You read some of what I have to say about the Hue massacres
and media coverage of war atrocities in Vietnam. I’m pleased now to present to
you some comments and anecdotes by other people on the same topic.
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| Funeral procession for Hue victims |
Mark W. Woodruff in his book Unheralded Victory[i]
describes some of the perpetrated by the Vietcong during their brief occupation
of the City of Hue.
A quick comment about Woodruff’s book: I am gratified at how
many of the discoveries that I made during my research are supported by the
material in Unheralded Victory. Or
put more properly, I should say gratified at how much my research supports the
material in Woodruff’s book, since Unheralded
Victories was written before I began my research.
I remember being told about his book a couple of years ago,
but I did not acquire a copy until this summer (2014). I am glad, though, that
I did not have his book when I was doing my research (or at least during the
first 5 years, since my research is ongoing) because now I have independent
corroboration of my discoveries.
There are still things I learned from his book and many of
my discoveries that are not in his book, but it is nice to know that our
research supports each other’s.
That being said let’s look at a few things he had to say
about Hue:
The City of Hue, with a population of about 140,000, was not
guarded by military troops. The local police were responsible for their
security.
So when the 6th North Vietnamese Army Regiment (reinforced)
and the Vietcong 416th Battalion captured Hue they didn’t conquer an
army to do so. They infiltrated dressed as civilians & had to overcome only
the local police to take control. The bloody battles in Hue occurred during the
recapture of Hue from the Communists by US Marines, and soldiers of the US Army
and the South Vietnamese army.
As a side note, this type of infiltration was a violation of
the Geneva Convention. The media gave tons of column inches and a lot of air
time to the idea that the South Vietnamese government and the US were violating
the Geneva Accords by not allowing nationwide elections in 1956 (even though
the US government and the Diem regime were not signatories to the Accords) yet
they said very little if anything about Geneva Convention violations by
Communist forces.
Back to Woodruff’s narratives from Hue:
“Local sympathizers provided detailed lists of the
residents, including where they lived, who they worked for ... [to] the Viet
Cong [who] acted on this information, targeting government workers, foreigners,
and other ‘reactionaries’”[ii].
“Steven Miller, an American civilian ... was taken by the
Viet Cong. They led him away to a field behind a nearby Catholic seminary,
bound his arms, and then shot him to death”[iii].
“Dr. Horst Gunther Kyainick, a German pediatrician, and his
wife Elisabeth [and Drs. Raimund Discher and Alois Altekoester] thought they
would be safe as civilian medical workers and German nationals. ... The four
were later found shot to death, their bodies dumped in a shallow grave in a
nearby field”[iv].
“Father Urbain and Father Guy, French priests, were
similarly led away by the Viet Cong. Father Urbain was ... bound hand and foot
[and] buried alive. Father Guy [died with] a bullet hole in the back of his head.
In their common grave were the remains of 18 other victims”[v].
“Father Buu Dong had long ministered to everyone within his
parish, including the Viet Cong. ... His body was found 22 months later ...
along with the remains of 300 other victims”[vi].
Pham Van Tuong’s “‘crime’ [was] being a part time janitor at the government information office. When [the
VC] ordered him to come out of hiding, he emerged with his three-year-old
daughter, five-year-old son, and two nephews. The Viet Cong immediately gunned
down all five of them, leaving their bodies to be found by the rest of his
family when they emerged moments later”[vii].
“The Viet Cong came to Phu Cam Cathedral and gathered
together 400 men and boys. ... They were last seen being marched away to the
south. Two years later, thee Viet Cong defectors led troopers of the 101st
Airborne Division to a creek bed in the dense jungle ten miles from Hue. The
number murdered was later confirmed at 428”[viii].
“A total of 2,810 bodies were eventually found in shallow
mass graves; 1,946 people remained unaccounted for.... [Once liberated] the
city’s residents gladly helped to identify and locate any Viet Cong still
alive”[ix].
Others reports:
Unnamed VC spokespersons justified the murder of civilians
as follows; “We never did it without reason. We advised people who worked with
the government to stop. Some of them were very stubborn. We would warn them
three times, but some still refused to leave the government side. Since they
stayed with the government, it meant they supported the government’s fascist
suppression efforts. So they deserved to be punished”[x].
The website http://ngothelinh.tripod.com/Hue.html
puts the number massacred at 7600 due to bodies found since the initial 2800
were discovered. The website also quotes from the book The Viet Cong Strategy of Terror, by multi-tour Vietnam Foreign Service Officer, Douglas Pike.
“Apparently it made no impact on the world's mind or
conscience. For there was no agonized outcry. No demonstration at North
Vietnamese embassies around the world. In a tone beyond bitterness, the people
there will tell you that the world does not know what happened in Hue or, if it
does, does not care”[xi].
So why were these stories not found in news reports by the
US media?
[i]
Woodruff, Mark W. (1999). Unheralded
Victory: The Defeat of the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army, 1961-1973.
Arlington, VA: Vandamere Press.
[ii]
Ibid, p. 44
[iii]
Ibid, p. 45
[iv]
ibid, p. 45
[v]
ibid, p. 45
[vi]
ibid, p. 45
[vii]
ibid, p. 45
[viii]
ibid, pp. 45-46
[ix]
ibid, p 46
[x]
Pike, Douglas, (1970). The Viet Cong
Strategy of Terror. Saigon, Vietnam: Privately published.
[xi]
http://ngothelinh.tripod.com/Hue.html,
para 3 ... all pictures in today’s blog are courtesy this website.
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