These alphabetical indexes are for your convenience but do not represent the order of names on the Wall. 11,465 of those killed were younger than 20 years old. [25][30], 18.2 million gallons of Agent Orange, some of which was contaminated with Dioxin, was sprayed by the U.S. military over more than 10% of Southern Vietnam[31] as part of the U.S. herbicidal warfare program Operation Ranch Hand during the Vietnam War, from 1961 to 1971. Estimates of casualties of the Vietnam War vary widely. Total. the Vietnam War). 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. [70], RJ Rummel estimates 1,011,000 PAVN/VC combatant deaths. Though the Vietnamese army incurred more casualties, it was a . Trade between the two nations ultimately resumed in the 1990s. It often refers not to those that are killed on the battlefield but to those who can no longer fight. I would definitely recommend Study.com to my colleagues. [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. The first two names listed on Panel 1, East Wall, at the apex are from July 8, 1959. AIR FORCE * All written content, illustrations, and photography are unique to this website (unless where indicated) and not for reuse/reproduction in any form. Statistical Information about Fatal Casualties of the Vietnam War, Records Relating to American Prisoners of War and Missing in Action from the Vietnam War Era, 1960-1994, Electronic Data Records Relating to Military Objectives and Activities During the Vietnam War, Electronic Records of Korean and Vietnam War Casualties, How to File a FOIA Request for Archival Records, Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) Extract Files, Records on Military Personnel Who Died, Were Missing in Action or Prisoners of War as a Result of the Vietnam War, Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) Files, Records of Deceased, Wounded, Ill, or Injured Army Personnel, Including Dependents and Civilian Employees, Records with Unit Information on Military Personnel Who Died During the Vietnam War. The human costs of the long conflict were harsh for all involved. The following is a chart of all casualties, listed by race, and in descending order. According to RJ Rummel, from 1964 to 1975, an estimated 1,500 people died during the forced relocations of 1,200,000 civilians, another 5,000 prisoners died from ill-treatment and about 30,000 suspected communists and fighters were executed. The United States has spent over $65 million since 1998 as part of unexploded ordnance clearing operations. The Vietnam War was fought between 1954 (following the departure of the French) through 1975, when South Vietnam surrendered to North Vietnam. The riot at the Long Binh Jail is the most publicized of thousands of racial incidents reported in South Vietnam between 1968 and 1971. Put in their place to rule was Emperor Bao Dai, a French implant who had ties to creating a democracy. According to a 2009 study, one third of land in the central provinces of Vietnam is still contaminated with unexploded mines and ordnance. [36][37][38][39] The My Lai Massacre was initially written off as an operational success and covered up. The war persisted from 1955 to 1975 and most of the fighting took place in South Vietnam; accordingly it suffered the most casualties. [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. A Korean War era soldier and later an attorney in Hays, Kansas, Richard became aware that the government had not made public a central source of information regarding the servicemen and women who died as a result of service in Vietnam. Data for this series of conflicts includes military personnel killed in the attacks on the USS Cole on October 12, 2000, the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, and in Afghanistan and elsewhere since those dates. 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. The dates of death . 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. Index of Vietnam War Casualties by Unit of Assignment. Others are still yet to be discovered and over 1,200 Americans are still unaccounted for. Vietnam War Casualties 1956-1998. [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. On February 26, 2007, President George W. Bush presented Crandall with the Medal of Honor for . Numbers certainly do not tell the whole story - or all of them - but they certainly paint a picture of lives lost and families devastated. 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. copyright 2003-2023 Study.com. Before the Second World War, Vietnam was occupied by the colonial French empire. 7. flashcard sets. When he later read the official tally of dead, he found that it listed them as 130 VC killed. [40][37] Sometimes civilian casualties from airstrikes or artillery barrages against villages were reported as "enemies killed". [26] The program resulted in an estimated 26,000 to 41,000 killed, with an unknown number possibly being innocent civilians. 13 chapters | Korean War Casualties Vietnam Casualties Advanced search Export results Vietnam Casualties. Morning muster on July 2 for the eight companies (A,B,D,E,G,H,I & K) involved in the suicidal attack was 262, and evening muster on the same day was 47. The U.S. military reported 58,220 American casualties. [77] Additionally, according to the U.S. military, they also lost up to 101,511 personnel as defectors due to the Chieu Hoi program,[78] but one analyst speculates that less than 25% of those were genuine. [5], In 1995, the Vietnamese government released its estimate of war deaths for the more lengthy period of 195575. Ronald H. Spector is Professor of History and International Affairs in the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. The overwhelming majority of the MIA are from northern Vietnam. Among other countries that fought for South Vietnam, South Korea had more than 4,000 dead, Thailand about 350, Australia more than 500, and New Zealand some three dozen. The steady aeromedical evacuation and in-theater care performed by the Air Force Medical Service (AFMS) in Southeast, The official News page of the Air Force Medical Service, providing the latest articles about Air Force Medicine and the Air Force. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. The United States withdrew its forces in 1973, placing the onus on South Vietnam to fight its own battle. [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. Revolutionary War. I feel like its a lifeline. Despite the loss of members of the unit on that day and one later in the week, Don praised the unit's overall performance. [65], According to the Vietnamese government's official history, one of the deadliest years was 1972, where they lost over 100,000 casualties. Da Nang was the primary storage site of the chemical. The Viet Cong amassed an estimated 2.3 million troops by 1975. 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. Vietnam War Casualties, MIA and POWs. Combat Area Casualties Dataset. According to statistics from the South Vietnamese Ministry of Health, 44.5% of civilians admitted to hospitals between 1967 and 1970 were wounded by mines or mortars, 21.2% by guns or grenades, and 34.3% by artillery or bombing. Back in the US, support for the war waned and calls to withdraw from Vietnam grew louder. (L Company Ranger 75th Infantry Archives) At only 17 years old, B.C.'s . Battle of Hamburger Hill. Bomb Tonnages Dropped on Laos and Cambodia, and Weighing Their Implications", "Association between Agent Orange and birth defects: systematic review and meta-analysis", "The History, Toxicity and Adverse Human Health and Environmental Effects Related to the Use of Agent Orange", http://ls-tlss.ucl.ac.uk/course-materials/POLS6016_65225, Story of Tiger Force atrocities had to be told, "On War extra Vietnam's massacre survivors", Counter-Revolutionary Violence: Bloodbaths in Fact & Propaganda, "Anatomy of US and South Korean Massacres in the Vietnamese Year of the Monkey, 1968 | Japan Focus", "VIETNAM KILLINGS LAID TO KOREANS (Published 1970)", "The 'forgotten' My Lai: South Korea's Vietnam War massacres", "Citizens' court to investigate Vietnam War atrocities committed by South Korean troops", "Chuyn 4 CNG TC TM KIM, QUY TP HI CT LIT S T NAY N NM 2020 V NHNG NM TIP THEO, datafile.chinhsachquandoi.gov.vn/Qun%20l%20ch%20o/Chuyn%20%204.doc", "Lost Souls: The Search for Vietnam's 300,000 or More MIAs", 300.000 lit s cha xc nh danh tnh l ni trn tr ln, "North Vietnamese Army's 1972 Eastertide Offensive", i tng V Nguyn Gip vi cng tc hu cn qun i, "2021 NAME ADDITIONS AND STATUS CHANGES ON THE VIETNAM VETERANS MEMORIAL", "US Military Operations: Casualty Breakdown", "Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency Vietnam (PMSEA) Report for CIVILIAN (Unaccounted For)", "Capture Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency Vietnam (PMSEA) Report for CIVILIAN (Accounted For Identified Since 1973)", "Vietnam-era unaccounted for statistical report", "Vietnam Prisoners of War Escapes and Attempts", http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo/vietnam/reports/pmsea_escapee.pdf, "Vietnam War U.S. Military Fatal Casualty Statistics", "Learning from America's Wars, Past and Present U.S. Battlefield Medicine Has Come a Long Way, from Antietam to Iraq", "African-Americans In Combat | History Detectives | PBS", "Vietnam War Bomb Explodes Killing Four Children", Vietnam: Report Details Unexploded Ordnance, "Vietnam War Bombs Still Killing People 40 Years Later", "U.S. in first effort to clean up Agent Orange in Vietnam", "U.S. starts its first Agent Orange cleanup in Vietnam", "After the Nightmare: The Population of Cambodia", "KOREA military army official statistics, AUG 28, 2005", "Australian servicemen listed as missing in action in Vietnam", https://books.google.com/books?id=qh5lffww-KsC&lpg=PA53&dq=the%20encyclopedia%20of%20the%20vietnam%20war%20page%2064&pg=PA176&output=embed, "POW Remembers McCain and Tapping Through Walls in Hanoi Prison", "New Zealand Rolls Of Honour By Conflict", "Overview of the war in Vietnam | VietnamWar.govt.nz, New Zealand and the Vietnam War", "America Wasn't the only Foreign Power in the Vietnam War", "Vietnam Reds to hold 17 From Taiwan as Spies", https://kienthuc.net.vn/quan-su/nhung-chuyen-gia-quan-su-lien-xo-trong-khang-chien-chong-my-1796800.html, Vietnamese Casualties During the American war, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vietnam_War_casualties&oldid=1142285241, includes an estimated 50,000/65,000/70,000 civilians killed by U.S/SVN bombing/shelling, includes 360,000/391,000/720,000 civilians, 25,000/50,000/75,000 killed in North Vietnam, 106,000/164,000/227,000 killed in South Vietnam. Chrissy has taught secondary English and history and writes online curriculum. The Vietnam War became a painful lesson for many - from Washington, D.C. to Smalltown America. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. 80 lessons In general we index the memorials at the lowest practical unit level. He was not killed in action but murdered by another U.S. airman and later died of his wounds on 8 June, 1956. Based on unit surveys, . 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. [99][100] In 2012 alone, unexploded ordnance and claimed 500 casualties in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, according to activists and Vietnamese government databases. The additional resources allowed the project's scope to expand to include unit of assignment information for all service branches. According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, between 200,000 and 400,000 boat people died at sea. [102] The Red Cross of Vietnam estimates that up to 1 million people are disabled or suffer health problems due to Agent Orange exposure. She has an M.S.Ed. Search and destroy was a term to describe operations aimed at flushing the Viet Cong out of hiding, while body count was the measuring stick for operation success and this resulted in exaggeration and listing civilian deaths as enemy KIA. The battle was later dramatized in the film We Were Soldiers. Seeing an opportunity to seize control, Ho's Viet Minh . 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. KIA - Killed in Action WIA - Wounded in Action. It is suspected that over 1.2 million of these deaths were murders. ", 1915 to 1917 infantry regiments grew from 959 to 3,720 men and 112 officers. [46], The ROK Capital Division reportedly perpetrated the Bnh An/Ty Vinh massacre in February/March 1966. Vietnam War: 1964-1973: 58,220: 153,303: 5,283: 1:2.6: 1:29.0 (0.03) Persian Gulf War: Corrections? Updates? KIA. The South Vietnamese government, on the other hand, fought to preserve a Vietnam more closely aligned with the West. From refugee camps in Southeast Asia, the great majority of boat people were resettled in more developed countries. Civilian deaths were partly caused by assassinations, massacres, and terror tactics. Although demographers have developed a reper- 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. Deaths in the Vietnam War. Relations between the United States and Vietnam were stable in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, and peace was maintained. 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