Just after the U.S. military entered the Vietnam War, the Vietcong attacked a village 10 kilometers north of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam. The Vietcong guerrillas indiscriminately murdered numerous South Vietnamese children.
By November 1964, when Johnson was re-elected as US president, the South Vietnamese government was experiencing a series of unstable civil unrest, and the South Vietnam Liberation Front (Viet Cong) shifted from guerrilla warfare to large-scale conventional warfare. The U.S. forces were tougher, and in March 1965, U.S. troops landed in Da Nang and launched a sustained air offensive against North Vietnam. When South Vietnamese government leaders began to call for an immediate attack, the U.S. military offered a quid pro quo of air strikes on North Vietnam in exchange for reforms on the South Vietnamese side. The U.S. military stepped up its attacks on North Vietnamese infiltration routes in Laos and dared the U.S. Navy to conduct covert operations along the North Vietnamese coast. In retaliation for North Vietnamese looting in the South, U.S. and U.S. South Vietnamese forces conducted joint aerial bombardments of the North.
On the afternoon of December 24, 1964, while many Americans in Saigon were preparing to celebrate Christmas Eve, the Vietcong bombed the Brink Hotel, a dormitory for American officers near Saigon's business district. The Vietcong bombed the Brink Hotel, a dormitory for American officers near Saigon's business district. The bombing was one of the most devastating acts of Viet Cong terrorism, killing two Americans and wounding 51 Americans and South Vietnamese.
On January 17, 1965, South Vietnam issued a decree expanding the army's draft. Buddhists revolted in the streets, and the civil war quickly spread from city to city in South Vietnam, culminating in the destruction of the U.S. intelligence agency in Hue and the burning to death of a 17-year-old girl. The regime in Saigon was overthrown, while fierce fighting continued in the provinces surrounding the capital, and the Vietcong gradually gained the upper hand. The armed Viet Cong occupied Binh Gia village, a coastal village near Saigon with a population of about 6,000, for four days, killing about six American soldiers and 177 South Vietnamese soldiers. To break the tide of the war, they conducted retaliatory air strikes against North Vietnam in late January.
On the morning of February 7, 1965, the Vietcong attacked the U.S. Army's Holloway base and airstrip near Pleiku in the Central Highlands, killing about nine U.S. soldiers and wounding more than 100 others. On the same day, about 49 U.S. fighter jets attacked Dong Hoi Barracks in Viet Cong over the Demilitarized Zone, and the next day, South Vietnamese government forces attacked Vinh Barracks in Viet Cong. on February 10, Viet Cong blew up a hotel in Qui Nhon, killing about 23 soldiers and injuring many others trapped in the rubble of the collapsed building. On March 2, U.S. and South Vietnamese government warplanes blew up a North Vietnamese ammunition depot and naval base. On February 26, they reinforced the air base at Da Nang for the North bombing, and landed on March 8. The arrival of Da Nang marked an irrevocable step in the American military process of entering the Vietnam War.
