Vietnam War Trivia
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100 free Vietnam War trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
50 free Vietnam War trivia questions with answers. The Vietnam War ran for two decades, spread into Laos and Cambodia, and reshaped American politics, journalism and music. This quiz walks through it in order: the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu and the split at the 17th parallel, the Gulf of Tonkin incident that opened the door to escalation, Rolling Thunder, Ia Drang and Khe Sanh, the shock of Tet, My Lai and Kent State, the Pentagon Papers, the Paris Peace Accords and the helicopters leaving Saigon. The easy questions ask who Ho Chi Minh was and what city Saigon became. The hard ones want the destroyer at Tonkin, the first date drawn in the 1969 draft lottery, the song that signalled the final evacuation, the name of the trail's Cambodian rival and who turned down the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize. Built for history students, veterans' families and anyone who wants the facts behind the films. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the war and its major battles, operations and events, and each question carries the sentence that backs it up.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Vietnam was divided at which line of latitude after the 1954 Geneva Conference?
The 17th parallel
The Soviets and Chinese pushed the Viet Minh leader to accept it, arguing he would win the promised elections within a couple of years.
Q 02Which 1954 battle ended French rule in Indochina?
Dien Bien Phu
The Viet Minh hauled heavy artillery up the mountains around the French garrison and besieged it for eight weeks.
Q 03Which Viet Minh general commanded the 1954 siege that defeated the French?
Võ Nguyên Giáp
The Geneva Accords were signed ten weeks after the garrison fell.
Q 04Who led South Vietnam from 1954 until his overthrow and death in a 1963 coup?
Ngo Dinh Diem
The coup was US-backed and came three weeks before Kennedy's own assassination.
Q 05The 1963 religious crisis in South Vietnam erupted after protesters in Hue were shot for displaying what?
The Buddhist flag
The government was seen as favouring Catholics; Diem's brother Nhu ran the secret police blamed for the repression.
Q 06The Gulf of Tonkin incident of August 1964 involved which US destroyer?
USS Maddox
It exchanged fire with three North Vietnamese torpedo boats on 2 August and came away with a single bullet hole.
Q 07What did later investigation conclude about the reported second Tonkin attack on 4 August 1964?
It never happened
The ships had fired on radar returns; no North Vietnamese vessels were there.
Q 08The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution gave sweeping war powers to which president?
Lyndon B. Johnson
Congress passed it on 7 August 1964, five days after the first incident.
Q 09Operation Rolling Thunder was what kind of campaign?
A sustained bombing of North Vietnam
It ran from March 1965 to November 1968 and dropped a million tons of ordnance on the North.
Q 10Which country became the most heavily bombed in history as the US tried to cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail?
Laos
Two million tons fell on it between 1964 and 1973, roughly what the US dropped on Europe and Asia in all of World War II.
Q 11The Ho Chi Minh Trail ran from North to South Vietnam mainly through which country?
Laos
The communists called it the Truong Son Strategic Supply Route after the Annamite mountains.
Q 12Which rival supply route, named for a neutral prince, carried more material than the one through Laos?
The Sihanouk Trail
Cambodia's Prince Sihanouk had declared neutrality but let the North use the port of Sihanoukville.
Q 13The 1965 Battle of Ia Drang was notable as the first large-scale use of what tactic?
Helicopter air assault
It was also the first time B-52s were used in tactical support; Hal Moore's account became We Were Soldiers Once... and Young.
Q 21The My Lai massacre of March 1968 took place in which South Vietnamese province?
Quang Ngai
Charlie Company was expecting to find a Viet Cong battalion that was not there.
Q 22Which helicopter pilot intervened to stop the killing at My Lai and was later decorated for it?
Hugh Thompson Jr.
Ridenhour and journalist Seymour Hersh broke the story to the public in November 1969.
Q 23Of the 26 soldiers charged over My Lai, how many were convicted?
One
Lieutenant William Calley got a life sentence for 22 murders but served three and a half years under house arrest.
Q 14Which US commander in Vietnam predicted victory by December 1967 and pushed the 'body count' metric?
William Westmoreland
He was replaced by his deputy Abrams in March 1968 after Tet and a leaked request for 200,000 more troops.
Q 15The Tet Offensive of 1968 was named after what?
The Lunar New Year holiday
Most South Vietnamese soldiers were on holiday leave when more than 100 cities were attacked.
Q 16Which building in Saigon was famously attacked during the opening of Tet?
The US Embassy
The assault was a military failure but a public-relations disaster after months of official optimism.
Q 17Roughly how many communist troops took part in the Tet Offensive?
85,000
The offensive was a tactical defeat for them, with more than 45,000 killed.
Q 18Eddie Adams's Pulitzer-winning photograph 'Saigon Execution' shows a Viet Cong prisoner shot by whom?
The chief of the National Police
General Nguyen Ngoc Loan pulled the trigger on 1 February 1968 in front of a film camera as well.
Q 19The Marine base besieged for 77 days in early 1968 was at which location?
Khe Sanh
Operation Niagara pounded the surrounding hills; Westmoreland insisted Tet was merely a distraction from it.
Q 20Which 1968 contingency plan weighed nuclear weapons in Vietnam before the White House killed it?
Fracture Jaw
The other three were real conventional bombing operations.
Q 24The policy of handing the fighting to South Vietnamese forces while US troops withdrew was called what?
Vietnamization
He began troop withdrawals in 1969 while secretly bombing Cambodia in Operation Menu.
Q 25Which phrase did the president elected in 1968 use for the Americans he claimed supported the war?
The silent majority
The 1968 election had been won on his claim to have a secret plan to end the war.
Q 26The Kent State shootings of May 1970 followed protests over the war expanding into which country?
Cambodia
Ohio National Guardsmen fired about 67 rounds in 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine.
Q 27How many students were killed at Kent State?
Four
Nine more were wounded, one of them permanently paralysed.
Q 28Who leaked the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times in 1971?
Daniel Ellsberg
Charges against him were dropped after it emerged the White House Plumbers had broken into his psychiatrist's office.
Q 29Which defense secretary commissioned the secret study that became the Pentagon Papers?
Robert McNamara
He did not tell President Johnson or the Secretary of State it existed.
Q 30In the first Vietnam draft lottery of December 1969, which birthday was drawn first?
September 14
Every man born on that date between 1944 and 1950 got lottery number one.