The Battle of Huế (31 January 1968 – 2 March 1968), also called the Siege of Huế, was a major military engagement in the Tết Offensive launched by North Vietnam and the Việt Cộng during the Vietnam War. After initially losing control of most of Huế and its surroundings, the combined South Vietnamese and American forces gradually recaptured the city over one month of intense fighting. The battle was one of the longest and bloodiest of the war, and the battle negatively affected American public perception of the war. By the beginning of the North Vietnamese Tet Offensive on 30 January 1968, which coincided with the Vietnamese Tết Lunar New Year, large conventional American forces had been committed to combat operations on Vietnamese soil for almost three years. Highway 1, passing through the city of Huế, was an important supply line for Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and United States forces from the coastal city of Da Nang to the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), the de facto border between North and South Vietnam only 50 kilometers (31 mi) to the north of Huế. The highway also provided access to the Perfume River (Vietnamese: Sông Hương or Hương Giang) at the point where the river ran through Huế, dividing the city into northern and southern parts. Huế was also a base for United States Navy supply boats. Due to the Tết holidays, large numbers of ARVN forces were on leave and the city was poorly defended.

The timing of the General Offensive was set for Tet January 30, 1968, the beginning of the Lunar New Year: The Year of the Monkey. Tet is by far and away the most important holiday of the Vietnamese year. It is almost impossible for a Westerner to understand its significance. It’s like Christmas, Thanksgiving, the Fourth of July, and your birthday, all rolled into one. The Communist military leadership used the 1967 Christmas cease-fire to good advantage. Senior commanders used the truce to reconnoiter their assigned objectives. On Christmas Day, Colonel Nam Truyen, commander of the 9th VC Division, slipped into Saigon with forged papers identifying him as a student returning home for the holiday. Once inside the city, he made a thorough tour around the perimeter of Tan Son Nhut Air Base, one of his primary targets. By December 15, 1967, the U.S. command had turned over sole responsibility for the defense of Saigon to the South Vietnamese military, a gesture of confidence in the growing reliability of the ARVN. The main task of securing Saigon was assigned to the 5th ARVN Ranger Group, supported in turn by the 2nd Battalion, 13th Artillery, the only U.S. combat unit remaining inside the city itself. Lieutenant General Fredrick C. Weyand, commander of 11 Field Forces, didn’t like the pattern he was seeing. His troops in the border regions were experiencing too few contacts, and enemy radio traffic around Saigon was getting heavier. On January 10, 1968, Weyand (a former intelligence officer and future chief of staff of the U.S. Army) went to see his boss, General William C. Westmoreland, with his concerns. He convinced Westmoreland to allow a shift of some of 11 Field Forces’ combat power back inside the Saigon Circle. (When the attacks did come, 27 maneuver battalions were back inside the Circle. Weyand’s call on Westmoreland may well have been the single most decisive decision of the entire battle.)

The Battle of Khe Sanh began on January 21, 1968, when forces from the People’s Army of North Vietnam (PAVN) carried out a massive artillery bombardment on the U.S. Marine garrison at Khe Sanh, located in South Vietnam near the border with Laos. For the next 77 days, U.S. Marines and their South Vietnamese allies fought off an intense siege of the garrison, one of the longest and bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War. The attack finally came on January 21, 1968, when PAVN forces began a massive artillery bombardment of Khe Sanh, hitting the base’s main store of ammunition and destroying 90 percent of its artillery and mortar rounds. President Lyndon B. Johnson agreed with Westmoreland’s argument that the base should be held at all costs, and U.S. and South Vietnamese forces launched Operation Niagara, a major artillery bombardment of suspected locations of North Vietnamese artillery in the hills surrounding Khe Sanh. As Johnson, Westmoreland, and other officials considered Khe Sanh to be the primary target of the North Vietnamese, they largely ignored signs of a Communist buildup in more urban areas of South Vietnam. This proved to be a mistake, as on January 31, 1968—a date celebrated as the lunar new year, or Tet—some 70,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces launched a coordinated series of fierce attacks on more than 100 cities and towns in South Vietnam. Known as the Tet Offensive, this aggressive operation aimed to break Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) forces, inspire rebellion among the South Vietnamese population against the regime in Saigon, and drive a wedge between South Vietnam and its powerful ally, the United States. Suddenly, the long and bitter struggle at Khe Sanh began to look like a diversionary tactic meant to tie up U.S. and South Vietnamese resources leading up to the Tet Offensive. News reports of the Battle of Khe Sanh consistently referred to the struggle as another Dien Bien Phu, but in reality, the U.S. and South Vietnamese enjoyed a much stronger position than had the French. In addition to a fleet of helicopters and cargo planes that could resupply and reinforce the besieged Marines, they could rely on the heavy bombing capacity of the B-52 fighter planes, which dropped close to 100,000 explosives on the hills surrounding Khe Sanh over the course of the battle. Though U.S. officials expected a full-scale attack by North Vietnamese forces on the base, it never came, and in March Westmoreland ordered Operation Pegasus, a joint Army, Marine, and ARVN ground advance that relieved the base and ended the siege by mid-April, after some 77 days.

The small village of My Lai is located in Quang Ngai province, which was believed to be a stronghold of the communist National Liberation Front (NLF) or Viet Cong (VC) during the Vietnam War. Quang Ngai province was therefore a frequent target of U.S. and South Vietnamese bombing attacks, and the entire region was heavily strafed with Agent Orange, the deadly herbicide. In March 1968, Charlie Company—part of the Americal Division’s 11th Infantry Brigade—received word that VC guerrillas had taken control of the neighboring village of Son My. Charlie Company was sent to the area on March 16 for a search-and-destroy mission. The My Lai massacre was one of the most horrific incidents of violence committed against unarmed civilians during the Vietnam War. A company of American soldiers brutally killed most of the people—women, children and old men—in the village of My Lai on March 16, 1968. More than 500 people were slaughtered in the My Lai massacre.

On March 30, 1968, the operational control of the 26th Marine Regiment at Khe Sanh passed to the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) which initiated Operation Pegasus. Elsewhere in northern I Corps Tactical Zone, it became apparent during late March that the enemy was continuing to build his base areas along Route 547 and had constructed an alternate route, 547A, from the A Shau Valley east towards Hue. These routes provided the enemy with a major artery for the movement of troops, supplies, and equipment out of the valley and into the dense jungle area between the valley and Hue. Reconnaissance of the area revealed a sophisticated communications system using wire lines and the presence of heavy automatic and anti-aircraft weapons.

By the autumn of 1967, allied troops had been fighting to support the South Vietnamese government against local VC (Viet Cong) and NVA (North Vietnamese Army) communist forces for several years. Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker appeared on CBS Sunday Morning September 10, 1967, and was asked about progress in that conflict. He stated, “I think we’re now beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel.” President Johnson and military spokesmen repeated this claim during the remainder of 1967.

On January 20, 1968 the VC and NVA began massing soldiers and heavy weapons near Khe Sanh and attacked the base to draw forces north from Saigon and other parts of South Vietnam. They secretly moved most of their forces throughout the country to prepare for a major offensive.

The Tet Offensive began during a mutually agreed cease-fire for the Lunar New Year during the night of January 29-30, 1968. Every provincial capital, especially Saigon and Hue, were attacked. Civilians were urged to join the fight by the communists. The scale of these battles surprised allied forces, which rapidly went to defensive roles. In many cities there was house to house fighting, which was a new challenge for both sides and many civilians were killed.

In Hue, communist forces took and held the city for several weeks. They rounded up teachers, leaders and essential workers who were given time to pack some personal items and told they were going to “re-education camps.” 4,000 civilians were tortured, murdered and buried in mass graves. By the end of February the Tet Offensive Phase I was no longer a large-scale battle.

Local VC forces suffered so many losses that the NVA began taking a larger role fighting allied armies in South Vietnam. In addition to losing communist forces in battle, the much-publicized general uprising of civilians and South Vietnamese soldiers did not happen. The outcome for the United States was that President Johnson withdrew from the 1968 election on March 31st. On April 4th Dr Martin Luther King was murdered in Memphis, TN. Our nation was enduring a very difficult time when the war in Vietnam heated up again.

On May 5, 1968, the Phase II Offensive (also called the May Offensive) again launched attacks all across South Vietnam. It was not as successful as the previous battle but resulted in the highest number of casualties of the Vietnam War. Pvt. James Fous of Omaha, NE was killed saving 3 soldiers lives on May 14, 1968. He was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his heroism in combat. The final major general uprising of 1968 (Phase III Offensive) occurred in August with temporary gains by communist forces which were quickly lost.

~ Researcher/Content Author: Larry Reid

REFERENCES
• Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, The Vietnam War, An Intimate History (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2017)
• Merle L. Pribbenow (translator), Victory in Vietnam, The Official History of the People’s Army of Vietnam 1954-1975 (University Press of Kansas, 2002)
• Eric B. Villard, Combat Operations, Staying the Course October 1967 to September 1968 (Center for Military History, United States Army, Washington, DC., 2017)
• https://www.mathscinotes.com/2018/07/vietnam-war-statistics-in-1968/
• SP4 Wayne Campbell, “4-47th soldier smothers grenade, saves three new friends from blast,” The Old Reliable (9th Infantry Division newspaper), June 12, 1968

By the time delegates arrived for the convention in Chicago, protests had been set in motion by members of the Youth International Party (yippies) and the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (MOBE), whose organizers included Rennie Davis and Tom Hayden. But Chicago’s Mayor Richard Daley had no intention of letting his city or the convention be overrun by protesters. The stage was set for an explosive face-off. The Democratic Party in 1968 was in crisis. President Johnson—despite being elected with a huge majority in 1964—was soon loathed by many of his peers and constituents due to his pro-Vietnam War policies.

While on reconnaissance mission in Vietnam May 14, 1968, James Fous leapt on a grenade intended for the members of his unit. By absorbing the blast with his body, he sacrificed his life to save the lives of the three comrades with him on patrol. For this act of conspicuous galentry and extraordinary heroism, he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military decoration. While at Omaha Central High School, James participated in baseball, football, O-club, and the Outdoorsman Club. He attended Omaha University where he majored in business and was active in Tau Kappa Epsilon before joining the U.S. Army in 1967. James passed away in 1968 at the age of 21.

In June 1969, LIFE magazine published a feature that remains as moving and, in some quarters, as controversial as it was when it intensified a nation’s soul-searching 45 years ago. On the cover was the image of a young man and 11 stark words: “The Faces of the American Dead in Vietnam: One Week’s Toll.” Inside, across 10 funereal pages, LIFE published picture after picture and name after name of 242 young men killed in seven days halfway around the world “in connection with the conflict in Vietnam.”

Martin Luther King Jr. was a social activist and Baptist minister who played a key role in the American civil rights movement from the mid-1950s until his assassination in 1968. King sought equality and human rights for African Americans, the economically disadvantaged and all victims of injustice through peaceful protest.

Robert Francis Kennedy, (born November 20, 1925, Brookline, Massachusetts, U.S.—died June 6, 1968, Los Angeles, California), U.S. Attorney General and adviser during the administration of his brother President John F. Kennedy (1961–63) and later a U.S. Senator (1965–68). He was assassinated while campaigning for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 1968.

Walter Leland Cronkite Jr. (November 4, 1916 – July 17, 2009) was an American broadcast journalist who served as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years (1962–1981). During the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as “the most trusted man in America” after being so named in an opinion poll. Cronkite reported many events from 1937 to 1981, including bombings in World War II; the Nuremberg trials; combat in the Vietnam War; the Dawson’s Field hijackings; Watergate; the Iran Hostage Crisis; and the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, civil rights pioneer Martin Luther King Jr., and Beatles musician John Lennon. He was also known for his extensive coverage of the U.S. space program, from Project Mercury to the Moon landings to the Space Shuttle. He was the only non-NASA recipient of an Ambassador of Exploration award. Cronkite is known for his departing catchphrase, “And that’s the way it is”, followed by the date of the broadcast. Cronkite died at his home on July 17, 2009, at age 92 from cerebrovascular disease.