Posted on 05/27/2002 7:44:48 AM PDT by Slam
Yes,I can and will. I have the book around here somewhere,amongst a few hundred other books. I'll probably take the easy way out and hit up the "old-boy" SF network.
BTW,I never heard of Russian tanks being knocked-out by LAWS. Where did this happen? I know there was another place other than Lang Vei were they were used,but can't remember where right now.
The guys at Lang Vei killed at least two tanks with LAWs.
The South Vietnamese had some success with the LAWs at An Loc, too.
As you can see,it looks like we were both right about Westmoreland. He WAS in Saigon when Tet started and Lang Vei was hit,but flew to Da Nang the next day to check what was happening there.
The book is called 'Tanks in the Wire', by David B. Stockwell. Here's some quotes:
"Marine radio operators at Khe Sanh sat in a sober silence as their radio speakers coughed Willoughby's request. "Americans are dying up here. For Christ's sake, help us!"
The Marines refused."
"...the marines believed sending troops over land would get them butchered, the Marines decided. General Westmoreland in Saigon was consulted. The Marines said no again. Colonel Jonathan Ladd, commander of Special Forces in Vietnam, tried to intervene. Westmoreland allowed his commanders closest to the action to decide. The Marines stayed put. By first light, Westmoreland was on a plane to Da Nang to confer with U.S. Marine Corps Lieutenant General Cushman on the state of the Tet Offensive in I Corps."
The Marine artillery...1st Bn, 13th Field Artillery Regiment (1/13) did fire 17 minutes after the first call to them came in. They didn't believe the SF had actual tanks in their wire.
The USAF air commandos trace their history back to WWII in Burma with Col. Phil Cochran and his troops carving out DZs and LZs in the jungle behing Japanese lines. The Carpet baggers were also dropping Jegburg teams into Europe in WWII. Never read or heard about USAF having problems working with any spec ops units.
Plenty of good reading about USAF specops and their proud history in Orr Kelly's book "From A Dark Sky". Best pics of USAF air commandos in action would be Randy Jolly's book "Air Commando"
Here a short excerpt from the book by Orr Kelly about the USAF Farmgate crews who flew in the early years of Vietnam and one new pilgrim to flying.
Despite the fiction that they were "advisers," the Farmgate fliers almost immediately began flying combat missions. It was hard, dangerous work. They flew old planes with minimal navigation aids at night and in bad weather against increasingly sophisticated and deadly enemy air defenses, making up tactics on the wing.
One of the hazards was the requirement that the Americans always had to carry a Vietnamese along - to maintain the fiction that they were training the Vietnamese. Any unfortunate Vietnamese who happened to be nearby when a mission was scheduled found himself strapped into an airplane - often the first time he had ever been off the ground.
Richard Secord, then the junior captain among the Farmgate AT-28 pilots and later a major general, thought he was going to die one day because of his Vietnamese passenger.
As he rolled in and started down toward his target, he felt a sudden jolt on the controls. He thought the plane had been hit, Breaking off the attack, he pulled up, decided everything was okay, and rolled in again. Once more, he felt the strange pressure on the controls. His terrified passenger was pulling back on the stick as hard as he could.
Secord ordered him over the intercom to keep his hands off the controls.
Again, he pulled up, rolled in, and headed for the target. This time, he felt the stick jam forward. The dive steepened and the plane headed directly toward the ground. Secord inched the stick back with all his strength, overpowering the terrified Vietnamese. They pulled out just above the trees.
Frightened and furious, Secord pulled his .38-caliber Smith & Wesson pistol as soon as he leveled off and twisted around to point it at his backseater, ready to kill him. Just then, his passenger lost hs lunch all over the cockpit and collapsed into a small bundle of miserable humanity. Secord couldn't bring himself to shoot such a pathetic creature.
In the early morning hours of 6 February 1968, the marines hunkered down at Khe Sanh could hear the anticipated NVA armor attack against the small SF camp at Lang Vei a few miles to the west. Lang Vei's request for the commitment of the planned marine reaction forces received no response. When SF recon personnel at Khe Sanh confronted Colonel David Lownds, the CO of the 26th marines, he declared; he "would not sacrifice any American lives." Major Jim Stanton, Khe Sanh's marine artillery coordinator conceded, "It is true we had an agreement to go to the aid of Lang Vei in the event it was threatened with being overrun, but the situation at the combat base deteriorated so quickly and completely that it should have been obvious to anyone that we could no longer guarantee their security." That morning General Westmoreland flew to Danang and ordered General Robert Cushman to provide helicopter support to lift a small, 50 man SF and Montagnard, reaction force to Lang Vei. He had to issue orders to Cushman's subordinates, violating the marine chain of command, to get it done.
This 'scholar' starts out with BS: "In the early morning hours of 6 February 1968..."
The armor attack was the morning of the 7th. I realize that might be nitpicking, but if he can't even get the dates right, why should you believe anything else he writes?
and ordered General Robert Cushman to provide helicopter support to lift a small, 50 man SF and Montagnard, reaction force to Lang Vei.
These guys got in and got out with no real problems,and rescued a couple of SF guys who were still alive and holed-up in the camp dispensary or radio room. This was below the famous photo where the NVA tank was spinning it's threads over the entrance to try and bust in. Unfortunately,they didn't get there in time to save all of them,and some of that A team dissapeared into captivity.
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