In the early hours of 30 January 1968, during the Tet lunar new year holiday, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces attacked Da Nang and several provincial capitals in the center of South Vietnam. A day later the offensive spread across the whole country, including Saigon. The Tet Offensive was a heavy military defeat for the attackers, but it shook American confidence in the war and became its political turning point.
Which day did Tet begin?
The answer depends on where you stand. The EBSCO encyclopedia dates the start of the offensive to the night of 30 January, when the first attacks began. Britannica, like many histories, dates the offensive to the early hours of 31 January, when the main wave hit Saigon and the rest of the country. In a cable of 3 February, General William Westmoreland reported that the offensive had peaked on 30 to 31 January.1
Attacks across South Vietnam
The offensive came during Tet, the most important holiday of the year, when a truce had been announced and many South Vietnamese soldiers were on leave. Britannica puts the attacking force at some 85,000 troops. They struck Saigon and, according to EBSCO, 39 of South Vietnam's 44 provincial capitals, five of its six autonomous cities and at least 71 of its 245 district towns.2
In Saigon a team of 19 Viet Cong blew a hole in the wall of the US embassy compound and fought inside the grounds for several hours before they were killed or captured. Five Americans died defending it. The longest battle came at Hue, the old imperial capital, which the attackers held for more than three weeks; Britannica dates its recapture to 24 February.3
A battlefield defeat with political victory
Almost everywhere the attacks were thrown back within days, and the popular uprising the North Vietnamese leadership had hoped for did not happen. The cost to the attackers was very high, although the figures are disputed. In his cable of 3 February, Westmoreland judged it too early to accept any figure of enemy dead, but had no doubt that the enemy had lost more men in the first 72 hours than in any single month of the war. Civilian losses were also heavy.4
In the United States the effect was the opposite of the battlefield result. Americans had been told the enemy was being worn down, and the scale of the attacks, broadcast on television, deepened doubts about the war. On 31 March 1968 President Lyndon B. Johnson announced a partial halt to the bombing of North Vietnam and said he would not seek another term. Our longer article on the Tet Offensive follows the campaign in more detail, and the siege of Khe Sanh was fought at the same time.5 › Fall of Saigon, 1975
Also on this day
- 1644: Battle of Okhmativ. Polish forces under Hetman Stanisław Koniecpolski met a Crimean Tatar horde led by Tugay Bey near Okhmativ, after the Tatars renewed heavy border raids.
