Significance Of The Tet Offensive

The Tet Offensive a surprise attack and military movement of the Viet Cong also referred to as the Nation Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam and the North Vietnamese army on the United States and its Allies. The attack was to set of and encourage a revolution in the southern vietnamese people, it targeted the military command centers and major cities in Southern Vietnam. The idea of the attack was to finish the war and destroy the government of Vietnam all in one quick and subtle movement. General Vo Nguyen Giap now recognized as one of the best generals through the 20th century knew that the Vietnam War was becoming increasingly more unpopular state side and he realized that if the american people were not backing the war then the
soldiers heart would not be in it as much. Napoleon stated that “in a war morale factors account for three quarters of the whole; relative material strength accounts for only one quarter.” Giap took advantage of this in every battle and war that he could, this was also an objective of the Tet Offensive to lower american morale in any way possible. The anti war movements and protest were getting increasingly worse as the war went on. The Tet Offensive was a well formulated plan that was in opposition to public perception was not formulated by Giap alone. The base of the plan was made by Pham Hung the head of a communist committee and only modified by Giap. The plan was called the Tet Offensive because it took place on one of the national holidays of Vietnam Tet Nguyen Dan. Tet Nguyen Dan is the Vietnamese new year had has been historically a time of peace during wars. Both sides decided to cease fire from January 27 to February 3 of 1968. This was broken on January 31 when Northern Vietnam attacked. The plan was that they would draw United States and Republic of Vietnamese troops to the base at Khe Sanh which was in the northeast region of South Vietnam by positioning troops around the base. While america was focusing on redeploying troops out to Khe Sanh, which in turn would leave the areas that the were being deployed from weakened, The North Vietnamese would discreetly and slowly put troops into cities and around command centers. They would sneak in wearing civilian clothing in twos and threes. The mass movement of troops was covered up by the general traffic of families moving around the country so they can celebrate Tet Nguyen Dan together. Weapons were concealed in truck that were apparently carrying flowers, or AK-47s where hidden in trucks apparently full of rice or vegetables.
Taxis carried chrysanthemums into Saigon for the Tet market. Hidden underneath them were AK-47s. The people supported the revolution. They helped us - we were able to penetrate the security in the city. We changed our clothes and carried fake identity documents. The people of Saigon hid us in their houses.

Once all the troops were in position and the United States unsuspecting would have a great number of troops in Khe Sanh the Vietnamese would attack.
The would attack during the ceasefire that the sides had previously agreed upon. All troops in the south of Vietnam fighting for Democracy would be caught completely off guard. The only person that suspected was General Frederick Weyand who convinced General Westmoreland the head of the american troops to hold back a few battalions to defend the Saigon area, which was where Weyand was stationed and in command, and put them on high alert for he had read the vague signs that pointed to the Tet
Offensive.
The battle of Khe Sanh a northern vietnamese attack on an american base that served several purposes for the communists. One of the reasons as stated above was as a diversionary tactic to draw the americans attention away from the subtle movement of northern vietnamese troops. Another reason would be the to take away the strategic position that the base of Khe Sanh provides to the americans. The Northern Vietnamese numbered about 20,000 when the american and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam numbered at about 6,000. The battle commenced on January 21, 1968 and the northerners strategy was to surround the base and cut off all supply lines while bombarding the base with mortars and RPGs. There were not any ground attacks on the main base but several small attacks on outlying forces that came to hand to hand combat. The strategy of cutting off the bases resources did not work because the base received frequent airborne supply drops from the air force back up that the americans had deployed to help in the defending of the base. The americans responded in kind to the opposing Vietnamese artillery, RPG, and mortar attacks on the base dropping an estimated 39,179 tons of munitions on the enemy. The Americans defend the base mainly due to the large bombardments that took place. The battle ends on February 3, 1968 with a total casualty if about 8,000 North Vietnamese and about 700 american troops, the number of injured was much higher being about 2,600 americans and an unknown amount of Vietnamese. The battle of Khe Sanh was heavily reported in the US and changed the opinion of many americans on the homefront. This was was not one of Giaps main objectives for the attack but a good outcome for them.
Gaips plan for the diversion of Khe Sanh worked precisely how he wanted it to.
On January 31, 1968 the Northern Vietnamese break the ceasefire that they had set up with the Southern portion. Almost simultaneously upwards of one hundred cities were were broken into in the small hours of the morning. The americans being undermanned and and caught completely by surprise were unsuccessful in defending many of the cities, so they were taken by the Northern Vietnamese. Some of the major cities were attacked in this process like the city of Hue and the Capital of Southern Vietnam Saigon. Other places that the Northerners attacked was the US Air Base at Bien Hoa “crippled over twenty aircraft” during the attack the the men defending the base, fighting hard, had major loss “at a cost of nearly 170 casualties.” Many other acts like this occurred all across the country, but some of the cities that the Northern Vietnamese attacked were defened well. Some of the cities were taken back by either the Army of the Republic of Vietnam or Americans or a combination of the two by slowly forcing the troops out of the city.
Some of the bloodiest and most famous battles of the Vietnam war were created from Giaps ambitious Tet Offensive. One of those battles was at Saigon and although this was the main objective of the offensive the North Vietnamese troops did not capture and control the whole city but only parts of it. The Vietnamese moved to position in the early morning around 3:15 and the troops
had six major targets for the C-10 Sapper Battalion to attack.
Rather, they had six primary targets to strike in the downtown area: the headquarters of the ARVN General Staff; the Independence Palace, the American Embassy,the Long Binh Naval Headquarters, and the National Radio Station. While other battalions attacked places like the police station or the Artillery Command Center at the same time. Defened by the ARVN and the local police force parts of the city remained untouched. One of the main attacks on Saigon was that of the attack on the US Embassy that was stationed in the city. Nineteen men attacked the Embassy blowing a hole in the wall surrounding the territory at 2:45 and killing the five guards that were posted at the entrance doors of the Embassy. After killing the guards the troops could not find a way in and were simply left to walking around the grounds of the estate that