50th anniversary of the Tet Offensive
For those of you who were there at the time, I’m reposting this from last year.
The Lunar Festival of Tet in Vietnam begins every year in late January.
At 02:00 hours local time on the morning of January 30, 1968, the NVA began shelling every ville, town and military base in South Vietnam. It had been planned for months.
For those who were there and survived it, and those who did not….
CBS offers the following:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/remembering-1968-the-tet-offensive-photographer-john-olson/
If you were there, please give us your story.
Category: Historical, Marine Corps, War Stories
Tet was a strategic and tactical disaster for the Commies, but a media and Political triumph.
It also decimated the VC, which was, if not a major part of the plan, a boon for the North.
With the VC disabled the North was able to replace them with NVA operatives,more in tune with their vision for the country.
After an eventful Oct. and Nov., December seemed eerily quiet and uneasy, but I could feel it coming-I knew shit was about to fly. I got on the Freedom Bird on 19Jan filled with trepidation and loneliness for my buddies.
That couldn’t have been easy.
Thank you for your service, and most importantly, Welcome Home.
Thanks R-D.
Geeze: I was in Song F’ing Be with the 1/101 (ABN) (SEP). Things were quiet so I screwed off and went for a ride in a L-19 with the BDE’s USAF FAC. We flew around for an hour or so and were heading back when he saw a column of troops on a road in a strange place. He radio’ed to see if friendly or bad and it took forever. He decided to find out for himself and went in low LOW level with the wings perpendicular to the ground over the column. Every time he went over they got off the road into the ditches looking up. Close enough to see they were Asian. They looked up at us and we looked down at them…eyeball to eyeball. So, he kept going lower. Me hanging off the shoulder straps asked WTF are you doing? His answer was hoping they would shoot at us so he could then call in CAS. Damn! He said, not to worry, they wouldn’t shoot….unless…some jets happened to fly anywhere near because then they WOULD shoot us because they would think we called in CAS.
Bingo’ed on fuel before we could get anything on ARVN’s vs VC/NVA. BDE got slammed that night with mortars and attacks, probably from that column. Hello Tet.
No shit story. I did nothing brave. I was just a pax in the back of a L19. USAF FACs had big balls.
My dad was in country during Tet.. still doesn’t talk much about it… If i live to be half the man he is…
It’s strange to recognize some of the reporters who were there, like Morley Safer (CBS) and George Page (later produced ‘Nature’ for PBS).
Note to would be advocates of communism and its various socialist precursors:
The Viet Cong were the revolutionaries, the advocates for change. Their masters set them up
and expended them in a way intended to eliminate as many as possible, as they would surely be troublesome to the new order.
It is always thus. You will not be the exception. You will not be a leader for the new order. You will be just another victim.
Poetically, by your own hand.
Oh, c’mon now.
EVERYONE knows that there’s nothing to fear from Communism.
I know this to be true, because our very own Herr Kommissar sternly lectures us on that fact virtually every time that he stops in here to flaunt his vast wisdom.
Don’t fear the commie!
Herr Kommissar has been corked, thankfully.
It’s been so much better here since he got himself banned.
Cough *Spenser Rapone* Cough
Has anyone heard what’ happened to that little SHIT of a 2LT since the news came out about him?
“Tet in Vietnam begins every year in late January”
68 was a horrific Tet but each year saw an increased danger during early FEB and that fact is rarely discussed under the shadow of 1968. My year was 1970 and we held a high alert status during that period. No rounds sent or rcvd but the tension was palatable.
Nice to see are still alive soldier.
At ease.
Thanks for the video.
You’re welcome.
The lunar new year (Tet) attacks have been shown over time to have been a resounding military victory fr the US which the press characterized as a stinging defeat. The press lying about something in a race for leftist sensationalism… what a radical concept.
Sure am glad they don’t do THAT any more…
I had received orders to go to RVN and was home on leave during the Tet offensive. Every day I would wake up and watch the festivities on television and read about them in the newspaper. I seem to recall (dimly) consuming a bit more beer than usual.
I think I had PTSD before I even got in-country.
I left home for Camp Pendelton after leave from boot camp on new years day 1968 for two weeks of jungle training. That lasted a few days longer till we got on a proud bird with a golden tail for Okinawa. I was sick as a dog on Okie. with the flu so I am not sure how many days I was there. We flew into Da Nang in a C130 and were put on the perimiter of an artilery base while awaiting transport to our assigned unit. Got on a LSD the Comstock or the Clevland, not sure of the name. Went up the coast and transfered to a LST. Checked in and recieved our gear. Flew over to the Iwo Jima and boarded a chopper that took me to Camp Carrol on 9 Feb. 68. H&S Co. Eng. Plt. 2/4.
Steve do you remember which helo squadron was on the Iwo ? I think my Squadron HMM-362(Ugly Angels) might have already deployed to Phu Bai by then . I was just back from R&R(Hong Kong). When Tet kicked off.Hue was a nasty LZ for awhile.Hill 888 was hairy too.Khe Shan and Gio Lai land between the barrages. Joe
Joe, Pop-A-Smoke says:
1968: At the beginning of the year, HMM-361 was aboard the USS Iwo Jima with SLF “A”.
Claw, OK we were abroad in Jan 67. Check KIAs John MooneyIII. We were working with2/4 below Camp Carroll when they took heavy loss of their Marines.Was not 2/17 at Phu Bia at the same time as me? joe
I am not sure. I do know The Ugly Angels flew a lot for us but not sure who was the assigned Sqadron to our reinforced battalion. I was just a big dumb Pvt. at that time. I do have quite a few pictures of various choppers during some of my time there. I had a Kodak instamatic for a while till the weather did it in. I would be happy to send them to you if you like. Don’t know if you read a previous message I posted about my flight into Camp Carrol. I almost fell out of that chopper. Door gunner grabed me and kept me from falling.
I don’t know if my Uncle was there during Tet. But, I do know he drove convoys along Highway 1. Apparently, these were ripe targets for the VC.
He used to write home and assure Grandma that he had the safest job over there as a truck driver.
He made it home as a Buck Sergeant in one piece.
Dad was supposed to go as a Cav Scout, but got Discharged after all the training at Ft Knox; because every time he’d shoot it would dislocate his shoulder.
Was a busy time for the D family. Dad as a B52 EW out of Guam, 1 uncle flying Helos for the Navy, another flying helos for the Air Force. Brother in law serving on an LST. I was 5 and didn’t really understand but I could feel the tension in the family.
I was flight crew at LZ Sharon just outside of Quang Tri at that time. Any observations and experience about that day would take up too much space and probably would be too boring. With these like almost all my experiences in Vietnam the most I can say is “I was there.”
However, I thought that passing on some links to pdf files at The U.S. Army Center of Military History might be interesting to some. Except for the Marines at Hue, I think what happened in the 2 northern most provinces during that period has gone grossly unreported. It is my understanding that these were the only provinces that the NVA got involved in. Quang Tri was attacked by 3 NVA battalions and 2 VC main force battalions. I encourage some further reading on the subject. Since these are Army publications, some may think them a bit too “rah-rah” but I have found them basically accurate.
The first is Lieutenant General John J. Tolson’s 1973 “Airmobility, 1961-1971”
Tolson was the commander of the 1st Cav at that time and before that he was Chief of Army Aviation. Most of the work covers the backstory of all the trials and tribulations that army aviation went through. However, if you scroll down to page 158 Tet at Quang Tri is covered fairly well. It describes the operation as saw it.
https://history.army.mil/html/books/090/90-4/index.html
The second one is Erik Villard’s 2008 “The Tet Offensive Battles of Quang Tri City and Hue”.
Villard is a civilian historian at the history center. This work is more academic and more detailed than Tolson’s.
https://history.army.mil/html/books/vietnam/tet_battles/index.html
A CMH “Vietnam Studies” monograph that dealt directly with the U.S. Army’s increased involvement in Northern I Corps during 1967-68 is MG Willard Pearson’s “War in the Northern Provinces”.
Said monograph dealt with the increasingly fierce campaign in Northern I Corps that ultimately lead to the activation of Provisional Corps-Vietnam (PCV) in early 1968 (which ultimately became XXIV Corps HQs) to bolster III MAF and its Marine divisions, and the subsequent transfers of 1st Cav Div, 101st Abn Div, 1/5 Mech Bde, and 3/82d Abn to Northern I Corps in early 1968 before and during the Tet Offensive.
MG Pearson became the first CG of PCV in early 1968, and commanded and controlled Allied forces in northern I Corps during and after the Tet Offensive under the overall command of LtGen Cushman of III MAF, to include the retaking of Hue, and Opn PEGASUS to break the siege at Khe Sanh.
https://history.army.mil/html/books/090/90-24/index.html
I’ve read that one too. I guess I was just too lazy this morning to look up the link. I already had the links for the other two.
In order to understand why the NVA did things in certain locations, it’s sometimes useful to look at the terrain. The mountain chain of the Annamese Cordillera forms the border between Cambodia/Laos and Viet Nam. There are a limited number of passes available, and a remarkable number of engagements north of Saigon were fought in areas involving them.
Khe Sanh, for example, sat astride Route 9 which led to Tchepone in Laos. The Ia Drang Valley was less than 10 miles south of Route 19 into Cambodia, and passed through Pleiku and the pass at An Khe. And so forth. All of these acted essentially as east-west branches of the north-south Ho Chi Minh trail.
It also might be worth pointing out that Hue was the capital of Viet Nam for 300 years up until 1945. It was the traditional center of Vietnamese culture. Under their mandarin-style government, for example, it was where students went for an advanced education. Both the NVA and Viet Cong were very much aware of what Hue meant to the national psyche. I’m not sure we Americans ever considered it in the same way.
TU for the links.
On a lighter note…Ann Margaret never showed up, and Joker just barely escaped “Standing tall before the Man” (whatever that means)…
No early morning dew?
Why is there an anniversary for it? It was a disaster for those commies that tried it. It was great for anti America scumfucks that used it to further their cowardly politics though.
“Why is there an anniversary for it?”
Because it brings up the name of a scumbag communist named Walter Cronkite. It gives us another chance to show his role in helping the communists.
Cronkite had some legitimate reasons for being skeptical of the conduct of the Viet Nam War. Right up until Tet of ’68 happened, Gen. William Westmoreland was touring a dog-and-pony show telling everyone, including Congress, how the VC and NVA were whipped, and all that was left was filling the balloons for the victory party.
So Tet comes along and Westmoreland gets caught with his pants around his ankles. And that might not have been so bad, even generals make mistakes after all, except it turned out later he had knowingly falsified enemy troop levels being reported to the press and back home. Was Cronkite critical of what Westmoreland had said with Tet as a backdrop? Yes, and if he hadn’t been, he wouldn’t have been doing his job.
What’s also evident is that Cronkite’s personal opinion that the then-current conduct of the war would end in a stalemate was not the same as hearing Hanoi Jane or John Kerry screech about it on moral grounds. Personally, I was in country and never had a beef with Cronkite. I also didn’t find it hard to understand the argument that we should have killed them all and let God sort it out.
“Cronkite had some legitimate reasons for being skeptical of the conduct of the Viet Nam War”
Why not? I did. Especially after being there. Then my skepticism turned to certainty.
Something else to consider about Cronkite is that he was a rocket fan. If NASA hadn’t had his strong support, there’s an argument that the lunar landings might not have happened. This seemed particularly true during the grim time following the ’67 fire on Apollo 1.
Their casualties during Tet were over 50,000. That is the actual body count of the corpses we located.
Wally Crankcase was wrong, and stupid at that. He was one of the early propagandists in the news business. But CBS had a lot of shitbirds over there making shit up from the Caravelle hotel. As evidence, I would point you all to the Paris Peace Accords of 1973, which ended the Vietnam war. Look up the terms of that Accord. The gooks lost. Then when the US Congress went full bore democrat, they started the war back up in late 1974, using Soviet tactics, because they knew the Dem controlled congress had refused to ratify the treaty, and when that happened, the South Vietnamese had nothing with which to fight.
The Marines who retook Hue did so with barely a regiment, and very little supporting arms for most of the battle, because the RVN didn’t want the town screwed up too much.
To the TAH’ers here who are Vietnam Veterans:
The Vietnam Center at Texas Tech Univ in Lubbock is actively seeking donations of personal documentary effects from Vets who served in Vietnam/Indochina/Southeast Asia during the Vietnam Conflict.
They are interested in collecting Vietnam Vets’ letters, correspondence, military orders and documents, photos, and all other written/typed/printed/photographed personal items you may have collected in-country.
I am not affiliated or associated with them, but I did present an academic Vietnam War paper at one of their Vietnam War conferences a number of years ago. Founder of the Vietnam Center was a retired USN O-5 who served in the Riverine Force during the war. They are good people, and many of the Center staff are vets. The link to the Vietnam Vet Center donation page is below:
https://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/donors/
Ex-PH2,
Was the repost of 2017 comments intentional?
No, it was completely unintentional. But I hope that was okay.
It is interesting to see how folks just picked up the old thread.
My uncle was there having traveled over on the USNS Upshur and arriving in country October 1967. PSG Charlie Denning, D CO, 1ST BN, 6TH INF RGT, 198 INF BDE, America Div.
Damn autocorrect. AMERICAL DIV
50 years since the Northern masters unleashed their special brand of viciousness on the populace and military present in the South. A VERY calculated slaughter of the pawns in black PJs so that there would be very little “discussion” about how the execute the war in the south. The atrocities foisted upon the citizens of Hue et al? No surprise to the men in the thick of it daily. Rape,murder,pillage, wholesale executions, dismemberment …all S.O.P. for the communists.
“All gave some,some gave all.”
To everyone south of the DMZ…YOU ARE NOT FORGOTTEN.
My respect and admiration are profound and deep. Heroes All.