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History > 20th century > Cold War > USA, Vietnam
Tet offensive
Jan. 31, 1968 - Feb. 25, 1968
warning: graphic / distressing
1969 A grieving widow cries over a body bag containing the remains of her husband, found in a mass grave containing civilians killed by Việt Cộng during the Tet offensive of 1968
Photograph: Larry Burrows Time & Life pictures/Getty
The Vietnam war captured in colour – in pictures
For Americans, it is one of the most compelling images of the Vietnam war: 1966’s Reaching Out, which shows a wounded soldier leaning towards a comrade on a mud-spattered hillside.
The picture was taken by British photojournalist Larry Burrows, who covered the war for Life magazine from 1962 until he was killed there in 1971.
His images convey the brutality, chaos and human cost of a disastrous campaign.
To mark the 40th anniversary of the end of the war, here is a selection of them G Tue 28 Apr 2015 07.00 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2015/apr/28/
A woman mourns over the body of her husband after identifying him by his teeth and covering his head with her conical hat.
The man’s body was found with 47 others in a mass grave near Hue on 11 April 1969.
The victims were believed to be killed during the insurgent occupation of Hue as part of the Tet offensive
Photograph: Horst Faas AP
Vietnam: The Real War – in pictures G Wednesday 22 April 2015 11.13 BST
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2015/apr/22/
Mass Graves In Hue, Vietnam
Grieving widow crying over plastic bag containing remains of husband recently found in mass grave - killed in Feb. 1968 Vietnam war Tet offensive.
Location: Hue, Vietnam
Date taken: April 1969
Photograph: Larry Burrows
Life Images
Gen Nguyen Ngoc Loan, South Vietnamese chief of the national police, fires his pistol into the head of suspected Vietcong official Nguyen Van Lem on a Saigon street early on in the Tet offensive, on 1 February 1968.
Photographer Eddie Adams reported that after the shooting, Loan approached him and said: “They killed many of my people, and yours too,” then walked away.
This photograph received the 1969 Pulitzer prize for spot news photography
Photograph: Eddie Adams AP
Vietnam: The Real War – in pictures G Wednesday 22 April 2015 11.13 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2015/apr/22/
(1 of 3) South Vietnamese forces escort suspected Viet Cong officer Nguyen Van Lem (also known as Bay Lop) on a Saigon street Feb. 1, 1968, early in the Tet Offensive.
(2 of 3) South Vietnamese General Nguyen Ngoc Loan, chief of the national police, fires his pistol into the head of suspected Viet Cong officer Nguyen Van Lem on a Saigon street, on Feb. 1, 1968.
(3 of 3) South Vietnamese General Nguyen Ngoc Loan holsters his gun after executing suspected Viet Cong officer Nguyen Van Lem whose body lies on a Saigon street Feb. 1, 1968, early in the Tet Offensive.
Photograph: Eddie Adams AP
Boston Globe > Big Picture Vietnam, 35 years later 7 May 2010 http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/05/vietnam_35_years_later.html - broken link
US soldiers tormenting a civilian in the old city of Hue during the offensive, Tet, Hue (1968)
Photograph: Don McCullin
He began photographing war, once saying he ‘used to chase wars like a drunk chasing a can of lager’.
His photos of American soldiers in Vietnam remain his most famous
Don McCullin: 'photography isn't looking, it's feeling' – in pictures G Tuesday 17 May 2016 08.09 BST
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2016/may/17/
Wounded U.S. soldiers aboard a makeshift ambulance weeks after the Tet Offensive started in Vietnam in 1968.
Specialist Allen had warned the Army in late 1967 of a large-scale attack by North Vietnamese and Vietcong forces, even pinpointing when it would happen, but her intelligence went ignored.
Photograph: John Olson Getty Images
Doris Allen, Analyst Who Saw the Tet Offensive Coming, Is Dead at 97 Her warning of a big buildup of enemy troops poised to attack South Vietnam in 1968 was ignored, a major U.S. Army intelligence failure during the war. NYT June 28, 2024
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/28/
Tet offensive
Jan. 30/31, 1968 - Feb. 25, 1968
When the Tet offensive ignited South Vietnam on Jan. 30, 1968, American forces were taken by surprise.
Every one of the country’s 44 provinces was hit in a stunning, coordinated attack that changed the course of the war.
With so many American resources in Vietnam focused on intelligence-gathering, why was the United States so clueless?
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/23/
At 3 o'clock in the morning of Jan. 31, 1968, North Vietnamese and Vietcong forces launched a wave of simultaneous attacks on South Vietnamese and American forces in major cities, towns and military bases throughout South Vietnam.
The fighting, the heaviest and most sustained of the Vietnam War, coincided with the Lunar New Year, or Tet, and it has been called the Tet offensive ever since.
It was a military turning point in the war, but it was far more than that in its painful demonstration of the limits of American power in Asia and in the psychological impact it was to have on Americans at home.
https://www.nytimes.com/1988/01/31/
On Jan. 30, 1968, during a cease-fire in honor of the Vietnamese New Year (called Tet Nguyen Dan), more than 80,000 North Vietnamese and Vietcong troops hit military bases and cities throughout South Vietnam in what would be called the Tet offensive.
For the Communists, things went wrong from the start.
Some Vietcong units attacked prematurely, without the backing of regular troops as planned.
Suicide squads, like one that penetrated the United States Embassy in Saigon, were quickly wiped out.
Despite some successes — the North Vietnamese entered the city of Hue and held it for three weeks — the offensive was a military disaster.
The hoped-for uprisings never took place, and some 40,000 Communist fighters were killed or wounded.
The Vietcong never regained the strength it had before Tet.
But the fierceness of the assault illustrated Hanoi’s determination to win and shook the American public and leadership. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/05/world/asia/gen-vo-nguyen-giap-dies.html
The offensive may have failed to spark a popular uprising across South Vietnam, as North Vietnam’s Communist leadership had hoped, but it did constitute a huge, well-executed surprise attack that laid bare the claims of the American military commander, Gen. William Westmoreland, that nearly a half-million United States troops and the South Vietnamese Army had the upper hand and that victory was only a matter of time.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/04/
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/28/
https://www.npr.org/2018/03/11/
https://www.youtube.com/
https://www.npr.org/2018/02/02/
https://www.npr.org/2018/01/29/
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/23/
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/04/
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/16/
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/05/
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/03/
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/01/31/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/january/31/
http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/01/26/reviews/970126.26wickert.html
http://www.nytimes.com/1983/11/08/arts/tv-the-tet-offensive-in-vietnam.html
https://www.npr.org/2009/07/18/
https://www.npr.org/2008/01/31/
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/716609.stm - 16 November 2000
https://www.npr.org/1998/01/30/
https://www.nytimes.com/1971/10/24/
30 January - 3 March 1968
South Vietnam Battle of Hue
US marines, the Citadel, Hue, Vietnam, 1968.
Photograph: Don McCullin Courtesy of the Tate
‘Once photography gets a grip, you're captive’: Don McCullin and Giles Duley in conversation O Sun 3 Feb 2019 12.00 GMT
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/feb/03/
The significance of Hue — a gruesome, 24-day battle — is summed up by Bowden as the moment when many Americans stopped believing their government’s rhetoric about the war.
Indeed, one month after the battle, President Lyndon B. Johnson announced that he would not run for re-election, and Westmoreland was dumped shortly thereafter.
Sadly, it took another agonizing seven years and tens of thousands more casualties for America to extract itself from Vietnam.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/04/
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/feb/03/
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/04/
https://www.npr.org/2017/06/12/
William Wallace Momyer Jr. 1916-2012
celebrated World War II fighter pilot who helped plot postwar tactics for the Air Force and commanded aerial combat and bombing operations during the early years of the Vietnam War
(...)
During the Tet offensive in 1968, when North Vietnamese forces attacked South Vietnam’s cities and military bases, General Momyer’s high-flying B-52 Stratofortresses pounded enemy troops at Khe Sanh with 100,000 tons of explosives.
The operation, dubbed Niagara, inflicted heavy losses on the North Vietnamese, who eventually broke off the attack.
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/03/
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/03/
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https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/08/
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