how many south vietnamese died in the vietnam war

Subtracting foreign dead from this (line 210) gives a likely Vietnam War, war-dead total of 1,719,000 people (line 211). On April 29, 1975, as communist North Vietnamese troops closed in on the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon, the United States ordered the immediate evacuation of U.S. personnel and several. Fifty Years Later, Agent Orange Still Kills in Vietnam "It exploded in my hand.". Historical background In South Vietnam, the government of Ngo Dinh Diem countered North Vietnamese subversion (including the assassination of over 450 South Vietnamese officials by Viet Cong in 1956) by detaining tens of thousands of suspected communists in "political re-education centers." But, no matter how careful, accidents happened. For these reasons I have made a special effort to divide the estimates into the smallest consistent groups and where possible to use the resulting consolidated figures to cross check totals and subtotals. For the most part, the Chinese stayed in the background, rebuilding areas destroyed by U.S. bombs and manning anti-aircraft batteries. Veterans were viewed negatively for their participation in the war, even if it was not by their choice to do so. A Cold War-era billboard in Moscow showing bombs raining down on Uncle Sam reading, 'Aggressors out of Vietnam!' I spoke through my interpreter to a small, dark-skinned boy whose left arm ended just above the elbow and whose left eye socket was sealed shut with pink scar tissue. He was one of the officials who tried to provide food and camps for the refugees straggling into Tuby-Hoa. Summing these various estimates gives us a total American democide of around 4,000 to 10,000 Vietnamese, or a likely 5,500 (line 613). In contrast to the world wars, New Zealand's contribution was modest. Without giving figures, Bernard Fall (line 371) gives substance to the Culbertson estimate in his discussion of the execution of intellectuals over the years 1956-1960 as a result of the "hundred flowers" campaign similar to that carried out by Mao in China.7. Therefore, I attributed all alleged Viet Cong democide to North Vietnam. STATISTICS OF VIETNAMESE GENOCIDE AND MASS MURDER STATISTICS OF DEMOCIDE Chapter 6 Statistics Of Vietnamese Democide Estimates, Calculations, And Sources * By R.J. Rummel Perhaps of all countries, democide in Vietnam and by Vietnamese is most difficult to unravel and assess. And the illusory playthings are cluster bombs. 8. Military Advisors in Vietnam: 1963 | JFK Library (line 279). Pulitzer Prize-winner Lewis M. Simons is the author of To Tell the Truth: My Life as a Foreign Correspondent. Several of the 32 generals died in camp, but there were 28 alive when Co was released in 1987. This is preliminary since in the light of subsequent figures for war-deaths among South Vietnamese and other forces, it may have to be adjusted. 320,000 military personnel, more than 4,000, https://www.history.com/news/vietnam-war-combatants. Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City. Many movements on the home front arose in the early 1970s to end the war, which sped the process of withdrawing troops along. US Now Aiding Vietnam in Finding the Country's Missing in Action from For reasons previously given, I consider South Vietnam a separate country during this period and accordingly treat it as foreign soil for North Vietnam. In determining the final democide "land reform" total, I only added the final "land reform" dead (line 309) to those killed in political struggle, etc. Hundreds of Vietnamese continued to lose their lives each day after the fighting was supposed to have stopped. Though Vietnamese communists allied with the Khmer Rouge during the Vietnam War, they eventually deposed the regime in 1979. So, too, did a legitimate fear of Communism, Moise says. It is suspected that over 1.2 million of these deaths were murders. They were determined to go on holding it, both as a matter of national pride and because if they let one colony go loose, then the others might get ideas.. In Afghanistan, figures hover near 70,000. Not only is Vietnam's history complex, therefore, but the estimates of those killed in war and democide differ considerably by perpetrator, victims, time, and place. View of a collection of defused cluster bombs and grenades used by an international bomb disposal group for training in Savannakhet, Laos, on May 2, 2006. There is only one estimate of the associated democide, and for it the source (Hoang Van Chi, a Vietnamese nationalist with first hand experience) cites Professor Gerard Tongas who was in Hanoi during these years (he left in 1959), and which he claims to be accurate.3 I will therefore rely on this estimate in the subsequent calculations. Unsurprisingly, the North Vietnamese likewise moved troops and supplies through neighboring Cambodia, which, though officially neutral, tolerated the communist intrusions. Given the extent and nature of this war for Americans, it seems that a low of near 25 Vietnamese so murdered per month is probably a rock bottom figure, especially considering that this is less than one such killing per day for all American ground action in all of South Vietnam. Many of the swaggering, close-cropped Americans, who towered over the diminutive Lao women, were weighted with thick, 24-karat gold chains slung around their necks and wrists. Finally, we must recognize that aside from what was estimated above, there was throughout American involvement a background of small level atrocities (such as the killing of Viet Cong trying to surrender or of innocent peasants simply because they were running away) and massacres (such as wiping out the inhabitants of a village from which a sniper had been firing). As can be seen, while the high is appropriately higher, the low is over 100,000 greater than the consolidated figure and raises some question as to the validity of the underlying sub-totals. Lao scrap dealers buy metal cluster bomb casings and plane parts from local villagers in Laos, in 1991. They're too tempting for any girl or boy to ignore, let alone kids from isolated villages in the hinterlands of a country where nearly three-quarters of the population live in grinding poverty. South Korea was the main U.S. and South Vietnamese partner, providing over 300,000 troops and suffering some 5,000 deaths. In April 2020, the. Chapter 23: Democide Through the Years Over 58,000 American lives were lost in the fighting. These records were transferred into the custody of the National Archives and Records Administration in 2008. See how communist forces turned Saigon into Ho Chi Minh City and created the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, De-escalation, negotiation, and Vietnamization, The United States negotiates a withdrawal, Pop Quiz: 19 Things to Know About the Vietnam War, 9 Questions About the Vietnam War Answered, Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger during the Fall of Saigon. For a preliminary war-dead range, I take the lowest low and highest high and average the two mid-values (line 105). I selected January 1960 based on those considerations given in Death By Government.2 That is, as evidenced by their activity, such as the building of the Ho Chi Minh trial, secret speeches by North Vietnamese leaders, orders to their operatives, and the creation of political front organizations in the south, by this date Hanoi clearly had prepared the way for and had begun a sustained guerrilla and military effort to take over the country. Another issue concerns whether to calculate a democide rate for North Vietnam that would include that portion of South Vietnam it controlled (which in 1964 could have been as high as 80 percent16). : 20 23,310 U.S. military personnel were in South Vietnam. After an easy success at Phuoc Long, northeast of Saigon, in December 1974January 1975, the Hanoi leaders believed that victory was near. This time the whole range (line 816) is as it should be (the low is lower and high higher) and the mid-value is relatively close to the consolidated one (this also lends further support to the sum for civilians alone). Jerry Redfern/LightRocket via Getty Images As to the 1954 to 1975 period, democide continued in North Vietnam (lines 370 to 371) and there is one estimate of it available for 1956 to 1959 from Todd Culbertson, a member of the Editorial Page staff of the Richmond Virginia News Leader. The war was fought on Vietnamese land, in addition to the territories of Cambodia and Laos. And, full disclosure, downing my share of beers at the White Rose. As a result of the 1954 Geneva Agreements that formally ended the Indochina War, Vietnam was officially split into North Vietnam and South Vietnam, all be it until Vietnam wide elections were to be held. I therefore treat them separately (lines 436 to 448). Munitions experts say it could take a century to complete. South Korea was the main U.S. and South Vietnamese partner, contributing more than 300,000 troops to the war. It wanted no part of the new conflict. Between 1964 and 1973, the Americans flew 580,000 bombing runs over Laos, according to Defense Department figures. (line 319), and the suppression of uprisings (line 326). Peter Charlesworth/LightRocket via Getty Images This prompted the official start of the Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War. He was 7. When added together these estimates cover the period 1957 to 1972 (line 413) and their range is contained within the final consolidated one (line 428). Learn about Vietnam war statistics and casualties. Trade between the two nations ultimately resumed in the 1990s. (The two countries were undergoing a bitter split at the time.). The important statistics and information to remember from this lesson are: To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member. Calculated from Thayer (1985, Table 4.4, p. 34). Moreover, thousands or tens of thousands were abducted to disappear forever, but are not included here under assassinations and executions. In total 3,760,000 Vietnamese probably died of political violence during over forty-two years (line 831). Thieus government, corrupt and inefficient as ever, now faced enormous difficulties with inflation, unemployment, apathy, and an enormous desertion rate in the army. Some died by drowning and sheer exhaustion. The Soviets even allegedly shot down some U.S. planes. These deaths made up about 40% of the total casualties. . The U.S. military has estimated that between 200,000 and 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died. The exact breakdown still remains unclear, although an estimated 273,000 Cambodians and 62,000 Lao lost their lives. I guess that the 1956 portion of this estimate includes executions associated with political repression, rebellions, and the last year of "land reform." Vietnam War | Facts, Summary, Years, Timeline, Casualties - Britannica Chapter 12: Feudal Russia This sum is then compared to one estimate of democide given by the National Liberation Front (line 630) and its extrapolation for the whole period 1954 to war's end (line 632). Two years after the withdrawal of the last United States combat troops, North Vietnamese Army (NVA) tanks and soldiers rolled into Saigon.Within days, the US-backed South Vietnamese government turned on its heels and fled, its leaders spirited out of the country with American help.. After more than a century of foreign domination and 21 years of war and division, Vietnam was . Accordingly, ignoring estimates for one year or those whose periods or coverage are unclear, I extrapolated the estimates for the years of the war. Since many estimates here and later will be so extrapolated, the date taken for the beginning of the war is statistically important. Some of these did occur, as at My Lai, but for some of the others it is unclear whether civilians killed during legitimate military action are being labeled as massacred or not. 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. Diplomatic relations with Laos, though certainly strained, never were broken. Based on other estimates of the prison/camp population I assumed a 50,000 camp population per year and an unnatural death rate of 2 percent per year, on par with the Chinese rate4 and much lower then for the Soviet gulag.5 This gives me a low of 24,000 dead (line 336). I try to handle this by dividing "land reform" estimates in terms of their ostensive inclusiveness. After Vietnam was reunified in 1975, the re-education camp system became an extensive network spread throughout the country. 1973 in the Vietnam War - Wikipedia The South Vietnamese security forces, including the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), Regional and Popular Forces, Montagnard irregulars and National Police totaled 567,246 personnel. Not all democide figures are indirect. An addition 3 million Vietnamese were left wounded and around 12 million were refugees. Determined to prevent South Vietnam from falling into communist hands, the United States propped up Diem with billions of dollars in aid, as well as increasing numbers of military advisers. China and the Soviet Union didnt have to do as much as the Americans, Moise explains, because they were buttressing the stronger side. As above, I use their consolidation (815) as a check on the overall sum (line 816) of the various calculations and sub-totals for this period. Tet Offensive - Wikipedia "The Koreans sent more troops and much more aggressive troops [than . U.S. bombs killed tens of thousands of Cambodians, which, some historians contend, may have increased popular support for the Khmer Rouge, a communist insurgency group that initiated a brutal genocide upon taking power in 1975.