Vietnam War

The Vietnam War was a war following the division of Indochina under the 1954 Geneva Convention into the separate states of North and South Vietnam.

A Vietcong soldier wearing typical clothing and sandals in a tunnel

Within South Vietnam the communist Viet Cong, supported by North Vietnam and China, attempted to seize power. South Vietnam were backed by the USA, who provided military aid following the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964.

Several large-scale invasion attempts by North Vietnam were defeated by indigenous and US forces, but the unpopularity of the war within the USA led to American withdraw from 1973.

By 1975, North Vietnam had overrun South Vietnam, USA having withdrawn, and in 1976 South Vietnam was reunited with the North. The conflict lasted from November 1, 1955 - April 30, 1975,

CHRONOLOGY

October 22, 1957 American forces suffered their first casualties in Vietnam when 13 Advisory Americans were wounded in three terrorist bombings.

July 8, 1959: The first Americans were killed in South Vietnam. Major Dale R. Ruis and Master Sergeant Chester M. Ovnand became the first Americans killed in the American phase of the Vietnam War when guerrillas struck a Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG). At the time U.S. involvement was still limited to the provision of military advisers.

December 22, 1961 25-year-old James Davis of Livingston, Tennessee, was killed by the Viet Cong, on a road near the old French Garrison of Cau Xang, becoming the first of some 55,000 U.S. soldiers killed during the Vietnam War.

August 2, 1964 The Gulf of Tonkin incident occurred on August 2, 1964, which involved North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacking the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of North Vietnam. 

August 4, 1964 There was a reported second attack on the USS Maddox and the USS Turner Joy, another U.S. Navy destroyer, by North Vietnamese torpedo boats., but later evidence suggested that the second attack might not have occurred as initially reported.

August 7, 1964 The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was passed by the United States Congress on August 7, 1964, in response to the Gulf of Tonkin incident. The resolution authorized President Lyndon B. Johnson to take "all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent any further aggression."

George Stephen Morrison, the father of The Doors vocalist Jim Morrison, was the naval commander in charge of the fleet during the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. Thus sparking the escalation leading to the Vietnam War.

Photo taken from USS Maddox during the incident, showing three North Vietnamese motor torpedo boats

November 4, 1965 Dickey Chapelle was killed in action by a landmine on November 4, 1965, while on patrol with a Marine platoon during Operation Black Ferret, a search and destroy operation in Quảng Ngãi province, South Vietnam. She was the first female war correspondent killed in Vietnam, as well as the first American female reporter to be killed in action.

February 1, 1968. Photojournalist Eddie Adams took his Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of the summary execution of Viet Cong prisoner Nguyễn Văn Lém. The picture helped build opposition in the USA to the Vietnam War.

January 27, 1973 The Paris Peace Accords was signed on January 27, 1973, to establish peace in Vietnam and end the Vietnam War. The treaty included the governments of North and South Vietnam), and the United States, as well as the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) that represented indigenous South Vietnamese revolutionaries.

The Paris Peace Treaty's provisions were immediately frequently broken with no response from the United States. By the end of the year North Vietnamese offenses had enlarged their control.

March 29, 1973, Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) was disbanded and the last U.S. combat troops departed the Republic of Vietnam. The last unit was elements of MACV's Infantry Security Force (Special Guard), actually special couriers.

President Barack Obama proclaimed March 29, 2012, as Vietnam Veterans Day. The proclamation called "upon all Americans to observe this day with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities that commemorate the 50 year anniversary of the Vietnam War."

Communist forces finally gained control of the South Vietnam capital, Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) on April 30, 1975. The Vietnam War formally ended with the unconditional surrender of South Vietnamese president Duong Van Minh.

April 30 is a public holiday in Vietnam celebrated as Reunification Day.

May 15, 1975, Private Kelton Rena Turner was the last American soldier killed in the Vietnam War on May 15, 1975. Recorded circumstances attributed his death to: "Died through hostile action, air crash at sea, Body not recovered until 1995".

VIETNAM WAR FACTS

2,500,000 US troops went to Vietnam, 58,000 were killed or reported missing, 200,000 wounded, and 100,000 are alleged to have committed suicide; Vietnamese casualties are unknown.

Project 100,000 was initiated by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara in October 1966 to meet the escalating manpower requirements of the American government's involvement in the Vietnam War.  The controversial program drafted 100,000 low-IQ men a year for the Vietnam War. Dubbed, "Macnamara's Morons" more than 5,000 were killed in the war, three times the rate when compared to other soldiers. The project was ended in December 1971.

61% of US soldiers killed in the Vietnam War were less than 20 years old. The average age of deaths being 23 years old.

The first American to die in Vietnam was actually murdered by a fellow soldier in 1956. Richard B. Fitzgibbon Jr. gave candy to local children when he bumped into a drunk colleague that shot him on sight. It took 43 years for his name to be added to the Vietnam War Memorial.

 From 1965 to 1968, the United States was dropping 32 tons of bombs per hour on North Vietnam. 7 million tons of bombs including 400,000 tons of napalm were dropped in Southeast Asia during the conflict. This is more than three times as many tons of bombs than were dropped in all of World War II

Vietnam War is the only war in American history in which US war dogs were not allowed to officially return home after the conflict. Classified as expendable equipment, around 3,500 dogs who were not killed in action were either euthanized or left behind.

During Vietnam, SEAL Teams One and Two amassed a combined kill ratio of 200:1, with only 46 deaths resulting mostly from accidents and poor intelligence, rather than enemy direct fire.

During the Vietnam War the act of "Fragging" was when US troops would toss a grenade in their commanding officers tent; known and suspected fragging cases by explosives in Vietnam from 1969 to 1972 totalled nearly 900.

Because in 1971 15 percent of American soldiers in Vietnam were heroin addicts, the government started operation Golden Flow which required soldiers to pass a drug test in order to return home.

In Vietnam the Vietnam War is called the American War, or "War Against the Americans to Save the Nation".

The 9 year old "Vietnam Girl" famously photographed (see picture below) after having all her clothes and more than a third of her skin completely burned off her body by a napalm bombing, somehow miraculously survived, then left Vietnam, and is now a Canadian Citizen working in Ontario.

During the Vietnam War 30,000 American draft dodgers fled to Canada, the same number as Canadians that volunteered to fight.

25% of US Army soldiers in the Vietnam War were intentionally-recruited "misfits" who couldn't read and write, had an IQ of below 75, and/or dropped out of high school. Some didn't even know the US was at war. They had three times the casualty rate of regular soldiers.

The code signal to inform the remaining Americans that South Vietnam was lost and should be evacuated instantly, was a weather report that the temperature was "105 degrees and rising," followed by the song "White Christmas"... in April.