Us advisers helping the Arvin
Gulf of Tonkin
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What happened during the warThe war first started in November 1,1955, Americans first joined the war as advisers in 1960, advising the Army of Republic Vietnam (a.k.a. Arvin), fighting against the rebel group called the ‘Viet Cong’ lead by Ho chi Minh. The advising later turned into shooting, and lead to the first death of an American adviser in 1961. Later in a famous incident took place which lead America’s and its allies into an all out war against Viet Cong. This infamous incident was called the ‘Gulf of Tonkin incident’. Which occurred in 4th August 1964, where North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked Us warships in the Gulf of Tonkin. So Lyndon Johnson, the president at the time used it has a reason to send troops to fight in Vietnam. A quote from Lyndon Johnson “All necessary measure to repel armed attack”. However there were controversy about ‘Gulf of Tonkin incident’ never actually happened, even President Johnson said privately "For all I know, our navy was shooting at whales out there.", except for the fact that there was evidence of the USS MADDOX was hit by a bullet and America went to war. New Zealand Prime Minister Keith Holyoake first agreed to provide humanitarian aid. Sending Medical teams and Army engineers to help treat civilians and help reconstruct roads and bridges. When 1965 came around, PM Holyoake announced that New Zealand will start sending troops into Vietnam, in total over the years 3400 New Zealand fought in the war, including the 161 Battery of the Royal New Zealand Artillery, which later combined forces with the Australians. This decision was made due to the amount of pressure america was putting on New Zealand's government.
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Vietcong preparing for Guerrilla warfare
Napalm bombs
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The Vietnam war was quite different to from the previous great wars. The Vietnam war was mainly took place in jungles, rather than large-scale land. Guerrilla warfare was how the war was fought, but apart from that there were a lot of bombing. More bombs were dropped on North and South Vietnam than the Axis and Allies combined in WWII. Us and New Zealand troops were mainly sent on search and destroy mission, this was difficult for them because they did not know the land as well was Viet-Cong and it was hard for them to tell civilians from enemy. Sometimes women or children's walk up to soldiers and a grenade would explode off them. Due to this soldiers were forced to kill civilians with no proof, since there were no way to prove they enemies or not, for this act, U.S soldiers were sometimes yelled at as ‘Murders’. Since jungle warfare was painful and costly for them. Nz Soldiers ‘Search and Destroy’ mission usually last for 30 days. Each soldiers had to carry very, large backpacks, weighing around 35-40 kilograms, carrying everything they need for live and fight for a month. They weren’t about to have showers or wash themselves. The war in Vietnam was hard for them, the jungle was often hot, and humid, soldiers would almost never have enough water, so they were always dehydrated. That and the dry allowance of food they were allowed, often caused them to be constipated. Since they had unused toilet papers they were able to write letters home with them. So the american’s launch ‘Operation Rolling Thunder’, it was a campaign launched against the famous ‘Ho Chi Minh trail’, which was a trail for Viet-Cong to infiltrate Us troops and supplies. But the campaign ended 3 years later without achieving its main objective, since the trail was mostly under thick jungle canopy throughout the country making it very difficult to find much less destroy. They also used chemicals defoliants such as Napalm and Agent Oranges to clear jungles flattening the landscape making it easily for their troops to fight and gain territory, but at the same time burning homes and people. When people at home in America and New Zealand knew about the use of chemical defoliants it sparked protest.
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Anti-war protest in Nz
Anti-war protest in America
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The war was not very popular for New Zealand from the very beginning, and when the Vietnam war was broadcast on Americans televisions, people became more aware of what was happening in the war, protest began. New Zealand people were strongly against the war, and they blamed the Americans, they opposed many thing in the war, the use of chemical defoliants and how many innocent Vietnamese were killed. They also pointed out that it was a civil war between Vietnam and they had no place in it. Though majority of the Americans still supported the war until sometime after 1968-1970, because when Richard Nixon was elected for president in 1968, he said he had a secret plan to end the war. He first slowly withdraw american troops from Vietnam, which was followed by more bombing and then sending Americans troops into Cambodia in an attempt to cut off the ‘Ho Chi Minh Trail’. However this plan failed to end the war, but backfired on the Americans. The whole point of them fighting this war was to stop the spread of communism, but due to Nixon’s plan it helped a Cambodian communist party called ‘Khmer rouge’. This communist party represent the worst kind of communism, they forced every Cambodian to be communes and massacred a third of the country population, also closing schools, hospitals, banks also isolating the country from any other countries influence. So after the american’s knew about the Cambodian genocide, many people started supporting the anti-war protests. Then in 1971, the New York Times published the Pentagon Papers, classified documents that shown the public that the government have been misleading them about the war for years. As america started losing the war, New Zealand started withdrawing their troops, and in 1972, when the Labour government was elected, their first act was withdrawing all New Zealand personnel immediately. The Americans later admit defeat and started to getting american troops out of Vietnam when Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese in April 1975.
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