Military Professional Reading discussion

This thread is for members to discuss books they are reading as part of a group or buddy read.

If anyone is interested Liam and myself are going to read The Battle of An Loc sometime soon and your more than welcome to join in.

by James H. Willbanks
Description:
With the knowledge born of firsthand experience, James H. Willbanks tells the story of the 60-day siege of An Loc. In 1972, late in the Vietnam War, a small group of South Vietnamese held off three North Vietnamese divisions and helped prevent a direct attack on Saigon. The battle can be considered one of the major events during the gradual American exit from Vietnam. An advisor to the South Vietnamese during the battle, Willbanks places the battle in the context of the shifting role of the American forces and a policy decision to shift more of the burden of fighting the war onto the Vietnamese troops. He presents an overview of the 1972 North Vietnamese Easter Offensive, a plan to press forward the attack on U.S. and ARVN positions throughout the country, including Binh Long province and Saigon. The North Vietnamese hoped to strike a decisive blow at a time when most American troops were being withdrawn. The heart of Willbanks’s account concentrates on the fighting in Binh Long province, Saigon, and the siege of An Loc. It concludes with a discussion of the Paris peace talks, the significance of the fighting at An Loc, and the eventual fall of South Vietnam.

Yes, the more the merrier...

Just to get you in the mood:




A destroyed NVA T-54 tank in background at An Loc.

Hi Liam, of similar interest is this re-release of Dale Andrade's Trial by Fire: The 1972 Easter Offensive, America's Last Vietnam Battle.

by Dale Andradé

Started reading the book this morning Liam. The first two short chapters offer a nice, easy to read, and basic discussion about the situation in Vietnam prior to the Easter Offensive.

Cool; I'm a bit behind as I had to work all day Tuesday, but I should be starting it by Friday morning at the latest. I have an unread copy of the Andrade book sitting on top of a stack right next to me as I type this- perhaps that one could be next...

A good selection indeed Liam. I am pretty sure you will enjoy it.

A bit of smart thinking from the pilot of a AC-130 Spectre gunship during the fighting around Loc Ninh, from page 53:

(view spoiler)[The Spectre was prepared to provide fire support, but was unsure where the advisers were located in the compound. The pilot asked Davidson, but he was unable to sufficiently pinpoint his location. The Spectre pilot asked Davidson to start up a vehicle near his location; the sophisticated target acquisition gear on the aircraft picked up the heat signature of the engine and the Spectre's guns were able to engage without endangering the advisers. (hide spoiler)]

Yes, I've wanted to read that one since it was first published, but only just got hold of a copy a few Months ago. The first book I ever read on the Easter Offensive was G.H. Turley's memoir, , for which you may want to keep an eye out, as it was excellent. Apparently Col. Turley recently had a biography of General Alfred M. Gray ( ) published as well, which looks interesting. One of Turley's subordinates during that battle was recently the subject of a biography also: . He was the officer who earned the Navy Cross for heroism during the battle for blowing up a bridge in the face of advancing NVA armor, an incident which was the subject of yet another book some years ago, ...

OK, sounds like a few books I need to keep my eyes open for :)

Reading this book has also reminded me that I have these to read on the Easter Offensive:


by Lam Quang Thi

by Thomas P. McKenna

In chapter Five; The Opening Battle for An Loc we start hearing about the Cobra gunship squadron Blue Max. Here they are:

http://www.jetter.net/docs/army/Blue-...

And a bit of footage of Cobra's in action in Vietnam:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PtxSt...

Combat footage of the fighting for An Loc and Highway 13:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCTdsK...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW_YWs...

Something a bit off topic Liam but I can't help but think of this music when reading about Vietnam:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InRDF_...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ScisG...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1kzd-...

And so many more good songs of this period.....

I liked this section of the book taken from pages 74-75 about the appearance of NVA T-54 tanks:

(view spoiler)[ The appearance of the tanks also surprised the III Corps commander, General Minh. It is unclear why tanks at An Loc should have been such a shock; ARVN intelligence from late the previous year had indicated the presence of Communist tanks in the Kratie-Dambe-Chup area of Cambodia. In December 1971, the Intelligence Section of the Royal Khmer Armed Forces General Staff also reported approximately 30 NVA tanks in Base Area 361 near Snoul. These reports did not receive much credence at the time, because they were not confirmed by aerial photo reconnaissance missions.

Such photographic confirmation was not needed now, because the North Vietnamese T-54s were rolling down the main street of the city. (hide spoiler)]

Makes me think of the movie/book A Bridge Too Far and the German armour near Arnhem.

'Aussie Rick' wrote: "Reading this book has also reminded me that I have these to read on the Easter Offensive:


by ..."


Yeah, same here. I was really impressed with General Thi's autobiography, , and have wanted to get a copy of Hell in An Loc: The 1972 Easter Invasion and the Battle That Saved South Viet Nam ever since it was first published.

Maybe another buddy read one day down the track :)

It would seem that the NVA had a bit to learn still about coordination within an all arms assault. They appear not to have learnt that armour cannot operate by themselves in an urban environment.

'Aussie Rick' wrote: "It would seem that the NVA had a bit to learn still about coordination within an all arms assault. They appear not to have learnt that armour cannot operate by themselves in an urban environment."


Yes, well, it seems as though quite a few armies have had to learn that particular lesson the hard way, some more than once. I was just reading about the disastrous Russian assault on Grozny during the first war in Chechnya in December 1994 & January 1995, where most of an armored brigade was destroyed, including over 100 tanks. One would think that they ought to have learned that lesson previously during the many conflicts of the 20th Century they were involved in. The Russians are not the only ones, of course.
Incidentally, the reason I haven't been getting much reading done these last few days is that my wife & I made an offer on a beautiful two-story brick Edwardian house the other day and we are anxiously waiting to hear if it has been accepted. I'm so tense and stressed that I can barely concentrate on anything right now...

Hi Liam,

Fully understand your preoccupation, I hope your bid stands and you and your wife get to own that lovely two-story brick Edwardian house. I have my fingers crossed for you :)

By the way, any good recommendations for the war in Chechnya?

Liam

Good luck with the house!

The casualty rate of Cobra gunships was a lot higher than I figured for this battle, from page 78:

(view spoiler)[Over the course of the battle of An Loc, the Blue Max would be credited with destroying 20 NVA tanks, but at a terrible cost; five Cobras were shot down on 12 May alone and eight brave Blue Max crewmen (out of 32 engaged) were lost. (hide spoiler)]

Thanx, gents- much appreciated, as we need all the good luck we can get. I'll be busy praying until, God willing, we get good news... If I continue unable to concentrate on reading, perhaps I can distract myself from worrying with all these links above- thanx Rick!

Still got my fingers crossed for you Liam, I hope you get some good news soon.

I had to Google to find out what a XM202 was as mentioned on page 126. Appears to be an upgraded version of the light anti-tank weapon: M72.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M72_LAW

A very sobering account from page 155 in the book:

(view spoiler)[During the last major attack on An Loc, the NVA surrounded part of an ARVN battalion in the city jail on the night of 10-11 May. The South Vietnamese soldiers had run low on ammunition and were virtually defenseless. The NVA sent a message to the ARVN commander, telling him that he had fought well, but that he was surrounded. He could surrender with honor and be protected, but if he did not surrender, he and his soldiers would be killed. The battalion commander replied that he was not about to surrender on those terms. In a few hours, the NVA overran his position. The commander and his soldiers fought to the last man. Their bodies were found on 12 June when the 7th ARVN Regiment cleared the area in house-to-house fighting. The commander and his men had made the supreme sacrifice. (hide spoiler)]

Not sure how your going with the book Liam, any news on the house yet?

I found the last page (177 - Epilogue) pretty touching in regards to the story of the remains of Lieutenant Colonel Richard Schott. I won't say anything more in case it spoils your reading.

For those interested in further reading:

http://www.socnet.com/showthread.php?...

http://www.pownetwork.org/bios/s/s198...

http://www.historynet.com/richard-nixon

AFTER ACTION REPORT - THE BATTLE OF LOC NINH (4 - 7 APRIL 1972):

http://www.lzsally.com/archives/locni...

'Aussie Rick' wrote: "Not sure how your going with the book Liam, any news on the house yet?

I found the last page (177 - Epilogue) pretty touching in regards to the story of the remains of Lieutenant Colonel Richard ..."


I'm on p. 77 as I type this, and can now devote a bit more attention to the book as my stress level has declined considerably. I apologise for being such a boring "buddy-reader"; events conspired in this case to distract me a great deal from my reading, but it most likely won't happen again in the near future, at least not in this particular way.

As far as the house goes, our prayers were answered! Our offer was accepted Monday, and we closed Wednesday; we are now the proud owners of an absolutely beautiful house! Everything happened so fast that our heads are still spinning. It is so close to the dreams & fantasies we have had over the last twenty years that it's as if we conjured it out of our imaginations (I posted a photograph of it in my pictures section). It needs a lot of cleaning and painting, several light fixtures, and various minor repairs, but roughly 90% are things I can easily handle myself. Considering it was built in 1905, it is in amazingly good shape...

I just checked the photo out, it looks lovely. The architecture in the States is very different from Australia and my wife and I always comment on the nice looking houses when we see them in your TV shows. I'm glad to ehar it all went well, when do you move in?

No problems with the buddy read, fully understand the distraction and stress levels. Next book will be bigger so you will have more time to respond :)

Thanx Rick! We are absolutely ecstatic. We cannot "officially" move in until we make a number of repairs and get the city inspector to issue us a Certificate of Occupancy. as strange and irrational as it may seem, Detroit is notorious for being strict about that. On the other hand, the city is bankrupt, so it seems unlikely that they'll even have either the capacity or the desire to make an issue of it as long as we are clearly working on making the needed repairs, and not doing anything which is blatantly illegal or would constitute a danger to the public. I got the power turned on today, did some cleaning and made a few minor repairs. I'll be going back first thing in the morning to do some more, and hopefully I can get the water turned on as well. It is such a great feeling to have such a long-standing dream come true like this; the last four years have been difficult and depressing for us, partly because it is the longest we have ever had to live outside the city...

One of the coolest things about our new house is that there is room for me to have a really nice library- maybe even as nice as yours! One of the things I'll be doing tomorrow is measuring, so I can draw up plans for bookcases and work out how many board feet of lumber and how many screws I will need, etc.

I bet you and your wife will really enjoy setting your home up back in your favourite city. It also sounds like you will have a great time organising a room for your library, will your wife let you have one of those rooms with the bay windows?

'Aussie Rick' wrote: "I liked this section of the book taken from pages 74-75 about the appearance of NVA T-54 tanks:

The appearance of the tanks also surprised the III Corps commander, General Minh. It is unclear why..."


I wonder if this was the first time helicopters actually successfully engaged & destroyed tanks? Have you ever heard of an earlier incident? I can't think of one off the top of my head.

'Aussie Rick' wrote: "I bet you and your wife will really enjoy setting your home up back in your favourite city. It also sounds like you will have a great time organising a room for your library, will your wife let you..."


The only bay windows actually on the second floor are in the master bedroom (top right front); we also have them in the parlor (lower right front) & dining room (behind parlor). Right now I'm planning to put the library in the smaller of the two back bedrooms, because it has better light with windows on two sides. I'll be taking "before & after" photos of all the rooms, and I'll post the library pics in my photo section here...

'Aussie Rick' wrote: "I just checked the photo out, it looks lovely. The architecture in the States is very different from Australia and my wife and I always comment on the nice looking houses when we see them in your T..."


I didn't have time to respond when you posted this the other day, but I find that extremely interesting and to some extent surprising. Aside from the more-or-less "native" styles (Cape Cod, Salt Box, Federal, Spanish Colonial, etc. here in North America), I would have guessed that one would find at least all the typical British-based styles of architecture in any and all of the former colonies and/or Dominions. Now that I think of it, though, I don't recall ever reading anything specifically about Australia in that respect. What is it that is different about the architecture in Australia?

Hi Liam, in regards to Australian houses the link below is worthwhile checking out, just for the pictures. Two things about Australian houses; they were designed to combat the excessive summer heat so big long verandas to shade the windows from the sun were normal and in the inner city, a lot of the original homes were knocked down as the city grew so we don't have as many older places as we should.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australi...

'Aussie Rick' wrote: "Hi Liam, in regards to Australian houses the link below is worthwhile checking out, just for the pictures. Two things about Australian houses; they were designed to combat the excessive summer heat..."

My wife is an avid fan of the TV show "House Hunters International," in which -- often incredibly naive -- Americans move abroad and attempt to buy a house or apartment. My point -- I have seen several episodes with her involving Australia and the surprise, for me and the participants, was the very high prices of houses in Australia as compared to the U.S.

Australia has gone through a housing boom, lots of people, not enough dwellings in some of the major cities. The are now building a lot more apartments to ease the shortage but if you want a house with a garden....

'Aussie Rick' wrote: "Hi Liam, in regards to Australian houses the link below is worthwhile checking out, just for the pictures. Two things about Australian houses; they were designed to combat the excessive summer heat..."


That is really sad about the demolitions. In Detroit we have had the opposite problem- incredible architectural riches, but no money to maintain, much less restore the vast majority. I was just talking to another friend here on GR about some of the historic buildings relating to music that have recently been demolished (the Motown Center Building, Fortune Records' shop & studio) or soon will be (United Sound Studios). Notwithstanding their importance to our musical history, though, none of those were particularly noteworthy for their architecture. Just to give you an idea of the sort of thing we have all taken for granted here, if you go to Google Maps and type "4622 Second Avenue, Detroit, MI" (it's the one with the ivy & the iron fence; my wife & I lived there 2006-2009) in the search bar, click on 'Street View', and turn all the way around to face the other side of the street you will see one of the very few examples of Dutch Colonial architecture in this area, the Forest Arms. Sadly, it was partially destroyed by fire in 2008, and has yet to be repaired. If you type in "743 W. Canfield, Detroit", which is two blocks away, click on 'Street View' and you will see a beautiful stone Victorian which I have unfortunately had to watch deteriorating for over twenty years. Every other house on the block (the "Canfield Historic District") has been restored, but not that one. As you can probably tell, it makes me sick... I spent most of the last two decades living within two or three blocks of that house, and if I'd had access to anything like the amount of money it would take to restore it, I'd have bought it in a heartbeat. I won't even start on Brush Park, because it's too depressing. Actually, I'd better stop ranting, 'cause if I don't this message will be 70 pages long...

I'm just happy to have my own little piece of Detroit now, and that it is within my capability to fix it up.

I had no idea Australian architecture was so different from here; I was a bit surprised by the ornateness of the decorative elements. I see a great deal of influence from colonial India, Malaya & Singapore. Some of the styles, the Queenslander for instance, are also somewhat reminiscent of the French Colonial architecture which can to some extent still be seen in and around New Orleans here in the States.

Hi Liam,

There are some very grand looking places in Detroit when I used Google Maps to explore. It is nice to own your own bit of Detroit's history and nice if you can bring it back to its former glory!

I am damn sure you will really enjoy fixing the place up and setting up your library, make sure you do some before and after photographs!

O.k., all done with the book, finally! My short review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show....

Good review Liam, doesn't really compare with True Faith and Allegiance does it? The book offers a nice easy to read overview of the battle but didn't really draw me into the story.

by Mike McDermott

Yes, I definitely agree with you on that. I'm thinking about reading this next: . I figure it will be a nice segue, since the cover photo on Sir Robert's book is of one of the T-54s destroyed at An Loc...

That looks like an interesting book Liam and one I had not seen before. Let us know what it's like if you do read it.

Hi.

I'm a civilian lurker, popping her head up. MSSU has Peace Is Not At Hand, if anyone else would like to buddy read it after Christmas.

Theresa