U.S. Army Campaigns of the Vietnam War
CMH Pub 76-5, Paper
2017; 80 pages, illustrations, maps, further readings
GPO S/N: 008-029-00616-2
The U.S. Army Center of Military History recently published a new pamphlet in its U.S. Army Campaigns of the Vietnam War series, Turning Point, 1967–1968, by Adrian G. Traas. The author describes several key operations that took place in South Vietnam. During October 1967, the United States appeared to be making slow but steady gains against the Viet Cong insurgents and their North Vietnamese allies who were attempting to destroy the South Vietnamese government. The enemy was suffering enormous casualties. Hammered from the air by B–52 bombers and disrupted by allied ground sweeps, the Viet Cong base areas in South Vietnam were no longer the safe havens they once had been. The author discusses a turning point in the war that came in 1968 with the Tet offensive, a massive campaign launched by the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong against major urban areas and military installations in South Vietnamese. As a result of the surprise attack, the U.S. press and public began to challenge President Johnson's assurances of success and to question the value of the increasingly costly war. The author concludes that although Tet was a military disaster for the Communists, the conflict had shaken America's will to continue to fight.
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