According to a 2009 study, one third of land in the central provinces of Vietnam is still contaminated with unexploded mines and ordnance. Learn about Vietnam war statistics and casualties. This was part of the Cold War effort to prevent the spread of Communism across the globe. The above figures on missing and wounded were calculated using Hanoi's declared casualty ratios for the period of 1945 to 1979, during which time the Communists incurred 1.1 million killed, 300,000 missing, and 600,000 wounded. Army Battle Casualties and Nonbattle Deaths (Statistical and Accounting Branch, Office of the Adjutant General), 1 June 1953, 1st Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Battalion, List of battles with most United States military fatalities, "The Old Northwest Territory: America's First Great Westward Expansion", "St. Clair's Campaign of 1791: A Defeat in the Wilderness That Helped Forge Today's U.S. Army", http://www.gdg.org/Research/MOLLUS/mollus7.html, "Chapter 3: The Siege and Capture of Corregidor", "Department of the Army, Lineage and Honors, 1st Battalion 75th Ranger Regiment", "The Korean War. The Viet Cong amassed an estimated 2.3 million troops by 1975. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., lists more than 58,300 names of members of the U.S. armed forces who were killed or went missing in action. During warfare, some units take more casualties than other units. To arrive at the casualty figure of 215, the Regimental Historian (Lt. Wm. During the final years of World War II, political leader Ho Chi Minh organized a group, the Viet Cong, to fight the powers in occupancy of the territory and take control. Two major war memorials commemorating the dead soldiers in the Second Indochina War (a.k.a. Those who argue that the United States won the war point to the fact that the U.S. defeated communist forces during most of Vietnams major battles. The war also spilled over into the neighboring countries of Cambodia and Laos which also endured casualties from aerial and ground fighting. Since body counts were a direct measure of operational success, US "operations reports" often listed civilian deaths as enemy KIA or exaggerated the number. troops. One escapee died of wounds sustained during his rescue 15 days later. The U.S. Constitution grants Congress sole authority to issue declarations of war. 28 August 2013. Post-War Issues: Aftereffects of the Vietnam War on the U.S. The number of casualties is simply the number of members of a unit who are not available for duty. These alphabetical indexes are for your convenience but do not represent the order of names on the Wall. One of the first Black officers to lead a Special Forces team in combat will receive the Medal of Honor, the nation's top award for bravery on the battlefield, A South Korean court has ordered the government to pay $24,000 to a Vietnamese woman who survived a gunshot wound but lost several relatives when South Korean marines rampaged through her village during the Vietnam War in 1968, De-escalation, negotiation, and Vietnamization, The United States negotiates a withdrawal, 9 Questions About the Vietnam War Answered, https://www.britannica.com/event/Vietnam-War, Vietnam War - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11), Vietnam War - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up), Biden to award Medal of Honor to Vietnam-era Army officer, Court says South Korea responsible for Vietnam War massacre. The total number of officer casualties, commissioned and warrant, are 7,877. [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. Marine Corps Casualties: 1775-2015 . Persian Gulf (1988) (Oil Platforms) 2. Ronald H. Spector is Professor of History and International Affairs in the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. Veterans were viewed negatively for their participation in the war, even if it was not by their choice to do so. These numbers do not include civilian and ARVN military deaths result from the communist mass-internment, the refugee crisis and subsequent exodus of Vietnamese people after the Fall of Saigon. The war cost the United States over $120 billion and the lives of over 58,000 troops. 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. [20] About 130 American and 16,000 South Vietnamese POWs died in captivity. Once a unit assignment has been determined, a link to the individual's memorial page is included in the appropriate Unit Index. [71] The official US Department of Defense figure was 950,765 communist forces killed in Vietnam from 1965 to 1974. harvnb error: no target: CITEREFTurse2013 (. (1) GROUND FORCE PERSONNEL, including Army aviation, generally are indexed at the Regimental level but there are exceptions. American civilians were not killed in the Vietnam War. According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, between 200,000 and 400,000 boat people died at sea. French Indochina (Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam) - 1,250,000 . California (5,572 Estimated Casualties). ARMY * [2], Guenter Lewy in 1978 estimated 1,353,000 total deaths in North and South Vietnam during the period 19651974 in which the U.S. was most engaged in the war. 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 . However, side effects occurred because of Agent Orange. the Vietnam War). Both were present at the Battle of Ia Drang, the first large-scale engagement of the Vietnam War. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, but his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, continued the work that Kennedy had started. I would definitely recommend Study.com to my colleagues. 3% were Asian, 7 or . The Vietnam War officially came to an end in 1975 when South Vietnam surrendered to North Vietnam, unable to maintain the fight. 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. 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 . The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Civilian deaths were partly caused by assassinations, massacres, and terror tactics. The numbers below are not exact, as there are still personnel who have not been identified or are identified as missing. There was strong pressure to produce body counts as a measure of operational success and enemy body counts were directly tied to promotions and commendation. In the United States, the Vietnam War became known as one of the most unpopular wars . Data for deaths in Laos is incomplete. Total. 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. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. The boat people's first destinations were the Southeast Asian locations of Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. Estimates include both civilian and military deaths in North and South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. 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. United States, National Archives, Korean War and Vietnam War Records; United States Vietnam War 1964 to 1972; Related Websites: NARA Series Description; NARA Reference Information Paper 90 Prisoners of War and Missing in Action from the Vietnam War Era; NARA State-Level Fatal Casualty Lists for the Vietnam War I had just returned from Iraq and was working with Vietnam veterans who'd served in . 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. A. On February 26, 2007, President George W. Bush presented Crandall with the Medal of Honor for . 70. . 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 United States provided funding and troops to the South Vietnamese effort to prevent Communism from spreading further in East Asia. The Vietnam War was a long, deadly struggle that took place from 1954 to 1975 between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. 8. Many movements on the home front arose in the early 1970s to end the war, which sped the process of withdrawing troops along. An estimate by the Department of Defense after the war gave a figure of 1.2 million civilian casualties, including 195,000 deaths. Put in their place to rule was Emperor Bao Dai, a French implant who had ties to creating a democracy. In the summer of 2017, I was a U.S. Army lieutenant in the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History [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. It often refers not to those that are killed on the battlefield but to those who can no longer fight. * The 143 men subsequently declared dead between 1973 and 2002 are not included in these totals. This led to increased racial tension in the military. Casualty Data For The Vietnam War. In October 1966, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara initiated Project 100,000 which further lowered military standards for 100,000 additional draftees per year. It is estimated that South Vietnam lost between 200,000 and 250,000 fighters. The sum of those totals is 3,091,000 war deaths between 195575. lessons in math, English, science, history, and more. Vietnam War, Awards and Decorations of Honor, 1965-1972. These deaths made up about 40% of the total casualties. . Rummel estimates 212,000 killed by Khmer Rouge (19671975), 60,000 killed by U.S. and 1,000 killed by South Vietnam (196773). PAVN and VC losses were reported as 1.1 million dead and civilian deaths of Vietnamese on both sides totaled 2.0 million. They also are AT-CTI certified. In 1968 US soldiers murdered several hundred Vietnamese civilians in the single . USA.gov, The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration Two other cleanup sites being reviewed by the United States and Vietnam are Bin Ha Air Base, in the southern province of ng Naia 'hotspot' for dioxinand Ph Ct Air Base in Bnh nh Province, according to U.S. He succeeded in 1954 and established a Communist government. This was the turning point and the start of South Vietnam's defeat. It is still a concern in Southeast Asia today. The "patrol boat: riverine," or Navy PBR, was the first watercraft built for the so-called brown water navy in Vietnam. Data for this series of conflicts includes military personnel killed in the attacks on the USS Cole on October 12, 2000, the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, and in Afghanistan and elsewhere since those dates. Democide is the murder of persons by or at the behest of governments. 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. 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. Around 3.8 million casualties were suffered in total between both sides, with nearly half being civilian deaths. The names of those who gave their lives and of those who remain missing are inscribed in the order they . For example, during the Seven Days Battles in the American Civil War (June 25 to July 1, 1862) there were 5,228 killed, 23,824 wounded and 7,007 missing or taken prisoner for a total of 36,059 casualties. [93][97], Civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, John Lewis, Muhammad Ali and others, criticized the racial disparity in both casualties and representation in the entire military, prompting the Pentagon to order cutbacks in the number of African Americans in combat positions. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. WWII POWs; WWII Enlistments; Japan POWs; Korean War Casualties; Displaying 1 - 20 . The Vietnam War became a painful lesson for many - from Washington, D.C. to Smalltown America. [99][100] In 2012 alone, unexploded ordnance and claimed 500 casualties in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, according to activists and Vietnamese government databases. 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. The Vietnam War was a long, deadly . Principal Wars in Which the US Participated . The war also spilled over into the neighboring countries of Cambodia and Laos which also endured casualties from aerial and ground fighting. 1975. More than 58,000 American casualties of the Vietnam War are commemorated on the Vietnam Wall in Washington, DC. "It was the epitome of immoralityOne of the times I counted bodies after an air strikewhich always ended with two napalm bombs which would just fry everything that was leftI counted sixty-two bodies. Of the 4953 Navy and Air Force casualties, both officer and enlisted, 4, 736 or 96% were white. The U.S. military has estimated that between 200,000 and 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died in the war. 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." Many were never directly involved in the fighting, but rather were only caught in the crosshairs of South Vietnamese and North Vietnamese forces. The Virtual Wall uses the Coffelt Database (CDB) for unit assignment information. There are some limitations on the search capabilities and downloading records en masse is not allowed. All other trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners. The Vietnam War began mainly over political conflict between Ho Chi Minh's Communist state of North Vietnam and the U.S.-supported democracy of South Vietnam. Lewy reduced the number of Viet Cong (VC) and People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) battle deaths claimed by the U.S. by 30 percent (in accordance with the opinion of United States Department of Defense officials), and assumed that one third of the reported battle deaths of the PAVN/VC may have actually been civilians. 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 Vietnam Conflict Extract Data File of the Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) Extract Files contains records of 58,220 U.S. military fatal casualties of the Vietnam War. Answer (1 of 4): The Army lost the most which makes sense as they had the most number of soldiers serve in Vietnam. Those totals include only Vietnamese deaths, and do not include American and other allied military deaths which amounted to about 64,000. They have a Bachelor's in Air Traffic Management from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and minored in Aviation Safety and Homeland Security. 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. American Greatness, by Victor Davis Hanson Original Article. On October 22, 1957, the U.S. forces suffered their first hostile casualties. They also assert that the U.S. overall suffered fewer casualties than its opponents. Deaths caused by the South Korean military, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong military casualties, Disproportion of African American casualties. North Vietnam had won victory over the French and was likely to make South Vietnam submit to a Communist regime. [58] According to Guenter Lewy, the ARVN suffered between 171,331 and 220,357 deaths during the war. in Social Studies Education. "[56] Investigations by Korean civic groups have alleged that at least 9,000 civilians were massacred by ROK forces. In the days before "embeds" this generation's enforced melding of photographer and military unit there was a certain sense of . [1][note 1] The word casualty has been used in a military context since at least 1513. This Vietnam War Covert Special Ops Unit Is The Deadliest You Never Heard Of. 13,091. [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. [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. [68] Per the official Vietnamese history, over 10,000 more PAVN soldiers were killed in the final offensive of early 1975. Their estimates for conflict deaths in Vietnam are 164,923 from 195564 and 1,458,050 from 196575 for a total of 1,622,973. The film follows the experiences of both Moore, portrayed by Mel Gibson, and his wife, Julia, played by Madeleine Stowe. Regarding killed in action the 1st Marine Division was the unit with the highest . [36][37][38][39] The My Lai Massacre was initially written off as an operational success and covered up. And John Sullivan enlisted in the Navy after graduating high school and served as a second class machinist mate during the Vietnam War. Civilian deaths caused by both sides amounted to a significant percentage of total deaths. In 1939, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam were French colonies organized under a single administrative unit called Killed in Action (KIA); Died while Missing. Contents1 What was the ratio [] The Australians committed more forces to the war in Vietnam than any other foreign contributor (except for the United States, that is). [19], Other casualties for the ARVN included up to 1,170,000 military wounded,[59] and 1,000,000 surrendered or captured. 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. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. [21] During the peak war years, another scholar Guenter Lewy attributed almost a third of civilian deaths to the VC. Cobra helicopters totaled 1,110,716 flight hours in Vietnam. Two further massacres were reported by soldiers who had taken part in them, one north of c Pho in, 426 killed in action, 74 died of other causes, 6 missing in action (all accounted for and repatriated), This page was last edited on 1 March 2023, at 15:26. Nine-year-old Kim Phuc had ripped off her burning . The Coffelt Database is an intellectual property with copyrights held by the Coffelt Group and other contributing organizations. [62][63] Based on unit surveys, a rough estimate of 3040% of dead and missing were non-combat deaths. In that respect, it failed: the two Vietnams were united under a communist banner in July 1976. [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. The Vietnam War was fought in Vietnamese territory between mainly South Vietnam/the United States and the Viet Cong of North Vietnam. [26], RJ Rummel estimated that American forces killed around 5,500 people in democide between 1960 and 1972, from a range of between 4,000 and 10,000. Harper Perennial; September 1991. The database also estimates combat deaths in Cambodia for the years 196775 to total 259,000. [55] Widespread reports of deliberate mass killings by Korean forces alleged that they were the result of systemic, deliberate policies to massacre civilians, with murders running into the hundreds. 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 . The "Military Factory" name and MilitaryFactory.com logo are registered U.S. trademarks protected by all applicable domestic and international intellectual property laws. Regarding killed in action the 2nd Infantry Division was the unit with the highest ratio with 7,094 KIA and 16,575 wounded. Revolutionary War. This article displays the highest percentage of casualties among American units, including those wiped out as an effective force. Index of Vietnam War Casualties by Unit of Assignment. 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. His estimate of total deaths is reflected in the table. [citation needed] Black people often made up a disproportionate 25% or more of combat units, while constituting only 12% of the military. Of these, more than 13,000 were killed and 88,000 wounded, nearly a . An estimated two million civilians of all nationalities, including those of Cambodia and Laos, were killed in the fighting. The term casualty in warfare can often be confusing. Ho Chi Minh was outraged and began to engage his forces in small fights with South Vietnamese troops. The United States committed some 550,000 troops to the Vietnam front at the height of the conflict, suffered more than 58,000 casualties, and engaged in battle after battle with communist forces in the region until its withdrawal in 1973. The Fall of Saigon in 1975 | Vietnam War Timeline, Causes & Aftermath, Battle of Ia Drang | Battle of Ia Drang Casualty List, Easter Offensive of 1972: Vietnam War | History, Impact & Aftermath. Updates? Devon has tutored for almost two years. Create your account. 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. Enrolling in a course lets you earn progress by passing quizzes and exams. A number of incidents occurred during the war in which civilians were deliberately targeted or killed. 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. "[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. Being killed in action was the leading cause of American casualties. In general we index the memorials at the lowest practical unit level. The overwhelming majority of the MIA are from northern Vietnam. The "Holloway Database" effectively became the public's sole source of information regarding all our Vietnam dead. Colonial France inhabited Vietnam through the end of World War II. The killed in action figure comes from "Special Subject 4: The Work of Locating and Recovering the Remains of Martyrs From Now Until 2020 And Later Years," downloaded from the Vietnamese government website datafile on 1 December 2017. Vietnam Syndrome Overview & Analysis | What is Vietnam Syndrome? Sources: World War II Honor List of Dead and Missing, June 1946; Battle Casualties of the Army, 30 September 1954; List of Casualties Incurred by U.S. Military Personnel in Connection with the Conflict in Vietnam, 30 September 1975. Seeing an opportunity to seize control, Ho's Viet Minh . The Virtual Wall uses the Coffelt Database (CDB) for unit assignment information. South Vietnam supplied a total of 942,000 troops. U.S. Marines in Vietnam, 1967, Fighting the North Vietnamese, 1984 . Apart from these few restrictions, the Coffelt Database is open to the public - just as Richard Coffelt intended. The following is a chart of all casualties, listed by race, and in descending order. MARINE CORPS * In just 30 minutes, they had 30 casualties. Korean War Casualties Vietnam Casualties Advanced search Export results Vietnam Casualties. Australian special operations units would go out into the jungles of Vietnam for weeks at a time, often without saying a word to one another in order to maintain complete silence as they stalked the Northern troops through the jungles. One study estimated that American commanders exaggerated body counts by 100 percent. Lochren) subtracted the muster figures (262-47=215)(82.1%) and asserted that "[every one of the] 215 [missing men] lay upon the field. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union and China poured weapons, supplies, and advisers into the North, which in turn provided support, political direction, and regular combat troops for the campaign in the South. As a member, you'll also get unlimited access to over 84,000 Chrissy has taught secondary English and history and writes online curriculum. 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. This stemmed from the United States' involvement in the Cold War, which the United States fought to preserve democracy against the forces of Communism springing up in countries such as the Soviet Union and China. Village battles were not uncommon as the two factions fought for control of the region. The Vietnam War was costly to the U.S. Marine Corps. The first American soldier died in the Vietnam War was Richard B. Fitzgibbon, Jr., a U.S. Air Force Technical Sergeant. [11][12][13][14] It was difficult to distinguish between civilians and military personnel in many instances as many individuals were part-time guerrillas or impressed laborers who did not wear uniforms. | 9 During that period, they stated, they lost 849,018 killed plus approximately 232,000 missing and 463,000 wounded. It was first used in 1962 and was effective at its job. Combat Area Casualties Dataset. Our aim here is to provide a more credibly data-based estimate of Vietnamese war-related deaths from 1965 to 1975 using the analytical tools of modern demography. At the heart of the conflict was the desire of North Vietnam, which had defeated the French colonial administration of Vietnam in 1954, to unify the entire country under a single communist regime modeled after those of the Soviet Union and China. Ho Khang, ed, Marilyn Young. The dates of death . Ho Chi Minh created the Viet Cong as a resistance force to French democracy. Lebanon (1982-1984) 240. For details of the total number of Australians who died during the Vietnam War, 1962- 1975, please refer to Deaths as a result of service with Australian units.. Statistics: Total Australian service casualties in the Vietnam War, 1962-72 The United States lost 58,220 known military personnel. Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition, gives a 1513 reference for military casualty, and an 1844 reference for civilian use. Tensions escalated into armed conflict between the two sides, and in 1961 U.S. President John F. Kennedy chose to expand the military aid program. [40][37] Sometimes civilian casualties from airstrikes or artillery barrages against villages were reported as "enemies killed". Chapter 14: "The cease-fire war claimed 26,500 ARVN dead in 1973, and almost 30,000 in 1974. * The last U.S. infantry unit was pulled from the field on Aug. 11, 1972, so U.S. casualties dramatically declined. COAST GUARD *, Copyright 1997-2018 www.VirtualWall.org, Ltd (TM), Division level indexes are used for Division HQ and minor assigned unit personnel, Brigade level indexes are used for Brigade HQ and minor assigned unit personnel, Aviation Group level indexes are used for Group HQ and minor assigned unit personnel, Aviation Battalion level indexes are used for Bn HQ, minor assigned units, and Aviation Companies which stayed with a single Battalion throughout their time in Vietnam, Separate Battalion indexes are used for Battalions not assigned to a Regiment, Aviation Companies that served with two or more Aviation Battalions while in Vietnam are indexed separately.