Vietnam - an overview
Vietnam is a united country today about 1600 kilometres long and covers an area of approximately 300,000 square kilometres. It is a bit bigger than Italy. To the north is China, with Laos and Cambodia to the west. The South China Sea lies to the east. Over 77,000,000 people live in Vietnam, many along the Red River in the north, or in the delta of the River Mekong in the south. Some live in large cities like the capital Hanoi, or Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon).
One of the longest wars in modern history
Vietnam has not always been a united country. In 1954 it was divided between north and south. From 1962 until 1975 it was the scene of one of the longest wars in modern history, the Vietnam War. This war was a civil war between communist North Vietnam supported by China and the Soviet Union, and 'free' South Vietnam backed mainly by the United States. During the 13 years of the conflict, about 2.8 million American soldiers found themselves fighting a North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and a communist guerrilla army (the Vietcong) in the jungles of Vietnam. More than 58,000 of them were killed and 304,000 were wounded. The Americans were joined in the war by around 50,000 Australia, of whom 500 were killed and a small group of New Zealanders, of whom 39 lost their lives. Sixty-eight American women were killed in the fighting, many of them nurses, aid workers and missionaries.
Although all those who fought in the Vietnam War, on both sides suffered tragic losses of life, the main sufferers were the ordinary people of Vietnam. In the 3 years beggining in February 1965, the Americans dropped a million tonnes of bombs on North Vietnam. They followed this with a program of chemical warfare. They used deadly napalm (a jelly-like petrol substance), which killed many civilians. By the time the war ended, many of their farms were destroyed, their land polluted by chemicals and as many as a million Vietnamese, for a variety of reasons, had become refugees.
Vietnam Background HistoryHo Chi Minh and Vietnamese communism
Later Vietnam Background History
The Vietcong and guerrilla warfare
US strategies and tactics in Vietnam
Methods of warfare used by the Americans
US soldiers and the Vietnam War
Declining morale in the US army, and the US public
The Vietnamese people and the war
The anti-war movement in the USA, and Martin Luther King
A quick timeline for the Vietnam War during the 60's, and an extra image library