War casualties of the U.S. invasion of Vietnam

The war lasted for 12 years, resulting in more than 56,000 U.S. military deaths, more than 300,000 injuries, and a cost of more than 400 billion U.S. dollars, causing the United States psychological trauma that is difficult to heal.

After World War II, the people of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia successively achieved independence through armed struggles and uprisings. On September 2, 1945, Ho Chi Minh declared the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in the name of the provisional government in Hanoi, northern Vietnam, and took active actions to restore Vietnam's unification.

At the same time, in southern Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem, who had always insisted on opposing the Communist Party, established a new government in Saigon in October 1955 with the support of the United States.

In May 1961, in order to prevent the collapse of the Ngo Dinh Diem regime, the United States sent 100 so-called "special forces" code-named "Green Berets" into South Vietnam.

On February 8, 1962, the United States established a military headquarters in Saigon commanded by General Paul Huggins, marking the beginning of the United States' direct involvement in the Vietnam War. On April 30, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State George Ball announced a plan called "Strategic Villages" to subdivide areas where South Vietnam's guerrillas have seriously infiltrated into smaller areas. Major villages were to be fenced off with barbed wire and watchtowers, people entering the villages would be carefully interrogated, and their residents would be moved to concentration camps. Subsequently, the US and puppet troops carried out frantic raids and sieges on various "strategic villages".

The South Vietnamese guerrillas carried out anti-"strategic villages" and anti-mopping up battles. According to statistics, from 1962 to 1964, the South Vietnamese guerrillas conducted more than 40 anti-mopping campaigns, resulting in more than 2,000 US military casualties. By 1964, the South Vietnamese guerrillas had liberated more than two-thirds of the southern land and 7 million people, and the US military intervention was severely frustrated.

The war gradually escalated

The military setbacks of the US military in South Vietnam angered the US ruling group. At the end of 1963, U.S. President Johnson said at a meeting that the Diem regime failed to prevent the spread of the "Red Wave" and that the situation in Vietnam was entirely possible in the hands of Ho Chi Minh. This situation was "extremely unsatisfactory" and "there must be changed”.

On November 1, 1963, the United States launched a military coup in South Vietnam, killed Ngo Dinh Diem, replaced it with a new puppet Yang Minming, and actively looked for excuses to expand the war.

On August 4, 1964, the U.S. government declared that the U.S. destroyers "Maddox" and "Tenna Joe" were approximately 65 meters away from the nearest land in the Gulf of Tokyo (i.e., the Gulf of Tonkin). While patrolling the high seas at sea, they were attacked by an unknown number of North Vietnamese torpedo boats.

It was later proven that this was a deliberate excuse created by the Pentagon to expand the war against Vietnam. The U.S. government took the opportunity to launch a "gradual escalation strategy," which is the so-called "limited expansion of the war."

Then the US military began to implement "saturation bombing" and "scorched earth policy" and bombed North Vietnam on a large scale. At the same time, the United States continues to increase its troops. By 1967, the number of U.S. troops in Vietnam exceeded 500,000.

Guerrilla warfare caused the U.S. military to suffer a lot.

The strangulation of the revolution by the U.S. military and the South Vietnamese army aroused more resistance. In many combat zones in South Vietnam, every household formed a combat unit. There are bomb-proof caves dug inside the house, and air-raid shelters, grain storage caves and cattle hiding caves dug outdoors. Every village and township is a fighting fortress, with militia in the village and guerrillas in the township. Most villages and townships, especially those near the edges of enemy-occupied areas, have become heavily fortified fighting villages and fighting townships. The combat village is well organized, and villagers have their own combat positions. Guerrillas and militiamen stood guard and jumped into battle as soon as possible. After 1965, as the war expanded, a large number of guerrillas began to transform into regular troops and went to the front lines to fight the US military.

On April 3 and 4, 1965, the US military suffered heavy losses in the Battle of Thanh Hoa. At 7 a.m. on April 3, aircraft of the U.S. Seventh Fleet parked on the South China Sea invaded the skies over Thanh Hoa Province in batches with about 400 sorties. US aircraft carried out indiscriminate bombings on some residential areas, civil engineering and economic facilities in northern Thanh Hoa Province.

The Thanh Hoa air defense force and the local militia and self-defense forces in northern Vietnam used various firepower to shoot into the sky at the moment the enemy plane swooped down, forming a powerful and tight firepower network. The enemy planes were hit one after another and fell down with thick smoke. Plant down. On this day, they shot down 17 enemy planes and captured an American pilot alive, setting a record for the most U.S. aircraft shot down in one day.

On April 4, the U.S. military made another unexpected surprise attack on Thanh Hoa. Unexpectedly, the local armed forces were well prepared. This time the U.S. military failed even more miserably. On this day, Thanh Hoa soldiers and civilians shot down 30 enemy planes and captured one American pilot alive. After this battle, the U.S. bombing campaign was in trouble.

From 1964 to 1965, the National Liberation Army of South Vietnam and the guerrillas conducted mobile operations and conducted a series of surprise attacks, ambush battles, offensive battles, encirclement and reinforcements, and counter-mopping up battles. According to preliminary statistics, the southern military and civilian forces annihilated nearly 6,000 U.S. troops, more than double the total number of U.S. troops annihilated from 1961 to the end of December 1964. On many battlefields and places where battles have been fought, the bodies of American troops are scattered everywhere, emitting a stench. According to the memory of American war correspondent Edgar, in 1964 he went to Cu Chi County, not far from Saigon, to cover and report, and found corpses of American soldiers floating in the Gami River in the county seat. No one was handling them, and the river water and blood were mixed together. , glowing a terrifying dark green in the sunlight. Occasionally, a few children passed by, poking at the corpse with long wooden sticks, looking for valuables. In a field rescue department of the US military, a soldier who was missing arms and legs after being bombed was lying on a hospital bed. According to nurse Miss Hus, she has to dispose of four to five bags of stumps almost every day.

At the end of July 1967, the South Vietnamese government increased its armed forces by 65,000 people, bringing the total to more than 1 million, and also considered lowering the conscription age to 18 years old. At a press conference on August 3, US President Johnson also publicly announced that the number of US military personnel deployed in Vietnam would be increased to 45,000 to 50,000. By 1968, the number of US military personnel in various branches will reach 525,000.

In 1968, the People's Armed Forces of South Vietnam launched the "New Year Offensive". After 45 days of fierce fighting, more than 150,000 US and puppet troops were annihilated, dealing a heavy blow to the US's "gradual escalation" strategy. The offensive also demoralized the U.S. military and increased the domestic anti-war movement. U.S. Secretary of State Rusk said solemnly: "A long, fierce and disappointing struggle is expected."

Nixon is preparing to escape from Vietnam

Due to the determination of the southern people's armed forces The resistance and the unity of the Vietnamese military and civilians were united. The United States spent huge manpower and material resources in Vietnam but failed to achieve the expected results, and encountered unanimous opposition at home and abroad. The anti-war movement in the United States grew stronger and stronger. In January 1969, when Nixon took office as president, tens of thousands of people in Washington, D.C., took to the streets holding placards such as "Nixon is the number one war criminal" and "Nixon is a tool of billionaires" and held a large demonstration. He delivered his "inaugural speech" while hiding in a bulletproof "glass cover".

Under strong pressure at home and abroad, Nixon approached Kissinger, the president's national security adviser, hoping that he could help the United States get out of the quagmire of the Vietnam War. So Kissinger began to actively mediate.

Kissinger first proposed a plan for the United States to escape from Vietnam, and subsequently contacted the Vietnamese government and the Soviet Union. On May 14, 1969, Kissinger invited Dobrynin, the Soviet ambassador to the United States, to the White House office. Kissinger said: "If you mistake a flexible attitude for weakness, and mistake reasonableness for a lack of determination, you will make a huge mistake. I must also make it very clear that if this senseless suffering continues, It will inevitably affect other decisions. It will not benefit anyone if it continues like this."

Dobrynin reported the US plan to the Soviet government, but the Soviet Union showed a cold attitude. Since then, the United States has conducted negotiations with many parties, but progress has been slow.

On May 31, 1969, the U.S. Invasion Command in Vietnam announced that since the U.S. entered the Vietnam War in 1961, 35,000 U.S. officers and soldiers had died and 5,400 aircraft had been lost. This figure illustrates: In the more than four months since the Nixon administration took office, more than 4,000 American troops have been killed in the invasion of Vietnam. On average, more than 1,000 people have been killed every month.

Nixon's hesitation on withdrawing troops finally bore a bitter fruit.

The negotiations failed, and the United States had no choice but to "retreat with dignity." U.S. Secretary of Defense Laird proposed: "The South Vietnamese army should be strengthened so that it can continue the war instead of the U.S. military. The withdrawal of U.S. troops depends on the ability of the South Vietnamese army to undertake U.S. combat missions. 'Vietnamization' means replacing Americans with Vietnamese casualties." casualties."

On June 8, 1969, President Nixon announced at Midway that 25,000 U.S. troops would be withdrawn from Vietnam by the end of August that year. This was the first withdrawal of troops from Vietnam by the Nixon administration.

But the United States still hopes for a miracle. On November 3, 1969, Nixon delivered a televised speech to the nation from the White House. His policy of "war on the side, talks on the side, vietnamization on the side (Vietnamization), and withdrawal on the side" was opposed by the masses. In response to Nixon's challenging televised address, the New Mobilization Committee to End the Vietnam War organized a massive "March on Washington" protest. In the same week, similar activities occurred more than 10 times.

As a last resort, while strengthening the power of the South Vietnamese regime, the United States accelerated the pace of troop withdrawal, and the number of U.S. troops stationed in Vietnam was gradually reduced. On January 27, 1973, after long-term negotiations, the United States and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam signed the Paris Agreement on Vietnam, declaring the failure of U.S. military operations in Vietnam. After the U.S. military withdrew, more than 20,000 military advisers were left in South Vietnam, and a considerable number of naval and air forces were retained to support the operations of the 1.1 million South Vietnamese army.

In the spring of 1975, the northern Vietnamese army and the southern people's armed forces launched the famous spring offensive, defeating the South Vietnamese army through three major battles: Taiyuan, Hue-Da Nang, and Saigon. In July 1976, Vietnam completed the reunification of North and South.

Americans’ Horrible Memories

During the Vietnam War, the United States dropped 8 million tons of explosives into Vietnam, far exceeding the total amount of bombs dropped on all battlefields in World War II, causing more than 160 casualties in Vietnam. Ten thousand people died and more than 10 million refugees were displaced throughout Indochina; the United States itself also suffered heavy losses, with more than 56,000 people killed, more than 300,000 injured, and a cost of more than 400 billion US dollars. The U.S. military involvement in Vietnam was large-scale (about 540,000 U.S. troops fought in Vietnam in 1973) and delayed for a long time (12 years, making it the longest foreign war in U.S. history), causing immeasurable psychological trauma.

Randolph Barker, who lost his legs in the war, angrily complained in an interview with the New York Times: "(The government) wants us to go (Vietnam) for freedom and ideals.

Fighting, the war has made me lose my freedom forever, and I still don’t know what kind of ideals and freedom I fight for, except for the tearful reunion with those miserable comrades. It seems that pain and loneliness are everything in my life.”

During the war, the U.S. economy experienced a sharp decline, the dominance of the U.S. dollar suffered a heavy blow, and a huge fiscal deficit occurred.

The Vietnam War completely changed the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union: throughout the 1970s, the United States shifted to a strategic defensive position, while the Soviet Union was in a strategic offensive position.

Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said: "The Vietnam War may have been a tragedy, and the United States should not have broken in at all." Senior Senator George McGovern said: "I He believed that the Indochina War was the biggest military, political, economic and moral mistake in our country’s history.”

After the Vietnam War, former U.S. Secretary of Defense McNamara, who had resigned for nearly 30 years, made many mistakes during the Vietnam War. Encouraged by introspectors, he published the book "Review: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam" in 1995. McNamara believes that U.S. government decision-makers have not realized that “neither our people nor our leaders are omnipotent. In matters that do not involve our own survival, we must judge what another country and people are. The best interests of the international community should be decided through public debate. We do not have the natural right to shape any other country with our own ideals or choices, but to this day, in many parts of the world, we still do it. with similar errors."