It is still a concern in Southeast Asia today. Those totals include only Vietnamese deaths, and do not include American and other allied military deaths which amounted to about 64,000. The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History This is also the main reason that soldiers in Vietnam saw more action than those soldiers of preceding wars. The U.S. technically did not lose the Vietnam War, as they withdrew in 1973 to allow South Vietnam to fight their own battles. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. Since body counts were a direct measure of operational success, US "operations reports" often listed civilian deaths as enemy KIA or exaggerated the number. [8], Lewy estimates that 40,000 South Vietnamese civilians were assassinated by the PAVN/VC; 300,000 were killed as a result of combat in South Vietnam, and 65,000 were killed in North Vietnam for a total of 405,000 killed. Officer casualties of all branches were overwhelmingly white. [4] An estimated two million civilians of all nationalities, including those of Cambodia and Laos, were killed in the fighting. They also are AT-CTI certified. copyright 2003-2023 Study.com. The database also estimates combat deaths in Cambodia for the years 196775 to total 259,000. Updates? They have a Bachelor's in Air Traffic Management from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and minored in Aviation Safety and Homeland Security. Its like a teacher waved a magic wand and did the work for me. Five men killed in Vietnam were only 16 years old. He estimated that victims of democide (deliberate killing of civilians) included 214,000 by North Vietnam/VC and 98,000 by South Vietnam and its allies. It granted him broad latitude in handling the struggle against communism in Southeast Asia. Estimates of the total number of deaths in the Vietnam War vary widely. The Coffelt Database of Vietnam War casualties has its roots in an effort begun by Richard Donham Coffelt. Despite the loss of members of the unit on that day and one later in the week, Don praised the unit's overall performance. [98], Unexploded ordnance continue to detonate and kill people today. Memorial pages honoring Vietnam War casualties, listed by their last names. Nick Turse, in his 2013 book, Kill Anything that Moves, argues that a relentless drive toward higher body counts, a widespread use of free-fire zones, rules of engagement where civilians who ran from soldiers or helicopters could be viewed as VC, and a widespread disdain for Vietnamese civilians led to massive civilian casualties and endemic war crimes inflicted by U.S. * During January 1973, 29 Americans died in Vietnam--19 as a result of hostile action. Once a unit assignment has been determined, a link to the individual's memorial page is included in the appropriate Unit Index. This list is organized in alphabetical order, and can be used to determine the place on the Vietnam Memorial where an individual's name can be found - the panel and line number to the right of the name. It's a sober fact we're meant to be reminded of on Memorial Day, particularly in light of the nearly 7,000 U.S. troops killed, and the many more wounded, over the last decade in our most recent and ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Shelby Stanton, writing in The Rise and Fall of an American Army, declined to include casualty statistics because of their 'general unreliability.' Vietnam Syndrome Overview & Analysis | What is Vietnam Syndrome? Records with Unit Information on Military Personnel Who Died During the Vietnam War . Total. [93][94] With the draft increasing due to the troop buildup in South Vietnam, the military significantly lowered its admission standards. 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. It was first used in 1962 and was effective at its job. The U.S. National Archives shows that 58,220 U.S. soldiers perished. The U.S. Constitution grants Congress sole authority to issue declarations of war. 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. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. The government of Vietnam says that 4 million of its citizens were exposed to Agent Orange, and as many as 3 million have suffered illnesses because of it; these figures include the children of people who were exposed. Of those killed, 61% were younger than 21 years old. Democide is the murder of persons by or at the behest of governments. 80 lessons The United States has spent over $65 million since 1998 as part of unexploded ordnance clearing operations. [32] and studies have shown higher rates of casualties, health effects, and next-generation birth defects in Vietnamese peoples. The first two names listed on Panel 1, East Wall, at the apex are from July 8, 1959. [62] According to the Vice Minister Nguyn B Hoan, in 2022, nearly 200,000 PAVN/VC were still MIA (whose bodies were have not been found), and 300,000 whose bodies have been found, but buried anonymously and never identified. 38,179 total casualties (KIA and wounded) The 1st Cavalry Division lost the most men, from Aug 1965 to Aug 1972 they had 5,444 KIA, with 26,592 wounded. Regarding killed in action the 1st Marine Division was the unit with the highest . The overwhelming majority of the MIA are from northern Vietnam. Deaths in Cambodia and Laos were estimated at 273,000 and 62,000 respectively. In the United States, the Vietnam War became known as one of the most unpopular wars . [18], R. J. Rummel estimated that PAVN/VC forces killed around 164,000 civilians in democide between 1954 and 1975 in South Vietnam, from a range of between 106,000 and 227,000, plus another 50,000 killed in North Vietnam. The American death toll in the Vietnam War is currently known to be 58,220. The National Liberation Front & People's Army of Vietnam | History, Purpose & Strategy, 1973 Paris Peace Accords Overview | Talks, Terms & Agreement, Vietnamization Policy & Significance | Nixon's Plan to Withdraw American Forces, Operation Ranch Hand: Definition, Strategy & Impact, Significant Events in the First Indochina War, Causes of American Defeat in the Vietnam War, Communism Spreads During the Vietnam War: Cambodia and Laos. "Triumph Regained: The Vietnam War, 1965-1968." In addition, at least 36,000 Southern civilians were executed for various reasons in the period 19671972. An estimate by the Department of Defense after the war gave a figure of 1.2 million civilian casualties, including 195,000 deaths. Vietnam War: 1964-1973: 58,220: 153,303: 5,283: 1:2.6: 1:29.0 (0.03) Persian Gulf War: Battle of Hamburger Hill. When he later read the official tally of dead, he found that it listed them as 130 VC killed. A Korean War era soldier and later an attorney in Hays, Kansas, Richard became aware that the government had not made public a central source of information regarding the servicemen and women who died as a result of service in Vietnam. The Vietnam War became a painful lesson for many - from Washington, D.C. to Smalltown America. He took over the city of Hanoi and declared independence from France in 1954. [25], Operating under the direction of the CIA and other US and South Vietnamese Intel organizations and carried out by ARVN units alongside US advisers was the Phoenix Program, intended to neutralise the VC political infrastructure, whom were the civilian administration of the Viet Cong/Provisional Revolutionary Government via infiltration, capture, counter-terrorism, interrogation, and assassination. The Internet cannot and has not replaced on-the-spot investigation, though; in example, one member of the Coffelt Group has photographed over 80,000 documents at the LBJ and Nixon Presidential Libraries and in the National Archives. Though the Vietnamese army incurred more casualties, it was a . [19], Other casualties for the ARVN included up to 1,170,000 military wounded,[59] and 1,000,000 surrendered or captured. Based on unit surveys, . To arrive at the casualty figure of 215, the Regimental Historian (Lt. Wm. [70], RJ Rummel estimates 1,011,000 PAVN/VC combatant deaths. [22], Thomas Thayer in 1985 estimated that during the 196572 period the VC killed 33,052 South Vietnamese village officials and civil servants.[23]. The following general rules are observed: (2) AVIATION UNIT PERSONNEL in the Navy, Marines, and Air Force are indexed at the, (3) NAVAL PERSONNEL, other than aviation personnel, are indexed by, * 7. [15][16][17] Walter Mead estimates that approximately 365,000 Vietnamese civilians to have died as a result of the war during the period of American involvement. Vietnamese soldiers and an unknown number of civilian casualties in South and North Vietnam (Browne 1994: 1). In 1975 South Vietnam fell to a full-scale invasion by the North. Other nations such as Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, and the Philippines provided a limited number of troops to South Vietnamese forces. Combat Area Casualties Dataset. PAVN and VC losses were reported as 1.1 million dead and civilian deaths of Vietnamese on both sides totaled 2.0 million. Chrissy has taught secondary English and history and writes online curriculum. Estimates include both civilian and military deaths in North and South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. [72], The Phoenix Program, a counterinsurgency program executed by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), United States special operations forces, and the Republic of Vietnam's security apparatus, killed 26,369 suspected of being VC operatives and informants. On that panel, above the names is this inscription: In honor of the men and women of the armed forces of the United States who served in the Vietnam War. The U.S. military has estimated that between 200,000 and 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died. [60] Prior to the 1975 spring offensive, at least 5,336 ARVN were captured, being released in the aftermath of the Paris Peace Accords. 1st Battalion, 9th Marines. In 1980 Richard set out to determine the unit of assignment for each Army soldier who died in Vietnam. Congress authorized troop deployment in Vietnam, but, because it did not issue a declaration of war on North Vietnam or the Viet Cong, the Vietnam War is, technically speaking, not considered a war in the United States. [citation needed] Black people often made up a disproportionate 25% or more of combat units, while constituting only 12% of the military. Trade between the two nations ultimately resumed in the 1990s. Others now continue the work Richard began 30 years ago. In just 30 minutes, they had 30 casualties. Vietnam War, (195475), a protracted conflict that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam and its allies in South Vietnam, known as the Viet Cong, against the government of South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. Commander George L. Jackson said, "In response to this criticism, the Department of Defense took steps to readjust force levels in order to achieve an equitable proportion and employment of Negroes in Vietnam." The study's authors stated that methodological limitations of the study include imbalance between rural and urban areas and the potential exclusion of high mortality areas. [50][51] South Korean Marines reportedly perpetrated the H My massacre on 25 February 1968. In 1965 alone they comprised 14.1% of total combat deaths, when they only comprised approximately 11% of the total U.S. population in the same year. ", 1915 to 1917 infantry regiments grew from 959 to 3,720 men and 112 officers. Furthermore, the murder of children was not uncommon to prevent them from joining the armed forces in the future, making up around 15% of total deaths. But today, even as the U.S. military continues to grow more inclusive, most Americans are much less . On Nov. 23, 1968, The Philadelphia Tribune wrote of large . [92], African Americans suffered disproportionately high casualty rates in Vietnam. The United States withdrew its forces in 1973, placing the onus on South Vietnam to fight its own battle. ^ 1st Cavalry Division was the unit with most casualties suffered during the Vietnam War with 32,036; including 5,444 KIA and 26,592 wounded. harvnb error: no target: CITEREFTurse2013 (. Ultimately, by the end of the war, India had suffered over two million fatalities. 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. In that respect, it failed: the two Vietnams were united under a communist banner in July 1976. The Virtual Wall uses the Coffelt Database (CDB) for unit assignment information. Sometimes, the casualty rate is disproportionately high. 58,220. Researchers regard the former Oakland, California Army base as the largest Vietnam War military port in the world. [35], For official US military operations reports, there was no established distinctions between enemy KIA and civilian KIA. 7. The United States lost 58,220 known military personnel. Ordering Information for Electronic Records. 69th Armor Page: Ray's Home Page: E-Mail Me: Note: NVA casualty data was provided by North Vietnam in a press release to Agence France Presse (AFP) on April 3, 1995, on the 20th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. From a Marine second lieutenant in New Jersey who commanded a rifle platoon in Vietnam. (deaths in afghan war Afghanistan war casualties). The war persisted from 1955 to 1975 and most of the fighting took place in South Vietnam; accordingly it suffered the most casualties. [91] Around 3035% of American deaths in the war were non-combat or friendly fire deaths; the largest causes of death in the U.S. armed forces were small arms fire (31.8%), booby traps including mines and frags (27.4%), and aircraft crashes (14.7%). The Vietnam War was a costly conflict between all sides from both a financial and military perspective. The steady aeromedical evacuation and in-theater care performed by the Air Force Medical Service (AFMS) in Southeast, The official News page of the Air Force Medical Service, providing the latest articles about Air Force Medicine and the Air Force. Seeing an opportunity to seize control, Ho's Viet Minh . Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). 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. His estimate of total deaths is reflected in the table. In Qung Nam Province 4,700 civilians were killed in 1969. [103], On 9 August 2012, the United States and Vietnam began a cooperative cleaning up of the toxic chemical from part of Da Nang International Airport, marking the first time Washington has been involved in cleaning up Agent Orange in Vietnam. My Lai (4) and My Khe (4) (collectively the My Lai Massacre) claimed the largest number of victims with 420 and 90 respectively, and in five other places a total of about 100 civilians were executed. [2], Arapaho tribe Cheyenne tribeLakota tribes, Vichy FranceItalian Social Republic 19431945Kingdom of Italy19421943, American units with the highest percentage of casualties per conflict, US units with most casualties per conflict, Union and Confederate numbers added together, The 215 casualty figure is disputed. The study came up with a most likely Vietnamese death toll of 882,000, which included 655,000 adult males (above 15 years of age), 143,000 adult females, and 84,000 children. One escapee died of wounds sustained during his rescue 15 days later. The human costs of the long conflict were harsh for all involved. During warfare, some units take more casualties than other units. The Virtual Wall uses the Coffelt Database (CDB) for unit assignment information. The total number of officer casualties, commissioned and warrant, are 7,877. [45] One example cited by Turse is Operation Speedy Express, an operation by the 9th Infantry Division, which was described by John Paul Vann as, in effect, "many My Lais". 8. 88,594. That can include disabled by injuries, disabled by psychological trauma, captured, deserted, or missing. [3], A 1995 demographic study in Population and Development Review calculated 791,0001,141,000 war-related Vietnamese deaths, both soldiers and civilians, for all of Vietnam from 196575. Regarding killed in action the 2nd Infantry Division was the unit with the highest ratio with 7,094 KIA and 16,575 wounded. The important statistics and information to remember from this lesson are: To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member. Discover the countries that took part in the Vietnam war and how many people died in the Vietnam war. Of these, more than 13,000 were killed and 88,000 wounded, nearly a . KIA. The Geneva conference established a treaty that split the nation of Vietnam in half for the time being, with reunification elections set to be held in 1956. US Army helicopters pour machine-gun fire into the tree line to cover the advance of ground troops. [11][23]:106 R.J. Rummel estimated that ARVN suffered between 219,000 and 313,000 deaths during the war, including in 1975 and prior to 1960. The first American soldier died in the Vietnam War was Richard B. Fitzgibbon, Jr., a U.S. Air Force Technical Sergeant. In the summer of 2017, I was a U.S. Army lieutenant in the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. This series contains records of U.S. military officers and soldiers who died as a result of either a hostile or nonhostile occurrence or who were missing in action or prisoners of war in the Southeast Asian combat area during the Vietnam War including casualties that occurred in Cambodia, China, Laos, North . 58,148 were killed in Vietnam, 75,000 severely disabled, 23,214 were 100% disabled, 5,283 lost limbs and 1,081 sustained multiple amputations. [104], Following the end of the war, many refugees fled Vietnam by boat and ship. All written content, illustrations, and photography are unique to this website (unless where indicated) and not for reuse/reproduction in any form. An addition 3 million Vietnamese were left wounded and around 12 million were refugees. In reality, it is a collection of ideas, images, and information that enough people have chosen to preserve and disseminate. 28 August 2013. In 1980 Richard set out to determine the unit of assignment for each Army soldier who died in Vietnam. [71] The official US Department of Defense figure was 950,765 communist forces killed in Vietnam from 1965 to 1974. Those who argue that the United States opponents won the war cite the United States overall objectives and outcomes. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, but his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, continued the work that Kennedy had started. Moyar, Mark. [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. The question of who won the Vietnam War has been a subject of debate, and the answer depends on the definition of victory. NAVY * All rights reserved. 62. 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. [68] Per the official Vietnamese history, over 10,000 more PAVN soldiers were killed in the final offensive of early 1975. 1-86-NARA-NARA or 1-866-272-6272, Record Group 330: Records of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Record Group 407: Records of the Adjutant General's Office, Collection COFF: Richard Coffelt, Richard Arnold, and David Argabright Collection. Around 2 million civilians were killed in the territories of North and South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. The Vietnam War officially came to an end in 1975 when South Vietnam surrendered to North Vietnam, unable to maintain the fight. Calculating U.S. . This includes US military officers and soldiers who died as a result of either a hostile or non-hostile occurrence, or who were missing in action or prisoners of war during the Vietnam War. [75], The PAVN/VC forces suffered around 600,000 wounded during the war,[76] and prior to the 1975 spring offensive, lost at least 26,880 soldiers taken prisoner - being released after the 1973 Peace Accords. Korean War Casualties Vietnam Casualties Advanced search Export results Vietnam Casualties. Among other countries that fought for South Vietnam on a smaller scale, South Korea suffered more than 4,000 dead, Thailand about 350, Australia more than 500, and New Zealand some three dozen. succeed. Both American/South Vietnamese forces and the Viet Cong can be held accountable for the number of civilian deaths, but the Viet Cong had a larger hand in overtaking villages and using more offensive military tactics to draw out the South Vietnamese forces. Unit Best Practice Resources Sample Unit LDP Orders Leadership Toolkits . Harper Perennial; September 1991. The war persisted from 1955 to 1975 and most of the fighting took place in South Vietnam; accordingly it suffered the most casualties. The U.S. military reported 58,220 American casualties. [48] In December 1966, the Blue Dragon Brigade reportedly perpetrated the Bnh Ha massacre. [36][37][38][39] The My Lai Massacre was initially written off as an operational success and covered up. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, we are losing an estimated 500 Vietnam veterans every day. Although North Vietnamese and Viet Cong casualty counts vary wildly, it is generally understood that they suffered several times the number of American casualties. [53][54] A separate study was carried out by RAND Corporation employee Terry Rambo, who conducted interviews in 1970 on reported Korean atrocities in ARVN/civilian areas. I had just returned from Iraq and was working with Vietnam veterans who'd served in . Rummel does not give a medium or high estimate. According to the Information Bureau of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam (PRG), a shadow government formed by North Vietnam in 1969, between April 1968 and the end of 1970 American ground troops killed about 6,500 civilians in the course of twenty-one operations either on their own or alongside their allies. To be listed on the Memorial one simply need to have been: 1) A native Hoosier; and, 2) Killed in Action or Missing in Action between 1 January . Initially, the toll was just over 57,000, but new casualties came to light. X27 ; s Viet Minh South Korean Marines reportedly perpetrated the Bnh Ha massacre continues grow! Including 5,444 KIA and 16,575 wounded names listed on Panel 1, East Wall, at the apex from... ^ 1st Cavalry Division was the unit with most casualties suffered during the Vietnam War came... 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