The Best Book Ever Written about the 1972 Easter Offensive

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	• America's Last Vietnam Battle: Halting Hanoi's 1972 Easter Offensive (Modern War Studies) Dale Andrade University Press Of Kansas, 2001 - 528 pages average customer review:based on 4 reviews view larger image
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Outstanding Book

Andrade has eloquently captured the details and meaning of the final campaign involving US Forces. In particular, he wonderfully details the herculaean effort of John Paul Vann and his outstanding Deputy, BG George Wear, USA. I served at Pleiku under these men, and sincerely appreciate Andrade's superb tribute to them--well done, Mr Andrade.

Exactly the book I was looking for.

This book is personal for me. It mentions by name or by anecdote, my friends, my classmates, my squadron mates. For 35 years, I neglected reading about the war I was in, as a C-130 co-pilot. This book was exactly what I was looking for, to fill in the gaps of what I knew. In any history of Vietnam, it is good to assess its bias. This book is factual and does not try to promote or debate the politics of the war. It does make a few assessments of the capabilities of the South Vietnamese army, air force, and marines, and the role of American air force and advisors on the ground. It factually describes instances when South Vietnamese army units surrendered with little or no fight, would not go out on patrol, and dropped wounded comrades to clamor on board a med-evac helicopter. Some of the strongest criticism is directed at some South Vietnamese officers who were corrupt, cowardly, or incompetent. It also tells of soldiers who bravely and effectively took on North Vietnamese Army (NVA) tanks with Light Antitank Weapons (LAWs), and who bravely fought the NVA soldiers. Some of the South Vietnamese officers are described as courageous and effective. It tells of the NVA atrocities, such as firing artillery and machine guns on civilians attempting to leave An Loc and other battlegrounds.

The stories are told mostly from the point of view of the American army advisors and, to a lesser extent, the South Vietnamese officers who were their counterparts. Andrade describes the NVA maneuvers and attacks and the South Vietnamese response, then zeroes in on the American advisors so that you get acquainted with them and become emotionally attached to their survival and success. By January 1972, almost all American combat units had left Vietnam. The Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and South Vietnamese Marines were doing the fighting, with American advisers at the upper levels of command. The advisers helped the ARVN officers deploy their men, and their most essential role was to direct the air force and army helicopter support. (Also naval gunfire in I Corps.) Hue, Kontum, and An Loc all survived the NVA attacks, but would have been overrun if it were not for the B-52s and the close air support of fighters, gun ships, and helicopters. Supplies delivered by the C-130s of the 374th Tactical Airlift Wing were essential to Kontum and An Loc. Andrade does not give a lot of details on the fighting done by individual ARVN soldiers. He generally does not personalize the ARVN by introducing you to the soldiers.

Two dominant factors were the NVA artillery and American air power. The ARVN had fire support bases scattered around the enemy objectives in all three areas, and the NVA artillery was able to destroy the ARVN artillery, then pound the ARVN infantry. The ARVN artillery were in fixed defensive positions, and NVA spotters were able to direct accurate artillery onto them. The NVA concealed and frequently moved their artillery, and the ARVN did not have spotters in position to direct counterbattery fire onto the NVA artillery. American air power (plus, in I Corps, naval gunfire) filled the void of ARVN artillery. NVA anti-aircraft artillery was significant only at An Loc. On May 17, 1972, my C-130 crew delivered 15 tons of 105mm howitzer ammunition to Kontum. But on May 24, NVA artillery neutralized all of the ARVN 23rd Division's artillery (page 301), and on May 27th, the ammunition dump near the airfield was struck by mortar fire, destroying ammunition.

I have two minor criticisms, which do not significantly detract from the excellent quality of the book. It attributes the failure of the peace negotiations in December, 1972, to North Vietnam secretly inserting 17 changes into the document on December 13. (Page 479) Other accounts I have seen attribute it to South Vietnam's President Thieu rejecting the treaty, which is not mentioned here. Second, its understanding of air power is somewhat limited. It describes Combat Skyspot (Page 75) as "a high-tech method of delivering bombs using laser beams." Skyspot did not use laser beams, it used ground radar, the AN/MSQ-77. After mentioning laser beams, Andrade vaguely but more accurately mentions that Skyspot involved aircraft dropping bombs on command from a radar center on the ground. We also used Skyspot to accurately direct C-130s to the release point for air delivery of cargo.

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The Best Book Ever Written about the 1972 Easter Offensive

Mr. Andrade places you right in the frontline with South Vietnamese and US adivsors trying to stop the North Vietnamese "Blitzkreig" of 1972. If you still believe that the US and her allies in Vietnam fought mostly a communist peasent guerilla force armed with flintlocks and a few bags of rice, you're saddly misinformed unless you read this book!
This is one of a VERY few books which deal mostly with ARVN ground combat and about the bravery of individual South Vietnamese troops fighting NVA armored forces.
After you read this book, you will know what most ex-ARVN and many US Viet-vets have known for a long time-The North Vietnamese employed tactics and weapons which would've been more familiar to Guderian or Zhukov, not Che' or Mao.

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Decent Interval up Close

A terrific book that covers the heroic efforts of the remaining US advisors and their ARVN compatriots to resist the North Vietnamese invasion of '72. The narrative is thrilling and Andrade's mastery of detail is marvelous.

This book has helped open the way for revisionist understanding of what actually happened to South Vietnam after the US withdrawal, two years earlier. The simple assumption that the ARVN was incompetent, which was in part used to justify the US pullout, needs reexamination.

The heroism of the ARVN and the remaining US advisors is finally brought to light. Perhaps Andrade in the future can bring us an account that focuses on the role of the ARVN during this same period--and how it performed without adequate support from the United States. It would be interesting to find out how much of the "incompetence" myth remains.

Thank you Dale Andrade.

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In the spring of 1972, North Vietnam launched a massive military offensive designed to deliver the coup de grâce to South Vietnam and its rapidly disengaging American ally. But an overconfident Hanoi misjudged its opponents who, led by American military advisers and backed by American airpower, were able to hold off the North's onslaught in what became the biggest battle of a very long war. Dale Andradé rescues this epic engagement from its previous neglect to tell a riveting tale of heroism against great odds. "One of the best books on the Vietnam War."--Washington Post Book World Dale Andradé, a historian at the U.S. Army Center of Military History, is the author of Ashes to Ashes: The Phoenix Program and the Vietnam War and coauthor of Spies and Commandos: How America Lost the Secret War in North Vietnam.

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