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Tet Offensive Research Paper

642 Words3 Pages

Kenny Le
Period 1
1968 Research Paper
8 June 2016
The Tet Offensive Tet is one of the most important holidays of Vietnamese culture. It is the the celebration of the Lunar New Year. It was know as an informal truce between the North and the South. The North Vietnamese military commander General Vo Nguyen Giap and leader of the Communist People’s Army of Vietnam chose January 31 to break the stalemate between the North and the South with coordinated offensive of surprise attacks. He believed that the attacks would cause the Army of the Republic of Vietnam’s forces to collapse and cause a rebellion in Southern Vietnam. The alliance between the United States, and Southern Vietnam was something that Ho Chi Minh the communist leader of Vietnam disliked. Minh and Giap believed that …show more content…

Preparation for the attack started in 1967 when communist troops launched attacks series of attacks on American garrisons. “In the early hours of January 30, 1968, 70,000 North Vietnamese soldiers, together with guerrilla fighters of the NLF, launched one of the most daring military campaigns in history. The Tet Offensive was the real turning point in the Vietnam War”(Woods). The official attacks began on the morning of January 30, 1968 when most of the families were starting to celebrate Tet. A day later PAVN and Viet Cong forces struck down targets in South Vietnam including towns, cities, government buildings, and US military bases in a total of more than a hundred attacks. General Giap caught the South and the US by surprise causing them and a few international observers to be stunned. His forces however to spread to far out and it caused the US and ARVN forces to successfully counter most of the attacks. The most intense battles took place in the city of Hue. The Battle of Hue lasted for more than 3 weeks. Viet Cong soldiers conducted house to house searches, civilian arrests, religious leaders, teachers and other

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