VINTAGE-1968-ZODIAC-SEA-WOLF-TET-OFFENSIVE

1175 Buford Highway. Suite 120
Suwanee, Georgia. 30024
www.goldsmithworks.com
770.831.1257 - 1.800.438.6894

Date/Report Number …..030711.PM811Y0.67 Item: 1967.1968 IN COUNTRY NON-DATE VIETNAM MILITARY

Description of item: VINTAGE 1967.1968 IN COUNTRY NON-DATE White Dial VIETNAM MILITARY PX VERSION ZODIAC SeaWolf AUTOMATIC 17 JEWEL WITH G-20 NATO STYLE GREEN NYLON STRAP WITH BRUSHED KEEPERS . 35x42mm. CASE BACK SIGNERD "TET 68 TDW". DIAL IS OFF WHITE WITH A GENTLE PATINA
CLOSE EXAMINATION REVEALS SOME AGING THE TRIANGULAR 3-6-9 & 12 MARKERS WITH BLACK NUMBERS
HAVE EXCELLENT LUMINATION THE ORIGINAL STEEL HANDS WERE RE-LUMED STAINLESS STEEL CASE IS
35 x 42. CASE BACK SIGNED ZODIAC SEA WOLF WATER TESTED 20 ATM ESPECIALLY LOGO TET 68 TDW ORIGINAL SIGNED CROWN ca. 1967 70-72 Zodiac Ltd Swiss 17 Jewels Incabloc Features automatic sweep second
Data 11.5''', Dm= 25.6mm H= 4.8mm 17 jewels f = 21600 A/h power reserve 40h .CONDITION IS EXCELLENT

Estimated Retail Replacement Value $ 999.00

Reports are supplied at the request of the customer and it is for the customer's exclusive use. Reports express an opinion of the time of the examination of the jewelry. This report is for customers use only for the following two purposes, indicating estimated retail replacement value to obtain insurance coverage, or for the purpose of providing geological information. goldsmith Works does not guarantee that the appraisal valuation will result in a sale at the price. Estimated retail replacement value is arrived after analyses of what the approximate high retail cash asking price is for labor, materials, and design. These prices may be substantially higher than actual transaction or warranty with regards to any item described in the report, since jewelry grading is not an exact science, this report represent the best opinion of the company. GoldSmith Works is in no case responsible for differences that occur by repeated grading by other experts in the field and/or use of other standards, norms, methods or criteria other than those used by GoldSmith Works. GoldSmith Works is expressly held harmless by customers including, but with out limitation for any claims or actions that may arise out of negligence in connection with the preparation of this laboratory report, or actions based upon the customer's use of the report. The information on the carat weight, clarity grade, color grade on the report is approximate due to the limitations in jewelry grading. The item was tested, graded, and examined under 10x magnification using the techniques and equipment available to GoldSmith Works, including fully corrected triplet loupe, binocular microscope, master color comparison guides, diamond color comparison tools, electronic carat balance, non-contact optical measuring device, and ancillary instruments necessary at the time of Exam

South Vietnamese troops in action near Tan Son Nhut Air Base
PIC FREE SOURCE WIKIPEDIA

The Tet Offensive was a massive surprise attack on American and South Vietname forces, bases , and key stratigic targets, and Vietnam cities, towns and hamlets. by the Vietcong and North Vietnamese forces, on scores of cities, towns, and hamlets throughout South Vietnam on the . It was considered to be a turning point in the Vietnam War. Not so much from the actual attackes, becuase the North lost, but because theAnti War effort in the US was able to use the TET OFFENSIVE to falsely describe it as proof the US was losing the war.

Tet Nguyên Ğán, more commonly known by its shortened name Tet or "Vietnamese Lunar New Year", is the most important and popular holiday and festival in Vietnam. It is the Vietnamese New Year marking the arrival of spring based on the Lunar calendar, a lunisolar calendar. Celebrated on the same day as Chinese New Year, many Vietnamese prepare for Tet by cooking special holiday foods and cleaning the house, visiting a person's house on the first day of the new year, ancestral worshipping, wishing New Year's greetings, giving lucky money to children and elderly people, and opening a shop. It is also an occasion for pilgrims and family reunions. The New Year begins on the first night of the first moon after the sun enters Aquarius. This is sometime between January 21 and February 19 on the solar calendar.

US and AVN Forces and the Vietcong and North Vietnam agreed to a cease fire in celibration of the 1968 TET, which began on January 30, 1968. Many US soldiers were given leaves of absense, and South Vietnam, in general, relaxed their noramal prepardness.

Mean while, with Ho Chi Minh nearing death, and the Vietcong and NVA losing massive amounts of men and arms, the North Vietnamese believed that the only means to victory was an all-out military effort. The North Vietnamese agreed to the ceasefire, while having planned, supplied and trained over 85,000 Vietcong and North Vietnamese Regular Army (NVA) , troops, to launch a major offensive throughout South Vietnam, on first day of the Lunar New Year , January 31, 1968.

The first wave of attacks began shortly after midnight on 30 January as all five provincial capitals in II Corps and Da Nang, in I Corps, were attacked.

Nha Trang, headquarters of the U.S. I Field Force, was the first to be hit, followed shortly by Ban Me Thuot, Kontum, Hoi An, Tuy Hoa, Da Nang, Qui Nhon, and Pleiku.

During all of these operations, the communists followed a similar pattern: mortar or rocket attacks were closely followed by massed ground assaults conducted by battalion-strength elements of the Viet Cong, sometimes supported by North Vietnamese regulars.

These forces would join with local cadres who served as guides to lead the regulars to the most senior South Vietnamese headquarters and the radio station.

The operations, however, were not well coordinated at the local level. By daylight, almost all communist forces had been driven from their objectives. General Phillip B. Davidson, the new MACV chief of intelligence, notified Westmoreland that "This is going to happen in the rest of the country tonight and tomorrow morning.

All U.S. forces were placed on maximum alert and similar orders were issued to all ARVN units. The allies, however, still responded without any real sense of urgency. Orders cancelling leaves either came too late or were disregarded.

At 03:00 on the morning of 31 January communist forces assailed Saigon, Cholon, and Gia Dinh in the Capital Military District; Queng Tre, Hue, Quang Tin, Tam Ke, and Queng Ngãi as well as U.S. bases at Phú Bài and Chu Lai in I Corps; Phan Thiet, Tuy Hòa, and U.S. installations at Bong Son and An Khê in II Corps; and Cen Tho and Vinh Long in IV Corps.

The following day, Biên Hòa, Long Thanh, Bình Duong in III Corps and Kien Hoa, Dinh Tuong, Go Cong, Kien Giang, Vinh Binh, Ben Tre, and Kien Tuong in IV Corps were assaulted.

The last attack of the initial operation was launched against Bac Lieu in IV Corps on 10 February.

A total of approximately 84,000 communist troops participated in the attacks while thousands of others stood by to act as reinforcements or as blocking forces. Communist forces also mortared or rocketed every major allied airfield and attacked 64 district capitals and scores of smaller towns.

In most cases the defense against the communists was a South Vietnamese affair. Local militia or ARVN forces, supported by the National Police, usually drove the attackers out within two or three days, sometimes within hours; but heavy fighting continued several days longer in Kontum, Buôn Ma Thuet, Phan Thiet, C?n Tho, and Ben Tre.

The outcome in each instance was usually dictated by the ability of local commanders— some were outstanding, others were cowardly or incompetent. During this crucial crisis, however, no South Vietnamese unit broke or defected to the communists.

According to Westmoreland, he responded to the news of the attacks with optimism, both in media presentations and in his reports to Washington. According to closer observers, however, the general was "stunned that the communists had been able to coordinate so many attacks in such secrecy" and he was "dispirited and deeply shaken."

According to Clark Clifford, at the time of the initial attacks, the reaction of the U.S. military leadership "approached panic".

Although Westmoreland's appraisal of the military situation was correct, he made himself look foolish by continuously maintaining his belief that Khe Sanh was the real objective of the communists and that 155 attacks by 84,000 troops was a diversion (a position he maintained until at least 12 February).

Washington Post reporter Peter Braestrup summed up the feelings of his colleagues by asking "How could any effort against Saigon, especially downtown Saigon, be a diversion?"

It took weeks for U.S. and South Vietnamese troops to retake all of the captured cities, including the former imperial capital of Hue.

Hue was the Imperial Capitol of Vietnam between 1802 and 1945, when the last Emperor Bao Ğai abdicated and a communist government was established. In 1968, it housed the ruins of the imperial capital of the Nguyen Dynasty and was well known for its monuments and architecture. Its population back then was about 140,000 people.

[Though Communist actions and US & South Vietnamese counter attacks destroyed and/or damaged much of the city, and the North Vietnamese did not fancy restoriung the ruins after the war, it is now a high priority so that Vietnam can profit from US tourism.. now, that is a terrible laugh coming form a VET]

The city was overrun by communist forces which initially totaled approximately 7,500 men. Both sides then rushed to reinforce and resupply their forces. Lasting 25 days, the battle of Hue became one of the longest and bloodiest single battles of the Vietnam War.

In the battle 16 to 18 communist battalions (8,000-11,000 men) were taking part in the fighting for the city itself or the approaches to the former imperial capital.

In the aftermath of the recapture of the city, the discovery of several mass graves (the last of which were uncovered in 1970) of South Vietnamese citizens of Hue sparked a controversy that has not diminished with time. The victims had either been clubbed or shot to death or simply buried alive. The official allied explanation was that during their initial occupation of the city, the communists had quickly begun to systematically round up (under the guise of re-education) and then execute as many as 2,800 South Vietnamese civilians that they believed to be potentially hostile to communist control.

216 U.S. Marines and soldiers had been killed during the fighting and 1,609 were wounded. 421 ARVN troops were killed, another 2,123 were wounded, and 31 were missing. More than 5,800 civilians had lost their lives during the battle and 116,000 were left homeless out of an original population of 140,000.

Saigon

Although Saigon was the focal point of the offensive, the communists did not seek a total takeover of the city. Rather, they had six primary targets to strike in the downtown area: the headquarters of the ARVN General Staff at Tan Son Nhut Air Base; the Independence Palace, the US Embassy, Saigon, the Long Binh Naval Headquarters, and the National Radio Station. These objectives were all assaulted by small elements of the local C-10 Sapper Battalion. Elsewhere in the city or its outskirts, ten Viet Cong Local Force Battalions attacked the central police station and the Artillery Command and the Armored Command headquarters (both at Go Vap). The plan called for all these initial forces to capture and hold their positions for 48 hours, by which time reinforcements were to have arrived to relieve them.

The US Embassy, Saigon, a massive six-floor building situated within a four acre compound, had only been completed in September. At 02:45 it was attacked by a 19-man sapper team that blew a hole in the 8-foot-high (2.4 m) surrounding wall and charged through. With their officers killed in the initial attack and their attempt to gain access to the building having failed, the sappers simply occupied the chancery grounds until they were all killed or captured by US reinforcements that were landed on the roof of the building six hours later.

Throughout the city, small squads of Viet Cong fanned out to attack various officers and enlisted men's billets, homes of ARVN officers, and district police stations. Provided with "blacklists" of military officers and civil servants, they began to round up and execute any that could be found.[92] On 1 February General Nguy?n Ng?c Loan, chief of the National Police, publicly executed Viet Cong officer Nguyen Van Lem captured in civilian clothing in front of a photographer and film cameraman.[92] What was not explained in the wake of the distribution of the captured images was that the suspect had allegedly just taken part in the killing of one of Loan's most trusted officers and his family

Except at Hu? and mopping-up operations in and around Saigon, the first surge of the offensive was over by the second week of February. The U.S. estimated that during the first phase (30 January – 8 April), approximately 45,000 communist soldiers were killed and an unknown number were wounded. For years this figure was held as excessive, but it was confirmed by Stanley Karnow in Hanoi in 1981.[97] Westmoreland claimed that during the same period 32,000 communist troops were killed and another 5,800 captured.[81] The South Vietnamese suffered 2,788 killed, 8,299 wounded, and 587 missing in action. U.S. and other allied forces suffered 1,536 killed, 7,764 wounded, and 11 missing.

Khe Sanh

The attack on Khe Sanh, which began on 21 January, may have been intended to serve two purposes—as a real attempt to seize the position or as a diversion to draw American attention and forces away from the population centers in the lowlands, a deception that was "both plausible and easy to orchestrate."[126] In General Westmoreland's view, the purpose of the Combat Base was to provoke the North Vietnamese into a focused and prolonged confrontation in a confined geographic area, one which would allow the application of massive U.S. artillery and air strikes that would inflict heavy casualties in a relatively unpopulated region.[127] By the end of 1967, MACV had moved nearly half of its maneuver battalions to I Corps in anticipation of just such a battle.

Khe Sanh and its 6,000 U.S. Marine Corps, Army, and ARVN defenders was surrounded by two to three North Vietnamese divisions, totaling approximately 20,000 men. Throughout the siege, which lasted until 8 April, the allies were subjected to heavy mortar, rocket, and artillery bombardment, combined with sporadic small-scale infantry attacks on outlying positions. With the exception of the overrunning of the U.S. Special Forces camp at Lang Vei, however, there was never a major ground assault on the base and the battle became largely a duel between American and North Vietnamese artillerists, combined with massive air strikes conducted by U.S. aircraft. By the end of the siege, U.S Air Force, Marine Corps, and Navy aircraft had dropped 39,179 tons of ordnance in the defense of the base

In the end, a major allied relief expedition (Operation Pegasus) reached Khe Sanh on 8 April, but North Vietnamese forces were already withdrawing from the area. Both sides claimed that the battle had served its intended purpose. The U.S. estimated that 8,000 North Vietnamese troops had been killed and considerably more wounded, against 730 American lives lost and another 2,642 wounded

The leadership in Hanoi must have been initially despondent about the outcome of their great gamble.Their first and most ambitious goal, producing a general uprising, had ended in a dismal failure. In total, approximately 85,000–100,000 communist troops had participated in the initial onslaught and in the follow-up phases. Overall, during the "Border Battles" of 1967 and the nine-month winter-spring campaign, 45,267 communist troops had been killed in action\

The horrendous losses inflicted on Viet Cong units struck into the heart of the irreplaceable infrastructure that had been built up for over a decade. MACV estimated that 181,149 Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops had been killed during 1968. From this point forward, Hanoi was forced to fill one-third of the Viet Cong's ranks with North Vietnamese regulars.

However, this change had little effect on the war, since North Vietnam had little difficulty making up the casualties inflicted by the offensive.

Some Western historians have come to believe that one insidious ulterior motive for the campaign was the elimination of competing southern members of the Party, thereby allowing the northerners more control once the war was won.

read THE US WAS WINNING THE WAR at the bottom of this page as proof the US was winning the war......