Hue City: A Battle in the Thick of Vietnam's Tet Offensive
As South Vietnamese relaxed during the Tet holiday in 1968, North Vietnamese and Vietcong launch the most audacious offensive of the Vietnam War.
Here's What You Need to Know: The Communist strategy of bringing local VC cadres into the streets resulted in an unmitigated disaster.
The city of Hue was the capital of a unified Vietnam from 1802 until 1945. With its stately, tree-lined boulevards, Buddhist temples, national university, and ornate imperial palace within a massive walled city known as the Citadel, Hue was the cradle of the country’s culture and heritage. As late as 1967, Hue remained an open city, unscathed by the various wars that since World War II had raged up and down the Indochinese peninsula. But when Communist leaders in North Vietnam felt compelled to alter their strategy and launch a massive offensive in South Vietnam in early 1968, the Battle of Hue City suddenly placed the city into of some of the heaviest fighting of the entire Vietnam War.