Operation Lam Son 719, named after South Vietnam General Lam in 1971 along Route 9, was one of the biggest aviation asset, personnel losses, and one of the most disastrous operations of the Vietnam War. The operational intent was to stop the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) from continuing its supply route and stronghold on the Ho Chi Minh trail and Base Area 604 in Laos. The hasty operation was supposed to serve two purposes; assist the shift of power for the war to allow for treaty possible discussions and to validate Army of the Republic of South Vietnam’s (ARVN) ability to design and maintain operational control as the allied forces pulled out. The operation seemed to be doomed to fail from its inception.
It was mid-summer 1968; the Vietnam War has been ongoing for several years. The American public as well as many of the allied countries did not support the war or its objectives so any news of the war received with mild protest and uneasiness. As the political structure of Southern Vietnam reestablished itself and United States political status with the war, President Nixon made a promise to the American people that he had a plan to
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Around late summer 1970, the NVA was growing stronger in forces and still maintained great control over the Ho Chi Minh trail and Laos. The importance of the control of this trail was no secret and US military leaders advised ARVN Senior leaders of its importance. US forces received intelligence of NVA’s offensive plan to move further south into ARVN’s stronger bases, General Creighton Abrams suggested that allied forces strike first. Intelligence reports believed the attack would help target more political unrest with upcoming elections in 1972. The operational planning began in December 1970 and officially received authorization for the offensive strategy on 07 January
Tactics had played major role in the Vietnam war. They were used in the battle of Ia Drang to have an impact on the battlefield. The three major tactics, History.com’s Staff said, were the U.S.’s air mobility and B-52 strikes also North Vietnamese guerilla warfare. The U.S. wanted to test their air power
As Nixon witnessed the death toll in Vietnam, he began a process known as Vietnamization. When running for president he told the people he had a secret plan to end the war with Vietnam. After taking office in January 1969, the Vietnam War had been in progress for four years, 31,000 Americans had been killed since action, and the training of South Vietnamese was in the process of being scheduled (Breen, T. H.). Over 540,000 Americans were in Vietnam with no plans of reduction and no progress had been made at the negotiations in Paris, as the United States did not have an exact peace proposal. Nixon and his advisors created a strategy known as Vietnamization, which was a plan to slowly withdraw American combat forces and help prepare South Vietnam
The Vietnam war was a costly matter for America that infected U.S. politics and destroyed the economy. When President Nixon took office, he tried to improve the United States relation with Russia through detente in 1969. This couldn’t solve the problem in Vietnam. This lead to the US leaving the fight in Vietnam in 1973 with the help of a peace agreement. President Nixon also continued his negations with Soviet Russia and visited China.
In the spring of 1967, the North Vietnamese army, also known as PAVN, changed tactics. They decided to attempt to open up a new battlefield along the South Vietnamese border in order to lure U.S. forces into an environment favorable to the North Vietnamese. They planned to use guerilla tactics to ambush the American troops and inflict heavy losses. In accordance with this strategy the PAVN sent a reinforced regiment to the Khe Sanh area. The regiment consisted of the “95C Regiment, 325 Division, plus a battalion from the division’s 18C Regiment.” (Willbanks 116) The first encounter between the PAVN regiment and U.S. forces occurred in April of 1967. A U.S. marine patrol was ambushed on one of the hills surrounding Khe Sanh. When a rescue patrol was dispatched to retrieve the ambushed marines, they suffered heavy losses due to their M16 rifles jamming en masse. When news of this accident was relayed to Congress it sparked a wave of congressional hearings and army modifications to improve the reliability of the M16.
The United States formulated a plan to safeguard their nation from the Vietnam War. Lyndon Johnson, the President of the United States, was unable to compose a clever plan to prevent North Vietnam from attacking. Eventually, in 1968, Richard Nixon became president and launched an invasion of Cambodia and supported a South Vietnamese invasion of Laos. These two unsuccessful invasions discontented the citizens and individuals held protests against the Vietnam War. Many soldiers refused to fight in the Vietnam War and citizens opposed the United States involvement. Ultimately, in 1973, the United States withdrew their troops from Vietnam and was declared the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Howard Zinn said, “The Vietnam war gave clear evidence
When it came to Nixon, he had many policy goals in Vietnam. The Vietnam war was not something that turned out good, but was a huge failure. Nixon and Kissinger were the ones that came into office and wanted something to be done right away. According to James L. Roark, in The American Promise, “I’m going to stop the war. Fast”. This was a quote from Nixon when he came into office. He wanted to end the war right away, but instead it didn’t turn out the way it should have. Nixon being the president at the time did not want the war to end in a way that South Vietnam would fall to communism. But knowing who he was that statement was flipped. “From 1969 to 1972, Nixon and Kissinger pursued a three-pronged approach” (Roark, 847). This approach included the
To start with responding to the widespread protests, Nixon outlined his new Vietnam War policy in this speech; Called “Vietnamization”, Nixon’s war policy called for contraction in American troops but continued fighting. Nixon contrasted his international strategy of political realism with the idealism of a vocal minority. He ended his speech with the famous words that his speech became known by: “So tonight, to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans, I ask for your support;”
In 1958, Communist-led guerrillas, eventually known as the Viet Cong, began to battle the government of the South Vietnamese. The United States then sent 2,000 military advisors t support South Vietnam’s government. This number grew to 16,3000 by 1963. The military force slowly deteriorated. By 1963 the fertile Mekong Delta was lost to the overpowering Viet Cong. The war rose in 1965, when President Johnson issued commencing air strikes on North Vietnam and ground forces, which had risen to 536,000 by 1968. The Tet Offensive by North Vietnam turned many Americans against the waging war. President Nixon, following Johnson, promoted Vietnamization, the withdrawing of American troops and handing over the great responsibility of the war to South Vietnam. Protesting of the war dramatically increased, especially after Nixon’s attempt to slow North Vietnam forces and supplies into the South by sending American forces to destroy supply bases in Cambodia in 1970, which violated Cambodian neutrality. This provoked antiwar protests on many of the United Stats’ college campuses. In 1968 through 1973 attempts were made to end the ongoing conflict through diplomacy. Then in January 1973, an agreement was reached. U.S. forces withdrew from Vietnam and the U.S. POWs were released. In April 1975, South Vietnam surrendered to the North and Vietnam was once again united. The Vietnam War ended, but it took the lives of 58,000
The Easter Offensive was a military campaign conducted by the communist People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) against the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and its allies in 1972. The PAVN, led by General Giap, caught the United States and South Vietnam by surprise when they dropped guerilla warfare approach and launched a three-pronged multi-division cross-border invasion. With ample intelligence but lack of decisive direction, it hardly raised eyebrows when PAVN managed to achieve surprise in the Easter Offensive.
You could never tell who was the enemy was therefore you treated everyone with suspicion- Thomas Giltner, US Soldier Contested SpacesThe foreign US soldiers had no knowledge of the geography of Vietnam (jungles, mountains, rainforests, and climate) but the VC did, and used it to their advantage. The US, by engaging in massive firepower, killing many non-combatants, destroyed the US credibility in the minds of the people. The VC sympathised with the peoples hardships and this was effective as they won the people over. The VC had extensive knowledge of guerrilla warfare, it was their war, and the US fought tractional conventional warfare which did have some effected, but eventually the US ran out of will. The military operations were
In 1965, the United States of America officially enter the war against North Vietnam. After the Gulf of Tonkin incident where North Vietnamese attacked two U.S. ships on August 2nd and 4th, 1964, this event was a chance for U.S. President Lyndon Johnson to give authority for U.S. to enter war in Vietnam. United State involvement in Vietnam War was an approach to seize the communist aggression. A campaign authorized by President Johnson called “Operation Rolling Thunder” which started on February 24th, 1965 is a series of extensive bombing directed towards the North Vietnamese predicted to be eight weeks long until the North Vietnamese surrender to U.S. power. However, this campaign lasted two years longer than expected.
The ear in Vietnam had ended and on the 30th April 1975, the NLF took
The Vietnam War was well on its way by the time the Democratic Convention of 1968 rolled around, and so were the anti-war protests. After the Tet Offensive in the spring of 1968 and the famous Broadcast of Walter Cronkite
As the Vietnam War progressed, People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) generals led by General Giap reassessed and adapted their strategy to fit the circumstances. This enabled the VC revolutionaries, supported by North Vietnamese regular forces, to achieve success without ever defeating US forces on the battlefield. For instance, the Tet Offensive in 1968 represented an operational failure in Stage Three of the Dau Tranh strategy but was considered a success for the North since it weakened American public support for the war. As a result the defeat on the battlefield, Giap adapted Dau Tranh to avoid concentration of forces and the effects of superior US firepower by transitioning back to Stage Two. The return to guerilla operations ensured sustained US casualties and the continued erosion of public support between 1968 and 1971. At the same time, main force units that were decimated during Tet could withdrawal and reconstitute. (Pike, 229)
Starting in 1969, Nixon escalated the war under his "Peace with Honor" doctrine. This meant bombing North Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. These locations were used by the North Vietnamese to regroup. The idea was that this would create enough of a blow to force