The Viet Cong, meaning Vietnamese communists, was the nickname given by the South Vietnamese to the military of the National Liberation Front of North Vietnam. The Viet Cong was more of a network of different communist groups than an army, and their battle style reflected this. They fought guerrilla warfare and hurt South Vietnamese cities with terrorist attacks. They were hard for the Americans to beat even though they were not well trained and had inferior weapons because they could scatter. They even used punji traps, pits filled with spikes, to fight. They used tunnels to hide bases than used hit and run tactics.
One of the largest scale Viet Cong attacks was the Tet offensive. The goal of the Viet Cong was to instigate revolt in South Vietnam. Although they did not succeed in doing this, the Tet offensive was still a success because it caused American public support for the war to diminish. It was called the Tet offensive because the Viet Cong commander wanted to surprise the South Vietnamese by attacking during the holiday Tet. They first launched a decoy attack on Khe Sanh on January 21 1968 before the real attack on the 30th. They attacked 13 cities than 120 military bases including the embassy. One big battle was the battle of the Hue. The Vietcong massacred 2,800 civilians. After intense bombing, the Americans regained the city weeks later.
The Viet Cong took many American prisoners of war. They were infamous for their use of torture. The "Hanoi Hilton" was the nickname given to one of the worst POW camps. 2,500 Americans became prisoners of war in Vietnam, many were pilots that were shot down. Some were hung from meat hooks, shoulders were dislocated, others were sent to solitary confinement, and 114 are confirmed to have died as prisoners of war although it is estimated that the death toll is much more than that.
I find it so fascinating that the Viet Cong were such a strong enemy against the United States despite their limited training and inferior weapons. I was wondering how the Viet Cong could have possibly won when there army was overall so much weaker, but they actually had a lot of things working to their advantage. Since they were on "home turf", they could navigate the complex jungles of Vietnam which were foreign and confusing the the Americans. The Americans also had the setback of not knowing who was an ally and who was Viet Cong, due to the army's lack of uniforms. Therefore, Americans had to be more careful before shooting or attacking so as to not hurt anyone fighting on their side. Finally the Viet Cong had sophisticated tunnels and traps that helped them weaken the enemy and get around easily.
ReplyDeletehttps://sciencing.com/military-advantages-did-viet-cong-over-americans-14738.html
I agree with Kenneth that it was amazing how difficult it was to defeat the Viet Cong, despite their inferior weapons and training. In fact, American tactics during this time were made in the attempt to get rid of their "home turf" advantage, such as the use of herbicides like Agent Orange to clear out cover, and the tactic of Search and Destroy. By just searching for enemy soldiers instead of attempting to take and hold territory, American personnel attempted to kill as many Viet Cong with limited casualties. Despite this, it was still incredibly hard to flush out Viet Cong soldiers, and in turn, the American death count was quite high. As American public appeal plummeted due to all the American deaths, it was hard to continue the fight, leading to America's eventual "peace with honor".
ReplyDeletehttps://thevietnamwar.info/search-destroy-misconception/
I find it interesting how similar fighting the Viet Cong is to the current war on terror that we are fighting. I think that because both the terrorist and the Viet Cong are so hard to defeat because of the guerrilla warfare methods you mentioned above in the post. I also find it fascinating that we have such advanced technology compared to the terrorists, but like in the Vietnam war, we cannot take out the enemy because in the places where the war is being fought it is hard to tell who the enemy is. I found an article that connects the Vietnam war and the War on Terror and draws other parallels between the two wars beyond the enemy, that I think you may find interesting. Thanks for such an interesting post!
ReplyDeletehttp://reason.com/archives/2014/06/26/iraq-and-the-echoes-of-vietnam
Great post bro! I liked how you gave some examples regarding Vietcong atrocities in killing over 2k civilians. In reality though the war was not the proudest human rights moment for any party involved. The panel known as Russell Tribunal met in Denmark on 1967, found the US guilty of multiple war crimes, the worst of them being, genocide, use of forbidden weapons, maltreatment and killing of prisoners.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/01/opinion/did-america-commit-war-crimes-in-vietnam.html