Finding the Vietnam War on Google Maps

Posted on Jun 12, 2021 (last modified Aug 22, 2021)

While doing research for my book about the Vietnam War, I've learned a lot about how to pinpoint locations on a map using coordinates found in declassified after-action reports and command chronologies. Coordinates from these old documents use the Military Grid Reference System (MGRS), so there's no way to just pull them straight up on a Google map. Here, I will share my procedure for converting an MGRS coordinate to a longitude and latitude coordinate that you can more easily find on Google Maps. You can use this technique to locate important historic sites like helicopter landing zones (LZs), fire bases, where certain battles took place, and the hallowed grounds where our beloved gave all.

Sources for Vietnam War Map Coordinates

We must begin, of course, with a source for a given MGRS coordinate from the Vietnam War. Following are a few of the better sources I've found:

• The Coffelt Database of Vietnam casualties - an impressively comprehensive databse of servicemen and women who died as a result of service in Vietnam. Often, records are accompanied by one or two scanned casualty reports that often also specify a vicinity in MGRS.
• Texas Tech University's Vietnam Center and Sam Johnson Vietnam Archive - collects and preserves the documentary record of the Vietnam War and has an enourmous collection of historical documents like after-action reports and command chronologies. Here is an index of documents from the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines, for example.
• Fire Support Base Locations - a table of locations culled already from various historical documents

Convert MGRS to Latitude and Longitude

Let us use the table of Fire Support Base Locations as our primary example.

Let us say that we'd like to map out Leatherneck Square, which is demarkated by the four corners of Con Thien, Gio Lihn, Dong Ha, and Cam Lo.

The table of Fire Support Base Loactions lists Con Thien at the following loaction using the MGRS: YD 113703

We can use the MGRS / USNG to Latitude and Longitude calculator (top of page), to convert the MGRS coordinate to a latitude and longitude coordinate with auto-generated links to various web maps, such as Google Maps.

The problem is that the MGRS coordinate, as written in the table, is not complete. If we enter it as-is and then press Calc, we get the following error:

parsemgrs():'YD113703' : Missing Zone Number. Found 'Y' instead. Error in input.

Notice that is says, "Missing Zone Number." So, we need to find out the higher level zone that YD is within and add it to the beginning of the coordinate. To do that, we can use the GISsurfer Map.

Here, we find that YD is located within the higher level zone, 48Q

For Con Thien, therefore, we need to add 48Q to the beginning. That will then give use the full MGRS coordinate: 48Q YD 113703

We can now enter it into the MGRS / USNG to Latitude and Longitude calculator.

After pressing the Calc button, we get a page like this...

Here, we have links to maps, and all sorts of other useful data!

So, using this technique, we could lookup the MGRS coordinates for all three remaining points of Leatherneck Square:

• Gio Lihn: 48Q YD 214738
• Dong Ha: 48Q YD 245599
• Cam Lo: 48Q YD 130593

Create Your Own Online Map

Did you know that you can create your own Google Map online to share? Go to Google My Maps, enter the LAT/LONG given by the calculation, and Google will drop a pin! You can change the color, icon, and description of the pin and even add photos. Then you can name, save, and share the map! For example, here's a map I created that features Leatherneck Square as described in this article:

Cody Burleson's Vietnam War Locations Map

Checkout this community curated map on Google My Maps called Vietnam WAR - FOR THE ONES WHO FOUGHT IT