I have no illusions that there was a faction within Northern Vietnam that wanted to ally with China rather than the Soviet Union, but that side always had remained in the minority due to past history regarding Chinese efforts to incorporate Vietnam into its empire. To them, Vietnam would become nothing more than a puppet state if the Chinese were allowed to base actual military units outside of engineers and such within their territory, such as the Soviet Union with Poland.
Invasion of North Vietnam
- Thread starter Leistungsfähiger Amerikan
- Start date
I have no illusions that there was a faction within Northern Vietnam that wanted to ally with China rather than the Soviet Union, but that side always had remained in the minority due to past history regarding Chinese efforts to incorporate Vietnam into its empire. To them, Vietnam would become nothing more than a puppet state if the Chinese were allowed to base actual military units outside of engineers and such within their territory, such as the Soviet Union with Poland.
Something else has been bugging me, too. Why presume the objective is conquest of DRV? Why not consider it a Dieppe/Dakar "shock to the system" raid to do nothing more than force a stable peace? One that would avoid the "revanchism" (if I can call it that) of OTL 1975. I picture something where the border is moved north & Ho & Co are told, "Don't f*ck around in the South any more, or we'll be back", with strong hints of very bad weather: hard clouds of B-52s & extended iron rain. Does anybody believe the U.S. couldn't enforce that, if the stupid rules of engagement hadn't put airbases off-limits?And if supplies of SAMs continued to be prohibited? (Hell, buy off the Sovs if necessary. There had to be something they wanted more than Vietnam.)
This possibility has been discussed in this thread before, but the question always comes up--what will be attacked in North Vietnam? On the one hand, there is the danger of doing too much damage(destroying the dikes) and massacring the people of Vietnam, which would turn both the American public and the international community against the Federal government. On the other hand there's doing too little damage, which makes the whole thing pointless. There probably is a middle ground, but the difficulty is finding it.
In the case of such a war, the USA would probably be given over a year to deal with North Vietnam without fear of Chinese or Soviet intervention. In the Fear and Gumbo timeline, the war occurred in 1972. Such a war would be more likely to occur in the late 1960's, IMO, when the USA was more prepared to launch an invasion due to greater public support for the conflict. Plus, whatever the USA destroys will not be replaced by Soviet arms shipments.
Ignacy Mscicki was never going to ally with Iosif Stalin under any conditions, and similarly Hanoi was never going to ally with Beijing. Hanoi is no Churchill.
Commissar
Banned
You are looking at this with hindsight.
American intel had zero clue about China's capabilities and was still haunted by the utter humiliation it suffered to China in Korea. They did not want to risk another fight with China if they did not have to, especially as it had obtained nukes which changed their entire strategic outlook and made planning for a nuclear confrontation a necessity.
And once started a nuclear confrontation can quickly escalate out of control.
And, yet again, the "200,000 dead" presumes the damn dikes are blown with a full head of water behind them.
In the dry season, there wouldn't be.Is anyone familiar with a book published in late 70s titled "The Raid"? Its an account of the planning & execution of Son Tay raid. Towards the end of the book is a discussion over the Nixon administrations frustration with No. Vietnam over POW negotiations. Pentagon came up with a plan similar to the raids others came up with in this thread.
Plan was limited in scope to free POWs and consisted of a raid of 3 1/2 divisions. It was a simultaneous airborne, airmoble & amphibious operation to envelope Hanoi and cutoff all avenues of escape. 82nd abn would parahute on choke points outside of Hanoi. Small Special Forces team's would parachute in to sieze Hoa Lo prison, the Plantation, and other outlying camps like the Zoo where pow's were know to be held. SF would also be given free hand to "extract" any high ranking NV officials they happended across. They would later be offered for trade for any remaining POWs missed.
Planning was meticulous enough the planners obtained maps from French of sewer systems for Hoa Lo. They also knew raid was a huge gamble because more raiders would die than POWs rescued. It reached the point where a marine division was ready to embark and other forces were ready to go but alert order for raid was never issued. The planners optomistically thought it could have ended the war within 2 weeks. Interesting to think about in terms of what if...
Plan was limited in scope to free POWs and consisted of a raid of 3 1/2 divisions. It was a simultaneous airborne, airmoble & amphibious operation to envelope Hanoi and cutoff all avenues of escape. 82nd abn would parahute on choke points outside of Hanoi. Small Special Forces team's would parachute in to sieze Hoa Lo prison, the Plantation, and other outlying camps like the Zoo where pow's were know to be held. SF would also be given free hand to "extract" any high ranking NV officials they happended across. They would later be offered for trade for any remaining POWs missed.
Planning was meticulous enough the planners obtained maps from French of sewer systems for Hoa Lo. They also knew raid was a huge gamble because more raiders would die than POWs rescued. It reached the point where a marine division was ready to embark and other forces were ready to go but alert order for raid was never issued. The planners optomistically thought it could have ended the war within 2 weeks. Interesting to think about in terms of what if...
Hendryk, it is true that in the case of the main islands of Japan we had
already been given sanction by the Emperor, so to speak, by treaty of
surrender. Not true in Okinawa, where we were for many months. Not
really full Japanese, they were angry at being lied to by their minders,
as happened in Germany and home islands Japan a few months later.
Different time line and method, same result. Dictatorships are like that,
built on mistruth, half truths and sham.
Show movies nightly, give them plenty of food, break up existing
networks, and you might be surprised at the result. If any starts
to fall apart, call off the invasion early, or reform even to the point
of appointing communist leaders to be in charge of small groups.
I agree that my proposal would be on the edge, as most all internments
and separations have been marred. That includes Italians (yes, a few)
interned in the US (been told by their offspring it was move or be
shot in 1942, or Germans (told by daughter to me) in Australia. Or a
naughty Belgian kid of 7 or so (told to me by the individual) circa
1943 whose father kept on getting in lots of hot water. We Americans
killed how many in the Philippines circa 1901? Figures vary on the
300,ooo in concentration camps, but about 10,000 seems the
figure. But these were interned for long periods, not weeks.
The worst would come with the North Vietnamese return, despite
organized routines and plenty of bags of rice/water left behind
(with intentionally slow leaking bins so to not be of use to the
enemy long term).
Like socialism/communism, which is perpetually having apologists
say "if only it were done right" you have good cause for skepticism.
But not quite. Internment does work and sometimes needs to be
done. The distances are short, the supply lines efficient, and the
initial distances really short (ten miles or so, just to break up the
home guard units).
It is interesting you compare Japan in China (13 years or so) to a
2 month sojourn raid. Very different. Besides, we would be more
planting bugs than destroying. With all people out of the village,
IR sharp shooters with silencers at night directly overhead
suspended by dirigible (one line, several men in parallel, dirigible
anchored to ground upwind in kachin a very small breeze).
The mist which forms for months at that time is excellent cover.
Less than a hundred feet away (80 feet straight up) it is
hard to miss, and there is not echo to locate the directions.
Inexperienced local home guard forces panic and get sloppier
and less coordinated. A typical village falls within a night
with no US casualties. As probably posted earlier, artificial
machine guns (cap blasters and flicker lights) focus attention
in other directions and provide cover. Same thing with
artificial helicopter noise from a distance.
I do not normally dispute your contentions. But just as bar
room brawls, or real gorrilla/chimps/dog, fights are settled
within a quarter second by whomever takes the initiative
and has the upper hand, normally, this could have worked
if the time is short and the opposition never knows what
hits them/strategies change too quickly to establish a
pattern. In my personal timeline, a group called the
Herkimers (re: 1777 General Herchheimer) train for the effort
in the US, but that is just my ad hoc plot device timeline.
It is not certain wether it would have been worth the risk,
but this is a speculative forum and it is worth exploring.
Okinawa was ugly partly because the locals were told falsely
that Americans would treat them much worse than anyone.
Thick faces melted when they figured out so many loved
ones (a quarter/third of the civilians) died unnecessarily.
On the on other side, American soldiers melted when the
falsehood told to them of evil, heartless Japanese when
confronted by, say, old grannies carrying their wounded
relatives. Have you ever talked to any Okinawans? I have,
on the island, including relatives of the former royal family.
They think of themselves as world citizens now, and do not
really like to talk of the time. This was in 1991/1993.
Wikipedia also says that the local museum preports that
among other things Japanese military shot 1,000
Okinawans for using their dialect (spies, they said) during
the conflict, took food causing massive famine among
locals, and used them for human shields. That puts a few
dents in your example.
In its history of the war, the Okinawa Prefectural Peace Memorial Museum[24] presents Okinawa as being caught in the fighting between America and Japan. During the 1945 battle, the Japanese Army showed indifference to Okinawa's defense and safety, and the Japanese soldiers used civilians as human shields against the Americans. Japanese military confiscated food from the Okinawans and executed those who hid it, leading to a mass starvation among the population, and forced civilians out of their shelters. Japanese soldiers also killed about 1,000 Okinawans who spoke in a different local dialect in order to suppress spying.[26] The museum writes that "some were blown apart by shells, some finding themselves in a hopeless situation were driven to suicide, some died of starvation, some succumbed to malaria, while others fell victim to the retreating Japanese troops."[24]
Mass suicides
With the impending victory of American troops, civilians often committed mass suicide, urged on by the Japanese soldiers who told locals that victorious American soldiers would go on a rampage of killing and raping. Ryukyu Shimpo, one of the two major Okinawan newspapers, wrote in 2007: "There are many Okinawans who have testified that the Japanese Army directed them to commit suicide. There are also people who have testified that they were handed grenades by Japanese soldiers" to blow themselves up.[27] Some of the civilians, having been induced by Japanese propaganda to believe that U.S. soldiers were barbarians who committed horrible atrocities, killed their families and themselves to avoid capture. Some of them threw themselves and their family members from the cliffs where the Peace Museum now resides.
However, despite being told by the Japanese military that they would suffer rape, torture and murder at the hands of the Americans, Okinawans "were often surprised at the comparatively humane treatment they received from the American enemy."[28][29] According to Islands of Discontent: Okinawan Responses to Japanese and American Power by Mark Selden, the Americans "did not pursue a policy of torture, rape, and murder of civilians as Japanese military officials had warned."[30] Military Intelligence[31] combat translator Teruto Tsubota, a U.S. Marine born in Hawaii, convinced hundreds of civilians not to kill themselves and thus saved their lives.[32]
[edit] Rape allegations
Civilians and historians report that soldiers on both sides had raped Okinawan civilians during the battle. Rape by Japanese troops "became common" in June, after it became clear that the Japanese Army had been defeated.[6][33] One Okinawan historian has estimated there were more than 10,000 rapes of Okinawan women by American troops during the three month campaign.[34] The New York Times reported in 2000 that in the village of Katsuyama, civilians formed a vigilante group to ambush and kill a group of black American soldiers whom they claimed frequently raped the local girls there.[35]
Marine Corps officials in Okinawa and Washington have stated that they "knew of no rapes by American servicemen in Okinawa at the end of the war, and their records do not list war crimes committed by Marines in Okinawa".[36] Historian George Feifer, however, writes that rape in Okinawa was "another dirty secret of the campaign" in which "American military chronicles ignore [the] crimes." Few Okinawans revealed their pregnancies, as "stress and bad diet ... rendered most Okinawan women infertile. Many who did become pregnant managed to abort before their husbands and fathers returned. A smaller number of newborn infants fathered by Americans were suffocated."[37]
[edit] Suicide order controversy
Your points are not false, just slanted in case. A forced movement
of population is a risky step, even to a pretty sanitary location
(sand dunes next to an ocean, with easy low level tide truck
delivery/ocean replenishment over a 100 miles = 100,000 per
mile. Tight, but possible, with security zones, etc. Ever hear of
the duneites of Pismo Beach during the Great Depression?
Come to think of it, many Okinawans were forced to walk a lot
longer than 30 miles to reach safer areas behind US lines.
No talk of that, is there?
Okinawa was an expected invasion, nor was it flawless on the
US side. However, it does not present a good example of
that my proposal of a possible successful raid/invasion to
North Vietnam would fail, in my opinion. It would be interesting
to hear your contentions of this issue, still.
Only some of the POWs were at that location, and they were
moved a few weeks before, I recall.
http://www.amazon.com/Raid-Son-Prison-Rescue-Mission/dp/0345446968
It is called a successful failure since one of the drop zones happened
to be a training site for foreign troops, assumed to be Chinese which
were in North Vietnam by the thousands. Something like a hundred
died. All that is officially listed is "foreign" advisors or such.
I believe you are talking about the above book, or is this mistaken?