Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2020 i Vietnam

AFTER AN INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENT IN 1954 split Vietnam in two, communist China became an important source of military aid for Ho Chi Minh’s communist government in North Vietnam as a counterweight to the Western democracies supporting South Vietnam. China’s leader, Mao Zedong, wanted the Chinese Communist Party to expand its influence in Asia by supporting wars of national liberation. In the early 1950s, when communist North Korea invaded South Korea, the United Nations under U.S. leadership struck back and marched into North Korea, bringing China into the war. Similarly, China promised to support Ho Chi Minh’s government as Hanoi expanded its war in the South and pledged to come to North Vietnam’s aid if the United States attacked. Between 1955 and 1963, China provided 240,000 infantry weapons, 2,730 artillery pieces,…

Edward C. Meyer, four-star general and Army chief of staff from 1979 to 1983, died Oct. 13, 2020, at age 91 in Arlington, Virginia. Meyer, born Dec. 11, 1928, in St. Marys, Pennsylvania, graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1951. He was awarded a Bronze Star and Silver Star for his service during the Korean War. Meyer served with the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) in Vietnam in 1965-66 and 1969-70. He received the Silver Star, Distinguished Flying Cross and Purple Heart for his service there. Meyer attended the National War College and studied international affairs at George Washington University. He spearheaded efforts to restructure the Army in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, famously referring to it at a 1980 congressional hearing as a “hollow Army,”…

Nov. 8 Tom Dempsey, a New Orleans Saints kicker wearing a special boot because of a deformed foot, kicks a record-breaking 63-yard field goal in a 19-17 victory over the Detroit Lions. (The Denver Broncos’ Matt Prater kicked a 64-yarder in 2013 for a new record.) Nov. 14 The Osmond Brothers, a pop group from Ogden, Utah, release Osmonds, their first album featuring younger brother Donny. The other brothers are Alan, Wayne, Merrill and Jay. One of the album’s singles, “One Bad Apple,” became a No. 1 hit in 1971 Dec. 1 What Color is Your Parachute?, a career guide for people who are laid off or want to “bail out” of bad jobs, is published by Episcopal minister Richard Bolles. Parachute, which has sold more than 10 million copies,…

By the first months of 1965, Viet Cong battlefield successes caused Gen. William C. Westmoreland, commander of U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, to request an expansion of the American military presence, launching a troop buildup that foreshadowed a long-term commitment of ground forces. As early as April, a U.S. Marine brigade was directed to Chu Lai in northern South Vietnam and the U.S. Army 173rd Airborne Brigade was sent to Bien Hoa, near Saigon. Soon the entire 1st Infantry Division would join them, with many more combat units to follow. The introduction of large-scale operations in Vietnam was accompanied by the inevitable increase in combat casualties. When mustered for battle, the Army’s overall active duty strength was approximately 970,000 personnel (110,000 officers and 860,000 enlisted soldiers). As combat losses increased,…

Thanks for the excellent article by Thomas Messick in the October issue (“The Day We Lost Charlie,” about H-21 troop transport helicopter crews facing enemy fire that killed pilot Charles Edward Holloway at Tuy Hoa on Dec. 22, 1962). Too little is written about the early days of the Vietnam war, so this article is very instructive. I was on my first tour to Vietnam and was one of the 100-plus teams that President John F. Kennedy sent in to take our advisory effort [to assist the South Vietnamese army] down to the battalion level. On the day Messick describes, I was with the South Vietnamese 47th Regiment, the troop contingent dropped in by the H-21s. We had secured an abandoned French airfield just outside of Tuy Hoa to stage…

In the fall of 1968, I was a U.S. Army first lieutenant roaming the helicopter pad behind Army headquarters at Long Binh, about 20 miles northeast of Saigon. Low-slung UH-1 “Huey” helicopters and “Loaches,” the nickname for OH-6 Cayuse light observation copters, squatted in the faint morning mist like slugs hunkered down in a garden back home. I needed a ride to Saigon, or more specifically, to Tan Son Nhut Air Base to link up with my college buddy, Air Force 1st Lt. Mike Buss, who worked on the air base. It was Thursday, Nov. 28, and time for a couple of Iowa boys to get together for some Thanksgiving dinner. At Long Binh, I oversaw an eight-man Army night crew tasked with ensuring all U.S. ammunition in South Vietnam…

Capt. Phil Bernstein, commander of the 265th Radio Research Company, the cover name for the secretive intelligence-gathering Army Security Agency, watched as his new soldier arrived at the company’s Phu Bai headquarters in northern South Vietnam in late December 1970. As a military truck rolled in from the helicopter landing zone carrying Staff Sgt. Ed Keith, Bernstein noticed that the new intel analyst was wearing nonregulation camouflage fatigues bearing a Special Forces patch and lugging two heavy Army footlockers. Bernstein remembers Keith as having “hand grenades, belts of ammunition, knives, Claymore mines,” and an assortment of automatic weapons and pistols. That was hardly equipment needed to analyze intelligence gleaned from enemy radios and telephones. Impressed by Keith’s background, Bernstein pulled him off to one side. “I told him I had…

LESLIE TOWNES HOPE was born in London on May 27, 1903. His parents moved to Cleveland, Ohio, in 1908, and there at age 12 he took up busking—singing, dancing and doing comedy routines for whatever passersby chose to pay him. After gaining experience in vaudeville, Hope was determined to make show business his career. He created a mildly irreverent (including toward himself) persona and adopted the name “Bob” in 1929. Bob Hope became a star on stage, radio, film and television. During World War II he began entertaining at stateside training bases, then took his show overseas. His winning formula combined comedy monologues, specialty acts, celebrity guests, dancers, singers, skits…and women—to remind the troops, as he often put it, “of what they were fighting for.” By war’s end he and…

Ruppert Leon Sargent grew up in Hampton, Virginia, as a devout adherent to the Jehovah’s Witnesses faith. Although they identify as Christians, Jehovah’s Witnesses do not celebrate Christian holidays, recite the Pledge of Allegiance nor salute the American flag. The church also prohibits its members from serving in the military, including service in noncombat roles for conscientious objectors. Members who do join the military are not expelled or shunned, but they usually get treated as if they had been. Despite the prohibitions of his religion, Sargent, born Jan. 6, 1938, enlisted in the Army after graduating from Virginia State University, a historically Black school in Petersburg. Sargent spent six years as an enlisted man and then was accepted for Officer Candidate School. He was commissioned an infantry second lieutenant on…

Americans who did combat in the bush of Vietnam do not have fond memories of rats. Rats indeed have a notorious reputation when it comes to jungle warfare. Times and circumstances change, however. One rat making headlines in Indochina for good behavior in a “combat-related” role has been awarded a Gold Medal by the People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals, a British organization formed in 1917. PDSA has recognized animal heroism since 1943. The honored rat, “Magawa,” a Gambian (African) pouched rat, has been a leader in efforts to clear Cambodia from the pestilence of land mines planted during decades of war. Globally, land mines left in the wake of wars still menace 60 million people in 59 countries, according to Anti-Persoonmijnen Ontimijnende Product Ontowikkeling, (Anti-Personnel Landmines Detection Product Development), a…

In early 1969, Reconnaissance Team Illinois of the Studies and Observations Group, an elite covert operations unit, encountered North Vietnamese Army soldiers while on a battle damage assessment mission in northeast Cambodia. As the SOG team retreated to its extraction landing zone, Sgts. George Bacon and Newman Ruff laid down suppressing fire. Whenever Bacon stopped firing his CAR-15 carbine, the NVA rushed forward and were shot by Ruff’s sound-suppressed Karl Gustav submachine gun. Unsure of the shooter’s location, the North Vietnamese held back, which enabled the team to escape. Commonly known as the “Swedish K,” the Karl Gustav m/45 was created by weapons designer Gunnar Johnsson for the state-run Karl Gustav rifle factory. The gun entered service in 1945—the 45 in its designation. It incorporated features from several World War…

On Nov. 20, 1970, at 6 p.m., U.S. Special Forces Sgt. Terry Buckler reported to an auditorium at Takhli Royal Thai Air Force Base. Hours earlier, he had been fed a sleeping pill and steak for lunch and told to get some sleep. Army Col. Arthur “Bull” Simons, deputy commander of the operation Buckler had been training for, entered with Lt. Col. Elliot Sydnor Jr., the operation’s ground force commander. Simons pulled out a map of North Vietnam. Hanoi was circled, with the town of Son Tay nearby. Simons tapped Son Tay and said: “That’s where we’re going tonight, guys. We are going to rescue as many as 70 POWs. Americans have a right to expect this from their fellow soldiers. We have a 50-50 chance of not making it…

On the late afternoon of Aug. 18, 1966, Australian Maj. Harry Smith and the men in his Delta Company faced a vastly superior force of 2,500 heavily armed Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army troops at an abandoned rubber plantation near Long Tan, a village about 40 miles southeast of Saigon. Against all odds the Australians held out for more than three hours until reinforcements arrived. The 108 men of D Company, 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, fought for their lives in pouring rain as ammunition dwindled, casualties mounted and the enemy massed for a final assault. There seemed to be no way the Aussies could survive the onslaught. The Battle of Long Tan was the most important engagement of Australia’s involvement in Vietnam,…

Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower famously observed that “battles, campaigns, and even wars have been won or lost because of logistics.” Feeding Victory: Innovative Military Logistics from Lake George to Khe Sanh, an intriguing new title from Air Force Col. Jobie Turner, explores the wisdom of those words and the impact of logistics on three centuries of armed conflict. Defining logistics as the “combination of transportation and supply for a fighting force,” Turner focuses on four technological eras and selects a handful of battles and campaigns that best illustrate the role of logistics in each of those historical ages. The four-year campaign (1755-59) to wrest control of New York’s Lake George from the French and their Native American allies, for example, severely tested the ability of the British to supply their…