The Significance Of The Battle Of Hamburger Hill

Hamburger Hill, also known by ‘Hill 937’ or ‘Ap Bia Mountain’, refers to a battle fought between May 10th and 20th of 1969 in the Vietnam War (Sorely et al). American troops fought to defend a relatively insignificant hill in the South of Vietnam. The object of the attack was to eliminate enemy forces and to obtain enemy weaponry (Vowell et al). It gained significance mostly because when the casualties were reported in the United States, they were misrepresented, resulting in a public outcry (Summers et al). The monetary and human cost that was expended during the battle with what seemed to be very little gain for the South Vietnamese or the Americans enraged those whose taxes and loved ones were paying the price. Furthermore, the hill was
abandoned shortly after being conquered by American troops, making it seem as though the losses were for naught. As more information came out about the seemingly inefficient strategy used in battle, the public grew angrier, and their influence on political leaders was notable. In retrospect, the importance of Hamburger Hill is seen in how it changed American public opinion, and therefore helped to end the war by swaying politicians to put in policies that would be one of the last battles of the war to be fought on the ground (Summers et al), and by intercepting the Ho Chi Minh trail. The Vietnam War came in the aftermath of French defeat by Viet Minh forces who desired independence. At a conference in Geneva, Switzerland, a compromise was made that divided the country into North and South at the 17th parallel (Karnow et. al). This gave the French temporary control over the South half, and communist forces the North Half. There were differing political views in each region, but the South was supported politically and monetarily by the United States, which we justified by lumping it in with the War on Communism. The North had support from communist forces in bordering countries of China and newly independent Laos and Cambodia (Deitchman et al). The fighting techniques that the Viet Minh used to emancipate themselves from the French impacted how the North Vietnamese fought, and, “Using such tactics […] the PAVN [The North Vietnamese] could largely control the locations and initiation of battle and […] compensate for their overall inferior numbers and armaments” (Deitchman). Their ability to control the location of conflict made them a formidable foe, but because their manpower was mainly countryside militia, there was a supply trail known as the Ho Chi Minh that was used to interconnect militiamen across the Laos-Vietnam border (pictured below). It is at a crucial point on that trail that the battle of Hill 937 took place. On the first day, the Americans began an assault on Northern forces in the area of the hill, and quickly realized that there were more of the enemy present than anticipated (Vowell et al).
The artillery were called in, and as days went on, many men died and almost triple that amount were wounded. In a very narrowed sense, the strategy in battle was likely not the best because rather than surround the enemy where they were on the other side of the hill, men were sent up the in teams, one behind the other. This meant that we were basically giving the enemy target practice, one wave after the other while the Viet Minh held their ground. The high number of wounded soldiers gives the hill its nickname because the men speculated that they were being turned into meat before each other’s eyes as they came up the mountain and were fired on. On the tenth day, “3rd Brigade overran the enemy bunkers and captured Hamburger Hill […] and attached units eliminated more than 500 enemy troops and seized caches of weapons and explosives” (Vowell et al). So it is plain that it was not until the tactic of attack was changed to be less head on, the American forces were losing more than they were gaining. Sorely posits that in total, 47 American soldiers were killed in action with 308 wounded, most coming from a single division- the 187th (Vowell et.
al).
In the weeks following the battle of Hamburger Hill, two key events would take place.
First, on June 5th, the hill itself would be abandoned. This made little sense to those who were considering traditional views on warfare which state that gaining territory is the means by which a war is won. According to Chief of Staff at the time, General Abrams, in the case of Vietnam, the objective was instead to get into the West as soon as possible and to infiltrate the enemy’s supply line, damaging as much of their weaponry as possible (Donnely). Hamburger Hill was a battle that accomplished both of these goals, and it is unreasonable to expect such an accomplishment to come without any collateral damage. The general public did not understand this because of their relatively recent experience with the Second World War in which gaining control of enemy territory was of utmost
importance.
The second key even took place on June 27th when Life Magazine published a front page article titled, ‘The Faces of the Dead in Vietnam: One Week’s Toll” that, “featured photographs of the 241 servicemen killed in Vietnam the previous week, including the five who had been killed in the assault on Hamburger Hill” (Summers et al). To the general reader, it seemed as if all 241 men had died in the battle of Hill 937 rather than the actual 47. The misconception about what winning the war was supposed to look like combined with the growing American anger and heartache regarding dead servicemen provided a convenient platform for politicians looking to gain public support for their viewpoints that opposed the war. Among those politicians was Ed Kennedy who called the battles madness on the floor of the Senate (Karnow et. al). The influence of Kennedy and other similarly-minded politicians was significant enough in fact, that by the next month, President Nixon had ordered that 25,000 U.S. troops be withdrawn by the following month. Clearly, the public opinion of the event provided politicians with enough leverage to make one of the more decisive commands that would pull America out of the war for good. Often overlooked by Americans however, is the effect of the battle on the war at the ground level; it allowed US Troops to work inside the enemy system because it gave Americans access to the Ho Chi Minh Trail (Sorely 142). The trail was the enemy’s main source of supplies, and because it was intercepted by the victory at Hamburger Hill, it gave Americans the upper hand in the three final years of a war. Because the war had little to do with territory and much to do with causing as much casualty to the other side’s military resources as possible (Sorely 141), the battle provided a foothold that would be a major tool that precipitated the victory that was three years away. Though the hill itself was abandoned, the location of the hill near the A Shau Valley would provide a “venue of approach” for the Americans until the war ended so that they could continue to “disrupt the enemy system” (Sorely, 140-1). Overall, the Battle at Hill 937 was important to American History because it manifest the power that popular opinion has in American society to impact political decisions- even regarding something as complicated as international military affairs- through the outcry to the article printed in Life Magazine. This is illustrated specifically through the decision that President Nixon made in the wake of the opposition to withdraw 25,000 troops. Additionally, it was one of the most decisive battles of the war because it paved the way for more effective strategy with fewer men on the ground, and contributed to the outcome of a successful war on communism. In terms of war itself, the battle impacted American history by offering a successful example of war strategy in attacking enemy supply rather than the traditional approach to war that focused on gaining enemy territory. This was obviously imitated and used effectively to end the Vietnam War as quickly as it could have been, but in the broader scope of things, it provides a concrete example of how the type of war that occurred in Vietnam lead to a shift in the contemporary mindset regarding what successful war looks like.