Hue was the former imperial capital, and the third largest city in Vietnam. This book is a history of the Battle of Hue during the Tet offensive in early 1968. Gen. William Westmoreland had visited Washington in November, 1967 and had assured his President, the press and the nation that victory was at hand. Indeed, the invitation to the New Year's Eve party at the Saigon Embassy said "Come see the light at the end of the tunnel." As we all know, the Tet offensive was the beginning of the end of America's commitment to see the war through.
The Northern Vietnamese Army (NVA) and Vietcong (VC) prepared extensively for Tet. In some instances, it took four months of marching to put men into position for the offensive. A US officer later called it a "logistical miracle." They sought and obtained help from the general populace. As naive and optimistic as Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) was, the party leadership in Hanoi was equally so. Their premise was that the cousins in the south would overwhelmingly welcome and join them when the north's soldiers appeared in their streets. They did not. Although some in MACV and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) noticed increased infiltration and suspected something was up, no one had ever considered possible what was about to happen. At 2:30 A.M. on January 31, all hell broke loose from one end of South Vietnam to the other. Eighty-thousand NVA and VC attacked one hundred targets. In Hue, 10,000 soldiers poured into the city. With the exception of the MACV compound in the south of Hue, the city was entirely overrun by dawn. Throughout the day, US Marines tried to move out of the compound and head north into the city. They were flung back with heavy casualties. Up the chain of command, there was disbelief at the size of the incursion. Only in Hue had the enemy come with such a substantial force. MACV and in particular, Westmoreland had expected an attack at Khe Sanh and for days refused to give credit to the depth of the attack at Hue. Indeed, as late as Feb. 2, Westmoreland was telling the White House there were no more than 600 enemy troops in the city. The marines slowly pushed the enemy back a block at a time. A week into the battle, the US barely had a threshold in the city. An Army base north of the city sent troops to join the fray. The marines targeted the Triangle on the south side of the Huong River and the army, The Citadel on the north side. As the US slowly recovered the city, they discovered innumerable victims of the National Liberation Front (NLF) atrocities. The popular uprising never took place and the 'liberators' purged their civilian opponents. It took three weeks of heavy fighting until to the city finally was back in American and South Vietnamese hands.
After the victory, Gen. Westmoreland declared that matters were more serious and requested another 120,000 men. Doubts in Washington grew and most consider February 27th as the beginning of the long end of American involvement in Vietnam. In a Special Report, Walter Cronkite spent half-an-hour contradicting Westmoreland and concluded we were "mired in stalemate". Westmoreland was relieved of his command in June. The consensus of history is that his failure to acknowledge that the enemy had occupied the city led to undermanned efforts to take it back and in turn, unnecessarily heavy casualties.
This book is a highly acclaimed bestseller. The author uses the technique of telling a historical narrative through personal vignettes. It is an effective and popular technique. In my opinion, it is taken way too far here. The personal details outweigh the narrative to the point that you frequently lose track of the overarching story. I suspect the upcoming Ken Burns/PBS special on Vietnam will be significantly more enlightening
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