Innholdsfortegnelse for Spring 2023 i Vietnam

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On July 18, 1966, Staff Sgt. John McGinty led the understrength 1st Platoon of K Company, 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment against a regimental-sized North Vietnamese Army (NVA) force supported by mortar fire. The NVA hoped to overrun 3rd Battalion’s Landing Zone Crow to stop the battalion’s withdrawal following Phase I of Operation Hastings. It quickly became a chaotic, close-range fight. McGinty directed air strikes to within 50m of his position and called in final defensive artillery fire. He and 20 of his 32 Marines were wounded and his corpsman killed in the fighting. The enemy finally withdrew that evening. McGinty and his company commander, Capt. Robert J. Modrzejewski, received the Medal of Honor for their actions that day. Although air and artillery power turned the tide of battle, McGinty’s…

The Viet Cong were well known for their devious jungle ambushes and cruelly ingenious booby traps. But one of the enemy’s deadliest—and stealthiest—techniques was to burrow in underground tunnels deep beneath the earth’s surface and launch attacks from the cover of dark and labyrinthine caverns. The Americans and their allies who took on the gruesome task of rooting out and defeating these hidden foes earned the humble but proud nickname of “tunnel rats.” Yet, in their first large-scale encounter with underground enemies at Cu Chi, the “tunnel rats” and their fellow soldiers were far from prepared for the horrifying dangers that lurked below them. Operation Crimp, undertaken by U.S. and Australian forces in Binh Duong Province, South Vietnam, from Jan. 8-14, 1966, was the largest search and destroy action during…

When Mark Watson and his partner Hana Black set off on a dream long-distance bicycling trip through Southeast Asia, they weren’t quite prepared for what they would find in Laos and Vietnam. Evidence of the Vietnam War was vividly apparent—in everything from the landscape to people’s farms, home decor, and innovations created from former weapons of war from decades past. As a journalist, photographer, adventurer, and military history enthusiast, Watson is no stranger to harsh environments and former battlefields, but what he experienced on his journey caught him off guard. He was especially surprised by what he saw in Laos. “It’s remarkable how you can visit a place and be so blown away by what you’re seeing. As an adult who’s grown up reading books, watching the news and filling…

If I had to come up with a single word that encapsulates Larry Duthie’s memoir, it would have to be “improbable.” That is definitely not a criticism of his very interesting and well-written account of his life before, during, and after his Vietnam War service—it’s just descriptive of the extremely unlikely twists and turns and unusual happenings that seemed to follow him throughout his life. He attended high school as a teenager while part of the tiny American community in pre-Vietnam War Saigon, became a commissioned naval aviator, joined the Navy as an enlisted sailor and—almost accidentally—qualified as a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier jet pilot. Shot down over Hanoi, he survived a difficult, highspeed ejection, was rescued, and dealt with PTSD demons by not only returning to Vietnam post-war but…

Regarding “The Day America Lost the War” [Winter 2023]: in about 1651 Father Alexandre de Rhodes, a Catholic missionary, developed Quoc Ngu, an alphabet using Roman characters and accent marks to convert more Vietnamese. Traditionally the Vietnamese used the Chinese writing system. France colonized “French Indochina” in the 19th century and reformed the local education system, imposing Quoc Ngu by decree early in the 20th century. We arrived in the mid-1950s trying to communicate with people utilizing a 17th-century version of French phonetic spelling! Examples are too numerous to mention. However, the mid-1960s prime minister’s name probably should have been spelled Win Cow Key but was spelled Nguyen Cao Ky. In the immortal words of Strother Martin, “What we have here is a failure to communicate!” How can anyone ascribe…

The first day of The Monterey International Pop Festival opens with The Association, a Los Angeles-based musical group known for their intricate vocal harmonies. Fellow “Sunshine Pop” band The Mamas & the Papas—members John Phillips, Michelle Phillips, Cass Elliot, and Denny Doherty, shown above—close the three-day event on June 18. The festival launches Janis Joplin to stardom, and formally introduces Jimi Hendrix to America—who is welcomed onstage by Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones as the “most exciting performer [he had] ever heard.” Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway (left) star in Bonnie and Clyde—with a distinct uptick in graphic violence, the film marks a shift in American cinema, influencing later directors such as Francis Ford Coppola and Quentin Tarantino. McDonald’s Big Mac sandwich arrives after two previous launches had failed—during…

The Geneva Accords, signed on July 20, 1954, ended the Indochina War. The Accords established a demarcation line along the 17th parallel, dividing Vietnam into two political entities: the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) and the State of Vietnam (South Vietnam). Partition was intended as a temporary expedient pending elections in July 1956 to determine if both populations wanted unification. South Vietnam’s prime minister, Ngo Dinh Diem, a hardline Catholic, fervent nationalist, and committed anti-communist, was immediately faced with domestic turmoil caused by armed militias threatening the new government. However, the fledgling army had four battalions of well-trained, well-disciplined paratroopers who helped defeat the most dangerous private army, establishing Diem as the undisputed leader of South Vietnam. Disregarding the mandate for joint elections, the prime minister organized a countrywide…

Among other responses to North Vietnam’s invasion of South Vietnam on March 30, 1972, U.S. President Richard Nixon announced on May 8 the full resumption of bombing North Vietnam’s supply centers and logistical routes. That same day, McDonnell F-4 Phantom IIs of both the U.S. Air Force and Navy battled Mikoyan-Gurevich fighters of the Vietnam People’s Air Force, which included their first encounter with Shenyang J-6s (Chinese license-built MiG-19s). Escorting a strike on the Thac Ba hydroelectric plant, Maj. Barton P. Crews of the 13th Tactical Fighter Squadron, 432nd Tactical Reconnaissance Wing, with Capt. Keith W. Jones Jr. serving as his weapons systems operator (WSO), got into a confused dogfight with J-6s of the 925th Fighter Regiment (FR) near Yen Bai airfield, during which he saw a yellow parachute and…

In a succinct but enlightening account, author Albert Grandolini illustrates the last days of South Vietnam in Target Saigon 1973-75, Vol. 4: The Final Collapse, April-May 1975. Relying on a vast array of Vietnamese sources, Grandolini provides a refreshing and rarely seen perspective of the end of the Vietnam War from both the North Vietnamese and South Vietnamese viewpoints. Grandolini paints a clear and detailed picture of the higher strategy behind the war’s final battles from the standpoints of commanders on both sides, which is fascinating. Maps and many rarely seen images of Vietnamese troops illustrate the engaging and interesting narrative. The highlight of the book, in this reviewer’s opinion, is Chapter 4: “Last Stand at Xuan Loc.” In it, Grandolini describes the truly courageous and tenacious last stand of…

A new memorial to honor the members of the Laotian Hmong community who fought and died for the U.S. in the Vietnam War is being planned for Westminster, Colo., a suburb of Denver. The National Lao-Hmong Memorial will commemorate the tens of thousands of ethnic Hmong in Laos recruited by the CIA who fought alongside the United States in its “Secret War” against communist North Vietnam from 1961-1975. The Hmong Special Guerrilla Group (SGU) first served as foot soldiers in the early 1960s as part of the U.S. effort to disrupt the flow of communist soldiers and arms along the Ho Chi Minh Trail into South Vietnam. In 1967, select SGU fighters trained under CIA guidance in Thailand as pilots on single-propeller T-28 fighter-bombers within the Royal Lao Air Force,…

This bowl and spoon were among the few personal items that POWs taken captive by North Vietnam were allowed to keep. No forks or knives were given to the men. POWs were malnourished and deprived of food. The food they did receive was most often putrid and dirty. According to former POW Everett Alvarez, some examples of food served to prisoners included dead birds with feathers still on, chicken heads, animal hooves in drain water, and greens drawn from the river where locals disposed of wastewater. Needless to say, the POWs became ill, either vomiting from trying to eat the so-called food or from not eating it. Many POWs lost their lives as they were starved and subjected to torture.…

Pitted against the combined arms capabilities of the U.S. military, the light infantry forces of the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army developed a variety of tactics to minimize the destructive effects of American firepower. Staying close to or “hugging” American units in battle (also known as “grabbing or clinging to the enemy’s belt”), a tactic the Viet Minh employed in the First Indochina War, was arguably one of the most effective. Gen. Nguyen Chi Thanh formalized the use of “hugging” tactics while serving as party secretary of the communist Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN) in 1965. Thanh, upon learning that a squad leader in a Viet Cong main-force regiment had shouted, “Grab the enemy’s belts to fight them,” while fighting the South Vietnamese, ordered all communist units…

The column of buses groaned to a halt near the bomb-cragged hangar at Hanoi’s Gia Lam Airport just after noon on Feb. 12, 1973. The men inside were the first 116 American POWs slated for repatriation. Some 700 miles south, another 27 captives of the Viet Cong were scheduled for release at Loc Ninh, South Vietnam. At the head of the line, the first 20 U.S. servicemen sat in expectant silence. For the most part, these were the “Old Timers”—those held longest in North Vietnam’s notorious Hoa Lo prison, sardonically dubbed the “Hanoi Hilton” by inmates. As a matter of code and honor, the men of the “4th Allied POW Wing,” as they had named themselves, agreed that they would accept release only in the order of capture. In the…

Pistols, like swords in the past few centuries, have usually served more as symbols of authority for officers or senior noncommissioned officers than as serious weapons. They are, however, easier to conceal than rifles when indulging in urban guerrilla missions as the Viet Cong so often did. Although primitive pistols were among the products of the VC’s cottage industry of improvised weapons, they were relatively few and short-lived as thousands of handguns became readily available from the Soviet Union, China, or, occasionally, Warsaw Pact licensees. Soviet Pistols, Leroy Thompson’s addition to Osprey’s “Weapon” series, does not focus on their use by the Vietnamese communists, but provides a detailed survey of the evolution of the Soviet handgun from its last revolver, the Belgian-designed Nagant M1895, through its successors, Fedor V. Tokarev’s…

Nicknamed “The Galloping Major,” Peter Badcoe was one of only four Australian soldiers to be awarded the Victoria Cross during the Vietnam War. Born in Malvern, South Australia, in 1934, he enlisted in the Australian Army in 1950. After graduating from Officer Cadet School in 1952, he was commissioned a 2nd lieutenant in the Royal Australian Artillery. In June 1961 Badcoe was assigned to 103 Field Battery, serving a tour in the Federation of Malaya following the conclusion of the 1948-1960 Malayan Emergency, during which Communist insurgents attempted to overthrow British colonial administration. In November 1962 he was sent from Malaya to South Vietnam for a week-long tour of temporary duty to observe operations against Viet Cong insurgents. Aggressively pursuing opportunities to gain combat experience, Badcoe spent five days in…