Download or read book French Foreign L gionnaire vs Viet Minh Insurgent written by Martin Windrow and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-09-20 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The French Indochina War (1946–54) was the largest of the first generation of post-World War II wars of decolonization as Vietminh insurgents sought to topple their French colonial masters. It was also unique in that the insurgency evolved from low-level guerrilla activity to mobile operations by a large conventional army which finally defeated a large European-led expeditionary force, supported by artillery, armour and airpower. The war's progress was almost entirely dictated by the extreme terrain, and by the Chinese support enjoyed by the Vietnamese insurgents. The actions explored in this study cover three contrasting phases of the war in Tonkin during 1948–52, setting both sides on the path that would lead to the conflict's climactic encounter at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Featuring specially commissioned artwork and drawing upon a range of sources, this meticulously researched study casts new light on the troops who fought on both sides in this evolving and momentous conflict.

Download or read book French Foreign L gionnaire vs Viet Minh Insurgent written by Martin Windrow and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-09-20 with total page 81 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The French Indochina War (1946–54) was the largest of the first generation of post-World War II wars of decolonization as Vietminh insurgents sought to topple their French colonial masters. It was also unique in that the insurgency evolved from low-level guerrilla activity to mobile operations by a large conventional army which finally defeated a large European-led expeditionary force, supported by artillery, armour and airpower. The war's progress was almost entirely dictated by the extreme terrain, and by the Chinese support enjoyed by the Vietnamese insurgents. The actions explored in this study cover three contrasting phases of the war in Tonkin during 1948–52, setting both sides on the path that would lead to the conflict's climactic encounter at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Featuring specially commissioned artwork and drawing upon a range of sources, this meticulously researched study casts new light on the troops who fought on both sides in this evolving and momentous conflict.

Download or read book Vietnam and the Cold War 1945 1954 written by John Pike and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2024-06-30 with total page 823 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A forensic study of Vietnam's war, imperial history and international relations in the years following the Second World War. A forensic study of war, imperial history and international relations, following the Second World War and leading into the Cold War and defeat of Western imperialism in Asia. And above all, the story of the pivotal battle and French defeat at Dien Bien Phu. It shows France's revanchist attempt to regain imperial 'glory' in her former Asian empire following humiliation in the Second World War - defeat and Vichy. The effort was spurred by de Galle's chauvinism and desire to recover France’s honour and reputation, after so many humiliations by friend and foe. The Communist led Vietminh, were guided to victory by ruthless revolutionary Ho Chi Min - far from the attractive 'Uncle Ho' who is revered as a communist saint in contrast to louche playboy emperor Bao Dai – and the very able General Giap. Communist strength in rural Vietnam society - the Vietminh represented a nation in arms – was backed by supplies from Communist China and the Soviet Union. It was an existential struggle on the French side - the end of cafe society, and the gravy train for planters, officials, the military, and politicians. Military matters including General Giap’s strategy and tactics are analyzed in detail, but it was a 'soldiers' war', told at ground-level, and readers will feel the heat and fear of battle, be shocked at war crimes, and intrigued by the tales of Graham Greene et al. The global importance was not lost on the powers following exhaustion from world war and in the shadow of the Cold War. All great leaders were involved, Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Churchill, Stalin, Khruschev, Chou En-Lai and Mao Zedong, Under the shadow of the A bomb, a negotiated peace and first detent of the Cold War would end in the sumptuous salons of Geneva.

Download or read book Warfare and Armed Conflicts written by Micheal Clodfelter and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2017-04-24 with total page 825 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In its revised and updated fourth edition, this exhaustive encyclopedia provides a record of casualties of war from the last five centuries through 2015, with new statistical and analytical information. Figures include casualties from global terrorism, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the fight against the Islamic State. New entries cover an additional 20 armed conflicts between 1492 and 2007 not included in previous editions. Arranged roughly by century and subdivided by world region, chronological entries include the name and dates of the conflict, precursor events, strategies and details, the outcome and its aftermath.

Download or read book Valley of Death written by Ted Morgan and published by Random House. This book was released on 2010-02-23 with total page 769 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pulitzer Prize–winning author Ted Morgan has now written a rich and definitive account of the fateful battle that ended French rule in Indochina—and led inexorably to America’s Vietnam War. Dien Bien Phu was a remote valley on the border of Laos along a simple rural trade route. But it would also be where a great European power fell to an underestimated insurgent army and lost control of a crucial colony. Valley of Death is the untold story of the 1954 battle that, in six weeks, changed the course of history. A veteran of the French Army, Ted Morgan has made use of exclusive firsthand reports to create the most complete and dramatic telling of the conflict ever written. Here is the history of the Vietminh liberation movement’s rebellion against French occupation after World War II and its growth as an adversary, eventually backed by Communist China. Here too is the ill-fated French plan to build a base in Dien Bien Phu and draw the Vietminh into a debilitating defeat—which instead led to the Europeans being encircled in the surrounding hills, besieged by heavy artillery, overrun, and defeated. Making expert use of recently unearthed or released information, Morgan reveals the inner workings of the American effort to aid France, with Eisenhower secretly disdainful of the French effort and prophetically worried that “no military victory was possible in that type of theater.” Morgan paints indelible portraits of all the major players, from Henri Navarre, head of the French Union forces, a rigid professional unprepared for an enemy fortified by rice carried on bicycles, to his commander, General Christian de Castries, a privileged, miscast cavalry officer, and General Vo Nguyen Giap, a master of guerrilla warfare working out of a one-room hut on the side of a hill. Most devastatingly, Morgan sets the stage for the Vietnam quagmire that was to come. Superbly researched and powerfully written, Valley of Death is the crowning achievement of an author whose work has always been as compulsively readable as it is important.

Download or read book Air Force written by Chester G. Hearn and published by . This book was released on with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From its beginnings in 1907 as the Aeronautical Division of U.S. Armys Signal Corps, which consisted of one officer and two enlisted men, the United States Air Force has grown to become the foremost aerial armed force in the world. Although they had to fly French and British planes as the fledgling army aeronautical bureaucracy failed to procure any combat-worthy American aircraft, which arguably did not exist, American aviators performed valiantly in World War I with intrepid pilots of the such as Eddie Rickenbacker and Frank Luke leading the way. Between the wars, all of aviation, commercial and military around the world grew by leaps and bounds as the numbers of aircraft in service and their capabilities tremendously increased. Although the Army Air Corps, as it was known at the time, was no better prepared for World War II than the rest of the army, it had developed a highly professional corps of experienced officers who would be able to take advantage of the latest American aircraft technology such as the B-17 Flying Fortress and the P-51 Mustang. With the end of the war and the creation of an independent armed force in 1947, the United States Air Force leapt into the jet age with such icons as the F-86 Sabre and the remarkable B-52 Stratofortress, which "soldiers" on today more than fifty years after going into service in 1955 and with the youngest of the 744 plane production run being forty years old, having been built in 1962.Air Force covers the entire history of the U.S. Air Force and its development from its beginnings early in the last century to becoming the worlds largest, most powerful, and most versatile air-combat force. Special attention is paid to the air forces recent, post-Vietnam history, and an entire chapter is devoted to Americas air force of the future.

Download or read book Devil s Guard written by George R. Elford and published by Delta. This book was released on 2008-12-18 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Condemned to death for the bloodbaths of World War II, they served their sentence—on the killing fields of Vietnam. The fascinating, true story of the French Foreign Legion’s Nazi battalion WHAT THEY DID IN WORLD WAS II WAS HITORY’S BLOODIEST NIGHTMARE. The ashes of World War II were still cooling when France went to war in the jungles of Southeast Asia. In that struggle, its frontline troops were the misfits, criminals, and mercenaries of the French Foreign Legion. And among that international army of the desperate and the damned, none were so bloodstained as the fugitive veterans of the German S.S. WHAT THEY DID IN VIETNAM WAS ITS UGLIEST SECRET—UNTIL NOW. Loathed by the French, feared and hated by the Vietnamese, the Germans fought not for patriotism of glory but because fighting for France was better than hanging from its gallows. Here now is the untold story of the killer elite whose discipline, ferocity, and suicidal courage made them the weapon of last resort.

Download or read book Mercenaries A Guide to Private Armies and Private Military Companies written by Alan Axelrod and published by CQ Press. This book was released on 2013-12-27 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mercenaries have been active in battle from the beginning of military history and, as private armies and military support firms, they are a major component of warfare today. Security, military advice, training, logistics support, policing, technological expertise, intelligence, transportation—all are outsourced to a greater or lesser degree in the U.S. military. However, privatization is not a uniquely American phenomenon. Countries as diverse as Saudi Arabia and Australia rely on privatization in one form or another. Historically, heads of state, politicians, and other administrators have justified use of mercenaries on the basis of their effectiveness, and cost-savings. These reasons and others continue to serve as rationales for use of private military companies in military strategy. Mercenaries: A Guide to Private Armies and Private Military Companies provides a comprehensive survey and guide to mercenary forces, entrepreneurs, and corporations active on the international military scene today, including a concise history of mercenaries and private armies on land, sea, and in the air. Narrative chapters are amply supplemented by sidebars including biographies of major figures, key statistics, historical and current documents, contracts, and legislation on private armies and outsourced military services. Each chapter includes a bibliography of books, journal articles, and web sites, and a general bibliography concludes the entire work.

Download or read book The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War 4 volumes written by Bloomsbury Publishing and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2011-05-20 with total page 2040 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now in its second edition, this comprehensive study of the Vietnam War sheds more light on the longest and one of the most controversial conflicts in U.S. history. The Vietnam War lasted more than a decade, was the longest war in U.S. history, and cost the lives of nearly 60,000 American soldiers, as well as millions of Vietnamese—many of whom were uninvolved civilians. The lessons learned from this tragic conflict continue to have great relevance in today's world. Now in its second edition, The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History adds an entire additional volume of entries to the already exhaustive first edition, making it the most comprehensive reference available about one of the most controversial events in U.S. history. Written to provide multidimensional perspectives into the conflict, it covers not only the American experience in Vietnam, but also the entire scope of Vietnamese history, including the French experience and the Indochina War, as well as the origins of the conflict, how the United States became involved, and the extensive aftermath of this prolonged war. It also provides the most complete and accurate order of battle ever published, based upon data compiled from Vietnamese sources. This latest release delivers even more of what readers have come to expect from the editorship of Spencer C. Tucker and the military history experts at ABC-CLIO.

Download or read book Dirty Little Secrets of the Vietnam War written by James F. Dunnigan and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2014-11-04 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: James F. Dunnigan and Albert A. Nofi's Dirty Little Secrets of the Vietnam War allows us to see what really happened to American forces in Southeast Asia, separating popular myth from explosive reality in a clear, concise manner. Containing more than two hundred examinations of different aspects of the war, the book questions why the American military ignored the lessons taught by previous encounters with insurgency forces; probes the use of group think and mind control by the North Vietnamese; and explores the role technology played in shaping the way the war was fought. Of course, the book also reveals the "dirty little secrets," the truth behind such aspects of the conflict as the rise of the Montagnard mercenaries--the most feared group of soldiers participating in the secret war in Laos-and the details of the hidden struggle for the Ho Chi Minh Trail. With its unique and perceptive examination of the conflict, Dirty Little Secrets of the Vietnam War by James F. Dunnigan & Albert A. Nofi offers a critical addition to the library of Vietnam War history.

Download or read book Fourth Arm of Defense written by Salvatore R. Mercogliano and published by Government Printing Office. This book was released on 2017 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This publication is the eighth in the series The U.S. Navy and the Vietnam War. The publication focuses on the sealift and logistic operations during the war and includes a number of photographs as well as sidebars detailing specific people and ships involved in the logistic operations. This historical pictorial reference would be of interest to students, historians, members of the military, specifically the Navy, and military leaders, veterans, Vietnam War veterans, and the U.S. merchant marines.

Download or read book Why South Vietnam Fell written by Anthony James Joes and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2014-10-16 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between 1954 and 1963, President Ngo Dinh Diem, against great odds but with U.S. assistance, built a functioning South Vietnamese state. But gravely misled by American journalists in Saigon, the U.S. embassy, in league with second-tier members of the State Department, urged certain South Vietnamese generals to stage a coup against Diem, resulting in his brutal murder. Despite the instability after Diem’s murder, the South Vietnamese Army performed well during the 1968 Tet Offensive and the 1972 Easter Offensive. In proportion to population, South Vietnamese Army losses were much greater than American losses. Nevertheless, the American media ignored South Vietnamese sacrifices, and completely misrepresented the consequences of the Tet Offensive. The disastrous “peace agreement” the U.S. forced on the South Vietnamese in 1973 made continuing American support vital. But Congress began to slash aid to South Vietnam, so that its soldiers had to fight on with dwindling supplies of fuel, ammunition, and medicine. Under these circumstances, the South Vietnamese attempted to regroup their army into the provinces around Saigon, an effort that ended in disaster. The final chapter reflects on the meaning of the conflict and the tragedy that abandonment by Washington and conquest by Hanoi brought upon the South Vietnamese people. An Appendix presents a strategy for preserving a South Vietnamese state with the commitment of a relatively small number of U.S. forces.

Download or read book The French Foreign Legion in Indochina 1946 1956 written by Raymond Guyader and published by Schiffer Military History. This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This detailed, highly-illustrated study presents a unique and comprehensive collection of uniforms, insignia, and equipment used by the French Foreign Legion in Indochina from 1946 to 1956. More than 400 original pieces are shown in over 1,000 high-quality, color photographs. Over 200 rare war-era photographs of the Legion in Indochina show the vast variety of uniforms and equipment in use. Much of the information included here is presented for the first time in English. This book will become a standard reference for Foreign Legion collectors and historians.

Download or read book Insurgent Era written by Richard Harlakenden Sanger and published by . This book was released on 1970 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Art of Insurgency written by Donald W. Hamilton and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 1998-01-26 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his analysis of insurgency war, Donald Hamilton first attempts to provide insight into a strategic concept he believes is little understood today, and to explain its complicated relationship to American policy failures in Southeast Asia during the post-1945 era of containment. The study develops a working model of insurgency, explaining it as both a unique method and type of war-making. Significant findings include the inability of policymakers to perceive a potential insurgency in Vietnam as early as 1946, subsequent American involvement in not one, but three Asian insurgencies during the 1950s, and the ultimate failure of the U.S. military to meet the insurgency challenge in South Vietnam. This inability to eliminate the insurgency led not only to the complete breakdown of the South Vietnamese government, but was the primary reason why further U.S. military action after 1965 would prove ineffectual. This historical narrative also follows the involvement of several key players, including the personalities of Edward Lansdale, Sir Robert Thompson, Archimedes Patti, and Vo Nguyen Giap, who through their life experiences and writings, provide a keen profundity into why insurgencies occur, why they fail, and why they succeed.

Download or read book U S Marines In Vietnam The Advisory And Combat Assistance Era 1954 1964 written by Capt. Robert H. Whitlow and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2016-08-09 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first of a series of chronological histories prepared by the Marine Corps History and Museums Division to cover the entire span of Marine Corps involvement in the Vietnam conflict. This particular volume covers a relatively obscure chapter in U.S. Marine Corps history—the activities of Marines in Vietnam between 1954 and 1964. The narrative traces the evolution of those activities from a one-man advisory operation at the conclusion of the French-Indochina War in 1954 to the advisory and combat support activities of some 700 Marines at the end of 1964. As the introductory volume for the series this account has an important secondary objective: to establish a geographical, political, and military foundation upon which the subsequent histories can be developed.

Download or read book Ship of Fate written by Trần Đình Trụ and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2017-04-30 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ship of Fate tells the emotionally gripping story of a Vietnamese military officer who evacuated from Saigon in 1975 but made the dramatic decision to return to Vietnam for his wife and children, rather than resettle in the United States without them. Written in Vietnamese in the years just after 1991, when he and his family finally immigrated to the United States, Trần Đình Trụ’s memoir provides a detailed and searing account of his individual trauma as a refugee in limbo, and then as a prisoner in the Vietnamese reeducation camps. In April 1975, more than 120,000 Indochinese refugees sought and soon gained resettlement in the United States. While waiting in the Guam refugee camps, however, approximately 1,500 Vietnamese men and women insisted in no uncertain terms on being repatriated back to Vietnam. Trần was one of these repatriates. To resolve the escalating crisis, the U.S. government granted the Vietnamese a large ship, the Việt Nam Thương Tín. An experienced naval commander, Trần became the captain of the ship and sailed the repatriates back to Vietnam in October 1975. On return, he was imprisoned and underwent forced labor for more than twelve years. Trần’s account reveals a hidden history of refugee camps on Guam, internal divisions among Vietnamese refugees, political disputes between the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the U.S. government, and the horror of the postwar “reeducation” camps. While there are countless books on the U.S. war in Vietnam, there are still relatively few in English that narrate the war from a Vietnamese perspective. This translation adds new and unexpected dimensions to the U.S. military’s final withdrawal from Vietnam.