A Great Place to Have a War

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Author :
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1451667892
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (516 download)

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Book Synopsis A Great Place to Have a War by : Joshua Kurlantzick

Download or read book A Great Place to Have a War written by Joshua Kurlantzick and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-01-24 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The untold story of how America’s secret war in Laos in the 1960s transformed the CIA from a loose collection of spies into a military operation and a key player in American foreign policy. January, 1961: Laos, a tiny nation few Americans have heard of, is at risk of falling to communism and triggering a domino effect throughout Southeast Asia. This is what President Eisenhower believed when he approved the CIA’s Operation Momentum, creating an army of ethnic Hmong to fight communist forces there. Largely hidden from the American public—and most of Congress—Momentum became the largest CIA paramilitary operation in the history of the United States. The brutal war lasted more than a decade, left the ground littered with thousands of unexploded bombs, and changed the nature of the CIA forever. With “revelatory reporting” and “lucid prose” (The Economist), Kurlantzick provides the definitive account of the Laos war, focusing on the four key people who led the operation: the CIA operative whose idea it was, the Hmong general who led the proxy army in the field, the paramilitary specialist who trained the Hmong forces, and the State Department careerist who took control over the war as it grew. Using recently declassified records and extensive interviews, Kurlantzick shows for the first time how the CIA’s clandestine adventures in one small, Southeast Asian country became the template for how the United States has conducted war ever since—all the way to today’s war on terrorism.

The Battle for Laos

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Author :
Publisher : Pen & Sword Military
ISBN 13 : 9781526757043
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (57 download)

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Book Synopsis The Battle for Laos by : Stephen Emerson

Download or read book The Battle for Laos written by Stephen Emerson and published by Pen & Sword Military. This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By 1959 the newly independent Kingdom of Laos was being transformed into a Cold War battleground for global superpower competition, having been born out of the chaos following the French military defeat and withdrawal from Indochina in 1954. The country was soon engulfed in a rapidly evolving civil war as rival forces jockeyed for power and swelling foreign intervention further fueled the fighting. Adding even more fuel to the fire, "neutral" Laos's geographic entanglement in the intensifying war in neighboring South Vietnam deepened in the early 1960s as Hanoi's reliance on the Ho Chi Minh Trail for moving men and materiel through the southern Laotian panhandle grew exponentially and became a priority target of American interdiction efforts. For almost twenty years, the fighting between the Western-supported Royal Lao government and the communist-supported Pathet Lao would rage across the plains, jungles, and mountaintops largely unseen by most of the world in this so-called "secret war." Thousands on each side would die and many more would be displaced as the conflict on the ground ebbed and flowed from season to season and year to year. And in the skies above, American and Royal Laotian aircraft would rain down their deadly payloads, decimating large swaths of the countryside in pursuit of victory. Nearly 3 million tons of bombs would be dropped on Laotian territory between 1965 and 1973, leaving a deadly legacy of unexploded ordnance that lingers to this day. Thus, the battle for Laos is the story of entire communities and generations caught up in a war seemingly without end, one that pitted competing foreign interests and their proxies against each other, and one that was forever tied to Washington's pursuit of victory in Vietnam.

Battle for Skyline Ridge

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Author :
Publisher : Open Road Media
ISBN 13 : 1504060156
Total Pages : 305 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (4 download)

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Book Synopsis Battle for Skyline Ridge by : James E. Parker

Download or read book Battle for Skyline Ridge written by James E. Parker and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2019-09-24 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An incredibly powerful account of a little-known chapter in the Vietnam War saga” written by a CIA veteran who fought in the Secret War (Booklist, starred review). In the 1960s and ’70s, the Laotian Civil War became a covert theater for the conflict in Vietnam, with the US paramilitary backing the Royal Lao government in what came to be known among the CIA as the Secret War. In late 1971, the North Vietnamese Army launched Campaign Z, invading northern Laos on a mission to defeat the Royal Lao Army. General Giap had specifically ordered the NVA troops to kill the CIA army and occupy its field headquarters in the Long Tieng valley. The NVA faced the small rag-tag army of Vang Pao, mostly Thai irregulars recruited to fight for the CIA. But thousands more were quickly recruited, trained, and rushed into position in Laos to defend against the impending NVA invasion. Despite overwhelming odds in the NVA’s favor, the battle raged for more than one hundred days—the longest battle in the Vietnam War. In the end, it all came down to Skyline Ridge. Whoever won Skyline, won Laos. Historian James E. Parker Jr. served as a CIA paramilitary officer in Laos. In this authoritative and personal account, Parker draws from his own firsthand experience as well as extensive research into CIA files and North Vietnamese after-action reports in order to tell the full story of the battle of Skyline Ridge.

Shooting at the Moon

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Author :
Publisher : Steerforth Italia
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 464 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Shooting at the Moon by : Roger Warner

Download or read book Shooting at the Moon written by Roger Warner and published by Steerforth Italia. This book was released on 1996 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Shooting at the Moon, Roger Warner chronicles a covert operation that used Hmong villagers as guerrilla fighters against the North during the Vietnamese War. Thought to be an expendable resource by Central Intelligence Agency strategists, the Hmong died by the thousands fighting the North Vietnamese. Those who survived were abandoned to their fate when the United States pulled out of the war. Warner's history is the moving and tragic story of how America's 'secret war' devastated its own allies in Southeast Asia.

Invasion of Laos, 1971

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Author :
Publisher : University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN 13 : 0806145897
Total Pages : 305 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (61 download)

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Book Synopsis Invasion of Laos, 1971 by : Robert D. Sander

Download or read book Invasion of Laos, 1971 written by Robert D. Sander and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2014-02-26 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1971, while U.S. ground forces were prohibited from crossing the Laotian border, a South Vietnamese Army corps, with U.S. air support, launched the largest airmobile operation in the history of warfare, Lam Son 719. The objective: to sever the North Vietnamese Army’s main logistical artery, the Ho Chi Minh Trail, at its hub, Tchepone in Laos, an operation that, according to General Creighton Abrams, could have been the decisive battle of the war, hastening the withdrawal of U.S. forces and ensuring the survival of South Vietnam. The outcome: defeat of the South Vietnamese Army and heavy losses of U.S. helicopters and aircrews, but a successful preemptive strike that met President Nixon’s near-term political objectives. Author Robert Sander, a helicopter pilot in Lam Son 719, explores why an operation of such importance failed. Drawing on archives and interviews, and firsthand testimony and reports, Sander chronicles not only the planning and execution of the operation but also the maneuvers of the bastions of political and military power during the ten-year effort to end Communist infiltration of South Vietnam leading up to Lam Son 719. The result is a picture from disparate perspectives: the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations; the South Vietnamese government led by President Nguyen Van Thieu; and senior U.S. military commanders and army aviators. Sander’s conclusion is at once powerful and persuasively clear. Lam Son 719 was doomed in both the planning and execution—a casualty of domestic and international politics, flawed assumptions, incompetent execution, and the resolve of the North Vietnamese Army. A powerful work of military and political history, this book offers eloquent testimony that “failure, like success, cannot be measured in absolute terms.”

Covert Ops

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Author :
Publisher : Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 9780312963408
Total Pages : 284 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (634 download)

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Book Synopsis Covert Ops by : James E. Parker

Download or read book Covert Ops written by James E. Parker and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 1997-11-15 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the same time the Vietnam War was being broadcast into the living rooms of Americans across the country the CIA was conducting a large-scale secret war in northeastern Laos that few heard about. Agency case officer Jim Parker's five years of combat and immersion in Southeast Asian culture had a lasting influence on him and his family. His dramatic, provocative reminiscence of those years is the first account by a participant to portray America's involvement in Laos.

Special Air Warfare and the Secret War in Laos

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Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781079351712
Total Pages : 516 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (517 download)

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Book Synopsis Special Air Warfare and the Secret War in Laos by : Air University Press

Download or read book Special Air Warfare and the Secret War in Laos written by Air University Press and published by . This book was released on 2019-07-02 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of special air warfare and the Air Commandos who served for the ambassadors in Laos from 1964 to 1975 is captured through extensive research and veteran interviews. The author has meticulously put together a comprehensive overview of the involvement of USAF Air Commandos who served in Laos as trainers, advisors, and clandestine combat forces to prevent the communist takeover of the Royal Lao Government. This book includes pictures of those operations, unveils what had been a US government secret war, and adds a substantial contribution to understanding the wider war in Southeast Asia.

Cheating Death

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Author :
Publisher : Smithsonian Institution
ISBN 13 : 1588345521
Total Pages : 301 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (883 download)

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Book Synopsis Cheating Death by : George J. Marrett

Download or read book Cheating Death written by George J. Marrett and published by Smithsonian Institution. This book was released on 2016-12-06 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: They flew low and slow, at treetop level, at night, in monsoons, and in point-blank range of enemy guns and missiles. They were missions no one else wanted, but the ones all other pilots prayed for when shot down. Flying the World War II-vintage Douglas A-1 Skyraider, a single-engine, propeller-driven relic in a war of “fast-movers,” these intrepid US Air Force pilots, call sign Sandy, risked their lives with every mission to rescue thousands of downed Navy and Air Force pilots. With a flashback memory and a style all his own, George J. Marrett depicts some of the most dangerous aerial combat of any war. The thrilling rescue of “Streetcar 304” and William Jones's selfless act of heroism that earned him the Medal of Honor are but two of the compelling tales he recounts. Here too are the courages Jolly Green Giant helicopter crews, parajumpers, and forward air controllers who worked with the Sandys over heavily defended jungles and mountains well behind enemy lines. Passionate, mordantly witty, and filled with heart-pounding adrenaline, Cheating Death reads like the finest combat fiction, but it is the real deal: its heroes, cowards, jokers, and casualties all have names and faces readers will find difficult to forget.

Run Me to Earth

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Publisher : Simon & Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1501154044
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (11 download)

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Book Synopsis Run Me to Earth by : Paul Yoon

Download or read book Run Me to Earth written by Paul Yoon and published by Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 2020-01-28 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From award-winning author Paul Yoon comes a beautiful, aching novel about three kids orphaned in 1960s Laos—and how their destinies are entwined across decades, anointed by Hernan Diaz as “one of those rare novels that stays with us to become a standard with which we measure other books.” Alisak, Prany, and Noi—three orphans united by devastating loss—must do what is necessary to survive the perilous landscape of 1960s Laos. When they take shelter in a bombed out field hospital, they meet Vang, a doctor dedicated to helping the wounded at all costs. Soon the teens are serving as motorcycle couriers, delicately navigating their bikes across the fields filled with unexploded bombs, beneath the indiscriminate barrage from the sky. In a world where the landscape and the roads have turned into an ocean of bombs, we follow their grueling days of rescuing civilians and searching for medical supplies, until Vang secures their evacuation on the last helicopters leaving the country. It’s a move with irrevocable consequences—and sets them on disparate and treacherous paths across the world. Spanning decades and magically weaving together storylines laced with beauty and cruelty, Paul Yoon crafts a gorgeous story that is a breathtaking historical feat and a fierce study of the powers of hope, perseverance, and grace.

Into Laos

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Author :
Publisher : Dell Publishing Company
ISBN 13 : 9780440200444
Total Pages : 400 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (4 download)

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Book Synopsis Into Laos by : Keith William Nolan

Download or read book Into Laos written by Keith William Nolan and published by Dell Publishing Company. This book was released on 1988-01-01 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An eyewitness account of the last major operation the Americans fought in Vietnam, focusing on the soldiers as individuals and on the previously neglected aspects of the battles that were not reported by the press

Codename Mule

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Publisher : Naval Inst Press
ISBN 13 : 9781557506689
Total Pages : 193 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (66 download)

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Book Synopsis Codename Mule by : James E. Parker

Download or read book Codename Mule written by James E. Parker and published by Naval Inst Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the same time the Vietnam War was being broadcast into the living rooms of Americans across the country the CIA was conducting a large-scale secret war in northeastern Laos that few heard about. Agency case officer Jim Parker's five years of combat and immersion in Southeast Asian culture had a lasting influence on him and his family. His dramatic, provocative reminiscence of those years is the first account by a participant to portray America's involvement in Laos and the people who served there.

Lost Over Laos

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Author :
Publisher : Hachette UK
ISBN 13 : 0786740949
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (867 download)

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Book Synopsis Lost Over Laos by : Richard Pyle

Download or read book Lost Over Laos written by Richard Pyle and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2008-12-17 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1971, as American forces hastened their withdrawal from Vietnam, a helicopter was hit by enemy fire over Laos and exploded in a fireball, killing four top combat photographers, Larry Burrows of Life magazine, Henri Huet of Associated Press, Kent Potter of United Press International, and Keisaburo Shimamoto of Newsweek. The Saigon press corps and the American public were stunned, but the remoteness of the location made a recovery attempt impossible. When the war ended four years later in a communist victory, the war zone was sealed off to outsiders, and the helicopter incident faded from most memories. Yet two journalists from the Vietnam press corps -- Richard Pyle, former Saigon Bureau Chief, and Horst Faas, Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer in Vietnam-pledged to return some day to Laos, resolve mysteries about the crash, and pay homage to their lost friends. True to their vow, twenty-seven years after the incident the authors joined a U.S. team excavating the hillside where the helicopter crashed. Few human remains were found, but camera parts and bits of film provided eerie proof of what happened there.The narrative of Lost Over Laos is framed in a period that was among the war's bloodiest, for both the military and the media, yet has received relatively little attention from historians. It is rich with behind-the-scenes anecdotes about the Saigon press corps and illustrated with stunning work by the four combat photographers who died and their colleagues.

The Pathet Lao: Leadership and Organization

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Author :
Publisher : Lexington, Mass : Lexington Books
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 200 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis The Pathet Lao: Leadership and Organization by : Joseph Jermiah Zasloff

Download or read book The Pathet Lao: Leadership and Organization written by Joseph Jermiah Zasloff and published by Lexington, Mass : Lexington Books. This book was released on 1973 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The report analyzes the Laotian revolutionary movement commonly known as the Pathet Lao--its leaders, commanding party (People's Party of Laos), the Lao Patriotic Front, its political and administrative organization, and its military forces. The document also presents biographical information on 12 'founding fathers' who are probably among the leading policymakers, and discusses their characteristics. Leadership continuity is remarkable, having lasted through 20 years of intermittent war and coalition with no evidence of major purges or defections. Eight appendixes include biographies, policy statements, a list of fronts, and brief profiles of 53 informants.

Secret War in Laos

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Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781694374110
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (741 download)

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Book Synopsis Secret War in Laos by : Steven Schofield

Download or read book Secret War in Laos written by Steven Schofield and published by . This book was released on 2019-10-06 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The tale of a young Green Beret medic, Vietnam combat veteran with the top secret Studies and Observations Group (SOG) who was recruited by the US Agency for International Development (USAID).Schofield worked 51/2 years providing medical support for the Hmong and other Hill Tribes who fought the CIA's secret war in Northern Laos, and was among the last Americans to leave SE Asia in May 1975.It was a surreal time and place that would be impossible to even imagine today."Schofiled's book reflects a genuine love for the Hmong and their culture, as well as a vast knowledge of their efforts during our 'secret war' in Laos in the 1960s and 1970s. Read and learn some actual facts; not overblown rhetoric from another barstool hero." -Stephen R. Leopold is Colonel, SF, USA (Ret)"Schofield's book will be a welcome, informative addition to recent books released on the early days of Green Beret history in Southeast Asia. De Oppresso Liber." -John Stryker Meyer is author of SOG Chronicles, Across the Fence and On the Ground

Tragic Mountains

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Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780253207562
Total Pages : 632 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (75 download)

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Book Synopsis Tragic Mountains by : Jane Hamilton-Merritt

Download or read book Tragic Mountains written by Jane Hamilton-Merritt and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 632 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tragic Mountains tells the story of the Hmong's struggle for freedom and survival in Laos from 1942 through 1992. During those years, most Hmong sided with the French against the Japanese and Ho Chi Minh's Viet Minh, and then with the Americans against the North Viemamese.

Bait

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Author :
Publisher : Casemate
ISBN 13 : 1612008135
Total Pages : 289 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (12 download)

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Book Synopsis Bait by : James D. McLeroy

Download or read book Bait written by James D. McLeroy and published by Casemate. This book was released on 2019-11-19 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of one of the least known and most misunderstood battles in the Vietnam War. The strategic potential of the three-day attack of two North Vietnamese Army (NVA) regiments on Kham Duc, a remote and isolated Army Special Forces camp, on the eve of the first Paris peace talks in May 1968, was so significant that former President Lyndon Johnson included it in his memoirs. This gripping, original, eyewitness narrative and thoroughly researched analysis of a widely misinterpreted battle at the height of the Vietnam War radically contradicts all the other published accounts of it. In addition to the tactical details of the combat narrative, the authors consider the grand strategies and political contexts of the U.S. and North Vietnamese leaders. Praise for Bait: The Battle of Kham Duc “This book is a must read for any Vietnam historian or veteran.” —Patrick Brady, Major General, USA (ret.), Medal of Honor Recipient “For an authentic, detailed view of how large battles between U.S. combined-arms forces and regular North Vietnamese Army forces were fought in Vietnam in 1968, Bait: The Battle of Kham Duc is required reading.” —General H. Hugh Shelton, 14th Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff “This first-hand, exhaustively documented account of a large battle in the Vietnam War shows the decisive role of air power in all its forms.” —Carl Schneider, Major General, USAF (ret.) “One of those rare historical narratives that explains in rich detail a battle that was little understood or reported on at the time it was fought but was of strategic importance and heroic dimension.” —Marine Corps Gazette “The account of the battle is both detailed and exceptionally well-written; McLeroy’s participation in the battle adds authenticity to the narrative.... Highly recommended for anyone interested in how large-scale battles were fought in Vietnam at the height of U.S. commitment on the ground there.” —Journal of Military History

Ho Chi Minh Trail 1964–73

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Author :
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1472842545
Total Pages : 97 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (728 download)

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Book Synopsis Ho Chi Minh Trail 1964–73 by : Peter E. Davies

Download or read book Ho Chi Minh Trail 1964–73 written by Peter E. Davies and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-09-17 with total page 97 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Trails War formed a major part of the so-called 'secret war' in South East Asia, yet for complex political reasons, including the involvement of the CIA, it received far less coverage than campaigns like Rolling Thunder and Linebacker. Nevertheless, the campaign had a profound effect on the outcome of the war and on its perception in the USA. In the north, the Barrel Roll campaign was often operated by daring pilots flying obsolete aircraft, as in the early years, US forces were still flying antiquated piston-engined T-28 and A-26A aircraft. The campaign gave rise to countless heroic deeds by pilots like the Raven forward air controllers, operating from primitive airstrips in close contact with fierce enemy forces. USAF rescue services carried out extremely hazardous missions to recover aircrew who would otherwise have been swiftly executed by Pathet Lao forces, and reconnaissance pilots routinely risked their lives in solo, low-level mission over hostile territory. Further south, the Steel Tiger campaign was less covert. Arc Light B-52 strikes were flown frequently, and the fearsome AC-130 was introduced to cut the trails. At the same time, many thousands of North Vietnamese troops and civilians repeatedly made the long, arduous journey along the trail in trucks or, more often, pushing French bicycles laden with ammunition and rice. Under constant threat of air attack and enduring heavy losses, they devised extremely ingenious means of survival. The campaign to cut the trails endured for the entire Vietnam War but nothing more than partial success could ever be achieved by the USA. This illustrated title explores the fascinating history of this campaign, analysing the forces involved and explaining why the USA could never truly conquer the Ho Chi Minh trail.