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Books > Humanities > History > Asian / Middle Eastern history > From 1900 > Postwar, from 1945 > Vietnam War
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.
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.
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.
With an introduction by Kevin Powers. A groundbreaking piece of
journalism which inspired Stanley Kubrick's classic Vietnam War
film Full Metal Jacket. We took space back quickly, expensively,
with total panic and close to maximum brutality. Our machine was
devastating. And versatile. It could do everything but stop.
Michael Herr went to Vietnam as a war correspondent for Esquire. He
returned to tell the real story in all its hallucinatory madness
and brutality, cutting to the quick of the conflict and its
seductive, devastating impact on a generation of young men. His
unflinching account is haunting in its violence, but even more so
in its honesty. First published in 1977, Dispatches was a
revolutionary piece of new journalism that evoked the experiences
of soldiers in Vietnam and has forever shaped our understanding of
the conflict. It is now a seminal classic of war reportage.
"He seems to have brought to this book the ear of a musician and the eye of a painter . . . the premier war correspondence of Vietnam."--Washington Post. "The best book I have ever read on men and war in our time."--John le Carre." . . . Dispatches puts the rest of us in the shade."--Hunter S. Thompson.
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.
North and South Vietnamese youths had very different experiences of
growing up during the Vietnamese War. The book gives a unique
perspective on the conflict through the prism of adult-youth
relations. By studying these relations, including educational
systems, social organizations, and texts created by and for
children during the war, Olga Dror analyzes how the two societies
dealt with their wartime experience and strove to shape their
futures. She examines the socialization and politicization of
Vietnamese children and teenagers, contrasting the North's highly
centralized agenda of indoctrination with the South, which had no
such policy, and explores the results of these varied approaches.
By considering the influence of Western culture on the youth of the
South and of socialist culture on the youth of the North, we learn
how the youth cultures of both Vietnams diverged from their prewar
paths and from each other.
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.
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.
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.
Winner of the Blogger's Book Prize, 2021 Shortlisted for the
People's Book Prize, 2021 Winner of Best Literary Fiction and Best
Multicultural Fiction at American Book Fest International Book
Awards, 2021 'An epic account of Viet Nam's painful 20th-century
history, both vast in scope and intimate in its telling... Moving
and riveting.' Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of
The Sympathizer Selected as a Best Book of 2020 by NB Magazine *
BookBrowse * Buzz Magazine * NPR * Washington Independent Review of
Books * Real Simple * She Reads * A Hindu's View * Thoughts from a
Page One family, two generations of women and a war that will
change their lives forever Ha Noi, 1972. Huong and her grandmother,
Tran Dieu Lan, cling to one another in their improvised shelter as
American bombs fall around them. For Tran Dieu Lan, forced to flee
the family farm with her six children decades earlier as the
Communist government rose to power in the North, this experience is
horribly familiar. Seen through the eyes of these two unforgettable
women, The Mountains Sing captures their defiance and
determination, hope and unexpected joy. Vivid, gripping, and
steeped in the language and traditions of Viet Nam, celebrated
Vietnamese poet Nguyen's richly lyrical debut weaves between the
lives of a grandmother and granddaughter to paint a unique picture
of a country pushed to breaking point, and a family who refuse to
give up. 'Devastating... From the French and Japanese occupations
to the Indochina wars, The Great Hunger, land reform and the
Vietnam War, it's a story of resilience, determination, family and
hope in a country blighted by pain.' Refinery29
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.
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.
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.
This book is a fascinating study of the Vietnamese experience and
memory of the Vietnam War through the lens of popular imaginings
about the wandering souls of the war dead. These ghosts of war play
an important part in postwar Vietnamese historical narrative and
imagination, and Heonik Kwon explores the intimate ritual ties with
these unsettled identities which still survive in Vietnam today as
well as the actions of those who hope to liberate these hidden but
vital historical presences from their uprooted social existence.
Taking a unique approach to the cultural history of war, he
introduces gripping stories about spirits claiming social justice
and about his own efforts to wrestle with the physical and
spiritual presence of ghosts. Although these actions are
fantastical, this book shows how examining their stories can
illuminate critical issues of war and collective memory in Vietnam
and the modern world more generally.
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.
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Low Level Hell
(Paperback)
Hugh Mills, Robert Anderson
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R308
R252
Discovery Miles 2 520
Save R56 (18%)
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Ships in 9 - 15 working days
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'The best 'bird's eye view' of the helicopter war in Vietnam in
print today ... Mills has captured the realities of a select group
of aviators who shot craps with death on every mission' R.S.
Maxham, Director, US Army Aviation Museum The aeroscouts of the 1st
Infantry Division have three words emblazoned on their unit patch:
Low Level Hell. It was the perfect concise defininition of what
those intrepid aviators experienced as they ranged the skies of
Vietnam from the Cambodian border to the Iron Triangle. The
Outcasts, as they were known, flew low and slow. They were the
aerial eyes of the division in search of the enemy. Too often for
longevity's sake they found the Viet Cong and the fight was on.
These young pilots, who were usually 19 to 22 years old, invented
the book as they went along.
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.
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