Monday, July 12, 2010
Hue
The bus from Saigon was really slow. What was supposed to be a 30 hour ride was going to take 40 hours by my estimation. I spent one night on board but didn't get any sleep because the road was terrible, so I got off the bus in a city called Da Nang - third largest in Vietnam - and stayed a night. Of course I had to stay another night because I wanted to watch the World Cup final which was on at 1.30am local time! I did so in a pool/billiards hall with a dozen locals. Now I've gone on to Hue where I'll stay a night before continuing my journey to Hanoi.
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Both Hue and Da Nang (or as the Americans called it, Darnang!)featured prominantly in the Vietnam war-I think the latter may have been the scene of a big battle. We were in Malaysia when the war ended (1975, Singapore, just over the causway from where we lived was flooded by fleeing Vietnamees-very sad.
ReplyDeleteYes, as I walked around Hue near the citadel I saw in a park an outdoor display of US tanks and guns that had been captured by the north in the war.
ReplyDeleteHue was the only direct traditional military operation between the US and the North regulars. They launched a rather brilliant attack and took the city but had to give it up in the counter attack. It was a city battle and ground down into a house by house street by street operations. The North expected the civilians to join in uprising but this did not happen. I also believe it was one of the few battles where tanks proved to be a major asset. Hope you are well.
ReplyDeletecheers
Stephe
Hue was one of the central battles in the Tet Offensive, and rather sums up the entire war: the North proving far more capable than the Americans had expected, and perhaps more to the point far more than the US military had been telling the media. Thus, although it ended in a tactical victory from the US (who as Spike says retook the city after a bloody counterattack), the result was a loss of confidence in the US media and general public in the war. This was the case with the Tet Offensive as a whole and is generally considered the turning point in the war despite being a resounding failure for the North (who failed to hold a single objective) militarily.
ReplyDeleteI think you can say it was the only traditional battle in a city, though there were several other large scale clashes between the two sides eg Khe San. The North worked out during the course of these that the most important thing was to find a way to fight that the Americans couldn't counter with air power - air power being what prevented Khe San from becoming another Dien Bien Phu. In Hue the Americans were frustrated by not being able to bomb the ancient temple/palace for many days because the South wouldn't give permission for it.
Suspect the tanks etc would have been those given to the South by the Americans as part of the "Vietnamisation" strategy which followed Tet as the Americans looked for a way of getting out of the conflict. They would then have been captured by the North when they re-invaded in 1975.
In all of this one can see shades of Iraq and Afghanistan. America won't be defeated on the ground in other country but they may lose the will to stay, their insurgent opponents have the backing of a state (in this case Iran) and it is far cheaper for Iran to send explosives over the border and train insurgents than it is for the Americans to deploy a major combat group thousands of miles overseas. And of course nowadays far more than Vietnam the American public is not very tolerant of casualties.
One might add that this is how the Americans via the Mujahadin defeated the Soviets in Afghanistan - just give some technical support to the local insurgents and let the superpower lose blood and money until it loses the will to continue.
Time to get movin to avoid the hurricane or else evaluate the shelter you have. Kind of a big one headed right for you in next 24 hrs
ReplyDeleteTake care
Stephe
Wow, I didn't know I had so many experts of military history reading the blog.
ReplyDelete