Posted on Feb 10, 2018

Viet Cong blow up U.S. barracks - Feb 10, 1965 - HISTORY.com

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Viet Cong guerrillas blow up the U.S. barracks at Qui Nhon, 75 miles east of Pleiku on the central coast, with a 100-pound explosive charge under the building. A total of 23 U.S. personnel were killed, as well as two Viet Cong. In response to the attack, President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered a retaliatory air strike operation on North Vietnam called Flaming Dart II.

This was the second in a series of retaliations launched because of communist attacks on U.S. installations in South Vietnam. Just 48 hours before, the Viet Cong struck Camp Holloway and the adjacent Pleiku airfield in the Central Highlands. This attack killed eight U.S. servicemen, wounded 109, and destroyed or damaged 20 aircraft.

With his advisors advocating a strong response, President Johnson gave the order to launch Operation Flaming Dart, retaliatory air raids on a barracks and staging areas at Dong Hoi, a guerrilla training camp 40 miles north of the 17th parallel in North Vietnam.

Johnson hoped that quick and effective retaliation would persuade the North Vietnamese to cease their attacks in South Vietnam.

Unfortunately, Operation Flaming Dart did not have the desired effect. The attack on Qui Nhon was only the latest in a series of communist attacks on U.S. installations, and Flaming Dart II had very little effect.

Viet Cong blow up U.S. barracks - Feb 10, 1965 - HISTORY.com

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Posted 6 y ago

Responses: 9

LTC Orlando Illi

Posted 6 y ago

The sad legacy is that over 50,000 of our brothers and sisters died, thousands more were wounded; some crippled for life, and over 2000 are still MIA fighting a war that they were never allowed to win. Many people believe that General Westmoreland lost the Vietnam War. To the uniformed that believe that scapegoating a General for losing Vietnam; you are WRONG. Specifically, Westmoreland was not a supreme commander like Dwight D. Eisenhower in World War II or Douglas MacArthur in Korea. He was a subordinate unified commander under U.S. Pacific Command. America’s failure in Vietnam was a consequence of BAD and UNINFORMED policy decisions made in a self induced vacuum in Washington by McNamara and Johnson; in particular allowing the enemy to maintain base areas in Laos and Cambodia (not to mention North Vietnam itself) and restricting any attempt at the use of Air-power to bring North Vietnam to its knees. Those decisions coupled with Communists’ ability to hold the military and political initiative throughout most of the war led to the inevitable conclusion that, despite overwhelming U.S. Military power, we would lose the Vietnam War. In the end, the North Vietnamese strategy, conceived by General Giap , was arguably like no other in history: a combination of large main force NVA units, a well-entrenched guerrilla (VC) movement with deep roots and the support of two powerful sponsors - China and the Soviet Union. So in the end, the US military could not win the war by themselves and regardless of the number of battlefield successes by the Army and Marines, as long as the government and people of South Vietnam did not buy into the campaign to defeat the VC and NVA the US could not win.

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Comment

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SFC William Farrell

6 y

Well said LTC Orlando Illi

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SMSgt Thor Merich

6 y

Outstanding analysis.

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LTC Orlando Illi

6 y

SMSgt Thor Merich - What pisses me off the most was that that Arrogant, Narcissistic McNamara WILLINGLY SACRIFICED Pilots and Aircrews in his misguided bombing campaign in North Vietnam. Hundreds died, were MIA or taken captive while he continued to sacrifice them without once allowing them to destroy enemy airfields or the SAM sites around Hanoi and Haiphong. He, and not those he sent into impossible high threat areas to bomb targets that HE SELECTED, should have been a POW in the Hanoi Hilton. To say I hold him in contempt would be a compliment. His tenure was one of the most glaring example of incompetence and criminally negligent behavior ever exhibited by a Secretary of Defense and one for which he should be eternally condemned.

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