Berlin, Germany (Weltexpress). During the night of 1 February 1968, during the traditional Tet festival, the strategic turning point in the liberation struggle in southern Vietnam began with the so-called Tet offensive, which led to victory over the US aggressors in April 1975. Among the positions attacked were 43 district and provincial capitals, hundreds of smaller towns occupied by American or South Vietnamese troops, and 20 military bases and air bases, including the largest ones such as Bien Hoa, Da Nang, and Pleiku, which were under fire from the attackers’ missiles and shells for weeks.
Western press correspondents admitted that military action on this scale was only possible with the support of the population, and that there were full-scale uprisings in many cities, including Hue and Saigon. In Hue, bitter street fighting lasted for more than four weeks. The flag of the National Front for Liberation (FNL), the leading force of the liberation fighters, flew over the citadel of the old imperial city before the 1st American Airborne Division and Marines succeeded in taking control of the city again. The FNL finally withdrew to avoid further losses. The US Air Force bombed the city without regard for the civilian population in the areas where the FNL had established itself. At the air bases that were attacked, the FNL destroyed over 100 aircraft and rendered most of the runways unusable.
In Saigon, FNL troops attacked the headquarters of General Westmoreland, the general staff of the puppet army, the presidential palace and the police headquarters. A force of 19 fighters broke into the heavily guarded headquarters of the US governor, the ‘White House of Saigon’, as the American embassy was known, and fought off the attacks of hundreds of Marines and Special Forces for six hours. Most of the fighters managed to withdraw, supported by units in front of the embassy. Twenty aeroplanes were destroyed during an attack on the Saigon airport Tan Son Nhut. Street fighting in Saigon continued for months. In the cities from which the FNL withdrew after the fighting, established or new resistance bases remained. While the fighting had been mainly in the countryside until then, the Tet Offensive took it to the cities, from where it could no longer be ousted.
A battle, the like of which had never been seen before, took place around the heavily fortified US base at Khe Sanh. It was located on the plateau in the northern part of South Vietnam, on Road 9, about 50 km south of the Demarcation Line at Ben Hai and 30 km from the Laotian border. It was manned by 6,000 American soldiers and officers, a large number of whom were wiped out during a 170-day siege. After Khe Sanh could only be supplied by air, the US high command evacuated the rest of its garrison.
From the outset, the planning of the Tet Offensive included the stipulation that the cities, bases and positions captured from the enemy had to be abandoned after a certain period of time. To describe this as a defeat for the FNL was to ignore reality. On the contrary, it was the most serious military defeat the Americans had suffered to date. This was also evidenced by the fact that during the Tet offensive, the liberation army destroyed or incapacitated around 200,000 Saigon troops, destroyed or severely damaged 1,300 tanks and armoured personnel carriers, as well as 90 warships and combat boats on the rivers. The South Vietnamese crews surrendered in 14 bases. Thousands of soldiers defected to the liberation fighters, and just as many deserted. The Americans lost two-thirds of their soldiers in the 173rd Airborne Brigade. An air cavalry and two infantry divisions suffered heavy losses.
The successful Tet offensive also represented a public embarrassment for the Pentagon. It had repeatedly announced that the FNL had been militarily defeated. Army Chief of Staff Harold Johnson had told UPI on 22 August 1967 that ‘progress had been made in eliminating the Vietcong’. Erich Wulff described how such ‘optimism’ about the ‘imminent collapse of the enemy’ was periodically spread in his everyday life in South Vietnam: ‘His armed forces consist largely of women and children; they have nothing left to eat, are completely demoralised by the constant bombing; only through terror can they make their soldiers fight.’1
Even the defeat during the Tet Offensive did not deter the US high command in Saigon from once again spreading forced optimism and proclaiming ‘total victory’ after the fighting came to a halt in May, with the exception of Khe Sanh. The situation was said to be ‘completely under control’ again, and the Viet Cong had been dealt a ‘severe blow’. But nothing came of it, and nothing at all remained when the FNL launched a second offensive in May/June. It simultaneously attacked over 120 of the enemy’s centres. One focus was the Mekong Delta, where fighting took place in 16 provinces. Heavy fighting also broke out again in Saigon. West of Hue, the Americans and their Saigon mercenaries suffered heavy losses in the A Shau valley. Overall, 30,000 men were put out of action, about 1,000 aircraft shot down or destroyed on the ground, the enemy lost 2,200 military vehicles, and over 100 fuel depots or munitions dumps were blown up.
This second offensive once again made it clear that the Americans had lost the strategic initiative. Although fighting continued around many liberated villages in the plain, the FNL now determined the locations of major military confrontations. At the same time, it combined the military conflict with its political presence and diplomatic activities at the international level. The extent of its outstanding success was demonstrated by the fact that after these brilliant military victories in Paris from November 1968, the USA had to accept it as an equal negotiating partner in the peace negotiations between the four sides (DRV/FNL and USA/Saigon government).
A further upsurge in the political struggle was marked by the proclamation of the Republic of South Vietnam and the formation of a provisional revolutionary government on 8 June 1967. The diplomatic recognition of the RSV by more than 20 socialist and national-liberated states, but also by non-aligned states such as Sweden, increased its prestige nationally and internationally, which in turn strengthened its position in Paris.
Notes:
1 Erich Wullf, a West German doctor working in Saigon who sympathised with the FLN, published ‘Vietnamesische Lehrjahre, Bericht eines Arztes aus Vietnam 1961-1967’ (Vietnamese Years of Learning, Report of a Doctor from Vietnam 1961-1967), Frankfurt/Main 1968, 1972.
Gerhard Feldbauer wrote on the subject with his wife ‘Sieg in Saigon – Erinnerungen an Vietnam’, Pahl Rugenstein Nachf., Bonn 2005, second edition 2006, and ‘Vietnamkrieg’, PapyRossa, Cologne 2013, second edition 2023.
