Battle of Huế: Vietnam’s Longest and Bloodiest Battle…

During the 1980s, the United States was still struggling to come to grips with its involvement in the Vietnam War and as part of that effort, Hollywood churned out a number of movies with the conflict as its backdrop. For younger audiences especially, they provided an insight into what their fathers or older siblings may have experienced during their tours of duty in the jungles of southeast Asia. One of the most seminal pieces produced in this period was 1987’s Full Metal Jacket directed by legendary director Stanley Kubrick.

The film demonstrates the process of turning ordinary young men into weapons to be used in war and how that impacts them when they get to the battlefield. Thus, the movie starts in a US Marine boot camp and then transitions to the battlefield of Vietnam just as the Tet Offensive gets underway, the main characters fighting in the streets of a city called Hue. For countless young people at the time, this may have been the first time they would have heard of Hue or been made aware of the battle that was waged there but for the veterans who fought in its streets in early 1968, its name is as engrained on their memories as Iwo Jima or Inchon was to the generations that came prior. In this episode, we are going to look at the origins of the battle, chart some of the key events and discuss its aftermath. This is the story of the Battle of Hue.