Hue Massacres
The fact that American troops committed war crimes in Vietnam has been well documented. What has been less discussed in American media and the entertainment industry in its depiction of the war are the atrocities committed by the North Vietnamese. One of the worst occurred in the City of Hue in 1968, during the time in which it was occupied by the Viet Cong and the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN). Hue was captured by the communist forces during the Tet Offensive. On the morning of January 31, 1968 the city was overrun by Viet Cong and PAVN forces.
Immediately after seizing control of the city the Viet Cong set up a provisional government. They used lists which had been prepared by Viet Cong spies and collaborators to round up former government workers, soldiers and former soldiers of the South Vietnamese Army, American civilians, religious leaders, teachers, politicians, and many others. Patients were removed from hospitals, as were doctors and nurses who treated them. The provisional government divided the city into Target Areas and directed the pursuit and seizure of anyone supportive of the Americans or the South Vietnamese.
Between 2,500 and 6,000 citizens of Hue were taken out of the city, in small groups during the occupation, and executed. A great many more were placed in forced re-education facilities. Many of the executed were bound and killed via blunt force trauma to the back of the head, as evidenced by the discovery of mass graves in the years during and since the war. In a Catholic area of the city 400 males ages 15 and up were discovered taking refuge in a cathedral. They were taken out and killed. German teachers at Hue University and in at least one case the wife of a professor were executed by the North Vietnamese.
Some of the victims were simply buried alive. Others were shot. When the city was recaptured by American and South Vietnamese troops Viet Cong documents confirming the massacre were discovered. Over a thousand were claimed to have been killed by one PAVN regiment. Several documents listed the political and civil service members killed by number and position title, rather than by name. The sheer number of the documents which were written as reports to Hanoi makes denial of the crimes impossible. So did the presence of the many mass graves, some of which were found immediately, and others years later.
The communists tried to blame the deaths of so many civilians in Hue to the American artillery bombardment during the effort to retake the city. Much of the city was indeed destroyed by the intensity of the battle, but the presence of bodies found with arms bound together with wire cannot be denied. The massacre was never recognized by the North Vietnamese, and later the Vietnamese governments. Much of the panic which occurred when the North Vietnamese launched their final assault on the South in 1975 was from anticipation of a similar massacre when the South finally collapsed.