It is unknown how much aid was lost from North Vietnamese allies. The human costs of the long conflict were harsh for all involved. The United States provided funding and troops to the South Vietnamese effort to prevent Communism from spreading further in East Asia. Encounter Books, December 2022. AIR FORCE * The term casualty in warfare can often be confusing. 13,091. [98], Unexploded ordnance continue to detonate and kill people today. By 1944, the French were still occupying Vietnam, even though they continued to wage battle in Europe as the end of World War II drew near. More than 58,000 American casualties of the Vietnam War are commemorated on the Vietnam Wall in Washington, DC. How to Order a Draft Record. 232,000 military personnel were still missing as of 2017, a total of 1,081,000 dead and missing for the American War. [70], RJ Rummel estimates 1,011,000 PAVN/VC combatant deaths. 7,484 women served in Vietnam, of whom 6,250 or 83.5% were nurses. But today, even as the U.S. military continues to grow more inclusive, most Americans are much less . Relations between the United States and Vietnam were stable in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, and peace was maintained. KIA. Ho Chi Minh was outraged and began to engage his forces in small fights with South Vietnamese troops. Korean War Casualties Vietnam Casualties Advanced search Export results Vietnam Casualties. And John Sullivan enlisted in the Navy after graduating high school and served as a second class machinist mate during the Vietnam War. An error occurred trying to load this video. Defense Department officials believed that these body count figures need to be deflated by 30 percent. The U.S. military has estimated that between 200,000 and 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died. Ho Khang, ed, Marilyn Young. The wide disparity among the estimates cited below is partially explained by the different time periods of the Vietnam War covered by the studies and whether casualties in Cambodia and Laos were included in the estimates. [22], Thomas Thayer in 1985 estimated that during the 196572 period the VC killed 33,052 South Vietnamese village officials and civil servants.[23]. Vietnam War Casualties record set contains 58,192 additional names of service people who lost their lives while serving overseas. [77] Additionally, according to the U.S. military, they also lost up to 101,511 personnel as defectors due to the Chieu Hoi program,[78] but one analyst speculates that less than 25% of those were genuine. North Vietnam and the United States reached a peace agreement shortly after withdrawal. Of the 4953 Navy and Air Force casualties, both officer and enlisted, 4, 736 or 96% were white. [104], Following the end of the war, many refugees fled Vietnam by boat and ship. harvnb error: no target: CITEREFTurse2013 (. The U.S. military reported 58,220 American casualties. Specialized units such as the SeaBees, Scout Dog and Combat Tracker units, Navy SEAL/UDT, etc., usually are indexed under the next higher command. For the period of the Vietnam War the totals are 1,310,000 between 1955 and 1964, 1,700,000 between 196574 and 810,000 between 1975 and 1984. Being killed in action was the leading cause of American casualties. [40][37] Sometimes civilian casualties from airstrikes or artillery barrages against villages were reported as "enemies killed". Casualty Data For The Vietnam War. The "Military Factory" name and MilitaryFactory.com logo are registered U.S. trademarks protected by all applicable domestic and international intellectual property laws. The former arrives in Vietnam in November 1965, and, soon after, is tasked with leading his 400 men in an effort to take out . 7. Principal Wars in Which the US Participated . Updates? Da Nang was the primary storage site of the chemical. Of those killed, 61% were younger than 21 years old. The officially-reported numbers and categories below cover American Vietnam War deaths by age group, branch of service, service component, type of death, reason for death, race, religion, sex, state/protectorate and deaths by war year (including post . [92], African Americans suffered disproportionately high casualty rates in Vietnam. Battle of Hamburger Hill. Memorial pages honoring Vietnam War casualties, listed by their last names. His estimate of total deaths is reflected in the table. By nearly every metric, the Vietnam War was, in the common sense of the word, a war. From refugee camps in Southeast Asia, the great majority of boat people were resettled in more developed countries. "[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. Cobra helicopters totaled 1,110,716 flight hours in Vietnam. Learn about Vietnam war statistics and casualties. One study estimated that American commanders exaggerated body counts by 100 percent. Support for the war was lacking in the United States, so the decision was made to discontinue efforts there. The war persisted from 1955 to 1975 and most of the fighting took place in South Vietnam; accordingly it suffered the most casualties. It is estimated that South Vietnam lost between 200,000 and 250,000 fighters. Neighbouring Laos and Cambodia similarly fell to communists. Discover the countries that took part in the Vietnam war and how many people died in the Vietnam war. [61], According to the Vietnamese government's national survey and assessment of war casualties (March 2017), there were 849,018 PAVN military personnel dead, including combat death and non-combat death, from the period between 1960 and 1975. [48] In December 1966, the Blue Dragon Brigade reportedly perpetrated the Bnh Ha massacre. flashcard sets. In Qung Nam Province 4,700 civilians were killed in 1969. Vancouver's Rob McSorley is one of at least 134 Canadians killed in action fighting for U.S. forces during the Vietnam War. Not all mines were detonated during the war and as a result they are still being either dug up or mistakenly stepped on today. Numbers certainly do not tell the whole story - or all of them - but they certainly paint a picture of lives lost and families devastated. History is not a fixed set of facts. Others are still yet to be discovered and over 1,200 Americans are still unaccounted for. They also are AT-CTI certified. In 1995 Vietnam released its official estimate of the number of people killed during the Vietnam War: as many as 2,000,000 civilians on both sides and some 1,100,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters. According to statistics from the South Vietnamese Ministry of Health, 44.5% of civilians admitted to hospitals between 1967 and 1970 were wounded by mines or mortars, 21.2% by guns or grenades, and 34.3% by artillery or bombing. Please direct all other inquiries to militaryfactory AT gmail.com. Many of the refugees failed to survive the passage, facing danger from pirates, over-crowded boats, and storms. Two major war memorials commemorating the dead soldiers in the Second Indochina War (a.k.a. American civilians were not killed in the Vietnam War. The Viet Cong used the jungle terrain to their advantage both as a means of hiding, as well as a place to bury pressure-sensor explosives to wipe out unsuspecting bands of patrolling enemy forces. All three men died in spring of 2020 of COVID-19 after . 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The number of these "boat people" leaving Vietnam and arriving safely in another country totalled almost 800,000 between 1975 and 1995. 1968 Tet Offensive - Hanoi failed in its most ambitious goal of producing a general uprising in the South, it suffered more than 45,267 (mainly Viet Cong) deaths but gained a propaganda, political and strategic victory. Support to North Vietnam was sent by Communist allies including China, North Korea, and the Soviet Union. Post-War Issues: Aftereffects of the Vietnam War on the U.S. More than 8.7 million Americans served on active duty during the Vietnam period (Nov 1, 1955 to May 15, 1975). After 1975. Rummel estimates 212,000 killed by Khmer Rouge (19671975), 60,000 killed by U.S. and 1,000 killed by South Vietnam (196773). 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. In the United States, the Vietnam War became known as one of the most unpopular wars . [citation needed] Black people often made up a disproportionate 25% or more of combat units, while constituting only 12% of the military. This article displays the highest percentage of casualties among American units, including those wiped out as an effective force. From 1965 to 1975, nearly 500,000 Marines served in Southeast Asia. The Army instigated myriad reforms, addressed issues of discrimination and prejudice from the post exchanges to the lack of black officers, and introduced "Mandatory Watch And Action Committees" into each unit. North Vietnam had won victory over the French and was likely to make South Vietnam submit to a Communist regime. I had just returned from Iraq and was working with Vietnam veterans who'd served in . [25][30], 18.2 million gallons of Agent Orange, some of which was contaminated with Dioxin, was sprayed by the U.S. military over more than 10% of Southern Vietnam[31] as part of the U.S. herbicidal warfare program Operation Ranch Hand during the Vietnam War, from 1961 to 1971. A mass exodus in 1975 of people loyal to the South Vietnamese cause was followed by another wave in 1978 of boat people, refugees fleeing the economic restructuring imposed by the communist regime. Dr. Shulimson heads the History Writing Unit and is a graduate of the University of Buffalo, now the State University of New York at Buffalo. The Virtual Wall uses the Coffelt Database (CDB) for unit assignment information. [4] [79], The total number of American personnel who were KIA or died non-hostile deaths, were enlisted personnel with a casualty number of 50,441. The U.S. Constitution grants Congress sole authority to issue declarations of war. As of 2014, 221 Virginian deaths have been identified. In 2002, an early version of the Coffelt Database was deeded to the National Archives, which made it available on-line as a searchable database. Lochren) subtracted the muster figures (262-47=215)(82.1%) and asserted that "[every one of the] 215 [missing men] lay upon the field. American Foreign Policy in the First Indochina War. Vietnam emerged from the war as a potent military power within Southeast Asia, but its agriculture, business, and industry were disrupted, large parts of its countryside were scarred by bombs and defoliation and laced with land mines, and its cities and towns were heavily damaged. This is also the main reason that soldiers in Vietnam saw more action than those soldiers of preceding wars. In the United States, the Vietnam War became known as one of the most unpopular wars that the nation had ever been involved in. By the height of the Vietnam War in the late 1960's, the U.S. Air Force had 1,900 medics conducting medical operations in Southeast Asia. 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. Others now continue the work Richard began 30 years ago. The boat people's first destinations were the Southeast Asian locations of Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. [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. Records with Unit Information on Military Personnel Who Died During the Vietnam War . In the late 1990s, others joined Richard's effort, contributing information and collating the collected material into digital form using the Holloway database as a baseline. Many deaths, however, were not completely targeted as they were the result of chance, being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The war persisted from 1955 to 1975 and most of the fighting took place in South Vietnam; accordingly it suffered the most casualties. In reality, it is a collection of ideas, images, and information that enough people have chosen to preserve and disseminate. Ultimately, by the end of the war, India had suffered over two million fatalities. These Vietnam War photos taken by U.S. Army photographers reveal a side of the conflict that few people have ever seen. The forces involved in this war (by the conclusion of the war) included: The war was fought in dense jungle terrain, so the American military developed a chemical solution known as Agent Orange to burn through the brush and lure out the hiding Viet Cong forces. Based on unit surveys, . Deaths caused by the South Korean military, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong military casualties, Disproportion of African American casualties. That can include disabled by injuries, disabled by psychological trauma, captured, deserted, or missing. The exact breakdown still remains unclear, although an estimated 273,000 Cambodians and 62,000 Lao lost their lives. Significant numbers resettled in the United States, Canada, Italy, Australia, France, West Germany, and the United Kingdom.[105]. The officially-reported numbers and categories below cover American Vietnam War deaths by age group, branch of service, service component, type of death, reason for death, race, religion, sex, state/protectorate and deaths by war year (including post-war). Initially, the toll was just over 57,000, but new casualties came to light. ARMY * 2,594,000 personnel served within the borders of South Vietnam. 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. Vietnam War Casualties, MIA and POWs. [45], Air force captain, Brian Wilson, who carried out bomb-damage assessments in free-fire zones throughout the delta, saw the results firsthand. Are registered U.S. trademarks protected by all applicable domestic and international intellectual vietnam war casualties by unit laws, of whom 6,250 83.5... 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