The Battle for Hue, part of the Tet offensive, started with an assault by communist forces in the wee hours of Jan. 30, 1968. The former imperial capital of Vietnam, Hue was defended by the Army of the Republic of (South) Vietnam, local militia units, the United States Marines and the United States Air Force. The core of the communist forces in Hue was the North Vietnamese Army with support from southern communist forces — the National Liberation Front, also known as Viet Cong, and from communist sympathizers, many of whom were former members of the defunct Struggle Movement, organized in Hue in 1965 by Buddhist monks and students, which had led the Buddhist Uprising that was suppressed by the ARVN in 1966. Many Struggle Movement activists fled to the mountains and joined the communists; during the Tet Offensive, they returned to Hue with the communists.