Battle of Hue City

The Battle of Hue City was one of the most fierce and brutal battles in the Vietnam War. Three Marine Battalions totally fewer than twenty-five thousand men attacked and successfully defeated over ten thousand enemy troops liberating Hue for South Vietnam. The City of Hue was located in central Vietnam and was the country’s cultural capital for that reason is was spared from the horrible effects of the war until 1968. During Tet a lunar New Year’s holiday celebrated all over Vietnam the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong launch a massive attack on South Vietnam. Second Battalion Fifth Marines fought alongside the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, supported my Army Calvary units to take over Hue City block by block. Hue City was an insanely brutal battle to say the least. Enemy soldiers were pulled out there homes and other buildings they found cover in and eliminated. This battle lasted twenty-six days the longest battle since the battle for Seoul during the Korean War. Major Ron Christmas was quoted saying “fighting house-to-house is the dirtiest of all fighting. . . Just as a rat must be drawn from his burrow to be eradicated, an enemy soldier, burrowed in a building, must also be pulled from his hiding place to be eliminated. Normally, he will not come out without a fight. The attacker must go in and dig him out.” The battle began early January 31, 1968 and by 0800 the North Vietnamese had raised there red and blue Viet Cong flag with its gold star in the citadel tower. It was not until the 24th of February that the US troops had gained way and took the citadel taking down the North Vietnamese Army’s flag. Death tolls for the Battle of Hue City were high which should come to know surprise seeing that there were thousands of civilians in the city during the time of the battle. There was an estimated twenty-eight thousand civilians executed