| 1954 March
- General Giap accommodates the French by
surrounding the base with fifty thousand Viet Minh soldiers. The valley is isolated and
the siege begins.
May 7 - Dien
Bien Phu falls.
July 20 - France and the Viet Minh agree
to end hostilities and to divide Vietnam temporarily into two zones at the 17th parallel.
In the North, Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh establish a Communist government, with its
capital at Hanoi. French forces withdraw to the South, along with hundreds of thousands of
anti-communist civilians. Ngo Dinh Diem establishes an anti-Communist state -- the
Republic of Vietnam (RVN).
1959
Infiltrators from the North became important to communist efforts in the South. Hanoi
activates a special military transportation unit to control overland infiltration through
Laos and Cambodia. The North Vietnamese Army (NVA), together with Laotian Communist
forces, consolidated their hold on areas adjacent to both North and South Vietnam through
which passed the network of jungle roads called the Ho Chi Minh Trail. As a result, it
became easier to move supplies south to support the Viet Cong in the face of the new
dangers embodied in U.S. advisers, weapons, and tactics.
1960
December - Hanoi creates the National
Liberation Front of South Vietnam (the Viet Cong). The revival of guerrilla warfare in the
South found the 700 man US Military advisory group, the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN), and
Diem's government ill prepared to wage an effective campaign.
1961
John F. Kennedy becomes President of the US. He sharply increased military and economic
aid to South Vietnam to help Diem defeat the growing insurgency. By 1963 the US has 16,000
servicemen in Vietnam.
1962
February - The US Joint Chiefs of Staff
establish the United States Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), in Saigon.
1963
November 1 - A US supported coup d' etat
topples the Diem government. Diem and his brother are killed.
November 22 - Kennedy is assassinated. Lyndon
Johnson becomes President of the US.
1964
August - In international waters of the
Gulf of Tonkin North Vietnamese patrol boats attacked U.S. naval vessels engaged in
surveillance of North Vietnam's coastal defenses. The Americans promptly launched
retaliatory air strikes. At the request of President Johnson, Congress overwhelmingly
passed the Southeast Asia Resolution—the so-called Gulf of Tonkin
Resolution—authorizing all actions necessary to protect American forces and to
provide for the defense of the nation's allies in Southeast Asia.
1965
March 8 - A few days after ROLLING
THUNDER (a campaign of sustained, direct air strikes of the North) began, the 9th Marine
Regiment went ashore in South Vietnam to protect the large airfield at Da Nang. They are
the first US ground combat unit in Vietnam.
May - To protect American bases in the
vicinity of Saigon, Johnson approved sending the 173d Airborne Brigade (Separate), to
South Vietnam. The brigade secured the air base at Bien Hoa, just northeast of Saigon. US
military strength in South Vietnam passed 50,000.
July 28 - President Johnson announced
plans to deploy additional combat units and to increase American military strength in
South Vietnam to 175,000 by year's end. The Army already was preparing hundreds of units
for duty in Southeast Asia, among them the newly activated 1st Cavalry Division
(Airmobile). Other combat units—the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, and all
three brigades of the 1st Infantry Division were either ready to go or already on their
way to Vietnam. Together with hundreds of support and logistical units, these combat units
constituted the first phase of the build-up during the summer and fall of 1965.
Spearheaded by at least three NVA regiments, Communist forces mounted a strong
offensive in South Vietnam's Central Highlands during the summer of 1965, overrunning
border camps and besieging some district towns. Here the enemy threatened to cut the
nation in two. To meet the danger, Westmoreland introduced the newly organized Army
airmobile division, the 1st Cavalry Division, with its large contingent of helicopters,
directly into the highlands.
Less than a month later the newly arrived airmobile division received its baptism of
fire. The North Vietnamese Army attacked a Special Forces camp at Plei Me; when it was
repulsed, Westmoreland directed the division to launch an offensive to locate and destroy
enemy regiments that had been identified in the vicinity of the camp. The result was the
battle of the Ia Drang valley, named for a small river that flowed through the area of
operations. For thirty-five days the division pursued and fought the 32d, 33d, and 66th
North Vietnamese Regiments, until the enemy, suffering heavy casualties, returned to his
bases in Cambodia.
November 8 - Moving deeper into War Zone
D, the 173d Airborne Brigade encountered significant large scale resistance. A
multibattalion Viet Cong force attacked at close quarters and forced the Americans into a
tight defensive perimeter. Hand-to-hand combat ensued as the enemy tried to
"hug" American soldiers to prevent the delivery of supporting air and artillery
fire.
1966
The Army's 25th Infantry Division arrived in the spring. The Division took up a
position protecting the western approaches to Saigon, chiefly Route 1 and the Saigon
River. Two brigades of the 25th Division also served as a buffer between Saigon and the
enemy's base areas in Tay Ninh Province.
Around the key highland towns—Pleiku, Kontum, Ban Me Thuot, and Da Lat—South
Vietnamese and U.S. forces had created enclaves. Allied forces protected the few roads
that traversed the highlands, screened the border, and reinforced outposts and Montagnard
settlements from which the irregulars and Army Special Forces sought to detect enemy
cross-border movements.
February - NVA forces overran a Special
Forces camp in the A Shau valley, in the remote northwest corner of I Corps. The loss of
the camp had long-term consequences, enabling the enemy to make the A Shau a major
logistical base and strong hold area for forces infiltrating into the Piedmont and coastal
areas.
Operations in the highlands during 1966 and 1967 were characterized by wide-ranging,
often futile searches, punctuated by sporadic but intense battles fought usually at the
enemy's initiative.
1967
Close to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in I Corps, the enemy seemed intent on drawing
the American Marines toward the border regions. In Quang Tri Province, the Marines fought
a hard twelve-day battle to prevent NVA forces from dominating the hills surrounding Khe
Sanh. The enemy's heightened military activity along the demilitarized zone included
frontal attacks across it.
Throughout the summer of 1967, Marine forces endured some of the most intense enemy
artillery barrages of the war and fought several battles with NVA units that infiltrated
across the I7th parallel. Their stubborn defense, supported by massive counterbattery
fire, naval gunfire, and air attacks, ended the enemy's offensive in northern I Corp for
that year.
The border battles of 1967 also led to a reassessment of strategy in Hanoi. Undeviating
in their long-term aim of unification, the leaders of North Vietnam recognized that their
strategy of military confrontation had failed to stop the American military buildup in the
South or to reduce U.S. military pressure on the North.
The Communists had matched the build-up of American combat forces.
The number of enemy divisions in the South increasing from one in early 1965 to nine at
the start of 1968.
1968
The Tet Offensive - Communist plans
called for violent, widespread, simultaneous military actions in rural and urban areas
throughout the South—a general offensive. But as always, military action was
subordinate to a larger political goal. By focusing attacks on South Vietnamese units and
facilities, Hanoi sought to undermine the morale and will of Saigon's forces. Through a
collapse of military resistance, the North Vietnamese hoped to subvert public confidence
in the government's ability to provide security, triggering a crescendo of popular protest
to halt the fighting and force a political accommodation. In short, they aimed at a
general uprising.
Also hoping to spur negotiations, Communist leaders probably had the more modest goals
of reasserting Viet Cong influence and undermining Saigon's authority so as to cast doubt
on its credibility as the United States' ally. In this respect, the offensive was directed
toward the United States and sought to weaken American confidence in the Saigon
government, discredit Westmoreland's claims of progress, and strengthen American antiwar
sentiment. Here again, the larger purpose was to bring the United States to the
negotiating table and hasten American disengagement from Vietnam.
mid - January - In the remote northwest
corner of South Vietnam, elements of three NVA divisions began to mass near the Marine
base at Khe Sanh. At first the ominous proportions of the build-up led the Military
Assistance Command to expect a major offensive in the northern provinces. To some
observers the situation at Khe Sanh resembled Dien Bien Phu, the isolated garrison where
the Viet Minh had defeated French forces in 1954. Khe Sanh, however, was a diversion.
While pressure around Khe Sanh increased, 85,000 Communist troops prepared for the Tet
offensive. Since the fall of 1967, the enemy had been infiltrating arms, ammunition, and
men, including entire units, into the South's cities and towns.
January 31 - Combat erupted throughout
the entire country. Thirty-six of 44 provincial capitals and 64 of 242 district towns were
attacked, as well as 5 of South Vietnam's 6 autonomous cities, among them Hue City and
Saigon. Once the shock and confusion wore off, most attacks were crushed in a few days.
During those few days, however, the fighting was some of the most violent ever seen in the
South or experienced by many ARVN and American units. In some American compounds, cooks,
radiomen, and clerks took up arms in their own defense and helicopter gunships were in the
air almost continuously, assisting the allied forces
January 31 - 2nd
Battalion, 5th Marines is dispatched to Hue, the ancient capital of Vietnam, where the NVA
had captured the city. They participated in the only extended urban combat of the war,
together with other Marine, US Army and South Vietnamese forces. Hue had a tradition of
Buddhist activism, with overtones of neutralism, separatism, and anti-Americanism, and
Hanoi's strategists thought that here if anywhere the general offensive-general uprising
might gain a political foothold. Hence they threw North Vietnamese regulars into the
battle, indicating that the stakes at Hue were higher than elsewhere in the South.
House-to-house and street-to-street fighting caused enormous destruction. The Marines and
allies took three weeks to recapture the city. Part of the story is portrayed in the
film "Full Metal Jacket".
The Viet Cong and NVA had suffered a major military defeat, losing thousands of
experienced combatants and seasoned political cadres and seriously weakening the insurgent
base in the South.
Americans at home saw a different picture. Dramatic images of the Viet Cong storming
the American Embassy in the heart of Saigon and the North Vietnamese Army clinging
tenaciously to Hue obscured the assertion that the enemy had been defeated. With almost a
half-million U.S. troops already in Vietnam, doubts on the conduct of the war prompted a
reassessment of American policy and strategy.
March 31 - President Johnson announced
his decision not to seek reelection in order to give his full attention to the goal of
resolving the conflict. Hanoi had suffered a military defeat, but had won a political and
diplomatic victory by shifting American policy toward disengagement.
The Marines at Khe Sanh held fast. Enemy pressure on the besieged base increased daily,
but the North Vietnamese could not conduct an all-out attack. The Marines still held the
high ground strong holds around the base and Westmoreland decided to subject the enemy to
the heaviest air and artillery bombardment of the war. His tactical gamble succeeded; the
enemy withdrew, and the Communist offensive slackened.
May and August - The enemy persist in his
effort to weaken the Saigon government, launching nationwide "mini-Tet"
offensives. Pockets of heavy fighting occurred throughout the South and Viet Cong forces
again tried to infiltrate into Saigon—the last gasps of the general offensive-general
uprising.
October - 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines
engage the NVA in the relief of the besieged Special Forces outpost at Thong Duc. In
intense hand-to-hand fighting, the enemy is driven off.
November - Seven Marine battalions,
including 2/5, surround more that three thousand enemy in Operation Meade River. The enemy
force is wiped out.
1969
The last phase of American involvement in South Vietnam began under a broad policy
called Vietnamization. Its main goal was to create strong, largely self-reliant South
Vietnamese military forces, an objective consistent with that espoused by U.S. advisers as
early as the 1950'S. But Vietnamization also meant the withdrawal of a half-million
American soldiers.
Until the weakened Viet Cong forces could be rebuilt or replaced with NVA forces, both
guerrilla and regular Communist forces had adopted a defensive posture. Nevertheless,
90,000 NVA forces were in the South, or in border sanctuaries, waiting to resume the
offensive.
March - American forces reach their peak
strength of 543,000.
As in the past, highland camps and outposts were a magnet for enemy attacks, meant to
lure reaction forces into an ambush or to divert the allies from operations elsewhere. Ben
Het in Kontum Province was besieged from March to July of 1969. Other bases—Thien
Phuoc and Thuong Duc in I Corps; Bu Prang, Dak Seang, and Dak Pek in II Corps; and Katum,
Bu Dop, and Tong Le Chon in III Corps—were attacked because of their proximity to
Communist strongholds and infiltration routes.
The 101st Airborne Division divided its attention between the
defense of Hue and forays into the enemy's base in the A Shau valley. Since the 1968 Tet
offensive, the Communists had restocked the A Shau valley with ammunition, rice, and
equipment. The logistical build-up pointed to a possible NVA offensive in early 1969. In
quick succession, Army operations were launched in the familiar pattern: air assaults,
establishment of fire support bases, and exploration of the lowlands and surrounding hills
to locate enemy forces and supplies. This time the Army met stiff enemy resistance,
especially from antiaircraft guns. The North Vietnamese had expected the American forces
and now planned to hold their ground.
May 11 - A battalion of the 101st Airborne Division climbing Hill 937
in the A Shau found the 28th North Vietnamese Regiment waiting for it. The fight for "Hamburger Hill" raged for ten days and
became one of the war's fiercest and most controversial battles. Entrenched in tiers of
fortified bunkers with well-prepared fields of fire, the enemy forces withstood repeated
attempts to dislodge them. Supported by intense artillery and air strikes, Americans made
a slow, tortuous climb, fighting hand to hand. By the time Hill 937 was taken, three Army
battalions and an ARVN regiment had been committed to the battle. The struggle was
shown in the film "Hamburger Hill".
1970
Cambodia's neutralist leader, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, was overthrown by his
pro-Western Defense Minister, General Lon Nol. A few weeks earlier, American B-52 bombers
had begun in secret to bomb enemy bases in Cambodia. By late April, South Vietnamese
military units, accompanied by American advisers, had mounted large-scale ground
operations across the border.
May 1 - Units of the 1st Cavalry
Division, the 25th Infantry Division, and the 11th Armored Cavalry followed. Cambodia
became a new battlefield of the Vietnam War. Cutting a broad swath through the enemy's
Cambodian bases, Army units discovered large, sprawling, well-stocked storage sites,
training camps, and hospitals, all recently occupied.
The expansion of the war produced violent demonstrations in the United States,
including the tragic shootings at Kent State.
1971
Army helicopters and artillery were moved to the vicinity of the abandoned base at Khe
Sanh. The 101st Airborne Division conducted a feint toward the A Shau valley to conceal
the true objective. On 8 February 1971,
spearheaded by tanks and with airmobile units leapfrogging ahead to establish fire support
bases, a South Vietnamese mechanized column advanced down Highway 9 toward Laos. Facing
the South Vietnamese were elements of five NVA divisions, as well as a tank regiment, an
artillery regiment, and at least nineteen antiaircraft battalions. The result was
near-disaster. Army helicopter pilots trying to rescue South Vietnamese soldiers from
their besieged hilltop fire bases encountered intense antiaircraft fire. Panic ensued when
some South Vietnamese units ran out of ammunition. Eventually, ARVN forces punched their
way out of Laos, but only after paying a heavy price. In addition to losing nearly 2,000
men, the South Vietnamese lost large amounts of equipment during their disorderly
withdrawal, and the U.S. Army lost IO7 helicopters, the highest number in any one
operation of the war.
November - When the 101st Airborne
Division withdrew from the South, Hanoi was planning its 1972 spring offensive. With
ARVN's combat capacity diminished and nearly all U.S. combat troops gone, North Vietnam
sensed an opportunity to demonstrate the failure of Vietnamization
1972
March 30 - The NVA Easter offensive
began. Total U.S. military strength in South Vietnam was about 95,000, of which only 6,000
were combat troops, and the task of countering the offensive on the ground fell almost
exclusively to the South Vietnamese. Attacking on three fronts, the North Vietnamese Army
poured across the demilitarized zone and out of Laos to capture Quang Tri, South Vietnam's
northernmost province. In the Central Highlands, enemy units moved into Kontum Province.
By late summer the Easter offensive had run its course; the South Vietnamese, in a
slow, cautious counteroffensive, recaptured Quang Tri City and most of the lost province.
But the margin of victory or defeat often was supplied by the massive supporting firepower
provided by U.S. air and naval forces.
1973
The United States, North and South Vietnam, and the Viet Cong signed an armistice that
promised a cease-fire and national reconciliation. Between 1973 and 1975 South Vietnam's
military security further declined through a combination of old and new factors. Plagued
by poor maintenance and shortages of spare parts, much of the equipment provided Saigon's
forces under Vietnamization became inoperable. American military activities in Cambodia
and Laos, which had continued after the cease-fire in South Vietnam went into effect,
ended in 1973 when Congress cut off funds.
1975
North Vietnam's leaders began planning for a new offensive, still uncertain whether the
United States would resume bombing or once again intervene in the South. When their forces
overran Phuoc Long Province, north of Saigon, without any American military reaction, they
decided to proceed with a major offensive in the Central Highlands. Neither President
Nixon, weakened by the Watergate scandal and forced to resign, nor his successor, Gerald
Ford, was prepared to challenge Congress by resuming U.S. military activity in Southeast
Asia. The will of Congress seemed to reflect the mood of an American public weary of the
long and inconclusive war.
What had started as a limited offensive in the highlands to draw off forces from
populated areas now became an all-out effort to conquer South Vietnam. Thieu, desiring to
husband his military assets, decided to retreat rather than to reinforce the highlands.
The result was panic among his troops and a mass exodus toward the coast. As Hanoi's
forces spilled out of the highlands, they cut off South Vietnamese defenders in the
northern provinces from the rest of the country. Other NVA units now crossed the
demilitarized zone, quickly overrunning Hue and Da Nang, and signaling the collapse of
South Vietnamese resistance in the north. Hurriedly established defense lines around
Saigon could not hold back the inexorable enemy offensive against the capital. As South
Vietnamese leaders waited in vain for American assistance, Saigon fell to the Communists
on April 29, 1975.
The US paid a high price for its long involvement in South Vietnam. American military
deaths exceeded 58,000. The majority of the dead were in the infantry units -- lower
ranking enlisted men (E-2 and E-3) were heaviest hit. They were young men, twenty-three
years old or younger, of whom approximately 13 percent were black. Most deaths were caused
by small-arms fire and gunshot, but a significant portion, almost 30 percent, stemmed from
mines, booby traps, and grenades. Artillery, rockets, and bombs accounted for only a small
portion of the total fatalities. If not for the unprecedented medical care provided in
South Vietnam, the death toll would have been higher yet. Nearly 300,000 Americans were
wounded, of whom half required hospitalization. The lives of many seriously injured men,
who would have become fatalities in earlier wars, were saved by rapid helicopter
evacuation direct to hospitals close to the combat zone. More than a decade after the end
of the war, 1,761 American soldiers remained listed as missing in action.
The war-ravaged Vietnamese, North and South, incurred the greatest losses. South
Vietnamese military deaths exceeded 200,000. War-related civilian deaths in the South
approached a half-million, while the injured and maimed numbered many more. Accurate
estimates of enemy casualties run afoul of the difficulty in distinguishing between
civilians and combatants, imprecise body counts, and the difficulty of verifying
casualties in areas controlled by the enemy. Nevertheless, nearly a million Viet Cong and
North Vietnamese Army soldiers are believed to have perished in combat through the spring
of 1975.
Source: US Army Center for Military History - Chapter 28 -
The US Army in Vietnam
http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/
(Remarks concerning 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines are my own)
For another excellent Timeline, go to PBS / The
American Experience - Vietnam
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