North vietnam and viet cong vs. South vietnam and us
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Địa bạ Phan Huy Lê
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- VIETNAM WAR
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Tet Offensive 1968 ◼ VIETNAM ◼ NORTH VIETNAM AND VIET CONG VS. SOUTH VIETNAM AND US VIETNAM WAR Tet, the Vietnamese celebration of the lunar New Year, is the most important holiday in the Vietnamese calendar, usually falling in late January or early February. During the war in Vietnam, ongoing since 1959, this holiday was often marked by an unofcial truce in the fghting. In 1968, Tet fell on January 30, and the North Vietnamese and their southern-based communist faction, the Viet Cong, used it to launch a series of attacks on South Vietnamese government troops and US forces in more than 100 towns, cities, and outposts. Their aims were threefold: to break the stalemate in the war, to instigate rebellion among the South Vietnamese population, and to encourage the US to scale back their involvement. Among the Viet Cong’s many targets was the US Embassy (left) in the South Vietnamese capital, Saigon; one Viet Cong platoon managed to breach the compound, but were killed in a gun battle. The most intense fghting took place in the city of Hue, 50 miles (80 km) south of the border between North and South Vietnam. The Viet Cong took the city and a battle raged for more than three weeks. US and South Vietnamese forces recaptured Hue and managed to hold off other attacks; despite this victory, news coverage of the offensive so shocked the American public that their support for the war began to wane. Despite heavy casualties, North Vietnam achieved a strategic victory, because this marked the beginning of the US withdrawal. 2 EMBASSY ATTACK US soldiers patrol the embassy in Saigon, seen through a hole blasted in the perimeter wall in the attack by the Viet Cong during the Tet Offensive. The Viet Cong held the embassy for six hours until they were fought off by US paratroopers, who landed on the roof by helicopter. THE VIETNAM WAR (1959–75) Vietnam had been under French rule since the 19th century. In 1954, the French lost power after the frst Indochina War. Split between a communist north and pro-western south, the North Vietnamese government looked to unify the country under a single communist regime. It promised country-wide elections, but this never happened. Instead, the communists of the north, supported by communist elements in the south (the Viet Cong), launched a guerrilla war on the government in the south. The US sent hundreds of thousands of troops to help the South’s fght against communism in a costly—and ultimately unsuccessful—war. THE VIETNAM WAR (1959–75) 4 A group of South Vietnamese and US troops shelter from the rotor wash of an American UH-1 Huey helicopter in Vietnamese countryside tải về 14.23 Kb. Chia sẻ với bạn bè của bạn:
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