The Tet Offensive

In late January 1968, during the Vietnamese lunar new year (Tet) holiday, the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong guerilla fighters launched a massive coordinated offensive against U.S. and allied forces across South Vietnam. The offensive largely took U.S. forces by surprise, and fierce fighting broke out across the country. Especially intense action occurred in the city of Hue, and around the besieged Marine base at Khe Sanh. However, after several weeks, most enemy forces had been beaten back, and the offensive failed in its main objectives of inflicting military defeat on U.S. forces or instigating a general uprising against the South Vietnamese government.

Tet Offensive Background and History

By 1968 there were nearly 500,000 U.S. service personnel in the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), under the overall command of Commander, U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (COMUSMACV) General William C. Westmoreland. Aided by 650,000 Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) personnel, the United States’ mission since 1965 had consisted of Rolling Thunder bombing campaigns against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam), interdiction attempts along the Ho Chi Minh trail, and search and destroy missions against enemy forces throughout the South Vietnamese countryside. Optimism was high among U.S. military and planning personnel that these combined efforts were steadily degrading North Vietnam’s combat capabilities; within the near future, the U.S. intended to turn more and more of South Vietnam’s internal defense over to the ARVN.

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A massive communist offensive, beginning in late January 1968, demonstrated that North Vietnam and its allies were still able to put up a fight. Throughout the evening of January 30-31, 1968, during the Vietnamese New Year holiday of Tet, more than 84,000 communist soldiers launched assaults on various U.S. and South Vietnamese military installations, cities, and hamlets. Enemy forces were a mix of North Vietnamese Army (NVA) troops and Viet Cong (VC) guerillas, with the former predominating towards the North – South Vietnamese border. Together they attacked more than 100 South Vietnamese targets, including most large cities, the capital of Saigon, and major U.S. bases. Although the sheer scale of the Tet Offensive was one of its most notable aspects, several actions deserve special mention:

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