Ronald H. Spector is Professor of History and International Affairs in the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. . [95][98] As a result, by the war's completion, total black casualties averaged 12.5% of US combat deaths, approximately equal to percentage of draft-eligible black men, though still slightly higher than the 10% who served in the military. Casualty Data For The Vietnam War. [24] Benjamin Valentino estimates 110,000310,000 deaths as a "possible case" of "counter-guerrilla mass killings" by U.S. and South Vietnamese forces during the war. [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. 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. AIR FORCE * [22], Thomas Thayer in 1985 estimated that during the 196572 period the VC killed 33,052 South Vietnamese village officials and civil servants.[23]. U.S. Marines in Vietnam, 1966, An Expanding War, 1982 . [27] Estimates for the number of North Vietnamese civilian deaths resulting from US bombing range from 30,00065,000. [64] According to the Vietnamese government, from 1994 to 2012, 172,460 PAVN/VC bodies were found, including 15,989 in Cambodia, and 14,549 in Laos, and around 10,000 bodies were found from 2012 to 2015, reducing the number of MIA from 390,000 (1993) to 207,000 (2016). The Vietnamese newspaper Nhn Dn reported in 2012 that the U.S. government was providing $41 million to the project, which aimed to reduce the contamination level in 73,000 m of soil by late 2016. [19] Rummel's mid-level estimate includes 17,000 South Vietnamese civil servants killed by PAVN/VC. As before, emphasis was placed on obtaining hard documentation, a task made easier as material became available on the Internet from governmental and private organizations. These photographs have become a part of the Coffelt Database. [104], Following the end of the war, many refugees fled Vietnam by boat and ship. [7], R. J. Rummel's mid-range estimate in 1997 was that the total deaths due to the Vietnam War totaled 2,450,000 from 195475. U.S. military advisers, present in small numbers throughout the 1950s, were introduced on a large scale beginning in 1961, and active combat units were introduced in 1965. [5], Uppsala University in Sweden maintains the Armed Conflict Database. The Viet Cong amassed an estimated 2.3 million troops by 1975. Casualties fluctuated considerably from year to year, but a degree of accuracy can be inferred from the fact that 500,000 was 59 percent of the 849,018 total and that 59 percent of the war's days had passed by the time of Fallaci's conversation with Giap. Its like a teacher waved a magic wand and did the work for me. 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. Including 28 civilians, originally there were 52 missing civilians. From 1965 to 1975, nearly 500,000 Marines served in Southeast Asia. [32] and studies have shown higher rates of casualties, health effects, and next-generation birth defects in Vietnamese peoples. 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. Ho Chi Minh was outraged and began to engage his forces in small fights with South Vietnamese troops. Civilian deaths were also caused by mortar and artillery, extensive aerial bombing and the use of firepower in military operations conducted in heavily populated areas. [26] The program resulted in an estimated 26,000 to 41,000 killed, with an unknown number possibly being innocent civilians. combat, provided close combat support or were at least fairly regularly. Vietnam War Casualties, MIA and POWs. The U.S. military has estimated that between 200,000 and 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died. 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. 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 Among other countries that fought for South Vietnam, South Korea had more than 4,000 dead, Thailand about 350, Australia more than 500, and New Zealand some three dozen. Some Vietnam War veterans that died between 1966 and 1968 came from Los Angeles, Sacramento, Yuba City, San Diego, Santa Ana and Whittier or Stockton.. California has the highest veteran count of all the U.S. states, totaling 596,130. 2,594,000 personnel served within the borders of South Vietnam. The database also estimates combat deaths in Cambodia for the years 196775 to total 259,000. 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. Contents1 What was the ratio [] [55] These policies were also reported on by US commanders, with one US Marine General stating "whenever the Korean marines received fire "or think [they got] fired on from a village they'd divert from their march and go over and completely level the village it would be a lesson to (the Vietnamese). 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 . 2.7 million American troops were sent to South Vietnam. By 1969 more than 500,000 U.S. military personnel were stationed in Vietnam. Neighbouring Laos and Cambodia similarly fell to communists. 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. Estimates include both civilian and military deaths in North and South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Marine Corps Casualties: 1775-2015 . Index of Vietnam War Casualties by Unit of Assignment. Before the Second World War, Vietnam was occupied by the colonial French empire. * The 143 men subsequently declared dead between 1973 and 2002 are not included in these totals. Two major war memorials commemorating the dead soldiers in the Second Indochina War (a.k.a. Casualties - US vs NVA/VC. As this was two years before the IBM PC (personal computer) came on the market, the work necessarily was done the old-fashioned way: by library research, travel, and in hand-writing. American Foreign Policy in the First Indochina War. November 19, 1967 was one of the bloodiest days for American troops in the Vietnam War. exposed to enemy attack. 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 . [29] American bombing in Cambodia is estimated to have killed between 30,000 and 150,000 civilians and combatants. 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. North Vietnam and the United States reached a peace agreement shortly after withdrawal. The 2nd Marine Brigade reportedly perpetrated the Binh Tai Massacre on 9 October 1966. Of these, more than 13,000 were killed and 88,000 wounded, nearly a . Colonial France inhabited Vietnam through the end of World War II. 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. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. in Social Studies Education. Harper Perennial; September 1991. . Week of November 22. Civilian deaths are still ongoing because of the use of unexploded ordnances left behind from the war. Major Bruce Crandall made over 20 flights into intense enemy fire during a battle in the Ia Drang Valley, South Vietnam, in November 1965, evacuating 70 wounded and delivering ammunition. 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." Lochren) subtracted the muster figures (262-47=215)(82.1%) and asserted that "[every one of the] 215 [missing men] lay upon the field. 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. 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. Records with Unit Information on Military Personnel Who Died During the Vietnam War . One escapee died of wounds sustained during his rescue 15 days later. However, side effects occurred because of Agent Orange. These are the most accurate estimates of the death tolls for each group of fighters: Civilians made up a large portion of the casualties in the Vietnam War. This was the turning point and the start of South Vietnam's defeat. The Viet Cong lost around 1.1 million combatants. 232,000 military personnel were still missing as of 2017, a total of 1,081,000 dead and missing for the American War. [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. The term casualty in warfare can often be confusing. Vietnam War Casualties 1956-1998. In late 2006, the project scope was extended further by including circumstances of death information in the Coffelt Database - the "how and where" of their deaths. Vietnam War: 1964-1973: 58,220: 153,303: 5,283: 1:2.6: 1:29.0 (0.03) Persian Gulf War: flashcard sets. Of the 4953 Navy and Air Force casualties, both officer and enlisted, 4, 736 or 96% were white. In the midst of an intense 3-week fight against the North Vietnamese Army in the province of Kontum, South Vietnam, elements of the U.S. Army 173d Airborne Brigade and the 503d Infantry Regiment assaulted a battalion of North Vietnamese soldiers entrenched on a hill outside the village . Chart and statistics of US death/wounded in war as well as amputation ratios in the Afghanistan war compared with other major operations. Cpl., Memphis, Tenn. Reference Information Paper 103", "From the Archives: President Nixon welcomes Marines home from Vietnam", "MILITARY: Marine unit that suffered most casualties coming home", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=American_units_with_the_highest_percentage_of_casualties_per_conflict&oldid=1125722100, This page was last edited on 5 December 2022, at 13:58. The Vietnam War was a long, deadly struggle that took place from 1954 to 1975 between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh created the Viet Cong as a resistance force to French democracy. Civilian deaths were partly caused by assassinations, massacres, and terror tactics. 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. [89], The total number of casualties, both KIA and non-hostile deaths, for drafted and volunteer service personnel (figures are approximated):[90], During the Vietnam War, 30% of wounded service members died of their wounds. The Vietnam War is one of the most unpopular wars in American history. History is not a fixed set of facts. [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. He estimates that between 30 and 46% of the total war deaths were civilians. In the days before "embeds" this generation's enforced melding of photographer and military unit there was a certain sense of . 1. From refugee camps in Southeast Asia, the great majority of boat people were resettled in more developed countries. A casualty is just a soldier who is no longer available for the immediate battle or campaign, the major consideration in combat. 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. 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. [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. Apart from these few restrictions, the Coffelt Database is open to the public - just as Richard Coffelt intended. The Vietnam War became a painful lesson for many - from Washington, D.C. to Smalltown America. Trade between the two nations ultimately resumed in the 1990s. The exact breakdown still remains unclear, although an estimated 273,000 Cambodians and 62,000 Lao lost their lives. . [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. Data for deaths in Laos is incomplete. LIFE magazine, June 27, 1969, featuring a portrait of U.S. Army specialist William C. Gearing, Jr., one of 242 American servicemen killed in a single week of fighting during the Vietnam War. 7,484 women served in Vietnam, of whom 6,250 or 83.5% were nurses. Ho Khang, ed, Marilyn Young. 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. 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. 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. The Vietnamese, in the midst of the fighting, only had a growing desire to separate from colonial France and create their own nation. She has an M.S.Ed. American civilians were not killed in the Vietnam War. but not without Marine and U.S. Air Force casualties. The Vietnam War was a long, deadly . [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. Put in their place to rule was Emperor Bao Dai, a French implant who had ties to creating a democracy. [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. Answer (1 of 4): The Army lost the most which makes sense as they had the most number of soldiers serve in Vietnam. 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. That can include disabled by injuries, disabled by psychological trauma, captured, deserted, or missing. Nine-year-old Kim Phuc had ripped off her burning . However, from a constitutional perspective, this conflict did not technically count as a war. 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. All other trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners. The overwhelming majority of the MIA are from northern Vietnam. In 1975 South Vietnam fell to a full-scale invasion by the North. [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 U.S. National Archives shows that 58,220 U.S. soldiers perished. [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. [1] Other Deaths (In Theater) 2,835 Other Deaths in Service (Non-Theater) 17,672 Non-mortal Woundings 103,284 Living Veterans 1,165,000 Vietnam War (1964-1975) Total U.S. Servicemembers (Worldwide)6 8,744,000 Deployed to Southeast Asia 7 3,403,000 Battle Deaths 8 47,434 Other Deaths (In Theater)8 10,786 Other Deaths in Service (Non-Theater)8 32,000 Air Group or Air Wing level when necessary, At other levels when appropriate for Headquarters and minor assigned unit personnel, Commissioned ship name (i.e., "USS WHATEVER"), Task Force level (TF 115, TF 116, TF 117) for personnel assigned to the riverine and coastal forces, Naval Support Activity level for the shore establishment, Fleet Marine Force unit for Navy personnel assigned to FMF units, SEAL/UDT and SeaBee personnel are indexed under the next higher command. Copies of WWII though Vietnam era (men born April 28, 1877 to March 28, 1957) Selective Service Records may be obtained from the National Personnel Records Center, in St. Louis, for a fee. Civil War Deaths | How Many People Died in the Civil War? [11], Author Mark Woodruff noted that when the Vietnamese Government finally revealed its estimated losses (in April 1995) as being 1.1 million dead or missing, U.S body count figures had actually underestimated enemy losses. The war also spilled over into the neighboring countries of Cambodia and Laos which also endured casualties from aerial and ground fighting. The film follows the experiences of both Moore, portrayed by Mel Gibson, and his wife, Julia, played by Madeleine Stowe. 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. Between October 1966 and June 1969, 246,000 soldiers were recruited through Project 100,000, of whom 41% were black; black people only made up about 11% of the population of the US. Although North Vietnamese and Viet Cong casualty counts vary wildly, it is generally understood that they suffered several times the number of American casualties. Joseph L. Rhodes, 22, Marines, L. * During January 1973, 29 Americans died in Vietnam--19 as a result of hostile action. I had just returned from Iraq and was working with Vietnam veterans who'd served in . Grenada (1983) 3. The United States entered Vietnam with the principal purpose of preventing a communist takeover of the region. Who had the highest casualty rates in the Vietnam War? In 1976, the Vietnamese government organized Gathering Teams to find the remains of dead soldiers. The following is a chart of all casualties, listed by race, and in descending order. Necessarily, more is lost to time than is remembered. PAVN and VC losses were reported as 1.1 million dead and civilian deaths of Vietnamese on both sides totaled 2.0 million. Those totals include only Vietnamese deaths, and do not include American and other allied military deaths which amounted to about 64,000. Create your account. Memorial pages honoring Vietnam War casualties, listed by their last names. Not all of these were military personnel; nearly half of the deaths of the Vietnam War were the deaths of civilians caught in the fighting. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. has the names listed in chronological order by date of loss. The riot at the Long Binh Jail is the most publicized of thousands of racial incidents reported in South Vietnam between 1968 and 1971. He received his B.A. This prompted the official start of the Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War. [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". The idea that this war was only to stop the spread of communism and push democracy on newly forming nations was very unpopular, and many civilians believed that the United States should not have gotten involved at all. 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. Persian Gulf (1988) (Oil Platforms) 2. Vietnam War Casualties record set contains 58,192 additional names of service people who lost their lives while serving overseas. About 2 million Vietnamese civilians were killed in the fighting. [68] Per the official Vietnamese history, over 10,000 more PAVN soldiers were killed in the final offensive of early 1975. * The last U.S. infantry unit was pulled from the field on Aug. 11, 1972, so U.S. casualties dramatically declined. 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. According to a 2009 study, one third of land in the central provinces of Vietnam is still contaminated with unexploded mines and ordnance. These Vietnam War photos taken by U.S. Army photographers reveal a side of the conflict that few people have ever seen. During warfare, some units take more casualties than other units. 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. 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. [1][note 1] The word casualty has been used in a military context since at least 1513. Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition, gives a 1513 reference for military casualty, and an 1844 reference for civilian use. Chapter 17 index: "Communists provided further corroboration of the proximity of their casualty figures to American figures in a postwar disclosure of total losses from 1960 to 1975. "[56] Investigations by Korean civic groups have alleged that at least 9,000 civilians were massacred by ROK forces. The Vietnam War was costly to the U.S. Marine Corps. In the United States, the Vietnam War became known as one of the most unpopular wars . 70. . 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. In general we index the memorials at the lowest practical unit level. 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. 1975. 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.
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