USAF F-105 Thunderchief vs. VPAF MiG-17 by Peter E. Davies

Author Peter E. Davies and illustrators Jim Laurier and Gareth Hector have put together another historic military aircraft comparison with USAF F-105 Thunderchief vs VPAF MiG-17, Vietnam 1965-68 (Osprey 80 pp. $22.00, paper: $10.99 Kindle), the newest book in the Osprey Duel series

Osprey books comprise a major part of Davies’ thirty published works on modern combat aircraft. The F-105 Thunderchief is a favorite subject of his. Laurier also is a frequent Osprey contributor who does ultra-realistic artwork. Digital artist Hector’s battle scenes reflect his enthusiasm for aviation history.

The book’s format follows the familiar Osprey Duel series formula. First, the design and development of the F-105 and MiG-17 are compared in a style that familiarizes readers with the planes’ cockpits and equipment, practically qualifying readers to pilot either aircraft.

Next comes an analysis of the strategic situation, explaining how North Vietnamese MiG-17s (targeted by ground controllers), SAMs, and AAA defended that nation against F-105s (escorted by F-4 Phantoms), which bombed strategic targets.

The final part of the book—which deals with combatants and their roles in air battles over North Vietnam—summarizes each side’s successes and failures.

Throughout its development and initial use in combat, according to Davies, the F-105 encountered unexpected losses due to weaknesses in its airframe and poor maneuverability. It was a far more complex machine than the MiG-17. Davies also expresses his disdain for the reticence of American political leaders to order a full-scale air war over North Vietnam, which he says came at the expense of aircrew members’ lives.

The outcome of the duels between these two formidable warplanes appears to be forever disputable mainly because many discrepancies exist within the records of the two combatants. The main problem is that North Vietnamese MiG-17 pilots are credited with F-105 kills that the official USAF records count as losses to SAMs and AAA.

Davies names jocks from both sides who scored kills, as well those who lost kills that could not be verified, and those who suffered shoot downs. Furthermore, he emphasizes missed F-105 kills caused by gun jams, lack of air-to-air missiles, gunsight problems, weapons switching delays, and gun camera malfunctions.

Of the 753 F-105D/Fs built, 393 were lost in Southeast Asia. The losses mainly resulted from a deadly combination of using the same routes and timings when re-attacking targets; the lack of air combat maneuvering training for F-105 pilots; and constantly improving North Vietnamese multi-layered air defenses.

—Henry Zeybel

A Matter of Semantics by Frank Linik

Frank Linik’s writing has appeared in several publications. A chapter of his first novel, A Matter of Semantics: A Young Officer’s Decision: Duty or Loyalty in the Vietnam War (BookBaby, 292 pp., $14.99, paper; $3.82, Kindle) was published in the literary journal Innisfree as a short story.

The author, who served as an officer with the 173^rd Airborne Division in Vietnam in 1968-69, says that his book is a work of fiction and that the characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from his imagination and are not to be construed as real. He admits, though, that the incidents he portrays are based on his experiences and those of other infantry lieutenants he knew and that the demands of storytelling caused him to craft a book that explores the impact that fighting in a war has on individuals.

Linik thanks his main character, Bill Brandt, “who led me down paths I never expected to write about and created a novel.” He also thanks the three fine battalion commanders and two captains under whom he served in Vietnam. He goes one step further and notes that he was honored to have served with fine enlisted paratroopers as a platoon leader. As his characters say in the book over and over, “Airborne!”

The book begins with Bill Brandt’s first night in Vietnam in Long Binh where he and the rest of the men being in-processed come under mortar attack. Linik does a fine job describing what it was like to experience such an attack for the first time. He and the others seek the safety of a nearby bunker, and try to help a wounded man who drowns in his own blood. Brandt’s war has begun.

Soon we learn about the Inspector General’s role in the war and are told what REMFs are. Indian Country is also presented to us, as are ham and lima beans c-rations in all their loveliness. And we are told that this is not a war, but a word game. But, of course, it is a war and the word-game aspect of it gets a lot of people killed.

Early in the book we find out that Brandt was an English major at Virginia Military Institute and studied military history as well. That helps explain why this novel is so well written and organized.

Frank Linik

The entire novel was a pleasure to read, even though I’ve read hundreds of in-country Vietnam War infantry novels and this one is not drastically different from the others—except in quality. I was grateful for the elegance and high quality of the writing.

A Matter of Semantics is self-published, and now I would like to complain about that. There should have been a publishing company eager to accept this fine novel. It is a shame that there was not.

In every way this novel stands head and shoulders with the best books written about the American war in Vietnam. Thanks to Frank Linik for writing it. I read it all in one day with great pleasure.

–David Willson

Silent Spring: Deadly Autumn of the Vietnam War by Patrick Hogan

In Silent Spring: Deadly Autumn of the Vietnam War (Whatnot Enterprises, 216 pp., $12.95, paper; $3.99, Kindle) Patrick Hogan is the best, most fact-filled current book about Agent Orange that this reviewer has encountered. Departing from some previous AO offerings that little more than chronicle the woes and health challenges of the authors—along with a litany of beefs with health-care providers, primarily the VA—Hogan goes many steps further in this second edition of his book. We reviewed the first edition on these pages in December of 2018.

Hogan does lay out the health experiences that brought him to the writing desk, but not seeking pity or sympathy. He then moves quickly into explaining the military operations that sprayed million of gallons of herbicides, insecticides, defoliants, and other generally bad stuff on the Vietnamese countryside, as well as on U.S. bases and other installations, and troops in the field.

Hogan, a life member of Vietnam Veterans of America, was motivated to dig into his subject after watching a presidential speech, and having a good buddy die of complications of Agent Orange exposure—as well as his desire to learn the details of how the spraying began and continued. He describes tactical, economic, ethical, and political decisions made on the battlefield, in the halls of Congress, and in industrial boardrooms.

And he takes us on a chemical excursion in which he spells out the main ingredients—both active and inert—that comprised Agent Orange, Agent White, and the other toxic chemicals used in the Vietnam War. Hogan also describes delivery systems and methods and compares wartime military concentrations of these toxic chemicals with peacetime commercial, agricultural, and homeowners formulations.  He also covers the laxity of handling and storage protocols.

Hogan in country during his Sept. ’66-June ’69 tour of duty

As the result of his prodigious research into recently declassified documents—many apparently strategically and widely misfiled—Hogan finds (and wrestles with) decisions that seemingly were made with little with no regard for their health consequences. Seemingly without rancor—but certainly with exasperation and incredulity—Hogan includes evidence that the government and chemical manufactures had a cover-up mentality that pervaded our wartime leadership.

He also chronicles the VA’s past actions—and inactions—in dealing with the medical claims submitted by service personnel exposed to AO and other chemicals. And he details the progress being made, including what to expect from the VA in the future with respect to Agent Orange compensation,

All in all, this is a well-researched and executed book. It is well worth reading by anyone who was exposed to Agent Orange.

The book’s website is silent-spring-deadly-autumn.com

–Tom Werzyn

Battle for Skyline Ridge by James E. Parker, Jr.

James Parker was a participant, from the Central Intelligence Agency side, in the so-called “secret war” in Laos. In Battle for Skyline Ridge: The CIA Secret War in Laos (Casemate, 288 pp., $32.95) he tells a very well-researched and annotated story of the history and development of the American attempt to fight the communist Pathet Lao during the Vietnam War—an attempt that failed as Laos (along with Cambodia) became one of the dominoes that fell following the end of the American war in Vietnam.

Parker served a 1965-66 tour of duty as an Army infantry platoon leader in the Vietnam War. He later joined the CIA in 1970 and served in Laos and Vietnam, helping evacuate Vietnamese CIA agents from Saigon in the chaotic last days of the war in April 1975. He has written a Vietnam War memoir—Last Man Out: A Personal Account of the Vietnam War (1996)—as well as two previous books on the same subject as his new one: Codename Mule: Fighting the Secret War in Laos for the CIA (1995), and Covert Ops: The CIA’s Secret War in Laos (1997).

In his new  book, Parker includes conversations and operational decisions made by the CIA about the Vietnam War. Being on the ground, and in the thick of it, he offers a unique—and a few times, overly detailed—view of the whole battlefield. He also tells lots of small stories that humanize the narrative and the participants without becoming unnecessarily chatty. His wide use of acronyms at times sent this reader scurrying back a few pages to identify things.

After telling us of a defeat of Lao forces by North Vietnamese troops on the Plain of Jars, his main story is the tale of a hundred-day battle (the longest in the Vietnam War) between North Vietnamese troops and a combined force of regular Lao troops, Thai mercenaries, indigenous Laotian Hmong, and Mountanard tribes, U.S. airp power, Air America aerial operations, and CIA case officers, operatives, and advisers—what became known as the Battle for Skyline Ridge.

This force of fewer than 6,000 fighters, led by the famed Hmong war lord, Vang Pao (right), was ultimately successful in repulsing and defeating an NVA force of more than 27,000 troops. Remarkably, anecdotes about bravery, cunning, co-operation, and support abound throughout the book. The colorfully famous CIA, and the Air America, “can do” attitude, seemed to have permeated into the assembled forces, resulting in the NVA abandoning its battle plan in what could have been a version of Dien Bien Phu.

This is a very readable account, although a lot of what Parker covers has been written about in other books about the secret war in Laos.

–Tom Werzyn

The Life of an Airborne Ranger, Book Two by Michael B. Kitz-Miller

Michael Kitz-Miller, the author of The Life of an Airborne Ranger, Book Two: Take Care of Your Men (Xlibris, 388 pp., $29.99, hardcover; $19.99, paper; $3.99 e book), informs us in his notes that the book is a work of fiction. Or as his puts it: “It is a military novel in a historic context.”

The book starts prior to the Vietnam War and continues with the conflicts in Grenada, Somalia, Panama, Kuwait, and Iraq. The author (who died July 29, 2019, at age 78) fictionalized battles and changed them to fit the character of the characters. Kitz-Miller, who enlisted in the Army and served for three years as buck sergeant with the 101st Airborne Division, used Wikipedia as his library to try to get his facts right.

The 44th Airborne Division is fictional and the organizational structure of the 75th Airborne Division has been changed to fit the story. The author credits Ayn Rand and her fiction as his inspiration and her philosophy of Objectivism as being important in forming some of his ideas.

This book is carefully composed of 55 short chapters, most of which begin with the one of the names of the two main characters: Jack and Mary Clarke. Mary Clarke is the beloved wife of the book’s hero, Jack. He is the most decorated hero of his war—or of any war that ever took place.

Jack is very modest about his decorations and often chooses not to wear them, which causes drama and discord. His modesty brings trouble to him and to those around him. But that is just the way he is. His beginnings are modest and he is self-deprecating to a fault—a fault that makes the San Andreas shrink to the size of a paper napkin by comparison.

Jack moves up to be a commander with the 75th Airborne Rangers and runs a big FTX at Ft. Benning. Daring maneuvers and key operations bring him new promotions and accolades. Mary Clarke completes her doctorate and fills large lecture halls with students eager to hear her dazzling lectures.

These heroes choose not to have any children so that their contributions to society are not diluted in any way. Mary discovers that she has inherited millions and has the responsibility for a complex estate. We part with the couple while they are discussing social metaphysics.

If you loved book number one, you’ll love this one also.  A third book is on the way.

The author’s website is kitz-millerbooks.com

–David Willson

On the Gunline by David D. Bruhn and Richard S. Mathews

On the Gunline: U.S. Navy and Royal Australian Navy Warships off Vietnam, 1965-1973 (Heritage Books, 374 pp., $37.50, paper) is a history of the 270 American and Aussie blue water navy ships that took part in the Vietnam War by retired U.S. Navy Cmdr. David D. Bruhn and retired Senior Chief Petty Officer Richard S. Mathews

This book is a very complete and detailed history of the contribution the Navy surface warship played in the war. The Gunline was parallel to the South and North Vietnamese coastline, about 4,000 yards offshore. Ships on the Gunline were assigned circular stations about 2,000 yards apart and designated by color code. This armada of warships provided naval gunfire support, anti-infiltration cover, and coastal surveillance operations in support of the troops on the ground in Vietnam.

Bruhn—the author of a 2012 book on Vietnam War Navy minesweepers—addresses several controversial events that occurred during the war, including the captain of the USS Vance, Marcus Aurelius Arnheiter, being relieved of his command in 1966,and the 1969 collision of the Australian aircraft carrier the HMAS Melbourne and the American destroyer the U.S.S. Frank E. Evans, in which seventy-four Evans crew members lost their lives.

He also details how the Navy placed 8,000 mines as part of a blockade in 1972, and the resulting destruction of the U.S .destroyer Warrington when it accidentally ran into the mines. In addition, he addresses Operation Frequent Wind in 1975 in which “a massive assembly of aircraft and ships” helped evacuate 7,800 South Vietnamese as the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese took over the country.

This is a very well-researched book. I recommend it for anyone who served in the Navy during this period and those interested in Vietnam War history general.

The author’s website is davidbruhn.com

–Mark S. Miller

 

Letters to Pat by Bill Eshelman

Retired Marine Corps Major Gen. Bill Eshelman dedicates his book, Letters to Pat: A Year in the Life of a Vietnam Marine (Koehler Books, 182 pp. $26.95, hardcover; $16.95, paper; $7.99, Kindle), to his wife who “lived through the war” by reading the letters he wrote home.

Eshelman graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1959, then went into the Marines, becoming an instructor at The Basic School at Quantico. He enjoyed training young Marines to lead other young Marines, but once the men were sent to Vietnam, he decided to serve there as well. Eshelman hoped he could become an infantry company commander to be tested in combat.

Since he already was a captain, Eshelman feared he would be promoted too quickly to get much time in as a CO, so before being sent to Vietnam he requested training at Ft. Bragg’s school for advisers. He believed if he could be an adviser to a South Vietnamese unit it would ensure that he got more of a “first-hand look at the war.”

Arriving outside Da Nang in October of 1967 Eshelman was determined to relay his day-to-day thoughts on the war as he was living it by penning regular letters to his wife. In his book he adds notes from his combat journal to the two hundred or so letters.

His first job was as a battalion logistics officer, resupplying all battalion units with ammo, explosives, and other materiel. The battalion’s main mission seemed to be keeping the Da Nang airfield from being rocketed and keeping Highway 1 open to the north.

Being promoted to major, Eshelman became especially upset over all the paperwork his job entailed “to appease higher HQ.” Much of it involved incidents between Marines and Vietnamese citizens. Eshelman thought the cases were often unfair because the Marines were always required to prove their innocence.

Before long, he was sent south to III Corps to be a senior adviser with the 4th Battalion Vietnamese Marine Corps (VNMC). He was happy serving with Vietnamese troops because he knew that if “the war if it is to be won,” the South Vietnamese would have to do it, “not the U.S. Marine Corps.” During his time in Vietnam Eshelman saw combat action in all four Corp areas and was constantly running into men he knew back in the States.

During the major 1968 Tet Offensive Eshelman saw a great deal action in both Saigon and Hue. He used these letters home as a “way of letting off steam.” There were times when he and his men took part in operations in which they “swam more than we walked,” he writes, and times they had the simple pleasure of eating a fresh pineapple.

Capt. Eshelman in Vietnam

He left South Vietnam in October 1968 for Thailand and carried one big takeaway from the war. Eshelman believed that the American advisory effort probably prolonged the war, maybe making it unwinnable, because it failed to give the South Vietnamese military a big enough role in over-all decision making.

This is an important addition to books covering what happened in the Vietnam War in 1967-68 and to those dealing with the relationship between the U.S. and South Vietnamese military.

The book’s website is letterstopat.com

–Bill McCloud

Survival Uncertain By Lee Cargill

In writing about the Vietnam War experiences of eight 1963 U.S. Naval Academy graduates in Survival Uncertain (253 pp. $27.95, hardcover; $15.95, paper), Lee Cargill focuses on Lt. Jim Kelly Patterson, the only one that did not return home.

Cargill thoroughly describes the sustained but unsuccessful effort to rescue Patterson, the navigator and bombardier of an A-6A Intruder that was shot down by a Soviet SA-2 SAM missile on May 19, 1967. The plane’s pilot became a prisoner of war for six years, but Patterson simply disappeared.

Cargill broadly speculates about Patterson’s destiny, including the idea that he became “Moscow Bound”—traded to the Soviet Union by heavily indebted North Vietnam. Extensive post-war searches in Vietnam have failed to resolve Patterson’s fate, and he has attained legendary stature, although officially listed as KIA.

Among the seven other men (including himself) Cargill writes about, four were pilots, two served aboard ships, and one was a road construction engineer. Aside from being in the USNA Class of ’63, all of the men took part in Cargill’s wedding party at Annapolis on graduation day.

The men speak for themselves with Cargill providing continuity. Their stories are exciting, particularly those dealing with search-and rescue-missions. A few of them were troubling, however, such as a helicopter pilot reporting: “[We] knew the location of the downed pilot but were not allowed to enter the airspace over North Vietnam until clearance was received from Washington, DC, which took over an hour.”

The participants do not make a big issue about the voids in leadership and unproductive tactics because such stories often have been told before. Nevertheless, the rancor felt for higher headquarters mismanagement persists.

Cargill completes the book’s combat action with an appendix that provides details about the combat deaths of members of the USNA Class of 1963.

Capt. Cargill

As a postscript, Cargill discusses court martial charges that he and five others faced based on a sailor’s death aboard the USS Ranger aircraft carrier in 1981. His study of the case provides a detailed look into the military justice system.

As the ship’s XO, Cargill was found not guilty of all charges. The administrative aftermath of the case, however, effectively ended Capt. Cargill’s career progression, and he chose an early retirement from the Navy.

Survival Uncertain confirms the camaraderie and mutual esteem that Annapolis graduates have for each other. Their unified spirit forms a foundation for Navy operations, most effectively during desperate times.

Profits from sale of the book will be donated to non-profit organizations that benefit young people, Cargill says.

The book’s website is https://survival-uncertain.com/

—Henry Zeybel

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lost in Dalat by James Luger

Vietnam War veteran James Luger’s new novel, Lost in Dalat: The Courage of a Family Torn by War (High Flight, 298 pp. $12.95; paper; $5.95, Kindle), introduces the reader to Meggon Mondae (love that name), whose father went missing in action in Vietnam just before she was born.

The story begins as Meggon’s seven-year marriage ends and she finds herself thinking of her father whose body was never recovered after one of the last big battles of the war in early 1972. Having a father she never knew listed as an MIA in the war left “a hole” in her heart.

The first few pages make pretty uncomfortable reading as we witness a marriage spat that nearly turns into a declaration of domestic war. Finding herself in the throes of a messy divorce—and with additional problems at work—Meggon begins thinking more and more of her father. She enlists the help of a veteran who places a notice in the locator section of a veterans magazine asking if anyone remembers serving with her father.

After a few weeks, she hears from a man who tells her that he saw “where he fell.” The veteran says it was in the Central Highlands, just west of the mountain city of Dalat. He says he last saw her father trying to help an injured buddy before they disappeared after a grenade explosion.

With this information, Meggon ponders going to Vietnam to visit the general location where her father fell. She hopes this will help her connect with him more. Meggon’s first inkling of going to Vietnam doesn’t come until nearly half-way through the book

Traveling alone, she arrives in Ho Chi Minh City and quickly learns that most Vietnamese people still call it Saigon. She also discovers that what she had always known as the Vietnam War is actually is called the American War in Vietnam by the Vietnamese. A highlight of this book is Luger’s depiction of food and drink and details of Vietnamese life today.

Once she gets to Dalat, Meggon deals with people who cheat her, only to be victimized by a shakedown at the hands of a local government official—not once, but twice. She’s informed that the corruption is “a system we are used to.” Wanting to immediately return home, Meggon ends up being befriended by someone who takes her to a small mountain known locally as “Massacre Mountain” because of the number of American soldiers who died on it one night.

She’s told: “You are standing on the same ground your father walked on.”

Jim Luger

At that point the story begins to go off the rails, though anything can happen in a fictional world. Our heroine becomes romantically entangled with a local businessman, sets off an international incident, and—with bullets flying—desperately tries to escape the country.

She tells one character, “If you want to fight until we’re both destroyed, then let’s go.”

The story is well-told and the book is well written, yet it remains an “entertainment” and does nothing to advance the story of our nation’s Vietnam War experience.

Jim Luger is a life member of Vietnam Veterans of America. His website is jamesluger.com

–Bill McCloud

From the West Side to the Wardroom by Matthew J. Coffey

With the days dwindling down to a precious few for many Vietnam War veterans, the urge to tell all grows more compelling. A third generation sailor, Mathew J. Coffey, fulfills a need to recognize his family’s military achievements in his new memoir, From the West Side to the Wardroom: An Irish-American Journey (Xlibris, 142 pp. $26.95, hardcover; $16.95, paper; $3.99 Kindle).

Coffey, a member of Vietnam Veterans of America, spent his one-year, 1968-69 tour of duty as a lieutenant aboard the USS Caddo Parish (LST-515), a World War II Class 491 LST that arrived in Vietnam in December 1965. Coffey recounts his wartime experiences in the middle part of the book. After four years of active duty, Coffey spent twenty years in the Navy Reserves and retired as a Captain.

With three-to-four page vignettes, Coffey sandwiches descriptions of his Navy hitch between slices of stories about his pre-war and post-war lives. He also includes details of the war-time achievements of his grandfather and father, veterans of the two World Wars.

To me, the book’s greatest value lies in Coffey’s reflections about people, events, and places from the past. For example, he vividly and evocatively describes a tough Italian Catholic chaplain, a bizarre funeral, and, of course, his ship’s wardroom. His short stories provide an education in themselves.

The Caddo Parrish in Vung Tau, South Vietnam, 1969

The book concludes with “The Pass Down Log”—a stage play with a cast of Matthew, his wife, father, and grandfather—which zeroes in on dynamic times in the family’s  history.

All proceeds from sale of the book go to an eighty-two-year-old priest—one of Coffey’s former high school teachers in Mineola, New York—who today works with poor people in Vietnam.

—Henry Zeybel