Vietnam's High Ground

Vietnam's High Ground PDF Author: J. P. Harris
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700622837
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 552

Get Book Here

Book Description
During its struggle for survival from 1954 to 1975, the region known as the Central Highlands was the strategically vital high ground for the South Vietnamese state. Successive South Vietnamese governments, their American allies, and their Communist enemies all realized early on the fundamental importance of this region. Paul Harris's new book, based on research in American archives and the use of Vietnamese Communist literature on a very large scale, examines the struggle for this region from the mid-1950s, tracing its evolution from subversion through insurgency and counterinsurgency to the bigger battles of 1965. The rugged mountains, high plateaus, and dense jungles of the Central Highlands seemed as forbidding to most Vietnamese as it did to most Americans. During 1954 to 1965, the great majority of its inhabitants were not ethnic Vietnamese. Ngo Dinh Diem’s regime initially supported an American counterinsurgency alliance with the Highlanders only to turn dramatically against it. As the war progressed, however, the Central Highlands became increasingly important. It was the area through which most branches of the Ho Chi Minh Trail passed. With its rugged, jungle-clad terrain, it also seemed to the North Vietnamese the best place to destroy the elite of South Vietnam's armed forces and to fight initial battles with the Americans. For many North Vietnamese, however, the Central Highlands became a living hell of starvation and disease. Even before the arrival of the American 1st Cavalry Division, the Communists were generally unable to win the decisive victories they sought in this region. Harris's study culminates with an account of the campaign in Pleiku province in October to November—a campaign that led to dramatic clashes between the Americans and the North Vietnamese in the Ia Drang valley. Harris's analysis overturns many of the accepted accounts about NVA, US, and ARVN performances.

Vietnam's High Ground

Vietnam's High Ground PDF Author: J. P. Harris
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700622837
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 552

Get Book Here

Book Description
During its struggle for survival from 1954 to 1975, the region known as the Central Highlands was the strategically vital high ground for the South Vietnamese state. Successive South Vietnamese governments, their American allies, and their Communist enemies all realized early on the fundamental importance of this region. Paul Harris's new book, based on research in American archives and the use of Vietnamese Communist literature on a very large scale, examines the struggle for this region from the mid-1950s, tracing its evolution from subversion through insurgency and counterinsurgency to the bigger battles of 1965. The rugged mountains, high plateaus, and dense jungles of the Central Highlands seemed as forbidding to most Vietnamese as it did to most Americans. During 1954 to 1965, the great majority of its inhabitants were not ethnic Vietnamese. Ngo Dinh Diem’s regime initially supported an American counterinsurgency alliance with the Highlanders only to turn dramatically against it. As the war progressed, however, the Central Highlands became increasingly important. It was the area through which most branches of the Ho Chi Minh Trail passed. With its rugged, jungle-clad terrain, it also seemed to the North Vietnamese the best place to destroy the elite of South Vietnam's armed forces and to fight initial battles with the Americans. For many North Vietnamese, however, the Central Highlands became a living hell of starvation and disease. Even before the arrival of the American 1st Cavalry Division, the Communists were generally unable to win the decisive victories they sought in this region. Harris's study culminates with an account of the campaign in Pleiku province in October to November—a campaign that led to dramatic clashes between the Americans and the North Vietnamese in the Ia Drang valley. Harris's analysis overturns many of the accepted accounts about NVA, US, and ARVN performances.

Ia Drang 1965

Ia Drang 1965 PDF Author: J. P. Harris
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 147283514X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 97

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Pleiku campaign of October–November 1965 was a major event in the Vietnam War, and it is usually regarded as the first substantial battle between the US Army and the People's Army of Vietnam. The brigade-sized actions involving elements of the US 1st Cavalry Division at Landing Zones X-Ray and Albany in the valley of the river Drang have become iconic episodes in the military history of the United States. In 1965, in an effort to stem the Communist tide, the Americans began to commit substantial conventional ground forces to the war in Vietnam. Amongst these was the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), a new type of formation equipped with a large fleet of helicopters. On 19 October, North Vietnamese forces besieged a Special Forces camp at Plei Me, and after the base was relieved days later, the commander of the 1st Cavalry Division, General Harry Kinnard, advocated using his troops to pursue the retreating Communist forces. A substantial North Vietnamese concentration was discovered, but rather than the badly battered troops the US expected, these were relatively fresh troops that had recently arrived in the Central Highlands. On the morning of 14 November 1965, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, commanded by Lt. Col. Hal Moore, landed at LZ X-Ray to start the first major set-piece battle of the Vietnam War. This title explores the events of the campaign that followed, using detailed maps, specially-commissioned bird's-eye views, and full-colour battlescenes to bring the narrative to life.

Boots on the Ground

Boots on the Ground PDF Author: Elizabeth Partridge
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0670785067
Category : Young Adult Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 226

Get Book Here

Book Description
★ "Partridge proves once again that nonfiction can be every bit as dramatic as the best fiction."* America's war in Vietnam. In over a decade of bitter fighting, it claimed the lives of more than 58,000 American soldiers and beleaguered four US presidents. More than forty years after America left Vietnam in defeat in 1975, the war remains controversial and divisive both in the United States and abroad. The history of this era is complex; the cultural impact extraordinary. But it's the personal stories of eight people—six American soldiers, one American military nurse, and one Vietnamese refugee—that create the heartbeat of Boots on the Ground. From dense jungles and terrifying firefights to chaotic helicopter rescues and harrowing escapes, each individual experience reveals a different facet of the war and moves us forward in time. Alternating with these chapters are profiles of key American leaders and events, reminding us of all that was happening at home during the war, including peace protests, presidential scandals, and veterans' struggles to acclimate to life after Vietnam. With more than one hundred photographs, award-winning author Elizabeth Partridge's unflinching book captures the intensity, frustration, and lasting impacts of one of the most tumultuous periods of American history. *Kirkus Reviews, starred review of Marching for Freedom

Ground Pounder

Ground Pounder PDF Author: Gregory V. Short
Publisher: University of North Texas Press
ISBN: 1574414526
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 369

Get Book Here

Book Description
Previously published in 2007 by AuthorHouse under the title: Arc Light: A Marine's journey through South Vietnam.

Dangerous Grounds

Dangerous Grounds PDF Author: David L. Parsons
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469632020
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 172

Get Book Here

Book Description
As the Vietnam War divided the nation, a network of antiwar coffeehouses appeared in the towns and cities outside American military bases. Owned and operated by civilian activists, GI coffeehouses served as off-base refuges for the growing number of active-duty soldiers resisting the war. In the first history of this network, David L. Parsons shows how antiwar GIs and civilians united to battle local authorities, vigilante groups, and the military establishment itself by building a dynamic peace movement within the armed forces. Peopled with lively characters and set in the tense environs of base towns around the country, this book complicates the often misunderstood relationship between the civilian antiwar movement, U.S. soldiers, and military officials during the Vietnam era. Using a broad set of primary and secondary sources, Parsons shows us a critical moment in the history of the Vietnam-era antiwar movement, when a chain of counterculture coffeehouses brought the war's turbulent politics directly to the American military's doorstep.

Death in the Highlands

Death in the Highlands PDF Author: J. Keith Saliba
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0811768880
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 281

Get Book Here

Book Description
A history of the first engagement between the U.S. Army and the North Vietnamese Army at the beginning of the Vietnam War in 1965. In fall 1965, North Vietnam’s high command smelled blood in the water. The South Vietnamese republic was on the verge of collapse, and Hanoi resolved to crush it once and for all. The communists set their sights on South Vietnam’s strategically vital West-Central Highlands. Annihilate ARVN’s defenses in Kontum and Pleiku provinces, the communists surmised, and the region’s remaining provinces would topple like dominoes. Their first target was the American Special Forces camp at Plei Me, remote and isolated along the Cambodian border. As darkness fell on 19 October, 1965, two North Vietnamese Army regiments—some four thousand troops— crept into their final strike positions. The plan was as simple as it was audacious: one regiment would bring the frontier fortress under murderous siege while the other would lie in wait to destroy the inevitable rescue force. Initially, all that stood athwart Hanoi’s grand scheme was a handful of American Green Berets, a few hundred Montagnard allies—and burgeoning U.S. airpower. Cut off and beleaguered, Plei Me’s defenders fought for their lives, while a daring band of close air support and resupply pilots helped keep the beast at bay. But as the overland relief force bogged down, 5th Group ordered in the legendary “Chargin” Charlie Beckwith and his elite Project Delta to help hold the line. Soon, the 1st Cavalry Division would also join the fray, setting the stage for its bloody Ia Drang Valley fights a few weeks later. Before it was over, the siege of Plei Me would push its defenders to the brink and usher in the first major clashes between the U.S. and North Vietnamese armies. Drawing on archival research and interviews with combat veterans, J. Keith Saliba reconstructs this pivotal battle in vivid, gut-wrenching detail and illustrates where the siege fit in the war’s strategic picture. Praise for Death in the Highlands Winner, 2021 Gold Medal in history, Military Writers Society of America “This story has it all: the bravery and suffering of men in extreme peril and how they lived and died. Plei Me was the prelude to the bloody battles of the 1st Cavalry Division troopers in the nearby Ia Drang Valley just weeks later. Keith Saliba has done them all proud.” —Joseph L. Galloway, co-author of the New York Times bestseller We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young “Military history at its best . . . a clear, detailed, and highly readable account of an important but little understood battle of the Vietnam War.” —Col. Andrew R. Finlayson, USMC (Ret.), author of Killer Kane: A Marine Long-Range Recon Team Leader in Vietnam, 1967–1968 and winner of the CIA’s Studies in Intelligence Award

Last Men Out

Last Men Out PDF Author: Bob Drury
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 143916102X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 306

Get Book Here

Book Description
"Last Men Out" tells the riveting story of the last 11 United States soldiers to escape South Vietnam on April, 30, 1975, the day America ended its combat presence.

Vietnam

Vietnam PDF Author: Andrew Wiest
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1782003231
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 367

Get Book Here

Book Description
From Andrew Wiest, the bestselling author of The Boys of '67: Charlie Company's War in Vietnam and one of the leading scholars in the study of the Vietnam War, comes a frank exploration of the human experience during the conflict. Vietnam allows the reader a grunt's-eye-view of the conflict – from the steaming rice paddies and swamps of the Mekong Delta, to the triple-canopy rainforest of the Central Highlands and the forlorn Marine bases that dotted the DMZ. It is the definitive oral history of the Vietnam War told in the uncompromising, no-holds barred language of the soldiers themselves.

The Vietnam War

The Vietnam War PDF Author: Geoffrey Ward
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 1984897748
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 866

Get Book Here

Book Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Based on the celebrated PBS television series, the complete text of an engrossing history of America’s least-understood conflict, “a significant milestone [that] will no doubt do much to determine how the war is understood for years to come.” —The Washington Post More than forty years have passed since the end of the Vietnam War, but its memory continues to loom large in the national psyche. In this intimate history, Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns have crafted a fresh and insightful account of the long and brutal conflict that reunited Vietnam while dividing the United States as nothing else had since the Civil War. From the Gulf of Tonkin and the Tet Offensive to Hamburger Hill and the fall of Saigon, Ward and Burns trace the conflict that dogged three American presidents and their advisers. But most of the voices that echo from these pages belong to less exalted men and women—those who fought in the war as well as those who fought against it, both victims and victors—willing for the first time to share their memories of Vietnam as it really was. A magisterial tour de force, The Vietnam War is an engrossing history of America’s least-understood conflict.

U.S. Marines In Vietnam: The Landing And The Buildup, 1965

U.S. Marines In Vietnam: The Landing And The Buildup, 1965 PDF Author: Dr. Jack Shulimson
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN: 1787200833
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 666

Get Book Here

Book Description
This is the second volume in a series of chronological histories prepared by the Marine Corps History and Museums Division to cover the entire span of Marine Corps involvement in the Vietnam War. This volume details the Marine activities during 1965, the year the war escalated and major American combat units were committed to the conflict. The narrative traces the landing of the nearly 5,000-man 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade and its transformation into the ΙII Marine Amphibious Force, which by the end of the year contained over 38,000 Marines. During this period, the Marines established three enclaves in South Vietnam’s northernmost corps area, I Corps, and their mission expanded from defense of the Da Nang Airbase to a balanced strategy involving base defense, offensive operations, and pacification. This volume continues to treat the activities of Marine advisors to the South Vietnamese armed forces but in less detail than its predecessor volume, U.S. Marines in Vietnam, 1954-1964; The Advisory and Combat Assistance Era.