[PDF] The Battle For Khe Sanh Illustrated Edition eBook

Author : Captain Moyers S. Shore II USMC
Publisher : Pickle Partners Publishing
Page : 327 pages
File Size : 49,13 MB
Release : 2014-08-15
Category : History
ISBN : 1782893563

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Includes more than 10 maps and 20 Illustrations “The Marines’ heroic defense of the Khe Sanh area against numerically superior North Vietnamese forces stands out among the many battles fought to defend the Republic of Vietnam against Communist aggression. “The enemy’s primary objective of his 1968 TET Offensive was to seize power in South Vietnam by creating a general uprising and causing the defection of major elements of the ARVN. In conjunction with this, the enemy apparently expected to seize by military action large portions of the northern two provinces lying just south of the Demilitarized Zone and there to set up a “liberation government.” The virtually unpopulated Khe Sanh Plateau, which lay astride the enemy’s principal avenue of approach from his large base areas in Laos, was obviously an initial objective of the North Vietnamese Army.... “This report provides a detailed and graphic account of events as they unfolded. It centers about the 26th Marine Regiment, the main defenders of the Khe Sanh area, who tenaciously and magnificently held off the enemy during the two-and-one-half-month siege. Yet the battle of Khe Sanh was an inter-Service and international operation. Consequently, appropriate coverage is given to the contributions of the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force, and to South Vietnamese regular and irregular military units, all of whom contributed to the defense of the area and to the destruction of the enemy. As Marine artillery from within the fortified positions pounded the enemy, Army artillery located to the east provided heavy, long-range fire support. Fighter aircraft from the Marines, Air Force, and Navy provided continuous close air support, while B-52 bombers of the Strategic Air Command dealt decisive blows around-the-clock to enemy forces within striking distance of our positions and against enemy supply areas....”-General Westmoreland

Author : Moyers S. Shore II, USMC
Publisher :
Page : 174 pages
File Size : 13,78 MB
Release : 2017-04-30
Category :
ISBN : 9781546392484

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This report by History And Museums Division Headquarters, U. S. Marine Corps provides a detailed and graphic account of events as they unfolded. It centers about the 26th Marine regiment, the main defenders of the Khe Sanh area, who tenaciously and magnificently held off the enemy during the two-and-one-half- month siege.

Author : M. Shore, II
Publisher : Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Page : 198 pages
File Size : 50,8 MB
Release : 2017-08-13
Category :
ISBN : 9781974053414

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The official Marine Corps history of the battle for Khe Sanh in the Vietnam War. Illustrated with black/white pictures and maps.

Author : Lt.-Col Shawn Callahan USMC
Publisher : Pickle Partners Publishing
Page : 277 pages
File Size : 46,87 MB
Release : 2014-08-15
Category : History
ISBN : 1782894438

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Includes 7 maps, 3 tables, and more than 80 photo illustrations. In the 77 days from 20 Jan. to 18 March of 1968, two divisions of the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) surrounded a regiment of U.S. Marines on a mountain plateau in the northwest corner of South Vietnam known as Khe Sanh. The episode was no accident; it was in fact a carefully orchestrated meeting in which both sides got what they wanted. The North Vietnamese succeeded in surrounding the Marines in a situation in many ways similar to Dien Bien Phu, and may have been seeking similar tactical, operational, and strategic results. General William C. Westmoreland, the commander of the joint U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam (COMUSMACV), meanwhile, sought to lure the NVA into the unpopulated terrain around the 26th Marines in order to wage a battle of annihilation with air power. In this respect Khe Sanh has been lauded as a great victory of air power, a military instrument of dubious suitability to much of the Vietnam conflict. The facts support the assessment that air power was the decisive element at Khe Sanh, delivering more than 96 percent of the ordnance used against the NVA. Most histories of the battle, however, do not delve much deeper than this. Comprehensive histories like John Prados and Ray Stubbe’s Valley of Decision, Robert Pisor’s End of the Line, and Eric Hammel’s Siege in the Clouds provide excellent accounts of the battle, supported by detailed analyses of its strategic and operational background but tend to focus on the ground battle and treat the application of air power in general terms. They do not, however, make significant distinction between the contributions of the two primary air combat elements in this air-land battle: the 7th Air Force and the 1st Marine Air Wing. An analysis of their respective contributions to the campaign reveals that they each made very different contributions that reflected very different approaches to the application of air power.

Author : Bernard C. Nalty
Publisher : Pickle Partners Publishing
Page : 230 pages
File Size : 26,89 MB
Release : 2015-11-06
Category : History
ISBN : 1786250144

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Includes 60 photos and 7 maps and charts The 1968 fight for Khe Sanh pitted some 6,000 U.S. Marines and South Vietnamese Rangers against an enemy force roughly three times as large. For more than 70 days North Vietnamese troops maintained pressure on Khe Sanh’s defenders, who had dug in around the base’s airstrip. The original purpose for deploying the Marines and South Vietnamese into the northwest corner of South Vietnam was to block Communist troop movements along Highway 9 toward Quang Tri City and the heavily populated coastal areas. When U.S. intelligence detected large enemy forces assembling near Khe Sanh, the senior American commander in Vietnam, Gen. William C. Westmoreland, ordered the Marines to hold the base. During the siege that followed, U.S. strike aircraft rained nearly 100,000 tons of munitions down upon the North Vietnamese while other planes—primarily U.S. Air Force transports—flew in essential supplies of food, ammunition, and other necessities to Khe Sanh’s defenders. The Leathernecks also used their own aircraft to provision Marine outposts which denied the enemy the high ground overlooking the base. Other military elements participating in the battle included U.S. Army artillerymen dug in east of Khe Sanh, who fired deadly concentrations against the besieging forces. Marine howitzers and mortars added to the heavy U.S. fire, while Army engineers joined Navy Seabees in helping prepare airstrips which supported the allied defense effort. Finally, the relief of Khe Sanh—though spearheaded by Army troops—also involved American Marines and soldiers of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam.

Author : II Usmc Shore, Captain
Publisher : CreateSpace
Page : 220 pages
File Size : 13,68 MB
Release : 2014-06-10
Category :
ISBN : 9781500145033

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In the extreme northwestern corner of South Vietnam there stands a monument to the free world. Unlike those which commemorate the victories of past wars, this one was not built on marble or bronze but the sacrifices of men who fought and died at a remote outpost to halt the spread of Communism. This is the story of those men--the defenders of Khe Sanh--and the epic 77-day struggle which not only denied the North Vietnamese Army a much needed victory but reaffirmed to the world the intention of the United States to hold the line in Southeast Asia. In addition to having been a contest of men and machines, this was the test of a nation's will. As a history, this work is not intended to prove any point, but rather to record objectively the series of events which came to be called the Battle of Khe Sanh. These events spanned a period from April 1967 to April 1968. The rationale for the buildup along the Demilitarized Zone and the commitment to hold the small garrison is presented as a logical extension of the three-pronged strategy then employed throughout I Corps and the rest of South Vietnam; this balanced campaign included pacification programs, counterguerrilla activity, and large unit offensive sweeps. Although isolated, the Khe Sanh Combat Base was a vital link in the northern defenses which screened the Allied counterinsurgency efforts in the densely populated coastal plains from invasion by regular divisions from North Vietnam. By obstructing this attempted invasion, American and South Vietnamese forces at Khe Sanh provided a shield for their contemporaries who were waging a war for the hearts and minds of the people in the cities, villages, and hamlets farther to the south. In the process, a reinforced regiment--the 26th Marines--supported by massive firepower provided by the Marine and Navy air arms, the U.S. Air Force and Marine and Army artillery, defended this base and mangled two crack North Vietnamese Army divisions, further illustrating to Hanoi the futility of its war of aggression. Later, after the encirclement was broken and additional U.S. forces became available, the Allies were able to shift emphasis from the fixed defense to fast-moving offensive operations to control this vital area astride the enemy's invasion route. In these operations, our troops thrust out to strike the enemy whenever he appeared in this critical region. This shift in tactics in the spring of 1968 was made possible by favorable weather, the buildup of troops, helicopters, and logistics that had taken place during the winter of 1967-68. An additional factor was the construction of a secure forward base across the mountains to the east of Khe Sanh, from which these operations could be supported. The Khe Sanh Combat Base then lost the importance it had earlier and was dismantled after its supplies were drawn down, since it was no longer needed. The strategy of containing the North Vietnamese Army along the border remained the same; but revised tactics were now possible. But in 1967 and early 1968, neither troops nor helicopters, logistics nor the forward base were available to support the more aggressive tactics. The enemy lunged into the area in force, and he had to be stopped. The KSCB with its airstrip was the pivotal point in the area from which Allied firepower could be directed and which the enemy could not ignore. It was here that the 26th Marines made their stand. This study also provides insight into the mechanics of the battle from the highest echelon of command to the smallest unit. In addition, appropriate coverage is provided to the supporting arms and the mammoth logistics effort which spelled the difference between victory and defeat. While this is basically a story about Marines, it notes the valiant contributions of U. S. Army, Navy, and Air Force personnel, as well as the South Vietnamese.

Author : Ronald J. Drez
Publisher : Little Brown GBR
Page : 186 pages
File Size : 38,68 MB
Release : 2005
Category : History
ISBN : 9780821261965

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Offers a vivid narrative of the seventy-seven-day struggle to control the remote Khe Sanh base in Vietnam, during which a severely outnumbered and isolated group of Marines held off an enemy onslaught, in a multimedia history that features firsthand remin

Author : Gordon L. Rottman
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 96 pages
File Size : 24,43 MB
Release : 2012-09-20
Category : History
ISBN : 1846036712

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A concise, focused volume on the NVA's fight for a strategically important military base. Khe Sanh was a small village in northwest South Vietnam that sat astride key North Vietnamese infiltration routes. In September 1966 a Marine battalion deployed into the area. Action gradually increased as the NVA attempted to destroy Free World Forces bases, and the siege of Khe Sanh proper began in October 1967. The bitter fight lasted into July 1968 when, with the changing strategic and tactical situation, the base was finally closed. This book details the siege and explains how, although the NVA successfully overran a Special Forces camp nearby, it was unable to drive US forces from Khe Sanh.

Author : Michael Green
Publisher : Pen and Sword
Page : 317 pages
File Size : 49,33 MB
Release : 2014-10-30
Category : History
ISBN : 147384083X

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This pictorial history of the Indochina and Vietnam Wars captures the range of armored warfare used in the region through rare wartime photographs. The two conflicts that engulfed Indochina and Vietnam in the decades after World War II are generally thought of as infantry wars. But in fact, they both involved a significant amount of armored warfare. In this fully illustrated volume, military expert and Vietnam veteran Michael Green describes the many kinds of armored vehicles deployed and their contributions in combat. The ill-fated French Expeditionary Force of the Indochina War was largely equipped with World War II era American tanks—including M3 and M5 Stuart, M4 Sherman and M24 light tanks—as well as armored cars and half-tracks. Most of these eventually went to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, but were outdated and ineffective due to lack of logistics and training. The US Army and Marine Corps build-up in the 1960s saw vast quantities of M48 Pattons, M113 APCs and many specialist variants and improvised armored vehicles arrive in the theatre. The Australians also brought their British Centurion tanks. But it was the Russians, Chinese and North Vietnamese who won the day and their T-38-85 tanks, ZSU anti-aircraft platforms.