Review of Asian Studies
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- Reburying victims of the Communist Massacre in Hue The Massacre
- A Detailed Account of the Massacre
- It Was Premeditated!
- What the Survivors Saw
- Confirming the Communist Massacre
- We were sort of to blame
- Tet, Phases II: Mini-Tet
Victory at Last Throughout these long weeks, as U.S. and ARVN fought their way through Hue, they experienced bitter and protracted street fighting. Marines of the 1st and 5th Regiments, the 7th and 12th Army Regiments and the ARVN 1st Division gradually pushed the NVA and VC out of Hue and retook the city one block at a time. As mentioned earlier, none of the forces on either side had much experience in urban combat and since the city was of religious and cultural significance the Allies had limited combat options. At first these problem and the fact that the monsoon season caused heavy rain and low clouds on many days, CAS was limited and progress slowed. As casualties increased, the policy of protecting shrines and historic buildings was eliminated. The enemy employed lots of snipers normally hidden inside buildings or in what were called spider holes and prepared makeshift machine gun bunkers. They carried out night attacks especially when the exhausted Allied soldiers were sleeping. They planted a variation of booby traps, often under dead bodies; frequently of their fallen comrades.96 As this drama unfolded within the city limits elements of the “Screaming Eagles” of the 101st Airborne Division and 1st Air Cavalry Division continued to block Hue from Communist lines of supply and reinforcement. Desperate to save the decaying situation, at one point, two NVA regiments were redeployed from the siege at Khe Sanh to Hue only to be cut to pieces by these U.S. blocking forces. As February wore on, U.S. and ARVN units gradually fought their way towards the Citadel. After roughly two weeks of fighting the Allies came within reach of the Citadel. At last, it had come down to the taking Citadel and the Imperial Palace which was in the center of it. With better weather and permission to use airpower, Marine A-4 Skyhawk aircraft swooped in and dropped bombs and napalm on the Citadel. Even so, it required four more days of intense combat before these final enemy strongholds fell. 97 According a CMH account of the battle, “The allies crushed the last organized enemy resistance in the Citadel on 25 February. At 0300 the Vietnamese marines attacked toward the southern corner and wiped out the few enemy troops remaining there.” The next day, President Thieu arrived from Saigon to congratulate Gen. Truong on his great victory. In turn, U.S. forces spread out from the city to kill or capture as many retreating enemy troops as possible. They discovered discarded equipment and important documents left by their defeated foe.98 On February 29, 1968, the Imperial Palace in the center of the Citadel was secured and troops from the elite Black Panther Company of the ARVN 1st Division, along with Task Force X-Ray, tore down the NVA and VC flags, which had flown since January 31.99 As the CMH study notes, the battle at Hue was the longest battle of the Tet Offensive and “generated more casualties than any other single engagement of the war to that date.” The study goes on to say that 142 Marines were killed and 1,100 were wounded. The ARVN lost 333 killed and 1,773 wounded, while Vietnamese marines lost another 88 killed and 350 wounded. The ARVN 1st Cavalry alone lost 68 killed and 453 wounded. The American 101st Airborne Division reported 6 killed and 56 wounded, while “Allied estimates of the number of enemy killed ranged from between 2,500 to 5,000.”100 The NVA claimed that they lost 1,042 troops. The MACV staff reported that they had killed 5,133 enemy troops. The two sides also reported the Communists had lost about 1,400 to 3,000 killed outside of the city. All totaled Allied intelligence estimated the PAVN lost 8,000 in the city and in fighting in the surrounding area. Thousands of civilians were also killed and wounded by both sides during battle and 80 percent of the city was destroyed by American air strikes. The Allies did not go unscathed. One historian claimed that the U.S. lost 216 men and the ARVN 384.101 As Marine Captain Myron Harrington was quoted as saying by Stanley Karnow in his famous book on the war, “Did we have to destroy the town in order to save it?”102 
Reburying victims of the Communist Massacre in Hue The Massacre As bitter as the fighting had been, what the allies discovered among the ruins of the historic city was even more shocking. Based on rumors by civilians of mass executions by the Communists, allied occupiers began a search for missing citizens. They soon discovered numerous mass graves mostly of South Vietnamese officials. The last one was unearthed in 1970. Forensic evidence suggested that the victims had been clubbed or shot in the head or buried alive. The magnitude of the Communist massacre of civilians was only gradually realized. Ultimately, 2,800 bodies were found, another 2,000 persons were missing and several thousands more lost their lives being caught in the crossfire of the battle.103 According to famous foreign service officer, and, later historian, Douglas Pike, in his official 1970 report entitled The Viet Cong Strategy of Terror, not long after the PAVN occupied the city they systematically rounded up dozens of key local Southern leaders telling them they were to undergo a re-education program. Instead, they methodically executed 2,800 South Vietnamese civilians they believed to be opposed to Communist rule. Among those arrested were ARVN military personnel, serving or former government officials, local civil servants, teachers, policemen, and religious leaders.104 Historian Gunther Lewy maintained that a captured Viet Cong document he saw indicated that the enemy “eliminated 1,892 administrative personnel, 38 policemen and 790 tyrants.”105 Former PAVN Col. Bui Tin, who defected to the west, later admitted that Communist troops in Hue rounded up what he called “reactionary” captives for transport to the North. However, as the battle unfolded and keeping captives became difficult, commanders on the scene decided to execute them for expediency’s sake.106 Gen. Troung claimed that the detainees had been executed by the Communists to protect the identities of members of the local VC infrastructure, whose covers had been blown. The exact events leading to the murder of the victims in the mass graves may never be fully understood, but the overwhelming evidence from captured documents and eye witness accounts points to Communist executions.107 A Detailed Account of the Massacre As noted, following the Battle of Hue, numerous mass graves were discovered in and around the city. The victims included men, women children, and infants. Over the years various publications and official international agencies have estimated that the death toll was between 2,800 to 6,000 civilians and prisoners of war. Sometime after the battle the Republic of Vietnam (RVN) issued a list of 4,062 victims identified as having been either murdered or abducted. Several other reports asserted that the dead had been discovered bound, tortured, and sometimes buried alive. Still, others had been clubbed to death.108 Based on this physical evidence, eyewitness accounts, many by American and Vietnamese reporters, officials and investigators almost immediately came to the conclusion that the Communists had carried out a large-scale atrocity during their four-week occupation of the city. Experts viewed the murders as part of a massive purge of an entire social class that included teachers, government officials, religious leaders, and especially those friendly to U.S. forces in the region. Over time, the Massacre came under increasing media scrutiny as reports trickled in of the activities of South Vietnamese “revenge squads” carrying out reprisals toward citizens they suspected of supporting the Communist occupation.109 Apparently, just after the NVA and VC captured Hue on January 31, 1968, the NLF established their own quasi-government authority. These pseudo officials set about dismantling the existing governmental structure and replacing it with a “revolutionary administration.” Using lists that included what they designated as “cruel tyrants and reactionary elements” previously formulated by VC intelligence officials, cadres rounded up ARVN soldiers, civil servants, members of non-communist political parties, local religious leaders, schoolteachers, U.S. civilians, and other international people. The cadres combed the city announcing the names on the lists over loudspeakers, ordering them to report to a local school. Those not reporting voluntarily were hunted down. 110 It Was Premeditated! The roundup came from orders issued by the High Command and the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) or COSVN as part of a 3,500-page compendium released on January 26, 1968 by the Tri-Thien-Hue Political Directorate. Working with the approval of military and political leaders, these political cadre were to “destroy and disorganize the RVN administrative machinery ‘from province and district levels to the city wards, streets, and wharves;’ motivate the people of Hue to take up arms, pursue the enemy, seize power, and establish a revolutionary government; recruit local citizens for military and “security” forces... transportation and supply activities, and to serve wounded soldiers ...’” Further they were to “pursue to the end (and) punish ‘spies, reactionaries, and tyrants’ — i. e., government administrators, civil servants, police, and others employed by or notable adherents of the Republic of Viet Nam; and ‘maintain order and security in the city — i. e., control the population’”111 Among the other parts of these orders was one that was aimed at the Target Area 1 or the Phu Ninh ward. It directed the VC Cadres to “Annihilate all spies, reactionaries, and foreign teachers (such as Americans and Germans) in the area. Break open prisons. Investigate cadre, soldiers and receptive civilians imprisoned by the enemy. Search for tyrants and reactionaries who are receiving treatment in hospitals” As for Target Area 2 or Phu Vinh ward, they were to “Annihilate the enemy in the area...Rally the Buddhist force to advance the isolation of reactionaries who exploit the Catholics of Phu Cam.” The Cadres sent to Target Area 3 or the wharves along the An Cuu River and from Truong Sung to the Kho Ren Bridge were to “Search for and pursue spies, tyrants and reactionaries hiding near the wharf... Motivate the people in the areas along the River to annihilate the enemy.” As for Target Area 4 or the district including Phu Cam and the Binh Anh, Truong Giang, Truong Cuu and An Lang sections the orders were to “Search for and pursue spies and reactionaries in the area...Destroy the power and influence of reactionary leaders...” The Cadre in Area 1, Cell 3 was given the job of “Annihilation of tyrants and the elimination of traitors.”112 In retrospect the entire document was a chilling set of marching orders designed to terrorize the population and force them to support the uprising. In June 1968 members of the Army’s 1st Cavalry found enemy documents that included a directive written two days before the battle began. It told Communist cadres that, “For the purpose of a lengthy occupation of Hue, we should immediately liberate the rural areas and annihilate the wicked GVN administrative personnel. …We must attack the enemy’s key agencies, economic installations, and lines of communications. We must also annihilate the enemy mobile troops, reactionary elements and tyrants.”113 Once the NVA and VC seized Hue on February 1, troops were ordered, “To wipe out all puppet administrative organs of the puppet Thieu-Ky (President Nguyen Van Thieu and Vice President Nguyen Cao Ky) clique at all levels in the province, city and town down to every single hamlet.” The NLF radio declared that, “We tell our compatriots that we are determined to topple the regime of the traitorous Thieu-Ky clique and to punish and annihilate those who have been massacring and oppressing our compatriots… we ask our compatriots to…help us arrest all the U.S.-puppet cruel henchmen.”114 Douglas Pike says that, captured enemy documents directed the Communists to take members of the provincial administration out of the city, and punish them for their “crimes against the Vietnamese people.” South Vietnamese police were to be rounded up and held outside the city. Senior civilian and military leaders were also removed from the city, to await “the study of their individual cases.” Civil servants who worked for “the Saigon enemy” out of necessity, but did not oppose the Communists, were destined for reeducation and later employment. Low-level civil servants who had at some point been involved in paramilitary activities were to be held for reeducation, but not employed. There are documented cases of individuals who were executed by the VC if they tried to hide or resisted.115 Perhaps the best summation comes from the respected author and journalist Don Oberdorfer who reported that the killings were, “The deliberated and planned execution of government military men, policemen, civil service and elected functionaries and those suspected of working for or collaborating with the Americans.”116 What the Survivors Saw The daughter of the Deputy Mayor of Hue, Nguyen Cong Minh, revealed that her father was seized by the VC at their home. He had ordered the rest of the family to flee when the Communist cadres had first knocked on their door on the first day. Three days later they told him to report to a reeducation camp. He was never seen again nor was his body ever recovered. In her search for her father, Mrs. Nguyen went to several mass graves. She noted that many of the dead had had their hands tied behind their backs and their skulls crushed.117 In 1971, journalist Don Oberdorfer’s in his book, Tet!, recorded eyewitness accounts of of the Massacre. One recalls that Pham Van Tuong, a part-time janitor for the Hue government information office was on the communist hit list. He and his family tried to hide but he was found with his 3-year-old daughter, 5-year-old son and 2 nephews. They were all shot by the VC and their bodies left on the street for the rest of the family to see. Two years earlier Oberdorfer had spent five days with Paul Vogle, an American English professor at Hue University, talking to those who survived the Communist occupation. He classified all the killings into two categories. There was the premeditated execution of government officials, civil servants and those friendly with the U.S. The other group included non-governmental civilians who tried to escape questioning, who spoke harshly about the occupation, or who the occupiers believed “displayed a bad attitude” towards the occupiers. This was best exemplified in Phu Cam, the Catholic district of the city, where more than 400 males over 15 were taken from the Phu Cam Cathedral and summarily murdered. 118 Professor Horst-Günther Krainick, Dr. Alois Alteköster, and Dr. Raimund Discher, who taught in the Medical School at the German Federal Republic’s Cultural Mission, along with Mrs. Horst-Günther Krainick, were arrested and executed by NVA in February 1968. Their bodies were discovered on April 5, 1968, in a mass grave near Hue. In addition, two French priests, Fathers Urbain and Guy, were killed. Urbain was buried alive, while Guy was stripped of his cassock and forced to kneel and shot in the back of the head. They were found in the same grave with 18 others. Stephen Miller of the U.S. Information Service was executed in a field behind a Catholic seminary and NBC International journalist Courtney Niles was killed during an attack by Communist forces. Last, but not least, Philip W. Manhard, a U.S. senior advisor in Hue, was taken to a prison camp in the North and held until 1973. Manhard recalled that during the Communists withdrawal they killed anyone who resisted being taken out of the city or who was too old, too young, or too frail to make the journey.119 After the fact, the search for those who had disappeared proved frustrating. While some graves were found in obvious places, many others were discovered by accident. For example, in one case, a farmer ploughing his field tripped on a wire sticking out of the ground. As he tried to remove it the skeleton of a hand came through the soft earth. Some burial sites were found when people noticed suspiciously green grass in sandy areas. Three VC who eventually defected told Allied authorities where the graves of the Da Mai Creek massacre were located. An ARVN soldier on patrol south of Hue noticed a wire sticking out of the ground. Thinking it was a booby trap, he very carefully worked to uncover it. He discovered the body of an old man, his hands tied together with the wire. Within two days 130 bodies had been uncovered.120 Confirming the Communist Massacre While the above accounts are sufficient to implicate the enemy occupiers, Communist documents taken later confirm their culpability. Many boast that they “eliminated” thousands of people and “annihilated members of various reactionary political parties, henchmen, and wicked tyrants.” A single regiment claimed to have killed 1,000 people, another 2,867, and yet another boasted of killing more than 3,000. A further document listed 2,748 executions.121 On April 26, 1968, when the Allies announced the discovery of the graves, officials in Hanoi, declared that those who had been slain were, “hooligan lackeys who had incurred blood debts of the Hue compatriots and who were annihilated by the Front’s Armed Forces in the early spring of 1968.”122 In turn, 1st US Air Cavalry Division troops captured an enemy diary which read, “The entire puppet administrative system from hamlet to province was destroyed or disintegrated. More than 3,000 persons were killed. The enemy could never reorganize or make up for his failure. Although he could immediately use inexperienced elements as replacements, they were good for nothing.”123 We were sort of to blame After years of excuses or denial, in February 1988 Vietnamese Communist leaders admitted to their “mistakes.” Still, Colonel Nguyen Quoc Khanh, a senior Communist officer at Hue, declared, “There was no case of killing civilians purposefully... Those civilians who were killed were killed accidentally, in cross fire.” But he admitted “some rank and file soldiers may have committed individual mistakes.”124 This opened the door to the controversies that have followed. Adding to it was former NVA Colonel Bui Tin’s memoir From Enemy to Friend: a North Vietnamese perspective on the war, published in 2002. While he admitted that there had been civilian executions, he argued that troop discipline had fallen apart as U.S. air strikes intensified. He also said that the “units from the north” had been “told that Hue was the stronghold of feudalism, a bed of reactionaries the breeding ground of Can Lao Party loyalists who remained true to the memory of former South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem and of Nguyen Van Thieu’s Democracy Party.”125 According to Bui Tin, more than 10,000 prisoners were taken at Hue, and the most important ones were sent to North Vietnam to be put in prison. When the Marines’ counterattack moved closer to retaking the city, Communist officials ordered the troops to take these prisoners with them. Bui Tin asserts that in the “panic of retreat,” the company and battalion commanders shot their prisoners “to ensure the safety of the retreat.” 126 It is worth mentioning that western historians such as Marilyn B. Young have brought into question the “official” number of executions in Hue. In her book on the Vietnam Wars she notes that freelance journalist Len Ackland, who was at Hue, has estimated the number to be roughly between 300 and 400.127 Brilliant Harvard-trained and equally controversial Professor Ngo Vinh Long who teaches at the University of Maine, Orno, stated in an interview, “yeah, there was a total of 710 persons killed in the Hue area, from my research, not as many as five thousand, six thousand, or whatever the Americans claimed at that time, and not as few as four hundred as people in the peace movement here claim.…”128 The CMH study states that, “Approximately 75 percent of the houses in Hue were damaged or destroyed in the fighting.” Ultimately, “some 115,000 people were left temporarily homeless. Food quickly ran short throughout the city, although enough remained available to prevent widespread starvation.” Lastly, “more than 4,000 civilian deaths were confirmed” and nearly “1,200 of those fatalities came as a result of errant bombs and bullets…”129 Others estimated that the total civilian casualty numbers were as high as 8,000 with many deaths resulting from U.S. air strikes and ARVN “revenge squads” who killed dozens after the battle ended. Perhaps James Willbanks summed up the tragedy best when he concluded, “We may never know what really happened at Hue, but it is clear that mass executions did occur.”130 Tet, Phases II: Mini-Tet This bloodletting in January and February are what many people call the Tet Offensive. However, the Communist offensive was far from over. Beginning on May 13, 1968, a new round of negotiations began in Paris. Even as the North began these talks they were also planning a new series of attacks. Late in April, Allied intelligence estimated that between February and May the NVA had sent 50,000 troops down the Ho Chi Minh Trail to replace the forces they had lost in January and February. In fact, on April 29, even before the talks began, there occurred some of the most bitter and protracted fighting of the war and it would last until May 30. The engagement began when 8,000 men of the 320th PAVN Division, supported by artillery stationed on the other side of the DMZ assaulted the American logistics center at Dong Ha, in northwestern Quảng Trị Province. The ensuing struggle became known as the Battle of Dai Do. In the end, Marines, Army and ARVN forces beat back the NVA forces which lost 2,100 men. However, they killed 290 and wounded 946 Allied defenders. 131 While it was an important victory for the Allies, it was only the beginning. Early on May 4, the enemy officially began the second phase or what the Americans called “Mini-Tet.” They simultaneously hit 119 targets all across South Vietnam, including Saigon. However, this time Allied intelligence was better prepared which eliminated the element of surprise. American and ARVN screening units quickly intercepted most of the Communist forces before they reached their targets. Even so, 13 VC battalions infiltrated the cordon and once again plunged the capital into chaos. At Phu Lam, it took two bloody days of fighting before the Allies were able to eliminate the 267th Viet Cong Local Force Battalion around the Y-Bridge, and at Tan Son Nhut. By May 12, the struggle was over and the VC troops retreated leaving more than 3,000 dead.132 It seemed that the Communists had decided to pull back and the struggle began to subside. Then, on May 10, two regiments of the NVA’s 2nd Division attacked the last Special Forces border surveillance camp in I Corps at Kham Duc in Quảng Tín Province. The 1,800 U.S. and ARVN troops were soon surrounded and isolated. Determined not to repeat the situation that had beset U.S. Marines at Khe Sanh, leaders at MACV ordered the evacuation by air of the entire contingent of Allied troops, thus, leaving the base area to the NVA. In retrospect it was public relations nightmare and it provided the enemy with a major propaganda victory.133 Two weeks later, on May 25, enemy forces initiated another wave of attacks in Saigon. Unlike Tet Mau Than and Mini-Tet, this time no U.S. installations were attacked, instead the VC occupied six Buddhist pagodas believing the Allies would not dare assault them with artillery or air attacks. The bloodiest engagement took place once again in Cholon. On June 18, 152 members of the VC Quyet Thang Regiment surrendered to ARVN forces. This proved to be the largest number of Communist forces to surrender during the war. When this second phase ended there were 500 civilians killed, 4,500 wounded and 87,000 more left homeless. The U.S. had had 1,161 killed and 3,954 wounded, while ARVN had 143 killed and 643 wounded.134 Directory: wp-content -> uploads -> 2015 2015 -> Police Militarization 2015 -> 2015 ihbb championships: hs history Bowl Round 4 – Prelims First Quarter 2015 -> Wrtp/big step · 3841 W. Wisconsin Ave., Milwaukee, wi 53208 2015 -> Rao bulletin 1 December 2015 html edition this bulletin contains the following articles 2015 -> Darton College 2015 -> Training Workshop on Planning and Implementation of Multi-Sectoral Development Programme (MsDP) in Bihar Date : 6th 2015 -> Rao bulletin 15 June 2015 html edition this bulletin contains the following articles 2015 -> Rao bulletin 1 September 2015 html edition this bulletin contains the following articles 2015 -> Rao bulletin 1 August 2015 html edition this bulletin contains the following articles 2015 -> Science, and transportation united states senate Download 348.84 Kb. Share with your friends:
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