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Books > History > American history > From 1900 > Postwar, from 1945
A poignant, angry, articulate book Newsweek 'Mr Fall's book is a
dramatic treatment of a historic event graphic impact New York
Times Originally published in 1961, before the United States
escalated its involvement in South Vietnam, Street Without Joy
offered a clear warning about what American forces would face in
the jungles of Southeast Asia; a costly and protracted
revolutionary war fought without fronts against a mobile enemy. In
harrowing detail, Fall describes the brutality and frustrations of
the Indochina War, the savage eight-year conflict, ending in 1954
after the fall of Dien Bien Phu, in which French forces suffered a
staggering defeat at the hands of Communist-led Vietnamese
nationalists. Street Without Joy was required reading for
policymakers in Washington and GIs in the field and is now
considered a classic.
The Vietnam War was arguably the most important event for America in the twentieth century. The US entered the conflict with doctrines modelled for the Cold War and a mission to wipe out Communism, but the reality of war in Vietnam confounded all expectations. This book chronicles the bloody guerrilla warfare that ensued.
Charged with monitoring the huge civilian press corps that
descended on Hue during the Vietnam War's Tet offensive, US Army
Captain George W. Smith witnessed firsthand a vicious twenty-five
day battle. Smith recounts in harrowing detail the separate, poorly
coordinated wars that were fought in the retaking of the Hue.
Notably, he documents the little-known contributions of the South
Vietnamese forces, who prevented the Citadel portion of the city
from being overrun, and who then assisted the US Marine Corps in
evicting the North Vietnamese Army. He also tells of the social and
political upheaval in the city, reporting the execution of nearly
3,000 civilians by the NVA and the Vietcong. The tenacity of the
NVA forces in Hue earned the respect of the troops on the field and
triggered a sequence of attitudinal changes in the United States.
It was those changes, Smith suggests, that eventually led to the US
abandonment of the war.
American discussions of the Vietnam War tend to gloss over the
period from 1972 to the final North Vietnamese offensive in 1975.
But on the battlefields, these were brutal times for America's
South Vietnamese allies combined with a period of intense
diplomatic negotiations conducted under the increasing reality that
America had abandoned them. In Peace and Prisoners of War, written
in "real-time" as events occurred, Phan Nhat Nam provides a unique
window into the harsh combat that followed America's withdrawal and
the hopelessness of South Vietnam's attempt to stave off an
eventual communist victory. Few others could have written this
book. Phan Nhat Nam saw the war for years as a combat soldier in
one of South Vietnam's most respected airborne divisions, then as
the country's most respected war reporter, and for fourteen years
after the war as a prisoner in Hanoi's infamous "re-education"
camps, including eight years in solitary confinement. In the war's
aftermath anonymity became his fate both inside Vietnam and here in
America. But now one of his important works is available, enhanced
by an introduction by Senator James Webb, one of the most decorated
Marines in the Vietnam War. Webb describes this revealing work as
"an unvarnished observation frozen in time, devoid of spin or false
retrospective wisdom." Phan's reporting makes clear the sense of
doom that foretold the tragic events to come, on the battlefields
and in the frustration of negotiating with an implacable enemy
while abandoned by its foremost ally. Readers will find this book
both enlightening and disturbing, its observations until now
overlooked in most histories of the Vietnam War.
The March 1965 landing of the US Marine Corps at Da Nang, South
Vietnam, marked the first large-scale deployment of US forces to
the region. From then on, the Marine Corps fought continuously
until May 1975, when two Marines became the last US servicemen
killed in that war during the Mayaguez battle. With over 200
archival photos, many never before published, the weapons,
vehicles, and equipment of the Marines in theater are documented in
this volume. Small arms, mortars and artillery, tanks, amphibious,
armored and soft-skinned vehicles, helicopters, uniforms, and
personal and specialist equipment are featured in superb-quality
photos and detailed captions, including photos from such legendary
Marine Corps battles as Hue and Khe Sanh.
This study explains how the armies of North and South Vietnam,
newly equipped with the most modern Soviet and US tanks and
weaponry, fought the decisive armored battles of the Easter
Offensive. Wearied by years of fighting against Viet Cong guerillas
and North Vietnamese regulars, the United States had almost
completely withdrawn its forces from Vietnam by early 1972.
Determined to halt the expansion and improvement of South
Vietnamese forces under the U.S. "Vietnamization" program, North
Vietnam launched a major fourteen-division attack in March 1972
against the South that became known as the "Easter Offensive."
Hanoi's assault was spearheaded by 1,200 tanks and was counteracted
on the opposite side by Saigon's newly equipped armored force using
U.S. medium tanks. The result was ferocious fighting between major
Cold War-era U.S. and Soviet tanks and mechanized equipment,
pitting M-48 medium and M-41 light tanks against their T- 54 and
PT-76 rivals in a variety of combat environments ranging from dense
jungle to urban terrain. Both sides employed cutting-edge weaponry
for the first time, including the U.S. TOW and Soviet 9M14 Malyutk
wire-guided anti-tank missiles. This volume examines the tanks,
armored forces and weapons that clashed in this little-known
campaign in detail, using after-action reports from the battlefield
and other primary sources to analyze the technical and
organizational factors that shaped the outcome. Despite the ARVN's
defensive success in October 1972, North Vietnam massively expanded
its armor forces over the next two years while U.S. support waned.
This imbalance with key strategic misjudgments by the South
Vietnamese President led to the stunning defeat of the South in
1975 when T54 tanks crashed through the fence surrounding the
Presidential palace and took Saigon on 30 April 1975.
The true story of the fierce band of women who battled Washington -
and Hanoi - to bring their husbands home from the jungles of
Vietnam. On 12 February, 1973, one hundred and sixteen men who,
just six years earlier, had been high flying Navy and Air Force
pilots, shuffled, limped, or were carried off a huge military
transport plane at Clark Air Base in the Philippines. These
American servicemen had endured years of brutal torture, kept
shackled and starving in solitary confinement, in rat-infested,
mosquito-laden prisons, the worst of which was The Hanoi Hilton.
Months later, the first Vietnam POWs to return home would learn
that their rescuers were their wives, a group of women that
included Jane Denton, Sybil Stockdale, Louise Mulligan, Andrea
Rander, Phyllis Galanti, and Helene Knapp. These women, who formed
The National League of Families, would never have called themselves
'feminists', but they had become the POW and MIAs most fervent
advocates, going to extraordinary lengths to facilitate their
husbands' freedom - and to account for missing military men - by
relentlessly lobbying government leaders, conducting a savvy media
campaign, conducting covert meetings with antiwar activists, and
most astonishingly, helping to code secret letters to their
imprisoned husbands. In a page-turning work of narrative
non-fiction, Heath Hardage Lee tells the story of these remarkable
women for the first time. The League of Wives is certain to be on
everyone's must-read list.
As the Vietnam War was beginning to turn towards its bitter end, Le
Quan fought under beloved general Tran Ba Di in the army of South
Vietnam. An unlikely encounter thrust the two men together, and
they developed a mutual respect in their home country during
wartime. Forty years later, the two men reconnected in a wholly
unlikely setting: a family road trip to Key West. Soldier On is
written by Le Quan's daughter, who artfully crafts the road trip as
a frame through which the stories of both men come to life. Le Quan
and Tran Ba Di provide two different views of life in the South
Vietnamese army, and they embody two different realities of the
aftermath of defeat. Le Quan was able to smuggle his family out of
Saigon among the so-called boat people, eventually receiving asylum
in America and resettling in Texas. General Tran Ba Di, on the
other hand, experienced political consequences: he spent seventeen
years in a re-education camp before he was released to family in
Florida. A proud daughter's perspective brings this
intergenerational and intercontinental story to life, as Tran
herself plumbs her remembrances to expand the legacy of the many
Vietnamese who weathered conflict to forge new futures in America.
Triumph Regained: The Vietnam War, 1965-1968 is the long-awaited
sequel to the immensely influential Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam
War, 1954-1965. Like its predecessor, this book overturns the
conventional wisdom using a treasure trove of new sources, many of
them from the North Vietnamese side. Rejecting the standard
depiction of U.S. military intervention as a hopeless folly, it
shows America's war to have been a strategic necessity that could
have ended victoriously had President Lyndon Johnson heeded the
advice of his generals. In light of Johnson's refusal to use
American ground forces beyond South Vietnam, General William
Westmoreland employed the best military strategy available. Once
the White House loosened the restraints on Operation Rolling
Thunder, American bombing inflicted far greater damage on the North
Vietnamese supply system than has been previously understood, and
it nearly compelled North Vietnam to capitulate. The book
demonstrates that American military operations enabled the South
Vietnamese government to recover from the massive instability that
followed the assassination of President Ngo Dinh Diem. American
culture sustained public support for the war through the end of
1968, giving South Vietnam realistic hopes for long-term survival.
America's defense of South Vietnam averted the imminent fall of key
Asian nations to Communism and sowed strife inside the Communist
camp, to the long-term detriment of America's great-power rivals,
China and the Soviet Union.
Studies of air combat in the Vietnam War inevitably focus on the
MiG-killing fighter engagements, B-52 onslaughts or tactical
strikes on the Hanoi region. However, underlying all these was the
secretive 'electron war' in which highly-skilled electronic warfare
officers duelled with Soviet and North Vietnamese radar operators
in the attempt to enable US strike forces to reach their targets
with minimal losses. Orbiting at the edge of heavily-defended
territory, the vulnerable EB-66s identified and jammed the enemy's
radar frequencies with electronic emissions and chaff to protect
the American bombers. Their hazardous missions resulted in six
combat losses, four of them to SA-2 missiles and one to a MiG-21,
and they became prime targets for North Vietnamese defences when
their importance was realised. This illustrated study focuses on
the oft-overlooked B-66 series, examining their vital contributions
to the Vietnam War and the bravery of those who operated them in
some of the most challenging situations imaginable. Author Peter E.
Davies also explores how the technology and tactics devised during
the period made possible the development of the EF-111A Raven, an
invaluable component of the Desert Storm combat scenario over Iraq
and Kuwait in 1991, and the US Navy's EA-6B Prowler, which entered
service towards the end of the Vietnam War.
The tactics and technologies of modern air assault - vertical
deployment of troops by helicopter or similar means - emerged
properly during the 1950s in Korea and Algeria. Yet it was during
the Vietnam War that helicopter air assault truly came of age and
by 1965 the United States had established fully airmobile
battalions, brigades, and divisions, including the 1st Cavalry
Division (Airmobile).This division brought to Vietnam a
revolutionary new speed and dexterity in battlefield tactics, using
massed helicopters to liberate its soldiers from traditional
overland methods of combat manoeuvre. However, the communist troops
adjusted their own thinking to handle airmobile assaults.
Specializing in ambush, harassment, infiltration attacks, and
small-scale attrition, the North Vietnamese operated with light
logistics and a deep familiarity with the terrain. They optimized
their defensive tactics to make landing zones as hostile as
possible for assaulting US troops, and from 1966 worked to draw
them into 'Hill Traps', extensive kill zones specially prepared for
defence -in -depth. By the time the 1st Cavalry Division
(Airmobile) withdrew from Vietnam in 1972, it had suffered more
casualties than any other US Army division. Featuring specially
commissioned artwork, archive photographs, and full-colour battle
maps, this study charts the evolution of US airmobile tactics
pitted against North Vietnamese countermeasures. The two sides are
analysed in detail, including training, logistics, weaponry, and
organization.
While the F 105 Thunderchief was the USAF's principal strike weapon
during the Rolling Thunder campaign, the US Navy relied on the
Douglas A-4 Skyhawk for the majority of its strikes on North
Vietnam. The Skyhawk entered service in 1956 and remained in
continuous production for 26 years. Throughout Operation Rolling
Thunder it was the US Navy's principal day time light strike
bomber, remaining in use after its replacement, the more
sophisticated A-7 Corsair II, began to appear in December 1967.
During the 1965-68 Rolling Thunder period, up to five attack
carriers regularly launched A-4 strike formations against North
Vietnam. These formations faced an ever-expanding and increasingly
coordinated Soviet-style network of anti-aircraft artillery
missiles and fighters. Skyhawk pilots were often given the
hazardous task of attacking anti-aircraft defences and to improve
accuracy, they initially dropped ordnance below 3000 ft in a
30-degree dive in order to bomb visually below the persistent low
cloud over North Vietnam, putting the aircraft within range of
small-arms fire. The defenders had the advantage of covering a
relatively small target area, and the sheer weight of light, medium
and heavy gunfire directed at an attacking force brought inevitable
casualties, and a single rifle bullet could have the same effect as
a larger shell. This illustrated title examines both the A-4
Skyhawk and the Vietnamese AAA defences in context, exploring their
history and analysing their tactics and effectiveness during the
conflict.
Western historians have long speculated about Chinese military
intervention in the Vietnam War. It was not until recently,
however, that newly available international archival materials, as
well as documents from China, have indicated the true extent and
level of Chinese participation in the conflict of Vietnam. For the
first time in the English language, this book offers an overview of
the operations and combat experience of more than 430,000 Chinese
troops in Indochina from 1968-73. The Chinese Communist story from
the "other side of the hill" explores one of the missing pieces to
the historiography of the Vietnam War. The book covers the
chronological development and Chinese decision-making by examining
Beijing's intentions, security concerns, and major reasons for
entering Vietnam to fight against the U.S. armed forces. It
explains why China launched a nationwide movement, in Mao Zedong's
words, to "assist Vietnam and resist America" in 1965-72. It
details PLA foreign war preparation, training, battle planning and
execution, tactical decisions, combat problem solving, political
indoctrination, and performance evaluations through the Vietnam
War. International Communist forces, technology, and logistics
proved to be the decisive edge that enabled North Vietnam to
survive the U.S. Rolling Thunder bombing campaign and helped the
Viet Cong defeat South Vietnam. Chinese and Russian support
prolonged the war, making it impossible for the United States to
win. With Russian technology and massive Chinese intervention, the
NVA and NLF could function on both conventional and unconventional
levels, which the American military was not fully prepared to face.
Nevertheless, the Vietnam War seriously tested the limits of the
communist alliance. Rather than improving Sino-Soviet relations,
aid to North Vietnam created a new competition as each communist
power attempted to control Southeast Asian communist movement.
China shifted its defense and national security concerns from the
U.S. to the Soviet Union.
During the Vietnam War, the United States embarked on an unusual
crusade on behalf of the government of South Vietnam. Known as the
pacification program, it sought to help South Vietnam's government
take root and survive as an independent, legitimate entity by
defeating communist insurgents and promoting economic development
and political reforms. In this book, Richard Hunt provides the
first comprehensive history of America's "battle for hearts and
minds," the distinctive blending of military and political
approaches that took aim at the essence of the struggle between
North and South Vietnam. Hunt concentrates on the American role,
setting pacification in the larger political context of nation
building. He describes the search for the best combination of
military and political action, incorporating analysis of the
controversial Phoenix program, and illuminates the difficulties the
Americans encountered with their sometimes reluctant ally. The
author explains how hard it was to get the U.S. Army involved in
pacification and shows the struggle to yoke divergent organizations
(military, civilian, and intelligence agencies) to serve one common
goal. The greatest challenge of all was to persuade a surrogate-the
Saigon government-to carry out programs and to make reforms
conceived of by American officials. The book concludes with a
careful assessment of pacification's successes and failures. Would
the Saigon government have flourished if there had been more time
to consolidate the gains of pacification? Or was the regime so
fundamentally flawed that its demise was preordained by its
internal contradictions? This pathbreaking book offers startling
and provocative answers to these and other important questions
about our Vietnam experience.
And Bring the Darkness Home is a haunting exploration of how the
mental scars of war destroyed an international cricket career, tore
a family apart and left destitute a man who seemed to have it all.
Tony Dell was the only Test cricketer to fight in the Vietnam War.
His journey to the summit of the game, playing for Australia
against England in the Ashes, was as unlikely and meteoric as any
in cricket history. His descent was painful and harrowing. It was
in his mid-60s, living in his mother's garage, that he learned the
truth about what had led him on a path of self-destruction. A
diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder allowed him to piece
together the ruins of his life and also to search for answers, for
himself and the thousands of other sufferers. The restlessness and
urgency that once drove him to the top of the game was turned on
authorities who refused to learn the lessons from history. PTSD
robbed Tony Dell of memories of his playing career and left a
palpable sense of loss. It also gave him a life-changing mission.
Now in its second edition, Grunts: The American Combat Soldier in
Vietnam provides a fresh approach to understanding the American
combat soldier's experience in Vietnam by focusing on the
day-to-day experiences of front-line troops. The book delves into
the Vietnam combat soldier's experience, from the decision to join
the army, life in training and combat, and readjusting to civilian
life with memories of war. By utilizing letters, oral histories,
and memoirs of actual veterans, Kyle Longley and Jacqueline Whitt
offer a powerful insight into the minds and lives of the 870,000
"grunts" who endured the controversial war. Important topics such
as class, race, and gender are examined, enabling students to
better analyze the social dynamics during this divisive period of
American history. In addition to an updated introduction and
epilogue, the new edition includes expanded sections on military
chaplains, medics, and the moral injury of war. A new timeline
provides details of major events leading up to, during, and after
the war. A truly comprehensive picture of the Vietnam experience
for soldiers, this volume is a valuable and unique addition to
military history courses and classes on the Vietnam War and 1960s
America.
In 1964 Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, activated a joint
unconventional task force known as the Studies and Observation
Group--MACV-SOG. As a cover its mission was to conduct analysis of
lessons learned in combat involved all branches of service. SOG's
real mission was to conduct covert strategic reconnaissance
missions into Laos, Cambodia, and South Vietnam as well as sabotage
and 'Black' psychological operations. Ground, air, and naval assets
were employed to insert, collect, extract, and otherwise support
these operations. Drawing on detailed, first-hand accounts of the
experiences of the service, including action on operations, this
book will shed light on one of the most crucial units of the
Vietnam War.
****** THE TRUE STORY BEHIND THE MAJOR MOVIE STARRING ZAC EFRON,
RUSSELL CROWE AND BILL MURRAY 'You will laugh and cry, but you will
not be sorry that you read this rollicking story.' - Malachy
McCourt 'An unforgettable wild right from start to finish.' - John
Bruning, New York Times bestselling author of Indestructible
'Donohue's memoir is a fascinating, vividly narrated recollection
of the chaos of the Vietnam war.' - Publishers Weekly A CRAZY
ADVENTURE IN A CRAZY WAR. Following a rowdy night at his local New
York bar, ex-Marine and merchant seaman "Chick" Donohue decides to
complete a legendary mission. He will travel to Vietnam, track down
his buddies in combat and bring them a cold beer from home. It'll
be the greatest beer run ever! Now, decades on from 1968, he
recounts the remarkable true story of how he actually did it. Armed
with Irish luck and a backpack full of alcohol, Chick works his
passage to Vietnam, lands in Qui Nhon and begins to track down his
serving friends one by one. But things quickly go awry, and as he
talks his way through checkpoints and unwittingly into dangerous
situations, Chick sees a lot more of the war than he ever
anticipated - spending a terrifying time in the Demilitarized Zone
and getting caught up in Saigon during the Tet Offensive. With
indomitable spirit, Chick survives on his wits, but what he finds
in Vietnam comes as a shock. By the end of his epic adventure,
battered and exhausted, Chick finds himself questioning why his
friends were ever led into the war in the first place.
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