Search and Destroy: Vietnam War Tactics 1965-1967 (Documentary)
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- Опубликовано: 4 янв 2024
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In 1965, tens of thousands of US troops are heading for war in Vietnam. Backed up by B-52 bombers, helicopters and napalm, many expect the Viet Cong guerillas to crumble in the face of unstoppable US firepower. Instead, in the jungles and swamps of Vietnam, the Americans discover combat is an exhausting slog in which casualties are high and they rarely get to fire first.
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» SOURCES
Anderson, David L. The Vietnam War, (Basingstoke : Palgrave MacMillan, 2005)
Appy, Christian G. Working-Class War: American Combat Soldiers and Vietnam, (Chapel Hill, NC : University of North Carolina Press, 1993)
Appy, Christian G. Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered From All Sides, (New York, NY : Viking, 2003)
Blasiot, Leonard A., Dawson, David A., Shulimson, Jack & Smith, Charles R., U.S. Marines in Vietnam: The Defining Year 1968, (Washington DC : History and Museums Division HQ, US Marine Corps, 1997)
Bluhm Jr. Raymond K. (ed), The Vietnam War: A Chronology of War, (New York, NY : Universe Publishing, 2010)
Caputo, Philip, A Rumor of War, (New York, NY : Ballantine Books, 1977)
Department of the Army, Report of the M16 Rifle Review Panel, (Washington, DC : Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Research, Development, and Acquisition, 1968)
Ehrhart, W.D. Vietnam-Perkasie: A Combat Marine Memoir, (Jefferson NC : McFarland, 1983)
Gettleman, Marvin E. (ed), Vietnam: History, Documents and Opinions on a Major World Crisis, (Harmondsworth : Penguin Books Ltd, 1967)
Hayslip, Ly Le & Wurts, John, When Heaven and Earth Changed Places: A Vietnamese Woman’s Journey from War to Peace, pp. X-xiv, in Ruane, Kevin (ed.), The Vietnam Wars, (Manchester : Manchester University Press, 2000)
Kearns, Doris, “Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream pp. 251-3" in Ruane, Kevin (ed.), The Vietnam Wars, (Manchester : Manchester University Press, 2000)
Langer, Howard J. The Vietnam War: An Encyclopedia of Quotations, (Westport, CT : Greenwood Press, 2005))
Lawrence, Mark Atwood, The Vietnam War: A Concise International History, (Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2008)
Longley, Kyle, Grunts: The American Combat Soldier in Vietnam, (Armonk N.Y. : M.E. Sharpe, 2008)
Rotter, Andrew J. “Chronicle of a War Foretold: The United States and Vietnam, 1945-1954" in Lawrence, Mark Atwood & Logevall, Fredrik (eds), The First Vietnam War: Colonial Conflict and Cold War Crisis, (Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, 2007)
Ruane, Kevin (ed.), The Vietnam Wars, (Manchester : Manchester University Press, 2000)
Thee, Marek, “The Indochina Wars: Great Power Involvement - Escalation and Disengagement”, Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 13, No. 2 (1976)
Tiu Bin, Following Ho Chi Minh: the Memoirs of a North Vietnamese Colonel, (Honolulu, HI : University of Hawaii Press, 1995)
Tovy, Tal, The Gulf of Tonkin: The United States and the Escalation in the Vietnam War, (New York, NY : Routledge, 2021)
»CREDITS
Presented by: Jesse Alexander
Written by: Mark Newton, Jesse Alexander
Director: Toni Steller & Florian Wittig
Director of Photography: Toni Steller
Sound: Above Zero
Editing: Toni Steller & Philipp Appelt
Motion Design: Philipp Appelt
Mixing, Mastering & Sound Design: above-zero.com
Research by: Mark Newton
Fact checking: Jesse Alexander, Florian Wittig
Channel Design: Simon Buckmaster
Contains licensed material by getty images and AP
Maps: MapTiler/OpenStreetMap Contributors & GEOlayers3
Music Library: Epidemic Sound
All rights reserved - Real Time History GmbH 2024
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THE VIETCONG AND NVA SOLDIERS ARE SOME OF THE BEST SOLDIERS ON EARTH. THEY ARE NOT AFRAID TO DIE FOR THEIR FREEDOM. THEY WORKED TOGETHER My father Vietnam Sylvester Bracey Sr 9th Marine Recon 67-69
@@MarkusBracey-cs5rm Yeah cool thanks, you didn't need to type that in all caps I figure most can read it fine without it sounding like you're unhinged.
@@This_is_a_burner WHY ARE PEOPLE PROGRAMMED? Just bcuz I highlighted my text and use highlights or Caps PEOPLE ARE PROGRAMMED AND ASK WHY ARE U YELLING? I'm not your just Programmed. I'm just using My natural style of writing. I was doing this before cell phones and texting. Don't take my writing style Personal. How about the SUBJECT MATTER WHAT REALLY COUNTS?
@@MarkusBracey-cs5rm Programmed? Pal I'm just typing, no idea what makes me 'programmed' nor do I know what you mean. Although I assume you mean something like "Oh those youth are brainwashed masses who are glued to their phones." or whatever else.
@@This_is_a_burner PROGRAMMED MEANING STOP TELLING ME HOW TO WRITE. I'm just using My style. Don't hate..
My dad was in AirForce during 60s. He was offered 2 choices: Vietnam medic or nurse in NORAD Alaskan radar station.My dad sent me nice pictures of polar bears in 1968.
At this period ,my grandfather was a Vietnamese college student in Hải Phòng. Once day some military guys showed up at school and told him to go with them, they said they had looked into grandpa profile and he was fitted to be a pilot. And he nearly completed the training, flying a Mig from Hải Phòng to Hà Nội himself but then he was outed from the pilot program because he got diarrhea. He later became a SAM air defenses missiles operator. He was injured during Rolling Thunder, an air to ground radar seeking missile flew in the operator mobile cabin. He described getting a sudden blast, falling unconscious and then waking up in a devastated scene. All his comrades lying lifelessly, their bodies either twisted by shock waves or pierced with shrapnel, grandpa miraculously survived but losing his teeth , shattered by shock wave, nevertheless continue serving for the rest of war.
I can't speak for all Vietnamese but in my province,Hải Phòng, at that time people was like " high on ideologies". Many kinds of ideologies not communist alone that commonly described as "Lý tưởng" which motivated people to do all sorts of crazy thing. Hai Phong is the most strategic port of North VN so its ports often mined by USAF. For ship caring aids from Soviet able to enter , naval mines must be cleared from port so they did it by driving small high speed boats over the area. Some dudes were selected/volunteered ,then their close relatives would be invited to attend "living funeral" for those "dead men walking". Finally they hopped on boats ,cruised them around, stimulated mines to explode and just hope the deadly blast wouldn't catch up with their speed. For you to imagine the sacrifice, throughout the war with American, not a single day the port of Hai Phong ceased from operating.
Those are undoubtedly the greatest generation of Vietnam.
thanks for sharing these stories
Yes...thank you for sharing that.
Diarrhea? Or did you mean Diabetes?
Because Diarrhea does not sound chronic enough to be ousted from a pilot program.
@@ucnguyenanh9414 Maybe he meant to say that he had contracted dysentery which causes severe diarrhea and can be life threatening.
@@realtimehistoryWe have internet we should google for the truth instead of hearing these brain washed paid by vc govern on here
This post brings back numerous memories of my service in Vietnam during 1965. My ship arrived in March and our patrols ran from the DMZ, south along the coast to the Gulf of Thailand then north to Phu Quoc Island just south of Cambodia. We had several roles. Most common was boarding suspicious merchant vessels, junks and sampans. In addition, we provided gun fire support at the request of friendly forces. That gunfire was directed by an observer in a helicopter or light aircraft who observed our rounds and made recommendations for correction.
Would you be able to name which ship(s) you served on?
Thanks for your service
Awesome
You invaded and killed us Vietnamese people
We followed orders. War is started by old men so young men can die in them. Your people our people. It's a miserable way to live.
My parents were both born in 1956, which meant that this war defined their childhoods. Their families are from different parts of Vietnam, but because of the partition, both families moved south to Saigon, where they both mostly grew up. It wasn't until much later after evacuations and the end of the war did they both happen to meet at a university party for Vietnamese students in Boston.
Life got pretty interesting for them ever since then, but it's very hard sometimes to watch this footage and not think of what they went through.
I was in Vietnam 67-68. So glad you survived Never had anything but respect for the Vietnam People..
@@williamcornelison4721 Glad he survived? The difficult life in the US? His parents were born in 1956. They met at a part for Vietnamese students in Boston. It's an amazing story of survival, but it's his parent's story and their family in Vietnam. It's an important story, I hope you understand it.
I was born in 1956, and grew up in Boston. Watching this on the nightly news was bad. I worked with many Vietnamese, with many dear friends, in the tech industry, but the worst stories they had were after the Communist takeover, and their escapes.
@@markcollins2666they fled because they were told that communism would be a bloodbath, but that did not happen to those who are stayed. Now, the war has passed into the past, let it rest
I was born in '61 but I remember that war as a kid on the nightly news and remember when Saigon fell in '75. I wish you and your family all the best. ❤
Arrived in Vietnam on Nov 1, 1965 - assigned to an Infantry platoon of the 1st 503rd 173rd Abn Bdg - hard to believe it was almost 60 years ago - ancient history.
Yup, we are history so to speak, did RVN '66-'67. E/2/1 1st Mar Div.
Not American but respect to all vets 🫡
@@2ndcomingofFritz
Why? I don't respect rapist and baby killers.
Shame
@@SteelerzReignSupremeII By "baby killers" are you including abortionists and pro-abortionists?
My dad, an Air Force radar guy was in Vietnam on temporary duty when Tet happened- they issued him a weapon and was told to defend the radar station.
The VC didn’t come his way.
They always got him out before they had to give him hazard pay- never could join the VFW.
My grandfather was a medic for 10th battalion garrison in Tay Ninh jungle. My grandmother was a commissioner. During one American’s S&D mission half of my grandma’s platoon members were killed, she was shot in her leg by a Huey, her company left her behind and the whole battalion have to move backwards 10km. At that time only my Grandpa left, he decide to carry her 10km through the dense jungle, back to the base.
Imagine the level of suffering and enduring of guirrela fighter in such hard condition, fight with an enemy who have supreme firepower.
Those are the greatest generation in my country.
After the war my grandfather agree Vietnam War was unnecessarily and could be avoided, many lifes were lost.
Johnson needed to make some money
YES INDEED!! LBJ AND HIS MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX CRONIES. @@DT-wp4hk
I am a 20 year-old Vietnamese college student. I've read most of the comments here and it seems like none of you really understands why the US went to war with Vietnam. So sad! The real reason was: JFK was invading South Vietnam, at the same time giving a big slap on the face of a colony that sought independence. The slap intended to be seen from Japan, who also sought independence - who earlier had the idea of "east asia co-prosperity sphere;" the slap also intended to be seen from China, from other Southeast Asian countries, as well as that "motherf**ker Russia" who wanted to flex with the US!!
Get lost , communists.
Poor communists..
Can you do the conventional war in Vietnam of 1971-75? It’s probably the most destructive and game changing that is often ignored because it didn’t involve US ground troops at the same levels as 1965-70
yup. we will cover the rest of the war this year
@@realtimehistoryWe have internet we should google for the truth instead of hearing these brain washed paid by vc govern on here
i love you real time history @@realtimehistory
After the US left, there was not much of a fight going on. The South was heavily corrupt, their troops fought mostly for money. When the supplies run low, no troops available. You looked at how their president Nguyen Van Thieu lied and then left the country before the North troops even entered the fight, that tells a lot.
That pic of the black soldier with an M60 machine gun looks like my old Sargent Campbell, best guerilla fighter in the US Army. As anyone in the big red One will tell you.
Salute 1st Infantry.
@@williestyle35That Black Soldier should have been fighting DAM ERIKKKA.
And died of alcohol when he got back.
@@SteelerzReignSupremeIII didn’t keep track of him, he might have.
This was a first class doco…….the best short film explaining war I’ve ever seen…..and I watch everything. Trust me this is first class.
💯.
my father born in the south and my mother born in the north all live in the same war with differents perspective, its bone chilling when hear stories of both side
10:25 the Ak shown there is an ak-74 5.45mm variant made in 1974 & not fielded by the VC or NVA in the American war in Vietnam, main way to tell the calibre is if the mag is bent more than this one shown that's the 7.62mm variant, the more straighter mag shown here is 5.45mm, the ak-74 has the flash hider as shown, the early ak-47 had no flash hider or muzzle device, the akm which is a later "modernised" version of the ak47 has the classic looking slanted muzzle brake. Main ak's fielded in Vietnam would be the ak-47, akm & the Chinese variant; type 52 all of those were 7.62mm.
Your analysis is correct. Though some of the rarer variants of the "AK 47" would find service in Vietnam (like the North Korean type, etc) you listed the main ones seen by US troops. I would point out that the various "armed forces" in Vietnam used any weapons they could find, including old Japanese rifles, and captured weapons like the M1 carbines supplied to South Vietnamese forces.
@@williestyle35 yes they even used some of the German STG-44 's, I could imagine as a primarily "gorilla" force they would use anything & everything
@@PiNKMuDSimGaming Guerilla
@@ClassifiedUnit-135 cheers
@@PiNKMuDSimGaming yes, that is true.
When I entered the Army in 1968 we trained with the M-14. When I first held an M-16 I thought it was a toy rifle! It was so light it was really hard to correctly move it because of the weight difference. But of course there were three ways of dealing with the problem, the right way, the wrong way, and the Army way. Guess which way we used?
So you would have preferred to carry and move with a much heavier rifle in the field? I dont understand why you would desire a heavier weapon.
It's not a preference, it's what you are used to. You have muscle memory that gets used to a heavier rifle and you overcompensate with a lighter one.@@randybobandy9828
I went to south Vietnam 1969 Australian army war zone D we carried and were issued L1A1 SLR rifle heavy rifle but it felt solid and I preferred that we did have M 16 some guys carried them but mainly special forces SAS welcome home glad you made it back sir
I did RVN '66-'67, started out with the M-14, it worked 24/7, Feb. '67 we got the M-16's, about a month later we started to have problems with the Matty matel specials, failure to eject rounds, that is why the M-14 was preferred over the M-16, the M-16's that we were issued did not operate up to expectations, if you never experienced something like what we did you would not understand, I was there, I did 13 months with E/2/1 1st Mar Div. I know from experiencing it, I did not read about it.@@randybobandy9828
@@randybobandy9828m16 jammed from gov issued ammo so jams caused problems
I am really appreciating this latest series. As an American born in the 60s, the Vietnam War informed my early childhood. However, most of my understanding was from the American perspective and it is valuable to hear how the Vietnamese saw the conflict, something you are doing an excellent job covering. One of my closest friend's father was a chopper pilot who was shot down during the war. Sadly, he has very few memories of his late father.
Polish here, also born in the 60's. My family hated communists and couldn't grasp why Vietnamese are struggling to be trodden down by communist regime. It was funny in a way, to say , because the communist propaganda in Poland spit on the Americans - and ordinary people cheered for the Americans dreaming they may come to Poland like they did in Vietnam.
Nice
you need to watch Ken Burns documentary about this war. That is the best one I have ever seen. Veterans from ALL SIDES are interviewed in that documentary. NVA, VC, ARVN, American marine, and army as well. You get to meet vietnamese vets who fought with and against American forces, and also some of the civilians who were effected. That was an eye opener for me. I look at our own civil war and try to imagine how horrible that had to be caught up in the fighting of Union and confederate troops, and then if there were powerful foreign soldiers who joined the fighting and caused even more damage. That was the Vietnam war and it lasted for 21 years! (1954-75) It was a civil war with a foreign power sending its own military to help a side.
Yeah, yeah President Johnson bought a lot of Huey stock, and then magically Huey was the #1 weapon in Viet Nam and then Magically Johnson Became very, very rich. Funny how these things work like that.
LBJ campaigned as a peace candidate in 1964....knowing he was going to comment ground troops to Vietnam....
Commit ground troops
@@MichaelForte-jn5pn What do you mean a politician lied?
Presidents and Governments getting rich on wars...business as usual
I can find no record of any "Huey Stock" on Wall Street records.
Delivered as promised! Excellent work once again. I try to not take this sort of free educational content for granted, but you guys make it really difficult with your high standard of quality. Your work deserves way more recognition!
Randomly came across this channel. Really enjoyed the commentary and especially the use of footage etc from the era. Thanks for the hard work!
6:17 the guy on the right exiting the helicopter tumbles over exiting and just keeps going😂
Lol his team was prob saying dammit here we go again with this dude
We won the battles and lost the war in Vietnam and at home. We came back with 60k body bags hundreds of thousands injured, physiological problems, suicides etc. The violence was unacceptable with almost 2 million vietnamese deaths, people suffer till today from the orange agent and undetonated bombs.
yes but we did manage to grease millions of american millionaires investing in Bell Helicopter and 100 other military fat farms. WHile you guys sleep on park benches and off yourselves daily makes me sick.
@@KennedyCopy Please don't blame the soldiers, we are just a tool of the war. The politicians is the one to blame..
Won battles 😂😂😂 I'm a native Vietnamese person from Hanoi. Alot of Veterans here don't speak much about the war because our people have achieved peace that we enjoy today. If you ask any Veterans here who where the best fighter NVA and VC (That how you Americans call us). They all will tell you the bravest soldiers where the South Vietnamese army. Not Americans, Australia, Korean. The only thing they can tell you about the US soldiers ( Marines). Simply cowards. They had everything and still need South Vietnamese advisers to guide them to do the job. Killing South Vietnamese civilians and call it "We got the enemy" There a reason why the South Vietnamese joined VC to take down the South Regime. You Americans can't even defeat underfunded Tiliban fighter. All the US does best is to tell made up stories. There reason why militaries around the world see British military as a role model and not the US.
@@KennedyCopythat’s what the military is for
@@minhnguyen-rp2es I never said that we had the best troops, even today. We do have the best technology for sure. The Vietnam war was a big mistake from our government.
Concise quality analysis as military history buff who has friends who were airmobile this is excellent.
Amazing how willing people are to believe that “their troops just aren’t real fighting men like we have”
Sons of the Viet Minh, were cagey, and motivated.
The Communists have brainwashed cannon fodders who didn't have much choice while we had well-motivated free citizen-at-arms.
@@markgarrett3647sure kid, all draftees were free and well-motivated 😂
@@zackakai5173 The draft was only unpopular because men who might have otherwise volunteered into military service find themselves being drafted but overall American involvement in Vietnam in defence of the non-Communist south was very popular publicly just like the Korean conflict.
They found out
My father-in-law was deployed with the big red 1 as the guy that pulls the string on the artillery. VC attacked their gun implacement position in the middle of nowhere jungle and he saved his guys and got a bronze star and was injured. After healing up in west Germany he was sent back with Second Field Force and the same thing happened again but this time he got a bronze star with valor. Its a shame the horrors of war he had to witness at 19. He told me he'll never forgive the army for what they put him and his buddies through.
Wow, that was such an amazing summary of our strategy and pitfalls. Excellent job.
Much appreciated!
I know I always posted but....The M-16 was problematic at the beginning of the war for five reasons.
1. The belief that the rifle was self-cleaning and didn't require any maintenance to work was hugely problematic. Many of the first M-16's didn't even come with cleaning kits.
2. The barrels were not chromed. This caused corrosion to build-up in the rifles chamber.
3. The build-up of unspent powder in the ejector mechanism caused many jams.
4. This one is almost as bad as the first...the ammunition that was sent to the frontlines in Vietnam were not compatible with the rifle itself. The rounds were under-powdered causing them to jam up, refuse to eject, and basically a liability until the jam was fixed.
5. They (US military nor Colt) gave any training on the M16's use until it was fixed a couple of years later. Once the men were trained, had chromed barrels, and proper ammunition the weapon more than proved itself worthy.
Bonus-
While I have always loved the AR platform why Armalite and Colt went with a direct impingement system is a mystery to me? I have owned 4 AR-15 rifles in my life (no, not at once). I had them all (but one) converted to piston operated.
My Grandfather a supply sergeant in the US Army, and was stationed in Saigon in 1968, arriving a few months after the Tet Offensive started. As a supply sergeant, he was able to make friends all over the place. According to him, he hitched rides with the Brown Water Navy in the Mekong Delta. They let him fire their weapons into the jungle, but he doesn't know if he hit anything, or anyone. There's an audio recording of my grandfather while sitting the roof of a bar in Saigon. Grandpa's drinking beer and in the background there's a firefight going on! That's pretty much all I ever got out of my Grandpa about his time in Vietnam. The man was always proud of his service. He even encouraged me to join the Army, but when it came to asking him stories, he would give some vague answers and change the subject. For the longest time I thought Grandpa had done something he was ashamed of.
It took me going to Iraq to understand why he didn't talk about Vietnam.
Cool
Cool
Cool
Cool
Cool
Best documentary I've ever seen of the low rank soldier view of real combat in Vietnam.
Thank you.
Incredible, always learn something.
In Dec. of 1965 India Co. of 3/4 was stationed on hill 41 about ten miles west of Da Nang. Squad sized patrols were sent out at night and returned at daybreak. The patrols were assigned a specified route and were supposed to radio in their postions on that route as the night progressed. However, what the patrol actually did was to take up a position in cover near hill 41, remain there, and then call in bogus position reports. This was in late 1965 and early 1966 with US marines who had trained together and were a cohesive unit. Did anyone expect the performance of US troops to improve when green replacements started to roll in? I think not.
When did this mess go from a "Police Action" to officially a war ? thanks
@@user-iz4lo5qr9x roughly from the end of JFK's administration to the middle of Linden B Johnson's presidency.
You go out about a click, and SHTF, your squad takes just one WIA, and it takes at least 3-4 guys to carry him away, that leaves you a bit in peril, and help is back at the Bn. area? Can't blame the non-patrol, patrol, been there, done that, did RVN '66-'67, E/2/1, 4 clicks East of hill 55, 1 click West of Rt. 1, 2/9's old Bn. area. Was up at the Rockpile before that, the old guys clued us in that fire team rushes didn't work for $#it.
@@williestyle35 Thank You for the reply ... mid Johnson I would have been 10 years old ...still I remember the "Police Action" BS while so many were dying ..
@@user-iz4lo5qr9x welcome. Eisenhower had got the US involved in a small and distant way, JFK sent "advisors" and then the first groups troops, Johnson kept responding to military requests and "expanded" the "conflict". I was born the year before Nixon pulled back America forces, and I can remember how many times the news replayed the fall of Saigon in and after 1975, I was four years old.
Love the content. I would love a documentary about the Korean war. Cheers from Estonia
stay tuned this year 😉
@@realtimehistory that is fantastic!
@@realtimehistorywhy you making war video but dont understand a bit about it?
Thank you for this VIdeo
Very nice presentation, thank you. Looking forward to the "later years" on the War.
5:19 Those are not claims, they are facts. The M16 is lighter, its ammunition is smaller, and the lower muzzle energy obviously reduces recoil and increases controllability.
A better description would be that the US army emphasized these advantages and also claimed it would be more reliable, but due to problems like lack of cleaning kits and use of ammunition the rifle wasn't designed for, soldiers experienced serious reliability issues.
Happy New Year 2024 for an excellent and incredibly ( RTH) channel. The episode was an informative and incredible historical coverage episode like before episodes . Thanks for sharing...(Search and destroy ) tactics were adopted by the US military in the South Vietnam Republic territory, which gained defeat and huge casualties ...only concentrated Airforce bombarding by unconventional airplanes ✈️ rescued Americans from political defeat inside Vietnam 🇻🇳 issued at that times.
I was there 66 - 69. Killed just about everything after my buddies went down, everything simply goes dead. Helicopters were especially fun, US Army Rangers, deep recon. ... various duties as assigned. Came back to America and country had changed. Now I'm just an old boomer.
Welcome home! I was there 67-68, Marines up north of Hue.
@tahoekayaker My draft physical was in Los Angeles. As we all stood on different colored lines, every once in a while, we would stop in a different room for some sort of test. In one room, we counted down, and every "x" stepped out of line, left the room, and were now Marines, I was Army. After basic at Ord, we shipped out to a world so different than so cal. Semper Fidelis.
Yep, remember all the lines.
Thank you for your service my brother
War criminal
I worked with a guy at AutoZone here in my hometown. He is a Vietnam vet. He had purple heart and a bunch of medals that I've seen. This guy was a medic in the corps they were flyin in to get some guys In the Viet Kong shot down their helicopter and the guy broke his back in multiple places, his neck, his arm and his ribs and had a puncture lung he didn't say a lot about what happened while he was there but what he did tell me I could vividly see like I was reading a story and you can see it in your head and what he went through was just terrifying
Basically a Hardcore History equivalent in video space. Excellent research and delivery.
In 1972 I just got out of USAF basic training. I wa waiting to go to tech school and met a young S. Vietnam pilot at the airman's club. WE set drinking listening to the crappy rock band. We talked for several hours. Then I left for tech school and he had to go back to Vietnam to fight the North. I always wondered if he made it through the war and survived?
Jesse, 6:05 Maybe Canadians pronounce Iroquois 'ir-o-kwa', but the few times I heard Iroquois from UH1 pilots and crew, they said 'ir-o-koy'. It was rare that they used that name. Most times, they called the bird 'Huey'.
You are too young to remember the Vietnam War (or, as the Vietnamese call it, the American War). That means you and Flo, ua, worked from primary, secondary, and filmed sources. I work from my memory. I did not go to war in Vietnam, but I knew many who did, including the most courageous man I ever knew: Quang Nguyen. I hold much respect for the grunts and sailors and airmen who fought there. I hold much contempt for the politicians and Wiz Kids who treated war like and P&L statement.
He pronounces all French words as they would sound in French. Did you hear the way he pronounced "reconnaissance"? Maybe he grew up speaking French. While this is not bad, these words have been for better or worse anglicized.
English is my mother tongue (though I grew up bilingual) and we always pronounced those words in the way I pronounce them in this video, even in school (for Iroquois at least). There are regional and national variations in English pronunciation. @@mikeoyler2983
As a French speaker, I recognized Jesse's pronounciation of "Iroquois" as the one I would have used, but it's one of those words that one only ever sees in writing.
@@shatterquartz @Mike Oyler Thank you. I understand that. But it was an American plane, and its American crew pronounced it 'ir-o-koy'. In my life, I heard it maybe four times. I heard Huey thousands of times.
'Twere better had Jesse not used that name at all.
@@hlynnkeith9334 Fair enough, and it's true the model is more widely known as the Huey.
thank u for these videos
thanks for the video
As a little boy in Poland, I used to cheer fervently for the American boys in Vietnam while watching on TV.
As you should.
for invading other people's homes?
@@DualitiesRussian backed Vietnamese commies invaded Vietnamese homes.
1973 lính My buộc phải rút khỏi Viêt Nam .bạn có còn cổ vũ cho họ nũa không 😂
@@DualitiesThe people who wrongly believe that the Vietnam War was a ideological war rather than a sovereignty war tend to root for the US.
really fascinating documentary, I am glad I wasn't around at that time
Very helpful presentation!
Thanks!
I've been paying for nebula for a couple of years now just to help support historical content creators but haven't watched much.
Going to go check out Red Atom now.
What a freakin' mess that whole thing was
Excellent doc. Congrats.
Incredible video
Great video
There is one person to blame on the loss . Westmoreland ! I am always a Marine , and will always shake the hand of a Vietnam Veteran ........ Also I served in Okinawa, and had the chance to visit Vietnam ....... Incredible Country , though most importantly Incredible people 🙏
What were his errors?
Thank you for your service. You are a hero
Lack of mining Haiphong Harbour? Was that at Westmoreland's level?
@@hoghogwildhe only wanted a victory (or there would be nothing left) no matter how many people had to bleed
@@DuongNguyen-bn99 But how did that contribute to the supposed US loss.
I knew a Vietnam vet who spent one day in Vietnam. He was pulled to do one of these types of recon patrols, I believe it was a LRRP. Not his MOS: he was a typist. First day in-country. Goes out on LRRP with squad, gets ambushed. Entire squad is killed. So are VC attacking except for one who was hidden. Friend has shotgun. Said he saw a little man leap down from the trees wearing black pajamas. Guy got a few shots directly into him from his AKM before guy I knew let off a shot from his shotgun. Killed the VC instantly. Both fell to ground bleeding, he was thinking he would die. But he said the most disturbing thing to him was the utter silence. The entire engagement took no more than 20 or 30 seconds: everybody but he was dead. And he lay there, all of 20, in the jungle, in utter silence. Somehow he got picked up and airlifted out, sent to Germany, spent 14 months recovering. First - and last - day in Vietnam. Quite the experience.
I like how he said coerced when they were threated to be killed if they didn't give them food.
If such happened to those americans then they should consider that as forgiveness compared to what they did.
Coercion is defined as persuading someone to do something with threat of violence of force. The word gets used incorrectly a lot in the way that makes it seem less intense
Great narrator.
Love this channel.
Interesting doc!
Here is a true story about how the NLF won an engagement. Sept 27th, 1965, a combined night patrol of a marine Civic Action Platoon and the Phu Bai popular force was heading west on a dark trail. It ran headlong into an NLF patrol heading east. The point marine opened up on full auto with his M-14 and took out the lead elements of the NLF partol. However, in doing so, he made himself a target with the flashes from his rifle and was killed by the remainder of the NLF patrol. The marines probably killed about ten of the NLF. It took me a long time to understand that the NLF had won this engagement. The Viet Minh strategy against the French and later against the USA had always been to accept a ten to one loss ratio on the premise that the enemy's civilian population would not be willing to accept the continued loss of their young men in a cause that, in reality, had very little to do with their own national security.
Imagine if the USA was fighting a foreign power on it's own soil? How many losses would the citizens accept?@@danax6653
He typed why they would be more willing litterally at the end of his comment.@@danax6653
It is not a "theory." It is a documented fact of Viet Minh strategy. Furthermore, the leaders of N. Vietnam were not publicly elected and had the ability to mold public opinion through control of the media. The N. Vietnamese propaganda was that its soldiers were fighting foriegn imperialism, and their public had no way forming a different opinion.
On the other hand, in the USA the public became increasingly aware that the outcome of the civil war in Vietnam was not important to the security of their country, and that the Vienam war was was unwinable anyway. Their boys were dying in for a lost cause that was, in reality, not as important as their government had made it out to be. @@danax6653
@@jeffreyerwin3665 Are you american by any chance ?
@@danax6653It’s not that the NVA and VC were trying to get killed, but rather that Vietnamese strategists accepted the probability that they would lose more men than the Americans if a fight dragged out long enough for the Americans to properly fire back and call in support, the logic being that long as the Hanoi-aligned forces could at least replace enough losses to continue fighting for decades, the actual kill ratio mattered far less than the simple fact that Americans were dying nonetheless.
The m16 got a lot of marines killed, a great example is the book dead center, it jammed for 35 marines and all their m16s were jammed or they were field stripping thing in battle
Yup, did RVN '66-'67, 1st Mar Div.
_Government bureaucracy gets servicemen killed._ I'm shocked! Shocked I tell you! Well, not that shocked.
Wow you all have really cool stories 😎 wish i could sit around a camp fire and listen
Excellent!
Great detailed account of a horrible, wasteful, sad war
When your leadership fails to apply the basic principles of warfare on an enemy for political purposes,one can expect this result.Failure to do so was a great disservice to the soldiers who honored their Nation’s call to duty to defend the weak against the powerful in their fight to be free.This was the worst application of military power and war strategy that I know of.
That's a strange thing to say. Of course a war is dictated by political purposes, what else would it be fought for? The problem with the Vietnam war isn’t that it was politically managed, it's that it was fought at all. As for defending the weak, all that the US was defending in Vietnam was a clique of corrupt kleptocrats. The rest of the people just wanted American soldiers out of their country so their villages would no longer be bombarded and their children killed.
I like how the Americans, who often lecture other about total wars, decide to neglect the political side of warfare just to undermine our victory and claim that they hadn't lost.
If I recall, another reason for the high friendly fire statistic is that the M16 was unreliable in the environment (as was stated), but GIs would take AK47s off fallen foes and would often attract friendly fire due to the distinct sound of the AK.
I started BCT in August of 1969. At 23, except for a few guys with prior service, I was the oldest in the platoon. All these teenage kids were calling me "Uncle." A couple of them got killed in RVN almost as soon as they got there. Little kids, just out of high school. And for what?
If you fight to secure a draw you will never achieve victory.
Actually, in many ways, Westmoreland was not necessarily too far off the mark with regard to the damage done to the VC in the years prior to the Tet Offensive in 1968. For while the projected number of VC casualties may have been exaggerated... the actual combat support and ability that these groups had was rather limited, which was in part why the VC tried hard to stay in the shadows. And ultimately the fighting in 1968 would militarily prove Westmoreland right.
The issue, however, was that much of what was going on in the US and how they were looking at the Vietnam War was that they were drawing more connections to World War 2, which as that war began to wind down in Europe, the number of major fights decreased (at least as was remembered... and particularly with the European theater). Thus, as Westmoreland gave his comments on how he was grinding down the VC and that they were approaching their last legs, many expected only small actions and seeing them continue to decrease in size. Because that was what happened before and many of the "armchair generals of the time" had no experience with guerrilla warfare.
Which makes the desperation move that comes in 1968 so much of a surprise to the Americans, despite winning the military engagement.
Another thing that was clear. If the US government didn’t lie a lot during the Vietnam war. The tet offensive would’ve been looked more successful because the amercian public was angry at the tet offensive, not because it happened but because westmorland said that the enemy doesn’t have the means to conduct offensives cause of how weakened they were.
The Tet offensive proved Westmoreland and the US government wrong and so had a terrible effect on the morale of the US people.@@user-oh6eg4ny3h
The west just wants more land
Funny how many major military powers, such as the U.S, love to lecture others about total war, but choose to neglect the political factors of warfare.
Fantastic show. Enjoy your content everyday while I'm in bed reading. Your my background lol.
excellent
Me love you long time. Great video!
Can you please make a detailed video on the NVA , I think their an often overlooked part of the Vietnam War as people think the north only fought through the Vietcong.
we will see what we can do
Agreed! Too often, I see people relegate them to nothing more than rife farmers with sandals, and that just isn't the case. They were well equipped, highly experienced, motivated, and well supported conventional soldiers.
We did fought through the Vietcong. All NVA soldiers/unit that fought in the South would both refered themselves and got redesignated as NLF units/soldiers until the very end of the war.
@@realtimehistory Before an NVA soldier was highly experienced he had to be highly inexperienced. I remember listening to NVA troops coming down the Ho Chi Minh trail one night. They were talking, laughing with equipment clanking. Their noise discipline was "number 10". The died bravely but stupidly.
Time to finally understand how it looked on the ground
Liked and subbed
Excellent review of the conflict.
Great work. If you continue the documentaries about the Vietnam war, don't forget to mention the battle of Khe Sanh which is the equivalent of Dien Bien Fu but with a different outcome.
Excellent, accurate documentary. Much obliged.
''White-28'' C-Trp, 7/17th Air Cav, Camp Enari, 1968-1969.
''Cougar-6'' Weapons Platoon, 57th Aviation Co, Camp Holloway, 1971.
RIP: Anderson, Petty, Cox, Flurry
Take me back to my tour in Wounded Knee
Well done, for the most part. The more elite units had fewer of the problems recounted.
A war any war cannot be won unless one takes and holds ground. A war cannot be won if air power is not allowed to completely take out airfields and infrastructure. One cannot win a war if one allows the enemy to resupply with immunity. If one wants to murder their own military personnel
then a so called police action is the way to do it. Want to know how many times North Vietnam was on the verge of surrending read General Giap's book. He was the commander of all the military forces in North Vietnam. He was the author of the Tet offensive. The North was on the verge of giving up but did not want a fotce as large as the Viet Cong in their back yard as a 5th column. The Tet offensive was designed for America to wipe out the V.C. which is what our military did by the end of Tet. The V.C. ceased to be a viable military force as Giap wanted.
Why didnt they surrender?? According to Giap they witness the aftermath of Tet.
They saw and heard the likes of Cronkite and American politicians and college kids calling the Tet offensive a huge defeat for America.
Giap wrote the North decided to persevere a while longer. They did until operation line backer was put in place by Nixon. Operation linebacker was almost a complete copy of President Kennedys battle plan.
It would be safe to.assume N.V. would have lasted about 9 months had President Kennedy not been assassinated and he put his battle plan into.action.
Let's not forget that the US wasn't allowed in laos and Cambodia... That's where the VC hid and attacked from. If the US ignored that and went to those countries we would have destroyed them.
@@randybobandy9828Wrong 😂
My unit serch/ destroy missions were APC and m60 tanks busting brush till base camps and storage whitch we cleared. 69th armor/ 10th air calvery 1969.
10:15 The AK-47 magazine is wrong. That's an AK-74 bakelite orange-brown magazine, not the metallic black one used for 47s.
All that military might, negated by the willpower of the Vietnamese fighters. My condolences to the families of all those, unnecessarily killed on both sides and those who suffered trauma and injury after it.
Melodrama aside, you mean Chinese soldiers that came down through Laos and disguised as VC, right? China supported North Vietnam against South Vietnam and the US. China also provided training, arms and logistics.
@@xoxo2008oxox
Death knows no boundaries. Have you also considered the US support of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge when Vietnam invaded Cambodia, after they had decimated a quarter of their population in the killing fields?
@@xoxo2008oxoxmany countries helped the US too
@@Chafflives
Whataboutism. The moment you hear a worthy response, you jump topic. What any other war or bad regimes has to do with the question on hand? Namely, how wrong your assesment is. How politically motivated it is. How ignorant it is.
@@marrs1013
What on earth are you talking about? There is no ‘whataboutism,’ in my responses. The first post was based on fact and the second was in response to a widening of the topic and also based on fact. I believe you are the one that is ‘politically motivated,’ as well as uninformed.
All the talk about rifles and bullet size is pure hooey. 5:43 The most dangerous guy on the battlefield is at 5:43.
Yep, artillery and air strikes are the main killers on the battlefield (and radios call those in).
Funny because with all your air support, you still lost the war xD.
@@Red_Lion2000Your right. We should have used "All" our airpower. You know who was also right? Curtis Lemay.
Excellent timing
16:27 I've seen this short clip before, of the guy pointing the pistol at the girl's head, in a documentary. Anyone know if there is an extended version/backstory to this specific incident?
McNamara screwed this up royally. 😮
Such an immense loss of life for nothing, since eventually the corrupt South Vietnamese regime collapsed, and Vietnam reunified as it was supposed to since gaining independence. Now the people of Vietnam have turned the page and welcome foreign visitors with open arms, so long as they come in peace.
be honest : so long as they come with money.
@@williestyle35 I could say it's the same with every tourist destination in the world, but the Vietnamese in general are friendly to foreign visitors even when no money is involved.
There's an estimated 50,000 Communist combat casualty in 1975.
Most of the people of South Vietnam really didn't want to live amongst the butchers of the Communist International even if they are Vietnamese.
@@markgarrett3647 In that case, why were they never asked? There was supposed to be a vote on Vietnamese unification in 1955, the South Vietnamese government cancelled it, and for the rest of its corrupt existence, it never held a democratic election again.
@@shatterquartz One million Vietnamese voted with their feets in 1954 by fleeing south of the 17th. parallel from the North and millions more would have followed if the Communist Vietnamese didn't block them at gunpoint.
3rd Batt. 7th Marines ChuLai,RVN 10/65-11/66
Westmoreland was playing chess while Giap was playing GO.
What were the effing yanks doing in Vietnam?
How the EFF dar they?
Protecting a corrupt regime and indescriminatly Killing civilians whilst white washing multiple documented massacres
Just some random thoughts. I learned that the kill ratio was 20:1 but didn't realize that it was inflated. So maybe 15 or 17:1? North Vietnam reunified the country but in a way I feel it was pyric victory as maybe two million died on the North Vietnamese side and we are talking about living under a communist regime. Not that I condone America's involvement. That said, much, much respect to the people who served there. Thanks for an excellent documentary. I learned more than I expected to.
Vietcong+NVA: 800,000 deaths
US, ARVN, South Korea, Australia, Thailand, New Zealand,...: 400,000 deaths
1:2 ratio
US didn't fight the war alone, stop being delutional, Rambo is not real, get down to earth
US is a democracy that has been defending itself on foreign lands, stout and steadfast ally of Israel, Israel is the most peaceful country on earth!, Vietnam is a communist regime very bad!!! Much love to US and Israel!
@@descarf6912 Yes, I know. I was referring to total deaths including civilians. "More than 3 million people, including over 58,000 Americans, were killed in the Vietnam War, and more than half of the dead were Vietnamese civilians."
@@dry5555end result = US lost.
Tôi là người Việt Nam và tôi muốn nói rằng tôi rất biết ơn những anh hùng đã ngã xuống để chống lại người mỹ và thống nhất đất nước. Chiến tranh đã đi qua, chúng tôi bắt đầu xây dựng đất nước, các chính trị gia cũng tiến hành những cải cách kinh tế theo hướng tư bản, cuộc sống của người dân đang tốt lên. Có lẽ có nhiều người phương tây cho rằng chế độ cộng sản là tồi tệ, ok, vậy các bạn đã tìm hiểu về ngày Quốc tế lao động 1/5, hay những lao động trẻ em ở nước Anh hồi thế kỉ 18 19. Hãy là 1 người văn minh, tìm hiểu nhiều hơn rồi hãy phát biểu.
I remember this war came into our living room every night when I was a kid
my name is King Kong, and my sons Donkey Kong and Viet Kong have definitely pwned humans many times. very proud of them.
you can easily see why they lost lol
?
My heart goes out to these unfortunate soldiers for getting caught in a 🐂💩political/ rich man's war... I LOST TWO uncles in that senseless war.
Which rich man?
@@bbmtge ... Google it, I don't have time to educate TROLLS🤙😎
Yes Ho Chi Minh and the Lao Dong party were rich.
@@markgarrett3647yes, Ho Chi Minh was a rich man who used a rock as a desk and walked in rubber sandals and a cane all his life 😂😂😂. Only rich in Compassion.
@@DuongNguyen-bn99 A rock desk placed in a charming and lavish formerly French-owned villa how humble.
at 8.52 what is the v.c. enraged water buffalo?
my dad was there in June 1968. - Feb 1970 he was in Ashua valley when tet offensive began... this is all I know about his service. he would never talk about it
tet was feb-march of 1968. he likely was in some other fights.
No comparison. The Vietnamese soldier was dedicated, smart in guerilla warfare and could sustain long periods without any comforts. He (or she) was prepared to die for each other or their country and was fighting for a cause. They couldn’t lose. The Americans were the complete opposite.
Depends on which phase of the war you are talking. The first few years any American would have gave their life with out question for the people around them on the mission. The last as t few years they didn’t want to conduct missions (exceptions our volunteers) due to being draftees. Being draftees is for years fore the end, traditionally from low income and lack of education (talking about this war, the Vietnam supports should resonate) hated being sent when the opposite folks weren’t. That does not mean they didn’t perform, because they did. The argument of we won the battles but. It the war is fairly accurate. Guerrilla or asymmetric warfare is not under Geneva conventions, meaning America cannot execute, (examples being late NAM and present). Question America, see her wrath. Mess around to much, and let US get approval for total war. America is no paper tiger
What do you mean by "Vietnamese soldier?
I was saddened to see this nonsense of body counts and their inflation re-emerge during the war in Afghanistan. Along with a deluge of other statistical fantasies. Journalists were expected to sit through briefings which they, and the troops they had spoken to, knew were nonsense. There were only two differences: The Afghanistan briefings used Powerpoint and the option of journalists going their own way was largely eliminated. They "embedded" with the military or they were cut off entirely. The key lesson, define your objectives and stick to them, had apparently been forgotten over fifty years or never really learned in the first place.
we will produce a few more videos about Vietnam and in the conclusion of the series we will explore this topic a bit more in detail.
"The imperialists are bad students. They neglect the lessons that history has given them. So they're doom to repeat their mistakes as they did in Vietnam, as they did in Algeria. These students, will always fail to graduate."
_Võ Nguyên Giáp, Algeria,1976.
It’s probably a credit to this channel about how mature the comments are.
6:15 that guy falling out of the helicopter almost got smoked by the tail rotor.