Casualty Data For The Vietnam War. Ordering Information for Electronic Records. In 1980 Richard set out to determine the unit of assignment for each Army soldier who died in Vietnam. He recalled the attack and said, "We go in, and the helicopter started . [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. Since body counts were a direct measure of operational success, US "operations reports" often listed civilian deaths as enemy KIA or exaggerated the number. [5], Uppsala University in Sweden maintains the Armed Conflict Database. [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. 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. [66][67] After the U.S.'s withdrawal from the conflict, the Pentagon estimated PAVN/VC deaths at 39,000 in 1973 and 61,000 in 1974. Village battles were not uncommon as the two factions fought for control of the region. 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. [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. [27] Estimates for the number of North Vietnamese civilian deaths resulting from US bombing range from 30,00065,000. Harper Perennial; September 1991. [95][96], The number of US military personnel in Vietnam jumped from 23,300 in 1965 to 465,600 by the end of 1967. The U.S. Constitution grants Congress sole authority to issue declarations of 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". These statistics were sourced from the appendix of On the offensive: the Australian Army in the Vietnam War 1967-1968. Meanwhile, the United States, its military demoralized and its civilian electorate deeply divided, began a process of coming to terms with defeat in what had been its longest and most controversial war. The U.S. National Archives shows that 58,220 U.S. soldiers perished. "UCDP/Prio Armed Conflict Database", Uppsala University, sfn error: no target: CITEREFRummel1997 (. These deaths made up about 40% of the total casualties. 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. They also are AT-CTI certified. The U.S. military has estimated that between 200,000 and 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died in the war. This resulted in a dramatic decrease in the proportion of black casualties, and by late 1967, black casualties had fallen to 13%, and were below 10% in 1970 to 1972. 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. Both were present at the Battle of Ia Drang, the first large-scale engagement of the Vietnam War. [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. The first American soldier died in the Vietnam War was Richard B. Fitzgibbon, Jr., a U.S. Air Force Technical Sergeant. Total. 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. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, but his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, continued the work that Kennedy had started. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). 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 following is a chart of all casualties, listed by race, and in descending order. It is still a concern in Southeast Asia today. Chrissy has taught secondary English and history and writes online curriculum. The most prominent of these events were the Hu Massacre and the M Lai Massacre. [33][34] The United States government has challenged these figures as being unreliable. The U.S. military reported 58,220 American casualties. [65], According to the Vietnamese government's official history, one of the deadliest years was 1972, where they lost over 100,000 casualties. The American death toll in the Vietnam War is currently known to be 58,220. Once a unit assignment has been determined, a link to the individual's memorial page is included in the appropriate Unit Index. [1] 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. Richard Coffelt's health began failing, and on 29 October 2010 he made his last contributions to the Coffelt Database. [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. Deaths in the Vietnam War. The war persisted from 1955 to 1975 and most of the fighting took place in South Vietnam; accordingly it suffered the most casualties. Though the Vietnamese army incurred more casualties, it was a . Its like a teacher waved a magic wand and did the work for me. 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. Ambassador to Vietnam David Shear. The 'shameful gamesmanship' practiced by 'certain reporting elements' under pressure to 'produce results' also shrouded the process. | 9 Persian Gulf (1988) (Oil Platforms) 2. 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 Vietnam War became a painful lesson for many - from Washington, D.C. to Smalltown America. [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. In 1995 Vietnam . On Nov. 23, 1968, The Philadelphia Tribune wrote of large . 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). 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. Operation Rolling Thunder History & Facts | What Was Operation Rolling Thunder? Put in their place to rule was Emperor Bao Dai, a French implant who had ties to creating a democracy. 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. Please direct all other inquiries to militaryfactory AT gmail.com. It often refers not to those that are killed on the battlefield but to those who can no longer fight. Vietnam War: 1964-1973: 58,220: 153,303: 5,283: 1:2.6: 1:29.0 (0.03) Persian Gulf War: One study estimated that American commanders exaggerated body counts by 100 percent. Estimates of the total number of deaths in the Vietnam War vary widely. U.S. Army Personnel and Dependent Casualties, 1961-1981 85% of the records in this database are related to the Vietnam Conflict. the Vietnam War). Significant numbers resettled in the United States, Canada, Italy, Australia, France, West Germany, and the United Kingdom.[105]. 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 . On February 26, 2007, President George W. Bush presented Crandall with the Medal of Honor for . Including 28 civilians, originally there were 52 missing civilians. He estimates that between 30 and 46% of the total war deaths were civilians. 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. Although demographers have developed a reper- [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%). One escapee died of wounds sustained during his rescue 15 days later. Following its 1945 defeat in World War II, Japan withdrew its forces from Vietnam, leaving the French-educated Emperor Bao Dai in control. Many of these deaths were suspected to be murders, often targeting able-bodied young men who could pose a threat to the other side should they have chosen to join the military. Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition, gives a 1513 reference for military casualty, and an 1844 reference for civilian use. 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. [20] About 130 American and 16,000 South Vietnamese POWs died in captivity. McNamara claimed this program would provide valuable training, skills and opportunity to America's poora promise that was never carried out. [57], The ARVN suffered 254,256 recorded combat deaths between 1960 and 1974, with the highest number of recorded deaths being in 1972, with 39,587 combat deaths. Grenada (1983) 3. This is also the main reason that soldiers in Vietnam saw more action than those soldiers of preceding wars. American Foreign Policy in the First Indochina 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. The Vietnam War is one of the most unpopular wars in American history. Many movements on the home front arose in the early 1970s to end the war, which sped the process of withdrawing troops along. In the United States, the Vietnam War became known as one of the most unpopular wars that the nation had ever been involved in. Revolutionary War. More than 8.7 million Americans served on active duty during the Vietnam period (Nov 1, 1955 to May 15, 1975). Furthermore, domestic unrest and the financial cost of war made peaceand troop withdrawalsa necessity, not a choice. The United States entered Vietnam with the principal purpose of preventing a communist takeover of the region. US Army helicopters pour machine-gun fire into the tree line to cover the advance of ground troops. [22], Thomas Thayer in 1985 estimated that during the 196572 period the VC killed 33,052 South Vietnamese village officials and civil servants.[23]. [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. [36][37][38][39] The My Lai Massacre was initially written off as an operational success and covered up. Corrections? [35], For official US military operations reports, there was no established distinctions between enemy KIA and civilian KIA. They also assert that the U.S. overall suffered fewer casualties than its opponents. Unit: Nickname: KIA: Comment: 1st Cavalry Division: First . 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. I would definitely recommend Study.com to my colleagues. Vancouver's Rob McSorley is one of at least 134 Canadians killed in action fighting for U.S. forces during the Vietnam War. Shelby L. Stanton, 'The Rise and Fall of an American Army,' Spa Books, 1989, xvi. The former arrives in Vietnam in November 1965, and, soon after, is tasked with leading his 400 men in an effort to take out . 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. [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. Vietnam War, Awards and Decorations of Honor, 1965-1972. [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. Lochren) subtracted the muster figures (262-47=215)(82.1%) and asserted that "[every one of the] 215 [missing men] lay upon the field. History is not a fixed set of facts. Of the 7877 officer casualties, 7595 or 96.4% were white, 147 or 1.8% were black; 24 or . When reunification elections were set to start, South Vietnamese government officials refused to participate. In just 30 minutes, they had 30 casualties. Nine-year-old Kim Phuc had ripped off her burning . Vietnam War Casualties, MIA and POWs. Rummel estimates 212,000 killed by Khmer Rouge (19671975), 60,000 killed by U.S. and 1,000 killed by South Vietnam (196773). The majority of these soldiers were between the ages of 21 and 28. in Social Studies Education. [70], RJ Rummel estimates 1,011,000 PAVN/VC combatant deaths. 2,594,000 personnel served within the borders of South Vietnam. [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. The "patrol boat: riverine," or Navy PBR, was the first watercraft built for the so-called brown water navy in Vietnam. During the height of the conflict, Navy personnel scouted the rivers and canals of the sprawling Mekong Delta for communist guerrilla forces, arms, and ammunition. . Last combat unit departs Vietnam ending the ground war August 11, 1972. . According to a 2009 study, one third of land in the central provinces of Vietnam is still contaminated with unexploded mines and ordnance. The United States had provided funding, armaments, and training to South Vietnams government and military since Vietnams partition into the communist North and the democratic South in 1954. This was the turning point and the start of South Vietnam's defeat. USA.gov, The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration 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. North Vietnam had won victory over the French and was likely to make South Vietnam submit to a Communist regime. The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History SOG had a casualty rate of 100 percenteveryone who served in SOG was either wounded, most multiple times, or . For more information see Vietnam War casualties and Aircraft losses of the Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos . As of 2014, 221 Virginian deaths have been identified. exposed to enemy attack. [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. 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. 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