Communist Strength

• The NV understood their countrymen better. Peasants struggling to provide food had long relied upon collective discipline and harvesting was best approached communally, so many villages adapted to Communist principles with relative ease.
• The NV worked hard to win over the peasantry, offering them land and urging Communist soldiers to avoid the rape and pillage characteristic of the ARVN.
• VC also ruthless. During Tet, they dragged ‘unfriendly’ people out of their houses in Hue and shot them, clubbed them to death or buried them alive. Over 3000 bodies were found in the river or jungle.
• A mixture of ruthlessness and good behaviour gained the VC the conformity and support of the peasantry vital in guerrilla warfare.
• Ia Drang:

  • 1965 - PAVN regiment clashes with US army
  • 34 day battle
  • 305 Americans and 3561 NV died
  • both sides thought they had won and that the other wouldn’t be able to sustain such losses
• The VC had a network of tunnels in which they could hide, shelter and regroup.
• Ho Chi Minh Trail:

  • first constructed 1959
  • porters carried most of war materials down the trail from 1959 to 1964
  • post 1964 - trail widened and covered with asphalt to accommodate trucks from China and USSR
• The Ho Chi Minh Trail was never a single route. There were several branches with repair workshops, stores, depots, hospitals and rest camps.
• Around 50,000 women were employed at any one time to repair the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Vehicles and parts of the trail were camouflaged with foliage.
• American bombers targeted the Ho Chi Minh Trail, but whilst NV lost many $6000 trucks, the U.S. lost many several million dollar bombers - harder and more expensive to replace.