Guerrilla tactics were used against the American soldiers by the Vietcong. The US believed they would easily defeat the opposing forces and be able to stop the spread of communism. Their technology was far superior to anything of the Vietcong, but it seemed to be ineffectual. They believed that bombs would wipe out any forces in the area, but because of the vast tunnel networks used by the Vietcong they hardly did any damage. The bombing in effect helped the Vietcong to gain weapons, due to the pieces of shrapnel and unexploded bombs that were given off in the attacks. America began to drop massive amount of explosives on the Vietnam. They began to blanket bomb the Vietcong, this was known as, ‘Operation Rolling Thunder’ The Vietcong countered these attacks by using some anti-aircraft guns, but mostly used their knowledge of building tunnels to take down and hide from the planes. These tunnels were effective as they helped protect the Vietnamese against the masses of bombs dropped by American forces.
Americas main tactic was to go on ‘Search and Destroy’ missions, of which they would go and hunt down members of the Vietcong. This was not really effective as they would wear uniforms, which were easily distinguishable to the Vietcong. They also found it hard to distinguish between Vietcong and Non-Vietcong. Many stories have arose from this area, where innocent people having nothing to do with the Vietcong were murdered. Another reason for this failing was how the Vietcong had prepared. The Vietcong set traps in the dense jungles for the Americans to stumble into or trigger, these included mines and booby traps. The Vietcong would dig holes for the US soldiers to fall into, in these holes would normally be sharpened bamboo shoots covered with poison or faeces. This would infect the unfortunate victim and also take up the time of the other soldiers, as would most of the traps would do. This is sometimes when the Vietcong would strike, they would ambush the soldiers as they were helping their friend. They would shoot them from a distance or use explosives to get rid of the soldiers. Another trap that was used was the, ‘Bouncing Betty’ which was a mine just placed under the surface of the ground. When this was stood on it would explode injuring the men near. Mostly the Vietcong didn’t want to kill the victims straight off, they wished to occupy the other members of the group with the dying soldier. This was a successful tactic as it only really took, one mine to kill a whole band of soldiers. Booby traps accounted for around 11 per cent and 17 per cent of the wounds in American soldiers. This added to the mental problems of the American soldiers, knowing that maybe the next step could be their last.
The Vietcong seemed to have an endless supply of soldiers, who would willingly die for their cause, of an independent country. They wished to rule their own country and not be ruled by another. Most of the Vietnamese people wished for this as well, an therefore having around 20 million people living in Vietnam, many were willing to die for it. The Americans needed to stop people turning to basically communism. In an answer to this the Americans used ‘pacification’ as the tool to win over the minds of the South Vietnamese. They gave help to the villages, by building schools and hospitals. This helped to stop the people turning against them, but those already firm in communist ideas were not convinced.
The involvement of the US soldiers is interesting. At the start American soldiers were brought in to defend the air bases in South Vietnam, in small numbers. Bombing also occurred and continued throughout the war. These later turned to the ‘Search and Destroy’ missions, which also seemed to fail even though American strength was around 200,000 by the end of 1965. America also tried to win over the Vietnamese people, but this too was mostly unsuccessful. The Americans seemed to be getting more desperate in what they should do, and needed to think of a tactic that would help them beat the Vietcong. They realised that most of the trouble was coming from the jungles where the Vietcong were supposedly hiding.
America’s response to this was to use defoliation as the key to success. The used ‘Agent Orange’ a defoliant, to reduce the cover of the dense jungles and also to deprive the Vietcong of their food and crops supplies. They used this in conjunction with bombing and hoped that it would rid them of the Vietcong, but the chemicals used contaminated the water and fish. Another tool that America began to use was Napalm. This was like a kind of Petroleum Jelly, which stuck to people and severely burned them, also damaging trees and jungle areas.
On 31st January 1968, the Vietcong resorted to using open warfare this is known as, ‘The Tet Offensive’. This was the turning point of the war. Even though the Americans won, they realised that the Vietnamese would loose as many soldiers to their cause. This was due to they were fighting for freedom, and would never give up no matter how many people they lost. America on the other hand was fighting to stop the spread of communism. The American government ordered that the US soldiers should pull out of the war. This was not only due to the Vietnamese but also to the enormous controversy back home. The American people were against the war, they realised what was going on and how the people were being treated. This was shown to them by what was coming home to them by media. They got wind of what happened in places like My Lai, and began to protest. How could America ever expect to beat the Vietnamese when they couldn’t win over the people back home.
