The Vietnam War's Largest War Crime: The Massacres at Huế | Animated Documentary

~ The Huế Massacres

Many would consider Mỹ Lai to be the Vietnam War's worst war crime. But is this actually the case? In this documentary, a much larger, far more sinister, systematic war crime is fully documented and mapped out. By the numbers, the Massacres at Huế completely dwarfs most other massacres committed up to this point in time. Four major waves of finds were made of mass graves between 1968 and 1969, resulting in several thousand bodies being uncovered around the city.

Additionally, the massacres were considered to be fully "justified" under Communist doctrine and directed by their leadership. Though not explored in this video, public announcements, testimony, and documents prove their intent in committing these mass executions. This top-down doctrine of the NLF and PAVN ensured that the scale of death was massive.

It brings into question the public's reliance on journalism and sensationalism. Like so many events during the war, many large battles and incidents in the war are minimized, while those shown by journalists on camera are hyper-emphasized. How could such a massive event be largely forgotten while other smaller, sensationalized events drive public opinion? This is all too common in the historiography of the Vietnam War. Massive events concerning mainly South-Vietnamese, like the battles of Quảng Trị, Thưởng Đức, and the Massacres at Huế are minimized for more American-focused events. This results in the largest war crime of Vietnam being all but forgotten.

Unfortunately, the ones who suffer the most are those Huế families who have never been able to confirm the fate of their loved ones. The roughly 2,000 remaining names will most likely be lost to history, forever.

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~MAJOR SOURCES:
Pike, Douglas E. The Viet-Cong Strategy of Terror. Saigon: United States Mission, 1970.

As stated by Edwin Moise in his Clemson University Bibliography:
“(Joseph L. Dees?), ‘Communist Political Executions at Hue in the 1968 Tet Offensive--A Documented Report.’ 121 pp. …The copy online has a date 3/68 marked in by hand, but this is inaccurate; internal evidence indicates it was probably written in 1970. My identification of Dees as the author is tentative. He was the JUSPAO correspondent in Saigon in 1968; later in the war he was writing stories about Communist atrocities as a correspondent for the International Press Service (IPS).”

Viet Cong Use of Terror. Saigon: United States Mission, 1966.

Olga Dror, "Learning From the Hue Massacre," New York Times, February 20, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/20/opinion/hue-massacre-vietnam-war.html.

Battle of Hue Photographs - Catherine Leroy

Sand Dune Find Photographs - Larry Burrows

Da Mai Creek Funeral Photographs - David Turnley

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