Innholdsfortegnelse for Summer 2023 i Vietnam

www.historynet.com/loc-ninharmored-cav PLUS! Today in History What happened today, yesterday—or any day you care to search. Daily Quiz Test your historical acumen—every day! What If? Consider the fallout of historical events had they gone the ‘other’ way. Weapons & Gear The gadgetry of war—new and old—effective, and not-so effective. HISTORYNET Now! Sign up for our FREE e-newsletter, delivered twice weekly, at historynet.com/newsletters HISTORYNET VISIT HISTORYNET.COM…

The next time you talk to someone of a younger generation about the war, you can rightfully tell them that we actually used computers in Vietnam. It was my job to repair them. I believe the FADAC computer was the first standalone digital computer ever used by the Army in a combat environment. The FADAC was developed to be used in the field to compute artillery firing data. It was supposed to replace the manual process used at the time to set the guns. It even had the capacity to enter weather information collected by weather balloons. I was drafted into the Army on July 3, 1968. I had been working as a computer programmer for Sears, Roebuck and Co. I was initially assigned to radio repair school at Fort…

A Cessna O-2’s night reconnaissance mission turned tragic on Christmas Day, 1967. Near the Demilitarized Zone, Maj. Jerry Sellers (pilot) and Capt. Richard Budka (observer) received a radio message about a ground patrol in trouble. Quickly flying towards the area, Sellers turned on his landing lights to direct fire from a nearby AC-47 gunship towards the enemy—putting himself and Budka at high risk. Hit by ground fire, the subsequent crash killed both men. Sellers was posthumously awarded the Air Force Cross. The crew’s bravery allowed the ground patrol to return to safety. Forward Air Controllers (FACs) were integral to America’s war effort in Vietnam, using various aircraft. One such aircraft—the Cessna O-2—was a modified civilian 337 Skymaster and flew a wide range of missions during the war. Then-Lt. Mike Jackson’s…

As dawn broke over Quang Nhai Province on Aug. 18, 1965, the political officers of the 1st Viet Cong Regiment looking on from the village of Van Tuong were startled to see an American naval force anchored just off the South China Sea coast. Within an hour, landing craft began disembarking riflemen from 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment onto the shore—dubbed Green Beach—adjacent to the small fishing village of An Cuong. Four miles west, on a swath of land pummeled by artillery, airstrikes, naval gunfire, and napalm, Marines from 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment were lifted by helicopter into three north-to-south landing zones at one-mile intervals. The 3rd Battalion’s M Company moved south from the Marine air base at Chu Lai and established a mile-long blocking position north of the…

Kevin “Dasher” Wheatley was the first Australian soldier to be awarded the Victoria Cross during the Vietnam War. Born in a suburb of Sydney in 1937, he enlisted in the Australian Army at age 19. He trained as an infantryman and served a combat tour with the 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment in Malaya between 1957 and early 1959. Advancing through the ranks to Warrant Officer Class 2, he deployed to South Vietnam in 1965, assigned to the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam. Wheatley earned the nickname “Dasher” due to his rugby skills and was known for his compassionate streak. He was once punished for going AWOL to save a stray dog and gave treats to local children in Vietnam. “He was a hard man, but there was a big…

Your article in the Winter 2023 issue of Vietnam magazine [“The Enemy Listened In”] prompted a memory from when I attended the Infantry Officer Basic Course at Fort Benning in 1978. During our class on OPSEC, the instructors played a film clip with audio that showed an example of Imitative Communication Deception (ICD). The command group of a U.S. infantry battalion conducting a sweep in Tay Ninh Province along the Cambodian border were reacting to an “Australian voice” warning the Americans that they were “stepping into their AO” and requesting they establish a “liaison” to deconflict operations. The film clip showed the confusion that followed as the command group attempted to verify the friendly unit and its location with higher headquarters. The instructors familiar with the incident stated the delay…

Apollo 11 propels astronauts Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin (above) to the moon—a staggering 953,054 miles from home. Cultural aftershocks are many and include David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” and Gil Scott-Heron’s spoken-word poem “Whitey on the Moon,” spotlighting racial inequality in the United States. The phrase “If they can send a man to the Moon, why can’t they …?” has since become part of American vernacular. Natalie Wood (second from left) stars with Elliott Gould, Robert Culp, and Dyan Cannon in Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice. New York Times film critic Vincent Canby wrote at the time, “Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice are conceived as cheerful but humorless boobs, no more equipped to deal with their sexual liberation than Lucy and Desi and…

Vietnam was a non-linear war. There were no front lines with enemies on one side and friendlies on the other. Tactical problems could become very complex, with the enemy potentially in any or all directions. It was vital to be able to observe and fire 360 degrees all-around. Although atypical of most 20th-century warfare, those conditions were not necessarily unique to military history. Perhaps the closest American experience was the Indian Wars of the 19th century—with isolated forts established to control certain areas and provide security to overland travel routes and civilian settlements in the sector. One solution to the Vietnam War tactical problem was the fire support base (or firebase). Most 19th-century forts were isolated and had to be self-sufficient. Thanks to 20th-century technology, the firebases used by the…

Phu Bai was a raw, unpolished Marine Corps base. Many of the structures were only tents or dilapidated buildings. The airport could handle jets, but all the facilities were primitive. Our “home sweet home” was two or three rows of plywood and screened-in buildings with tin roofs. Each building had room for 15 cots. The living conditions were very poor, but it beat being in the field and sleeping on the ground. We didn’t have to worry much about being shot here. On the other side of the base, there was a PX that sold cases of soda and other necessities. On Sept. 28, 1967, my friend Gordon “Gus” Gustafson and I decided we would walk the half-mile to the PX and buy some goodies. There wasn’t a road. We…

Assuming command of the 4th Infantry Division in early January 1967, Maj. Gen. William R. Peers understood that his new assignment in the Central Highlands was something of an economy-of-force operation. The 4th was to monitor the Cambodian border, sound the alarm whenever the North Vietnamese Army returned in strength, and respond accordingly. Lt. Gen. Stanley Larsen, then the commander of I Field Forces responsible for the Highlands, recommended using spoiling operations to keep the North Vietnamese off balance. “If you ever let him get set,” Larsen had cautioned Peers’ predecessor, Maj. Gen. Arthur Collins Jr., “you’re going to pay hell getting him out.” Collins initiated Operations Paul Revere IV and Paul Revere V (later renamed Sam Houston), the latter just two days before he turned the division over to…

There has been no shortage of literature about the North Vietnamese Army’s final advance on Saigon and the many and varied means by which the last withdrawing Americans got various South Vietnamese out of town before the Presidential Palace sprouted the gold star on a red and blue field of the Viet Cong (soon to be permanently replaced by the gold star on red of a united Socialist Republic of Vietnam). Each is about as personal as every participant’s story. Ralph White’s memoir Getting Out of Saigon is no exception—which is to say that it’s its own sort of exceptional. White was an employee at Chase Manhattan Bank’s Bangkok branch when higher-ups gave him a special assignment in April 1975: Keep Chase’s Saigon branch open as long as possible and,…

The Navy has announced that a new guided-missile destroyer will be named for Vietnam veteran Capt. Thomas Gunning Kelley, whose selfless bravery in the face of enemy fire earned him the Medal of Honor in 1970. Kelley, born in Boston in 1939, joined the Navy as a lieutenant in 1960 and volunteered for service in Vietnam. On June 15, 1969, Kelley, commanding River Assault Division 152, was leading an effort to extract infantry soldiers from a riverbank in Kien Hoa Province when his column of eight boats came under heavy fire from the Viet Cong. Kelley exposed his boat to enemy attack while protecting his men and directing a counterassault. A shell exploded nearby, severely injuring Kelley in the head and eventually leading to the loss of his eye, but…

In late August 1972, a KC-135 responded to a “mayday” call from a heavily damaged F-4D Phantom rapidly losing fuel. The tanker turned toward the fighter, guided it to rendezvous, and started pumping more fuel than the Phantom was losing. The fighter landed safely 30 minutes later. That unidentified Phantom pilot was one among hundreds saved by aerial refueling during the Vietnam War. Unheralded but not unappreciated, America’s tanker crews delivered over 1.6 billion gallons of jet fuel to the attack aircraft, bombers, and fighters of the war. The U.S. Air Force’s KC-135 Stratotanker provided most of that fuel. The KC-135 is based on the Boeing 707-80 commercial airline flight demonstrator. Boeing submitted a tanker variant as part of its bid for the Strategic Air Command’s (SAC) 1954 contract for…

Sampans glide silently in the darkness over an inland waterway in North Vietnam’s Red River Delta. Five Frenchmen and 120 Vietnamese commandos are on their way to make a deep behind-the-lines raid on Ho Chi Minh’s communist Viet Minh guerrillas. Their mission involves collecting intelligence, seizing prisoners for interrogation, and sowing confusion behind enemy lines. Among these nocturnal predators are many former Viet Minh fighters captured by the French. The lone French officer and his NCOs operate in the knowledge that they may be killed by their own men at any time. This was life for the French commandos in North Vietnam from 1951 to 1954, predecessors of the American Green Berets. When Gen. Jean de Lattre de Tassigny became commander-in-chief of the French Far East Expeditionary Corps in December…

Special operations missions are the stuff of legend. Shrouded in secrecy, these dangerous assignments are fit to be undertaken only by warriors who have proved they can excel at what others find impossible. Sometimes secrecy can give rise to myths. But there are no myths in John L. Plaster’s fine book, SOG: A Photo History of the Secret Wars—the incredible stories of heroism, sacrifice, and daring are all based firmly on fact and enriched with source materials provided by the men themselves. Consisting of volunteers from elite special operations units across the spectrum of the U.S. military—such as the Army Green Berets, Navy SEALs, and Marine recon units—the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam-Studies and Observation Group (known by its acronym SOG) was an ultra-secret force that was practically invisible to all.…

I can say without hesitation that SOG Kontum: Top Secret Missions in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia 1968-1969 by Joe Parnar and Robert Dumont is one of the best histories assembled by Vietnam War veterans that I have ever read. This is an ideal companion book to John Plaster’s SOG: A Photo History of the Secret Wars, which we profiled in our portfolio. This book is a very moving tribute to the heroism of the top-secret unit based on research and oral histories gathered from SOG veterans themselves. It is true that Special Forces fighters draw admiration for their toughness, grit, and prowess in the field of battle—and there is plenty of that to be found in the book. Those who love soldier stories as much as this reviewer will find…