Vietnam War: Casualties during the Tet Offensive 1968

The Tet Offensive was a military operation undertaken by the forces of North Vietnam and the Viet Cong insurgency during the Lunar New Year festival (Tet) in early 1968. The offensive was a surprise attack which targeted the main population centers throughout South Vietnam, with towns, cities, and military bases being seized by communist forces. While initially successful in taking control of areas of strategic importance, the communist forces were not able to hold these positions for more than a couple of days. As the U.S. and South Vietnamese forces re-grouped to fight off the attack, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong armies suffered heavy losses.

Outcome of the offensive

While the number of wounded among the communist forces is unknown, at least 60,000 of their soldiers were killed during the three and a half weeks of the offensive. The U.S. and South Vietnamese forces suffered considerably fewer losses, while the high number of civilian casualties damaged support for the communists among the civilian population of South Vietnam. The decisive repulsion of the attack did little to win support for the war in the United States, as the scale of the offensive was seen as delegitimizing claims that a U.S. victory in the conflict was near at hand. Despite some in the U.S. military command, such as General Westmoreland, wanting to send additional troops in order to strike a decisive blow against the communists, U.S. public opinion had turned decisively against the war effort and a process of 'vietnamization' of the conflict was begun under President Johnson.