Why was the Húe massacre forgotten?

[BornInMarch]

During the Tet offensive of the Vietnam war, North Vietnamese Army soldiers and Viet Cong guerrillas attacked several locations. One of those was the city of Húe.

During their occupation of Húe, the soldiers carrying out the will of Ho Chi Minh rounded up anyone in the city who did not support Communism. Teachers, Priests, Intellectuals, and anyone who was friendly to Americans. These and many others were brutally murdered in mass killings and summery executions. Some were even buried alive.

Between 2800 to 6000 innocent civilians were perished during this act of brutality. By comparison, the much more famous Mi Lai massacre only had one hundred deaths.

Why has the world forgotten the massacre of Húe?

 

[Petaro]

Because America and its allies lost the Vietnam war and no on wants to remember its defeats so soon in history. Give it time.

 

[Mickey_Finn]

During the Tet offensive of the Vietnam war, North Vietnamese Army soldiers and Viet Cong guerrillas attacked several locations. One of those was the city of Húe.

During their occupation of Húe, the soldiers carrying out the will of Ho Chi Minh rounded up anyone in the city who did not support Communism. Teachers, Priests, Intellectuals, and anyone who was friendly to Americans. These and many others were brutally murdered in mass killings and summery executions. Some were even buried alive.

Between 2800 to 6000 innocent civilians were perished during this act of brutality. By comparison, the much more famous Mi Lai massacre only had one hundred deaths.

Why has the world forgotten the massacre of Húe?

It’s not forgotten.

ATB

 

[JackVk]

It is mentioned and partially depicted in Call of Duty:Black Ops, so it hasn’t been forgotten (though Black Ops is a video game, and full of anachronisms to boot).

 

[edwest2]

During the Tet offensive of the Vietnam war, North Vietnamese Army soldiers and Viet Cong guerrillas attacked several locations. One of those was the city of Húe.

During their occupation of Húe, the soldiers carrying out the will of Ho Chi Minh rounded up anyone in the city who did not support Communism. Teachers, Priests, Intellectuals, and anyone who was friendly to Americans. These and many others were brutally murdered in mass killings and summery executions. Some were even buried alive.

Between 2800 to 6000 innocent civilians were perished during this act of brutality. By comparison, the much more famous Mi Lai massacre only had one hundred deaths.

Why has the world forgotten the massacre of Húe?

There have been plenty of massacres. It’s a long list. Take Pol Pot. The Japanese who lined up people and killed them and/or tortured them first. During World War II, it was not uncommon for enemies of the Party to dig large pits and get machine-gunned to death. The pit was filled in and covered with newly planted flowers. I have a relative who knows a man who, though injured, managed to crawl out of one and survived. During the Serbian-Bosnian conflict, I saw photos of camps and starving prisoners/the wrong ethnic group in camps identical to the ones built by the Nazis.

Not long ago, one African tribe managed to kill a lot of members of another tribe using primitive hand weapons. The other tribe was referred to as cockroaches. I’ll stop here.

The massacre you are referring to was described. Look up the Katyn Forest massacre.

Peace,
Ed

 

[BornInMarch]

It’s not forgotten.

ATB

Are you sure? Because it feels like it was. There are hundreds (maybe thousands) of books and documentaries about the much, much less bloody Mi Lai massacre. Yet there is barley mention at all to the Húe massacre which saw thousands more death than at Mi Lai.

I’m tired of people saying Mi Lai was the worst massacre of the Vietnam war. The Dak Son massacre (where Viet Cong guerrillas burned down an either village with flamethrowers and shot the survivors) was just as bad as Mi Lai (roughly the same amount died at Dak Son as at Mi Lai). The Húe Massacre saw thousands of more deaths than Mi Lai.
But yet people only remember the massacre that American Soldiers committed.

 

[edwest2]

Are you sure? Because it feels like it was. There are hundreds (maybe thousands) of books and documentaries about the much, much less bloody Mi Lai massacre. Yet there is barley mention at all to the Húe massacre which saw thousands more death than at Mi Lai.

I’m tired of people saying Mi Lai was the worst massacre of the Vietnam war. The Dak Son massacre (where Viet Cong guerrillas burned down an either village with flamethrowers and shot the survivors) was just as bad as Mi Lai (roughly the same amount died at Dak Son as at Mi Lai). The Húe Massacre saw thousands of more deaths than Mi Lai.
But yet people only remember the massacre that American Soldiers committed.

Maybe you should write a book about it.

Ed

 

[BornInMarch]

Maybe you should write a book about it.

Ed

If I did, nobody would read about it.

 

[Kaninchen]

Why has the world forgotten the massacre of Húe?

Because the Vietnamese are not ‘people like us’.

I remember having a discussion on CAF with a poster whose ancestors were from the Ukraine about how it was that people tended to remember the Shoah but not the crimes of Stalin and I made the suggestion that the reason was that, from a Western European perspective, Stalin’s crimes were “what you’d expect” from Russians/Eastern Europeans/Asiatics whereas what the Germans did was totally outrageous because Germans were supposed to be “people like us”, nice, middle class, technically advanced, rational and possibly the “most civilized of us all.” Trying to understand why the most civilized country went mad was far more important/interesting than investigating why it was that our reaction to Russians/Eastern Europeans/Asiatics was “well, they’re all barbarians so what would you expect.”

What tends to be remembered are the bad behaviours of “people like us” rather than “people who are not like us” - how we view these things and how we remember them is a product of our arrogance, racism, nationalism . . .

 

[Petaro]

Because the Vietnamese are not ‘people like us’.

I remember having a discussion on CAF with a poster whose ancestors were from the Ukraine about how it was that people tended to remember the Shoah but not the crimes of Stalin and I made the suggestion that the reason was that, from a Western European perspective, Stalin’s crimes were “what you’d expect” from Russians/Eastern Europeans/Asiatics whereas what the Germans did was totally outrageous because Germans were supposed to be “people like us”, nice, middle class, technically advanced, rational and possibly the “most civilized of us all.” Trying to understand why the most civilized country went mad was far more important/interesting than investigating why it was that our reaction to Russians/Eastern Europeans/Asiatics was “well, they’re all barbarians so what would you expect.”

What tends to be remembered are the bad behaviours of “people like us” rather than “people who are not like us” - how we view these things and how we remember them is a product of our arrogance, racism, nationalism . . .

An interesting perspective giving much room for thought. Well done for making me think.
A rare event these days.

 

[Hobbes42]

Because the Vietnamese are not ‘people like us’.

I remember having a discussion on CAF with a poster whose ancestors were from the Ukraine about how it was that people tended to remember the Shoah but not the crimes of Stalin and I made the suggestion that the reason was that, from a Western European perspective, Stalin’s crimes were “what you’d expect” from Russians/Eastern Europeans/Asiatics whereas what the Germans did was totally outrageous because Germans were supposed to be “people like us”, nice, middle class, technically advanced, rational and possibly the “most civilized of us all.” Trying to understand why the most civilized country went mad was far more important/interesting than investigating why it was that our reaction to Russians/Eastern Europeans/Asiatics was “well, they’re all barbarians so what would you expect.”

What tends to be remembered are the bad behaviours of “people like us” rather than “people who are not like us” - how we view these things and how we remember them is a product of our arrogance, racism, nationalism . . .

Thank you for your interesting idea. It makes a ton of sense, it also would explain why Westerners tend to forget or avoid thinking about the crimes being committed by the Islamic State right now-“they’re all Arabs and Muslims (With a few Christians), killing each other is what they do”.

 

[Mickey_Finn]

Are you sure? Because it feels like it was. There are hundreds (maybe thousands) of books and documentaries about the much, much less bloody Mi Lai massacre. Yet there is barley mention at all to the Húe massacre which saw thousands more death than at Mi Lai.

I’m tired of people saying Mi Lai was the worst massacre of the Vietnam war. The Dak Son massacre (where Viet Cong guerrillas burned down an either village with flamethrowers and shot the survivors) was just as bad as Mi Lai (roughly the same amount died at Dak Son as at Mi Lai). The Húe Massacre saw thousands of more deaths than Mi Lai.
But yet people only remember the massacre that American Soldiers committed.

I’m sure. Why exactly did you want to discuss it?

 

[Mickey_Finn]

Because the Vietnamese are not ‘people like us’.

I remember having a discussion on CAF with a poster whose ancestors were from the Ukraine about how it was that people tended to remember the Shoah but not the crimes of Stalin and I made the suggestion that the reason was that, from a Western European perspective, Stalin’s crimes were “what you’d expect” from Russians/Eastern Europeans/Asiatics whereas what the Germans did was totally outrageous because Germans were supposed to be “people like us”, nice, middle class, technically advanced, rational and possibly the “most civilized of us all.” Trying to understand why the most civilized country went mad was far more important/interesting than investigating why it was that our reaction to Russians/Eastern Europeans/Asiatics was “well, they’re all barbarians so what would you expect.”

What tends to be remembered are the bad behaviours of “people like us” rather than “people who are not like us” - how we view these things and how we remember them is a product of our arrogance, racism, nationalism . . .

Maybe you are right on some level. I think even the act of waging war is easier to sell when it is directed towards people who are different. Some evidence is seen with slang words used to describe enemies. Huns, zipper heads, Haji’s (when our soldiers use this term it has a different meaning than when a muslim uses it.)

When you bring Viet Nam into the discussion. There is an additional factor to consider. The western world while facing the threat of Communism. Was also going threw a cultural 180 degree turn. So, socio-political pressures were directed at an increasingly unpopular war. Any chance to show the war as unjust was jumped on with both feet. I think this is at the root of the OP’s concern.

For the reference to Stalin etc. I can’t help but wonder if one of the reasons the USA was so slow to enter the second world war was that the powers that be were hoping that the Facism would displace Communism in Russia. Some might argue that it did in the end.

ATB

 

[Kaninchen]

Thank you for your interesting idea. It makes a ton of sense, it also would explain why Westerners tend to forget or avoid thinking about the crimes being committed by the Islamic State right now-“they’re all Arabs and Muslims (With a few Christians), killing each other is what they do”.

There’s the added advantage/disadvantage that “people not like us” don’t do things with a Western media entourage in tow - Boko Haram kidnapping a couple of hundred teenage girls or killing a few dozen villagers aren’t the same kind of media event as, say, a day in Gaza.

The thing is that I don’t believe that it’s the kind of cultural relativism that people like to ascribe to ‘liberals’, I think the roots are lot older and deep-seated than that. It’s not from a belief that cultures are in some way equally good but that some cultures are irredeemably bad and, so, what would one expect and there’s nothing to be done about it.

 

[Kaninchen]

For the reference to Stalin etc. I can’t help but wonder if one of the reasons the USA was so slow to enter the second world war was that the powers that be were hoping that the Facism would displace Communism in Russia. Some might argue that it did in the end.

Some might argue that the reason the Western Allies invaded Normandy was to stop the Russians getting to Portugal.

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

Are you sure? Because it feels like it was. There are hundreds (maybe thousands) of books and documentaries about the much, much less bloody Mi Lai massacre. Yet there is barley mention at all to the Húe massacre which saw thousands more death than at Mi Lai.

I’m tired of people saying Mi Lai was the worst massacre of the Vietnam war. The Dak Son massacre (where Viet Cong guerrillas burned down an either village with flamethrowers and shot the survivors) was just as bad as Mi Lai (roughly the same amount died at Dak Son as at Mi Lai). The Húe Massacre saw thousands of more deaths than Mi Lai.
But yet people only remember the massacre that American Soldiers committed.

Check out Operation Speedy Express which butchered even more people than the Huế massacre.

Full Metal Jacket touched on Huế.

 

[BornInMarch]

Check out Operation Speedy Express which butchered even more people than the Huế massacre.

Full Metal Jacket touched on Huế.

Operation Speedy Express was not an organized massacre. In all likelihood, the commanding officer in charge of the Operation simply lied about how many enemies he killed so as to reach the highest score. Just because he reported more kills than the weapons he found does not mean they went around killing villagers.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Some of the foregoing analyses are interesting and informative.

But perhaps I can add a couple of things.

First of all, the Vietnam War was and is despised by the left. There is still a certain “revolutionary cachet” attached to the Vietnamese communists not entirely dissimilar from that which clings to Che Guevara. And the left whitewashed Stalin for so long and vilified those who brought his crimes to light that Stalin’s crimes have received no significant fraction of the publicity given to Nazi crimes.

Second, for a lot of atrocities there was never a “Nuremberg trial” equivalent. Nobody was ever brought to trial and exposed in detail, and likely never will be. Nobody had freedom to go through the Soviet Union and find films and characters to document Communist crimes. The allies had total control of Germany and were able to see not a stone unturned or a film undiscovered. As a result, there is simply less for producers of documentaries to work with. You can’t turn on the TV without some kind of anti-Nazi show being on some channel or other. You could look for weeks and never see even one on Soviet crimes, even though the latter were more extensive than the former. If there are films and photos of Viet Cong or NVA atrocities taken by them, they’re in a vault in Hanoi somewhere if they still exist at all.

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

Operation Speedy Express was not an organized massacre. In all likelihood, the commanding officer in charge of the Operation simply lied about how many enemies he killed so as to reach the highest score. Just because he reported more kills than the weapons he found does not mean they went around killing villagers.

Interview with Colonel David Hackworth:

Q: When you were active in the Mekong Delta, was it difficult to tell who was Vietcong and who was a civilian?

Hackworth: I was in the 9th Division and our Commander was General Julian Ewell, who was called the ‘Butcher of the Delta.’ The policy of the Division was that it didn’t matter – if it moved, shoot it and then count it.

Theoretically, civilians were supposed to be away from the battle area. They would say this is a free-fire zone, but without realizing the tradition of the people to go back to their homestead. So regardless of the danger, they would go back to where their ancestors were and then they were considered Vietcong, and fair game.

There were an enormous number of casualties who were civilians but all the civilians, you have to understand, were sympathetic – certainly in my part of the Delta – to the Vietcong effort. Most of the people in the rural area of Vietnam were sympathetic to the Vietcong cause. They had won the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people. They felt that their cause was more just; it had more of a nationalistic purpose.

PBS

 

[JimG]

Oh yes, the Vietnamese communists were so popular in the south that thousands of people tried to escape Saigon before they took over. Some succeeded; most did not. But even then, they did not give up, continuing to try to escape Vietnamese communism in small boats. Maybe I shouldn’t complain; we did gain several good priests in my diocese that way, although they spent several terms in communist prisons following escape attempts after the communists shut down their seminaries. But they finally made it out and ended up in my diocese.