The Guts to Try

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780345446954
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (469 download)

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Book Synopsis The Guts to Try by : James H. Kyle

Download or read book The Guts to Try written by James H. Kyle and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the highest-ranking officers on the ground in Iran reveals the untold story of the Iran hostage rescue mission that took place in 1980. In this riveting account, Col. Kyle takes readers from the initial brainstorming sessions and training camps to desert rehearsals to the desert refueling site where he decided to abort. (May)

Rescue Mission Report

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 184 pages
Book Rating : 4.A/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis Rescue Mission Report by : United States. Joint Chiefs of Staff. Special Operations Review Group

Download or read book Rescue Mission Report written by United States. Joint Chiefs of Staff. Special Operations Review Group and published by . This book was released on 1980 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In May 1980, the Joint Chiefs of Staff commissioned a Special Operations Review Group to conduct a broad examination of the planning, organization, coordination, direction, and control of the Iranian hostage rescue mission, as a basis for recommending improvement in these areas for the future. The Review Group consisted of six senior military officers three who had retired after distinguished careers, and three still on active duty. The broad military experience of the group gave it an appropriate perspective from which to conduct an appraisal. Details on the participants, the Terms of Reference they operated under, and their approach to the subject are contained in this document. The Review Group has made its final report to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Copies have been forwarded to the Secretary of Defense, as have the related, early recommendations of the Joint Chiefs. A highly classified report also has been transmitted to appropriate committees in the Congress. Because it is important that as much detail as possible be made available to the American public, the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has conducted a declassification review to produce this version. The issues and findings have been retained in as close a form as possible to the original, classified version. In particular, the Executive Summary, Conclusions, and Recommendations remain virtually the same as in the original.

Operation Eagle Claw 1980

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Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1472837800
Total Pages : 81 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (728 download)

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Book Synopsis Operation Eagle Claw 1980 by : Justin Williamson

Download or read book Operation Eagle Claw 1980 written by Justin Williamson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-03-19 with total page 81 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following months of negotiations after the seizure of the US Embassy in Tehran on 4 November 1979, President Jimmy Carter ordered the newly formed Delta Force to conduct a raid into Iran to free the hostages. The raid, Operation Eagle Claw, was risky to say the least. US forces would have to fly into the deserts of Iran on C-130s; marry up with carrier-based RH-53D helicopters; fly to hide sites near Tehran; approach the Embassy via trucks; seize the Embassy and rescue the hostages; board the helicopters descending on Tehran; fly to an airbase captured by more US forces; and then fly out on C-141s and to freedom. Unfortunately, and unsurprisingly given the complexity of the mission, things went wrong from the start and when the mission was called off at the refueling site at Desert One, the resulting collision between aircraft killed eight US personnel. This title tells the full story of this tragic operation, supported by maps, photographs, and specially-commissioned bird's-eye-views and battlescenes which reveal the complexity and scale of the proposed rescue and the disaster which followed.

Guests of the Ayatollah

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Publisher : Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN 13 : 1555846084
Total Pages : 710 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (558 download)

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Book Synopsis Guests of the Ayatollah by : Mark Bowden

Download or read book Guests of the Ayatollah written by Mark Bowden and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2007-12-01 with total page 710 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times–bestselling author of Black Hawk Down delivers a “suspenseful and inspiring” account of the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979 (The Wall Street Journal). On November 4, 1979, a group of radical Islamist students, inspired by the revolutionary Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini, stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran. They took fifty-two Americans captive, and kept nearly all of them hostage for 444 days. In Guests of the Ayatollah, Mark Bowden tells this sweeping story through the eyes of the hostages, the soldiers in a new special forces unit sent to free them, their radical, naïve captors, and the diplomats working to end the crisis. Bowden takes us inside the hostages’ cells and inside the Oval Office for meetings with President Carter and his exhausted team. We travel to international capitals where shadowy figures held clandestine negotiations, and to the deserts of Iran, where a courageous, desperate attempt to rescue the hostages exploded into tragic failure. Bowden dedicated five years to this research, including numerous trips to Iran and countless interviews with those involved on both sides. Guests of the Ayatollah is a detailed, brilliantly recreated, and suspenseful account of a crisis that gripped and ultimately changed the world. “The passions of the moment still reverberate . . . you can feel them on every page.” —Time “A complex story full of cruelty, heroism, foolishness and tragic misunderstandings.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette “Essential reading . . . A.” —Entertainment Weekly

Special Forces Berlin

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Publisher : Casemate Publishers
ISBN 13 : 1612004458
Total Pages : 383 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (12 download)

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Book Synopsis Special Forces Berlin by : James Stejskal

Download or read book Special Forces Berlin written by James Stejskal and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2017-02-15 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The previously untold story of a Cold War spy unit, “one of the best examples of applied unconventional warfare in special operations history” (Small Wars Journal). It is a little-known fact that during the Cold War, two US Army Special Forces detachments were stationed far behind the Iron Curtain in West Berlin. The existence and missions of the two detachments were highly classified secrets. The massive armies of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies posed a huge threat to the nations of Western Europe. US military planners decided they needed a plan to slow the expected juggernaut, if and when a war began. This plan was Special Forces Berlin. Their mission—should hostilities commence—was to wreak havoc behind enemy lines and buy time for vastly outnumbered NATO forces to conduct a breakout from the city. In reality, it was an ambitious and extremely dangerous mission, even suicidal. Highly trained and fluent in German, each of these one hundred soldiers and their successors was allocated a specific area. They were skilled in clandestine operations, sabotage, and intelligence tradecraft, and were able to act, if necessary, as independent operators, blending into the local population and working unseen in a city awash with spies looking for information on their every move. Special Forces Berlin left a legacy of a new type of soldier, expert in unconventional warfare, that was sought after for other deployments, including the attempted rescue of American hostages from Tehran in 1979. With the US government officially acknowledging their existence in 2014, their incredible story can now be told—by one of their own.

Broken Stiletto: Command And Control Of The Joint Task Force During Operation Eagle Claw At Desert One

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Publisher : Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN 13 : 178289974X
Total Pages : 104 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (828 download)

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Book Synopsis Broken Stiletto: Command And Control Of The Joint Task Force During Operation Eagle Claw At Desert One by : Major William C. Flynt III

Download or read book Broken Stiletto: Command And Control Of The Joint Task Force During Operation Eagle Claw At Desert One written by Major William C. Flynt III and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2015-11-06 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This monograph examines Operation Eagle Claw, the attempt to rescue the American hostages held in Iran, for planning considerations pertinent to similar operations. It focusses specifically on the principle of war Unity of Command as a command and control imperative for a Joint Task Force composed of multiple services, organizations, and agencies. To great extent Operation Eagle Claw’s history may parallel the characteristics of contingencies facing today’s Armed Forces. An unexpected crisis erupts, intense media coverage thrusts it before domestic and international audiences, a Joint Task Force is formed of all U.S. services, and a military operation is launched to protect and further American interests abroad. Because of the potential similarity between Operation Eagle Claw and future crisis situations, the operation’s command and control aspects are relevant for today’s planners to study. Operation Eagle Claw failed. The failure can be directly attributed to a failure of leadership in ensuring Unity of Command. Although a dangerous and difficult mission, the operation’s undoing was not the impossible nature of the task assigned to the force, nor an unfortunate measure of “bad luck.” The failure of Operation Eagle Claw was preventable given strong leadership and a cohesive rescue force. These qualities were lacking, and the absence of Unity of Command was ultimately the causal reason for the operation’s many difficulties.

Operation Certain Death

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Publisher : Open Road Media
ISBN 13 : 150405556X
Total Pages : 574 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (4 download)

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Book Synopsis Operation Certain Death by : Damien Lewis

Download or read book Operation Certain Death written by Damien Lewis and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2018-11-20 with total page 574 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The terrifyingly true tale of a daring British special forces rescue mission and all-out assault on a savage Sierra Leone guerrilla gang: “What a story!” (Frederick Forsyth, #1 New York Times–bestselling author of The Day of the Jackal). Officially, the SAS mission was called Operation Barras. The men on the ground called it Operation Certain Death. In 2000, the British Special Air Service (SAS) attempted its riskiest rescue mission in more than half a century. A year before, an eleven-man patrol of Royal Irish Rangers who were training government troops in Sierra Leone was captured and held prisoner by the infamously ruthless rebel forces known as the West Side Boys. Their fortified base was hidden deep in the West African jungle, its barricades adorned with severed heads on spikes. Some four hundred heavily armed renegades were not only bloodthirsty—they were drink-and-drugs crazed. The guerrillas favored pink shades, shower caps, and fluorescent wigs, draping themselves in voodoo charms they believed made them bulletproof—a delusion reenforced by the steady consumption of ganja, heroin, crack, and sweet palm wine. This was the vicious and cutthroat enemy British special forces would confront in order to rescue their own. Featuring extensive interviews with survivors, this gritty, blow-by-blow account of the bloody battle that brought an end to ten years of Africa’s most brutal civil war is “as good as any thriller I have ever read. This really is the low down” (Frederick Forsyth).

Risk-Taking in International Politics

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Publisher : University of Michigan Press
ISBN 13 : 9780472087877
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (878 download)

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Book Synopsis Risk-Taking in International Politics by : Rose McDermott

Download or read book Risk-Taking in International Politics written by Rose McDermott and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses the way leaders deal with risk in making foreign policy decisions

The Praetorian STARShip : the untold story of the Combat Talon

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Publisher : DIANE Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1428990437
Total Pages : 507 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (289 download)

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Book Synopsis The Praetorian STARShip : the untold story of the Combat Talon by :

Download or read book The Praetorian STARShip : the untold story of the Combat Talon written by and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2001 with total page 507 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jerry Thigpen's study on the history of the Combat Talon is the first effort to tell the story of this wonderfully capable machine. This weapons system has performed virtually every imaginable tactical event in the spectrum of conflict and by any measure is the most versatile C-130 derivative ever produced. First modified and sent to Southeast Asia (SEA) in 1966 to replace theater unconventional warfare (UW) assets that were limited in both lift capability and speed the Talon I quickly adapted to theater UW tasking including infiltration and resupply and psychological warfare operations into North Vietnam. After spending four years in SEA and maturing into a highly respected UW weapons system the Joint Chief of Staff (JCS) chose the Combat Talon to lead the night low-level raid on the North Vietnamese prison camp at Son Tay. Despite the outcome of the operation the Talon I cemented its reputation as the weapons system of choice for long-range clandestine operations. In the period following the Vietnam War United States Air Force (USAF) special operations gradually lost its political and financial support which was graphically demonstrated in the failed Desert One mission into Iran. Thanks to congressional supporters like Earl Hutto of Florida and Dan Daniel of Virginia funds for aircraft upgrades and military construction projects materialized to meet the ever-increasing threat to our nation. Under the leadership of such committed hard-driven officers as Brenci Uttaro Ferkes Meller and Thigpen the crew force became the most disciplined in our Air Force. It was capable of penetrating hostile airspace at night in a low-level mountainous environment covertly to execute any number of unconventional warfare missions.

The Desert and the Sea

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Publisher : HarperCollins
ISBN 13 : 006296867X
Total Pages : 612 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (629 download)

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Book Synopsis The Desert and the Sea by : Michael Scott Moore

Download or read book The Desert and the Sea written by Michael Scott Moore and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2019-05-28 with total page 612 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Michael Scott Moore, a journalist and the author of Sweetness and Blood, incorporates personal narrative and rigorous investigative journalism in this profound and revelatory memoir of his three-year captivity by Somali pirates—a riveting,thoughtful, and emotionally resonant exploration of foreign policy, religious extremism, and the costs of survival. In January 2012, having covered a Somali pirate trial in Hamburg for Spiegel Online International—and funded by a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting—Michael Scott Moore traveled to the Horn of Africa to write about piracy and ways to end it. In a terrible twist of fate, Moore himself was kidnapped and subsequently held captive by Somali pirates. Subjected to conditions that break even the strongest spirits—physical injury, starvation, isolation, terror—Moore’s survival is a testament to his indomitable strength of mind. In September 2014, after 977 days, he walked free when his ransom was put together by the help of several US and German institutions, friends, colleagues, and his strong-willed mother. Yet Moore’s own struggle is only part of the story: The Desert and the Sea falls at the intersection of reportage, memoir, and history. Caught between Muslim pirates, the looming threat of Al-Shabaab, and the rise of ISIS, Moore observes the worlds that surrounded him—the economics and history of piracy; the effects of post-colonialism; the politics of hostage negotiation and ransom; while also conjuring the various faces of Islam—and places his ordeal in the context of the larger political and historical issues. A sort of Catch-22 meets Black Hawk Down, The Desert and the Sea is written with dark humor, candor, and a journalist’s clinical distance and eye for detail. Moore offers an intimate and otherwise inaccessible view of life as we cannot fathom it, brilliantly weaving his own experience as a hostage with the social, economic, religious, and political factors creating it. The Desert and the Sea is wildly compelling and a book that will take its place next to titles like Den of Lions and Even Silence Has an End.

Beyond Hell and Back

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Publisher : St. Martin's Press
ISBN 13 : 1466858427
Total Pages : 324 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (668 download)

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Book Synopsis Beyond Hell and Back by : Dwight Jon Zimmerman

Download or read book Beyond Hell and Back written by Dwight Jon Zimmerman and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2013-12-03 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An inside look at seven of the most harrowing and significant Special Operations missions ever. Courage beyond reason. Loyalty beyond faith. Perseverance in the face of overwhelming adversity. These are just some of the qualities of the members of the U.S. Special Operation Forces. BEYOND HELL AND BACK details the seven defining Special Ops missions that have made the Special Operation Forces the best fighting unit in the world, including: *THE RESCUE OF BAT-21: The largest and longest Combat Search and Rescue mission in the Vietnam War lasted 17 days and cost the lives of 13 Americans—all to rescue one man and the invaluable knowledge he alone possessed. * TASK FORCE NORMANDY: Planned in secrecy and executed with flawless efficiency, Task Force Normandy was an Army/Air Force Special Operations joint op that fired the opening shots behind enemy lines in Operation Desert Storm. *OPERATION EAGLE CLAW: The devastating Special Forces operation mounted to retrieve 52 American hostages in Iran resulted in the deaths of eight members of the rescue team. This failure ultimately led to the creation of Special Operations Command. *BASHER 52: Captain Scott O'Grady was shot down over the "no fly" zone above Bosnia, and his daring rescue was one of the Marine Corps' finest operations ever. These are a few of the dramatic true tales that represent the defining moments that helped shape the operational methods, planning, and deployment for all future Special Ops missions. BEYOND HELL AND BACK is the greatest collection of Spec Ops missions ever assembled.

Certain Death in Sierra Leone

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Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1782000682
Total Pages : 152 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (82 download)

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Book Synopsis Certain Death in Sierra Leone by : Will Fowler

Download or read book Certain Death in Sierra Leone written by Will Fowler and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-06-20 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In September 2000 the notorious militia gang, 'West Side Boys' kidnapped eleven British soldiers in Sierra Leone and Operation Barras was launched as the rescue operation. Fast roping in from helicopters, the SAS soldiers engaged in a heavy firefight with the militia, killing several, and capturing their leader. Meanwhile the Paras advanced on foot, fighting their way through a village to recover the Land Rovers abandoned by the kidnapped soldiers. The operation was a complete success, with all the soldiers being rescued. This daring raid is brought to life with specially commissioned artwork, detailed maps and overhead shots to recreate one of the greatest hostage-rescue success stories.

Argo

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Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0147509734
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (475 download)

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Book Synopsis Argo by : Antonio Mendez

Download or read book Argo written by Antonio Mendez and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-02-06 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The true account of a daring rescue that inspired the film ARGO, winner of the 2012 Academy Award for Best Picture On November 4, 1979, Iranian militants stormed the American embassy in Tehran and captured dozens of American hostages, sparking a 444-day ordeal and a quake in global politics still reverberating today. But there is a little-known drama connected to the crisis: six Americans escaped. And a top-level CIA officer named Antonio Mendez devised an ingenious yet incredibly risky plan to rescue them before they were detected. Disguising himself as a Hollywood producer, and supported by a cast of expert forgers, deep cover CIA operatives, foreign agents, and Hollywood special effects artists, Mendez traveled to Tehran under the guise of scouting locations for a fake science fiction film called Argo. While pretending to find the perfect film backdrops, Mendez and a colleague succeeded in contacting the escapees, and smuggling them out of Iran. Antonio Mendez finally details the extraordinarily complex and dangerous operation he led more than three decades ago. A riveting story of secret identities and international intrigue, Argo is the gripping account of the history-making collusion between Hollywood and high-stakes espionage.

Red Sea Spies

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Publisher : Icon Books
ISBN 13 : 1785786016
Total Pages : 238 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (857 download)

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Book Synopsis Red Sea Spies by : Raffi Berg

Download or read book Red Sea Spies written by Raffi Berg and published by Icon Books. This book was released on 2020-02-06 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE TRUE STORY THAT INSPIRED THE NETFLIX FILM THE RED SEA DIVING RESORT. 'Secret missions, brazen deceptions and thrilling, clandestine operations - Red Sea Spies has it all. But it has something more important, too - a genuine human mission that made a difference.' David Hoffman, author of The Billion Dollar Spy '[A] thrilling and meticulous account.' The Times In the early 1980s on a remote part of the Sudanese coast, a new luxury holiday resort opened for business. Catering for divers, it attracted guests from around the world. Little did the holidaymakers know that the staff were undercover spies, working for the Mossad - the Israeli secret service. Providing a front for covert night-time activities, the holiday village allowed the agents to carry out an operation unlike any seen before. What began with one cryptic message pleading for help, turned into the secret evacuation of thousands of Ethiopian Jews who had been languishing in refugee camps, and the spiriting of them to Israel. Written in collaboration with operatives involved in the mission, endorsed as the definitive account and including an afterword from the commander who went on to become the head of the Mossad, this is the complete, never-before-heard, gripping tale of a top-secret and often hazardous operation. 'Red Sea Spies is what really happened. There is none of the Hollywood colouring-in, and yet the book is all the more vivid for it ... part thriller, part dark comedy, all true ... Berg brings out the native drama in an improbable story of a clandestine homecoming.' Spectator

Americans at War, 1975-1986

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Publisher : Presidio Press
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 506 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Americans at War, 1975-1986 by : Daniel P. Bolger

Download or read book Americans at War, 1975-1986 written by Daniel P. Bolger and published by Presidio Press. This book was released on 1988 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Operation Dark Heart

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Publisher : Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 031260369X
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (126 download)

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Book Synopsis Operation Dark Heart by : Anthony Shaffer

Download or read book Operation Dark Heart written by Anthony Shaffer and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2010-09-24 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shaffer delivers an exciting, eyewitness account of fighting terrorism in Afghanistan using the military's most cutting-edge espionage tactics. Just before St. Martin's Press release of the book, The Department of Defense and the Defense Intelligence Agency, demanded the author and the publisher produce the book for review. They, and "other interested U.S. intelligence agencies" met with the author to review changes and redactions that they required be made, before the book could be published, in order to "not damage our national security, harm our troops, or harm U.S. military intelligence efforts or assets." Thus, there are sections with redactions in the final book.

Dragon Operations

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Publisher : Army Command and General Staff College
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 248 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (121 download)

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Book Synopsis Dragon Operations by : Thomas Paul Odom

Download or read book Dragon Operations written by Thomas Paul Odom and published by Army Command and General Staff College. This book was released on 1988 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the Belgian Paracommando Regiment, the Congo was a familiar, though often hostile, environment. For most of the officers and sergeants of the regiment, the fields, buildings, and river below were as familiar as the Belgian landscape. But for most of the 340 enlisted men drifting in the sky over the airfield, the Congo was an unknown menace outside their military experience. Most of these paras were young draftees to whom the Congo represented a closed chapter in Belgium's colonial history. Yet even with the experience of its senior leadership, the Belgian Paracommandos faced a severe test on this early spring morning. The young paras and their seasoned leaders were conducting the first international hostage rescue in the post-World War II era. The challenge was enormous, the risks staggering; the Paracommandos were jumping into a perilous den of uncertainty. Stanleyville was at the heart of the Simba Rebellion and the scene of the growing desperation. Faced with a government ground assault, the Simba leaders had taken several thousand non-Congolese hostages to guard against what appeared to be imminent defeat. Keywords: Military operations.