Operation Rolling Thunder History & Facts | What Was Operation Rolling Thunder? The war persisted from 1955 to 1975 and most of the fighting took place in South Vietnam; accordingly it suffered the most casualties. Of the 7877 officer casualties, 7595 or 96.4% were white, 147 or 1.8% were black; 24 or . Grenada (1983) 3. 232,000 military personnel were still missing as of 2017, a total of 1,081,000 dead and missing for the American War. Two major war memorials commemorating the dead soldiers in the Second Indochina War (a.k.a. Ho Khang, ed, Marilyn Young. Over 58,000 American lives were lost in the fighting. According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, between 200,000 and 400,000 boat people died at sea. Those who argue that the United States opponents won the war cite the United States overall objectives and outcomes. Vietnam War Casualties 1956-1998. Statistical Information about Fatal Casualties of the Vietnam War, Records Relating to American Prisoners of War and Missing in Action from the Vietnam War Era, 1960-1994, Electronic Data Records Relating to Military Objectives and Activities During the Vietnam War, Electronic Records of Korean and Vietnam War Casualties, How to File a FOIA Request for Archival Records, Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) Extract Files, Records on Military Personnel Who Died, Were Missing in Action or Prisoners of War as a Result of the Vietnam War, Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) Files, Records of Deceased, Wounded, Ill, or Injured Army Personnel, Including Dependents and Civilian Employees, Records with Unit Information on Military Personnel Who Died During the Vietnam War. It is suspected that over 1.2 million of these deaths were murders. However, side effects occurred because of Agent Orange. Before the Second World War, Vietnam was occupied by the colonial French empire. Ordering Information for Electronic Records. And John Sullivan enlisted in the Navy after graduating high school and served as a second class machinist mate during the Vietnam War. Shelby L. Stanton, 'The Rise and Fall of an American Army,' Spa Books, 1989, xvi. [28][4] Higher estimates place the number of civilian deaths caused by American bombing of North Vietnam in Operation Rolling Thunder at 182,000. Reference Information Paper 103", "From the Archives: President Nixon welcomes Marines home from Vietnam", "MILITARY: Marine unit that suffered most casualties coming home", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=American_units_with_the_highest_percentage_of_casualties_per_conflict&oldid=1125722100, This page was last edited on 5 December 2022, at 13:58. [4] [104], Following the end of the war, many refugees fled Vietnam by boat and ship. The "Holloway Database" effectively became the public's sole source of information regarding all our Vietnam dead. Kennedys expansion stemmed in part from Cold War-era fears about the domino theory: if communism took hold in Vietnam, it would topple democracies throughout the whole of Southeast Asia, it was thought. Rummel does not give a medium or high estimate. Not until 1995 did Vietnam release its official estimate of war dead: as many as 2 million civilians on both sides and some 1.1 million North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters. However, from a constitutional perspective, this conflict did not technically count as a war. He recalled the attack and said, "We go in, and the helicopter started . [93][94] With the draft increasing due to the troop buildup in South Vietnam, the military significantly lowered its admission standards. Of the 2.6 million, between 1 and 1.6 million (40-60%) either fought in. The U.S. technically did not lose the Vietnam War, as they withdrew in 1973 to allow South Vietnam to fight their own battles. The human costs of the long conflict were harsh for all involved. Vietnam War, Awards and Decorations of Honor, 1965-1972. [35], For official US military operations reports, there was no established distinctions between enemy KIA and civilian KIA. The 'shameful gamesmanship' practiced by 'certain reporting elements' under pressure to 'produce results' also shrouded the process. This is also the main reason that soldiers in Vietnam saw more action than those soldiers of preceding wars. The majority of these soldiers were between the ages of 21 and 28. More than 58,000 American casualties of the Vietnam War are commemorated on the Vietnam Wall in Washington, DC. Few Marines units were involved in the U.S. military actions in Cambodia or Laos, and while 1. st. . One escapee died of wounds sustained during his rescue 15 days later. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, we are losing an estimated 500 Vietnam veterans every day. Many of these deaths were suspected to be murders, often targeting able-bodied young men who could pose a threat to the other side should they have chosen to join the military. [3], A 1995 demographic study in Population and Development Review calculated 791,0001,141,000 war-related Vietnamese deaths, both soldiers and civilians, for all of Vietnam from 196575. Learn about Vietnam war statistics and casualties. Rummel calculated PAVN/VC deaths at 1,062,000 and ARVN and allied war deaths of 741,000, with both totals including civilians inadvertently killed. [8], Lewy estimates that 40,000 South Vietnamese civilians were assassinated by the PAVN/VC; 300,000 were killed as a result of combat in South Vietnam, and 65,000 were killed in North Vietnam for a total of 405,000 killed. After 1975. The numbers below are not exact, as there are still personnel who have not been identified or are identified as missing. Who had the highest casualty rates in the Vietnam War? They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Meanwhile, the United States, its military demoralized and its civilian electorate deeply divided, began a process of coming to terms with defeat in what had been its longest and most controversial war. Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. 80 lessons 7. [1] [2], Arapaho tribe Cheyenne tribeLakota tribes, Vichy FranceItalian Social Republic 19431945Kingdom of Italy19421943, American units with the highest percentage of casualties per conflict, US units with most casualties per conflict, Union and Confederate numbers added together, The 215 casualty figure is disputed. [7], R. J. Rummel's mid-range estimate in 1997 was that the total deaths due to the Vietnam War totaled 2,450,000 from 195475. They also are AT-CTI certified. Using the university's mainframe computers to read the reel-to-reel computer tapes, Tom integrated the two databases and converted the information into a commonly used small-computer format. PAVN and VC losses were reported as 1.1 million dead and civilian deaths of Vietnamese on both sides totaled 2.0 million. Relations between the United States and Vietnam were stable in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, and peace was maintained. In 1993-94, after PCs had become commonplace, Tom Holloway (Emory University, Atlanta) changed the landscape by obtaining the Department of Defense's casualty database and the Army Adjutant General's database in digital form. Both American/South Vietnamese forces and the Viet Cong can be held accountable for the number of civilian deaths, but the Viet Cong had a larger hand in overtaking villages and using more offensive military tactics to draw out the South Vietnamese forces. [26], RJ Rummel estimated that American forces killed around 5,500 people in democide between 1960 and 1972, from a range of between 4,000 and 10,000. The study's authors stated that methodological limitations of the study include imbalance between rural and urban areas and the potential exclusion of high mortality areas. Updates? Post-War Issues: Aftereffects of the Vietnam War on the U.S. On October 22, 1957, the U.S. forces suffered their first hostile casualties. 1st Battalion, 9th Marines. Fighting continued on a lesser scale for some time afterwards and refugee numbers rose sharply due to the continued conflict, but the development of a strong trading market in the 80s helped the nation become more unified. During warfare, some units take more casualties than other units. They also assert that the U.S. overall suffered fewer casualties than its opponents. The United States also reduced support troops, and in March 1971 the 5th Special Forces Group, the first American unit deployed to South Vietnam, withdrew to Fort Bragg, . Per war: 191,605 deaths in the First Indochina War, 849,018 deaths in the Second Indochina War (Vietnam War), and 105,627 deaths in the Third Indochina War. [95] Of the 27 million draft-age men between 1964 and 1973, 40% were drafted into military service, and only 10% were actually sent to Vietnam. Accurate assessments of PAVN/VC losses, he wrote, were 'largely impossible due to lack of disclosure by the Vietnamese government, terrain, destruction of remains by firepower, and [inability] to confirm artillery and aerial kills.' By Spencer C. Tucker ", Viet Cong and Peoples Army of Vietnam use of terror in the Vietnam War, Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam, United Nations High Commission for Refugees, Vietnamese Casualties During the American War: A New Estimate, "Fifty years of violent war deaths from Vietnam to Bosnia: analysis of data from the world health survey programme", "20 Years After Victory, Vietnamese Communists Ponder How to Celebrate", http://www.pcr.uu.se/research/ucdp/datasets/ucdp_prio_armed_conflict_dataset/, http://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a032189.pdf, Countering Terrorism and Insurgency in the 21st Century, Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the 20th Century. For example, during the Seven Days Battles in the American Civil War (June 25 to July 1, 1862) there were 5,228 killed, 23,824 wounded and 7,007 missing or taken prisoner for a total of 36,059 casualties. troops. As this was two years before the IBM PC (personal computer) came on the market, the work necessarily was done the old-fashioned way: by library research, travel, and in hand-writing. The war also spilled over into the neighboring countries of Cambodia and Laos which also endured casualties from aerial and ground fighting. "The Vietnam Wars." U.S. military advisers, present in small numbers throughout the 1950s, were introduced on a large scale beginning in 1961, and active combat units were introduced in 1965. Civilian deaths are still ongoing because of the use of unexploded ordnances left behind from the war. "[56] Another Marine commander, Gen. Robert E. Cushman Jr., added, "we had a big problem with atrocities attributed to them, which I sent on down to Saigon. [5], Uppsala University in Sweden maintains the Armed Conflict Database. American civilians were not killed in the Vietnam War. There was strong pressure to produce body counts as a measure of operational success and enemy body counts were directly tied to promotions and commendation. The United States had provided funding, armaments, and training to South Vietnams government and military since Vietnams partition into the communist North and the democratic South in 1954. [68] Per the official Vietnamese history, over 10,000 more PAVN soldiers were killed in the final offensive of early 1975. Please direct all other inquiries to militaryfactory AT gmail.com. The 2nd Marine Brigade reportedly perpetrated the Binh Tai Massacre on 9 October 1966. I feel like its a lifeline. [36][37][41] All individuals killed in declared free-fire zones, combatants or not, were considered enemy killed in action by US forces . French Indochina (Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam) - 1,250,000 . In October 1966, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara initiated Project 100,000 which further lowered military standards for 100,000 additional draftees per year. Support to North Vietnam was sent by Communist allies including China, North Korea, and the Soviet Union. LIFE magazine, June 27, 1969, featuring a portrait of U.S. Army specialist William C. Gearing, Jr., one of 242 American servicemen killed in a single week of fighting during the Vietnam War. but not without Marine and U.S. Air Force casualties. "[56] Investigations by Korean civic groups have alleged that at least 9,000 civilians were massacred by ROK forces. [15][16][17] Walter Mead estimates that approximately 365,000 Vietnamese civilians to have died as a result of the war during the period of American involvement. The first American soldier died in the Vietnam War was Richard B. Fitzgibbon, Jr., a U.S. Air Force Technical Sergeant. 2,594,000 personnel served within the borders of South Vietnam. The Coffelt Database of Vietnam War casualties has its roots in an effort begun by Richard Donham Coffelt. [29] American bombing in Cambodia is estimated to have killed between 30,000 and 150,000 civilians and combatants. American Greatness, by Victor Davis Hanson Original Article. During the final years of World War II, political leader Ho Chi Minh organized a group, the Viet Cong, to fight the powers in occupancy of the territory and take control. [40][37] Sometimes civilian casualties from airstrikes or artillery barrages against villages were reported as "enemies killed". From 1965 to 1975, nearly 500,000 Marines served in Southeast Asia. [95][98] As a result, by the war's completion, total black casualties averaged 12.5% of US combat deaths, approximately equal to percentage of draft-eligible black men, though still slightly higher than the 10% who served in the military. Chart and statistics of US death/wounded in war as well as amputation ratios in the Afghanistan war compared with other major operations. I had just returned from Iraq and was working with Vietnam veterans who'd served in . Two further massacres were reported by soldiers who had taken part in them, one north of c Pho in, 426 killed in action, 74 died of other causes, 6 missing in action (all accounted for and repatriated), This page was last edited on 1 March 2023, at 15:26. [55] These policies were also reported on by US commanders, with one US Marine General stating "whenever the Korean marines received fire "or think [they got] fired on from a village they'd divert from their march and go over and completely level the village it would be a lesson to (the Vietnamese). The Domino Theory & the Vietnam War | Significance & Eisenhower's Speech, History of the Vietnam War: Certificate Program, Middle School US History: Help and Review, Middle School US History: Tutoring Solution, DSST A History of the Vietnam War: Study Guide & Test Prep, CLEP History of the United States II: Study Guide & Test Prep, Post-Civil War U.S. History: Help and Review, American History Since 1865: Tutoring Solution, Post-Civil War American History: Homework Help, DSST The Civil War & Reconstruction: Study Guide & Test Prep, The Civil War and Reconstruction: Certificate Program, The Civil War and Reconstruction: Help and Review, Create an account to start this course today. Contents1 What was the ratio [] We do not sell any of the items showcased on this site. Get unlimited access to over 84,000 lessons. [69], There has been considerable controversy about the exact numbers of deaths inflicted on the Communist side by U.S. and allied South Vietnamese forces. 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