Tet Offensive

This is a first draft of a piece about the Tet Offensive. I'm not looking for critical feedback yet because it is just a first draft.



The Tet Offensive was a series of attacks launched by the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese army starting on January 31, 1968. It was the lunar New Year and the U.S. and the South Vietnamese were caught off guard. On the first day, the Viet Cong attacked Saigon with 1,000 troops. They attacked the airport, presidential palace, ARVN headquarters, and got into the U.S. embassy area. Before the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese armies attacked they had attacked outside the city to draw the U.S. out then attacked Saigon.

The North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong lost about 100,000 men in the Tet Offensive. In all they lost about 1.2 million men in the war. The Tet Offensive was considered a failure by the North Vietnam Army and the Viet Cong, but because they had so many troops in all they were able to recover. The U.S. and its allies had about 46,000 casualties.

At first the U.S. and South Vietnam were taken by surprise, but they quickly recovered and caused massive casualties on the Communist forces. There were many battles in the Tet Offensive, but the Battle of Hue was one of the biggest. It lasted about one month, and 668 U.S. and South Vietnamese were killed and 8,113 North Vietnamese were killed. The Battle of Khe Sanh was another big battle the U.S. and the South Vietnam allies killed about 15,000. The U.S. and South Vietnamese lost 4,044 troops.