Before the US started sending troops in, they helped the forming of the ‘South-East Asia Treaty Organisations’ (SEATO) in 1954. The members included Australia, France, Thailand, UK, Philippines, New Zealand, the US and Pakistan. They all promised to protect the countries of South-east Asia. As Diem refused to hold elections, this caused many confrontations. Diem wanted to ‘detect Communist spies left behind by the Vietminh.’ To achieve this he set about destroying his opponents and having war with communist’s sympathisers. The ways he did this lead to widespread corruption in his regime and many people turned against him.
Vietnam was peaceful until 1959. The US pored economic aid and modern weapons into South Vietnam. The first 17 advisers were sent into Saigon in November 1954, and by the time Eisenhower left office in 1961 there were 685 officers. The officers weren’t sent to fight, but to train the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN).
In the 1880’s the French armed forced complete their conquest of French Indo-China and made it part of their empire. At the start of the Second World War it was still part of the empire. The French were fighting the Vietminh and were supported by the USA. After the defeat at Dien Bein Phu, and no help from the US after not declaring Indo-China independent, the war for France was over. France was fighting in Vietnam for 8 years.
Boa Dai appointed Ngo Dinh Diem Prime Mister of South Vietnam. He, Ngo Dinh Diem, refused to hold elections, which he promised at the Geneva Peace Conference. ARVN officers assassinated him with this brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu. He gained hatred by putting government officials from the cities into the country with the peasants, even thought they knew nothing about the peasant life and its traditions. When the famous picture of the burning monk appeared in the papers, John F. Kennedy became increasingly reluctant to support the Diem regime.
The Vietcong, Vietminh, were the communists. They were a threat to the US troops because they fought with a different type of warfare then the Americans, guerrilla warfare. They used the underground tunnels to move food and supplies to South to North where they needed them. They moved weapons and food. The Americans were being outwitted by jungle fighting. The American troops couldn’t see the Vietcong to fight and often got every frustrated by this. The Vietcong used booby traps; these included mines buried under the surface of the ground, grenades attached to trip wires, concealed holes and Punji traps. The booby traps accounted for 11% of US troops death and 17% of the wounds that the troops got. The Vietcong didn’t use conventional warfare. It was also hard to identify who the Vietcong were.
The ‘black pyjamas’ were the civilian clothes. If there was Vietcong in an area, by the time the US troops had gotten to the village, the Vietcong had probably gone. The Vietcong would gain the trust of locals before they set up any traps, then they would know who were on their side. The fact that the Vietcong looked so normal it was hard for the troops to know who to look for.
The Vietcong also used the Ho Chi Minh trail. This was used to send weapons, food, guerrillas and equipment to the Vietcong in the south. It stretched 1,000 km with dummy paths and depots; the US air force usually got confused. In all it needed 40, 000 people to keep it working. The life on the trail wasn’t pleasant. When the trail was see-able on a fine day the US and ARVN planes attacked. When it rained, especially in monsoon season, the packs the Vietcong had to carry were doubled in weight. A lot of the supplies travelling along the trail came from allies. The Soviet Union helped and supplied the aircrafts. China helped providing the fuel, food and handguns. The Vietcong often recycled old metals from weapons the US troops had left behind. The trail could be hidden by the rainforest, and the fact the troops were new to Vietnam and didn’t know the layout very well. That, however, was all about to change due to an American weapon – Agent Orange.
Vietnam had a lot of scenery, mountains and rain forests, this caused problems for the US troops. The Vietcong would hide in the hills, jungles and swamps. It was hard for the Americans to fight, as they didn’t know who they were looking for and there was no front line. As the Americans couldn’t state how much territory they had taken, they used another away to show how well they were doing in the war. This was the body count; and consisted of counting the amount of Vietcong bodies they had. But the Vietcong maintained it size due to new recruits. The US troops tried to outsmart the Vietcong by killing whole villages if they thought Vietcong were staying there. The bodies of the civilians would then be counted, and this caused hatred.
As the Vietcong were fighting in their home country they could continue fighting for years. The US, however, were unable to do this; the cost of the war was to high, not only in money but in lives too. The South of Vietnam consisted of bush, Mekong Delta, paddy field, mountains, rainforest and towns and cities. This gave the Vietcong plenty of cover. So how could the US troops outsmart the Vietcong – give them no cover to hide in and burn down the forests. Agent orange was a weed killer, and it was used to strip away leaves and undergrowth leaving tree branches bare. It was sprayed from aeroplanes and did help for a while. But it contained a chemical called dioxin and it not only poisoned the environment but the people that were handling it at the air base, which left many American with cancer. Long terms effects from Agent Orange include birth defects and serious skin complaints. December 1970 saw the end of chemical weapons, long after scientists had protested about their use. By the end of the war much of the rain forest and swampland had been completely ruined and the swamps of the Mekong Delta had been completely ruined. Napalm was the first and propaly the first chemical weapon used. It was jellied petrol and it stuck to its victims and caused horrific burns.
Search and destroy were missions to find the Vietcong. Army units were sent into the field and killed any Vietcong they could locate. It was called ‘Find and Kill’ by the Vietcong. The US used many methods; these included US helicopters landing in villages, giving Vietcong little warning. The US troops often followed the course of streams, as the rainforest was ideal cover for Vietcong. Burning Vietcong bases was another method used. The troops also searched houses and poked bamboo stakes in walls and ground looking for hidden tunnels.
The bodies were counted up and added onto the body count number. The success of an operation was judged on the amount of bodies. As the Vietcong was hard to identify, it was often Vietnam villagers that were counted in the body counts. Vietcong, when found, where interrogated, often brutally, so the US could find out what they knew and see if they could incriminate others.
11th February 1965 Operation Rolling Thunder began. The US troops bombed roads, barracks, supply depots and railway lines. America now confident they could win the war. They had restricted targets; they stopped aircrews from bombing Hanoi and Haiphong. This was because the US didn’t want to jeopardise US relations with the Soviet Union. It led to an extensive was from the air and became the principle weapon used by President Johnson when he tried to force North Vietnam to talk about peace.
The Americans used chemical Weapons. They fought it could help them win the war. They originally used them because they were desperate, the Vietcong were hiding and they couldn’t fight the enemy they couldn’t see.
Both the side’s tactics were unpopular. The Vietcong used guerrilla warfare, which was unpopular, as it wasn’t giving the Americans a fair chance to fight. Guerrilla tactics include booby traps; ambush enemy units and terrorism and murder. The Americans used modern weapons and western fighting, yet when that failed, or were unable to use it as the Vietcong hide, they turned to chemical weapons. These were unpopular because no only did they have short-term effects like headaches and sickness but they had long term effects that may have caused birth defences. And the Americans that worked at the air base and came in contact with the chemicals often caught cancer.
The media had a large part to play in the Vietnam War. It made people aware what was being done in their name. There are some photos that were shown. The most 3 most famous are probably the picture of the burning monk, the execution of a Vietcong suspect in the street and the children from South Vietnam fleeing after a napalm attack in which they have burning skin. It was however a one sided-coverage. The media couldn’t go out with the Vietcong and report all their war crimes. It was easier to follow Americans.
The media didn’t always report up-to-date. An example of this is the My Lai massacre, which the media reported on 18 months after it had happened. On Saturday 16 March 1968 3 platoons of American soldiers landed at the small village on My Lai. They were led by Lieutenant William Calley and on a search and destroy mission. If there was any Vietcong there, by the time the troops were in the village, they would of all been gone or hiding. In that 2 hours, many cold-blooded killings of unarmed Vietnamese men, women and children. Many soldiers got out of it by saying they were just following orders, but a man of ordinary sense would of understood it illegal. Most of the soldiers were killing as revenge for the friends that they lost.
