Vietnam

Question 1

Consequences of Dien Bien Phu

Answer 1

• 4,000 French soldiers killed and 12,000 captured
• People believe the war in Indochina isn’t worth the cost and so the French pull out
• Vietnam is split in two after 1954 Geneva peace talks

Question 2

Dien Bien Phu

Answer 2

• A series of forts on hilltops surrounding an airstrip (hedghog base)
• French don’t bother securing surrounding mountains where the Viet Minh can place their artillery
• March 1954, 16,000 French defenders are surrounded by 50,000 Viet Minh troops. 70 French defenders escape to Laos. Dien Bien Phu falls

Question 3

Communist armies

Answer 3

• NVA, North Vietnamese army. North Vietnames regulars

- NLF, National liberation front. Communist Guerrillas in South Vietnam, dubbed the Viet Cong by the Americans

Question 4

American armies

Answer 4

• US marines

- ARVN, Army of the Republic of Vietnam. South Vietnamese army regulars

Question 5

Reasons for America getting involved in Vietnam

• Domino theory
• McCarthyism

Answer 5

• communism would get stronger with each country it took. Stop communism early
• politicians wanting to look tough on communism. Eugene McCarthy leading a hunt for supposed communists in government. This scared many politicians.

Question 6

Guerrilla warfare

Answer 6

Background, originated from General Giap who’d previously worked in Mao in China

1. Win the support of the people (persuasion or threats)
2. Guerrilla fighting (wear down the enemy using hit and run tactics)
3. General uprising of the people (overwhelm them with the support of the people)

Question 7

Reasons for America getting involved in Vietnam

• Truman doctrine and containment
• Communism in Asia

Answer 7

• America would help any country resisting communism. This was to contain it, not roll it back
• China (1949) and N. Korea (1953) however Malaya and S. Korea has resisted

Question 8

Reasons for America getting involved in Vietnam

• Gulf of Tonkin incident
• American Reputation

Answer 8

• Gulf of Tonkin incident, 1964 N. Vietnamese gunboats attacked the destroyer the USS Maddox once (not twice)
• American reputation, America would look weak and encourage communists to take over other countries if they pulled out of Vietnam

Question 9

The two main offensives:

Answer 9

1968 Tet offensive

1972 Easter invasion

Question 10

Winning the support of the people

Answer 10

Carried out using persuasion tactics, if this didn’t work then the VC would move on to threatening South Vietnamese villagers
Subsequently they beheaded 50,000 village headmen who didn’t cooperate
This was so VC Guerrillas could be ‘like fish in the sea’ (blending in with the local villagers)

Question 11

Rolling Thunder problems

Answer 11

Up to 1 million civilians may have died due to American firepower. China and USSR provided MiG fighters and SAM sites to NVA. Captured pilots became POWs (Hanoi Hilton)

Question 12

Ho Chi Minh trail

Answer 12

Was a trail leading from N. Vietnam, through Laos and Cambodia and into S. Vietnam. 600 miles long and 50 miles wide, 50,000 NVA and VC soldiers were needed to maintain it.

Question 13

Communist casualties

Answer 13

US claimed to have killed 500,000 enemies, this was claimed to have been inflated. In 1995 the actual casualties were revealed: 1.1 million

Question 14

American casualties

Answer 14

58,000 men

Question 15

End of the war: Vietnam alone

Answer 15

Vietnamese fled the 1975 NVA invasion in tens of thousands along the ‘road of tears’
ARVN resistors had only 5 bullets between them as America wasn’t able to help

Question 16

Agent orange

Answer 16

Defoliation missions increased from 24 in its first year to 260 at its peak

Question 17

Fulbright Hearings

Answer 17

1971 Investigations into the war. Lead by senator Fulbright. Provided an official platform for criticism of the war. Anti-war figures like John Kerry were invited to speak

Question 18

……defected under the……..

Answer 18

200,000 NVA and VC defected under the open arms program

Question 19

Over 53% of the fighting was

Only 5% of American casualties

Answer 19

in the north with the NVA

were in the south with the VC

Question 20

Most American casualties were

Answer 20

caused by imported Soviet and Chinese weapons, not from home ingenuity. 2% of casualties were from Punji sticks, 11% from similar traps, 51% from rifle and machine gun fire and 36% from artillery

Question 21

Tet results

Answer 21

45,000 of the 100,000 communists were killed. VC are effectively wiped out