The voluminous research on the Viet Cong during the war concentrates on its structure … On March 26, 1964, the first U.S. service member imprisoned during the Vietnam War was captured near Quảng Trị, South Vietnam when an L-19/O-1 Bird Dog observation plane flown by Captain Richard L. Whitesides and Captain Floyd James Thompson was brought down by small arms fire. Which of the following was a tactic used by the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War? They were allied with North Vietnam and the troops of Ho Chi Minh, who sought to conquer the south and create a unified, communist state of Vietnam. The NLF was a political group with its own army – the Peoples’ Liberation Armed Forces of South Vietnam (PLAF) that operated in South Vietnam and Cambodia. Top Essentials to Know About the Vietnam War, Biography of Ho Chi Minh, President of North Vietnam, Biography of Vo Nguyen Giap, Vietnamese General, Timeline of the Vietnam War (Second Indochina War), J.D., University of Washington School of Law, B.A., History, Western Washington University. They were allied with North Vietnam and the troops of Ho Chi Minh, who sought to conquer the south and create a unified, communist state of Vietnam. Newspapers in Saigon began referring to the insurgents as Viet Cong, a shortened form of Viet Nam Cong San (Vietnamese communists). Szczepanski, Kallie. Whitesides was killed, and Thompson was taken prisoner; he would … In 1957, Diem announced a five-year economic plan and called for foreign loans and domestic investment. A Viet Cong guerrilla on the Tet Offensive (1968) The Viet Cong was the name given by Western sources to the National Liberation Front (NLF) during the Vietnam War. Under international pressure to rein in this violence, the North Vietnamese government continually stressed that southern communists were acting independently, not under instruction from Hanoi. The women's names became part of the U.S. State Department's list of 18 U.S. civilians "known to have been taken prisoner by North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces during the Tet Offensive." South Vietnamese communists called this campaign of violence the “extermination of traitors”. It began to send military advisors to help train and support the South Vietnamese army. The Vietcong were supported by the South Vietnamese peasants because they would offer to help them with their daily work. Here glorious Truong Son Mountains The Viet Cong were cursed and condemned for not following the Western conventions of war. Copyright: The content on this page may not be republished without our express permission. For that reason, Robert Komer, the head of Civil Organizing and Revolutionary Development Support—the American agency tasked with assisting the South Vietnamese with pacification—posited the destruction of Viet Cong Infrastructure as “an intelligence problem.”[5] Exposing Viet Cong Infrastructure required detailed intelligence gathering. As … It could also call on both … Authors: Jennifer Llewellyn, Jim Southey, Steve Thompson Lém was alleged to have murdered a general and seven members of … Many southerners joined the Viet Cong and fought against both the government of South Vietnam and the armed forces of the United States between 1959 and 1975. Vietnam War - Vietnam War - The Diem regime and the Viet Cong: Leaders in the U.S. capital, Washington, D.C., were surprised and delighted by Diem’s success. Which of the following is one of the terms often applied the members of the counterculture? Support did not only flow one way, however. If at the height of the Vietnam War (1965-76) you had asked an American who their country was fighting in Vietnam, most would have said the Viet Cong. On 2 April, Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces struck Loc Ninh, just south of the Cambodian border on Highway 13, and advanced south to An Loc along one of the main invasion routes toward Saigon. The Viet Cong were supported and trained by the government of communist North Vietnam. A police chief and his family were murdered in September. The U.S. believed that South Vietnam was a vital area of American interest, but it really wasn’t. Almost one-quarter of the 80,000 NVA and Viet Cong deployed during the Tet Offensive (January and February 1968) were killed. Their commander boasted to an American reporter that they had the communists in a trap. This logistics organization helped greatly in their war against the American and South Vietnamese military during the Vietnam War.. Hanoi sent 100,000 troops to the south every year. Bennett was treated horribly by his captors. But after the horrendous losses the Viet Cong suffered during Tet, all sapper operations in South Vietnam were supervised by the 429th Sapper Group, which reported directly to the Sapper High Command, a department in the NVA High Command in Hanoi. In July, 17 people were killed by the Viet Minh underground in Chau Doc. The communists were ready for the Southern soldiers and they … Dr. Kallie Szczepanski is a history teacher specializing in Asian history and culture. During the war (54-75), there are a few genuine VCs operating in the cities, carefully hiding their identity of course; however even with the sympathizers, they remained a minority, probably 5% in my estimate. To that end, the … In November 1963, President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas and his Vice President, Lyndon Johnson became President. Despite both Kennedy and Johnson pouring more and more US ‘military advisors’ into South Vietnam to support and train the SVA, US Marines landed in South Vietnam in 1965 to effectively lead to campaign against the North while the SVA assisted it. The action was caught by U.S. television news crews, which also recorded the brutal impromptu street execution of a Viet Cong rebel by a South Vietnamese military official. The Saigon regime dubbed the NLF the “Viet Cong,” a pejorative contraction of Viet Nam Cong San (Vietnamese Communists). The name Viet Cong comes from the phrase "cong san Viet Nam," meaning "Vietnamese communist." They took rice from villagers at gunpoint, carried out incredible numbers of targeted assassinations against people who supported the South Vietnamese government, and perpetrated the Hue Massacre during the Tet Offensive, in which anywhere from 3,000 to 6,000 civilians and prisoners of war were summarily executed. A native of Vietnam’s southern provinces, Le Duan was active in communist groups in the Mekong region in the 1940s. Who Were the Viet Cong and How Did They Affect the War? As the Vietnam War unfolded, the world’s strongest military power found itself at war with an enemy that could scarcely be found. For obvious reasons, most NLF operations could not be conducted in the open. They were adept at hiding among civilian populations, taking shelter in the thick jungle and moving only in the dead of night. Nothing was said, however, about the presence of more … This prompted many Western companies to assist Saigon with trade and investment. Source: YouTube/Blancheforsenate Harold George Bennett was the first American to be executed by the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War. The Viet Minh had become the government of Democratic Republic of Vietnam since the Vietnamese 1946 general election, and military forces of the communists regrouped there. The most common was simply disillusionment with the government in Saigon, and acceptance of the constant barrage of NLF propaganda. The South was fighting against the Viet Cong, a communist party based in South Vietnam which was allied with North Vietnam. From the 1880s until World War II, the … Indeed, so destructive were some communist attacks that many in the local population, while still disliking the Saigon government, became far less supportive of the Viet Cong. This communist country won the civil war in Cambodia in 1975 and renamed the country Kampuchea. Việt Minh (Vietnamese: [vîət mīŋ̟] ; abbreviated from Việt Nam độc lập đồng minh (Chữ Nôm: 越南獨立同盟), French: "Ligue pour l'indépendance du Viêt Nam", English: "League for the Independence of Vietnam") was a national independence coalition formed at Pác Bó by Hồ Chí Minh on May 19, 1941. The NLF was also a political movement that worked to attract and build popular support. In it he called for communists to rise up and gather support, overthrow South Vietnam’s leader Ngo Dinh Diem and expel foreign advisors and businessmen. Westerners came to know it as the National Liberation Front (NLF). Some served as guerrilla fighters and spies in South Vietnam and in neighboring Cambodia, while others fought alongside North Vietnamese troops in the PAVN. South Vietnamese sources said that Lém commanded a Vietcong death squad, which on that day had targeted South Vietnamese National Police officers, or in their stead, the police officers’ families. They were labelled cowards for refusing to fight in open battle. The NLF’s bombings, sabotage and assassinations also generated considerable opposition. At the height of the Vietnam War, if you had asked an American who their country was fighting in Vietnam, most would have answered the Viet Cong. Strengths and weaknesses of North Vietnam/Vietcong: Strengths: A large supply of soldiers. In particular, heavy machine guns were valued for defense against American helicopters. The Viet Cong were featured and demonised in the American press. 4. Both the US mission and Washington condemned the reports and … The origins of the Viet Cong begin with the Geneva Accords of 1954. Once he arrived in Paris, what factors led to Tang’s political awakening? Not really - South Vietnamese peasants would actually have been middle class and afraid of communism (because they stood a good chance of losing their land), but they would also have opposed the hideously corrupt and nasty South Vietnamese government (which honestly wasn't much better than the North Vietnamese government and which was far less … Phases of captures. Thousands of South Vietnamese, marginalised and dispossessed by the corruption and brutality of the Diem regime, enlisted to fight with the NLF. Vietnam War – Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Atrocities November 8, 2018 by R Lawson 2 Comments Millions of Americans are familiar with the graphic photos of the era depicting the horrors of war that I featured in my recent blogs – Iconic Photos and More Images . By 1961, the NLF’s internal organisation had evolved further and resembled the structure of the Lao Dong. Fall 2011 . Ho Chi Minh was a Vietnamese Marxist revolutionary leader and also the president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. The Viet Cong were South Vietnamese supporters of the communist National Liberation Front in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War (known in Vietnam as the American War). This began in mid-1957 with a few units carrying out acts of terrorism against foreigners, foreign sympathisers and government targets. In April of 1975, the southern capital at Saigon fell to the communists' troops. The 1963 Battle of Ap Bac for instance had 350 Viet Cong defeat 1,500 ARVN soldiers. One of the most successful Viet Cong operations occurred in January 1963 when around 1,500 South Vietnamese (ARVN) soldiers, along with American advisors, tracked down 300 Viet Cong near Ap Bac in the Mekong Delta. 2. The NLF also adopted its own anthem called Giai Phong Mien Nam (Liberate the South): “To liberate the South we decided to advance. In October 1961, there were 150 NLF bombings and attacks, triple the number of the previous month. Vietnam War memory quiz – events 1946-1964, Vietnam War memory quiz – events 1965-1975, Vietnam War memory quiz – terms and concepts (I), Vietnam War memory quiz – terms and concepts (II), The program of the National Liberation Front or Viet Cong (1962), A CIA report on Viet Cong weaknesses and vulnerabilities (1965), A Viet Cong guerrilla on the Tet Offensive (1968), A Viet Cong soldier on their approach to tactics and warfare (1985). She has taught at the high school and university levels in the U.S. and South Korea. Szczepanski, Kallie. They wanted self-determination for the people of Vietnam and a path forward economically after the devastating imperial occupations by France and by Japan during the Second World War. ThoughtCo. The attitude of most American soldiers towards the Viet Cong evolved into a combination of hatred, fear and begrudging admiration. Many Viet Minh soldiers and sympathisers, however, stayed in South Vietnam and remained ‘underground’, mostly in rural or remote areas. To defeat the American Empire and destroy the country sellers. They also used a range of effective Soviet and Chinese light and medium machine guns, and infrequently, heavy machine guns. Elections on reunification were scheduled for J… Viet Cong bombings and operations increased from late 1961. Many southerners joined the Viet Cong and fought against both the government of South Vietnam and the armed forces of the United States between 1959 and 1975. Many of the tactics that the Viet Cong employed were absolutely brutal. Since, Scott catalogue doesn't list them, Kimmo (kuikka) encouraged me to create our catalogue for those members who interested in this area or want to identify their stamps. ThoughtCo, Aug. 25, 2020, thoughtco.com/the-viet-cong-the-vietnam-war-195432. The Vietcong were a guerrilla force that fought against the United States and South Vietnam during the Vietnam conflict. The Viet Cong had guerrilla and regular army units, as well as a network of revolutionaries that … Nguyễn Văn Lém (Vietnamese: [ŋʷǐənˀ vān lɛ̌m]; 1931/1932 – 1 February 1968), often referred to as Bảy Lốp, was a member of the Viet Cong.He was summarily executed in Saigon during the Tet Offensive in the Vietnam War, when the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces launched a massive surprise attack. Often the only contact villagers had with the government was through heavy-handed tax collectors and ARVN soldiers. 3. For more information on usage, please refer to our Terms of Use. The NLF and Viet Cong were shadowy organisations that blended into rural life but remained politically and militarily active, recruiting and disseminating propaganda. Arm by arm under a common flag.”. Diem, Thieu and other leaders did make mistakes, and it looked to the average person initially that the US wanted something from Vietnam besides their well being. Its cadres circulated these ideas by organising political education forums, youth groups and women’s groups. b. disguising troops as civilians. In 1957 alone, there were more than 150 assassinations attributed to communist subversives. As a consequence, there were many South Vietnamese who supported neither the Diem government or the NLF. American military and economic aid continued to pour into South Vietnam while American military and police advisers helped train and equip Diem’s army and security forces. The group is better known as the Viet Cong (Việt Cộng) or V.C., short for "Vietnamese Communist. One of the problem that South Vietnam and America had was that the local, indigenous peasants of rural Vietnam did not support South Vietnam's regime and often sided with the Viet Cong, who were South Vietnamese rebels fighting for the Communist North. Using guerrilla methods they targeted foreign and government personnel, buildings and facilities. The Viet Cong were South Vietnamese supporters of the communist National Liberation Front in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War (known in Vietnam as the American War). As others have written, largely the peasants just wanted to stay neutral. Its members were given extensive political and historical training, including sessions about the failure of the Geneva Accords, American double standards and the excesses of the Diem regime. (2020, August 25). It was only the south vietnamese government that didnt want communism. History 485A. By 1968, the SVA was a potent force – 250,000 men armed with modern tanks and artillery. In 1959, North Vietnam dramatically increased its military assistance to the Viet Cong, which then … Whatever the reasons, by 1959 there were as many as 20 different communist cells scattered around South Vietnam. The insurgents continued their violence between 1958 and 1959 while improving their organisation and command structures and obtaining the backing of Moscow. There was also no official NLF headquarters or even a particular area where NLF officials could be found.