Original subtitles

when President Kennedy first sent

Americans to Vietnam in

1961 he did so with the conviction that

America was the natural leader of the

Free

World inspired by their charismatic

young president many ordinary Americans

too felt it was their duty to Champion

democracy around the

world I guess we all just pretty much

believed in what we were doing and I

wanted to go to Vietnam because it was

just what John Kennedy had talked about

in 1961 about bearing any burden and

supporting any friend and to me it was

just it was just an extension of what he

had talked

about so with unshakable confidence in

the righteousness of their cause America

went to

war their objective to stop what they

saw as the dangerous spread of world

communism

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all Communists in the world were working

together and their job was in the end to

overthrow the United States and at the

way to defeat those Communists or at

least to hold the line against them was

[Music]

Containment Vietnam was a divided

country the mission of US forces was to

support the government of the South by

containing the Communist North this was

far from

straightforward the Americans had to

fight the regular North Vietnamese Army

but they also faced communist supported

guillas inside South Vietnam the Viet

[Music]

Kong by 1968 there were nearly half a

million American soldiers in South

Vietnam the battle had already been long

and bloody but us commanders were now

confident that victory was almost at

hand

[Music]

it was the eve of the Ted Luna New Year

at the streets of the South Vietnamese

Capital Saigon were busy with holiday

traffic then suddenly everything

changed all over Saigon Viet Kong

Fighters launch surprise attacks on

American and South Vietnamese

posts and the significance of attack

wasn't just that all of a sudden here

was an attack it's where the attack

occurred which is now the North

Vietnamese and the South Vietnamese

insurgents were attacking the

cities it wasn't just

Saigon there were hundreds of attacks in

every major town and city in the

country the Viet Kong were trying to

provoke a popular Uprising to overturn

the South Vietnamese

regime the Tet Offensive of 1968 did

prove to be the turning point of the

Vietnam

War just not in the way the Viet Kong

planned this was a new kind of

War it was the first to come directly

into people's living rooms

historian Scott Lucas is convinced that

television could be one reason why

America lost in

Vietnam he's looking for the evidence in

the thousands of cans of TV footage of

the

war Vietnam is not the first media

saturated War but Vietnam in degree is a

different War now you have television as

well as film and as well as

radio the news reels reflect the

optimism at first of those who went to

fight Kennedy's War I believe in what

we're fighting for we're fighting for

Freedom it's something that we all value

and I think we were doing the right

thing in this the American Media was not

opposed to us intervention in Vietnam

from 1964 with the use of air power and

1965 with the use of ground troops most

most of American news and American

documentaries were very supportive of

the government

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effort it was clear to them for the

first time just how vulnerable American

forces actually

were when you see enemy troops in Saigon

opposite the street from your hotel when

you see them in the US Embassy that safe

haven for all Americans then something

serious has occurred

the new medium of Television wasn't the

only problem for

America Andrew priest is a British

historian who studied the Tet

Offensive he's come to Vietnam with a

new purpose not to troll through the

archives but to meet eyewitnesses and to

search for Clues to America's failure on

the

ground T caught US forces completely off

guard yet the attacks have been prepared

right under their

noses their problem lay in knowing just

who the enemy

was that idea of the grows in the

civilians being together mixed was

always a great problem we were aware of

the fact that you know if these these

civilians were liable to be the people

who were putting out the mines and booby

traps they were probably carrying m

messages for the VC such things uh we

were aware of that we never developed

any means at all of distinguishing one

from another it couldn't be

done American commanders never

appreciated how far the Viet Kong had

infiltrated South Vietnam

cities Go tha's Noodle Bar was popular

with American and South Vietnamese

soldiers it was also HQ for the most

important Viet Kong cell in

Saigon even one of South Vietnam's top

men General wi c key stopped by my

restaurant to enjoy the

food he had no idea this was a key

meeting place for The Liberation

Army it was in this room that the T

offensive was

planned yet as this plan went on

upstairs toi served noodles to American

soldiers

[Music]

downstairs this is almost a shrine to

the T offensive it really makes you

aware of how significant T was to the

whole

War us intelligence failed to detect

Viet Kong planning for the

Tet but the offensive also needed troops

and

supplies both had to come hundreds of

miles from North Vietnam yet American

intelligence failed to pick up this

activity

too to understand why Andrew priest is

piecing together the evidence trying to

find traces of the Communists legendary

Supply Route the hoochi Min Trail

and I really did want to get out and see

for myself whether there was anything

left of the trail and also perhaps more

importantly the kind of Countryside that

it went

through the hoochi Min Trail was a

1,000m Lifeline for the North Vietnamese

[Music]

cause we call the hoochi Min Trail

Miracle

Road a miracle that high-tech

surveillance and intensive bombing still

couldn't

stop after almost a week of heavy

fighting the Americans have regained

control of

Saigon but elsewhere the Communist Viet

Kong are holding out fueled by supplies

and reinforcements from the hoochi Min

Trail

[Music]

the huiman trail was absolutely crucial

to the T offensive to the preparation

for it uh it was absolutely necessary to

get as much material but also as many

men down into the south in order for the

T offensive to be

successful Andrew priest has traveled to

Quan luk province in central Vietnam to

search for traces that remain of the

legendary Thousand Mile Long Trail

beginning in the north around the MUA

and Ben carai passes the trail wound

through Eastern Lao and Cambodia before

crossing the border into South

Vietnam the very beginning of the war

hman Trail is rudimentary it is

literally walking trails through the

jungle and soldiers go through great

hardship to make it down that trail it's

very difficult to move logistic support

down that trail

North Vietnamese photographs and US

aerial reconnaissance material together

begin to create a picture of how the

trail

worked sophisticated Simplicity was the

key the most obvious way to transport

things along the hoochi mint tril was by

foot but also bicycles for example were

vitally

important this gave them the advantage

of great maneuverability and

Mobility early on in the war the North

Vietnamese could transport only around

400 tons of supplies a

day but by 1968 the trail could carry

more than 10,000 trucks at any one

time the Americans were desperate to

Halt activity on the

trail so they turned to Cutting Edge

surveillance technology to help

[Music]

them at hano's War Museum there are

relics of this us surveillance

effort adid was an air delivered seismic

intrusion

detector adapted from technology

designed to locate Soviet sub Marines

thousands were dropped over

Vietnam what we have here is an actual

piece of American Equipment this is a an

American remote sensor it would been

dropped from an aircraft it would have

been coming through the jungle canopy

would have been going incredible speed

rotating the idea was that most of this

would have been buried under the soil

what this was designed to do was to give

the Americans information on the

movement of the Viet Kong

the adid could pick up the vibrations

and even the body heat of passing

soldiers these signals would be relayed

back to American

bases a pattern of increased activity

would draw immediate

bombing thousands of these were dropped

in the region of the hoochi Min

Trail yet American bombing still fails

to hit the

target for every technological Advance

there is in war there's a dumb solution

and the Vietnamese were very very good

at coming up with solutions to American

technological advances rather than

simply disabling the adids mockingly

nicknamed tropical trees the North

Vietnamese turned us technology to their

own advantage

very very carefully would take the

tropical tree to a pre-arranged open

area then would set an engine or a small

generator running next to it this would

create a large amount of noise that the

tropical tree would pick up and this

would deceive and confuse the

enemy and American bombing would be

drawn away from the real

Target as much high explosive was

dropped on the hoim Min Trail alone as

was was dropped on Germany in the whole

of World War

II though they may have been deceived

about the center of activity the trail

itself was clearly visible on us aerial

surveillance

photographs though we put great pressure

on that trail we never close it down

it's never

ineffective through studying its

ingenious design Andrew priest begins to

understand the key to the success of the

hoochi Min Trail

in order to keep the supplies running

there was no point in having just one

single Trail so in fact they had to have

a series of trails that could be used uh

on any particular given day at any

particular time this meant that if the

Americans bombed one particular Trail

they had another one available or of

course they could build one very very

quickly because this was very important

to

them rather than just one main routeway

the trail was actually a network of

camouflaged paths and Roads that

zigzagged South inside a corridor up to

30 m

wide connecting these parallel main

routes were hundreds of communicating

roads and

tracks so if one route was bombed

traffic could easily be switched to an

alternative this photo really

encapsulates what the hoochi Min Trail

was all about the Americans have bombed

this bridge here but in in fact the

Vietnamese have not been deterred by

this and in fact they built two further

Bridges with two further tracks I think

this really encapsulates the American

dilemma no matter what they do the

Vietnamese will always find a way

through they'll always find a way to

keep their supplies

running Andrew priest's research has

drawn together a comprehensive picture

of how the hoochi Min Trail

worked actually seeing the hoochi mint

tril you realize what the Americans were

up against and you start to realize how

I suppose misguided they really were

about the whole effort they saw it very

much in uh Western terms and yet they

came up against these people who were

absolutely single-minded in their effort

and in their determination to achieve

their final

ends the ingenious design of the trail

meant Viet Kong fighters in the South

were kept supplied throughout the Tet

Offensive

Team Six the LA

Six but when they met American troops in

combat the odds were still stacked

heavily against

them one item of military hardware

epitomizes American superiority in

Vietnam the

helicopter it was crucial to the

predominant us strategy search and

Destroy strategy Search and Destroy is

actually very simple to go into an enemy

HED area search for that enemy what you

hope to do is pin large enemy forces in

place and Destroy

[Music]

them for this New Concept in Warfare the

US Army created an entire new division

the first air

Cavalry on paper this air Mobility gave

American forces a huge

Advantage yet once again conditions on

the ground told a very different

[Music]

story you don't move a battalion into an

enemy area and have the enemy not know

about it you move large ponderous units

into an

area where the enemy knows the terrain

the enemy probably lives there

and the enemy is built for Speed and

wants to get away that enemy will in

fact get

away in many ways you're trying to

strike a gat with a

sledgehammer and in the long run the

apparent futility of these raids began

to undermine the moral of American

troops month in and month out we

couldn't see that we were making any

progress and he went to the same places

over and over we'd leave we'd go back

and we fight again and leave and go back

and fight again there was absolutely no

awareness that we're making any Headway

at all if there's no progress being made

in the war then why am I losing all

these men around me why am I losing so

many

friends one particular place was the

target of constant Search and Destroy

raids throughout the

war just 30 m from Saigon it was a key

communist stronghold known as the Iron

[Music]

Triangle this area was very important

for both sides the enemy knew if they

couldn't destroy or take control here

then they might lose

Saigon we knew too that we had to hold

on to this area otherwise we wouldn't

have any influence on Saigon

on the edge of the Iron Triangle was

Cuchi one of the most heavily bombed

districts in the whole of South

Vietnam people who visit coochi now and

see all the trees cannot imagine what it

was like during the war there was so

much shelling and bombing by the

Americans as well as the toxic chemicals

that they sprayed over the land it was

relentless every single day it seemed

nothing could survive not even an insect

to move

underground in just a few months

thousands of Fighters and their families

dug an extraordinary complex of

tunnels this Warren of interconnecting

tunnels three levels deep would become

their world for the next 10 years

Anthropologist Simone Clifford jger has

come to Vietnam to find out more about

the tunnels and the people who built

[Music]

them the network stretched for 250

km the Americans never discovered its

true

extent an entire American Division even

established its fortified base

not realizing the ground beneath was

honeycombed with Viet Kong fighting

tunnels despite the Apparently unlikely

surroundings geology was in fact on the

Viet Kong

side the geology around Ki was very

special because the soil around here is

predominantly laterite clay with a feric

binder it was easily workable and it

meant that um the Viet Kong were able to

construct this complex network but at

the same time at the top it actually

dried similar to Concrete so in essence

even though this ground looks rock hard

if you actually have a dig at it it's

pretty easy to

work tunnel trap doors were designed to

be strong enough to resist armored

vehicles and were well

camouflaged what where is

it

wow such tiny trap doors meant that if

discovered none but the slightest built

American Soldier could follow the Viet

Kong down

inside has up where I see for you okay

get

[Music]

in turn right after that you can to see

figh

so uh this is a loophole Viet Kong

centuries would have stood watch here

and looked for any movement out in the

jungle this is the ideal height for

either a man or a woman to stand and

watch guard with a a rifle on their

shoulder ready to fire at any Intruders

to the area so it would have been

effectively a sniper position and

looking at this from outside it would

have been incredibly well camouflaged

and the Americans out there wouldn't

have known where the shots were coming

from and these these fighting bunkers

were just the top layer at

cooi the Maze of tunnels is a reminder

of the kind of enemy The Americans faced

in

Vietnam sunu in The Art of War written

2,500 years ago said know your enemy we

didn't know our

enemy to truly understand what the Viet

Kong were prepared to go through Simone

Clifford Jer wants to experience for

herself what life was like in the now

derelict lower level

tunnels wow these

mushrooms just shows how incredibly damp

it is down here that mushrooms are able

to

grow it would have been pretty hard to

breathe down here at the best of times

but with the Dan a and the mushroom SPS

and everything would have taken some

getting used to

another incredible feature of the tunnel

complex is the ventilation system um

this here is a ventilation hole and uh

it runs right up to the surface about 6

or 7 m and um fed fresh air down into

the tunnels below but nevertheless even

though there were these tubes going up

to the surface the air in here is if

very close your lungs would have had to

become a climatized to the shallow

breaths and uh the dampness and a lot of

breathing problems resulted from

that yet whole families lived down here

for years on end there were schools

hospitals even theaters in the

tunnels now going down into the third

level of the tunnel complex which is the

final level

and we're down about 10 M below ground

as you can see the composition's changed

quite a lot Al it's um much much harder

there's more kind of rock formations and

it's obviously a lot damper as well

there's some mold growing here different

kinds of

lyans it's um absolutely tiny I mean I

can hardly go anywhere without being

craing on my hands and knees

resistance at cooi continued throughout

the Tet Offensive the tunnel system was

never

defeated but as this underground War

continued 100 miles to the north the

Americans were entangled in what would

be the bloodiest battle of the entire

Tet Offensive

[Music]

it's 3 weeks into the Tet Offensive the

Viet Kong's massive unexpected assault

on South Vietnam

cities more than 500 Americans have

already been killed or

wounded in the once beautiful University

City of ha fighting is still Savage it's

here that events will soon take place to

change the course of the Vietnam War

Guan T haai was one of the young women

engaged in the bitter street

fighting the fighting was very very

fierce but personally I felt proud and I

still feel proud because I was fighting

for Independence fighting for our

people why would foreigners come here to

kill our people to kill our children our

hearts were filled with

hatred American TV Crews were drawn to

the fighting in bloody way and the

emotions of Viet Kong Fighters like

Hawai began to find an echo in

America T exposes psychologically that

America may never ever be able to

achieve a final victory over the North

Vietnamese and the South Vietnamese

insurgents because what T shows is is

that North Vietnam and South Vietnam are

willing to stay the course are willing

to take large numbers of casualties

whereas the Americans that face them may

not have that political

[Music]

will in way American casualties steadily

mounted as they struggle to find their

way out of the stalemate

[Music]

it was an infantryman's battle the

Stalingrad of the Vietnam

War but even when restricted to Small

Arms US forces still had the

technological superiority of a

superpower in the T offensive the North

Vietnamese used a weapon designed almost

20 years before the AK-47

by contrast most US soldiers were issued

with the latest M16

rifle the more accurate sophisticated

M16 should have given American troops

The

Edge supplied to the North Vietnamese by

the USSR and China the Kalashnikov AK-47

was a simple solid weapon it was an

assault rifle designed to deliver large

amounts of Fire with a larger bullet

than the M16 at a shorter effective

range I think that for infantry use the

AK-47 was much better than the M16 it

was a much more practical weapon we even

left AK-47s hidden underwater for as

long as 3 months and when we came back

for them we could still use them no

problem the AK-47 was also simple enough

for inexperienced volunteers to

use I was trained to use all kinds of

weapons including rocket launchers and

rifles but mostly the

AK-47 the M16 was very quick firing but

it was

flimsy the AK-47 is made out of stronger

wood and steel it's much more durable

than the M16

and anyone could use it an untrained man

or even a child yet again a low Tech

solution gave the North Vietnamese a

counter for us

sophistication but there was another

even simpler weapon that John tullk

encountered in

Vietnam the booby

trap in Vietnam they played a crucial

role in a modern high-tech

War booby traps were cheap and easy to

make and for the Viet Kong making them

was even a morale building

exercise the kind of traps were used

could be prepared anywhere by any person

it was an outstanding achievement local

people all became involved using

traditional skills to fight the American

Army normal everyday people making

simple

traps in some areas North Vietnamese

forces manufactured Barbed steel spikes

for their

traps but for the most part simple

bamboo was

enough cartender stiletto like Stakes

called pangies

up ahead I've made a small trap with the

Shar and bamboo Stak in the bottom it's

it's in that area

there so I just uh that would the S

thing I would imagine they would have

made with

the STS in the bottom yeah that's

absolutely a very simple panse steak

trap a guy treading on that

he's got 80 lb on his back carrying his

weapon his full weight suddenly going

through there that will go straight

through his boot through his calf muscle

share that that's as good as any

anti-personnel mine

yeah but how did the Viet Kong avoid

falling victim to their own hidden

traps there were signs one that was a

standard one in f 2 province

a leaf and a a twig going through

it coming through like that would be

laid on the ground with all the other

rubbish that would be lying there eyes

of VC would see that lying on the ground

and this particular twig here is lying

to the right of the main membrane of of

the leaf would point to the fact that 3

to 5 m ahead is a trap

[Music]

and with all such traps and mines the

injuries they inflict are only part of

their effectiveness as a

weapon the reality of a gorilla war was

very difficult for American soldiers to

take specifically the use of booby traps

and Minds all of these things

are more as far as morale is concerned

very difficult to deal with

and I had been standing and having a

little talk with and sharing a cigarette

with one of my

men and the word came back up the file

to move out and I put my hand on his

shoulder and I said okay let's go and

immediately after that there was a big

[Music]

explosion and I hit the ground and smoke

kind of cleared away and I got my wits

back about and I realized I looked down

and I was intact but the man whose

shoulder I'd had my hand

on had stepped on the mine from just

below the knee down his right leg was

just

gone I've never seen bleeding like that

before

since blood just ran out of the stump of

that leg like water out of a faucet

terrible thing to look at and after a

couple of minutes he said my leg's gone

isn't

it I said well part of it is

he said well then just get me the hell

out of

here so we did we got him vested off and

when that metac left I got down on my

hands and knees and I

vomited the state of tension that these

men must have been living in hour after

hour day after day must have been almost

incomprehensible Morgan oconnell is an

expert in combat

stress he's worked with veterans from

World War II to the Gul

War now he's drawn to the plight of

psychiatrically damaged Vietnam

veterans he believes the particular

circumstances of the Vietnam War had

dire consequences for the morale of

American

soldiers being terrified in the context

of the Vietnam War I think it was a

unique experience you see the

consequences of booby traps or the

Unseen enemy your mat's being killed you

can't go in to rescue them no human

being can cope with that

indefinitely Vietnam veteran John Young

is typical of those ex soldiers Morgan

oconnell has

studied in 1967 John was a squad leader

in the ninth Infantry

Division though only 21 he was highly

experienced a competent and reliable

veteran but one battle changed him

[Music]

on a single Search and Destroy mission

in the meong Delta almost 2/3 of his

unit were killed or

wounded after that battle I was not

concerned very much with the military

Mission I mean I still did what I was

told to do but I was interested in

keeping these people

alive and

when I got went out on an ambush I went

to where they told me to go and I set up

defensively I wasn't out there to look

to find somebody and kill them I set up

defensively to protect myself and I'd

stay there in position for as long as

they told me to stay and then I'd go

come

back the losing the people losing men

will do that and it just changes your

outlook it just became the idea of

surviving Mor is key to any Army's

success the gi's morale was on a

downward spiral but as the Tet Offensive

neared its bloody climax the resolve of

the Viet Kong showed no sign of

[Music]

weakening the American Army in Vietnam

was a conventional Force trained to

fight traditional

Wars but in the Viet Kong they faced a

holy unconventional

[Music]

enemy the Viet Kong resistance wasn't

just men fighting it was women fighting

it was young people fighting it was old

people fighting it was the whole

[Music]

community in Vietnam today dozens of

museums and memorials bear witness to

the particular nature of America's enemy

and what motivated them

[Music]

the story of vti chin is typical from Ki

she was a volunteer fighter from the age

of

13 my family was almost completely

destroyed by American bombing only my

mother escaped when our house was

hit the house was burnt down by the bomb

and all the rest of my family was

killed so with such hatred in my heart

and in my thoughts I joined the army I

was so determined to fight even though I

was a

girl it was this spirit that the

Americans were up

[Music]

against even small places like cooi sent

tens of thousands of ordinary people

like chin to

fight this is the CI War Memorial Hall

commemorating all of the people died

during the resistant struggle against

the Americans there are over 44,000

names inscribed on these walls many

people still missing in

action the people who died here weren't

simply military combatants they were

whole communities people just involved

in the fighting men and women people

young and

old it's quite amazing to think that the

number here

44,000 is almost the total of American

soldiers killed during the the whole

[Music]

War 4 weeks after the Tet Offensive

began the last pockets of North

Vietnamese resistance were isolated in

the rubble of

way 4,000 Americans had been killed or

injured but they had inflicted more than

10 times that number on their

enemy the Tet was an overwhelming

American

victory then something extraordinary

happened the Americans had won but

across the world Ted came to be seen as

a North Vietnamese

Victory trolling through the thousands

of feet of news reels Scott Lucas has

identified the moment Middle America

turned against

Vietnam watched by millions of people

the broadcast struck an instant cord

with average Americans who until then

had been generally supportive of the

war what the konak broadcast does is

more important as being a symbol a

symbol of the futility of the war and

futility which is brought to the the

American people not by their politicians

but by the news

media Walter kronite had gotten on

American television and said Americans

should no longer listen to

the statements made by their military

that saw Silver Linings in every cloud

turn on a little spigot of blood drip

drip drip and over 10 years 12 years 15

years

that spigot of blood will force that

great roal power to eventually question

whether or not that war is worth it you

will not defeat that country in a

typical sense but that country will wind

up going

home in Vietnam America won every battle

but it lost the

war state of the art weaponry and a huge

military budget proved inadequate to

subdue the morale and invent

of the Vietnamese

Communists not for the first time or the

last a great power underestimated its

enemy in

1973 the last US forces were withdrawn

from

Vietnam the price was over 2 million

Vietnamese and Americans dead and

wounded 2 years later the South

Vietnamese government fell and the

country was United

under communist rule