It was January 31, 1968. The firecrackers, the music, and the cheers of the crowds gathered
in Saigon to celebrate the Lunar New Year masked the bombardment and small-arms fire
of the nearby Viet Cong and NVA troops that infiltrated the city and began attacking.
Chaos quickly overwhelmed the area, and as the Americans
tried to strategically distribute their forces, they received an alarming call.
The Embassy at Saigon was under attack, and enemy forces were already inside the compound.
Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division were immediately dispatched to save the US citizens
inside, but as the men approached the objective aboard their helicopters to land on the roof,
intense Viet Cong fire forced them to abort.
Time was running out for the overwhelmed Marines and Military Police fighting the intruders
inside the compound. It was imperative that the soldiers made another pass before it was too late…
Shifting Tactics
Direct American military intervention in Vietnam began in 1965
after the Gulf of Tonkin incident. During the first encounter between the US Army
and the North Vietnamese at Ia Drang Valley in November, the Communists suffered a heavy blow.
From then on, General Nguyen Chi Thanh, his Army, and the Viet Cong struggled to achieve a
victory against the American military. Setback after setback, the North Vietnamese military,
and especially Defense Minister Vo Nguyen Giap, were eager to test new tactics.
While General Thanh, a seasoned veteran of the war against the French,
preferred to fight the US forces employing guerrilla tactics, Giap thought differently,
and his time finally came when Thanh passed away in July of 1967.
General Giap and North Vietnam’s Politurbo decided it was time to face the American military head-on.
Giap, who had defeated the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, convinced the rest of
the military sphere that the Americans could be defeated with one decisive blow and envisioned
his grand operation following the Chinese Communist doctrine of a General Offensive.
It would begin with a devastating attack and lead to a general uprising in which
the South's population would join the Communists and dismantle the American-supported government.
To succeed, the general’s ambitious plan required a surprise element.
Only that way would the Americans be so overwhelmed that they would
be left with no choice but to leave their allies alone.
Tet Celebrations
The General Offensive was set for January 31, 1968,
during the Tet celebrations. The holiday was incredibly important to the Vietnamese,
as it marked the beginning of the Lunar New Year and the Year of the Monkey. It was so significant
that in previous years there had been an informal truce between both sides during this period.
General Giap had already begun amassing thousands of men and supplies near the
DMZ or demilitarized zone, while also launching a series of scattered attacks
on American firebases to conceal North Vietnam’s imminent offensive.
The sporadic attacks forced the US Army, Marines, and ARVN troops to send soldiers
to the DMZ and leave several cities with small garrisons, precisely what General Giap wanted.
Before the offensive, several NVA officers slipped into Saigon
and other cities using falsified papers to study the fortifications
and distribution of American and South Vietnamese troops. Also,
several NVA divisions began to converge around the remote Marine base at Khe Sanh to isolate it.
The North Vietnamese targeted six objectives inside Saigon to be captured by a combined
force of over 35 battalions. They were the American Embassy, the South Vietnamese Joint
General Staff Compound, the Independence Palace, the Long Binh Naval Headquarters,
the Tan Son Nhat International Airport, and the Tan Son Nhut Air Base.
At the time, US intelligence estimated there were around
40,000 NVA troops around the Khe Sanh base and became convinced that the
enemy would not respect the Tet cease-fire celebrations and sent forces to the North.
Finally, on January 21, the NVA attacked the Marines at the remote outpost with overwhelming
manpower and a massive artillery bombardment that turned all the attention toward Khe Sanh.
General Giap’s plan was working.
Storming the Embassy
In the early morning of January 30, the Viet Cong
guerrilla attacked over 13 cities near South Vietnam's center. The attack was
premature and infuriated Giap because the element of surprise was partially gone.
The Americans and ARVN were on high alert, and the protective circle around Saigon tightened.
However, hundreds of men were already on leave to celebrate the new year with their families.
Then, in the early hours of January 31, over 70,000 Communist troops poured into South
Vietnam while the locals were celebrating. The music and firecrackers were so loud that they
concealed the thundering roars of artillery pieces and the fire of automatic rifles.
The US command had trusted the ARVN with the defense of Saigon in December of 1967
as a gesture of confidence, but they were still caught off guard.
As the hours passed, four other cities, 36 provinces, and 64 districts were attacked by the
Communists. The Tet Offensive was in full swing, and American and ARVN forces were scattered.
Then, at 1:30am, 14 men from the Viet Cong’s 10th Sapper Battalion attacked
the Presidential Palace in Saigon, and an hour later,
a taxicab showed up at Thong Nhut Boulevard and went straight to the American Embassy.
The Air Cavalry Arrives
Machine-gun fire sprayed the front gate, but the two Military Police on duty quickly closed
the gate and radioed for help. Meanwhile, 19 other Viet Cong from the 10th Sapper
Battalion surrounded the embassy and blew a hole in the compound with C-4 charges.
The enemy quickly poured into the building and terminated the
two MPs during a brief firefight in which their platoon leader also lost his life.
The VC then fired a rocket that blew the doors of the chancery.
The three Marines inside prepared to fight, while other MPs came to their
help and pinned down the Viet Cong inside the compound. Six hours of fire exchange followed
before paratroopers from the 101st arrived aboard helicopters to clear the embassy.
The men tried to land on the roof but were driven off by small arms of fire.
The airborne troops then attempted a second insertion at 8:00am when the city was already
in flames. This time they succeeded and shot down all the surviving enemies inside.
On the other side of the city, the same sapper battalion stormed the ARVN Joint
General Staff Compound but was driven off by the defenders during the first wave.
The VC had to call in the other two battalions for a second attack.
Soon, a truck full of American MPs and ARVN reinforcements was
pinned down by a Viet Cong company near the streets that led to the compound.
The close-quarters fighting lasted over 12 hours and resulted in the loss of 16
American troops and over 20 wounded. Some Viet Cong managed to penetrate
the ARVN compound but were decimated by South Vietnamese paratroopers.
The National Radio Station
While the embassy and the Joint General Staff Compound were being attacked, other VCs made their
way to the National Radio Station and finished off a platoon of ARVN paratroopers guarding it.
The Viet Con then attempted to transmit a recording that announced the fall of
Saigon and called for the General Uprising. Unfortunately for them,
the link was shot down by the crew at the transmission site located 14 miles away.
The Americans and ARVN forces turned the table on February 1 when the 1st Infantry Division,
the Big Red One, stopped the NVA from sending more reinforcements into the city and destroyed
the Communist troops with accurate artillery fire. The fighting within the city quickly intensified
as the American and ARVN forces retaliated with better cohesion.
However, hundreds of civilians were caught in the crossfire between the two factions.
Entire house blocks turned into an active combat zone and were
raced to the ground with machine-gun fire, grenades, mortars, and RPGs.
A Photo
During the close-quarters-combat skirmishes, Viet Cong Captain Nguyễn Văn Lém was captured
by ARVN forces during the early hours of February 1. Lém and his Viet Cong forces
were caught in civilian clothing and immediately taken into custody.
Associated Press photographer Eddie Adams and NBC News television cameraman Võ Sửu were in the
vicinity when the prisoners were taken to South Vietnamese Brigadier General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan.
The prisoners were only interrogated,
but the situation escalated quickly when General Loan identified Lém,
who was credited as the leader of an assassination and revenge platoon operating within the city.
Lém and his men had previously murdered the families of several police officers,
including a police major who was General Loan’s aide, and six of his godchildren.
Suddenly, General Loan pulled out his .38 revolver and shot Lém right there,
with the unexpected and visceral moment captured by Adams’s camera.
Loan then turned around and said: (QUOTE) "If you hesitate,
if you do not do your duty, the men will not follow you."
Adams’s photograph and NBC’s footage quickly made strides around the world.
Adams was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography, a World Press Photo award,
and seven other awards in 1969. The picture also increased the anti-war
sentiment in the US and eventually ruined General Loan’s reputation.
Adams later wrote: (QUOTE) "Two people died in that photograph.
The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera."
The Tet Offensive finally came to an end in March of 1968 following the recapture of Hue,
Saigon, and the relief at Khe Sanh. Over 58,000 Communist troops perished,
and over 5,000 ARVN and 4,000 US troops lost their lives during the offensive.
Even so, General Giap would later launch the May Offensive to strike the enemy once again.
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