Phantom Warriors: Book 2: More Extraordinary True Combat Stories from LRRPS, LRPS, and Rangers in Vietnam


Gary A. Linderer - 2001
    Vastly outnumbered, the patrols faced overwhelming odds as they fought to carry out their missions, from gathering intelligence, acting as hunter/killer teams, or engaging in infamous “Parakeet” flights– actions in which teams were dropped into enemy areas and expected to “develop” the situation. PHANTOM WARRIORS II presents heart-pounding, edge-of-your-seat stories from individuals and teams. These elite warriors relive sudden deadly firefights, prolonged gun battles with large enemy forces, desperate attempts to help fallen comrades, and the sheer hell of bloody, no-quarter combat. The LRRP accounts here are a testament to the courage, guts, daring, and sacrifice of the men who willingly faced death every day of their lives in Vietnam.From the Paperback edition.

Devil's Guard: The Real Story


Eric Meyer - 2010
    It's the first in the series to describe their events in the bloodthirsty combat of Indochina. Following the myths and legends about Nazis recruited by the French Foreign Legion to fight in Indochina, Eric Meyer's new book is based on the real story of one such former Waffen-SS man who lived to tell the tale. The Legion recruited widely from soldiers left unemployed and homeless by the defeat of Germany in 1945. They offered a new identity and passport to men who could bring their fighting abilities to the jungles and rice paddies of what was to become Vietnam. These were ruthless, trained killers, brutalised by the war on the Eastern Front, their killing skills honed to a razor's edge. They found their true home in Indochina, where they fought and became a byword for brutal military efficiency.

North SAR: A Novel of Navy Combat Pilots in Vietnam


Gerry Carroll - 1991
    . . chock full of the real stuff (Stephen Coonts)--as seen through the eyes of the Navy Combat SAR (Search and Rescue) helicopter pilots who flew many of the most dangerous missions of the war. Tom Clancy, who provides the introduction, calls North S.A.R. the best novel I have ever read.

Crossfire-An Australian Reconnaissance In Vietnam


Peter Haran - 2001
    One of this platoon’s section commanders was a 20-year old regular soldier called Bob Kearney, who led a series of deadly patrols, operating in isolation and extreme danger ahead of the main Australian forces.

Vietnam: A Tale Of Two Tours


James Mooney - 2018
    This is a detailed description of the life of one helicopter pilot and what he did in the air, on the ground, with the people during his first tour in the Central Highlands while assigned to and flying for an Infantry Division, the Cambodia Invasion, and what it was really like living in Vietnam. The second tour was in the Saigon area with an Air Cavalry Troop and recounts live for Americans at the final months of the War, final cease fire events, prisoner exchanges, life on the ground, Saigon, the final flight of combat troops to leave Vietnam and the end of American combat operations and involvement. For those who want to know what it was like to be there -- without the hidden agenda, embellishment, or hype normally associated with the Vietnam War

Fire in the Streets: The Battle for Hue, Tet 1968


Eric Hammel - 1991
    Marine Corps units in urban combat in Hue City during the 1968 Communist Tet Offensive. The focus of the story is on small units and individual fighting men as they grapple with advancing through the unfamiliar terrain across an urban battlefield. Fire in the Streets spent many years on official U.S. Marine Corps professional reading lists as the best example of modern military operations in urban terrain.

Joe Foss Flying Marine: The Story of his Flying Circus


Joe Foss - 1943
     With 26 victories to his name, he became the first pilot to equal Eddie Rickenbacker’s American World War I record. In October 1942, Foss and his regiment were sent into the heat of battle at Guadalcanal. Foss quickly gained a reputation for aggressive close-in fighter tactics and uncanny gunnery skills and rose to become the lead pilot of what was called Foss’ Flying Circus. Foss’ book Joe Foss Flying Marine: The Story of his Flying Circus is a remarkable work that demonstrates just how tough life could be for a fighter pilot in the Pacific Theater of World War One. Through the course of the book Foss explains how he became a pilot, despite the fact he was initially deemed too old, why he, and men like him, chose to fight the war in the air and what it was like to engage in dogfights with Japanese pilots. “His remarkable flying skill, inspiring leadership and indomitable fighting spirit were distinctive factors in the defense of strategic American positions on Guadalcanal.” Franklin D. Roosevelt, President, United States. Joe Foss’ citation read: “For extraordinary achievement while participating in aerial flights with Marine Fighting Squadron 121 in the Solomon Islands area. During the period Oct. 13 to Oct. 20, 1942, inclusive, Captain Foss shot down six enemy Zero fighters and one enemy bomber in aerial combat. His constant aggressiveness, skill, and leadership during these engagements were worthy of the highest traditions of the Naval Service.” Joe Foss was a United States Marine Corps major and the leading Marine fighter ace in World War II. He received the Medal of Honor in recognition of his role in air combat during the Guadalcanal Campaign. His book Joe Foss Flying Marine: The Story of his Flying Circus was first published in 1943. Foss passed away in 2003.

Flying to the Limit: Testing World War II Single-Engined Fighter Aircraft


Peter Caygill - 2005
    During the lend-lease agreement with the USA, the RAF and Fleet Air Arm operated several American designs, each of which was tested to evaluate its potential.This book looks at the key area of fighter aircraft and includes the test results and pilot's own first-hand accounts of flying seventeen different models, designed in the UK, America and Germany. The reader will learn of the possibilities of air superiority offered by these types and also their weaknesses. Types included are The Hawker Hurricane, Supermarine Spitfire, Boulton Paul Defiant, Hawker Tempest and Typhoon, Bell Airacobra, Messerschmitt Bf 109, Focke-Wulf Fw 190, Brewster Buffalo, Curtiss Tomahawk, North American Mustang, Grumman Martlet, Republic Thunderbolt, and Vought Corsair. All aircraft that saw a great deal of action throughout the War and which are now part of legend.

The End of the Line: The Siege of Khe Sanh


Robert Pisor - 1982
    It was the most spectacular battle of the entire war. For 6,000 trapped marines, it was a nightmare; for President Lyndon Johnson, an obsession. For General Westmoreland, it was to be the final vindication of technological weaponry; and for General Giap, the architect of the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu, it was a spectacular ruse masking troops moving south for the Tet offensive. In a compelling narrative, Robert Pisor sets forth the history, the politics, the strategies, and, above all, the desperate reality of the battle that became the turning point of the United States's involvement in Vietnam.

Scream of Eagles: The Dramatic Account of the U.S. Navy's Top Gun Fighter Pilots and How They Took Back the Skies Over Vietnam


Robert K. Wilcox - 1990
     The place: TOP GUN In the darkest days of the Vietnam War, the U.S. Navy's kill ratio had fallen to 2:1 -- a deadly decline in pilot combat effectiveness. To improve the odds, a corps of hardened fighter pilots founded the Fighter Weapons School, a.k.a. TOP GUN. Utilizing actual enemy fighter planes in brutally realistic dogfights, the Top Gun instructors dueled their students and each other to achieve a lethal new level of fighting expertise. The training paid off. Combining the latest weaponry and technology, mental endurance, and razor-sharp instincts, the Top Gunners drove the Navy's kill ratio up to an astounding 12:1, dominating the skies over Vietnam. This gripping account takes you inside the cockpit for an adventure more explosive than any fiction -- in a dramatic true story of the legendary military school that has created the most dangerous fighter pilots the world has ever seen.

Secrets of the Conqueror: The Untold Story of Britain's Most Famous Submarine


Stuart Prebble - 2012
    It is the only sub since World War Two to have sunk an enemy ship. Conqueror's sinking of the Argentine cruiser Belgrano made inevitable an all-out war over the future of the Falkland Islands, and sparked off one of the most controversial episodes of twentieth century politics. The controversy was fuelled by a war-diary kept by an officer on board HMS Conqueror, and as a young TV producer in the 1980s Stuart Prebble scooped the world by locating the diary's author and getting his story on the record. But in the course of uncovering his Falklands story, Stuart Prebble also learned a military secret which could have come straight out of a Cold War thriller. It involved the Top Secret activities of the Conqueror in the months before and after the Falklands War. Prebble has waited for thirty years to tell his story. It is a story of incredible courage and derring-do, of men who put their lives on the line and were never allowed to tell what they had done. This story, buried under layers of official secrecy for three decades, is one of Britain's great military success stories and can now finally be told.

Palace Cobra: A Fighter Pilot in the Vietnam Air War


Ed Rasimus - 2006
    Two years later, he volunteered to go for a second tour of duty. Determined not to die in a losing cause, and relentlessly searching for that next adrenaline rush, Rasimus and the other F-4 Phantom pilots continued the ferocious air war in the North--dodging SAMs and gunning for MiGs--and routinely cheated death.When America finally got serious about ending the war, Rasimus and the other pilots put it all on the line, pounding Hanoi with everything they had, and flying above POW camps to let the troops know they were not alone. Gripping, earnest, and unforgettable, Rasimus's combat memoir is, in the end, a heartfelt tribute to those who never made it back.

On Full Automatic: Surviving 13 Months in Vietnam


William V. Taylor Jr. - 2021
    Taylor Jr. and his brother Marines are assembled into a new reaction force that is immediately tested in the fire of a bloody conflict known as Operation Beaver Cage. After a traumatic first fight, they push through back-to-back operations with little time to rest or reflect. Those who survive will return home ensnared by everlasting memories of a real, but entirely surreal nightmare. Now after more than fifty years of holding everything in, Taylor shares his experience in explicit and often horrific detail and with a reverent honor for those Marines who did not live to tell the tale.Taylor reveals what it truly means to walk the path of a warrior, to sacrifice, and to live a lifetime with the memories of a war—seeking answers to the question, “Was it worth it?"

Broken Arrow: How the U.S. Navy Lost a Nuclear Bomb


Jim Winchester - 2019
    The cruise from the Yankee Station to Japan was used to practice procedures for Armageddon.Douglas Webster was a young pilot from Ohio, newly married and with seventeen combat missions under his belt. On that day in 1965 he strapped into an A-4 Skyhawk bomber for a routine weapons loading drill and simulated mission. After mishandling the manoeuvre, the plane and its pilot sunk to the bottom of the South China sea, along with a live B43 one-megaton thermonuclear bomb.A cover-up mission began. The crew was ordered to stay quiet, rumours circulate of sabotage, a damaged weapon and a troublesome pilot who needed 'disposing of'. The incident, a 'Broken Arrow' in the parlance of the Pentagon, was kept under wraps until 25 years later. The details that emerged caused a diplomatic incident, revealing that the U.S. had violated agreements not to bring nuclear weapons into Japan. Family members and the public only learnt the truth when researchers discovered archived documents that disclosed the true location of the carrier, hundreds of miles closer to land than admitted.Broken Arrow tells the story of Ticonderoga's sailors and airmen, the dangers of combat missions and shipboard life, and the accident that threatened to wipe her off the map and blow US-Japanese relations apart. For the first time, through previously classified documents, never before published photos of the accident aircraft and the recollections of those who were there, the story of carrier aviation's only 'Broken Arrow' is told in full.

Flashing Saber: Three Years in Vietnam


Matthew Brennan - 1985
    The Blues, as they were called, were perpetually understrength and considered to be acceptable losses in hopeless situations—but their amazingly successful record proved otherwise.A firsthand account of mortal combat with the Ninth Cavalry, Flashing Saber is the remarkable story of the brave men who served in the First Air Cavalry Division's reconnaissance squadron. Included is an account of an air-ground raid that overran a regimental command post and killed more high-ranking enemy officers than any similar engagement of the war. The story begins when a teenager, an Eagle Scout and West Point Prep School student, goes to Vietnam in 1965. Motivated by patriotism and the desire to see combat firsthand, Brennan volunteers for front line duty and spends years as an artillery forward observer and infantryman. Promoted to sergeant and then to lieutenant, Brennan participates in hundreds of assault landings.An expansion and careful reworking of his previous work, Brennan's War, published in 1985, and in the vein of classic memoirs by Johnnie Clark and Frederick Downs, Flashing Saberis a harrowing firsthand account of life and death in war, one filled with breathtaking details about a renowned unit.