Vietnam has experienced centuries of foreigninterference and occupation, internal conflict and civilwar. Its history is complex, intertwined with those ofneighbouring countries – Laos, Cambodia, China andMongolia. At this point in its history, the words of GeneralKiet ring true; the people of Vietnam have prevailed, thenorth and south are united and are no longer underexternal rule.

Vietnam’s independence is a direct result of theIndochina Wars of 1946-1975. The period can be dividedinto three:

• the 1st Indo-China War or ‘The French War’ (1946-1954);

• the 2nd Vietnam War or ‘The American War’ (1960-1973); and

• the 3rd Vietnam War (1975).

The Chinese occupied Vietnam for a thousand yearsuntil ejected in 938 AD. Then followed three unsuccessfulinvasions in the 13th century by the Mongol, KublaiKhan. In 1857, the French arrived in retaliation for thepersecution of its Catholic missionaries and, by 1883,had conquered Cochinchina (much of Vietnam,Cambodia and later, Laos). Throughout that harshFrench regime of nearly one hundred years, Vietnameseresistance simmered as nationalism intensified in thepursuit of change, eventually by violent revolution.Headed by Moscow-trained revolutionary, Ho Chi Minh,Vietnamese Communism was born in 1925, but theFrench brutally suppressed any Viet armed resistanceduring the 1920s and 1930s.

In World War II, the Japanese occupied Vietnam from1940 to the war’s end in 1945 but, upon the allied victory,a political hiatus was created. The Viet Minh (the militaryarm of the Vietnam Independence League) occupiedHanoi and, a few days later in September 1945, Ho ChiMinh declared an independent Vietnam. However, afterBritish and Chinese troops arrived to take the Japanesesurrender, France swiftly re-established its strict control.Armed resistance to this by the Viet Minh, commandedby Vo Nguyen Giap, saw the beginning of the 1st Indo-China War in November 1946.

The 1st Indo-China War,‘The French War’ (1946 – 1954)

The Viet Minh fought the French using mainlyguerrilla tactics, initially avoiding any major conventionalwarfare confrontation. Then in 1953, the Viet Minhintensified its offensive against the French who retaliatedby setting a trap in a valley town called Dien Bien Phunear the Laotian border, blocking a trade route andhoping to lure the Viet Minh into a major showdown.About 13,000 troops of the French Expeditionary Force(including the French Foreign Legion plus Moroccan andAlgerian regiments) developed a string of forts in thevalley. They strengthened their defences against anyground assault, erroneously believing that the Viet Minhwould never be able to use artillery from the ruggedmountains surrounding the valley fortifications. Over a

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INSTITUTE PROCEEDINGS

Three Vietnam wars, 1946 – 1975A paper based on a presentation to the Institute on 28 January 2020 by

Colonel David S. Wilkins, OAM (Ret’d)Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, New South Wales1

Colonel Wilkins summarises the three wars in Vietnam since the end of World War II: the French War (1946-1954); theAmerican War (1960-1973); and the 3rd Vietnam War (1975). They ended with Vietnam unified and independent underCommunist rule. Today, it remains a unified, independent and relatively economically-stable Communist nation.

Key words: Vietnam wars; France; United States; Australia; Ho Chi Minh; Dien Bien Phu; Battle of Khe Sanh; TetOffensive; Vo Nguyen Giap; William Westmoreland; Creighton Abrams.

How dare you, barbarians, invade our soil? Your hordes, without pity, will be annihilated.Vietnamese General Ly Thuong Kiet (1019-1105)

Map 1: Indo-China: much of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

1Email: dwilkins@bigpond.net.au

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period of six months however, the Viet Minh hackedprecipitous tracks through the rugged and inhospitableterrain to haul their artillery to dominant positionsoverlooking the French. Four divisions of about 51,000Viet Minh troops surrounded the French base and, in asuccession of mass human-wave assaults with artillerybarrages, followed by a siege, then more overwhelmingattacks, the Viet Minh were victorious in 1954.

As they were being overrun and annihilated, theFrench troops transmitted their last radio message fromthe Foreign Legion command post at Dien Bien Phu:“The enemy has overrun us. We’re blowing everything up– goodbye, our families. Adieu.” That battle, that defeat,brought an end to French rule.

Under the Geneva Peace Accords, the French pulledout of Indochina permanently and Vietnam wastemporarily partitioned at the 17th parallel, with a plan forunification to be decided by vote in 1956. North of the17th Parallel, Ho Chi Minh presided with General VoNguyen Giap as his military commander. To the southwere mainly non-Communists, ruled by the newlyappointed premier (later president) Ngo Dinh Diem.

Lead up (1954-60) to the 2nd Vietnam WarThe election to decide if north and south were to be

unified never occurred. The south argued that a freeelection was impossible under the conditions existing inthe communist-held territory, while the north believed itcould gain full control without an election because of thesouth’s internal religious and military turmoil. Conse -quentl y, the north in flagrant breach of the Genevaagree ment, began a guerrilla campaign in the southwhere the Viet Cong (or VC – the insurgent military armof the South Vietnamese Communists), joined soon afterby North Vietnamese Army (NVA) cadres, conducted acampaign of terror, particularly by assassination ofgovernment officials and murder within the villages. Thatinfiltration into South Vietnam by the NVA began as earlyas 1959.

The United States of America (US) who, since 1950,had been supporting French Indo-China and then SouthVietnam with substantial military and economic aid,introduced military advisers in 1955. US GeneralWilliams warned that the likely NVA military action wouldbe conventional warfare with a Korean War-like invasion,so he erroneously advised the disbandment of SouthVietnam’s light infantry divisions. Had these remained,the south would have been better organised to opposethe eventual insurgent-type penetration throughout theiroutlying regions and villages.

The 2nd Vietnam War, ‘the American War’ (1960-73) In 1960, the Communist National Liberation Front

(NLF) (the political arm of the VC) was formed in Hanoito direct all operations in South Vietnam. The USincreased its training advisers in response. By 1961, thesituation had seriously deteriorated, so the US adviserswere assigned to South Vietnamese field units to directlyadvise the combat commanders. By 1962, the number ofUS advisers and logistic support personnel had

escalated to 11,000. That year was also when Australia’smilitary advisers were first deployed. Notwithstanding,within a few years, the NLF boasted dominance overmuch of the south where it gradually took control ofregional areas.

In late 1963, there occurred within three weeks ofeach other, a coup d’état in South Vietnam with theassassination of President Diem and then, in the US, theassassination of President John Kennedy. Lyndon B.Johnson became the US president and was faced withthe tough decision of whether to increase Americaninvolvement in Vietnam or to pull out while he still could.The deciding factor was the Tonkin Gulf incident ofAugust 1964 when the destroyer USS Maddox(conducting signals intelligence or SIGINT operations)was attacked by North Vietnamese torpedo boatsallegedly in international waters.

This caused President Johnson to react dramaticallywith retaliatory air strikes into North Vietnam. The NVAattacked villages and military posts in the south, which inturn led to American combat units being deployed intoSouth Vietnam in March 1965. Bombing raids on NorthVietnam continued with Operation Rolling Thunder andby late 1965 there were over 300,000 American troopsstationed south of the 17th Parallel.

Contributing NationsWhen the US called for international assistance, it

received both logistic and combat troops. From a total of

Map 2: Action in the Gulf of Tonkin.

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30 nations called the ‘Free World’ Forces, only sixprovided combat troops – the US, South Korea,Thailand, Philippines, Australia and New Zealand. TheAustralian contribution peaked at over 8000 troops in1969 for a total of over 50,000 for the war’s duration. Themaximum number of US troops in Vietnam at any onetime was about 550,000 in mid 1968, while SouthVietnamese troops numbered over 900,000.

The Americans and the South Vietnamese Army (theARVN – Army of the Republic of Vetnam) operatedthroughout South Vietnam, while the Australian andNew Zealand troops remained mainly in III Corps (seeMap 3) to the south-east of Saigon with its task forcebase at Nui Dat in Phuoc Tuy Province.

The EnemyThe VC referred to itself as a liberation army, aimed

at overthrowing the South Vietnamese government andunifying north and south into one nation. Despite thegeneral belief in America and Australia that it was a civilwar in the south involving just the Viet Cong against thegovernment and its forces, it was in fact both VC andNorth Vietnamese armies fighting there. Indeed, ineffect, it was an invasion by NVA main force formationsassisting regional and local VC units. Both Russia and

China supported their Communist allies logistically andRussia also with military advisers.

Reinforcements and supplies for the NVA and VCcombat troops mainly travelled from China and NorthVietnam through the neutral neighbours, Cambodia andLaos, and then across the borders into South Vietnam.Known as the Ho Chi Minh trail, this was a network ofroutes with multiple entry points into South Vietnam; andwas in parts like a multi-lane highway through the ruggedmountains and elsewhere was just narrow jungle tracks.

StrategiesThe enemy confronted by the Free World forces was

initially quite different from that encountered in moreconventional wars. This was an enemy fighting asinsurgents who generally (but not always) avoidedsustained confrontation with allied forces, preferring tobe secreted away in its jungle and mountain hideawaysand tunnel complexes, to then launch hit-and-runoffensives at opportune times. The allied air superioritywas a major reason for this. At times, however, theNVA/VC launched major offensives against the largetowns and cities in the south. As the war progressed, theNVA became more involved in conventional warfare,particularly in I Corps where its lines of communicationto North Vietnam were shorter. One attempt, the NVA’s‘Easter Offensive’ of March 1972, was annihilated by USair strikes and bombing.

In the Australian experience, examples of majordirect enemy confrontations occurred at Long Tan, FireSupport Bases Coral and Balmoral and in the village ofBinh Ba.

In I Corps, the US Marines were involved in bothcounter-guerrilla operations and conventional warfare,where major battles sometimes occurred with tanks,infantry and artillery on both sides. Although theAmericans had air supremacy there, the NorthVietnamese air force did challenge US bombers overHanoi.

By and large, American Generals Harkins’ and West -moreland’s use of World War II firepower and aerialbombing, a strategy designed to combat the modernSoviet threat in open warfare, was inappropriate inVietnam. Westmoreland rejected a counter-insurgencyapproach – he rejected the British experience from theMalay emergency and did not seek French advice fromthe Indo-China War. Westmoreland emphasised ‘bodycount’ in ‘search-and-destroy’ operations and rejectedboth ‘pacification’ (by winning the hearts and minds ofthe people) and ‘Vietnamisation’ (building military self-reliance). Westmoreland’s successor, General Abrams,reversed this with considerable success in 1969.

When the enemy did commit their large-sized units toconventional battles they were usually orchestrated toachieve maximum political and public relationsadvantage by coinciding it with an outside event, such asa US presidential or congressional election.

By 1968, the South Vietnamese allies had reversedthe tide and were winning most of the battles as the VCand NVA sustained huge casualties. On the other hand,

Map 3: South Vietnam showing the four corps tactical zonesand the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

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the north was far more adept at swaying public opinion,effectively using public relations as a principle of war.

The Battle of Khe SanhOf all the major battles, too many to detail here, one

must be mentioned – the 1968 Battle of Khe Sanh andthe associated Tet Offensive of January that year.

The American base of Khe Sanh was located in avalley surrounded by mountains near the Laotian borderin I Corps, and was established to cut off NVA incursionsfrom the Ho Chi Minh Trail. On 21 January 1968, the USMarine base was attacked with a massive artillerybombardment and a siege by superior NVA numbers.The media reported that it was an NVA attempt toreplicate the decisive French defeat at Dien Bien Phuwhere the topography was eerily similar. Despite thebattle continuing for several months, General Giap laterdenied this objective and said it was to draw Americanforces away from the populated areas so that the TetOffensive could succeed.

The Tet Offensive of 1968Indeed, on 31 January 1968, 10 days after the Battle

of Khe Sanh had commenced, and, in fact, had divertedAmerican attention and troops from other areas, the NVAand VC launched a co-ordinated wave of assaults onSouth Vietnam’s major cities and provincial capitalsthroughout the length of the country.

The Tet Offensive was aimed at igniting a generaluprising among the population and encouragingdefections from the ARVN units in order to topple theSouth Vietnamese government. The South Vietnampopulation did not revolt, however, nor did any ARVN unitdefect to the north. Instead, Tet was a military disaster forthe north, which suffered huge losses, but, on the otherhand, it was a public relations victory for them, having adramatic, lasting and adverse effect upon US publicopinion.

The enemy not only surprised the allies by launchingthese assaults on a Vietnamese national public holiday,but also demonstrated the vulnerability of the SouthVietnamese, initially succeeding in breaching thedefences of major cities like Saigon and Hue, beforebeing repulsed. What impacted on the American publicwas watching on television in their lounge rooms, thefighting in city streets while, at the same time, being toldby the press that Khe Sanh could be another Dien BienPhu disaster.

Although the Americans successfully held the KheSanh base, inflicted massive casualties on the enemyand claimed a military victory, the combined effect of KheSanh and the Tet Offensive alerted the American publicto the sudden increase in casualties and the uncertaintyof an allied victory, so that, for the first time, there wasgeneral public opinion against America’s involvement inthe war. The media battle was being lost. It was a turningpoint in the war, despite the Free World forces winningthe battles.

In mid-1968, President Johnson lost his confidence inthe military leadership and relieved Westmoreland of his

command. Disillusioned by the sharp downturn of publicopinion and increasing anti-war demonstrations, heannounced he would not seek re-election.

The End of the 2nd Vietnam WarWhen, in 1969, newly-elected president, Richard

Nixon, announced a proposed end to US involvementand the reduction of its fighting troops in 1970, Australia(Prime Minister Gorton) later followed suit by notreplacing one of its home-coming infantry battalions inNovember 1970. Optimistically, this was on the basis ofthe success of Vietnamisation, i.e. training the SouthVietnamese troops to be self-sufficient. In mid-1971, itwas announced (by Prime Minister McMahon) that thebulk of Australian forces would withdraw by Decemberleaving just the Australian Army Training Team, but they,too, were withdrawn by new Prime Minister Whitlam inDecember 1972 within two weeks of his governmentgaining power.

Peace negotiations between the US, North Vietnamand a reluctant South Vietnam led to the Paris PeaceAccords being signed on 27 January 1973. Nixon calledit a ‘peace with honour’.

This ended the 2nd Vietnam War. Allied operationsceased and US combat troops departed within twomonths. Controversially, NVA units were permitted toremain in place. It was now for South Vietnam to protectitself against any future enemy action. Prisoners-of-warwere released by both sides.

President Thieu had been most reluctant to sign theaccord, but was assured by President Nixon and hisnegotiator, Henry Kissinger, of continued Americansupport if North Vietnam breached the treaty. Kissingerpromised a ‘swift and brutal response’ by the US if therewere a major violation. Nixon also promised continuedaid in the form of $1.6 billion, but it was an emptypromise as Congress would not authorise the fullamount. When President Ford took office in August1974, he also promised assistance if required, but thistoo was reduced by Congress.

Within no time, north and south resumed fighting. Aswell, from 1973 to 1975, in the absence of US troops, theNVA made preparations for finishing the war, particularlyby upgrading and utilising the Ho Chi Minh Trail toposition both troops and equipment.

The 3rd Vietnam War (1975)In December 1974, in direct breach of the Paris

peace accords, the NVA conducted a test attack into partof South Vietnam to see if the US would intervene.President Ford and the US Congress said there wouldbe no more support, stunning Thieu and delighting LeDuan in the north. With no US intervention, the northproceeded with its plans for a major invasion. It began on10 March 1975 in the Central Highlands, the Northhaving calculated that the ‘liberation of the South’ wouldbe concluded within two years. In fact, it took less thantwo months. This was despite courageous efforts bysome South Vietnamese units. As Australian Colonel TedSerong said later, ‘South Vietnam simply ran out of

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bullets’. The refugee exodus was massive and withinweeks the south was in retreat. Towns and cities fell likea row of dominoes.

Saigon was surrounded by 20 April 1975 and fell 10days later. Saigon was immediately renamed Ho ChiMinh City. The 3rd Vietnam War had ended. There hadbeen neither intervention nor support by the US. Therehad been no peace and there was no honour.

Historians and the media have generally recordedthat America lost the war, but that is not accurate. Therewas an agreement to stop the fighting and the allieddeparture was in compliance with those peace terms. Atthat stage, the military situation in South Vietnam wasvastly improved from its dire straits of the early 1960s.Although three years after the treaty, there was a militaryvictory by North Vietnam over the South, it is inaccurateto say that North Vietnam defeated America. The USmay not have won the war, but it also did not lose itmilitarily.

ConclusionEvacuation to Australia of South Vietnamese

nationals who had worked for the Australian embassyand military headquarters in Saigon was attempted, butthe Whitlam government disgracefully refused toapprove the plan and inhumanly abandoned them,instead sending pacifying communiques to Hanoi.Conversely, America rescued 65,000 Vietnamese in thatfinal month of April 1975.

Under the Marxist regime, there followed years ofeconomic depression, famine, starvation, revenge,executions and brutal re-education camps, together witha desperate exodus of non-Communist Vietnamese ‘boatpeople’.

Today, Vietnam is a unified, independent andrelatively economically-stable Communist nation. Anyconcern about Communism in Asia now focuses on thehuge development, economically and militarily, of China.It is this power and its apparent policy of expansionismthat causes most concern.

The Author: David Wilkins graduated from the RoyalMilitary College, Duntroon, in 1963. An infantryman, heserved with the 2nd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment

(2RAR), the Pacific Islands Regiment and 5RAR inVietnam in 1969-70, first as the Adjutant and then as arifle company commander. He later graduated from theAustralian National University with BA, LLB (Hons) andtransferred to the Army Legal Corps to be a DefenceForce Magistrate and Judge Advocate for courts martial.He retired from the Australian Regular Army in 1986,practised as a barrister for 20 years and then as atribunal member of the Veterans’ Review Board. Nowretired, he was awarded the Medal of the Order ofAustralia (OAM) for services to community history in the2019 Queen’s Birthday Honours List.

APPENDIX

A Brief Summary of the Causesof the 2nd Vietnam War

As mentioned above, the underlying cause of the 2nd

Vietnam (American) War was North Vietnam’s desire foran independent, unified Vietnam. But there were otherfactors, external to Vietnam, which contributed: the ColdWar between the West and the Communist Block and thespread of Communism both heightened world tensions.The more immediate cause was the Tonkin Gulf incident.

That World tension underpinned America’s involve -ment in Vietnam which in turn saw it draw 29 of its alliesinto the conflict. Incidents contributing to the tenseatmosphere included: the arms race; the iron curtain; theTruman doctrine; the Berlin blockade and ‘the wall’; theKorean War; the Bay of Pigs fiasco; and the Cubanmissile crisis. In response, both sides formed alliances:the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation; the Warsaw Pact;the Australia, New Zealand, United States Treaty; andthe South-East Asia Treaty Organisation.

The spread of Communism in Asia was a criticalfactor. Key events in the lead up to the 2nd Vietnam Warincluded: Mao Tse Tung’s defeat of Chiang Kai-Shek in1949; the Malayan Emergency of 1948-1960; China’s‘liberation’ of Tibet in 1951; the defeat of the French atDien Bien Phu in 1954; and North Vietnam’s invasion ofSouth Vietnam commencing in 1959. This led the UnitedStates to propound the ‘domino theory’ – if the spread ofCommunism southwards was not halted in Vietnam, itcould open the flood gates.

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