33rd Regiment (Vietnam People's Army)

The VPA 33rd Regiment was a Vietnam People's Army regiment that served during the Vietnam War.

33rd Regiment
Allegiance North Vietnam
BranchNorth Vietnamese Army
RoleInfantry

History

The regiment or elements participated in the famous battles of Ia Drang and Plei Me in the Central Highlands in 1965 against US forces, attacked Buon Me Thuot during the 1968 Tet Offensive,[1] and fought against Australian and New Zealand forces in Phuoc Tuy Province at Binh Ba, Long Khanh and Nui Le, as well as a number of other actions.[2][3] In the South, the 33rd Regiment was subordinate to the 304th Division/B3 Front in the Central Highlands, and later under Military Region 7 and the 5th Division in Bien Hoa, Long Khanh, and Phuoc Tuy Province, and its strength averaged about 1,300 men.

A 33rd Regiment memorial near Binh Ba lists 2,100 killed in the war,[4][Note 1] out of an estimated 4,000 Vietnamese killed in two provinces occupied by forces of the 1st Australian Task Force from 1966 to 1972.[6] Dr Bob Hall, a former infantry officer and Vietnam veteran who heads Operation Wandering Souls that aims to identify all Vietnamese soldiers killed in clashes with 1ATF forces, has so far identified 3,009 burial sites and has passed on the names of over 600 Vietnamese soldiers believed to be buried there.[7]

Notes

Footnotes

  1. In fact the 33rd Regiment history published in mid-2016 lists 3,050 of its soldiers killed in the South, and a further 500 killed in Cambodia after 1975.[5]

Citations

  1. Chamberlain 2016, p. vi.
  2. Coulthard-Clark 2001, p. 291.
  3. Odgers 1999, p. 349.
  4. The Wandering Souls (Foreign Correspondent, ABC, 07/08/2012
  5. Chamberlain 2016, p. 152.
  6. "Australian vets create virtual map of Vietnam's 'wandering souls', August 13, 2010, Thanhniennews.com". Archived from the original on August 19, 2010. Retrieved April 29, 2017.
  7. Operation Wandering Souls: putting the souls of soldiers to rest, By Louise Maher, 666 ABC Canberra, 7 August, 2012.

References

Further reading
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