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Vietnam War
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Battle of Dien Bien Phu
Viet Minh forces at Chinese insistence moved to attack Lai Chau, which was loyal to the French. Peking had hoped, the French commander in chief in Indochina, General Henri Navarre, came out to defend his allies because he believed the T'ai "maquis" formed a significant threat in the Viet Minh "rear" and wanted to prevent a Viet Minh sweep into Laos. Navarre launched Operation Castor with a paratroop drop on the broad valley of Dien Bien Phu. -
Members of the Army Nurse Corps Arrived
They were needed to train the South Vietnamese in Nursing skills. As the military presence increased in South Vietnam so did the nurses. Five Female nurses died in the Vietnamese war including, Lieutenant Colonel Annie Ruth Graham and First Lieutenant Sharon Ann Lane. -
Agent Orange
U.S. military conducted a large-scale defoliation program aimed at destroying the forest and jungle cover used by enemy North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops fighting against U.S. and South Vietnamese forces in the Vietnam War. U.S. aircraft were deployed to spray powerful mixtures of herbicides around roads, rivers, canals and military bases, as well as on crops that might be used to supply enemy troops. The picture is of a child who was affected by agent orange. -
Important Woman
Five nurses who were injured in a bombing of a hospital, were awarded the purple heart award. This is the first time women were given this award. Nine Navy (women) officers served in the war. Lieutenant Elizabeth G. Wylie, who worked in the Command Information Center on the staff of the Commander of Naval Forces in Saigon and Commander Elizabeth Barrett, who became the first female naval line officer to hold command in a combat zone. -
Gulf of tonkin Resolution
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, gave broad congressional approval for expansion of the Vietnam War. On August 2, shortly after a clandestine raid on the North Vietnamese coast by South Vietnamese gunboats, the U.S. destroyer Maddox was fired on by North Vietnamese torpedo boats. Two days later, in the same area, the Maddox and another destroyer reported that they were again under attack. The next day Johnson called the congress together to tell them the Viet Cong had done an open attack on the US -
Operation Rolling Thunder
part of the strategic bombing campaign known as Operation Rolling Thunder, U.S. military aircraft attacked targets throughout North Vietnam from March 1965 to October 1968.The operation marked the first American assault on North Vietnamese territory and showed an expansion of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. -
Tet Offensive
70,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces launched the Tet Offensive a coordinated series of fierce attacks on more than 100 cities and towns in South Vietnam. General Vo Nguyen Giap, planned the offensive in an attempt both to stop rebellion among the South Vietnamese population and encourage the United States to scale back its support of the regime. Though U.S. and South Vietnamese forces managed to hold off the Communist attacks It pulled away more support from the americas. -
My Lai Massacre
In one of the most horrific incidents of violence against civilians during the Vietnam War, a company of American soldiers brutally killed the majority of the population of the South Vietnamese hamlet of My Lai.as many as 500 people including women, children and the elderly were killed in the massacre.In 1970, a U.S. Army board charged 14 officers of crimes related to the events at My Lai; only one was convicted. This further divided the nation over the continuing American presence in Vietnam. -
Commander Elizabeth Barrett
Commander Elizabeth Barrett was the highest ranking woman naval line officer to serve in Vietnam and the first to hold a command in a combat zone. She arrived in Saigon in January 1972 and in November became the commanding officer of 450 enlisted men in the Naval Advisory Group, a position she held until she left Vietnam in March 1973. -
Veterans were Affected by Agent Orange
A class action lawsuit was filed on behalf of 2.4 million veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange during their service in Vietnam. Five years later, in an out-of-court-settlement, seven large chemical companies that manufactured the herbicide agreed to pay $180 million in compensation to the veterans or their next of kin. Various challenges to the settlement followed, including lawsuits filed by some 300 veterans, before the U.S. Supreme Court confirmed it in 1988.
