End of the Tet Offensive

March 1, 1968 - March 31, 1968

Overview

The Tet Offensive ends as the fighting in Hue subsides. It is a disastrous tactical defeat for Communist forces. As many as 50,000 Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers have been killed, and the offensive achieves none of its major objectives. Viet Cong units are severely crippled and unable to mount new combat operations. The U.S. and South Vietnamese militaries lose more than 2,100 and 4,000 dead, respectively. The other allied nations suffer a total of 214 killed. An estimated 12,500 civilians are dead. Urban warfare in Saigon and other towns and cities produces hundreds of thousands of homeless refugees.

Though the offensive is a tactical defeat for Hanoi, it earns Communist forces a strategic victory. The offensive stuns the American public and sows increased doubts about America’s chances of winning the war.¹

¹Graham A. Cosmas, MACV: The Joint Command in the Years of Withdrawal, 1968–1973, United States Army in Vietnam (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2006), 59–61, 84–85, 103–4; George C. Herring, America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975 (4th edition; New York and other cities: McGraw Hill, 2002), 229–32, 241–45; Spencer C. Tucker, ed., The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History (2nd edition; Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2011), 1104–5; William M. Hammond, Public Affairs: The Military and the Media, 1968–1973, United States Army in Vietnam (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 1996), 9–10.