Ripcord - Screaming Eagles Under Siege, Vietnam 1970

Zusatztext “AN ABSOLUTELY SUPERB ACCOUNT OF WAR AT THE LEVEL OF THE INDIVIDUAL SOLDIER . . . This is a major contribution to Vietnam War literature! particularly of action at the small-unit level.” —Military Review “Keith Nolan’s research! his comprehension of the political as well as the military actions! his careful concern for those who were there! and! most of all! his writing! are superb. I recommend Ripcord without stint or reservation.” —STEPHEN AMBROSE “With Ripcord ! Keith Nolan has added another significant battle history to his impressive list of works on the Vietnam War.” —JOHN DEL VECCHIO Author of The 13th Valley Informationen zum Autor Keith W. Nolan is acknowledged as the foremost chronicler of the Vietnam War. He is the author of nine other Vietnam War combat histories and is most recently the coauthor of A Hundred Miles of Bad Road . Nolan lives with his wife and daughter near St. Louis, Missouri. Klappentext On April 10, 1970, Hill 927 was occupied by troopers of the Screaming Eagles of the 101st Airborne Division. By July, the activities of the artillery and infantry of Ripcord had caught the attention of the NVA (North Vietnamese Army) and a long and deadly siege ensued. Ripcord was the Screaming Eagles' last chance to do significant damage to the NVA in the A Shau Valley before the division was withdrawn from Vietnam and returned to the United States. At Ripcord, the enemy counterattacked with ferocity, using mortar and antiaircraft fire to inflict heavy causalities on the units operating there. The battle lasted four and a half months and exemplified the ultimate frustration of the Vietnam War: the inability of the American military to bring to bear its enormous resources to win on the battlefield. In the end, the 101st evacuated Ripcord, leaving the NVA in control of the battlefield. Contrary to the mantra "We won every battle but lost the war,” the United States was defeated at Ripcord. Now, at last, the full story of this terrible battle can be told. Chapter 1 Incoming The first mortar salvo landed during the usual morning routines on the firebase. Lieutenant Colonel Andre Lucas was still inside his tactical operations center-the TOC-probably with a cup of coffee and the first cigarette of the day in hand as he checked the latest intelligence readouts from division. The ops center, encased in adjoining steel shipping containers known as conexes, each about the size of a small office, was entrenched directly below the top of the hill on the eastern side of Firebase Ripcord. Major Herbert E. Koenigsbauer, the battalion operations officer, was crossing the small helicopter pad leveled off in front of the TOC. Responsible for base security, Koenigsbauer made the rounds first thing every morning, checking the police call, inspecting the defensive wire, generally touching base with the commanders of the two howitzer batteries on the hill and the infantry company manning the fighting positions around the perimeter. Koenigsbauer hadn't gone thirty feet that morning when, without warning-the enemy mortar crew was too far away to be heard as it fired, and the whistling descent of the salvo was lost amid the high winds that slapped almost constantly across the firebase-he saw the first round of that first salvo hit the corner of the partially submerged TOC where a tall, two-wheeled aircraft fire extinguisher was parked in case of crashes on the helipad. Even though the command bunker's radio antennas were offset so as not to mark its exact location, the enemy had studied the firebase with binoculars well enough from the surrounding high ground to determine the location of the TOC. The big red fire extinguisher must have stood out as the perfect aiming point. Koenigsbauer dashed back around the blast wall that protected the entranceway to the oper...

Product details

• Authors: Keith Nolan, Keith William Nolan
• Publisher: Presidio Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 03.06.2003
• EAN: 9780891418092
• ISBN: 978-0-89141-809-2
• No. of pages: 560
• Dimensions: 107 mm x 170 mm x 29 mm
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > 20th century (up to 1945); Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous