ITN reporter Sandy Gall says something at the beginning of the footage that isn’t very flattering to the Americans fighting at Hue:
“…Bravo Company, which started off with more than 130 men, is now down to 90. They are courageous, but they lack cunning. And because they lack cunning, they’re taking heavy casualties.”
Later in the report, Gall admits that many of the American troops fighting were green.
Nonetheless, Hue was a victory for the Americans and the South Vietnamese.
After the Tet Offensive, the communists were decimated and virtually finished in the South.
It was US public opinion that turned against the war after the Tet Offensive, despite the victory– blame Walter Cronkite. It led to the Paris Peace Accords, officially titled the “Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Viet Nam”– which North Vietnam violated later on– and led to the US withdrawal from Vietnam.
“In February 1968, after witnessing the devastation of the Tet Offensive in Hue, Vietnam, Walter Cronkite famously declared the war a stalemate and called for a negotiated peace.” Walter Cronkite, who reported from Vietnam during the Tet Offensive, was not a military man or expert; he spoke only from what he personally saw. (This is a blatant example from history of how the media and journalists can hold so much sway.) Cronkite was referred to as “the most trusted man in America”.
Great footage. A piece of military history.
For what it’s worth, Hue is one of my favourite cities in Vietnam.
–RdM
🔴 ITN Archives — ITN’s Sandy Gall reported from the frontline of the Battle of Huế, as US Marines engaged in bloody street fighting in an effort to reclaim the city, three weeks after it fell to the Viet Cong in their surprise Tet Offensive. Bravo Company, Gall observed, was made up largely of “green” recruits, whose inexperience showed in their style of fighting – and in Bravo’s growing number of casualties.