Tet Offensive
The Tet Offensive was a surprise and coordinated attack launched by a combined force of North Vietnamese Army troops and Viet Cong units on January 31, 1968, against virtually every major city and military installation in South Vietnam, during the Vietnam War. The main rationale of this massive communist offensive was to trigger an uprising among the South Vietnamese population, who would rally around the Viet Cong forces to overthrow the Saigon government, putting an end to the war.
January 31, 1968, was the Lunar New Year in Vietnam- a holiday known to the Vietnamese people as Tet. So, both North and South Vietnam had announced on national radio broadcasts that there would be a two-day cease-fire during the holiday.
Nevertheless, in the early hours of January 31, Viet Cong forces initiated a first wave of attacks, which did not cause alarm at the beginning. But when the main communist operation began the next day, the offensive was countrywide in scope and well coordinated. More than 80,000 communist troops attacked more than 100 towns and cities. The Tet offensive was the largest military operation carried out by either side up to that point in the war.
Despite the massive commitment of forces, the Tet Offensvie failed, for the communists were not able either to hold the South Vietnamese cities or rally the people inside them to their cause; they did not cripple South Vietnam’s Army; they could not even take the Amercan Embassy in Saigon which was poorly guarded. The assaults were quickly beaten back, most of them in just a few days, by US and South Vietnamese troops.
Even though Tet was a military setback for the communists (and historians writing about it now generally present it as such), at the time most Americans believed that the enemy had won a stunning victory, and that they had suffered a grievous loss, because of the way the media put the information, especially television. Thus, Tet was a turning point not just in the war itself but in the way the war would henceforth be regarded.
Tet Offensive Documentary
