The Tet Offensive

The book speaks mainly about the Tet Offensive. The Tet offensive was between January 30th, 1968, and June 8th, 1969. It was a series of offensives coordinated by the National Liberation Front or, NLF, the Vietcong, and North Vietnam’s People’s Army of Vietnam, or PLAF. These attacks were to be used against the South Vietnam’s Army of the Republic of Vietnam, or ARVN and the US allied forces. The attacks were called the Tet Offensive because they were to begin January 30-31, 1968, the New Lunar Year.

The Tet Offensive is considered a military defeat for the Communist forces because neither VC nor PAVN forces had achieved their goals. The operation cost nearly crippled the Communist forces. It is considered a turning point in the war because it was such a huge psychological victory for the NLF and PAVN. This is also considered one of the biggest propaganda attacks in world history.

The plan for the Tet Offensive was planned after the death of the North Vietnamese General, Nguyen Chi Thanh. The strategist who was given credit for the planning was Thahn’s successor, General Vo Nguyen Giap. To this end, a multiphase plan was developed: in the first phase, the PAVN would launch attacks on the border regions of South Vietnam to close those regions to American observation. Following this, a second phase of widely dispersed attacks by the Viet Cong directly into the major centers of the country would cause the collapse of the government and would prod the civilians into full-fledged revolt, and with the government overthrown, the Americans and other allied forces would have no choice but to evacuate, leading to phase three attacks by the Viet Cong and PAVN against elements of the isolated foreign forces.

In the days preceeding the Offensive, the readiness of the ARVN and US forces was somewhat calm. North Vietnam has said, in October, that it would give a seven-day truce from January 27th to February 3rd,1968 in honor of the Tet Holiday. The US intelligence had been observing major military build up in the months prior to the Offensive. Along with captured intelligence, there had been a lot of noticings of trucks heading south along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. In October, the average had jumped from 480 to 1,116. In November it was up to 3,823, and by December it was up to 6,315. U.S. attention was firmly focused on the ongoing battle at Khe Sanh, and concluded it was the target of this buildup. U.S. intelligence identified at least 15,000 PAVN troops in the vicinity, and Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) staff was certain that a decisive clash was imminent, but thought it would be directed solely against Khe Sanh.

In total, the US estimated that 45,000 VC and PAVN soldiers were killed but the figure may be significantly lower due to the nature of overclaims. Roughly 6,000 were captured with the number of wounded being unclear. The US, ARVN, allied Austrailian forces and South Korean forces suffered

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