Daily Mail: Why this man deserved to die - but the photo of his execution helped America to lose the Vietnam War: MAX HASTINGS explains how the bloody Tet offensive humiliated U.S. troops
* The surprise Viet Cong attack 50 years ago caught the Americans off guard
* An image of a Viet Cong member's execution cost the U.S. in public relations
* The American people were traumatised by the bloodshed, says Max Hastings
At 2.47 on the morning of January 31, 1968, an American military policeman sent an emergency radio message from his post outside a U.S. embassy on the far side of the world: ‘Signal 300! They’re coming in! Help me! Help me!’ — before being shot dead, along with another guard.
The soldier’s terrified warning, out of the darkness half a century ago, signalled the onset of the most devastating attack on American pride and prestige since Pearl Harbor in 1941.
Viet Cong commandos spilled out of a taxi and a small truck in front of the embassy compound in Saigon, used a satchel charge to blast a hole in its perimeter wall, then dashed inside firing AK-47 assault rifles.
Here was the most spectacular event of the so-called Tet Offensive 50 years ago — co-ordinated attacks by 67,000 guerillas and regular North Vietnamese troops, taking advantage of the annual lunar New Year ‘Tet’ holiday and truce to catch the Americans and their South Vietnamese allies unprepared.
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WNU Editor: We were living in a very different time then.
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