While the ARVN 1st Division had cancelled all Tết leave and was attempting to recall its troops, the South Vietnamese and American forces in the city were unprepared when the Việt Cộng (VC) and the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) launched the Tet Offensive, attacking hundreds of military targets and population centers across the country, including Huế.

The General Uprising was the expectation that the oppressed South Vietnamese population would then spontaneously rise up and overthrow the Thiệu-Kỳ government and that this would force the United States to withdraw in the face of the will of the people.

In preparation for this, MACV was in the middle of Operation Checkers: moving the 1st Marine Division to Quảng Trị Province in order to support Khe Sanh and defeat any other PAVN attack across the DMZ.

2 kilometers (1.2 mi) south of the Perfume River and just west of Highway 1 was the Tam Thai military camp, headquarters of the ARVN 7th Armored Squadron Regiment equipped with M41 Walker Bulldog tanks.

When the headquarters of 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division arrived at Camp Evans, 27 kilometers (17 mi) northwest of Huế on 26 January, it found that the site held no stocks of ammunition or fuel.

Within Huế, approximately 100 U.S. Army advisers and administrative personnel, as well as a few Marine guards, were headquartered in the new city in the lightly defended MACV Compound (16°27′58″N 107°35′31″E / 16.466°N 107.592°E / 16.466; 107.592) a block and a half south of the Perfume River on the east side of Highway 1.

The new combat headquarters, staffed by high-ranking officials from the Trị-Thiên-Huế Front, local party members, and military officers from the units involved in the attack, had authority over the city and the three districts that surrounded it.

[16]: 31 Premature Tet Offensive attacks at Nha Trang and Qui Nhơn on the morning of 30 January led to the cancellation of the Tết ceasefire, but many ARVN soldiers were already away on leave, meaning that defenses in and around Huế were undermanned.

[16]: 31–32 On the afternoon of 30 January Trưởng dispatched a Hac Bao platoon and an Australian Army adviser to scout the north bank of the Perfume River which provided the simplest route from Base Area 114 into the city.

At 22:00, South Vietnamese Regional Force (RF) troops stationed in a village a few hundred meters north of the An Hoa Bridge observed what appeared to be enemy figures moving past them in the dark.

The sappers’ mission was to scale the Citadel's wall near the Mang Ca compound, open and hold the Hau and An Hoa Gates and assist the infantry company with its attack on Trưởng's headquarters.

Meanwhile, the team of thirty sappers who had scaled the northwestern wall overpowered the guards standing watch at the An Hoa and Hau Gates, then opened their doors to the infantry company waiting outside.

At Thon La Chu a South Vietnamese official who was a VC agent had earlier used aid money to build a three-story concrete and steel bomb shelter for local villagers and the command group of the Huế City Front used this as its headquarters.

Although one battle account stated that the South Vietnamese "offered no strong resistance", the PAVN report acknowledged "the heavy enemy ARVN fire enveloped the entire airfield.

The 150 ARVN at Tây Lộc Airfield withdrew east through the city, avoiding PAVN forces and sneaked into the Mang Ca compound shortly after 07:00, just in time to help repulse another major assault from the 802nd Battalion.

After failing to take Mang Ca and the MACV Compound in their initial assaults, the PAVN-VC did not attempt to seize them again, instead keeping them under fire and generally adopting a defensive posture, this tactical mistake allowed the ARVN and U.S. to bring in the reinforcements that would eventually clear the city.

At dawn the only areas of the new city still under Allied control were the prison defended by a Hac Bao platoon; the Le Loi transportation camp; the Huang Giang Hotel; the MACV Compound; the communications facility; and the Navy loading dock.

In the early morning of 31 January, after the rocket bombardment of the airfield and the initial attack on the Truoi River Bridge, Task Force X-Ray received reports of strikes all along Highway 1 between the Hải Vân Pass and Huế.

Eight CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters made the flight in marginal weather with a 61–152 metres (200–500 ft) ceiling and 1.6 kilometres (1 mi) visibility, arriving at an improvised landing zone under enemy mortar fire.

[5]: 176 On 20 January, the 1st Cavalry Division began moving from Landing Zone English in Bình Định Province 350 km north to Camp Evans as part of Operation Checkers.

Several companies of PAVN armed with mortars, machine guns, recoilless rifles and RPGs were strongly entrenched along the south side of the Sau Canal, a deep waterway that ran toward the Citadel perpendicular to the Perfume River.

Gravel launched a two-company assault supported by tanks towards the Provincial Headquarters and Thua Thien Prison, seven blocks west of the MACV Compound where the ARVN were believed to still be holding out.

[13]: 268 On the night of 3 February, the PAVN commander, seeing the buildup of Marines at Huế University, thinned out his frontline forces leaving just a platoon to defend the Treasury building and adjacent Post Office.

[13]: 290 Following the capture of the Treasury, Cheatham continued his methodical advance to the west leading with tear gas, M48s and Ontos, followed by Mules and Marines, while PAVN-VC resistance lessened as its manpower and ammunition was depleted.

Later that night a radio message from the commander of PAVN forces in the Citadel was intercepted, he stated that his predecessor had been killed and requested permission to withdraw from the city, but this was denied and he was told to stand and fight.

[5]: 210–11 [26] On 22 February the ARVN 21st and the 39th Ranger Battalions boarded junks and traveled to Gia Hoi Island (16°28′34″N 107°35′20″E / 16.476°N 107.589°E / 16.476; 107.589), between the east wall of the Citadel and the Perfume River where the Communist provisional government had been headquartered since the start of the offensive.

[5]: 211  The three-day operation netted hundreds of VC cadre, many of whom were university students who, according to local residents, had played a key role in rounding up government officials and intellectuals the PAVN/VC regarded as threats to their new regime.

screened on 27 February 1968, Cronkite closed the report with the editorial comments: We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds.

[13]: 524–25 PAVN General Trần Văn Trà later wrote of the Tet Offensive, "We did not correctly evaluate the specific balance of forces between ourselves and the enemy... [its objectives] were beyond our actual strength...in part an illusion based on our subjective desires.

In spite of the beating they took in November, they will continue to assert they repelled the initial attack and fought well thereafter.The U.S. Navy Ticonderoga class-guided-missile cruiser USS Hué City, commissioned in 1991, is named after the battle.