The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. has the names listed in chronological order by date of loss. [79], The total number of American personnel who were KIA or died non-hostile deaths, were enlisted personnel with a casualty number of 50,441. [28][4] Higher estimates place the number of civilian deaths caused by American bombing of North Vietnam in Operation Rolling Thunder at 182,000. U.S. Marines in Vietnam, 1966, An Expanding War, 1982 . The war also spilled over into the neighboring countries of Cambodia and Laos which also endured casualties from aerial and ground fighting. Another potential limitation is the relatively small sample size of the study. Not until 1995 did Vietnam release its official estimate of war dead: as many as 2 million civilians on both sides and some 1.1 million North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters. The United States also reduced support troops, and in March 1971 the 5th Special Forces Group, the first American unit deployed to South Vietnam, withdrew to Fort Bragg, . However, side effects occurred because of Agent Orange. 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. Many of the refugees failed to survive the passage, facing danger from pirates, over-crowded boats, and storms. 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. The oldest man killed was 62 years old. WIA. "[56] Another Marine commander, Gen. Robert E. Cushman Jr., added, "we had a big problem with atrocities attributed to them, which I sent on down to Saigon. In 1965 alone they comprised 14.1% of total combat deaths, when they only comprised approximately 11% of the total U.S. population in the same year. Panama . Defense Department officials believed that these body count figures need to be deflated by 30 percent. One of the first Black officers to lead a Special Forces team in combat will receive the Medal of Honor, the nation's top award for bravery on the battlefield, A South Korean court has ordered the government to pay $24,000 to a Vietnamese woman who survived a gunshot wound but lost several relatives when South Korean marines rampaged through her village during the Vietnam War in 1968, De-escalation, negotiation, and Vietnamization, The United States negotiates a withdrawal, 9 Questions About the Vietnam War Answered, https://www.britannica.com/event/Vietnam-War, Vietnam War - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11), Vietnam War - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up), Biden to award Medal of Honor to Vietnam-era Army officer, Court says South Korea responsible for Vietnam War massacre. A 1975 US Senate subcommittee estimated around 1.4 million civilian casualties in South Vietnam because of the war, including 415,000 deaths. In 1975 South Vietnam fell to a full-scale invasion by the North. Department of Veterans Affairs BIRLS Death File, 1850-2010: see the "National Cemeteries and Beneficiaries" section below. [14], German historian Bernd Greiner mentions the following war crimes reported and/or investigated by the Peers Commission and the Vietnam War Crimes Working Group, among other sources:[43]. 88,594. In that respect, it failed: the two Vietnams were united under a communist banner in July 1976. [6], A 2008 study by the BMJ (formerly British Medical Journal) came up with a higher toll of 3,812,000 dead in Vietnam between 19552002. The U.S. military has estimated that between 200,000 and 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died in the war. Those totals include only Vietnamese deaths, and do not include American and other allied military deaths which amounted to about 64,000. The dates of death . Political turbulence there and two alleged North Vietnamese attacks on U.S. naval vessels spurred Johnson to demand the passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964. Many movements on the home front arose in the early 1970s to end the war, which sped the process of withdrawing troops along. Cpl., Memphis, Tenn. Try refreshing the page, or contact customer support. They also are AT-CTI certified. Its like a teacher waved a magic wand and did the work for me. Two further massacres were reported by soldiers who had taken part in them, one north of c Pho in, 426 killed in action, 74 died of other causes, 6 missing in action (all accounted for and repatriated), This page was last edited on 1 March 2023, at 15:26. Updates? French Indochina (Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam) - 1,250,000 . [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. [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. Following the end of French colonial rule in 1954 and break-up of the former French Indochina, the United States assumed the political mentorship and primary . 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. In general, DD1300, DA2496, and DD1330 photographs are copyrighted and should not be copied. [2], Guenter Lewy in 1978 estimated 1,353,000 total deaths in North and South Vietnam during the period 19651974 in which the U.S. was most engaged in the war. Casualty Data For The Vietnam War. This was part of the Cold War effort to prevent the spread of Communism across the globe. These statistics were sourced from the appendix of On the offensive: the Australian Army in the Vietnam War 1967-1968. It is suspected that over 1.2 million of these deaths were murders. 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. It often refers not to those that are killed on the battlefield but to those who can no longer fight. [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. Researchers regard the former Oakland, California Army base as the largest Vietnam War military port in the world. Posted By: Jagermeister, 2/27/2023 4:40:17 PM Military historian and Hillsdale College professor Mark Moyar has just published Triumph Regained: The Vietnam War, 1965-1968, which is the second in what will become a massive three-volume revision of the entire Vietnam War. Kennedys expansion stemmed in part from Cold War-era fears about the domino theory: if communism took hold in Vietnam, it would topple democracies throughout the whole of Southeast Asia, it was thought. The United States provided funding and troops to the South Vietnamese effort to prevent Communism from spreading further in East Asia. Answer (1 of 4): The Army lost the most which makes sense as they had the most number of soldiers serve in Vietnam. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, but his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, continued the work that Kennedy had started. The number of these "boat people" leaving Vietnam and arriving safely in another country totalled almost 800,000 between 1975 and 1995. Estimates of the total number of deaths in the Vietnam War vary widely. [32] and studies have shown higher rates of casualties, health effects, and next-generation birth defects in Vietnamese peoples. Please direct all other inquiries to militaryfactory AT gmail.com. The United States lost 58,220 known military personnel. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. In the United States, the Vietnam War became known as one of the most unpopular wars that the nation had ever been involved in. One study estimated that American commanders exaggerated body counts by 100 percent. Lewy reduced the number of Viet Cong (VC) and People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) battle deaths claimed by the U.S. by 30 percent (in accordance with the opinion of United States Department of Defense officials), and assumed that one third of the reported battle deaths of the PAVN/VC may have actually been civilians. Significant numbers resettled in the United States, Canada, Italy, Australia, France, West Germany, and the United Kingdom.[105]. Deaths caused by the South Korean military, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong military casualties, Disproportion of African American casualties. Rummel estimates 212,000 killed by Khmer Rouge (19671975), 60,000 killed by U.S. and 1,000 killed by South Vietnam (196773). Material presented throughout this website is for historical and entertainment value only and should not to be construed as usable for hardware restoration, maintenance, or general operation. Of the 4953 Navy and Air Force casualties, both officer and enlisted, 4, 736 or 96% were white. An additional 232,000 military personnel were still missing as of 2017, a total of 1,081,000 dead and missing for the American War. ARMY * from Johns Hopkins and his MA and Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. 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. Ambassador to Vietnam David Shear. 13,091. North Vietnamese troops launched the Tet Offensive in January 1968, which was successful against South Vietnam and the U.S. 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. Colonial France inhabited Vietnam through the end of World War II. Around 2 million civilians were killed in the territories of North and South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. 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. 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. The South Vietnamese government, on the other hand, fought to preserve a Vietnam more closely aligned with the West. The overwhelming majority of the MIA are from northern Vietnam. Vietnam War Casualties, MIA and POWs. These estimates probably include deaths of Vietnamese soldiers in Laos and Cambodia, but do not include deaths of South Vietnamese and allied soldiers which would add nearly 300,000 for a grand total of 3.4 million military and civilian dead. Officer casualties of all branches were overwhelmingly white. 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. A total of 1,081,000 dead and missing for the American War work for me military has estimated that 200,000. 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