Con Thien, 1967: What Both Sides Wrote About the McNamara Line
Company Clerk
248 views
Con Thien, May 1967: a small hill less than two miles south of the DMZ, where Marines guarded the engineers clearing the first strip of the barrier they came to call the McNamara Line.
Both sides wrote about that hill. This video sets the official Marine Corps history of 1967 beside Vietnamese official accounts, translated from Vietnamese, and shows where they agree and where they do not.
You will hear how the barrier idea began with a panel of scientists in 1966; why Marine commanders opposed it on the record; what happened on the night of May 8, 1967, in the Marine count and in the words of Vietnamese veterans; why the figure 173 is the number reported buried in one grave, not a count of all the dead; and what Secretary McNamara told President Johnson on October 3, 1967, when he asked why the shelling of Con Thien had stopped.
Figures that are forecasts are labeled as forecasts. Where the sources disagree, you hear both.
CHAPTERS
0:00 The Green Flare at Con Thien
1:34 How This Channel Checks
2:51 Why the Marines Were on the Hill
3:23 Where the Barrier Idea Began
7:28 Why This Hill
8:50 Guns Across the Ben Hai
10:03 The Night of May 8, 1967
10:55 What the Other Side Wrote
12:49 Counting the Dead
13:50 Clearing the Barrier Zone
14:22 September Under Fire
16:04 Washington Asks Why
17:20 What the Barrier Cost
18:57 Where I Push Back
20:03 The Search Below the Hill
SOURCES
Full source list: pinned comment (includes the Vietnamese accounts: Thanh Nien, Tuoi Tre, VOV, Sai Gon Giai Phong, Vietnam News Agency, Vietnam Army Academy, Quan Doi Nhan Dan).
Telfer, Rogers & Fleming, U.S. Marines in Vietnam: Fighting the North Vietnamese, 1967 (HQMC, 1984) -- https://archive.org/stream/usmarinesi...
FRUS 1964-68, Vol. V, doc. 341, Notes of Meeting, Oct. 3, 1967 -- https://history.state.gov/historicald...
FRUS 1964-68, Vol. V, doc. 358, State Dept. telegram to the Embassy in France, Oct. 19, 1967 -- https://history.state.gov/historicald...
State Dept. Office of the Historian, Milestones: Dien Bien Phu and the Fall of French Indochina, 1954 -- https://history.state.gov/milestones/...
PHOTO CREDITS
CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons: official USMC photo by Lance Corporal Don Barr (2 photos); official USMC photo by Corporal Bob Partain; official USMC photo by Sergeant R. A. Bribiesca; USMC Archives (3 photos); Archives Branch, USMC History Division (2 photos); official USMC photo by Staff Sergeant G. R. Smith; official USMC photo by Lance Corporal R. K. Nystrom
CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons: Gonzo Gooner
CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons: Vyacheslav Argenberg
CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons: Linhcandng (2 photos); Rolf Müller (User:Rolfmueller); Pen war; Sciacchitano; Liftold
ARCHIVE MATERIALS
Public domain: U.S. Marine Corps and Department of Defense photographs (many from the U.S. National Archives), via Wikimedia Commons.
Photos of the Ben Hai River, Vinh Moc and Truong Son National Cemetery are modern, marked "modern photo"; photos and film not taken at Con Thien in 1967 carry their own date and place on screen.
Footage: U.S. National Archives / archive.org -- The Battle of Khe Sanh (DoD, 1968, PIN 20051); Bugging the Battlefield (1969, NARA 330-DVIC-65037); Press Conference: Secretary McNamara and Mr. Vance (1967, NARA 111-LC-53653); Village Resettlement Program, Quang Ngai Province (1967, NARA 111-LC-52492); Spot News: Project Road to Vandergrift (U.S. Navy, 1969, NARA 428-NPC-41856).
Maps: Marine Corps History Division (public domain); 1957 Central Intelligence Agency map of the demarcation line.
AI illustrates scenes where no photograph exists and never draws a real person: every named person appears only in a real photograph or film.
MUSIC
"Dark Times", "Long Note Two", "Unseen Horrors", "Ossuary 6 - Air", "Ossuary 4 - Animate", "Mesmerize", "Lost Frontier", "Virtutes Instrumenti", "Darkest Child", "Night Vigil", "Anguish", "Clean Soul", "The Descent", "Ossuary 1 - A Beginning", "Despair and Triumph" -- Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Sound effects: freesound.org (CC0) and synthesized for this film.
Company Clerk: both sides, on the record.
Corrections are pinned in the comments.
If you served, tell me your unit and the year.
#VietnamWar #ConThien #VietnamVeterans #History
1 Comments
Con Thien, 1967: What Both Sides Wrote About the McNamara Line
Company Clerk
248 views
Con Thien, May 1967: a small hill less than two miles south of the DMZ, where Marines guarded the engineers clearing the first strip of the barrier they came to call the McNamara Line.
Both sides wrote about that hill. This video sets the official Marine Corps history of 1967 beside Vietnamese official accounts, translated from Vietnamese, and shows where they agree and where they do not.
You will hear how the barrier idea began with a panel of scientists in 1966; why Marine commanders opposed it on the record; what happened on the night of May 8, 1967, in the Marine count and in the words of Vietnamese veterans; why the figure 173 is the number reported buried in one grave, not a count of all the dead; and what Secretary McNamara told President Johnson on October 3, 1967, when he asked why the shelling of Con Thien had stopped.
Figures that are forecasts are labeled as forecasts. Where the sources disagree, you hear both.
CHAPTERS
0:00 The Green Flare at Con Thien
1:34 How This Channel Checks
2:51 Why the Marines Were on the Hill
3:23 Where the Barrier Idea Began
7:28 Why This Hill
8:50 Guns Across the Ben Hai
10:03 The Night of May 8, 1967
10:55 What the Other Side Wrote
12:49 Counting the Dead
13:50 Clearing the Barrier Zone
14:22 September Under Fire
16:04 Washington Asks Why
17:20 What the Barrier Cost
18:57 Where I Push Back
20:03 The Search Below the Hill
SOURCES
Full source list: pinned comment (includes the Vietnamese accounts: Thanh Nien, Tuoi Tre, VOV, Sai Gon Giai Phong, Vietnam News Agency, Vietnam Army Academy, Quan Doi Nhan Dan).
Telfer, Rogers & Fleming, U.S. Marines in Vietnam: Fighting the North Vietnamese, 1967 (HQMC, 1984) -- https://archive.org/stream/usmarinesi...
FRUS 1964-68, Vol. V, doc. 341, Notes of Meeting, Oct. 3, 1967 -- https://history.state.gov/historicald...
FRUS 1964-68, Vol. V, doc. 358, State Dept. telegram to the Embassy in France, Oct. 19, 1967 -- https://history.state.gov/historicald...
State Dept. Office of the Historian, Milestones: Dien Bien Phu and the Fall of French Indochina, 1954 -- https://history.state.gov/milestones/...
PHOTO CREDITS
CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons: official USMC photo by Lance Corporal Don Barr (2 photos); official USMC photo by Corporal Bob Partain; official USMC photo by Sergeant R. A. Bribiesca; USMC Archives (3 photos); Archives Branch, USMC History Division (2 photos); official USMC photo by Staff Sergeant G. R. Smith; official USMC photo by Lance Corporal R. K. Nystrom
CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons: Gonzo Gooner
CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons: Vyacheslav Argenberg
CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons: Linhcandng (2 photos); Rolf Müller (User:Rolfmueller); Pen war; Sciacchitano; Liftold
ARCHIVE MATERIALS
Public domain: U.S. Marine Corps and Department of Defense photographs (many from the U.S. National Archives), via Wikimedia Commons.
Photos of the Ben Hai River, Vinh Moc and Truong Son National Cemetery are modern, marked "modern photo"; photos and film not taken at Con Thien in 1967 carry their own date and place on screen.
Footage: U.S. National Archives / archive.org -- The Battle of Khe Sanh (DoD, 1968, PIN 20051); Bugging the Battlefield (1969, NARA 330-DVIC-65037); Press Conference: Secretary McNamara and Mr. Vance (1967, NARA 111-LC-53653); Village Resettlement Program, Quang Ngai Province (1967, NARA 111-LC-52492); Spot News: Project Road to Vandergrift (U.S. Navy, 1969, NARA 428-NPC-41856).
Maps: Marine Corps History Division (public domain); 1957 Central Intelligence Agency map of the demarcation line.
AI illustrates scenes where no photograph exists and never draws a real person: every named person appears only in a real photograph or film.
MUSIC
"Dark Times", "Long Note Two", "Unseen Horrors", "Ossuary 6 - Air", "Ossuary 4 - Animate", "Mesmerize", "Lost Frontier", "Virtutes Instrumenti", "Darkest Child", "Night Vigil", "Anguish", "Clean Soul", "The Descent", "Ossuary 1 - A Beginning", "Despair and Triumph" -- Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Sound effects: freesound.org (CC0) and synthesized for this film.
Company Clerk: both sides, on the record.
Corrections are pinned in the comments.
If you served, tell me your unit and the year.
#VietnamWar #ConThien #VietnamVeterans #History
One name that did not make the final cut: the lieutenant colonel who talked his superiors out of a night assault on February 1, 1968 was Marcus J. Gravel, commanding officer of 1st Battalion, 1st Marines (Erik Villard, The 1968 Tet Offensive: Battles of Quang Tri City and Hue, CMH, 2008, pp. 44-45). I did not name him on screen because I could not find a public-domain photograph of him to go with it -- that is the rule I hold every name in this video to.
If you served with the 1st or 5th Marines at Hue in February 1968, or with the ARVN 1st Infantry Division defending the Citadel, I would like to hear your unit and what you remember.