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The Vietnam War was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam and their allies. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China, while South Vietnam was supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations. The conflict was the second of the Indochina Wars and a major proxy war of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and US. Direct US military involvement greatly escalated from 1965 until its withdrawal in 1973. The fighting spilled over into the Laotian and Cambodian Civil Wars, which ended with all three countries becoming communist in 1975.
South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam, was a country in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975. It first received international recognition in 1949 as the State of Vietnam within the French Union, with its capital at Saigon, before becoming a republic in 1955, the time when the southern portion of Vietnam was one member of the Western Bloc during part of the Cold War after the 1954 division of Vietnam. South Vietnam was bordered by North Vietnam to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and Thailand across the Gulf of Thailand to the southwest. Its sovereignty was recognized by the United States and 87 other nations, though it failed to gain admission into the United Nations as a result of a Soviet veto in 1957. It was succeeded by the Republic of South Vietnam in 1975. In 1976, the Republic of South Vietnam and North Vietnam merged to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
The Viet Cong (VC) was an epithet and umbrella term to refer to the communist-driven armed movement and united front organization in South Vietnam. It was formally organized as and led by the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, and conducted military operations under the name of the Liberation Army of South Vietnam (LASV). The movement fought under the direction of North Vietnam against the South Vietnamese and United States governments during the Vietnam War. The organization had both guerrilla and regular army units, as well as a network of cadres who organized and mobilized peasants in the territory the VC controlled. During the war, communist fighters and some anti-war activists claimed that the VC was an insurgency indigenous to the South that represented the legitimate rights of people in South Vietnam, while the U.S. and South Vietnamese governments portrayed the group as a tool of North Vietnam. It was later conceded by the modern Vietnamese communist leadership that the movement was actually under the North Vietnamese political and military leadership, aiming to unify Vietnam under a single banner.
The Ho Chi Minh Trail, also called Annamite Range Trail was a logistical network of roads and trails that ran from North Vietnam to South Vietnam through the kingdoms of Laos and Cambodia. The system provided support, in the form of manpower and materiel, to the Viet Cong and the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), during the Vietnam War. Construction for the network began following the North Vietnamese invasion of Laos in July 1959. At the time it was believed to be the main supply route, however it later transpired that the Sihanouk Trail which ran through Cambodia was handling significantly more material.
The Army of the Republic of Vietnam composed the ground forces of the South Vietnamese military from its inception in 1955 to the Fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. At the ARVN's peak, an estimated 1 in 9 citizens of South Vietnam were enlisted, composed of Regular Forces and the more voluntary Regional Forces and the Popular Force militias. It is estimated to have suffered 1,394,000 casualties during the Vietnam War.
Operation Commando Hunt was a covert U.S. Seventh Air Force and U.S. Navy Task Force 77 aerial interdiction campaign that took place during the Vietnam War. The operation began on 15 November 1968 and ended on 29 March 1972. The objective of the campaign was to prevent the transit of People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) personnel and supplies on the logistical corridor known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail that ran from southwestern North Vietnam through the southeastern portion of the Kingdom of Laos and into South Vietnam.
Operation Igloo White was a covert United States joint military electronic warfare operation conducted from late January 1968 until February 1973, during the Vietnam War. These missions were carried out by the 553rd Reconnaissance Wing, a U.S. Air Force unit flying modified EC-121R Warning Star aircraft, and VO-67, a specialized U.S. Navy unit flying highly modified OP-2E Neptune aircraft. This state-of-the-art operation utilized electronic sensors, computers, and communications relay aircraft in an attempt to automate intelligence collection. The system would then assist in the direction of strike aircraft to their targets. The objective of those attacks was the logistical system of the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) that snaked through southeastern Laos and was known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Military Assistance Command, Vietnam – Studies and Observations Group (MACV-SOG) was a highly classified, multi-service United States special operations unit which conducted covert unconventional warfare operations before and during the Vietnam War.
Tan Son Nhut Air Base (1955–1975) was a Republic of Vietnam Air Force (RVNAF) facility. It was located near the city of Saigon in southern Vietnam. The United States used it as a major base during the Vietnam War (1959–1975), stationing Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine units there. Following the Fall of Saigon, it was taken over as a Vietnam People's Air Force (VPAF) facility and remains in use today.
Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War began with a small commitment of 30 military advisors in 1962, and increased over the following decade to a peak of 7,672 Australian personnel following the Menzies Government's April 1965 decision to upgrade its military commitment to South Vietnam's security. By the time the last Australian personnel were withdrawn in 1972, the Vietnam War had become Australia's longest war, eventually being surpassed by Australia's long-term commitment to the War in Afghanistan. It remains Australia's largest force contribution to a foreign conflict since the Second World War, and was also the most controversial military action in Australia since the conscription controversy during World War I. Although initially enjoying broad support due to concerns about the spread of communism in Southeast Asia, an increasingly influential anti-war movement developed, particularly in response to the government's imposition of conscription.
Operation Steel Tiger was a covert U.S. 2nd Air Division, later Seventh Air Force and U.S. Navy Task Force 77 aerial interdiction effort targeted against the infiltration of People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) men and material moving south from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam through southeastern Laos to support their military effort in the Republic of Vietnam during the Vietnam War.
The Sihanouk Trail was a logistical supply system in Cambodia used by the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and its Viet Cong (VC) guerrillas during the Vietnam War (1960–1975). Between 1966 and 1970, this system operated in the same manner and served the same purposes as the much better known Ho Chi Minh trail which ran through the southeastern portion of the Kingdom of Laos. The name is of American derivation, since the North Vietnamese considered the system integral to the supply route mentioned above. U.S. attempts to interdict this system began in 1969.
The involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War began in the 1950s and greatly escalated in 1965 until its withdrawal in 1973. The U.S. military presence in Vietnam peaked in April 1969, with 543,000 military personnel stationed in the country. By the end of the U.S. involvement, more than 3.1 million Americans had been stationed in Vietnam, and 58,279 had been killed.
USS Krishna (ARL-38) was one of 39 Achelous-class landing craft repair ships built for the United States Navy during World War II. Named for Krishna, she was the only U.S. Naval vessel to bear the name, and only one of three ships to be named after a Hindu deity.
Cao Văn Viên was a four-star army general in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam during the Vietnam War. He rose to the position of Chairman of the South Vietnamese Joint General Staff. Considered one of "the most gifted" of South Vietnam's military leaders, he was previously called an "absolute key figure" and one of "the most important Vietnamese military leaders" in the U.S.-led fighting during the Vietnam War. Along with Trần Thiện Khiêm he was one of only two four-star generals in the entire history of South Vietnam.
During the Cold War in the 1960s, the United States and South Vietnam began a period of gradual escalation and direct intervention referred to as the "Americanization" of joint warfare in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. At the start of the decade, United States aid to South Vietnam consisted largely of supplies with approximately 900 military observers and trainers. After the assassination of both Ngo Dinh Diem and John F. Kennedy close to the end of 1963 and Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964 and amid continuing political instability in the South, the Lyndon Johnson Administration made a policy commitment to safeguard the South Vietnamese regime directly. The American military forces and other anti-communist SEATO countries increased their support, sending large scale combat forces into South Vietnam; at its height in 1969, slightly more than 400,000 American troops were deployed. The People's Army of Vietnam and the allied Viet Cong fought back, keeping to countryside strongholds while the anti-communist allied forces tended to control the cities. The most notable conflict of this era was the 1968 Tet Offensive, a widespread campaign by the communist forces to attack across all of South Vietnam; while the offensive was largely repelled, it was a strategic success in seeding doubt as to the long-term viability of the South Vietnamese state. This phase of the war lasted until the election of Richard Nixon and the change of U.S. policy to Vietnamization, or ending the direct involvement and phased withdrawal of U.S. combat troops and giving the main combat role back to the South Vietnamese military.
The Vietnam People's Air Force, officially the Air Defence - Air Force Service or the Vietnam Air Force, is the aerial and air defence service branch of Vietnam. It is the modern incarnation of the so-called North Vietnamese Air Force (NVAF) and absorbed the South Vietnamese Air Force (RVNAF/VNAF) following the reunification of Vietnam in 1975 and is one of three main branches of the People's Army of Vietnam, which is under the executive administration of the Ministry of National Defence. The main mission of the VPAF is the defence of Vietnamese aerospace and the provision of air and space cover for operations of the People's Army of Vietnam.
References
- ↑ Lind, Michael (1999). "Vietnam, The Necessary War: A Reinterpretation of America's Most Disastrous Military Conflict". New York Times. Retrieved 17 January 2014.
- 1 2 "The Cold Warrior". Newsweek. April 10, 2000. Retrieved 17 July 2011.
- ↑ "话剧《南方来信》" (in Chinese (China)). China Pictorial. April 1, 1965. Retrieved October 24, 2021.
- ↑ "京剧《南方来信》选段 刘嘉欣 -裘韵流芳演唱会" (in Chinese (China)). China Central Television. November 25, 2010. Retrieved October 24, 2021.
- ↑ "花脸名家 杨燕毅 京剧《南方来信》选段 1995年清唱实况录像". Bilibili (in Chinese (China)). February 21, 2020. Retrieved October 24, 2021.
- ↑ "李和曾 京剧现代戏《南方来信》【反二黄回龙/快板/二六/散板】唱段录音". Bilibili (in Chinese (China)). May 7, 2020. Retrieved October 24, 2021.
- ↑ "越战抗美故事连环画《南方来信》陈云华胡祖清绘画". Archived from the original on October 24, 2021. Retrieved August 28, 2023.
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