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Papa Bravo Romeo: U.S. Navy Patrol Boats at War in Vietnam
"Our mission was independent, no-holds-barred combat against a stubborn enemy in the enemy's backyard."
In Vietnam, river warfare was often conducted in the dark. It was always dangerous, sometimes fatal--especially in the eastern end of the Cong-plagued Mekong Delta. In 1967, U.S. Navy Lt. Wynn Goldsmith was the "river rat" who led the first MK II PBR patrol boats in brutal combat.
It was a deadly business. These sailors, famous for their courage and combat effectiveness, faced sniper bullets, machine guns, and mines while searching sampans, patrolling treacherous enemy-controlled waterways like Ambush Alley, and rescuing crews from burning boats in the middle of firefights. During the Tet Offensive, Goldsmith's area saw some of the most hotly contested fighting in the entire Mekong Delta. This gripping account is a tribute to these brave men and their agony, sacrifice, and heroism.
In Vietnam, river warfare was often conducted in the dark. It was always dangerous, sometimes fatal--especially in the eastern end of the Cong-plagued Mekong Delta. In 1967, U.S. Navy Lt. Wynn Goldsmith was the "river rat" who led the first MK II PBR patrol boats in brutal combat.
It was a deadly business. These sailors, famous for their courage and combat effectiveness, faced sniper bullets, machine guns, and mines while searching sampans, patrolling treacherous enemy-controlled waterways like Ambush Alley, and rescuing crews from burning boats in the middle of firefights. During the Tet Offensive, Goldsmith's area saw some of the most hotly contested fighting in the entire Mekong Delta. This gripping account is a tribute to these brave men and their agony, sacrifice, and heroism.
304 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 2, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 24, 2022
An interesting subject, but I found the book a bit hard to get through and never really felt I was there with the author. Worth a read more for the details on how the PBRs were run rather than looking for a combat story
January 20, 2020
Enjoyed the book. I liked the less clinical way in which it was written.
November 11, 2022
3 1/2 Stars. Interesting topic.
January 22, 2024
Audible format
October 2, 2012
Papa Bravo Romeo is about a sailor’s experience as a PBR (Patrol Boat, River) operative during the Vietnam War. If the image that comes to your mind is the little green boat in the film, Apocalypse Now then that is basically it. This book serves as Wynn Goldsmith, a US Navy lieutenant’s memoirs during his transfer from an ocean minesweeper (MSO) to a small ‘plastic’ boat in the Viet Cong infested Mekong waterways of the Republic of Vietnam in 1967 as part of the Brown-water Navy or “river rats”. Mr. Goldsmith starts his book neatly, dealing with things usually encountered by the “river rats” and other hard military jargon that made me refer to the internet time and again.
One particular attitude of this book is that the author doesn’t hold back his views on people – people he’s working with and the people he’s working for – which, I thought was rather funny. Whether Mr. Goldsmith is just a sarcastic old timer who speaks his mind and doesn’t mince words, I will never know. But he’s certainly not the druggy draftee, nor the “gung-ho” type SEALS are usually portrayed in this book nor the detached officer hidden in some desk far from the frontlines clueless of the kind of war he’s fighting. He berates these types in this book and gives names while he’s at it. This might be a problem for some veterans and their families, but to me the honesty, albeit, candid tone of Goldsmith’s memoir is a refreshing angle of that “strange war”. It certainly does not go along disgruntled stories of Vietnam veterans who grew skeptical of the System; a reality not shared by many of their fellow veterans. Papa Bravo Romeo, isn’t a defeatist or critical book, it isn’t even emotional one, its the author’s technicality of doing his job and getting out alive.
The action gets intense in the last parts. Many of it are graphic, really graphic, and it really shows what these men really went through. Mr. Goldsmith's also encounters Special Forces (Green Beret) "advisers" with their Kit Carson scouts, and mercenaries dressed as Viet Cong for psychological warfare and has plenty of interesting to say about these people and their function. Another disturbing account was with a suspected turncoat (traitor) American; a pony-tail blond hippie - a description from one of the SEAL team probably ordered to assassinate him. However the book has always been about the PBR guys and serves to inform its readers how involved these people were in that "Strange War". They were not just transport for SEALs or any other, but were in the thick of the fighting as well even at times sitting ducks but got the job done. Without PBR fighting the tenacious enemy would have made the more far more difficult than it ever was.
One particular attitude of this book is that the author doesn’t hold back his views on people – people he’s working with and the people he’s working for – which, I thought was rather funny. Whether Mr. Goldsmith is just a sarcastic old timer who speaks his mind and doesn’t mince words, I will never know. But he’s certainly not the druggy draftee, nor the “gung-ho” type SEALS are usually portrayed in this book nor the detached officer hidden in some desk far from the frontlines clueless of the kind of war he’s fighting. He berates these types in this book and gives names while he’s at it. This might be a problem for some veterans and their families, but to me the honesty, albeit, candid tone of Goldsmith’s memoir is a refreshing angle of that “strange war”. It certainly does not go along disgruntled stories of Vietnam veterans who grew skeptical of the System; a reality not shared by many of their fellow veterans. Papa Bravo Romeo, isn’t a defeatist or critical book, it isn’t even emotional one, its the author’s technicality of doing his job and getting out alive.
The action gets intense in the last parts. Many of it are graphic, really graphic, and it really shows what these men really went through. Mr. Goldsmith's also encounters Special Forces (Green Beret) "advisers" with their Kit Carson scouts, and mercenaries dressed as Viet Cong for psychological warfare and has plenty of interesting to say about these people and their function. Another disturbing account was with a suspected turncoat (traitor) American; a pony-tail blond hippie - a description from one of the SEAL team probably ordered to assassinate him. However the book has always been about the PBR guys and serves to inform its readers how involved these people were in that "Strange War". They were not just transport for SEALs or any other, but were in the thick of the fighting as well even at times sitting ducks but got the job done. Without PBR fighting the tenacious enemy would have made the more far more difficult than it ever was.
July 10, 2011
Written by my late uncle, so I'm biased, but the book is an honest account of his time in Vietnam.
July 18, 2021
A book on the brown water Navy in the Vietnam war.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews