Many were never directly involved in the fighting, but rather were only caught in the crosshairs of South Vietnamese and North Vietnamese forces. [60] Prior to the 1975 spring offensive, at least 5,336 ARVN were captured, being released in the aftermath of the Paris Peace Accords. harvnb error: no target: CITEREFTurse2013 (. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. The number of casualties is simply the number of members of a unit who are not available for duty. 58,220. [58] According to Guenter Lewy, the ARVN suffered between 171,331 and 220,357 deaths during the war. Department of Veterans Affairs BIRLS Death File, 1850-2010: see the "National Cemeteries and Beneficiaries" section below. 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. 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 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. According to RJ Rummel, from 1964 to 1975, an estimated 1,500 people died during the forced relocations of 1,200,000 civilians, another 5,000 prisoners died from ill-treatment and about 30,000 suspected communists and fighters were executed. [62] Across all three wars including the First Indochina War and the Third Indochina War there was a total of 1,146,250 PAVN/VC confirmed military deaths, included 939,460 with bodies recovered and 207,000 with the bodies unfound. Bomb Tonnages Dropped on Laos and Cambodia, and Weighing Their Implications", "Association between Agent Orange and birth defects: systematic review and meta-analysis", "The History, Toxicity and Adverse Human Health and Environmental Effects Related to the Use of Agent Orange", http://ls-tlss.ucl.ac.uk/course-materials/POLS6016_65225, Story of Tiger Force atrocities had to be told, "On War extra Vietnam's massacre survivors", Counter-Revolutionary Violence: Bloodbaths in Fact & Propaganda, "Anatomy of US and South Korean Massacres in the Vietnamese Year of the Monkey, 1968 | Japan Focus", "VIETNAM KILLINGS LAID TO KOREANS (Published 1970)", "The 'forgotten' My Lai: South Korea's Vietnam War massacres", "Citizens' court to investigate Vietnam War atrocities committed by South Korean troops", "Chuyn 4 CNG TC TM KIM, QUY TP HI CT LIT S T NAY N NM 2020 V NHNG NM TIP THEO, datafile.chinhsachquandoi.gov.vn/Qun%20l%20ch%20o/Chuyn%20%204.doc", "Lost Souls: The Search for Vietnam's 300,000 or More MIAs", 300.000 lit s cha xc nh danh tnh l ni trn tr ln, "North Vietnamese Army's 1972 Eastertide Offensive", i tng V Nguyn Gip vi cng tc hu cn qun i, "2021 NAME ADDITIONS AND STATUS CHANGES ON THE VIETNAM VETERANS MEMORIAL", "US Military Operations: Casualty Breakdown", "Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency Vietnam (PMSEA) Report for CIVILIAN (Unaccounted For)", "Capture Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency Vietnam (PMSEA) Report for CIVILIAN (Accounted For Identified Since 1973)", "Vietnam-era unaccounted for statistical report", "Vietnam Prisoners of War Escapes and Attempts", http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo/vietnam/reports/pmsea_escapee.pdf, "Vietnam War U.S. Military Fatal Casualty Statistics", "Learning from America's Wars, Past and Present U.S. Battlefield Medicine Has Come a Long Way, from Antietam to Iraq", "African-Americans In Combat | History Detectives | PBS", "Vietnam War Bomb Explodes Killing Four Children", Vietnam: Report Details Unexploded Ordnance, "Vietnam War Bombs Still Killing People 40 Years Later", "U.S. in first effort to clean up Agent Orange in Vietnam", "U.S. starts its first Agent Orange cleanup in Vietnam", "After the Nightmare: The Population of Cambodia", "KOREA military army official statistics, AUG 28, 2005", "Australian servicemen listed as missing in action in Vietnam", https://books.google.com/books?id=qh5lffww-KsC&lpg=PA53&dq=the%20encyclopedia%20of%20the%20vietnam%20war%20page%2064&pg=PA176&output=embed, "POW Remembers McCain and Tapping Through Walls in Hanoi Prison", "New Zealand Rolls Of Honour By Conflict", "Overview of the war in Vietnam | VietnamWar.govt.nz, New Zealand and the Vietnam War", "America Wasn't the only Foreign Power in the Vietnam War", "Vietnam Reds to hold 17 From Taiwan as Spies", https://kienthuc.net.vn/quan-su/nhung-chuyen-gia-quan-su-lien-xo-trong-khang-chien-chong-my-1796800.html, Vietnamese Casualties During the American war, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vietnam_War_casualties&oldid=1142285241, includes an estimated 50,000/65,000/70,000 civilians killed by U.S/SVN bombing/shelling, includes 360,000/391,000/720,000 civilians, 25,000/50,000/75,000 killed in North Vietnam, 106,000/164,000/227,000 killed in South Vietnam. 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. The Vietnam War death toll is estimated to be around 3.8 million casualties in total. 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. . The Vietnam War was a long, deadly . [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. 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. Please direct all other inquiries to militaryfactory AT gmail.com. (deaths in afghan war Afghanistan war casualties). Including 28 civilians, originally there were 52 missing civilians. WIA. 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. Of these, more than 13,000 were killed and 88,000 wounded, nearly a . Deaths in Cambodia and Laos were estimated at 273,000 and 62,000 respectively. [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. In the days before "embeds" this generation's enforced melding of photographer and military unit there was a certain sense of . This was part of the Cold War effort to prevent the spread of Communism across the globe. US Army helicopters pour machine-gun fire into the tree line to cover the advance of ground troops. [73][74], Historian Christian Appy states "search and destroy was the principal tactic; and the enemy body count was the primary measure of progress" in the US strategy of attrition. "Triumph Regained: The Vietnam War, 1965-1968." The database also estimates combat deaths in Cambodia for the years 196775 to total 259,000. All other trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners. In 1975 South Vietnam fell to a full-scale invasion by the North. NVA/VC Casualties Reported by III MAF Units: 756 : H: Marine Aircraft . Necessarily, more is lost to time than is remembered. Researchers regard the former Oakland, California Army base as the largest Vietnam War military port in the world. Updates? Few Marines units were involved in the U.S. military actions in Cambodia or Laos, and while 1. st. . Lebanon (1982-1984) 240. Answer (1 of 3): !st Cavalry Division KIA - 5,444 WIA - 26,592 Total Casualties - 32,036 The First Team was in VN from Aug 1965 until Aug 1972 Per: Willbanks, James H. (2013). 1. [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. The Viet Cong used the jungle terrain to their advantage both as a means of hiding, as well as a place to bury pressure-sensor explosives to wipe out unsuspecting bands of patrolling enemy forces. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. His estimate of total deaths is reflected in the table. 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 terms of this expansion included yet more funding and arms, but a key alteration was the commitment of U.S. soldiers to the region. Ho Chi Minh created the Viet Cong as a resistance force to French democracy. copyright 2003-2023 Study.com. Other nations such as Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, and the Philippines provided a limited number of troops to South Vietnamese forces. Joseph L. Rhodes, 22, Marines, L. The film follows the experiences of both Moore, portrayed by Mel Gibson, and his wife, Julia, played by Madeleine Stowe. Last combat unit departs Vietnam ending the ground war August 11, 1972. . 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. [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). 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. The war persisted from 1955 to 1975 and most of the fighting took place in South Vietnam; accordingly it suffered the most casualties. A 1975 US Senate subcommittee estimated around 1.4 million civilian casualties in South Vietnam because of the war, including 415,000 deaths. 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. 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. [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. Contents1 What was the ratio [] [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. The costs and casualties of the growing war proved too much for the United States to bear, and U.S. combat units were withdrawn by 1973. The officially-reported numbers and categories below cover American Vietnam War deaths by age group, branch of service, service component, type of death, reason for death, race, religion, sex, state/protectorate and deaths by war year (including post-war). November 19, 1967 was one of the bloodiest days for American troops in the Vietnam War. Plus, get practice tests, quizzes, and personalized coaching to help you The "Holloway Database" effectively became the public's sole source of information regarding all our Vietnam dead. 232,000 military personnel were still missing as of 2017, a total of 1,081,000 dead and missing for the American War. On Nov. 23, 1968, The Philadelphia Tribune wrote of large . I feel like its a lifeline. 2,594,000 personnel served within the borders of South Vietnam. 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. Richard Coffelt's health began failing, and on 29 October 2010 he made his last contributions to the Coffelt Database. The United States has spent over $65 million since 1998 as part of unexploded ordnance clearing operations. [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. The vietnam war Pictures That Moved Them Most . 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. 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. Vietnam War: 1964-1973: 58,220: 153,303: 5,283: 1:2.6: 1:29.0 (0.03) Persian Gulf War: Killed in Action (KIA); Died while Missing. And John Sullivan enlisted in the Navy after graduating high school and served as a second class machinist mate during the Vietnam War. To arrive at the casualty figure of 215, the Regimental Historian (Lt. Wm. In that respect, it failed: the two Vietnams were united under a communist banner in July 1976. Memorial pages honoring Vietnam War casualties, listed by their last names. French Indochina (Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam) - 1,250,000 . [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. [46], The ROK Capital Division reportedly perpetrated the Bnh An/Ty Vinh massacre in February/March 1966. Battle of Hamburger Hill. 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. 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. [52] According to a study conducted in 1968 by a Quaker-funded Vietnamese-speaking American couple, Diane and Michael Jones, there were at least 12 mass killings committed by South Korean forces that approached the scale of the My Lai Massacre, with reports of thousands of routine murders of civilians, primarily the elderly, women and children. This totals, from a range of between 16,000 and 167,000 deaths caused by South Vietnam during the (Dim-era), and 42,000 and 118,000 deaths caused by South Vietnam in the post Dim-era), excluding PAVN forces killed by the ARVN in combat. 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. A. Weakened by defeat in the war, France withdrew its forces in 1945. MARINE CORPS * In 1982 the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated in Washington, D.C., inscribed with the names of 57,939 members of U.S. armed forces who had died or were missing as a result of the 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". Vietnamese soldiers and an unknown number of civilian casualties in South and North Vietnam (Browne 1994: 1). He succeeded in 1954 and established a Communist government. Others now continue the work Richard began 30 years ago. [42] This might partially explain the discrepancies between recovered weapons and body-count figures, along with exaggeration, although the NVA and VC also went to great lengths to recover weapons from the battlefield. In general we index the memorials at the lowest practical unit level. Before the Second World War, Vietnam was occupied by the colonial French empire. He received his B.A. According to statistics from the South Vietnamese Ministry of Health, 44.5% of civilians admitted to hospitals between 1967 and 1970 were wounded by mines or mortars, 21.2% by guns or grenades, and 34.3% by artillery or bombing. 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. Reflected in the table persisted from 1955 to 1975 and most of the bloodiest days for troops. The world France withdrew its forces in 1945 succeeded in 1954 and established a communist banner in July 1976 vietnam war casualties by unit. 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