Dak to: The 173d Airborne Brigade in South Vietnam's Central Highlands, June-November 1967

by Edward F. Murphy

Uses interviews with over eighty survivors to recount one of the bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War

Genres: War, Military Fiction, History, Nonfiction

355 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1993

Reviews

[ED Anthony · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely remarkable, well written, accurate story of one of the major battles of the Vietnam War.
I own a signed hard copy of this book and it one of my prized possessions. I describes most all the actions I participated in during my time in the best separate infantry brigade ever fielded by the United States Army. I served in the 173rd Airborne Brigade (Separate) on my third Vietnam tour from Apr 67 thru Apr 68. I am intimately familiar with the Battle of the Slopes, the Battle of Dak To, the attack on Tuy Hoa during TET, and many other actions we were engaged In with the NVA. The soldiers I served with were truly extraordinary. As I am fortunate to have survived these and many other actions, I am indebted to all the many soldiers that gave the ultimate sacrifice that allowed me to reach the tender age of 80 and am still driving on. I think of them every day... AIRBORNE!

[Edward P · Rating 5 out of 5]

Page turner and heart breaker

I was in the initial deployment of the 173d when it left Okinawa on May 5, 1965 and set up operations at Bien Hoa. This action in this book took lace after I was discharged in November, 1966. I had only heard a few stories of Dak To and hill 875 and was basically ignorant of the hell that took place on that hill. I am grateful for this book and the author spending much time with sources. I am 82 years old and finally was able to confront what happened.

[Thomas Kanyak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ive been an avid reader of military history my entire life, but never have I been as horrified and sickened, on several levels, by an war account as i was reading Dak To. The 173rd Aurborne. slugging it out with the NVA in the impossibly dense jungles of the central highlands of South Vietnam in the summer and Fall of 1967. You've been warned.

[Scott Meyerson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding, unbelievable

A truly remarkable story of courage. Well written and describes what these young warriors endured while serving their country in a land no-one would understand unless they where there.

[EJ Natale · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author shifts acronyms.

[Michael Burnam-Fink · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brigade size actions are difficult to write about. Too big to gain a really intimate portrait of the men, they're also too small to reveal much strategy. Murphy does his best, focusing on the 173rd Airborne Brigade in the desperate fighting around Dak To in November of 1967. Heavy North Vietnamese forces were entrenched on a group of hills in the Central Highlands, and the Sky Soldiers of the 173rd were brought in to the destroy them. The ensuing close combat was vicious: NVA bunkers nearly negated American firepower, and it came down to riflemen in dense jungle and steep hills, with mortars falling all about. The men fought and died for each other over a set of hills designated solely by number. The result was a microcosm of Westmoreland's attrition strategy. Several of the NVA regiments involved were wrecked, able to do little more than reorganize in Laos for a year, but the 173rd also had its guts ripped out. The terrain meant nothing.

Murphy does his best to depict them men, although we get only a paragraph or two for most of them. It's difficult to track the overall course of the campaign. The closest comparison I can think of is to this book is We Were Soldiers Once... and Young, and while it's unfair, We Were Soldiers Once is far superior.