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{{short description|Civilian and military deaths during the Second Indochina War}}
], CAT IV, 1967. Courtesy of National Museum of the U. S. Army.]]
{{multiple image
The ] began in 1955 and ended in 1975 when North Vietnamese forces ] ]. During this period the war escalated from an insurgency in ] sponsored by the ]ese government to direct military intervention in the south by North Vietnam, as well as the active participation of military forces of the ] and other countries. The war also spilled over into the neighbouring countries of ] and ]. An exhaustive reckoning of the total casualties must include statistical information available for each theater of the war. The casualty figures below focus on Vietnam and exclude those in ] and ]. The Republic of Vietnam (commonly called South Vietnam) was where most of the fighting took place, and it accordingly suffered most from the war.
| footer = Two major war memorials commemorating the dead of the ]
| align = right


==Deaths in the Vietnam War== | image1 = Vietnam War Memorial Hanoi 0336.JPG
| width1 = {{#expr: (150 * 560 / 400) round 0}}
| alt1 = Vietnamese memorial of the dead
| caption1 = The ], ]


| image2 = Vietnam War Memorial.jpg
====Major incidents====
| width2 = 237
]
| alt2 = American memorial of the dead
*1968 ] - Hanoi failed in its most ambitious goal of producing a general uprising in the South, it suffered more than 45,267 (mainly ]) deaths but gained a propaganda, political and strategic victory<ref>Tran Van Tra, ''Tet'', pp. 49, 50</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.history.com/topics/tet-offensive |title=Tet Offensive — History.com Articles, Video, Pictures and Facts |publisher=History.com |date= |accessdate=2012-09-25}}</ref>
| caption2 = The ], Washington, D.C.
}}


Estimates of '''casualties of the ]''' vary widely. Estimates can include both civilian and military deaths in ] and ], Laos, and Cambodia.
*1972 ] - This saw 50,000 to 75,000 North Vietnamese combatants killed plus their loss of over 700 tanks. The attack was broken up mainly by US air power.<ref>{{cite web |url = http://www.historynet.com/north-vietnamese-armys-1972-eastertide-offensive.htm |title= North Vietnamese Army’s 1972 Eastertide Offensive |author= web site |year= 1997 |work= |publisher= web site |accessdate=2010-02-01}}</ref> It was still a North Vietnamese ]. <ref>David Fulghum & Terrance Maitland, et al, South Vietnam on Trial. Boston: Boston Publishing Company, 1984, tr.183</ref>


The war lasted from 1955 to 1975 and most of the fighting took place in South Vietnam; accordingly it suffered the most casualties. The war also spilled over into the neighboring countries of Cambodia and Laos which also endured casualties from aerial bombing and ground fighting.
===Civilian deaths in Vietnam war===
The Vietnamese government stated in 1995 that a total of 2,000,000 Vietnamese civilians died in the war, but did not divide the deaths between North and South Vietnam.<ref name="afp1995"/><ref name="Associated Press 1995">Associated Press, 3 April 1995, "Vietnam Says 1.1 Million Died Fighting For North."</ref> Rummel estimated between 486,000 and 840,000 civilians died.<ref> Line 193 </ref> Civilians were mistaken for being a member of one side or another and shot. They were sometimes killed simply from being caught up in the midst of a battle and on many occasions they were simply murdered by both sides. South Vietnam suffered the majority of civilians killed.<ref name="afp1995">{{cite news |title=20 Years After Victory, Vietnamese Communists Ponder How to Celebrate |author=Philip Shenon|first=Philip |last=Shenon |url=http://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/23/world/20-years-after-victory-vietnamese-communists-ponder-how-to-celebrate.html |date=23 April 1995 |newspaper=] |accessdate=24 February 2011 }}</ref> Rummel's review of the various data led to a mid-level estimate of 663,000 civilian deaths in both North and South Vietnam.
It was difficult to distinguish between civilians and military personnel on the Viet Cong side since many dressed as civilians<ref>{{cite book |author=Willbanks, James H. |title=The Tet Offensive: A Concise History | p 32|location=New York |publisher=Columbia University Press |year=2008|isbn=0-231-12841-X}}</ref><ref> Rand Corporation 1965 </ref><ref> James J. F. Forest 2007 ISBN: 978-0275990343</ref>


Civilian deaths caused by both sides amounted to a significant percentage of total deaths. These were caused by artillery bombardments, extensive aerial bombing of North and South Vietnam, the use of firepower in military operations conducted in heavily populated areas, assassinations, massacres, and terror tactics. A number of incidents occurred during the war in which civilians were deliberately targeted or killed, the most prominent being the ] and the ].


==Total number of deaths==
], CAT IV, 1967. Courtesy of ] of the U.S. Army]]
Estimates of the total number of deaths in the Vietnam War vary widely. The wide disparity among the estimates cited below is partially explained by the different time periods of the Vietnam War covered by the studies and whether casualties in Cambodia and Laos were included in the estimates.


A 1975 US Senate subcommittee estimated around 1.4 million civilian casualties in South Vietnam because of the war, including 415,000 deaths. An estimate by the Department of Defense after the war gave a figure of 1.2 million civilian casualties, including 195,000 deaths.<ref name = "Turse 2013 12">{{cite book | last=Turse | first=Nick | title=Kill Anything That Moves | publisher=Metropolitan Books | publication-place=New York | date=2013-01-15 | isbn=978-0-8050-9547-0 | page=12}}</ref>
According to statistics from the South Vietnamese Ministry of Health, 44.5% of civilians admitted to hospitals between 1967 and 1970 were wounded by mines or mortars, 21.2% by guns or grenades, and 34.3% by artillery or bombing.<ref>Lewy, Guenter (1978), ''America in Vietnam'', New York: Oxford University Press, pages 447</ref>


] in 1978 estimated 1,353,000 total deaths in North and ] during the period 1965–1974 in which the U.S. was most engaged in the war. Lewy reduced the number of Viet Cong (VC) and People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) battle deaths claimed by the U.S. by 30 percent (in accordance with the opinion of ] officials), and assumed that one third of the reported battle deaths of the PAVN/VC may have actually been civilians. He estimates that between 30 and 46% of the total war deaths were civilians. His estimate of total deaths is reflected in the table.<ref>Lewy, Guenter (1978), ''America in Vietnam'', New York: Oxford University Press, pages 442–453</ref>
{| class="wikitable"
|+ Deaths in Vietnam War (1965–1974) per Guenter Lewy
! US and allied military deaths
| 282,000
|-
! PAVN/VC military deaths
| 444,000–666,000
|-
! Civilian deaths (North and South Vietnam)
| 405,000–627,000
|-
! Total deaths
| 1,353,000
|}


A 1995 demographic study in '']'' calculated 791,000–1,141,000 war-related Vietnamese deaths, both soldiers and civilians, for all of Vietnam from 1965 to 1975. The study came up with a most likely Vietnamese death toll of 882,000, which included 655,000 adult males (above 15 years of age), 143,000 adult females, and 84,000 children. Those totals include only Vietnamese deaths, and do not include American and other allied military deaths which amounted to about 64,000. The study's authors stated that methodological limitations of the study include imbalance between rural and urban areas and the potential exclusion of high mortality areas.<ref name="Hirschman">Charles Hirschman et al., , '']'', December 1995.</ref>
====Deaths caused by North Vietnam/VC forces====
Another potential limitation is the relatively small sample size of the study.<ref name="BMJ"/>
</ref> in ], killed by North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces on December 5th, 1967 as a vengeance attack on the ]s.NVA/VC troops also killed many women, children and babies.<ref> Time Dec. 15, 1967</ref>]]
9 Apr 1965 </ref>]]
NVA/VC forces killed around 164,000 civilians in ] between 1954 and 1975 in South Vietnam; Rummel's estimates range from 106,000 to 227,000.<ref></ref> Rummel's summary has a mid-level estimate of 17,000 South Vietnamese civil servants (ARVN's local millitia) killed by North Vietnamese forces (including the ]). In addition, at least 36,000 Southern civilians were executed for various reasons between 1967-1972.<ref>Michael Lee Lanning and Dan Cragg, Inside the VC and the NVA, (Ballantine Books, 1993), pp. 186-188</ref> Another 50,000 refugees were killed by the NVA during the ], along with 1,260 civilians during the NVA's shelling of Saigon.{{sfn|Rummel|1997|loc=Lines 448, 454, 456 and 464}} About 130 US ] and 16,000 South Vietnamese ] died in captivity.{{sfn|Rummel|1997|loc=Lines 457 & 459}}


In 1995, the Vietnamese government released its estimate of war deaths for the more lengthy period of 1955–75. PAVN and VC losses were reported as 1.1 million dead and civilian deaths of Vietnamese on both sides totaled 2.0 million. These estimates probably include deaths of Vietnamese soldiers in Laos and Cambodia, but do not include deaths of South Vietnamese and allied soldiers which would add nearly 300,000 for a grand total of 3.4 million military and civilian dead.<ref>Shenon, Philip, , ''The New York Times'', 23 April 1995</ref>
====Deaths caused by South Vietnam====
], center, running down a road near ], ], on 8 June 1972, after a ] bomb was dropped on the village of Trảng Bàng by a plane of the ] <sub>Photo: ] / The Associated Press</sup>]]
During the ] government (1955–1963), an estimated 80,000 persons died during the forced relocation of 900,000 southern civilians. 4,000 VietCong prisoners died through ill-treatment, about 10,000 suspected VietCong and fighters were executed, and 1,500 civilians died during shellings. <ref> Lines 481, 494, 515, 518, 521]</ref><ref>Vietnam: Why Did We Go?" by Avro Manhattan, Chick Publication, California 1984, pp. 56 & 89</ref>


A 2008 study by the BMJ (formerly '']'') came up with a higher toll of 3,812,000 dead in Vietnam between 1955 and 2002. For the period of the Vietnam War the totals are 1,310,000 between 1955 and 1964, 1,700,000 between 1965–74 and 810,000 between 1975 and 1984. (The estimates for 1955–64 are much higher than other estimates). The sum of those totals is 3,091,000 war deaths between 1955 and 1975.<ref name="BMJ"/>
From 1964 to 1975, an estimated 1,500 persons died during the forced relocations of 1,200,000 civilians, another 5,000 prisoners died from ill-treatment and about 30,000 suspected communists and fighters were executed. 6,000 civilians died in the more extensive shellings. In Quang Nam province 4,700 civilians were killed in 1969. This totals 50,000 deaths caused by South Vietnam, excluding North Vietnamese forces killed by the ARVN in combat.<ref> Lines 540, 556, 563, 566, 569, 575</ref>


] in Sweden maintains the Armed Conflict Database. Their estimates for conflict deaths in Vietnam are 164,923 from 1955 to 1964 and 1,458,050 from 1965 to 1975 for a total of 1,622,973. The database also estimates combat deaths in Cambodia for the years 1967–75 to total 259,000. Data for deaths in Laos is incomplete.<ref>"UCDP/Prio Armed Conflict Database", Uppsala University, http://www.pcr.uu.se/research/ucdp/datasets/ucdp_prio_armed_conflict_dataset/ {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150811023654/http://www.pcr.uu.se/research/ucdp/datasets/ucdp_prio_armed_conflict_dataset |date=2015-08-11}}, accessed 24 Nov 2014</ref>
Rummel estimated the government of South Vietnam to be responsible for 90,000 ] killings from 1954–1975, with a range of 58,000 to 285,000.<ref> Lines 626]</ref>


]'s mid-range estimate in 1997 was that the total deaths due to the ] totaled 2,450,000 from 1954 to 1975. Rummel calculated PAVN/VC deaths at 1,062,000 and ARVN and allied war deaths of 741,000, with both totals including civilians inadvertently killed. He estimated that victims of ] (deliberate killing of civilians) included 214,000 by North Vietnam/VC and 98,000 by South Vietnam and its allies. Deaths in Cambodia and Laos were estimated at 273,000 and 62,000 respectively.<ref name="hawaii.edu">{{cite web |last=Rummel |first=R. J. |title=Statistics of Vietnamese Democide |department=Section: Lines 777–785 |url=http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.TAB6.1B.GIF |access-date=24 November 2014 |website=]}}</ref>
====Deaths caused by the American military====
American forces killed around 5,500 civilians between 1960 and 1972; in democide. Rummel's estimates range from 4,000 to 10,000.<ref> Lines 613]</ref> The ] was a ] program executed by the United States ] (CIA), ], and the ]'s security apparatus during the ]. It targeted the Viet Cong civilian infrastructure in South Vietnam.Historian Douglas Valentine states that "Central to Phoenix is the fact that it targeted civilians, not soldiers" <ref> Douglas Valentine 2000 ISBN: 978-0595007387</ref><ref name="otterman-62-64">{{cite book|author=Otterman, Michael|title=American Torture: From the Cold War to Abu Ghraib and Beyond|publisher=Melbourne University Publishing|year=2007|isbn=978-0-522-85333-9|page=62|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=wiVqrgS68NoC&pg=PA62}}</ref> By 1972, 26,369 suspected NLF operatives, informants and supporters were killed.<ref>{{cite book|author=McCoy, Alfred W.|title=A question of torture: CIA interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror|publisher=Macmillan|year=2006|isbn=978-0-8050-8041-4|page=68|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=FVwUYSBwtKcC&pg=PA68}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Harbury, Jennifer|title=Truth, torture, and the American way: the history and consequences of U.S. involvement in torture|publisher=Beacon Press|year=2005|isbn=978-0-8070-0307-7|page=97|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=ZIcZjlj1hLEC&pg=PA97}}</ref> Figures for North Vietnamese civilian dead range from 50,000{{sfn|Rummel|1997}} to 182,000 as a result of US bombing.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.pbs.org/battlefieldvietnam/timeline/index2.html |title=Battlefield:Vietnam Timeline |publisher=Pbs.org |accessdate=31 October 2011}}</ref> A ''Newsweek'' journalist claimed an unnamed official told him that an estimated 5,000 civilians died as "collateral damage" from the American military during ].<ref>Kevin Buckley, "Pacification's Deadly Price," ''Newsweek'' 1972.</ref> ] was used by the U.S. military as part of its ] program, ], during the Vietnam War from 1961 to 1971. ]'s government claimed that 400,000 people were killed or maimed as a result of after effects, and that 500,000 children were born with ].<ref> History.com Retrieved 25/09/12</ref>


{| class="wikitable"
===Army of the Republic of Vietnam===
|+ Deaths in Vietnam War (1954–75) per R. J. Rummel (except where otherwise noted)<ref name="hawaii.edu"/>
According to Rummel the ] lost between 219,000 at the low end and 313,000 at the high end between 1959 and 1975. ], from a ] document, reported that ARVN suffered 220,357 killed from 1965 through 1974.<ref name=FOOTNOTERummel1997>{{citation
|-
|last=Rummel
!
|first=R.J
! Low estimate of deaths
|year=1997
! Middle estimate of deaths
|url=http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.TAB6.1A.GIF
! High estimate of deaths
|format=GIF
! Notes and comments
|title=Table 6.1A. Vietnam Democide : Estimates, Sources, and Calculations,
|-
|work= ,
! North Vietnam/Viet Cong military and civilian war dead
}}</ref> A ] estimate was a quarter of a million men killed in action.<ref></ref>
| 533,000 || 1,062,000 || 1,489,000 || includes an estimated 50,000/65,000/70,000 civilians killed by U.S/SVN bombing/shelling<ref>{{cite web |last=Rummel |first=R. J. |title=Statistics of Vietnamese Democide |department=Section: Line 61 |url=http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.TAB6.1B.GIF |access-date=24 November 2014 |website=]}}</ref>
|-
! South Vietnam/U.S./South Korea war military and civilian war dead
| 429,000 || 741,000 || 1,119,000 || includes 360,000/391,000/720,000 civilians<ref>{{cite web |last=Rummel |first=R. J. |title=Statistics of Vietnamese Democide |department=Section: Line 117 |url=http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.TAB6.1B.GIF |access-date=24 November 2014 |website=]}}</ref>
|-
! Democide by North Vietnam/Viet Cong
| 131,000 || 214,000 || 302,000 || 25,000/50,000/75,000 killed in North Vietnam, 106,000/164,000/227,000 killed in South Vietnam
|-
! Democide by South Vietnam
| 57,000 || 89,000 || 284,000 || Democide is the murder of persons by or at the behest of governments.
|-
! Democide by the United States
| 4,000 || 6,000 || 10,000 || Democide is the murder of persons by or at the behest of governments.
|-
! Democide by South Korea
| 3,000 || 3,000 || 3,000 || Rummel does not give a medium or high estimate.
|-
! Subtotal Vietnam
| 1,156,000 || 2,115,000 || 3,207,000 ||
|-
! Cambodians
| 273,000 || 273,000 || 273,000 || Rummel estimates 212,000 killed by Khmer Rouge (1967–1975), 60,000 killed by U.S. and 1,000 killed by South Vietnam (1967–73). No estimate given for deaths caused by Viet Cong/North Vietnam (1954–75).<ref name="hawaii.edu"/>
|-
! Laotians
| 28,000 || 62,000 || 115,000 || <ref name="BMJ"/>
|-
! Grand total of war deaths: Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos (1954–75)
| 1,450,000 || 2,450,000 || 3,595,000||
|}


==Civilian deaths in the Vietnam War==
===North Vietnamese and Viet Cong Military deaths===
{{See also|List of massacres in Vietnam}}
According to the Vietnamese government, there were 1,100,000 ] and ] military personnel deaths during the ].<ref name="afp1995"/> Rummel reviewed the many casualty data sets, and this number is in keeping with his mid-level estimate of 1,011,000 North Vietnamese combatant deaths.<ref name="afp1995"/><ref name="Associated Press 1995"/>{{sfn|Rummel|1997|loc=Line 102}} He further calculated a mid-level estimate of 251,000 ] military deaths.{{sfn|Rummel|1997|loc=Line 83}}
Lewy estimates that 40,000 South Vietnamese civilians were assassinated by the PAVN/VC; 300,000 were killed as a result of combat in South Vietnam, and 65,000 were killed in North Vietnam for a total of 405,000 killed. He further suggests that 222,000 civilians may have been counted as enemy military deaths by the U.S. in compiling its "]" raising the total to 627,000 killed.<ref name="Lewy"/><ref>Thayer, Thomas C (1985). ''War Without Fronts: The American Experience in Vietnam''. Boulder: Westview Press. Ch. 12.</ref><ref>Wiesner, Louis A. (1988). ''Victims and Survivors Displaced Persons and Other War Victims in Viet-Nam''. New York: Greenwood Press. page 310</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=spc4DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA34|title=East Asia's Other Miracle: Explaining the Decline of Mass Atrocities|last=Bellamy|first=Alex J.|date=2017|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0191083785|pages=33–34|language=en}}</ref> It was difficult to distinguish between civilians and military personnel in many instances as many individuals were part-time guerrillas or impressed laborers who did not wear uniforms.<ref>{{cite book |author=Willbanks, James H. |title=The Tet Offensive: A Concise History |page=32 |location=New York |publisher=Columbia University Press |year=2008|isbn=978-0-231-12841-4}}</ref><ref>] 2007 {{ISBN|978-0275990343}}</ref> Walter Mead estimates that approximately 365,000 Vietnamese civilians to have died as a result of the war during the period of American involvement.<ref name="Mead2013">{{cite book|author=Walter Russell Mead|title=Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TmlDcE0BBrsC&pg=PA219|year=2013|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-136-75867-6|pages=219–}}</ref>


===United States armed forces=== ===Deaths caused by North Vietnam/VC forces===
{{main|Viet Cong and People’s Army of Vietnam use of terror in the Vietnam War}}
Casualties as of 6 June 2012:
] villagers during the ], 1967]]
* 58,282 ] or non-combat deaths (including the missing & deaths in captivity)<ref></ref>
R. J. Rummel estimated that PAVN/VC forces killed around 164,000 civilians in democide between 1954 and 1975 in South Vietnam, from a range of between 106,000 and 227,000, plus another 50,000 killed in North Vietnam.<ref name="Rummel 1997">{{cite web|url=http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.TAB6.1A.GIF|title=Rummel 1997}}</ref> Rummel's mid-level estimate includes 17,000 South Vietnamese civil servants killed by PAVN/VC. In addition, at least 36,000 Southern civilians were executed for various reasons in the period 1967–1972.<ref>Michael Lee Lanning and Dan Cragg, ''Inside the VC and the NVA'', (Ballantine Books, 1993), pages 186–88</ref> About 130 American and 16,000 South Vietnamese ] died in captivity.<ref name="Rummel 1997 457">{{cite web|url=http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.TAB6.1A.GIF|title=Rummel 1997 |at=Lines 457 & 459}}</ref> During the peak war years, another scholar Guenter Lewy attributed almost a third of civilian deaths to the VC.<ref>Lewy, Guentner (1978), ''America in Vietnam'' New York: Oxford University Press., pages 272–73, 448–49.</ref>
* 303,644 ] (including 153,303 who required hospitalization and 150,341 who didn't)<ref></ref>
* 1,664 ] (originally 2,646)<ref name="dtic.mil">{{cite web|url=http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo/vietnam/statistics/2012/Stats20120606.pdf|title=Vietnam-era unaccounted for statistical report|date=6 June 2012}}</ref>
* 65-119 died in captivity)<ref name="va.gov"></ref><ref></ref>


Thomas Thayer in 1985 estimated that during the 1965–72 period the VC killed 33,052 South Vietnamese village officials and civil servants.<ref name=Thayer>{{cite book|last=Thayer|first=Thomas|title=War without Fronts: The American experience in Vietnam|publisher=Westview Press|year=1985|isbn=978-1612519128|page=51}}</ref>
====Specific incidents====
], killed by NVA/VC forces and found after the ARVN and U.S. Marines retook the area in March, 1968 Photo from the U.S. Military<ref> New York Times September 22, 1987 </ref><ref> Time magazine Oct. 31, 1969 </ref>]].
. From the ], Military Legal Resources.</ref> They were killed seconds after the photo was taken.<ref>, Original broadcast PBS ''American Experience'', 9&nbsp;pm, April 26, 2010 Time Index 00:35' into the first hour (no commercials)</ref> Photo by ]]]
*2,800-6,000 civilians were massacred by the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces in the ] throughout February, 1968.<ref>Anderson, David L. ''The Columbia Guide to the Vietnam War''. 2004, page 98-9</ref>
*1,200 civilians were killed by South Korean forces in ] between February 12 – March 17, 1966.<ref name="reconciliation1"> 2/09/99 Retrieved 25/09/12</ref>
*380 civilians were killed by South Korean forces in ] on February 26, 1966.<ref name="reconciliation1"/>
*66 civilians were killed by South Korean forces in ] on October 9, 1966. <ref>Armstrong, Charles (2001). Critical asian studies, Volume 33, Issue 4 Page 530 :America's Korea, Korea's Vietnam.</ref>
*280 civilians were killed by South Korean forces in ] on October 9, 1966.<ref>Gerassi, John (1968). North Vietnam: a documentary.p.148 Bobbs-Merrill.</ref>
*430 civilians were killed by South Korean forces in ] between December 3 and December 6, 1966.<ref name=alJazeera20090104>{{cite news
|url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tQtgo4hKsM&feature=feedf
|title=On War extra - Vietnam's massacre survivors
|newspaper = ]
|date = 2009-01-04
|accessdate = 2011-07-09
}}</ref>
*79 civilians were killed by South Korean forces in ] on February 12, 1968.
*135 civilians were killed by South Korean forces in ] on February 25, 1968.
*More than 500 civilians were killed by an American Army company in the ] on March 16, 1968.<ref> BBC News 20 July, 1998 Retrieved 25/09/12</ref>
*19 civilians killed by American Forces Feb. 8, 1968 in Quang Nam province.<ref> LA Times August 6, 2006 Retrieved 26/09/12</ref>
*80-90 civilians killed by American Forces March 16, 1968 at My Khe.<ref> LA Times August 6, 2006 Retrieved 26/09/12</ref>
*Almost 252 ] civilians were massacred by the Viet Cong in the ] on December 5, 1967.
*More than 25,000 South Vietnamese civilians were killed and almost a million become temporary refugees, with over 600,000 interned in South Vietnamese Government camps as a result of North Vietnam's 1972 ].<ref>Andrade, p. 529.</ref>
*At least 81 civilians killed (probably many more) by American Forces, ] 101st Airborne Division, during the Song Ve Valley and ] military campaigns.<ref> Toledo Blade 10/19/2003, Retrieved 23/09/12</ref>


These numbers do not include civilian and ]/ARVN military deaths resulting from the communist collectivization and ] in North Vietnam and ], the ] and subsequent ] after the ].
====Deaths after U.S. withdrawal====
]" refugees waiting for rescue in the South China Sea from the ] in 1984. 2 - 3 million Vietnamese refugees fled from Vietnam during the late 1970s and 1980s.<ref> Nghia M. Vo The Vietnamese Boat People, 1954 and 1975-1992,ISBN: 978-0-7864-2345-3, 2006 </ref><ref> Lawrence Lam,York
University [http://pi.library.yorku.ca/ojs/index.php/refuge/article/viewFile/21589/20262 The Attitude of the Local Population
Towards Vietnamese Boat People
in Hong Kong] Feb 1990</ref>]]
Up to 155,000 refugees fleeing the final NVA ] were killed or abducted on the road to ] in 1975.<ref>Wiesner, Louis, ''Victims and Survivors: Displaced Persons and Other War Victims in Viet-Nam, 1954-1975'' (Greenwood Press, 1988), pp. 318-9.</ref> Sources have estimated that 165,000 South Vietnamese died in the re-education camps out of 1-2.5 million sent,<ref name="Desbarats">Desbarats, Jacqueline. "Repression in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam: Executions and Population Relocation", from ''The Vietnam Debate'' (1990) by John Morton Moore. "We know now from a 1985 statement by Nguyen Co Tach that two and a half million, rather than one million, people went through reeducation....in fact, possibly more than 100,000 Vietnamese people were victims of extrajudicial executions in the last ten years....it is likely that, overall, at least one million Vietnamese were the victims of forced population transfers."</ref><ref>Anh Do and Hieu Tran Phan, , ''Orange County Register'', April 29, 2001.</ref> while the number executed could have been as high as 200,000<ref>Al Santoli, ed., ''To Bear Any Burden'' (Indiana University Press, 1999), pp272, 292-3.</ref> (Jacqueline Desbarats estimates an absolute minimum of 100,000 executions<ref name="Desbarats"/><ref>Morris, Stephen J. , ''Vietnam Commentary'', May–June 1988.</ref>). Rummel estimates that slave labor in the "New Economic Zones" caused 50,000 deaths (out of a total 1 million deported).<ref name="Desbarats"/><ref name="Statistics of Vietnamese Democide">Rummel, Rudolph, , in his ''Statistics of Democide''.</ref> The number of ] who died is estimated between 100,000 and 500,000, out of the 2.5 million that fled.<ref name="Statistics of Vietnamese Democide"/><ref>Nghia M. Vo, ''The Vietnamese Boat People'', 1954 and 1975-1992 (McFarland, 2006).</ref> There were also tens of thousands of suicides after the North Vietnamese take-over.{{CN|date=September 2012}} Including Vietnam's foreign ], Rummel estimates that a minimum of 400,000 and a maximum of slightly less than 2.5 million people died of political violence from 1975-87 at the hands of Hanoi.<ref name="Statistics of Vietnamese Democide"/> In 1988, Vietnam suffered a famine that afflicted millions.<ref>Crossette, Barbara, , ''],'' May 15, 1988.</ref>


===Deaths caused by South Vietnam===
==Other nations casualties==
According to RJ Rummel, from 1964 to 1975, an estimated 1,500 people died during the forced relocations of 1,200,000 civilians, another 5,000 prisoners died from ill-treatment and about 30,000 suspected communists and fighters were executed. In ] 4,700 civilians were killed in 1969. This totals, from a range of between 16,000 and 167,000 deaths caused by South Vietnam during the (]-era), and 42,000 and 118,000 deaths caused by South Vietnam in the post Diệm-era), excluding PAVN forces killed by the ARVN in combat.<ref> Lines 521, 540, 556, 563, 566, 569, 575</ref> Benjamin Valentino estimates 110,000–310,000 deaths as a "possible case" of "counter-guerrilla ]" by U.S. and South Vietnamese forces during the war.<ref name="Valentino 2005 p. 84">{{cite book|last=Valentino|first=Benjamin|title=]|publisher=]|year=2005|isbn=978-0801472732|page=}}</ref>

Operating under the direction of the ] and other US and South Vietnamese Intel organizations and carried out by ARVN units alongside US advisers was the ], intended to neutralise the VC political infrastructure, whom were the civilian administration of the ]/] via infiltration, capture, counter-terrorism, interrogation, and assassination.<ref name="nytimes_2017-12-29">{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/29/opinion/behind-the-phoenix-program.html|title=Opinion {{!}} Behind the Phoenix Program|last=Miller|first=Edward|date=2017-12-29|work=The New York Times|access-date=2018-06-03|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> The program resulted in an estimated 26,000 to 41,000 killed, with an unknown number possibly being innocent civilians.<ref name="nytimes_2017-12-29"/>

===Deaths caused by the American military===
RJ Rummel estimated that American forces killed around 5,500 people in democide between 1960 and 1972, from a range of between 4,000 and 10,000.<ref> Lines 613]</ref> Estimates for the number of North Vietnamese civilian deaths resulting from US bombing range from 30,000 to 65,000.<ref>Tucker, Spencer, ed. (2011). Volume Two. Santa Barbara, California, page 176</ref><ref name="Hirschman"/> Higher estimates place the number of civilian deaths caused by American bombing of North Vietnam in ] at 182,000.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.pbs.org/battlefieldvietnam/timeline/index2.html|title=Battlefield:Vietnam Timeline|publisher=Pbs.org|access-date=31 October 2011}}</ref> ] is estimated to have killed between 30,000 and 150,000 civilians and combatants.<ref name="Valentino 2005 p. 84"/><ref>{{Cite journal |last1= Kiernan |first1= Ben |author1-link= Ben Kiernan |last2= Owen |first2= Taylor |title= Bombs over Cambodia |url= http://www.yale.edu/cgp/Walrus_CambodiaBombing_OCT06.pdf |journal= ] |issue= October 2006 |pages= 62–69}} "Previously, it was estimated that between 50,000 and 150,000 Cambodian civilians were killed by the bombing. "Given the fivefold increase in tonnage revealed by the database, the number of casualties is surely higher." Kiernan and Owen later revised their estimate of 2.7 million tons of U.S. bombs dropped on Cambodia down to the previously accepted figure of roughly 500,000 tons: See {{cite web|author-link1=Ben Kiernan|last1=Kiernan|first1=Ben|last2=Owen|first2=Taylor|url=http://apjjf.org/2015/13/16/Ben-Kiernan/4313.html|title=Making More Enemies than We Kill? Calculating U.S. Bomb Tonnages Dropped on Laos and Cambodia, and Weighing Their Implications|work=The Asia–Pacific Journal|date=2015-04-26|access-date=2017-07-18}}</ref>

18.2 million gallons of ], some of which was contaminated with ], was sprayed by the U.S. military over more than 10% of Southern Vietnam<ref>, Tuoitre news 2013/08/11</ref> as part of the U.S. ] program ] during the Vietnam War, from 1961 to 1971. Vietnam's government claimed that 400,000 people were killed or maimed as a result of after effects, and that 500,000 children were born with ].<ref>History.com Retrieved 25/09/12 {{Dead link|date=November 2024}}</ref> and studies have shown higher rates of casualties, health effects, and next-generation birth defects in Vietnamese peoples.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Ngo|first1=Anh D.|last2=Taylor|first2=Richard|last3=Roberts|first3=Christine L.|last4=Nguyen|first4=Tuan V|url=https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/35/5/1220/762051?login=false|title=Association between Agent Orange and birth defects: systematic review and meta-analysis|journal=]|publisher=]|volume=35|issue=5|date=October 2006|pages=1220–1230|doi=10.1093/ije/dyl038|pmid=16543362 |quote=Parental exposure to Agent Orange appears to be associated with an increased risk of birth defects.|doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Bencko |first1=Vladimir |last2=Foong |first2=Florence Yan Li |title=Environmental Security Assessment and Management of Obsolete Pesticides in Southeast Europe |chapter=The History, Toxicity and Adverse Human Health and Environmental Effects Related to the Use of Agent Orange |date=2013 |editor-last=Simeonov |editor-first=Lubomir I. |editor2-last=Macaev |editor2-first=Fliur Z. |editor3-last=Simeonova |editor3-first=Biana G. |chapter-url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-007-6461-3_10 |series=NATO Science for Peace and Security Series C: Environmental Security |language=en |location=Dordrecht |publisher=Springer Netherlands |pages=119–130 |doi=10.1007/978-94-007-6461-3_10 |isbn=978-94-007-6461-3}}</ref> The United States government has challenged these figures as being unreliable.<ref name="ReferenceB">"Defoliation" entry in {{cite book|editor-last=Tucker|editor-first=Spencer C.|title=The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War|year=2011|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-1-85109-961-0|edition=2nd}}{{page needed|date=October 2022}}</ref>

For official US military operations reports, there was no established distinctions between enemy KIA and civilian KIA. Since body counts were a direct measure of operational success, US "operations reports" often listed civilian deaths as enemy KIA or exaggerated the number. There was strong pressure to produce body counts as a measure of operational success and enemy body counts were directly tied to promotions and commendation.<ref name=":12">{{cite web|url=https://www.whatifhub.com/2019/03/what-if-america-won-vietnam-war.html|title=What if America 'Won' the Vietnam War?|website= whatifhub.com|publisher= whatifhub}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref><ref name=":3" /><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.historynet.com/body-count-in-vietnam.htm|title=Body Count in Vietnam {{!}} HistoryNet|website=www.historynet.com|date=22 February 2018|language=en-US|access-date=2018-06-04}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.historynet.com/body-count-in-vietnam.htm|title=Body Count in Vietnam {{!}} HistoryNet|website=www.historynet.com|date=22 February 2018|language=en-US|access-date=2018-06-03}}</ref> The My Lai Massacre was initially written off as an operational success and covered up.<ref>http://ls-tlss.ucl.ac.uk/course-materials/POLS6016_65225 {{Dead link|date=March 2022}}</ref><ref name=":3">{{Cite book|title=Working-Class War: American Combat Soldiers and Vietnam|last=Appy|first=Christian|publisher=UNC Chapel Hill|year=1993|url=http://projectsmrj.pbworks.com/f/Working+Class+War+-+Christian+Appy.pdf|page=273}}</ref> Sometimes civilian casualties from airstrikes or artillery barrages against villages were reported as "enemies killed".<ref name=":12" /><ref name=":3" /><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.wbur.org/npr/169076259/anything-that-moves-civilians-and-the-vietnam-war|title='Anything That Moves': Civilians And The Vietnam War|website=www.wbur.org|date=28 January 2013 |language=en|access-date=2018-06-03}}</ref> All individuals killed in declared ]s, combatants or not, were considered enemy killed in action by US forces .<ref>{{cite web|url=http://thevietnamwar.info/free-fire-zone/|title=Free Fire Zone|first=Tom|last=Valentine|date=10 April 2014 }}</ref> This might partially explain the discrepancies between recovered weapons and body-count figures, along with exaggeration, although the NVA and VC also went to great lengths to recover weapons from the battlefield.<ref name=":2" />
], March 16, 1968]]
German historian Bernd Greiner mentions the following atrocities reported and/or investigated by the ] and the ], among other sources:<ref>{{cite book|author=Greiner, Bernd|title=War Without Fronts: The USA in Vietnam|publisher=Yale University Press|year=2010|isbn=978-0300168044}}</ref>
*Seven massacres officially confirmed by the American side. My Lai (4) and My Khe (4) (collectively the My Lai Massacre) claimed the largest number of victims with 420 and 90 respectively, and in five other places a total of about 100 civilians were executed.
*Two further massacres were reported by soldiers who had taken part in them, one north of Đức Pho in ] in the summer of 1968 (14 victims), another in ] on 20 July 1969 (25 victims).{{citation needed|date=September 2019}}
*], a special operations force, probably murdered hundreds of civilians during a 6-month period in 1967.<ref>, Toledo Blade.</ref>
According to the Information Bureau of the ] (PRG), a shadow government formed by North Vietnam in 1969, between April 1968 and the end of 1970 American ground troops killed about 6,500 civilians in the course of twenty-one operations either on their own or alongside their allies.

Nick Turse, in his 2013 book, ''Kill Anything that Moves'', argues that a relentless drive toward higher body counts, a widespread use of free-fire zones, rules of engagement where civilians who ran from soldiers or helicopters could be viewed as VC, and a widespread disdain for Vietnamese civilians led to massive civilian casualties and endemic atrocities inflicted by U.S. troops.<ref name = "Turse 2013 251">{{Harvnb|Turse|2013|p=251}}.</ref> One example cited by Turse is ], an operation by the ], which was described by ] as, in effect, "many My Lais".<ref name = "Turse 2013 251"/>

{{Blockquote| Air force captain, Brian Wilson, who carried out bomb-damage assessments in free-fire zones throughout the delta, saw the results firsthand. "It was the epitome of immorality...One of the times I counted bodies after an air strike—which always ended with two napalm bombs which would just fry everything that was left—I counted sixty-two bodies. In my report I described them as so many women between fifteen and twenty-five and so many children—usually in their mothers' arms or very close to them—and so many old people." When he later read the official tally of dead, he found that it listed them as 130 VC killed.<ref name = "Turse 2013 212">{{Harvnb|Turse|2013|p=212}}.</ref>}}

===Deaths caused by the South Korean military===
] recovers bodies of victims killed by ] in Phong Nhi and Phong Nhat hamlets on February 12, 1968.<ref name=hani001115a>{{cite news|url=http://h21.hani.co.kr/section-021003000/2000/021003000200011150334051.html|script-title=ko:편견인가, 꿰뚫어 본 것인가 미군 정치고문 제임스 맥의 보고서 "쿠앙남성 주둔 한국군은 무능·부패·잔혹"|author=Kim Chang-seok|newspaper = ]|date = 2000-11-15|access-date = 2012-10-14|language=ko}}</ref>]]
The ] reportedly perpetrated the ] in February/March 1966. The ] reportedly perpetrated the ] on 9 October 1966.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Armstrong|first=Charles|journal=Critical Asian Studies|volume=33|issue=4|title=America's Korea, Korea's Vietnam|page=530|publisher=Routledge|year=2001|doi=10.1080/146727101760107415|s2cid=144205767}}</ref> In December 1966, the ] reportedly perpetrated the ].<ref name=alJazeera20090104>{{cite news|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tQtgo4hKsM&feature=feedf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211212/1tQtgo4hKsM| archive-date=2021-12-12 |url-status=live|title=On War extra – Vietnam's massacre survivors|newspaper = ]|date = 2009-01-04|access-date = 2012-10-14}}{{cbignore}}</ref> The Second Marine Brigade perpetrated the ] on 12 February 1968.<ref name=hani010424>{{cite news|url=http://h21.hani.co.kr/section-021005000/2001/04/021005000200104240356037.html|script-title=ko:특집 "그날의 주검을 어찌 잊으랴" 베트남전 종전 26돌, 퐁니·퐁넛촌의 참화를 전하는 사진을 들고 현장에 가다 |author=Go Gyeong-tae|newspaper = ]|date = 2001-04-24|access-date = 2012-10-14|language=ko}}</ref><ref name=om001114>{{cite news|url=http://www.ohmynews.com/NWS_Web/View/at_pg.aspx?CNTN_CD=A0000023943|script-title=ko:여기 한 충격적인 보고서가 있다 미국이 기록한 한국군의 베트남 학살 보고서 발견|newspaper = ]|date = 2000-11-14|access-date = 2012-10-14|language=ko}}</ref> South Korean Marines reportedly perpetrated the ] on 25 February 1968.<ref>{{cite book |last= Kwon |first= Heonik |title= After the massacre: commemoration and consolation in Ha My and My Lai|publisher=University of California Press|page=2|isbn=978-0520247970|date= 2006}}</ref> According to a study conducted in 1968 by a ] Vietnamese-speaking American couple, Diane and Michael Jones, there were at least 12 mass killings committed by South Korean forces that approached the scale of the My Lai Massacre, with reports of thousands of routine murders of civilians, primarily the elderly, women and children.<ref name=":6">{{cite book|title=]|last1=Chomsky|first1=Noam|last2=Herman|first2=Edward S.|publisher=Warner Modular Publications|year=1973}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{cite web|url=https://apjjf.org/-Heonik-Kwon/2451/article.html|title=Anatomy of US and South Korean Massacres in the Vietnamese Year of the Monkey, 1968 {{!}} Japan Focus|last=Journal|first=The Asia Pacific|website=apjjf.org|date=4 June 2007 |access-date=2018-05-12}}</ref> A separate study was carried out by ] employee Terry Rambo, who conducted interviews in 1970 on reported Korean atrocities in ARVN/civilian areas.<ref name=":7">{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/01/10/archives/vietnam-killings-laid-to-koreans-researcher-says-he-found-evidence.html|title=VIETNAM KILLINGS LAID TO KOREANS (Published 1970)|first=Robert M. Smith Special to The New York|last=Times|newspaper=The New York Times|date=January 10, 1970}}</ref> Widespread reports of deliberate mass killings by Korean forces alleged that they were the result of systemic, deliberate policies to massacre civilians, with murders running into the hundreds.<ref name=":7" /> These policies were also reported on by US commanders, with one US Marine General stating "whenever the Korean marines received fire "or think fired on from a village ... they'd divert from their march and go over and completely level the village ... it would be a lesson to (the Vietnamese)."<ref name=":1">{{Cite news|url=https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/23/asia/south-korea-vietnam-massacre-intl/index.html|title=The 'forgotten' My Lai: South Korea's Vietnam War massacres|first=James |last=Griffiths|work=CNN|access-date=2018-05-27}}</ref> Another Marine commander, Gen. ], added, "we had a big problem with atrocities attributed to them, which I sent on down to Saigon."<ref name=":1" /> Investigations by Korean civic groups have alleged that at least 9,000 civilians were massacred by ROK forces.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/820199.html|title=Citizens' court to investigate Vietnam War atrocities committed by South Korean troops|access-date=2018-06-03}}</ref>

==Army of the Republic of Vietnam==
The ARVN suffered 254,256 recorded combat deaths between 1960 and 1974, with the highest number of recorded deaths being in 1972, with 39,587 combat deaths.<ref name="Clarke, Jeffrey J. 1988 p. 275">Clarke, Jeffrey J. (1988), ''United States Army in Vietnam: Advice and Support: The Final Years, 1965–1973'', Washington, D.C: Center of Military History, United States Army, page 275</ref> According to Guenter Lewy, the ARVN suffered between 171,331 and 220,357 deaths during the war.<ref name="Lewy">Lewy, Guenter (1978). ''America in Vietnam''. New York: Oxford University Press. Appendix 1, pages 450–53</ref><ref name=Thayer/>{{rp|106}} R.J. Rummel estimated that ARVN suffered between 219,000 and 313,000 deaths during the war, including in 1975 and prior to 1960.<ref name="Rummel 1997"/>

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Year !! 1960 !! 1961 !! 1962 !! 1963 !! 1964 !! 1965 !! 1966 !! 1967 !! 1968 !! 1969 !! 1970 !! 1971 !! 1972 !! 1973 !! 1974 !! Total (1960–1974)
|-
| ARVN combat deaths<ref name="Clarke, Jeffrey J. 1988 p. 275"/> || 2,223 || 4,004 || 4,457 || 5,665 || 7,457 || 11,242 || 11,953 || 12,716 || 27,915 || 21,833 || 23,346 || 22,738 || 39,587 || 27,901 || 31,219 || 254,256
|}
Other casualties for the ARVN included up to 1,170,000 military wounded,<ref>{{cite book | last=Tucker | first=Spencer | title=The encyclopedia of the Vietnam War : a political, social, and military history | publisher=ABC-CLIO | publication-place=Santa Barbara, Calif. | date=2011 | isbn=978-1-85109-960-3 | oclc=729629958}}</ref> and 1,000,000 surrendered or captured.<ref>{{cite web|title=The Fall of South Vietnam|url=https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/reports/2005/R2208.pdf|website=]}}</ref> Prior to the ], at least 5,336 ARVN were captured, being released in the aftermath of the ].<ref>{{cite news|date=9 March 1974|title=Vietnamese Complete P.O.W Exchange|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1974/03/09/archives/vietnamese-complete-pow-exchange-special-to-the-new-york-times.html|website=]}}</ref>

==North Vietnamese and Viet Cong military casualties==
'''Deaths'''

According to the Vietnamese government's national survey and assessment of war casualties (March 2017), there were 849,018 PAVN military personnel dead, including combat death and non-combat death, from the period between 1960 and 1975. An additional 232,000 military personnel were still missing as of 2017, a total of 1,081,000 dead and missing for the American War.<ref name=":4">{{cite web|url=http://datafile.chinhsachquandoi.gov.vn/Qu%E1%BA%A3n%20l%C3%BD%20ch%E1%BB%89%20%C4%91%E1%BA%A1o/Chuy%C3%AAn%20%C4%91%E1%BB%81%204.doc|title=Chuyên đề 4 CÔNG TÁC TÌM KIẾM, QUY TẬP HÀI CỐT LIỆT SĨ TỪ NAY ĐẾN NĂM 2020 VÀ NHỮNG NĂM TIẾP THEO, datafile.chinhsachquandoi.gov.vn/Quản%20lý%20chỉ%20đạo/Chuyên%20đề%204.doc}}</ref><ref>Moyar, Mark. "Triumph Regained: The Vietnam War, 1965-1968." Encounter Books, December 2022. Chapter 17 index: "Communists provided further corroboration of the proximity of their casualty figures to American figures in a postwar disclosure of total losses from 1960 to 1975. During that period, they stated, they lost 849,018 killed plus approximately 232,000 missing and 463,000 wounded. Casualties fluctuated considerably from year to year, but a degree of accuracy can be inferred from the fact that 500,000 was 59 percent of the 849,018 total and that 59 percent of the war's days had passed by the time of Fallaci's conversation with Giap. The killed in action figure comes from "Special Subject 4: The Work of Locating and Recovering the Remains of Martyrs From Now Until 2020 And Later Years," downloaded from the Vietnamese government website datafile on 1 December 2017. The above figures on missing and wounded were calculated using Hanoi's declared casualty ratios for the period of 1945 to 1979, during which time the Communists incurred 1.1 million killed, 300,000 missing, and 600,000 wounded. Ho Khang, ed, ''Lich Su Khang Chien Chong My, Cuu Nuoc 1954-1975, Tap VIII: Toan Thang'' (Hanoi: Nha Xuat Ban Chinh Tri Quoc Gia, 2008), 463."</ref> Based on unit surveys, a rough estimate of 30–40% of dead and missing were non-combat deaths.<ref name=":4" /> Across all three wars including the First Indochina War and the ] there was a total of 1,146,250 PAVN/VC confirmed military deaths, included 939,460 with bodies recovered and 207,000 with the bodies unfound. Per war: 191,605 deaths in the ], 849,018 deaths in the Second Indochina War (Vietnam War), and 105,627 deaths in the Third Indochina War.<ref name=":4" />

According to American writer Joseph Babcock, the Vietnamese government estimated 300,000 PAVN/VC missing-in-action (MIA) in 2019, but that the real number of MIA is widely believed to be closer to 500,000 people, whose bodies were either never found or buried anonymously and never identified. The overwhelming majority of the MIA are from northern Vietnam. In 1976, the Vietnamese government organized Gathering Teams to find the remains of dead soldiers. The overwhelming majority of the MIA are from northern Vietnam.<ref>{{cite news|title=Lost Souls: The Search for Vietnam's 300,000 or More MIAs|author=Joseph Babcock|publisher=The Daily Beast|url=https://www.thedailybeast.com/lost-souls-the-search-for-vietnams-300000-or-more-mias|date=26 April 2019|access-date=7 May 2019}}</ref> According to the Vietnamese government, from 1994 to 2012, 172,460 PAVN/VC bodies were found, including 15,989 in Cambodia, and 14,549 in Laos, and around 10,000 bodies were found from 2012 to 2015, reducing the number of MIA from 390,000 (1993) to 207,000 (2016).<ref name=":4" /> According to the Vice Minister Nguyễn Bá Hoan, in 2022, nearly 200,000 PAVN/VC were still MIA (whose bodies were have not been found), and 300,000 whose bodies have been found, but buried anonymously and never identified.<ref></ref>

According to the Vietnamese government's official history, the PAVN suffered over 100,000 casualties during the 1972 ], including 40,000 killed. The U.S. estimated more than 100,000 PAVN killed in the offensive.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.historynet.com/north-vietnamese-armys-1972-eastertide-offensive.htm |title= North Vietnamese Army's 1972 Eastertide Offensive|author=web site|year=1997|publisher=web site|access-date=1 February 2010}}</ref><ref> The North Vietnamese Army suffered more than 100,000 casualties in its attacking force of 200,000 - perhaps 40,000
killed</ref> After the U.S.'s withdrawal from the conflict, the Pentagon estimated PAVN/VC deaths at 39,000 in 1973 and 61,000 in 1974.<ref>Marilyn Young. "The Vietnam Wars." Harper Perennial; September 1991. Chapter 14: "The “cease-fire war” claimed 26,500 ARVN dead in 1973, and almost 30,000 in 1974. Pentagon statistics listed 39,000 and 61,000 PRG/DRV dead for the same time period."</ref> Per the official Vietnamese history, over 10,000 more PAVN soldiers were killed in the final offensive of early 1975.<ref>, Vietnam Ministry of Defence</ref>

There has been ] about the exact numbers of deaths inflicted on the Communist side by U.S. and allied South Vietnamese forces. ], writing in ''The Rise and Fall of an American Army'', declined to include casualty statistics because of their 'general unreliability.' Accurate assessments of PAVN/VC losses, he wrote, were 'largely impossible due to lack of disclosure by the Vietnamese government, terrain, destruction of remains by firepower, and to confirm artillery and aerial kills.' The 'shameful gamesmanship' practiced by 'certain reporting elements' under pressure to 'produce results' also shrouded the process.<ref>Shelby L. Stanton, 'The Rise and Fall of an American Army,' Spa Books, 1989, xvi.</ref>

RJ Rummel estimates 1,011,000 PAVN/VC combatant deaths.<ref name="Rummel 1997 102">{{cite web|url=http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.TAB6.1A.GIF|title=Rummel 1997 |at=Line 102}}</ref> The official US Department of Defense figure was 950,765 communist forces killed in Vietnam from 1965 to 1974. Defense Department officials believed that these body count figures need to be deflated by 30 percent. For this figure, Guenter Lewy assumes that one-third of the reported enemy killed may have been civilians, concluding that the actual number of deaths of the VC and PAVN military forces was probably closer to 444,000.<ref name="Lewy"/>

Author Mark Woodruff noted that when the Vietnamese Government finally revealed its estimated losses (in April 1995) as being 1.1 million dead or missing, U.S. body count figures had actually underestimated enemy losses.<ref>{{cite book|last=Woodruff|first=Mark|title=Unheralded Victory: Who won the Vietnam war?|publisher=Harper Collins|year=1999|isbn=978-0004725192|page=211}}</ref>

The Phoenix Program, a ] program executed by the CIA, ] and the Republic of Vietnam's security apparatus, killed 26,369 suspected of being VC operatives and informants.<ref>{{cite book|author=McCoy, Alfred W.|title=A question of torture: CIA interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror|publisher=Macmillan|year=2006|isbn=978-0-8050-8041-4|page=68|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FVwUYSBwtKcC&pg=PA68}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Harbury, Jennifer|title=Truth, torture, and the American way: the history and consequences of U.S. involvement in torture|publisher=Beacon Press|year=2005|isbn=978-0-8070-0307-7|page=|url=https://archive.org/details/truthtortureamer0000harb|url-access=registration}}</ref>

Historian ] states "] was the principal tactic; and the enemy body count was the primary measure of progress" in the US strategy of ]. Search and destroy was a term to describe operations aimed at flushing the Viet Cong out of hiding, while body count was the measuring stick for operation success and this resulted in exaggeration and listing civilian deaths as enemy KIA. One study estimated that American commanders exaggerated body counts by up to 100 percent.<ref>{{cite book|author=Appy, Christian G.|title=Working-Class War: American Combat Soldiers and Vietnam|publisher=Univ of North Carolina Press|year=2000|pages=153–56}}</ref>

'''Other casualties'''

The PAVN/VC forces suffered around 600,000 wounded during the war,<ref>Hastings, Max (2018). ''Vietnam an epic tragedy, 1945–1975''. Harper Collins. {{ISBN|978-0-06-240567-8}}.</ref> and prior to the 1975 spring offensive, lost at least 26,880 soldiers taken prisoner - being released after the 1973 Peace Accords.<ref>{{Cite news|date=9 March 1974|title=Vietnamese Complete P.O.W Exchange|work=]|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1974/03/09/archives/vietnamese-complete-pow-exchange-special-to-the-new-york-times.html}}</ref> Additionally, according to the U.S. military, they also lost up to 101,511 personnel as defectors due to the ] program,<ref>{{cite web|title=Casualties - US vs NVA/VC|url=http://www.rjsmith.com/kia_tbl.html}}</ref> but one analyst speculates that less than 25% of those were genuine.<ref name=modern>{{cite book|title=Modern Insurgencies and Counter-insurgencies|author=Beckett, Ian| year=2001| page=198| publisher=Routledge| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iQN4ifavThMC&pg=PA198 | isbn=978-0-415-23933-2}}</ref>

==United States military==
]
Casualties as of 4 May 2021:
*58,281 ] or non-combat deaths (including the missing and deaths in captivity)<ref>{{cite press release|author=Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund |url=https://www.vvmf.org/News/2021-Name-Additions-and-Status-Changes-on-the-Vietnam-Veterans-Memorial/|title=2021 NAME ADDITIONS AND STATUS CHANGES ON THE VIETNAM VETERANS MEMORIAL |date=4 May 2021}}</ref>
*153,372 ] (excluding 150,332 persons not requiring hospital care)<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/casualties.htm|title=US Military Operations: Casualty Breakdown|website=www.globalsecurity.org}}</ref>
*1,584 ] (originally 2,646){{efn|Including 28 civilians, originally there were 52 missing civilians.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.dpaa.mil/Portals/85/VietnamAccounting/pmsea_una_CIVILIAN_20200904.pdf|title=Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency Vietnam (PMSEA) Report for CIVILIAN (Unaccounted For)|date=14 October 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.dpaa.mil/Portals/85/VietnamAccounting/pmsea_acc_CIVILIAN_20210305.pdf|title=Capture Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency Vietnam (PMSEA) Report for CIVILIAN (Accounted For – Identified Since 1973)|date=14 October 2020}}</ref>}}<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.dpaa.mil/Portals/85/Statistics%20as%20of%20March%201.pdf|title=Vietnam-era unaccounted for statistical report|date=1 March 2021}}</ref>
*766–778 ] (652–662 freed/escaped,{{efn|One escapee died of wounds sustained during his rescue 15 days later.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.axpow.org/vietnamescapes.pdf|title=Vietnam Prisoners of War – Escapes and Attempts}}</ref>}}<ref name="mrfa">{{cite web|url=http://www.mrfa.org/vnstats.htm|title=Vietnam War Statistics|access-date=2015-01-11|archive-date=2015-01-18|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150118011608/http://www.mrfa.org/vnstats.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref></ref> 114–116 died in captivity)<ref name="mrfa"/><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.militaryfactory.com/vietnam/casualties.asp|title=Vietnam War Casualties (1955-1975)|website=www.militaryfactory.com}}</ref>

Note: This figure differs by 61 from that which is given by the National Archive: "The Vietnam Conflict Extract Data File of the Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) Extract Files contains records of 58,220 U.S. military fatal casualties of the Vietnam War."<ref name=archives.gov>{{cite web | url=https://www.archives.gov/research/military/vietnam-war/casualty-statistics#:~:text=April%2029%2C%202008.-,The%20Vietnam%20Conflict%20Extract%20Data%20File%20of%20the%20Defense%20Casualty,casualties%20of%20the%20Vietnam%20War. | title=Vietnam War U.S. Military Fatal Casualty Statistics | date=15 August 2016 }}</ref> This comparatively small difference is based on the fact that the most recent death file transferred from the DCAS to the National Archive was dated 28 May 2006,<ref name=archives.gov/> compared with the VVMF's memorial entry of 4 May 2021.

The total number of American personnel who were KIA or died non-hostile deaths, were enlisted personnel with a casualty number of 50,441. The total number of officer casualties, commissioned and warrant, are 7,877. The following is a chart of all casualties, listed by ethnicity, and in descending order.<ref name="DMDC">{{cite web|url=https://www.archives.gov/research/military/vietnam-war/casualty-statistics|title=Vietnam War U.S. Military Fatal Casualty Statistics|date=August 15, 2016|website=National Archives}}</ref>

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! White !! Black !! Hispanic !! Hawaiian/Pacific Islander !! American Indian/<br />Alaska Native !! Non-Hispanic<br /> (other ethnicity) !! Asian
|-
| 49,830|| 7,243|| 349 || 229|| 226 || 204|| 139
|}

The total number of casualties, both KIA and non-hostile deaths, for drafted and volunteer service personnel (figures are approximated):<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.uswings.com/about-us-wings/vietnam-war-facts/|title=Vietnam War Facts, Stats and Myths|website=US Wings}}</ref>
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Volunteer !! Draftees
|-
| 70% || 30%
|}
] listing the names of the nearly 60,000 American war dead]]
During the Vietnam War, 30% of wounded service members died of their wounds.<ref>{{cite news |title=Learning from America's Wars, Past and Present U.S. Battlefield Medicine Has Come a Long Way, from Antietam to Iraq |author=Scott McGaugh |url=http://m.utsandiego.com/news/2012/sep/16/tp-learning-from-americas-wars-past-and-present/ |newspaper=San Diego Union Tribune |date=16 September 2012 |access-date=22 February 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140727093255/http://m.utsandiego.com/news/2012/sep/16/tp-learning-from-americas-wars-past-and-present/ |archive-date=27 July 2014 |url-status=dead |df=dmy-all}}</ref> Around 30–35% of American deaths in the war were non-combat or friendly fire deaths; the largest causes of death in the U.S. armed forces were small arms fire (31.8%), booby traps including mines and frags (27.4%), and aircraft crashes (14.7%).<ref>The American War Library. Data compiled by William F. Abbott from figures obtained shortly after the construction of the Vietnam War Memorial.</ref>

=== Vietnam War casualties by state and territory ===
This table lists those who died during the Vietnam War by state or territory.
{| class="wikitable sortable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"
!State
!Casualties
|-
!Alabama
|1,208<ref name=":02">{{Cite web |title=Vietnam War Casualties by State |url=https://wisevoter.com/state-rankings/vietnam-war-casualties-by-state/ |access-date=March 31, 2024 |website=Wisevoter}}</ref>
|-
!Alaska
|57<ref name=":02" />
|-
!American Samoa
|4<ref>{{Cite web |last=United States National Archives and Records Administration |date=April 29, 2008 |title=U.S. Military Fatal Casualties of the Vietnam War for Home-State-of-Record: American Samoa |url=https://www.archives.gov/files/research/military/vietnam-war/casualty-lists/as-alpha.pdf |access-date=March 31, 2024 |website=United States National Archives and Records Administration}}</ref>
|-
!Arizona
|619<ref name=":02" />
|-
!Arkansas
|592<ref name=":02" />
|-
!California
|5,575<ref name=":02" />
|-
!Colorado
|623<ref name=":02" />
|-
!Connecticut
|612<ref name=":02" />
|-
!Delaware
|122<ref name=":02" />
|-
!Florida
|1,954<ref name=":02" />
|-
!Georgia
|1,581<ref name=":02" />
|-
!Guam
|70<ref>{{Cite web |last=United States National Archives and Records Administration |date=April 29, 2008 |title=U.S. Military Fatal Casualties of the Vietnam War for Home-State-of-Record: Guam |url=https://www.archives.gov/files/research/military/vietnam-war/casualty-lists/gu-alpha.pdf |access-date=March 31, 2024 |website=United States National Archives and Records Administration}}</ref>
|-
!Hawaii
|276<ref name=":02" />
|-
!Idaho
|217<ref name=":02" />
|-
!Illinois
|2,936<ref name=":02" />
|-
!Indiana
|1,534<ref name=":02" />
|-
!Iowa
|851<ref name=":02" />
|-
!Kansas
|627<ref name=":02" />
|-
!Kentucky
|1,056<ref name=":02" />
|-
!Louisiana
|885<ref name=":02" />
|-
!Maine
|341<ref name=":02" />
|-
!Maryland
|1,014<ref name=":02" />
|-
!Massachusetts
|1,331<ref name=":02" />
|-
!Michigan
|2,657<ref name=":02" />
|-
!Minnesota
|1,077<ref name=":02" />
|-
!Mississippi
|636<ref name=":02" />
|-
!Missouri
|1,418<ref name=":02" />
|-
!Montana
|267<ref name=":02" />
|-
!Nebraska
|396<ref name=":02" />
|-
!Nevada
|149<ref name=":02" />
|-
!New Hampshire
|226<ref name=":02" />
|-
!New Jersey
|1,487<ref name=":02" />
|-
!New Mexico
|395<ref name=":02" />
|-
!New York
|4,119<ref name=":02" />
|-
!North Carolina
|1,613<ref name=":02" />
|-
!North Dakota
|199<ref name=":02" />
|-
!Northern Mariana Islands
|NA
|-
!Ohio
|3,094<ref name=":02" />
|-
!Oklahoma
|987<ref name=":02" />
|-
!Oregon
|710<ref name=":02" />
|-
!Panama Canal Zone
|2<ref>{{Cite web |last=United States National Archives and Records Administration |date=April 29, 2008 |title=U.S. Military Fatal Casualties of the Vietnam War for Home-State-of-Record: Canal Zone |url=https://www.archives.gov/files/research/military/vietnam-war/casualty-lists/cz-alpha.pdf |access-date=March 31, 2024 |website=United States National Archives and Records Administration}}</ref>
|-
!Pennsylvania
|3,147<ref name=":02" />
|-
!Puerto Rico
|345<ref>{{Cite web |last=United States Archives and Records Administration |date=April 29, 2008 |title=U.S. Military Fatal Casualties of the Vietnam War for Home-State-of-Record: Puerto Rico |url=https://www.archives.gov/files/research/military/vietnam-war/casualty-lists/pr-alpha.pdf |access-date=March 31, 2024 |website=United States Archives and Records Administration}}</ref>
|-
!Rhode Island
|209<ref name=":02" />
|-
!South Carolina
|895<ref name=":02" />
|-
!South Dakota
|192<ref name=":02" />
|-
!Tennessee
|1,295<ref name=":02" />
|-
!Texas
|3,415<ref name=":02" />
|-
!Utah
|361<ref name=":02" />
|-
!Vermont
|100<ref name=":02" />
|-
!Virgin Islands
|15<ref>{{Cite web |last=United States National Archives and Records Administration |date=April 29, 2008 |title=U.S. Military Fatal Casualties of the Vietnam War for Home-State-of-Record: Virgin Islands |url=https://www.archives.gov/files/research/military/vietnam-war/casualty-lists/vi-alpha.pdf |access-date=March 31, 2024 |website=United States National Archives and Records Administration}}</ref>
|-
!Virginia
|1,305<ref name=":02" />
|-
!Washington
|1,047<ref name=":02" />
|-
!West Virginia
|733<ref name=":02" />
|-
!Wisconsin
|1,161<ref name=":02" />
|-
!Wyoming
|119<ref name=":02" />
|-
!Washington, D.C.
|242<ref name=":02" />
|-
!Total
!58,098
|}

===African American casualties===
African Americans suffered disproportionately high casualty rates during the Vietnam War. In 1965, despite comprising only 11% of the total U.S. population, African Americans constituted 14.1% of combat deaths in Vietnam.<ref name="Westheider">''Fighting on Two Fronts: African Americans and the Vietnam War''; Westheider, James E.; New York University Press; 1997; pages 11–16</ref><ref name="PB-African-Americans In Combat">{{cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/feature/african-americans-in-combat/|title=African-Americans In Combat &#124; History Detectives &#124; PBS|website=www.pbs.org}}</ref> With the draft increasing due to the troop buildup in South Vietnam, the military significantly lowered its admission standards. In October 1966, Defense Secretary ] initiated ] which further lowered military standards for 100,000 additional draftees per year. McNamara claimed this program would provide valuable training, skills and opportunity to America's poor—a promise that was never carried out. Many black men who had previously been ineligible could now be drafted, along with many poor and racially intolerant white men from the southern states. This led to increased racial tension in the military.<ref name="Guardian-War within war">; The Guardian; September 14, 2001; James Maycock</ref><ref name="Appy2">''Working-Class War: American Combat Soldiers & Vietnam''; Appy, Christian; University of North Carolina Press; 2003; pages 31–33</ref>

The number of US military personnel in Vietnam jumped from 23,300 in 1965 to 465,600 by the end of 1967. Between October 1966 and June 1969, 246,000 soldiers were recruited through Project 100,000, of whom 41% were black; black people only made up about 11% of the population of the US.<ref name="Guardian-War within war"/> Of the 27 million draft-age men between 1964 and 1973, 40% were drafted into military service, and only 10% were actually sent to Vietnam. This group was made up almost entirely of either ] or rural youth.{{citation needed|date=June 2020}} Black people often made up a disproportionate 25% or more of combat units, while constituting only 12% of the military. 20% of black males were combat soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines.<ref name="Westheider"/><ref name="ISR-The Soldier's Revolt">{{cite web|url=https://isreview.org/issues/09/soldiers_revolt.shtml|title=International Socialist Review|website=isreview.org}}</ref>

Civil rights leaders, including ], ], ], ] and others, criticized the racial disparity in both casualties and representation in the entire military, prompting the Pentagon to order cutbacks in the number of African Americans in combat positions. Commander George L. Jackson said, "In response to this criticism, the Department of Defense took steps to readjust force levels in order to achieve an equitable proportion and employment of Negroes in Vietnam." The Army instigated myriad reforms, addressed issues of discrimination and prejudice from the post exchanges to the lack of black officers, and introduced "Mandatory Watch And Action Committees" into each unit. This resulted in a dramatic decrease in the proportion of black casualties, and by late 1967, black casualties had fallen to 13%, and were below 10% in 1970 to 1972.<ref name="Guardian-War within war" /><ref name="Appy-Working-Class War" /> As a result, by the war's completion, total black casualties averaged 12.5% of US combat deaths, approximately equal to percentage of draft-eligible black men, though still slightly higher than the 10% who served in the military.<ref name="Appy-Working-Class War">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sEygbABXmFUC&q=how+many+black+soldiers+served+and+died|title=Working-Class War: American Combat Soldiers and Vietnam|first=Christian G.|last=Appy|date=November 9, 2000|publisher=Univ of North Carolina Press|isbn=9780807860113|via=Google Books}}</ref>

==Aftermath==
] continue to detonate and kill people today. According to the Vietnamese government, unexploded ordnance has killed some 42,000 people since the end of the war. According to a 2009 study, one third of land in the central provinces of Vietnam is still contaminated with unexploded mines and ordnance.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/12/03/vietname-war-bomb-explodes_n_2229727.html| title= Vietnam War Bomb Explodes Killing Four Children |work=Huffington Post|date=3 December 2012}}</ref><ref> ''The New York Times'' (July 31, 2009)</ref> In 2012 alone, unexploded ordnance had claimed 500 casualties in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, according to activists and Vietnamese government databases. The United States has spent over $65 million since 1998 as part of unexploded ordnance clearing operations.<ref>{{cite web| url=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/14/vietnam-war-bombs_n_3755066.html|title= Vietnam War Bombs Still Killing People 40 Years Later|work=The Huffington Post|date=2013-08-14}}</ref>

Agent Orange and similar chemical ] have also caused a considerable number of deaths and injuries over the years, including among the US Air Force crew that handled them. The government of Vietnam says that 4 million of its citizens were exposed to Agent Orange, and as many as 3 million have suffered illnesses because of it; these figures include the children of people who were exposed.<ref>Ben Stocking for AP, published in the ''Seattle Times'' May 22, 2010 </ref> The ] estimates that up to 1 million people are disabled or suffer health problems due to Agent Orange exposure.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/10/world/asia/vietnam-us-agent-orange/ |title=U.S. in first effort to clean up Agent Orange in Vietnam |author=Jessica King |date=2012-08-10|access-date= 2012-08-11|publisher=CNN}}</ref>

On 9 August 2012, the United States and Vietnam began a cooperative cleaning up of the toxic chemical from part of ], marking the first time Washington has been involved in cleaning up Agent Orange in Vietnam. Da Nang was the primary storage site of the chemical. Two other cleanup sites being reviewed by the United States and Vietnam are ], in the southern province of ]—a 'hotspot' for ]—and ] in ], according to U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam David Shear. The Vietnamese newspaper ] reported in 2012 that the U.S. government was providing $41 million to the project, which aimed to reduce the contamination level in 73,000 m<sup>3</sup> of soil by late 2016.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-vietnam-usa-agentorange-idUSBRE87803K20120809|title=U.S. starts its first Agent Orange cleanup in Vietnam|work=Reuters|date=August 9, 2012}}</ref>

Following the end of the war, many ]s fled Vietnam by boat and ship. The number of these "boat people" leaving Vietnam and arriving safely in another country totalled almost 800,000 between 1975 and 1995. Many of the refugees failed to survive the passage, facing danger from pirates, over-crowded boats, and storms. According to the ], between 200,000 and 400,000 boat people died at sea. The boat people's first destinations were the ]n locations of ], Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. From ]s in Southeast Asia, the great majority of boat people were resettled in more developed countries. Significant numbers resettled in the United States, Canada, Italy, Australia, France, West Germany, and the United Kingdom.<ref name="Associated Press 1979">''Associated Press'', June 23, 1979, ''San Diego Union'', July 20, 1986. See generally Nghia M. Vo, ''The Vietnamese Boat People'' (2006), 1954 and 1975-1992, McFarland.</ref>

==Other nations' casualties==
''']'''
*275,000–310,000 killed<ref name="Heuveline, Patrick 2001">{{cite book|last=Heuveline|first=Patrick|chapter=The Demographic Analysis of Mortality Crises: The Case of Cambodia, 1970–1979|title=Forced Migration and Mortality|publisher=]|year=2001|pages=103–04|isbn=978-0309073349|quote=Subsequent reevaluations of the demographic data situated the death toll for the in the order of 300,000 or less.}}</ref><ref name="Banister, Judith 1993">{{cite book|last1=Banister|first1=Judith|last2=Johnson|first2=E. Paige|chapter=After the Nightmare: The Population of Cambodia|title=Genocide and Democracy in Cambodia: The Khmer Rouge, the United Nations and the International Community|publisher=Yale University Southeast Asia Studies|year=1993|page=|isbn=978-0938692492|quote=An estimated 275,000 excess deaths. We have modeled the highest mortality that we can justify for the early 1970s.|chapter-url-access=registration|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/genocidedemocrac00kier|url=https://archive.org/details/genocidedemocrac00kier/page/87}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Sliwinski|first=Marek|title=Le Génocide Khmer Rouge: Une Analyse Démographique|location=Paris|publisher=]|year=1995|isbn=978-2-738-43525-5|pages=42–43, 48}} Of 310,000 estimated Cambodian Civil War deaths, Sliwinski attributes 46.3% to firearms, 31.7% to assassinations (a tactic primarily used by the Khmer Rouge), 17.1% to (mainly U.S.) bombing, and 4.9% to accidents.</ref>
''']'''
*20,000–62,000 killed<ref name="BMJ">{{Cite journal|last1=Obermeyer|first1=Ziad|last2=Murray|first2=Christopher J. L.|last3=Gakidou|first3=Emmanuela|year=2008|title=Fifty years of violent war deaths from Vietnam to Bosnia: analysis of data from the world health survey programme|journal=]|volume=336|doi=10.1136/bmj.a137|pmid=18566045|issue=7659|pages=1482–86|pmc=2440905}} See Table 3 for most estimates.</ref>

===Military===
'''South Korea''' '''South Korea'''
* 5,099 KIA *5,099 Killed in action
* 11,232 WIA *14,232 wounded
* 4 MIA<ref name=KOREA></ref> *4 missing in action<ref name=KOREA>{{cite web|url=http://www.imhc.mil.kr/imhcroot/upload/resource/V27.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110722140810/http://www.imhc.mil.kr/imhcroot/upload/resource/V27.pdf|url-status=dead|title=KOREA military army official statistics, AUG 28, 2005|archive-date=July 22, 2011}}</ref>
'''Australia''' '''Australia'''
* 426 KIA, 74 died of other causes<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.awm.gov.au/encyclopedia/vietnam/statistics.htm |title=Vietnam War, 1962-72 - Statistics |accessdate=2008-02-04 |last= |first= |coauthors= |year=2003 |work= |publisher=Australian War Memorial}}</ref> *426 killed in action, 74 died of other causes<ref name=AWMstats>{{cite web |url=http://www.awm.gov.au/encyclopedia/vietnam/statistics.htm |title=Vietnam War, 1962–72 Statistics |access-date=2008-02-04 |year=2003 |publisher=Australian War Memorial}}</ref>
*3,129 wounded<ref name=AWMstats/>
* 3,129 WIA
*6 missing in action (all accounted for and repatriated)<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.awm.gov.au/encyclopedia/vietnam_mia/ |title=Australian servicemen listed as missing in action in Vietnam |publisher=Australian War Memorial |access-date=14 February 2015}}</ref>
* 6 MIA (All have been accounted for and have been repatriated){{citation needed|date=June 2012}}
'''Thailand''' '''Thailand'''
*351 KIA <ref name=KOREA /><ref>The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History *351 killed in action<ref name=KOREA /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Tucker |first=Spencer C. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qh5lffww-KsC&dq=the%20encyclopedia%20of%20the%20vietnam%20war%20page%2064&pg=PA176 |title=The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History, 2nd Edition : A Political, Social, and Military History |date=2011-05-20 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-1-85109-961-0 |language=en}}</ref>
*1,358 wounded
By Spencer C. Tucker "http://books.google.com.au/books?id=qh5lffww-KsC&lpg=PA53&dq=the%20encyclopedia%20of%20the%20vietnam%20war%20page%2064&pg=PA176&output=embed"</ref>
*200+ captured<ref>{{Cite news |last=Conley |first=M |date=2008 |title=POW Remembers McCain and Tapping Through Walls in Hanoi Prison |work=] |url=https://abcnews.go.com/amp/2020/story?id=5947378&page=1}}</ref>
*1,358 WIA
'''New Zealand''' '''New Zealand'''
* 37 KIA + 2 Civilians<ref>{{cite web|url=http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~sooty/nzrohwar.html |title=New Zealand Rolls Of Honour - By Conflict |publisher=Freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com |date= |accessdate=2012-09-25}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.vietnamwar.govt.nz/resources |title=Overview of the war in Vietnam &#124; VietnamWar.govt.nz, New Zealand and the Vietnam War |publisher=Vietnamwar.govt.nz |date=1965-07-16 |accessdate=2012-09-25}}</ref> *37 killed in action plus 2 civilians<ref>{{cite web|url=http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~sooty/nzrohwar.html |title=New Zealand Rolls Of Honour By Conflict |publisher=Freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com |access-date=2012-09-25}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.vietnamwar.govt.nz/resources |title=Overview of the war in Vietnam &#124; VietnamWar.govt.nz, New Zealand and the Vietnam War |publisher=Vietnamwar.govt.nz |date=1965-07-16 |access-date=2012-09-25 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130726010609/http://vietnamwar.govt.nz/resources |archive-date=2013-07-26}}</ref>
* 187 WIA *187 wounded
'''Philippines''' '''Philippines'''
*9 killed in action<ref name="asianallies">{{cite web|url=http://175thengineers.homestead.com/Philcav.pdf|title=Asian Allies in Viet-Nam}}</ref>
*7 men KIA{{citation needed|date=June 2012}}
*64 wounded<ref name="asianallies"/>
*2 men MIA{{Citation needed|date=April 2009}}
''']'''
'''China'''
*25 killed in action<ref>{{cite web|date=2013|title=America Wasn't the only Foreign Power in the Vietnam War|url=https://militaryhistorynow.com/2013/10/02/the-international-vietnam-war-the-other-world-powers-that-fought-in-south-east-asia/}}</ref>
1,446 KIA{{Citation needed|date=April 2009}}
*17 captured <ref>{{Cite news|date=July 13, 1964|title=Vietnam Reds to hold 17 From Taiwan as Spies|work=]|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1964/07/13/archives/vietnam-reds-said-to-hold-17-from-taiwan-as-spies.html}}</ref>
'''People's Republic of China'''
*1,446 killed in action<ref>{{cite book|last=Womack|first=Brantly|title=China and Vietnam: The Politics of Asymmetry|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2006|isbn=978-0521618342}}</ref>
'''Soviet Union''' '''Soviet Union'''
~16.<ref>{{cite book|author1=James F. Dunnigan|author2=Albert A. Nofi|title=Dirty Little Secrets of the Vietnam War: Military Information You're Not Supposed to Know|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=7t-XPOvtWUkC|year=2000|publisher=Macmillan|isbn=0-312-25282-X}}</ref> *~16 deaths,<ref>{{cite book|author1=James F. Dunnigan|author2-link=Albert A. Nofi|author2=Albert A. Nofi|title=Dirty Little Secrets of the Vietnam War: Military Information You're Not Supposed to Know|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7t-XPOvtWUkC|year=2000|publisher=Macmillan|isbn=978-0-312-25282-3}}</ref> including 4 killed in action<ref>{{cite web | url=https://kienthuc.net.vn/quan-su/nhung-chuyen-gia-quan-su-lien-xo-trong-khang-chien-chong-my-1796800.html | title=Những chuyên gia quân sự Liên Xô trong kháng chiến chống Mỹ | date=12 January 2023}}</ref>
'''North Korea'''
*~14 pilots killed <ref>{{dead link|date=September 2022}}</ref>

==Notes==
{{notelist}}


==References== ==References==
{{Reflist|colwidth=30em}} {{reflist|colwidth=30em}}


==External links== ==External links==
* Searchable database. * Searchable database.
* . Texas Tech University. *. Texas Tech University.
*
{{Vietnam War}}


]
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Latest revision as of 17:12, 27 November 2024

Civilian and military deaths during the Second Indochina War Vietnamese memorial of the deadThe Memorial to the Revolutionary Martyrs, HanoiAmerican memorial of the deadThe Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington, D.C.Two major war memorials commemorating the dead of the Indochina Wars

Estimates of casualties of the Vietnam War vary widely. Estimates can include both civilian and military deaths in North and South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.

The war lasted from 1955 to 1975 and most of the fighting took place in South Vietnam; accordingly it suffered the most casualties. The war also spilled over into the neighboring countries of Cambodia and Laos which also endured casualties from aerial bombing and ground fighting.

Civilian deaths caused by both sides amounted to a significant percentage of total deaths. These were caused by artillery bombardments, extensive aerial bombing of North and South Vietnam, the use of firepower in military operations conducted in heavily populated areas, assassinations, massacres, and terror tactics. A number of incidents occurred during the war in which civilians were deliberately targeted or killed, the most prominent being the Huế Massacre and the Mỹ Lai Massacre.

Total number of deaths

Waiting to Lift Off by James Pollock, Vietnam Combat Artists Program, CAT IV, 1967. Courtesy of National Museum of the U.S. Army

Estimates of the total number of deaths in the Vietnam War vary widely. The wide disparity among the estimates cited below is partially explained by the different time periods of the Vietnam War covered by the studies and whether casualties in Cambodia and Laos were included in the estimates.

A 1975 US Senate subcommittee estimated around 1.4 million civilian casualties in South Vietnam because of the war, including 415,000 deaths. An estimate by the Department of Defense after the war gave a figure of 1.2 million civilian casualties, including 195,000 deaths. According to statistics from the South Vietnamese Ministry of Health, 44.5% of civilians admitted to hospitals between 1967 and 1970 were wounded by mines or mortars, 21.2% by guns or grenades, and 34.3% by artillery or bombing.

Guenter Lewy in 1978 estimated 1,353,000 total deaths in North and South Vietnam during the period 1965–1974 in which the U.S. was most engaged in the war. Lewy reduced the number of Viet Cong (VC) and People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) battle deaths claimed by the U.S. by 30 percent (in accordance with the opinion of United States Department of Defense officials), and assumed that one third of the reported battle deaths of the PAVN/VC may have actually been civilians. He estimates that between 30 and 46% of the total war deaths were civilians. His estimate of total deaths is reflected in the table.

Deaths in Vietnam War (1965–1974) per Guenter Lewy
US and allied military deaths 282,000
PAVN/VC military deaths 444,000–666,000
Civilian deaths (North and South Vietnam) 405,000–627,000
Total deaths 1,353,000

A 1995 demographic study in Population and Development Review calculated 791,000–1,141,000 war-related Vietnamese deaths, both soldiers and civilians, for all of Vietnam from 1965 to 1975. The study came up with a most likely Vietnamese death toll of 882,000, which included 655,000 adult males (above 15 years of age), 143,000 adult females, and 84,000 children. Those totals include only Vietnamese deaths, and do not include American and other allied military deaths which amounted to about 64,000. The study's authors stated that methodological limitations of the study include imbalance between rural and urban areas and the potential exclusion of high mortality areas. Another potential limitation is the relatively small sample size of the study.

In 1995, the Vietnamese government released its estimate of war deaths for the more lengthy period of 1955–75. PAVN and VC losses were reported as 1.1 million dead and civilian deaths of Vietnamese on both sides totaled 2.0 million. These estimates probably include deaths of Vietnamese soldiers in Laos and Cambodia, but do not include deaths of South Vietnamese and allied soldiers which would add nearly 300,000 for a grand total of 3.4 million military and civilian dead.

A 2008 study by the BMJ (formerly British Medical Journal) came up with a higher toll of 3,812,000 dead in Vietnam between 1955 and 2002. For the period of the Vietnam War the totals are 1,310,000 between 1955 and 1964, 1,700,000 between 1965–74 and 810,000 between 1975 and 1984. (The estimates for 1955–64 are much higher than other estimates). The sum of those totals is 3,091,000 war deaths between 1955 and 1975.

Uppsala University in Sweden maintains the Armed Conflict Database. Their estimates for conflict deaths in Vietnam are 164,923 from 1955 to 1964 and 1,458,050 from 1965 to 1975 for a total of 1,622,973. The database also estimates combat deaths in Cambodia for the years 1967–75 to total 259,000. Data for deaths in Laos is incomplete.

R. J. Rummel's mid-range estimate in 1997 was that the total deaths due to the Vietnam War totaled 2,450,000 from 1954 to 1975. Rummel calculated PAVN/VC deaths at 1,062,000 and ARVN and allied war deaths of 741,000, with both totals including civilians inadvertently killed. He estimated that victims of democide (deliberate killing of civilians) included 214,000 by North Vietnam/VC and 98,000 by South Vietnam and its allies. Deaths in Cambodia and Laos were estimated at 273,000 and 62,000 respectively.

Deaths in Vietnam War (1954–75) per R. J. Rummel (except where otherwise noted)
Low estimate of deaths Middle estimate of deaths High estimate of deaths Notes and comments
North Vietnam/Viet Cong military and civilian war dead 533,000 1,062,000 1,489,000 includes an estimated 50,000/65,000/70,000 civilians killed by U.S/SVN bombing/shelling
South Vietnam/U.S./South Korea war military and civilian war dead 429,000 741,000 1,119,000 includes 360,000/391,000/720,000 civilians
Democide by North Vietnam/Viet Cong 131,000 214,000 302,000 25,000/50,000/75,000 killed in North Vietnam, 106,000/164,000/227,000 killed in South Vietnam
Democide by South Vietnam 57,000 89,000 284,000 Democide is the murder of persons by or at the behest of governments.
Democide by the United States 4,000 6,000 10,000 Democide is the murder of persons by or at the behest of governments.
Democide by South Korea 3,000 3,000 3,000 Rummel does not give a medium or high estimate.
Subtotal Vietnam 1,156,000 2,115,000 3,207,000
Cambodians 273,000 273,000 273,000 Rummel estimates 212,000 killed by Khmer Rouge (1967–1975), 60,000 killed by U.S. and 1,000 killed by South Vietnam (1967–73). No estimate given for deaths caused by Viet Cong/North Vietnam (1954–75).
Laotians 28,000 62,000 115,000
Grand total of war deaths: Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos (1954–75) 1,450,000 2,450,000 3,595,000

Civilian deaths in the Vietnam War

See also: List of massacres in Vietnam

Lewy estimates that 40,000 South Vietnamese civilians were assassinated by the PAVN/VC; 300,000 were killed as a result of combat in South Vietnam, and 65,000 were killed in North Vietnam for a total of 405,000 killed. He further suggests that 222,000 civilians may have been counted as enemy military deaths by the U.S. in compiling its "body count" raising the total to 627,000 killed. It was difficult to distinguish between civilians and military personnel in many instances as many individuals were part-time guerrillas or impressed laborers who did not wear uniforms. Walter Mead estimates that approximately 365,000 Vietnamese civilians to have died as a result of the war during the period of American involvement.

Deaths caused by North Vietnam/VC forces

Main article: Viet Cong and People’s Army of Vietnam use of terror in the Vietnam War
The Viet Cong killed hundreds of Montagnard villagers during the Dak Son Massacre, 1967

R. J. Rummel estimated that PAVN/VC forces killed around 164,000 civilians in democide between 1954 and 1975 in South Vietnam, from a range of between 106,000 and 227,000, plus another 50,000 killed in North Vietnam. Rummel's mid-level estimate includes 17,000 South Vietnamese civil servants killed by PAVN/VC. In addition, at least 36,000 Southern civilians were executed for various reasons in the period 1967–1972. About 130 American and 16,000 South Vietnamese POWs died in captivity. During the peak war years, another scholar Guenter Lewy attributed almost a third of civilian deaths to the VC.

Thomas Thayer in 1985 estimated that during the 1965–72 period the VC killed 33,052 South Vietnamese village officials and civil servants.

These numbers do not include civilian and State of Vietnam/ARVN military deaths resulting from the communist collectivization and land reform in North Vietnam and mass-internment, the refugee crisis and subsequent exodus of Vietnamese people after the Fall of Saigon.

Deaths caused by South Vietnam

According to RJ Rummel, from 1964 to 1975, an estimated 1,500 people died during the forced relocations of 1,200,000 civilians, another 5,000 prisoners died from ill-treatment and about 30,000 suspected communists and fighters were executed. In Quảng Nam Province 4,700 civilians were killed in 1969. This totals, from a range of between 16,000 and 167,000 deaths caused by South Vietnam during the (Diệm-era), and 42,000 and 118,000 deaths caused by South Vietnam in the post Diệm-era), excluding PAVN forces killed by the ARVN in combat. Benjamin Valentino estimates 110,000–310,000 deaths as a "possible case" of "counter-guerrilla mass killings" by U.S. and South Vietnamese forces during the war.

Operating under the direction of the CIA and other US and South Vietnamese Intel organizations and carried out by ARVN units alongside US advisers was the Phoenix Program, intended to neutralise the VC political infrastructure, whom were the civilian administration of the Viet Cong/Provisional Revolutionary Government via infiltration, capture, counter-terrorism, interrogation, and assassination. The program resulted in an estimated 26,000 to 41,000 killed, with an unknown number possibly being innocent civilians.

Deaths caused by the American military

RJ Rummel estimated that American forces killed around 5,500 people in democide between 1960 and 1972, from a range of between 4,000 and 10,000. Estimates for the number of North Vietnamese civilian deaths resulting from US bombing range from 30,000 to 65,000. Higher estimates place the number of civilian deaths caused by American bombing of North Vietnam in Operation Rolling Thunder at 182,000. American bombing in Cambodia is estimated to have killed between 30,000 and 150,000 civilians and combatants.

18.2 million gallons of Agent Orange, some of which was contaminated with Dioxin, was sprayed by the U.S. military over more than 10% of Southern Vietnam as part of the U.S. herbicidal warfare program Operation Ranch Hand during the Vietnam War, from 1961 to 1971. Vietnam's government claimed that 400,000 people were killed or maimed as a result of after effects, and that 500,000 children were born with birth defects. and studies have shown higher rates of casualties, health effects, and next-generation birth defects in Vietnamese peoples. The United States government has challenged these figures as being unreliable.

For official US military operations reports, there was no established distinctions between enemy KIA and civilian KIA. Since body counts were a direct measure of operational success, US "operations reports" often listed civilian deaths as enemy KIA or exaggerated the number. There was strong pressure to produce body counts as a measure of operational success and enemy body counts were directly tied to promotions and commendation. The My Lai Massacre was initially written off as an operational success and covered up. Sometimes civilian casualties from airstrikes or artillery barrages against villages were reported as "enemies killed". All individuals killed in declared free-fire zones, combatants or not, were considered enemy killed in action by US forces . This might partially explain the discrepancies between recovered weapons and body-count figures, along with exaggeration, although the NVA and VC also went to great lengths to recover weapons from the battlefield.

South Vietnamese women and children in Mỹ Lai before US troops killed them in the massacre, March 16, 1968

German historian Bernd Greiner mentions the following atrocities reported and/or investigated by the Peers Commission and the Vietnam War Crimes Working Group, among other sources:

  • Seven massacres officially confirmed by the American side. My Lai (4) and My Khe (4) (collectively the My Lai Massacre) claimed the largest number of victims with 420 and 90 respectively, and in five other places a total of about 100 civilians were executed.
  • Two further massacres were reported by soldiers who had taken part in them, one north of Đức Pho in Quảng Ngãi Province in the summer of 1968 (14 victims), another in Bình Định Province on 20 July 1969 (25 victims).
  • Tiger Force, a special operations force, probably murdered hundreds of civilians during a 6-month period in 1967.

According to the Information Bureau of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam (PRG), a shadow government formed by North Vietnam in 1969, between April 1968 and the end of 1970 American ground troops killed about 6,500 civilians in the course of twenty-one operations either on their own or alongside their allies.

Nick Turse, in his 2013 book, Kill Anything that Moves, argues that a relentless drive toward higher body counts, a widespread use of free-fire zones, rules of engagement where civilians who ran from soldiers or helicopters could be viewed as VC, and a widespread disdain for Vietnamese civilians led to massive civilian casualties and endemic atrocities inflicted by U.S. troops. One example cited by Turse is Operation Speedy Express, an operation by the 9th Infantry Division, which was described by John Paul Vann as, in effect, "many My Lais".

Air force captain, Brian Wilson, who carried out bomb-damage assessments in free-fire zones throughout the delta, saw the results firsthand. "It was the epitome of immorality...One of the times I counted bodies after an air strike—which always ended with two napalm bombs which would just fry everything that was left—I counted sixty-two bodies. In my report I described them as so many women between fifteen and twenty-five and so many children—usually in their mothers' arms or very close to them—and so many old people." When he later read the official tally of dead, he found that it listed them as 130 VC killed.

Deaths caused by the South Korean military

United States Marine recovers bodies of victims killed by South Korean Marines in Phong Nhi and Phong Nhat hamlets on February 12, 1968.

The ROK Capital Division reportedly perpetrated the Bình An/Tây Vinh massacre in February/March 1966. The 2nd Marine Brigade reportedly perpetrated the Binh Tai Massacre on 9 October 1966. In December 1966, the Blue Dragon Brigade reportedly perpetrated the Bình Hòa massacre. The Second Marine Brigade perpetrated the Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất massacre on 12 February 1968. South Korean Marines reportedly perpetrated the Hà My massacre on 25 February 1968. According to a study conducted in 1968 by a Quaker-funded Vietnamese-speaking American couple, Diane and Michael Jones, there were at least 12 mass killings committed by South Korean forces that approached the scale of the My Lai Massacre, with reports of thousands of routine murders of civilians, primarily the elderly, women and children. A separate study was carried out by RAND Corporation employee Terry Rambo, who conducted interviews in 1970 on reported Korean atrocities in ARVN/civilian areas. Widespread reports of deliberate mass killings by Korean forces alleged that they were the result of systemic, deliberate policies to massacre civilians, with murders running into the hundreds. These policies were also reported on by US commanders, with one US Marine General stating "whenever the Korean marines received fire "or think fired on from a village ... they'd divert from their march and go over and completely level the village ... it would be a lesson to (the Vietnamese)." Another Marine commander, Gen. Robert E. Cushman Jr., added, "we had a big problem with atrocities attributed to them, which I sent on down to Saigon." Investigations by Korean civic groups have alleged that at least 9,000 civilians were massacred by ROK forces.

Army of the Republic of Vietnam

The ARVN suffered 254,256 recorded combat deaths between 1960 and 1974, with the highest number of recorded deaths being in 1972, with 39,587 combat deaths. According to Guenter Lewy, the ARVN suffered between 171,331 and 220,357 deaths during the war. R.J. Rummel estimated that ARVN suffered between 219,000 and 313,000 deaths during the war, including in 1975 and prior to 1960.

Year 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 Total (1960–1974)
ARVN combat deaths 2,223 4,004 4,457 5,665 7,457 11,242 11,953 12,716 27,915 21,833 23,346 22,738 39,587 27,901 31,219 254,256

Other casualties for the ARVN included up to 1,170,000 military wounded, and 1,000,000 surrendered or captured. Prior to the 1975 spring offensive, at least 5,336 ARVN were captured, being released in the aftermath of the Paris Peace Accords.

North Vietnamese and Viet Cong military casualties

Deaths

According to the Vietnamese government's national survey and assessment of war casualties (March 2017), there were 849,018 PAVN military personnel dead, including combat death and non-combat death, from the period between 1960 and 1975. An additional 232,000 military personnel were still missing as of 2017, a total of 1,081,000 dead and missing for the American War. Based on unit surveys, a rough estimate of 30–40% of dead and missing were non-combat deaths. Across all three wars including the First Indochina War and the Third Indochina War there was a total of 1,146,250 PAVN/VC confirmed military deaths, included 939,460 with bodies recovered and 207,000 with the bodies unfound. Per war: 191,605 deaths in the First Indochina War, 849,018 deaths in the Second Indochina War (Vietnam War), and 105,627 deaths in the Third Indochina War.

According to American writer Joseph Babcock, the Vietnamese government estimated 300,000 PAVN/VC missing-in-action (MIA) in 2019, but that the real number of MIA is widely believed to be closer to 500,000 people, whose bodies were either never found or buried anonymously and never identified. The overwhelming majority of the MIA are from northern Vietnam. In 1976, the Vietnamese government organized Gathering Teams to find the remains of dead soldiers. The overwhelming majority of the MIA are from northern Vietnam. According to the Vietnamese government, from 1994 to 2012, 172,460 PAVN/VC bodies were found, including 15,989 in Cambodia, and 14,549 in Laos, and around 10,000 bodies were found from 2012 to 2015, reducing the number of MIA from 390,000 (1993) to 207,000 (2016). According to the Vice Minister Nguyễn Bá Hoan, in 2022, nearly 200,000 PAVN/VC were still MIA (whose bodies were have not been found), and 300,000 whose bodies have been found, but buried anonymously and never identified.

According to the Vietnamese government's official history, the PAVN suffered over 100,000 casualties during the 1972 Easter Offensive, including 40,000 killed. The U.S. estimated more than 100,000 PAVN killed in the offensive. After the U.S.'s withdrawal from the conflict, the Pentagon estimated PAVN/VC deaths at 39,000 in 1973 and 61,000 in 1974. Per the official Vietnamese history, over 10,000 more PAVN soldiers were killed in the final offensive of early 1975.

There has been considerable controversy about the exact numbers of deaths inflicted on the Communist side by U.S. and allied South Vietnamese forces. Shelby Stanton, writing in The Rise and Fall of an American Army, declined to include casualty statistics because of their 'general unreliability.' Accurate assessments of PAVN/VC losses, he wrote, were 'largely impossible due to lack of disclosure by the Vietnamese government, terrain, destruction of remains by firepower, and to confirm artillery and aerial kills.' The 'shameful gamesmanship' practiced by 'certain reporting elements' under pressure to 'produce results' also shrouded the process.

RJ Rummel estimates 1,011,000 PAVN/VC combatant deaths. The official US Department of Defense figure was 950,765 communist forces killed in Vietnam from 1965 to 1974. Defense Department officials believed that these body count figures need to be deflated by 30 percent. For this figure, Guenter Lewy assumes that one-third of the reported enemy killed may have been civilians, concluding that the actual number of deaths of the VC and PAVN military forces was probably closer to 444,000.

Author Mark Woodruff noted that when the Vietnamese Government finally revealed its estimated losses (in April 1995) as being 1.1 million dead or missing, U.S. body count figures had actually underestimated enemy losses.

The Phoenix Program, a counterinsurgency program executed by the CIA, United States special operations forces and the Republic of Vietnam's security apparatus, killed 26,369 suspected of being VC operatives and informants.

Historian Christian Appy states "search and destroy was the principal tactic; and the enemy body count was the primary measure of progress" in the US strategy of attrition. Search and destroy was a term to describe operations aimed at flushing the Viet Cong out of hiding, while body count was the measuring stick for operation success and this resulted in exaggeration and listing civilian deaths as enemy KIA. One study estimated that American commanders exaggerated body counts by up to 100 percent.

Other casualties

The PAVN/VC forces suffered around 600,000 wounded during the war, and prior to the 1975 spring offensive, lost at least 26,880 soldiers taken prisoner - being released after the 1973 Peace Accords. Additionally, according to the U.S. military, they also lost up to 101,511 personnel as defectors due to the Chieu Hoi program, but one analyst speculates that less than 25% of those were genuine.

United States military

U.S. Vietnam War deaths

Casualties as of 4 May 2021:

  • 58,281 KIA or non-combat deaths (including the missing and deaths in captivity)
  • 153,372 WIA (excluding 150,332 persons not requiring hospital care)
  • 1,584 MIA (originally 2,646)
  • 766–778 POW (652–662 freed/escaped, 114–116 died in captivity)

Note: This figure differs by 61 from that which is given by the National Archive: "The Vietnam Conflict Extract Data File of the Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) Extract Files contains records of 58,220 U.S. military fatal casualties of the Vietnam War." This comparatively small difference is based on the fact that the most recent death file transferred from the DCAS to the National Archive was dated 28 May 2006, compared with the VVMF's memorial entry of 4 May 2021.

The total number of American personnel who were KIA or died non-hostile deaths, were enlisted personnel with a casualty number of 50,441. The total number of officer casualties, commissioned and warrant, are 7,877. The following is a chart of all casualties, listed by ethnicity, and in descending order.

White Black Hispanic Hawaiian/Pacific Islander American Indian/
Alaska Native
Non-Hispanic
(other ethnicity)
Asian
49,830 7,243 349 229 226 204 139

The total number of casualties, both KIA and non-hostile deaths, for drafted and volunteer service personnel (figures are approximated):

Volunteer Draftees
70% 30%
A small segment of the "Wall" at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial listing the names of the nearly 60,000 American war dead

During the Vietnam War, 30% of wounded service members died of their wounds. Around 30–35% of American deaths in the war were non-combat or friendly fire deaths; the largest causes of death in the U.S. armed forces were small arms fire (31.8%), booby traps including mines and frags (27.4%), and aircraft crashes (14.7%).

Vietnam War casualties by state and territory

This table lists those who died during the Vietnam War by state or territory.

State Casualties
Alabama 1,208
Alaska 57
American Samoa 4
Arizona 619
Arkansas 592
California 5,575
Colorado 623
Connecticut 612
Delaware 122
Florida 1,954
Georgia 1,581
Guam 70
Hawaii 276
Idaho 217
Illinois 2,936
Indiana 1,534
Iowa 851
Kansas 627
Kentucky 1,056
Louisiana 885
Maine 341
Maryland 1,014
Massachusetts 1,331
Michigan 2,657
Minnesota 1,077
Mississippi 636
Missouri 1,418
Montana 267
Nebraska 396
Nevada 149
New Hampshire 226
New Jersey 1,487
New Mexico 395
New York 4,119
North Carolina 1,613
North Dakota 199
Northern Mariana Islands NA
Ohio 3,094
Oklahoma 987
Oregon 710
Panama Canal Zone 2
Pennsylvania 3,147
Puerto Rico 345
Rhode Island 209
South Carolina 895
South Dakota 192
Tennessee 1,295
Texas 3,415
Utah 361
Vermont 100
Virgin Islands 15
Virginia 1,305
Washington 1,047
West Virginia 733
Wisconsin 1,161
Wyoming 119
Washington, D.C. 242
Total 58,098

African American casualties

African Americans suffered disproportionately high casualty rates during the Vietnam War. In 1965, despite comprising only 11% of the total U.S. population, African Americans constituted 14.1% of combat deaths in Vietnam. With the draft increasing due to the troop buildup in South Vietnam, the military significantly lowered its admission standards. In October 1966, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara initiated Project 100,000 which further lowered military standards for 100,000 additional draftees per year. McNamara claimed this program would provide valuable training, skills and opportunity to America's poor—a promise that was never carried out. Many black men who had previously been ineligible could now be drafted, along with many poor and racially intolerant white men from the southern states. This led to increased racial tension in the military.

The number of US military personnel in Vietnam jumped from 23,300 in 1965 to 465,600 by the end of 1967. Between October 1966 and June 1969, 246,000 soldiers were recruited through Project 100,000, of whom 41% were black; black people only made up about 11% of the population of the US. Of the 27 million draft-age men between 1964 and 1973, 40% were drafted into military service, and only 10% were actually sent to Vietnam. This group was made up almost entirely of either working-class or rural youth. Black people often made up a disproportionate 25% or more of combat units, while constituting only 12% of the military. 20% of black males were combat soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines.

Civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, John Lewis, Muhammad Ali and others, criticized the racial disparity in both casualties and representation in the entire military, prompting the Pentagon to order cutbacks in the number of African Americans in combat positions. Commander George L. Jackson said, "In response to this criticism, the Department of Defense took steps to readjust force levels in order to achieve an equitable proportion and employment of Negroes in Vietnam." The Army instigated myriad reforms, addressed issues of discrimination and prejudice from the post exchanges to the lack of black officers, and introduced "Mandatory Watch And Action Committees" into each unit. This resulted in a dramatic decrease in the proportion of black casualties, and by late 1967, black casualties had fallen to 13%, and were below 10% in 1970 to 1972. As a result, by the war's completion, total black casualties averaged 12.5% of US combat deaths, approximately equal to percentage of draft-eligible black men, though still slightly higher than the 10% who served in the military.

Aftermath

Unexploded ordnance continue to detonate and kill people today. According to the Vietnamese government, unexploded ordnance has killed some 42,000 people since the end of the war. According to a 2009 study, one third of land in the central provinces of Vietnam is still contaminated with unexploded mines and ordnance. In 2012 alone, unexploded ordnance had claimed 500 casualties in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, according to activists and Vietnamese government databases. The United States has spent over $65 million since 1998 as part of unexploded ordnance clearing operations.

Agent Orange and similar chemical defoliants have also caused a considerable number of deaths and injuries over the years, including among the US Air Force crew that handled them. The government of Vietnam says that 4 million of its citizens were exposed to Agent Orange, and as many as 3 million have suffered illnesses because of it; these figures include the children of people who were exposed. The Red Cross of Vietnam estimates that up to 1 million people are disabled or suffer health problems due to Agent Orange exposure.

On 9 August 2012, the United States and Vietnam began a cooperative cleaning up of the toxic chemical from part of Da Nang International Airport, marking the first time Washington has been involved in cleaning up Agent Orange in Vietnam. Da Nang was the primary storage site of the chemical. Two other cleanup sites being reviewed by the United States and Vietnam are Biên Hòa Air Base, in the southern province of Đồng Nai—a 'hotspot' for dioxin—and Phù Cát Air Base in Bình Định Province, according to U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam David Shear. The Vietnamese newspaper Nhân Dân reported in 2012 that the U.S. government was providing $41 million to the project, which aimed to reduce the contamination level in 73,000 m of soil by late 2016.

Following the end of the war, many refugees fled Vietnam by boat and ship. The number of these "boat people" leaving Vietnam and arriving safely in another country totalled almost 800,000 between 1975 and 1995. Many of the refugees failed to survive the passage, facing danger from pirates, over-crowded boats, and storms. According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, between 200,000 and 400,000 boat people died at sea. The boat people's first destinations were the Southeast Asian locations of Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. From refugee camps in Southeast Asia, the great majority of boat people were resettled in more developed countries. Significant numbers resettled in the United States, Canada, Italy, Australia, France, West Germany, and the United Kingdom.

Other nations' casualties

Cambodian Civil War

  • 275,000–310,000 killed

Laotian Civil War

  • 20,000–62,000 killed

Military

South Korea

  • 5,099 Killed in action
  • 14,232 wounded
  • 4 missing in action

Australia

  • 426 killed in action, 74 died of other causes
  • 3,129 wounded
  • 6 missing in action (all accounted for and repatriated)

Thailand

  • 351 killed in action
  • 1,358 wounded
  • 200+ captured

New Zealand

  • 37 killed in action plus 2 civilians
  • 187 wounded

Philippines

  • 9 killed in action
  • 64 wounded

Republic of China (Taiwan)

  • 25 killed in action
  • 17 captured

People's Republic of China

  • 1,446 killed in action

Soviet Union

  • ~16 deaths, including 4 killed in action

North Korea

  • ~14 pilots killed

Notes

  1. Including 28 civilians, originally there were 52 missing civilians.
  2. One escapee died of wounds sustained during his rescue 15 days later.

References

  1. Turse, Nick (2013-01-15). Kill Anything That Moves. New York: Metropolitan Books. p. 12. ISBN 978-0-8050-9547-0.
  2. Lewy, Guenter (1978), America in Vietnam, New York: Oxford University Press, pages 447
  3. Lewy, Guenter (1978), America in Vietnam, New York: Oxford University Press, pages 442–453
  4. ^ Charles Hirschman et al., Vietnamese Casualties During the American War: A New Estimate, Population and Development Review, December 1995.
  5. ^ Obermeyer, Ziad; Murray, Christopher J. L.; Gakidou, Emmanuela (2008). "Fifty years of violent war deaths from Vietnam to Bosnia: analysis of data from the world health survey programme". BMJ. 336 (7659): 1482–86. doi:10.1136/bmj.a137. PMC 2440905. PMID 18566045. See Table 3 for most estimates.
  6. Shenon, Philip, "20 Years After Victory, Vietnamese Communists Ponder How to Celebrate", The New York Times, 23 April 1995
  7. "UCDP/Prio Armed Conflict Database", Uppsala University, http://www.pcr.uu.se/research/ucdp/datasets/ucdp_prio_armed_conflict_dataset/ Archived 2015-08-11 at the Wayback Machine, accessed 24 Nov 2014
  8. ^ Rummel, R. J. "Statistics of Vietnamese Democide". Section: Lines 777–785. University of Hawaiʻi. Retrieved 24 November 2014.
  9. Rummel, R. J. "Statistics of Vietnamese Democide". Section: Line 61. University of Hawaiʻi. Retrieved 24 November 2014.
  10. Rummel, R. J. "Statistics of Vietnamese Democide". Section: Line 117. University of Hawaiʻi. Retrieved 24 November 2014.
  11. ^ Lewy, Guenter (1978). America in Vietnam. New York: Oxford University Press. Appendix 1, pages 450–53
  12. Thayer, Thomas C (1985). War Without Fronts: The American Experience in Vietnam. Boulder: Westview Press. Ch. 12.
  13. Wiesner, Louis A. (1988). Victims and Survivors Displaced Persons and Other War Victims in Viet-Nam. New York: Greenwood Press. page 310
  14. ^ Bellamy, Alex J. (2017). East Asia's Other Miracle: Explaining the Decline of Mass Atrocities. Oxford University Press. pp. 33–34. ISBN 978-0191083785.
  15. Willbanks, James H. (2008). The Tet Offensive: A Concise History. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 32. ISBN 978-0-231-12841-4.
  16. Rand Corporation [http://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a032189.pdf Some Impressions of Viet Cong Vulnerabilities an Interim Report 1965
  17. James J. F. Forest Countering Terrorism and Insurgency in the 21st Century 2007 ISBN 978-0275990343
  18. Walter Russell Mead (2013). Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World. Routledge. pp. 219–. ISBN 978-1-136-75867-6.
  19. ^ "Rummel 1997".
  20. Michael Lee Lanning and Dan Cragg, Inside the VC and the NVA, (Ballantine Books, 1993), pages 186–88
  21. "Rummel 1997". Lines 457 & 459.
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  51. 여기 한 충격적인 보고서가 있다 미국이 기록한 한국군의 베트남 학살 보고서 발견. Ohmynews (in Korean). 2000-11-14. Retrieved 2012-10-14.
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  65. 300.000 liệt sĩ chưa xác định danh tính là nỗi trăn trở lớn
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  67. The North Vietnamese Army suffered more than 100,000 casualties in its attacking force of 200,000 - perhaps 40,000 killed
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  69. Đại tướng Võ Nguyên Giáp với công tác hậu cần quân đội, Vietnam Ministry of Defence
  70. Shelby L. Stanton, 'The Rise and Fall of an American Army,' Spa Books, 1989, xvi.
  71. "Rummel 1997". Line 102.
  72. Woodruff, Mark (1999). Unheralded Victory: Who won the Vietnam war?. Harper Collins. p. 211. ISBN 978-0004725192.
  73. McCoy, Alfred W. (2006). A question of torture: CIA interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror. Macmillan. p. 68. ISBN 978-0-8050-8041-4.
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  113. Heuveline, Patrick (2001). "The Demographic Analysis of Mortality Crises: The Case of Cambodia, 1970–1979". Forced Migration and Mortality. National Academies Press. pp. 103–04. ISBN 978-0309073349. Subsequent reevaluations of the demographic data situated the death toll for the in the order of 300,000 or less.
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  127. James F. Dunnigan; Albert A. Nofi (2000). Dirty Little Secrets of the Vietnam War: Military Information You're Not Supposed to Know. Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-312-25282-3.
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