However Ho Cho Minh was determined to succeed and if he couldn’t win by election then he would have to win by war. The experienced Viet Cong, which included all sorts of brilliant fighters including guerrillas, entered the South and even though the Americans tried to support the South as both Presidents Eisenhower (from 1958) and Kennedy (from 1960) failed to stop the determined Viet Cong and by 1965 they controlled vast areas of South Vietnam and the South’s government was on the verge of collapse.
This was the stage when America could not wait around any longer. They started sending their own troops to help in the fighting. This would be the start of a long, costly and complex war.
First of all America just helped the South Bomb parts of the North saying that the Gulf of Tonkin incident where Vietnamese torpedoes attacked ASS Maddox which was a US Warship had made them take action. It was only technical help at this time as Johnson said that he did not want to become too heavily involved but after he easily won the election and after pressure and backing from military advisers he sent the first 27,000 ground troops into Vietnam. Too give you an impression of how badly the ASA were doing in this war after two years there were 500,000 troops in Vietnam.
America tried everything and their tactics were plain and simple, to wear the enemy down and kill more then they could afford to loose. America was trying to win by ‘Search and Destroy’ missions which involved trying to flush the guerrillas out of their bases and more often then not civilians were the ones killed as they used chemicals on jungles and set fire to villages to try and kill Viet Cong hiding in the villages and towns. Meanwhile the Americans also started to carry out heavy bombing of the North and then they would pause and try and start some negotiations. If the North did not co-operate then the Americans would start up the bombing again. Also the American air bases were being heavily bombed from the North fighters and so they had to be guarded by large numbers of troops so were they there to attack or defend? But one thing the Americans could not defeat was the determination of the Viet Cong. The Viet Cong were expert guerrilla fighters and the Americans had no real answer to this type of this warfare. It was the kind of war that they could not win. The Viet Cong copied the guerrilla tactics which had been perfected my Mas Tse-Tung’s Red Army. In guerrilla war the guerrillas try to wear down the enemy. Mas Tse-Tung had summarised the tactics of guerrilla warfare like this:
- The enemy attacks, we retreat.
- The enemy tires, we attack.
- The enemy camps, we raid.
- The enemy retreats, we pursue.
It was almost impossible to win a battle against a guerrilla army because you could never find out where it was. It attacked you and then disappeared back into the jungle. They would also hide in villages and towns as they had the support of the peasants there who would hide them. One Viet Cong leader said: “The people are the water. Our enemies are the fish.” And this too me really sums up the war. This was their war.
The American soldiers didn’t even know why they were there and were fighting for someone else’s beliefs whereas the Viet Cong were fighting for what they really believed in and this was a vital fact that made them impossible to beat. Back to the bombing the Viet Cong were also very clever as they would survive the heavy bombing raids and then quickly relocated industries in remote places with help from the Soviet Union and China and they kept arms in caves and underground. Tens of thousands of North Vietnamese women and children would also work hard to keep transport routes open. The American tactics in no way reduced the commitment of the Communist forces.
The war was slowly sapping the morale of the Americans. Constant ambushed made the soldiers nervous and desperate and American casualties were becoming ridiculously high. Even the South Vietnamese who the Americans were there to help suffered huge losses with 100,000 losses in 1965 and then 300,000 in 1968. Also by now conscription had started in America with mostly poor people and blacks being made to go and fight for their country, most had just left school and college and by now the American people were far from happy. This was a media war and for the first time cameras and reporters were allowed into the front line and the film was being beamed around the world and seen by millions on their televisions as they saw torture death and violence in Vietnam in their houses. The film also covered the Massacre at My Lai which was carried out by the Americans as they burst into and killed 300 to 400 civilians in the hop of killing some Viet Cong which they failed to do and the leader of the operation was later found guilty for murder without reason as he let his machine gun fire on the people they had gathered together in trenches which had been dug. With the media against what the Americans were doing the people were involved in huge Anti-War protests on the Pentagon and other major sites which put Johnson under huge pressure to get his troops out of Vietnam.
In January 1968 the North Vietnamese launched the Tet Offensive, which was an all out attack on the cities of South Vietnam. Although they suffered huge losses and failed in their attack it showed the North Vietnamese would accept any cost to win the war. This broke the Americans will to fight completely and Johnson started the peace protest in 1968 and stated he would run for president at the next election. Richard Nixon became US President in November 1968. His policy was peace with honour, which basically meant getting the US troops out of Vietnam without it looking like at defeat. This involved forcing the North to make concessions. To achieve this the US intensified the war especially the bombing campaign. Peace negotiations dragged on for 4 years. Nixon extended the bombing campaign to Laos and Cambodia to smash communist supply centres and troops.
Nixon gradually began the process of Vietnamisation as he gradually withdrew US forces and increased support for South Vietnamese army.
This way of trying to end the war caused outrage in America and in May 1970 peace protests at Kent State University fired on by National Guard’s men causing the death of 4 students whilst 11 other sustained injuries. Nixon’s policy came under huge public criticism as even celebrities made protests for peace.
The withdrawal of American troops continued throughout 1971/72 as only air power kept the South from crumbling in Vietnam.
Finally to force North Vietnam to agree to ceasefire terms Nixon ordered massive air attacks on Hanoi in December 1972. This succeeded and the North agreed terms on the 27th January 1973. America was now able to withdraw the remaining troops. Nixon’s Vietnam policy was also linked to widen foreign policy aims and the withdrawal of troops from Vietnam was necessary to achieve an improvement in relations with China and Russia.
In my opinion the Americans had no right to go into Vietnam as this problem was miles away and was a matter for Vietnam itself to sort out. They handled the war badly once in it and were letting soldiers needlessly die. The fact that communism spread all through Vietnam after the Americans left really hits home that this was a pointless was which didn’t have to take place.
