Encounter Books, December 2022. The study's authors stated that methodological limitations of the study include imbalance between rural and urban areas and the potential exclusion of high mortality areas. Not until 1995 did Vietnam release its official estimate of war dead: as many as 2 million civilians on both sides and some 1.1 million North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters. Army Battle Casualties and Nonbattle Deaths (Statistical and Accounting Branch, Office of the Adjutant General), 1 June 1953, 1st Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Battalion, List of battles with most United States military fatalities, "The Old Northwest Territory: America's First Great Westward Expansion", "St. Clair's Campaign of 1791: A Defeat in the Wilderness That Helped Forge Today's U.S. Army", http://www.gdg.org/Research/MOLLUS/mollus7.html, "Chapter 3: The Siege and Capture of Corregidor", "Department of the Army, Lineage and Honors, 1st Battalion 75th Ranger Regiment", "The Korean War. The officially-reported numbers and categories below cover American Vietnam War deaths by age group, branch of service, service component, type of death, reason for death, race, religion, sex, state/protectorate and deaths by war year (including post-war). There are some limitations on the search capabilities and downloading records en masse is not allowed. It is unknown how much aid was lost from North Vietnamese allies. Regarding killed in action the 2nd Infantry Division was the unit with the highest ratio with 7,094 KIA and 16,575 wounded. [24] Benjamin Valentino estimates 110,000310,000 deaths as a "possible case" of "counter-guerrilla mass killings" by U.S. and South Vietnamese forces during the war. Of the 7877 officer casualties, 7595 or 96.4% were white, 147 or 1.8% were black; 24 or . but not without Marine and U.S. Air Force casualties. The Vietnam War is one of the most unpopular wars in American history. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington, D.C.. Major incidents. Of the 2.6 million, between 1 and 1.6 million (40-60%) either fought in. Other Deaths (In Theater) 2,835 Other Deaths in Service (Non-Theater) 17,672 Non-mortal Woundings 103,284 Living Veterans 1,165,000 Vietnam War (1964-1975) Total U.S. Servicemembers (Worldwide)6 8,744,000 Deployed to Southeast Asia 7 3,403,000 Battle Deaths 8 47,434 Other Deaths (In Theater)8 10,786 Other Deaths in Service (Non-Theater)8 32,000 History is not a fixed set of facts. In 1939, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam were French colonies organized under a single administrative unit called Civil War Deaths | How Many People Died in the Civil War? [21] During the peak war years, another scholar Guenter Lewy attributed almost a third of civilian deaths to the VC. Index of Vietnam War Casualties by Unit of Assignment. [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. COAST GUARD *, Copyright 1997-2018 www.VirtualWall.org, Ltd (TM), Division level indexes are used for Division HQ and minor assigned unit personnel, Brigade level indexes are used for Brigade HQ and minor assigned unit personnel, Aviation Group level indexes are used for Group HQ and minor assigned unit personnel, Aviation Battalion level indexes are used for Bn HQ, minor assigned units, and Aviation Companies which stayed with a single Battalion throughout their time in Vietnam, Separate Battalion indexes are used for Battalions not assigned to a Regiment, Aviation Companies that served with two or more Aviation Battalions while in Vietnam are indexed separately. Not all of these were military personnel; nearly half of the deaths of the Vietnam War were the deaths of civilians caught in the fighting. Over 58,000 American lives were lost in the fighting. [20] About 130 American and 16,000 South Vietnamese POWs died in captivity. From 1965 to 1975, nearly 500,000 Marines served in Southeast Asia. These estimates probably include deaths of Vietnamese soldiers in Laos and Cambodia, but do not include deaths of South Vietnamese and allied soldiers which would add nearly 300,000 for a grand total of 3.4 million military and civilian dead. 7,484 women served in Vietnam, of whom 6,250 or 83.5% were nurses. All three men died in spring of 2020 of COVID-19 after . A 1975 US Senate subcommittee estimated around 1.4 million civilian casualties in South Vietnam because of the war, including 415,000 deaths. Calculating U.S. Estimates of the total number of deaths in the Vietnam War vary widely. 2.7 million American troops were sent to South Vietnam. [52] According to a study conducted in 1968 by a Quaker-funded Vietnamese-speaking American couple, Diane and Michael Jones, there were at least 12 mass killings committed by South Korean forces that approached the scale of the My Lai Massacre, with reports of thousands of routine murders of civilians, primarily the elderly, women and children. [73][74], Historian Christian Appy states "search and destroy was the principal tactic; and the enemy body count was the primary measure of progress" in the US strategy of attrition. The first American soldier died in the Vietnam War was Richard B. Fitzgibbon, Jr., a U.S. Air Force Technical Sergeant. 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. Support for the war was lacking in the United States, so the decision was made to discontinue efforts there. Learn about Vietnam war statistics and casualties. [1] Civilian deaths are still ongoing because of the use of unexploded ordnances left behind from the war. Killed in Action (KIA); Died while Missing. [42] This might partially explain the discrepancies between recovered weapons and body-count figures, along with exaggeration, although the NVA and VC also went to great lengths to recover weapons from the battlefield. "Making More Enemies than We Kill? Pentagon statistics listed 39,000 and 61,000 PRG/DRV dead for the same time period.". Posted By: Jagermeister, 2/27/2023 4:40:17 PM Military historian and Hillsdale College professor Mark Moyar has just published Triumph Regained: The Vietnam War, 1965-1968, which is the second in what will become a massive three-volume revision of the entire Vietnam War. . From a Marine second lieutenant in New Jersey who commanded a rifle platoon in Vietnam. The sum of those totals is 3,091,000 war deaths between 195575. 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. At the heart of the conflict was the desire of North Vietnam, which had defeated the French colonial administration of Vietnam in 1954, to unify the entire country under a single communist regime modeled after those of the Soviet Union and China. Dr. Shulimson heads the History Writing Unit and is a graduate of the University of Buffalo, now the State University of New York at Buffalo. The earliest casualty record contains a date of death of . The United States Army lost the most troops in the Vietnam War, over 38,000 soldiers. Estimates include both civilian and military deaths in North and South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. The U.S. Constitution grants Congress sole authority to issue declarations of war. The Fall of Saigon in 1975 | Vietnam War Timeline, Causes & Aftermath, Battle of Ia Drang | Battle of Ia Drang Casualty List, Easter Offensive of 1972: Vietnam War | History, Impact & Aftermath. Commander George L. Jackson said, "In response to this criticism, the Department of Defense took steps to readjust force levels in order to achieve an equitable proportion and employment of Negroes in Vietnam." Village battles were not uncommon as the two factions fought for control of the region. 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. Following its 1945 defeat in World War II, Japan withdrew its forces from Vietnam, leaving the French-educated Emperor Bao Dai in control. Data for deaths in Laos is incomplete. A South Vietnamese plane seeking Vietcong hiding places accidentally dropped its flaming napalm on civilians and government troops instead. Who had the highest casualty rates in the Vietnam War? Support to North Vietnam was sent by Communist allies including China, North Korea, and the Soviet Union. [28][4] Higher estimates place the number of civilian deaths caused by American bombing of North Vietnam in Operation Rolling Thunder at 182,000. A number of incidents occurred during the war in which civilians were deliberately targeted or killed. Many were never directly involved in the fighting, but rather were only caught in the crosshairs of South Vietnamese and North Vietnamese forces. According to the Vietnamese government, unexploded ordnance has killed some 42,000 people since the end of the war. A casualty is just a soldier who is no longer available for the immediate battle or campaign, the major consideration in combat. The riot at the Long Binh Jail is the most publicized of thousands of racial incidents reported in South Vietnam between 1968 and 1971. Both were present at the Battle of Ia Drang, the first large-scale engagement of the Vietnam War. [26], RJ Rummel estimated that American forces killed around 5,500 people in democide between 1960 and 1972, from a range of between 4,000 and 10,000. [36][37][41] All individuals killed in declared free-fire zones, combatants or not, were considered enemy killed in action by US forces . His estimate of total deaths is reflected in the table. Major Bruce Crandall made over 20 flights into intense enemy fire during a battle in the Ia Drang Valley, South Vietnam, in November 1965, evacuating 70 wounded and delivering ammunition. These statistics were sourced from the appendix of On the offensive: the Australian Army in the Vietnam War 1967-1968. Vietnam War. An additional 232,000 military personnel were still missing as of 2017, a total of 1,081,000 dead and missing for the American War. Once a unit assignment has been determined, a link to the individual's memorial page is included in the appropriate Unit Index. He further suggests that 222,000 civilians may have been counted as enemy military deaths by the U.S. in compiling its "body count" raising the total to 627,000 killed. Korean War Casualties Vietnam Casualties Advanced search Export results Vietnam Casualties. The additional resources allowed the project's scope to expand to include unit of assignment information for all service branches. In Qung Nam Province 4,700 civilians were killed in 1969. Korea, and the Soviet Union North Vietnamese allies and South Vietnam between 1968 and 1971 unit the! 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