Month: January 2017

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The United States dropped nuclear weapons on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, respectively, during the final stage of World War II. The United States had dropped the bombs with the consent of the United Kingdom as outlined in the Quebec Agreement. The two bombings, which killed at least 129,000 people, remain the only use of nuclear weapons for warfare in history.

In the final year of the war, the Allies prepared for what was anticipated to be a very costly invasion of the Japanese mainland. This was preceded by a U.S. conventional and firebombing campaign that destroyed 67 Japanese cities. The war in Europe had concluded when Nazi Germany signed its instrument of surrender on May 8, 1945, just after Hitler committed suicide. The Japanese, facing the same fate, refused to accept the Allies’ demands for unconditional surrender and the Pacific War continued. The Allies called for the unconditional surrender of the Japanese armed forces in the Potsdam Declaration on July 26, 1945—the alternative being “prompt and utter destruction”. The Japanese response to this ultimatum was to ignore it.

By August 1945, the Allies’ Manhattan Project had produced two types of atomic bombs, and the 509th Composite Group of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) was equipped with the specialized Silverplate version of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress that could deliver them from Tinian in the Mariana Islands. Orders for atomic bombs to be used on four Japanese cities were issued on July 25. On August 6, the U.S. dropped a uranium gun-type (Little Boy) bomb on Hiroshima, and American President Harry S. Truman called for Japan’s surrender, warning it to “expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth.” Three days later, on August 9, a plutonium implosion-type (Fat Man) bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Within the first two to four months of the bombings, the acute effects of the atomic bombings killed 90,000–146,000 people in Hiroshima and 39,000–80,000 in Nagasaki; roughly half of the deaths in each city occurred on the first day. During the following months, large numbers died from the effect of burns, radiation sickness, and other injuries, compounded by illness and malnutrition. In both cities, most of the dead were civilians, although Hiroshima had a sizable military garrison.

Japan announced its surrender to the Allies on August 15, six days after the bombing of Nagasaki and the Soviet Union‘s declaration of war. On September 2, the Japanese government signed the instrument of surrender, effectively ending World War II. The ethical justification for the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is still debated to this day, mainly because more than a hundred thousand civilians were killed.

Background

Pacific War

Main article: Pacific War
A map of East Asia and the Western Pacific during World War II

Situation of Pacific War by August 1, 1945. Japan still had control of all of Manchuria, Korea, Taiwan and Indochina, a large part of China, including most of the main Chinese cities, and much of the Dutch East Indies

In 1945, the Pacific War between the Empire of Japan and the Allies entered its fourth year. The Japanese fought fiercely, ensuring that U.S. victory would come at an enormous cost. Of the 1.25 million battle casualties incurred by the United States in World War II, including both military personnel killed in action and wounded in action, nearly one million occurred in the twelve-month period from June 1944 to June 1945. December 1944 saw American battle casualties hit an all-time monthly high of 88,000 as a result of the German Ardennes Offensive.[1] In the Pacific, the Allies returned to the Philippines,[2] recaptured Burma,[3] and invaded Borneo.[4] Offensives were undertaken to reduce the Japanese forces remaining in Bougainville, New Guinea and the Philippines.[5] In April 1945, American forces landed on Okinawa, where heavy fighting continued until June. Along the way, the ratio of Japanese to American casualties dropped from 5:1 in the Philippines to 2:1 on Okinawa.[1]

Although some Japanese were taken prisoner, most fought until they were killed or committed suicide. Nearly 99% of the 21,000 defenders of Iwo Jima were killed. Of the 117,000 Japanese troops defending Okinawa in April–June 1945, 94% were killed. American military leaders used these figures to estimate high casualties among American soldiers in the planned invasion of Japan.[6]

As the Allies advanced towards Japan, conditions became steadily worse for the Japanese people. Japan’s merchant fleet declined from 5,250,000 gross tons in 1941 to 1,560,000 tons in March 1945, and 557,000 tons in August 1945. Lack of raw materials forced the Japanese war economy into a steep decline after the middle of 1944. The civilian economy, which had slowly deteriorated throughout the war, reached disastrous levels by the middle of 1945. The loss of shipping also affected the fishing fleet, and the 1945 catch was only 22% of that in 1941. The 1945 rice harvest was the worst since 1909, and hunger and malnutrition became widespread. U.S. industrial production was overwhelmingly superior to Japan’s. By 1943, the U.S. produced almost 100,000 aircraft a year, compared to Japan’s production of 70,000 for the entire war. By the summer of 1944, the U.S. had almost a hundred aircraft carriers in the Pacific, far more than Japan’s twenty-five for the entire war. In February 1945, Prince Fumimaro Konoe advised the Emperor Hirohito that defeat was inevitable, and urged him to abdicate.[7]

Preparations to invade Japan

Main article: Operation Downfall

Even before the surrender of Nazi Germany on May 8, 1945, plans were under way for the largest operation of the Pacific War, Operation Downfall, the invasion of Japan.[8] The operation had two parts: Operation Olympic and Operation Coronet. Set to begin in October 1945, Olympic involved a series of landings by the U.S. Sixth Army intended to capture the southern third of the southernmost main Japanese island, Kyūshū.[9] Operation Olympic was to be followed in March 1946 by Operation Coronet, the capture of the Kantō Plain, near Tokyo on the main Japanese island of Honshū by the U.S. First, Eighth and Tenth Armies, as well as a Commonwealth Corps made up of Australian, British and Canadian divisions. The target date was chosen to allow for Olympic to complete its objectives, for troops to be redeployed from Europe, and the Japanese winter to pass.[10]

Uncle Sam holding a spanner, rolling up his sleeves

U.S. Army poster prepares the public for the invasion of Japan after ending war on Germany and Italy

Japan’s geography made this invasion plan obvious to the Japanese; they were able to predict the Allied invasion plans accurately and thus adjust their defensive plan, Operation Ketsugō, accordingly. The Japanese planned an all-out defense of Kyūshū, with little left in reserve for any subsequent defense operations.[11] Four veteran divisions were withdrawn from the Kwantung Army in Manchuria in March 1945 to strengthen the forces in Japan,[12] and 45 new divisions were activated between February and May 1945. Most were immobile formations for coastal defense, but 16 were high quality mobile divisions.[13] In all, there were 2.3 million Japanese Army troops prepared to defend the home islands, backed by a civilian militia of 28 million men and women. Casualty predictions varied widely, but were extremely high. The Vice Chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy General Staff, Vice Admiral Takijirō Ōnishi, predicted up to 20 million Japanese deaths.[14]

A study from June 15, 1945, by the Joint War Plans Committee,[15] who provided planning information to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, estimated that Olympic would result in between 130,000 and 220,000 U.S. casualties, of which U.S. dead would be in the range from 25,000 to 46,000. Delivered on June 15, 1945, after insight gained from the Battle of Okinawa, the study noted Japan’s inadequate defenses due to the very effective sea blockade and the American firebombing campaign. The Chief of Staff of the United States Army, General of the Army George Marshall, and the Army Commander in Chief in the Pacific, General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, signed documents agreeing with the Joint War Plans Committee estimate.[16]

The Americans were alarmed by the Japanese buildup, which was accurately tracked through Ultra intelligence.[17] Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson was sufficiently concerned about high American estimates of probable casualties to commission his own study by Quincy Wright and William Shockley. Wright and Shockley spoke with Colonels James McCormack and Dean Rusk, and examined casualty forecasts by Michael E. DeBakey and Gilbert Beebe. Wright and Shockley estimated the invading Allies would suffer between 1.7 and 4 million casualties in such a scenario, of whom between 400,000 and 800,000 would be dead, while Japanese fatalities would have been around 5 to 10 million.[18][19]

Marshall began contemplating the use of a weapon which was “readily available and which assuredly can decrease the cost in American lives”:[20] poison gas. Quantities of phosgene, mustard gas, tear gas and cyanogen chloride were moved to Luzon from stockpiles in Australia and New Guinea in preparation for Operation Olympic, and MacArthur ensured that Chemical Warfare Service units were trained in their use.[20] Consideration was also given to using biological weapons against Japan.[21]

Air raids on Japan

Main article: Air raids on Japan
Black and white photo of a four engined World War II-era aircraft being viewed from above while it is flying over a city. A large cloud of smoke is visible immediately below the aircraft.

A B-29 over Osaka on June 1, 1945

While the United States had developed plans for an air campaign against Japan prior to the Pacific War, the capture of Allied bases in the western Pacific in the first weeks of the conflict meant that this offensive did not begin until mid-1944 when the long-ranged Boeing B-29 Superfortress became ready for use in combat.[22] Operation Matterhorn involved India-based B-29s staging through bases around Chengdu in China to make a series of raids on strategic targets in Japan.[23] This effort failed to achieve the strategic objectives that its planners had intended, largely because of logistical problems, the bomber’s mechanical difficulties, the vulnerability of Chinese staging bases, and the extreme range required to reach key Japanese cities.[24]

United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) Brigadier General Haywood S. Hansell determined that Guam, Tinian, and Saipan in the Mariana Islands would better serve as B-29 bases, but they were in Japanese hands.[25]Strategies were shifted to accommodate the air war,[26] and the islands were captured between June and August 1944. Air bases were developed,[27] and B-29 operations commenced from the Marianas in October 1944.[28]These bases were easily resupplied by cargo ships.[29] The XXI Bomber Command began missions against Japan on November 18, 1944.[30]

The early attempts to bomb Japan from the Marianas proved just as ineffective as the China-based B-29s had been. Hansell continued the practice of conducting so-called high-altitude precision bombing, aimed at key industries and transportation networks, even after these tactics had not produced acceptable results.[31] These efforts proved unsuccessful due to logistical difficulties with the remote location, technical problems with the new and advanced aircraft, unfavorable weather conditions, and enemy action.[32][33]

A vast devastated area with only a few burned out buildings standing

The Operation Meetinghousefirebombing of Tokyo on the night of March 9–10, 1945, was the single deadliest air raid in history;[34] with a greater area of fire damage and loss of life than the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima or Nagasaki as single events.[35][36]

Hansell’s successor, Major General Curtis LeMay, assumed command in January 1945 and initially continued to use the same precision bombing tactics, with equally unsatisfactory results. The attacks initially targeted key industrial facilities but much of the Japanese manufacturing process was carried out in small workshops and private homes.[37] Under pressure from USAAF headquarters in Washington, LeMay changed tactics and decided that low-level incendiary raids against Japanese cities were the only way to destroy their production capabilities, shifting from precision bombing to area bombardment with incendiaries.[38]

Like most strategic bombing during World War II, the aim of the USAAF offensive against Japan was to destroy the enemy’s war industries, kill or disable civilian employees of these industries, and undermine civilian morale. Civilians who took part in the war effort through such activities as building fortifications and manufacturing munitions and other war materials in factories and workshops were considered combatants in a legal sense and therefore liable to be attacked.[39][40]

Over the next six months, the XXI Bomber Command under LeMay firebombed 67 Japanese cities. The firebombing of Tokyo, codenamed Operation Meetinghouse, on March 9–10 killed an estimated 100,000 people and destroyed 16 square miles (41 km2) of the city and 267,000 buildings in a single night. It was the deadliest bombing raid of the war, at a cost of 20 B-29s shot down by flak and fighters.[41] By May, 75% of bombs dropped were incendiaries designed to burn down Japan’s “paper cities”. By mid-June, Japan’s six largest cities had been devastated.[42] The end of the fighting on Okinawa that month provided airfields even closer to the Japanese mainland, allowing the bombing campaign to be further escalated. Aircraft flying from Allied aircraft carriers and the Ryukyu Islands also regularly struck targets in Japan during 1945 in preparation for Operation Downfall.[43]Firebombing switched to smaller cities, with populations ranging from 60,000 to 350,000. According to Yuki Tanaka, the U.S. fire-bombed over a hundred Japanese towns and cities.[44] These raids were also devastating.[45]

The Japanese military was unable to stop the Allied attacks and the country’s civil defense preparations proved inadequate. Japanese fighters and antiaircraft guns had difficulty engaging bombers flying at high altitude.[46]From April 1945, the Japanese interceptors also had to face American fighter escorts based on Iwo Jima and Okinawa.[47] That month, the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service and Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service stopped attempting to intercept the air raids in order to preserve fighter aircraft to counter the expected invasion.[48] By mid-1945 the Japanese only occasionally scrambled aircraft to intercept individual B-29s conducting reconnaissance sorties over the country, in order to conserve supplies of fuel.[49] By July 1945, the Japanese had stockpiled 1,156,000 US barrels (137,800,000 l; 36,400,000 US gal; 30,300,000 imp gal) of avgas for the invasion of Japan.[50] While the Japanese military decided to resume attacks on Allied bombers from late June, by this time there were too few operational fighters available for this change of tactics to hinder the Allied air raids.[51]

Atomic bomb development

Main article: Manhattan Project

The discovery of nuclear fission by German chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann in 1938, and its theoretical explanation by Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch, made the development of an atomic bomb a theoretical possibility.[52] Fears that a German atomic bomb project would develop atomic weapons first, especially among scientists who were refugees from Nazi Germany and other fascist countries, were expressed in the Einstein-Szilard letter. This prompted preliminary research in the United States in late 1939.[53]Progress was slow until the arrival of the British MAUD Committee report in late 1941, which indicated that only 5–10 kilograms of isotopically enriched uranium-235 was needed for a bomb instead of tons of un-enriched uranium and a neutron moderator (e.g. heavy water).[54]

Working in collaboration with the United Kingdom and Canada, with their respective projects Tube Alloys and Chalk River Laboratories,[55][56] the Manhattan Project, under the direction of Major General Leslie R. Groves, Jr., of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, designed and built the first atomic bombs.[57] Groves appointed J. Robert Oppenheimer to organize and head the project’s Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico, where bomb design work was carried out.[58] Two types of bombs were eventually developed. Little Boy was a gun-type fission weapon that used uranium-235, a rare isotope of uranium separated at the Clinton Engineer Works at Oak Ridge, Tennessee.[59] The other, known as a Fat Man device (both types named by Robert Serber), was a more powerful and efficient, but more complicated, implosion-type nuclear weapon that used plutonium created in nuclear reactors at Hanford, Washington. A test implosion weapon, the gadget, was detonated at Trinity Site, on July 16, 1945, near Alamogordo, New Mexico.[60]

There was a Japanese nuclear weapon program, but it lacked the human, mineral and financial resources of the Manhattan Project, and never made much progress towards developing an atomic bomb.[61]

Preparations

Organization and training

Color photo of three silver four engined World War II-era aircraft neatly lined up alongside a runway

Aircraft of the 509th Composite Group that took part in the Hiroshima bombing. Left to right: Big Stink, The Great Artiste, Enola Gay

The 509th Composite Group was constituted on December 9, 1944, and activated on December 17, 1944, at Wendover Army Air Field, Utah, commanded by Colonel Paul Tibbets.[62] Tibbets was assigned to organize and command a combat group to develop the means of delivering an atomic weapon against targets in Germany and Japan. Because the flying squadrons of the group consisted of both bomber and transport aircraft, the group was designated as a “composite” rather than a “bombardment” unit.[63]

Working with the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, Tibbets selected Wendover for his training base over Great Bend, Kansas, and Mountain Home, Idaho, because of its remoteness.[64] Each bombardier completed at least 50 practice drops of inert or conventional explosive pumpkin bombs and Tibbets declared his group combat-ready.[65]

Three men in military fatigues, without jackets or ties.

The “Tinian Joint Chiefs”: Captain William S. Parsons (left), Rear Admiral William R. Purnell (center), and Brigadier General Thomas F. Farrell (right)

The 509th Composite Group had an authorized strength of 225 officers and 1,542 enlisted men, almost all of whom eventually deployed to Tinian. In addition to its authorized strength, the 509th had attached to it on Tinian 51 civilian and military personnel from Project Alberta,[66] known as the 1st Technical Detachment.[67] The 509th Composite Group’s 393d Bombardment Squadron was equipped with 15 Silverplate B-29s. These aircraft were specially adapted to carry nuclear weapons, and were equipped with fuel-injected engines, Curtiss Electric reversible-pitch propellers, pneumatic actuators for rapid opening and closing of bomb bay doors and other improvements.[68]

The ground support echelon of the 509th Composite Group moved by rail on April 26, 1945, to its port of embarkation at Seattle, Washington. On May 6 the support elements sailed on the SS Cape Victory for the Marianas, while group materiel was shipped on the SS Emile Berliner. The Cape Victory made brief port calls at Honolulu and Eniwetok but the passengers were not permitted to leave the dock area. An advance party of the air echelon, consisting of 29 officers and 61 enlisted men flew by C-54 to North Field on Tinian, between May 15 and May 22.[69]

There were also two representatives from Washington, D.C., Brigadier General Thomas Farrell, the deputy commander of the Manhattan Project, and Rear Admiral William R. Purnell of the Military Policy Committee,[70] who were on hand to decide higher policy matters on the spot. Along with Captain William S. Parsons, the commander of Project Alberta, they became known as the “Tinian Joint Chiefs”.[71]

Choice of targets

map of Japan and the Marianas Islands indicating the routes taken by the raids. One goes straight to Iwo Jima and Hiroshima and back the same way. The other goes to the southern tip of Japan, up to Kokura, down to Nagasaki, and the southwest to Okinawa befofore heading back to Tinian.

The mission runs of August 6 and 9, with Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Kokura (the original target for August 9) displayed.

General Thomas Handy‘s order to General Carl Spaatz authorizing the dropping of the atomic bombs

In April 1945, Marshall asked Groves to nominate specific targets for bombing for final approval by himself and Stimson. Groves formed a Target Committee, chaired by himself, that included Farrell, Major John A. Derry, Colonel William P. Fisher, Joyce C. Stearns and David M. Dennison from the USAAF; and scientists John von Neumann, Robert R. Wilson and William Penney from the Manhattan Project. The Target Committee met in Washington on April 27; at Los Alamos on May 10, where it was able to talk to the scientists and technicians there; and finally in Washington on May 28, where it was briefed by Tibbets and Commander Frederick Ashworth from Project Alberta, and the Manhattan Project’s scientific advisor, Richard C. Tolman.[72]

The Target Committee nominated five targets: Kokura, the site of one of Japan’s largest munitions plants; Hiroshima, an embarkation port and industrial center that was the site of a major military headquarters; Yokohama, an urban center for aircraft manufacture, machine tools, docks, electrical equipment and oil refineries; Niigata, a port with industrial facilities including steel and aluminum plants and an oil refinery; and Kyoto, a major industrial center. The target selection was subject to the following criteria:

  • The target was larger than 3 mi (4.8 km) in diameter and was an important target in a large urban area.
  • The blast would create effective damage.
  • The target was unlikely to be attacked by August 1945.[73]

These cities were largely untouched during the nightly bombing raids and the Army Air Forces agreed to leave them off the target list so accurate assessment of the weapon could be made. Hiroshima was described as “an important army depot and port of embarkation in the middle of an urban industrial area. It is a good radar target and it is such a size that a large part of the city could be extensively damaged. There are adjacent hills which are likely to produce a focusing effect which would considerably increase the blast damage. Due to rivers it is not a good incendiary target.”[73]

The Target Committee stated that “It was agreed that psychological factors in the target selection were of great importance. Two aspects of this are (1) obtaining the greatest psychological effect against Japan and (2) making the initial use sufficiently spectacular for the importance of the weapon to be internationally recognized when publicity on it is released. Kyoto had the advantage of being an important center for military industry, as well an intellectual center and hence a population better able to appreciate the significance of the weapon. The Emperor’s palace in Tokyo has a greater fame than any other target but is of least strategic value.”[73]

Edwin O. Reischauer, a Japan expert for the U.S. Army Intelligence Service, was incorrectly said to have prevented the bombing of Kyoto.[73] In his autobiography, Reischauer specifically refuted this claim:

… the only person deserving credit for saving Kyoto from destruction is Henry L. Stimson, the Secretary of War at the time, who had known and admired Kyoto ever since his honeymoon there several decades earlier.[74] [75]

On May 30, Stimson asked Groves to remove Kyoto from the target list due to its historical, religious and cultural significance, but Groves pointed to its military and industrial significance.[76] Stimson then approached President Harry S. Truman about the matter. Truman agreed with Stimson, and Kyoto was temporarily removed from the target list.[77] Groves attempted to restore Kyoto to the target list in July, but Stimson remained adamant.[78][79] On July 25, Nagasaki was put on the target list in place of Kyoto.[79] Orders for the attack were issued to General Carl Spaatz on July 25 under the signature of General Thomas T. Handy, the acting Chief of Staff, since Marshall was at the Potsdam Conference with Truman.[80] That day, Truman noted in his diary that:

This weapon is to be used against Japan between now and August 10th. I have told the Sec. of War, Mr. Stimson, to use it so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children. Even if the Japs are savages, ruthless, merciless and fanatic, we as the leader of the world for the common welfare cannot drop that terrible bomb on the old capital [Kyoto] or the new [Tokyo]. He and I are in accord. The target will be a purely military one.[81]

Proposed demonstration

See also: Edward Teller § Decision to drop the bombs

In early May 1945, the Interim Committee was created by Stimson at the urging of leaders of the Manhattan Project and with the approval of Truman to advise on matters pertaining to nuclear energy.[82] During the meetings on May 31 and June 1, scientist Ernest Lawrence had suggested giving the Japanese a non-combat demonstration.[83] Arthur Compton later recalled that:

It was evident that everyone would suspect trickery. If a bomb were exploded in Japan with previous notice, the Japanese air power was still adequate to give serious interference. An atomic bomb was an intricate device, still in the developmental stage. Its operation would be far from routine. If during the final adjustments of the bomb the Japanese defenders should attack, a faulty move might easily result in some kind of failure. Such an end to an advertised demonstration of power would be much worse than if the attempt had not been made. It was now evident that when the time came for the bombs to be used we should have only one of them available, followed afterwards by others at all-too-long intervals. We could not afford the chance that one of them might be a dud. If the test were made on some neutral territory, it was hard to believe that Japan’s determined and fanatical military men would be impressed. If such an open test were made first and failed to bring surrender, the chance would be gone to give the shock of surprise that proved so effective. On the contrary, it would make the Japanese ready to interfere with an atomic attack if they could. Though the possibility of a demonstration that would not destroy human lives was attractive, no one could suggest a way in which it could be made so convincing that it would be likely to stop the war.[84]

The possibility of a demonstration was raised again in the Franck Report issued by physicist James Franck on June 11 and the Scientific Advisory Panel rejected his report on June 16, saying that “we can propose no technical demonstration likely to bring an end to the war; we see no acceptable alternative to direct military use.” Franck then took the report to Washington, D.C., where the Interim Committee met on June 21 to re-examine its earlier conclusions; but it reaffirmed that there was no alternative to the use of the bomb on a military target.[85]

Like Compton, many U.S. officials and scientists argued that a demonstration would sacrifice the shock value of the atomic attack, and the Japanese could deny the atomic bomb was lethal, making the mission less likely to produce surrender. Allied prisoners of war might be moved to the demonstration site and be killed by the bomb. They also worried that the bomb might be a dud since the Trinity test was of a stationary device, not an air-dropped bomb. In addition, only two bombs would be available at the start of August, although more were in production, and they cost billions of dollars, so using one for a demonstration would be expensive.[86][87]

Leaflets

Leaflet showing B-29s dropping bombs. There are 12 circles with 12 Japanese cities named in Japanese writing.

Various leaflets were dropped on Japan, three versions showing the names of 11 or 12 Japanese cities targeted for destruction by firebombing. The other side contained text stating “…we cannot promise that only these cities will be among those attacked …”[88]

For several months, the U.S. had dropped more than 63 million leaflets across Japan warning civilians of air raids. Many Japanese cities suffered terrible damage from aerial bombings; some were as much as 97% destroyed. LeMay thought that leaflets would increase the psychological impact of bombing, and reduce the international stigma of area-bombing cities. Even with the warnings, Japanese opposition to the war remained ineffective. In general, the Japanese regarded the leaflet messages as truthful with many Japanese choosing to leave major cities, the leaflets caused such concern amongst the Empire of Japan that they ordered for anyone caught in possession of a leaflet to be arrested.[88][89] Leaflet texts were prepared by recent Japanese prisoners of war because they were thought to be the best choice “to appeal to their compatriots”.[90]

In preparation for dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, the Oppenheimer led Scientific Panel of the Interim Committee decided against a demonstration bomb, and against a special leaflet warning, in both cases because of the likelihood of being shot out of the sky, uncertainty of a successful detonation, and the wish to maximize shock in the leadership.[91] No warning was given to Hiroshima that a new and much more destructive bomb was going to be dropped.[92] Various sources give conflicting information about when the last leaflets were dropped on Hiroshima prior to the atomic bomb. Robert Jay Lifton writes that it was July 27,[92] and Theodore H. McNelly that it was July 3.[91] The USAAF history notes eleven cities were targeted with leaflets on July 27, but Hiroshima was not one of them, and there were no leaflet sorties on July 30.[89] Leaflet sorties were undertaken on August 1 and August 4. Hiroshima may have been leafleted in late July or early August, as survivor accounts talk about a delivery of leaflets a few days before the atomic bomb was dropped.[92] Three versions were printed of a leaflet listing 11 or 12 cities targeted for firebombing; a total of 33 cities listed. With the text of this leaflet reading in Japanese “…we cannot promise that only these cities will be among those attacked…”[88] Hiroshima is not listed.[93][94][95][96]

Potsdam Declaration

Truman delayed the start of the summit by two weeks in the hope that the bomb could be tested before the start of negotiations with Stalin. The successful Trinity Test of July 16 exceeded expectations. On July 26, Allied leaders issued the Potsdam Declaration outlining terms of surrender for Japan. It was presented as an ultimatum and stated that without a surrender, the Allies would attack Japan, resulting in “the inevitable and complete destruction of the Japanese armed forces and just as inevitably the utter devastation of the Japanese homeland”. The atomic bomb was not mentioned in the communiqué. On July 28, Japanese papers reported that the declaration had been rejected by the Japanese government. That afternoon, Prime Minister Suzuki Kantarō declared at a press conference that the Potsdam Declaration was no more than a rehash (yakinaoshi) of the Cairo Declaration and that the government intended to ignore it (mokusatsu, “kill by silence”).[97] The statement was taken by both Japanese and foreign papers as a clear rejection of the declaration. Emperor Hirohito, who was waiting for a Soviet reply to non-committal Japanese peace feelers, made no move to change the government position.[98] Japan’s willingness to surrender remained conditional on the preservation of the imperial institution; that Japan not be occupied; that the Japanese armed forces be disbanded voluntarily; and that war criminals be prosecuted by Japanese courts.[99]

Under the 1943 Quebec Agreement with the United Kingdom, the United States had agreed that nuclear weapons would not be used against another country without mutual consent. In June 1945 the head of the British Joint Staff Mission, Field Marshal Sir Henry Maitland Wilson, agreed that the use of nuclear weapons against Japan would be officially recorded as a decision of the Combined Policy Committee.[100] At Potsdam, Truman agreed to a request from Winston Churchill that Britain be represented when the atomic bomb was dropped. William Penney and Group Captain Leonard Cheshire were sent to Tinian, but found that LeMay would not let them accompany the mission. All they could do was send a strongly worded signal back to Wilson.[101]

Bombs

The Little Boy bomb, except for the uranium payload, was ready at the beginning of May 1945.[102] The uranium-235 projectile was completed on June 15, and the target on July 24.[103] The target and bomb pre-assemblies (partly assembled bombs without the fissile components) left Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, California, on July 16 aboard the cruiser USS Indianapolis, arriving July 26.[104] The target inserts followed by air on July 30.[103]

The first plutonium core, along with its polonium–beryllium urchin initiator, was transported in the custody of Project Alberta courier Raemer Schreiber in a magnesium field carrying case designed for the purpose by Philip Morrison. Magnesium was chosen because it does not act as a tamper.[105] The core departed from Kirtland Army Air Field on a C-54 transport aircraft of the 509th Composite Group’s 320th Troop Carrier Squadron on July 26, and arrived at North Field July 28. Three Fat Man high-explosive pre-assemblies, designated F31, F32, and F33, were picked up at Kirtland on July 28 by three B-29s, from the 393d Bombardment Squadron, plus one from the 216th Army Air Force Base Unit, and transported to North Field, arriving on August 2.[106]

Hiroshima

Hiroshima during World War II

A Silver aircraft with "Enola Gay" and "82" painted on the nose. Seven men stand in front of it. Four are wearing shorts, four are wearing T-shirts, and the only ones with hats have baseball caps. Tibbets is distinctively wearing correct uniform.

The Enola Gay dropped the “Little Boy” atomic bomb on Hiroshima. In this photograph are five of the aircraft’s ground crew with mission commander Paul Tibbets in the center.

At the time of its bombing, Hiroshima was a city of both industrial and military significance. A number of military units were located nearby, the most important of which was the headquarters of Field Marshal Shunroku Hata‘s Second General Army, which commanded the defense of all of southern Japan,[107] and was located in Hiroshima Castle. Hata’s command consisted of some 400,000 men, most of whom were on Kyushu where an Allied invasion was correctly anticipated.[108] Also present in Hiroshima were the headquarters of the 59th Army, the 5th Division and the 224th Division, a recently formed mobile unit.[109] The city was defended by five batteries of 7-cm and 8-cm (2.8 and 3.1 inch) anti-aircraft guns of the 3rd Anti-Aircraft Division, including units from the 121st and 122nd Anti-Aircraft Regiments and the 22nd and 45th Separate Anti-Aircraft Battalions. In total, an estimated 40,000 Japanese military personnel were stationed in the city.[110]

Hiroshima was a minor supply and logistics base for the Japanese military, but it also had large stockpiles of military supplies.[111] The city was also a communications center, a key port for shipping and an assembly area for troops.[76] It was a beehive of war industry, manufacturing parts for planes and boats, for bombs, rifles, and handguns; children were shown how to construct and hurl gasoline bombs and the wheelchair-bound and bedridden were assembling booby traps to be planted in the beaches of Kyushu. A new slogan appeared on the walls of Hiroshima: “FORGET SELF! ALL OUT FOR YOUR COUNTRY!”[112] It was also the second largest city in Japan after Kyoto that was still undamaged by air raids,[113] due to the fact that it lacked the aircraft manufacturing industry that was the XXI Bomber Command’s priority target. On July 3, the Joint Chiefs of Staff placed it off limits to bombers, along with Kokura, Niigata and Kyoto.[114]

The center of the city contained several reinforced concrete buildings and lighter structures. Outside the center, the area was congested by a dense collection of small timber-made workshops set among Japanese houses. A few larger industrial plants lay near the outskirts of the city. The houses were constructed of timber with tile roofs, and many of the industrial buildings were also built around timber frames. The city as a whole was highly susceptible to fire damage.[115]

The population of Hiroshima had reached a peak of over 381,000 earlier in the war but prior to the atomic bombing, the population had steadily decreased because of a systematic evacuation ordered by the Japanese government. At the time of the attack, the population was approximately 340,000–350,000.[116] Residents wondered why Hiroshima had been spared destruction by firebombing.[117] Some speculated that the city was to be saved for U.S. occupation headquarters, others thought perhaps their relatives in Hawaii and California had petitioned the U.S. government to avoid bombing Hiroshima.[118] More realistic city officials had ordered buildings torn down to create long, straight firebreaks, beginning in 1944.[119] Firebreaks continued to be expanded and extended up to the morning of August 6, 1945.[120]

Bombing of Hiroshima

A mushroom cloud forming.

Seizo Yamada’s ground level photo taken approximately 7 km (4.3 mi) northeast of Hiroshima

Another view of the mushroom cloud forming, from further away.

Picture found in Honkawa Elementary School in 2013 of the Hiroshima atom bomb cloud, stated by some books and the Hiroshima Peace Museum as having been taken about 30 minutes after detonation from about 10 km (6.2 mi) east of the hypocenter. However experience on how quickly such clouds dissipate and comparisons to other photos puts this frame at 2-3 minutes after detonation, not 30 minutes.[121]

Hiroshima was the primary target of the first nuclear bombing mission on August 6, with Kokura and Nagasaki as alternative targets. Having been fully briefed under the terms of Operations Order No. 35, the 393d Bombardment Squadron B-29 Enola Gay, piloted by Tibbets, took off from North Field, Tinian, about six hours’ flight time from Japan. The Enola Gay (named after Tibbets’ mother) was accompanied by two other B-29s. The Great Artiste, commanded by Major Charles Sweeney, carried instrumentation, and a then-nameless aircraft later called Necessary Evil, commanded by Captain George Marquardt, served as the photography aircraft.[122]

Special Mission 13, Primary target Hiroshima, August 6, 1945[122][123]
Aircraft Pilot Call Sign Mission role
Straight Flush Major Claude R. Eatherly Dimples 85 Weather reconnaissance (Hiroshima)
Jabit III Major John A. Wilson Dimples 71 Weather reconnaissance (Kokura)
Full House Major Ralph R. Taylor Dimples 83 Weather reconnaissance (Nagasaki)
Enola Gay Colonel Paul W. Tibbets Dimples 82 Weapon delivery
The Great Artiste Major Charles W. Sweeney Dimples 89 Blast measurement instrumentation
Necessary Evil Captain. George W. Marquardt Dimples 91 Strike observation and photography
Top Secret Captain Charles F. McKnight Dimples 72 Strike spare—did not complete mission

After leaving Tinian the aircraft made their way separately to Iwo Jima to rendezvous with Sweeney and Marquardt at 05:55 at 9,200 feet (2,800 m),[124] and set course for Japan. The aircraft arrived over the target in clear visibility at 31,060 feet (9,470 m).[125] Parsons, who was in command of the mission, armed the bomb during the flight to minimize the risks during takeoff. He had witnessed four B-29s crash and burn at takeoff, and feared that a nuclear explosion would occur if a B-29 crashed with an armed Little Boy on board.[126] His assistant, Second Lieutenant Morris R. Jeppson, removed the safety devices 30 minutes before reaching the target area.[127]

During the night of August 5–6, Japanese early warning radar detected the approach of numerous American aircraft headed for the southern part of Japan. Radar detected 65 bombers headed for Saga, 102 bound for Maebashi, 261 en route to Nishinomiya, 111 headed for Ube and 66 bound for Imabari. An alert was given and radio broadcasting stopped in many cities, among them Hiroshima. The all-clear was sounded in Hiroshima at 00:05.[128] About an hour before the bombing, the air raid alert was sounded again, as Straight Flush flew over the city. It broadcast a short message which was picked up by Enola Gay. It read: “Cloud cover less than 3/10th at all altitudes. Advice: bomb primary.”[129] The all-clear was sounded over Hiroshima again at 07:09.[130]

At 08:09, Tibbets started his bomb run and handed control over to his bombardier, Major Thomas Ferebee.[131] The release at 08:15 (Hiroshima time) went as planned, and the Little Boy containing about 64 kg (141 lb) of uranium-235 took 44.4 seconds to fall from the aircraft flying at about 31,000 feet (9,400 m) to a detonation height of about 1,900 feet (580 m) above the city.[132][133] Enola Gay traveled 11.5 mi (18.5 km) before it felt the shock waves from the blast.[134]

For decades this “Hiroshima strike” photo was misidentified as the mushroom cloud of the bomb that formed at c. 08:16.[135][136] However, due to its much greater height, the scene was identified by a researcher in March 2016 as the firestorm-cloud that engulfed the city,[136] a fire that reached its peak intensity some three hours after the bomb.[137] The image with the incorrect description featured prominently in the Hiroshima Peace Museum up to 2016,[136] though not cited, it had much earlier, also been mis-attributed and presented to the public in 1955 by US artists, with the world-touring The Family of Man exhibition. Without knowledge of the photo the output of energy from the fuel in the city, necessary to loft a stratospheric firestorm-cloud, had been estimated as 1000 times the energy of the bomb.[137] Post March estimates using the height of this Hiroshima-cloud also point at the underlying firestorm releasing approximately 1000 times the energy of the bomb.[136] Twenty minutes after detonation, during the formation of this firestorm, soot filled black rain began to fall on survivors.[138] Scientist Alan Robock suggests that 100 of these firestorm-clouds would create a small “nuclear winter“, 1-2 C of global cooling.[139]

Due to crosswind, the bomb missed the aiming point, the Aioi Bridge, by approximately 800 ft (240 m) and detonated directly over Shima Surgical Clinic[140] at 34.39468°N 132.45462°E. It created a blast equivalent to 16 kilotons of TNT (67 TJ), ± 2 kt.[132] The weapon was considered very inefficient, with only 1.7% of its material fissioning.[141] The radius of total destruction was about 1 mile (1.6 km), with resulting fires across 4.4 square miles (11 km2).[142]

People on the ground reported seeing a pika or brilliant flash of light followed by a don, a loud booming sound.[143] Some 70,000–80,000 people, of whom 20,000 were Japanese soldiers and 20,000 Korean slave laborers, or around 30% of the population of Hiroshima, were killed by the blast and resultant firestorm,[144][145] and another 70,000 injured.[146]

Enola Gay stayed over the target area for two minutes and was ten miles away when the bomb detonated. Only Tibbets, Parsons, and Ferebee knew of the nature of the weapon; the others on the bomber were only told to expect a blinding flash and given black goggles. “It was hard to believe what we saw”, Tibbets told reporters, while Parsons said “the whole thing was tremendous and awe-inspiring … the men aboard with me gasped ‘My God'”. He and Tibbets compared the shockwave to “a close burst of ack-ack fire”.[147]

Events on the ground

Some of the reinforced concrete buildings in Hiroshima had been very strongly constructed because of the earthquake danger in Japan, and their framework did not collapse even though they were fairly close to the blast center. Since the bomb detonated in the air, the blast was directed more downward than sideways, which was largely responsible for the survival of the Prefectural Industrial Promotional Hall, now commonly known as the Genbaku (A-bomb) dome. This building was designed and built by the Czech architect Jan Letzel, and was only 150 m (490 ft) from ground zero. The ruin was named Hiroshima Peace Memorial and was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996 over the objections of the United States and China, which expressed reservations on the grounds that other Asian nations were the ones who suffered the greatest loss of life and property, and a focus on Japan lacked historical perspective.[148]

The US surveys estimated that 4.7 square miles (12 km2) of the city were destroyed. Japanese officials determined that 69% of Hiroshima’s buildings were destroyed and another 6–7% damaged.[149] The bombing started fires that spread rapidly through timber and paper homes. As in other Japanese cities, the firebreaks proved ineffective.[150]

Hiroshima bombing
A devastated area very similar to the one of Tokyo above
Hiroshima aftermath
A typed page of instructions
Strike order for the Hiroshima bombing as posted on August 5, 1945
People sitting and lying on the ground
Injured civilian casualties
A burned out domed building surrounded by rubble
The Hiroshima Genbaku Dome after the bombing
A woman's back, with chequered-shaped burns
The greater absorption of thermal energy by dark colors resulted in the clothes pattern, in the tight-fitting areas on this survivor, being burnt into the skin.
Direct, thermal flash burns. Survivor is standing as the burn is of very shallow depth; unlike burns from hot convective material, the heat transfer rate from thermal radiation is low.

Eizō Nomura was the closest known survivor, who was in the basement of a reinforced concrete building (it remained as the Rest House after the war) only 170 metres (560 ft) from ground zero (the hypocenter) at the time of the attack.[151][152] He lived into his 80s.[153][154] Akiko Takakura was among the closest survivors to the hypocenter of the blast. She had been in the solidly built Bank of Hiroshima only 300 meters (980 ft) from ground-zero at the time of the attack.[155]

Over 90% of the doctors and 93% of the nurses in Hiroshima were killed or injured—most had been in the downtown area which received the greatest damage.[156] The hospitals were destroyed or heavily damaged. Only one doctor, Terufumi Sasaki, remained on duty at the Red Cross Hospital.[150] Nonetheless, by early afternoon, the police and volunteers had established evacuation centres at hospitals, schools and tram stations, and a morgue was established in the Asano library.[157]

Most elements of the Japanese Second General Army headquarters were at physical training on the grounds of Hiroshima Castle, barely 900 yards (820 m) from the hypocenter. The attack killed 3,243 troops on the parade ground.[158] The communications room of Chugoku Military District Headquarters that was responsible for issuing and lifting air raid warnings was in a semi-basement in the castle. Yoshie Oka, a Hijiyama Girls High School student who had been conscripted/mobilized to serve as a communications officer had just sent a message that the alarm had been issued for Hiroshima and neighboring Yamaguchi, when the bomb exploded. She used a special phone to inform[better source needed] Fukuyama Headquarters (some 100 km away) that “Hiroshima has been attacked by a new type of bomb. The city is in a state of near-total destruction.”[159]

Since Mayor Senkichi Awaya had been killed while eating breakfast with his son and granddaughter at the mayoral residence, Field Marshal Hata, who was only slightly wounded, took over the administration of the city, and coordinated relief efforts. Many of his staff had been killed or fatally wounded, including a Korean prince of the Joseon Dynasty, Yi Wu, who was serving as a lieutenant colonel in the Japanese Army.[160][161] Hata’s senior surviving staff officer was the wounded Colonel Kumao Imoto, who acted as his chief of staff. Soldiers from the undamaged Hiroshima Ujina Harbor used suicide boats, intended to repel the American invasion, to collect the wounded and take them down the rivers to the military hospital at Ujina.[162] Trucks and trains brought in relief supplies and evacuated survivors from the city.[163]

Twelve American airmen were imprisoned at the Chugoku Military Police Headquarters located about 1,300 feet (400 m) from the hypocenter of the blast.[164] Most died instantly, although two were reported to have been executed by their captors, and two prisoners badly injured by the bombing were left next to the Aioi Bridge by the Kempei Tai, where they were stoned to death.[165] Eight U.S. prisoners of war killed as part of the medical experiments program at Kyushu University were falsely reported by Japanese authorities as having been killed in the atomic blast as part an attempted cover up.[166]

Japanese realization of the bombing

Hiroshima before the bombing.
Hiroshima after the bombing and firestorm.

The Tokyo control operator of the Japan Broadcasting Corporation noticed that the Hiroshima station had gone off the air. He tried to re-establish his program by using another telephone line, but it too had failed.[167] About 20 minutes later the Tokyo railroad telegraph center realized that the main line telegraph had stopped working just north of Hiroshima. From some small railway stops within 16 km (10 mi) of the city came unofficial and confused reports of a terrible explosion in Hiroshima. All these reports were transmitted to the headquarters of the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff.[168]

Military bases repeatedly tried to call the Army Control Station in Hiroshima. The complete silence from that city puzzled the General Staff; they knew that no large enemy raid had occurred and that no sizable store of explosives was in Hiroshima at that time. A young officer was instructed to fly immediately to Hiroshima, to land, survey the damage, and return to Tokyo with reliable information for the staff. It was felt that nothing serious had taken place and that the explosion was just a rumor.[168]

The staff officer went to the airport and took off for the southwest. After flying for about three hours, while still nearly 160 km (100 mi) from Hiroshima, he and his pilot saw a great cloud of smoke from the bomb. After circling the city in order to survey the damage they landed south of the city, where the staff officer, after reporting to Tokyo, began to organize relief measures. Tokyo’s first indication that the city had been destroyed by a new type of bomb came from President Truman’s announcement of the strike, sixteen hours later.[168]

Events of August 7–9

Brownish leaflet covered in Japanese writing

Leaflet AB12,[169] with information on the Hiroshima bomb and a warning to civilians to petition the Emperor to surrender was dropped over Japan beginning on August 9,[169] by the 509th Composite Group on the bombing mission. Although it is not identified by them, an AB11 is in the possession of the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum.[170] By August 8,[171] the 50,000-watt standard wave station on Saipan the OWI radio station, broadcast a similar message to Japan every 15 minutes about Hiroshima, stating that more Japanese cities would face a similar fate in the absence of immediate acceptance of the terms of the Potsdam Declaration and emphatically urged civilians to evacuate major cities. Radio Japan, which continued to extoll victory for Japan by never surrendering,[88] had informed the Japanese of the destruction of Hiroshima by a single bomb.[172]
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President Truman announces the bombing of Hiroshima.
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After the Hiroshima bombing, Truman issued a statement announcing the use of the new weapon. He stated, “We may be grateful to Providence” that the German atomic bomb project had failed, and that the United States and its allies had “spent two billion dollars on the greatest scientific gamble in history—and won”. Truman then warned Japan: “If they do not now accept our terms, they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth. Behind this air attack will follow sea and land forces in such numbers and power as they have not yet seen and with the fighting skill of which they are already well aware.”[173]

This was a widely broadcast speech picked up by Japanese news agencies.[174] As a result, Prime Minister Suzuki felt compelled to meet the Japanese press, to whom he reiterated his government’s commitment to ignore the Allies’ demands and fight on.[175]

The Japanese government did not react. Emperor Hirohito, the government, and the war council considered four conditions for surrender: the preservation of the kokutai (Imperial institution and national polity), assumption by the Imperial Headquarters of responsibility for disarmament and demobilization, no occupation of the Japanese Home Islands, Korea, or Formosa, and delegation of the punishment of war criminals to the Japanese government.[176]

Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov informed Tokyo of the Soviet Union’s unilateral abrogation of the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact on August 5. At two minutes past midnight on August 9, Tokyo time, Soviet infantry, armor, and air forces had launched the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation.[177] Four hours later, word reached Tokyo of the Soviet Union’s official declaration of war. The senior leadership of the Japanese Army began preparations to impose martial law on the nation, with the support of Minister of War Korechika Anami, in order to stop anyone attempting to make peace.[178]

On August 7, a day after Hiroshima was destroyed, Dr. Yoshio Nishina and other atomic physicists arrived at the city, and carefully examined the damage. They then went back to Tokyo and told the cabinet that Hiroshima was indeed destroyed by an atomic bomb. Admiral Soemu Toyoda, the Chief of the Naval General Staff, estimated that no more than one or two additional bombs could be readied, so they decided to endure the remaining attacks, acknowledging “there would be more destruction but the war would go on”.[179] American Magic codebreakers intercepted the cabinet’s messages.[180]

Purnell, Parsons, Tibbets, Spaatz, and LeMay met on Guam that same day to discuss what should be done next.[181] Since there was no indication of Japan surrendering,[180] they decided to proceed with dropping another bomb. Parsons said that Project Alberta would have it ready by August 11, but Tibbets pointed to weather reports indicating poor flying conditions on that day due to a storm, and asked if the bomb could be readied by August 9. Parsons agreed to try to do so.[182][181]

Nagasaki

Nagasaki during World War II

Formal picture of ten men in uniform. Five are standing and five are kneeling. In contrast to the Enola Gay picture, all are in correct uniform. The five standing are wearing ties, and all but one of the ten wears a peaked cap or garrison cap.

The Bockscar and its crew, who dropped the Fat Man atomic bomb on Nagasaki

The city of Nagasaki had been one of the largest seaports in southern Japan, and was of great wartime importance because of its wide-ranging industrial activity, including the production of ordnance, ships, military equipment, and other war materials. The four largest companies in the city were Mitsubishi Shipyards, Electrical Shipyards, Arms Plant, and Steel and Arms Works, which employed about 90% of the city’s labor force, and accounted for 90% of the city’s industry.[183] Although an important industrial city, Nagasaki had been spared from firebombing because its geography made it difficult to locate at night with AN/APQ-13 radar.[114]

Unlike the other target cities, Nagasaki had not been placed off limits to bombers by the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s July 3 directive,[114][184] and was bombed on a small scale five times. During one of these raids on August 1, a number of conventional high-explosive bombs were dropped on the city. A few hit the shipyards and dock areas in the southwest portion of the city, and several hit the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works.[183] By early August, the city was defended by the 134th Anti-Aircraft Regiment of the 4th Anti-Aircraft Division with four batteries of 7 cm (2.8 in) anti-aircraft guns and two searchlight batteries.[110]

In contrast to Hiroshima, almost all of the buildings were of old-fashioned Japanese construction, consisting of timber or timber-framed buildings with timber walls (with or without plaster) and tile roofs. Many of the smaller industries and business establishments were also situated in buildings of timber or other materials not designed to withstand explosions. Nagasaki had been permitted to grow for many years without conforming to any definite city zoning plan; residences were erected adjacent to factory buildings and to each other almost as closely as possible throughout the entire industrial valley. On the day of the bombing, an estimated 263,000 people were in Nagasaki, including 240,000 Japanese residents, 10,000 Korean residents, 2,500 conscripted Korean workers, 9,000 Japanese soldiers, 600 conscripted Chinese workers, and 400 Allied prisoners of war in a camp to the north of Nagasaki.[185][186]

Bombing of Nagasaki

Responsibility for the timing of the second bombing was delegated to Tibbets. Scheduled for August 11 against Kokura, the raid was moved earlier by two days to avoid a five-day period of bad weather forecast to begin on August 10.[187] Three bomb pre-assemblies had been transported to Tinian, labeled F-31, F-32, and F-33 on their exteriors. On August 8, a dress rehearsal was conducted off Tinian by Sweeney using Bockscar as the drop airplane. Assembly F-33 was expended testing the components and F-31 was designated for the August 9 mission.[188]

Special Mission 16, Secondary target Nagasaki, August 9, 1945[189]
Aircraft Pilot Call Sign Mission role
Enola Gay Captain George W. Marquardt Dimples 82 Weather reconnaissance (Kokura)
Laggin’ Dragon Captain Charles F. McKnight Dimples 95 Weather reconnaissance (Nagasaki)
Bockscar Major Charles W. Sweeney Dimples 77 Weapon Delivery
The Great Artiste Captain Frederick C. Bock Dimples 89 Blast measurement instrumentation
Big Stink Major James I. Hopkins, Jr. Dimples 90 Strike observation and photography
Full House Major Ralph R. Taylor Dimples 83 Strike spare—did not complete mission

At 03:49 on the morning of August 9, 1945, Bockscar, flown by Sweeney’s crew, carried Fat Man, with Kokura as the primary target and Nagasaki the secondary target. The mission plan for the second attack was nearly identical to that of the Hiroshima mission, with two B-29s flying an hour ahead as weather scouts and two additional B-29s in Sweeney’s flight for instrumentation and photographic support of the mission. Sweeney took off with his weapon already armed but with the electrical safety plugs still engaged.[190]

A page of typed instructions

Strike order for the Nagasaki bombing as posted August 8, 1945

During pre-flight inspection of Bockscar, the flight engineer notified Sweeney that an inoperative fuel transfer pump made it impossible to use 640 US gallons (2,400 l; 530 imp gal) of fuel carried in a reserve tank. This fuel would still have to be carried all the way to Japan and back, consuming still more fuel. Replacing the pump would take hours; moving the Fat Man to another aircraft might take just as long and was dangerous as well, as the bomb was live. Tibbets and Sweeney therefore elected to have Bockscar continue the mission.[191][192]

This time Penney and Cheshire were allowed to accompany the mission, flying as observers on the third plane, Big Stink, flown by the group’s operations officer, Major James I. Hopkins, Jr. Observers aboard the weather planes reported both targets clear. When Sweeney’s aircraft arrived at the assembly point for his flight off the coast of Japan, Big Stink failed to make the rendezvous.[190] According to Cheshire, Hopkins was at varying heights including 9,000 feet (2,700 m) higher than he should have been, and was not flying tight circles over Yakushima as previously agreed with Sweeney and Captain Frederick C. Bock, who was piloting the support B-29 The Great Artiste. Instead, Hopkins was flying 40-mile (64 km) dogleg patterns.[193] Though ordered not to circle longer than fifteen minutes, Sweeney continued to wait for Big Stink, at the urging of Ashworth, the plane’s weaponeer, who was in command of the mission.[194]

After exceeding the original departure time limit by a half-hour, Bockscar, accompanied by The Great Artiste, proceeded to Kokura, thirty minutes away. The delay at the rendezvous had resulted in clouds and drifting smoke over Kokura from fires started by a major firebombing raid by 224 B-29s on nearby Yahata the previous day. Additionally, the Yawata Steel Works intentionally burned coal tar, to produce black smoke.[195] The clouds and smoke resulted in 70% of the area over Kokura being covered, obscuring the aiming point. Three bomb runs were made over the next 50 minutes, burning fuel and exposing the aircraft repeatedly to the heavy defenses of Yawata, but the bombardier was unable to drop visually. By the time of the third bomb run, Japanese antiaircraft fire was getting close, and Second Lieutenant Jacob Beser, who was monitoring Japanese communications, reported activity on the Japanese fighter direction radio bands.[196]

After three runs over the city, and with fuel running low because of the failed fuel pump, they headed for their secondary target, Nagasaki.[190] Fuel consumption calculations made en route indicated that Bockscar had insufficient fuel to reach Iwo Jima and would be forced to divert to Okinawa, which had become entirely Allied-occupied territory only six weeks earlier. After initially deciding that if Nagasaki were obscured on their arrival the crew would carry the bomb to Okinawa and dispose of it in the ocean if necessary, Ashworth ruled that a radar approach would be used if the target was obscured.[197]

At about 07:50 Japanese time, an air raid alert was sounded in Nagasaki, but the “all clear” signal was given at 08:30. When only two B-29 Superfortresses were sighted at 10:53, the Japanese apparently assumed that the planes were only on reconnaissance and no further alarm was given.[198]

The before image looks like a city. In the after image, everything has been obliterated and it is recognisable as the same area only by the rivers running through it, which form an island in the centre of the photographs.

Nagasaki before and after the bombing and the fires had long since burnt out

A few minutes later at 11:00, The Great Artiste dropped instruments attached to three parachutes. These instruments also contained an unsigned letter to Professor Ryokichi Sagane, a physicist at the University of Tokyo who studied with three of the scientists responsible for the atomic bomb at the University of California, Berkeley, urging him to tell the public about the danger involved with these weapons of mass destruction. The messages were found by military authorities but not turned over to Sagane until a month later.[199] In 1949, one of the authors of the letter, Luis Alvarez, met with Sagane and signed the document.[200]

At 11:01, a last-minute break in the clouds over Nagasaki allowed Bockscar‘s bombardier, Captain Kermit Beahan, to visually sight the target as ordered. The Fat Man weapon, containing a core of about 6.4 kg (14 lb) of plutonium, was dropped over the city’s industrial valley at 32.77372°N 129.86325°E. It exploded 47 seconds later at 1,650 ± 33 ft (503 ± 10 m), above a tennis court[201] halfway between the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works in the south and the Nagasaki Arsenal in the north. This was nearly 3 km (1.9 mi) northwest of the planned hypocenter; the blast was confined to the Urakami Valley and a major portion of the city was protected by the intervening hills.[202] The resulting explosion had a blast yield equivalent to 21 ± 2 kt (87.9 ± 8.4 TJ).[132] The explosion generated temperatures inside the fireball estimated at 3,900 °C (7,050 °F)[when?] and winds that were estimated at over 1,000 km/h (620 mph)[where?].[203][204]

Big Stink spotted the explosion from a hundred miles away, and flew over to observe.[205] Because of the delays in the mission and the inoperative fuel transfer pump, Bockscar did not have sufficient fuel to reach the emergency landing field at Iwo Jima, so Sweeney and Bock flew to Okinawa. Arriving there, Sweeney circled for 20 minutes trying to contact the control tower for landing clearance, finally concluding that his radio was faulty. Critically low on fuel, Bockscar barely made it to the runway on Okinawa’s Yontan Airfield. With enough fuel for only one landing attempt, Sweeney and Albury brought Bockscar in at 150 miles per hour (240 km/h) instead of the normal 120 miles per hour (190 km/h), firing distress flares to alert the field of the uncleared landing. The number two engine died from fuel starvation as Bockscar began its final approach. Touching the runway hard, the heavy B-29 slewed left and towards a row of parked B-24 bombers before the pilots managed to regain control. The B-29’s reversible propellers were insufficient to slow the aircraft adequately, and with both pilots standing on the brakes, Bockscar made a swerving 90-degree turn at the end of the runway to avoid running off the runway. A second engine died from fuel exhaustion by the time the plane came to a stop. The flight engineer later measured fuel in the tanks and concluded that less than five minutes total remained.[206]

Following the mission, there was confusion over the identification of the plane. The first eyewitness account by war correspondent William L. Laurence of The New York Times, who accompanied the mission aboard the aircraft piloted by Bock, reported that Sweeney was leading the mission in The Great Artiste. He also noted its “Victor” number as 77, which was that of Bockscar.[207] Laurence had interviewed Sweeney and his crew, and was aware that they referred to their airplane as The Great Artiste. Except for Enola Gay, none of the 393d’s B-29s had yet had names painted on the noses, a fact which Laurence himself noted in his account. Unaware of the switch in aircraft, Laurence assumed Victor 77 was The Great Artiste,[208] which was in fact, Victor 89.[209]

Events on the ground

A boy lying down. His back is bloody.

A photograph of Sumiteru Taniguchi‘s back injuries taken in January 1946 by a U.S. Marine photographer

Although the bomb was more powerful than the one used on Hiroshima, the effect was confined by hillsides to the narrow Urakami Valley.[210] Of 7,500 Japanese employees who worked inside the Mitsubishi Munitions plant, including “mobilized”/conscripted students and regular workers, 6,200 were killed. Some 17,000–22,000 others who worked in other war plants and factories in the city died as well.[211] Casualty estimates for immediate deaths vary widely, ranging from 22,000 to 75,000[211] At least 35,000–40,000 people were killed and 60,000 others injured.[212][213][214][215] In the days and months following the explosion, more people died from bomb effects. Because of the presence of undocumented foreign workers, and a number of military personnel in transit, there are great discrepancies in the estimates of total deaths by the end of 1945; a range of 39,000 to 80,000 can be found in various studies.[116][215]

Urakami Tenshudo (Catholic Church in Nagasaki) destroyed by the bomb, the dome/bell of the church, at right, having toppled off.

Unlike Hiroshima’s military death toll, only 150 Japanese soldiers were killed instantly, including thirty-six from the 134th AAA Regiment of the 4th AAA Division.[110][216] At least eight known POWs died from the bombing and as many as 13 may have died, including a British citizen, Royal Air Force Corporal Ronald Shaw,[217] and seven Dutch POWs.[218] One American POW, Joe Kieyoomia, was in Nagasaki at the time of the bombing but survived, reportedly having been shielded from the effects of the bomb by the concrete walls of his cell.[219] There were 24 Australian POWs in Nagasaki, all of whom survived.[220]

The radius of total destruction was about 1 mi (1.6 km), followed by fires across the northern portion of the city to 2 mi (3.2 km) south of the bomb.[142][221] About 58% of the Mitsubishi Arms Plant was damaged, and about 78% of the Mitsubishi Steel Works. The Mitsubishi Electric Works suffered only 10% structural damage as it was on the border of the main destruction zone. The Nagasaki Arsenal was destroyed in the blast.[222]

Although many fires likewise burnt following the bombing, in contrast to Hiroshima where sufficient fuel density was available, no firestorm developed in Nagasaki as the damaged areas did not furnish enough fuel to generate the phenomenon. Instead, the ambient wind at the time pushed the fire spread along the valley.[223]

Plans for more atomic attacks on Japan

A pile of rubble surmounted by a statue of Buddha

The Nagasaki Prefecture Report on the bombing characterized Nagasaki as “like a graveyard with not a tombstone standing”[224]

Groves expected to have another atomic bomb ready for use on August 19, with three more in September and a further three in October.[87] On August 10, he sent a memorandum to Marshall in which he wrote that “the next bomb … should be ready for delivery on the first suitable weather after 17 or 18 August.” On the same day, Marshall endorsed the memo with the comment, “It is not to be released over Japan without express authority from the President.”[87] Truman had secretly requested this on August 10. This modified the previous order that the target cities were to be attacked with atomic bombs “as made ready”.[225]

There was already discussion in the War Department about conserving the bombs then in production for Operation Downfall. “The problem now [August 13] is whether or not, assuming the Japanese do not capitulate, to continue dropping them every time one is made and shipped out there or whether to hold them … and then pour them all on in a reasonably short time. Not all in one day, but over a short period. And that also takes into consideration the target that we are after. In other words, should we not concentrate on targets that will be of the greatest assistance to an invasion rather than industry, morale, psychology, and the like? Nearer the tactical use rather than other use.”[87]

Two more Fat Man assemblies were readied, and scheduled to leave Kirtland Field for Tinian on August 11 and 14,[226] and Tibbets was ordered by LeMay to return to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to collect them.[227] At Los Alamos, technicians worked 24 hours straight to cast another plutonium core.[228] Although cast, it still needed to be pressed and coated, which would take until August 16.[229] Therefore, it could have been ready for use on August 19. Unable to reach Marshall, Groves ordered on his own authority on August 13 that the core should not be shipped.[225]

Surrender of Japan and subsequent occupation

Main articles: Surrender of Japan and Occupation of Japan

Until August 9, Japan’s war council still insisted on its four conditions for surrender. On that day Hirohito ordered Kōichi Kido to “quickly control the situation … because the Soviet Union has declared war against us.” He then held an Imperial conference during which he authorized minister Shigenori Tōgō to notify the Allies that Japan would accept their terms on one condition, that the declaration “does not comprise any demand which prejudices the prerogatives of His Majesty as a Sovereign ruler.”[230]

On August 12, the Emperor informed the imperial family of his decision to surrender. One of his uncles, Prince Asaka, then asked whether the war would be continued if the kokutai could not be preserved. Hirohito simply replied, “Of course.”[231] As the Allied terms seemed to leave intact the principle of the preservation of the Throne, Hirohito recorded on August 14 his capitulation announcement which was broadcast to the Japanese nation the next day despite a short rebellion by militarists opposed to the surrender.[232]

In his declaration, Hirohito referred to the atomic bombings:

Moreover, the enemy now possesses a new and terrible weapon with the power to destroy many innocent lives and do incalculable damage. Should we continue to fight, not only would it result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization.

Such being the case, how are We to save the millions of Our subjects, or to atone Ourselves before the hallowed spirits of Our Imperial Ancestors? This is the reason why We have ordered the acceptance of the provisions of the Joint Declaration of the Powers.[233]

In his “Rescript to the Soldiers and Sailors” delivered on August 17, he stressed the impact of the Soviet invasion on his decision to surrender, omitting any mention of the bombs.[234] Hirohito met with General MacArthur on September 27, saying to him that “[t]he peace party did not prevail until the bombing of Hiroshima created a situation which could be dramatized”. Furthermore, the “Rescript to the Soldiers and Sailors” speech he told MacArthur about was just personal, not political, and never stated that the Soviet intervention in Manchuria was the main reason for surrender. In fact, a day after the bombing of Nagasaki and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, Hirohito ordered his advisers, primarily Chief Cabinet Secretary Hisatsune Sakomizu, Kawada Mizuho, and Masahiro Yasuoka, to write up a surrender speech. In Hirohito’s speech, days before announcing it on radio on August 15, he gave three major reasons for surrender: Tokyo’s defenses would not be complete before the American invasion of Japan, Ise Shrine would be lost to the Americans, and atomic weapons deployed by the Americans would lead to the death of the entire Japanese race. Despite the Soviet intervention, Hirohito did not mention the Soviets as the main factor for surrender.[235]

Depiction, public response, and censorship

File:Hiroshima Aftermath 1946 USAF Film.ogg

Life among the rubble in Hiroshima in March and April 1946. Film footage taken by Lieutenant Daniel A. McGovern (director) and Harry Mimura (cameraman) for a United States Strategic Bombing Survey project.

During the war “annihilationist and exterminationalist rhetoric” was tolerated at all levels of U.S. society; according to the British embassy in Washington the Americans regarded the Japanese as “a nameless mass of vermin”.[236] Caricatures depicting Japanese as less than human, e.g. monkeys, were common.[236] A 1944 opinion poll that asked what should be done with Japan found that 13% of the U.S. public were in favor of “killing off” all Japanese men, women, and children.[237][238]

After the Hiroshima bomb detonated successfully, Robert Oppenheimer addressed an assembly at Los Alamos “clasping his hands together like a prize-winning boxer”.[239] The bombing amazed Otto Hahn and other German atomic scientists the British held at Farm Hall in Operation Epsilon. Hahn stated that he had not believed an atomic weapon “would be possible for another twenty years”; Werner Heisenberg did not believe the news at first. Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker said “I think it’s dreadful of the Americans to have done it. I think it is madness on their part”, but Heisenberg replied, “One could equally well say ‘That’s the quickest way of ending the war'”. Hahn was grateful that the German project had not succeeded in developing “such an inhumane weapon”; Karl Wirtz observed that even if it had, “we would have obliterated London but would still not have conquered the world, and then they would have dropped them on us”.[240]

Hahn told the others, “Once I wanted to suggest that all uranium should be sunk to the bottom of the ocean”.[240] The Vatican agreed; L’Osservatore Romano expressed regret that the bomb’s inventors did not destroy the weapon for the benefit of humanity.[241] Rev. Cuthbert Thicknesse, the Dean of St Albans, prohibited using St Albans Abbey for a thanksgiving service for the war’s end, calling the use of atomic weapons “an act of wholesale, indiscriminate massacre”.[242] Nonetheless, news of the atomic bombing was greeted enthusiastically in the U.S.; a poll in Fortune magazine in late 1945 showed a significant minority of Americans (22.7%) wishing that more atomic bombs could have been dropped on Japan.[243][244] The initial positive response was supported by the imagery presented to the public (mainly the powerful images of the mushroom cloud) and the censorship of photographs that showed corpses and maimed survivors.[243] Such “censorship” was however the status-quo at the time, with no major news outlets depicting corpses or maimed survivors as a result from other events, US or otherwise.[245]

On August 10, 1945 the day after the Nagasaki bombing, Yōsuke Yamahata, correspondent Higashi and artist Yamada arrived in the city with orders to record the destruction for maximum propaganda purposes, Yamahata took scores of photographs and on August 21 they appeared in Mainichi Shimbun, a popular Japanese newspaper.[246]

Wilfred Burchett was the first western journalist to visit Hiroshima after the atom bomb was dropped, arriving alone by train from Tokyo on September 2, the day of the formal surrender aboard the USS Missouri. His Morse code dispatch was printed by the Daily Express newspaper in London on September 5, 1945, entitled “The Atomic Plague”, the first public report to mention the effects of radiation and nuclear fallout.[247] Burchett’s reporting was unpopular with the U.S. military. The U.S. censors suppressed a supporting story submitted by George Weller of the Chicago Daily News, and accused Burchett of being under the sway of Japanese propaganda. Laurence dismissed the reports on radiation sickness as Japanese efforts to undermine American morale, ignoring his own account of Hiroshima’s radiation sickness published one week earlier.[248]

File:Physical damage, blast effect, Hiroshima, 1946-03-13 ~ 1946-04-08, 342-USAF-11071.ogv

The Hiroshima ruins in March and April 1946, by Daniel A. McGovern and Harry Mimura

A member of the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, Lieutenant Daniel McGovern, used a film crew to document the results in early 1946.[249] The film crew’s work resulted in a three-hour documentary entitled The Effects of the Atomic Bombs Against Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The documentary included images from hospitals showing the human effects of the bomb; it showed burned out buildings and cars, and rows of skulls and bones on the ground. It was classified “secret” for the next 22 years.[250] During this time in America, it was a common practice for editors to keep graphic images of death out of films, magazines, and newspapers.[245] The total of 90,000 ft (27,000 m) of film shot by McGovern’s cameramen had not been fully aired as of 2009. According to Greg Mitchell, with the 2004 documentary film Original Child Bomb, a small part of that footage managed to reach part of the American public “in the unflinching and powerful form its creators intended”.[249]

Motion picture company Nippon Eigasha started sending cameramen to Nagasaki and Hiroshima in September 1945. On October 24, 1945, a U.S. military policeman stopped a Nippon Eigasha cameraman from continuing to film in Nagasaki. All Nippon Eigasha’s reels were then confiscated by the American authorities. These reels were in turn requested by the Japanese government, declassified, and saved from oblivion. Some black-and-white motion pictures were released and shown for the first time to Japanese and American audiences in the years from 1968 to 1970.[249] The public release of film footage of the city post attack, and some research about the human effects of the attack, was restricted during the occupation of Japan, and much of this information was censored until the signing of the San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1951, restoring control to the Japanese.[251]

Only the most politically charged and detailed weapons effects information was censored during this period. The Hiroshima-based magazine, Chugoku Bunka for example, in its first issue published March 10, 1946 devotes itself to detailing the damage from the bombing.[252] Similarly, there was no censorship of the factually written witness accounts, the book Hiroshima written by Pulitzer Prize winner John Hersey, which was originally published in article form in the popular magazine The New Yorker,[253] on August 31, 1946, is reported to have reached Tokyo in English by January 1947, and the translated version was released in Japan in 1949.[254][255][256] The book narrates the stories of the lives of six bomb survivors from immediately prior, to months after, the dropping of the Little Boy bomb.[253]

Beginning in 1974 a compilation of drawings and artwork made by the survivors of the bombings began to be compiled, with completion in 1977 and under both book and exhibition format, it was titled The Unforgettable Fire.[257]

Post-attack casualties

See also: Black Rain (novel) and Epidemiology data for low-linear energy transfer radiation
File:Medical aspect, Hiroshima, Japan, 1946-03-23, 342-USAF-11034.ogv

Silent film footage taken in Hiroshima in March 1946 showing survivors with severe burns and keloid scars. Although most all survivors with burns also had burns compounded by the conventional fires that were lit after the bombing, this footage was primarily made with the survivors being asked to stand in the orientation they were in at the time of the nuclear thermal/flash, to document and convey the relatively unique line-of-sight nature of flash burns, and to show that, much like a sunburn, thick clothing and fabric offered complete protection in many cases. The sometimes extensive Burn scar contracture that is also seen particularly around joints, is not unusual, being common to all 2nd and 3rd degree burns when they cover a large area of skin. The film also features a small number of completely unburnt survivors who were included in the film to show the recovery made by those whose hair had previously fallen out from the effects of acute radiation syndrome but by the time of filming, they had recovered.

In the spring of 1948, the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC) was established in accordance with a presidential directive from Truman to the National Academy of Sciences – National Research Council to conduct investigations of the late effects of radiation among the survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.[258] One of the early studies conducted by the ABCC was on the outcome of pregnancies occurring in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and in a control city, Kure, located 18 mi (29 km) south of Hiroshima, in order to discern the conditions and outcomes related to radiation exposure.[259] Dr. James V. Neel led the study which found that the number of birth defects was not significantly higher among the children of survivors who were pregnant at the time of the bombings.[260] The National Academy of Sciences questioned Neel’s procedure which did not filter the Kure population for possible radiation exposure.[261] Overall, while a statistically insignificant increase in birth defects occurred directly after the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Neel and others noted that in approximately 50 humans who were of an early gestational age at the time of the bombing and who were all within about 1 km from the hypocenter, an increase in microencephaly and anencephaly was observed upon birth, with the incidence of these two particular malformations being nearly 3 times what was to be expected when compared to the control group in Kure.[262][263]

In 1985, Johns Hopkins University human geneticist James F. Crow examined Neel’s research and confirmed that the number of birth defects was not significantly higher in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.[264] Many members of the ABCC and its successor Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF) were still looking for possible birth defects or other causes among the survivors decades later, but found no evidence that they were common among the survivors.[265][266]

Despite the insignificance of birth defects found in Neel’s study and the detailed medical literature. Up to 1987, historians such as Ronald E. Powaski frequently wrote that Hiroshima experienced “an increase in stillbirths, birth defects, and infant mortality” following the atomic bomb.[267]

Neel also studied the longevity of the children who survived the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, reporting that between 90 and 95 percent were still living 50 years later.[265]

Around 1,900 cancer deaths can be attributed to the after-effects of the bombs. An epidemiology study by the RERF states that from 1950 to 2000, 46% of leukemia deaths and 11% of solid cancer deaths among the bomb survivors were due to radiation from the bombs, the statistical excess being estimated at 200 leukemia and 1,700 solid cancers.[268]

Hibakusha

Main article: Hibakusha
See also: Hibakujumoku

The survivors of the bombings are called hibakusha (被爆者?, Japanese pronunciation: [çiβa̠kɯ̥ᵝɕʲa̠]), a Japanese word that literally translates to “explosion-affected people”. The Japanese government has recognized about 650,000 people as hibakusha. As of March 31, 2016, 174,080 are still alive, mostly in Japan.[269] The government of Japan recognizes about 1% of these as having illnesses caused by radiation.[270] The memorials in Hiroshima and Nagasaki contain lists of the names of the hibakusha who are known to have died since the bombings. Updated annually on the anniversaries of the bombings, as of August 2016 the memorials record the names of more than 475,000 hibakusha; 303,195 in Hiroshima[271] and 172,230 in Nagasaki.[272]

A rectangular column rises above a dark stone base with Japanese writing on it. It sits atop a grass mound with is surrounded by alternating circles of stone path and grass. The is a wall around the whole monument, and bushes beyond.
Panoramic view of the monument marking the hypocenter, or ground zero, of the atomic bomb explosion over Nagasaki

Hibakusha and their children were (and still are) victims of severe discrimination in Japan due to public ignorance about the consequences of radiation sickness, with much of the public believing it to be hereditary or even contagious.[273] This is despite the fact that no statistically demonstrable increase of birth defects or congenital malformations was found among the later conceived children born to survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.[274] A study of the long-term psychological effects of the bombings on the survivors found that even 17–20 years after the bombings had occurred survivors showed a higher prevalence of anxiety and somatization symptoms.[275]

Double survivors

On March 24, 2009, the Japanese government officially recognized Tsutomu Yamaguchi as a double hibakusha. He was confirmed to be 3 km (1.9 mi) from ground zero in Hiroshima on a business trip when Little Boy was detonated. He was seriously burnt on his left side and spent the night in Hiroshima. He arrived at his home city of Nagasaki on August 8, the day before Fat Man was dropped, and he was exposed to residual radiation while searching for his relatives. He was the first officially recognized survivor of both bombings.[276] He died on January 4, 2010, at the age of 93, after a battle with stomach cancer.[277]

The 2006 documentary Twice Survived: The Doubly Atomic Bombed of Hiroshima and Nagasaki documented 165 nijū hibakusha (lit. double explosion-affected people), and was screened at the United Nations.[278]

Korean survivors

See also: anti-korean sentiment § Japan

During the war, Japan brought as many as 670,000 Korean conscripts to Japan to work as forced labor.[279] About 20,000 Koreans were killed in Hiroshima and another 2,000 died in Nagasaki. Perhaps one in seven of the dead in Hiroshima were of Korean ancestry. For many years, Korean survivors had a difficult time fighting for the same recognition as Hibakusha as afforded to all Japanese survivors, a situation which resulted in the denial of the free health benefits to them. Most issues were eventually addressed in 2008 through lawsuits.[280]

Debate over bombings

Main article: Debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
See also: Project Hula § Soviets still lack naval capability to invade Japan
A shot along a river. There is a bridge in the distance, and a ruined domed building in the middle distance. People walk along the footpath that runs parallel to the river

Citizens of Hiroshima walk by the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, the closest building to have survived the city’s atomic bombing

The role of the bombings in Japan’s surrender and the U.S.’s ethical justification for them has been the subject of scholarly and popular debate for decades. J. Samuel Walker wrote in an April 2005 overview of recent historiography on the issue, “the controversy over the use of the bomb seems certain to continue.” He wrote that “The fundamental issue that has divided scholars over a period of nearly four decades is whether the use of the bomb was necessary to achieve victory in the war in the Pacific on terms satisfactory to the United States.”[281]

Supporters of the bombings generally assert that they caused the Japanese surrender, preventing casualties on both sides during Operation Downfall. One figure of speech, “One hundred million [subjects of the Japanese Empire] will die for the Emperor and Nation”,[282] served as a unifying slogan, although that phrase was intended as a figure of speech along the lines of the “ten thousand years” phrase.[6] In Truman’s 1955 Memoirs, “he states that the atomic bomb probably saved half a million U.S. lives—anticipated casualties in an Allied invasion of Japan planned for November. Stimson subsequently talked of saving one million U.S. casualties, and Churchill of saving one million American and half that number of British lives.”[283] Scholars have pointed out various alternatives that could have ended the war without an invasion, but these alternatives could have resulted in the deaths of many more Japanese.[284] Supporters also point to an order given by the Japanese War Ministry on August 1, 1944, ordering the execution of Allied prisoners of war when the POW camp was in the combat zone.[285]

Those who oppose the bombings cite a number of reasons for their view, among them: a belief that atomic bombing is fundamentally immoral, that the bombings counted as war crimes, that they were militarily unnecessary, that they constituted state terrorism,[286] and that they involved racism against and the dehumanization of the Japanese people.[citation needed] Another popular view among critics of the bombings, originating with Gar Alperovitz in 1965 and becoming the default position in Japanese school history textbooks, is the idea of atomic diplomacy: that the United States used nuclear weapons in order to intimidate the Soviet Union in the early stages of the Cold War.[287]

The bombings were part of an already fierce conventional bombing campaign. This, together with the sea blockade and the April 1945 collapse of Nazi Germany (with its implications regarding redeployment), could also have eventually led to a Japanese surrender. At the time the United States dropped its atomic bomb on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, the Soviet Union launched a surprise attack with 1.6 million troops against the Kwantung Army in Manchuria. “The Soviet entry into the war”, argued Japanese historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, “played a much greater role than the atomic bombs in inducing Japan to surrender because it dashed any hope that Japan could terminate the war through Moscow’s mediation”.[288]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Jump up to:a b Giangreco 2009, pp. 2–3, 49–51.
  2. Jump up^ Williams 1960, p. 307.
  3. Jump up^ Williams 1960, p. 532.
  4. Jump up^ Williams 1960, p. 527.
  5. Jump up^ Long 1963, pp. 48–49.
  6. ^ Jump up to:a b Brooks & Stanley 2007, pp. 41–44.
  7. Jump up^ Coox 1969, pp. 2540–2544.
  8. Jump up^ Giangreco 2009, pp. 32–34.
  9. Jump up^ Giangreco 2009, pp. 125–130.
  10. Jump up^ Giangreco 2009, pp. 169–171.
  11. Jump up^ Giangreco 2009, pp. 45–48.
  12. Jump up^ Giangreco 2009, p. 21.
  13. Jump up^ Giangreco 2009, pp. 70–72.
  14. Jump up^ Giangreco 2009, pp. 121–124.
  15. Jump up^ “The Final Months of the War With Japan. Part III (note 24)”. Central Intelligence Agency. Retrieved December 17, 2013.
  16. Jump up^ Carroll 2007, p. 48.
  17. Jump up^ Drea 1992, pp. 202–225.
  18. Jump up^ Giangreco 2009, pp. 98–99.
  19. Jump up^ Frank 1999, p. 340.
  20. ^ Jump up to:a b Giangreco 2009, p. 112.
  21. Jump up^ Schaffer 1985, pp. 164–165.
  22. Jump up^ Craven & Cate 1953, p. 4.
  23. Jump up^ Craven & Cate 1953, pp. 22–24.
  24. Jump up^ Craven & Cate 1953, pp. 169–175.
  25. Jump up^ Craven & Cate 1953, pp. 29–31.
  26. Jump up^ Craven & Cate 1953, pp. 507–509.
  27. Jump up^ Craven & Cate 1953, pp. 514–521.
  28. Jump up^ Craven & Cate 1953, pp. 548–551.
  29. Jump up^ Craven & Cate 1953, pp. 536–545.
  30. Jump up^ Craven & Cate 1953, pp. 558–560.
  31. Jump up^ Craven & Cate 1953, p. 566.
  32. Jump up^ Sandler 2001, pp. 24–26.
  33. Jump up^ Craven & Cate 1953, pp. 574–576.
  34. Jump up^ “March 9, 1945: Burning the Heart Out of the Enemy”. Condé Nast. March 9, 2011. Retrieved August 8, 2011.
  35. Jump up^ Laurence M. Vance (August 14, 2009). “Bombings Worse than Nagasaki and Hiroshima”. The Future of Freedom Foundation. Archived from the original on November 13, 2012. Retrieved August 8, 2011.
  36. Jump up^ Joseph Coleman (March 10, 2005). “1945 Tokyo Firebombing Left Legacy of Terror, Pain”. CommonDreams.org. Associated Press. Retrieved August 8, 2011.
  37. Jump up^ Craven & Cate 1953, pp. 608–610.
  38. Jump up^ Craven & Cate 1953, pp. 568–570.
  39. Jump up^ Edwards 1996, p. 83.
  40. Jump up^ Werrell 1996, p. 250.
  41. Jump up^ Craven & Cate 1953, pp. 614–617.
  42. Jump up^ Craven & Cate 1953, pp. 642–643.
  43. Jump up^ Kerr 1991, p. 207.
  44. Jump up^ Yuki Tanaka and Marilyn B. Young, “Bombing Civilians: A Twentieth Century History”. (New York: New Press, 2009), 5, 84–85, 117.
  45. Jump up^ Craven & Cate 1953, pp. 653–658.
  46. Jump up^ Coox 1994, pp. 412–414.
  47. Jump up^ Coox 1994, p. 422.
  48. Jump up^ Zaloga & Noon 2010, p. 54.
  49. Jump up^ Zaloga & Noon 2010, pp. 58–59.
  50. Jump up^ Giangreco 2009, pp. 79–80.
  51. Jump up^ Coox 1994, p. 429.
  52. Jump up^ Jones 1985, p. 7.
  53. Jump up^ Jones 1985, p. 12.
  54. Jump up^ Gowing 1964, pp. 40-43, 76-79.
  55. Jump up^ Roosevelt, Frankin D; Churchill, Winston (August 19, 1943). “Quebec Agreement”. atomicarchive.com.
  56. Jump up^ Edwards, Gordon. “Canada’s Role in the Atomic Bomb Programs of the United States, Britain, France and India”. Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility. Archived from the original on December 13, 2007. Retrieved December 4, 2007.
  57. Jump up^ Jones 1985, p. 89.
  58. Jump up^ Jones 1985, pp. 82-84.
  59. Jump up^ Jones 1985, p. 522.
  60. Jump up^ Jones 1985, pp. 511–516.
  61. Jump up^ Grunden 1998, pp. 50–52.
  62. Jump up^ “Factsheets: 509th Operational Group”. Air Force Historical Studies Office. Retrieved December 25, 2011.
  63. Jump up^ “History of 509th Composite Group – 313th Bombardment Wing – Twentieth Air Force – Activation to August 15, 1945”(PDF). Tinian: 509th CG (AFHRA archived). 1945. pp. 8–9. Retrieved February 1, 2012.
  64. Jump up^ Tibbets 1998, pp. 163, 167–168.
  65. Jump up^ “Minutes of 3rd Target Committee Meeting 28 May 1945”(PDF). National Archives. Archived (PDF) from the original on August 9, 2006. Retrieved August 9, 2006.
  66. Jump up^ Campbell 2005, p. 25.
  67. Jump up^ Craven & Cate 1953, p. 706.
  68. Jump up^ Campbell 2005, pp. 14–15.
  69. Jump up^ “History of 509th Composite Group – 313th Bombardment Wing – Twentieth Air Force – Activation to 15 August 1945”(PDF). Tinian: Air Force Historical Research Agency. 1945. pp. 17–22. Retrieved February 1, 2012.
  70. Jump up^ Campbell 2005, p. 100.
  71. Jump up^ Christman 1998, p. 176.
  72. Jump up^ Jones 1985, pp. 528–529.
  73. ^ Jump up to:a b c d “Atomic Bomb: Decision—Target Committee, May 10–11, 1945”. Archived from the original on August 8, 2005. Retrieved August 6, 2005.
  74. Jump up^ Reischauer 1986, p. 101.
  75. Jump up^ Kelly, Jason M. (2012). “Why Did Henry Stimson Spare Kyoto from the Bomb?: Confusion in Postwar Historiography”. Journal of American-East Asian Relations. 19 (2): 183–203. doi:10.1163/18765610-01902004.
  76. ^ Jump up to:a b Jones 1985, p. 529.
  77. Jump up^ Hasegawa 2006, pp. 67–68.
  78. Jump up^ Hasegawa 2006, pp. 149–150.
  79. ^ Jump up to:a b Jones 1985, p. 530.
  80. Jump up^ Craven & Cate 1953, pp. 712–713.
  81. Jump up^ “Pages from President Truman’s diary, July 17, 18, and 25, 1945”. Harry S. Truman Library & Museum. Retrieved December 16, 2013.
  82. Jump up^ Frank 1999, pp. 255–256.
  83. Jump up^ Compton 1956, p. 240.
  84. Jump up^ Compton 1956, pp. 238–239.
  85. Jump up^ Frank 1999, pp. 255–260.
  86. Jump up^ Newman 1995, p. 86.
  87. ^ Jump up to:a b c d “The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II, A Collection of Primary Sources” (PDF). National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 162. George Washington University. August 13, 1945.
  88. ^ Jump up to:a b c d Williams, Josette H. “The Information War in the Pacific, 1945 Paths to Peace”. Central Intelligence Agency. Retrieved December 5, 2016.)
  89. ^ Jump up to:a b Craven & Cate 1953, p. 656.
  90. Jump up^ Frank 1999, p. 153.
  91. ^ Jump up to:a b McNelly 2000, p. 138.
  92. ^ Jump up to:a b c Lifton 1991, p. 17.
  93. Jump up^ 空襲予告ビラ、高山市民が保管　市内で展示 [Air Raid Notice] (in Japanese). 岐阜新聞社 (Gifu Shinbunsha (Open Library)). Archived from the original on 2013-10-12. Retrieved January 31, 2013.
  94. Jump up^ Bungei 1981, p. 215.
  95. Jump up^ Bradley 1999, p. 103.
  96. Jump up^ Miller 1986, p. 43.
  97. Jump up^ Frank 1999, pp. 233–234. The meaning of mokusatsu can fall anywhere in the range of “ignore” to “treat with contempt”.
  98. Jump up^ Bix 1996, p. 290.
  99. Jump up^ Asada 1996, p. 39.
  100. Jump up^ Gowing 1964, p. 372.
  101. Jump up^ Thomas & Morgan-Witts 1977, pp. 326, 356, 370.
  102. Jump up^ Hoddeson et al. 1993, p. 262.
  103. ^ Jump up to:a b Hoddeson et al. 1993, p. 265.
  104. Jump up^ Coster-Mullen 2012, p. 30.
  105. Jump up^ Coster-Mullen 2012, p. 45.
  106. Jump up^ Campbell 2005, pp. 38–40.
  107. Jump up^ Giangreco 2009, pp. 64–65, 163.
  108. Jump up^ Goldstein, Dillon & Wenger 1995, p. 41.
  109. Jump up^ Giangreco 2009, pp. 70, 163.
  110. ^ Jump up to:a b c Zaloga & Noon 2010, p. 59.
  111. Jump up^ United States Strategic Bombing Survey (June 1946). “U. S. Strategic Bombing Survey: The Effects of the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki”. nuclearfiles.org. Archived from the original on October 11, 2004. Retrieved July 26, 2009.
  112. Jump up^ Thomas & Morgan-Witts 1977, pp. 224-225.
  113. Jump up^ Groves 1962, p. 316.
  114. ^ Jump up to:a b c Frank 1999, p. 263.
  115. Jump up^ Thomas & Morgan-Witts 1977, p. 38.
  116. ^ Jump up to:a b “Frequently Asked Questions #1”. Radiation Effects Research Foundation. Archived from the original on September 19, 2007. Retrieved September 18, 2007.
  117. Jump up^ Bodden 2007, p. 20.
  118. Jump up^ Preston 2005, p. 262.
  119. Jump up^ Fiévé & Waley 2003, p. 330.
  120. Jump up^ Rotter 2008, p. 267.
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  130. Jump up^ Thomas & Morgan-Witts 1977, p. 415.
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  133. Jump up^ Malik, John (September 1985). “The Yields of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Explosions” (PDF). Los Alamos National Laboratory. Retrieved March 9, 2014. describes how various values were recorded for the B-29’s altitude at the moment of bomb release over Hiroshima. The strike report said 30,200 ft, the official history said 31,600 ft, Commander Parson’s log entry was 32,700 ft, and the navigator’s log was 31,060 ft—the latter possibly an error transposing two digits. A later calculation using the indicated atmospheric pressure arrived at the figure of 32,200 ft.
    Similarly, several values have been reported as the altitude of the Little Boy bomb at the moment of detonation. Published sources vary in the range of 1,800 to 2,000 ft (550 to 610 m) above the city. The device was set to explode at 1,885 ft (575 m), but this was approximate. Malik uses the figure of 1,903 ft (580 m) plus or minus 50 ft (15 m), determined after data review by Hubbell et al 1969. Radar returns from the tops of multistory buildings near the hypocenter may have triggered the detonation at a somewhat higher altitude than planned. Kerr et al. (2005) found that a detonation altitude of 600 m (1,968.5 ft), plus or minus 20 m (65.6 ft), gave the best fit for all the measurement discrepancies.
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  • Harvey, Robert (2007). American Shogun: General MacArthur, Emperor Hirohito and the Drama of Modern Japan. Woodstock, New York: The Overlook Press. ISBN 1-58567-891-0. OCLC 62134797.
  • Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi (2006). Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-01693-4.
  • Hein, Laura; Selden, Mark, eds. (1997). Living with the Bomb: American and Japanese Cultural Conflicts in the Nuclear Age. New York: M.E. Sharpe. ISBN 978-1-56324-967-9.
  • Hixson, Walter L. (2002). The American Experience in World War II: The Atomic Bomb in History and Memory. New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-94035-1. OCLC 59464269.
  • Hoddeson, Lillian; Henriksen, Paul W.; Meade, Roger A.; Westfall, Catherine L. (1993). Critical Assembly: A Technical History of Los Alamos During the Oppenheimer Years, 1943–1945. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-44132-3. OCLC 26764320.
  • Hoyt, Edwin P. (2001). Japan’s War: The Great Pacific Conflict. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-8154-1118-9. OCLC 12722494.
  • Hubbell, Harry; Cheka, Joseph; Jones, Throyce (1969). The Epicenters of the Atomic Bombs. Reevaluation of All Available Physical Data With Recommended Values. Hiroshima: Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission. OCLC 404745043.
  • Ishikawa, Eisei; Swain, David L. (1981). Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The Physical, Medical, and Social Effects of the Atomic Bombings. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-02985-3. OCLC 715904227.
  • Johnston, Barbara Rose (2008). The Consequential Damages of Nuclear War: The Rongelap Report. Walnutt Creek: Left Coast Press. ISBN 978-1-59874-346-3.
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  • Jowett, Philip S.; Andrew, Stephen (2002). The Japanese Army 1931–45: 2 1942–45. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84176-354-5. OCLC 59395824.
  • Kerr, E. Bartlett (1991). Flames Over Tokyo: the US Army Air Forces’ Incendiary Campaign against Japan 1944–1945. New York: Donald I. Fine Inc. ISBN 1-55611-301-3.
  • Kerr, George D.; Young, Robert W.; Cullings, Harry M.; Christy, Robert F. (2005). “Bomb Parameters”. In Young, Robert W.; Kerr, George D. Reassessment of the Atomic Bomb Radiation Dosimetry for Hiroshima and Nagasaki – Dosimetry System 2002 (PDF). Hiroshima: The Radiation Effects Research Foundation. OCLC 271477587.
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  • Knebel, Fletcher; Bailey, Charles W. (1960). No High Ground. New York: Harper and Row. ISBN 0-313-24221-6.
  • Krimsky, Sheldon; Shorett, Peter (2005). Rights and Liberties in the Biotech Age: Why We Need a Genetic Bill of Rights. Lantham: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 0-7425-4341-2.
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  • Lifton, Robert Jay (1991). Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0-8078-4344-X. OCLC 490493399.
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  • McNelly, Theodore H. (2000). “The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb”. In Jacob Neufeld. Pearl Harbor to V-J Day: World War II in the Pacific. New York: Diane Publishing Co. ISBN 1-4379-1286-9.
  • Miller, Richard Lee (1986). Under the Cloud: The Decades of Nuclear Testing. New York: Two-Sixty Press. ISBN 0-02-921620-6.
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  • Sandler, Stanley (2001). World War II in the Pacific: an Encyclopedia. New York: Taylor & Francis. ISBN 0-8153-1883-9. OCLC 44769066.
  • Schaffer, Ronald (1985). Wings of Judgment: American Bombing in World War II. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-503629-8. OCLC 11785450.
  • Selden, Kyoko Iriye; Selden, Mark (1990). The Atomic Bomb: Voices from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe. ISBN 0-87332-773-X. OCLC 20057103.
  • Sharp, Patrick B. “From Yellow Peril to Japanese Wasteland: John Hersey’s ‘Hiroshima'”. Twentieth Century Literature. 46 (2000): 434–452. JSTOR 827841.
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  • Stohl, Michael (1979). The Politics of Terrorism. New York: M. Dekker. ISBN 978-0-8247-6764-8. OCLC 4495087.
  • Sweeney, Charles; Antonucci, James A.; Antonucci, Marion K. (1997). War’s End: An Eyewitness Account of America’s Last Atomic Mission. New York: Quill Publishing. ISBN 0-380-78874-8.
  • Thomas, Gordon; Morgan-Witts, Max (1977). Ruin from the Air. London: Hamilton. ISBN 0-241-89726-2. OCLC 252041787.
  • Tibbets, Paul W. (1998). Return Of The Enola Gay. New Hope, Pennsylvania: Enola Gay Remembered. ISBN 0-9703666-0-4. OCLC 69423383.
  • Wainstock, Dennis D. (1996). The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger. ISBN 0-275-95475-7. OCLC 33243854.
  • Walker, J. Samuel (January 1990). “The Decision to Use the Bomb: A Historiographical Update”. Diplomatic History. 14 (1): 97–114. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7709.1990.tb00078.x. ISSN 1467-7709.
  • Walker, J. Samuel (April 2005). “Recent Literature on Truman’s Atomic Bomb Decision: A Search for Middle Ground”. Diplomatic History. 29 (2): 311–334. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7709.2005.00476.x. ISSN 1467-7709. Retrieved January 30, 2008.
  • Werrell, Kenneth P. (1996). Blankets of Fire: U.S. Bombers over Japan during World War II. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. ISBN 1-56098-665-4. OCLC 32921746.
  • White, Geoffrey. M. (July 1995). “Memory Wars: The Politics of Remembering the Asia-Pacific War” (PDF). Asia-Pacific Issues (21). ISSN 1522-0966. Retrieved June 30, 2013.
  • Williams, M. H. (1960). Chronology, 1941–1945. Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army. OCLC 1358166.
  • Zaloga, Steven J.; Noon, Steve (2010). Defense of Japan 1945. Fortress. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. ISBN 1-84603-687-9. OCLC 503042143.

Further reading

  • Allen, Thomas; Polmar, Norman (1995). Code-Name Downfall. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-80406-9.
  • The Committee for the Compilation of Materials on Damage Caused by the Atomic Bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki (1981). Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The Physical, Medical, and Social Effects of the Atomic Bombings. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-02985-X.
  • Gosling, Francis George (1994). The Manhattan Project : Making the Atomic Bomb. Washington, D.C.: United States Department of Energy, History Division. OCLC 637052193.
  • Hogan, Michael J. (1996). Hiroshima in History and Memory. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-56206-6.
  • Kanabun (2012). Kyoko; Tam, Young, eds. A story of a girl who survived an atomic bomb [原爆に遭った少女の話]. ASIN B00HJ6H2EK. Retrieved December 25, 2013.
  • Krauss, Robert; Krauss, Amelia (2005). The 509th Remembered: A History of the 509th Composite Group as Told by the Veterans Themselves. Buchanan, Michigan: 509th Press. ISBN 0-923568-66-2. OCLC 59148135.
  • Merton, Thomas (1962). Original Child Bomb: Points for Meditation to be Scratched on the Walls of a Cave. New York: New Directions. OCLC 4527778.
  • Murakami, Chikayasu (2007). Hiroshima no shiroi sora (The White Sky in Hiroshima). Tokyo: Bungeisha. ISBN 4-286-03708-8.
  • Ogura, Toyofumi (1948). Letters from the End of the World: A Firsthand Account of the Bombing of Hiroshima. Tokyo: Kodansha International. ISBN 4-7700-2776-1.
  • Sekimori, Gaynor (1986). Hibakusha: Survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Tokyo: Kosei Publishing Company. ISBN 4-333-01204-X.
  • Thomas, Gordon; Morgan-Witts, Max (1977). Enola Gay: The Bombing of Hiroshima. New York: Konecky & Konecky. ISBN 1-56852-597-4.
  • Ward, Wilson (Spring 2007). “The Winning Weapon? Rethinking Nuclear Weapons in Light of Hiroshima”. International Security. 31 (4): 162–179. doi:10.1162/isec.2007.31.4.162. ISSN 1531-4804.
  • Warren, Stafford L. (1966). “Manhattan Project”. In Ahnfeldt, Arnold Lorentz. Radiology in World War II. Washington, D.C.: Office of the Surgeon General, Department of the Army. OCLC 630225.

External links

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Pacific War

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the Pacific theatres of World War II. For other uses, see Pacific War (disambiguation).
“War in the Pacific” redirects here. For the war between Chile, Bolivia, and Peru in 1879–84, see War of the Pacific.
“Pacific Theater of World War II” redirects here. For the US military area of operations, see Pacific Ocean theater of World War II. For other uses, see Pacific Theatre (disambiguation).
Pacific War
Part of World War II
Map indicating US landings during the Pacific Warcommons.wikimedia.org/…/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasakicommons.wikimedia.org/…/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki

Map showing the main areas of the conflict and Allied landings in the Pacific, 1942–45.
Date
7 December 1941 – 2 September 1945
(3 years, 8 months, 3 weeks and 5 days)
Location
Result
Territorial
changes		 Allied occupation of Japan
Belligerents
Allies[1]
 United States

 China[2]
 United Kingdom

 Australia
 Canada
 New Zealand
 Netherlands

 Soviet Union
 Mongolia

and others [nb 1]

 Axis
 Empire of Japan
 Thailand

and others [nb 2]
Commanders and leaders
Strength
Republic of China (1912–49) 14,000,000[3]
United States 3,621,383+ (1945)[nb 3]
United Kingdom 400,000[8]
British Raj 2,000,000[8]
Netherlands 140,000[9][nb 4]
Soviet Union 1,669,500 (1945)[10]		 Empire of Japan 7,800,000–7,900,000 (1945)[11][12][13]
Thailand 126,500[14]
, Flag of the Republic of China-Nanjing (Peace, Anti-Communism, National Construction).svg, India and others: ~1,000,000+ (1945)[15]
Casualties and losses
  • Military
    4 battleships
    1 battlecruiser
    12 aircraft carriers
    25 cruisers
    84 destroyers and destroyer escorts
    63 submarines[16]
    21,555+ aircraft[17]
    4,000,000+ dead (1937–45)

  • Civilian deaths
    26,000,000+ (1937–45)[nb 6]
  • Military
    8 battleships
    3 battlecruisers
    25 aircraft carriers
    39 cruisers
    135 destroyers
    131 submarines[39]
    43,125+ aircraft[40]
    2,500,000+ dead (1937–45)[nb 7]
  • Civilian deaths
    1,000,000+[nb 8]
  • a Including its islands and neighboring countries.
  • b Partially and briefly.
History of Japan
War flag of the Imperial Japanese Army.svg

The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia-Pacific War,[48] was the theater of World War II that was fought in the Pacific and East Asia. It was fought over a vast area that included the Pacific Ocean and islands, the South West Pacific, South-East Asia, and in China (including the 1945 Soviet–Japanese conflict).

The Second Sino-Japanese War between the Empire of Japan and the Republic of China had been in progress since 7 July 1937, with hostilities dating back as far as 19 September 1931 with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria.[49] However, it is more widely accepted[nb 9][51] that the Pacific War itself began on 7/8 December 1941, when Japan invaded Thailand and attacked the British possessions of Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong as well as the United States military bases in Hawaii, Wake Island, Guam and the Philippines.[52][53][54]

The Pacific War saw the Allied powers pitted against the Empire of Japan, the latter briefly aided by Thailand and to a much lesser extent by its Axis allies, Germany and Italy. The war culminated in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and other large aerial bomb attacks by the United States Army Air Forces, accompanied by the Soviet invasion of Manchuria on 8 August 1945, resulting in the Japanese announcement of intent to surrender on 15 August 1945. The formal and official surrender of Japan took place aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945. Following its defeat, Japan’s Shinto Emperor[55] stepped down as the divine leader[56] through the Shinto Directive, because the Allied Powers believed this was the major political cause of Japan’s military aggression and deconstruction soon took place to install a new liberal-democratic constitution to the Japanese public as the current Constitution of Japan.

Overview[edit]

Names for the war[edit]

Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, Allied Commander-in-Chief in the China theatre from 1942 to 1945.

In Allied countries during the war, “The Pacific War” was not usually distinguished from World War II in general, or was known simply as the War against Japan. In the United States, the term Pacific Theater was widely used, although this was a misnomer in relation to the British campaign in Burma, the war in China and other activities within the Southeast Asian Theater.

Japan used the name Greater East Asia War (大東亜戦争 Dai Tō-A Sensō?), as chosen by a cabinet decision on 10 December 1941, to refer to both the war with the Western Allies and the ongoing war in China. This name was released to the public on 12 December, with an explanation that it involved Asian nations achieving their independence from the Western powers through armed forces of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.[57] Japanese officials integrated what they called the Japan–China Incident (日支事変 Nisshi Jihen?) into the Greater East Asia War.

During the American military occupation of Japan (1945–52), these Japanese terms were prohibited in official documents, although their informal usage continued, and the war became officially known as Pacific War (太平洋戦争 Taiheiyō Sensō?). In Japan, the Fifteen Years’ War (十五年戦争 Jūgonen Sensō?) is also used, referring to the period from the Mukden Incident of 1931 through 1945.

Participants[edit]

Political Map of the Asia-Pacific Region, 1939.

Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and General Joseph Stilwell, Allied Commander-in-Chief in the China theatre from 1942–1945.

The Axis states which assisted Japan included the authoritarian government of Thailand in World War II, which quickly formed a temporary alliance with the Japanese in 1941, as the Japanese forces were already invading the peninsula of southern Thailand. The Phayap Army sent troops to invade and occupy northeastern Burma, which was former Thai territory that had been annexed by Britain much earlier. Also involved were the Japanese puppet states of Manchukuo and Mengjiang (consisting of most of Manchuria and parts of Inner Mongolia respectively), and the collaborationist Wang Jingwei regime (which controlled the coastal regions of China).

The official policy of the U.S. Government is that Thailand was not an ally of the Axis, and that the United States was not at war with Thailand. The policy of the U.S. Government ever since 1945 has been to treat Thailand not as a former enemy, but rather as a country which had been forced into certain actions by Japanese blackmail, before being occupied by Japanese troops. Thailand has been treated by the United States in the same way as such other Axis-occupied countries as Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Greece, Norway, Poland, and the Netherlands.

Japan conscripted many soldiers from its colonies of Korea and Formosa (Taiwan). To a small extent, some Vichy French, Indian National Army, and Burmese National Army forces were active in the area of the Pacific War. Collaborationist units from Hong Kong (reformed ex-colonial police), Philippines, Dutch East Indies (the PETA) and Dutch Guinea, British Malaya and British Borneo, Inner Mongolia and former French Indochina (after the overthrow of Vichy French regime) as well as Timorese militia also assisted Japanese war efforts.

Germany and Italy both had limited involvement in the Pacific War. The German and the Italian navies operated submarines and raiding ships in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The Italians had access to “concession territory” naval bases in China, while the Germans did not. After Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent declarations of war, both navies had access to Japanese naval facilities.

The major Allied participants were the United States, the Republic of China, the United Kingdom (including the armed forces of British India, the Fiji Islands, Samoa, etc.), Australia, the Commonwealth of the Philippines, the Netherlands (as the possessor of the Dutch East Indies and the western part of New Guinea), New Zealand, and Canada, all of whom were members of the Pacific War Council.[58] Mexico, Free France and many other countries also took part, especially forces from other British colonies.

The Soviet Union fought two short, undeclared border conflicts with Japan in 1938 and 1939, then remained neutral until August 1945, when it joined the Allies and invaded the territory of Manchukuo, Republic of China, Inner Mongolia, the Japanese protectorate of Korea and Japanese-claimed islands such as Sakhalin coordinated notably between the Red Banner Pacific Fleet and the US Navy’s Task Force 38.[citation needed][clarification needed]

Theaters[edit]

The Pacific War Council as photographed on 12 October 1942. Pictured are representatives from the United States (seated) China, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the Philippine Commonwealth.

Between 1942 and 1945, there were four main areas of conflict in the Pacific War: China, the Central Pacific, South East Asia and the South West Pacific. U.S. sources refer to two theaters within the Pacific War: the Pacific theater and the China Burma India Theater (CBI). However these were not operational commands.

In the Pacific, the Allies divided operational control of their forces between two supreme commands, known as Pacific Ocean Areas and Southwest Pacific Area.[59] In 1945, for a brief period just before the Japanese surrender, the Soviet Union and its Mongolian ally engaged Japanese forces in Manchuria and northeast China.

Historical background[edit]

Conflict between China and Japan[edit]

Main article: Second Sino-Japanese War

Chinese casualties of a mass panic during a June 1941 Japanese aerial bombing of Chongqing.

By 1937, Japan controlled Manchuria and was ready to move deeper into China. The Marco Polo Bridge Incident on 7 July 1937 provoked full-scale war between China and Japan. The Nationalist and Communist Chinese suspended their civil war to form a nominal alliance against Japan, and the Soviet Union quickly lent support by providing large amount of materiel to Chinese troops. In August 1937, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek deployed his best army to fight about 300,000 Japanese troops in Shanghai, but, after three months of fighting, Shanghai fell.[60] The Japanese continued to push the Chinese forces back, capturing the capital Nanking in December 1937 and committed which was known as Nanking Massacre.[61] In March 1938, Nationalist forces won their first victory at Taierzhuang.[62] but then the city of Xuzhou was taken by Japanese in May. In June 1938, Japan deployed about 350,000 troops to invade Wuhan and captured it in October.[63] The Japanese achieved major military victories, but world opinion—in particular in the United States—condemned Japan, especially after the Panay incident.

In 1939, Japanese forces tried to push into the Soviet Far East from Manchuria. They were soundly defeated in the Battle of Khalkhin Gol by a mixed Soviet and Mongolian force led by Georgy Zhukov. This stopped Japanese expansion to the north, and Soviet aid to China ended as a result of the signing of the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact at the beginning of its war against Nazi Germany.[64]

In September 1940, Japan decided to cut China’s only land line to the outside world by seizing Indochina, which was controlled at the time by Vichy France. Japanese forces broke their agreement with the Vichy administration and fighting broke out, ending in a Japanese victory. On 27 September Japan signed a military alliance with Germany and Italy, becoming one of the three Axis Powers. In practice, there was little coordination between Japan and Germany until 1944, by which time the U.S. was deciphering their secret diplomatic correspondence.[65]

The war entered a new phase with the unprecedented defeat of the Japanese at Battle of Suixian–Zaoyang and 1st Battle of Changsha. After these victories, Chinese nationalist forces launched a large-scale counter-offensive in early 1940; however, due to its low military-industrial capacity, it was repulsed by Japanese army in late March 1940.[66] In August 1940, Chinese communists launched an offensive in Central China; in retaliation, Japan instituted the “Three Alls Policy” (“Kill all, Burn all, Loot all”) in occupied areas to reduce human and material resources for the communists.[67] By 1941 the conflict had become a stalemate. Although Japan had occupied much of northern, central, and coastal China, the Nationalist Government had retreated to the interior with a provisional capital set up at Chungking while the Chinese communists remained in control of base areas in Shaanxi. In addition, Japanese control of northern and central China was somewhat tenuous, in that Japan was usually able to control railroads and the major cities (“points and lines”), but did not have a major military or administrative presence in the vast Chinese countryside. The Japanese found its aggression against the retreating and regrouping Chinese army was stalled by the mountainous terrain in southwestern China while the Communists organised widespread guerrilla and saboteur activities in northern and eastern China behind the Japanese front line.

Japan sponsored several puppet governments, one of which was headed by Wang Jingwei.[68] However, its policies of brutality toward the Chinese population, of not yielding any real power to these regimes, and of supporting several rival governments failed to make any of them a viable alternative to the Nationalist government led by Chiang Kai-shek. Conflicts between Chinese communist and nationalist forces vying for territory control behind enemy lines culminated in a major armed clash in January 1941, effectively ending their co-operation.[69]

Japanese strategic bombing efforts mostly targeted large Chinese cities such as Shanghai, Wuhan, and Chongqing, with around 5,000 raids from February 1938 to August 1943 in the later case. Japan’s strategic bombing campaigns devastated Chinese cities extensively, killing 260,000–350,934 non-combatants.[70][71]

Tensions between Japan and the West[edit]

From as early as 1935 Japanese military strategists had concluded the Dutch East Indies were, because of their oil reserves, of considerable importance to Japan. By 1940 they had expanded this to include Indo-China, Malaya, and the Philippines within their concept of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Japanese troop build ups in Hainan, Taiwan, and Haiphong were noted, Japanese Army officers were openly talking about an inevitable war, and Admiral Sankichi Takahashi was reported as saying a showdown with the United States was necessary.[72]

In an effort to discourage Japanese militarism, Western powers including Australia, the United States, Britain, and the Dutch government in exile, which controlled the petroleum-rich Dutch East Indies, stopped selling oil, iron ore, and steel to Japan, denying it the raw materials needed to continue its activities in China and French Indochina. In Japan, the government and nationalists viewed these embargos as acts of aggression; imported oil made up about 80% of domestic consumption, without which Japan’s economy, let alone its military, would grind to a halt. The Japanese media, influenced by military propagandists,[nb 10] began to refer to the embargoes as the “ABCD (“American-British-Chinese-Dutch”) encirclement” or “ABCD line“.

Faced with a choice between economic collapse and withdrawal from its recent conquests (with its attendant loss of face), the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters began planning for a war with the western powers in April or May 1941.

Japanese preparations[edit]

Japan’s key objective during the initial part of the conflict was to seize economic resources in the Dutch East Indies and Malaya which offered Japan a way to escape the effects of the Allied embargo.[75] This was known as the Southern Plan. It was also decided—because of the close relationship between the UK and United States, and the [76][77] belief the US would inevitably become involved[76]—Japan would also require taking the Philippines, Wake and Guam.

Japanese planning was for fighting a limited war where Japan would seize key objectives and then establish a defensive perimeter to defeat Allied counterattacks, which in turn would lead to a negotiated peace.[78] The attack on the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, with carrier-based aircraft of the Combined Fleet was to give the Japanese time to complete a perimeter. The initial period of the war was divided into two operational phases. The First Operational Phase was further divided into three separate parts in which the major objectives of the Philippines, British Malaya, Borneo, Burma, Rabaul and the Dutch East Indies would be occupied. The Second Operational Phase called for further expansion into the South Pacific by seizing eastern New Guinea, New Britain, Fiji, Samoa, and strategic points in the Australian area. In the Central Pacific, Midway was targeted as were the Aleutian Islands in the North Pacific. Seizure of these key areas would provide defensive depth and deny the Allies staging areas from which to mount a counteroffensive.[78]

By November these plans were essentially complete, and were modified only slightly over the next month. Japanese military planners’ expectation of success rested on the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union being unable to effectively respond to a Japanese attack because of the threat posed to each by Germany; the Soviet Union was even seen as unlikely to commence hostilities.

The Japanese leadership was aware that a total military victory in a traditional sense against the USA was impossible; the alternative would be negotiating for peace after their initial victories, which would recognize Japanese hegemony in Asia.[79] In fact, the Imperial GHQ noted, should acceptable negotiations be reached with the Americans, the attacks were to be canceled—even if the order to attack had already been given. The Japanese leadership looked to base the conduct of the war against America on the historical experiences of the successful wars against China (1894–95) and Russia (1904–05), in both of which a strong continental power was defeated by reaching limited military objectives, not by total conquest.[79]

They also planned, should the U.S. transfer its Pacific Fleet to the Philippines, to intercept and attack this fleet en route with the Combined Fleet, in keeping with all Japanese Navy prewar planning and doctrine. If the United States or Britain attacked first, the plans further stipulated the military were to hold their positions and wait for orders from GHQ. The planners noted attacking the Philippines and Malaya still had possibilities of success, even in the worst case of a combined preemptive attack including Soviet forces.

Japanese offensives, 1941–42[edit]

On 7 December 1941, Japan attacked the American bases in Hawaii. The same day (8 December on the other side of the International Date Line), Japanese forces attacked Guam, Wake Island and the British crown colony of Hong Kong while other Japanese units invaded the Philippines, Thailand and Malaya.

Attack on Pearl Harbor[edit]

USS Arizona burned for two days after being hit by a Japanese bomb in the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Main article: Attack on Pearl Harbor

In the early hours of 7 December (Hawaiian time), Japan launched a major surprise carrier-based air strike on Pearl Harbor without explicit warning, which crippled the U.S. Pacific Fleet, leaving eight American battleships out of action, 188 American aircraft destroyed, and 2,403 American citizens dead.[80] At the time of the attack, the U.S. was not officially at war anywhere in the world as the Japanese embassy failed to decipher and deliver the Japanese ultimatum to the American government before noon December 7 (Washington time),[81] which means that the people killed or property destroyed at Pearl Harbor by the Japanese attack had a non-combatant status.[nb 11] The Japanese had gambled that the United States, when faced with such a sudden and massive blow, would agree to a negotiated settlement and allow Japan free rein in Asia. This gamble did not pay off. American losses were less serious than initially thought: The American aircraft carriers, which would prove to be more important than battleships, were at sea, and vital naval infrastructure (fuel oil tanks, shipyard facilities, and a power station), submarine base, and signals intelligence units were unscathed.[80] Japan’s fallback strategy, relying on a war of attrition to make the U.S. come to terms, was beyond the IJN‘s capabilities.[76][82]

Before the attack on Pearl Harbor, the 800,000-member America First Committee vehemently opposed any American intervention in the European conflict, even as America sold military aid to Britain and the Soviet Union through the Lend-Lease program. Opposition to war in the U.S. vanished after the attack. On 8 December, the United States,[83] the United Kingdom,[84] Canada,[85] and the Netherlands[86] declared war on Japan, followed by China[87] and Australia[88] the next day. Four days after Pearl Harbor, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy declared war on the United States, drawing the country into a two-theater war. This is widely agreed to be a grand strategic blunder, as it abrogated the benefit Germany gained by Japan’s distraction of the U.S. (predicted months before in a memo by Commander Arthur McCollum)[nb 12] and the reduction in aid to Britain, which both Congress and Hitler had managed to avoid during over a year of mutual provocation, which would otherwise have resulted.

Attacks on Southeast Asia[edit]

HMS Prince of Wales (left, front) and HMS Repulse (left, rear) under attack by Japanese aircraft. A destroyer is in the foreground.

British, Australian, and Dutch forces, already drained of personnel and matériel by two years of war with Germany, and heavily committed in the Middle East, North Africa, and elsewhere, were unable to provide much more than token resistance to the battle-hardened Japanese. The Allies suffered many disastrous defeats in the first six months of the war. Two major British warships, HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales, were sunk by a Japanese air attack off Malaya on 10 December 1941.[89]

Thailand, with its territory already serving as a springboard for the Malayan campaign, surrendered within 24 hours of the Japanese invasion. The government of Thailand formally allied with Japan on 21 December.

Hong Kong was attacked on 8 December and fell on 25 December 1941, with Canadian forces and the Royal Hong Kong Volunteers playing an important part in the defense. American bases on Guam and Wake Island were lost at around the same time.

Following the Declaration by United Nations (the first official use of the term United Nations) on 1 January 1942, the Allied governments appointed the British General Sir Archibald Wavell to American-British-Dutch-Australian Command (ABDACOM), a supreme command for Allied forces in Southeast Asia. This gave Wavell nominal control of a huge force, albeit thinly spread over an area from Burma to the Philippines to northern Australia. Other areas, including India, Hawaii, and the rest of Australia remained under separate local commands. On 15 January, Wavell moved to Bandung in Java to assume control of ABDACOM.

Japanese battleships Yamashiro, Fusō and Haruna (more distant)

In January, Japan invaded Burma, the Dutch East Indies, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and captured Manila, Kuala Lumpur and Rabaul. After being driven out of Malaya, Allied forces in Singapore attempted to resist the Japanese during the Battle of Singapore, but were forced to surrender to the Japanese on 15 February 1942; about 130,000 Indian, British, Australian and Dutch personnel became prisoners of war.[90] The pace of conquest was rapid: Bali[91] and Timor[92] also fell in February. The rapid collapse of Allied resistance left the “ABDA area” split in two. Wavell resigned from ABDACOM on 25 February, handing control of the ABDA Area to local commanders and returning to the post of Commander-in-Chief, India.

The Bombing of Darwin, Australia, 19 February 1942

Meanwhile, Japanese aircraft had all but eliminated Allied air power in Southeast Asia[93] and were making attacks on northern Australia, beginning with a psychologically devastating but militarily insignificant attack on the city of Darwin[93] on 19 February, which killed at least 243 people.

At the Battle of the Java Sea in late-February and early-March, the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) inflicted a resounding defeat on the main ABDA naval force, under Admiral Karel Doorman.[94] The Dutch East Indies campaign subsequently ended with the surrender of Allied forces on Java[95] and Sumatra.[96]

In March and April, a powerful IJN carrier force launched a raid into the Indian Ocean. British Royal Navy bases in Ceylon were hit and the aircraft carrier HMS Hermes and other Allied ships were sunk. The attack forced the Royal Navy to withdraw to the western part of the Indian Ocean.[97] This paved the way for a Japanese assault on Burma and India.

Surrender of U.S. forces at Corregidor, Philippines, May 1942

In Burma, the British, under intense pressure, made a fighting retreat from Rangoon to the Indo-Burmese border. This cut the Burma Road, which was the western Allies’ supply line to the Chinese Nationalists. In March 1942, the Chinese Expeditionary Force started to attack Japanese forces in northern Burma. On 16 April, 7,000 British soldiers were encircled by the Japanese 33rd Division during the Battle of Yenangyaung and rescued by the Chinese 38th Division, led by Sun Li-jen.[98] Cooperation between the Chinese Nationalists and the Communists had waned from its zenith at the Battle of Wuhan, and the relationship between the two had gone sour as both attempted to expand their areas of operation in occupied territories. Most of the Nationalist guerrilla areas were eventually taken over by the Communists. On the other hand, some Nationalist units were deployed to blockade the Communists and not the Japanese. Furthermore, many of the forces of the Chinese Nationalists were warlords allied to Chiang Kai-Shek, but not directly under his command. “Of the 1,200,000 troops under Chiang’s control, only 650,000 were directly controlled by his generals, and another 550,000 controlled by warlords who claimed loyalty to his government; the strongest force was the Szechuan army of 320,000 men. The defeat of this army would do much to end Chiang’s power.”[99] The Japanese exploited this lack of unity to press ahead in their offensives.

Filipino and U.S. forces resisted in the Philippines until 8 May 1942, when more than 80,000 soldiers were ordered to surrender. By this time, General Douglas MacArthur, who had been appointed Supreme Allied Commander South West Pacific, had been withdrawn to Australia. The U.S. Navy, under Admiral Chester Nimitz, had responsibility for the rest of the Pacific Ocean. This divided command had unfortunate consequences for the commerce war,[100] and consequently, the war itself.

Threat to Australia[edit]

In late 1941, as the Japanese struck at Pearl Harbor, most of Australia’s best forces were committed to the fight against Hitler in the Mediterranean Theatre. Australia was ill-prepared for an attack, lacking armaments, modern fighter aircraft, heavy bombers, and aircraft carriers. While still calling for reinforcements from Churchill, the Australian Prime Minister John Curtin called for American support with a historic announcement on 27 December 1941:[101][102]

The Australian Government … regards the Pacific struggle as primarily one in which the United States and Australia must have the fullest say in the direction of the democracies’ fighting plan. Without inhibitions of any kind, I make it clear that Australia looks to America, free of any pangs as to our traditional links or kinship with the United Kingdom.

— Prime Minister John Curtin

Dutch and Australian PoWs at Tarsau, in Thailand in 1943. 22,000 Australians were captured by the Japanese; 8,000 died as prisoners of war.

Australia had been shocked by the speedy collapse of British Malaya and Fall of Singapore in which around 15,000 Australian soldiers became prisoners of war. Curtin predicted that the “battle for Australia” would now follow. The Japanese established a major base in the Australian Territory of New Guinea in early 1942.[103] On 19 February, Darwin suffered a devastating air raid, the first time the Australian mainland had been attacked. Over the following 19 months, Australia was attacked from the air almost 100 times.

U.S. General Douglas MacArthur, Commander of Allied forces in the South-West Pacific Area, with Australian Prime Minister John Curtin

Two battle-hardened Australian divisions were steaming from the Mid-East for Singapore. Churchill wanted them diverted to Burma, but Curtin insisted on a return to Australia. In early 1942 elements of the Imperial Japanese Navy proposed an invasion of Australia. The Japanese Army opposed the plan and it was rejected in favour of a policy of isolating Australia from the United States via blockade by advancing through the South Pacific.[104] The Japanese decided upon a seaborne invasion of Port Moresby, capital of the Australian Territory of Papua which would put Northern Australia within range of Japanese bomber aircraft.

President Franklin Roosevelt ordered General Douglas MacArthur in the Philippines to formulate a Pacific defence plan with Australia in March 1942. Curtin agreed to place Australian forces under the command of MacArthur who became Supreme Commander, South West Pacific. MacArthur moved his headquarters to Melbourne in March 1942 and American troops began massing in Australia. Enemy naval activity reached Sydney in late May 1942, when Japanese midget submarines launched a daring raid on Sydney Harbour. On 8 June 1942, two Japanese submarines briefly shelled Sydney’s eastern suburbs and the city of Newcastle.[105]

Allies re-group, 1942–43[edit]

In early 1942, the governments of smaller powers began to push for an inter-governmental Asia-Pacific war council, based in Washington, D.C. A council was established in London, with a subsidiary body in Washington. However, the smaller powers continued to push for an American-based body. The Pacific War Council was formed in Washington, on 1 April 1942, with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, his key advisor Harry Hopkins, and representatives from Britain, China, Australia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Canada. Representatives from India and the Philippines were later added. The council never had any direct operational control, and any decisions it made were referred to the U.S.-UK Combined Chiefs of Staff, which was also in Washington. Allied resistance, at first symbolic, gradually began to stiffen. Australian and Dutch forces led civilians in a prolonged guerilla campaign in Portuguese Timor.

The Doolittle Raid in April 1942, in which bombers took off from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet 600 miles (970 km) from Japan, did minimal material damage but was a huge morale boost for the United States, and it had major psychological repercussions exposing the vulnerabilities of the Japanese homeland.[106] The greatest effect of the raid, however, was that it caused the Japanese to launch the ultimately catastrophic assault on Midway.[107]

Coral Sea and Midway: the turning point[edit]

Main articles: Battle of the Coral Sea and Battle of Midway

Lexington on fire at the Coral Sea

By mid-1942, the Japanese found themselves holding a vast area from the Indian Ocean to the Central Pacific, but lacking the resources to defend or sustain it. Moreover, Combined Fleet doctrine was inadequate to execute the proposed “barrier” defense.[76][82] Instead, Japan decided on additional attacks in both the south and central Pacific. However, the element of surprise, present at Pearl Harbor, was now lost due to the success of Allied codebreakers who had discovered the next attack would be against Port Moresby. If it fell, Japan would control the seas to the north and west of Australia and could isolate the country. The carrier USS Lexington under Admiral Fletcher joined USS Yorktown and an American-Australian task force to stop the Japanese advance. The resulting Battle of the Coral Sea, fought in May 1942, was the first naval battle in which ships involved never sighted each other and only aircraft were used to attack opposing forces. Although Lexington was sunk and Yorktown seriously damaged, the Japanese lost the carrier Shōhō, and suffered extensive damage to Shōkaku and heavy losses to the air wing of Zuikaku, both of which missed the operation against Midway the following month. Although Allied losses were heavier than the Japanese, the attack on Port Moresby was thwarted and the Japanese invasion force turned back in a strategic victory for the Allies. The Japanese were subsequently forced to abandon their attempts to isolate Australia.[108] Moreover, Japan lacked the capacity to replace losses in ships, planes and trained pilots.

Japanese advance until mid-1942

After Coral Sea, Yamamoto had four fleet carriers operational—Sōryū, Kaga, Akagi and Hiryū—and believed Nimitz had a maximum of two—Enterprise and Hornet. Saratoga was out of action, undergoing repair after a torpedo attack, while Yorktown had been damaged at Coral Sea, and was believed by Japanese navy intelligence to have been sunk. She would, in fact, sortie for Midway after just three days’ of repairs involving her flight deck, with civilian work crews still aboard to be present for the next decisive engagement.

In May, Allied codebreakers again discovered Yamamoto’s next move: an attack on Midway Atoll. It was hoped the attack would lure the American carriers into a trap,[109] leading to the destruction of United States strategic power in the Pacific.[110] He also intended to occupy Midway as part of an overall plan to extend Japan’s defensive perimeter in response to the Doolittle Raid. It would then be turned into a major airbase, giving Japan control of the central Pacific.

Initially, a Japanese force was sent north to attack the Aleutian Islands as a diversion. The next stage of the plan called for the capture of Midway, which would give him an opportunity to destroy Nimitz’s remaining carriers. Admiral Nagumo was again in tactical command but was focused on the invasion of Midway; Yamamoto’s complex plan had no provision for intervention by Nimitz before the Japanese expected him. Planned surveillance of the U.S. fleet by long range seaplane did not happen (as a result of an abortive identical operation in March), so Fletcher’s carriers were able to proceed to a flanking position without being detected. Nagumo had 272 planes operating from his four carriers, the U.S. 348 (115 land-based).

As anticipated by Nimitz, the Japanese fleet arrived off Midway on 4 June and was spotted by PBY patrol aircraft.[111] Nagumo executed a first strike against Midway, while Fletcher launched his aircraft, bound for Nagumo’s carriers. At 09:20 the first U.S. carrier aircraft arrived, TBD Devastator torpedo bombers from Hornet, but their attacks were poorly coordinated and ineffectual; thanks in part to faulty aerial torpedoes, they failed to score a single hit and all 15 were wiped out by defending Zero fighters. At 09:35, 15 additional TBDs from Enterprise attacked in which 14 were lost, again with no hits. Thus far, Fletcher’s attacks had been disorganized and seemingly ineffectual, but they succeeded in drawing Nagumo’s defensive fighters down to sea level where they expended much of their fuel and ammunition repulsing the two waves of torpedo bombers. As a result, when U.S. dive bombers arrived at high altitude, the Zeros were poorly positioned to defend. To make matters worse, Nagumo’s four carriers had drifted out of formation in their efforts to avoid torpedoes, reducing the concentration of their anti-aircraft fire. Nagumo’s indecision had also created confusion aboard his carriers. Alerted to the need of a second strike on Midway, but also wary of the need to deal with the American carriers that he now knew were in the vicinity, Nagumo twice changed the arming orders for his aircraft. As a result, the American dive bombers found the Japanese carriers with their decks cluttered with munitions as the crews worked hastily to properly re-arm their air groups.[77]

Hiryū under attack by B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bombers

With the Japanese CAP out of position and the carriers at their most vulnerable, SBD Dauntlesses from Enterprise and Yorktown appeared at an altitude of 10,000 feet (3,000 m) and commenced their attack, quickly dealing fatal blows to three fleet carriers: Sōryū, Kaga, and Akagi. Within minutes, all three were ablaze and had to be abandoned with great loss of life. Hiryū managed to survive the wave of dive bombers and launched a counter-attack against the American carriers which caused severe damage to Yorktown (which was later finished off by a Japanese submarine). However, a second attack from the U.S. carriers a few hours later found and destroyed Hiryū, the last remaining fleet carrier available to Nagumo. With his carriers lost and the Americans withdrawn out of range of his powerful battleships, Yamamoto was forced to call off the operation, leaving Midway in American hands. The battle proved to be a decisive victory for the Allies. For the second time, Japanese expansion had been checked and its formidable Combined Fleet was significantly weakened by the loss of four fleet carriers and many highly trained, virtually irreplaceable, personnel. Japan would be largely on the defensive for the rest of the war.

New Guinea and the Solomons[edit]

Main articles: New Guinea campaign and Solomon Islands campaign

Japanese land forces continued to advance in the Solomon Islands and New Guinea. From July 1942, a few Australian reserve battalions, many of them very young and untrained, fought a stubborn rearguard action in New Guinea, against a Japanese advance along the Kokoda Track, towards Port Moresby, over the rugged Owen Stanley Ranges. The militia, worn out and severely depleted by casualties, were relieved in late August by regular troops from the Second Australian Imperial Force, returning from action in the Mediterranean theater. In early September 1942 Japanese marines attacked a strategic Royal Australian Air Force base at Milne Bay, near the eastern tip of New Guinea. They were beaten back by Allied (primarily Australian Army) forces.

Guadalcanal[edit]

U.S. Marines rest in the field during the Guadalcanal campaign in November 1942

Main article: Guadalcanal Campaign

At the same time as major battles raged in New Guinea, Allied forces identified a Japanese airfield under construction at Guadalcanal. Sixteen thousand Allied infantry, primarily U.S. Marines, made an amphibious landing to capture the airfield in August.[112]

With Japanese and Allied forces occupying various parts of the island, over the following six months both sides poured resources into an escalating battle of attrition on land, at sea, and in the sky. Most of the Japanese aircraft based in the South Pacific were redeployed to the defense of Guadalcanal. Many were lost in numerous engagements with the Allied air forces based at Henderson Field as well as carrier based aircraft. Meanwhile, Japanese ground forces launched repeated attacks on heavily defended US positions around Henderson Field, in which they suffered appalling casualties. To sustain these offensives, resupply was carried out by Japanese convoys, termed the “Tokyo Express” by the Allies. The convoys often faced night battles with enemy naval forces in which they expended destroyers that the IJN could ill-afford to lose. Later fleet battles involving heavier ships and even daytime carrier battles resulted in a stretch of water near Guadalcanal becoming known as “Ironbottom Sound” from the multitude of ships sunk on both sides. However, the Allies were much better able to replace these losses. Finally recognizing that the campaign to recapture Henderson Field and secure Guadalcanal had simply become too costly to continue, the Japanese evacuated the island and withdrew in February 1943. In the sixth month war of attrition, the Japanese had lost as a result of failing to commit enough forces in sufficient time.[113]

Allied advances in New Guinea and the Solomons[edit]

Australian commandos in New Guinea during July 1943

By late 1942, Japanese headquarters decided to make Guadalcanal their priority. They ordered the Japanese on the Kokoda Track, within sight of the lights of Port Moresby, to retreat to the northeastern coast of New Guinea. Australian and U.S. forces attacked their fortified positions and after more than two months of fighting in the Buna–Gona area finally captured the key Japanese beachhead in early 1943.

In June 1943, the Allies launched Operation Cartwheel, which defined their offensive strategy in the South Pacific. The operation was aimed at isolating the major Japanese forward base at Rabaul and cutting its supply and communication lines. This prepared the way for Nimitz’s island-hopping campaign towards Japan.

Stalemate in China and Southeast Asia[edit]

Main articles: Second Sino-Japanese War and Burma Campaign 1942–1943

Chinese troops during the Battle of Changde in November 1943.

In mainland China, the Japanese 3rd, 6th, and 40th Divisions, a grand total of around 120,000 troops, massed at Yueyang and advanced southward in three columns and crossed the Xinqiang River, and tried again to cross the Miluo River to reach Changsha. In January 1942, Chinese forces got a victory at Changsha which was the first Allied success against Japan.[114]
After the Doolittle Raid, the Japanese army conducted a massive sweep through Zhejiang and Jiangxi of China, now known as the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Campaign, with the goal of searching out the surviving American airmen, applying retribution on the Chinese who aided them and destroying air bases. This operation started on 15 May 1942 with 40 infantry battalions and 15–16 artillery battalions but was repelled by Chinese forces in September.[115] During this campaign, The Imperial Japanese Army left behind a trail of devastation and had also spread cholera, typhoid, plague and dysentery pathogens. Chinese estimates put the death toll at 250,000 civilians. Around 1,700 Japanese troops died out of a total 10,000 Japanese soldiers who fell ill with disease when their own biological weapons attack rebounded on their own forces.[116][117][118]
On 2 November 1943, Isamu Yokoyama, commander of the Imperial Japanese 11th Army, deployed the 39th, 58th, 13th, 3rd, 116th and 68th divisions, a grand total of around 100,000 troops, to attack Changde of China.[119]During the seven-week Battle of Changde, the Chinese forced Japan to fight a costly war of attrition. Although the Japanese army initially successfully captured the city, the Chinese 57th division was able to pin them down long enough for reinforcements to arrive and encircle the Japanese. The Chinese army then cut off the Japanese supply lines, forcing them into retreat, whereupon the Chinese pursued their enemy.[119][120] During the battle, in an act of desperation, Japan used chemical weapons.[121]
In the aftermath of the Japanese conquest of Burma, there was widespread disorder in eastern India, and a disastrous famine in Bengal, which ultimately caused up to 3 million deaths. In spite of these, and inadequate lines of communication, British and Indian forces attempted limited counter-attacks in Burma in early 1943. An offensive in Arakan failed, while a long distance raid mounted by the Chindits under Brigadier Orde Wingate suffered heavy losses, but was publicized to bolster Allied morale. It also provoked the Japanese to mount major offensives themselves the following year.

In August 1943 the Allies formed a new South East Asia Command (SEAC) to take over strategic responsibilities for Burma and India from the British India Command, under Wavell. In October 1943 Winston Churchill appointed Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten as its Supreme Commander. The British and Indian Fourteenth Army was formed to face the Japanese in Burma. Under Lieutenant General William Slim, its training, morale and health greatly improved. The American General Joseph Stilwell, who also was deputy commander to Mountbatten and commanded U.S. forces in the China Burma India Theater, directed aid to China and prepared to construct the Ledo Road to link India and China by land.

On 22 November 1943 U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and ROC Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, met in Cairo, Egypt, to discuss a strategy to defeat Japan. The meeting was also known as Cairo Conference and concluded with the Cairo Declaration.

Allied offensives, 1943–44[edit]

The Allied leaders of the Asian and Pacific Theaters: Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill meeting at the Cairo Conference in 1943

Midway proved to be the last great naval battle for two years. The United States used the ensuing period to turn its vast industrial potential into increased numbers of ships, planes, and trained aircrew.[122] At the same time, Japan, lacking an adequate industrial base or technological strategy, a good aircrew training program, or adequate naval resources and commerce defense, fell further and further behind. In strategic terms the Allies began a long movement across the Pacific, seizing one island base after another. Not every Japanese stronghold had to be captured; some, like Truk, Rabaul, and Formosa, were neutralized by air attack and bypassed. The goal was to get close to Japan itself, then launch massive strategic air attacks, improve the submarine blockade, and finally (only if necessary) execute an invasion.

In November 1943 U.S. Marines sustained high casualties when they overwhelmed the 4,500-strong garrison at Tarawa. This helped the Allies to improve the techniques of amphibious landings, learning from their mistakes and implementing changes such as thorough pre-emptive bombings and bombardment, more careful planning regarding tides and landing craft schedules, and better overall coordination.

The U.S. Navy did not seek out the Japanese fleet for a decisive battle, as Mahanian doctrine would suggest (and as Japan hoped); the Allied advance could only be stopped by a Japanese naval attack, which oil shortages (induced by submarine attack) made impossible.[82][100]

Submarine warfare[edit]

Main article: Allied submarines in the Pacific War

U.S. submarines, as well as some British and Dutch vessels, operating from bases at Cavite in the Philippines (1941–42); Fremantle and Brisbane, Australia; Pearl Harbor; Trincomalee, Ceylon; Midway; and later Guam, played a major role in defeating Japan, even though submarines made up a small proportion of the Allied navies—less than two percent in the case of the US Navy.[100][123] Submarines strangled Japan by sinking its merchant fleet, intercepting many troop transports, and cutting off nearly all the oil imports essential to weapons production and military operations. By early 1945, Japanese oil supplies were so limited that its fleet was virtually stranded.

The Japanese military claimed its defenses sank 468 Allied submarines during the war.[124] In reality, only 42 American submarines were sunk in the Pacific due to hostile action, with 10 others lost in accidents or as the result of friendly fire.[125] The Dutch lost five submarines due to Japanese attack or minefields,[126] and the British lost three.

The torpedoed Japanese destroyer Yamakaze, as seen through the periscope of an American submarine, Nautilus, in June 1942

American submarines accounted for 56% of the Japanese merchantmen sunk; mines or aircraft destroyed most of the rest.[125] American submariners also claimed 28% of Japanese warships destroyed.[127] Furthermore, they played important reconnaissance roles, as at the battles of the Philippine Sea (June 1944) and Leyte Gulf (October 1944) (and, coincidentally,[clarification needed] at Midway in June 1942), when they gave accurate and timely warning of the approach of the Japanese fleet. Submarines also rescued hundreds of downed fliers, including future U.S. president George H. W. Bush.

Allied submarines did not adopt a defensive posture and wait for the enemy to attack. Within hours of the Pearl Harbor attack, in retribution against Japan, Roosevelt promulgated a new doctrine: unrestricted submarine warfare against Japan. This meant sinking any warship, commercial vessel, or passenger ship in Axis-controlled waters, without warning and without aiding survivors.[nb 13] At the outbreak of the war in the Pacific, the Dutch admiral in charge of the naval defense of the East Indies, Conrad Helfrich, gave instructions to wage war aggressively. His small force of submarines sank more Japanese ships in the first weeks of the war than the entire British and US navies together, an exploit which earned him the nickname “Ship-a-day Helfrich”.[128] The Dutch force were in fact the first to sink an enemy warship; On 24 December 1941, HNLMS K XVI torpedoed and sank the Japanese destroyer Sagiri.

While Japan had a large number of submarines, they did not make a significant impact on the war. In 1942, the Japanese fleet submarines performed well, knocking out or damaging many Allied warships. However, Imperial Japanese Navy (and pre-war U.S.) doctrine stipulated that only fleet battles, not guerre de course (commerce raiding) could win naval campaigns. So, while the US had an unusually long supply line between its west coast and frontline areas, leaving it vulnerable to submarine attack, Japan used its submarines primarily for long-range reconnaissance and only occasionally attacked US supply lines. The Japanese submarine offensive against Australia in 1942 and 1943 also achieved little.[129]

As the war turned against Japan, IJN submarines increasingly served to resupply strongholds which had been cut off, such as Truk and Rabaul. In addition, Japan honored its neutrality treaty with the Soviet Union and ignored American freighters shipping millions of tons of military supplies from San Francisco to Vladivostok,[130] much to the consternation of its German ally.

The I-400 class, the largest non-nuclear submarines ever constructed.

The US Navy, by contrast, relied on commerce raiding from the outset. However, the problem of Allied forces surrounded in the Philippines, during the early part of 1942, led to diversion of boats to “guerrilla submarine” missions. As well, basing in Australia placed boats under Japanese aerial threat while en route to patrol areas, reducing their effectiveness, and Nimitz relied on submarines for close surveillance of enemy bases. Furthermore, the standard-issue Mark 14 torpedo and its Mark VI exploder both proved defective, problems which were not corrected until September 1943. Worst of all, before the war, an uninformed US Customs officer had seized a copy of the Japanese merchant marine code (called the “maru code” in the USN), not knowing that the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) had broken it.[131] The Japanese promptly changed it, and the new code was not broken again by OP-20-G until 1943.

Thus, only in 1944 did the US Navy begin to use its 150 submarines to maximum effect: installing effective shipboard radar, replacing commanders deemed lacking in aggression, and fixing the faults in the torpedoes. Japanese commerce protection was “shiftless beyond description,”[nb 14] and convoys were poorly organized and defended compared to Allied ones, a product of flawed IJN doctrine and training – errors concealed by American faults as much as Japanese overconfidence. The number of American submarines patrols (and sinkings) rose steeply: 350 patrols (180 ships sunk) in 1942, 350 (335) in 1943, and 520 (603) in 1944.[133] By 1945, sinkings of Japanese vessels had decreased because so few targets dared to venture out on the high seas. In all, Allied submarines destroyed 1,200 merchant ships – about five million tons of shipping. Most were small cargo carriers, but 124 were tankers bringing desperately needed oil from the East Indies. Another 320 were passenger ships and troop transports. At critical stages of the Guadalcanal, Saipan, and Leyte campaigns, thousands of Japanese troops were killed or diverted from where they were needed. Over 200 warships were sunk, ranging from many auxiliaries and destroyers to one battleship and no fewer than eight carriers.

Underwater warfare was especially dangerous; of the 16,000 Americans who went out on patrol, 3,500 (22%) never returned, the highest casualty rate of any American force in World War II.[134] The Joint Army–Navy Assessment Committee assessed U.S. Submarine credits.[135][136] The Japanese losses, 130 submarines in all,[137] were even higher.[138]

Japanese counteroffensives in China, 1944[edit]

Main article: Operation Ichi-Go

In mid-1944 Japan mobilized over 500,000 men[139] and launched a massive operation across China under the code name Operation Ichi-Go, their largest offensive of World War II, with the goal of connecting Japanese-controlled territory in China and French Indochina and capturing airbases in southeastern China where American bombers were based.[140] During this time, about 250,000 newest American-trained Chinese troops under Joseph Stilwell and Chinese expeditionary force were forcibly locked in the Burmese theater set by terms of the Lend-Lease Agreement.[140] Though Japan suffered about 100,000 casualties,[141] these attacks, the biggest in several years, gained much ground for Japan before Chinese forces stopped the incursions in Guangxi. Despite major tactical victories, the operation overall failed to provide Japan with any significant strategic gains. A great majority of the Chinese forces were able to retreat out of the area, and later come back to attack Japanese positions such as Battle of West Hunan. Japan was not any closer in defeating China after this operation, and the constant defeats the Japanese suffered in the Pacific meant that Japan never got the time and resources needed to achieve final victory over China. Operation Ichi-go created a great sense of social confusion in the areas of China that it affected. Chinese Communist guerrillas were able to exploit this confusion to gain influence and control of greater areas of the countryside in the aftermath of Ichi-go.[142]

Japanese offensive in India, 1944[edit]

Main article: Burma Campaign 1944

Chinese forces on M3A3 Stuart tanks on the Ledo Road

British Indian troops during the Battle of Imphal

After the Allied setbacks in 1943, the South East Asia command prepared to launch offensives into Burma on several fronts. In the first months of 1944, the Chinese and American troops of the Northern Combat Area Command (NCAC), commanded by the American Joseph Stilwell, began extending the Ledo Road from India into northern Burma, while the XV Corps began an advance along the coast in the Arakan Province. In February 1944 the Japanese mounted a local counter-attack in the Arakan. After early Japanese success, this counter-attack was defeated when the Indian divisions of XV Corps stood firm, relying on aircraft to drop supplies to isolated forward units until reserve divisions could relieve them.

The Japanese responded to the Allied attacks by launching an offensive of their own into India in the middle of March, across the mountainous and densely forested frontier. This attack, codenamed Operation U-Go, was advocated by Lieutenant General Renya Mutaguchi, the recently promoted commander of the Japanese Fifteenth Army; Imperial General Headquarters permitted it to proceed, despite misgivings at several intervening headquarters. Although several units of the British Fourteenth Army had to fight their way out of encirclement, by early April they had concentrated around Imphal in Manipur state. A Japanese division which had advanced to Kohima in Nagaland cut the main road to Imphal, but failed to capture the whole of the defences at Kohima. During April, the Japanese attacks against Imphal failed, while fresh Allied formations drove the Japanese from the positions they had captured at Kohima.

As many Japanese had feared, Japan’s supply arrangements could not maintain her forces. Once Mutaguchi’s hopes for an early victory were thwarted, his troops, particularly those at Kohima, starved. During May, while Mutaguchi continued to order attacks, the Allies advanced southwards from Kohima and northwards from Imphal. The two Allied attacks met on 22 June, breaking the Japanese siege of Imphal. The Japanese finally broke off the operation on 3 July. They had lost over 50,000 troops, mainly to starvation and disease. This represented the worst defeat suffered by the Japanese Army to that date.[citation needed]

Although the advance in the Arakan had been halted to release troops and aircraft for the Battle of Imphal, the Americans and Chinese had continued to advance in northern Burma, aided by the Chindits operating against the Japanese lines of communication. In the middle of 1944 the Chinese Expeditionary Force invaded northern Burma from Yunnan. They captured a fortified position at Mount Song.[143] By the time campaigning ceased during the monsoon rains, the NCAC had secured a vital airfield at Myitkyina (August 1944), which eased the problems of air resupply from India to China over “The Hump“.

Beginning of the end in the Pacific, 1944[edit]

Saipan and Philippine Sea[edit]

Main articles: Battle of Saipan and Battle of the Philippine Sea

The Japanese aircraft carrier Zuikaku and two destroyers under attack in the Battle of the Philippine Sea.

On 15 June 1944, 535 ships began landing 128,000 U.S. Army and Marine personnel on the island of Saipan. The Allied objective was the creation of airfields within B-29 range of Tokyo. The ability to plan and execute such a complex operation in the space of 90 days was indicative of Allied logistical superiority.

It was imperative for Japanese commanders to hold Saipan. The only way to do this was to destroy the U.S. Fifth Fleet, which had 15 fleet carriers and 956 planes, 7 battleships, 28 submarines, and 69 destroyers, as well as several light and heavy cruisers. Vice Admiral Jisaburō Ozawa attacked with nine-tenths of Japan’s fighting fleet, which included nine carriers with 473 planes, 5 battleships, several cruisers, and 28 destroyers. Ozawa’s pilots were outnumbered 2:1 and their aircraft were becoming or were already obsolete. The Japanese had considerable antiaircraft defenses but lacked proximity fuzes or good radar. With the odds against him, Ozawa devised an appropriate strategy. His planes had greater range because they were not weighed down with protective armor; they could attack at about 480 km (300 mi)[citation needed], and could search a radius of 900 km[citation needed](560 mi). U.S. Navy Hellcat fighters could only attack within 200 miles (320 km) and only search within a 325-mile (523 km)[citation needed] radius. Ozawa planned to use this advantage by positioning his fleet 300 miles (480 km)[citation needed] out. The Japanese planes would hit the U.S. carriers, land at Guam to refuel, then hit the enemy again when returning to their carriers. Ozawa also counted on about 500 land-based planes at Guam and other islands.

Admiral Raymond A. Spruance was in overall command of Fifth Fleet. The Japanese plan would have failed if the much larger U.S. fleet had closed on Ozawa and attacked aggressively; Ozawa correctly inferred Spruance would not attack. U.S. Admiral Marc Mitscher, in tactical command of Task Force 58, with its 15 carriers, was aggressive but Spruance vetoed Mitscher’s plan to hunt down Ozawa because Spruance’s orders made protecting the landings on Saipan his first priority.

Marines fire captured mountain gun during the attack on Garapan, Saipan, 21 June 1944.

The forces converged in the largest sea battle of World War II up to that point. Over the previous month American destroyers had destroyed 17 of 25 submarines out of Ozawa’s screening force.[144][145] Repeated U.S. raids destroyed the Japanese land-based planes. Ozawa’s main attack lacked coordination, with the Japanese planes arriving at their targets in a staggered sequence. Following a directive from Nimitz, the U.S. carriers all had combat information centers, which interpreted the flow of radar data and radioed interception orders to the Hellcats. The result was later dubbed the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot. The few attackers to reach the U.S. fleet encountered massive AA fire with proximity fuzes. Only one American warship was slightly damaged.

On the second day, U.S. reconnaissance planes located Ozawa’s fleet, 275 miles (443 km)[citation needed] away, and submarines sank two Japanese carriers. Mitscher launched 230 torpedo planes and dive bombers. He then discovered the enemy was actually another 60 miles (97 km)[citation needed] further off, out of aircraft range (based on a roundtrip flight). Mitscher decided this chance to destroy the Japanese fleet was worth the risk of aircraft losses due to running out of fuel on the return flight. Overall, the U.S. lost 130 planes and 76 aircrew; however, Japan lost 450 planes, three carriers, and 445 aircrew. The Imperial Japanese Navy’s carrier force was effectively destroyed.[146]

Leyte Gulf, 1944[edit]

Main article: Battle of Leyte Gulf

The Battle of Leyte Gulf was arguably the largest naval battle in history and was the largest naval battle of World War II. It was a series of four distinct engagements fought off the Philippine island of Leyte from 23 to 26 October 1944. Leyte Gulf featured the largest battleships ever built, was the last time in history that battleships engaged each other, and was also notable as the first time that kamikaze aircraft were used. Allied victory in the Philippine Sea established Allied air and sea superiority in the western Pacific. Nimitz favored blockading the Philippines and landing on Formosa. This would give the Allies control of the sea routes to Japan from southern Asia, cutting off substantial Japanese garrisons. MacArthur favored an invasion of the Philippines, which also lay across the supply lines to Japan. Roosevelt adjudicated in favor of the Philippines. Meanwhile, Japanese Combined Fleet Chief Toyoda Soemu prepared four plans to cover all Allied offensive scenarios. On 12 October Nimitz launched a carrier raid against Formosa to make sure that planes based there could not intervene in the landings on Leyte. Toyoda put Plan Sho-2 into effect, launching a series of air attacks against the U.S. carriers. However the Japanese lost 600 planes in three days, leaving them without air cover.

The four engagements in the battle of Leyte Gulf

Sho-1 called for V. Adm. Jisaburō Ozawa‘s force to use an apparently vulnerable carrier force to lure the U.S. 3rd Fleet away from Leyte and remove air cover from the Allied landing forces, which would then be attacked from the west by three Japanese forces: V. Adm. Takeo Kurita‘s force would enter Leyte Gulf and attack the landing forces; R. Adm. Shōji Nishimura‘s force and V. Adm. Kiyohide Shima‘s force would act as mobile strike forces. The plan was likely to result in the destruction of one or more of the Japanese forces, but Toyoda justified it by saying that there would be no sense in saving the fleet and losing the Philippines.

Kurita’s “Center Force” consisted of five battleships, 12 cruisers and 13 destroyers. It included the two largest battleships ever built: Yamato and Musashi. As they passed Palawan Island after midnight on 23 October the force was spotted, and U.S. submarines sank two cruisers. On 24 October, as Kurita’s force entered the Sibuyan Sea, USS Intrepid and USS Cabot launched 260 planes, which scored hits on several ships. A second wave of planes scored many direct hits on Musashi. A third wave, from USS Enterprise and USS Franklin hit Musashi with 11 bombs and eight torpedoes. Kurita retreated but in the evening turned around to head for San Bernardino Strait. Musashi sank at about 19:30.

Meanwhile, V. Adm. Onishi Takijiro had directed his First Air Fleet, 80 land-based planes, against U.S. carriers, whose planes were attacking airfields on Luzon. The carrier USS Princeton was hit by an armor-piercing bomb and suffered a major explosion which killed 108 crew (out of 1,569) and 233 on the cruiser USS Birmingham which was fire-fighting alongside. Princeton sank, and Birmingham was forced to retire.

Nishimura’s force consisted of two battleships, one cruiser and four destroyers. Because they were observing radio silence, Nishimura was unable to synchronize with Shima and Kurita. Nishimura and Shima had failed to even coordinate their plans before the attacks – they were long-time rivals and neither wished to have anything to do with the other. When he entered the narrow Surigao Strait at about 02:00, Shima was 22 miles (40 km) behind him, and Kurita was still in the Sibuyan Sea, several hours from the beaches at Leyte. As they passed Panaon Island, Nishimura’s force ran into a trap set for them by the U.S.-Australian 7th Fleet Support Force. R. Adm. Jesse Oldendorf had six battleships, four heavy cruisers, four light cruisers, 29 destroyers and 39 PT boats. To pass the strait and reach the landings, Nishimura had to run the gauntlet. At about 03:00 the Japanese battleship Fusō and three destroyers were hit by torpedoes and Fusō broke in two. At 03:50 the U.S. battleships opened fire. Radar fire control meant they could hit targets from a much greater distance than the Japanese. The battleship Yamashiro, a cruiser and a destroyer were crippled by 16-inch (406 mm) shells; Yamashiro sank at 04:19. Only one of Nishimura’s force of seven ships survived the engagement. At 04:25 Shima’s force of two cruisers and eight destroyers reached the battle. Seeing Fusō and believing her to be the wrecks of two battleships, Shima ordered a retreat, ending the last battleship-vs-battleship action in history.

Ozawa’s “Northern Force” had four aircraft carriers, two obsolete battleships partly converted to carriers, three cruisers and nine destroyers. The carriers had only 108 planes. The force was not spotted by the Allies until 16:40 on 24 October. At 20:00 Toyoda ordered all remaining Japanese forces to attack. Halsey saw an opportunity to destroy the remnants of the Japanese carrier force. The U.S. Third Fleet was formidable – nine large carriers, eight light carriers, six battleships, 17 cruisers, 63 destroyers and 1,000 planes – and completely outgunned Ozawa’s force. Halsey’s ships set out in pursuit of Ozawa just after midnight. U.S. commanders ignored reports that Kurita had turned back towards San Bernardino Strait. They had taken the bait set by Ozawa. On the morning of 25 October Ozawa launched 75 planes. Most were shot down by U.S. fighter patrols. By 08:00 U.S. fighters had destroyed the screen of Japanese fighters and were hitting ships. By evening, they had sunk the carriers Zuikaku, Zuihō, and Chiyoda, and a destroyer. The fourth carrier, Chitose, and a cruiser were disabled and later sank.

The Japanese aircraft carriers Zuikaku, left, and (probably) Zuihō come under attack by dive bombers early in the battle off Cape Engaño.

Kurita passed through San Bernardino Strait at 03:00 on 25 October and headed along the coast of Samar. The only thing standing in his path were three groups (Taffy 1, 2 and 3) of the Seventh Fleet, commanded by Admiral Thomas Kinkaid. Each group had six escort carriers, with a total of more than 500 planes, and seven or eight destroyers or destroyer escorts (DE). Kinkaid still believed that Lee’s force was guarding the north, so the Japanese had the element of surprise when they attacked Taffy 3 at 06:45. Kurita mistook the Taffy carriers for large fleet carriers and thought he had the whole Third Fleet in his sights. Since escort carriers stood little chance against a battleship, Adm. Clifton Sprague directed the carriers of Taffy 3 to turn and flee eastward, hoping that bad visibility would reduce the accuracy of Japanese gunfire, and used his destroyers to divert the Japanese battleships. The destroyers made harassing torpedo attacks against the Japanese. For ten minutes Yamato was caught up in evasive action. Two U.S. destroyers and a DE were sunk, but they had bought enough time for the Taffy groups to launch planes. Taffy 3 turned and fled south, with shells scoring hits on some of its carriers and sinking one of them. The superior speed of the Japanese force allowed it to draw closer and fire on the other two Taffy groups. However, at 09:20 Kurita suddenly turned and retreated north. Signals had disabused him of the notion that he was attacking the Third Fleet, and the longer Kurita continued to engage, the greater the risk of major air strikes. Destroyer attacks had broken the Japanese formations, shattering tactical control. Three of Kurita’s heavy cruisers had been sunk and another was too damaged to continue the fight. The Japanese retreated through the San Bernardino Strait, under continuous air attack. The Battle of Leyte Gulf was over;[147] and a large part of the Japanese surface fleet destroyed.[148]

The battle secured the beachheads of the U.S. Sixth Army on Leyte against attack from the sea, broke the back of Japanese naval power and opened the way for an advance to the Ryukyu Islands in 1945. The only significant Japanese naval operation afterwards was the disastrous Operation Ten-Go in April 1945. Kurita’s force had begun the battle with five battleships; when he returned to Japan, only Yamato was combat-worthy. Nishimura’s sunken Yamashiro was the last battleship in history to engage another in combat.

Philippines, 1944–45[edit]

General Douglas MacArthur wading ashore at Leyte

Main article: Philippines Campaign (1944–45)

On 20 October 1944 the U.S. Sixth Army, supported by naval and air bombardment, landed on the favorable eastern shore of Leyte, north of Mindanao. The U.S. Sixth Army continued its advance from the east, as the Japanese rushed reinforcements to the Ormoc Bay area on the western side of the island. While the Sixth Army was reinforced successfully, the U.S. Fifth Air Force was able to devastate the Japanese attempts to resupply. In torrential rains and over difficult terrain, the advance continued across Leyte and the neighboring island of Samar to the north. On 7 December U.S. Army units landed at Ormoc Bay and, after a major land and air battle, cut off the Japanese ability to reinforce and supply Leyte. Although fierce fighting continued on Leyte for months, the U.S. Army was in control.

On 15 December 1944 landings against minimal resistance were made on the southern beaches of the island of Mindoro, a key location in the planned Lingayen Gulf operations, in support of major landings scheduled on Luzon. On 9 January 1945, on the south shore of Lingayen Gulf on the western coast of Luzon, General Krueger‘s Sixth Army landed his first units. Almost 175,000 men followed across the twenty-mile (32 km) beachhead within a few days. With heavy air support, Army units pushed inland, taking Clark Field, 40 miles (64 km) northwest of Manila, in the last week of January.

U.S. troops approaching Japanese positions near Baguio, Luzon, 23 March 1945

Two more major landings followed, one to cut off the Bataan Peninsula, and another, that included a parachute drop, south of Manila. Pincers closed on the city and, on 3 February 1945, elements of the 1st Cavalry Division pushed into the northern outskirts of Manila and the 8th Cavalry passed through the northern suburbs and into the city itself.

As the advance on Manila continued from the north and the south, the Bataan Peninsula was rapidly secured. On 16 February paratroopers and amphibious units assaulted the island fortress of Corregidor, and resistance ended there on 27 February.

In all, ten U.S. divisions and five independent regiments battled on Luzon, making it the largest campaign of the Pacific war, involving more troops than the United States had used in North Africa, Italy, or southern France. Of the 250,000 Japanese troops defending Luzon, 80 percent died.[149] The last Japanese soldier in the Philippines to surrender was Hiroo Onoda on 9 March 1974.[150]

Palawan Island, between Borneo and Mindoro, the fifth largest and western-most Philippine Island, was invaded on 28 February with landings of the Eighth Army at Puerto Princesa. The Japanese put up little direct defense of Palawan, but cleaning up pockets of Japanese resistance lasted until late April, as the Japanese used their common tactic of withdrawing into the mountain jungles, dispersed as small units. Throughout the Philippines, U.S. forces were aided by Filipino guerrillas to find and dispatch the holdouts.

The U.S. Eighth Army then moved on to its first landing on Mindanao (17 April), the last of the major Philippine Islands to be taken. Mindanao was followed by invasion and occupation of Panay, Cebu, Negros and several islands in the Sulu Archipelago. These islands provided bases for the U.S. Fifth and Thirteenth Air Forces to attack targets throughout the Philippines and the South China Sea.

Final stages[edit]

See also: End of World War II in Asia

Iwo Jima Location Map

Iwo Jima, February 1945[edit]

Main article: Battle of Iwo Jima

The battle of Iwo Jima (“Operation Detachment”) in February 1945 was one of the bloodiest battles fought by the Americans in the Pacific War. Iwo Jima was an 8 sq mile (21 km2) island situated halfway between Tokyo and the Mariana Islands. Holland Smith, the commander of the invasion force, aimed to capture the island, and utilize its three airfields as bases to carry out air attacks against the Home Islands. Lt. General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, the commander of the island’s defense, knew that he could not win the battle, but he hoped to make the Americans suffer far more than they could endure.

From early 1944 until the days leading up to the invasion, Kuribayashi transformed the island into a massive network of bunkers, hidden guns, and 11 mi (18 km) of underground tunnels. The heavy American naval and air bombardment did little but drive the Japanese further underground, making their positions impervious to enemy fire. Their pillboxes and bunkers were all connected so that if one was knocked out, it could be reoccupied again. The network of bunkers and pillboxes greatly favored the defender.

Starting in mid-June 1944, Iwo Jima came under sustained aerial bombardment and naval artillery fire. However, Kuribayashi’s hidden guns and defenses survived the constant bombardment virtually unscathed. On 19 February 1945, some 30,000 men of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Marine Divisions landed on the southeast coast of Iwo, just under Mount Suribachi; where most of the island’s defenses were concentrated. For some time, they did not come under fire. This was part of Kuribayashi’s plan to hold fire until the landing beaches were full. As soon as the Marines pushed inland to a line of enemy bunkers, they came under devastating machine gun and artillery fire which cut down many of the men. By the end of the day, the Marines reached the west coast of the island, but their losses were appalling; almost 2,000 men killed or wounded.

On 23 February, the 28th Marine Regiment reached the summit of Suribachi, prompting the now famous Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima picture. Navy Secretary James Forrestal, upon seeing the flag, remarked “there will be a Marine Corps for the next 500 years”. The flag raising is often cited as the most reproduced photograph of all time and became the archetypal representation not only of that battle, but of the entire Pacific War. For the rest of February, the Americans pushed north, and by 1 March, had taken two-thirds of the island. But it was not until 26 March that the island was finally secured. The Japanese fought to the last man, killing 6,800 Marines and wounding nearly 20,000 more. The Japanese losses totaled well over 20,000 men killed, and only 1,083 prisoners were taken. Historians debate whether it was strategically worth the casualties sustained.[151]

Allied offensives in Burma, 1944–45[edit]

Main article: Burma Campaign 1944–45

British Royal Marines land at Ramree

In late 1944 and early 1945, the Allied South East Asia Command launched offensives into Burma, intending to recover most of the country, including Rangoon, the capital, before the onset of the monsoon in May.

The Indian XV Corps advanced along the coast in Arakan province, at last capturing Akyab Island after failures in the two previous years. They then landed troops behind the retreating Japanese, inflicting heavy casualties, and captured Ramree Island and Cheduba Island off the coast, establishing airfields on them which were used to support the offensive into Central Burma.

The Chinese Expeditionary Force captured Mong-Yu and Lashio,[152] while the Chinese and American Northern Combat Area Command resumed its advance in northern Burma. In late January 1945, these two forces linked up with each other at Hsipaw. The Ledo Road was completed, linking India and China, but too late in the war to have any significant effect.

The Japanese Burma Area Army attempted to forestall the main Allied attack on the central part of the front by withdrawing their troops behind the Irrawaddy River. Lieutenant General Heitarō Kimura, the new Japanese commander in Burma, hoped that the Allies’ lines of communications would be overstretched trying to cross this obstacle. However, the advancing British Fourteenth Army under Lieutenant General William Slim switched its axis of advance to outflank the main Japanese armies.

During February, Fourteenth Army secured bridgeheads across the Irrawaddy on a broad front. On 1 March, units of IV Corps captured the supply centre of Meiktila, throwing the Japanese into disarray. While the Japanese attempted to recapture Meiktila, XXXIII Corps captured Mandalay. The Japanese armies were heavily defeated, and with the capture of Mandalay, the Burmese population and the Burma National Army (which the Japanese had raised) turned against the Japanese.

During April, Fourteenth Army advanced 300 miles (480 km) south towards Rangoon, the capital and principal port of Burma, but was delayed by Japanese rearguards 40 miles (64 km) north of Rangoon at the end of the month. Slim feared that the Japanese would defend Rangoon house-to-house during the monsoon, placing his army in a disastrous supply situation, and in March he had asked that a plan to capture Rangoon by an amphibious force, Operation Dracula, which had been abandoned earlier, be reinstated.[153]Dracula was launched on 1 May, but Rangoon was found to have been abandoned. The troops which occupied Rangoon linked up with Fourteenth Army five days later, securing the Allies’ lines of communication.

The Japanese forces which had been bypassed by the Allied advances attempted to break out across the Sittaung River during June and July to rejoin the Burma Area Army which had regrouped in Tenasserim in southern Burma. They suffered 14,000 casualties, half their strength. Overall, the Japanese lost some 150,000 men in Burma. Only 1,700 prisoners were taken.[154]

The Allies were preparing to make amphibious landings in Malaya when word of the Japanese surrender arrived.

Liberation of Borneo[edit]

U.S. LVTs land Australian soldiers at Balikpapan on 7 July 1945

Main article: Borneo campaign (1945)

The Borneo Campaign of 1945 was the last major campaign in the South West Pacific Area. In a series of amphibious assaults between 1 May and 21 July, the Australian I Corps, under General Leslie Morshead, attacked Japanese forces occupying the island. Allied naval and air forces, centered on the U.S. 7th Fleet under Admiral Thomas Kinkaid, the Australian First Tactical Air Force and the U.S. Thirteenth Air Force also played important roles in the campaign.

The campaign opened with a landing on the small island of Tarakan on 1 May. This was followed on 1 June by simultaneous assaults in the north west, on the island of Labuan and the coast of Brunei. A week later the Australians attacked Japanese positions in North Borneo. The attention of the Allies then switched back to the central east coast, with the last major amphibious assault of World War II, at Balikpapan on 1 July.

Although the campaign was criticized in Australia at the time, and in subsequent years, as pointless or a “waste” of the lives of soldiers, it did achieve a number of objectives, such as increasing the isolation of significant Japanese forces occupying the main part of the Dutch East Indies, capturing major oil supplies and freeing Allied prisoners of war, who were being held in deteriorating conditions.[155] At one of the very worst sites, around Sandakan in Borneo, only six of some 2,500 British and Australian prisoners survived.[154]

China, 1945[edit]

Main articles: Battle of West Hunan and Second Guangxi Campaign

By April 1945, China had already been at war with Japan for more than seven years. Both nations were exhausted by years of battles, bombings and blockades. After Japanese victories in Operation Ichi-Go, Japan were losing the battle in Burma and facing constant attacks from Chinese Nationalists forces and Communist guerrillas in the country side. The Japanese army began preparations for the Battle of West Hunan in March 1945. Japanese mobilized 34th, 47th, 64th, 68th and 116th Divisions, as well as the 86th Independent Brigade, for a total of 80,000 men to seize Chinese airfields and secure railroads in West Hunan by early April.[156] In response, the Chinese National Military Council dispatched the 4th Front Army and the 10th and 27th Army Groups with He Yingqin as commander-in-chief.[157] At the same time, it airlifted the entire Chinese New 6th Corps, an American-equipped corps and veterans of the Burma Expeditionary Force, from Kunming to Zhijiang.[156] Chinese forces totaled 110,000 men in 20 divisions. They were supported by about 400 aircraft from Chinese and American air forces.[158] Chinese forces achieved a decisive victory and launched a large counterattack in this campaign. Concurrently, the Chinese managed to repel a Japanese offensive in Henan and Hubei.[157]Afterwards, Chinese forces retook Hunan and Hubei provinces in South China. Chinese launched a counter offensive to retake Guangxi which was the last major Japanese stronghold in South China. In August 1945, Chinese forces successfully retook Guangxi.[citation needed]

Okinawa[edit]

USS Bunker Hill burns after being hit by two kamikazes. At Okinawa the kamikazes caused 4,900 American deaths.

Main article: Battle of Okinawa

The largest and bloodiest American battle came at Okinawa, as the U.S. sought airbases for 3,000 B-29 bombers and 240 squadrons of B-17 bombers for the intense bombardment of Japan’s home islands in preparation for a full-scale invasion in late 1945. The Japanese, with 115,000 troops augmented by thousands of civilians on the heavily populated island, did not resist on the beaches—their strategy was to maximize the number of soldier and Marine casualties, and naval losses from Kamikaze attacks. After an intense bombardment the Americans landed on 1 April 1945 and declared victory on 21 June.[159] The supporting naval forces were the targets for 4,000 sorties, many by Kamikaze suicide planes. U.S. losses totaled 38 ships of all types sunk and 368 damaged with 4,900 sailors killed. The Americans suffered 75,000 casualties on the ground; 94% of the Japanese soldiers died along with many civilians.[160]

The British Pacific Fleet operated as a separate unit from the American task forces in the Okinawa operation. Its objective was to strike airfields on the chain of islands between Formosa and Okinawa, to prevent the Japanese reinforcing the defences of Okinawa from that direction.

Landings in the Japanese home islands[edit]

Main article: Japan campaign

Hard-fought battles on the Japanese home islands of Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and others resulted in horrific casualties on both sides but finally produced a Japanese defeat. Of the 117,000 Japanese troops defending Okinawa, 94 percent died.[149] Faced with the loss of most of their experienced pilots, the Japanese increased their use of kamikaze tactics in an attempt to create unacceptably high casualties for the Allies. The U.S. Navy proposed to force a Japanese surrender through a total naval blockade and air raids.[161]

The mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 60,000 feet (18 km) into the air on the morning of 9 August 1945.

Towards the end of the war as the role of strategic bombing became more important, a new command for the U.S. Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific was created to oversee all U.S. strategic bombing in the hemisphere, under United States Army Air Forces General Curtis LeMay. Japanese industrial production plunged as nearly half of the built-up areas of 67 cities were destroyed by B-29 firebombing raids. On 9–10 March 1945 alone, about 100,000 people were killed in a conflagration caused by an incendiary attack on Tokyo. LeMay also oversaw Operation Starvation, in which the inland waterways of Japan were extensively mined by air, which disrupted the small amount of remaining Japanese coastal sea traffic. On 26 July 1945, the President of the United States Harry S. Truman, the President of the Nationalist Government of China Chiang Kai-shek and the Prime Minister of Great Britain Winston Churchill issued the Potsdam Declaration, which outlined the terms of surrender for the Empire of Japan as agreed upon at the Potsdam Conference. This ultimatum stated that, if Japan did not surrender, it would face “prompt and utter destruction.”[162]

The Atomic bomb[edit]

Main article: Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

On 6 August 1945, the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in the first nuclear attack in history. In a press release issued after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Truman warned Japan to surrender or “…expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth.”[163] Three days later, on 9 August, the U.S. dropped another atomic bomb on Nagasaki, the last nuclear attack in history. More than 140,000–240,000 people died as a direct result of these two bombings.[164] The necessity of the atomic bombings has long been debated, with detractors claiming that a naval blockade and aerial bombing campaign had already made invasion, hence the atomic bomb, unnecessary.[165] However, other scholars have argued that the bombings shocked the Japanese government into surrender, with Emperor finally indicating his wish to stop the war. Another argument in favor of the atomic bombs is that they helped avoid Operation Downfall, or a prolonged blockade and bombing campaign, any of which would have exacted much higher casualties among Japanese civilians.[164] Historian Richard B. Frank wrote that a Soviet invasion of Japan was never likely because they had insufficient naval capability to mount an amphibious invasion of Hokkaidō.[166]

Soviet invasion of Manchuria[edit]

Pacific Fleet marines of the Soviet Navy hoisting the Soviet naval ensign in Port Arthur, on 1 October 1945.

Main articles: Soviet–Japanese War (1945) and Soviet invasion of Manchuria

On 3 February 1945 the Soviet Union agreed with Roosevelt to enter the Pacific conflict. It promised to act 90 days after the war ended in Europe and did so exactly on schedule on 9 August by invading Manchuria. A battle-hardened, one million-strong Soviet force, transferred from Europe,[167] attacked Japanese forces in Manchuria and landed a heavy blow against the Japanese Kantōgun (Kwantung Army).[168]

The Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation began on 9 August 1945, with the Soviet invasion of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo and was the last campaign of the Second World War and the largest of the 1945 Soviet–Japanese War which resumed hostilities between the Soviet Union and the Empire of Japan after almost six years of peace. Soviet gains on the continent were Manchukuo, Mengjiang (Inner Mongolia) and northern Korea. The USSR’s early entry into the war was a significant factor in the Japanese decision to surrender as it became apparent the Soviets were no longer willing to act as an intermediary for a negotiated settlement on favorable terms.[169]

Surrender[edit]

Main article: Surrender of Japan

Douglas MacArthur signs the formal Japanese Instrument of Surrender on the USS Missouri, 2 September 1945.

The effects of the “Twin Shocks”—the Soviet entry and the atomic bombing—were profound. On 10 August the “sacred decision” was made by Japanese Cabinet to accept the Potsdam terms on one condition: the “prerogative of His Majesty as a Sovereign Ruler”. At noon on 15 August, after the American government’s intentionally ambiguous reply, stating that the “authority” of the emperor “shall be subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers”, the Emperor broadcast to the nation and to the world at large the rescript of surrender,[170] ending the Second World War.

Should we continue to fight, it would not only result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization.

— Emperor Hirohito, The Voice of the Crane: The Imperial Rescript of 15 August 1945[171]

In Japan, 14 August is considered to be the day that the Pacific War ended. However, as Imperial Japan actually surrendered on 15 August, this day became known in the English-speaking countries as “V-J Day” (Victory in Japan).[172] The formal Japanese Instrument of Surrender was signed on 2 September 1945, on the battleship USS Missouri, in Tokyo Bay. The surrender was accepted by General Douglas MacArthur as Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, with representatives of several Allied nations, from a Japanese delegation led by Mamoru Shigemitsu and Yoshijirō Umezu.

Following this period, MacArthur went to Tokyo to oversee the postwar development of the country. This period in Japanese history is known as the occupation.

War crimes[edit]

Main articles: Japanese war crimes, Tokyo Trials, and Allied war crimes during World War II

Australian POW moments before his execution

On 7 December 1941, 2,403 non-combatants (2,335 neutral military personnel and 68 civilians) were killed and 1,247 wounded during the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Because the attack happened without a declaration of war and without explicit warning, it was judged by the Tokyo Trials to be a war crime.[173][174]

During the Pacific War, Japanese soldiers killed millions of non-combatants, including prisoners of war, from surrounding nations.[175] At least 20 million Chinese died during the Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945).[176][177]

Unit 731 was one example of wartime atrocities committed on a civilian population during World War II, where experiments were performed on thousands of Chinese civilians and Allied prisoners of war. In military campaigns, the Japanese Army used biological weapons and chemical weapons on the Chinese, killing around 400,000 civilians.[178] The Rape of Nanking is another example of atrocity committed by Japanese soldiers on a civilian population.[179]

Chinese corpses in a ditch after being killed by the Japanese Army, Hsuchow

According to the findings of the Tokyo Tribunal, the death rate of Western prisoners was 27.1%, seven times that of POWs under the Germans and Italians.[154] The most notorious use of forced labour was in the construction of the Burma–Thailand Death Railway. Around 1,536 U.S. civilians were killed or otherwise died of abuse and mistreatment in Japanese interment camps in the Far East; in comparison, only 883 U.S. civilians died in German internment camps in Europe.[180]

A widely publicised example of institutionalised sexual slavery are “comfort women“, a euphemism for the 200,000 women, mostly from Korea and China, who served in the Japanese army’s camps during World War II. Some 35 Dutch comfort women brought a successful case before the Batavia Military Tribunal in 1948.[181] In 1993, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yōhei Kōno said that women were coerced into brothels run by Japan’s wartime military. Other Japanese leaders have apologized, including former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in 2001. In 2007, then-Prime Minister Shinzō Abe asserted: “The fact is, there is no evidence to prove there was coercion.”[182]

The Three Alls Policy (Sankō Sakusen) was a Japanese scorched earth policy adopted in China, the three alls being: “Kill All, Burn All and Loot All”. Initiated in 1940 by Ryūkichi Tanaka, the Sankō Sakusen was implemented in full scale in 1942 in north China by Yasuji Okamura. According to historian Mitsuyoshi Himeta, the scorched earth campaign was responsible for the deaths of “more than 2.7 million” Chinese civilians.[183]

The collection of skulls and other remains of Japanese soldiers by allied soldiers was shown by several studies to have been widespread enough to be commented upon by Allied military authorities and U.S. wartime press.[184]

Following the defeat of Japan, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East took place in Ichigaya, Tokyo from 29 April 1946 to 12 November 1948 to try those accused of the most serious war crimes. Meanwhile, military tribunals were also held by the returning powers throughout Asia and the Pacific for lesser figures.[185][186]

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. Jump up^ Complete list of nations that fought on the Allied side in the Pacific War: The Republic of China, The United States, The United Kingdom (including the Fiji Islands, the Straits Settlements and other colonial forces), Tonga (a British protectorate), Australia (including the Territory of New Guinea), the Commonwealth of the Philippines (a United States protectorate), British India, the Netherlands (including Dutch East Indies colonial forces), the Soviet Union, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico, and Mongolia. Free French Naval Forces contributed several warships, such as the Triomphant. After the Liberation of France, the French battleship Richelieu was sent to the Pacific. From 1943, the commando group Corps Léger d’Intervention took part in resistance operations in Indochina. French Indochinese forces faced Japanese forces in a coup in 1945. The commando corps continued to operate after the coup until liberation.
    Guerrilla organizations that fought for the Allies include Chinese Eighth Route Army and New Fourth Army, Hukbalahap, Malayan People’s Anti-Japanese Army, Manchurian Anti-Japanese Volunteer Armies, the Korean Liberation Army, and the Viet Minh
  2. Jump up^ Complete list of nations and groups that fought on the Axis side in the Pacific War: The Empire of Japan (including Thailand, the puppet government of Manchukuo, Mengjiang, Wang Jingwei regime, and other Chinese collaborationist governments and organizations, the State of Burma, the Provisional Government of Free India, the puppet Second Philippine Republic, and other states in the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere). The Vichy French allowed the Japanese to use bases in French Indochina beginning in 1941 following invasion. In addition, Nazi Germany and Italy both contributed small naval forces.
  3. Jump up^ Strength of the US Military in Asia and the Pacific as of war’s end: Army: 1,770,036,[4] Navy (excluding Coast Guard and Marines): 1,366,716,[5] and Marine Corps: 484,631.[6] These figures do not include the Coast Guard or naval personnel in the China-Burma-India theater.[7]
  4. Jump up^ These numbers do not include the Royal Netherlands Navy.
  5. Jump up^ 111,914 battle deaths (including 13,395 who died as POWs and 5,707 who died of wounds), 49,000+ non-battle deaths,[18] 248,316 wounded, 16,358 captured and returned),[19][20]
  6. Jump up^ Over 17 million Chinese civilian deaths (1937–45);[31] around 4 million civilian deaths from the Dutch East Indies;[32][page needed], 1–2 million Indochinese civilians;[33] around 3 million[34] Indian civilian deaths in the Bengal famine of 1943; 0.5 to 1 million[35] Filipino civilian deaths; 250,000[36] to 1,000,000[37] Burmese civilian deaths; 50,000[38] East Timorese civilian deaths; and hundreds of thousands of Malayan, Pacific and other civilian deaths.[32][page needed]
  7. Jump up^ 2,133,915 Japanese military deaths 1937–45,[41] 1.18 million Chinese collaborator casualties 1937–45 (432,000 dead),[42] 22,000 Burmese casualties,[citation needed] 5,600 Thai troops killed,[43] and 2,615 Indian National Army (Azad Hind) killed/missing.[44]
  8. Jump up^ 460,000 Japanese civilian deaths (338,000 in the bombings of Japan,[45]100,000 in the Battle of Okinawa, 22,000 in the Battle of Saipan), 543,000 Korean civilian deaths (mostly due to Japanese forced labor projects),[46]2,000–8,000 Thai civilian deaths[47]
  9. Jump up^ “For fifty-three long months, beginning in July 1937, China stood alone, single-handedly fighting an undeclared war against Japan. On 9 December 1941, after Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, China finally declared war against Japan. What had been for so long a war between two countries now became part of a much wider Pacific conflict.”[50]
  10. Jump up^ : “It was not an official term, but a term of incitement used by the Japanese media, under the guidance of the military, in order to stir up the Japanese people’s sense of crisis…”[73][74]
  11. Jump up^ The Neutrality Patrol had U.S. destroyers fighting at sea, but no state of war had been declared by Congress.
  12. Jump up^ This is the same McCollum conspiracy theorists accuse of providing a blueprint for provoking Japan.
  13. Jump up^ The U.S. thereby reversed its opposition to unrestricted submarine warfare. After the war, when moralistic doubts about Hiroshima and other raids on civilian targets were loudly voiced, no one criticized Roosevelt’s submarine policy. (Two German admirals, Erich Raeder and Karl Dönitz, faced charges at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials of violating international law through unrestricted submarine warfare; the court acquitted them after they proved that Allied merchant ships were legitimate military targets under the rules in force at the time.)
  14. Jump up^ Chihaya went on to note that when the IJN belatedly improved its ASW methods, the U.S. submarine force responded by increasing Japanese losses.[132]

References[edit]

Citations[edit]

  1. Jump up^ A Decade of American Foreign Policy 1941–1949 Interim Meeting of Foreign Ministers, Moscow. Retrieved 30 September 2009.
  2. Jump up^ At war since 1937.
  3. Jump up^ Hastings pg. 205
  4. Jump up^ Coakley and Leighton (1989). Global Logistics and Strategy 1943–1945 pg. 836
  5. Jump up^ US Navy Personnel in World War II Service and Casualty Statistics, Naval History and Heritage Command Table 9.
  6. Jump up^ King, Ernest J. (1945). Third Report to the Secretary of the Navy pg. 221
  7. Jump up^ US Navy Personnel in World War II Service and Casualty Statistics, Naval History and Heritage Command Footnote 2.
  8. ^ Jump up to:a b Hastings pg. 10
  9. Jump up^ “Chapter 10: Loss of the Netherlands East Indies”. The Army Air Forces in World War II: Vol. 1 – Plans & Early Operations. HyperWar. Retrieved 31 August 2010.
  10. Jump up^ Beevor: The Second World War pg. 776 Total involved in Manchuria
  11. Jump up^ Cook (1992). Japan at War: an Oral History. New Press. ISBN 978-1-56584-039-3. pp. 403. Japanese strength is given at 4,335,500 in the Home Islands and 3,527,000 abroad.
  12. Jump up^ Harrison pp. 29 Retrieved 10 March 2016
  13. Jump up^ Australia-Japan Research Project, “Dispositions and Deaths”Retrieved 10 March 2016
  14. Jump up^ Meyer, Milton Walter (1997). Asia: A Concise History. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 309. ISBN 9780847680634.
  15. Jump up^ Jowett, pp. 72
  16. Jump up^ www.navsource.org Retrieved 25 July 2015; www.uboat.net Retrieved 25 July 2015; Major British Warship Losses in World War II. Retrieved 25 July 2015; Chinese Navy Retrieved 26 July 2015.
  17. Jump up^ Hara, Tameichi, with Fred Saito and Roger Pineau. Japanese Destroyer Captain (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2011), p. 299. Figure is for U.S. losses only. China, the British Commonwealth, the USSR and other nations collectively add several thousand more to this total.
  18. Jump up^ C. E. Albertson, “Beneath the Southern Cross” pg. xv
  19. Jump up^ “United States Dept. of the Army, Army Battle Casualties and Non Battle Deaths in World War II”. Cgsc.cdmhost.com. Retrieved 15 June 2011.
  20. Jump up^ Michael Clodfelter. Warfare and Armed Conflicts – A Statistical Reference to Casualty and Other Figures, 1500–2000. 2nd Ed. 2002 ISBN 0-7864-1204-6. p 585
  21. Jump up^ See: Malayan Campaign and Burma Campaign, as well as Battle of Hong Kong; includes Canada
  22. Jump up^ Kevin Blackburn, Karl Hack. “Forgotten Captives in Japanese-Occupied Asia”. 2007. Page 4. British Empire POWs are given a death rate of 25%.
  23. Jump up^ Long (1963), pg 633–634. Casualties incurred by Australia in the war against Japan (not including deaths and illnesses from natural causes, including disease) are given as 17,501 killed (including POW deaths in captivity), 13,997 wounded, and 14,345 living POWs.
  24. Jump up^ Gruhl, Werner (2007). Imperial Japan’s World War Two. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. p. 65. ISBN 9780765803528.
  25. Jump up^ (12,031 killed and 24,425 wounded in the 1945 Soviet invasion of Manchuria, 10,495 killed and 21,456 wounded in the 1938 Battle of Lake Khasan and 1939 Battles of Khalkhin Gol)
  26. Jump up^ Kevin Blackburn, Karl Hack. “Forgotten Captives in Japanese-Occupied Asia”. 2007. Page 4.
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  29. Jump up^ “Leyte Gulf: The Mexican Air Force”. Avalanche Press. Retrieved 1 December 2015.
  30. Jump up^ “Science and the Pacific War: Science and Survival in the Pacific, 1939–1945“. Roy M. MacLeod (2000). p. 51. ISBN 0-7923-5851-1
  31. Jump up^ “Chinese People Contribute to WWII”. Retrieved 23 April 2009.
  32. ^ Jump up to:a b Dower, John William (1987), War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War. Pantheon
  33. Jump up^ “Vietnam needs to remember famine of 1945”. Mailman.anu.edu.au. Retrieved 31 October 2010.
  34. Jump up^ Amartya Sen (1981). Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation. London: Oxford University Press. p. 203. ISBN 9780195649543.
  35. Jump up^ Werner Gruhl, Imperial Japan’s World War Two, 1931–1945 Transaction 2007 ISBN 978-0-7658-0352-8 p. 143-144
  36. Jump up^ Michael Clodfelter. Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Reference to Casualty and Other Figures, 1500–2000. 2nd ed. 2002 ISBN 0-7864-1204-6. p. 556
  37. Jump up^ McLynn, The Burma Campaign: Disaster into Triumph, 1942–1945, pg. 1.
  38. Jump up^ Ruas, Óscar Vasconcelos, “Relatório 1946–47”, AHU
  39. Jump up^ Hara, p. 297.
  40. Jump up^ Hara, p. 299. Figure is for Japanese aircraft only.
  41. Jump up^ Bren, John (3 June 2005) “Yasukuni Shrine: Ritual and Memory” Japan Focus. Retrieved on 5 June 2009.
  42. Jump up^ R. J. Rummel. China’s Bloody Century. Transaction 1991 ISBN 0-88738-417-X. Table 5A
  43. Jump up^ Eiji Murashima, “The Commemorative Character of Thai Historiography: The 1942–43 Thai Military Campaign in the Shan States Depicted as a Story of National Salvation and the Restoration of Thai Independence” Modern Asian Studies, v40, n4 (2006) pp. 1053–1096, p1057n:
  44. Jump up^ Michael Clodfelter. Warfare and Armed Conflicts – A Statistical Reference to Casualty and Other Figures, 1500–2000. 2nd Ed. 2002 ISBN 0-7864-1204-6. p 556
  45. Jump up^ STATISTICS OF DEMOCIDE: Chapter 13: Death By American Bombing, RJ Rummel, University of Hawaii.
  46. Jump up^ Werner Gruhl, Imperial Japan’s World War Two, 1931–1945 Transaction 2007 ISBN 978-0-7658-0352-8 p. 19
  47. Jump up^ E. Bruce Reynolds, “Aftermath of Alliance: The Wartime Legacy in Thai-Japanese Relations”, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, v21, n1, March 1990, pp. 66–87. “An OSS document (XL 30948, RG 226, USNA) quotes Thai Ministry of Interior figures of 8,711 air raids deaths in 1944–45 and damage to more than 10,000 buildings, most of them totally destroyed. However, an account by M. R. Seni Pramoj (a typescript entitled ‘The Negotiations Leading to the Cessation of a State of War with Great Britain’ and filed under Papers on World War II, at the Thailand Information Center, Chulalongkorn University, p. 12) indicates that only about 2,000 Thai died in air raids.”
  48. Jump up^ Williamson Murray, Allan R. Millett A War to be Won: Fighting the Second World War, Harvard University Press, 2001, p. 143
  49. Jump up^ Roy M. MacLeod, Science and the Pacific War: Science and Survival in the Pacific, 1939–1945, Kluwer Academic Publishing, p. 1, 1999
  50. Jump up^ Hsi-sheng Ch’i, in James C. Hsiung and Steven I. Levine, China’s Bitter Victory: The War with Japan 1937–1945, M.E. Sharpe, 1992, p. 157
  51. Jump up^ Youli Sun, China and the Origins of the Pacific War, 1931–41, Palgrave MacMillan, p. 11
  52. Jump up^ Drea 1998, p. 26.
  53. Jump up^ John Costello, The Pacific War: 1941–1945, Harper Perennial, 1982
  54. Jump up^ Japan Economic Foundation, Journal of Japanese Trade & Industry, Volume 16, 1997
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  56. Jump up^ “MacArthur orders end of Shinto as Japanese state religion”. HISTORY.com. Retrieved 1 December 2015.
  57. Jump up^ Jansen 2002, p. 626.
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  59. Jump up^ “Map of the Pacific Theater”. Retrieved 31 October 2010.
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  61. Jump up^ Harmsen, Peter (2015). Nanjing 1937: Battle for a Doomed City. Casemate. ISBN 978-1612002842.
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  68. Jump up^ Jansen 2002, p. 636.
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  101. Jump up^ “In office – John Curtin – Australia’s PMs – Australia’s Prime Ministers”. Primeministers.naa.gov.au. Retrieved 20 April 2013.
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  104. Jump up^ “Remembering the war in New Guinea – Were the Japanese going to invade?”. Ajrp.awm.gov.au. 19 February 1942. Retrieved 20 April 2013.
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  114. Jump up^ Ch’i 1992, p. 158.
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  118. Jump up^ Croddy & Wirtz 2005, p. 171.
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  120. Jump up^ Philip J. Jaffe (1943). Amerasia, Volume 7. Amerasia, inc.
  121. Jump up^ Agar, Jon Science in the 20th Century and Beyond, p.281
  122. Jump up^ Evans & Peattie 1997, p. 491.
  123. Jump up^ Theodore Roscoe, United States Submarine Operations in World War II (US Naval Institute Press, 1949).
  124. Jump up^ Prange et al. Pearl Harbor Papers
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  126. Jump up^ “Boats,” http://www.dutchsubmarines.com
  127. Jump up^ Larry Kimmett and Margaret Regis, U.S. Submarines in World War II
  128. Jump up^ TIME, Monday, 23 February 1942 (23 February 1942). “World Battlefronts: Dutchman’s Chance”. Time.
  129. Jump up^ David Stevens. Japanese submarine operations against Australia 1942–1944. Retrieved 18 June 2007.
  130. Jump up^ Carl Boyd, “The Japanese Submarine Force and the Legacy of Strategic and Operational Doctrine Developed Between the World Wars”, in Larry Addington ed. Selected Papers from the Citadel Conference on War and Diplomacy: 1978 (Charleston, 1979) 27–40; Clark G. Reynolds, Command of the Sea: The History and Strategy of Maritime Empires (1974) 512.
  131. Jump up^ Farago, Ladislas. Broken Seal.
  132. Jump up^ Chihaya Masataka, in Pearl Harbor Papers, p.323.
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  136. Jump up^ Roscoe, op. cit.
  137. Jump up^ Blair, p.877.
  138. Jump up^ The Joint Army-Navy Assessment Committee (February 1947), Transcribed and formatted for HTML by Larry Jewell & Patrick Clancey, ed., Japanese Naval and Merchant Shipping Losses During World War II by All Causes NAVEXOS P-468, Hyperwar project ed. Patrick Clancey
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  151. Jump up^ Robert S. Burrell, “Breaking the Cycle of Iwo Jima Mythology: A Strategic Study of Operation Detachment,” Journal of Military History Volume 68, Number 4, October 2004, pp. 1143–1186 and rebuttal in Project MUSE
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  153. Jump up^ Slim, William (1956). Defeat into Victory. Cassell. pp. 468–469. ISBN 0-552-08757-2.
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  155. Jump up^ Grey, Jeffrey (1999). A Military History of Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-64483-6.. Pages 184–186.
  156. ^ Jump up to:a b Wilson, Dick. When Tigers Fight. New York, NY: The Viking Press, 1982. pp. 248
  157. ^ Jump up to:a b Hsu & Chang 1971, pp. 452–457.
  158. Jump up^ “National Revolutionary Army Order of Battle for the Battle of West Hunan”. China Whampoa Academy Net. 11 September 2007 <http://www.hoplite.cn/Templates/hpjh0106.htm>.
  159. Jump up^ Joseph H. Alexander, The final campaign: Marines in the victory on Okinawa (1996) short official history online
  160. Jump up^ Hiromichi Yahara, The Battle For Okinawa (1997), Japanese perspective excerpt and text search
  161. Jump up^ Skates, James. Invasion of Japan.
  162. Jump up^ “Potsdam Declaration: Proclamation Defining Terms for Japanese Surrender Issued, at Potsdam, July 26, 1945”. National Science Digital Library.
  163. Jump up^ “PBS: Statement By The President”. Retrieved 15 August 2015.
  164. ^ Jump up to:a b Professor Duncan Anderson, 2005,“Nuclear Power: The End of the War Against Japan” (World War Two, BBC History website) Access date: 11 September 2007.
  165. Jump up^ See, for example, Alperowitz, G., The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb (1995; New York, Knopf; ISBN 0-679-44331-2) for this argument.
  166. Jump up^ Frank, Richard B. (2007). Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, ed. The End of the Pacific War: Reappraisals. Stanford University Press. p. 89. ISBN 978-0-8047-5427-9.
  167. Jump up^ Battlefield S4/E3 – The Battle of Manchuria – The Forgotten Victory. YouTube. 10 October 2012. Retrieved 1 December 2015.
  168. Jump up^ Raymond L. Garthoff. The Soviet Manchurian Campaign, August 1945. Military Affairs, Vol. 33, No. 2 (Oct. 1969), pp. 312–336
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  170. Jump up^ Sadao Asada. “The Shock of the Atomic Bomb and Japan’s Decision to Surrender: A Reconsideration”. The Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 67, No. 4 (Nov. 1998), pp. 477–512.
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  173. Jump up^ Yuma Totani (1 April 2009). The Tokyo War Crimes Trial: The Pursuit of Justice in the Wake of World War II. Harvard University Asia Center. p. 57.
  174. Jump up^ Stephen C. McCaffrey (22 September 2004). Understanding International Law. AuthorHouse. pp. 210–229.
  175. Jump up^ “Rummel, R.J. ”’Statistics of Democide: Genocide and Mass Murder since 1900”’ Chapter 3. LIT Verlag Münster-Hamburg-Berlin-Wien-London-Zürich (1999)”. Hawaii.edu. Retrieved 31 October 2010.
  176. Jump up^ “BBC – History – World Wars: Nuclear Power: The End of the War Against Japan”. bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 1 December 2015.
  177. Jump up^ “Remember role in ending fascist war”. Retrieved 6 December 2015.
  178. Jump up^ Christopher Hudson (2 March 2007). “Doctors of Depravity”. Daily Mail.
  179. Jump up^ Chapel, Joseph (2004). “Denial of the Holocaust and the Rape of Nanking”.
  180. Jump up^ U.S. Prisoners of War and Civilian American Citizens Captured and Interned by Japan in World War II: The Issue of Compensation by Japan.
  181. Jump up^ de Brouwer, Anne-Marie (2005). Supranational Criminal Prosecution of Sexual Violence. Intersentia. p. 8. ISBN 90-5095-533-9.
  182. Jump up^ “No government coercion in war’s sex slavery: Abe“, The Japan Times, 2 March 2007.
  183. Jump up^ Himeta, Mitsuyoshi (姫田光義) (日本軍による『三光政策・三光作戦をめぐって』) (Concerning the Three Alls Strategy/Three Alls Policy By the Japanese Forces), Iwanami Bukkuretto, 1996, Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, 2000.
  184. Jump up^ “Simon Harrison, Dark Trophies: hunting and the enemy body in modern war, Berghahn Booksl, 2012
  185. Jump up^ Dennis et al. 2008, pp. 576–577.
  186. Jump up^ McGibbon 2000, pp. 580–581.

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  • Gordon, David M. “The China-Japan War, 1931–1945” Journal of Military History (January 2006) v 70#1, pp 137–82. Historiographical overview of major books
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  • Hara, Tameichi (2011). Japanese Destroyer Captain. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-59114-384-0.
  • Harrison, Simon (2012). Dark Trophies. Hunting and the Enemy Body in Modern War. New York City: Berghahn Books. ISBN 978-0-85745-499-7.
  • Hastings, Max (2008). Retribution. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0307263513.
  • Saburo Hayashi and Alvin Coox. Kogun: The Japanese Army in the Pacific War. Quantico, Virginia: Marine Corps Assoc., 1959.
  • Hopkins, William B. (2010). The Pacific War: The Strategy, Politics, and Players that Won the War. Zenith Press. ISBN 0-76033-975-9.
  • Hsiung, James C. and Steven I. Levine, eds. China’s Bitter Victory: The War with Japan, 1937–1945 M. E. Sharpe, 1992
  • Hsi-sheng, Ch’i. Nationalist China at War: Military Defeats and Political Collapse, 1937–1945 University of Michigan Press, 1982
  • Hsu Long-hsuen and Chang Ming-kai, History of The Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), 2nd Ed., 1971. Translated by Wen Ha-hsiung, Chung Wu Publishing; 33, 140th Lane, Tung-hwa Street, Taipei, Taiwan Republic of China.
  • Inoguchi, Rikihei, Tadashi Nakajima, and Robert Pineau. The Divine Wind. Ballantine, 1958. Kamikaze.
  • James, D. Clayton. The Years of MacArthur. Vol. 2. Houghton Mifflin, 1972.
  • Jansen, Marius B. (2002). The Making of Modern Japan. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-00334-9.
  • Jowett, Phillip (2005). Rays of the Rising Sun: Japan’s Asian Allies 1931–1945 Volume 1: China and Manchukuo. Helion and Company Ltd. ISBN 1-874622-21-3.
  • Kirby, S. Woodburn The War Against Japan. 4 vols. London: H.M.S.O., 1957–1965. Official Royal Navy history.
  • L, Klemen (1999–2000). “Forgotten Campaign: The Dutch East Indies Campaign 1941–1942”.
  • Leary, William M. We Shall Return: MacArthur’s Commanders and the Defeat of Japan. University Press of Kentucky, 1988.
  • Long, Gavin (1963). The Final Campaigns. Australia in the War of 1939–1945. Series 1 – Army. Volume 7. Canberra: Australian War Memorial. OCLC 1297619.
  • McCarthy, Dudley (1959). South-West Pacific Area – First Year. Australia in the War of 1939–1945. Series 1 – Army. Volume 5. Canberra: Australian War Memorial. OCLC 3134247.
  • McGibbon, Ian, ed. (2000). The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Military History. Auckland: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-558376-0.
  • Maurice Matloff and Edwin M. Snell Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare 1941–1942, United States Army Center of Military History, Washington, D. C., 1990
  • Stille, Mark (2014). The Imperial Japanese Navy in the Pacific War. Osprey Publishing. ISBN 1-47280-146-6.
  • Stevens, Keith (2005). “A Token Operation: 204 Military Mission to China, 1941–1945”. Asian Affairs. Risk Management Reference Center, EBSCOhost. 36 (1): 66, 74. doi:10.1080/03068370500039151.
  • Miller, Edward S. (2007). War Plan Orange: The U.S. Strategy to Defeat Japan, 1897–1945. US Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-59114-500-7.
  • Peattie, Mark R (2007). Sunburst: The Rise of Japanese Naval Air Power, 1909–1941. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-59114-664-X.
  • Samuel Eliot Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II. Vol. 3, The Rising Sun in the Pacific. Boston: Little, Brown, 1961; Vol. 4, Coral Sea, Midway and Submarine Actions. 1949; Vol. 5, The Struggle for Guadalcanal. 1949; Vol. 6, Breaking the Bismarcks Barrier. 1950; Vol. 7, Aleutians, Gilberts, and Marshalls. 1951; Vol. 8, New Guinea and the Marianas. 1962; Vol. 12, Leyte. 1958; vol. 13, The Liberation of the Philippines: Luzon, Mindanao, the Visayas. 1959; Vol. 14, Victory in the Pacific. 1961.
  • Takemae, Eiji (2003). The Allied Occupation of Japan. Continuum Press. ISBN 0-82641-521-0.
  • Masatake Okumiya, and Mitso Fuchida. Midway: The Battle That Doomed Japan. Naval Institute Press, 1955.
  • E. B. Potter, and Chester W. Nimitz. Triumph in the Pacific. Prentice Hall, 1963. Naval battles
  • E. B. Potter, Bull Halsey Naval Institute Press, 1985.
  • E. B. Potter, Nimitz. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1976.
  • John D. Potter, Yamamoto 1967.
  • Gordon W. Prange, Donald Goldstein, and Katherine Dillon. At Dawn We Slept. Penguin, 1982. Pearl Harbor
  • ——, et al. Miracle at Midway. Penguin, 1982.
  • ——, et al. Pearl Harbor: The Verdict of History.
  • Seki, Eiji (2007). Sinking of the SS Automedon And the Role of the Japanese Navy: A New Interpretation. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 1-905246-28-5.
  • Henry Shaw, and Douglas Kane. History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II. Vol. 2, Isolation of Rabaul. Washington, D.C.: Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1963
  • Henry Shaw, Bernard Nalty, and Edwin Turnbladh. History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II. Vol. 3, Central Pacific Drive. Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, 1953.
  • E.B. Sledge, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa. Presidio, 1981. Memoir.
  • J. Douglas Smith, and Richard Jensen. World War II on the Web: A Guide to the Very Best Sites. (2002)
  • Ronald Spector, Eagle Against the Sun: The American War with Japan Free Press, 1985.
  • John Toland, The Rising Sun. 2 vols. Random House, 1970. Japan’s war.
  • Ian W. Toll. Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941–1942 (2011)
  • Parshall, Jonathan; Tully, Anthony (2005). Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway. Dulles, Virginia: Potomac Books. ISBN 1-57488-923-0.
  • H. P. Willmott. Empires in the Balance. Annapolis: United States Naval Institute Press, 1982.
  • H. P. Willmott. The Barrier and the Javelin. Annapolis: United States Naval Institute Press, 1983.
  • Gerhard L. Weinberg, A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-44317-2. (2005).
  • William Y’Blood, Red Sun Setting: The Battle of the Philippine Sea. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1980.
  • Yenne, Bill (2014). The Imperial Japanese Army: The Invincible Years 1941–42. Osprey Publishing. ISBN 1-78200-982-5.
  • Harries, Meirion; Harries, Susie (1994). Soldiers of the Sun : The Rise and Fall of the Imperial Japanese Army. New York: Random House. ISBN 0-679-75303-6.

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Pacific War.
Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Pacific War.

American Vietnam War

Posted on by nameless

borisblog19

The Vietnam War (Vietnamese: Chiến tranh Việt Nam), also known as the Second Indochina War,[54] and known in Vietnam as Resistance War Against America (Vietnamese: Kháng chiến chống Mỹ) or simply the American War, was a war that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955[A 1] to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam and the government of South Vietnam. The North Vietnamese army was supported by the Soviet Union, China and other communist allies and the South Vietnamese army was supported by the United States, South Korea, Australia, Thailand and other anti-communist allies[55] and the war is therefore considered a Cold War-era proxy war.[56]

The Viet Cong (also known as the National Liberation Front, or NLF), a South Vietnamese communist common front aided by the North, fought a guerrilla war against anti-communist forces in the region, while the People’s Army of Vietnam, also known as the North Vietnamese Army (NVA), engaged in more conventional warfare, at times committing large units to battle. As the war continued, the military actions of the Viet Cong decreased as the role and engagement of the NVA grew. South Vietnamese and U.S. forces relied on air superiority and overwhelming firepower to conduct search and destroy operations, involving ground forces, artillery, and airstrikes. In the course of the war, the U.S. conducted a large-scale strategic bombing campaign against North Vietnam.

The North Vietnamese government and the Viet Cong were fighting to reunify Vietnam. They viewed the conflict as a colonial war and a continuation of the First Indochina War against forces from France and later on the U.S. The U.S. government viewed its involvement in the war as a way to prevent a Communist takeover of South Vietnam. This was part of a wider containment policy, with the stated aim of stopping the spread of communism.[57]

Beginning in 1950, American military advisors arrived in what was then French Indochina.[58][A 3] U.S. involvement escalated in the early 1960s, with troop levels tripling in 1961 and again in 1962.[59] U.S. involvement escalated further following the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, in which a U.S. destroyer clashed with North Vietnamese fast attack craft, which was followed by the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave the U.S. president authorization to increase U.S. military presence. Regular U.S. combat units were deployed beginning in 1965. Operations crossed international borders: bordering areas of Laos and Cambodia were heavily bombed by U.S. forces as American involvement in the war peaked in 1968, the same year that the communist side launched the Tet Offensive. The Tet Offensive failed in its goal of overthrowing the South Vietnamese government, but became the turning point in the war, as it persuaded a large segment of the U.S. population that its government’s claims of progress toward winning the war were illusory despite many years of massive U.S. military aid to South Vietnam.

Gradual withdrawal of U.S. ground forces began as part of “Vietnamization“, which aimed to end American involvement in the war while transferring the task of fighting the Communists to the South Vietnamese themselves. Despite the Paris Peace Accord, which was signed by all parties in January 1973, the fighting continued. In the U.S. and the Western world, a large anti-Vietnam War movement developed as part of a larger counterculture. The war changed the dynamics between the Eastern and Western Blocs, and altered North–South relations.[60]

Direct U.S. military involvement ended on 15 August 1973.[61] The capture of Saigon by the North Vietnamese Army in April 1975 marked the end of the war, and North and South Vietnam were reunified the following year. The war exacted a huge human cost in terms of fatalities (see Vietnam War casualties). Estimates of the number of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed vary from 966,000[29] to 3.8 million.[50]Some 240,000–300,000 Cambodians,[51][52][53] 20,000–62,000 Laotians,[50] and 58,220 U.S. service members also died in the conflict, with a further 1,626 missing in action.[A 2]

Contents

 [hide] 

Names for the war

Further information: Terminology of the Vietnam War

Various names have been applied to the conflict. Vietnam War is the most commonly used name in English. It has also been called the Second Indochina War and the Vietnam Conflict.

As there have been several conflicts in Indochina, this particular conflict is known by the names of its primary protagonists to distinguish it from others.[62] In Vietnamese, the war is generally known as Kháng chiến chống Mỹ (Resistance War Against America). It is also called Chiến tranh Việt Nam (The Vietnam War).[63]

The primary military organizations involved in the war were, on one side, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and the U.S. military, and, on the other side, the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) (more commonly called the North Vietnamese Army, or NVA, in English-language sources), and the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NLF, more commonly known as the Viet Cong in English language sources), a South Vietnamese communist guerrilla force.[64]

Background to 1949

See also: History of Vietnam, 1940-1946 in the Vietnam War, Cochinchina Campaign, Cần Vương, Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng, Yên Bái mutiny, Vietnam during World War II, War in Vietnam (1945–46), 1940-46 in the Vietnam War, and 1947-50 in the Vietnam War

France began its conquest of Indochina in the late 1850s, and completed pacification by 1893.[65][66][67] The 1884 Treaty of Huế formed the basis for French colonial rule in Vietnam for the next seven decades. In spite of military resistance, most notably by the Cần Vương of Phan Đình Phùng, by 1888 the area of the current-day nations of Cambodia and Vietnam was made into the colony of French Indochina (Laos was later added to the colony).[68] Various Vietnamese opposition movements to French rule existed during this period, such as the Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng who staged the failed Yên Bái mutiny in 1930, but none were ultimately as successful as the Viet Minh common front, which was founded in 1941, controlled by the Indochinese Communist Party, and funded by the U.S. and the Chinese Nationalist Party in its fight against Imperial Japanese occupation.[69][A 4]

In 1940, during World War II, the French were defeated by the Germans. The French State (commonly known as Vichy France) was established as a client state of Nazi Germany. The French colonial authorities, in French Indochina, sided with the Vichy regime. In September 1940, Japan invaded Indochina. Following the cessation of fighting and the beginning of the Imperial Japanese occupation, the French colonial authorities collaborated with the Japanese. The French continued to run affairs in Indochina, but ultimate power resided in the hands of the Imperial Japanese.[69]

The Viet Minh was founded as a league for independence from France, but also opposed Japanese occupation in 1945 for the same reason. The U.S. and Chinese Nationalist Party supported them in the fight against the Imperial Japanese.[71] However, they did not have enough power to fight actual battles at first. Viet Minh leader Ho Chi Minh was suspected of being a communist and jailed for a year by the Chinese Nationalist Party.[72]

Double occupation by France and Japan continued until the German forces were expelled from France and the French Indochina colonial authorities started holding secret talks with the Free French. Fearing that they could no longer trust the French authorities, the Imperial Japanese military interned the French authorities and troops on 9 March 1945[73] and created the puppet Empire of Vietnam state, under Bảo Đại instead.

During 1944–1945, a deep famine struck northern Vietnam due to a combination of bad weather and French/Japanese exploitation (French Indochina had to supply grains to Japan).[74] Between 400,000 and 2 million[29] people died of starvation (out of a population of 10 million in the affected area).[75] Exploiting the administrative gap[76] that the internment of the French had created, the Viet Minh in March 1945 urged the population to ransack rice warehouses and refuse to pay their taxes.[77] Between 75 and 100 warehouses were consequently raided.[78] This rebellion against the effects of the famine and the authorities that were partially responsible for it bolstered the Viet Minh’s popularity and they recruited many members during this period.[76]

On 22 August 1945, following the Imperial Japanese surrender, OSS agents Archimedes Patti and Carleton B. Swift Jr. arrived in Hanoi on a mercy mission to liberate allied POWs and were accompanied by Jean Sainteny, a French government official.[79] The Japanese forces informally surrendered (the official surrender took place on 2 September 1945 in Tokyo Bay) but being the only force capable of maintaining law and order the Imperial Japanese military remained in power while keeping French colonial troops and Sainteny detained.[80]

During August the Imperial Japanese forces remained inactive as the Viet Minh and other nationalist groups took over public buildings and weapons, which began the August Revolution. OSS officers met repeatedly with Ho Chi Minh and other Viet Minh officers during this period[81] and on 2 September 1945 Ho Chi Minh declared the independent Democratic Republic of Vietnam before a crowd of 500,000 in Hanoi.[78] In an overture to the Americans, he began his speech by paraphrasing the United States Declaration of Independence: “All men are created equal. The Creator has given us certain inviolable Rights: the right to Life, the right to be Free, and the right to achieve Happiness.”[78]

The Viet Minh took power in Vietnam in the August Revolution.[78] The Viet Minh, downplaying their Communist agenda and stressing nationalism enjoyed large popular support (Vietnamese independence being popular at the time),[82] although Arthur J. Dommen cautions against a “romanticized view” of their success: “The Viet Minh use of terror was systematic….the party had drawn up a list of those to be liquidated without delay.”[83] After their defeat in the war, the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) gave weapons to the Vietnamese, and kept Vichy French officials and military officers imprisoned for a month after the surrender. The Viet Minh had recruited more than 600 Imperial Japanese soldiers and given them roles to train or command Vietnamese soldiers.[84][85]

An Imperial Japanese naval officer surrenders his sword to a British lieutenant in Saigon on 13 September 1945.

However, the major allied victors of World War II, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union, all agreed the area belonged to the French.[78] As the French did not have the means to immediately retake Vietnam, the major powers came to an agreement that British troops would occupy the south while Nationalist Chinese forces would move in from the north.[78] Nationalist Chinese troops entered the country to disarm Imperial Japanese troops north of the 16th parallel on 14 September 1945.[86] When the British landed in the south, they rearmed the interned French forces as well as parts of the surrendered Imperial Japanese forces to aid them in retaking southern Vietnam, as they did not have enough troops to do this themselves.[78]

On the urging of the Soviet Union, Ho Chi Minh initially attempted to negotiate with the French, who were slowly re-establishing their control across the area.[87] In January 1946, the Viet Minh won elections across central and northern Vietnam.[88] On 6 March 1946, Ho signed an agreement allowing French forces to replace Nationalist Chinese forces, in exchange for French recognition of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam as a “free” republic within the French Union, with the specifics of such recognition to be determined by future negotiation.[89][90][91] The French landed in Hanoi by March 1946 and in November of that year they ousted the Viet Minh from the city.[87] British forces departed on 26 March 1946, leaving Vietnam in the hands of the French.[92] Soon thereafter, the Viet Minh began a guerrilla war against the French Union forces, beginning the First Indochina War.

The war spread to Laos and Cambodia, where communists organized the Pathet Lao and the Khmer Serei, both of which were modeled on the Viet Minh.[93] Globally, the Cold War began in earnest, which meant that the rapprochement that existed between the Western powers and the Soviet Union during World War II disintegrated. The Viet Minh fight was hampered by a lack of weapons; this situation changed by 1949 when the Chinese Communists had largely won the Chinese Civil War and were free to provide arms to their Vietnamese allies.[93]

Exit of the French, 1950–54

Main articles: First Indochina War, Operation Vulture, Operation Passage to Freedom, and 1954 in the Vietnam War

In January 1950, the People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union recognized the Viet Minh’s Democratic Republic of Vietnam, based in Hanoi, as the legitimate government of Vietnam. The following month the United States and Great Britain recognized the French-backed State of Vietnam in Saigon, led by former Emperor Bảo Đại, as the legitimate Vietnamese government.[94][95] The outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 convinced many Washington policymakers that the war in Indochina was an example of communist expansionism directed by the Soviet Union.[96]

French soldiers fight off a Viet Minh ambush in 1952.

Military advisors from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) began assisting the Viet Minh in July 1950.[97] PRC weapons, expertise, and laborers transformed the Viet Minh from a guerrilla force into a regular army.[98] In September 1950, the United States created a Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG) to screen French requests for aid, advise on strategy, and train Vietnamese soldiers.[99] By 1954, the United States had supplied 300,000 small arms and spent US$1 billion in support of the French military effort, shouldering 80 percent of the cost of the war.[100]

There were also talks between the French and Americans in which the possible use of three tactical nuclear weapons was considered, though reports of how seriously this was considered and by whom are even now vague and contradictory.[101][102] One version of the plan for the proposed Operation Vulture envisioned sending 60 B-29s from U.S. bases in the region, supported by as many as 150 fighters launched from U.S. Seventh Fleet carriers, to bomb Viet Minh commander Võ Nguyên Giáp‘s positions. The plan included an option to use up to three atomic weapons on the Viet Minh positions. Admiral Arthur W. Radford, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave this nuclear option his backing. U.S. B-29s, B-36s, and B-47s could have executed a nuclear strike, as could carrier aircraft from the Seventh Fleet.[103]

U.S. carriers sailed to the Gulf of Tonkin, and reconnaissance flights over Điện Biên Phủ were conducted during the negotiations. According to U.S. Vice-President Richard Nixon, the plan involved the Joint Chiefs of Staff drawing up plans to use three small tactical nuclear weapons in support of the French.[101] Nixon, a so-called “hawk” on Vietnam, suggested that the United States might have to “put American boys in”.[104] U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower made American participation contingent on British support, but they were opposed to such a venture.[104] In the end, convinced that the political risks outweighed the possible benefits, Eisenhower decided against the intervention. Eisenhower was a five-star general. He was wary of getting the United States involved in a land war in Asia.[105]

The Viet Minh received crucial support from the Soviet Union and PRC. PRC support in the Border Campaign of 1950 allowed supplies to come from the PRC into Vietnam. Throughout the conflict, U.S. intelligence estimates remained skeptical of French chances of success.[106]

The Battle of Dien Bien Phu marked the end of French involvement in Indochina. Giap’s Viet Minh forces handed the French a stunning military defeat, and on 7 May 1954, the French Union garrison surrendered. At the Geneva Conference, the French negotiated a ceasefire agreement with the Viet Minh, and independence was granted to Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam.

Transition period

Main articles: Geneva Conference (1954); Operation Passage to Freedom; Battle of Saigon (1955); Ba Cụt; State of Vietnam referendum, 1955; and Land reform in North Vietnam

The Geneva Conference, 1954

Vietnam was temporarily partitioned at the 17th parallel, and under the terms of the Geneva Accords, civilians were to be given the opportunity to move freely between the two provisional states for a 300-day period. Elections throughout the country were to be held in 1956 to establish a unified government.[107] Around one million northerners, mainly minority Catholics, fled south, fearing persecution by the communists[108] following an American propaganda campaign using slogans such as “The Virgin Mary is heading south”,[109] and aided by a U.S.-funded $93 million relocation program, which included the use of the Seventh Fleet to ferry refugees.[110] As many as two million more would have left had they not been stopped by the Viet Minh.[111] The northern, mainly Catholic refugees were meant to give the later Ngô Đình Diệm regime a strong anti-communist constituency.[112] Diệm later went on to staff his administration’s key posts mostly with northern and central Catholics.

In addition to the Catholics flowing south, up to 130,000 “Revolutionary Regroupees” went to the north for “regroupment”, expecting to return to the south within two years.[113] The Viet Minh left roughly 5,000 to 10,000 cadres in the south as a “politico-military substructure within the object of its irredentism.”[114] The last French soldiers were to leave Vietnam in April 1956.[98] The PRC completed its withdrawal from North Vietnam at around the same time.[97] Around 52,000 Vietnamese civilians moved from south to north.[115]

Between 1953 and 1956, the North Vietnamese government instituted various agrarian reforms, including “rent reduction” and “land reform”, which resulted in significant political oppression. During the land reform, testimony from North Vietnamese witnesses suggested a ratio of one execution for every 160 village residents, which extrapolated nationwide would indicate nearly 100,000 executions. Because the campaign was concentrated mainly in the Red River Delta area, a lower estimate of 50,000 executions became widely accepted by scholars at the time.[116][117][118][119] However, declassified documents from the Vietnamese and Hungarian archives indicate that the number of executions was much lower than reported at the time, although likely greater than 13,500.[120] In 1956, leaders in Hanoi admitted to “excesses” in implementing this program and restored a large amount of the land to the original owners.[121]

The south, meanwhile, constituted the State of Vietnam, with Bảo Đại as Emperor and Ngô Đình Diệm (appointed in July 1954) as his prime minister. Neither the United States government nor Ngô Đình Diệm’s State of Vietnam signed anything at the 1954 Geneva Conference. With respect to the question of reunification, the non-communist Vietnamese delegation objected strenuously to any division of Vietnam, but lost out when the French accepted the proposal of Viet Minh delegate Phạm Văn Đồng,[122] who proposed that Vietnam eventually be united by elections under the supervision of “local commissions”.[123] The United States countered with what became known as the “American Plan”, with the support of South Vietnam and the United Kingdom.[124] It provided for unification elections under the supervision of the United Nations, but was rejected by the Soviet delegation.[124] The United States said, “With respect to the statement made by the representative of the State of Vietnam, the United States reiterates its traditional position that peoples are entitled to determine their own future and that it will not join in any arrangement which would hinder this”.[125]

U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote in 1954, “I have never talked or corresponded with a person knowledgeable in Indochinese affairs who did not agree that had elections been held as of the time of the fighting, possibly eighty percent of the population would have voted for the Communist Ho Chi Minh as their leader rather than Chief of State Bảo Đại. Indeed, the lack of leadership and drive on the part of Bảo Đại was a factor in the feeling prevalent among Vietnamese that they had nothing to fight for.”[126]According to the Pentagon Papers, however, from 1954 to 1956 “Ngô Đình Diệm really did accomplish miracles” in South Vietnam:[127] “It is almost certain that by 1956 the proportion which might have voted for Ho—in a free election against Diệm—would have been much smaller than eighty percent.”[128] In 1957, independent observers from India, Poland, and Canada representing the International Control Commission (ICC) stated that fair, unbiased elections were not possible, with the ICC reporting that neither South nor North Vietnam had honored the armistice agreement[129]

From April to June 1955, Diệm eliminated any political opposition in the south by launching military operations against two religious groups: the Cao Đài and Hòa Hảo of Ba Cụt. The campaign also focused on the Bình Xuyên organized crime group which was allied with members of the communist party secret police and had some military elements. As broad-based opposition to his harsh tactics mounted, Diệm increasingly sought to blame the communists.[34]

In a referendum on the future of the State of Vietnam on 23 October 1955, Diệm rigged the poll supervised by his brother Ngô Đình Nhu and was credited with 98.2 percent of the vote, including 133% in Saigon. His American advisors had recommended a more modest winning margin of “60 to 70 percent.” Diệm, however, viewed the election as a test of authority.[130] Three days later, he declared South Vietnam to be an independent state under the name Republic of Vietnam (ROV), with himself as president.[131] Likewise, Ho Chi Minh and other communist officials always won at least 99% of the vote in North Vietnamese “elections”.[132]

The domino theory, which argued that if one country fell to communism, then all of the surrounding countries would follow, was first proposed as policy by the Eisenhower administration.[133] John F. Kennedy, then a U.S. Senator, said in a speech to the American Friends of Vietnam: “Burma, Thailand, India, Japan, the Philippines and obviously Laos and Cambodia are among those whose security would be threatened if the Red Tide of Communism overflowed into Vietnam.”[134]

Diệm era, 1955–63

Main articles: Ngô Đình Diệm and War in Vietnam (1954–59)

U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles greet President Ngô Đình Diệm of South Vietnam in Washington, 8 May 1957.

Rule

See also: Ngô Đình Diệm presidential visit to Australia

A devout Roman Catholic, Diệm was fervently anti-communist, nationalist, and socially conservative. Historian Luu Doan Huynh notes that “Diệm represented narrow and extremist nationalism coupled with autocracy and nepotism.”[135] The majority of Vietnamese people were Buddhist, and were alarmed by actions such as Diệm’s dedication of the country to the Virgin Mary.

Beginning in the summer of 1955, Diệm launched the “Denounce the Communists” campaign, during which communists and other anti-government elements were arrested, imprisoned, tortured, or executed. He instituted the death penalty against any activity deemed communist in August 1956.[136] According to Gabriel Kolko about 12,000 suspected opponents of Diệm were killed between 1955 and 1957 and by the end of 1958 an estimated 40,000 political prisoners had been jailed.[137] However, Guenter Lewy argues that such figures were exaggerated and that there were never more than 35,000 prisoners of all kinds in the whole country.[138]

In May 1957, Diệm undertook a ten-day state visit to the United States. President Eisenhower pledged his continued support, and a parade was held in Diệm’s honor in New York City. Although Diệm was publicly praised, in private Secretary of State John Foster Dulles conceded that Diệm had been selected because there were no better alternatives.[139]

Former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara wrote in Argument Without End (1999) that the new American patrons of the Republic of Vietnam (ROV) were almost completely ignorant of Vietnamese culture. They knew little of the language or long history of the country.[94] There was a tendency to assign American motives to Vietnamese actions, though Diệm warned that it was an illusion to believe that blindly copying Western methods would solve Vietnamese problems.[94]

Insurgency in the South, 1954–60

Main articles: Viet Cong and War in Vietnam (1959–63)

The Ho Chi Minh trail was used to supply the Viet Cong.

Between 1954 and 1957 there was large-scale but disorganized dissidence in the countryside which the Diệm government succeeded in quelling. In early 1957 South Vietnam had its first peace in over a decade. However, by mid-1957 through 1959 incidents of violence increased but the government “did not construe it as a campaign, considering the disorders too diffuse to warrant committing major GVN [Government of Vietnam] resources.” By early 1959 however, Diệm considered it an organized campaign and implemented Law 10/59, which made political violence punishable by death and property confiscation.[140] There had been some division among former Viet Minh whose main goal was to hold the elections promised in the Geneva Accords, leading to “wildcat” activities separate from the other communists and anti-GVN activists.[19]

In December 1960, the National Liberation Front (NLF, a.k.a. the Viet Cong) was formally created with the intent of uniting all anti-GVN activists, including non-communists. According to the Pentagon Papers, the Viet Cong “placed heavy emphasis on the withdrawal of American advisors and influence, on land reform and liberalization of the GVN, on coalition government and the neutralization of Vietnam.” Often the leaders of the organization were kept secret.[19]

The reason for the continued survival of the NLF was the class relations in the countryside. The vast majority of the population lived in villages in the countryside where the key issue was land reform. The Viet Minh had reduced rents and debts; and had leased communal lands, mostly to the poorer peasants. Diem brought the landlords back to the villages. People who were farming land they held for years now had to return it to landlords and pay years of back rent. This rent collection was enforced by the South Vietnamese army. The divisions within villages reproduced those that had existed against the French: “75 percent support for the NLF, 20 percent trying to remain neutral and 5 percent firmly pro-government,”[141]

North Vietnamese involvement

Sources disagree on whether North Vietnam played a direct role in aiding and organizing South Vietnamese rebels prior to 1960. Kahin and Lewis assert:

Contrary to United States policy assumptions, all available evidence shows that the revival of the civil war in the South in 1958 was undertaken by Southerners at their own—not Hanoi’s—initiative…Insurgency activity against the Saigon government began in the South under Southern leadership not as a consequence of any dictate from Hanoi, but contrary to Hanoi’s injunctions.[19]

Similarly, historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. states that “it was not until September, 1960 that the Communist Party of North Vietnam bestowed its formal blessing and called for the liberation of the south from American imperialism”.[19]

By contrast, the author of War Comes to Long An Jeffrey Race interviewed communist defectors in 1967 and 1968 who found such denials “very amusing”, and who “commented humorously that the Party had apparently been more successful than was expected in concealing its role.”[142] James Olson and Randy Roberts assert that North Vietnam authorized a low-level insurgency in December 1956.[18] To counter the accusation that North Vietnam was violating the Geneva Accord, the independence of the Viet Cong was stressed in communist propaganda.[143]

In March 1956, southern communist leader Lê Duẩn presented a plan to revive the insurgency entitled “The Road to the South” to the other members of the Politburo in Hanoi, but as both China and the Soviets opposed confrontation at this time, Lê Duẩn’s plan was rejected.[143] However the North Vietnamese leadership approved tentative measures to revive the southern insurgency in December 1956.[144] Communist forces were under a single command structure set up in 1958.[145] The North Vietnamese Communist Party approved a “people’s war” on the South at a session in January 1959[146] and in May, Group 559 was established to maintain and upgrade the Ho Chi Minh trail, at this time a six-month mountain trek through Laos. About 500 of the “regroupees” of 1954 were sent south on the trail during its first year of operation.[147] The first arms delivery via the trail was completed in August 1959.[148]

North Vietnam invaded Laos in 1959, and used 30,000 men to build invasion routes through Laos and Cambodia by 1961.[149] About 40,000 communist soldiers infiltrated into the south from 1961–63.[143] North Vietnam sent 10,000 troops of the North Vietnamese Army to attack the south in 1964, and this figure increased to 100,000 in 1965.[150]

Kennedy’s escalation, 1961–63

Main articles: Strategic Hamlet Program and Phạm Ngọc Thảo

In the 1960 U.S. presidential election, Senator John F. Kennedy defeated incumbent Vice President Richard Nixon. Although Eisenhower warned Kennedy about Laos and Vietnam, Europe and Latin America “loomed larger than Asia on his sights.”[151] In his inaugural address, Kennedy made the ambitious pledge to “pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and success of liberty.”[152] In June 1961, he bitterly disagreed with Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev when they met in Vienna to discuss key U.S.–Soviet issues. Only 16 months later, the U.S.–Soviet issues included the Cuban Missile Crisis (October 16–28, 1962) played out on television worldwide and was the closest the Cold War came to escalating into a full-scale nuclear war, and the U.S. raised the readiness level of Strategic Air Command(SAC) forces to DEFCON 2.

President’s news conference of 23 March 1961

The Kennedy administration remained essentially committed to the Cold War foreign policy inherited from the Truman and Eisenhower administrations. In 1961, the U.S. had 50,000 troops based in Korea, and Kennedy faced a three-part crisis – the failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the construction of the Berlin Wall, and a negotiated settlement between the pro-Western government of Laos and the Pathet Lao communist movement.[153] These crises made Kennedy believe that another failure on the part of the United States to gain control and stop communist expansion would fatally damage U.S. credibility with its allies and his own reputation. Kennedy was thus determined to “draw a line in the sand” and prevent a communist victory in Vietnam. He told James Reston of The New York Times immediately after his Vienna meeting with Khrushchev, “Now we have a problem making our power credible and Vietnam looks like the place.”[154][155]

In May 1961, U.S. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson visited Saigon and enthusiastically declared Diệm the “Winston Churchill of Asia.”[156] Asked why he had made the comment, Johnson replied, “Diệm’s the only boy we got out there.”[139] Johnson assured Diệm of more aid in molding a fighting force that could resist the communists.

Kennedy’s policy toward South Vietnam rested on the assumption that Diệm and his forces had to ultimately defeat the guerrillas on their own. He was against the deployment of American combat troops and observed that “to introduce U.S. forces in large numbers there today, while it might have an initially favorable military impact, would almost certainly lead to adverse political and, in the long run, adverse military consequences.”[157] The quality of the South Vietnamese military, however, remained poor. Poor leadership, corruption, and political promotions all played a part in weakening the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN). The frequency of guerrilla attacks rose as the insurgency gathered steam. While Hanoi’s support for the Viet Cong played a role, South Vietnamese governmental incompetence was at the core of the crisis.[158]

South Vietnam, Military Regions, 1967

One major issue Kennedy raised was whether the Soviet space and missile programs had surpassed those of the United States. Although Kennedy stressed long-range missile parity with the Soviets, he was also interested in using special forces for counterinsurgency warfare in Third World countries threatened by communist insurgencies. Although they were originally intended for use behind front lines after a conventional Soviet invasion of Europe, Kennedy believed that the guerrilla tactics employed by special forces such as the Green Berets would be effective in a “brush fire” war in Vietnam.

Kennedy advisors Maxwell Taylor and Walt Rostow recommended that U.S. troops be sent to South Vietnam disguised as flood relief workers. Kennedy rejected the idea but increased military assistance yet again. In April 1962, John Kenneth Galbraith warned Kennedy of the “danger we shall replace the French as a colonial force in the area and bleed as the French did.”[159] By November 1963, there were 16,000 American military personnel in South Vietnam, up from Eisenhower’s 900 advisors.[160]

The Strategic Hamlet Program was initiated in late 1961. This joint U.S.-South Vietnamese program attempted to resettle the rural population into fortified camps. It was implemented in early 1962 and involved some forced relocation, village internment, and segregation of rural South Vietnamese into new communities where the peasantry would be isolated from Communist insurgents. It was hoped these new communities would provide security for the peasants and strengthen the tie between them and the central government. However, by November 1963 the program had waned, and it officially ended in 1964.[161]

On 23 July 1962, fourteen nations, including China, South Vietnam, the Soviet Union, North Vietnam and the United States, signed an agreement promising to respect the neutrality of Laos.[162]

Ousting and assassination of Ngô Đình Diệm

See also: Role of the United States in the Vietnam War § John F. Kennedy (1961–1963), 1960 South Vietnamese coup attempt, 1962 South Vietnamese Independence Palace bombing, Huế Phật Đản shootings, and Xá Lợi Pagoda raids
Main articles: Cable 243, Arrest and assassination of Ngô Đình Diệm, Buddhist crisis, Krulak Mendenhall mission, McNamara Taylor mission, 1963 South Vietnamese coup, and Reaction to the 1963 South Vietnamese coup

The inept performance of the South Vietnamese army was exemplified by failed actions such as the Battle of Ap Bac on 2 January 1963, in which a small band of Viet Cong won a battle against a much larger and better-equipped South Vietnamese force, many of whose officers seemed reluctant even to engage in combat.[163]

The Army of the Republic of Vietnam forces were led in that battle by Diệm’s most trusted general, Huỳnh Văn Cao, commander of the IV Corps. Cao was a Catholic who had been promoted due to religion and fidelity rather than skill, and his main job was to preserve his forces to stave off coups; he had earlier vomited during a communist attack. Some policymakers in Washington began to conclude that Diệm was incapable of defeating the communists and might even make a deal with Ho Chi Minh. He seemed concerned only with fending off coups, and had become more paranoid after attempts in 1960 and 1962, which he partly attributed to U.S. encouragement. As Robert F. Kennedy noted, “Diệm wouldn’t make even the slightest concessions. He was difficult to reason with …”[164]

As historian James Gibson summed up the situation:

Strategic hamlets had failed … The South Vietnamese regime was incapable of winning the peasantry because of its class base among landlords. Indeed, there was no longer a ‘regime’ in the sense of a relatively stable political alliance and functioning bureaucracy. Instead, civil government and military operations had virtually ceased. The National Liberation Front had made great progress and was close to declaring provisional revolutionary governments in large areas.[165]

A US tank convoy during the Vietnam War.

Discontent with Diệm’s policies exploded following the Huế Phật Đản shootings of nine majority Buddhists who were protesting against the ban on the Buddhist flag on Vesak, the Buddha’s birthday. This resulted in mass protests against discriminatory policies that gave privileges to the Catholic Church and its adherents. Diệm’s elder brother Ngô Đình Thục was the Archbishop of Huế and aggressively blurred the separation between church and state. Thuc’s anniversary celebrations shortly before Vesak had been bankrolled by the government, and Vatican flags were displayed prominently. There had also been reports of Buddhist pagodas being demolished by Catholic paramilitaries throughout Diệm’s rule. Diệm refused to make concessions to the Buddhist majority or take responsibility for the deaths. On 21 August 1963, the ARVN Special Forces of Colonel Lê Quang Tung, loyal to Diệm’s younger brother Ngô Đình Nhu, raided pagodas across Vietnam, causing widespread damage and destruction and leaving a death toll estimated to range into the hundreds.

Kennedy and McNamara

Ngô Đình Diệm after being shot and killed in the 1963 coup

U.S. officials began discussing the possibility of a regime change during the middle of 1963. The United States Department of State was generally in favor of encouraging a coup, while the Defense Department favored Diệm. Chief among the proposed changes was the removal of Diệm’s younger brother Nhu, who controlled the secret police and special forces and was seen as the man behind the Buddhist repression and more generally the architect of the Ngô family’s rule. This proposal was conveyed to the U.S. embassy in Saigon in Cable 243.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was in contact with generals planning to remove Diệm. They were told that the United States would not oppose such a move nor punish the generals by cutting off aid. President Diệm was overthrown and executed, along with his brother, on 2 November 1963. When he was informed, Maxwell Taylor remembered that Kennedy “rushed from the room with a look of shock and dismay on his face.”[166] He had not anticipated Diệm’s murder. The U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam, Henry Cabot Lodge, invited the coup leaders to the embassy and congratulated them. Ambassador Lodge informed Kennedy that “the prospects now are for a shorter war”.[167] Kennedy wrote Lodge a letter congratulating him for “a fine job”.[168]

Following the coup, chaos ensued. Hanoi took advantage of the situation and increased its support for the guerrillas. South Vietnam entered a period of extreme political instability, as one military government toppled another in quick succession. Increasingly, each new regime was viewed by the communists as a puppet of the Americans; whatever the failings of Diệm, his credentials as a nationalist (as Robert McNamara later reflected) had been impeccable.[169]

U.S military advisors were embedded at every level of the South Vietnamese armed forces. They were however criticized for ignoring the political nature of the insurgency.[170] The Kennedy administration sought to refocus U.S. efforts on pacification and “winning over the hearts and minds” of the population. The military leadership in Washington, however, was hostile to any role for U.S. advisors other than conventional troop training.[171] General Paul Harkins, the commander of U.S. forces in South Vietnam, confidently predicted victory by Christmas 1963.[172] The CIA was less optimistic, however, warning that “the Viet Cong by and large retain de facto control of much of the countryside and have steadily increased the overall intensity of the effort”.[173]

Paramilitary officers from the CIA’s Special Activities Division trained and led Hmong tribesmen in Laos and into Vietnam. The indigenous forces numbered in the tens of thousands and they conducted direct action missions, led by paramilitary officers, against the Communist Pathet Lao forces and their North Vietnamese supporters.[174] The CIA also ran the Phoenix Program and participated in Military Assistance Command, Vietnam – Studies and Observations Group (MAC-V SOG), which was originally named the Special Operations Group, but was changed for cover purposes.[175]

Johnson’s escalation, 1963–69

Main article: Joint warfare in South Vietnam, 1963–69
Further information: Role of the United States in the Vietnam War § Americanization
See also: Opposition to the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, Gulf of Tonkin incident, 1964 South Vietnamese coup, September 1964 South Vietnamese coup attempt, December 1964 South Vietnamese coup, and 1965 South Vietnamese coup

A U.S. B-66 Destroyer and four F-105 Thunderchiefs dropping bombs on North Vietnam during Operation Rolling Thunder

At the time Lyndon B. Johnson took over the presidency after the death of Kennedy, he had not been heavily involved with policy toward Vietnam, Presidential aide Jack Valenti recalls, “Vietnam at the time was no bigger than a man’s fist on the horizon. We hardly discussed it because it was not worth discussing.”[176][177]

Upon becoming president, however, Johnson immediately had to focus on Vietnam: on 24 November 1963, he said, “the battle against communism … must be joined … with strength and determination.”[178] The pledge came at a time when the situation in South Vietnam was deteriorating, especially in places like the Mekong Delta, because of the recent coup against Diệm.[179]

The military revolutionary council, meeting in lieu of a strong South Vietnamese leader, was made up of 12 members headed by General Dương Văn Minh—whom Stanley Karnow, a journalist on the ground, later recalled as “a model of lethargy”.[180] Lodge, frustrated by the end of the year, cabled home about Minh: “Will he be strong enough to get on top of things?” His regime was overthrown in January 1964 by General Nguyễn Khánh.[181] However, there was persistent instability in the military as several coups—not all successful—occurred in a short period of time.

An alleged Viet Cong activist, captured during an attack on an American outpost near the Cambodian border, is interrogated.

On 2 August 1964, the USS Maddox, on an intelligence mission along North Vietnam’s coast, allegedly fired upon and damaged several torpedo boats that had been stalking it in the Gulf of Tonkin.[182] A second attack was reported two days later on the USS Turner Joy and Maddox in the same area. The circumstances of the attack were murky. Lyndon Johnson commented to Undersecretary of State George Ball that “those sailors out there may have been shooting at flying fish.”[183]

The second attack led to retaliatory air strikes, prompted Congress to approve the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution on 7 August 1964,[184] signed by Johnson, and gave the president power to conduct military operations in Southeast Asia without declaring war.[185] Although Congressmen at the time denied that this was a full-scale war declaration, the Tonkin Resolution allowed the president unilateral power to launch a full-scale war if the president deemed it necessary.[185] In the same month, Johnson pledged that he was not “committing American boys to fighting a war that I think ought to be fought by the boys of Asia to help protect their own land”.[186]

An undated NSA publication declassified in 2005, however, revealed that there was no attack on 4 August.[187] It had already been called into question long before this. “Gulf of Tonkin incident“, writes Louise Gerdes, “is an oft-cited example of the way in which Johnson misled the American people to gain support for his foreign policy in Vietnam.”[188] George C. Herring argues, however, that McNamara and the Pentagon “did not knowingly lie about the alleged attacks, but they were obviously in a mood to retaliate and they seem to have selected from the evidence available to them those parts that confirmed what they wanted to believe.”[189]

“From a strength of approximately 5,000 at the start of 1959 the Viet Cong’s ranks grew to about 100,000 at the end of 1964 … Between 1961 and 1964 the Army’s strength rose from about 850,000 to nearly a million men.”[170] The numbers for U.S. troops deployed to Vietnam during the same period were quite different; 2,000 in 1961, rising rapidly to 16,500 in 1964.[190] By early 1965, 7,559 South Vietnamese hamlets had been destroyed by the Viet Cong.[191]

A marine from 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines, moves an alleged Viet Cong activist to the rear during a search and clear operation held by the battalion 15 miles (24 km) west of Da Nang Air Base.

The National Security Council recommended a three-stage escalation of the bombing of North Vietnam. On 2 March 1965, following an attack on a U.S. Marine barracks at Pleiku,[192] Operation Flaming Dart (initiated when Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin was on a state visit to North Vietnam), Operation Rolling Thunder and Operation Arc Light commenced.[193] The bombing campaign, which ultimately lasted three years, was intended to force North Vietnam to cease its support for the Viet Cong by threatening to destroy North Vietnam’s air defenses and industrial infrastructure. As well, it was aimed at bolstering the morale of the South Vietnamese.[194] Between March 1965 and November 1968, “Rolling Thunder” deluged the north with a million tons of missiles, rockets and bombs.[195]

Bombing was not restricted to North Vietnam. Other aerial campaigns, such as Operation Commando Hunt, targeted different parts of the Viet Cong and NVA infrastructure. These included the Ho Chi Minh trail supply route, which ran through Laos and Cambodia. The objective of stopping North Vietnam and the Viet Cong was never reached. As one officer noted, “This is a political war and it calls for discriminate killing. The best weapon … would be a knife … The worst is an airplane.”[196] The Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force Curtis LeMay, however, had long advocated saturation bombing in Vietnam and wrote of the communists that “we’re going to bomb them back into the Stone Age”.[197]

Escalation and ground war

File:1965-02-08 Showdown in Vietnam.ogv

Universal Newsreel film about an attack on U.S. air bases and the U.S. response. 1965

Peasants suspected of being Viet Cong under detention of U.S. army, 1966

Start of Tet Offensive as seen looking north from LZ Betty’s water tower, just south of Quang Tri City

Heavily bandaged woman with a tag attached to her arm which reads “VNC Female” meaning Vietnamese civilian

After several attacks upon them, it was decided that U.S. Air Force bases needed more protection as the South Vietnamese military seemed incapable of providing security. On 8 March 1965, 3,500 U.S. Marines were dispatched to South Vietnam. This marked the beginning of the American ground war. U.S. public opinion overwhelmingly supported the deployment.[198]

In a statement similar to that made to the French almost two decades earlier, Ho Chi Minh warned that if the Americans “want to make war for twenty years then we shall make war for twenty years. If they want to make peace, we shall make peace and invite them to afternoon tea.”[199] As former First Deputy Foreign Minister Tran Quang Co has noted, the primary goal of the war was to reunify Vietnam and secure its independence.[citation needed]Some have argued that the policy of North Vietnam was not to topple other non-communist governments in South East Asia.[200] However, the Pentagon Papers warned of “a dangerous period of Vietnamese expansionism … Laos and Cambodia would have been easy pickings for such a Vietnam … Thailand, Malaya, Singapore, and even Indonesia, could have been next.”[201]

The Marines’ initial assignment was defensive. The first deployment of 3,500 in March 1965 was increased to nearly 200,000 by December.[202] The U.S. military had long been schooled in offensive warfare. Regardless of political policies, U.S. commanders were institutionally and psychologically unsuited to a defensive mission.[202] In December 1964, ARVN forces had suffered heavy losses at the Battle of Bình Giã,[203] in a battle that both sides viewed as a watershed. Previously, communist forces had utilized hit-and-run guerrilla tactics. However, at Binh Gia, they had defeated a strong ARVN force in a conventional battle.[204] Tellingly, South Vietnamese forces were again defeated in June 1965 at the Battle of Đồng Xoài.[205]

U.S. soldiers searching a village for Viet Cong

Desertion rates were increasing, and morale plummeted. General William Westmoreland informed Admiral U. S. Grant Sharp Jr., commander of U.S. Pacific forces, that the situation was critical.[202] He said, “I am convinced that U.S. troops with their energy, mobility, and firepower can successfully take the fight to the NLF [National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam a.k.a. the Viet Cong]”.[206] With this recommendation, Westmoreland was advocating an aggressive departure from America’s defensive posture and the sidelining of the South Vietnamese. By ignoring ARVN units, the U.S. commitment became open-ended.[207] Westmoreland outlined a three-point plan to win the war:

  • Phase 1. Commitment of U.S. (and other free world) forces necessary to halt the losing trend by the end of 1965.
  • Phase 2. U.S. and allied forces mount major offensive actions to seize the initiative to destroy guerrilla and organized enemy forces. This phase would end when the enemy had been worn down, thrown on the defensive, and driven back from major populated areas.
  • Phase 3. If the enemy persisted, a period of twelve to eighteen months following Phase 2 would be required for the final destruction of enemy forces remaining in remote base areas.[208]

The plan was approved by Johnson and marked a profound departure from the previous administration’s insistence that the government of South Vietnam was responsible for defeating the guerrillas. Westmoreland predicted victory by the end of 1967.[209] Johnson did not, however, communicate this change in strategy to the media. Instead he emphasized continuity.[210] The change in U.S. policy depended on matching the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong in a contest of attrition and morale. The opponents were locked in a cycle of escalation.[211] The idea that the government of South Vietnam could manage its own affairs was shelved.[211]

Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin with U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson at the Glassboro Summit Conference where the two representatives discussed the possibilities of a peace settlement.

The one-year tour of duty of American soldiers deprived units of experienced leadership. As one observer noted “we were not in Vietnam for 10 years, but for one year 10 times.”[196] As a result, training programs were shortened.

South Vietnam was inundated with manufactured goods. As Stanley Karnow writes, “the main PX [Post Exchange], located in the Saigon suburb of Cholon, was only slightly smaller than the New York Bloomingdale’s …”[212] The American buildup transformed the economy and had a profound effect on South Vietnamese society. A huge surge in corruption was witnessed.

Washington encouraged its SEATO allies to contribute troops. Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Thailand, and the Philippines[213] all agreed to send troops. Major allies, however, notably NATO nations Canada and the United Kingdom, declined Washington’s troop requests.[214] The U.S. and its allies mounted complex operations, such as operations Masher, Attleboro, Cedar Falls, and Junction City. However, the communist insurgents remained elusive and demonstrated great tactical flexibility.

Meanwhile, the political situation in South Vietnam began to stabilize with the coming to power of prime minister Air Marshal Nguyễn Cao Kỳ and figurehead Chief of State, General Nguyễn Văn Thiệu, in mid-1965 at the head of a military junta. This ended a series of coups that had happened more than once a year. In 1967, Thieu became president with Ky as his deputy, after rigged elections. Although they were nominally a civilian government, Ky was supposed to maintain real power through a behind-the-scenes military body. However, Thieu outmaneuvered and sidelined Ky by filling the ranks with generals from his faction. Thieu was also accused of murdering Ky loyalists through contrived military accidents. Thieu, mistrustful and indecisive, remained president until 1975, having won a one-candidate election in 1971.[215] [216]

The Johnson administration employed a “policy of minimum candor”[217] in its dealings with the media. Military information officers sought to manage media coverage by emphasizing stories that portrayed progress in the war. Over time, this policy damaged the public trust in official pronouncements. As the media’s coverage of the war and that of the Pentagon diverged, a so-called credibility gap developed.[217]

Tet Offensive

Main article: Tet Offensive

A US “tunnel rat” soldier prepares to enter a Viet Cong tunnel.

In late 1967 the Communists lured American forces into the hinterlands at Đắk Tô and at the Marine Khe Sanh combat base in Quảng Trị Province where the United States was more than willing to fight because it could unleash its massive firepower unimpeded by civilians. However, on 31 January 1968, the NVA and the Viet Cong broke the truce that traditionally accompanied the Tết (Lunar New Year) holiday by launching the largest battle of the war, the Tet Offensive, in the hope of sparking a national uprising. Over 100 cities were attacked by over 85,000 enemy troops including assaults on General Westmoreland’s headquarters and the U.S. Embassy in Saigon.[218]

Although the U.S. and South Vietnamese forces were initially shocked by the scale of the urban offensive, they responded quickly and effectively, decimating the ranks of the Viet Cong. In the former capital city of Huế, the combined NVA and Viet Cong troops captured the Imperial Citadel and much of the city and massacred over 3,000 unarmed Huế civilians.[219] In the following Battle of Huế American forces employed massive firepower that left 80 percent of the city in ruins.[220] Further north, at Quảng Trị City, members of the 1st Cavalry Division and 1st ARVN Infantry Division killed more than 900 NVA and Vietcong troops in and around the city.[221][222] In Saigon, 1,000 NLF (Viet Cong) fighters fought off 11,000 U.S. and ARVN troops for three weeks.

U.S. Marines in Operation Allen Brook in 1968

Across South Vietnam, 1,100 Americans and other allied troops, 2,100 ARVN, 14,000 civilians, and 32,000 NVA and Viet Cong lay dead.[222][223]

But the Tet Offensive had another, unintended consequence. General Westmoreland had become the public face of the war. He had been named Time magazine’s 1965’s Man of the Year and eventually was featured on the magazine’s cover three times.[224] Time described him as “the sinewy personification of the American fighting man … [who] directed the historic buildup, drew up the battle plans, and infused the… men under him with his own idealistic view of U.S. aims and responsibilities.”[224] Six weeks after the Tet Offensive began, “public approval of his overall performance dropped from 48 percent to 36 percent–and, more dramatically, endorsement for his handling of the war fell from 40 percent to 26 percent.”[225]

U.S. Marines fighting in Huế

A few months earlier, in November 1967, Westmoreland had spearheaded a public relations drive for the Johnson administration to bolster flagging public support.[226] In a speech before the National Press Club he had said a point in the war had been reached “where the end comes into view.”[227] Thus, the public was shocked and confused when Westmoreland’s predictions were trumped by Tet.[226] The American media, which had until then been largely supportive of U.S. efforts, turned on the Johnson administration for what had become an increasing credibility gap.

Although the Tet Offensive was a significant victory for allied forces, in terms of casualties and control of territory, it was a sound defeat when evaluated from the point of view of strategic consequences: it became a turning point in America’s involvement in the Vietnam War because it had a profound impact on domestic support for the conflict. Despite the military failure for the Communist forces, the Tet Offensive became a political victory for them and ended the career of president Lyndon B. Johnson, who declined to run for re-election as his approval rating slumped from 48 to 36 percent.[226] As James Witz noted, Tet “contradicted the claims of progress … made by the Johnson administration and the military”.[226] The offensive constituted an intelligence failure on the scale of Pearl Harbor.[213][228] Journalist Peter Arnett, in a disputed article, quoted an officer he refused to identify,[229] saying of Bến Tre (laid to rubble by U.S. attacks)[230] that “it became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it”.[231]

Viet Cong/NVA killed by U.S. Air Force personnel during a perimeter attack of Tan Son Nhut Air Base during the Tet Offensive

Walter Cronkite said in an editorial, “To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion.”[232][233] Following Cronkite’s editorial report, President Lyndon Johnson is reported to have said, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.”[234][235]

Westmoreland became Chief of Staff of the Army in March 1968, just as all resistance was finally subdued. The move was technically a promotion. However, his position had become untenable because of the offensive and because his request for 200,000 additional troops had been leaked to the media. Westmoreland was succeeded by his deputy Creighton Abrams, a commander less inclined to public media pronouncements.[236]

On 10 May 1968, despite low expectations, peace talks began between the United States and North Vietnam in Paris. Negotiations stagnated for five months, until Johnson gave orders to halt the bombing of North Vietnam.

As historian Robert Dallek writes, “Lyndon Johnson’s escalation of the war in Vietnam divided Americans into warring camps … cost 30,000 American lives by the time he left office, [and] destroyed Johnson’s presidency …”[237]His refusal to send more U.S. troops to Vietnam was seen as Johnson’s admission that the war was lost.[238] It can be seen that the refusal was a tacit admission that the war could not be won by escalation, at least not at a cost acceptable to the American people.[238] As Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara noted, “the dangerous illusion of victory by the United States was therefore dead.”[239]

Vietnam was a major political issue during the United States presidential election in 1968. The election was won by Republican party candidate Richard Nixon.

Vietnamization, 1969–72

Nixon Doctrine / Vietnamization

Propaganda leaflet urging the defection of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese to the side of the Republic of Vietnam

U.S. President Richard Nixon began troop withdrawals in 1969. His plan, called the Nixon Doctrine, was to build up the ARVN, so that they could take over the defense of South Vietnam. The policy became known as “Vietnamization“.

Nixon said in 1970 in an announcement, “I am tonight announcing plans for the withdrawal of an additional 150,000 American troops to be completed during the spring of next year. This will bring a total reduction of 265,500 men in our armed forces in Vietnam below the level that existed when we took office 15 months ago.”[240]

On 10 October 1969, Nixon ordered a squadron of 18 B-52s loaded with nuclear weapons to race to the border of Soviet airspace to convince the Soviet Union, in accord with the madman theory, that he was capable of anything to end the Vietnam War.

Nixon also pursued negotiations. Theater commander Creighton Abrams shifted to smaller operations, aimed at communist logistics, with better use of firepower and more cooperation with the ARVN. Nixon also began to pursue détente with the Soviet Union and rapprochement with China. This policy helped to decrease global tensions. Détente led to nuclear arms reduction on the part of both superpowers. But Nixon was disappointed that China and the Soviet Union continued to supply the North Vietnamese with aid. In September 1969, Ho Chi Minh died at age seventy-nine.[241]

The anti-war movement was gaining strength in the United States. Nixon appealed to the “silent majority” of Americans who he said supported the war without showing it in public. But revelations of the My Lai Massacre, in which a U.S. Army platoon raped and killed civilians, and the 1969 “Green Beret Affair” where eight Special Forces soldiers, including the 5th Special Forces Group Commander, were arrested for the murder[242] of a suspected double agent[243] provoked national and international outrage.

Beginning in 1970, American troops were withdrawn from border areas where most of the fighting took place, and instead redeployed along the coast and interior, which is one reason why casualties in 1970 were less than half of 1969’s totals.[240]

Cambodia and Laos

Main articles: Operation Menu, Operation Freedom Deal, Operation Commando Hunt, Laotian Civil War, Cambodian Civil War, and Operation Lam Son 719

Prince Norodom Sihanouk had proclaimed Cambodia neutral since 1955,[244] but the communists used Cambodian soil as a base and Sihanouk tolerated their presence, because he wished to avoid being drawn into a wider regional conflict. Under pressure from Washington, however, he changed this policy in 1969. The Vietnamese communists were no longer welcome. President Nixon took the opportunity to launch a massive bombing campaign, called Operation Menu, against communist sanctuaries along the Cambodia/Vietnam border. Only five high-ranking Congressional officials were informed of Operation Menu.[245]

In 1970, Prince Sihanouk was deposed by his pro-American prime minister Lon Nol. North Vietnam invaded Cambodia in 1970 at the request of Khmer Rouge deputy leader Nuon Chea.[246] U.S. and ARVN forces launched an invasion into Cambodia to attack NVA and Viet Cong bases.

This invasion sparked nationwide U.S. protests as Nixon had promised to deescalate the American involvement. Four students were killed by National Guardsmen at Kent State University during a protest in Ohio, which provoked further public outrage in the United States. The reaction to the incident by the Nixon administration was seen as callous and indifferent, providing additional impetus for the anti-war movement.[247] The U.S. Air Force continued to heavily bomb Cambodia in support of the Cambodian government as part of Operation Freedom Deal.

In 1971 the Pentagon Papers were leaked to The New York Times. The top-secret history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, commissioned by the Department of Defense, detailed a long series of public deceptions on the part of the U.S. government. The Supreme Court ruled that its publication was legal.[248]

M41 Walker Bulldog, the main battle tank of the ARVN

The ARVN launched Operation Lam Son 719 in February 1971, aimed at cutting the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos.[162] The ostensibly neutral Laos had long been the scene of a civil war, pitting the Laotian government backed by the US against the Pathet Lao and its North Vietnamese allies. After meeting resistance, ARVN forces retreated in a confused rout. They fled along roads littered with their own dead. When they exhausted fuel supplies, soldiers abandoned their vehicles and attempted to barge their way on to American helicopters sent to evacuate the wounded. Many ARVN soldiers clung to helicopter skids in a desperate attempt to save themselves. U.S. aircraft had to destroy abandoned equipment, including tanks, to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. Half of the ARVN troops involved in the operation were either captured or killed. The operation was a fiasco and represented a clear failure of Vietnamization. As Karnow noted “the blunders were monumental… The (South Vietnamese) government’s top officers had been tutored by the Americans for ten or fifteen years, many at training schools in the United States, yet they had learned little.”[249]

In 1971 Australia and New Zealand withdrew their soldiers. The U.S. troop count was further reduced to 196,700, with a deadline to remove another 45,000 troops by February 1972. As peace protests spread across the United States, disillusionment and ill-discipline grew in the ranks[250] including increased drug use, “fragging” (the act of murdering the commander of a fighting unit) and desertions.[251]

Vietnamization was again tested by the Easter Offensive of 1972, a massive conventional NVA invasion of South Vietnam. The NVA and Viet Cong quickly overran the northern provinces and in coordination with other forces attacked from Cambodia, threatening to cut the country in half. U.S. troop withdrawals continued. American airpower responded, beginning Operation Linebacker, and the offensive was halted. However, it became clear that without American airpower South Vietnam could not survive. The last remaining American ground troops were withdrawn by the end of March 1973; U.S. naval and air forces remained in the Gulf of Tonkin, as well as Thailand and Guam.[252]

1972 election and Paris Peace Accords

The war was the central issue of the 1972 U.S. presidential election. Nixon’s opponent, George McGovern, campaigned on a platform of withdrawal from Vietnam. Nixon’s National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, continued secret negotiations with North Vietnam’s Lê Đức Thọ. In October 1972, they reached an agreement.

Operation Linebacker II, December 1972

However, South Vietnamese president Thieu demanded massive changes to the peace accord. When North Vietnam went public with the agreement’s details, the Nixon administration claimed that the North was attempting to embarrass the president. The negotiations became deadlocked. Hanoi demanded new changes.

To show his support for South Vietnam and force Hanoi back to the negotiating table, Nixon ordered Operation Linebacker II, a massive bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong 18–29 December 1972. The offensive destroyed much of the remaining economic and industrial capacity of North Vietnam. Simultaneously Nixon pressured Thieu to accept the terms of the agreement, threatening to conclude a bilateral peace deal and cut off American aid.

On 15 January 1973, Nixon announced the suspension of offensive action against North Vietnam. The Paris Peace Accords on “Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam” were signed on 27 January 1973, officially ending direct U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. A cease-fire was declared across North and South Vietnam. U.S. prisoners of war were released. The agreement guaranteed the territorial integrity of Vietnam and, like the Geneva Conference of 1954, called for national elections in the North and South. The Paris Peace Accords stipulated a sixty-day period for the total withdrawal of U.S. forces. “This article”, noted Peter Church, “proved… to be the only one of the Paris Agreements which was fully carried out.”[253]

Opposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War: 1962–1973

Main article: Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War

Protests against the war in Washington, D.C. on 24 April 1971

Anti-Vietnam War demonstration, 1967.

During the course of the Vietnam War a large segment of the American population came to be opposed to U.S. involvement in South Vietnam. Public opinion steadily turned against the war following 1967 and by 1970 only a third of Americans believed that the U.S. had not made a mistake by sending troops to fight in Vietnam.[254]

Nearly a third of the American population were strongly against the war. It is possible to specify certain groups who led the anti-war movement and the reasons why. Many young people protested because they were the ones being drafted while others were against the war because the anti-war movement grew increasingly popular among the counterculture and drug culture in American society and its music.

Some advocates within the peace movement advocated a unilateral withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam. One reason given for the withdrawal is that it would contribute to a lessening of tensions in the region and thus less human bloodshed. Early opposition to U.S. involvement in Vietnam drew its inspiration from the Geneva Conference of 1954. American support of Diệm in refusing elections was seen as thwarting the very democracy that America claimed to be supporting. John F. Kennedy, while Senator, opposed involvement in Vietnam.[190]

Opposition to the Vietnam War tended to unite groups opposed to U.S. anti-communism and imperialism[255] and, for those involved with the New Left such as the Catholic Worker Movement. Others, such as Stephen Spiro opposed the war based on the theory of Just War. Some wanted to show solidarity with the people of Vietnam, such as Norman Morrison emulating the actions of Thích Quảng Đức. In a key televised debate from 15 May 1965, Eric Severeid reporting for CBS conducted a debate between McGeorge Bundy and Hans Morgenthau dealing with an acute summary of the main war concerns of the U.S. as seen at that time stating them as: “(1) What are the justifications for the American presence in Vietnam – why are we there? (2) What is the fundamental nature of this war? Is it aggression from North Vietnam or is it basically, a civil war between the peoples of South Vietnam? (3) What are the implications of this Vietnam struggle in terms of Communist China’s power and aims and future actions? And (4) What are the alternatives to our present policy in Vietnam?”[256][257]

High-profile opposition to the Vietnam War turned to street protests in an effort to turn U.S. political opinion. On 15 October 1969, the Vietnam Moratorium attracted millions of Americans.[258] Riots broke out at the 1968 Democratic National Convention during protests against the war.[259] After news reports of American military abuses such as the 1968 My Lai Massacre, brought new attention and support to the anti-war movement, some veterans joined Vietnam Veterans Against the War. The fatal shooting of four students at Kent State University in 1970 led to nationwide university protests.[260] Anti-war protests ended with the final withdrawal of troops after the Paris Peace Accords were signed in 1973. South Vietnam was left to defend itself alone when the fighting resumed. Many South Vietnamese subsequently fled to the United States.[261]

Exit of the Americans: 1973–75

Anti-war protests

The United States began drastically reducing their troop support in South Vietnam during the final years of Vietnamization. Many U.S. troops were removed from the region, and on 5 March 1971, the United States returned the 5th Special Forces Group, which was the first American unit deployed to South Vietnam, to its former base in Fort Bragg, North Carolina.[262] [A 5]

Under the Paris Peace Accords, between North Vietnamese Foreign Minister Lê Đức Thọ and U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and reluctantly signed by South Vietnamese president Thiệu, U.S. military forces withdrew from South Vietnam and prisoners were exchanged. North Vietnam was allowed to continue supplying communist troops in the South, but only to the extent of replacing expended materiel. Later that year the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Kissinger and Thọ, but the Vietnamese negotiator declined it saying that a true peace did not yet exist.

The communist leaders had expected that the ceasefire terms would favor their side. But Saigon, bolstered by a surge of U.S. aid received just before the ceasefire went into effect, began to roll back the Viet Cong. The communists responded with a new strategy hammered out in a series of meetings in Hanoi in March 1973, according to the memoirs of Trần Văn Trà.[265]

As the Viet Cong’s top commander, Tra participated in several of these meetings. With U.S. bombings suspended, work on the Ho Chi Minh trail and other logistical structures could proceed unimpeded. Logistics would be upgraded until the North was in a position to launch a massive invasion of the South, projected for the 1975–76 dry season. Tra calculated that this date would be Hanoi’s last opportunity to strike before Saigon’s army could be fully trained.[265]

Map of the United States, showing Nixon's victories in 49 states (red) over McGovern.

Calling for immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam, George McGovern’s 1972 Presidential Campaign lost 49 of 50 states to Richard Nixon.

In the November 1972 Election, Democratic nominee George McGovern lost 49 of 50 states to the incumbent President Richard Nixon. On 15 March 1973, President Nixon implied that the United States would intervene militarily if the communist side violated the ceasefire. Public and congressional reaction to Nixon’s trial balloon was unfavorable and in April Nixon appointed Graham Martin as U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam. During his confirmation hearings in June 1973, Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger stated that he would recommend resumption of U.S. bombing in North Vietnam if North Vietnam launched a major offensive against South Vietnam. On 4 June 1973, the U.S. Senate passed the Case–Church Amendment to prohibit such intervention.[266]

The oil price shock of October 1973 following the Yom Kippur War in Egypt caused significant damage to the South Vietnamese economy. The Viet Cong resumed offensive operations when the dry season began and by January 1974 it had recaptured the territory it lost during the previous dry season. After two clashes that left 55 South Vietnamese soldiers dead, President Thieu announced on 4 January that the war had restarted and that the Paris Peace Accord was no longer in effect. There had been over 25,000 South Vietnamese casualties during the ceasefire period.[267]

Gerald Ford took over as U.S. president on 9 August 1974 after President Nixon resigned due to the Watergate scandal. At this time, Congress cut financial aid to South Vietnam from $1 billion a year to $700 million. The U.S. midterm elections in 1974 brought in a new Congress dominated by Democrats who were even more determined to confront the president on the war. Congress immediately voted in restrictions on funding and military activities to be phased in through 1975 and to culminate in a total cutoff of funding in 1976.

The success of the 1973–74 dry season offensive inspired Trà to return to Hanoi in October 1974 and plead for a larger offensive in the next dry season. This time, Trà could travel on a drivable highway with regular fueling stops, a vast change from the days when the Ho Chi Minh trail was a dangerous mountain trek.[268] Giáp, the North Vietnamese defense minister, was reluctant to approve Trà’s plan. A larger offensive might provoke a U.S. reaction and interfere with the big push planned for 1976. Trà appealed over Giáp’s head to first secretary Lê Duẩn, who approved of the operation.

Trà’s plan called for a limited offensive from Cambodia into Phước Long Province. The strike was designed to solve local logistical problems, gauge the reaction of South Vietnamese forces, and determine whether U.S. would return to the fray.

Recently released American POWs from North Vietnamese prison camps, 1973

On 13 December 1974, North Vietnamese forces attacked Route 14 in Phước Long Province. Phuoc Binh, the provincial capital, fell on 6 January 1975. Ford desperately asked Congress for funds to assist and re-supply the South before it was overrun. Congress refused. The fall of Phuoc Binh and the lack of an American response left the South Vietnamese elite demoralized.

The speed of this success led the Politburo to reassess its strategy. It was decided that operations in the Central Highlands would be turned over to General Văn Tiến Dũng and that Pleiku should be seized, if possible. Before he left for the South, Dũng was addressed by Lê Duẩn: “Never have we had military and political conditions so perfect or a strategic advantage as great as we have now.”[269]

At the start of 1975, the South Vietnamese had three times as much artillery and twice the number of tanks and armored cars as the opposition. They also had 1,400 aircraft and a two-to-one numerical superiority in combat troops over their Communist enemies.[270] However, the rising oil prices meant that much of this could not be used. They faced a well-organized, highly determined and well-funded North Vietnam. Much of the North’s material and financial support came from the communist bloc. Within South Vietnam, there was increasing chaos. The departure of the American military had compromised an economy dependent on U.S. financial support and the presence of a large number of U.S. troops. South Vietnam suffered from the global recession that followed the Arab oil embargo.

Campaign 275

See also: 1975 Spring Offensive, Battle of Ban Me Thuot, and Hue–Da Nang Campaign

Captured U.S.-supplied armored vehicles

On 10 March 1975, General Dung launched Campaign 275, a limited offensive into the Central Highlands, supported by tanks and heavy artillery. The target was Buôn Ma Thuột, in Đắk Lắk Province. If the town could be taken, the provincial capital of Pleiku and the road to the coast would be exposed for a planned campaign in 1976. The ARVN proved incapable of resisting the onslaught, and its forces collapsed on 11 March. Once again, Hanoi was surprised by the speed of their success. Dung now urged the Politburo to allow him to seize Pleiku immediately and then turn his attention to Kon Tum. He argued that with two months of good weather remaining until the onset of the monsoon, it would be irresponsible to not take advantage of the situation.[34]

President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu, a former general, was fearful that his forces would be cut off in the north by the attacking communists; Thieu ordered a retreat. The president declared this to be a “lighten the top and keep the bottom” strategy. But in what appeared to be a repeat of Operation Lam Son 719, the withdrawal soon turned into a bloody rout. While the bulk of ARVN forces attempted to flee, isolated units fought desperately. ARVN General Phu abandoned Pleiku and Kon Tum and retreated toward the coast, in what became known as the “column of tears”.[34]

As the ARVN tried to disengage from the enemy, refugees mixed in with the line of retreat. The poor condition of roads and bridges, damaged by years of conflict and neglect, slowed Phu’s column. As the North Vietnamese forces approached, panic set in. Often abandoned by the officers, the soldiers and civilians were shelled incessantly. The retreat degenerated into a desperate scramble for the coast. By 1 April the “column of tears” was all but annihilated.[34]

On 20 March, Thieu reversed himself and ordered Huế, Vietnam’s third-largest city, be held at all costs, and then changed his policy several times. Thieu’s contradictory orders confused and demoralized his officer corps. As the North Vietnamese launched their attack, panic set in, and ARVN resistance withered. On 22 March, the NVA opened the siege of Huế. Civilians flooded the airport and the docks hoping for any mode of escape. Some even swam out to sea to reach boats and barges anchored offshore. In the confusion, routed ARVN soldiers fired on civilians to make way for their retreat.[34]

On 25 March, after a three-day battle, Huế fell. As resistance in Huế collapsed, North Vietnamese rockets rained down on Da Nang and its airport. By 28 March 35,000 VPA troops were poised to attack the suburbs. By 30 March 100,000 leaderless ARVN troops surrendered as the NVA marched victoriously through Da Nang. With the fall of the city, the defense of the Central Highlands and Northern provinces came to an end.[34]

Final North Vietnamese offensive

Captured RVNAF warplanes in Ho Chi Minh City

For more details on the final North Vietnamese offensive, see Ho Chi Minh Campaign.

With the northern half of the country under their control, the Politburo ordered General Dung to launch the final offensive against Saigon. The operational plan for the Ho Chi Minh Campaign called for the capture of Saigon before 1 May. Hanoi wished to avoid the coming monsoon and prevent any redeployment of ARVN forces defending the capital. Northern forces, their morale boosted by their recent victories, rolled on, taking Nha Trang, Cam Ranh, and Da Lat.

On 7 April, three North Vietnamese divisions attacked Xuân Lộc, 40 miles (64 km) east of Saigon. The North Vietnamese met fierce resistance at Xuân Lộc from the ARVN 18th Division, who were outnumbered six to one. For two bloody weeks, severe fighting raged as the ARVN defenders made a last stand to try to block the North Vietnamese advance. By 21 April, however, the exhausted garrison were ordered to withdraw towards Saigon.

An embittered and tearful president Thieu resigned on the same day, declaring that the United States had betrayed South Vietnam. In a scathing attack, he suggested U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had tricked him into signing the Paris peace agreement two years earlier, promising military aid that failed to materialize. Having transferred power to Trần Văn Hương, he left for Taiwan on 25 April. At the same time, North Vietnamese tanks had reached Biên Hòa and turned toward Saigon, brushing aside isolated ARVN units along the way.

By the end of April, the ARVN had collapsed on all fronts except in the Mekong Delta. Thousands of refugees streamed southward, ahead of the main communist onslaught. On 27 April 100,000 North Vietnamese troops encircled Saigon. The city was defended by about 30,000 ARVN troops. To hasten a collapse and foment panic, the NVA shelled the airport and forced its closure. With the air exit closed, large numbers of civilians found that they had no way out.

Fall of Saigon

Victorious NVA troops at the Presidential Palace, Saigon.

Main articles: Fall of Saigon and Operation Frequent Wind

Chaos, unrest, and panic broke out as hysterical South Vietnamese officials and civilians scrambled to leave Saigon. Martial law was declared. American helicopters began evacuating South Vietnamese, U.S., and foreign nationals from various parts of the city and from the U.S. embassy compound. Operation Frequent Wind had been delayed until the last possible moment, because of U.S. Ambassador Graham Martin‘s belief that Saigon could be held and that a political settlement could be reached.

Schlesinger announced early in the morning of 29 April 1975 the evacuation from Saigon by helicopter of the last U.S. diplomatic, military, and civilian personnel. Frequent Wind was arguably the largest helicopter evacuation in history. It began on 29 April, in an atmosphere of desperation, as hysterical crowds of Vietnamese vied for limited space. Martin pleaded with Washington to dispatch $700 million in emergency aid to bolster the regime and help it mobilize fresh military reserves. But American public opinion had soured on this conflict.

In the United States, South Vietnam was perceived as doomed. President Gerald Ford had given a televised speech on 23 April, declaring an end to the Vietnam War and all U.S. aid. Frequent Wind continued around the clock, as North Vietnamese tanks breached defenses on the outskirts of Saigon. In the early morning hours of 30 April, the last U.S. Marines evacuated the embassy by helicopter, as civilians swamped the perimeter and poured into the grounds. Many of them had been employed by the Americans and were left to their fate.

On 30 April 1975, NVA troops entered the city of Saigon and quickly overcame all resistance, capturing key buildings and installations. A tank from the 324th Division crashed through the gates of the Independence Palace at 11:30 am local time and the Viet Cong flag was raised above it. President Dương Văn Minh, who had succeeded Huong two days earlier, surrendered.[271]

Other countries’ involvement

Pro-Hanoi

Ho Chi Minh with East German sailors in Stralsund harbour, 1957

2,000 years of Chinese-Vietnamese enmity and hundreds of years of Chinese and Russian mutual suspicions were suspended when they united against us in Vietnam.

— Richard Holbrooke, 1985[272]

People’s Republic of China

In 1950, the People’s Republic of China extended diplomatic recognition to the Viet Minh‘s Democratic Republic of Vietnam and sent weapons, as well as military advisers led by Luo Guibo to assist the Viet Minh in its war with the French. The first draft of the 1954 Geneva Accords was negotiated by French prime minister Pierre Mendès France and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai who, fearing U.S. intervention, urged the Viet Minh to accept a partition at the 17th parallel.[273]

China’s support for North Vietnam included both financial aid and the deployment of hundreds of thousands of military personnel in support roles. In the summer of 1962, Mao Zedong agreed to supply Hanoi with 90,000 rifles and guns free of charge. Starting in 1965, China sent anti-aircraft units and engineering battalions to North Vietnam to repair the damage caused by American bombing, man anti-aircraft batteries, rebuild roads and railroads, transport supplies, and perform other engineering works. This freed North Vietnamese army units for combat in the South. China sent 320,000 troops and annual arms shipments worth $180 million.[274] The Chinese military claims to have caused 38% of American air losses in the war.[27] China claimed that its military and economic aid to North Vietnam and the Viet Cong totaled $20 billion (approx. $143 billion adjusted for inflation in 2015) during the Vietnam War.[27] Included in that aid were donations of 5 million tons of food to North Vietnam (equivalent to NV food production in a single year), accounting for 10-15% of the North Vietnamese food supply by the 1970s.[27]

Military aid given to North Vietnam by the People’s Republic of China[275]
Date 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 Total
Guns 80,500 220,767 141,531 146,600 219,899 139,900 101,800 143,100 189,000 233,500 164,500 141,800 1,922,897
Artillery pieces 1,205 4,439 3,362 3,984 7,087 3,906 2,212 7,898 9,238 9,912 6,406 4,880 64,529
Bullets 25,240,000 114,010,000 178,120,000 147,000,000 247,920,000 119,117,000 29,010,000 57,190,000 40,000,000 40,000,000 30,000,000 20,600,000 1,048,207,000
Artillery shells 335,000 1,800,000 1,066,000 1,363,000 2,082,000 1,357,000 397,000 1,899,000 2,210,000 2,210,000 1,390,000 965,000 17,074,000
Radio transmitters 426 2,779 1,568 2,464 1,854 2,210 950 2,464 4,370 4,335 5,148 2,240 30,808
Telephones 2,941 9,502 2,235 2,289 3,313 3,453 1,600 4,424 5,905 6,447 4,663 2,150 48,922
Tanks 16  ?  ? 26 18  ?  ? 80 220 120 80  ? 560
Planes 18 2  ? 70  ?  ?  ? 4 14 36  ? 20 164
Automobiles 25 114 96 435 454 162  ? 4,011 8,758 1,210 506  ? 15,771

Sino-Soviet relations soured after the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia in August 1968. In October, the Chinese demanded North Vietnam cut relations with Moscow, but Hanoi refused.[276] The Chinese began to withdraw in November 1968 in preparation for a clash with the Soviets, which occurred at Zhenbao Island in March 1969. The Chinese also began financing the Khmer Rouge as a counterweight to the Vietnamese communists at this time.

China “armed and trained” the Khmer Rouge during the civil war and continued to aid them for years afterward.[277] The Khmer Rouge launched ferocious raids into Vietnam in 1975–1978. When Vietnam responded with an invasion that toppled the Khmer Rouge, China launched a brief, punitive invasion of Vietnam in 1979.

Soviet Union

Leonid Brezhnev (left) was the leader of the Soviet Union during the second half of the Vietnam War

Soviet ships in the South China Sea gave vital early warnings to Viet Cong forces in South Vietnam. The Soviet intelligence ships would pick up American B-52 bombers flying from Okinawa and Guam. Their airspeed and direction would be noted and then relayed to COSVN, North Vietnam’s southern headquarters. Using airspeed and direction, COSVN analysts would calculate the bombing target and tell any assets to move “perpendicularly to the attack trajectory.” These advance warning gave them time to move out of the way of the bombers, and, while the bombing runs caused extensive damage, because of the early warnings from 1968 to 1970 they did not kill a single military or civilian leader in the headquarters complexes.[278]

The Soviet Union supplied North Vietnam with medical supplies, arms, tanks, planes, helicopters, artillery, anti-aircraft missiles and other military equipment. Soviet crews fired Soviet-made surface-to-air missiles at U.S. F-4 Phantoms, which were shot down over Thanh Hóa in 1965. Over a dozen Soviet citizens lost their lives in this conflict. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian officials acknowledged that the Soviet Union had stationed up to 3,000 troops in Vietnam during the war.[279]

Some Russian sources give more specific numbers: Between 1953 and 1991, the hardware donated by the Soviet Union included 2,000 tanks, 1,700 APCs, 7,000 artillery guns, over 5,000 anti-aircraft guns, 158 surface-to-air missile launchers, 120 helicopters. During the war, the Soviets sent North Vietnam annual arms shipments worth $450 million.[280][281] From July 1965 to the end of 1974, fighting in Vietnam was observed by some 6,500 officers and generals, as well as more than 4,500 soldiers and sergeants of the Soviet Armed Forces. In addition, Soviet military schools and academies began training Vietnamese soldiers – in all more than 10,000 military personnel.[282]

North Korea

As a result of a decision of the Korean Workers’ Party in October 1966, in early 1967 North Korea sent a fighter squadron to North Vietnam to back up the North Vietnamese 921st and 923rd fighter squadrons defending Hanoi. They stayed through 1968, and 200 pilots were reported to have served.[283]

In addition, at least two anti-aircraft artillery regiments were sent as well. North Korea also sent weapons, ammunition and two million sets of uniforms to their comrades in North Vietnam.[284] Kim Il-sung is reported to have told his pilots to “fight in the war as if the Vietnamese sky were their own”.[285]

Cuba

The contribution to North Vietnam by the Republic of Cuba, under Fidel Castro have been recognized several times by representatives of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.[286] Fidel Castro mentioned in his discourses the Batallón Girón (Giron Battalion) as comprising the Cuban contingent that served as military advisors during the war.[287] In this battalion, alongside the Cubans, fought Nguyễn Thị Định, founding member of the Viet Cong, who later became the first female Major General in the North Vietnamese Army.[288] There are numerous allegations by former U.S. prisoners of war that Cuban military personnel were present at North Vietnamese prison facilities during the war and that they participated in torture activities, in what is known as the “Cuba Program”.[289][290][291][292][293] Witnesses to this include Senator John McCain, 2008 U.S. Presidential candidate and former Vietnam prisoner of war, according to his 1999 book Faith of My Fathers.[294] Benjamin Gilman, a Vietnam War POW/MIA issue advocate, claim evidence that Cuba’s military and non-military involvement may have run into the “thousands” of personnel.[295] Fidel Castro visited in person Quảng Trị province, held by North Vietnam after the Easter Offensive to show his support for the Viet Cong.[296]

Pro-Saigon

South Korea

Main article: Military history of South Korea during the Vietnam War

Soldiers of the South Korean White Horse Division in Vietnam

Vietnamese civilians of Phong Nhi village massacred by South Korean Blue Dragon Brigade in 1968

On the anti-communist side, South Korea (a.k.a. the Republic of Korea, ROK) had the second-largest contingent of foreign troops in South Vietnam after the United States. In November 1961, Park Chung-hee proposed South Korean participation in the war to John F. Kennedy, but Kennedy disagreed.[297] On 1 May 1964 Lyndon Johnson requested South Korean participation.[297] The first South Korean troops began arriving in 1964 and large combat formations began arriving a year later. The ROK Marine Corps dispatched their 2nd Marine Brigade while the ROK Army sent the Capital Division and later the 9th Infantry Division. In August 1966 after the arrival of the 9th Division the Koreans established a corps command, the Republic of Korea Forces Vietnam Field Command, near I Field Force, Vietnam at Nha Trang.[298] The South Koreans soon developed a reputation for effectiveness, reportedly conducting counterinsurgency operations so well that American commanders felt that the South Korean area of responsibility was the safest.[299]

Approximately 320,000 South Korean soldiers were sent to Vietnam,[300] each serving a one-year tour of duty. Maximum troop levels peaked at 50,000 in 1968, however all were withdrawn by 1973.[301] About 5,099 South Koreans were killed and 10,962 wounded during the war. South Korea claimed to have killed 41,000 Viet Cong fighters.[300] The United States paid South Korean soldiers 236 million dollars for their efforts in Vietnam,[300] and South Korean GNP increased five-fold during the war.[300]

Australia and New Zealand

An Australian soldier in Vietnam

Main articles: Military history of Australia during the Vietnam War and New Zealand in the Vietnam War

Australia and New Zealand, close allies of the United States and members of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) and the ANZUS military co-operation treaty, sent ground troops to Vietnam. Both nations had gained experience in counterinsurgency and jungle warfare during the Malayan Emergency and World War II. Their governments subscribed to the Domino theory. Australia began by sending advisors to Vietnam in 1962, and combat troops were committed in 1965.[302] New Zealand began by sending a detachment of engineers and an artillery battery, and then started sending special forces and regular infantry which were attached to Australian formations.[303] Australia’s peak commitment was 7,672 combat troops and New Zealand’s 552. More than 60,000 Australian personnel were involved during the course of the war, of which 521 were killed and more than 3,000 wounded.[304] Approximately 3,500 New Zealanders served in Vietnam, with 37 killed and 187 wounded.[305] Most Australians and New Zealanders served in the 1st Australian Task Force in Phước Tuy Province.[302]

Philippines

Some 10,450 Filipino troops were dispatched to South Vietnam. They were primarily engaged in medical and other civilian pacification projects. These forces operated under the designation PHLCAG-V or Philippine Civic Action Group-Vietnam. More noteworthy was the fact that the naval base in Subic Bay was used for the U.S. Seventh Fleet from 1964 till the end of the war in 1975.[306][307] The Navy base in Subic bay and the Air force base at Clark achieved maximum functionality during the war and supported an estimated 80,000 locals in allied tertiary businesses from shoe making to prostitution.[308]

Thailand

See also: Laotian Civil War

The Thai Queen’s Cobra battalion in Phuoc Tho

Thai Army formations, including the “Queen’s Cobra” battalion, saw action in South Vietnam between 1965 and 1971. Thai forces saw much more action in the covert war in Laos between 1964 and 1972, though Thai regular formations there were heavily outnumbered by the irregular “volunteers” of the CIA-sponsored Police Aerial Reconnaissance Units or PARU, who carried out reconnaissance activities on the western side of the Ho Chi Minh trail.[34]

Republic of China (Taiwan)

Main article: Republic of China in the Vietnam War

Since November 1967, the Taiwanese government secretly operated a cargo transport detachment to assist the United States and South Vietnam. Taiwan also provided military training units for the South Vietnamese diving units, later known as the Lien Doi Nguoi Nhai (LDMN) or “Frogman unit” in English.[1] In addition to the diving trainers there were several hundred military personnel.[1] Military commandos from Taiwan were captured by communist forces three times trying to infiltrate North Vietnam.[1]

Canada and the ICC

Main article: Canada and the Vietnam War

Canada, India and Poland constituted the International Control Commission, which was supposed to monitor the 1954 ceasefire agreement.[309] Officially, Canada did not have partisan involvement in the Vietnam War and diplomatically it was “non-belligerent“. Victor Levant suggested otherwise in his book Quiet Complicity: Canadian Involvement in the Vietnam War (1986).[310][311] The Vietnam War entry in The Canadian Encyclopedia asserts plainly that Canada’s record on the truce commissions was a pro-Saigon partisan one.[312]

United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races (FULRO)

Main articles: United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races and FULRO insurgency against Vietnam

The ethnic minority peoples of south Vietnam like the Christian Montagnards (Degar), Hindu and Muslim Cham and the Buddhist Khmer Krom banded together in the United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races (French: Front Uni de Lutte des Races Opprimées, acronym: FULRO) to fight against the Vietnamese for autonomy or independence. FULRO fought against both the anti-Communist South Vietnamese and the Communist Viet Cong, and then FURLO proceeded to fight against the united Communist Socialist Republic of Vietnam after the fall of South Vietnam. FULRO was supported by China, the United States, Cambodia, and some French citizens.[34]

During the war, the South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem began a program to settle ethnic Vietnamese Kinh on Montagnard lands in the Central Highlands region. This provoked a backlash from the Montagnards. The Cambodians under both the pro-China King Sihanouk and the pro-American Lon Nol supported their fellow co-ethnic Khmer Krom in south Vietnam, following an anti- ethnic Vietnamese policy.

FULRO was formed from the amalgation of the Cham organization “Champa Liberation Front” (Front de Liberation du Champa FLC) led by the Cham Muslim officer Les Kosem who served in the Royal Cambodian Army, the Khmer Krom organization “Liberation Front of Kampuchea Krom” (Front de Liberation du Kampuchea Krom FLKK) led by Chau Dara, a former monk, and the Montagnard organizations “Central Highlands Liberation Front” (Front de Liberation des Hauts Plateaux FLHP) led by Y Bham Enuol and BAJARAKA.

The leaders of FULRO were executed by the Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot when he took power in Cambodia but FULRO insurgents proceeded to fight against the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia and it was not until 1992 that they finally surrendered to the United Nations in Cambodia.[34]

War crimes

Victims of the My Lai massacre

Main articles: List of war crimes § 1954–1975: Vietnam War, and Vietnam War casualties
See also: List of massacres in Vietnam

A large number of war crimes took place during the Vietnam War. War crimes were committed by both sides during the conflict and included rape, massacres of civilians, bombings of civilian targets, terrorism, the widespread use of torture and the murder of prisoners of war. Additional common crimes included theft, arson, and the destruction of property not warranted by military necessity.[313]

Allied war crimes

Main articles: Tiger Force and Vietnam War Crimes Working Group

In 1968, the Vietnam War Crimes Working Group (VWCWG) was established by the Pentagon task force set up in the wake of the My Lai Massacre, to attempt to ascertain the veracity of emerging claims of war crimes by U.S. armed forces in Vietnam, during the Vietnam War period.

“Vietnam was an atrocity from the get-go… There were hundreds of My Lais. You got your card punched by the numbers of bodies you counted.”

David H. Hackworth[314]

A Viet Cong prisoner captured in 1967 by the U.S. Army awaits interrogation. He has been placed in a stress position by tying a board between his arms.

The investigation compiled over 9,000 pages of investigative files, sworn statements by witnesses and status reports for top military officers, indicating that 320 incidents had factual basis.[315] The substantiated cases included 7 massacres between 1967 and 1971 in which at least 137 civilians were killed; seventy eight further attacks targeting non-combatants resulting in at least 57 deaths, 56 wounded and 15 sexually assaulted; one hundred and forty-one cases of US soldiers torturing civilian detainees or prisoners of war with fists, sticks, bats, water or electric shock.[315] Over 800 alleged atrocities were investigated, but only 23 soldiers were ever convicted on charges and most served sentences of less than a year.[316][unreliable source?] A Los Angeles Times report on the archived files concluded that the war crimes were not confined to a few rogue units, having been uncovered in every army division that was active in Vietnam.[315]

During their visits to transit detention facilities under American administration in 1968 and 1969, the International Red Cross recorded many cases of torture and inhumane treatment before the captives were handed over to South Vietnamese authorities.[317]

In 2003 a series of investigative reports by the Toledo Blade uncovered a large number of unreported American war crimes particularly from the Tiger Force unit.[318]

The war involved the establishment of numerous free-fire zones by U.S. forces as a tactic to prevent Viet Cong fighters from sheltering in South Vietnamese villages. Such practice, which involved the assumption that any individual appearing in the designated zones was an enemy combatant that could be freely targeted by weapons, is regarded by journalist Lewis M. Simons as “a severe violation of the laws of war”.[319] Cases of indiscriminate attacks against civilians within free-fire zones resulting from unsuccessful forced evacuations were frequent.[320] According to political scientist R.J. Rummel, U.S. troops murdered about 6,000 Vietnamese civilians during the war.[321] Nick Turse, in his 2013 book, Kill Anything that Moves, argues that a relentless drive toward higher body counts, a widespread use of free-fire zones, rules of engagement where civilians who ran from soldiers or helicopters could be viewed as Viet Cong, and a widespread disdain for Vietnamese civilians led to massive civilian casualties and endemic war crimes inflicted by U.S. troops.[322] One example cited by Turse is Operation Speedy Express, an operation by the 9th Infantry Division, which was described by John Paul Vann as, in effect, “many My Lais”.[322] A report by Newsweek magazine suggested that an estimated 5,000 civilians may have been killed during six months of the operation.[323]

In terms of atrocities by the South Vietnamese, during the Diem era (1954-1963) R.J. Rummell estimated that 16,000 to 167,000 South Vietnamese civilians were killed in democide; for 1964 to 1975, Rummel estimated a total of 42,000 to 128,000 killed in democide. Thus, the total for 1954 to 1975 is from 57,000 to 284,000 deaths caused by South Vietnam, excluding NLF/North Vietnamese forces killed by the South Vietnamese armed forces.[324]Torture and ill-treatment were frequently applied by the South Vietnamese to POWs as well as civilian prisoners.[325][326] During their visit to the Con Son Prison in 1970, U.S. Congressmen Augustus F. Hawkins and William R. Anderson witnessed detainees either confined in minute “tiger cages” or chained to their cells, and provided with poor-quality food. A group of American doctors inspecting the prison in the same year found many inmates suffering symptoms resulting from forced immobility and torture.[325] Red Cross reports after the war showed connections of U.S. advisors with the torture at POW camps.[326]

South Korean forces were also accused of war crimes as well. One documented event was the Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất massacre where the 2nd Marine Brigade of the South Korean Army purportedly killed 69-79 civilians on 12 February 1968 in Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất village, Điện Bàn District of Quảng Nam Province in South Vietnam.[327] South Korean forces are also accused of perpetrating other massacres, namely: Bình Hòa massacre, Binh Tai Massacre and Hà My massacre.

North Vietnamese, Viet Cong, and Khmer Rouge war crimes

Main article: Viet Cong and PAVN strategy, organization and structure § VC/NVA use of terror

Victims of the Huế Massacre

According to Guenter Lewy, Viet Cong insurgents assassinated at least 37,000 civilians in South Vietnam and routinely employed terror.[328] Ami Pedahzur has written that “the overall volume and lethality of Viet Cong terrorism rivals or exceeds all but a handful of terrorist campaigns waged over the last third of the twentieth century”.[329] Notable Viet Cong atrocities include the massacre of over 3,000 unarmed civilians at Huế during the Tet Offensive and the incineration of hundreds of civilians at the Đắk Sơn massacre with flamethrowers.[330] Up to 155,000 refugees fleeing the final North Vietnamese Spring Offensive were killed or abducted on the road to Tuy Hòa in 1975.[331] According to Rummel, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops murdered between 106,000 and 227,000 civilians in South Vietnam.[321] North Vietnam was also known for its inhumane and abusive treatment of American POWs, most notably in Hỏa Lò Prison (aka the Hanoi Hilton), where severe torture was employed to extract “confessions”.[332]

According to a U.S. Senate report, squads were assigned monthly assassination quotas.[333] Peer De Silva, former head of the Saigon department of the CIA, wrote that from as early as 1963, Viet Cong units were using disembowelment and other methods of mutilation for psychological warfare.[334]

In the Cambodian Civil War, Khmer Rouge insurgents reportedly committed atrocities during the war. These include the murder of civilians and POWs by slowly sawing off their heads a little more each day,[335] the destruction of Buddhist wats and the killing of monks,[336] attacks on refugee camps involving the deliberate murder of babies and bomb threats against foreign aid workers,[337] the abduction and assassination of journalists,[338] and the shelling of Phnom Penh for more than a year.[339] Journalist accounts stated that the Khmer Rouge shelling “tortured the capital almost continuously”, inflicting “random death and mutilation” on 2 million trapped civilians.[340]

The Khmer Rouge forcibly evacuated the entire city after taking it, in what has been described as a death march: François Ponchaud wrote: “I shall never forget one cripple who had neither hands nor feet, writhing along the ground like a severed worm, or a weeping father carrying his ten-year old daughter wrapped in a sheet tied around his neck like a sling, or the man with his foot dangling at the end of a leg to which it was attached by nothing but skin”;[341] John Swain recalled that the Khmer Rouge were “tipping out patients from the hospitals like garbage into the streets….In five years of war, this is the greatest caravan of human misery I have seen.”[342]

Women in the Vietnam War

American nurses

Da Nang, South Vietnam, 1968

During the Vietnam War, American women served on active duty doing a variety of jobs. Early in 1963, the Army Nurse Corps (ANC) launched Operation Nightingale, an intensive effort to recruit nurses to serve in Vietnam. Most nurses who volunteered to serve in Vietnam came from predominantly working or middle-class families with histories of military service. The majority of these women were white Catholics and Protestants.[343] Because the need for medical aid was great, many nurses underwent a concentrated four-month training program before being deployed to Vietnam in the ANC.[344] Due to the shortage of staff, nurses usually worked twelve-hour shifts, six days per week and often suffered from exhaustion. First Lieutenant Sharon Lane was the only female military nurse to be killed by enemy gunfire during the war, on 8 June 1969.[345]

A nurse treats a Vietnamese child, 1967

At the start of the Vietnam War, it was commonly thought that American women had no place in the military. Their traditional place had been in the domestic sphere, but with the war came opportunity for the expansion of gender roles. In Vietnam, women held a variety of jobs which included operating complex data processing equipment and serving as stenographers.[346] Although a small number of women were assigned to combat zones, they were never allowed directly in the field of battle. The women who served in the military were solely volunteers. They faced a plethora of challenges, one of which was the relatively small number of female soldiers. Living in a male-dominated environment created tensions between the sexes. While this high male to female ratio was often uncomfortable for women, many men reported that having women in the field with them boosted their morale.[347] Although this was not the women’s purpose, it was one positive result of their service. By 1973, approximately 7,500 women had served in Vietnam in the Southeast Asian theater.[348] In that same year, the military lifted the prohibition on women entering the armed forces.

American women serving in Vietnam were subject to societal stereotypes. Many Americans either considered females serving in Vietnam masculine for living under the army discipline, or judged them to be women of questionable moral character who enlisted for the sole purpose of seducing men.[349] To address this problem, the ANC released advertisements portraying women in the ANC as “proper, professional and well protected.” (26) This effort to highlight the positive aspects of a nursing career reflected the ideas of second-wave feminism that occurred during the 1960s–1970s in the United States. Although female military nurses lived in a heavily male environment, very few cases of sexual harassment were ever reported.[350]

Vietnamese women

Master-Sergeant and pharmacist Do Thi Trinh, part of the WAFC, supplying medication to ARVN dependents

Unlike the American women who went to Vietnam, North Vietnamese women were enlisted and fought in the combat zone as well as providing manual labor to keep the Ho Chi Minh trail open and cook for the soldiers. They also worked in the rice fields in North Vietnam and Viet Cong-held farming areas in South Vietnam’s Mekong Delta region to provide food for their families and the war effort. Women were enlisted in both the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and the Viet Cong guerrilla insurgent force in South Vietnam. Some women also served for the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong intelligence services.

In South Vietnam, many women voluntarily served in the ARVN‘s Women’s Armed Force Corps (WAFC) and various other Women’s corps in the military. Some, like in the WAFC, fought in combat with other soldiers. Others served as nurses and doctors in the battlefield and in military hospitals, or served in South Vietnam or America’s intelligence agencies. During Diệm‘s presidency, Madame Nhu was the commander of the WAFC.[351]

The war saw more than one million rural people migrate or flee the fighting in the South Vietnamese countryside to the cities, especially Saigon. Among the internal refugees were many young women who became the ubiquitous “bargirls” of wartime South Vietnam “hawking her wares – be that cigarettes, liquor, or herself” to American and allied soldiers.[352] American bases were ringed by bars and brothels.[353]

8,040 Vietnamese women came to the United States as war brides between 1964 and 1975.[354] Many mixed-blood Amerasian children were left behind when their American fathers returned to the United States after their tour of duty in South Vietnam. 26,000 of them were permitted to immigrate to the United States in the 1980s and 1990s.[355]

Black servicemen in Vietnam

A wounded African American soldier being carried away, 1968

The experience of African American military personnel during the Vietnam War has received significant attention. For example, the website “African-American Involvement in the Vietnam War” compiles examples of such coverage,[356] as does the print and broadcast work of journalist Wallace Terry.

The epigraph of Terry’s book Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans (1984), includes the following quote: “I have an intuitive feeling that the Negro serviceman have a better understanding than whites of what the war is about.” – General William C. Westmoreland, U.S. Army, Saigon, 1967. That book’s introduction includes observations about the impact of the war on the black community in general and on black servicemen specifically. Points he makes on the latter topic include: the higher proportion of combat casualties in Vietnam among African American servicemen than among American soldiers of other races, the shift toward and different attitudes of black military careerists versus black draftees, the discrimination encountered by black servicemen “on the battlefield in decorations, promotion and duty assignments” as well as their having to endure “the racial insults, cross-burnings and Confederate flags of their white comrades” – and the experiences faced by black soldiers stateside, during the war and after America’s withdrawal.[357] Upon the war’s completion, black casualties made up 12.5% of US combat deaths, approximately equal to percentage of draft-eligible black men, though still slightly higher than the 10% who served in the military.[358]

Weapons

Main article: Weapons of the Vietnam War

Marines complete construction of M101 howitzer positions at a mountain-top fire support base, 1968

The communist forces were principally armed with Chinese[359] and Soviet weaponry[360] though some guerrilla units were equipped with Western infantry weapons either captured from French stocks during the First Indochina war or from ARVN units or bought on the black market.[361] The ubiquitous Soviet AK-47 assault rifle was often regarded as the best rifle of the war, due to its ability to continue to function even in adverse, muddy conditions. Other weapons used by the Viet Cong included the World War II-era PPSh-41 submachine gun (both Soviet and Chinese versions), the SKS carbine, the RPD light machine gun, the DShK heavy machine gun and the RPG-2/B-40 grenade launcher.

While the Viet Cong had both amphibious tanks (such as the PT-76) and light tanks (such as the Type 62), they also used bicycles to transport munitions. The US’ heavily armored, 90 mm M48A3 Patton tank saw extensive action during the Vietnam War and over 600 were deployed with US Forces. They played an important role in infantry support.

The US service rifle was initially the M14 (though some units were still using the WWII-era M1 Garand for a lack of M14s). Found to be unsuitable for jungle warfare, the M14 was replaced by M16 which was more accurate and lighter than the AK-47. For a period, the gun suffered from a jamming flaw known as “failure to extract”, which means that a spent cartridge case remained lodged in the action after a round is fired.[362] According to a congressional report, the jamming was caused primarily by a change in gunpowder which was done without adequate testing and reflected a decision for which the safety of soldiers was a secondary consideration.[363] That issue was solved in early 1968 with the issuance of the M16A1 that featured a chrome plated chamber among several other features.[364] End-user satisfaction with the M16 was high except during this episode, but the M16 still has a reputation as a gun that jams easily.

The M60 machine gun GPMG (General Purpose Machine Gun) was the main machine gun of the US army at the time and many of them were put on helicopters, to provide suppressive fire when landing in hostile regions. The MAC-10 machine pistol was supplied to many special forces troops in the midpoint of the war. It also armed many CIA agents in the field.

UH-1D helicopters airlift members of a U.S. infantry regiment, 1966

Two aircraft which were prominent in the war were the AC-130 “Spectre” Gunship and the UH-1 “Huey” gunship. The AC-130 was a heavily armed ground-attack aircraft variant of the C-130 Hercules transport plane; it was used to provide close air support, air interdiction and force protection. The AC-130H “Spectre” was armed with two 20 mm M61 Vulcan cannons, one Bofors 40mm autocannon, and one 105 mm M102 howitzer. The Huey is a military helicopter powered by a single, turboshaft engine, with a two-bladed main rotor and tail rotor. Approximately 7,000 UH-1 aircraft saw service in Vietnam.

The Claymore M18A1, an anti-personnel mine, was widely used during the war. Unlike a conventional land mine, the Claymore is command-detonated and directional, meaning it is fired by remote-control and shoots a pattern of 700 one-eighth-inch steel balls into the kill zone like a shotgun.

The aircraft ordnance used during the war included precision-guided munition, cluster bombs, and napalm, a thickening/gelling agent generally mixed with petroleum or a similar fuel for use in an incendiary device, initially against buildings and later primarily as an anti-personnel weapon that sticks to skin and can burn down to the bone.[34]

Radio communications

The Vietnam War was the first conflict where U.S. forces had secure voice communication equipment available at the tactical level. The National Security Agency ran a crash program to provide U.S. forces with a family of security equipment code named NESTOR, fielding 17,000 units initially. Eventually 30,000 units were produced. However limitations of the units, including poor voice quality, reduced range, annoying time delays and logistical support issues led to only one unit in ten being used.[365]:Vol II, p.43 While many in the U.S. military believed that the Viet Cong and NVA would not be able to exploit insecure communications, interrogation of captured communication intelligence units showed they were able to understand the jargon and codes used in realtime and were often able to warn their side of impending U.S. actions.[365]:Vol II, pp. 4, 10

Extent of U.S. bombing

Bombs being dropped by the B-52 Stratofortress long-range strategic bomber

See also: Operation Rolling Thunder, Operation Menu, Operation Freedom Deal, and CIA activities in Laos

The U.S. dropped over 7 million tons of bombs on Indochina during the war—more than triple the 2.1 million tons of bombs the U.S. dropped on Europe and Asia during all of World War II, and more than ten times the amount dropped by the U.S. during the Korean War. 500 thousand tons were dropped on Cambodia, 1 million tons were dropped on North Vietnam, and 4 million tons were dropped on South Vietnam. On a per capita basis, the 2 million tons dropped on Laos make it the most heavily bombed country in history; The New York Times noted this was “nearly a ton for every person in Laos.”[366] In Laos alone, some 80 million bombs failed to explode and remain scattered throughout the country, rendering vast swathes of land impossible to cultivate and killing or maiming 50 Laotians every year.[367] Former U.S. Air Force official Earl Tilford has recounted “repeated bombing runs of a lake in central Cambodia. The B-52s literally dropped their payloads in the lake”: The Air Force ran many missions of this kind for the purpose of securing additional funding during budget negotiations, so the amount of tonnage expended does not directly correlate with the resulting damage.[368]

Aftermath

Events in Southeast Asia

Further information: Mayaguez incident and Indochina refugee crisis

Vietnamese refugees fleeing Vietnam, 1984

On 2 July 1976, North and South Vietnam were merged to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.[369] Despite speculation that the victorious North Vietnamese would, in President Nixon’s words, “massacre the civilians there [South Vietnam] by the millions,” there is a widespread consensus that no mass executions in fact took place.[370] However, in the years following the end of the war, up to 300,000 South Vietnamese were sent to reeducation camps, where many endured torture, starvation, and disease while being forced to perform hard labor.[371][372] In addition, 200,000 to 400,000 Vietnamese boat people died at sea, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.[373]

Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, fell to the communist Khmer Rouge on 17 April 1975. Under the leadership of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge would eventually kill 1–3 million Cambodians out of a population of around 8 million, in one of the bloodiest genocides in history.[51][374] An estimated 1,386,734 victims of execution have been counted in mass graves, while demographic analysis suggests that the policies of the regime caused between 1.7 and 2.5 million excess deaths altogether (including disease and starvation).[374] After repeated border clashes in 1978, Vietnam invaded Democratic Kampuchea (Cambodia) and ousted the Khmer Rouge, who were being supported by China, in the Cambodian–Vietnamese War. In response, China invaded Vietnam in 1979. The two countries fought a brief border war, known as the Sino-Vietnamese War. From 1978 to 1979, some 450,000 ethnic Chinese left Vietnam by boat as refugees or were expelled. The devastating impact of Khmer Rouge rule contributed to a 1979 famine in Cambodia, during which an additional 300,000 Cambodians perished.[51]

The Pathet Lao overthrew the monarchy of Laos in December 1975, establishing the Lao People’s Democratic Republic under the leadership of a member of the royal family, Souphanouvong. The change in regime was “quite peaceful, a sort of Asiatic ‘velvet revolution‘”—although 30,000 former officials were sent to reeducation camps, often enduring harsh conditions for several years. The conflict between Hmong rebels and the Pathet Lao continued in isolated pockets.[375]

Over 3 million people left Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia in the Indochina refugee crisis. Most Asian countries were unwilling to accept these refugees, many of whom fled by boat and were known as boat people.[376] Between 1975 and 1998, an estimated 1.2 million refugees from Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries resettled in the United States, while Canada, Australia, and France resettled over 500,000. China accepted 250,000 people.[377] Of all the countries of Indochina, Laos experienced the largest refugee flight in proportional terms, as 300,000 people out of a total population of 3 million crossed the border into Thailand. Included among their ranks were “about 90 percent” of Laos’s “intellectuals, technicians, and officials.”[378] In 1988, Vietnam suffered a famine that afflicted millions.[379] Vietnam retained its pro-Soviet orientation after the war and remained an important ally of the USSR in the region.[380]

Agent Orange and similar chemical substances used by the U.S. have also caused a considerable number of deaths and injuries over the years, including the US Air Force crew that handled them. On 9 August 2012, the United States and Vietnam began a cooperative cleaning up of the toxic chemical on part of Danang International Airport, marking the first time Washington has been involved in cleaning up Agent Orange in Vietnam.[381]

Effect on the United States

United States expenditures in South Vietnam (SVN) (1953-1974) Direct costs only. Some estimates are higher.[382]
U.S. military costs U.S. military aid to SVN U.S. economic aid to SVN Total Total (2015 dollars)
$111 billion $16.138 billion $7.315 billion $134.53 billion $1.020 trillion

Vietnam War protests at the Pentagon, October 1967

In the post-war era, Americans struggled to absorb the lessons of the military intervention.[383] As General Maxwell Taylor, one of the principal architects of the war, noted, “First, we didn’t know ourselves. We thought that we were going into another Korean War, but this was a different country. Secondly, we didn’t know our South Vietnamese allies… And we knew less about North Vietnam. Who was Ho Chi Minh? Nobody really knew. So, until we know the enemy and know our allies and know ourselves, we’d better keep out of this kind of dirty business. It’s very dangerous.”[384][385] President Ronald Reagan coined the term “Vietnam Syndrome” to describe the reluctance of the American public and politicians to support further international interventions after Vietnam.

Some have suggested that “the responsibility for the ultimate failure of this policy [America’s withdrawal from Vietnam] lies not with the men who fought, but with those in Congress…”[386] Alternatively, the official history of the United States Army noted that “tactics have often seemed to exist apart from larger issues, strategies, and objectives. Yet in Vietnam the Army experienced tactical success and strategic failure… The…Vietnam War…legacy may be the lesson that unique historical, political, cultural, and social factors always impinge on the military…Success rests not only on military progress but on correctly analyzing the nature of the particular conflict, understanding the enemy’s strategy, and assessing the strengths and weaknesses of allies. A new humility and a new sophistication may form the best parts of a complex heritage left to the Army by the long, bitter war in Vietnam.”[170]

A young Marine private waits on the beach during the Marine landing, Da Nang, 3 August 1965

U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wrote in a secret memo to President Gerald Ford that “in terms of military tactics, we cannot help draw the conclusion that our armed forces are not suited to this kind of war. Even the Special Forces who had been designed for it could not prevail.”[387] Even Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara concluded that “the achievement of a military victory by U.S. forces in Vietnam was indeed a dangerous illusion.”[388]

Doubts surfaced as to the effectiveness of large-scale, sustained bombing. As Army Chief of Staff Harold Keith Johnson noted, “if anything came out of Vietnam, it was that air power couldn’t do the job.”[389] Even General William Westmoreland admitted that the bombing had been ineffective. As he remarked, “I still doubt that the North Vietnamese would have relented.”[389]

The inability to bring Hanoi to the bargaining table by bombing also illustrated another U.S. miscalculation. The North’s leadership was composed of hardened communists who had been fighting for thirty years. They had defeated the French, and their tenacity as both nationalists and communists was formidable. Ho Chi Minh is quoted as saying, “You can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours…But even at these odds you will lose and I will win.”[390]

Marine gets his wounds treated during operations in Huế City, 1968

The Vietnam War called into question the U.S. Army doctrine. Marine Corps General Victor H. Krulak heavily criticised Westmoreland’s attrition strategy, calling it “wasteful of American lives… with small likelihood of a successful outcome.”[389] In addition, doubts surfaced about the ability of the military to train foreign forces.

Between 1953 and 1975, the United States spent $168 billion on the war ($1,020 billion in FY2015dollars).[391] This resulted in a large federal budget deficit.

More than 3 million Americans served in the Vietnam War, some 1.5 million of whom actually saw combat in Vietnam.[392] James E. Westheider wrote that “At the height of American involvement in 1968, for example, there were 543,000 American military personnel in Vietnam, but only 80,000 were considered combat troops.”[393] Conscription in the United States had been controlled by the president since World War II, but ended in 1973.

By war’s end, 58,220 American soldiers had been killed,[A 2] more than 150,000 had been wounded, and at least 21,000 had been permanently disabled.[394] The average age of the U.S. troops killed in Vietnam was 23.11 years.[395] According to Dale Kueter, “Of those killed in combat, 86.3 percent were white, 12.5 percent were black and the remainder from other races.”[396] Approximately 830,000 Vietnam veterans suffered some degree of posttraumatic stress disorder.[394] An estimated 125,000 Americans left for Canada to avoid the Vietnam draft,[397] and approximately 50,000 American servicemen deserted.[398] In 1977, United States president Jimmy Carter granted a full and unconditional pardon to all Vietnam-era draft dodgers.[399] The Vietnam War POW/MIA issue, concerning the fate of U.S. service personnel listed as missing in action, persisted for many years after the war’s conclusion. The costs of the war loom large in American popular consciousness; a 1990 poll showed that the public incorrectly believed that more Americans lost their lives in Vietnam than in World War II.[400]

As of 2013, the U.S. government is paying Vietnam veterans and their families or survivors more than 22 billion dollars a year in war-related claims.[401][402]

Impact on the U.S. military

As the Vietnam War continued inconclusively and became more unpopular with the American public, morale declined and disciplinary problems grew among American enlisted men and junior, non-career officers. Drug use, racial tensions, and the growing incidence of fragging—attempting to kill unpopular officers and non-commissioned officers with grenades or other weapons—created severe problems for the U.S. military and impacted its capability of undertaking combat operations. By 1971, a U.S. Army colonel writing in the Armed Forces Journal declared: “By every conceivable indicator, our army that now remains in Vietnam is in a state approaching collapse, with individual units avoiding or having refused combat, murdering their officers and non commissioned officers, drug-ridden, and dispirited where not near mutinous….The morale, discipline, and battleworthiness of the U.S. Armed Forces are, with a few salient exceptions, lower and worse than at any time in this century and possibly in the history of the United States.”[403] Between 1969 and 1971 the US Army recorded more than 700 attacks by troops on their own officers. Eighty-three officers were killed and almost 650 were injured.[404]

Ron Milam has questioned the severity of the “breakdown” of the U.S. armed forces, especially among combat troops, as reflecting the opinions of “angry colonels” who deplored the erosion of traditional military values during the Vietnam War.[405] Although acknowledging serious problems, he questions the alleged “near mutinous” conduct of junior officers and enlisted men in combat. Investigating one combat refusal incident, a journalist declared, “A certain sense of independence, a reluctance to behave according to the military’s insistence on obedience, like pawns or puppets…The grunts [infantrymen] were determined to survive…they insisted of having something to say about the making of decisions that determined whether they might live or die.”[406]

The morale and discipline problems and resistance to conscription (the draft) were important factors leading to the creation of an all-volunteer military force by the United States and the termination of conscription. The last conscript was inducted into the army in 1973.[407][408] The all-volunteer military moderated some of the coercive methods of discipline previously used to maintain order in military ranks.[409]

Effects of U.S. chemical defoliation

U.S. helicopter spraying chemical defoliants in the Mekong Delta, South Vietnam

One of the most controversial aspects of the U.S. military effort in Southeast Asia was the widespread use of chemical defoliants between 1961 and 1971. They were used to defoliate large parts of the countryside to prevent the Viet Cong from being able to hide their weapons and encampments under the foliage. These chemicals continue to change the landscape, cause diseases and birth defects, and poison the food chain.[410][411]

Early in the American military effort, it was decided that since the enemy were hiding their activities under triple-canopy jungle, a useful first step might be to defoliate certain areas. This was especially true of growth surrounding bases (both large and small) in what became known as Operation Ranch Hand. Corporations like Dow Chemical Company and Monsanto were given the task of developing herbicides for this purpose. American officials also pointed out that the British had previously used 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D (virtually identical to America’s use in Vietnam) on a large scale throughout the Malayan Emergency in the 1950s in order to destroy bushes, crops, and trees in effort to deny communist insurgents the concealment they needed to ambush passing convoys.[412] Indeed, Secretary of State Dean Rusk told President John F. Kennedy on 24 November 1961, that “[t]he use of defoliant does not violate any rule of international law concerning the conduct of chemical warfare and is an accepted tactic of war. Precedent has been established by the British during the emergency in Malaya in their use of aircraft for destroying crops by chemical spraying.”[413]

The defoliants, which were distributed in drums marked with color-coded bands, included the “Rainbow Herbicides“—Agent Pink, Agent Green, Agent Purple, Agent Blue, Agent White, and, most famously, Agent Orange, which included dioxin as a by-product of its manufacture. About 11-12 million gallons (41.6-45.4 million L) of Agent Orange were sprayed over southern Vietnam between 1961 and 1971.[414] A prime area of Ranch Hand operations was in the Mekong Delta, where the U.S. Navy patrol boats were vulnerable to attack from the undergrowth at the water’s edge.

In 1961 and 1962, the Kennedy administration authorized the use of chemicals to destroy rice crops. Between 1961 and 1967, the U.S. Air Force sprayed 20 million U.S. gallons (75,700,000 L) of concentrated herbicides over 6 million acres (24,000 km2) of crops and trees, affecting an estimated 13% of South Vietnam’s land. In 1965, 42% of all herbicide was sprayed over food crops. Another purpose of herbicide use was to drive civilian populations into RVN-controlled areas.[415]

Vietnamese victims affected by Agent Orange attempted a class action lawsuit against Dow Chemical and other US chemical manufacturers, but District Court Judge Jack B. Weinstein dismissed their case.[416] They appealed, but the dismissal was cemented in February 2008 by the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.[417] As of 2006, the Vietnamese government estimates that there are over 4,000,000 victims of dioxin poisoning in Vietnam, although the United States government denies any conclusive scientific links between Agent Orange and the Vietnamese victims of dioxin poisoning. In some areas of southern Vietnam, dioxin levels remain at over 100 times the accepted international standard.[418]

The U.S. Veterans Administration has listed prostate cancer, respiratory cancers, multiple myeloma, Diabetes mellitus type 2, B-cell lymphomas, soft-tissue sarcoma, chloracne, porphyria cutanea tarda, peripheral neuropathy, and spina bifida in children of veterans exposed to Agent Orange.[419]

Casualties

See also: Vietnam War casualties
Military deaths in Vietnam War (1955–1975)
Year U.S.[420] South
Vietnam
1956–1959 4 n.a.
1960 5 2,223
1961 16 4,004
1962 53 4,457
1963 122 5,665
1964 216 7,457
1965 1,928 11,242
1966 6,350 11,953
1967 11,363 12,716
1968 16,899 27,915
1969 11,780 21,833
1970 6,173 23,346
1971 2,414 22,738
1972 759 39,587
1973 68 27,901
1974 1 31,219
1975 62 n.a.
After 1975 7 n.a.
Total 58,220 >254,256[421]

Estimates of the number of casualties vary, with one source suggesting up to 3.8 million violent war deaths in Vietnam for the period 1955 to 2002.[422] Between 195,000 and 430,000 South Vietnamese civilians died in the war.[30][31] Extrapolating from a 1969 US intelligence report, Guenter Lewy estimated 65,000 North Vietnamese civilians died in the war.[30] Estimates of civilian deaths caused by American bombing of North Vietnam in Operation Rolling Thunder range from 52,000[423] to 182,000.[424] The military forces of South Vietnam suffered an estimated 254,256 killed between 1960 and 1974 and additional deaths from 1954 to 1959 and in 1975.[425]The official US Department of Defense figure was 950,765 communist forces killed in Vietnam from 1965 to 1974. Defense Department officials believed that these body count figures need to be deflated by 30 percent. In addition, Guenter Lewy assumes that one-third of the reported “enemy” killed may have been civilians, concluding that the actual number of deaths of communist military forces was probably closer to 444,000.[30] A detailed demographic study calculated 791,000–1,141,000 war-related deaths for all of Vietnam.[29] Between 240,000[52][53] and 300,000[51] Cambodians died during the war. 20,000-62,000 Laotians also died,[50] and 58,300 U.S. military personnel were killed,[426] of which 1,596 are still listed as missing as of 2015.[427]

Unexploded ordnance, mostly from U.S. bombing, continue to detonate and kill people today. The Vietnamese government claims that ordnance has killed some 42,000 people since the war officially ended.[428][429] According to the government of Laos, unexploded ordnance has killed or injured over 20,000 Laotians since the end of the war.[367]

In popular culture

See also: Vietnam War in film, Vietnam War in games, and War in popular culture

The Vietnam War has been featured extensively in television, film, video games, and literature in the participant countries. In American popular culture, the “Crazy Vietnam Veteran”, who was suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder, became a common stock character after the war.

One of the first major films based on the Vietnam War was John Wayne‘s pro-war film, The Green Berets (1968). Further cinematic representations were released during the 1970s and 1980s, including Michael Cimino‘s The Deer Hunter (1978), Francis Ford Coppola‘s Apocalypse Now (1979), Oliver Stone‘s Platoon (1986) – based on his service in the U.S. military during the Vietnam War, Stanley Kubrick‘s Full Metal Jacket (1987), Hamburger Hill (1987), and Casualties of War (1989). Later films would include We Were Soldiers (2002) and Rescue Dawn (2007).[34]

The war also influenced a generation of musicians and songwriters in Vietnam and the United States, both anti-war and pro/anti-communist. The band Country Joe and the Fish recorded “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag” / The “Fish” Cheer in 1965, and it became one of the most influential anti-Vietnam protest anthems.[34] Many songwriters and musicians supported the anti-war movement, including Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Peggy Seeger, Ewan MacColl, Barbara Dane, The Critics Group, Phil Ochs, John Lennon, Nina Simone, Neil Young, Tom Paxton, Jimmy Cliff and Arlo Guthrie.

See also

General:

Annotations

  1. ^ Jump up to:a b Due to the early presence of American troops in Vietnam the start date of the Vietnam War is a matter of debate. In 1998, after a high level review by the Department of Defense (DoD) and through the efforts of Richard B. Fitzgibbon’s family the start date of the Vietnam War according to the US government was officially changed to 1 November 1955.[16] U.S. government reports currently cite 1 November 1955 as the commencement date of the “Vietnam Conflict”, because this date marked when the U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) in Indochina (deployed to Southeast Asia under President Truman) was reorganized into country-specific units and MAAG Vietnam was established.[17] Other start dates include when Hanoi authorized Viet Cong forces in South Vietnam to begin a low-level insurgency in December 1956,[18] whereas some view 26 September 1959 when the first battle occurred between the Viet Cong and the South Vietnamese army, as the start date.[19]
  2. ^ Jump up to:a b c The figures of 58,220 and 303,644 for U.S. deaths and wounded come from the Department of Defense Statistical Information Analysis Division (SIAD), Defense Manpower Data Center, as well as from a Department of Veterans fact sheet dated May 2010[36] the CRS (Congressional Research Service) Report for Congress, American War and Military Operations Casualties: Lists and Statistics, dated 26 February 2010,[37] and the book Crucible Vietnam: Memoir of an Infantry Lieutenant.[38]Some other sources give different figures (e.g. the 2005/2006 documentary Heart of Darkness: The Vietnam War Chronicles 1945–1975 cited elsewhere in this article gives a figure of 58,159 U.S. deaths,[32] and the 2007 book Vietnam Sons gives a figure of 58,226)[39]
  3. Jump up^ The Military Assistance Advisory Group, Indochina (with an authorized strength of 128 men) was set up in September 1950 with a mission to oversee the use and distribution of US military equipment by the French and their allies.
  4. Jump up^ The Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng had previously formed in Nanjing, China, at some point between August 1935 and early 1936 when the non-communist Vietnamese Nationalist Party (Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng, or Viet Quoc), led by Nguyễn Thái Học, and some members of the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) and a number of other Vietnamese nationalist parties formed an anti-imperialist united front. This organisation soon lapsed into inactivity, only to be revived by the ICP and Ho Chi Minh in 1941.[70]
  5. Jump up^ On 8 March 1965 the first American combat troops, the Third Marine Regiment, Third Marine Division, began landing in Vietnam to protect the Da Nang airport.[263][264]

Notes

  1. ^ Jump up to:a b c d Moïse 1996, pp. 3–4.
  2. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e f “ALLIES OF THE REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM”. Retrieved 24 September 2011.
  3. Jump up^ “Chapter Three: 1957-1969 Early Relations between Malaysia and Vietnam” (PDF). University of Malaya Student Repository. p. 72. Retrieved 17 October 2015.
  4. Jump up^ “Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-Haj (Profiles of Malaysia’s Foreign Ministers)” (PDF). Institute of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations (IDFR), Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Malaysia). 2008. p. 31. ISBN 978-983-2220-26-8. Archived (PDF) from the original on 16 October 2015. Retrieved 17 October 2015. The Tunku had been personally responsible for Malaya’s partisan support of the South Vietnamese regime in its fight against the Vietcong and, in reply to a Parliamentary question on 6 February 1962, he had listed all the used weapons and equipment of the Royal Malaya Police given to Saigon. These included a total of 45,707 single-barrel shotguns, 611 armoured cars and smaller numbers of carbines and pistols. Writing in 1975, he revealed that “we had clandestinely been giving ‘aid’ to Vietnam since early 1958. Published American archival sources now reveal that the actual Malaysian contributions to the war effort in Vietnam included the following: “over 5,000 Vietnamese officers trained in Malaysia; training of 150 U.S. soldiers in handling Tracker Dogs; a rather impressive list of military equipment and weapons given to Viet-Nam after the end of the Malaysian insurgency (for example, 641 armored personnel carriers, 56,000 shotguns); and a creditable amount of civil assistance (transportation equipment, cholera vaccine, and flood relief)”. It is undeniable that the Government’s policy of supporting the South Vietnamese regime with arms, equipment and training was regarded by some quarters, especially the Opposition parties, as a form of interfering in the internal affairs of that country and the Tunku’s valiant efforts to defend it were not convincing enough, from a purely foreign policy standpoint.
  5. Jump up^ The Cuban Military Under Castro, 1989. Page 76
  6. Jump up^ Cuba in the World, 1979. Page 66
  7. Jump up^ “Cesky a slovensky svet”. Svet.czsk.net. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
  8. Jump up^ “Bilaterální vztahy České republiky a Vietnamské socialistické republiky | Mezinárodní vztahy | e-Polis – Internetový politologický časopis”. E-polis.cz. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
  9. Jump up^ “Foreign Affairs in the 1960s and 1970s”. Library of Congress. 1992. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Bulgaria gave official military support to many national liberation causes, most notably in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, (North Vietnam)…
  10. Jump up^ “Project MUSE – Sailing in the Shadow of the Vietnam War: The GDR Government and the “Vietnam Bonus” of the Early 1970s” (PDF).
  11. Jump up^ Crump 2015, p. 183
  12. Jump up^ http://www.historycy.org/index.php?showtopic=36539&st=15Polish military advisers in North Vietnam(in Polish)
  13. ^ Jump up to:a b Radvanyi, Janos (1980). “Vietnam War Diplomacy: Reflections of a Former Iron Curtain Official” (PDF). Paramaters: Journal of the US Army War College. Carlise Barracks, Pennsylvania. 10 (No. 3): 8–15.
  14. Jump up^ “Why did Sweden support the Viet Cong?”. HistoryNet. July 25, 2013. Retrieved July 20, 2016.
  15. Jump up^ “Sweden announces support to Viet Cong”. HISTORY.com. Retrieved July 20, 2016. In Sweden, Foreign Minister Torsten Nilsson reveals that Sweden has been providing assistance to the Viet Cong, including some $550,000 worth of medical supplies. Similar Swedish aid was to go to Cambodian and Laotian civilians affected by the Indochinese fighting. This support was primarily humanitarian in nature and included no military aid.
  16. Jump up^ DoD 1998
  17. Jump up^ Lawrence 2009, p. 20.
  18. ^ Jump up to:a b Olson & Roberts 1991, p. 67.[citation not found]
  19. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e Origins of the Insurgency in South Vietnam, 1954–1960, The Pentagon Papers (Gravel Edition), Volume 1, Chapter 5, (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971), Section 3, pp. 314–346; International Relations Department, Mount Holyoke College.
  20. Jump up^ Le Gro, p. 28.
  21. Jump up^ “Vietnam War : US Troop Strength”. Historycentral.com. Retrieved 17 October 2009.
  22. Jump up^ “Facts about the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Collection”. nps.gov. (citing The first American ground combat troops landed in South Vietnam during March 1965, specifically the U.S. Third Marine Regiment, Third Marine Division, deployed to Vietnam from Okinawa to defend the Da Nang, Vietnam, airfield. During the height of U.S. military involvement, 31 December 1968, the breakdown of allied forces were as follows: 536,100 U.S. military personnel, with 30,610 U.S. military having been killed to date; 65,000 Free World Forces personnel; 820,000 South Vietnam Armed Forces (SVNAF) with 88,343 having been killed to date. At the war’s end, there were approximately 2,200 U.S. missing in action (MIA) and prisoners of war (POW). Source: Harry G. Summers Jr. Vietnam War Almanac, Facts on File Publishing, 1985.)
  23. ^ Jump up to:a b The A to Z of the Vietnam War. The Scarecrow Press. 2005. ISBN 9781461719038.
  24. Jump up^ Vietnam War After Action Reports, BACM Research, 2009, page 430
  25. Jump up^ “China admits 320,000 troops fought in Vietnam”. Toledo Blade. Reuters. 16 May 1989. Retrieved 24 December 2013.
  26. Jump up^ Roy, Denny (1998). China’s Foreign Relations. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 27. ISBN 978-0847690138.
  27. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e China and Vietnam.
  28. Jump up^ Pham Thi Thu Thuy (1 August 2013). “The colorful history of North Korea-Vietnam relations”. NK News. Retrieved 3 October 2016.
  29. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e Charles Hirschman et al., “Vietnamese Casualties During the American War: A New Estimate,” Population and Development Review, December 1995.
  30. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e f g Lewy 1978, pp. 450–3.
  31. ^ Jump up to:a b Thayer 1985, chap. 12.
  32. ^ Jump up to:a b Aaron Ulrich (editor); Edward FeuerHerd (producer and director) (2005 & 2006). Heart of Darkness: The Vietnam War Chronicles 1945–1975 (Box set, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC, Dolby, Vision Software) (Documentary). Koch Vision. Event occurs at 321 minutes. ISBN 1-4172-2920-9. Check date values in: |date= (help)
  33. Jump up^ Rummel, R.J (1997), “Table 6.1A. Vietnam Democide : Estimates, Sources, and Calculations,” (GIF), Freedom, Democracy, Peace; Power, Democide, and War, University of Hawaii System
  34. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Tucker, Spencer E. The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History ABC-CLIO. ISBN 1-85109-961-1
  35. Jump up^ Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (2 May 2016). “Memorial Day ceremony at The Wall to commemorate eight additions to The Wall and honor all members of America’s Armed Forces who have made the ultimate sacrifice” (Press release). PR Newswire.
  36. Jump up^ America’s Wars (PDF) (Report). Department of Veterans Affairs. May 2010.
  37. Jump up^ Anne Leland; Mari–Jana “M-J” Oboroceanu (26 February 2010). American War and Military Operations: Casualties: Lists and Statistics (PDF) (Report). Congressional Research Service.
  38. Jump up^ Lawrence 2009, pp. 65, 107, 154, 217
  39. Jump up^ Kueter, Dale. Vietnam Sons: For Some, the War Never Ended. AuthorHouse (21 March 2007). ISBN 978-1425969318
  40. Jump up^ “Australian casualties in the Vietnam War, 1962–72 | Australian War Memorial”. Awm.gov.au. Retrieved 29 June 2013.
  41. Jump up^ The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History By Spencer C. Tucker “https://books.google.com/?id=qh5lffww-KsC“
  42. Jump up^ “Overview of the war in Vietnam | VietnamWar.govt.nz, New Zealand and the Vietnam War”. Vietnamwar.govt.nz. 16 July 1965. Retrieved 29 June 2013.
  43. Jump up^ “Chapter III: The Philippines”. History.army.mil. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
  44. Jump up^ “Asian Allies in Vietnam” (PDF). Embassy of South Vietnam. March 1970. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
  45. Jump up^ Associated Press, 3 April 1995, “Vietnam Says 1.1 Million Died Fighting For North.”
  46. Jump up^ Soames, John. A History of the World, Routledge, 2005.
  47. Jump up^ “North Korea fought in Vietnam War”. BBC News. 31 March 2000. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
  48. Jump up^ Shenon, Philip (23 April 1995). “20 Years After Victory, Vietnamese Communists Ponder How to Celebrate”. The New York Times. Retrieved 24 February 2011. The Vietnamese government officially claimed a rough estimate of 2 million civilian deaths, but it did not divide these deaths between those of North and South Vietnam.
  49. Jump up^ “fifty years of violent war deaths: data analysis from the world health survey program: BMJ”. 23 April 2008. Retrieved 5 January 2013. From 1955 to 2002, data from the surveys indicated an estimated 5.4 million violent war deaths … 3.8 million in Vietnam
  50. ^ Jump up to:a b c d Obermeyer, Murray & Gakidou 2008.
  51. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e Heuveline, Patrick (2001). “The Demographic Analysis of Mortality in Cambodia”. Forced Migration and Mortality. National Academy Press. pp. 102–104, 120, 124. ISBN 9780309073349. As best as can now be estimated, over two million Cambodians died during the 1970s because of the political events of the decade, the vast majority of them during the mere four years of the ‘Khmer Rouge’ regime. … Subsequent reevaluations of the demographic data situated the death toll for the [civil war] in the order of 300,000 or less.
  52. ^ Jump up to:a b c Banister, Judith; Johnson, E. Paige (1993). “After the Nightmare: The Population of Cambodia”. Genocide and Democracy in Cambodia: The Khmer Rouge, the United Nations and the International Community. Yale University Southeast Asia Studies. p. 87. ISBN 9780938692492. An estimated 275,000 excess deaths. We have modeled the highest mortality we can justify for the early 1970s.
  53. ^ Jump up to:a b c Sliwinski estimates 240,000 wartime deaths, of which 40,000 were caused by U.S. bombing. (Sliwinski 1995, p. 48). He characterizes other estimates ranging from 600,000–700,000 as “the most extreme evaluations” (p. 42).
  54. Jump up^ Factasy. “The Vietnam War or Second Indochina War”. PRLog. Retrieved 29 June 2013.
  55. Jump up^ “Vietnam War”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 5 March 2008. Meanwhile, the United States, its military demoralized and its civilian electorate deeply divided, began a process of coming to terms with defeat in its longest and most controversial war
  56. Jump up^ Lind, Michael (1999). “Vietnam, The Necessary War: A Reinterpretation of America’s Most Disastrous Military Conflict”. New York Times. Retrieved 17 January 2014.
  57. Jump up^ Digital History; Steven Mintz. “The Vietnam War”. Digitalhistory.uh.edu. Archived from the original on 30 October 2011. Retrieved 31 October 2011.
  58. Jump up^ Major General George S. Eckhardt, Vietnam Studies Command and Control 1950–1969, Department of the Army, Washington, D.C. (1991), p. 6
  59. Jump up^ Vietnam War Statistics and Facts 1, 25th Aviation Battalion website.
  60. Jump up^ Thee, Marek (1976). “The Indochina Wars: Great Power Involvement – Escalation and Disengagement”. Journal of Peace Research. Sage Publications. 13 (2): 117. ISSN 1460-3578. JSTOR 423343. (subscription required (help)).
  61. Jump up^ Kolko 1985, pp. 457, 461ff.
  62. Jump up^ Moore, Harold. G and Joseph L. Galloway We Are Soldiers Still: A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam (p. 57).
  63. Jump up^ “Asian-Nation: Asian American History, Demographics, & Issues:: The American / Viet Nam War”. Retrieved 18 August 2008. The Viet Nam War is also called ‘The American War’ by the Vietnamese
  64. Jump up^ Tucker, Spencer C. (2011) The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History ABC-CLIO. ISBN 1-85109-961-1, p. xli
  65. Jump up^ Ooi, Keat Gin. Southeast Asia: a historical encyclopedia, from Angkor Wat to East Timor. ABC-CLIO; 2004. ISBN 978-1-57607-770-2. p. 520.
  66. Jump up^ Rai, Lajpat. Social Science. FK Publications; ISBN 978-81-89611-12-5. p. 22.
  67. Jump up^ Dommen, Arthur J. The Indochinese experience of the French and the Americans: nationalism and communism in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Indiana University Press; 2001. ISBN 978-0-253-33854-9. p. 4–19.
  68. Jump up^ Neale 2001, p. 3.
  69. ^ Jump up to:a b Neale 2001, p. 17.
  70. Jump up^ Sophie Quinn-Judge (2003). Ho Chi Minh: the missing years, 1919–1941. C. Hurst. pp. 212–213. ISBN 978-1-85065-658-6.
  71. Jump up^ Tucker 1999, p. 42
  72. Jump up^ Brocheux 2007, p. 198
  73. Jump up^ Neale 2001, p. 18.
  74. Jump up^ Koh, David (21 August 2008). “Vietnam needs to remember famine of 1945”. The Straits Times. Singapore.
  75. Jump up^ Neale 2001, pp. 18–9.
  76. ^ Jump up to:a b Kolko 1985, p. 36.
  77. Jump up^ Neale 2001, p. 19.
  78. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e f g Neale 2001, p. 20.
  79. Jump up^ Interview with Carleton Swift, 1981, http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/vietnam-9dc948-interview-with-carleton-swift
  80. Jump up^ Stuart-Fox 1997, p. [page needed].
  81. Jump up^ Interview with Archimedes L. A. Patti, 1981, http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/vietnam-bf3262-interview-with-archimedes-l-a-patti-1981
  82. Jump up^ Kolko 1985, p. 37.
  83. Jump up^ Dommen, Arthur J. (2001), The Indochinese Experience of the French and the Americans, Indiana University Press, pg. 120. “According to one estimate, 15,000 nationalists were massacred” in the summer of 1946 (pg. 154). In addition, “100,000 to 150,000 [civilians] had been assassinated by the Viet Minh” by the end of the First Indochina war (pg. 252).
  84. Jump up^ “ベトナム独立戦争参加日本人の事跡に基づく日越のあり方に関する研究” (PDF). 井川 一久. Tokyo foundation. October 2005. Retrieved 10 June 2010.
  85. Jump up^ “日越関係発展の方途を探る研究 ヴェトナム独立戦争参加日本人―その実態と日越両国にとっての歴史的意味―” (PDF). 井川 一久. Tokyo foundation. May 2006. Retrieved 10 June 2010.
  86. Jump up^ Willbanks 2009, p. 8
  87. ^ Jump up to:a b Neale 2001, p. 24.
  88. Jump up^ Neale 2001, pp. 23–4.
  89. Jump up^ Willbanks 2009, p. 9
  90. Jump up^ “Franco-Vietnam Agreement of March 6th, 1946”. Vietnamgear.com. 6 March 1946. Retrieved 29 April 2011.
  91. Jump up^ “Pentagon Papers, Gravel Edition, Chapter !, Section 2”. Mtholyoke.edu. Retrieved 29 April 2011.
  92. Jump up^ Peter Dennis (1987). Troubled days of peace: Mountbatten and South East Asia command, 1945–46. Manchester University Press ND. p. 179. ISBN 978-0-7190-2205-0.
  93. ^ Jump up to:a b Neale 2001, p. 25.
  94. ^ Jump up to:a b c McNamara 1999, pp. 377–9.
  95. Jump up^ “The Vietnam War Seeds of Conflict 1945 – 1960”. The History Place. Retrieved 13 May 2013.
  96. Jump up^ Pentagon Papers, Gravel, ed, Chapter 2, ‘U.S. Involvement in the Franco-Viet Minh War’, p. 54.
  97. ^ Jump up to:a b Ang, Cheng Guan, The Vietnam War from the Other Side, p. 14. Routledge (2002).
  98. ^ Jump up to:a b “The History Place – Vietnam War 1945–1960”. Retrieved 11 June 2008.
  99. Jump up^ Herring 2001, p. 18.
  100. Jump up^ Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, p. 471.
  101. ^ Jump up to:a b Vietnam The Ten Thousand Day War, Thames 1981, Michael Maclear, p. 57.
  102. Jump up^ Vietnam at War: The History: 1946–1975, ISBN 978-0-19-506792-7, p. 263.
  103. Jump up^ Dien Bien Phu, Air Force Magazine 87:8, August 2004.
  104. ^ Jump up to:a b Tucker 1999, p. 76
  105. Jump up^ The U.S. Navy: a history, Naval Institute Press, 1997, Nathan Miller, ISBN 978-1-55750-595-8, pp. 67–68.
  106. Jump up^ The Pentagon Papers. Gravel, ed. vol. 1, pp. 391–404.
  107. Jump up^ Press release by the Embassy of the Republic of Vietnam, quoted from the Washington, D.C. press and Information Service, vol I. no. 18 (22 July 1955) and no. 20 (18 August 1955), in Chapter 19 of Gettleman, Franklin and Young, Vietnam and America: A Documented History, pp. 103–105.
  108. Jump up^ Jacobs, pp. 45–55.
  109. Jump up^ Fall 1967, p. [page needed].
  110. Jump up^ Vietnam Divided by B.S.N. Murti, Asian Publishing House, 1964.
  111. Jump up^ Turner 1975, p. 102.
  112. Jump up^ Karnow 1997, p. 238.
  113. Jump up^ Kolko 1985, p. 98.
  114. Jump up^ 1 Pentagon Papers (The Senator Gravel Edition), 247, 328 (Boston, Beacon Press, 1971).
  115. Jump up^ John Prados,“”The Numbers Game: How Many Vietnamese Fled South In 1954?””. Archived from the original on 27 May 2006. Retrieved 2 November 2006. , The VVA Veteran, January/February 2005. Retrieved 21 January 2007.
  116. Jump up^ Turner, Robert F. (1975). Vietnamese Communism: Its Origins and Development. Hoover Institution Publications. p. 143. ISBN 978-0817964313.
  117. Jump up^ cf. Gittinger, J. Price, “Communist Land Policy in Viet Nam”, Far Eastern Survey, Vol. 29, No. 8, 1957, p. 118.
  118. Jump up^ Courtois, Stephane; et al. (1997). The Black Book of Communism. Harvard University Press. p. 569. ISBN 978-0-674-07608-2.
  119. Jump up^ Dommen, Arthur J. (2001), The Indochinese Experience of the French and the Americans, Indiana University Press, p. 340, gives a lower estimate of 32,000 executions.
  120. Jump up^ “Newly released documents on the land reform”. Vietnam Studies Group. Archived from the original on 20 April 2011. Retrieved 2016-07-15. Vu Tuong: There is no reason to expect, and no evidence that I have seen to demonstrate, that the actual executions were less than planned; in fact the executions perhaps exceeded the plan if we consider two following factors. First, this decree was issued in 1953 for the rent and interest reduction campaign that preceded the far more radical land redistribution and party rectification campaigns (or waves) that followed during 1954-1956. Second, the decree was meant to apply to free areas (under the control of the Viet Minh government), not to the areas under French control that would be liberated in 1954-1955 and that would experience a far more violent struggle. Thus the number of 13,500 executed people seems to be a low-end estimate of the real number. This is corroborated by Edwin Moise in his recent paper “Land Reform in North Vietnam, 1953-1956” presented at the 18th Annual Conference on SE Asian Studies, Center for SE Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley (February 2001). In this paper Moise (7-9) modified his earlier estimate in his 1983 book (which was 5,000) and accepted an estimate close to 15,000 executions. Moise made the case based on Hungarian reports provided by Balazs, but the document I cited above offers more direct evidence for his revised estimate. This document also suggests that the total number should be adjusted up some more, taking into consideration the later radical phase of the campaign, the unauthorized killings at the local level, and the suicides following arrest and torture (the central government bore less direct responsibility for these cases, however). cf. Szalontai, Balazs (November 2005). “Political and Economic Crisis in North Vietnam, 1955–56”. Cold War History. 5 (4): 395–426.
  121. Jump up^ Appy 2006, pp. 46–7.
  122. Jump up^ The Pentagon Papers (1971), Beacon Press, vol. 3, p. 134.
  123. Jump up^ The Pentagon Papers (1971), Beacon Press, vol. 3, p. 119.
  124. ^ Jump up to:a b The Pentagon Papers (1971), Beacon Press, vol. 3, p. 140.
  125. Jump up^ The Pentagon Papers (1971), Beacon Press, vol. 3, pp. 570–71.
  126. Jump up^ Dwight D. Eisenhower. Mandate for Change. Garden City, New Jersey. Doubleday & Company, 1963, p. 372.
  127. Jump up^ The Pentagon Papers (1971), Beacon Press, vol. 3, p. 252.
  128. Jump up^ The Pentagon Papers (1971), Beacon Press, vol. 3, p. 246.
  129. Jump up^ Woodruff 2005, p. 6 states: “The elections were not held. South Vietnam, which had not signed the Geneva Accords, did not believe the Communists in North Vietnam would allow a fair election. In January 1957, the International Control Commission (ICC), comprising observers from India, Poland, and Canada, agreed with this perception, reporting that neither South nor North Vietnam had honored the armistice agreement. With the French gone, a return to the traditional power struggle between north and south had begun again.“
  130. Jump up^ Karnow 1997, p. 224.
  131. Jump up^ Gerdes (ed.) Examining Issues Through Political Cartoons: The Vietnam War p. 19.
  132. Jump up^ Turner 1975, pp. 193–4, 202–3, 215–7
  133. Jump up^ McNamara 1999, p. 19.
  134. Jump up^ John F. Kennedy. “America’s Stakes in Vietnam“. Speech to the American Friends of Vietnam, June 1956. Archived 26 June 2012 at the Wayback Machine.
  135. Jump up^ McNamara 1999, pp. 200–1.
  136. Jump up^ “The Pentagon Papers Gravel Edition Volume 1, Chapter 5, “Origins of the Insurgency in South Vietnam, 1954–1960″”. Mtholyoke.edu. Retrieved 31 October 2011.
  137. Jump up^ Kolko 1985, p. 89.
  138. Jump up^ Lewy 1978, pp. 294–5.
  139. ^ Jump up to:a b Karnow 1997, p. 230.
  140. Jump up^ Excerpts from Law 10/59, 6 May 1959.
  141. Jump up^ Marilyn Young, The Vietnam Wars: 1945—1990 (New York: Harper Perennial, 1991), p. 73
  142. Jump up^ Jeffrey Race, War Comes to Long An (University of California Press, 1972), pp107, 122.
  143. ^ Jump up to:a b c Ang, Cheng Guan (2002). The Vietnam War from the Other Side. RoutledgeCurzon. pp. 16, 58, 76. ISBN 0-7007-1615-7.
  144. Jump up^ Olson & Roberts 1991, p. 67.[citation not found]
    This decision was made at the 11th Plenary Session of the Lao Dong Central Committee.
  145. Jump up^ Military History Institute of Vietnam,(2002) Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People’s Army of Vietnam, 1954–1975, translated by Merle L. Pribbenow. University Press of Kansas. p. 68. ISBN 0-7006-1175-4.
  146. Jump up^ “The History Place – Vietnam War 1945–1960”. Retrieved 11 June 2008.
  147. Jump up^ Victory in Vietnam, p. xi.
  148. Jump up^ Prados 2006.
  149. Jump up^ The Economist, 26 February 1983.
  150. Jump up^ Washington Post, 23 April 1985.
  151. Jump up^ Karnow 1997, p. 264.
  152. Jump up^ The Avalon Project at Yale Law School. Inaugural Address of John F. Kennedy.
  153. Jump up^ Karnow 1997, p. 265: “Kennedy sidestepped Laos, whose rugged terrain was no battleground for American soldiers.”
  154. Jump up^ The case of John F. Kennedy and Vietnam Presidential Studies Quarterly.
  155. Jump up^ Mann, Robert. A Grand Delusion, Basic Books, 2002.
  156. Jump up^ Karnow 1997, p. 267.
  157. Jump up^ VTF 1969, IV. B. 4., pp. 1–2
  158. Jump up^ McNamara 1999, p. 369.
  159. Jump up^ John Kenneth Galbraith. “Memorandum to President Kennedy from John Kenneth Galbraith on Vietnam, 4 April 1962.” The Pentagon Papers. Gravel. ed. Boston, Massachusetts Beacon Press, 1971, vol. 2. pp. 669–671.
  160. Jump up^ “Vietnam War”. Swarthmore College Peace Collection.
  161. Jump up^ Tucker 2011, p. 1070.
  162. ^ Jump up to:a b International Agreement on the Neutrality of Laos.
  163. Jump up^ Sheehan 1989, pp. 201–66.
  164. Jump up^ Live interview by John Bartlow Martin. Was Kennedy Planning to Pull out of Vietnam? New York City. John F. Kennedy Library, 1964, Tape V, Reel 1.
  165. Jump up^ James Gibson, The Perfect War: Technowar in Vietnam (Boston/New York: The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1986), p. 88.
  166. Jump up^ Karnow 1997, p. 326.
  167. Jump up^ Karnow 1997, p. 327.
  168. Jump up^ FRUS, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Vol. IV, Vietnam, August–December 1863, Document 304, “https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v04/d304
  169. Jump up^ McNamara 1999, p. 328.
  170. ^ Jump up to:a b c Demma 1989.
  171. Jump up^ Blaufarb 1977, p. 119.
  172. Jump up^ Herring 2001, p. 103.
  173. Jump up^ Schandler 2009, p. 36
  174. Jump up^ U.S. Special Forces: A Guide to America’s Special Operations Units: the World’s Most Elite Fighting Force, By Samuel A. Southworth, Stephen Tanner, Published by Da Capo Press, 2002, ISBN 978-0-306-81165-4.
  175. Jump up^ Shooting at the Moon by Roger Warner – The history of CIA/IAD’S 15-year involvement in conducting the secret war in Laos, 1960–1975, and the career of CIA PMCO (paramilitary case officer) Bill Lair.
  176. Jump up^ Karnow 1997, pp. 336–9.
    Johnson viewed many members that he inherited from Kennedy’s cabinet with distrust because he had never penetrated their circle during Kennedy’s presidency; to Johnson’s mind, those like W. Averell Harriman and Dean Acheson spoke a different language.
  177. Jump up^ Shortly after the assassination of Kennedy, when McGeorge Bundy called LBJ on the phone, LBJ responded: “Goddammit, Bundy. I’ve told you that when I want you I’ll call you.” Brian VanDeMark, Into the Quagmire (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 13.
  178. Jump up^ Karnow 1997, p. 339.
    Before a small group, including Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., the new president also said, “We should stop playing cops and robbers [a reference to Diệm’s failed leadership] and get back to… winning the war … tell the generals in Saigon that Lyndon Johnson intends to stand by our word…[to] win the contest against the externally directed and supported Communist conspiracy.”
  179. Jump up^ Karnow 1997, p. 339: “At a place called Hoa Phu, for example, the strategic hamlet built during the previous summer now looked like it had been hit by a hurricane. … Speaking through an interpreter, a local guard explained to me that a handful of Viet Cong agents had entered the hamlet one night and told the peasants to tear it down and return to their native villages. The peasants complied without question.”
  180. Jump up^ Karnow 1997, p. 340.
  181. Jump up^ Karnow 1997, p. 341.
  182. Jump up^ Kolko 1985, p. 124.
  183. Jump up^ Kutler 1996, p. 249.
  184. Jump up^ Moïse 1996, p. 78.
  185. ^ Jump up to:a b Healy 2009, p. 91.
  186. Jump up^ Palmer 1978, p. 882.
  187. Jump up^ Scott Shane (31 October 2005). “Vietnam Study, Casting Doubts, Remains Secret”. The New York Times. Retrieved 13 September 2013.
  188. Jump up^ Gerdes (ed.) Examining Issues Through Political Cartoons: The Vietnam War p. 25.
  189. Jump up^ Herring 2001, p. 121.
  190. ^ Jump up to:a b The United States in Vietnam: An analysis in depth of the history of America’s involvement in Vietnam by George McTurnan Kahin and John W. Lewis, Delta Books, 1967.
  191. Jump up^ Hubbel, John G. (November 1968). “The Blood-Red Hands of Ho Chi Minh”. Readers Digest: 61–67.
  192. Jump up^ Simon, Dennis M. (August 2002). “The War in Vietnam,1965–1968”. Archived from the original on 26 April 2009. Retrieved 7 May 2009.
  193. Jump up^ Nalty 1998, pp. 97, 261.
  194. Jump up^ Earl L. Tilford, Setup: What the Air Force did in Vietnam and Why. Maxwell Air Force Base AL: Air University Press, 1991, p. 89.
  195. Jump up^ Karnow 1997, p. 468.
  196. ^ Jump up to:a b Courtwright 2005, p. 210.
  197. Jump up^ Gen. Curtis E LeMay.
  198. Jump up^ “Generations Divide Over Military Action in Iraq”. Pew Research Center. October 2002. (archived from the original on 2 February 2008). (The archived link is dead, and the original link is towards another article.)
  199. Jump up^ Young 1991, p. 172.
  200. Jump up^ McNamara 1999, p. 48.
  201. Jump up^ The Pentagon Papers (Beacon Press, 1971), vol. 1, p52.
  202. ^ Jump up to:a b c McNamara 1999, pp. 349–51.
  203. Jump up^ Moyar 2006, p. 339
  204. Jump up^ McNeill 1993, p. 58.
  205. Jump up^ McNeill 1993, p. 94.
  206. Jump up^ U.S. Department of Defense, U.S.-Vietnam Relations vol. 4, p. 7.
  207. Jump up^ McNamara 1999, p. 353.
  208. Jump up^ U.S. Department of Defense, U.S.–Vietnam Relations vol. 5, pp. 8–9.
  209. Jump up^ U.S. Department of Defense, U.S.-Vietnam Relations vol. 4, pp 117–119. and vol. 5, pp. 8–12.
  210. Jump up^ Public Papers of the Presidents, 1965. Washington, D.C. Government Printing Office, 1966, vol. 2, pp. 794–799.
  211. ^ Jump up to:a b McNamara 1999, pp. 353–4.
  212. Jump up^ Karnow 1997, p. 453.
  213. ^ Jump up to:a b Karnow 1997, p. 556.
  214. Jump up^ Peter Church. ed. A Short History of South-East Asia. Singapore, John Wiley & Sons, 2006, p. 193.
  215. Jump up^ Karnow 1997, p. 706.
  216. Jump up^ Jewett, Russell (2014). Northern I Corps-Vietnam: A Corpsman’s Story. Ft Bragg, California: Blurb.
  217. ^ Jump up to:a b Karnow 1997, p. 18.
  218. Jump up^ McNamara 1999, pp. 363–365.
  219. Jump up^ Stephen T. Hosmer (1970), Viet Cong Repression and its Implications for the Future (Rand Corporation), pp.72–8.
  220. Jump up^ Kolko 1985, pp. 308–9.
  221. Jump up^ Villard, Erik B., The 1968 Tet Offensive Battles of Quang Tri City and Hue, U.S. Army Center of Military History, Washington, D.C., (2008)
  222. ^ Jump up to:a b Ankony, Robert C., Lurps: A Ranger’s Diary of Tet, Khe Sanh, A Shau, and Quang Tri, Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Landham, MD, (2009): p. 104
  223. Jump up^ Villard, Erik B., The 1968 Tet Offensive Battles of Quang Tri City and Hue, U.S. Army Center of Military History, Washington, D.C., (2008): p.82
  224. ^ Jump up to:a b “The Guardians at the Gate”, Time 7 January 1966, vol. 87, no.1.
  225. Jump up^ Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History (New York: Penguin, 1986), p. 546
  226. ^ Jump up to:a b c d Witz The Tet Offensive: Intelligence Failure in War pp. 1–2.
  227. Jump up^ Larry Berman. Lyndon Johnson’s War. New York, W.W. Norton, 1991, p. 116.
  228. Jump up^ Harold P. Ford. CIA and the Vietnam Policymakers pp. 104–123.
  229. Jump up^ Keyes, Ralph (2006). The Quote Verifier: Who Said What, Where, and When. St. Martin’s Griffin. ISBN 978-0-312-34004-9.
  230. Jump up^ Survivors Hunt Dead of Bentre, Turned to Rubble in Allied Raids nytimes.com.
  231. Jump up^ “Peter Arnett: Whose Man in Baghdad?”, Mona Charen, Jewish World Review, 1 April 2003.
  232. Jump up^ Moore, Frazier (18 July 2009). “Cronkite, who defined the role of anchor, dies at 92”. News Observer. Associated Press. Retrieved 31 October 2013.
  233. Jump up^ Oberdorfer 2001, p. 251.
  234. Jump up^ Winfrey, Lee; Schaffer, Michael D. (17 July 2009). “Walter Cronkite dies”. Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved 18 July 2009.
  235. Jump up^ Wicker, Tom (26 January 1997). “Broadcast News”. New York Times. Retrieved 1 May 2009.
  236. Jump up^ Sorely 1999, pp. 11–16.
  237. Jump up^ Gerdes (ed.) Examining Issues Through Political Cartoons: The Vietnam War p. 27.
  238. ^ Jump up to:a b Command Magazine Issue 18, p. 15.
  239. Jump up^ McNamara 1999, pp. 366–7.
  240. ^ Jump up to:a b “Vietnamization: 1970 Year in Review”. Upi.com. 27 October 2011. Archived from the original on 31 August 2011. Retrieved 31 October 2011.
  241. Jump up^ “Ho Chi Minh Dies of Heart Attack in Hanoi”. The Times. 4 September 1969. p. 1.
  242. Jump up^ Jeff Stein, Murder in Wartime: The Untold Spy Story that Changed the Course of the Vietnam War. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992) 60–62.
  243. Jump up^ Seals, Bob (2007) The “Green Beret Affair”: A Brief Introduction.
  244. Jump up^ Sihanouk, Prince Norodom. “Cambodia Neutral: The Dictates of Necessity”. Foreign Affairs. 1958: 582–583.
  245. Jump up^ They were: Senators John C. Stennis (MS) and Richard B. Russell Jr. (GA) and Representatives Lucius Mendel Rivers (SC), Gerald R. Ford (MI), and Leslie C. Arends (IL). Arends and Ford were leaders of the Republican minority and the other three were Democrats on either the Armed Services or Appropriations committees.
  246. Jump up^ Dmitry Mosyakov, “The Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese Communists: A History of Their Relations as Told in the Soviet Archives”, in Susan E. Cook, ed., Genocide in Cambodia and Rwanda (Yale Genocide Studies Program Monograph Series No. 1, 2004), p. 54 ff. Available online at: http://www.yale.edu/gsp/publications/Mosyakov.doc “In April–May 1970, many North Vietnamese forces entered Cambodia in response to the call for help addressed to Vietnam not by Pol Pot, but by his deputy Nuon Chea. Nguyen Co Thach recalls: “Nuon Chea has asked for help and we have liberated five provinces of Cambodia in ten days.”
  247. Jump up^ Joe Angio. Nixon a Presidency Revealed. Television Documentary, The History Channel, 15 February 2007.
  248. Jump up^ USA.gov (February 1997). “The Pentagon Papers Case”. EJournal USA. 2 (1). Archived from the original on 12 January 2008. Retrieved 27 April 2010.
  249. Jump up^ Karnow 1997, pp. 644–5.
  250. Jump up^ “11. The U.S. Army in Vietnam from Tet to the Final Withdrawal, 1968–1975”. American Military History, Volume II, The United states Army in a Global Era, 1917–2003. United States Army Center of Military History. pp. 349–350.
  251. Jump up^ Ronald H. Spector. “Vietnam War (1954–75)”. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Archived from the original on 20 May 2014. Retrieved 20 May 2014.
  252. Jump up^ G. Herring, America’s Longest War (2nd ed., 1986), p.260.
  253. Jump up^ Peter Church, ed. A Short History of South-East Asia. Singapore. John Wiley & Sons, 2006, pp. 193–194.
  254. Jump up^ Lunch, W. & Sperlich, P. (1979). The Western Political Quarterly. 32(1). pp. 21–44
  255. Jump up^ Louis B. Zimmer, The Vietnam War Debate; pp. 54–55; Hardcover: 430 pages; Publisher: Lexington Books (13 October 2011); ISBN 0739137697.
  256. Jump up^ Louis B. Zimmer, The Vietnam War Debate; pp. 53–54; Hardcover: 430 pages; Publisher: Lexington Books (13 October 2011); ISBN 0739137697.
  257. Jump up^ Videorecording of entire debate proceedings available at the Museum of Radio and Television in New York City.
  258. Jump up^ 1969: Millions march in US Vietnam Moratorium. BBC On This Day.
  259. Jump up^ Jennings & Brewster 1998: 413.
  260. Jump up^ Bob Fink. “Vietnam – A View from the Walls: a History of the Vietnam Anti-War Movement”. Greenwich Publishing.
  261. Jump up^ “History Lesson 8: Refugees From Vietnam and Cambodia”, Immigration in US history, Constitutional Rights Foundation
  262. Jump up^ Stanton 2003, p. 240
  263. Jump up^ Willbanks 2009, p. 110
  264. Jump up^ “Facts about the Vietnam Veterans memorial collection”. NPS.gov. 2010. Retrieved 26 April 2010.
  265. ^ Jump up to:a b Karnow 1997, pp. 672–4.
  266. Jump up^ Karnow 1997, pp. 670–2.
  267. Jump up^ “This Day in History 1974: Thieu announces war has resumed”. History.com. Retrieved 17 October 2009.
  268. Jump up^ Karnow 1997, p. 676.
  269. Jump up^ Clark Dougan, David Fulgham et al., The Fall of the South. Boston: Boston Publishing Company, 1985, p. 22.
  270. Jump up^ The End of the Vietnam War, 30 Years Ago by Gabriel Kolko, CounterPunch 30 April / 1 May 2005.
  271. Jump up^ Tucker 1999, p. 29
  272. Jump up^ U. S. POWER IN ASIA HAS GROWN SINCE VIETNAM by Leslie H. Gelb, The New York Times, April 18, 1985
  273. Jump up^ Qiang Zhai, China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950–1975, University of North Carolina Press, pp. 54–55.
  274. Jump up^ Qiang Zhai (2000), China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950–1975, University of North Carolina Press, p.135
  275. Jump up^ Chen Jian, “China’s Involvement in the Vietnam War: 1964 to 1969”, Cambridge University Press, 2012, p. 379. Citing “Wenhua dageming zhong de jiefangjun” by Li Ke and Hao Shengzhang, p. 416
  276. Jump up^ Ang, Cheng Guan, Ending the Vietnam War: The Vietnamese Communists’ Perspective, p. 27.
  277. Jump up^ Bezlova, Antoaneta, China haunted by Khmer Rouge links, Asia Times, 21 February 2009.
  278. Jump up^ Truong 1985, p. 168
  279. Jump up^ AP (2010). “Soviet Involvement in the Vietnam War”. historicaltextarchive.com. Associated Press. Retrieved 27 March 2010.
  280. Jump up^ Oleg Sarin and Lev Dvoretsky (1996), Alien Wars: The Soviet Union’s Aggressions Against the World, 1919 to 1989, Presidio Press, pp. 93–4.
  281. Jump up^ “Asia Times – Russian missiles to guard skies over Vietnam”. Atimes.com. 5 September 2003. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
  282. Jump up^ “Soviet rocketeer: After our arrival in Vietnam, American pilots refused to fly” (in Russian). RU: rus.ruvr. 29 January 2010. Retrieved 26 May 2010.
  283. Jump up^ Asia Times, 18 August 2006, Richard M Bennett Missiles and madness.
  284. Jump up^ Merle Pribbenow, ‘The ‘Ology War: technology and ideology in the defense of Hanoi, 1967’ Journal of Military History 67:1 (2003) p. 183.
  285. Jump up^ Gluck, Caroline (7 July 2001). “N Korea admits Vietnam war role”. BBC News. Retrieved 19 October 2006.; also see “North Korea fought in Vietnam War”. BBC News. 31 March 2000. Retrieved 19 October 2006.; also see “North Korea honours Vietnam war dead”. BBC News. 12 July 2001. Retrieved 19 October 2006.
  286. Jump up^ “Vietnam agradece apoyo cubano durante guerra (Vietnam say thanks for Cuban support during the war, in Spanish)”. Revista Vietnam. Retrieved 2 August 2015.
  287. Jump up^ Castro, Fidel. “CUBA y VIETNAM: discurso de Fidel Castro en apoyo del F.N.L. (Cuba and Vietnam, speech of Fidel Castro in support of NFL, in Spanish)”. Ruinas Digitales. Retrieved 2 August 2015.
  288. Jump up^ “Cubanos y vietnamitas conmemoran aniversarios de victorias”. Cuba Diplomática (Diplomatic Cuba). Embajada de Cuba en Vietnam (Cuban Embassy in Vietnam). Retrieved 2 August 2015.
  289. Jump up^ AII POW-MIA Cuban Torture. Aiipowmia.com (8 November 1999). Retrieved 6 August 2010.
  290. Jump up^ Cuban General Lies Repeatedly About Torturing U.S. POWs. Latinamericanstudies.org (11 December 1978). Retrieved 6 August 2010.
  291. Jump up^ Former U.S. POWs detail torture by Cubans in Vietnam. Autentico.org (22 August 1999). Retrieved 6 August 2010.
  292. Jump up^ Facts of the Cuban Program. Miafacts.org. Retrieved 6 August 2010.
  293. Jump up^ Cuba Program Research Paper. Vietnam and All Veterans of Florida. Retrieved 6 August 2010.
  294. Jump up^ Castro denies McCain’s torture claim – World news – Americas – Focus on Cuba. MSNBC (19 April 1959). Retrieved 6 August 2010.
  295. Jump up^ Testimony of Michael D. Benge before the House International Relations Committee Chaired by the Honorable Benjamin A. Gilman, 4 November 1999
  296. Jump up^ dT(); (11 September 2008). “Photo exhibition on Fidel Castro’s visit in 1973”. VietnamPlus. Retrieved 29 June 2013.
  297. ^ Jump up to:a b Chang, Jae Baik (2011). The Park Chung Hee Era: The Transformation of South Korea. Harvard University Press. p. 409. ISBN 0-674-05820-8.
  298. Jump up^ Stanton, ‘Vietnam Order of Battle’.
  299. Jump up^ “ROK Army and Marines prove to be rock-solid fighters and allies in Vietnam War”. Archived from the original on 28 September 2007. Retrieved 3 February 2008.[dead link]
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  301. Jump up^ Leepson 1999, p. 209.
  302. ^ Jump up to:a b Dennis et al 2008, pp. 555–558.
  303. Jump up^ McGibbon 2000, pp. 561–566.
  304. Jump up^ “Vietnam War 1962–1972”. Encyclopaedia. Australian War Memorial. Retrieved 1 July 2006.
  305. Jump up^ McGibbon 2000, p. 539.
  306. Jump up^ Anderson, Gerald (January 2009). Subic bay : from Magellan to Pinatubo. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 1441444521.
  307. Jump up^ Karnow, Stanley (1990). In Our Image: America’s Empire in the Philippines. Ballantine books. ISBN 0345328167.
  308. Jump up^ Utts, Thomas. GI Joe Doesn’t Live Here Anymore: A History of Clark Air Base, America’s Mighty Air Force Bastion in the Philippines. University of Michigan.
  309. Jump up^ Edelgard Elsbeth Mahant; Graeme S. Mount (1999). Invisible and inaudible in Washington: American policies toward Canada. UBC Press. p. 50. ISBN 978-0-7748-0703-6.
  310. Jump up^ “Quiet Complicity: Canadian Involvement in the Vietnam War, by Victor Levant (1986).”. The Canadian Encyclopedia. Archived from the original on 30 September 2007. Retrieved 15 July 2010.[dead link]
  311. Jump up^ “Quiet Complicity: Canadian Involvement in the Vietnam War“. Review by The Manitoba Historical Society. Retrieved 15 July 2010.
  312. Jump up^ “Vietnam War”. The Canadian Encyclopedia.
  313. Jump up^ Gary D. Solis (15 February 2010). The Law of Armed Conflict: International Humanitarian Law in War. Cambridge University Press. pp. 301–303. ISBN 978-1-139-48711-5.
  314. Jump up^ Report on Brutal Vietnam Campaign Stirs Memories By JOHN KIFNER, Published: December 28, 2003, New York Times
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  316. Jump up^ Palmer, James (27 September 2012). “US army continues to avoid legacy of concealed Vietnam crimes”. Global Times.
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  318. Jump up^ 16 November 2003, “The Vietnam War Crimes You Never Heard Of”, Nick Turse, History News Network
  319. Jump up^ Lewis M. Simons. “Free Fire Zones”. Crimes of War. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
  320. Jump up^ Westheider 2007, p. 19
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  322. ^ Jump up to:a b Turse 2013, p. 251.
  323. Jump up^ Kevin Buckley “Pacification’s Deadly Price”, (Newsweek, June 19, 1972, pp. 42–43)
  324. Jump up^ Rummel, R. J. “Statistics of Vietnamese Democide” [1], accessed 30 Oct 75
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  326. ^ Jump up to:a b Robbins 2007, p. 13
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  329. Jump up^ Pedahzur, Ami (2006), Root Causes of Suicide Terrorism: The Globalization of Martyrdom, Taylor & Francis, p.116.
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  331. Jump up^ Wiesner, Louis (1988), Victims and Survivors: Displaced Persons and Other War Victims in Viet-Nam, 1954–1975 Greenwood Press, pp. 318–9.
  332. Jump up^ Karnow 1997, p. 655.
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  334. Jump up^ De Silva, Peer (1978). Sub Rosa: The CIA and the Uses of Intelligence. New York: Time Books. p. 249. ISBN 0-8129-0745-0.
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  336. Jump up^ Kirk, Donald (14 July 1974). “Khmer Rouge’s Bloody War on Trapped Villagers”. Chicago Tribune.
  337. Jump up^ Yates, Ronald (17 March 1975). “Priest Won’t Leave Refugees Despite Khmer Rouge Threat”. Chicago Tribune.
  338. Jump up^ Power, Samantha (2002). A Problem From Hell. Perennial Books. pp. 98–99.
  339. Jump up^ Becker, Elizabeth (28 January 1974). “The Agony of Phnom Penh”. Washington Post.
  340. Jump up^ Barron, John &Paul, Anthony (1977). Murder of a Gentle Land. Reader’s Digest Press. pp. 1–2.
  341. Jump up^ Ponchaud, François (1978). Cambodia Year Zero. Holt, Rinehart and Winston. pp. 6–7.
  342. Jump up^ Swain, John (1999). River of Time: A Memoir of Vietnam and Cambodia. Berkley Trade.
  343. Jump up^ Norman, Elizabeth M. Women at War: the Story of Fifty Military Nurses Who Served in Vietnam. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1990. ISBN 978-0-8122-1317-1 p. 7.
  344. Jump up^ Vuic, Kara Dixon. Officer, Nurse, Woman: the Army Nurse Corps in the Vietnam War. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2010. ISBN 978-0-8018-9391-9 p. 5.
  345. Jump up^ Norman, p. 57.
  346. Jump up^ Holm 1992, p. 214.
  347. Jump up^ Holm 1992, p. 213.
  348. Jump up^ Holm 1992, p. 206.
  349. Jump up^ Vuic, p. 8.
  350. Jump up^ Norman, p. 71.
  351. Jump up^ Shapiro, T. Rees (27 April 2011). “Mme. Ngo Dinh Nhu, who exerted political power in Vietnam, dies at 87”. The Washington Post. Retrieved 4 February 2014.
  352. Jump up^ Gustafsson, Mai Lan “‘Freedom. Money. Fun. Love’: The Warlore of Vietnamese Bargirls” Oral History Review, 2011, Vol. 38, No. 2, p. 308; Hunt, Richard A. Pacification: The American Struggle for Vietnam’s Hearts and Minds Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995, p. 40
  353. Jump up^ Barry, Kathleen The Prostitution of Sexuality New York: NYU Press, 1995, p.133
  354. Jump up^ Linda Trinh Võ and Marian Sciachitano, Asian American women: the Frontiers reader, University of Nebraska Press, 2004, p. 144.
  355. Jump up^ Lamb, David “Children of the Vietnam War” Smithsonian Magazine June 2009, http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/children-of-the-vietnam-war0131207347/?no-ist, accessed 28 May 2014
  356. Jump up^ “‘Fully Integrated'”. African-American Involvement in the Vietnam War (aavw.org). Retrieved December 2013. Check date values in: |access-date= (help)
  357. Jump up^ Terry, Wallace (1984). Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans. Random House. pp. Epigraph and pages xv–xvii. ISBN 978-0-394-53028-4.
  358. Jump up^ “Working-Class War”.
  359. Jump up^ Chinese Support for North Vietnam during the Vietnam War: The Decisive Edge, Bob Seals, Military History Online, 23 September 2008
  360. Jump up^ Albert Parray, Military Review, Soviet aid to Vietnam, June 1967
  361. Jump up^ Gordon L. Rottman, Viet Cong Fighter, Osprey Publishing (2007) p. 20-30 ISBN 978-1-84603-126-7
  362. Jump up^ C.H. Chivers (2 November 2009). “How Reliable is the M16 Rifle?”. New York Times.
  363. Jump up^ David Maraniss (2003). They Marched into Sunlight: War and Peace Vietnam and America October 1967. Simon and Schuster. p. 410. ISBN 978-0-7432-6255-2.
  364. Jump up^ Hog, Ian V., Jane’s Infantry Weapons 1986-87, Jane’s Publishing, Inc. New York, NY (1986) p.225.
  365. ^ Jump up to:a b A History of U.S. Communications Security; the David G. Boak Lectures, National Security Agency (NSA), Volumes I, 1973, Volumes II 1981, partially released 2008, additional portions declassified October 14, 2015
  366. Jump up^ Kiernan, Ben; Owen, Taylor (2015-04-26). “Making More Enemies than We Kill? Calculating U.S. Bomb Tonnages Dropped on Laos and Cambodia, and Weighing Their Implications”. The Asia-Pacific Journal. Retrieved 2016-09-19.
  367. ^ Jump up to:a b Wright, Rebecca (2016-09-06). “‘My friends were afraid of me’: What 80 million unexploded US bombs did to Laos”. CNN. Retrieved 2016-09-18.
  368. Jump up^ Greenberg, Jon (2014-09-11). “Kissinger: Drones have killed more civilians than the bombing of Cambodia in the Vietnam War”. Politifact.com. Retrieved 2016-09-18.
  369. Jump up^ Robbers, Gerhard (30 January 2007). Encyclopedia of world constitutions. Infobase Publishing. p. 1021. ISBN 978-0-8160-6078-8. Retrieved 1 July 2011.
  370. Jump up^ Elliot, Duong Van Mai (2010). “The End of the War”. RAND in Southeast Asia: A History of the Vietnam War Era. RAND Corporation. pp. 499, 512–513. ISBN 9780833047540. A study by Jacqueline Desbarats and Karl D. Jackson estimated that 65,000 South Vietnamese were executed for political reasons between 1975 and 1983, based on a survey of 615 Vietnamese refugees who claimed to have personally witnessed 47 executions. However, “their methodology was reviewed and criticized as invalid by authors Gareth Porter and James Roberts.” 16 of the 47 names used to extrapolate this “bloodbath” were duplicates; this extremely high duplication rate (34%) strongly suggests Desbarats and Jackson were drawing from a small number of total executions. Rather than arguing that this duplication rate proves there were very few executions in post-war Vietnam, Porter and Roberts suggest it is an artifact of the self-selected nature of the participants in the Desbarats-Jackson study, as the authors followed subjects’s recommendations on other refugees to interview. See Elliot, Duong Van Mai (2010). “The End of the War”. RAND in Southeast Asia: A History of the Vietnam War Era. RAND Corporation. pp. 512–513. ISBN 9780833047540. cf. Porter, Gareth; Roberts, James (Summer 1988). “Creating a Bloodbath by Statistical Manipulation: A Review of A Methodology for Estimating Political Executions in Vietnam, 1975-1983, Jacqueline Desbarats; Karl D. Jackson.”. Pacific Affairs. 61 (2): 303–310. JSTOR 2759306. Nevertheless, there exist unverified reports of mass executions (see Nguyen Cong Hoan’ testimony in “Human Rights in Vietnam: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on International Organizations of the Committee on International Relations: House of Representatives, Ninety-Fifth Congress, First Session”. U.S. Government Printing Office: 149, 153. 1977-07-26. ; see also Desbarats and Jackson. “Vietnam 1975–1982: The Cruel Peace” The Washington Quarterly 8, no. 4 (September 1985): p. 117)
  371. Jump up^ Sagan, Ginetta; Denney, Stephen (October–November 1982). “Re-education in Unliberated Vietnam: Loneliness, Suffering and Death”. The Indochina Newsletter. Retrieved 2016-09-01.
  372. Jump up^ See also Nghia M. Vo, The Bamboo Gulag: Political Imprisonment in Communist Vietnam (McFarland, 2004).
  373. Jump up^ Associated Press, 23 June 1979, San Diego Union, 20 July 1986. See generally Nghia M. Vo, The Vietnamese Boat People (2006), 1954 and 1975–1992, McFarland.
  374. ^ Jump up to:a b Sharp, Bruce (1 April 2005). “Counting Hell: The Death Toll of the Khmer Rouge Regime in Cambodia”. Retrieved 15 July 2016. The range based on the figures above extends from a minimum of 1.747 million, to a maximum of 2.495 million.
  375. Jump up^ Courtois, Stephane; et al. (1997). The Black Book of Communism. Harvard University Press. pp. 575–576. ISBN 978-0-674-07608-2.
  376. Jump up^ “Migration in the Asia-Pacific Region“. Stephen Castles, University of Oxford. Mark J. Miller, University of Delaware. July 2009.
  377. Jump up^ Robinson, William Courtland (1998). Terms of refuge: the Indochinese exodus & the international response. Zed Books. p. 127. ISBN 1-85649-610-4.
  378. Jump up^ Courtois, Stephane; et al. (1997). The Black Book of Communism. Harvard University Press. p. 575. ISBN 978-0-674-07608-2.
  379. Jump up^ Crossette, Barbara, Hanoi, Citing Famine Fears, Seeks Emergency Aid, The New York Times, 15 May 1988.
  380. Jump up^ Van, Canh Nguyen; Cooper, Earle (1983). Vietnam under Communism, 1975–1982, p. 229. Hoover Press. ISBN 9780817978518.
  381. Jump up^ “U.S. starts its first Agent Orange cleanup in Vietnam”. Reuters. 9 August 2012.
  382. Jump up^ Dacy, Douglas C. (1986), Foreign aid, war, and economic development: south Vietnam 1955-1975, Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, p. 242; “CRS report for Congress: Costs of Major Wars, http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/108054.pdf, accessed 22 Oct 2015
  383. Jump up^ Gerdes (ed). Examining Issues Through Political Cartoons: The Vietnam War pp. 14–15.
  384. Jump up^ Karnow 1997, p. 23.
  385. Jump up^ Taylor paraphrases Sun Tzu, The Art of War, trans. Samuel B. Griffith. Oxford, UK. Oxford University Press, 1963.
  386. Jump up^ “President Richard Nixon’s Role in the Vietnam War”. Vietnam War. Archived from the original on 31 March 2009. Retrieved 17 October 2009.
  387. Jump up^ “Lessons of Vietnam – Secret Memoranda to The President of the United States by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger”. ca. 12 May 1975. p. 3. Archived from the original on 9 May 2008. Retrieved 11 June 2008. Check date values in: |date= (help)
  388. Jump up^ McNamara 1999, p. 368.
  389. ^ Jump up to:a b c Quoted in Bob Buzzano. “25 Years After End of Vietnam War, Myths Keep Us from Coming to Terms with Vietnam”. The Baltimore Sun Times. 17 April 2000. Retrieved 11 June 2008.
  390. Jump up^ Karnow 1997, p. 17.
  391. Jump up^ Dacy, Douglas C. (1986), Foreign aid, war, and economic development: south Vietnam 1955-1975, Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, p. 242
  392. Jump up^ “Echoes of Combat: The Vietnam War in American Memory“. Stanford University.
  393. Jump up^ Westheider 2007, p. 78.
  394. ^ Jump up to:a b The War’s Costs. Digital History.
  395. Jump up^ Combat Area Casualty File, November 1993. (The CACF is the basis for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, i.e. The Wall), Center for Electronic Records, National Archives, Washington, D.C.
  396. Jump up^ Kueter, Dale (2007). Vietnam Sons: For Some, the War Never Ended. AuthorHouse. ISBN 1-4259-6931-3.
  397. Jump up^ “War Resisters Remain in Canada with No Regrets”. ABC News. 19 November 2005. Retrieved 26 February 2010.
  398. Jump up^ Vietnam War Resisters in Canada Open Arms to U.S. Military Deserters. Pacific News Service. 28 June 2005.
  399. Jump up^ “Proclamation 4483: Granting Pardon for Violations of the Selective Service Act”. Retrieved 11 June 2008. By The President of the United States of America, A Proclamation Granting Pardon For Violations of the Selective Services Act, 4 August 1964 To 28 March 1973. 21 January 1977.
  400. Jump up^ Victory in Europe 56 Years Ago Gallup News Service 8 May 2001
  401. Jump up^ “US still making payments to relatives of Civil War veterans, analysis finds”. Fox News. Associated Press. 20 March 2013.
  402. Jump up^ Jim Lobe (30 March 2013). “Iraq, Afghanistan Wars Will Cost U.S. 4–6 Trillion Dollars: Report”. Inter Press Service.
  403. Jump up^ Heinl, Jr., Col. Robert D. (1971), “The Collapse of the Armed Forces”, Armed Forces Journal, 7 June 1971
  404. Jump up^ Flitton, Dave. “Battlefield Vietnam: Peace with Honour”. PBS. Retrieved 2 August 2015.
  405. Jump up^ Milam, Ron (2009), Not A Gentleman’s War: An Inside View of Junior Officers in the Vietnam War, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, p. 172
  406. Jump up^ Shkurti, William J. (2011), Soldiering on in a Dying War: The True Story of the Firebase Pace Incidents and the Vietnam Drawdown, Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, p. 95
  407. Jump up^ “Military draft system stopped”. The Bulletin. Bend, Oregon. UPI. January 27, 1973. p. 1.
  408. Jump up^ “Military draft ended by Laird”. The Times-News. Hendersonville, North Carolina. Associated Press. January 27, 1973. p. 1.
  409. Jump up^ Lepre, p. 183
  410. Jump up^ Palmer 2007; Stone 2007.
  411. Jump up^ Lynne Peeples (10 July 2013). “Veterans Sick From Agent Orange-Poisoned Planes Still Seek Justice”. The Huffington Post. Retrieved 4 September 2013.
  412. Jump up^ Bruce Cumings (1998). The Global Politics of Pesticides: Forging Consensus from Conflicting Interests. Earthscan. p. 61.
  413. Jump up^ “Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963 Volume I, Vietnam, 1961, Document 275”. History.state.gov. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
  414. Jump up^ Michael F. Martin (November 13, 2015). U.S. Agent Orange/Dioxin Assistance to Vietnam (PDF) (Report). Congressional Research Service.
  415. Jump up^ Kolko 1985, pp. 144–5.
  416. Jump up^ Roberts 2005, p. 380.
    In his 234-page judgment, Weinstein observed: “Despite the fact that Congress and the President were fully advised of a substantial belief that the herbicide spraying in Vietnam was a violation of international law, they acted on their view that it was not a violation at the time.”
  417. Jump up^ Crook 2008.
  418. Jump up^ Anthony Faiola (13 November 2006). “In Vietnam, Old Foes Take Aim at War’s Toxic Legacy”. washingtonpost.com. Retrieved 8 September 2013.
  419. Jump up^ “Veterans’ Diseases Associated with Agent Orange”. va.gov. Retrieved 4 September 2013.
  420. Jump up^ “Statistical Information about Fatal Casualties of the Vietnam War, Electronic Records Reference Report”. U.S. National Archives. DCAS Vietnam Conflict Extract File record counts by HOME OF RECORD STATE CODE (as of 29 April 2008).(generated from the Vietnam Conflict Extract Data File of the Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) Extract Files (as of 29 April 2008)
  421. Jump up^ Clarke, Jeffrey J. (1988), United States Army in Vietnam: Advice and Support: The Final Years, 1965–1973, Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, United States Army, p. 275
  422. Jump up^ “fifty years of violent war deaths: data analysis from the world health survey program: BMJ”. 23 April 2008. Retrieved 5 January 2013. From 1955 to 2002, data from the surveys indicated an estimated 5.4 million violent war deaths … 3.8 million in Vietnam.
  423. Jump up^ Tucker, Spencer, ed. (1998). Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History. Volume Two. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. p. 617. ISBN 0-87436-983-5.
  424. Jump up^ “Battlefield:Vietnam Timeline”. Pbs.org. Retrieved 31 October 2011.
  425. Jump up^ Clarke, p. 275
  426. Jump up^ “Vietnam War Casualties”. vietnamwarcasualties.org.
  427. Jump up^ Linnington, Michael, Director, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, “World’s Largest Anthropology Lab’ Opens,” VFW magazine, Nov./Dec. 2015: 8.
  428. Jump up^ “Vietnam War Bomb Explodes Killing Four Children”. Huffington Post. 3 December 2012.
  429. Jump up^ Vietnam war shell explodes, kills two fishermen The Australian (28 April 2011)

References

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Palmer, Michael G. (2007). “The Case of Agent Orange”. Contemporary Southeast Asia. 29 (1): 172–195. doi:10.1355/cs29-1h. JSTOR 25798819.
Prados, John (2006). “The Road South: The Ho Chi Minh Trail”. In Andew Wiest, ed., Rolling Thunder in a Gentle Land (pp. 74–95). Oxford: Osprey Publishing. ISBN 978-1-846-03020-8.
Robbins, Mary Susannah (2007). Against the Vietnam War: Writings by Activists. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN 978-0-7425-5914-1.
Roberts, Anthea (2005). “The Agent Orange Case: Vietnam Ass’n for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin v. Dow Chemical Co.”. ASIL Proceedings. 99 (1): 380–385. JSTOR 25660031.
Schandler, Herbert Y. (2009). America in Vietnam: The War That Couldn’t Be Won. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-0-742-56697-2.
Schell, Jonathan. The Time of Illusion (1976).
Schulzinger, Robert D. A Time for War: The United States and Vietnam, 1941–1975 (1997).
Sheehan, Neil (1989). A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam. New York: Vintage. ISBN 978-0-679-72414-8.
Sliwinski, Marek (1995). Le Génocide Khmer Rouge: Une Analyse Démographique. Paris: L’Harmattan. ISBN 978-2-738-43525-5.
Sorley, Lewis, A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years in Vietnam (1999), based upon still classified tape-recorded meetings of top level US commanders in Vietnam, ISBN 0-15-601309-6
Spector, Ronald. After Tet: The Bloodiest Year in Vietnam (1992), very broad coverage of 1968.
Stanton, Shelby L. (2003). Vietnam order of battle (2003 ed.). Stackpole Books. ISBN 0-8117-0071-2.
Stone, Richard (2007). “Agent Orange’s Bitter Harvest”. Science. 315 (5809): 176–179. doi:10.1126/science.315.5809.176. JSTOR 20035179.
Stuart-Fox, Martin (1997). A History of Laos. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-59235-2.
Summers, Harry G. On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War, Presidio press (1982), ISBN 0-89141-563-7 (225 pages)
Thayer, Thomas C. (1985). War Without Fronts: The American Experience in Vietnam. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press. ISBN 978-0-813-37132-0.
Tucker, Spencer. ed. Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War (1998) 3 vol. reference set; also one-volume abridgement (2001).
——— (1999). Vietnam. London: UCL Press. ISBN 978-1-857-28921-3.
  • Tucker, Spencer (2011) [1998]. The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1851099603.
Turner, Robert F. (1975). Vietnamese Communism: Its Origins and Development. Stanford, California: Hoover Institution Press. ISBN 978-0-817-96431-3.
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Primary sources

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The Pentagon Papers (Gravel ed. 5 vol 1971); combination of narrative and secret documents compiled by Pentagon. excerpts
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Historiographyboris17blog

American Vietnam War

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The Vietnam War (Vietnamese: Chiến tranh Việt Nam), also known as the Second Indochina War,[54] and known in Vietnam as Resistance War Against America (Vietnamese: Kháng chiến chống Mỹ) or simply the American War, was a war that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955[A 1] to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam and the government of South Vietnam. The North Vietnamese army was supported by the Soviet Union, China and other communist allies and the South Vietnamese army was supported by the United States, South Korea, Australia, Thailand and other anti-communist allies[55] and the war is therefore considered a Cold War-era proxy war.[56]

The Viet Cong (also known as the National Liberation Front, or NLF), a South Vietnamese communist common front aided by the North, fought a guerrilla war against anti-communist forces in the region, while the People’s Army of Vietnam, also known as the North Vietnamese Army (NVA), engaged in more conventional warfare, at times committing large units to battle. As the war continued, the military actions of the Viet Cong decreased as the role and engagement of the NVA grew. South Vietnamese and U.S. forces relied on air superiority and overwhelming firepower to conduct search and destroy operations, involving ground forces, artillery, and airstrikes. In the course of the war, the U.S. conducted a large-scale strategic bombing campaign against North Vietnam.

The North Vietnamese government and the Viet Cong were fighting to reunify Vietnam. They viewed the conflict as a colonial war and a continuation of the First Indochina War against forces from France and later on the U.S. The U.S. government viewed its involvement in the war as a way to prevent a Communist takeover of South Vietnam. This was part of a wider containment policy, with the stated aim of stopping the spread of communism.[57]

Beginning in 1950, American military advisors arrived in what was then French Indochina.[58][A 3] U.S. involvement escalated in the early 1960s, with troop levels tripling in 1961 and again in 1962.[59] U.S. involvement escalated further following the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, in which a U.S. destroyer clashed with North Vietnamese fast attack craft, which was followed by the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave the U.S. president authorization to increase U.S. military presence. Regular U.S. combat units were deployed beginning in 1965. Operations crossed international borders: bordering areas of Laos and Cambodia were heavily bombed by U.S. forces as American involvement in the war peaked in 1968, the same year that the communist side launched the Tet Offensive. The Tet Offensive failed in its goal of overthrowing the South Vietnamese government, but became the turning point in the war, as it persuaded a large segment of the U.S. population that its government’s claims of progress toward winning the war were illusory despite many years of massive U.S. military aid to South Vietnam.

Gradual withdrawal of U.S. ground forces began as part of “Vietnamization“, which aimed to end American involvement in the war while transferring the task of fighting the Communists to the South Vietnamese themselves. Despite the Paris Peace Accord, which was signed by all parties in January 1973, the fighting continued. In the U.S. and the Western world, a large anti-Vietnam War movement developed as part of a larger counterculture. The war changed the dynamics between the Eastern and Western Blocs, and altered North–South relations.[60]

Direct U.S. military involvement ended on 15 August 1973.[61] The capture of Saigon by the North Vietnamese Army in April 1975 marked the end of the war, and North and South Vietnam were reunified the following year. The war exacted a huge human cost in terms of fatalities (see Vietnam War casualties). Estimates of the number of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed vary from 966,000[29] to 3.8 million.[50]Some 240,000–300,000 Cambodians,[51][52][53] 20,000–62,000 Laotians,[50] and 58,220 U.S. service members also died in the conflict, with a further 1,626 missing in action.[A 2]

Contents

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Names for the war

Further information: Terminology of the Vietnam War

Various names have been applied to the conflict. Vietnam War is the most commonly used name in English. It has also been called the Second Indochina War and the Vietnam Conflict.

As there have been several conflicts in Indochina, this particular conflict is known by the names of its primary protagonists to distinguish it from others.[62] In Vietnamese, the war is generally known as Kháng chiến chống Mỹ (Resistance War Against America). It is also called Chiến tranh Việt Nam (The Vietnam War).[63]

The primary military organizations involved in the war were, on one side, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and the U.S. military, and, on the other side, the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) (more commonly called the North Vietnamese Army, or NVA, in English-language sources), and the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NLF, more commonly known as the Viet Cong in English language sources), a South Vietnamese communist guerrilla force.[64]

Background to 1949

See also: History of Vietnam, 1940-1946 in the Vietnam War, Cochinchina Campaign, Cần Vương, Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng, Yên Bái mutiny, Vietnam during World War II, War in Vietnam (1945–46), 1940-46 in the Vietnam War, and 1947-50 in the Vietnam War

France began its conquest of Indochina in the late 1850s, and completed pacification by 1893.[65][66][67] The 1884 Treaty of Huế formed the basis for French colonial rule in Vietnam for the next seven decades. In spite of military resistance, most notably by the Cần Vương of Phan Đình Phùng, by 1888 the area of the current-day nations of Cambodia and Vietnam was made into the colony of French Indochina (Laos was later added to the colony).[68] Various Vietnamese opposition movements to French rule existed during this period, such as the Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng who staged the failed Yên Bái mutiny in 1930, but none were ultimately as successful as the Viet Minh common front, which was founded in 1941, controlled by the Indochinese Communist Party, and funded by the U.S. and the Chinese Nationalist Party in its fight against Imperial Japanese occupation.[69][A 4]

In 1940, during World War II, the French were defeated by the Germans. The French State (commonly known as Vichy France) was established as a client state of Nazi Germany. The French colonial authorities, in French Indochina, sided with the Vichy regime. In September 1940, Japan invaded Indochina. Following the cessation of fighting and the beginning of the Imperial Japanese occupation, the French colonial authorities collaborated with the Japanese. The French continued to run affairs in Indochina, but ultimate power resided in the hands of the Imperial Japanese.[69]

The Viet Minh was founded as a league for independence from France, but also opposed Japanese occupation in 1945 for the same reason. The U.S. and Chinese Nationalist Party supported them in the fight against the Imperial Japanese.[71] However, they did not have enough power to fight actual battles at first. Viet Minh leader Ho Chi Minh was suspected of being a communist and jailed for a year by the Chinese Nationalist Party.[72]

Double occupation by France and Japan continued until the German forces were expelled from France and the French Indochina colonial authorities started holding secret talks with the Free French. Fearing that they could no longer trust the French authorities, the Imperial Japanese military interned the French authorities and troops on 9 March 1945[73] and created the puppet Empire of Vietnam state, under Bảo Đại instead.

During 1944–1945, a deep famine struck northern Vietnam due to a combination of bad weather and French/Japanese exploitation (French Indochina had to supply grains to Japan).[74] Between 400,000 and 2 million[29] people died of starvation (out of a population of 10 million in the affected area).[75] Exploiting the administrative gap[76] that the internment of the French had created, the Viet Minh in March 1945 urged the population to ransack rice warehouses and refuse to pay their taxes.[77] Between 75 and 100 warehouses were consequently raided.[78] This rebellion against the effects of the famine and the authorities that were partially responsible for it bolstered the Viet Minh’s popularity and they recruited many members during this period.[76]

On 22 August 1945, following the Imperial Japanese surrender, OSS agents Archimedes Patti and Carleton B. Swift Jr. arrived in Hanoi on a mercy mission to liberate allied POWs and were accompanied by Jean Sainteny, a French government official.[79] The Japanese forces informally surrendered (the official surrender took place on 2 September 1945 in Tokyo Bay) but being the only force capable of maintaining law and order the Imperial Japanese military remained in power while keeping French colonial troops and Sainteny detained.[80]

During August the Imperial Japanese forces remained inactive as the Viet Minh and other nationalist groups took over public buildings and weapons, which began the August Revolution. OSS officers met repeatedly with Ho Chi Minh and other Viet Minh officers during this period[81] and on 2 September 1945 Ho Chi Minh declared the independent Democratic Republic of Vietnam before a crowd of 500,000 in Hanoi.[78] In an overture to the Americans, he began his speech by paraphrasing the United States Declaration of Independence: “All men are created equal. The Creator has given us certain inviolable Rights: the right to Life, the right to be Free, and the right to achieve Happiness.”[78]

The Viet Minh took power in Vietnam in the August Revolution.[78] The Viet Minh, downplaying their Communist agenda and stressing nationalism enjoyed large popular support (Vietnamese independence being popular at the time),[82] although Arthur J. Dommen cautions against a “romanticized view” of their success: “The Viet Minh use of terror was systematic….the party had drawn up a list of those to be liquidated without delay.”[83] After their defeat in the war, the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) gave weapons to the Vietnamese, and kept Vichy French officials and military officers imprisoned for a month after the surrender. The Viet Minh had recruited more than 600 Imperial Japanese soldiers and given them roles to train or command Vietnamese soldiers.[84][85]

An Imperial Japanese naval officer surrenders his sword to a British lieutenant in Saigon on 13 September 1945.

However, the major allied victors of World War II, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union, all agreed the area belonged to the French.[78] As the French did not have the means to immediately retake Vietnam, the major powers came to an agreement that British troops would occupy the south while Nationalist Chinese forces would move in from the north.[78] Nationalist Chinese troops entered the country to disarm Imperial Japanese troops north of the 16th parallel on 14 September 1945.[86] When the British landed in the south, they rearmed the interned French forces as well as parts of the surrendered Imperial Japanese forces to aid them in retaking southern Vietnam, as they did not have enough troops to do this themselves.[78]

On the urging of the Soviet Union, Ho Chi Minh initially attempted to negotiate with the French, who were slowly re-establishing their control across the area.[87] In January 1946, the Viet Minh won elections across central and northern Vietnam.[88] On 6 March 1946, Ho signed an agreement allowing French forces to replace Nationalist Chinese forces, in exchange for French recognition of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam as a “free” republic within the French Union, with the specifics of such recognition to be determined by future negotiation.[89][90][91] The French landed in Hanoi by March 1946 and in November of that year they ousted the Viet Minh from the city.[87] British forces departed on 26 March 1946, leaving Vietnam in the hands of the French.[92] Soon thereafter, the Viet Minh began a guerrilla war against the French Union forces, beginning the First Indochina War.

The war spread to Laos and Cambodia, where communists organized the Pathet Lao and the Khmer Serei, both of which were modeled on the Viet Minh.[93] Globally, the Cold War began in earnest, which meant that the rapprochement that existed between the Western powers and the Soviet Union during World War II disintegrated. The Viet Minh fight was hampered by a lack of weapons; this situation changed by 1949 when the Chinese Communists had largely won the Chinese Civil War and were free to provide arms to their Vietnamese allies.[93]

Exit of the French, 1950–54

Main articles: First Indochina War, Operation Vulture, Operation Passage to Freedom, and 1954 in the Vietnam War

In January 1950, the People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union recognized the Viet Minh’s Democratic Republic of Vietnam, based in Hanoi, as the legitimate government of Vietnam. The following month the United States and Great Britain recognized the French-backed State of Vietnam in Saigon, led by former Emperor Bảo Đại, as the legitimate Vietnamese government.[94][95] The outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 convinced many Washington policymakers that the war in Indochina was an example of communist expansionism directed by the Soviet Union.[96]

French soldiers fight off a Viet Minh ambush in 1952.

Military advisors from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) began assisting the Viet Minh in July 1950.[97] PRC weapons, expertise, and laborers transformed the Viet Minh from a guerrilla force into a regular army.[98] In September 1950, the United States created a Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG) to screen French requests for aid, advise on strategy, and train Vietnamese soldiers.[99] By 1954, the United States had supplied 300,000 small arms and spent US$1 billion in support of the French military effort, shouldering 80 percent of the cost of the war.[100]

There were also talks between the French and Americans in which the possible use of three tactical nuclear weapons was considered, though reports of how seriously this was considered and by whom are even now vague and contradictory.[101][102] One version of the plan for the proposed Operation Vulture envisioned sending 60 B-29s from U.S. bases in the region, supported by as many as 150 fighters launched from U.S. Seventh Fleet carriers, to bomb Viet Minh commander Võ Nguyên Giáp‘s positions. The plan included an option to use up to three atomic weapons on the Viet Minh positions. Admiral Arthur W. Radford, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave this nuclear option his backing. U.S. B-29s, B-36s, and B-47s could have executed a nuclear strike, as could carrier aircraft from the Seventh Fleet.[103]

U.S. carriers sailed to the Gulf of Tonkin, and reconnaissance flights over Điện Biên Phủ were conducted during the negotiations. According to U.S. Vice-President Richard Nixon, the plan involved the Joint Chiefs of Staff drawing up plans to use three small tactical nuclear weapons in support of the French.[101] Nixon, a so-called “hawk” on Vietnam, suggested that the United States might have to “put American boys in”.[104] U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower made American participation contingent on British support, but they were opposed to such a venture.[104] In the end, convinced that the political risks outweighed the possible benefits, Eisenhower decided against the intervention. Eisenhower was a five-star general. He was wary of getting the United States involved in a land war in Asia.[105]

The Viet Minh received crucial support from the Soviet Union and PRC. PRC support in the Border Campaign of 1950 allowed supplies to come from the PRC into Vietnam. Throughout the conflict, U.S. intelligence estimates remained skeptical of French chances of success.[106]

The Battle of Dien Bien Phu marked the end of French involvement in Indochina. Giap’s Viet Minh forces handed the French a stunning military defeat, and on 7 May 1954, the French Union garrison surrendered. At the Geneva Conference, the French negotiated a ceasefire agreement with the Viet Minh, and independence was granted to Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam.

Transition period

Main articles: Geneva Conference (1954); Operation Passage to Freedom; Battle of Saigon (1955); Ba Cụt; State of Vietnam referendum, 1955; and Land reform in North Vietnam

The Geneva Conference, 1954

Vietnam was temporarily partitioned at the 17th parallel, and under the terms of the Geneva Accords, civilians were to be given the opportunity to move freely between the two provisional states for a 300-day period. Elections throughout the country were to be held in 1956 to establish a unified government.[107] Around one million northerners, mainly minority Catholics, fled south, fearing persecution by the communists[108] following an American propaganda campaign using slogans such as “The Virgin Mary is heading south”,[109] and aided by a U.S.-funded $93 million relocation program, which included the use of the Seventh Fleet to ferry refugees.[110] As many as two million more would have left had they not been stopped by the Viet Minh.[111] The northern, mainly Catholic refugees were meant to give the later Ngô Đình Diệm regime a strong anti-communist constituency.[112] Diệm later went on to staff his administration’s key posts mostly with northern and central Catholics.

In addition to the Catholics flowing south, up to 130,000 “Revolutionary Regroupees” went to the north for “regroupment”, expecting to return to the south within two years.[113] The Viet Minh left roughly 5,000 to 10,000 cadres in the south as a “politico-military substructure within the object of its irredentism.”[114] The last French soldiers were to leave Vietnam in April 1956.[98] The PRC completed its withdrawal from North Vietnam at around the same time.[97] Around 52,000 Vietnamese civilians moved from south to north.[115]

Between 1953 and 1956, the North Vietnamese government instituted various agrarian reforms, including “rent reduction” and “land reform”, which resulted in significant political oppression. During the land reform, testimony from North Vietnamese witnesses suggested a ratio of one execution for every 160 village residents, which extrapolated nationwide would indicate nearly 100,000 executions. Because the campaign was concentrated mainly in the Red River Delta area, a lower estimate of 50,000 executions became widely accepted by scholars at the time.[116][117][118][119] However, declassified documents from the Vietnamese and Hungarian archives indicate that the number of executions was much lower than reported at the time, although likely greater than 13,500.[120] In 1956, leaders in Hanoi admitted to “excesses” in implementing this program and restored a large amount of the land to the original owners.[121]

The south, meanwhile, constituted the State of Vietnam, with Bảo Đại as Emperor and Ngô Đình Diệm (appointed in July 1954) as his prime minister. Neither the United States government nor Ngô Đình Diệm’s State of Vietnam signed anything at the 1954 Geneva Conference. With respect to the question of reunification, the non-communist Vietnamese delegation objected strenuously to any division of Vietnam, but lost out when the French accepted the proposal of Viet Minh delegate Phạm Văn Đồng,[122] who proposed that Vietnam eventually be united by elections under the supervision of “local commissions”.[123] The United States countered with what became known as the “American Plan”, with the support of South Vietnam and the United Kingdom.[124] It provided for unification elections under the supervision of the United Nations, but was rejected by the Soviet delegation.[124] The United States said, “With respect to the statement made by the representative of the State of Vietnam, the United States reiterates its traditional position that peoples are entitled to determine their own future and that it will not join in any arrangement which would hinder this”.[125]

U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote in 1954, “I have never talked or corresponded with a person knowledgeable in Indochinese affairs who did not agree that had elections been held as of the time of the fighting, possibly eighty percent of the population would have voted for the Communist Ho Chi Minh as their leader rather than Chief of State Bảo Đại. Indeed, the lack of leadership and drive on the part of Bảo Đại was a factor in the feeling prevalent among Vietnamese that they had nothing to fight for.”[126]According to the Pentagon Papers, however, from 1954 to 1956 “Ngô Đình Diệm really did accomplish miracles” in South Vietnam:[127] “It is almost certain that by 1956 the proportion which might have voted for Ho—in a free election against Diệm—would have been much smaller than eighty percent.”[128] In 1957, independent observers from India, Poland, and Canada representing the International Control Commission (ICC) stated that fair, unbiased elections were not possible, with the ICC reporting that neither South nor North Vietnam had honored the armistice agreement[129]

From April to June 1955, Diệm eliminated any political opposition in the south by launching military operations against two religious groups: the Cao Đài and Hòa Hảo of Ba Cụt. The campaign also focused on the Bình Xuyên organized crime group which was allied with members of the communist party secret police and had some military elements. As broad-based opposition to his harsh tactics mounted, Diệm increasingly sought to blame the communists.[34]

In a referendum on the future of the State of Vietnam on 23 October 1955, Diệm rigged the poll supervised by his brother Ngô Đình Nhu and was credited with 98.2 percent of the vote, including 133% in Saigon. His American advisors had recommended a more modest winning margin of “60 to 70 percent.” Diệm, however, viewed the election as a test of authority.[130] Three days later, he declared South Vietnam to be an independent state under the name Republic of Vietnam (ROV), with himself as president.[131] Likewise, Ho Chi Minh and other communist officials always won at least 99% of the vote in North Vietnamese “elections”.[132]

The domino theory, which argued that if one country fell to communism, then all of the surrounding countries would follow, was first proposed as policy by the Eisenhower administration.[133] John F. Kennedy, then a U.S. Senator, said in a speech to the American Friends of Vietnam: “Burma, Thailand, India, Japan, the Philippines and obviously Laos and Cambodia are among those whose security would be threatened if the Red Tide of Communism overflowed into Vietnam.”[134]

Diệm era, 1955–63

Main articles: Ngô Đình Diệm and War in Vietnam (1954–59)

U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles greet President Ngô Đình Diệm of South Vietnam in Washington, 8 May 1957.

Rule

See also: Ngô Đình Diệm presidential visit to Australia

A devout Roman Catholic, Diệm was fervently anti-communist, nationalist, and socially conservative. Historian Luu Doan Huynh notes that “Diệm represented narrow and extremist nationalism coupled with autocracy and nepotism.”[135] The majority of Vietnamese people were Buddhist, and were alarmed by actions such as Diệm’s dedication of the country to the Virgin Mary.

Beginning in the summer of 1955, Diệm launched the “Denounce the Communists” campaign, during which communists and other anti-government elements were arrested, imprisoned, tortured, or executed. He instituted the death penalty against any activity deemed communist in August 1956.[136] According to Gabriel Kolko about 12,000 suspected opponents of Diệm were killed between 1955 and 1957 and by the end of 1958 an estimated 40,000 political prisoners had been jailed.[137] However, Guenter Lewy argues that such figures were exaggerated and that there were never more than 35,000 prisoners of all kinds in the whole country.[138]

In May 1957, Diệm undertook a ten-day state visit to the United States. President Eisenhower pledged his continued support, and a parade was held in Diệm’s honor in New York City. Although Diệm was publicly praised, in private Secretary of State John Foster Dulles conceded that Diệm had been selected because there were no better alternatives.[139]

Former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara wrote in Argument Without End (1999) that the new American patrons of the Republic of Vietnam (ROV) were almost completely ignorant of Vietnamese culture. They knew little of the language or long history of the country.[94] There was a tendency to assign American motives to Vietnamese actions, though Diệm warned that it was an illusion to believe that blindly copying Western methods would solve Vietnamese problems.[94]

Insurgency in the South, 1954–60

Main articles: Viet Cong and War in Vietnam (1959–63)

The Ho Chi Minh trail was used to supply the Viet Cong.

Between 1954 and 1957 there was large-scale but disorganized dissidence in the countryside which the Diệm government succeeded in quelling. In early 1957 South Vietnam had its first peace in over a decade. However, by mid-1957 through 1959 incidents of violence increased but the government “did not construe it as a campaign, considering the disorders too diffuse to warrant committing major GVN [Government of Vietnam] resources.” By early 1959 however, Diệm considered it an organized campaign and implemented Law 10/59, which made political violence punishable by death and property confiscation.[140] There had been some division among former Viet Minh whose main goal was to hold the elections promised in the Geneva Accords, leading to “wildcat” activities separate from the other communists and anti-GVN activists.[19]

In December 1960, the National Liberation Front (NLF, a.k.a. the Viet Cong) was formally created with the intent of uniting all anti-GVN activists, including non-communists. According to the Pentagon Papers, the Viet Cong “placed heavy emphasis on the withdrawal of American advisors and influence, on land reform and liberalization of the GVN, on coalition government and the neutralization of Vietnam.” Often the leaders of the organization were kept secret.[19]

The reason for the continued survival of the NLF was the class relations in the countryside. The vast majority of the population lived in villages in the countryside where the key issue was land reform. The Viet Minh had reduced rents and debts; and had leased communal lands, mostly to the poorer peasants. Diem brought the landlords back to the villages. People who were farming land they held for years now had to return it to landlords and pay years of back rent. This rent collection was enforced by the South Vietnamese army. The divisions within villages reproduced those that had existed against the French: “75 percent support for the NLF, 20 percent trying to remain neutral and 5 percent firmly pro-government,”[141]

North Vietnamese involvement

Sources disagree on whether North Vietnam played a direct role in aiding and organizing South Vietnamese rebels prior to 1960. Kahin and Lewis assert:

Contrary to United States policy assumptions, all available evidence shows that the revival of the civil war in the South in 1958 was undertaken by Southerners at their own—not Hanoi’s—initiative…Insurgency activity against the Saigon government began in the South under Southern leadership not as a consequence of any dictate from Hanoi, but contrary to Hanoi’s injunctions.[19]

Similarly, historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. states that “it was not until September, 1960 that the Communist Party of North Vietnam bestowed its formal blessing and called for the liberation of the south from American imperialism”.[19]

By contrast, the author of War Comes to Long An Jeffrey Race interviewed communist defectors in 1967 and 1968 who found such denials “very amusing”, and who “commented humorously that the Party had apparently been more successful than was expected in concealing its role.”[142] James Olson and Randy Roberts assert that North Vietnam authorized a low-level insurgency in December 1956.[18] To counter the accusation that North Vietnam was violating the Geneva Accord, the independence of the Viet Cong was stressed in communist propaganda.[143]

In March 1956, southern communist leader Lê Duẩn presented a plan to revive the insurgency entitled “The Road to the South” to the other members of the Politburo in Hanoi, but as both China and the Soviets opposed confrontation at this time, Lê Duẩn’s plan was rejected.[143] However the North Vietnamese leadership approved tentative measures to revive the southern insurgency in December 1956.[144] Communist forces were under a single command structure set up in 1958.[145] The North Vietnamese Communist Party approved a “people’s war” on the South at a session in January 1959[146] and in May, Group 559 was established to maintain and upgrade the Ho Chi Minh trail, at this time a six-month mountain trek through Laos. About 500 of the “regroupees” of 1954 were sent south on the trail during its first year of operation.[147] The first arms delivery via the trail was completed in August 1959.[148]

North Vietnam invaded Laos in 1959, and used 30,000 men to build invasion routes through Laos and Cambodia by 1961.[149] About 40,000 communist soldiers infiltrated into the south from 1961–63.[143] North Vietnam sent 10,000 troops of the North Vietnamese Army to attack the south in 1964, and this figure increased to 100,000 in 1965.[150]

Kennedy’s escalation, 1961–63

Main articles: Strategic Hamlet Program and Phạm Ngọc Thảo

In the 1960 U.S. presidential election, Senator John F. Kennedy defeated incumbent Vice President Richard Nixon. Although Eisenhower warned Kennedy about Laos and Vietnam, Europe and Latin America “loomed larger than Asia on his sights.”[151] In his inaugural address, Kennedy made the ambitious pledge to “pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and success of liberty.”[152] In June 1961, he bitterly disagreed with Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev when they met in Vienna to discuss key U.S.–Soviet issues. Only 16 months later, the U.S.–Soviet issues included the Cuban Missile Crisis (October 16–28, 1962) played out on television worldwide and was the closest the Cold War came to escalating into a full-scale nuclear war, and the U.S. raised the readiness level of Strategic Air Command(SAC) forces to DEFCON 2.

President’s news conference of 23 March 1961

The Kennedy administration remained essentially committed to the Cold War foreign policy inherited from the Truman and Eisenhower administrations. In 1961, the U.S. had 50,000 troops based in Korea, and Kennedy faced a three-part crisis – the failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the construction of the Berlin Wall, and a negotiated settlement between the pro-Western government of Laos and the Pathet Lao communist movement.[153] These crises made Kennedy believe that another failure on the part of the United States to gain control and stop communist expansion would fatally damage U.S. credibility with its allies and his own reputation. Kennedy was thus determined to “draw a line in the sand” and prevent a communist victory in Vietnam. He told James Reston of The New York Times immediately after his Vienna meeting with Khrushchev, “Now we have a problem making our power credible and Vietnam looks like the place.”[154][155]

In May 1961, U.S. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson visited Saigon and enthusiastically declared Diệm the “Winston Churchill of Asia.”[156] Asked why he had made the comment, Johnson replied, “Diệm’s the only boy we got out there.”[139] Johnson assured Diệm of more aid in molding a fighting force that could resist the communists.

Kennedy’s policy toward South Vietnam rested on the assumption that Diệm and his forces had to ultimately defeat the guerrillas on their own. He was against the deployment of American combat troops and observed that “to introduce U.S. forces in large numbers there today, while it might have an initially favorable military impact, would almost certainly lead to adverse political and, in the long run, adverse military consequences.”[157] The quality of the South Vietnamese military, however, remained poor. Poor leadership, corruption, and political promotions all played a part in weakening the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN). The frequency of guerrilla attacks rose as the insurgency gathered steam. While Hanoi’s support for the Viet Cong played a role, South Vietnamese governmental incompetence was at the core of the crisis.[158]

South Vietnam, Military Regions, 1967

One major issue Kennedy raised was whether the Soviet space and missile programs had surpassed those of the United States. Although Kennedy stressed long-range missile parity with the Soviets, he was also interested in using special forces for counterinsurgency warfare in Third World countries threatened by communist insurgencies. Although they were originally intended for use behind front lines after a conventional Soviet invasion of Europe, Kennedy believed that the guerrilla tactics employed by special forces such as the Green Berets would be effective in a “brush fire” war in Vietnam.

Kennedy advisors Maxwell Taylor and Walt Rostow recommended that U.S. troops be sent to South Vietnam disguised as flood relief workers. Kennedy rejected the idea but increased military assistance yet again. In April 1962, John Kenneth Galbraith warned Kennedy of the “danger we shall replace the French as a colonial force in the area and bleed as the French did.”[159] By November 1963, there were 16,000 American military personnel in South Vietnam, up from Eisenhower’s 900 advisors.[160]

The Strategic Hamlet Program was initiated in late 1961. This joint U.S.-South Vietnamese program attempted to resettle the rural population into fortified camps. It was implemented in early 1962 and involved some forced relocation, village internment, and segregation of rural South Vietnamese into new communities where the peasantry would be isolated from Communist insurgents. It was hoped these new communities would provide security for the peasants and strengthen the tie between them and the central government. However, by November 1963 the program had waned, and it officially ended in 1964.[161]

On 23 July 1962, fourteen nations, including China, South Vietnam, the Soviet Union, North Vietnam and the United States, signed an agreement promising to respect the neutrality of Laos.[162]

Ousting and assassination of Ngô Đình Diệm

See also: Role of the United States in the Vietnam War § John F. Kennedy (1961–1963), 1960 South Vietnamese coup attempt, 1962 South Vietnamese Independence Palace bombing, Huế Phật Đản shootings, and Xá Lợi Pagoda raids
Main articles: Cable 243, Arrest and assassination of Ngô Đình Diệm, Buddhist crisis, Krulak Mendenhall mission, McNamara Taylor mission, 1963 South Vietnamese coup, and Reaction to the 1963 South Vietnamese coup

The inept performance of the South Vietnamese army was exemplified by failed actions such as the Battle of Ap Bac on 2 January 1963, in which a small band of Viet Cong won a battle against a much larger and better-equipped South Vietnamese force, many of whose officers seemed reluctant even to engage in combat.[163]

The Army of the Republic of Vietnam forces were led in that battle by Diệm’s most trusted general, Huỳnh Văn Cao, commander of the IV Corps. Cao was a Catholic who had been promoted due to religion and fidelity rather than skill, and his main job was to preserve his forces to stave off coups; he had earlier vomited during a communist attack. Some policymakers in Washington began to conclude that Diệm was incapable of defeating the communists and might even make a deal with Ho Chi Minh. He seemed concerned only with fending off coups, and had become more paranoid after attempts in 1960 and 1962, which he partly attributed to U.S. encouragement. As Robert F. Kennedy noted, “Diệm wouldn’t make even the slightest concessions. He was difficult to reason with …”[164]

As historian James Gibson summed up the situation:

Strategic hamlets had failed … The South Vietnamese regime was incapable of winning the peasantry because of its class base among landlords. Indeed, there was no longer a ‘regime’ in the sense of a relatively stable political alliance and functioning bureaucracy. Instead, civil government and military operations had virtually ceased. The National Liberation Front had made great progress and was close to declaring provisional revolutionary governments in large areas.[165]

A US tank convoy during the Vietnam War.

Discontent with Diệm’s policies exploded following the Huế Phật Đản shootings of nine majority Buddhists who were protesting against the ban on the Buddhist flag on Vesak, the Buddha’s birthday. This resulted in mass protests against discriminatory policies that gave privileges to the Catholic Church and its adherents. Diệm’s elder brother Ngô Đình Thục was the Archbishop of Huế and aggressively blurred the separation between church and state. Thuc’s anniversary celebrations shortly before Vesak had been bankrolled by the government, and Vatican flags were displayed prominently. There had also been reports of Buddhist pagodas being demolished by Catholic paramilitaries throughout Diệm’s rule. Diệm refused to make concessions to the Buddhist majority or take responsibility for the deaths. On 21 August 1963, the ARVN Special Forces of Colonel Lê Quang Tung, loyal to Diệm’s younger brother Ngô Đình Nhu, raided pagodas across Vietnam, causing widespread damage and destruction and leaving a death toll estimated to range into the hundreds.

Kennedy and McNamara

Ngô Đình Diệm after being shot and killed in the 1963 coup

U.S. officials began discussing the possibility of a regime change during the middle of 1963. The United States Department of State was generally in favor of encouraging a coup, while the Defense Department favored Diệm. Chief among the proposed changes was the removal of Diệm’s younger brother Nhu, who controlled the secret police and special forces and was seen as the man behind the Buddhist repression and more generally the architect of the Ngô family’s rule. This proposal was conveyed to the U.S. embassy in Saigon in Cable 243.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was in contact with generals planning to remove Diệm. They were told that the United States would not oppose such a move nor punish the generals by cutting off aid. President Diệm was overthrown and executed, along with his brother, on 2 November 1963. When he was informed, Maxwell Taylor remembered that Kennedy “rushed from the room with a look of shock and dismay on his face.”[166] He had not anticipated Diệm’s murder. The U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam, Henry Cabot Lodge, invited the coup leaders to the embassy and congratulated them. Ambassador Lodge informed Kennedy that “the prospects now are for a shorter war”.[167] Kennedy wrote Lodge a letter congratulating him for “a fine job”.[168]

Following the coup, chaos ensued. Hanoi took advantage of the situation and increased its support for the guerrillas. South Vietnam entered a period of extreme political instability, as one military government toppled another in quick succession. Increasingly, each new regime was viewed by the communists as a puppet of the Americans; whatever the failings of Diệm, his credentials as a nationalist (as Robert McNamara later reflected) had been impeccable.[169]

U.S military advisors were embedded at every level of the South Vietnamese armed forces. They were however criticized for ignoring the political nature of the insurgency.[170] The Kennedy administration sought to refocus U.S. efforts on pacification and “winning over the hearts and minds” of the population. The military leadership in Washington, however, was hostile to any role for U.S. advisors other than conventional troop training.[171] General Paul Harkins, the commander of U.S. forces in South Vietnam, confidently predicted victory by Christmas 1963.[172] The CIA was less optimistic, however, warning that “the Viet Cong by and large retain de facto control of much of the countryside and have steadily increased the overall intensity of the effort”.[173]

Paramilitary officers from the CIA’s Special Activities Division trained and led Hmong tribesmen in Laos and into Vietnam. The indigenous forces numbered in the tens of thousands and they conducted direct action missions, led by paramilitary officers, against the Communist Pathet Lao forces and their North Vietnamese supporters.[174] The CIA also ran the Phoenix Program and participated in Military Assistance Command, Vietnam – Studies and Observations Group (MAC-V SOG), which was originally named the Special Operations Group, but was changed for cover purposes.[175]

Johnson’s escalation, 1963–69

Main article: Joint warfare in South Vietnam, 1963–69
Further information: Role of the United States in the Vietnam War § Americanization
See also: Opposition to the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, Gulf of Tonkin incident, 1964 South Vietnamese coup, September 1964 South Vietnamese coup attempt, December 1964 South Vietnamese coup, and 1965 South Vietnamese coup

A U.S. B-66 Destroyer and four F-105 Thunderchiefs dropping bombs on North Vietnam during Operation Rolling Thunder

At the time Lyndon B. Johnson took over the presidency after the death of Kennedy, he had not been heavily involved with policy toward Vietnam, Presidential aide Jack Valenti recalls, “Vietnam at the time was no bigger than a man’s fist on the horizon. We hardly discussed it because it was not worth discussing.”[176][177]

Upon becoming president, however, Johnson immediately had to focus on Vietnam: on 24 November 1963, he said, “the battle against communism … must be joined … with strength and determination.”[178] The pledge came at a time when the situation in South Vietnam was deteriorating, especially in places like the Mekong Delta, because of the recent coup against Diệm.[179]

The military revolutionary council, meeting in lieu of a strong South Vietnamese leader, was made up of 12 members headed by General Dương Văn Minh—whom Stanley Karnow, a journalist on the ground, later recalled as “a model of lethargy”.[180] Lodge, frustrated by the end of the year, cabled home about Minh: “Will he be strong enough to get on top of things?” His regime was overthrown in January 1964 by General Nguyễn Khánh.[181] However, there was persistent instability in the military as several coups—not all successful—occurred in a short period of time.

An alleged Viet Cong activist, captured during an attack on an American outpost near the Cambodian border, is interrogated.

On 2 August 1964, the USS Maddox, on an intelligence mission along North Vietnam’s coast, allegedly fired upon and damaged several torpedo boats that had been stalking it in the Gulf of Tonkin.[182] A second attack was reported two days later on the USS Turner Joy and Maddox in the same area. The circumstances of the attack were murky. Lyndon Johnson commented to Undersecretary of State George Ball that “those sailors out there may have been shooting at flying fish.”[183]

The second attack led to retaliatory air strikes, prompted Congress to approve the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution on 7 August 1964,[184] signed by Johnson, and gave the president power to conduct military operations in Southeast Asia without declaring war.[185] Although Congressmen at the time denied that this was a full-scale war declaration, the Tonkin Resolution allowed the president unilateral power to launch a full-scale war if the president deemed it necessary.[185] In the same month, Johnson pledged that he was not “committing American boys to fighting a war that I think ought to be fought by the boys of Asia to help protect their own land”.[186]

An undated NSA publication declassified in 2005, however, revealed that there was no attack on 4 August.[187] It had already been called into question long before this. “Gulf of Tonkin incident“, writes Louise Gerdes, “is an oft-cited example of the way in which Johnson misled the American people to gain support for his foreign policy in Vietnam.”[188] George C. Herring argues, however, that McNamara and the Pentagon “did not knowingly lie about the alleged attacks, but they were obviously in a mood to retaliate and they seem to have selected from the evidence available to them those parts that confirmed what they wanted to believe.”[189]

“From a strength of approximately 5,000 at the start of 1959 the Viet Cong’s ranks grew to about 100,000 at the end of 1964 … Between 1961 and 1964 the Army’s strength rose from about 850,000 to nearly a million men.”[170] The numbers for U.S. troops deployed to Vietnam during the same period were quite different; 2,000 in 1961, rising rapidly to 16,500 in 1964.[190] By early 1965, 7,559 South Vietnamese hamlets had been destroyed by the Viet Cong.[191]

A marine from 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines, moves an alleged Viet Cong activist to the rear during a search and clear operation held by the battalion 15 miles (24 km) west of Da Nang Air Base.

The National Security Council recommended a three-stage escalation of the bombing of North Vietnam. On 2 March 1965, following an attack on a U.S. Marine barracks at Pleiku,[192] Operation Flaming Dart (initiated when Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin was on a state visit to North Vietnam), Operation Rolling Thunder and Operation Arc Light commenced.[193] The bombing campaign, which ultimately lasted three years, was intended to force North Vietnam to cease its support for the Viet Cong by threatening to destroy North Vietnam’s air defenses and industrial infrastructure. As well, it was aimed at bolstering the morale of the South Vietnamese.[194] Between March 1965 and November 1968, “Rolling Thunder” deluged the north with a million tons of missiles, rockets and bombs.[195]

Bombing was not restricted to North Vietnam. Other aerial campaigns, such as Operation Commando Hunt, targeted different parts of the Viet Cong and NVA infrastructure. These included the Ho Chi Minh trail supply route, which ran through Laos and Cambodia. The objective of stopping North Vietnam and the Viet Cong was never reached. As one officer noted, “This is a political war and it calls for discriminate killing. The best weapon … would be a knife … The worst is an airplane.”[196] The Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force Curtis LeMay, however, had long advocated saturation bombing in Vietnam and wrote of the communists that “we’re going to bomb them back into the Stone Age”.[197]

Escalation and ground war

File:1965-02-08 Showdown in Vietnam.ogv

Universal Newsreel film about an attack on U.S. air bases and the U.S. response. 1965

Peasants suspected of being Viet Cong under detention of U.S. army, 1966

Start of Tet Offensive as seen looking north from LZ Betty’s water tower, just south of Quang Tri City

Heavily bandaged woman with a tag attached to her arm which reads “VNC Female” meaning Vietnamese civilian

After several attacks upon them, it was decided that U.S. Air Force bases needed more protection as the South Vietnamese military seemed incapable of providing security. On 8 March 1965, 3,500 U.S. Marines were dispatched to South Vietnam. This marked the beginning of the American ground war. U.S. public opinion overwhelmingly supported the deployment.[198]

In a statement similar to that made to the French almost two decades earlier, Ho Chi Minh warned that if the Americans “want to make war for twenty years then we shall make war for twenty years. If they want to make peace, we shall make peace and invite them to afternoon tea.”[199] As former First Deputy Foreign Minister Tran Quang Co has noted, the primary goal of the war was to reunify Vietnam and secure its independence.[citation needed]Some have argued that the policy of North Vietnam was not to topple other non-communist governments in South East Asia.[200] However, the Pentagon Papers warned of “a dangerous period of Vietnamese expansionism … Laos and Cambodia would have been easy pickings for such a Vietnam … Thailand, Malaya, Singapore, and even Indonesia, could have been next.”[201]

The Marines’ initial assignment was defensive. The first deployment of 3,500 in March 1965 was increased to nearly 200,000 by December.[202] The U.S. military had long been schooled in offensive warfare. Regardless of political policies, U.S. commanders were institutionally and psychologically unsuited to a defensive mission.[202] In December 1964, ARVN forces had suffered heavy losses at the Battle of Bình Giã,[203] in a battle that both sides viewed as a watershed. Previously, communist forces had utilized hit-and-run guerrilla tactics. However, at Binh Gia, they had defeated a strong ARVN force in a conventional battle.[204] Tellingly, South Vietnamese forces were again defeated in June 1965 at the Battle of Đồng Xoài.[205]

U.S. soldiers searching a village for Viet Cong

Desertion rates were increasing, and morale plummeted. General William Westmoreland informed Admiral U. S. Grant Sharp Jr., commander of U.S. Pacific forces, that the situation was critical.[202] He said, “I am convinced that U.S. troops with their energy, mobility, and firepower can successfully take the fight to the NLF [National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam a.k.a. the Viet Cong]”.[206] With this recommendation, Westmoreland was advocating an aggressive departure from America’s defensive posture and the sidelining of the South Vietnamese. By ignoring ARVN units, the U.S. commitment became open-ended.[207] Westmoreland outlined a three-point plan to win the war:

  • Phase 1. Commitment of U.S. (and other free world) forces necessary to halt the losing trend by the end of 1965.
  • Phase 2. U.S. and allied forces mount major offensive actions to seize the initiative to destroy guerrilla and organized enemy forces. This phase would end when the enemy had been worn down, thrown on the defensive, and driven back from major populated areas.
  • Phase 3. If the enemy persisted, a period of twelve to eighteen months following Phase 2 would be required for the final destruction of enemy forces remaining in remote base areas.[208]

The plan was approved by Johnson and marked a profound departure from the previous administration’s insistence that the government of South Vietnam was responsible for defeating the guerrillas. Westmoreland predicted victory by the end of 1967.[209] Johnson did not, however, communicate this change in strategy to the media. Instead he emphasized continuity.[210] The change in U.S. policy depended on matching the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong in a contest of attrition and morale. The opponents were locked in a cycle of escalation.[211] The idea that the government of South Vietnam could manage its own affairs was shelved.[211]

Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin with U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson at the Glassboro Summit Conference where the two representatives discussed the possibilities of a peace settlement.

The one-year tour of duty of American soldiers deprived units of experienced leadership. As one observer noted “we were not in Vietnam for 10 years, but for one year 10 times.”[196] As a result, training programs were shortened.

South Vietnam was inundated with manufactured goods. As Stanley Karnow writes, “the main PX [Post Exchange], located in the Saigon suburb of Cholon, was only slightly smaller than the New York Bloomingdale’s …”[212] The American buildup transformed the economy and had a profound effect on South Vietnamese society. A huge surge in corruption was witnessed.

Washington encouraged its SEATO allies to contribute troops. Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Thailand, and the Philippines[213] all agreed to send troops. Major allies, however, notably NATO nations Canada and the United Kingdom, declined Washington’s troop requests.[214] The U.S. and its allies mounted complex operations, such as operations Masher, Attleboro, Cedar Falls, and Junction City. However, the communist insurgents remained elusive and demonstrated great tactical flexibility.

Meanwhile, the political situation in South Vietnam began to stabilize with the coming to power of prime minister Air Marshal Nguyễn Cao Kỳ and figurehead Chief of State, General Nguyễn Văn Thiệu, in mid-1965 at the head of a military junta. This ended a series of coups that had happened more than once a year. In 1967, Thieu became president with Ky as his deputy, after rigged elections. Although they were nominally a civilian government, Ky was supposed to maintain real power through a behind-the-scenes military body. However, Thieu outmaneuvered and sidelined Ky by filling the ranks with generals from his faction. Thieu was also accused of murdering Ky loyalists through contrived military accidents. Thieu, mistrustful and indecisive, remained president until 1975, having won a one-candidate election in 1971.[215] [216]

The Johnson administration employed a “policy of minimum candor”[217] in its dealings with the media. Military information officers sought to manage media coverage by emphasizing stories that portrayed progress in the war. Over time, this policy damaged the public trust in official pronouncements. As the media’s coverage of the war and that of the Pentagon diverged, a so-called credibility gap developed.[217]

Tet Offensive

Main article: Tet Offensive

A US “tunnel rat” soldier prepares to enter a Viet Cong tunnel.

In late 1967 the Communists lured American forces into the hinterlands at Đắk Tô and at the Marine Khe Sanh combat base in Quảng Trị Province where the United States was more than willing to fight because it could unleash its massive firepower unimpeded by civilians. However, on 31 January 1968, the NVA and the Viet Cong broke the truce that traditionally accompanied the Tết (Lunar New Year) holiday by launching the largest battle of the war, the Tet Offensive, in the hope of sparking a national uprising. Over 100 cities were attacked by over 85,000 enemy troops including assaults on General Westmoreland’s headquarters and the U.S. Embassy in Saigon.[218]

Although the U.S. and South Vietnamese forces were initially shocked by the scale of the urban offensive, they responded quickly and effectively, decimating the ranks of the Viet Cong. In the former capital city of Huế, the combined NVA and Viet Cong troops captured the Imperial Citadel and much of the city and massacred over 3,000 unarmed Huế civilians.[219] In the following Battle of Huế American forces employed massive firepower that left 80 percent of the city in ruins.[220] Further north, at Quảng Trị City, members of the 1st Cavalry Division and 1st ARVN Infantry Division killed more than 900 NVA and Vietcong troops in and around the city.[221][222] In Saigon, 1,000 NLF (Viet Cong) fighters fought off 11,000 U.S. and ARVN troops for three weeks.

U.S. Marines in Operation Allen Brook in 1968

Across South Vietnam, 1,100 Americans and other allied troops, 2,100 ARVN, 14,000 civilians, and 32,000 NVA and Viet Cong lay dead.[222][223]

But the Tet Offensive had another, unintended consequence. General Westmoreland had become the public face of the war. He had been named Time magazine’s 1965’s Man of the Year and eventually was featured on the magazine’s cover three times.[224] Time described him as “the sinewy personification of the American fighting man … [who] directed the historic buildup, drew up the battle plans, and infused the… men under him with his own idealistic view of U.S. aims and responsibilities.”[224] Six weeks after the Tet Offensive began, “public approval of his overall performance dropped from 48 percent to 36 percent–and, more dramatically, endorsement for his handling of the war fell from 40 percent to 26 percent.”[225]

U.S. Marines fighting in Huế

A few months earlier, in November 1967, Westmoreland had spearheaded a public relations drive for the Johnson administration to bolster flagging public support.[226] In a speech before the National Press Club he had said a point in the war had been reached “where the end comes into view.”[227] Thus, the public was shocked and confused when Westmoreland’s predictions were trumped by Tet.[226] The American media, which had until then been largely supportive of U.S. efforts, turned on the Johnson administration for what had become an increasing credibility gap.

Although the Tet Offensive was a significant victory for allied forces, in terms of casualties and control of territory, it was a sound defeat when evaluated from the point of view of strategic consequences: it became a turning point in America’s involvement in the Vietnam War because it had a profound impact on domestic support for the conflict. Despite the military failure for the Communist forces, the Tet Offensive became a political victory for them and ended the career of president Lyndon B. Johnson, who declined to run for re-election as his approval rating slumped from 48 to 36 percent.[226] As James Witz noted, Tet “contradicted the claims of progress … made by the Johnson administration and the military”.[226] The offensive constituted an intelligence failure on the scale of Pearl Harbor.[213][228] Journalist Peter Arnett, in a disputed article, quoted an officer he refused to identify,[229] saying of Bến Tre (laid to rubble by U.S. attacks)[230] that “it became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it”.[231]

Viet Cong/NVA killed by U.S. Air Force personnel during a perimeter attack of Tan Son Nhut Air Base during the Tet Offensive

Walter Cronkite said in an editorial, “To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion.”[232][233] Following Cronkite’s editorial report, President Lyndon Johnson is reported to have said, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.”[234][235]

Westmoreland became Chief of Staff of the Army in March 1968, just as all resistance was finally subdued. The move was technically a promotion. However, his position had become untenable because of the offensive and because his request for 200,000 additional troops had been leaked to the media. Westmoreland was succeeded by his deputy Creighton Abrams, a commander less inclined to public media pronouncements.[236]

On 10 May 1968, despite low expectations, peace talks began between the United States and North Vietnam in Paris. Negotiations stagnated for five months, until Johnson gave orders to halt the bombing of North Vietnam.

As historian Robert Dallek writes, “Lyndon Johnson’s escalation of the war in Vietnam divided Americans into warring camps … cost 30,000 American lives by the time he left office, [and] destroyed Johnson’s presidency …”[237]His refusal to send more U.S. troops to Vietnam was seen as Johnson’s admission that the war was lost.[238] It can be seen that the refusal was a tacit admission that the war could not be won by escalation, at least not at a cost acceptable to the American people.[238] As Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara noted, “the dangerous illusion of victory by the United States was therefore dead.”[239]

Vietnam was a major political issue during the United States presidential election in 1968. The election was won by Republican party candidate Richard Nixon.

Vietnamization, 1969–72

Nixon Doctrine / Vietnamization

Propaganda leaflet urging the defection of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese to the side of the Republic of Vietnam

U.S. President Richard Nixon began troop withdrawals in 1969. His plan, called the Nixon Doctrine, was to build up the ARVN, so that they could take over the defense of South Vietnam. The policy became known as “Vietnamization“.

Nixon said in 1970 in an announcement, “I am tonight announcing plans for the withdrawal of an additional 150,000 American troops to be completed during the spring of next year. This will bring a total reduction of 265,500 men in our armed forces in Vietnam below the level that existed when we took office 15 months ago.”[240]

On 10 October 1969, Nixon ordered a squadron of 18 B-52s loaded with nuclear weapons to race to the border of Soviet airspace to convince the Soviet Union, in accord with the madman theory, that he was capable of anything to end the Vietnam War.

Nixon also pursued negotiations. Theater commander Creighton Abrams shifted to smaller operations, aimed at communist logistics, with better use of firepower and more cooperation with the ARVN. Nixon also began to pursue détente with the Soviet Union and rapprochement with China. This policy helped to decrease global tensions. Détente led to nuclear arms reduction on the part of both superpowers. But Nixon was disappointed that China and the Soviet Union continued to supply the North Vietnamese with aid. In September 1969, Ho Chi Minh died at age seventy-nine.[241]

The anti-war movement was gaining strength in the United States. Nixon appealed to the “silent majority” of Americans who he said supported the war without showing it in public. But revelations of the My Lai Massacre, in which a U.S. Army platoon raped and killed civilians, and the 1969 “Green Beret Affair” where eight Special Forces soldiers, including the 5th Special Forces Group Commander, were arrested for the murder[242] of a suspected double agent[243] provoked national and international outrage.

Beginning in 1970, American troops were withdrawn from border areas where most of the fighting took place, and instead redeployed along the coast and interior, which is one reason why casualties in 1970 were less than half of 1969’s totals.[240]

Cambodia and Laos

Main articles: Operation Menu, Operation Freedom Deal, Operation Commando Hunt, Laotian Civil War, Cambodian Civil War, and Operation Lam Son 719

Prince Norodom Sihanouk had proclaimed Cambodia neutral since 1955,[244] but the communists used Cambodian soil as a base and Sihanouk tolerated their presence, because he wished to avoid being drawn into a wider regional conflict. Under pressure from Washington, however, he changed this policy in 1969. The Vietnamese communists were no longer welcome. President Nixon took the opportunity to launch a massive bombing campaign, called Operation Menu, against communist sanctuaries along the Cambodia/Vietnam border. Only five high-ranking Congressional officials were informed of Operation Menu.[245]

In 1970, Prince Sihanouk was deposed by his pro-American prime minister Lon Nol. North Vietnam invaded Cambodia in 1970 at the request of Khmer Rouge deputy leader Nuon Chea.[246] U.S. and ARVN forces launched an invasion into Cambodia to attack NVA and Viet Cong bases.

This invasion sparked nationwide U.S. protests as Nixon had promised to deescalate the American involvement. Four students were killed by National Guardsmen at Kent State University during a protest in Ohio, which provoked further public outrage in the United States. The reaction to the incident by the Nixon administration was seen as callous and indifferent, providing additional impetus for the anti-war movement.[247] The U.S. Air Force continued to heavily bomb Cambodia in support of the Cambodian government as part of Operation Freedom Deal.

In 1971 the Pentagon Papers were leaked to The New York Times. The top-secret history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, commissioned by the Department of Defense, detailed a long series of public deceptions on the part of the U.S. government. The Supreme Court ruled that its publication was legal.[248]

M41 Walker Bulldog, the main battle tank of the ARVN

The ARVN launched Operation Lam Son 719 in February 1971, aimed at cutting the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos.[162] The ostensibly neutral Laos had long been the scene of a civil war, pitting the Laotian government backed by the US against the Pathet Lao and its North Vietnamese allies. After meeting resistance, ARVN forces retreated in a confused rout. They fled along roads littered with their own dead. When they exhausted fuel supplies, soldiers abandoned their vehicles and attempted to barge their way on to American helicopters sent to evacuate the wounded. Many ARVN soldiers clung to helicopter skids in a desperate attempt to save themselves. U.S. aircraft had to destroy abandoned equipment, including tanks, to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. Half of the ARVN troops involved in the operation were either captured or killed. The operation was a fiasco and represented a clear failure of Vietnamization. As Karnow noted “the blunders were monumental… The (South Vietnamese) government’s top officers had been tutored by the Americans for ten or fifteen years, many at training schools in the United States, yet they had learned little.”[249]

In 1971 Australia and New Zealand withdrew their soldiers. The U.S. troop count was further reduced to 196,700, with a deadline to remove another 45,000 troops by February 1972. As peace protests spread across the United States, disillusionment and ill-discipline grew in the ranks[250] including increased drug use, “fragging” (the act of murdering the commander of a fighting unit) and desertions.[251]

Vietnamization was again tested by the Easter Offensive of 1972, a massive conventional NVA invasion of South Vietnam. The NVA and Viet Cong quickly overran the northern provinces and in coordination with other forces attacked from Cambodia, threatening to cut the country in half. U.S. troop withdrawals continued. American airpower responded, beginning Operation Linebacker, and the offensive was halted. However, it became clear that without American airpower South Vietnam could not survive. The last remaining American ground troops were withdrawn by the end of March 1973; U.S. naval and air forces remained in the Gulf of Tonkin, as well as Thailand and Guam.[252]

1972 election and Paris Peace Accords

The war was the central issue of the 1972 U.S. presidential election. Nixon’s opponent, George McGovern, campaigned on a platform of withdrawal from Vietnam. Nixon’s National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, continued secret negotiations with North Vietnam’s Lê Đức Thọ. In October 1972, they reached an agreement.

Operation Linebacker II, December 1972

However, South Vietnamese president Thieu demanded massive changes to the peace accord. When North Vietnam went public with the agreement’s details, the Nixon administration claimed that the North was attempting to embarrass the president. The negotiations became deadlocked. Hanoi demanded new changes.

To show his support for South Vietnam and force Hanoi back to the negotiating table, Nixon ordered Operation Linebacker II, a massive bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong 18–29 December 1972. The offensive destroyed much of the remaining economic and industrial capacity of North Vietnam. Simultaneously Nixon pressured Thieu to accept the terms of the agreement, threatening to conclude a bilateral peace deal and cut off American aid.

On 15 January 1973, Nixon announced the suspension of offensive action against North Vietnam. The Paris Peace Accords on “Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam” were signed on 27 January 1973, officially ending direct U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. A cease-fire was declared across North and South Vietnam. U.S. prisoners of war were released. The agreement guaranteed the territorial integrity of Vietnam and, like the Geneva Conference of 1954, called for national elections in the North and South. The Paris Peace Accords stipulated a sixty-day period for the total withdrawal of U.S. forces. “This article”, noted Peter Church, “proved… to be the only one of the Paris Agreements which was fully carried out.”[253]

Opposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War: 1962–1973

Main article: Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War

Protests against the war in Washington, D.C. on 24 April 1971

Anti-Vietnam War demonstration, 1967.

During the course of the Vietnam War a large segment of the American population came to be opposed to U.S. involvement in South Vietnam. Public opinion steadily turned against the war following 1967 and by 1970 only a third of Americans believed that the U.S. had not made a mistake by sending troops to fight in Vietnam.[254]

Nearly a third of the American population were strongly against the war. It is possible to specify certain groups who led the anti-war movement and the reasons why. Many young people protested because they were the ones being drafted while others were against the war because the anti-war movement grew increasingly popular among the counterculture and drug culture in American society and its music.

Some advocates within the peace movement advocated a unilateral withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam. One reason given for the withdrawal is that it would contribute to a lessening of tensions in the region and thus less human bloodshed. Early opposition to U.S. involvement in Vietnam drew its inspiration from the Geneva Conference of 1954. American support of Diệm in refusing elections was seen as thwarting the very democracy that America claimed to be supporting. John F. Kennedy, while Senator, opposed involvement in Vietnam.[190]

Opposition to the Vietnam War tended to unite groups opposed to U.S. anti-communism and imperialism[255] and, for those involved with the New Left such as the Catholic Worker Movement. Others, such as Stephen Spiro opposed the war based on the theory of Just War. Some wanted to show solidarity with the people of Vietnam, such as Norman Morrison emulating the actions of Thích Quảng Đức. In a key televised debate from 15 May 1965, Eric Severeid reporting for CBS conducted a debate between McGeorge Bundy and Hans Morgenthau dealing with an acute summary of the main war concerns of the U.S. as seen at that time stating them as: “(1) What are the justifications for the American presence in Vietnam – why are we there? (2) What is the fundamental nature of this war? Is it aggression from North Vietnam or is it basically, a civil war between the peoples of South Vietnam? (3) What are the implications of this Vietnam struggle in terms of Communist China’s power and aims and future actions? And (4) What are the alternatives to our present policy in Vietnam?”[256][257]

High-profile opposition to the Vietnam War turned to street protests in an effort to turn U.S. political opinion. On 15 October 1969, the Vietnam Moratorium attracted millions of Americans.[258] Riots broke out at the 1968 Democratic National Convention during protests against the war.[259] After news reports of American military abuses such as the 1968 My Lai Massacre, brought new attention and support to the anti-war movement, some veterans joined Vietnam Veterans Against the War. The fatal shooting of four students at Kent State University in 1970 led to nationwide university protests.[260] Anti-war protests ended with the final withdrawal of troops after the Paris Peace Accords were signed in 1973. South Vietnam was left to defend itself alone when the fighting resumed. Many South Vietnamese subsequently fled to the United States.[261]

Exit of the Americans: 1973–75

Anti-war protests

The United States began drastically reducing their troop support in South Vietnam during the final years of Vietnamization. Many U.S. troops were removed from the region, and on 5 March 1971, the United States returned the 5th Special Forces Group, which was the first American unit deployed to South Vietnam, to its former base in Fort Bragg, North Carolina.[262] [A 5]

Under the Paris Peace Accords, between North Vietnamese Foreign Minister Lê Đức Thọ and U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and reluctantly signed by South Vietnamese president Thiệu, U.S. military forces withdrew from South Vietnam and prisoners were exchanged. North Vietnam was allowed to continue supplying communist troops in the South, but only to the extent of replacing expended materiel. Later that year the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Kissinger and Thọ, but the Vietnamese negotiator declined it saying that a true peace did not yet exist.

The communist leaders had expected that the ceasefire terms would favor their side. But Saigon, bolstered by a surge of U.S. aid received just before the ceasefire went into effect, began to roll back the Viet Cong. The communists responded with a new strategy hammered out in a series of meetings in Hanoi in March 1973, according to the memoirs of Trần Văn Trà.[265]

As the Viet Cong’s top commander, Tra participated in several of these meetings. With U.S. bombings suspended, work on the Ho Chi Minh trail and other logistical structures could proceed unimpeded. Logistics would be upgraded until the North was in a position to launch a massive invasion of the South, projected for the 1975–76 dry season. Tra calculated that this date would be Hanoi’s last opportunity to strike before Saigon’s army could be fully trained.[265]

Map of the United States, showing Nixon's victories in 49 states (red) over McGovern.

Calling for immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam, George McGovern’s 1972 Presidential Campaign lost 49 of 50 states to Richard Nixon.

In the November 1972 Election, Democratic nominee George McGovern lost 49 of 50 states to the incumbent President Richard Nixon. On 15 March 1973, President Nixon implied that the United States would intervene militarily if the communist side violated the ceasefire. Public and congressional reaction to Nixon’s trial balloon was unfavorable and in April Nixon appointed Graham Martin as U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam. During his confirmation hearings in June 1973, Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger stated that he would recommend resumption of U.S. bombing in North Vietnam if North Vietnam launched a major offensive against South Vietnam. On 4 June 1973, the U.S. Senate passed the Case–Church Amendment to prohibit such intervention.[266]

The oil price shock of October 1973 following the Yom Kippur War in Egypt caused significant damage to the South Vietnamese economy. The Viet Cong resumed offensive operations when the dry season began and by January 1974 it had recaptured the territory it lost during the previous dry season. After two clashes that left 55 South Vietnamese soldiers dead, President Thieu announced on 4 January that the war had restarted and that the Paris Peace Accord was no longer in effect. There had been over 25,000 South Vietnamese casualties during the ceasefire period.[267]

Gerald Ford took over as U.S. president on 9 August 1974 after President Nixon resigned due to the Watergate scandal. At this time, Congress cut financial aid to South Vietnam from $1 billion a year to $700 million. The U.S. midterm elections in 1974 brought in a new Congress dominated by Democrats who were even more determined to confront the president on the war. Congress immediately voted in restrictions on funding and military activities to be phased in through 1975 and to culminate in a total cutoff of funding in 1976.

The success of the 1973–74 dry season offensive inspired Trà to return to Hanoi in October 1974 and plead for a larger offensive in the next dry season. This time, Trà could travel on a drivable highway with regular fueling stops, a vast change from the days when the Ho Chi Minh trail was a dangerous mountain trek.[268] Giáp, the North Vietnamese defense minister, was reluctant to approve Trà’s plan. A larger offensive might provoke a U.S. reaction and interfere with the big push planned for 1976. Trà appealed over Giáp’s head to first secretary Lê Duẩn, who approved of the operation.

Trà’s plan called for a limited offensive from Cambodia into Phước Long Province. The strike was designed to solve local logistical problems, gauge the reaction of South Vietnamese forces, and determine whether U.S. would return to the fray.

Recently released American POWs from North Vietnamese prison camps, 1973

On 13 December 1974, North Vietnamese forces attacked Route 14 in Phước Long Province. Phuoc Binh, the provincial capital, fell on 6 January 1975. Ford desperately asked Congress for funds to assist and re-supply the South before it was overrun. Congress refused. The fall of Phuoc Binh and the lack of an American response left the South Vietnamese elite demoralized.

The speed of this success led the Politburo to reassess its strategy. It was decided that operations in the Central Highlands would be turned over to General Văn Tiến Dũng and that Pleiku should be seized, if possible. Before he left for the South, Dũng was addressed by Lê Duẩn: “Never have we had military and political conditions so perfect or a strategic advantage as great as we have now.”[269]

At the start of 1975, the South Vietnamese had three times as much artillery and twice the number of tanks and armored cars as the opposition. They also had 1,400 aircraft and a two-to-one numerical superiority in combat troops over their Communist enemies.[270] However, the rising oil prices meant that much of this could not be used. They faced a well-organized, highly determined and well-funded North Vietnam. Much of the North’s material and financial support came from the communist bloc. Within South Vietnam, there was increasing chaos. The departure of the American military had compromised an economy dependent on U.S. financial support and the presence of a large number of U.S. troops. South Vietnam suffered from the global recession that followed the Arab oil embargo.

Campaign 275

See also: 1975 Spring Offensive, Battle of Ban Me Thuot, and Hue–Da Nang Campaign

Captured U.S.-supplied armored vehicles

On 10 March 1975, General Dung launched Campaign 275, a limited offensive into the Central Highlands, supported by tanks and heavy artillery. The target was Buôn Ma Thuột, in Đắk Lắk Province. If the town could be taken, the provincial capital of Pleiku and the road to the coast would be exposed for a planned campaign in 1976. The ARVN proved incapable of resisting the onslaught, and its forces collapsed on 11 March. Once again, Hanoi was surprised by the speed of their success. Dung now urged the Politburo to allow him to seize Pleiku immediately and then turn his attention to Kon Tum. He argued that with two months of good weather remaining until the onset of the monsoon, it would be irresponsible to not take advantage of the situation.[34]

President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu, a former general, was fearful that his forces would be cut off in the north by the attacking communists; Thieu ordered a retreat. The president declared this to be a “lighten the top and keep the bottom” strategy. But in what appeared to be a repeat of Operation Lam Son 719, the withdrawal soon turned into a bloody rout. While the bulk of ARVN forces attempted to flee, isolated units fought desperately. ARVN General Phu abandoned Pleiku and Kon Tum and retreated toward the coast, in what became known as the “column of tears”.[34]

As the ARVN tried to disengage from the enemy, refugees mixed in with the line of retreat. The poor condition of roads and bridges, damaged by years of conflict and neglect, slowed Phu’s column. As the North Vietnamese forces approached, panic set in. Often abandoned by the officers, the soldiers and civilians were shelled incessantly. The retreat degenerated into a desperate scramble for the coast. By 1 April the “column of tears” was all but annihilated.[34]

On 20 March, Thieu reversed himself and ordered Huế, Vietnam’s third-largest city, be held at all costs, and then changed his policy several times. Thieu’s contradictory orders confused and demoralized his officer corps. As the North Vietnamese launched their attack, panic set in, and ARVN resistance withered. On 22 March, the NVA opened the siege of Huế. Civilians flooded the airport and the docks hoping for any mode of escape. Some even swam out to sea to reach boats and barges anchored offshore. In the confusion, routed ARVN soldiers fired on civilians to make way for their retreat.[34]

On 25 March, after a three-day battle, Huế fell. As resistance in Huế collapsed, North Vietnamese rockets rained down on Da Nang and its airport. By 28 March 35,000 VPA troops were poised to attack the suburbs. By 30 March 100,000 leaderless ARVN troops surrendered as the NVA marched victoriously through Da Nang. With the fall of the city, the defense of the Central Highlands and Northern provinces came to an end.[34]

Final North Vietnamese offensive

Captured RVNAF warplanes in Ho Chi Minh City

For more details on the final North Vietnamese offensive, see Ho Chi Minh Campaign.

With the northern half of the country under their control, the Politburo ordered General Dung to launch the final offensive against Saigon. The operational plan for the Ho Chi Minh Campaign called for the capture of Saigon before 1 May. Hanoi wished to avoid the coming monsoon and prevent any redeployment of ARVN forces defending the capital. Northern forces, their morale boosted by their recent victories, rolled on, taking Nha Trang, Cam Ranh, and Da Lat.

On 7 April, three North Vietnamese divisions attacked Xuân Lộc, 40 miles (64 km) east of Saigon. The North Vietnamese met fierce resistance at Xuân Lộc from the ARVN 18th Division, who were outnumbered six to one. For two bloody weeks, severe fighting raged as the ARVN defenders made a last stand to try to block the North Vietnamese advance. By 21 April, however, the exhausted garrison were ordered to withdraw towards Saigon.

An embittered and tearful president Thieu resigned on the same day, declaring that the United States had betrayed South Vietnam. In a scathing attack, he suggested U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had tricked him into signing the Paris peace agreement two years earlier, promising military aid that failed to materialize. Having transferred power to Trần Văn Hương, he left for Taiwan on 25 April. At the same time, North Vietnamese tanks had reached Biên Hòa and turned toward Saigon, brushing aside isolated ARVN units along the way.

By the end of April, the ARVN had collapsed on all fronts except in the Mekong Delta. Thousands of refugees streamed southward, ahead of the main communist onslaught. On 27 April 100,000 North Vietnamese troops encircled Saigon. The city was defended by about 30,000 ARVN troops. To hasten a collapse and foment panic, the NVA shelled the airport and forced its closure. With the air exit closed, large numbers of civilians found that they had no way out.

Fall of Saigon

Victorious NVA troops at the Presidential Palace, Saigon.

Main articles: Fall of Saigon and Operation Frequent Wind

Chaos, unrest, and panic broke out as hysterical South Vietnamese officials and civilians scrambled to leave Saigon. Martial law was declared. American helicopters began evacuating South Vietnamese, U.S., and foreign nationals from various parts of the city and from the U.S. embassy compound. Operation Frequent Wind had been delayed until the last possible moment, because of U.S. Ambassador Graham Martin‘s belief that Saigon could be held and that a political settlement could be reached.

Schlesinger announced early in the morning of 29 April 1975 the evacuation from Saigon by helicopter of the last U.S. diplomatic, military, and civilian personnel. Frequent Wind was arguably the largest helicopter evacuation in history. It began on 29 April, in an atmosphere of desperation, as hysterical crowds of Vietnamese vied for limited space. Martin pleaded with Washington to dispatch $700 million in emergency aid to bolster the regime and help it mobilize fresh military reserves. But American public opinion had soured on this conflict.

In the United States, South Vietnam was perceived as doomed. President Gerald Ford had given a televised speech on 23 April, declaring an end to the Vietnam War and all U.S. aid. Frequent Wind continued around the clock, as North Vietnamese tanks breached defenses on the outskirts of Saigon. In the early morning hours of 30 April, the last U.S. Marines evacuated the embassy by helicopter, as civilians swamped the perimeter and poured into the grounds. Many of them had been employed by the Americans and were left to their fate.

On 30 April 1975, NVA troops entered the city of Saigon and quickly overcame all resistance, capturing key buildings and installations. A tank from the 324th Division crashed through the gates of the Independence Palace at 11:30 am local time and the Viet Cong flag was raised above it. President Dương Văn Minh, who had succeeded Huong two days earlier, surrendered.[271]

Other countries’ involvement

Pro-Hanoi

Ho Chi Minh with East German sailors in Stralsund harbour, 1957

2,000 years of Chinese-Vietnamese enmity and hundreds of years of Chinese and Russian mutual suspicions were suspended when they united against us in Vietnam.

— Richard Holbrooke, 1985[272]

People’s Republic of China

In 1950, the People’s Republic of China extended diplomatic recognition to the Viet Minh‘s Democratic Republic of Vietnam and sent weapons, as well as military advisers led by Luo Guibo to assist the Viet Minh in its war with the French. The first draft of the 1954 Geneva Accords was negotiated by French prime minister Pierre Mendès France and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai who, fearing U.S. intervention, urged the Viet Minh to accept a partition at the 17th parallel.[273]

China’s support for North Vietnam included both financial aid and the deployment of hundreds of thousands of military personnel in support roles. In the summer of 1962, Mao Zedong agreed to supply Hanoi with 90,000 rifles and guns free of charge. Starting in 1965, China sent anti-aircraft units and engineering battalions to North Vietnam to repair the damage caused by American bombing, man anti-aircraft batteries, rebuild roads and railroads, transport supplies, and perform other engineering works. This freed North Vietnamese army units for combat in the South. China sent 320,000 troops and annual arms shipments worth $180 million.[274] The Chinese military claims to have caused 38% of American air losses in the war.[27] China claimed that its military and economic aid to North Vietnam and the Viet Cong totaled $20 billion (approx. $143 billion adjusted for inflation in 2015) during the Vietnam War.[27] Included in that aid were donations of 5 million tons of food to North Vietnam (equivalent to NV food production in a single year), accounting for 10-15% of the North Vietnamese food supply by the 1970s.[27]

Military aid given to North Vietnam by the People’s Republic of China[275]
Date 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 Total
Guns 80,500 220,767 141,531 146,600 219,899 139,900 101,800 143,100 189,000 233,500 164,500 141,800 1,922,897
Artillery pieces 1,205 4,439 3,362 3,984 7,087 3,906 2,212 7,898 9,238 9,912 6,406 4,880 64,529
Bullets 25,240,000 114,010,000 178,120,000 147,000,000 247,920,000 119,117,000 29,010,000 57,190,000 40,000,000 40,000,000 30,000,000 20,600,000 1,048,207,000
Artillery shells 335,000 1,800,000 1,066,000 1,363,000 2,082,000 1,357,000 397,000 1,899,000 2,210,000 2,210,000 1,390,000 965,000 17,074,000
Radio transmitters 426 2,779 1,568 2,464 1,854 2,210 950 2,464 4,370 4,335 5,148 2,240 30,808
Telephones 2,941 9,502 2,235 2,289 3,313 3,453 1,600 4,424 5,905 6,447 4,663 2,150 48,922
Tanks 16  ?  ? 26 18  ?  ? 80 220 120 80  ? 560
Planes 18 2  ? 70  ?  ?  ? 4 14 36  ? 20 164
Automobiles 25 114 96 435 454 162  ? 4,011 8,758 1,210 506  ? 15,771

Sino-Soviet relations soured after the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia in August 1968. In October, the Chinese demanded North Vietnam cut relations with Moscow, but Hanoi refused.[276] The Chinese began to withdraw in November 1968 in preparation for a clash with the Soviets, which occurred at Zhenbao Island in March 1969. The Chinese also began financing the Khmer Rouge as a counterweight to the Vietnamese communists at this time.

China “armed and trained” the Khmer Rouge during the civil war and continued to aid them for years afterward.[277] The Khmer Rouge launched ferocious raids into Vietnam in 1975–1978. When Vietnam responded with an invasion that toppled the Khmer Rouge, China launched a brief, punitive invasion of Vietnam in 1979.

Soviet Union

Leonid Brezhnev (left) was the leader of the Soviet Union during the second half of the Vietnam War

Soviet ships in the South China Sea gave vital early warnings to Viet Cong forces in South Vietnam. The Soviet intelligence ships would pick up American B-52 bombers flying from Okinawa and Guam. Their airspeed and direction would be noted and then relayed to COSVN, North Vietnam’s southern headquarters. Using airspeed and direction, COSVN analysts would calculate the bombing target and tell any assets to move “perpendicularly to the attack trajectory.” These advance warning gave them time to move out of the way of the bombers, and, while the bombing runs caused extensive damage, because of the early warnings from 1968 to 1970 they did not kill a single military or civilian leader in the headquarters complexes.[278]

The Soviet Union supplied North Vietnam with medical supplies, arms, tanks, planes, helicopters, artillery, anti-aircraft missiles and other military equipment. Soviet crews fired Soviet-made surface-to-air missiles at U.S. F-4 Phantoms, which were shot down over Thanh Hóa in 1965. Over a dozen Soviet citizens lost their lives in this conflict. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian officials acknowledged that the Soviet Union had stationed up to 3,000 troops in Vietnam during the war.[279]

Some Russian sources give more specific numbers: Between 1953 and 1991, the hardware donated by the Soviet Union included 2,000 tanks, 1,700 APCs, 7,000 artillery guns, over 5,000 anti-aircraft guns, 158 surface-to-air missile launchers, 120 helicopters. During the war, the Soviets sent North Vietnam annual arms shipments worth $450 million.[280][281] From July 1965 to the end of 1974, fighting in Vietnam was observed by some 6,500 officers and generals, as well as more than 4,500 soldiers and sergeants of the Soviet Armed Forces. In addition, Soviet military schools and academies began training Vietnamese soldiers – in all more than 10,000 military personnel.[282]

North Korea

As a result of a decision of the Korean Workers’ Party in October 1966, in early 1967 North Korea sent a fighter squadron to North Vietnam to back up the North Vietnamese 921st and 923rd fighter squadrons defending Hanoi. They stayed through 1968, and 200 pilots were reported to have served.[283]

In addition, at least two anti-aircraft artillery regiments were sent as well. North Korea also sent weapons, ammunition and two million sets of uniforms to their comrades in North Vietnam.[284] Kim Il-sung is reported to have told his pilots to “fight in the war as if the Vietnamese sky were their own”.[285]

Cuba

The contribution to North Vietnam by the Republic of Cuba, under Fidel Castro have been recognized several times by representatives of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.[286] Fidel Castro mentioned in his discourses the Batallón Girón (Giron Battalion) as comprising the Cuban contingent that served as military advisors during the war.[287] In this battalion, alongside the Cubans, fought Nguyễn Thị Định, founding member of the Viet Cong, who later became the first female Major General in the North Vietnamese Army.[288] There are numerous allegations by former U.S. prisoners of war that Cuban military personnel were present at North Vietnamese prison facilities during the war and that they participated in torture activities, in what is known as the “Cuba Program”.[289][290][291][292][293] Witnesses to this include Senator John McCain, 2008 U.S. Presidential candidate and former Vietnam prisoner of war, according to his 1999 book Faith of My Fathers.[294] Benjamin Gilman, a Vietnam War POW/MIA issue advocate, claim evidence that Cuba’s military and non-military involvement may have run into the “thousands” of personnel.[295] Fidel Castro visited in person Quảng Trị province, held by North Vietnam after the Easter Offensive to show his support for the Viet Cong.[296]

Pro-Saigon

South Korea

Main article: Military history of South Korea during the Vietnam War

Soldiers of the South Korean White Horse Division in Vietnam

Vietnamese civilians of Phong Nhi village massacred by South Korean Blue Dragon Brigade in 1968

On the anti-communist side, South Korea (a.k.a. the Republic of Korea, ROK) had the second-largest contingent of foreign troops in South Vietnam after the United States. In November 1961, Park Chung-hee proposed South Korean participation in the war to John F. Kennedy, but Kennedy disagreed.[297] On 1 May 1964 Lyndon Johnson requested South Korean participation.[297] The first South Korean troops began arriving in 1964 and large combat formations began arriving a year later. The ROK Marine Corps dispatched their 2nd Marine Brigade while the ROK Army sent the Capital Division and later the 9th Infantry Division. In August 1966 after the arrival of the 9th Division the Koreans established a corps command, the Republic of Korea Forces Vietnam Field Command, near I Field Force, Vietnam at Nha Trang.[298] The South Koreans soon developed a reputation for effectiveness, reportedly conducting counterinsurgency operations so well that American commanders felt that the South Korean area of responsibility was the safest.[299]

Approximately 320,000 South Korean soldiers were sent to Vietnam,[300] each serving a one-year tour of duty. Maximum troop levels peaked at 50,000 in 1968, however all were withdrawn by 1973.[301] About 5,099 South Koreans were killed and 10,962 wounded during the war. South Korea claimed to have killed 41,000 Viet Cong fighters.[300] The United States paid South Korean soldiers 236 million dollars for their efforts in Vietnam,[300] and South Korean GNP increased five-fold during the war.[300]

Australia and New Zealand

An Australian soldier in Vietnam

Main articles: Military history of Australia during the Vietnam War and New Zealand in the Vietnam War

Australia and New Zealand, close allies of the United States and members of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) and the ANZUS military co-operation treaty, sent ground troops to Vietnam. Both nations had gained experience in counterinsurgency and jungle warfare during the Malayan Emergency and World War II. Their governments subscribed to the Domino theory. Australia began by sending advisors to Vietnam in 1962, and combat troops were committed in 1965.[302] New Zealand began by sending a detachment of engineers and an artillery battery, and then started sending special forces and regular infantry which were attached to Australian formations.[303] Australia’s peak commitment was 7,672 combat troops and New Zealand’s 552. More than 60,000 Australian personnel were involved during the course of the war, of which 521 were killed and more than 3,000 wounded.[304] Approximately 3,500 New Zealanders served in Vietnam, with 37 killed and 187 wounded.[305] Most Australians and New Zealanders served in the 1st Australian Task Force in Phước Tuy Province.[302]

Philippines

Some 10,450 Filipino troops were dispatched to South Vietnam. They were primarily engaged in medical and other civilian pacification projects. These forces operated under the designation PHLCAG-V or Philippine Civic Action Group-Vietnam. More noteworthy was the fact that the naval base in Subic Bay was used for the U.S. Seventh Fleet from 1964 till the end of the war in 1975.[306][307] The Navy base in Subic bay and the Air force base at Clark achieved maximum functionality during the war and supported an estimated 80,000 locals in allied tertiary businesses from shoe making to prostitution.[308]

Thailand

See also: Laotian Civil War

The Thai Queen’s Cobra battalion in Phuoc Tho

Thai Army formations, including the “Queen’s Cobra” battalion, saw action in South Vietnam between 1965 and 1971. Thai forces saw much more action in the covert war in Laos between 1964 and 1972, though Thai regular formations there were heavily outnumbered by the irregular “volunteers” of the CIA-sponsored Police Aerial Reconnaissance Units or PARU, who carried out reconnaissance activities on the western side of the Ho Chi Minh trail.[34]

Republic of China (Taiwan)

Main article: Republic of China in the Vietnam War

Since November 1967, the Taiwanese government secretly operated a cargo transport detachment to assist the United States and South Vietnam. Taiwan also provided military training units for the South Vietnamese diving units, later known as the Lien Doi Nguoi Nhai (LDMN) or “Frogman unit” in English.[1] In addition to the diving trainers there were several hundred military personnel.[1] Military commandos from Taiwan were captured by communist forces three times trying to infiltrate North Vietnam.[1]

Canada and the ICC

Main article: Canada and the Vietnam War

Canada, India and Poland constituted the International Control Commission, which was supposed to monitor the 1954 ceasefire agreement.[309] Officially, Canada did not have partisan involvement in the Vietnam War and diplomatically it was “non-belligerent“. Victor Levant suggested otherwise in his book Quiet Complicity: Canadian Involvement in the Vietnam War (1986).[310][311] The Vietnam War entry in The Canadian Encyclopedia asserts plainly that Canada’s record on the truce commissions was a pro-Saigon partisan one.[312]

United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races (FULRO)

Main articles: United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races and FULRO insurgency against Vietnam

The ethnic minority peoples of south Vietnam like the Christian Montagnards (Degar), Hindu and Muslim Cham and the Buddhist Khmer Krom banded together in the United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races (French: Front Uni de Lutte des Races Opprimées, acronym: FULRO) to fight against the Vietnamese for autonomy or independence. FULRO fought against both the anti-Communist South Vietnamese and the Communist Viet Cong, and then FURLO proceeded to fight against the united Communist Socialist Republic of Vietnam after the fall of South Vietnam. FULRO was supported by China, the United States, Cambodia, and some French citizens.[34]

During the war, the South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem began a program to settle ethnic Vietnamese Kinh on Montagnard lands in the Central Highlands region. This provoked a backlash from the Montagnards. The Cambodians under both the pro-China King Sihanouk and the pro-American Lon Nol supported their fellow co-ethnic Khmer Krom in south Vietnam, following an anti- ethnic Vietnamese policy.

FULRO was formed from the amalgation of the Cham organization “Champa Liberation Front” (Front de Liberation du Champa FLC) led by the Cham Muslim officer Les Kosem who served in the Royal Cambodian Army, the Khmer Krom organization “Liberation Front of Kampuchea Krom” (Front de Liberation du Kampuchea Krom FLKK) led by Chau Dara, a former monk, and the Montagnard organizations “Central Highlands Liberation Front” (Front de Liberation des Hauts Plateaux FLHP) led by Y Bham Enuol and BAJARAKA.

The leaders of FULRO were executed by the Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot when he took power in Cambodia but FULRO insurgents proceeded to fight against the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia and it was not until 1992 that they finally surrendered to the United Nations in Cambodia.[34]

War crimes

Victims of the My Lai massacre

Main articles: List of war crimes § 1954–1975: Vietnam War, and Vietnam War casualties
See also: List of massacres in Vietnam

A large number of war crimes took place during the Vietnam War. War crimes were committed by both sides during the conflict and included rape, massacres of civilians, bombings of civilian targets, terrorism, the widespread use of torture and the murder of prisoners of war. Additional common crimes included theft, arson, and the destruction of property not warranted by military necessity.[313]

Allied war crimes

Main articles: Tiger Force and Vietnam War Crimes Working Group

In 1968, the Vietnam War Crimes Working Group (VWCWG) was established by the Pentagon task force set up in the wake of the My Lai Massacre, to attempt to ascertain the veracity of emerging claims of war crimes by U.S. armed forces in Vietnam, during the Vietnam War period.

“Vietnam was an atrocity from the get-go… There were hundreds of My Lais. You got your card punched by the numbers of bodies you counted.”

David H. Hackworth[314]

A Viet Cong prisoner captured in 1967 by the U.S. Army awaits interrogation. He has been placed in a stress position by tying a board between his arms.

The investigation compiled over 9,000 pages of investigative files, sworn statements by witnesses and status reports for top military officers, indicating that 320 incidents had factual basis.[315] The substantiated cases included 7 massacres between 1967 and 1971 in which at least 137 civilians were killed; seventy eight further attacks targeting non-combatants resulting in at least 57 deaths, 56 wounded and 15 sexually assaulted; one hundred and forty-one cases of US soldiers torturing civilian detainees or prisoners of war with fists, sticks, bats, water or electric shock.[315] Over 800 alleged atrocities were investigated, but only 23 soldiers were ever convicted on charges and most served sentences of less than a year.[316][unreliable source?] A Los Angeles Times report on the archived files concluded that the war crimes were not confined to a few rogue units, having been uncovered in every army division that was active in Vietnam.[315]

During their visits to transit detention facilities under American administration in 1968 and 1969, the International Red Cross recorded many cases of torture and inhumane treatment before the captives were handed over to South Vietnamese authorities.[317]

In 2003 a series of investigative reports by the Toledo Blade uncovered a large number of unreported American war crimes particularly from the Tiger Force unit.[318]

The war involved the establishment of numerous free-fire zones by U.S. forces as a tactic to prevent Viet Cong fighters from sheltering in South Vietnamese villages. Such practice, which involved the assumption that any individual appearing in the designated zones was an enemy combatant that could be freely targeted by weapons, is regarded by journalist Lewis M. Simons as “a severe violation of the laws of war”.[319] Cases of indiscriminate attacks against civilians within free-fire zones resulting from unsuccessful forced evacuations were frequent.[320] According to political scientist R.J. Rummel, U.S. troops murdered about 6,000 Vietnamese civilians during the war.[321] Nick Turse, in his 2013 book, Kill Anything that Moves, argues that a relentless drive toward higher body counts, a widespread use of free-fire zones, rules of engagement where civilians who ran from soldiers or helicopters could be viewed as Viet Cong, and a widespread disdain for Vietnamese civilians led to massive civilian casualties and endemic war crimes inflicted by U.S. troops.[322] One example cited by Turse is Operation Speedy Express, an operation by the 9th Infantry Division, which was described by John Paul Vann as, in effect, “many My Lais”.[322] A report by Newsweek magazine suggested that an estimated 5,000 civilians may have been killed during six months of the operation.[323]

In terms of atrocities by the South Vietnamese, during the Diem era (1954-1963) R.J. Rummell estimated that 16,000 to 167,000 South Vietnamese civilians were killed in democide; for 1964 to 1975, Rummel estimated a total of 42,000 to 128,000 killed in democide. Thus, the total for 1954 to 1975 is from 57,000 to 284,000 deaths caused by South Vietnam, excluding NLF/North Vietnamese forces killed by the South Vietnamese armed forces.[324]Torture and ill-treatment were frequently applied by the South Vietnamese to POWs as well as civilian prisoners.[325][326] During their visit to the Con Son Prison in 1970, U.S. Congressmen Augustus F. Hawkins and William R. Anderson witnessed detainees either confined in minute “tiger cages” or chained to their cells, and provided with poor-quality food. A group of American doctors inspecting the prison in the same year found many inmates suffering symptoms resulting from forced immobility and torture.[325] Red Cross reports after the war showed connections of U.S. advisors with the torture at POW camps.[326]

South Korean forces were also accused of war crimes as well. One documented event was the Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất massacre where the 2nd Marine Brigade of the South Korean Army purportedly killed 69-79 civilians on 12 February 1968 in Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất village, Điện Bàn District of Quảng Nam Province in South Vietnam.[327] South Korean forces are also accused of perpetrating other massacres, namely: Bình Hòa massacre, Binh Tai Massacre and Hà My massacre.

North Vietnamese, Viet Cong, and Khmer Rouge war crimes

Main article: Viet Cong and PAVN strategy, organization and structure § VC/NVA use of terror

Victims of the Huế Massacre

According to Guenter Lewy, Viet Cong insurgents assassinated at least 37,000 civilians in South Vietnam and routinely employed terror.[328] Ami Pedahzur has written that “the overall volume and lethality of Viet Cong terrorism rivals or exceeds all but a handful of terrorist campaigns waged over the last third of the twentieth century”.[329] Notable Viet Cong atrocities include the massacre of over 3,000 unarmed civilians at Huế during the Tet Offensive and the incineration of hundreds of civilians at the Đắk Sơn massacre with flamethrowers.[330] Up to 155,000 refugees fleeing the final North Vietnamese Spring Offensive were killed or abducted on the road to Tuy Hòa in 1975.[331] According to Rummel, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops murdered between 106,000 and 227,000 civilians in South Vietnam.[321] North Vietnam was also known for its inhumane and abusive treatment of American POWs, most notably in Hỏa Lò Prison (aka the Hanoi Hilton), where severe torture was employed to extract “confessions”.[332]

According to a U.S. Senate report, squads were assigned monthly assassination quotas.[333] Peer De Silva, former head of the Saigon department of the CIA, wrote that from as early as 1963, Viet Cong units were using disembowelment and other methods of mutilation for psychological warfare.[334]

In the Cambodian Civil War, Khmer Rouge insurgents reportedly committed atrocities during the war. These include the murder of civilians and POWs by slowly sawing off their heads a little more each day,[335] the destruction of Buddhist wats and the killing of monks,[336] attacks on refugee camps involving the deliberate murder of babies and bomb threats against foreign aid workers,[337] the abduction and assassination of journalists,[338] and the shelling of Phnom Penh for more than a year.[339] Journalist accounts stated that the Khmer Rouge shelling “tortured the capital almost continuously”, inflicting “random death and mutilation” on 2 million trapped civilians.[340]

The Khmer Rouge forcibly evacuated the entire city after taking it, in what has been described as a death march: François Ponchaud wrote: “I shall never forget one cripple who had neither hands nor feet, writhing along the ground like a severed worm, or a weeping father carrying his ten-year old daughter wrapped in a sheet tied around his neck like a sling, or the man with his foot dangling at the end of a leg to which it was attached by nothing but skin”;[341] John Swain recalled that the Khmer Rouge were “tipping out patients from the hospitals like garbage into the streets….In five years of war, this is the greatest caravan of human misery I have seen.”[342]

Women in the Vietnam War

American nurses

Da Nang, South Vietnam, 1968

During the Vietnam War, American women served on active duty doing a variety of jobs. Early in 1963, the Army Nurse Corps (ANC) launched Operation Nightingale, an intensive effort to recruit nurses to serve in Vietnam. Most nurses who volunteered to serve in Vietnam came from predominantly working or middle-class families with histories of military service. The majority of these women were white Catholics and Protestants.[343] Because the need for medical aid was great, many nurses underwent a concentrated four-month training program before being deployed to Vietnam in the ANC.[344] Due to the shortage of staff, nurses usually worked twelve-hour shifts, six days per week and often suffered from exhaustion. First Lieutenant Sharon Lane was the only female military nurse to be killed by enemy gunfire during the war, on 8 June 1969.[345]

A nurse treats a Vietnamese child, 1967

At the start of the Vietnam War, it was commonly thought that American women had no place in the military. Their traditional place had been in the domestic sphere, but with the war came opportunity for the expansion of gender roles. In Vietnam, women held a variety of jobs which included operating complex data processing equipment and serving as stenographers.[346] Although a small number of women were assigned to combat zones, they were never allowed directly in the field of battle. The women who served in the military were solely volunteers. They faced a plethora of challenges, one of which was the relatively small number of female soldiers. Living in a male-dominated environment created tensions between the sexes. While this high male to female ratio was often uncomfortable for women, many men reported that having women in the field with them boosted their morale.[347] Although this was not the women’s purpose, it was one positive result of their service. By 1973, approximately 7,500 women had served in Vietnam in the Southeast Asian theater.[348] In that same year, the military lifted the prohibition on women entering the armed forces.

American women serving in Vietnam were subject to societal stereotypes. Many Americans either considered females serving in Vietnam masculine for living under the army discipline, or judged them to be women of questionable moral character who enlisted for the sole purpose of seducing men.[349] To address this problem, the ANC released advertisements portraying women in the ANC as “proper, professional and well protected.” (26) This effort to highlight the positive aspects of a nursing career reflected the ideas of second-wave feminism that occurred during the 1960s–1970s in the United States. Although female military nurses lived in a heavily male environment, very few cases of sexual harassment were ever reported.[350]

Vietnamese women

Unlike the American women who went to Vietnam, North Vietnamese women were enlisted and fought in the combat zone as well as providing manual labor to keep the Ho Chi Minh trail open and cook for the soldiers. They also worked in the rice fields in North Vietnam and Viet Cong-held farming areas in South Vietnam’s Mekong Delta region to provide food for their families and the war effort. Women were enlisted in both the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and the Viet Cong guerrilla insurgent force in South Vietnam. Some women also served for the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong intelligence services.

In South Vietnam, many women voluntarily served in the ARVN‘s Women’s Armed Force Corps (WAFC) and various other Women’s corps in the military. Some, like in the WAFC, fought in combat with other soldiers. Others served as nurses and doctors in the battlefield and in military hospitals, or served in South Vietnam or America’s intelligence agencies. During Diệm‘s presidency, Madame Nhu was the commander of the WAFC.[351]

The war saw more than one million rural people migrate or flee the fighting in the South Vietnamese countryside to the cities, especially Saigon. Among the internal refugees were many young women who became the ubiquitous “bargirls” of wartime South Vietnam “hawking her wares – be that cigarettes, liquor, or herself” to American and allied soldiers.[352] American bases were ringed by bars and brothels.[353]

8,040 Vietnamese women came to the United States as war brides between 1964 and 1975.[354] Many mixed-blood Amerasian children were left behind when their American fathers returned to the United States after their tour of duty in South Vietnam. 26,000 of them were permitted to immigrate to the United States in the 1980s and 1990s.[355]

Black servicemen in Vietnam

A wounded African American soldier being carried away, 1968

The experience of African American military personnel during the Vietnam War has received significant attention. For example, the website “African-American Involvement in the Vietnam War” compiles examples of such coverage,[356] as does the print and broadcast work of journalist Wallace Terry.

The epigraph of Terry’s book Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans (1984), includes the following quote: “I have an intuitive feeling that the Negro serviceman have a better understanding than whites of what the war is about.” – General William C. Westmoreland, U.S. Army, Saigon, 1967. That book’s introduction includes observations about the impact of the war on the black community in general and on black servicemen specifically. Points he makes on the latter topic include: the higher proportion of combat casualties in Vietnam among African American servicemen than among American soldiers of other races, the shift toward and different attitudes of black military careerists versus black draftees, the discrimination encountered by black servicemen “on the battlefield in decorations, promotion and duty assignments” as well as their having to endure “the racial insults, cross-burnings and Confederate flags of their white comrades” – and the experiences faced by black soldiers stateside, during the war and after America’s withdrawal.[357] Upon the war’s completion, black casualties made up 12.5% of US combat deaths, approximately equal to percentage of draft-eligible black men, though still slightly higher than the 10% who served in the military.[358]

Weapons

Main article: Weapons of the Vietnam War

Marines complete construction of M101 howitzer positions at a mountain-top fire support base, 1968

The communist forces were principally armed with Chinese[359] and Soviet weaponry[360] though some guerrilla units were equipped with Western infantry weapons either captured from French stocks during the First Indochina war or from ARVN units or bought on the black market.[361] The ubiquitous Soviet AK-47 assault rifle was often regarded as the best rifle of the war, due to its ability to continue to function even in adverse, muddy conditions. Other weapons used by the Viet Cong included the World War II-era PPSh-41 submachine gun (both Soviet and Chinese versions), the SKS carbine, the RPD light machine gun, the DShK heavy machine gun and the RPG-2/B-40 grenade launcher.

While the Viet Cong had both amphibious tanks (such as the PT-76) and light tanks (such as the Type 62), they also used bicycles to transport munitions. The US’ heavily armored, 90 mm M48A3 Patton tank saw extensive action during the Vietnam War and over 600 were deployed with US Forces. They played an important role in infantry support.

The US service rifle was initially the M14 (though some units were still using the WWII-era M1 Garand for a lack of M14s). Found to be unsuitable for jungle warfare, the M14 was replaced by M16 which was more accurate and lighter than the AK-47. For a period, the gun suffered from a jamming flaw known as “failure to extract”, which means that a spent cartridge case remained lodged in the action after a round is fired.[362] According to a congressional report, the jamming was caused primarily by a change in gunpowder which was done without adequate testing and reflected a decision for which the safety of soldiers was a secondary consideration.[363] That issue was solved in early 1968 with the issuance of the M16A1 that featured a chrome plated chamber among several other features.[364] End-user satisfaction with the M16 was high except during this episode, but the M16 still has a reputation as a gun that jams easily.

The M60 machine gun GPMG (General Purpose Machine Gun) was the main machine gun of the US army at the time and many of them were put on helicopters, to provide suppressive fire when landing in hostile regions. The MAC-10 machine pistol was supplied to many special forces troops in the midpoint of the war. It also armed many CIA agents in the field.

UH-1D helicopters airlift members of a U.S. infantry regiment, 1966

Two aircraft which were prominent in the war were the AC-130 “Spectre” Gunship and the UH-1 “Huey” gunship. The AC-130 was a heavily armed ground-attack aircraft variant of the C-130 Hercules transport plane; it was used to provide close air support, air interdiction and force protection. The AC-130H “Spectre” was armed with two 20 mm M61 Vulcan cannons, one Bofors 40mm autocannon, and one 105 mm M102 howitzer. The Huey is a military helicopter powered by a single, turboshaft engine, with a two-bladed main rotor and tail rotor. Approximately 7,000 UH-1 aircraft saw service in Vietnam.

The Claymore M18A1, an anti-personnel mine, was widely used during the war. Unlike a conventional land mine, the Claymore is command-detonated and directional, meaning it is fired by remote-control and shoots a pattern of 700 one-eighth-inch steel balls into the kill zone like a shotgun.

The aircraft ordnance used during the war included precision-guided munition, cluster bombs, and napalm, a thickening/gelling agent generally mixed with petroleum or a similar fuel for use in an incendiary device, initially against buildings and later primarily as an anti-personnel weapon that sticks to skin and can burn down to the bone.[34]

Radio communications

The Vietnam War was the first conflict where U.S. forces had secure voice communication equipment available at the tactical level. The National Security Agency ran a crash program to provide U.S. forces with a family of security equipment code named NESTOR, fielding 17,000 units initially. Eventually 30,000 units were produced. However limitations of the units, including poor voice quality, reduced range, annoying time delays and logistical support issues led to only one unit in ten being used.[365]:Vol II, p.43 While many in the U.S. military believed that the Viet Cong and NVA would not be able to exploit insecure communications, interrogation of captured communication intelligence units showed they were able to understand the jargon and codes used in realtime and were often able to warn their side of impending U.S. actions.[365]:Vol II, pp. 4, 10

Extent of U.S. bombing

Bombs being dropped by the B-52 Stratofortress long-range strategic bomber

See also: Operation Rolling Thunder, Operation Menu, Operation Freedom Deal, and CIA activities in Laos

The U.S. dropped over 7 million tons of bombs on Indochina during the war—more than triple the 2.1 million tons of bombs the U.S. dropped on Europe and Asia during all of World War II, and more than ten times the amount dropped by the U.S. during the Korean War. 500 thousand tons were dropped on Cambodia, 1 million tons were dropped on North Vietnam, and 4 million tons were dropped on South Vietnam. On a per capita basis, the 2 million tons dropped on Laos make it the most heavily bombed country in history; The New York Times noted this was “nearly a ton for every person in Laos.”[366] In Laos alone, some 80 million bombs failed to explode and remain scattered throughout the country, rendering vast swathes of land impossible to cultivate and killing or maiming 50 Laotians every year.[367] Former U.S. Air Force official Earl Tilford has recounted “repeated bombing runs of a lake in central Cambodia. The B-52s literally dropped their payloads in the lake”: The Air Force ran many missions of this kind for the purpose of securing additional funding during budget negotiations, so the amount of tonnage expended does not directly correlate with the resulting damage.[368]

Aftermath

Events in Southeast Asia

Further information: Mayaguez incident and Indochina refugee crisis

Vietnamese refugees fleeing Vietnam, 1984

On 2 July 1976, North and South Vietnam were merged to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.[369] Despite speculation that the victorious North Vietnamese would, in President Nixon’s words, “massacre the civilians there [South Vietnam] by the millions,” there is a widespread consensus that no mass executions in fact took place.[370] However, in the years following the end of the war, up to 300,000 South Vietnamese were sent to reeducation camps, where many endured torture, starvation, and disease while being forced to perform hard labor.[371][372] In addition, 200,000 to 400,000 Vietnamese boat people died at sea, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.[373]

Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, fell to the communist Khmer Rouge on 17 April 1975. Under the leadership of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge would eventually kill 1–3 million Cambodians out of a population of around 8 million, in one of the bloodiest genocides in history.[51][374] An estimated 1,386,734 victims of execution have been counted in mass graves, while demographic analysis suggests that the policies of the regime caused between 1.7 and 2.5 million excess deaths altogether (including disease and starvation).[374] After repeated border clashes in 1978, Vietnam invaded Democratic Kampuchea (Cambodia) and ousted the Khmer Rouge, who were being supported by China, in the Cambodian–Vietnamese War. In response, China invaded Vietnam in 1979. The two countries fought a brief border war, known as the Sino-Vietnamese War. From 1978 to 1979, some 450,000 ethnic Chinese left Vietnam by boat as refugees or were expelled. The devastating impact of Khmer Rouge rule contributed to a 1979 famine in Cambodia, during which an additional 300,000 Cambodians perished.[51]

The Pathet Lao overthrew the monarchy of Laos in December 1975, establishing the Lao People’s Democratic Republic under the leadership of a member of the royal family, Souphanouvong. The change in regime was “quite peaceful, a sort of Asiatic ‘velvet revolution‘”—although 30,000 former officials were sent to reeducation camps, often enduring harsh conditions for several years. The conflict between Hmong rebels and the Pathet Lao continued in isolated pockets.[375]

Over 3 million people left Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia in the Indochina refugee crisis. Most Asian countries were unwilling to accept these refugees, many of whom fled by boat and were known as boat people.[376] Between 1975 and 1998, an estimated 1.2 million refugees from Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries resettled in the United States, while Canada, Australia, and France resettled over 500,000. China accepted 250,000 people.[377] Of all the countries of Indochina, Laos experienced the largest refugee flight in proportional terms, as 300,000 people out of a total population of 3 million crossed the border into Thailand. Included among their ranks were “about 90 percent” of Laos’s “intellectuals, technicians, and officials.”[378] In 1988, Vietnam suffered a famine that afflicted millions.[379] Vietnam retained its pro-Soviet orientation after the war and remained an important ally of the USSR in the region.[380]

Agent Orange and similar chemical substances used by the U.S. have also caused a considerable number of deaths and injuries over the years, including the US Air Force crew that handled them. On 9 August 2012, the United States and Vietnam began a cooperative cleaning up of the toxic chemical on part of Danang International Airport, marking the first time Washington has been involved in cleaning up Agent Orange in Vietnam.[381]

Effect on the United States

United States expenditures in South Vietnam (SVN) (1953-1974) Direct costs only. Some estimates are higher.[382]
U.S. military costs U.S. military aid to SVN U.S. economic aid to SVN Total Total (2015 dollars)
$111 billion $16.138 billion $7.315 billion $134.53 billion $1.020 trillion

Vietnam War protests at the Pentagon, October 1967

In the post-war era, Americans struggled to absorb the lessons of the military intervention.[383] As General Maxwell Taylor, one of the principal architects of the war, noted, “First, we didn’t know ourselves. We thought that we were going into another Korean War, but this was a different country. Secondly, we didn’t know our South Vietnamese allies… And we knew less about North Vietnam. Who was Ho Chi Minh? Nobody really knew. So, until we know the enemy and know our allies and know ourselves, we’d better keep out of this kind of dirty business. It’s very dangerous.”[384][385] President Ronald Reagan coined the term “Vietnam Syndrome” to describe the reluctance of the American public and politicians to support further international interventions after Vietnam.

Some have suggested that “the responsibility for the ultimate failure of this policy [America’s withdrawal from Vietnam] lies not with the men who fought, but with those in Congress…”[386] Alternatively, the official history of the United States Army noted that “tactics have often seemed to exist apart from larger issues, strategies, and objectives. Yet in Vietnam the Army experienced tactical success and strategic failure… The…Vietnam War…legacy may be the lesson that unique historical, political, cultural, and social factors always impinge on the military…Success rests not only on military progress but on correctly analyzing the nature of the particular conflict, understanding the enemy’s strategy, and assessing the strengths and weaknesses of allies. A new humility and a new sophistication may form the best parts of a complex heritage left to the Army by the long, bitter war in Vietnam.”[170]

A young Marine private waits on the beach during the Marine landing, Da Nang, 3 August 1965

U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wrote in a secret memo to President Gerald Ford that “in terms of military tactics, we cannot help draw the conclusion that our armed forces are not suited to this kind of war. Even the Special Forces who had been designed for it could not prevail.”[387] Even Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara concluded that “the achievement of a military victory by U.S. forces in Vietnam was indeed a dangerous illusion.”[388]

Doubts surfaced as to the effectiveness of large-scale, sustained bombing. As Army Chief of Staff Harold Keith Johnson noted, “if anything came out of Vietnam, it was that air power couldn’t do the job.”[389] Even General William Westmoreland admitted that the bombing had been ineffective. As he remarked, “I still doubt that the North Vietnamese would have relented.”[389]

The inability to bring Hanoi to the bargaining table by bombing also illustrated another U.S. miscalculation. The North’s leadership was composed of hardened communists who had been fighting for thirty years. They had defeated the French, and their tenacity as both nationalists and communists was formidable. Ho Chi Minh is quoted as saying, “You can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours…But even at these odds you will lose and I will win.”[390]

Marine gets his wounds treated during operations in Huế City, 1968

The Vietnam War called into question the U.S. Army doctrine. Marine Corps General Victor H. Krulak heavily criticised Westmoreland’s attrition strategy, calling it “wasteful of American lives… with small likelihood of a successful outcome.”[389] In addition, doubts surfaced about the ability of the military to train foreign forces.

Between 1953 and 1975, the United States spent $168 billion on the war ($1,020 billion in FY2015dollars).[391] This resulted in a large federal budget deficit.

More than 3 million Americans served in the Vietnam War, some 1.5 million of whom actually saw combat in Vietnam.[392] James E. Westheider wrote that “At the height of American involvement in 1968, for example, there were 543,000 American military personnel in Vietnam, but only 80,000 were considered combat troops.”[393] Conscription in the United States had been controlled by the president since World War II, but ended in 1973.

By war’s end, 58,220 American soldiers had been killed,[A 2] more than 150,000 had been wounded, and at least 21,000 had been permanently disabled.[394] The average age of the U.S. troops killed in Vietnam was 23.11 years.[395] According to Dale Kueter, “Of those killed in combat, 86.3 percent were white, 12.5 percent were black and the remainder from other races.”[396] Approximately 830,000 Vietnam veterans suffered some degree of posttraumatic stress disorder.[394] An estimated 125,000 Americans left for Canada to avoid the Vietnam draft,[397] and approximately 50,000 American servicemen deserted.[398] In 1977, United States president Jimmy Carter granted a full and unconditional pardon to all Vietnam-era draft dodgers.[399] The Vietnam War POW/MIA issue, concerning the fate of U.S. service personnel listed as missing in action, persisted for many years after the war’s conclusion. The costs of the war loom large in American popular consciousness; a 1990 poll showed that the public incorrectly believed that more Americans lost their lives in Vietnam than in World War II.[400]

As of 2013, the U.S. government is paying Vietnam veterans and their families or survivors more than 22 billion dollars a year in war-related claims.[401][402]

Impact on the U.S. military

As the Vietnam War continued inconclusively and became more unpopular with the American public, morale declined and disciplinary problems grew among American enlisted men and junior, non-career officers. Drug use, racial tensions, and the growing incidence of fragging—attempting to kill unpopular officers and non-commissioned officers with grenades or other weapons—created severe problems for the U.S. military and impacted its capability of undertaking combat operations. By 1971, a U.S. Army colonel writing in the Armed Forces Journal declared: “By every conceivable indicator, our army that now remains in Vietnam is in a state approaching collapse, with individual units avoiding or having refused combat, murdering their officers and non commissioned officers, drug-ridden, and dispirited where not near mutinous….The morale, discipline, and battleworthiness of the U.S. Armed Forces are, with a few salient exceptions, lower and worse than at any time in this century and possibly in the history of the United States.”[403] Between 1969 and 1971 the US Army recorded more than 700 attacks by troops on their own officers. Eighty-three officers were killed and almost 650 were injured.[404]

Ron Milam has questioned the severity of the “breakdown” of the U.S. armed forces, especially among combat troops, as reflecting the opinions of “angry colonels” who deplored the erosion of traditional military values during the Vietnam War.[405] Although acknowledging serious problems, he questions the alleged “near mutinous” conduct of junior officers and enlisted men in combat. Investigating one combat refusal incident, a journalist declared, “A certain sense of independence, a reluctance to behave according to the military’s insistence on obedience, like pawns or puppets…The grunts [infantrymen] were determined to survive…they insisted of having something to say about the making of decisions that determined whether they might live or die.”[406]

The morale and discipline problems and resistance to conscription (the draft) were important factors leading to the creation of an all-volunteer military force by the United States and the termination of conscription. The last conscript was inducted into the army in 1973.[407][408] The all-volunteer military moderated some of the coercive methods of discipline previously used to maintain order in military ranks.[409]

Effects of U.S. chemical defoliation

U.S. helicopter spraying chemical defoliants in the Mekong Delta, South Vietnam

One of the most controversial aspects of the U.S. military effort in Southeast Asia was the widespread use of chemical defoliants between 1961 and 1971. They were used to defoliate large parts of the countryside to prevent the Viet Cong from being able to hide their weapons and encampments under the foliage. These chemicals continue to change the landscape, cause diseases and birth defects, and poison the food chain.[410][411]

Early in the American military effort, it was decided that since the enemy were hiding their activities under triple-canopy jungle, a useful first step might be to defoliate certain areas. This was especially true of growth surrounding bases (both large and small) in what became known as Operation Ranch Hand. Corporations like Dow Chemical Company and Monsanto were given the task of developing herbicides for this purpose. American officials also pointed out that the British had previously used 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D (virtually identical to America’s use in Vietnam) on a large scale throughout the Malayan Emergency in the 1950s in order to destroy bushes, crops, and trees in effort to deny communist insurgents the concealment they needed to ambush passing convoys.[412] Indeed, Secretary of State Dean Rusk told President John F. Kennedy on 24 November 1961, that “[t]he use of defoliant does not violate any rule of international law concerning the conduct of chemical warfare and is an accepted tactic of war. Precedent has been established by the British during the emergency in Malaya in their use of aircraft for destroying crops by chemical spraying.”[413]

The defoliants, which were distributed in drums marked with color-coded bands, included the “Rainbow Herbicides“—Agent Pink, Agent Green, Agent Purple, Agent Blue, Agent White, and, most famously, Agent Orange, which included dioxin as a by-product of its manufacture. About 11-12 million gallons (41.6-45.4 million L) of Agent Orange were sprayed over southern Vietnam between 1961 and 1971.[414] A prime area of Ranch Hand operations was in the Mekong Delta, where the U.S. Navy patrol boats were vulnerable to attack from the undergrowth at the water’s edge.

In 1961 and 1962, the Kennedy administration authorized the use of chemicals to destroy rice crops. Between 1961 and 1967, the U.S. Air Force sprayed 20 million U.S. gallons (75,700,000 L) of concentrated herbicides over 6 million acres (24,000 km2) of crops and trees, affecting an estimated 13% of South Vietnam’s land. In 1965, 42% of all herbicide was sprayed over food crops. Another purpose of herbicide use was to drive civilian populations into RVN-controlled areas.[415]

Vietnamese victims affected by Agent Orange attempted a class action lawsuit against Dow Chemical and other US chemical manufacturers, but District Court Judge Jack B. Weinstein dismissed their case.[416] They appealed, but the dismissal was cemented in February 2008 by the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.[417] As of 2006, the Vietnamese government estimates that there are over 4,000,000 victims of dioxin poisoning in Vietnam, although the United States government denies any conclusive scientific links between Agent Orange and the Vietnamese victims of dioxin poisoning. In some areas of southern Vietnam, dioxin levels remain at over 100 times the accepted international standard.[418]

The U.S. Veterans Administration has listed prostate cancer, respiratory cancers, multiple myeloma, Diabetes mellitus type 2, B-cell lymphomas, soft-tissue sarcoma, chloracne, porphyria cutanea tarda, peripheral neuropathy, and spina bifida in children of veterans exposed to Agent Orange.[419]

Casualties

See also: Vietnam War casualties
Military deaths in Vietnam War (1955–1975)
Year U.S.[420] South
Vietnam
1956–1959 4 n.a.
1960 5 2,223
1961 16 4,004
1962 53 4,457
1963 122 5,665
1964 216 7,457
1965 1,928 11,242
1966 6,350 11,953
1967 11,363 12,716
1968 16,899 27,915
1969 11,780 21,833
1970 6,173 23,346
1971 2,414 22,738
1972 759 39,587
1973 68 27,901
1974 1 31,219
1975 62 n.a.
After 1975 7 n.a.
Total 58,220 >254,256[421]

Estimates of the number of casualties vary, with one source suggesting up to 3.8 million violent war deaths in Vietnam for the period 1955 to 2002.[422] Between 195,000 and 430,000 South Vietnamese civilians died in the war.[30][31] Extrapolating from a 1969 US intelligence report, Guenter Lewy estimated 65,000 North Vietnamese civilians died in the war.[30] Estimates of civilian deaths caused by American bombing of North Vietnam in Operation Rolling Thunder range from 52,000[423] to 182,000.[424] The military forces of South Vietnam suffered an estimated 254,256 killed between 1960 and 1974 and additional deaths from 1954 to 1959 and in 1975.[425]The official US Department of Defense figure was 950,765 communist forces killed in Vietnam from 1965 to 1974. Defense Department officials believed that these body count figures need to be deflated by 30 percent. In addition, Guenter Lewy assumes that one-third of the reported “enemy” killed may have been civilians, concluding that the actual number of deaths of communist military forces was probably closer to 444,000.[30] A detailed demographic study calculated 791,000–1,141,000 war-related deaths for all of Vietnam.[29] Between 240,000[52][53] and 300,000[51] Cambodians died during the war. 20,000-62,000 Laotians also died,[50] and 58,300 U.S. military personnel were killed,[426] of which 1,596 are still listed as missing as of 2015.[427]

Unexploded ordnance, mostly from U.S. bombing, continue to detonate and kill people today. The Vietnamese government claims that ordnance has killed some 42,000 people since the war officially ended.[428][429] According to the government of Laos, unexploded ordnance has killed or injured over 20,000 Laotians since the end of the war.[367]

In popular culture

See also: Vietnam War in film, Vietnam War in games, and War in popular culture

The Vietnam War has been featured extensively in television, film, video games, and literature in the participant countries. In American popular culture, the “Crazy Vietnam Veteran”, who was suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder, became a common stock character after the war.

One of the first major films based on the Vietnam War was John Wayne‘s pro-war film, The Green Berets (1968). Further cinematic representations were released during the 1970s and 1980s, including Michael Cimino‘s The Deer Hunter (1978), Francis Ford Coppola‘s Apocalypse Now (1979), Oliver Stone‘s Platoon (1986) – based on his service in the U.S. military during the Vietnam War, Stanley Kubrick‘s Full Metal Jacket (1987), Hamburger Hill (1987), and Casualties of War (1989). Later films would include We Were Soldiers (2002) and Rescue Dawn (2007).[34]

The war also influenced a generation of musicians and songwriters in Vietnam and the United States, both anti-war and pro/anti-communist. The band Country Joe and the Fish recorded “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag” / The “Fish” Cheer in 1965, and it became one of the most influential anti-Vietnam protest anthems.[34] Many songwriters and musicians supported the anti-war movement, including Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Peggy Seeger, Ewan MacColl, Barbara Dane, The Critics Group, Phil Ochs, John Lennon, Nina Simone, Neil Young, Tom Paxton, Jimmy Cliff and Arlo Guthrie.

See also

General:

Annotations

  1. ^ Jump up to:a b Due to the early presence of American troops in Vietnam the start date of the Vietnam War is a matter of debate. In 1998, after a high level review by the Department of Defense (DoD) and through the efforts of Richard B. Fitzgibbon’s family the start date of the Vietnam War according to the US government was officially changed to 1 November 1955.[16] U.S. government reports currently cite 1 November 1955 as the commencement date of the “Vietnam Conflict”, because this date marked when the U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) in Indochina (deployed to Southeast Asia under President Truman) was reorganized into country-specific units and MAAG Vietnam was established.[17] Other start dates include when Hanoi authorized Viet Cong forces in South Vietnam to begin a low-level insurgency in December 1956,[18] whereas some view 26 September 1959 when the first battle occurred between the Viet Cong and the South Vietnamese army, as the start date.[19]
  2. ^ Jump up to:a b c The figures of 58,220 and 303,644 for U.S. deaths and wounded come from the Department of Defense Statistical Information Analysis Division (SIAD), Defense Manpower Data Center, as well as from a Department of Veterans fact sheet dated May 2010[36] the CRS (Congressional Research Service) Report for Congress, American War and Military Operations Casualties: Lists and Statistics, dated 26 February 2010,[37] and the book Crucible Vietnam: Memoir of an Infantry Lieutenant.[38]Some other sources give different figures (e.g. the 2005/2006 documentary Heart of Darkness: The Vietnam War Chronicles 1945–1975 cited elsewhere in this article gives a figure of 58,159 U.S. deaths,[32] and the 2007 book Vietnam Sons gives a figure of 58,226)[39]
  3. Jump up^ The Military Assistance Advisory Group, Indochina (with an authorized strength of 128 men) was set up in September 1950 with a mission to oversee the use and distribution of US military equipment by the French and their allies.
  4. Jump up^ The Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng had previously formed in Nanjing, China, at some point between August 1935 and early 1936 when the non-communist Vietnamese Nationalist Party (Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng, or Viet Quoc), led by Nguyễn Thái Học, and some members of the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) and a number of other Vietnamese nationalist parties formed an anti-imperialist united front. This organisation soon lapsed into inactivity, only to be revived by the ICP and Ho Chi Minh in 1941.[70]
  5. Jump up^ On 8 March 1965 the first American combat troops, the Third Marine Regiment, Third Marine Division, began landing in Vietnam to protect the Da Nang airport.[263][264]

Notes

  1. ^ Jump up to:a b c d Moïse 1996, pp. 3–4.
  2. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e f “ALLIES OF THE REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM”. Retrieved 24 September 2011.
  3. Jump up^ “Chapter Three: 1957-1969 Early Relations between Malaysia and Vietnam” (PDF). University of Malaya Student Repository. p. 72. Retrieved 17 October 2015.
  4. Jump up^ “Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-Haj (Profiles of Malaysia’s Foreign Ministers)” (PDF). Institute of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations (IDFR), Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Malaysia). 2008. p. 31. ISBN 978-983-2220-26-8. Archived (PDF) from the original on 16 October 2015. Retrieved 17 October 2015. The Tunku had been personally responsible for Malaya’s partisan support of the South Vietnamese regime in its fight against the Vietcong and, in reply to a Parliamentary question on 6 February 1962, he had listed all the used weapons and equipment of the Royal Malaya Police given to Saigon. These included a total of 45,707 single-barrel shotguns, 611 armoured cars and smaller numbers of carbines and pistols. Writing in 1975, he revealed that “we had clandestinely been giving ‘aid’ to Vietnam since early 1958. Published American archival sources now reveal that the actual Malaysian contributions to the war effort in Vietnam included the following: “over 5,000 Vietnamese officers trained in Malaysia; training of 150 U.S. soldiers in handling Tracker Dogs; a rather impressive list of military equipment and weapons given to Viet-Nam after the end of the Malaysian insurgency (for example, 641 armored personnel carriers, 56,000 shotguns); and a creditable amount of civil assistance (transportation equipment, cholera vaccine, and flood relief)”. It is undeniable that the Government’s policy of supporting the South Vietnamese regime with arms, equipment and training was regarded by some quarters, especially the Opposition parties, as a form of interfering in the internal affairs of that country and the Tunku’s valiant efforts to defend it were not convincing enough, from a purely foreign policy standpoint.
  5. Jump up^ The Cuban Military Under Castro, 1989. Page 76
  6. Jump up^ Cuba in the World, 1979. Page 66
  7. Jump up^ “Cesky a slovensky svet”. Svet.czsk.net. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
  8. Jump up^ “Bilaterální vztahy České republiky a Vietnamské socialistické republiky | Mezinárodní vztahy | e-Polis – Internetový politologický časopis”. E-polis.cz. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
  9. Jump up^ “Foreign Affairs in the 1960s and 1970s”. Library of Congress. 1992. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Bulgaria gave official military support to many national liberation causes, most notably in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, (North Vietnam)…
  10. Jump up^ “Project MUSE – Sailing in the Shadow of the Vietnam War: The GDR Government and the “Vietnam Bonus” of the Early 1970s” (PDF).
  11. Jump up^ Crump 2015, p. 183
  12. Jump up^ http://www.historycy.org/index.php?showtopic=36539&st=15Polish military advisers in North Vietnam(in Polish)
  13. ^ Jump up to:a b Radvanyi, Janos (1980). “Vietnam War Diplomacy: Reflections of a Former Iron Curtain Official” (PDF). Paramaters: Journal of the US Army War College. Carlise Barracks, Pennsylvania. 10 (No. 3): 8–15.
  14. Jump up^ “Why did Sweden support the Viet Cong?”. HistoryNet. July 25, 2013. Retrieved July 20, 2016.
  15. Jump up^ “Sweden announces support to Viet Cong”. HISTORY.com. Retrieved July 20, 2016. In Sweden, Foreign Minister Torsten Nilsson reveals that Sweden has been providing assistance to the Viet Cong, including some $550,000 worth of medical supplies. Similar Swedish aid was to go to Cambodian and Laotian civilians affected by the Indochinese fighting. This support was primarily humanitarian in nature and included no military aid.
  16. Jump up^ DoD 1998
  17. Jump up^ Lawrence 2009, p. 20.
  18. ^ Jump up to:a b Olson & Roberts 1991, p. 67.[citation not found]
  19. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e Origins of the Insurgency in South Vietnam, 1954–1960, The Pentagon Papers (Gravel Edition), Volume 1, Chapter 5, (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971), Section 3, pp. 314–346; International Relations Department, Mount Holyoke College.
  20. Jump up^ Le Gro, p. 28.
  21. Jump up^ “Vietnam War : US Troop Strength”. Historycentral.com. Retrieved 17 October 2009.
  22. Jump up^ “Facts about the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Collection”. nps.gov. (citing The first American ground combat troops landed in South Vietnam during March 1965, specifically the U.S. Third Marine Regiment, Third Marine Division, deployed to Vietnam from Okinawa to defend the Da Nang, Vietnam, airfield. During the height of U.S. military involvement, 31 December 1968, the breakdown of allied forces were as follows: 536,100 U.S. military personnel, with 30,610 U.S. military having been killed to date; 65,000 Free World Forces personnel; 820,000 South Vietnam Armed Forces (SVNAF) with 88,343 having been killed to date. At the war’s end, there were approximately 2,200 U.S. missing in action (MIA) and prisoners of war (POW). Source: Harry G. Summers Jr. Vietnam War Almanac, Facts on File Publishing, 1985.)
  23. ^ Jump up to:a b The A to Z of the Vietnam War. The Scarecrow Press. 2005. ISBN 9781461719038.
  24. Jump up^ Vietnam War After Action Reports, BACM Research, 2009, page 430
  25. Jump up^ “China admits 320,000 troops fought in Vietnam”. Toledo Blade. Reuters. 16 May 1989. Retrieved 24 December 2013.
  26. Jump up^ Roy, Denny (1998). China’s Foreign Relations. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 27. ISBN 978-0847690138.
  27. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e China and Vietnam.
  28. Jump up^ Pham Thi Thu Thuy (1 August 2013). “The colorful history of North Korea-Vietnam relations”. NK News. Retrieved 3 October 2016.
  29. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e Charles Hirschman et al., “Vietnamese Casualties During the American War: A New Estimate,” Population and Development Review, December 1995.
  30. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e f g Lewy 1978, pp. 450–3.
  31. ^ Jump up to:a b Thayer 1985, chap. 12.
  32. ^ Jump up to:a b Aaron Ulrich (editor); Edward FeuerHerd (producer and director) (2005 & 2006). Heart of Darkness: The Vietnam War Chronicles 1945–1975 (Box set, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC, Dolby, Vision Software) (Documentary). Koch Vision. Event occurs at 321 minutes. ISBN 1-4172-2920-9. Check date values in: |date= (help)
  33. Jump up^ Rummel, R.J (1997), “Table 6.1A. Vietnam Democide : Estimates, Sources, and Calculations,” (GIF), Freedom, Democracy, Peace; Power, Democide, and War, University of Hawaii System
  34. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Tucker, Spencer E. The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History ABC-CLIO. ISBN 1-85109-961-1
  35. Jump up^ Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (2 May 2016). “Memorial Day ceremony at The Wall to commemorate eight additions to The Wall and honor all members of America’s Armed Forces who have made the ultimate sacrifice” (Press release). PR Newswire.
  36. Jump up^ America’s Wars (PDF) (Report). Department of Veterans Affairs. May 2010.
  37. Jump up^ Anne Leland; Mari–Jana “M-J” Oboroceanu (26 February 2010). American War and Military Operations: Casualties: Lists and Statistics (PDF) (Report). Congressional Research Service.
  38. Jump up^ Lawrence 2009, pp. 65, 107, 154, 217
  39. Jump up^ Kueter, Dale. Vietnam Sons: For Some, the War Never Ended. AuthorHouse (21 March 2007). ISBN 978-1425969318
  40. Jump up^ “Australian casualties in the Vietnam War, 1962–72 | Australian War Memorial”. Awm.gov.au. Retrieved 29 June 2013.
  41. Jump up^ The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History By Spencer C. Tucker “https://books.google.com/?id=qh5lffww-KsC“
  42. Jump up^ “Overview of the war in Vietnam | VietnamWar.govt.nz, New Zealand and the Vietnam War”. Vietnamwar.govt.nz. 16 July 1965. Retrieved 29 June 2013.
  43. Jump up^ “Chapter III: The Philippines”. History.army.mil. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
  44. Jump up^ “Asian Allies in Vietnam” (PDF). Embassy of South Vietnam. March 1970. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
  45. Jump up^ Associated Press, 3 April 1995, “Vietnam Says 1.1 Million Died Fighting For North.”
  46. Jump up^ Soames, John. A History of the World, Routledge, 2005.
  47. Jump up^ “North Korea fought in Vietnam War”. BBC News. 31 March 2000. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
  48. Jump up^ Shenon, Philip (23 April 1995). “20 Years After Victory, Vietnamese Communists Ponder How to Celebrate”. The New York Times. Retrieved 24 February 2011. The Vietnamese government officially claimed a rough estimate of 2 million civilian deaths, but it did not divide these deaths between those of North and South Vietnam.
  49. Jump up^ “fifty years of violent war deaths: data analysis from the world health survey program: BMJ”. 23 April 2008. Retrieved 5 January 2013. From 1955 to 2002, data from the surveys indicated an estimated 5.4 million violent war deaths … 3.8 million in Vietnam
  50. ^ Jump up to:a b c d Obermeyer, Murray & Gakidou 2008.
  51. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e Heuveline, Patrick (2001). “The Demographic Analysis of Mortality in Cambodia”. Forced Migration and Mortality. National Academy Press. pp. 102–104, 120, 124. ISBN 9780309073349. As best as can now be estimated, over two million Cambodians died during the 1970s because of the political events of the decade, the vast majority of them during the mere four years of the ‘Khmer Rouge’ regime. … Subsequent reevaluations of the demographic data situated the death toll for the [civil war] in the order of 300,000 or less.
  52. ^ Jump up to:a b c Banister, Judith; Johnson, E. Paige (1993). “After the Nightmare: The Population of Cambodia”. Genocide and Democracy in Cambodia: The Khmer Rouge, the United Nations and the International Community. Yale University Southeast Asia Studies. p. 87. ISBN 9780938692492. An estimated 275,000 excess deaths. We have modeled the highest mortality we can justify for the early 1970s.
  53. ^ Jump up to:a b c Sliwinski estimates 240,000 wartime deaths, of which 40,000 were caused by U.S. bombing. (Sliwinski 1995, p. 48). He characterizes other estimates ranging from 600,000–700,000 as “the most extreme evaluations” (p. 42).
  54. Jump up^ Factasy. “The Vietnam War or Second Indochina War”. PRLog. Retrieved 29 June 2013.
  55. Jump up^ “Vietnam War”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 5 March 2008. Meanwhile, the United States, its military demoralized and its civilian electorate deeply divided, began a process of coming to terms with defeat in its longest and most controversial war
  56. Jump up^ Lind, Michael (1999). “Vietnam, The Necessary War: A Reinterpretation of America’s Most Disastrous Military Conflict”. New York Times. Retrieved 17 January 2014.
  57. Jump up^ Digital History; Steven Mintz. “The Vietnam War”. Digitalhistory.uh.edu. Archived from the original on 30 October 2011. Retrieved 31 October 2011.
  58. Jump up^ Major General George S. Eckhardt, Vietnam Studies Command and Control 1950–1969, Department of the Army, Washington, D.C. (1991), p. 6
  59. Jump up^ Vietnam War Statistics and Facts 1, 25th Aviation Battalion website.
  60. Jump up^ Thee, Marek (1976). “The Indochina Wars: Great Power Involvement – Escalation and Disengagement”. Journal of Peace Research. Sage Publications. 13 (2): 117. ISSN 1460-3578. JSTOR 423343. (subscription required (help)).
  61. Jump up^ Kolko 1985, pp. 457, 461ff.
  62. Jump up^ Moore, Harold. G and Joseph L. Galloway We Are Soldiers Still: A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam (p. 57).
  63. Jump up^ “Asian-Nation: Asian American History, Demographics, & Issues:: The American / Viet Nam War”. Retrieved 18 August 2008. The Viet Nam War is also called ‘The American War’ by the Vietnamese
  64. Jump up^ Tucker, Spencer C. (2011) The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History ABC-CLIO. ISBN 1-85109-961-1, p. xli
  65. Jump up^ Ooi, Keat Gin. Southeast Asia: a historical encyclopedia, from Angkor Wat to East Timor. ABC-CLIO; 2004. ISBN 978-1-57607-770-2. p. 520.
  66. Jump up^ Rai, Lajpat. Social Science. FK Publications; ISBN 978-81-89611-12-5. p. 22.
  67. Jump up^ Dommen, Arthur J. The Indochinese experience of the French and the Americans: nationalism and communism in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Indiana University Press; 2001. ISBN 978-0-253-33854-9. p. 4–19.
  68. Jump up^ Neale 2001, p. 3.
  69. ^ Jump up to:a b Neale 2001, p. 17.
  70. Jump up^ Sophie Quinn-Judge (2003). Ho Chi Minh: the missing years, 1919–1941. C. Hurst. pp. 212–213. ISBN 978-1-85065-658-6.
  71. Jump up^ Tucker 1999, p. 42
  72. Jump up^ Brocheux 2007, p. 198
  73. Jump up^ Neale 2001, p. 18.
  74. Jump up^ Koh, David (21 August 2008). “Vietnam needs to remember famine of 1945”. The Straits Times. Singapore.
  75. Jump up^ Neale 2001, pp. 18–9.
  76. ^ Jump up to:a b Kolko 1985, p. 36.
  77. Jump up^ Neale 2001, p. 19.
  78. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e f g Neale 2001, p. 20.
  79. Jump up^ Interview with Carleton Swift, 1981, http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/vietnam-9dc948-interview-with-carleton-swift
  80. Jump up^ Stuart-Fox 1997, p. [page needed].
  81. Jump up^ Interview with Archimedes L. A. Patti, 1981, http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/vietnam-bf3262-interview-with-archimedes-l-a-patti-1981
  82. Jump up^ Kolko 1985, p. 37.
  83. Jump up^ Dommen, Arthur J. (2001), The Indochinese Experience of the French and the Americans, Indiana University Press, pg. 120. “According to one estimate, 15,000 nationalists were massacred” in the summer of 1946 (pg. 154). In addition, “100,000 to 150,000 [civilians] had been assassinated by the Viet Minh” by the end of the First Indochina war (pg. 252).
  84. Jump up^ “ベトナム独立戦争参加日本人の事跡に基づく日越のあり方に関する研究” (PDF). 井川 一久. Tokyo foundation. October 2005. Retrieved 10 June 2010.
  85. Jump up^ “日越関係発展の方途を探る研究 ヴェトナム独立戦争参加日本人―その実態と日越両国にとっての歴史的意味―” (PDF). 井川 一久. Tokyo foundation. May 2006. Retrieved 10 June 2010.
  86. Jump up^ Willbanks 2009, p. 8
  87. ^ Jump up to:a b Neale 2001, p. 24.
  88. Jump up^ Neale 2001, pp. 23–4.
  89. Jump up^ Willbanks 2009, p. 9
  90. Jump up^ “Franco-Vietnam Agreement of March 6th, 1946”. Vietnamgear.com. 6 March 1946. Retrieved 29 April 2011.
  91. Jump up^ “Pentagon Papers, Gravel Edition, Chapter !, Section 2”. Mtholyoke.edu. Retrieved 29 April 2011.
  92. Jump up^ Peter Dennis (1987). Troubled days of peace: Mountbatten and South East Asia command, 1945–46. Manchester University Press ND. p. 179. ISBN 978-0-7190-2205-0.
  93. ^ Jump up to:a b Neale 2001, p. 25.
  94. ^ Jump up to:a b c McNamara 1999, pp. 377–9.
  95. Jump up^ “The Vietnam War Seeds of Conflict 1945 – 1960”. The History Place. Retrieved 13 May 2013.
  96. Jump up^ Pentagon Papers, Gravel, ed, Chapter 2, ‘U.S. Involvement in the Franco-Viet Minh War’, p. 54.
  97. ^ Jump up to:a b Ang, Cheng Guan, The Vietnam War from the Other Side, p. 14. Routledge (2002).
  98. ^ Jump up to:a b “The History Place – Vietnam War 1945–1960”. Retrieved 11 June 2008.
  99. Jump up^ Herring 2001, p. 18.
  100. Jump up^ Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, p. 471.
  101. ^ Jump up to:a b Vietnam The Ten Thousand Day War, Thames 1981, Michael Maclear, p. 57.
  102. Jump up^ Vietnam at War: The History: 1946–1975, ISBN 978-0-19-506792-7, p. 263.
  103. Jump up^ Dien Bien Phu, Air Force Magazine 87:8, August 2004.
  104. ^ Jump up to:a b Tucker 1999, p. 76
  105. Jump up^ The U.S. Navy: a history, Naval Institute Press, 1997, Nathan Miller, ISBN 978-1-55750-595-8, pp. 67–68.
  106. Jump up^ The Pentagon Papers. Gravel, ed. vol. 1, pp. 391–404.
  107. Jump up^ Press release by the Embassy of the Republic of Vietnam, quoted from the Washington, D.C. press and Information Service, vol I. no. 18 (22 July 1955) and no. 20 (18 August 1955), in Chapter 19 of Gettleman, Franklin and Young, Vietnam and America: A Documented History, pp. 103–105.
  108. Jump up^ Jacobs, pp. 45–55.
  109. Jump up^ Fall 1967, p. [page needed].
  110. Jump up^ Vietnam Divided by B.S.N. Murti, Asian Publishing House, 1964.
  111. Jump up^ Turner 1975, p. 102.
  112. Jump up^ Karnow 1997, p. 238.
  113. Jump up^ Kolko 1985, p. 98.
  114. Jump up^ 1 Pentagon Papers (The Senator Gravel Edition), 247, 328 (Boston, Beacon Press, 1971).
  115. Jump up^ John Prados,“”The Numbers Game: How Many Vietnamese Fled South In 1954?””. Archived from the original on 27 May 2006. Retrieved 2 November 2006. , The VVA Veteran, January/February 2005. Retrieved 21 January 2007.
  116. Jump up^ Turner, Robert F. (1975). Vietnamese Communism: Its Origins and Development. Hoover Institution Publications. p. 143. ISBN 978-0817964313.
  117. Jump up^ cf. Gittinger, J. Price, “Communist Land Policy in Viet Nam”, Far Eastern Survey, Vol. 29, No. 8, 1957, p. 118.
  118. Jump up^ Courtois, Stephane; et al. (1997). The Black Book of Communism. Harvard University Press. p. 569. ISBN 978-0-674-07608-2.
  119. Jump up^ Dommen, Arthur J. (2001), The Indochinese Experience of the French and the Americans, Indiana University Press, p. 340, gives a lower estimate of 32,000 executions.
  120. Jump up^ “Newly released documents on the land reform”. Vietnam Studies Group. Archived from the original on 20 April 2011. Retrieved 2016-07-15. Vu Tuong: There is no reason to expect, and no evidence that I have seen to demonstrate, that the actual executions were less than planned; in fact the executions perhaps exceeded the plan if we consider two following factors. First, this decree was issued in 1953 for the rent and interest reduction campaign that preceded the far more radical land redistribution and party rectification campaigns (or waves) that followed during 1954-1956. Second, the decree was meant to apply to free areas (under the control of the Viet Minh government), not to the areas under French control that would be liberated in 1954-1955 and that would experience a far more violent struggle. Thus the number of 13,500 executed people seems to be a low-end estimate of the real number. This is corroborated by Edwin Moise in his recent paper “Land Reform in North Vietnam, 1953-1956” presented at the 18th Annual Conference on SE Asian Studies, Center for SE Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley (February 2001). In this paper Moise (7-9) modified his earlier estimate in his 1983 book (which was 5,000) and accepted an estimate close to 15,000 executions. Moise made the case based on Hungarian reports provided by Balazs, but the document I cited above offers more direct evidence for his revised estimate. This document also suggests that the total number should be adjusted up some more, taking into consideration the later radical phase of the campaign, the unauthorized killings at the local level, and the suicides following arrest and torture (the central government bore less direct responsibility for these cases, however). cf. Szalontai, Balazs (November 2005). “Political and Economic Crisis in North Vietnam, 1955–56”. Cold War History. 5 (4): 395–426.
  121. Jump up^ Appy 2006, pp. 46–7.
  122. Jump up^ The Pentagon Papers (1971), Beacon Press, vol. 3, p. 134.
  123. Jump up^ The Pentagon Papers (1971), Beacon Press, vol. 3, p. 119.
  124. ^ Jump up to:a b The Pentagon Papers (1971), Beacon Press, vol. 3, p. 140.
  125. Jump up^ The Pentagon Papers (1971), Beacon Press, vol. 3, pp. 570–71.
  126. Jump up^ Dwight D. Eisenhower. Mandate for Change. Garden City, New Jersey. Doubleday & Company, 1963, p. 372.
  127. Jump up^ The Pentagon Papers (1971), Beacon Press, vol. 3, p. 252.
  128. Jump up^ The Pentagon Papers (1971), Beacon Press, vol. 3, p. 246.
  129. Jump up^ Woodruff 2005, p. 6 states: “The elections were not held. South Vietnam, which had not signed the Geneva Accords, did not believe the Communists in North Vietnam would allow a fair election. In January 1957, the International Control Commission (ICC), comprising observers from India, Poland, and Canada, agreed with this perception, reporting that neither South nor North Vietnam had honored the armistice agreement. With the French gone, a return to the traditional power struggle between north and south had begun again.“
  130. Jump up^ Karnow 1997, p. 224.
  131. Jump up^ Gerdes (ed.) Examining Issues Through Political Cartoons: The Vietnam War p. 19.
  132. Jump up^ Turner 1975, pp. 193–4, 202–3, 215–7
  133. Jump up^ McNamara 1999, p. 19.
  134. Jump up^ John F. Kennedy. “America’s Stakes in Vietnam“. Speech to the American Friends of Vietnam, June 1956. Archived 26 June 2012 at the Wayback Machine.
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  138. Jump up^ Lewy 1978, pp. 294–5.
  139. ^ Jump up to:a b Karnow 1997, p. 230.
  140. Jump up^ Excerpts from Law 10/59, 6 May 1959.
  141. Jump up^ Marilyn Young, The Vietnam Wars: 1945—1990 (New York: Harper Perennial, 1991), p. 73
  142. Jump up^ Jeffrey Race, War Comes to Long An (University of California Press, 1972), pp107, 122.
  143. ^ Jump up to:a b c Ang, Cheng Guan (2002). The Vietnam War from the Other Side. RoutledgeCurzon. pp. 16, 58, 76. ISBN 0-7007-1615-7.
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    This decision was made at the 11th Plenary Session of the Lao Dong Central Committee.
  145. Jump up^ Military History Institute of Vietnam,(2002) Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the People’s Army of Vietnam, 1954–1975, translated by Merle L. Pribbenow. University Press of Kansas. p. 68. ISBN 0-7006-1175-4.
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  147. Jump up^ Victory in Vietnam, p. xi.
  148. Jump up^ Prados 2006.
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  151. Jump up^ Karnow 1997, p. 264.
  152. Jump up^ The Avalon Project at Yale Law School. Inaugural Address of John F. Kennedy.
  153. Jump up^ Karnow 1997, p. 265: “Kennedy sidestepped Laos, whose rugged terrain was no battleground for American soldiers.”
  154. Jump up^ The case of John F. Kennedy and Vietnam Presidential Studies Quarterly.
  155. Jump up^ Mann, Robert. A Grand Delusion, Basic Books, 2002.
  156. Jump up^ Karnow 1997, p. 267.
  157. Jump up^ VTF 1969, IV. B. 4., pp. 1–2
  158. Jump up^ McNamara 1999, p. 369.
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  162. ^ Jump up to:a b International Agreement on the Neutrality of Laos.
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  164. Jump up^ Live interview by John Bartlow Martin. Was Kennedy Planning to Pull out of Vietnam? New York City. John F. Kennedy Library, 1964, Tape V, Reel 1.
  165. Jump up^ James Gibson, The Perfect War: Technowar in Vietnam (Boston/New York: The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1986), p. 88.
  166. Jump up^ Karnow 1997, p. 326.
  167. Jump up^ Karnow 1997, p. 327.
  168. Jump up^ FRUS, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Vol. IV, Vietnam, August–December 1863, Document 304, “https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v04/d304
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  172. Jump up^ Herring 2001, p. 103.
  173. Jump up^ Schandler 2009, p. 36
  174. Jump up^ U.S. Special Forces: A Guide to America’s Special Operations Units: the World’s Most Elite Fighting Force, By Samuel A. Southworth, Stephen Tanner, Published by Da Capo Press, 2002, ISBN 978-0-306-81165-4.
  175. Jump up^ Shooting at the Moon by Roger Warner – The history of CIA/IAD’S 15-year involvement in conducting the secret war in Laos, 1960–1975, and the career of CIA PMCO (paramilitary case officer) Bill Lair.
  176. Jump up^ Karnow 1997, pp. 336–9.
    Johnson viewed many members that he inherited from Kennedy’s cabinet with distrust because he had never penetrated their circle during Kennedy’s presidency; to Johnson’s mind, those like W. Averell Harriman and Dean Acheson spoke a different language.
  177. Jump up^ Shortly after the assassination of Kennedy, when McGeorge Bundy called LBJ on the phone, LBJ responded: “Goddammit, Bundy. I’ve told you that when I want you I’ll call you.” Brian VanDeMark, Into the Quagmire (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 13.
  178. Jump up^ Karnow 1997, p. 339.
    Before a small group, including Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., the new president also said, “We should stop playing cops and robbers [a reference to Diệm’s failed leadership] and get back to… winning the war … tell the generals in Saigon that Lyndon Johnson intends to stand by our word…[to] win the contest against the externally directed and supported Communist conspiracy.”
  179. Jump up^ Karnow 1997, p. 339: “At a place called Hoa Phu, for example, the strategic hamlet built during the previous summer now looked like it had been hit by a hurricane. … Speaking through an interpreter, a local guard explained to me that a handful of Viet Cong agents had entered the hamlet one night and told the peasants to tear it down and return to their native villages. The peasants complied without question.”
  180. Jump up^ Karnow 1997, p. 340.
  181. Jump up^ Karnow 1997, p. 341.
  182. Jump up^ Kolko 1985, p. 124.
  183. Jump up^ Kutler 1996, p. 249.
  184. Jump up^ Moïse 1996, p. 78.
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  189. Jump up^ Herring 2001, p. 121.
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  197. Jump up^ Gen. Curtis E LeMay.
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  200. Jump up^ McNamara 1999, p. 48.
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  203. Jump up^ Moyar 2006, p. 339
  204. Jump up^ McNeill 1993, p. 58.
  205. Jump up^ McNeill 1993, p. 94.
  206. Jump up^ U.S. Department of Defense, U.S.-Vietnam Relations vol. 4, p. 7.
  207. Jump up^ McNamara 1999, p. 353.
  208. Jump up^ U.S. Department of Defense, U.S.–Vietnam Relations vol. 5, pp. 8–9.
  209. Jump up^ U.S. Department of Defense, U.S.-Vietnam Relations vol. 4, pp 117–119. and vol. 5, pp. 8–12.
  210. Jump up^ Public Papers of the Presidents, 1965. Washington, D.C. Government Printing Office, 1966, vol. 2, pp. 794–799.
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  212. Jump up^ Karnow 1997, p. 453.
  213. ^ Jump up to:a b Karnow 1997, p. 556.
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  219. Jump up^ Stephen T. Hosmer (1970), Viet Cong Repression and its Implications for the Future (Rand Corporation), pp.72–8.
  220. Jump up^ Kolko 1985, pp. 308–9.
  221. Jump up^ Villard, Erik B., The 1968 Tet Offensive Battles of Quang Tri City and Hue, U.S. Army Center of Military History, Washington, D.C., (2008)
  222. ^ Jump up to:a b Ankony, Robert C., Lurps: A Ranger’s Diary of Tet, Khe Sanh, A Shau, and Quang Tri, Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Landham, MD, (2009): p. 104
  223. Jump up^ Villard, Erik B., The 1968 Tet Offensive Battles of Quang Tri City and Hue, U.S. Army Center of Military History, Washington, D.C., (2008): p.82
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  225. Jump up^ Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History (New York: Penguin, 1986), p. 546
  226. ^ Jump up to:a b c d Witz The Tet Offensive: Intelligence Failure in War pp. 1–2.
  227. Jump up^ Larry Berman. Lyndon Johnson’s War. New York, W.W. Norton, 1991, p. 116.
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  229. Jump up^ Keyes, Ralph (2006). The Quote Verifier: Who Said What, Where, and When. St. Martin’s Griffin. ISBN 978-0-312-34004-9.
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  245. Jump up^ They were: Senators John C. Stennis (MS) and Richard B. Russell Jr. (GA) and Representatives Lucius Mendel Rivers (SC), Gerald R. Ford (MI), and Leslie C. Arends (IL). Arends and Ford were leaders of the Republican minority and the other three were Democrats on either the Armed Services or Appropriations committees.
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  257. Jump up^ Videorecording of entire debate proceedings available at the Museum of Radio and Television in New York City.
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  356. Jump up^ “‘Fully Integrated'”. African-American Involvement in the Vietnam War (aavw.org). Retrieved December 2013. Check date values in: |access-date= (help)
  357. Jump up^ Terry, Wallace (1984). Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans. Random House. pp. Epigraph and pages xv–xvii. ISBN 978-0-394-53028-4.
  358. Jump up^ “Working-Class War”.
  359. Jump up^ Chinese Support for North Vietnam during the Vietnam War: The Decisive Edge, Bob Seals, Military History Online, 23 September 2008
  360. Jump up^ Albert Parray, Military Review, Soviet aid to Vietnam, June 1967
  361. Jump up^ Gordon L. Rottman, Viet Cong Fighter, Osprey Publishing (2007) p. 20-30 ISBN 978-1-84603-126-7
  362. Jump up^ C.H. Chivers (2 November 2009). “How Reliable is the M16 Rifle?”. New York Times.
  363. Jump up^ David Maraniss (2003). They Marched into Sunlight: War and Peace Vietnam and America October 1967. Simon and Schuster. p. 410. ISBN 978-0-7432-6255-2.
  364. Jump up^ Hog, Ian V., Jane’s Infantry Weapons 1986-87, Jane’s Publishing, Inc. New York, NY (1986) p.225.
  365. ^ Jump up to:a b A History of U.S. Communications Security; the David G. Boak Lectures, National Security Agency (NSA), Volumes I, 1973, Volumes II 1981, partially released 2008, additional portions declassified October 14, 2015
  366. Jump up^ Kiernan, Ben; Owen, Taylor (2015-04-26). “Making More Enemies than We Kill? Calculating U.S. Bomb Tonnages Dropped on Laos and Cambodia, and Weighing Their Implications”. The Asia-Pacific Journal. Retrieved 2016-09-19.
  367. ^ Jump up to:a b Wright, Rebecca (2016-09-06). “‘My friends were afraid of me’: What 80 million unexploded US bombs did to Laos”. CNN. Retrieved 2016-09-18.
  368. Jump up^ Greenberg, Jon (2014-09-11). “Kissinger: Drones have killed more civilians than the bombing of Cambodia in the Vietnam War”. Politifact.com. Retrieved 2016-09-18.
  369. Jump up^ Robbers, Gerhard (30 January 2007). Encyclopedia of world constitutions. Infobase Publishing. p. 1021. ISBN 978-0-8160-6078-8. Retrieved 1 July 2011.
  370. Jump up^ Elliot, Duong Van Mai (2010). “The End of the War”. RAND in Southeast Asia: A History of the Vietnam War Era. RAND Corporation. pp. 499, 512–513. ISBN 9780833047540. A study by Jacqueline Desbarats and Karl D. Jackson estimated that 65,000 South Vietnamese were executed for political reasons between 1975 and 1983, based on a survey of 615 Vietnamese refugees who claimed to have personally witnessed 47 executions. However, “their methodology was reviewed and criticized as invalid by authors Gareth Porter and James Roberts.” 16 of the 47 names used to extrapolate this “bloodbath” were duplicates; this extremely high duplication rate (34%) strongly suggests Desbarats and Jackson were drawing from a small number of total executions. Rather than arguing that this duplication rate proves there were very few executions in post-war Vietnam, Porter and Roberts suggest it is an artifact of the self-selected nature of the participants in the Desbarats-Jackson study, as the authors followed subjects’s recommendations on other refugees to interview. See Elliot, Duong Van Mai (2010). “The End of the War”. RAND in Southeast Asia: A History of the Vietnam War Era. RAND Corporation. pp. 512–513. ISBN 9780833047540. cf. Porter, Gareth; Roberts, James (Summer 1988). “Creating a Bloodbath by Statistical Manipulation: A Review of A Methodology for Estimating Political Executions in Vietnam, 1975-1983, Jacqueline Desbarats; Karl D. Jackson.”. Pacific Affairs. 61 (2): 303–310. JSTOR 2759306. Nevertheless, there exist unverified reports of mass executions (see Nguyen Cong Hoan’ testimony in “Human Rights in Vietnam: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on International Organizations of the Committee on International Relations: House of Representatives, Ninety-Fifth Congress, First Session”. U.S. Government Printing Office: 149, 153. 1977-07-26. ; see also Desbarats and Jackson. “Vietnam 1975–1982: The Cruel Peace” The Washington Quarterly 8, no. 4 (September 1985): p. 117)
  371. Jump up^ Sagan, Ginetta; Denney, Stephen (October–November 1982). “Re-education in Unliberated Vietnam: Loneliness, Suffering and Death”. The Indochina Newsletter. Retrieved 2016-09-01.
  372. Jump up^ See also Nghia M. Vo, The Bamboo Gulag: Political Imprisonment in Communist Vietnam (McFarland, 2004).
  373. Jump up^ Associated Press, 23 June 1979, San Diego Union, 20 July 1986. See generally Nghia M. Vo, The Vietnamese Boat People (2006), 1954 and 1975–1992, McFarland.
  374. ^ Jump up to:a b Sharp, Bruce (1 April 2005). “Counting Hell: The Death Toll of the Khmer Rouge Regime in Cambodia”. Retrieved 15 July 2016. The range based on the figures above extends from a minimum of 1.747 million, to a maximum of 2.495 million.
  375. Jump up^ Courtois, Stephane; et al. (1997). The Black Book of Communism. Harvard University Press. pp. 575–576. ISBN 978-0-674-07608-2.
  376. Jump up^ “Migration in the Asia-Pacific Region“. Stephen Castles, University of Oxford. Mark J. Miller, University of Delaware. July 2009.
  377. Jump up^ Robinson, William Courtland (1998). Terms of refuge: the Indochinese exodus & the international response. Zed Books. p. 127. ISBN 1-85649-610-4.
  378. Jump up^ Courtois, Stephane; et al. (1997). The Black Book of Communism. Harvard University Press. p. 575. ISBN 978-0-674-07608-2.
  379. Jump up^ Crossette, Barbara, Hanoi, Citing Famine Fears, Seeks Emergency Aid, The New York Times, 15 May 1988.
  380. Jump up^ Van, Canh Nguyen; Cooper, Earle (1983). Vietnam under Communism, 1975–1982, p. 229. Hoover Press. ISBN 9780817978518.
  381. Jump up^ “U.S. starts its first Agent Orange cleanup in Vietnam”. Reuters. 9 August 2012.
  382. Jump up^ Dacy, Douglas C. (1986), Foreign aid, war, and economic development: south Vietnam 1955-1975, Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, p. 242; “CRS report for Congress: Costs of Major Wars, http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/108054.pdf, accessed 22 Oct 2015
  383. Jump up^ Gerdes (ed). Examining Issues Through Political Cartoons: The Vietnam War pp. 14–15.
  384. Jump up^ Karnow 1997, p. 23.
  385. Jump up^ Taylor paraphrases Sun Tzu, The Art of War, trans. Samuel B. Griffith. Oxford, UK. Oxford University Press, 1963.
  386. Jump up^ “President Richard Nixon’s Role in the Vietnam War”. Vietnam War. Archived from the original on 31 March 2009. Retrieved 17 October 2009.
  387. Jump up^ “Lessons of Vietnam – Secret Memoranda to The President of the United States by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger”. ca. 12 May 1975. p. 3. Archived from the original on 9 May 2008. Retrieved 11 June 2008. Check date values in: |date= (help)
  388. Jump up^ McNamara 1999, p. 368.
  389. ^ Jump up to:a b c Quoted in Bob Buzzano. “25 Years After End of Vietnam War, Myths Keep Us from Coming to Terms with Vietnam”. The Baltimore Sun Times. 17 April 2000. Retrieved 11 June 2008.
  390. Jump up^ Karnow 1997, p. 17.
  391. Jump up^ Dacy, Douglas C. (1986), Foreign aid, war, and economic development: south Vietnam 1955-1975, Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, p. 242
  392. Jump up^ “Echoes of Combat: The Vietnam War in American Memory“. Stanford University.
  393. Jump up^ Westheider 2007, p. 78.
  394. ^ Jump up to:a b The War’s Costs. Digital History.
  395. Jump up^ Combat Area Casualty File, November 1993. (The CACF is the basis for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, i.e. The Wall), Center for Electronic Records, National Archives, Washington, D.C.
  396. Jump up^ Kueter, Dale (2007). Vietnam Sons: For Some, the War Never Ended. AuthorHouse. ISBN 1-4259-6931-3.
  397. Jump up^ “War Resisters Remain in Canada with No Regrets”. ABC News. 19 November 2005. Retrieved 26 February 2010.
  398. Jump up^ Vietnam War Resisters in Canada Open Arms to U.S. Military Deserters. Pacific News Service. 28 June 2005.
  399. Jump up^ “Proclamation 4483: Granting Pardon for Violations of the Selective Service Act”. Retrieved 11 June 2008. By The President of the United States of America, A Proclamation Granting Pardon For Violations of the Selective Services Act, 4 August 1964 To 28 March 1973. 21 January 1977.
  400. Jump up^ Victory in Europe 56 Years Ago Gallup News Service 8 May 2001
  401. Jump up^ “US still making payments to relatives of Civil War veterans, analysis finds”. Fox News. Associated Press. 20 March 2013.
  402. Jump up^ Jim Lobe (30 March 2013). “Iraq, Afghanistan Wars Will Cost U.S. 4–6 Trillion Dollars: Report”. Inter Press Service.
  403. Jump up^ Heinl, Jr., Col. Robert D. (1971), “The Collapse of the Armed Forces”, Armed Forces Journal, 7 June 1971
  404. Jump up^ Flitton, Dave. “Battlefield Vietnam: Peace with Honour”. PBS. Retrieved 2 August 2015.
  405. Jump up^ Milam, Ron (2009), Not A Gentleman’s War: An Inside View of Junior Officers in the Vietnam War, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, p. 172
  406. Jump up^ Shkurti, William J. (2011), Soldiering on in a Dying War: The True Story of the Firebase Pace Incidents and the Vietnam Drawdown, Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, p. 95
  407. Jump up^ “Military draft system stopped”. The Bulletin. Bend, Oregon. UPI. January 27, 1973. p. 1.
  408. Jump up^ “Military draft ended by Laird”. The Times-News. Hendersonville, North Carolina. Associated Press. January 27, 1973. p. 1.
  409. Jump up^ Lepre, p. 183
  410. Jump up^ Palmer 2007; Stone 2007.
  411. Jump up^ Lynne Peeples (10 July 2013). “Veterans Sick From Agent Orange-Poisoned Planes Still Seek Justice”. The Huffington Post. Retrieved 4 September 2013.
  412. Jump up^ Bruce Cumings (1998). The Global Politics of Pesticides: Forging Consensus from Conflicting Interests. Earthscan. p. 61.
  413. Jump up^ “Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963 Volume I, Vietnam, 1961, Document 275”. History.state.gov. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
  414. Jump up^ Michael F. Martin (November 13, 2015). U.S. Agent Orange/Dioxin Assistance to Vietnam (PDF) (Report). Congressional Research Service.
  415. Jump up^ Kolko 1985, pp. 144–5.
  416. Jump up^ Roberts 2005, p. 380.
    In his 234-page judgment, Weinstein observed: “Despite the fact that Congress and the President were fully advised of a substantial belief that the herbicide spraying in Vietnam was a violation of international law, they acted on their view that it was not a violation at the time.”
  417. Jump up^ Crook 2008.
  418. Jump up^ Anthony Faiola (13 November 2006). “In Vietnam, Old Foes Take Aim at War’s Toxic Legacy”. washingtonpost.com. Retrieved 8 September 2013.
  419. Jump up^ “Veterans’ Diseases Associated with Agent Orange”. va.gov. Retrieved 4 September 2013.
  420. Jump up^ “Statistical Information about Fatal Casualties of the Vietnam War, Electronic Records Reference Report”. U.S. National Archives. DCAS Vietnam Conflict Extract File record counts by HOME OF RECORD STATE CODE (as of 29 April 2008).(generated from the Vietnam Conflict Extract Data File of the Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) Extract Files (as of 29 April 2008)
  421. Jump up^ Clarke, Jeffrey J. (1988), United States Army in Vietnam: Advice and Support: The Final Years, 1965–1973, Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, United States Army, p. 275
  422. Jump up^ “fifty years of violent war deaths: data analysis from the world health survey program: BMJ”. 23 April 2008. Retrieved 5 January 2013. From 1955 to 2002, data from the surveys indicated an estimated 5.4 million violent war deaths … 3.8 million in Vietnam.
  423. Jump up^ Tucker, Spencer, ed. (1998). Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History. Volume Two. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. p. 617. ISBN 0-87436-983-5.
  424. Jump up^ “Battlefield:Vietnam Timeline”. Pbs.org. Retrieved 31 October 2011.
  425. Jump up^ Clarke, p. 275
  426. Jump up^ “Vietnam War Casualties”. vietnamwarcasualties.org.
  427. Jump up^ Linnington, Michael, Director, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, “World’s Largest Anthropology Lab’ Opens,” VFW magazine, Nov./Dec. 2015: 8.
  428. Jump up^ “Vietnam War Bomb Explodes Killing Four Children”. Huffington Post. 3 December 2012.
  429. Jump up^ Vietnam war shell explodes, kills two fishermen The Australian (28 April 2011)

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Primary sources

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Central Intelligence Agency. “Laos“, CIA World Factbook’
Cora Weiss Collection (materials related to war resistance and peace activism movements during the Vietnam War), Lloyd Sealy Library Special Collections, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
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Ho, Chi Minh. “Vietnam Declaration of Independence”, Selected Works. (1960–1962) selected writings
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McCain, John. Faith of My Fathers: A Family Memoir (1999) ISBN 0060957867
Marshall, Kathryn. In the Combat Zone: An Oral History of American Women in Vietnam, 1966–1975 (1987) ISBN 0316547077
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Myers, Thomas. Walking Point: American Narratives of Vietnam (1988) ISBN 0195053516
Public Papers of the Presidents, 1965 (1966) official documents of U.S. presidents.
Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr. Robert Kennedy and His Times. (1978) a first-hand account of the Kennedy administration by one of his principal advisors
Sinhanouk, Prince Norodom. “Cambodia Neutral: The Dictates of Necessity.” Foreign Affairs. (1958) describes the geopolitical situation of Cambodia
Tang, Truong Nhu. A Viet Cong Memoir (1985), revealing account by senior NLF official
Terry, Wallace, ed. Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans (1984)
Truong, Như Tảng; David Chanoff, Van Toai Doan (1985). A Vietcong memoir (1985 ed.). Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. ISBN 978-0-15-193636-6.– Total pages: 350
The landmark series Vietnam: A Television History, first broadcast in 1983, is a special presentation of the award-winning PBS history series, American Experience.
The Pentagon Papers (Gravel ed. 5 vol 1971); combination of narrative and secret documents compiled by Pentagon. excerpts
U.S. Department of State. Foreign Relations of the United States (multivolume collection of official secret documents) vol 1: 1964[dead link]; vol 2: 1965[dead link]; vol 3: 1965[dead link]; vol 4: 1966[dead link];
U.S. Department of Defense and the House Committee on Armed Services. U.S.-Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967. Washington, D.C. Department of Defense and the House Committee on Armed Services, 1971, 12 volumes.

Historiography

Hall, Simon, “Scholarly Battles over the Vietnam War”, Historical Journal 52 (September 2009), 813–29.

External links

Find more aboutVietnam Warat Wikipedia’s sister projects
Authority control

Americki rat za neovisnost (1775. – 1783.)

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The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States fought from 1861 to 1865. The Union faced secessionists in eleven Southern states grouped together as the Confederate States of America. The Union won the war, which remains the bloodiest in U.S. history.

Among the 34 U.S. states in January 1861, seven Southern slave states individually declared their secession from the U.S. and formed the Confederate States of America. War broke out in April 1861 when Confederates attacked the U.S. fortress Fort Sumter. The Confederacy grew to include eleven states; it claimed two more states and the western territory of Arizona. The Confederacy was never diplomatically recognized by any foreign country. The states that remained loyal including border states where slavery was legal, were known as the Union or the North. The war ended with the surrender of all the Confederate armies and the collapse of the Confederate government in the spring of 1865.

The war had its origin in the factious issue of slavery, especially the extension of slavery into the western territories. Four years of intense combat left 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers dead, a higher number than the number of American military deaths in World War I and World War II combined, and much of the South’s infrastructure was destroyed. The Confederacy collapsed and slavery was abolished in the entire country. The Reconstruction Era (1863–1877) overlapped and followed the war, with its fitful process of restoring national unity, strengthening the national government, and granting civil rights to the freedborisblog17

Date April 12, 1861 – May 9, 1865 (by proclamation)[1]
(4 years, 3 weeks and 6 days)
(Last shot fired June 22, 1865)
Location Southern United States, Northeastern United States, Western United States, Atlantic Ocean
Result Union victory
Belligerents
 United States  Confederate States
Commanders and leaders
United States Abraham Lincoln
United States Ulysses S. Grant
United States William T. Sherman
United States David Farragut
United States George B. McClellan
United States George Meade
United States John Pope

and others
 Confederate States of America Jefferson Davis Surrendered
Confederate States of America Robert E. Lee Surrendered
Confederate States of America P.G.T. Beauregard Surrendered
Confederate States of America Stonewall Jackson +  †
Confederate States of America Nathan B. Forrest Surrendered
Confederate States of America Joseph E. Johnston Surrendered

and others
Strength
2,200,000:[2]

698,000 (peak)[3][better source needed][4]

 750,000–1,000,000[2][5]

360,000 (peak)[3][6]
Casualties and losses
110,000+ killed in action/died of wounds
230,000+ accident/disease deaths[7][8]
25,000–30,000 died in Confederate prisons[3][7]

365,000+ total dead[9]282,000+ wounded[8]
181,193 captured[3][better source needed][10]

Total: 828,000+ casualties

 94,000+ killed in action/died of wounds[7]
26,000–31,000 died in Union prisons[8]

290,000+ total dead
137,000+ wounded
436,658 captured[3][better source needed][11]

Total: 864,000+ casualties
50,000 free civilians dead[12]
80,000+ slaves dead[13]
Total: 785,000–1,000,000+ dead[14][15]
Events leading to
the American Civil War

History

In the 1860 presidential election, Republicans, led by Abraham Lincoln, supported banning slavery in all the U.S. territories, something which the Southern states viewed as a violation of their constitutional rights and as being part of a plan to eventually abolish slavery. The three pro-Union candidates received an overwhelming 82% majority of the votes among Republican Lincoln in the north, Democrat Douglas nationally and Constitutional Unionist Bell in the border states. The Republican Party, dominant in the North, secured a plurality of the popular votes and a majority of the electoral votes, so Lincoln was elected the first Republican president.

But before his inauguration, seven slave states with cotton-based economies formed the Confederacy. The first six to declare secession had the highest proportions of slaves in their populations, a total of 49 percent.[16] The first seven with state legislatures to resolve for secession included split majorities for unionists Douglas and Bell in Georgia with 51% and Louisiana with 55%. Alabama had voted 46% for those unionists, Mississippi with 40%, Florida with 38%, Texas with 25%, and South Carolina cast Electoral College votes without a popular vote for president.[17] Of these, only Texas held a referendum on secession.

Eight remaining slave states continued to reject calls for secession. Outgoing Democratic President James Buchanan and the incoming Republicans rejected secession as illegal. Lincoln’s March 4, 1861 inaugural address declared that his administration would not initiate a civil war. Speaking directly to “the Southern States,” he reaffirmed, “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the United States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.”[18] After Confederate forces seized numerous federal forts within territory claimed by the Confederacy, efforts at compromise failed and both sides prepared for war. The Confederates assumed that European countries were so dependent on “King Cotton” that they would intervene, but none did, and none recognized the new Confederate States of America.

Hostilities began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter. While in the Western Theater the Union made significant permanent gains, in the Eastern Theater, the battle was inconclusive in 1861–62. The autumn 1862 Confederate campaigns into Maryland and Kentucky failed, dissuading British intervention.[citation needed] Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which made ending slavery a war goal.[19] To the west, by summer 1862 the Union destroyed the Confederate river navy, then much of their western armies, and seized New Orleans. The 1863 Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River. In 1863, Robert E. Lee‘s Confederate incursion north ended at the Battle of Gettysburg. Western successes led to Ulysses S. Grant‘s command of all Union armies in 1864. Inflicting an ever-tightening naval blockade of Confederate ports, the Union marshaled the resources and manpower to attack the Confederacy from all directions, leading to the fall of Atlanta to William T. Sherman and his march to the sea. The last significant battles raged around the Siege of Petersburg. Lee’s escape attempt ended with his surrender at Appomattox Court House, on April 9, 1865. While the military war was coming to an end, the political reintegration of the nation was to take another 12 years of the Reconstruction Era.

The American Civil War was one of the earliest true industrial wars. Railroads, the telegraph, steamships, and mass-produced weapons were employed extensively. The mobilization of civilian factories, mines, shipyards, banks, transportation and food supplies all foreshadowed the impact of industrialization in World War I. It remains the deadliest war in American history. From 1861 to 1865, it has been traditionally estimated that about 620,000 died but recent scholarship argues that 750,000 soldiers died,[20] along with an undetermined number of civilians.[N 1] By one estimate, the war claimed the lives of 10 percent of all Northern males 20–45 years old, and 30 percent of all Southern white males aged 18–40.[22]

Causes of secession

Main articles: Origins of the American Civil War, Protectionism in the United States, History of the United States, Slavery in the United States, Slave Power, States’ rights, King Cotton, Protectionism § Protectionism in the United States, and Infant industry

The causes of the Civil War were complex and have been controversial since the war began. James C. Bradford wrote that the issue has been further complicated by historical revisionists, who have tried to offer a variety of reasons for the war.[23] Slavery was the central source of escalating political tension in the 1850s. The Republican Party was determined to prevent any spread of slavery, and many Southern leaders had threatened secession if the Republican candidate, Lincoln, won the 1860 election. After Lincoln won without carrying a single Southern state, many Southern whites felt that disunion had become their only option, because they thought that they were losing representation, which would hamper their ability to promote pro-slavery acts and policies.[24][25]

Root causes

Map of U.S. showing two kinds of Union states, two phases of secession and territories.

Status of the states, 1861.
   States that seceded before April 15, 1861
   States that seceded after April 15, 1861
   Union states that permitted slavery
   Union states that banned slavery
   Territories

Slavery

Contemporary actors, the Union and Confederate leadership and the fighting soldiers on both sides believed that slavery caused the Civil War. Union men mainly believed that the purpose of the war was to emancipate the slaves. Confederates fought the war in order to protect southern society, and slavery was an integral part of it.[26] From the anti-slavery perspective, the issue was primarily about whether the system of slavery was an anachronistic evil that was incompatible with Republicanism in the United States. The strategy of the anti-slavery forces was containment—to stop the expansion and thus put slavery on a path to gradual extinction.[27] The slave-holding interests in the South denounced this strategy as infringing upon their Constitutional rights.[28] Southern whites believed that the emancipation of slaves would destroy the South’s economy, due to the large amount of capital invested in slaves and fears of integrating the ex-slave black population.[29]

Slavery was illegal in the North, having been outlawed in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It was also fading in the border states and in Southern cities, but it was expanding in the highly profitable cotton districts of the South and Southwest. Subsequent writers on the American Civil War looked to several factors explaining the geographic divide, including sectionalism, protectionism, and state’s rights.

Sectionalism

Sectionalism refers to the different economies, social structure, customs and political values of the North and South.[30][31] It increased steadily between 1800 and 1860 as the North, which phased slavery out of existence, industrialized, urbanized, and built prosperous farms, while the deep South concentrated on plantation agriculture based on slave labor, together with subsistence farming for poor freedmen. In the 1840s and 50s, the issue of accepting slavery (in the guise of rejecting slave-owning bishops and missionaries) split the nation’s largest religious denominations (the Methodist, Baptist and Presbyterian churches) into separate Northern and Southern denominations.[32]

Historians have debated whether economic differences between the industrial Northeast and the agricultural South helped cause the war. Most historians now disagree with the economic determinism of historian Charles A. Beard in the 1920s and emphasize that Northern and Southern economies were largely complementary. While socially different, the sections economically benefited each other.[33][34]

Protectionism

Historically, southern slave-holding states, because of their low cost manual labor, had little perceived need for mechanization, and supported having the right to sell cotton and purchase manufactured goods from any nation. Northern states, which had heavily invested in their still-nascent manufacturing, could not compete with the full-fledged industries of Europe in offering high prices for cotton imported from the South and low prices for manufactured exports in return. Thus, northern manufacturing interests supported tariffs and protectionism while southern planters demanded free trade.[35]

The Democrats in Congress, controlled by Southerners, wrote the tariff laws in the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s, and kept reducing rates so that the 1857 rates were the lowest since 1816. The Whigs and Republicans complained because they favored high tariffs to stimulate industrial growth, and Republicans called for an increase in tariffs in the 1860 election. The increases were only enacted in 1861 after Southerners resigned their seats in Congress.[36][37] The tariff issue was and is sometimes cited–long after the war–by Lost Cause historians and neo-Confederate apologists. In 1860–61 none of the groups that proposed compromises to head off secession raised the tariff issue.[38] Pamphleteers North and South rarely mentioned the tariff,[39] and when some did, for instance, Matthew Fontaine Maury[40] and John Lothrop Motley,[41] they were

New Orleans, the largest cotton exporting port for New England and Great Britain textile mills, shipping Mississippi River Valley goods from North, South and Border states.

Protectionism

Historically, southern slave-holding states, because of their low cost manual labor, had little perceived need for mechanization, and supported having the right to sell cotton and purchase manufactured goods from any nation. Northern states, which had heavily invested in their still-nascent manufact

States’ rights

The South argued that each state had the right to secede—leave the Union—at any time, that the Constitution was a “compact” or agreement among the states. Northerners (including President Buchanan) rejected that notion as opposed to the will of the Founding Fathers who said they were setting up a perpetual union.[42] Historian James McPherson writes concerning states’ rights and other non-slavery explanations:

While one or more of these interpretations remain popular among the Sons of Confederate Veterans and other Southern heritage groups, few professional historians now subscribe to them. Of all these interpretations, the states’-rights argument is perhaps the weakest. It fails to ask the question, states’ rights for what purpose? States’ rights, or sovereignty, was always more a means than an end, an instrument to achieve a certain goal more than a principle.[43]

Territorial crisis

Further information: Slave and free states

Between 1803 and 1854, the United States achieved a vast expansion of territory through purchase, negotiation, and conquest. At first, the new states carved out of these territories entering the union were apportioned equally between slave and free states. It was over territories west of the Mississippi that the proslavery and antislavery forces collided.[44]

With the conquest of northern Mexico west to California in 1848, slaveholding interests looked forward to expanding into these lands and perhaps Cuba and Central America as well.[45][46] Northern “free soil” interests vigorously sought to curtail any further expansion of slave territory. The Compromise of 1850 over California balanced a free soil state with stronger fugitive slave laws for a political settlement after four years of strife in the 1840s. But the states admitted following California were all free: Minnesota (1858), Oregon (1859) and Kansas (1861). In the southern states the question of the territorial expansion of slavery westward again became explosive.[47] Both the South and the North drew the same conclusion: “The power to decide the question of slavery for the territories was the power to determine the future of slavery itself.”[48][49]

Sen. Stephen Douglas, author of the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854.
Sen. John J. Crittenden, of the 1860 Crittenden Compromise.

By 1860, four doctrines had emerged to answer the question of federal control in the territories, and they all claimed they were sanctioned by the Constitution, implicitly or explicitly.[50] The first of these “conservative” theories, represented by the Constitutional Union Party, argued that the Missouri Compromise apportionment of territory north for free soil and south for slavery should become a Constitutional mandate. The Crittenden Compromise of 1860 was an expression of this view.[51]

The second doctrine of Congressional preeminence, championed by Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party, insisted that the Constitution did not bind legislators to a policy of balance—that slavery could be excluded in a territory as it was done in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 at the discretion of Congress,[52] thus Congress could restrict human bondage, but never establish it. The Wilmot Proviso announced this position in 1846.[53]

Senator Stephen A. Douglas proclaimed the doctrine of territorial or “popular” sovereignty – which asserted that the settlers in a territory had the same rights as states in the Union to establish or disestablish slavery as a purely local matter.[54] The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 legislated this doctrine.[55] In Kansas Territory, years of pro and anti-slavery violence and political conflict erupted; the congressional House of Representatives voted to admit Kansas as a free state in early 1860, but its admission in the Senate was delayed until January 1861, after the 1860 elections when southern senators began to leave.[56]

The fourth theory was advocated by Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis,[57] one of state sovereignty (“states’ rights”),[58] also known as the “Calhoun doctrine”,[59] named after the South Carolinian political theorist and statesman John C. Calhoun.[60] Rejecting the arguments for federal authority or self-government, state sovereignty would empower states to promote the expansion of slavery as part of the Federal Union under the U.S. Constitution.[61] “States’ rights” was an ideology formulated and applied as a means of advancing slave state interests through federal authority.[62] As historian Thomas L. Krannawitter points out, the “Southern demand for federal slave protection represented a demand for an unprecedented expansion of federal power.”[63][64] These four doctrines comprised the major ideologies presented to the American public

National elections

Beginning in the American Revolution and accelerating after the War of 1812, the people of the United States grew in the sense that their country was a national republic based on the belief that all people had inalienable political liberty and personal rights which could serve as an important example to the rest of the world . Previous regional independence movements such as the Greek revolt in the Ottoman Empire, the division and redivision of the Latin American political map, and the British-French Crimean triumph leading to an interest in redrawing Europe along cultural differences, all conspired to make for a time of upheaval and uncertainty about the basis of the nation-state. In the world of 19th century self-made Americans, growing in prosperity, population and expanding westward, “freedom” could mean personal liberty or property rights. The unresolved difference would cause failure—first in their political institutions, then in their civil life together.

Nationalism and honor

Middle-aged man in a beard posed sitting in a suit, vest and bowtie.

Abraham Lincoln
16th U.S. President (1861–1865).

Nationalism was a powerful force in the early 19th century, with famous spokesmen such as Andrew Jackson and Daniel Webster. While practically all Northerners supported the Union, Southerners were split between those loyal to the entire United States (called “unionists”) and those loyal primarily to the southern region and then the Confederacy.[66] C. Vann Woodward said of the latter group,

A great slave society … had grown up and miraculously flourished in the heart of a thoroughly bourgeois and partly puritanical republic. It had renounced its bourgeois origins and elaborated and painfully rationalized its institutional, legal, metaphysical, and religious defenses … When the crisis came it chose to fight. It proved to be the death struggle of a society, which went down in ruins.[67]

Perceived insults to Southern collective honor included the enormous popularity of Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852)[68] and the actions of abolitionist John Brown in trying to incite a slave rebellion in 1859.[69]

While the South moved towards a Southern nationalism, leaders in the North were also becoming more nationally minded, and they rejected any notion of splitting the Union. The Republican national electoral platform of 1860 warned that Republicans regarded disunion as treason and would not tolerate it: “We denounce those threats of disunion … as denying the vital principles of a free government, and as an avowal of contemplated treason, which it is the imperative duty of an indignant people sternly to rebuke and forever silence.”[70] The South ignored the warnings: Southerners did not realize how ardently the North would fight to hold the Union together.[71]

Lincoln’s election

Main article: United States presidential election, 1860

The election of Abraham Lincoln in November 1860 was the final trigger for secession.[72] Efforts at compromise, including the “Corwin Amendment” and the “Crittenden Compromise“, failed. Southern leaders feared that Lincoln would stop the expansion of slavery and put it on a course toward extinction. The slave states, which had already become a minority in the House of Representatives, were now facing a future as a perpetual minority in the Senate and Electoral College against an increasingly powerful North. Before Lincoln took office in March 1861, seven slave states had declared their secession and joined to form the Confederacy.

Outbreak of the war

Secession crisis

The first published imprint of secession.

The election of Lincoln caused the legislature of South Carolina to call a state convention to consider secession. Prior to the war, South Carolina did more than any other Southern state to advance the notion that a state had the right to nullify federal laws and, even, secede from the United States. The convention summoned unanimously voted to secede on December 20, 1860 and adopted the “Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union“. It argued for states’ rights for slave owners in the South, but contained a complaint about states’ rights in the North in the form of opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act, claiming that Northern states were not fulfilling their federal obligations under the Constitution. The “cotton states” of Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas followed suit, seceding in January and February 1861.

Among the ordinances of secession passed by the individual states, those of three—Texas, Alabama, and Virginia—specifically mentioned the plight of the ‘slaveholding states’ at the hands of northern abolitionists. The rest make no mention of the slavery issue, and are often brief announcements of the dissolution of ties by the legislatures.[73] However, at least four states—South Carolina,[74] Mississippi,[75] Georgia,[76] and Texas[77] also passed lengthy and detailed explanations of their causes for secession, all of which laid the blame squarely on the movement to abolish slavery and that movement’s influence over the politics of the northern states. The southern states believed slaveholding was a constitutional right because of the Fugitive slave clause of the Constitution.

These states agreed to form a new federal government, the Confederate States of America, on February 4, 1861.[78] They took control of federal forts and other properties within their boundaries with little resistance from outgoing President James Buchanan, whose term ended on March 4, 1861. Buchanan said that the Dred Scott decision was proof that the South had no reason for secession, and that the Union “… was intended to be perpetual,” but that, “The power by force of arms to compel a State to remain in the Union,” was not among the “… enumerated powers granted to Congress.”[79] One quarter of the U.S. Army—the entire garrison in Texas—was surrendered in February 1861 to state forces by its commanding general, David E. Twiggs, who then joined the Confederacy.

As Southerners resigned their seats in the Senate and the House, Republicans were able to pass bills for projects that had been blocked by Southern Senators before the war, including the Morrill Tariff, land grant colleges (the Morill Act), a Homestead Act, a transcontinental railroad (the Pacific Railway Acts),[80] the National Banking Act and the authorization of United States Notes by the Legal Tender Act of 1862. The Revenue Act of 1861 introduced the income tax to help finance the war.

On December 18, 1860, the Crittenden Compromise was proposed to re-establish the Missouri Compromise line by constitutionally banning slavery in territories to the north of the line while guaranteeing it to the south. The adoption of this compromise likely would have prevented the secession of every southern state apart from South Carolina, but Lincoln and the Republicans rejected it.[81] It was then proposed to hold a national referendum on the compromise. The Republicans again rejected the idea, although a majority of both Northerners and Southerners would have voted in favor of it.[82] A pre-war February Peace Conference of 1861 met in Washington, proposing a solution similar to that of the Crittenden compromise, it was rejected by Congress. The Republicans proposed an alternative compromise to not interfere with slavery where it existed but the South regarded it as insufficient. Nonetheless, the remaining eight slave states rejected pleas to join the Confederacy following a two-to-one no-vote in Virginia’s First Secessionist Convention on April 4, 1861.[83]

Middle-aged man in a goatee posed standing in a suit, vest and bowtie

Jefferson Davis, President of Confederacy (1861–1865).

On March 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln was sworn in as President. In his inaugural address, he argued that the Constitution was a more perfect union than the earlier Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, that it was a binding contract, and called any secession “legally void”.[84] He had no intent to invade Southern states, nor did he intend to end slavery where it existed, but said that he would use force to maintain possession of Federal property. The government would make no move to recover post offices, and if resisted, mail delivery would end at state lines. Where popular conditions did not allow peaceful enforcement of Federal law, U.S. Marshals and Judges would be withdrawn. No mention was made of bullion lost from U.S. mints in Louisiana, Georgia and North Carolina. In Lincoln’s inaugural address, he stated that it would be U.S. policy to only collect import duties at its ports; there could be no serious injury to the South to justify armed revolution during his administration. His speech closed with a plea for restoration of the bonds of union, famously calling on “the mystic chords of memory” binding the two regions.[85]

The South sent delegations to Washington and offered to pay for the federal properties and enter into a peace treaty with the United States. Lincoln rejected any negotiations with Confederate agents because he claimed the Confederacy was not a legitimate government, and that making any treaty with it would be tantamount to recognition of it as a sovereign government.[86] Secretary of State William Seward who at that time saw himself as the real governor or “prime minister” behind the throne of the inexperienced Lincoln, engaged in unauthorized and indirect negotiations that failed.[86] President Lincoln was determined to hold all remaining Union-occupied forts in the Confederacy, Fort Monroe in Virginia, in Florida, Fort Pickens, Fort Jefferson, and Fort Taylor, and in the cockpit of secession, Charleston, South Carolina’s Fort Sumter.

Battle of Fort Sumter

Main article: Battle of Fort Sumter
Crowd surrounding an equestrian statue topped by a huge U.S. flag.

Mass meeting April 20, 1861 to support the Government at Washington’s equestrian statue in Union Square NYC.

Fort Sumter was located in the middle of the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, where the U.S. fort’s garrison had withdrawn to avoid incidents with local militias in the streets of the city. Unlike Buchanan, who allowed commanders to relinquish possession to avoid bloodshed, Lincoln required Maj. Anderson to hold on until fired upon. Jefferson Davis ordered the surrender of the fort. Anderson gave a conditional reply that the Confederate government rejected, and Davis ordered P. G. T. Beauregard to attack the fort before a relief expedition could arrive. Troops under Beauregard bombarded Fort Sumter on April 12–13, forcing its capitulation.

The attack on Fort Sumter rallied the North to the defense of American nationalism. Historian Allan Nevins says:

The thunderclap of Sumter produced a startling crystallization of Northern sentiment. … Anger swept the land. From every side came news of mass meetings, speeches, resolutions, tenders of business support, the muster of companies and regiments, the determined action of governors and legislatures.”[87][88]

However, much of the North’s attitude was based on the false belief that only a minority of Southerners were actually in favor of secession and that there were large numbers of southern Unionists that could be counted on. Had Northerners realized that most Southerners really did favor secession, they might have hesitated at attempting the enormous task of conquering a united South.[89]

Lincoln called on all the states to send forces to recapture the fort and other federal properties. He cited presidential powers given by the Militia Acts of 1792.[citation needed] With the scale of the rebellion apparently small so far, Lincoln called for only 75,000 volunteers for 90 days.[90] The governor of Massachusetts had state regiments on trains headed south the next day. In western Missouri, local secessionists seized Liberty Arsenal.[91] On May 3, 1861, Lincoln called for an additional 42,000 volunteers for a period of three years.[92]

Four states in the middle and upper South had repeatedly rejected Confederate overtures, but now Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, and North Carolina refused to send forces against their neighbors, declared their

Map of U.S. showing two kinds of Union states, two phases of secession and territories.

Status of the states, 1861.
   States that seceded before April 15, 1861
   States that seceded after April 15, 1861
   Union states that permitted slavery
   Union states that banned slavery
   Territories

Slavery

Contemporary actors, the Union and Confederate leadership and the fighting soldiers on both sides believed that slavery caused the Civil War. Union men mainly believed that the purpose of the war was to emancipate the slaves. Confederates fought the war in order to protect southern society, and slavery was an integral part of it.[26] From the anti-slavery perspective, the issue was primarily about whether the system of slavery was an anachronistic evil that was incompatible with Republicanism in the United States. The strategy of the anti-slavery forces was containment—to stop the expansion and thus put slavery on a path to gradual extinction.[27] The slave-holding interests in the South denounced this strategy as infringing upon their Constitutional rights.[28] Southern whites believed that the emancipation of slaves would destroy the South’s economy, due to the large amount of capital invested in slaves and fears of integrating the ex-slave black population.[29]

Slavery was illegal in the North, having been outlawed in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It was also fading in the border states and in Southern cities, but it was expanding in the highly profitable cotton districts of the South and Southwest. Subsequent writers on the American Civil War looked to several factors explaining the geographic divide, including sectionalism, protectionism, and state’s rights.

Sectionalism

Sectionalism refers to the different economies, social structure, customs and political values of the North and South.[30][31] It increased steadily between 1800 and 1860 as the North, which phased slavery out of existence, industrialized, urbanized, and built prosperous farms, while the deep South concentrated on plantation agriculture based on slave labor, together with subsistence farming for poor freedmen. In the 1840s and 50s, the issue of accepting slavery (in the guise of rejecting slave-owning bishops and missionaries) split the nation’s largest religious denominations (the Methodist, Baptist and Presbyterian churches) into separate Northern and Southern denominations.[32]

War

See also: List of American Civil War battles and Military leadership in the American Civil War

County map of Civil War battles by theater and year.

The Civil War was a contest marked by the ferocity and frequency of battle. Over four years, 237 named battles were fought, as were many more minor actions and skirmishes, which were often characterized by their bitter intensity and high casualties. In his book The American Civil War, John Keegan writes that “The American Civil War was to prove one of the most ferocious wars ever fought”. Without geographic objectives, the only target for each side was the enemy’s soldier.[106]

Mobilization

As the first seven states began organizing a Confederacy in Montgomery, the entire U.S. army numbered 16,000. However, Northern governors had begun to mobilize their militias.[107] The Confederate Congress authorized the new nation up to 100,000 troops sent by governors as early as February. By May, Jefferson Davis was pushing for 100,000 men under arms for one year or the duration, and that was answered in kind by the U.S. Congress.[108]

In the first year of the war, both sides had far more volunteers than they could effectively train and equip. After the initial enthusiasm faded, reliance on the cohort of young men who came of age every year and wanted to join was not enough. Both sides used a draft law—conscription—as a device to encourage or force volunteering; relatively few were actually drafted and served. The Confederacy passed a draft law in April 1862 for young men aged 18 to 35; overseers of slaves, government officials, and clergymen were exempt.[109] The U.S. Congress followed in July, authorizing a militia draft within a state when it could not meet its quota with volunteers. European immigrants joined the Union Army in large numbers, including 177,000 born in Germany and 144,000 born in Ireland.[110]

Union soldiers before Marye’s Heights, Second Fredericksburg
Confederate dead overrun at Marye’s Heights, reoccupied next day May 4, 1863.

When the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect in January 1863, ex-slaves were energetically recruited by the states, and used to meet the state quotas. States and local communities offered higher and higher cash bonuses for white volunteers. Congress tightened the law in March 1863. Men selected in the draft could provide substitutes or, until mid-1864, pay commutation money. Many eligibles pooled their money to cover the cost of anyone drafted. Families used the substitute provision to select which man should go into the army and which should stay home. There was much evasion and overt resistance to the draft, especially in Catholic areas. The great draft riot in New York City in July 1863 involved Irish immigrants who had been signed up as citizens to swell the vote of the city’s Democratic political machine, not realizing it made them liable for the draft.[111] Of the 168,649 men procured for the Union through the draft, 117,986 were substitutes, leaving only 50,663 who had their personal services conscripted.[112]

In both the North and South, the draft laws were highly unpopular. In the North, some 120,000 men evaded conscription, many of them fleeing to Canada, and another 280,000 soldiers deserted during the war.[113] At least 100,000 Southerners deserted, or about 10 percent. In the South, many men deserted temporarily to take care of their distressed families, then returned to their units.[114] In the North, “bounty jumpers” enlisted to get the generous bonus, deserted, then went back to a second recruiting station under a different name to sign up again for a second bonus; 141 were caught and executed.[115]

Rioters attacking a building during the New York anti-draft riots of 1863.

From a tiny frontier force in 1860, the Union and Confederate armies had grown into the “largest and most efficient armies in the world” within a few years. European observers at the time dismissed them as amateur and unprofessional, but British historian John Keegan‘s assessment is that each outmatched the French, Prussian and Russian armies of the time, and but for the Atlantic, would have threatened any of them with defeat.[116]

Motivation

Perman and Taylor (2010) say that historians are of two minds on why millions of men seemed so eager to fight, suffer and die over four years:

Some historians emphasize that Civil War soldiers were driven by political ideology, holding firm beliefs about the importance of liberty, Union, or state rights, or about the need to protect or to destroy slavery. Others point to less overtly political reasons to fight, such as the defense of one’s home and family, or the honor and brotherhood to be preserved when fighting alongside other men. Most historians agree that no matter what a soldier thought about when he went into the war, the experience of combat affected him profoundly and sometimes altered his reasons for continuing the fight.[117]

Prisoners

Main article: American Civil War prison camps

At the start of the civil war, a system of paroles operated. Captives agreed not to fight until they were officially exchanged. Meanwhile, they were held in camps run by their own army where they were paid but not allowed to perform any military duties.[118] The system of exchanges collapsed in 1863 when the Confederacy refused to exchange black prisoners. After that, about 56,000 of the 409,000 POWs died in prisons during the war, accounting for nearly 10 percent of the conflict’s fatalities.[119]

Naval war

The small U.S. Navy of 1861 was rapidly enlarged to 6,000 officers and 45,000 men in 1865, with 671 vessels, having a tonnage of 510,396.[120][121] Its mission was to blockade Confederate ports, take control of the river system, defend against Confederate raiders on the high seas, and be ready for a possible war with the British Royal Navy.[122] Meanwhile, the main riverine war was fought in the West, where a series of major rivers gave access to the Confederate heartland, if the U.S. Navy could take control. In the East, the Navy supplied and moved army forces about, and occasionally shelled Confederate installations.

Union blockade

Main article: Union blockade
A cartoon map of the South surrounded by a snake.

General Scott’s “Anaconda Plan” 1861. Tightening naval blockade, forcing rebels out of Missouri along the Mississippi River, Kentucky Unionists sit on the fence, idled cotton industry illustrated in Georgia.

By early 1861, General Winfield Scott had devised the Anaconda Plan to win the war with as little bloodshed as possible.[123] Scott argued that a Union blockade of the main ports would weaken the Confederate economy. Lincoln adopted parts of the plan, but he overruled Scott’s caution about 90-day volunteers. Public opinion, however, demanded an immediate attack by the army to capture Richmond.[124]

In April 1861, Lincoln announced the Union blockade of all Southern ports; commercial ships could not get insurance and regular traffic ended. The South blundered in embargoing cotton exports in 1861 before the blockade was effective; by the time they realized the mistake, it was too late. “King Cotton” was dead, as the South could export less than 10 percent of its cotton. The blockade shut down the ten Confederate seaports with railheads that moved almost all the cotton, especially New Orleans, Mobile, and Charleston. By June 1861, warships were stationed off the principal Southern ports, and a year later nearly 300 ships were in service.[125]

Modern navy evolves

The Civil War occurred during the early stages of the industrial revolution and subsequently many naval innovations emerged during this time, most notably the advent of the ironclad warship. It began when the Confederacy, knowing they had to meet or match the Union’s naval superiority, responded to the Union blockade by building or converting more than 130 vessels, including twenty-six ironclads and floating batteries.[126] Only half of these saw active service. Many were equipped with ram bows, creating “ram fever” among Union squadrons wherever they threatened. But in the face of overwhelming Union superiority and the Union’s own ironclad warships, they were unsuccessful.[127]

The Confederacy experimented with a submarine, which did not work well,[128] and with building an ironclad ship, the CSS Virginia, which was based on rebuilding a sunken Union ship, the Merrimack. On its first foray on March 8, 1862, the Virginia decimated the Union’s wooden fleet, but the next day the first Union ironclad, the USS Monitor, arrived to challenge it. The Battle of the Ironclads was a draw, but it marks the worldwide transition to ironclad warships.[129]

The Confederacy lost the Virginia when the ship was scuttled to prevent capture, and the Union built many copies of the Monitor. Lacking the technology to build effective warships, the Confederacy attempted to obtain warships from Britain.[130]

Blockade runners
Main article: Blockade runners of the American Civil War

British investors built small, fast, steam-driven blockade runners that traded arms and luxuries brought in from Britain through Bermuda, Cuba, and the Bahamas in return for high-priced cotton. The ships were so small that only a small amount of cotton went out. When the Union Navy seized a blockade runner, the ship and cargo were condemned as a Prize of war and sold, with the proceeds given to the Navy sailors; the captured crewmen were mostly British and they were simply released.[131] The Southern economy nearly collapsed during the war. There were multiple reasons for this: the severe deterioration of food supplies, especially in cities, the failure of Southern railroads, the loss of control of the main rivers, foraging by Northern armies, and the seizure of animals and crops by Confederate armies. Most historians agree that the blockade was a major factor in ruining the Confederate economy, however, Wise argues that the blockade runners provided just enough of a lifeline to allow Lee to continue fighting for additional months, thanks to fresh supplies of 400,000 rifles, lead, blankets, and boots that the homefront economy could no longer supply.[132]

Gunline of nine Union ironclads. South Atlantic Blockading Squadron off Charleston. Continuous blockade of all major ports was sustained by North’s overwhelming war production.

Economic impact

Surdam argues that the blockade was a powerful weapon that eventually ruined the Southern economy, at the cost of few lives in combat. Practically, the entire Confederate cotton crop was useless (although it was sold to Union traders), costing the Confederacy its main source of income. Critical imports were scarce and the coastal trade was largely ended as well.[133] The measure of the blockade’s success was not the few ships that slipped through, but the thousands that never tried it. Merchant ships owned in Europe could not get insurance and were too slow to evade the blockade; they simply stopped calling at Confederate ports.[134]

To fight an offensive war, the Confederacy purchased ships from Britain, converted them to warships, and raided American merchant ships in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Insurance rates skyrocketed and the American flag virtually disappeared from international waters. However, the same ships were reflagged with European flags and continued unmolested.[127] After the war, the U.S. demanded that Britain pay for the damage done, and Britain paid the U.S. $15 million in 1871.[135]

Rivers

The 1862 Union strategy called for simultaneous advances along four axes:[136]

  1. McClellan would lead the main thrust in Virginia towards Richmond.
  2. Ohio forces would advance through Kentucky into Tennessee.
  3. The Missouri Department would drive south along the Mississippi River.
  4. The westernmost attack would originate from Kansas.

Clashes on the rivers were melees of ironclads, cottonclads, gunboats and rams, complicated by torpedoes and by fire rafts.

Ulysses Grant used river transport and Andrew Foote’s gunboats of the Western Flotilla to threaten the Confederacy’s “Gibraltar of the West” at Columbus, Kentucky. Though rebuffed at Belmont, Grant cut off Columbus. The Confederates, lacking their own gunboats, were forced to retreat and the Union took control of western Kentucky in March 1862.[137]

In addition to ocean-going warships coming up the Mississippi, the Union Navy used timberclads, tinclads, and armored gunboats. Shipyards at Cairo, Illinois, and St. Louis built new boats or modified steamboats for action.[138] They took control of the Red, Tennessee, Cumberland, Mississippi, and Ohio rivers after victories at Fort Henry (February 6, 1862) and Fort Donelson (February 11 to 16, 1862), and supplied Grant’s forces as he moved into Tennessee. At Shiloh (Pittsburg Landing), in Tennessee in April 1862, the Confederates made a surprise attack that pushed Union forces against the river as night fell. Overnight, the Navy landed additional reinforcements, and Grant counter-attacked. Grant and the Union won a decisive victory—the first battle with the high casualty rates that would repeat over and over.[139]Memphis fell to Union forces on June 6, 1862 and became a key base for further advances south along the Mississippi River. On April 24, 1862, U.S. Naval forces under Farragut ran past Confederate defenses south of New Orleans. Confederate forces abandoned the city, giving the Union a critical anchor in the deep South.[140]

Naval forces assisted Grant in the long, complex Vicksburg Campaign that resulted in the Confederates surrendering at Vicksburg, Mississippi in July 1863, and in full Union control of the Mississippi River soon after.[141]

Eastern theater

For more details on this topic, see Eastern Theater of the American Civil War.

Eastern theater

For more details on this topic, see Eastern Theater of the American Civil War.

In one of the first highly visible battles, a march by Union troops under the command of Maj. Gen. Irvin McDowell on the Confederate forces near Washington was repulsed.

Left: The Battle of Antietam, the Civil War’s deadliest one-day fight. Union troops committed piecemeal had little effect.
Right: Confederate ironclads at Norfolk and New Orleans dispersed blockade, until Union ironclads could defeat them.

Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan took command of the Union Army of the Potomac on July 26 (he was briefly general-in-chief of all the Union armies, but was subsequently relieved of that post in favor of Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck), and the war began in earnest in 1862. Upon the strong urging of President Lincoln to begin offensive operations, McClellan attacked Virginia in the spring of 1862 by way of the peninsula between the York River and James River, southeast of Richmond. Although McClellan’s army reached the gates of Richmond in the Peninsula Campaign,[142][143][144] Johnston halted his advance at the Battle of Seven Pines, then General Robert E. Lee and top subordinates James Longstreet and Stonewall Jackson defeated McClellan in the Seven Days Battles and forced his retreat.[145] The Northern Virginia Campaign, which included the Second Battle of Bull Run, ended in yet another victory for the South.[146]McClellan resisted General-in-Chief Halleck’s orders to send reinforcements to John Pope’s Union Army of Virginia, which made it easier for Lee’s Confederates to defeat twice the number of combined enemy troops.

Emboldened by Second Bull Run, the Confederacy made its first invasion of the North. General Lee led 45,000 men of the Army of Northern Virginia across the Potomac River into Maryland on September 5. Lincoln then restored Pope’s troops to McClellan. McClellan and Lee fought at the Battle of Antietam near Sharpsburg, Maryland, on September 17, 1862, the bloodiest single day in United States military history.[145][147] Lee’s army, checked at last, returned to Virginia before McClellan could destroy it. Antietam is considered a Union victory because it halted Lee’s invasion of the North and provided an opportunity for Lincoln to announce his Emancipation Proclamation.[148]

Union forces performing a bayonet charge, 1862.

When the cautious McClellan failed to follow up on Antietam, he was replaced by Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside. Burnside was soon defeated at the Battle of Fredericksburg[149] on December 13, 1862, when more than 12,000 Union soldiers were killed or wounded during repeated futile frontal assaults against Marye’s Heights. After the battle, Burnside was replaced by Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker.

Hooker, too, proved unable to defeat Lee’s army; despite outnumbering the Confederates by more than two to one, he was humiliated in the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863.[150] Gen. Stonewall Jackson was shot in the arm by accidental friendly fire during the battle and subsequently died of complications.[151] Gen. Hooker was replaced by Maj. Gen. George Meade during Lee’s second invasion of the North, in June. Meade defeated Lee at the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1 to 3, 1863).[152] This was the bloodiest battle of the war, and has been called the war’s turning point. Pickett’s Charge on July 3 is often considered the high-water mark of the Confederacy because it signaled the collapse of serious Confederate threats of victory. Lee’s army suffered 28,000 casualties (versus Meade’s 23,000).[153] However, Lincoln was angry that Meade failed to intercept Lee’s retreat, and after Meade’s inconclusive fall campaign, Lincoln turned to the Western Theater for new leadership. At the same time, the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg surrendered, giving the Union control of the Mississippi River, permanently isolating the western Confederacy, and producing the new leader Lincoln needed, Ulysses S. Grant.

Western theater

For more details on this topic, see Western Theater of the American Civil War.

While the Confederate forces had numerous successes in the Eastern Theater, they were defeated many times in the West. They were driven from Missouri early in the war as a result of the Battle of Pea Ridge.[154] Leonidas Polk‘s invasion of Columbus, Kentucky ended Kentucky’s policy of neutrality and turned that state against the Confederacy. Nashville and central Tennessee fell to the Union early in 1862, leading to attrition of local food supplies and livestock and a breakdown in social organization.

Left: The Battle of Chickamauga, the highest two-day losses. Confederate victory held off Union offensive for two months.
Right: New Orleans captured. Union ironclads forced passage, sank Confederate fleet, destroyed batteries, held docks for Army.

The Mississippi was opened to Union traffic to the southern border of Tennessee with the taking of Island No. 10 and New Madrid, Missouri, and then Memphis, Tennessee. In April 1862, the Union Navy captured New Orleans,[155] which allowed Union forces to begin moving up the Mississippi. Only the fortress city of Vicksburg, Mississippi, prevented Union control of the entire river.

General Braxton Bragg‘s second Confederate invasion of Kentucky ended with a meaningless victory over Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell at the Battle of Perryville, although Bragg was forced to end his attempt at invading Kentucky and retreat due to lack of support for the Confederacy in that state.[156] Bragg was narrowly defeated by Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans at the Battle of Stones River in Tennessee.[157]

The one clear Confederate victory in the West was the Battle of Chickamauga. Bragg, reinforced by Lt. Gen. James Longstreet‘s corps (from Lee’s army in the east), defeated Rosecrans, despite the heroic defensive stand of Maj. Gen. George Henry Thomas. Rosecrans retreated to Chattanooga, which Bragg then besieged.

The Union’s key strategist and tactician in the West was Ulysses S. Grant, who won victories at Forts Henry and Donelson (by which the Union seized control of the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers); the Battle of Shiloh;[158] and the Battle of Vicksburg,[159] which cemented Union control of the Mississippi River and is considered one of the turning points of the war. Grant marched to the relief of Rosecrans and defeated Bragg at the Third Battle of Chattanooga,[160] driving Confederate forces out of Tennessee and opening a route to Atlanta and the heart of the Confederacy.

Trans-Mississippi

For more details on Missouri in the Civil War, see Trans-Mississippi Theater of the American Civil War.
Left: Quantrill’s Raid captured a hotel in free-state Kansas for a day in a town of 2,000, burned 185 buildings, killed 182 men and boys.[161]
Right: Nathaniel Lyon secured St. Louis docks and arsenal, led Union forces to expel Missouri Confederate forces and government.[162]

Extensive guerrilla warfare characterized the trans-Mississippi region, as the Confederacy lacked the troops and the logistics to support regular armies that could challenge Union control.[163]Roving Confederate bands such as Quantrill’s Raiders terrorized the countryside, striking both military installations and civilian settlements.[164] The “Sons of Liberty” and “Order of the American Knights” attacked pro-Union people, elected officeholders, and unarmed uniformed soldiers. These partisans could not be entirely driven out of the state of Missouri until an entire regular Union infantry division was engaged.

By 1864, these violent activities harmed the nationwide anti-war movement organizing against the re-election of Lincoln. Missouri not only stayed in the Union, Lincoln took 70 percent of the vote for re-election.[161]

Numerous small-scale military actions south and west of Missouri sought to control Indian Territory and New Mexico Territory for the Union. The Union repulsed Confederate incursions into New Mexico in 1862, and the exiled Arizona government withdrew into Texas. In the Indian Territory, civil war broke out within tribes. About 12,000 Indian warriors fought for the Confederacy, and smaller numbers for the Union.[165] The most prominent Cherokee was Brigadier General Stand Watie, the last Confederate general to surrender.[166]

After the fall of Vicksburg in July 1863, General Kirby Smith in Texas was informed by Jefferson Davis that he could expect no further help from east of the Mississippi River. Although he lacked resources to beat Union armies, he built up a formidable arsenal at Tyler, along with his own Kirby Smithdom economy, a virtual “independent fiefdom” in Texas, including railroad construction and international smuggling. The Union in turn did not directly engage him.[167] Its 1864 Red River Campaign to take Shreveport, Louisiana was a failure and Texas remained in Confederate hands throughout the war.

End of the war

Conquest of Virginia

At the beginning of 1864, Lincoln made Grant commander of all Union armies. Grant made his headquarters with the Army of the Potomac, and put Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman in command of most of the western armies. Grant understood the concept of total war and believed, along with Lincoln and Sherman, that only the utter defeat of Confederate forces and their economic base would end the war.[168] This was total war not in killing civilians but rather in taking provisions and forage and destroying homes, farms, and railroads, that Grant said “would otherwise have gone to the support of secession and rebellion. This policy I believe exercised a material influence in hastening the end.”[169] Grant devised a coordinated strategy that would strike at the entire Confederacy from multiple directions. Generals George Meade and Benjamin Butler were ordered to move against Lee near Richmond, General Franz Sigel (and later Philip Sheridan) were to attack the Shenandoah Valley, General Sherman was to capture Atlanta and march to the sea (the Atlantic Ocean), Generals George Crook and William W. Averell were to operate against railroad supply lines in West Virginia, and Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks was to capture Mobile, Alabama.[170]

These dead soldiers—from Ewell‘s May 1864 attack at Spotsylvania—delayed Grant’s advance on Richmond in the Overland Campaign.

The Peacemakers by George Peter Alexander Healy portrays Sherman, Grant, Lincoln, and Porter discussing plans for the last weeks of the Civil War aboard the steamer River Queen in March 1865.

Grant’s army set out on the Overland Campaign with the goal of drawing Lee into a defense of Richmond, where they would attempt to pin down and destroy the Confederate army. The Union army first attempted to maneuver past Lee and fought several battles, notably at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor. These battles resulted in heavy losses on both sides, and forced Lee’s Confederates to fall back repeatedly. An attempt to outflank Lee from the south failed under Butler, who was trapped inside the Bermuda Hundred river bend. Each battle resulted in setbacks for the Union that mirrored what they had suffered under prior generals, though unlike those prior generals, Grant fought on rather than retreat. Grant was tenacious and kept pressing Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia back to Richmond. While Lee was preparing for an attack on Richmond, Grant unexpectedly turned south to cross the James River and began the protracted Siege of Petersburg, where the two armies engaged in trench warfare for over nine months.[171]

Grant finally found a commander, General Philip Sheridan, aggressive enough to prevail in the Valley Campaigns of 1864. Sheridan was initially repelled at the Battle of New Market by former U.S. Vice President and Confederate Gen. John C. Breckinridge. The Battle of New Market was the Confederacy’s last major victory of the war. After redoubling his efforts, Sheridan defeated Maj. Gen. Jubal A. Early in a series of battles, including a final decisive defeat at the Battle of Cedar Creek. Sheridan then proceeded to destroy the agricultural base of the Shenandoah Valley, a strategy similar to the tactics Sherman later employed in Georgia.[172]

Meanwhile, Sherman maneuvered from Chattanooga to Atlanta, defeating Confederate Generals Joseph E. Johnston and John Bell Hood along the way. The fall of Atlanta on September 2, 1864, guaranteed the reelection of Lincoln as president.[173] Hood left the Atlanta area to swing around and menace Sherman’s supply lines and invade Tennessee in the Franklin-Nashville Campaign. Union Maj. Gen. John Schofield defeated Hood at the Battle of Franklin, and George H. Thomas dealt Hood a massive defeat at the Battle of Nashville, effectively destroying Hood’s army.[174]

Leaving Atlanta, and his base of supplies, Sherman’s army marched with an unknown destination, laying waste to about 20 percent of the farms in Georgia in his “March to the Sea“. He reached the Atlantic Ocean at Savannah, Georgia in December 1864. Sherman’s army was followed by thousands of freed slaves; there were no major battles along the March. Sherman turned north through South Carolina and North Carolina to approach the Confederate Virginia lines from the south, increasing the pressure on Lee’s army.[175]

Lee’s army, thinned by desertion and casualties, was now much smaller than Grant’s. One last Confederate attempt to break the Union hold on Petersburg failed at the decisive Battle of Five Forks (sometimes called “the Waterloo of the Confederacy”) on April 1. This meant that the Union now controlled the entire perimeter surrounding Richmond-Petersburg, completely cutting it off from the Confederacy. Realizing that the capital was now lost, Lee decided to evacuate his army. The Confederate capital fell to the Union XXV Corps, composed of black troops. The remaining Confederate units fled west after a defeat at Sayler’s Creek.[176]

Confederacy surrenders

A map of the U.S. South showing shrinking territory under rebel control.

Map of Confederate territory losses year by year.

Main article: Conclusion of the American Civil War

Initially, Lee did not intend to surrender, but planned to regroup at the village of Appomattox Court House, where supplies were to be waiting, and then continue the war. Grant chased Lee and got in front of him, so that when Lee’s army reached Appomattox Court House, they were surrounded. After an initial battle, Lee decided that the fight was now hopeless, and surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia on April 9, 1865, at the McLean House.[177] In an untraditional gesture and as a sign of Grant’s respect and anticipation of peacefully restoring Confederate states to the Union, Lee was permitted to keep his sword and his horse, Traveller. On April 14, 1865, President Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth, a Southern sympathizer. Lincoln died early the next morning, and Andrew Johnson became the president. Meanwhile, Confederate forces across the South surrendered as news of Lee’s surrender reached them.[178] On April 26, 1865, General Joseph E. Johnston surrendered nearly 90,000 men of the Army of Tennessee to Major General William T. Sherman at the Bennett Place near present-day Durham, North Carolina. It proved to be the largest surrender of Confederate forces, effectively bringing the war to an end. President Johnson officially declared a virtual end to the insurrection on May 9, 1865; President Jefferson Davis was captured the following day.[1] On June 2, Kirby Smith officially surrendered his troops in the Trans-Mississippi Department.[179] On June 23, Cherokee leader Stand Watie became the last Confederate General to surrender his forces.[180]

Diplomacy

Main article: Diplomacy of the American Civil War

Though the Confederacy hoped that Britain and France would join them against the Union, this was never likely, and so they instead tried to bring Britain and France in as mediators.[181][182] The Union, under Lincoln and Secretary of State William H. Seward worked to block this, and threatened war if any country officially recognized the existence of the Confederate States of America. In 1861, Southerners voluntarily embargoed cotton shipments, hoping to start an economic depression in Europe that would force Britain to enter the war to get cotton, but this did not work. Worse, Europe developed other cotton suppliers, which they found superior, hindering the South’s recovery after the war.[183]

A group of twenty-six sailors posing around a rifled naval cannon.

Crewmembers of USS Wissahickon by the ship’s 11-inch (280 mm) Dahlgren gun, circa 1863.

Cotton diplomacy proved a failure as Europe had a surplus of cotton, while the 1860–62 crop failures in Europe made the North’s grain exports of critical importance. It also helped to turn European opinion further away from the Confederacy. It was said that “King Corn was more powerful than King Cotton”, as U.S. grain went from a quarter of the British import trade to almost half.[183] When Britain did face a cotton shortage, it was temporary, being replaced by increased cultivation in Egypt and India. Meanwhile, the war created employment for arms makers, ironworkers, and British ships to transport weapons.[184]

Lincoln’s foreign policy was deficient in 1861 in terms of appealing to European public opinion. Diplomats had to explain that United States was not committed to the ending of slavery, but instead they repeated legalistic arguments about the unconstitutionality of secession. Confederate spokesman, on the other hand, were much more successful by ignoring slavery and instead focusing on their struggle for liberty, their commitment to free trade, and the essential role of cotton in the European economy. In addition, the European aristocracy (the dominant factor in every major country) was “absolutely gleeful in pronouncing the American debacle as proof that the entire experiment in popular government had failed. European government leaders welcomed the fragmentation of the ascendant American Republic.”[185]

U.S. minister to Britain Charles Francis Adams proved particularly adept and convinced Britain not to boldly challenge the blockade. The Confederacy purchased several warships from commercial shipbuilders in Britain (CSS Alabama, CSS Shenandoah, CSS Tennessee, CSS Tallahassee, CSS Florida, and some others). The most famous, the CSS Alabama, did considerable damage and led to serious postwar disputes. However, public opinion against slavery created a political liability for politicians in Britain, where the antislavery movement was powerful.[186]

War loomed in late 1861 between the U.S. and Britain over the Trent affair, involving the U.S. Navy’s boarding of the British ship Trent and seizure of two Confederate diplomats. However, London and Washington were able to smooth over the problem after Lincoln released the two. In 1862, the British considered mediation between North and South– though even such an offer would have risked war with the U.S. British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston reportedly read Uncle Tom’s Cabin three times when deciding on this.[187]

The Union victory in the Battle of Antietam caused them to delay this decision. The Emancipation Proclamation over time would reinforce the political liability of supporting the Confederacy. Despite sympathy for the Confederacy, France’s own seizure of Mexico ultimately deterred them from war with the Union. Confederate offers late in the war to end slavery in return for diplomatic recognition were not seriously considered by London or Paris. After 1863, the Polish revolt against Russia further distracted the European powers, and ensured that they would remain neutral.[188]

Union victory and aftermath

Results

The causes of the war, the reasons for its outcome, and even the name of the war itself are subjects of lingering contention today. The North and West grew rich while the once-rich South became poor for a century. The national political power of the slaveowners and rich southerners ended. Historians are less sure about the results of the postwar Reconstruction, especially regarding the second class citizenship of the Freedmen and their poverty.[189]

Historians have debated whether the Confederacy could have won the war. Most scholars, such as James McPherson, argue that Confederate victory was at least possible.[190] McPherson argues that the North’s advantage in population and resources made Northern victory likely but not guaranteed. He also argues that if the Confederacy had fought using unconventional tactics, they would have more easily been able to hold out long enough to exhaust the Union.[191]

Comparison of Union and Confederacy, 1860–1864[192]
Year Union Confederacy
Population 1860 22,100,000 (71%) 9,100,000 (29%)
1864 28,800,000 (90%)[N 2] 3,000,000 (10%)[193]
Free 1860 21,700,000 (81%) 5,600,000 (19%)
Slave 1860 400,000 (11%) 3,500,000 (89%)
1864 negligible 1,900,000[N 3]
Soldiers 1860–64 2,100,000 (67%) 1,064,000 (33%)
Railroad miles 1860 21,800 (71%) 8,800 (29%)
1864 29,100 (98%)[194] negligible
Manufactures 1860 90% 10%
1864 98% negligible
Arms production 1860 97% 3%
1864 98% negligible
Cotton bales 1860 negligible 4,500,000
1864 300,000 negligible
Exports 1860 30% 70%
1864 98% negligible

Confederates did not need to invade and hold enemy territory to win, but only needed to fight a defensive war to convince the North that the cost of winning was too high. The North needed to conquer and hold vast stretches of enemy territory and defeat Confederate armies to win.[191] Lincoln was not a military dictator, and could only continue to fight the war as long as the American public supported a continuation of the war. The Confederacy sought to win independence by out-lasting Lincoln; however, after Atlanta fell and Lincoln defeated McClellan in the election of 1864, all hope for a political victory for the South ended. At that point, Lincoln had secured the support of the Republicans, War Democrats, the border states, emancipated slaves, and the neutrality of Britain and France. By defeating the Democrats and McClellan, he also defeated the Copperheads and their peace platform.[195]

Many scholars argue that the Union held an insurmountable long-term advantage over the Confederacy in industrial strength and population. Confederate actions, they argue, only delayed defeat.[196][197] Civil War historian Shelby Foote expressed this view succinctly: “I think that the North fought that war with one hand behind its back … If there had been more Southern victories, and a lot more, the North simply would have brought that other hand out from behind its back. I don’t think the South ever had a chance to win that War.”[198]

A minority view among historians is that the Confederacy lost because, as E. Merton Coulter put it, “people did not will hard enough and long enough to win.”[199][200] Marxist historian Armstead Robinson agrees, pointing to a class conflict in the Confederates army between the slave owners and the larger number of non-owners. He argues that the non-owner soldiers grew embittered about fighting to preserve slavery, and fought less enthusiastically. He attributes the major Confederate defeats in 1863 at Vicksburg and Missionary Ridge to this class conflict.[201] However, most historians reject the argument.[202] James M. McPherson, after reading thousands of letters written by Confederate soldiers, found strong patriotism that continued to the end; they truly believed they were fighting for freedom and liberty. Even as the Confederacy was visibly collapsing in 1864–65, he says most Confederate soldiers were fighting hard.[203] Historian Gary Gallagher cites General Sherman who in early 1864 commented, “The devils seem to have a determination that cannot but be admired.” Despite their loss of slaves and wealth, with starvation looming, Sherman continued, “yet I see no sign of let up—some few deserters—plenty tired of war, but the masses determined to fight it out.”[204]

Also important were Lincoln’s eloquence in rationalizing the national purpose and his skill in keeping the border states committed to the Union cause. The Emancipation Proclamation was an effective use of the President’s war powers.[205] The Confederate government failed in its attempt to get Europe involved in the war militarily, particularly Britain and France. Southern leaders needed to get European powers to help break up the blockade the Union had created around the Southern ports and cities. Lincoln’s naval blockade was 95 percent effective at stopping trade goods; as a result, imports and exports to the South declined significantly. The abundance of European cotton and Britain’s hostility to the institution of slavery, along with Lincoln’s Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico naval blockades, severely decreased any chance that either Britain or France would enter the war.[206]

Historian Don Doyle has argued that the Union victory had a major impact on the course of world history.[207] The Union victory energized popular democratic forces. A Confederate victory, on the other hand, would have meant a new birth of slavery, not freedom. Historian Fergus Bordewich, following Doyle, argues that:

The North’s victory decisively proved the durability of democratic government. Confederate independence, on the other hand, would have established an American model for reactionary politics and race-based repression that would likely have cast an international shadow into the twentieth century and perhaps beyond.”[208]

Costs

The war produced at least 1,030,000 casualties (3 percent of the population), including about 620,000 soldier deaths—two-thirds by disease, and 50,000 civilians.[12] Binghamton University historian J. David Hacker believes the number of soldier deaths was approximately 750,000, 20 percent higher than traditionally estimated, and possibly as high as 850,000.[20][209] The war accounted for more American deaths than in all other U.S. wars combined.[210]

One in thirteen veterans were amputees.
Remains of both sides were reinterred.
National cemetery in Andersonville, GA.

Based on 1860 census figures, 8 percent of all white males aged 13 to 43 died in the war, including 6 percent in the North and 18 percent in the South.[211][212] About 56,000 soldiers died in prison camps during the War.[213] An estimated 60,000 men lost limbs in the war.[214]

Union army dead, amounting to 15 percent of the over two million who served, was broken down as follows:[7]

  • 110,070 killed in action (67,000) or died of wounds (43,000).
  • 199,790 died of disease (75 percent was due to the war, the remainder would have occurred in civilian life anyway)
  • 24,866 died in Confederate prison camps
  • 9,058 killed by accidents or drowning
  • 15,741 other/unknown deaths
  • 359,528 total dead

In addition there were 4,523 deaths in the Navy (2,112 in battle) and 460 in the Marines (148 in battle).[8]

Black troops made up 10 percent of the Union death toll, they amounted to 15 percent of disease deaths but less than 3 percent of those killed in battle.[7] Losses among African Americans were high, in the last year and a half and from all reported casualties, approximately 20 percent of all African Americans enrolled in the military lost their lives during the Civil War.[215]:16 Notably, their mortality rate was significantly higher than white soldiers:

[We] find, according to the revised official data, that of the slightly over two millions troops in the United States Volunteers, over 316,000 died (from all causes), or 15.2 percent. Of the 67,000 Regular Army (white) troops, 8.6 percent, or not quite 6,000, died. Of the approximately 180,000 United States Colored Troops, however, over 36,000 died, or 20.5 percent. In other words, the mortality “rate” amongst the United States Colored Troops in the Civil War was thirty-five percent greater than that among other troops, notwithstanding the fact that the former were not enrolled until some eighteen months after the fighting began.[215]:16

Burying Union dead on the Antietam battlefield, 1862.

Confederate records compiled by historian William F. Fox list 74,524 killed and died of wounds and 59,292 died of disease. Including Confederate estimates of battle losses where no records exist would bring the Confederate death toll to 94,000 killed and died of wounds. Fox complained, however, that records were incomplete, especially during the last year of the war, and that battlefield reports likely under-counted deaths (many men counted as wounded in battlefield reports subsequently died of their wounds). Thomas L. Livermore, using Fox’s data, put the number of Confederate non-combat deaths at 166,000, using the official estimate of Union deaths from disease and accidents and a comparison of Union and Confederate enlistment records, for a total of 260,000 deaths.[7] However, this excludes the 30,000 deaths of Confederate troops in prisons, which would raise the minimum number of deaths to 290,000.

While the figures of 360,000 army deaths for the Union and 260,000 for the Confederacy remained commonly cited, they are incomplete. In addition to many Confederate records being missing, partly as a result of Confederate widows not reporting deaths due to being ineligible for benefits, both armies only counted troops who died during their service, and not the tens of thousands who died of wounds or diseases after being discharged. This often happened only a few days or weeks later. Francis Amasa Walker, Superintendent of the 1870 Census, used census and Surgeon General data to estimate a minimum of 500,000 Union military deaths and 350,000 Confederate military deaths, for a total death toll of 850,000 soldiers. While Walker’s estimates were originally dismissed because of the 1870 Census’s undercounting, it was later found that the census was only off by 6.5%, and that the data Walker used would be roughly accurate.[209]

Analyzing the number of dead by using census data to calculate the deviation of the death rate of men of fighting age from the norm suggests that at least 627,000 and at most 888,000, but most likely 761,000 soldiers, died in the war.[21] This would break down to approximately 350,000 Confederate and 411,000 Union military deaths, going by the proportion of Union to Confederate battle losses.

Deaths among former slaves has proven much harder to estimate, due to the lack of reliable census data at the time, though they were known to be considerable, as former slaves were set free or escaped in massive numbers in an area where the Union army did not have sufficient shelter, doctors, or food for them. University of Connecticut Professor James Downs states that tens to hundreds of thousands of slaves died during the war from disease, starvation, exposure, or execution at the hands of the Confederates, and that if these deaths are counted in the war’s total, the death toll would exceed 1 million.[216]

Losses were far higher than during the recent defeat of Mexico, which saw roughly thirteen thousand American deaths, including fewer than two thousand killed in battle, between 1846 and 1848. One reason for the high number of battle deaths during the war was the continued use of tactics similar to those of the Napoleonic Wars at the turn of the century, such as charging. With the advent of more accurate rifled barrels, Minié balls and (near the end of the war for the Union army) repeating firearms such as the Spencer Repeating Rifle and the Henry Repeating Rifle, soldiers were mowed down when standing in lines in the open. This led to the adoption of trench warfare, a style of fighting that defined much of World War I.[217]

The wealth amassed in slaves and slavery for the Confederacy’s 3.5 million blacks effectively ended when Union armies arrived; they were nearly all freed by the Emancipation Proclamation. Slaves in the border states and those located in some former Confederate territory occupied before the Emancipation Proclamation were freed by state action or (on December 6, 1865) by the Thirteenth Amendment.[218]

The war destroyed much of the wealth that had existed in the South. All accumulated investment Confederate bonds was forfeit; most banks and railroads were bankrupt. Income per person in the South dropped to less than 40 percent of that of the North, a condition that lasted until well into the 20th century. Southern influence in the U.S. federal government, previously considerable, was greatly diminished until the latter half of the 20th century.[219] The full restoration of the Union was the work of a highly contentious postwar era known as Reconstruction.

Emancipation

Slavery as a war issue

While not all Southerners saw themselves as fighting to preserve slavery, most of the officers and over a third of the rank and file in Lee‘s army had close family ties to slavery. To Northerners, in contrast, the motivation was primarily to preserve the Union, not to abolish slavery.[220] Abraham Lincoln consistently made preserving the Union the central goal of the war, though he increasingly saw slavery as a crucial issue and made ending it an additional goal.[221] Lincoln’s decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation angered both Peace Democrats (“Copperheads”) and War Democrats, but energized most Republicans.[222] By warning that free blacks would flood the North, Democrats made gains in the 1862 elections, but they did not gain control of Congress. The Republicans’ counterargument that slavery was the mainstay of the enemy steadily gained support, with the Democrats losing decisively in the 1863 elections in the northern state of Ohio when they tried to resurrect anti-black sentiment.[223]

Emancipation Proclamation

Main article: Emancipation Proclamation

The Emancipation Proclamation enabled African-Americans, both free blacks and escaped slaves, to join the Union Army.[N 4] About 190,000 volunteered, further enhancing the numerical advantage the Union armies enjoyed over the Confederates, who did not dare emulate the equivalent manpower source for fear of fundamentally undermining the legitimacy of slavery.[N 5]

During the Civil War, sentiment concerning slaves, enslavement and emancipation in the United States was divided. In 1861, Lincoln worried that premature attempts at emancipation would mean the loss of the border states, and that “to lose Kentucky is nearly the same as to lose the whole game.”[229] Copperheads and some War Democrats opposed emancipation, although the latter eventually accepted it as part of total war needed to save the Union.[230]

Left: Contrabands—fugitive slaves—cooks, laundresses, laborers, teamsters, railroad repair crews—fled to the Union Army, but were not officially freed until 1863 Emancipation Proclamation

.

Right: In 1863, the Union army accepted Freedmen. Seen here are Black and White teen-aged soldiers.

At first, Lincoln reversed attempts at emancipation by Secretary of War Simon Cameron and Generals John C. Frémont (in Missouri) and David Hunter (in South Carolina, Georgia and Florida) to keep the loyalty of the border states and the War Democrats. Lincoln warned the border states that a more radical type of emancipation would happen if his gradual plan based on compensated emancipation and voluntary colonization was rejected.[231] But only the District of Columbia accepted Lincoln’s gradual plan, which was enacted by Congress. When Lincoln told his cabinet about his proposed emancipation proclamation, Seward advised Lincoln to wait for a victory before issuing it, as to do otherwise would seem like “our last shriek on the retreat”.[232] Lincoln laid the groundwork for public support in an open letter published letter to abolitionist Horace Greeley’s newspaper.[233]

In September 1862, the Battle of Antietam provided this opportunity, and the subsequent War Governors’ Conference added support for the proclamation.[234] Lincoln issued his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862, and his final Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. In his letter to Albert G. Hodges, Lincoln explained his belief that “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong … And yet I have never understood that the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling … I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me.”[235]

Lincoln’s moderate approach succeeded in inducing border states, War Democrats and emancipated slaves to fight for the Union. The Union-controlled border states (Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, Delaware and West Virginia) and Union-controlled regions around New Orleans, Norfolk and elsewhere, were not covered by the Emancipation Proclamation. All abolished slavery on their own, except Kentucky and Delaware.[236]

Since the Emancipation Proclamation was based on the President’s war powers, it only included territory held by Confederates at the time. However, the Proclamation became a symbol of the Union’s growing commitment to add emancipation to the Union’s definition of liberty.[237] The Emancipation Proclamation greatly reduced the Confederacy’s hope of getting aid from Britain or France.[238] By late 1864, Lincoln was playing a leading role in getting Congress to vote for the Thirteenth Amendment, which made emancipation universal and permanent.[239]

Texas v. White

In Texas v. White, 74 U.S. 700 (1869) the United States Supreme Court ruled that Texas had remained a state ever since it first joined the Union, despite claims that it joined the Confederate States; the court further held that the Constitution did not permit states to unilaterally secede from the United States, and that the ordinances of secession, and all the acts of the legislatures within seceding states intended to give effect to such ordinances, were “absolutely null“, under the constitution.[240]

Reconstruction

Main article: Reconstruction Era of the United States

Northern teachers traveled into the South to provide education and training for the newly freed population.

Reconstruction began during the war, with the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863 and it continued until 1877.[241] It comprised multiple complex methods to resolve the outstanding issues of the war’s aftermath, the most important of which were the three “Reconstruction Amendments” to the Constitution, which remain in effect to the present time: the 13th (1865), the 14th (1868) and the 15th (1870). From the Union perspective, the goals of Reconstruction were to consolidate the Union victory on the battlefield by reuniting the Union; to guarantee a “republican form of government for the ex-Confederate states; and to permanently end slavery—and prevent semi-slavery status.[242]

President Johnson took a lenient approach and saw the achievement of the main war goals as realized in 1865, when each ex-rebel state repudiated secession and ratified the Thirteenth Amendment. Radical Republicans demanded proof that Confederate nationalism was dead and that the slaves were truly free. They came to the fore after the 1866 elections and undid much of Johnson’s work. In 1872 the “Liberal Republicans” argued that the war goals had been achieved and that Reconstruction should end. They ran a presidential ticket in 1872 but were decisively defeated. In 1874, Democrats, primarily Southern, took control of Congress and opposed any more reconstruction. The Compromise of 1877 closed with a national consensus that the Civil War had finally ended.[243] With the withdrawal of federal troops, however, whites retook control of every Southern legislature; the Jim Crow period of disenfranchisement and legal segregation was about to begin.

Memory and historiography

Left: Monument to the Grand Army of the Republic, a Union veteran organization.
Right: Cherokee Confederates reunion in New Orleans, 1903.

The Civil War is one of the central events in American collective memory. There are innumerable statues, commemorations, books and archival collections. The memory includes the home front, military affairs, the treatment of soldiers, both living and dead, in the war’s aftermath, depictions of the war in literature and art, evaluations of heroes and villains, and considerations of the moral and political lessons of the war.[244] The last theme includes moral evaluations of racism and slavery, heroism in combat and heroism behind the lines, and the issues of democracy and minority rights, as well as the notion of an “Empire of Liberty” influencing the world.[245]

Professional historians have paid much more attention to the causes of the war, than to the war itself. Military history has largely developed outside academe, leading to a proliferation of solid studies by non-scholars who are thoroughly familiar with the primary sources, pay close attention to battles and campaigns, and write for the large public readership, rather than the small scholarly community. Bruce Catton and Shelby Foote are among the best-known writers.[246][247] Practically every major figure in the war, both North and South, has had a serious biographical study.[248] Deeply religious Southerners saw the hand of God in history, which demonstrated His wrath at their sinfulness, or His rewards for their suffering. Historian Wilson Fallin has examined the sermons of white and black Baptist preachers after the War. Southern white preachers said:

God had chastised them and given them a special mission—to maintain orthodoxy, strict biblicism, personal piety, and traditional race relations. Slavery, they insisted, had not been sinful. Rather, emancipation was a historical tragedy and the end of Reconstruction was a clear sign of God’s favor.[249]

In sharp contrast, Black preachers interpreted the Civil War as:

God’s gift of freedom. They appreciated opportunities to exercise their independence, to worship in their own way, to affirm their worth and dignity, and to proclaim the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. Most of all, they could form their own churches, associations, and conventions. These institutions offered self-help and racial uplift, and provided places where the gospel of liberation could be proclaimed. As a result, black preachers continued to insist that God would protect and help him; God would be their rock in a stormy land.[250]

Lost Cause

Main article: Lost Cause of the Confederacy

Memory of the war in the white South crystallized in the myth of the “Lost Cause”, shaping regional identity and race relations for generations.[251] Alan T. Nolan notes that the Lost Cause was expressly “a rationalization, a cover-up to vindicate the name and fame” of those in rebellion. Some claims revolve around the insignificance of slavery; some appeals highlight cultural differences between North and South; the military conflict by Confederate actors is idealized; in any case, secession was said to be lawful.[252] Nolan argues that the adoption of the Lost Cause perspective facilitated the reunification of the North and the South while excusing the “virulent racism” of the 19th century, sacrificing African-American progress to a white man’s reunification. He also deems the Lost Cause “a caricature of the truth. This caricature wholly misrepresents and distorts the facts of the matter” in every instance.[253]

Beginning in 1961 the U.S. Post Office released Commemorative stamps for five famous battles, each issued on the 100th anniversary of the respective battle.

Beardian historiography

The interpretation of the Civil War presented by Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard in The Rise of American Civilization (1927) was highly influential among historians and the general public until the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. The Beards downplayed slavery, abolitionism, and issues of morality. They ignored constitutional issues of states’ rights and even ignored American nationalism as the force that finally led to victory in the war. Indeed, the ferocious combat itself was passed over as merely an ephemeral event. Much more important was the calculus of class conflict. The Beards announced that the Civil War was really:

[A] social cataclysm in which the capitalists, laborers, and farmers of the North and West drove from power in the national government the planting aristocracy of the South.[254]

The Beards themselves abandoned their interpretation by the 1940s and it became defunct among historians in the 1950s, when scholars shifted to an emphasis on slavery. However, Beardian themes still echo among Lost Cause writers.[255]

Civil War commemoration

Main article: Commemoration of the American Civil War
See also: Commemoration of the American Civil War on postage stamps
Left: Grand Army of the Republic (Union).
Right: United Confederate Veterans.

The American Civil War has been commemorated in many capacities ranging from the reenactment of battles, to statues and memorial halls erected, to films being produced, to stamps and coins with Civil War themes being issued, all of which helped to shape public memory. This varied advent occurred in greater proportions on the 100th and 150th anniversary. [256] Hollywood‘s take on the war has been especially influential in shaping public memory, as seen in such film classics as Birth of a Nation (1915), Gone with the Wind (1939), and more recently Lincoln (2012). Ken Burns produced a notable PBS series on television titled The Civil War (1990). It was digitally remastered and re-released in 2015.

Technological significance

There were numerous technological innovations during the Civil War that had a great impact on 19th century science. The Civil War was one of the earliest examples of an “industrial war“, in which technological might is used to achieve military supremacy in a war.[257] New inventions, such as the train and telegraph, delivered soldiers, supplies and messages at a time when horses were considered to be the fastest way to travel.[258][259] It was also in this war when countries first used aerial warfare, in the form of reconnaissance balloons, to a significant effect.[260] It saw the first action involving steam-powered ironclad warships in naval warfare history.[261] Repeating firearms such as the Henry rifle, Spencer rifle, Colt revolving rifle, Triplett & Scott carbine and others, first appeared during the Civil War; they were a revolutionary invention that would soon replace muzzle-loading and single-shot firearms in warfare, as well as the first appearances of rapid-firing weapons and machine guns such as the Agar gun and the Gatling gun.[262]

In works of culture and art

Literature

Film

Song

Video games

See also

General reference

Union

Confederacy

Ethnic articles

Topical articles

National articles

State articles

  • See articles in the format, “*state* in the American Civil War”

References

Notes

  1. Jump up^ A novel way of calculating casualties by looking at the deviation of the death rate of men of fighting age from the norm through analysis of census data found that at least 627,000 and at most 888,000 people, but most likely 761,000 people, died through the war.[21]
  2. Jump up^ “Union population 1864” aggregates 1860 population, average annual immigration 1855–1864, and population governed formerly by CSA per Kenneth Martis source. Contrabands and after the Emancipation Proclamation freedmen, migrating into Union control on the coasts and to the advancing armies, and natural increase are excluded.
  3. Jump up^ “Slave 1864, CSA” aggregates 1860 slave census of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Texas. It omits losses from contraband and after the Emancipation Proclamation, freedmen migrating to the Union controlled coastal ports and those joining advancing Union armies, especially in the Mississippi Valley.
  4. Jump up^ At the beginning of the war, some Union commanders thought they were supposed to return escaped slaves to their masters. By 1862, when it became clear that this would be a long war, the question of what to do about slavery became more general. The Southern economy and military effort depended on slave labor. It began to seem unreasonable to protect slavery while blockading Southern commerce and destroying Southern production. As one Congressman put it, the slaves “… cannot be neutral. As laborers, if not as soldiers, they will be allies of the rebels, or of the Union.”[224] The same Congressman—and his fellow Radical Republicans—put pressure on Lincoln to rapidly emancipate the slaves, whereas moderate Republicans came to accept gradual, compensated emancipation and colonization.[225] Enslaved African Americans did not wait for Lincoln’s action before escaping and seeking freedom behind Union lines. From early years of the war, hundreds of thousands of African Americans escaped to Union lines, especially in occupied areas like Nashville, Norfolk and the Hampton Roads region in 1862, Tennessee from 1862 on, the line of Sherman’s march, etc. So many African Americans fled to Union lines that commanders created camps and schools for them, where both adults and children learned to read and write. See Catton, Bruce. Never Call Retreat, p. 335. The American Missionary Association entered the war effort by sending teachers south to such contraband camps, for instance establishing schools in Norfolk and on nearby plantations. In addition, approximately 180,000 or more African-American men served as soldiers and sailors with Union troops. Most of those were escaped slaves. Probably the most prominent of these African-American soldiers is the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry.
  5. Jump up^ In spite of the South’s shortage of soldiers, most Southern leaders—until 1865—opposed enlisting slaves. They used them as laborers to support the war effort. As Howell Cobb said, “If slaves will make good soldiers our whole theory of slavery is wrong.” Confederate generals Patrick Cleburne and Robert E. Lee argued in favor of arming blacks late in the war, and Jefferson Davis was eventually persuaded to support plans for arming slaves to avoid military defeat. The Confederacy surrendered at Appomattox before this plan could be implemented.[226] The great majority of the 4 million slaves were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, as Union armies moved south. Historian John D. Winters referred to the exhilaration of the slaves when the Union Army came through Louisiana: “As the troops moved up to Alexandria, the Negroes crowded the roadsides to watch the passing army. They were ‘all frantic with joy, some weeping, some blessing, and some dancing in the exuberance of their emotions.’ All of the Negroes were attracted by the pageantry and excitement of the army. Others cheered because they anticipated the freedom to plunder and to do as they pleased now that the Federal troops were there.”[227]Confederates enslaved captured black Union soldiers, and black soldiers especially were shot when trying to surrender at the Fort Pillow Massacre. See Catton, Bruce. Never Call Retreat, p. 335. This led to a breakdown of the prisoner and mail exchange program and the growth of prison camps such as Andersonville prison in Georgia, where almost 13,000 Union prisoners of war died of starvation and disease.[228]

Citations

  1. ^ Jump up to:a b “The Belligerent Rights of the Rebels at an End. All Nations Warned Against Harboring Their Privateers. If They Do Their Ships Will be Excluded from Our Ports. Restoration of Law in the State of Virginia. The Machinery of Government to be Put in Motion There.”. The New York Times. Associated Press. May 10, 1865. Retrieved December 23, 2013.
  2. ^ Jump up to:a b Total number that served
  3. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e “Facts”. National Park Service.
  4. Jump up^ “Size of the Union Army in the American Civil War”: Of which 131,000 were in the Navy and Marines, 140,000 were garrison troops and home defense militia, and 427,000 were in the field army.
  5. Jump up^ Long, E. B. The Civil War Day by Day: An Almanac, 1861–1865. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1971. OCLC 68283123. p. 705.
  6. Jump up^ “The war of the rebellion: a compilation of the official records of the Union and Confederate armies.; Series 4 – Volume 2”, United States. War Dept 1900.
  7. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e f Fox, William F. Regimental losses in the American Civil War (1889)
  8. ^ Jump up to:a b c d Official DOD data
  9. Jump up^ Chambers & Anderson 1999, p. 849.
  10. Jump up^ 211,411 Union soldiers were captured, and 30,218 died in prison. The ones who died have been excluded to prevent double-counting of casualties.
  11. Jump up^ 462,634 Confederate soldiers were captured and 25,976 died in prison. The ones who died have been excluded to prevent double-counting of casualties.
  12. ^ Jump up to:a b Nofi, Al (June 13, 2001). “Statistics on the War’s Costs”. Louisiana State University. Archived from the original on July 11, 2007. Retrieved October 14, 2007.
  13. Jump up^ Professor James Downs. “Color blindness in the demographic death toll of the Civil War”. University of Connecticut, April 13th 2012. “The rough 19th century estimate was that 60,000 former slaves died from the epidemic, but doctors treating black patients often claimed that they were unable to keep accurate records due to demands on their time and the lack of manpower and resources. The surviving records only include the number of black patients whom doctors encountered; tens of thousands of other slaves who died had no contact with army doctors, leaving no records of their deaths.” 60,000 documented plus ‘tens of thousands’ undocumented gives a minimum of 80,000 slave deaths.
  14. Jump up^ Recounting the dead, Associate Professor J. David Hacker, “estimates, based on Census data, indicate that the [military] death toll was approximately 750,000, and may have been as high as 850,000“
  15. Jump up^ Professor James Downs. “Color blindness in the demographic death toll of the Civil War”. Oxford University Press, April 13th 2012. “An 2 April 2012 New York Times article, “New Estimate Raises Civil War Death Toll,” reports that a new study ratchets up the death toll from an estimated 650,000 to a staggering 850,000 people. As horrific as this new number is, it fails to reflect the mortality of former slaves during the war. If former slaves were included in this figure, the Civil War death toll would likely be over a million casualties …”
  16. Jump up^ “Date of Secession Related to 1860 Black Population”, America’s Civil War
  17. Jump up^ Burnham, Walter Dean. Presidential Ballots, 1836–1892. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1955, pp. 247–57
  18. Jump up^ 1.Deborah Gray White, Mia Bay, and Waldo E. Martin, Jr., Freedom on My Mind: A History of African Americans (New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2013), 325.
  19. Jump up^ Frank J. Williams, “Doing Less and Doing More: The President and the Proclamation – Legally, Militarily and Politically,” in Harold Holzer, ed. The Emancipation Proclamation (2006), pp. 74–75.
  20. ^ Jump up to:a b “U.S. Civil War Took Bigger Toll Than Previously Estimated, New Analysis Suggests”. Science Daily. September 22, 2011. Retrieved September 22, 2011.
  21. ^ Jump up to:a b Hacker 2011, p. 307–48.
  22. Jump up^ Huddleston 2002, p. 3.
  23. Jump up^ James C. Bradford, A Companion to American Military History (2010), vol. 1, p. 101.
  24. Jump up^ See also Freehling, William W., The Road to Disunion: Secessionists Triumphant 1854–1861, pp. 9–24, and Martis, Kenneth C., The Historical Atlas of Political Parties in the United States Congress, 1789–1989, ISBN 0-02-920170-5, pp. 111–115, and Foner, Eric. Politics and Ideology in the Age of the Civil War, (Oxford University Press, 1980), pp. 18–20, 21–24.
  25. Jump up^ Coates, Ta-Nehisi (22 June 2015). “What This Cruel War Was Over”. The Atlantic. Retrieved 21 December 2016.
  26. Jump up^ Eskridge, Larry (January 29, 2011). “After 150 years, we still ask: Why ‘this cruel war’?.”. Canton Daily Ledger. Canton, Illinois. Archived from the original on February 1, 2011. Retrieved January 29, 2011.
  27. Jump up^ Weeks 2013, p. 240.
  28. Jump up^ Olsen 2002, p. 237.
  29. Jump up^ Chadwick, French Esnor. Causes of the civil war, 1859–1861(1906) p. 8
  30. Jump up^ Charles S. Sydnor, The Development of Southern Sectionalism 1819–1848 (1948).
  31. Jump up^ Robert Royal Russel, Economic Aspects of Southern Sectionalism, 1840–1861 (1973).
  32. Jump up^ Ahlstrom 1972, p. 648–649.
  33. Jump up^ Kenneth M. Stampp, The Imperiled Union: Essays on the Background of the Civil War (1981), p. 198; Richard Hofstadter, The Progressive Historians: Turner, Beard, Parrington (1969).
  34. Jump up^ Woodworth 1996, p. 145, 151, 505, 512, 554, 557, 684.
  35. Jump up^ Thornton & Ekelund 2004, p. 21.
  36. Jump up^ Frank Taussig, The Tariff History of the United States (1931), pp. 115–61
  37. Jump up^ Hofstadter 1938, p. 50–55.
  38. Jump up^ Robert Gray Gunderson, Old Gentleman’s Convention: The Washington Peace Conference of 1861. (1961)
  39. Jump up^ Jon L. Wakelyn (1996). Southern Pamphlets on Secession, November 1860 – April 1861. U. of North Carolina Press. pp. 23–30. ISBN 978-0-8078-6614-6.
  40. Jump up^ Matthew Fontaine Maury (1861/1967), “Captain Maury’s Letter on American Affairs: A Letter Addressed to Rear-Admiral Fitz Roy, of England”, reprinted in Frank Friedel, ed., Union Pamphlets of the Civil War: 1861–1865, Cambridge, MA: Harvard, A John Harvard Library Book, Vol. I, pp. 171–73.
  41. Jump up^ John Lothrop Motley (1861/1967), “The Causes of the American Civil War: A Paper Contributed to the London Times“, reprinted in Frank Friedel, ed., Union Pamphlets of the Civil War: 1861–1865, Cambridge, MA: Harvard, A John Harvard Library Book, Vol. 1, p. 51.
  42. Jump up^ Forrest McDonald, States’ Rights and the Union: Imperium in Imperio, 1776–1876 (2002).
  43. Jump up^ McPherson 2007, pp. 3–9.
  44. Jump up^ Krannawitter 2008, p. 49–50.
  45. Jump up^ McPherson 2007, p. 14.
  46. Jump up^ Stampp 1990, p. 190–93.
  47. Jump up^ McPherson 2007, pp. 13–14.
  48. Jump up^ Bestor 1964, p. 19.
  49. Jump up^ McPherson 2007, p. 16.
  50. Jump up^ Bestor 1964, pp. 19–21.
  51. Jump up^ Bestor 1964, p. 20.
  52. Jump up^ Russell 1966, p. 468–69.
  53. Jump up^ Bestor, Arthur. “The American Civil War as a Constitutional Crisis”, in Lawrence Meir Friedman (ed.) “American Law and the Constitutional Order: Historical Perspectives, ISBN 978-0-674-02527-1 p. 231
  54. Jump up^ Bestor 1964, pp. 21–23.
  55. Jump up^ Johannsen 1973, p. 406.
  56. Jump up^ “Territorial Politics and Government”. Territorial Kansas Online: University of Kansas and Kansas Historical Society. Retrieved July 10, 2014.Finteg
  57. Jump up^ Bestor 1964, p. 21.
  58. Jump up^ Bestor 1964, p. 23.
  59. Jump up^ Varon 2008, p. 58.
  60. Jump up^ Russell 1966, p. 470.
  61. Jump up^ Bestor 1964, p. 23–24.
  62. Jump up^ McPherson 2007, p. 7.
  63. Jump up^ Krannawitter 2008, p. 232.
  64. Jump up^ Gara, 1964, p. 190
  65. Jump up^ Bestor 1964, p. 24–25.
  66. Jump up^ Potter 1962, p. 924–50.
  67. Jump up^ C. Vann Woodward (1971), American Counterpoint: Slavery and Racism in the North-South Dialogue, p. 281.
  68. Jump up^ Bertram Wyatt-Brown, The Shaping of Southern Culture: Honor, Grace, and War, 1760s–1880s (2000).
  69. Jump up^ Avery Craven, The Growth of Southern Nationalism, 1848–1861 (1953).
  70. Jump up^ “Republican Platform of 1860,” in Kirk H. Porter, and Donald Bruce Johnson, eds. National Party Platforms, 1840–1956, (University of Illinois Press, 1956). p. 32.
  71. Jump up^ Susan-Mary Grant, North over South: Northern Nationalism and American Identity in the Antebellum Era (2000); Melinda Lawson, Patriot Fires: Forging a New American Nationalism in the Civil War North (2005).
  72. Jump up^ Potter & Fehrenbacher 1976, p. 485.
  73. Jump up^ Ordinances of Secession by State. Retrieved November 28, 2012.
  74. Jump up^ The text of the Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union.
  75. Jump up^ The text of A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union. Retrieved November 28, 2012.
  76. Jump up^ The text of Georgia’s secession declaration. Retrieved November 28, 2012.
  77. Jump up^ The text of A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union. Retrieved November 28, 2012.
  78. Jump up^ McPherson 1988, p. 24.
  79. Jump up^ President James Buchanan, Message of December 8, 1860. Retrieved November 28, 2012.
  80. Jump up^ “Profile Showing the Grades upon the Different Routes Surveyed for the Union Pacific Rail Road Between the Missouri River and the Valley of the Platte River”. World Digital Library. 1865. Retrieved July 16, 2013.
  81. Jump up^ Rhodes, James Ford. History of the United States from the compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan campaign of 1896Volume III (1920) pp. 41–66
  82. Jump up^ Rhodes, James Ford. History of the United States from the compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan campaign of 1896Volume III (1920) pp. 147–52
  83. Jump up^ McPherson 1988, pp. 234–266.
  84. Jump up^ Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address, Monday, March 4, 1861.
  85. Jump up^ Lincoln, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861.
  86. ^ Jump up to:a b Potter & Fehrenbacher 1976, p. 572–73.
  87. Jump up^ Allan Nevins, The War for the Union: The Improvised War 1861–1862 (1959), pp. 74–75.
  88. Jump up^ Russell McClintock (2008). Lincoln and the Decision for War: The Northern Response to Secession. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. pp. 254–74. ISBN 978-0-8078-3188-5. Provides details of support across the North. Online preview.
  89. Jump up^ Rhodes, James Ford. History of the United States from the compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan campaign of 1896Volume III (1920) pp. 291–92
  90. Jump up^ McPherson 1988, p. 274.
  91. Jump up^ Howard Louis Conard (1901). Encyclopedia of the History of Missouri. p. 45.
  92. Jump up^ “Abraham Lincoln: Proclamation 83 – Increasing the Size of the Army and Navy”. Presidency.ucsb.edu. Retrieved November 3, 2011.
  93. Jump up^ McPherson 1988, pp. 276–307.
  94. ^ Jump up to:a b “Teaching American History in Maryland – Documents for the Classroom: Arrest of the Maryland Legislature, 1861“. Maryland State Archives. 2005. Archived from the original on January 11, 2008. Retrieved February 6, 2008.
  95. Jump up^ McPherson 1988, p. 284–87.
  96. Jump up^ William C. Harris, Lincoln and the Border States: Preserving the Union (University Press of Kansas, 2011), p. 71,
  97. Jump up^ Howard, F. K. (Frank Key) (1863). Fourteen Months in American Bastiles. London: H.F. Mackintosh. Retrieved August 18, 2014.
  98. Jump up^ Nevins, The War for the Union (1959), 1:119–29.
  99. Jump up^ Nevins, The War for the Union (1959), 1:129–36.
  100. Jump up^ “A State of Convenience, The Creation of West Virginia”. West Virginia Archives & History. Retrieved April 20, 2012.
  101. Jump up^ Curry, Richard Orr (1964), A House Divided, A Study of the Statehood Politics & the Copperhead Movement in West Virginia, University of Pittsburgh Press, map on p. 49.
  102. Jump up^ McPherson 1988, p. 303.
  103. Jump up^ Weigley 2004, p. 55.
  104. Jump up^ Snell, Mark A., West Virginia and the Civil War, History Press, Charleston, SC, 2011, p. 28.
  105. Jump up^ Neely 1993, p. 10–11.
  106. Jump up^ Keegan, “The American Civil War”, p. 73. Over 10,000 military engagements took place during the war, 40 percent of them in Virginia and Tennessee. See Gabor Boritt, ed. War Comes Again (1995), p. 247.
  107. Jump up^ “With an actual strength of 1,080 officers and 14,926 enlisted men on June 30, 1860, the Regular Army …” Civil War Extracts pp. 199–221, American Military History.
  108. Jump up^ E. Merton Coulter, Confederate States of America (1950) p. 308. John G. Nicolay and John Hay (Abraham Lincoln: a history, vol. 4, p. 264) state: “Since the organization of the Montgomery government in February, some four different calls for Southern volunteers had been made … In his message of April 29 to the rebel Congress, Jefferson Davis proposed to organize for instant action an army of 100,000 …” Coulter reports that Alexander Stephens took this to mean Davis wanted unilateral control of a standing army, and from that moment on became his implacable opponent.
  109. Jump up^ Albert Burton Moore. Conscription and Conflict in the Confederacy (1924) online edition.
  110. Jump up^ Albert Bernhardt Faust, The German Element in the United States (1909) v. 1, p. 523 online. The railroads and banks grew rapidly. See Oberholtzer, Ellis Paxson. Jay Cooke: Financier Of The Civil War (1907), Vol. 2 at Google Books, pp. 378–430. See also Oberholtzer, A History of the United States Since the Civil War (1926), 3:69–122.
  111. Jump up^ Barnet Schecter, The Devil’s Own Work: The Civil War Draft Riots and the Fight to Reconstruct America (2007).
  112. Jump up^ Eugene Murdock, One Million Men: the Civil War draft in the North (1971).
  113. Jump up^ Judith Lee Hallock, “The Role of the Community in Civil War Desertion.” Civil War History (1983) 29#2 pp. 123–34. online
  114. Jump up^ Peter S. Bearman, “Desertion as localism: Army unit solidarity and group norms in the U.S. Civil War.” Social Forces (1991) 70#2 pp. 321–42 in JSTOR.
  115. Jump up^ Robert Fantina, Desertion and the American soldier, 1776–2006 (2006), p. 74.
  116. Jump up^ Keegan 2009, p. 57.
  117. Jump up^ Perman & Taylor 2010, p. 177.
  118. Jump up^ Roger Pickenpaugh (2013). Captives in Blue: The Civil War Prisons of the Confederacy. University of Alabama Press. pp. 57–73.
  119. Jump up^ Tucker, Pierpaoli & White 2010, p. 1466.
  120. Jump up^ Welles 1865, p. 152.
  121. Jump up^ Tucker, Pierpaoli & White 2010, p. 462.
  122. Jump up^ Canney 1998, p. ?.
  123. Jump up^ Richter 2009, p. 49.
  124. Jump up^ Johnson 1998, p. 228.
  125. Jump up^ Anderson 1989, pp. 288–89, 296–98.
  126. Jump up^ Nelson 2005, p. 92.
  127. ^ Jump up to:a b Anderson 1989, p. 300.
  128. Jump up^ Gerald F. Teaster and Linda and James Treaster Ambrose, The Confederate Submarine H. L. Hunley (1989)
  129. Jump up^ Nelson 2005, p. 345.
  130. Jump up^ Fuller 2008, p. 36.
  131. Jump up^ Mark E. Neely, Jr. “The Perils of Running the Blockade: The Influence of International Law in an Era of Total War,” Civil War History (1986) 32#2, pp. 101–18 in Project MUSE
  132. Jump up^ Stephen R. Wise, Lifeline of the Confederacy: Blockade Running during the Civil War (1991)
  133. Jump up^ Surdam, David G. (1998). “The Union Navy’s blockade reconsidered”. Naval War College Review. 51 (4): 85–107.
  134. Jump up^ David G. Surdam, Northern Naval Superiority and the Economics of the American Civil War (University of South Carolina Press, 2001).
  135. Jump up^ Jones 2002, p. 225.
  136. Jump up^ Anderson 1989, p. 91.
  137. Jump up^ Whitsell, Robert D. (1963). “Military and Naval Activity between Cairo and Columbus”. Register of the Kentucky Historical Society. 62 (2): 107–21.
  138. Jump up^ Myron J. Smith, Tinclads in the Civil War: Union Light-Draught Gunboat Operations on Western Waters, 1862–1865 (2009).
  139. Jump up^ Frank & Reaves 2003, p. 170.
  140. Jump up^ Symonds & Clipson 2001, p. 92.
  141. Jump up^ Ronald Scott Mangum, “The Vicksburg Campaign: A Study In Joint Operations,” Parameters: U.S. Army War College (1991) 21#3, pp. 74–86 online
  142. Jump up^ Foote 1974, p. 464–519.
  143. Jump up^ Bruce Catton, Terrible Swift Sword, pp. 263–96.
  144. Jump up^ McPherson 1988, pp. 424–27.
  145. ^ Jump up to:a b McPherson 1988, pp. 538–44.
  146. Jump up^ McPherson 1988, pp. 528–33.
  147. Jump up^ McPherson 1988, pp. 543–45.
  148. Jump up^ McPherson 1988, pp. 557–558.
  149. Jump up^ McPherson 1988, pp. 571–74.
  150. Jump up^ McPherson 1988, pp. 639–45.
  151. Jump up^ Jonathan A. Noyalas (3 Dec 2010). Stonewall Jackson’s 1862 Valley Campaign. Arcadia Publishing. p. 93.
  152. Jump up^ McPherson 1988, pp. 653–663.
  153. Jump up^ McPherson 1988, p. 664.
  154. Jump up^ McPherson 1988, pp. 404–05.
  155. Jump up^ McPherson 1988, pp. 418–20.
  156. Jump up^ McPherson 1988, pp. 419–20.
  157. Jump up^ McPherson 1988, pp. 480–83.
  158. Jump up^ McPherson 1988, pp. 405–13.
  159. Jump up^ McPherson 1988, pp. 637–38.
  160. Jump up^ McPherson 1988, pp. 677–80.
  161. ^ Jump up to:a b Keegan 2009, p. 270.
  162. Jump up^ Keegan 2009, p. 100.
  163. Jump up^ James B. Martin, Third War: Irregular Warfare on the Western Border 1861–1865 (Combat Studies Institute Leavenworth Paper series, number 23, 2012). See also, Michael Fellman, Inside War: The Guerrilla Conflict in Missouri during the Civil War (1989). Missouri alone was the scene of over 1,000 engagements between regular units, and uncounted numbers of guerrilla attacks and raids by informal pro-Confederate bands, especially in the recently settled western counties.
  164. Jump up^ Bohl, Sarah (2004). “A War on Civilians: Order Number 11 and the Evacuation of Western Missouri”. Prologue. 36 (1): 44–51.
  165. Jump up^ Graves, William H. (1991). “Indian Soldiers for the Gray Army: Confederate Recruitment in Indian Territory”. Chronicles of Oklahoma. 69 (2): 134–145.
  166. Jump up^ Neet, J. Frederick; Jr (1996). “Stand Watie: Confederate General in the Cherokee Nation”. Great Plains Journal. 6 (1): 36–51.
  167. Jump up^ Keegan 2009, p. 220–21.
  168. Jump up^ Mark E. Neely Jr.; “Was the Civil War a Total War?” Civil War History, Vol. 50, 2004, pp. 434+.
  169. Jump up^ U.S. Grant (1990). Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant; Selected Letters. Library of America. p. 247. ISBN 0-940450-58-5.
  170. Jump up^ Ron Field (2013). Petersburg 1864–65: The Longest Siege. Osprey Publishing. p. 6.
  171. Jump up^ McPherson 1988, pp. 724–42.
  172. Jump up^ McPherson 1988, pp. 778–79.
  173. Jump up^ McPherson 1988, pp. 773–76.
  174. Jump up^ McPherson 1988, pp. 812–15.
  175. Jump up^ McPherson 1988, pp. 825–30.
  176. Jump up^ McPherson 1988, pp. 846–47.
  177. Jump up^ William Marvel, Lee’s Last Retreat: The Flight to Appomattox (2002), pp. 158–81.
  178. Jump up^ Unaware of the surrender of Lee, on April 16 the last major battles of the war were fought at the Battle of Columbus, Georgia and the Battle of West Point.
  179. Jump up^ http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/end-of-war/smith-surrenders.html General Kirby Smith Surrenders the Trans-Mississippi Forces Web. Retrieved February 6, 2016.
  180. Jump up^ Morris, John Wesley, Ghost towns of Oklahoma, University of Oklahoma Press, 1977, pp. 68–69, ISBN 0-8061-1420-7
  181. Jump up^ McPherson 1988, pp. 546–57.
  182. Jump up^ Herring 2011, p. 237.
  183. ^ Jump up to:a b McPherson 1988, p. 386.
  184. Jump up^ Allan Nevins, War for the Union 1862–1863, pp. 263–64.
  185. Jump up^ Don H. Doyle, The Cause of All Nations: An International History of the American Civil War (2014), pp. 8 (quote), 69–70.
  186. Jump up^ Richard Huzzeym, Freedom Burning: Anti-Slavery and Empire in Victorian Britain (2013)
  187. Jump up^ Stephen B. Oates, The Approaching Fury: Voices of the Storm 1820–1861, p. 125.
  188. Jump up^ Herring 2011, p. 261.
  189. Jump up^ McPherson 1988, p. 851.
  190. Jump up^ McPherson 1988, p. 855.
  191. ^ Jump up to:a b James McPherson, Why did the Confederacy Lose?. p. ?.
  192. Jump up^ Railroad length is from: Chauncey Depew (ed.), One Hundred Years of American Commerce 1795–1895, p. 111; For other data see: 1860 U.S. Census and Carter, Susan B., ed. The Historical Statistics of the United States: Millennial Edition (5 vols), 2006.
  193. Jump up^ Martis, Kenneth C., “The Historical Atlas of the Congresses of the Confederate States of America: 1861–1865” Simon & Schuster (1994) ISBN 0-13-389115-1 p. 27. At the beginning of 1865, the Confederacy controlled one-third of its congressional districts, which were apportioned by population. The major slave-populations found in Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Alabama were effectively under Union control by the end of 1864.
  194. Jump up^ Digital History Reader, U.S. Railroad Construction, 1860–1880 Virginia Tech, Retrieved August 21, 2012. “Total Union railroad miles” aggregates existing track reported 1860 @ 21800 plus new construction 1860–1864 @ 5000, plus southern railroads administered by USMRR @ 2300.
  195. Jump up^ McPherson 1988, pp. 771–72.
  196. Jump up^ Murray, Bernstein & Knox 1996, p. 235.
  197. Jump up^ HeidlerHeidlerColes 2002, p. 1207–10.
  198. Jump up^ Ward 1990, p. 272.
  199. Jump up^ E. Merton Coulter, The Confederate States of America, 1861–1865 (1950), p. 566.
  200. Jump up^ Richard E. Beringer, Herman Hattaway, Archer Jones and William N. Still Jr, Why the South Lost the Civil War (1991), ch 1.
  201. Jump up^ Armstead Robinson, Bitter Fruits of Bondage: The Demise of Slavery and the Collapse of the Confederacy, 1861–1865 (University of Virginia Press, 2004)
  202. Jump up^ see Alan Farmer, History Review (2005), No. 52: 15–20.
  203. Jump up^ McPherson 1997, pp. 169–72.
  204. Jump up^ Gallagher 1999, p. 57.
  205. Jump up^ Fehrenbacher, Don (2004). “Lincoln’s Wartime Leadership: The First Hundred Days”. University of Illinois. Retrieved October 16, 2007.
  206. Jump up^ McPherson 1988, pp. 382–88.
  207. Jump up^ Don H. Doyle, The Cause of All Nations: An International History of the American Civil War (2014).
  208. Jump up^ Fergus M. Bordewich, “The World Was Watching: America’s Civil War slowly came to be seen as part of a global struggle against oppressive privilege”, Wall Street Journal (February 7–8, 2015).
  209. ^ Jump up to:a b Hacker, J. David (September 20, 2011). “Recounting the Dead”. The New York Times. The New York Times Company. Associated Press. Retrieved September 22, 2011.
  210. Jump up^ McPherson 1988, p. xix.
  211. Jump up^ Vinovskis 1990, p. 7.
  212. Jump up^ Richard Wightman Fox (2008).”National Life After Death“. Slate.com.
  213. Jump up^ “U.S. Civil War Prison Camps Claimed Thousands“. National Geographic News. July 1, 2003.
  214. Jump up^ Teresa Riordan (March 8, 2004). “When Necessity Meets Ingenuity: Art of Restoring What’s Missing”. The New York Times. The New York Times Company. Associated Press. Retrieved December 23, 2013.
  215. ^ Jump up to:a b Herbert Aptheker, “Negro Casualties in the Civil War”, The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 32, No. 1. (January 1947).
  216. Jump up^ Professor James Downs. “Sick from Freedom: African-American Illness and Suffering during the Civil War and Reconstruction”. January 1, 2012.
  217. Jump up^ Ron Field and Peter Dennis (2013). American Civil War Fortifications (2): Land and Field Fortifications. Osprey Publishing. p. 4.
  218. Jump up^ Claudia Goldin, . “The economics of emancipation.” The Journal of Economic History 33#1 (1973): 66–85.
  219. Jump up^ The Economist, “The Civil War: Finally Passing“, April 2, 2011, pp. 23–25.
  220. Jump up^ Foner 1981, p. ?.
  221. Jump up^ Foner 2010, p. 74.
  222. Jump up^ McPherson, pp. 506–8.
  223. Jump up^ McPherson. p. 686.
  224. Jump up^ McPherson 1988, p. 495.
  225. Jump up^ McPherson 1988, pp. 355, 494–96, 495.
  226. Jump up^ McPherson 1988, pp. 831–37.
  227. Jump up^ Winters 1963, p. 237.
  228. Jump up^ McPherson 1988, pp. 791–98.
  229. Jump up^ Lincoln’s letter to O. H. Browning, September 22, 1861. Sentiment among German Americans was largely anti-slavery especially among Forty-Eighters, resulting in hundreds of thousands of German Americans volunteering to fight for the Union. ” Wittke, Carl (1952). “Refugees of Revolution”. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania press. “, Christian B. Keller, “Flying Dutchmen and Drunken Irishmen: The Myths and Realities of Ethnic Civil War Soldiers”, Journal of Military History, Vol/ 73, No. 1, January 2009, pp. 117–45; for primary sources see Walter D. Kamphoefner and Wolfgang Helbich, eds, Germans in the Civil War: The Letters They Wrote Home (2006). “On the other hand, many of the recent immigrants in the North viewed freed slaves as competition for scarce jobs, and as the reason why the Civil War was being fought.” Baker, Kevin (March 2003). “Violent City”, American Heritage. Retrieved July 29, 2010. “Due in large part to this fierce competition with free blacks for labor opportunities, the poor and working class Irish Catholics generally opposed emancipation. When the draft began in the summer of 1863, they launched a major riot in New York City that was suppressed by the military, as well as much smaller protests in other cities.” Barnet Schecter, The Devil’s Own Work: The Civil War Draft Riots and the Fight to Reconstruct America (2007), ch 6. Many Catholics in the North had volunteered to fight in 1861, sending thousands of soldiers to the front and taking high casualties, especially at Fredericksburg; their volunteering fell off after 1862.
  230. Jump up^ Baker, Kevin (March 2003). “Violent City”, American Heritage. Retrieved July 29, 2010.
  231. Jump up^ McPherson, James, in Gabor S. Boritt, ed. Lincoln, the War President, pp. 52–54.
  232. Jump up^ Oates, Stephen B., Abraham Lincoln: The Man Behind the Myths, p. 106.
  233. Jump up^ “Lincoln Letter to Greeley, August 22, 1862”.
  234. Jump up^ Pulling, Sr. Anne Francis. “Images of America: Altoona, 2001, 10.
  235. Jump up^ Lincoln’s Letter to A. G. Hodges, April 4, 1864.
  236. Jump up^ Harper, Douglas (2003). “SLAVERY in DELAWARE”. Archived from the original on October 16, 2007. Retrieved October 16, 2007.
  237. Jump up^ ” James McPherson, The War that Never Goes Away”
  238. Jump up^ Asante & Mazama 2004, p. 82.
  239. Jump up^ Holzer & Gabbard 2007, p. 172–174.
  240. Jump up^ Murray, pp. 155–59.
  241. Jump up^ Hans L. Trefousse, Historical Dictionary of Reconstruction (Greenwood, 1991) covers all the main events and leaders.
  242. Jump up^ Eric Foner’s A Short History of Reconstruction (1990) is a brief survey.
  243. Jump up^ C. Vann Woodward, Reunion and Reaction: The Compromise of 1877 and the End of Reconstruction (2nd edn 1991).
  244. Jump up^ Joan Waugh and Gary W. Gallagher, eds (2009), Wars within a War: Controversy and Conflict over the American Civil War (University of North Carolina Press).
  245. Jump up^ David W. Blight, Race and Reunion : The Civil War in American Memory (2001).
  246. Jump up^ Steven E. Woodworth (1996). The American Civil War: A Handbook of Literature and Research. p. 208.
  247. Jump up^ Stephen Cushman (2014). Belligerent Muse: Five Northern Writers and How They Shaped Our Understanding of the Civil War. pp. 5–6.
  248. Jump up^ Charles F. Ritter and Jon L. Wakelyn, eds., Leaders of the American Civil War: A Biographical and Historiographical Dictionary (1998) Provide short biographies and valuable historiographical summaries
  249. Jump up^ Wilson Fallin Jr, Uplifting the People: Three Centuries of Black Baptists in Alabama (2007), pp. 52–53.
  250. Jump up^ Fallin, Uplifting the People: Three Centuries of Black Baptists in Alabama (2007), pp. 52–53.
  251. Jump up^ Gaines M. Foster (1988), Ghosts of the Confederacy: Defeat, the Lost Cause and the Emergence of the New South, 1865–1913.
  252. Jump up^ Nolan, Alan T., in Gallagher, Gary W., and Alan T. Nolan, The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War history (2000), pp. 12–19.
  253. Jump up^ Nolan, The Myth of the Lost Cause, pp. 28–29.
  254. Jump up^ Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard, The Rise of American Civilization (1927), 2:54.
  255. Jump up^ Richard Hofstadter (2012) [1968]. Progressive Historians. Knopf Doubleday. p. 304.
  256. Jump up^ Gary Gallagher, Causes Won, Lost, and Forgotten: How Hollywood and Popular Art Shape What We Know about the Civil War (Univ of North Carolina Press, 2008).
  257. Jump up^ Bailey, Thomas and David Kennedy: The American Pageant, p. 434. 1987
  258. Jump up^ Dome, Steam (1974). “A Civil War Iron Clad Car”. Railroad History. The Railway & Locomotive Historical Society. 130 (Spring 1974): 51–53.
  259. Jump up^ William Rattle Plum, The Military Telegraph During the Civil War in the United States, ed. Christopher H. Sterling(New York: Arno Press, 1974) vol. 1:63.
  260. Jump up^ Buckley, John. Air Power in the Age of Total War (Warfare and History). Routledge; 1 edition (December 18, 1998). pp. 6, 24. ISBN 978-1-85728-589-5
  261. Jump up^ Sondhaus, Naval Warfare 1815–1914 p. 77.
  262. Jump up^ Keegan, John (2009). The American Civil War: A Military History. Vintage Books. p. 75. ISBN 978-0-307-27314-7

Bibliography

Main article: Bibliography of the American Civil War

Further reading

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