The Eleven Days of Christmas

The Eleven Days of Christmas
Author: Marshall L. Michel (III)
Publisher: Encounter Books
Total Pages: 346
Release: 2002
Genre: History
ISBN: 1893554279

In December 1972, with an increasingly dovish Congress preparing to cut off all funding for the war in Vietnam, President Richard Nixon ordered the bombing of Hanoi by the Strategic Air Command's "big stick," its fleet of B-52 bombers. Never before had a B-52 been lost in combat, but the North Vietnamese SAM missile crews knocked them out of the sky in the first days of the engagement. Despite the losses, the surviving bombers kept coming, inflicting huge losses on the North Vietnamese. For eleven days the momentum swung back and forth, moving from what appeared to be a certain U.S. triumph, to a possible North Vietnamese victory, to the ultimate ambiguous denouement in which both sides won and lost.

America's Last Vietnam Battle

America's Last Vietnam Battle
Author: Dale Andradé
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Total Pages: 566
Release: 2000-12-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 0700611312

In the spring of 1972, North Vietnam launched a massive military offensive designed to deliver the coup de grace to South Vietnam and its rapidly disengaging American ally. But an overconfident Hanoi misjudged its opponents who, led by American military advisers and backed by American airpower, were able to hold off the North's onslaught in what became the biggest battle of a very long war. Dale Andrade rescues this epic engagement from its previous neglect to tell a riveting tale of heroism against great odds. Originally published in cloth in 1995 as Trial by Fire and drawing upon recent Vietnamese-language sources, this new paperback edition will finally allow a true classic on the war to reach the wide readership it deserves.

Last Men Out

Last Men Out
Author: Bob Drury
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2012-04-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 143916102X

"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.

A Better War

A Better War
Author: Lewis Sorley
Publisher: HMH
Total Pages: 547
Release: 1999-06-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 0547417454

“A comprehensive and long-overdue examination of the immediate post–Tet offensive years [from a] first-rate historian.” —The New York Times Book Review Neglected by scholars and journalists alike, the years of conflict in Vietnam from 1968 to 1975 offer surprises not only about how the war was fought, but about what was achieved. Drawing from thousands of hours of previously unavailable (and still classified) tape-recorded meetings between the highest levels of the American military command in Vietnam, A Better War is an insightful, factual, and superbly documented history of these final years. Through his exclusive access to authoritative materials, award-winning historian Lewis Sorley highlights the dramatic differences in conception, conduct, and—at least for a time—results between the early and later years of the war. Among his most important findings is that while the war was being lost at the peace table and in the U.S. Congress, the soldiers were winning on the ground. Meticulously researched and movingly told, A Better War sheds new light on the Vietnam War.

Hue 1968

Hue 1968
Author: Mark Bowden
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
Total Pages: 676
Release: 2017-06-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 0802189245

The author of Black Hawk Down vividly recounts a pivotal Vietnam War battle in this New York Times bestseller: “An extraordinary feat of journalism”. —Karl Marlantes, Wall Street Journal In Hue 1968, Mark Bowden presents a detailed, day-by-day reconstruction of the most critical battle of the Tet Offensive. In the early hours of January 31, 1968, the North Vietnamese launched attacks across South Vietnam. The lynchpin of this campaign was the capture of Hue, Vietnam’s intellectual and cultural capital. 10,000 troops descended from hidden camps and surged across the city, taking everything but two small military outposts. American commanders refused to believe the size and scope of the siege, ordering small companies of marines against thousands of entrenched enemy troops. After several futile and deadly days, Lieutenant Colonel Ernie Cheatham would finally come up with a strategy to retake the city block by block, in some of the most intense urban combat since World War II. With unprecedented access to war archives in the United States and Vietnam and interviews with participants from both sides, Bowden narrates each stage of this crucial battle through multiple viewpoints. Played out over 24 days and ultimately costing 10,000 lives, the Battle of Hue was by far the bloodiest of the entire war. When it ended, the American debate was never again about winning, only about how to leave. A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist in History Winner of the 2018 Marine Corps Heritage Foundation Greene Award for a distinguished work of nonfiction

America's War in Vietnam

America's War in Vietnam
Author: Larry H. Addington
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2000-04-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 0253003210

“If you want to read one book about Vietnam, read this one.” —New York Review of Books Drawing on years of experience teaching about the war, Larry H. Addington presents a short, narrative history of the origins, course, and outcome of America’s military involvement in Vietnam. Not intended as a competitor to the many excellent comprehensive studies of the Vietnam Era, this book will prove a useful introduction and a concise reference to America’s longest, most controversial war. Addington reviews the history of pre-colonial Vietnam, the impact of French imperialism and the Indochina War, and the Cold War origins of American involvement. He then details US policy after the 1954 Geneva Accords, its role in the establishment of South Vietnam, and the outbreak of a new war. Turning to America’s deepening involvement, Addington examines the US strategies for waging air and ground war, the impact of the war at home, and the reasons for the failure of US policy under President Johnson. He studies the successes and failures of the policy of withdrawal under President Nixon and concludes with an overview of the war’s aftermath and its legacy.

Abandoning Vietnam

Abandoning Vietnam
Author: James H. Willbanks
Publisher:
Total Pages: 412
Release: 2004
Genre: History
ISBN:

Drawing upon both archival research and his own military experiences in Vietnam, Willbanks focuses on military operations from 1969 through 1975. He begins by analyzing the events that led to a change in U.S. strategy in 1969 and the subsequent initiation of Vietnamization. He then critiques the implementation of that policy and the combat performance of the South Vietnamese army (ARVN), which finally collapsed in 1975.

The American War in Contemporary Vietnam

The American War in Contemporary Vietnam
Author: Christina Schwenkel
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2009-07-13
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0253003318

Christina Schwenkel's absorbing study explores how the "American War" is remembered and commemorated in Vietnam today -- in official and unofficial histories and in everyday life. Schwenkel analyzes visual representations found in monuments and martyrs' cemeteries, museums, photography and art exhibits, battlefield tours, and related sites of "trauma tourism." In these transnational spaces, American and Vietnamese memories of the war intersect in ways profoundly shaped by global economic liberalization and the return of American citizens as tourists, pilgrims, and philanthropists.

The War Within

The War Within
Author: Tom Wells
Publisher: iUniverse
Total Pages: 727
Release: 2005
Genre: United States
ISBN: 0595343961

"An invaluable record of an unforgettable American calamity." --New York Times Book Review

Boots on the Ground

Boots on the Ground
Author: Elizabeth Partridge
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2018-04-10
Genre: Young Adult Nonfiction
ISBN: 0670785067

★ "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