Sappers, infiltration and sabotage of equipment [especially aircraft] played a larger role than trying to kill Americans. That said more Americans died post 68 than before 68. [1968 was the peak year with over 16 thousand].

I don't believe anybody from the Vietnamese side accepts the theory of the NLF having been wiped out and this leading to the change in tactics. I'm sure nobody admits it was the policy to get them killed off. I do suspect it might have been seen as a silver lining.

I doubt we'll ever find out what the real aims of the Tet offensive were. Given how much was thrown in to the battles they must have expected to accomplish something big. I personally don't believe the top planners expected a knock out blow. I also don't think they could foresee how much the US public would turn against the war. MLK's assassination in April 68 added fuel to that fire of course.

A lot of people still claim the war could have been won if only Tet had been seen as the disaster it was. While it was very costly for the PAVN and NLF they were losses that could be replaced. Their strategic strength also meant they did not have to win – only not lose. With no viable US strategy to win the war outright [IMO there would have to have been a large scale invasion of the North with much larger forces than the US had even at the peak] all the PAVN and NLF had to do was wait it out.

Good points my friend….

Amicalement
Armand

Hue was surrounded – there was no getting out. And surrender could often be worse than death.

They could have tried to breakout earlier, but yes US firepower, etc., doomed them. And Giap knew they could possibly hold 1 out of 10 locations they took in the early days of Tet. In the end they held very little if anything. But they did take heavy losses. On the ground on the battlefield the US/SEATO won Tet.

Massive air support is what carried the day. The city and especially the citadel was pretty much levelled.

Yep … US firepower …

the theory of the NLF having been wiped out and this leading to the change in tactics.

Never said they were wiped out. But took very heavy losses. Being pushed forward to support the NVA countrywide offensive. But I do remember a US GI saying something like, "We stacked them like cord wood", above Tet. However, by '72 the VC/NLF could only field above 3 Rgts with some fleshing out by NVA.

all the PAVN and NLF had to do was wait it out.

I've said that many times. They didn't have to win just not lose. And they had the bodies, support from their Communists brothers and the will. The will to fight and take high losses. So they didn't have to go anywhere. It was their "backyard". They just had to keep killing US/ROK/SEATO troops and sooner or later the "invaders" will leave, e.g. the French who had been there since 1863, IIRC.

Hue was won the old fashioned way, by US Marines fighting house to house, mouse holing, and use of close support tanks and recoilless rifles. That is the impression I got at the time (sure, BBC News only) and everything I have read since. The weather conditions limited direct air support and politics influenced use of artillery.

The massive superiority that the US was used to (Artillery, Hueys, whether Slicks or Hogs, Air Support, APCs, immediate reinforcement, casevac, B52s etc etc) was replaced by exhausted kids, who some how still fought on, man to man, and truly beat a well trained and brave enemy, the old fashioned way, much like Stalingrad, Warsaw or Manila.

It seems one of the failings was that the NVA survivors did actually manage to escape (hence the massacres of their captives) as the city was not isolated. I have been indoctrinated with the idea that Tet destroyed the VC and that it may have well been a deliberate cunning plan of the NVA. Skarper's comments are interesting though, but I suspect we will never know.

Skarper wrote – "I doubt we'll ever find out what the real aims of the Tet offensive were."

Quite possibly so. But one theory that persists in my mind is that 1968 was a presidential election years in the USA and the intention of the North Vietnamese was simply to cause as many American casualties as possible in order to create as much domestic discord as possible among the US electroate. Go back and read through the headlines in 1968 to see what was going on domestically in the US (I was 20 years old at that time).

There is an account of an exchange between a US diplomat and Ho Chi Minh that I vaguely recall. It went something like this, with Ho Chin Minh speaking – "You will kill twenty of us for every one of you that we kill. In the end, you will give up before we do". VN was as much a political struggle as it was a military campaign.

B

I've read thru the Wikipedia entry on the battle. There was less bombing and artillery than I had thought and while Hue and the citadel were badly damaged they were far from levelled. I had been basing my comments on Michael Herr's chapters in Dispatches [he was an eye witness].

I also thought the city was isolated far sooner than it was. There were insufficient ground forces available to do this and coordination between Marines, Army and ARVN was poor.

On the point about not knowing what the purpose of Tet was I found this.

From Wikipedia.

PAVN General Trần Văn Trà later wrote of the Tet Offensive "We did not correctly evaluate the specific balance of forces between ourselves and the enemy… [its objectives] were beyond our actual strength…in part an illusion based on our subjective desires.

Not many of that generation are left alive now. Those that remain who were in a position to know about strategy are now in their 90s.

It seems General Giap was not in charge of the Tet plan and disagreed with it. He was in Hungary at the time getting medical treatment.

"War is the continuation of politics by other means," according to Clausewitz. This was particularly the case in the American war. [That's what it is called hereabouts]. It seems the US paid scant regard to this political dimension and focused on inflicting enough damage and pain to force their enemy to give in.

I'm struck by how often one side attempts to defeat the other by using a strategy that would work against them. Another example is strategic bombing in WW2. Britain may have come much closer to serious civil unrest during the Blitz than is generally believed. This led directly to the idée fixe that Germany would somehow cave in if enough civilians were killed or 'dehoused'. That's my theory anyway.

It's hard to fathom what if any strategy the US had in South East Asia. They seem to have been making it up as they went along. I believe what evidence we have indicates the final outcome in Vietnam was irrelevant and US war aims concerned other countries in the region – Indonesia and the Philippines in particular. Once these were 'secured' by installing dictators amenable to US interests, Vietnam was just about saving face.

It seems one of the failings was that the NVA survivors did actually manage to escape (hence the massacres of their captives) as the city was not isolated. I have been indoctrinated with the idea that Tet destroyed the VC and that it may have well been a deliberate cunning plan of the NVA.

Yes they seem to gloss over the VC's and even the NVA's killing of non-combatants. The execution of Vietnamese Catholic nuns by the VC was particularly heinous. Plus at least once that I know of the VC burned 2 American female missionaries alive in a hut in the early days of the US involvement. Along with a US female doctor is still missing after being captured by the VC as well.

Yes as once the North had won, they didn't want to deal with Nationalists from South. As for every hard core Communists with the VC there were also a Nationalist. I don't think we will ever know the true ratio.

I don't fully go along with the poor paddy farmers fighting for their freedom, etc. As some in the US painted them up to be …

Sadly but it was inevitable combatants on all sides fought a brutal bloody war of both insurgency and classis jungle warfare.

Blutarski + on that post …

I also thought the city was isolated far sooner than it was.

Yes they could have withdrawn … but for a number of reasons decided to stay and fight. It appears they never tried a massive outbreak after that. But as pointed out … some did escape.

It's hard to fathom what if any strategy the US had in South East Asia. They seem to have been making it up as they went along.

Vietnam was just about saving face.

That appears to be the case.

It seems General Giap was not in charge of the Tet plan and disagreed with it.

I had heard that as well …