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Special Guest Star: The B-17

Tom Huntington — Mon, 05 Feb 2024 16:00:00 +0000

The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress has found itself back in the spotlight after the January 26 debut of the AppleTV+ miniseries Masters of the Air. Produced by Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman—who were also behind the series Band of Brothers and The Pacific—and based on the book by Donald L. Miller, the nine-part series tells the story of the 100th Bombardment Group—the “Bloody 100th”—during World War II. The group flew the B-17 , and the big four-engine Boeings should share top billing with human stars Austin Butler, Callum Turner and Barry Keoghan, even if most of the airplanes are the product of computer-generated imagery (CGI), along with three modern replicas. (The series should include a disclaimer that state, “No real B-17s were harmed during the making of this series.”)

The United States produced nearly 13,000 B-17s during the war. Today only 45 remain and only a handful of those are in flying condition. Two have crashed in recent years, the Commemorative Air Force’s Texas Raiders destroyed after an inflight collision with a P-63 Kingcobra at an airshow in 2022 and “Nine-o-Nine,” owned and operated by the Collings Foundation, in 2019.

A B-17 of the 365th Bombardment Squadron of the 305th Bombardment Group flies in formation over England in February 1944.

The B-17 flights in MOTA, as it’s known, are brutal, violent and intense. That’s not at all the experience I had when I got to fly in a B-17 some years ago. I flew in Yankee Lady, the B-17G operated by the Yankee Air Museum of Belleville, Michigan. This B-17 was one of the last built, too late to see combat. It flew for the Coast Guard for a while after the war and then was converted for fire-fighting. The museum received it in 1986, when it needed a complete nine-year restoration before it could return to the air. It was briefly grounded in the spring of 2023 when the Federal Aviation Administration issued an airworthiness directive regarding an issue with wing spars but has resumed flying.

Yankee Lady prepares for flight.

My flight went off without incident. There was no flak, no fighters, no blood, no worries about hypoxia or frostbite, no spent shell casings littering the fuselage interior. But I did experience the ear-pounding noise generated by the four Wright R-1820-97 engines. On the runway they idled with a loud throaty purr, but when the pilot pushed the throttles forward and Yankee Lady began its takeoff run, the entire airplane vibrated to the roar of the engines. I was sitting in the bombardier’s station in the nose of the bomber, watching as the trees as the end of the runway got closer and closer…and then we lifted up and soared over them.

The view from the front.

It was a thrill to fly in the venerable Boeing. Maybe I didn’t get a sense of air combat, but I did get a sense of the airplane, which was not nearly as big—at least from the inside—as I expected. I’m sure it felt even more cramped for aircrew wearing bulky heated suits to protect them from the subzero temperatures at altitude.

I’m glad I got my chance to fly in a B-17 but I’m even happier that I didn’t have to experience what their crews did during the war.

There’s not a lot of elbow room in the cockpit.

Just in case.

Two of the four Wright R-1820-97 engines.

Safe on the ground.

Yes, Buzz Aldrin Walked on the Moon But We Asked Him About His Fighter Jock Days

Dave Kindy — Fri, 02 Feb 2024 14:30:00 +0000

Buzz Aldrin.

When Military History sought an interview with Buzz Aldrin, he initially demurred. The second human being ever to walk on the surface of the Moon—on July 21, 1969, as a crew member of Apollo 11—he finds that journalists seldom want to discuss anything else. But Aldrin’s career spans much further. A graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, he was commissioned into the Air Force at the outset of the Korean War. Flying the North American F-86 Sabre for the 16th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, Aldrin completed 66 combat missions and downed two MiG-15 jets. After the war he earned a doctorate in astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Aldrin walked in space as a Gemini astronaut before flying to the Moon with Apollo. Today, the 93-year-old Air Force brigadier general remains a strong advocate of the space program, particularly of planned missions to Mars.

What made you select the Air Force after graduation from West Point?

I wanted to fly and had always wanted to fly. I took my first flight at age 2 with my father and never looked back. Flying was exhilarating. We [graduates] knew the nation would need pilots, so we signed up.

What was it like flying the cutting-edge F-86 Sabre?

Fast in a dogfight—and I was in a couple of those—and gratifying, because the plane handled well, although my gun got jammed in one encounter, and on another occasion I had a frozen fuel line. But the plane was a jet, and we liked the idea of flying jets. They got you higher and faster, and we all liked that.

How did the MiG-15 match up in your two recorded Korean War shootdowns?

The MiG-15 was a fast plane, and they had good pilots. The pilot ejected in the first one, which was filmed by the nose camera [of my Sabre].

Second Lt. Aldrin poses in his F-86 Sabre jet fighter in 1953. That May 14 he shot down his first of two North Korean MiG-15s, forcing its pilot to eject.

Your second kill entailed a difficult dogfight. Tell us about that.

Not a lot to tell, but you can see photos of it. My gun jammed on my first lock, so I had to be steady, stay with him, get the lock again and then fire. He, too, ejected, which was good for him. Dogfights are all-consuming—they happen fast. Nothing about a shootdown is easy, but when you return alive you feel glad you returned, glad you could do what you were supposed to.

What was it like flying the F-100 Super Sabre equipped with nuclear weapons?

I will just say, those times—perhaps a bit like these times—were about being prepared. There was tension, but we were always well trained, ready for what might come. We signed up to protect the United States, and so we did. It was as simple as that. We all thought freedom mattered, and we flew to protect it.

A fighter jock with a doctoral degree?

Yes, before selection to NASA’s third group of astronauts, I earned my doctorate from MIT. I wrote a thesis called “Line-of-Sight Guidance Techniques for Manned Orbital Rendezvous.” An understanding of that topic and orbital mechanics proved fortuitous when Jim Lovell and I flew Gemini 12, the last Gemini mission, which required proving the efficacy of orbital rendezvous. As fate would have it, we actually needed to manage part of that process manually, due to computer problems, so the thesis came in handy after all.

Aldrin poses aboard the Apollo 11 lunar module Eagle on July 21, 1969, after having spent more than two hours walking on the Moon with fellow astronaut Neil Armstrong.

How excited were you to join the space program?

Very. And looking back, I was just fortunate to be selected for Gemini 12 and Apollo 11. I was also blessed to have great crewmates—Lovell in Gemini 12, and Neil Armstrong and Mike Collins in Apollo 11. What can you say? We were all blessed.

Describe the sensation of your free-flight space walk for Gemini.

My longest EVA [extravehicular activity], or space walk, of Gemini 12 was surprising for the beauty and sense of accomplishment that came with it—and because my heart rate apparently stayed low. Someone asked me why, and I really could not say, except that I was honestly having fun.

We must ask, what was it like to walk on the Moon?

In many other venues I have discussed the answer to that question, but suffice to say we had a job to do, and we worked very hard to do it. We did not want to let others down, since so many had worked to make Apollo 11, mankind’s first Moon landing, a success. I called it “magnificent desolation” at the time, and that remains a good description. It was also an honor, and while we trained hard for it, the actual event was exhilarating in small and unexpected ways. We saw our shadow landing, which never happened in simulation. We had to test one-sixth gravity, since that could not be simulated. We had to get experiments out, and one required waiting for a small BB to settle in a cone, which took a while with one-sixth gravity. Neil and I worked together to get the American flag in, which was harder than you might think with only about an inch of Moon dust to plant it in.

On May 5, 2023, you were promoted to brigadier general. What did that mean to you?

Well, it was humbling, gratifying, and I was really honored. I stepped out of the normal advancement sequence flying for NASA. Afterward, I continued to serve, fly and believe in the U.S. Air Force. To be recognized for that—for what I did during and after that special time—was gratifying. I thank all those involved. It meant a lot, and I am happy still when I think about that day.

Aldrin has been an advocate of the space program since its inception.

You continue to advocate for a manned mission to Mars. Why?

Simple, really: The United States is the leader in human space exploration, and we need to keep reaching outward, expanding and enriching the human experience. That means not resting on our laurels, but going out to Mars, exploring and swiftly creating permanence there—not a touch-and-go, but staying on Mars.

How do you reflect on your achievements in the military and as an astronaut?

We all have our stories and our journey, and mine has been exciting. It was an honor to serve in Korea, with NASA and thereafter with the Air Force. This nation is one of a kind—both a great and good country. Those opportunities came from tens of thousands of other dedicated Americans, and I feel forever grateful for what they did to make my journey possible. So, how do you reflect on all that? You just remind yourself each dawn is precious, and you stay grateful. You keep trying to do whatever you can to keep the greatness and goodness going.

This interview appeared in the Spring 2024 issue of Military History magazine.

His Father was Kidnapped By Communists. He Went To America’s Aid in the Vietnam War

M.G. Haynes — Fri, 26 Jan 2024 18:25:23 +0000

In 1964, the Republic of Korea (ROK) dispatched soldiers to assist the Republic of Vietnam (RVN) in its fight against communism. Recovering from its own terrifying and bloody brush with communist aggression just a decade prior, ROK President Park Chung-Hee offered to help his ally, the United States, prevent another Asian country from turning “Red.” That first brigade of engineers, doctors, and military police grew to two Army infantry divisions and a Marine brigade within two years, fighting in some of the nastiest campaigns of the war.

By the time ROK forces withdrew from Vietnam in 1973, over 320,000 Korean troops had rotated through the war zone—the second largest foreign contingent in the war after the U.S. Korean troops in Vietnam left behind over 5,000 dead, 11,000 wounded, and a hard-earned reputation as ferocious and stubborn fighters that continues to characterize the ROK armed forces today. Although born in the crucible of the Korean War, the ROK Army and Marine Corps were forged by their experiences in Vietnam into a modern and effective fighting force.

South Korean Support For America

It is always the case that a long trail of logistics and support personnel makes it possible for brave men at the front to do brave things. This was no less true in Vietnam and proved just as necessary for the ROK during its first-ever combat deployment overseas. Without a global base structure of its own, the ROK relied on allies and partners to assist with the logistical support necessary to keep two infantry divisions and a Marine brigade in the fight. Clark Field in the Philippines and Ching Chuan Kang Air Base in Taiwan provided such assistance to South Korea and were integral to the 1972-73 Vietnam experiences of now retired ROK Air Force Col. Han Jin-Hwan.

Col. Han Jin-Hwan. Han Jin-Hwan joined the ROK Air Force in 1959 and volunteered to go to Vietnam in 1972.

Col. Han joined the ROK Air Force in 1959 after graduating from Chung-ang University in Seoul. Trained as a weapons controller, his stellar service record and exceptional proficiency with the English language led to his selection to attend the Defense Language Institute at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas from 1964-65. Then he went to Weapons Controller School at Tyndall Air Force Base and the Air-Ground Operations School at Hurlburt Field—both in Florida—through 1966. Col. Han retired from the military in 1983 after a distinguished career and remains a civic leader in his community today.

In autumn 2023, he agreed to sit down for an interview with Vietnam magazine—the first interview of its kind this magazine has featured—to share his experiences with readers in the United States.

Col. Han, where are you from in Korea?

I was born and raised in Seoul, the capital of the Republic of Korea.

What did your parents do and what was it like growing up?

My father [Han Sang-Jik] was a high-ranking official in the Ministry of Public Affairs. In 1950, when North Korea invaded, we couldn’t evacuate to the south and so were forced into hiding. A friend of my father’s talked him into coming out into the open where he was then captured by the North Koreans. That “friend” turned out to be a communist sympathizer.

My father was taken North with many other public officials and we never saw him again. I was 12 years old at the time.

I always remembered three things my father taught me: “If you start something, never give up until the very end,” “Always be diligent,” and, “Always be a good person.”

Han Sang-Jik. During the war, Col. Han’s father Han Sang-Jik was taken prisoner by communist forces.

Were you drafted or did you volunteer to go to Vietnam?

I volunteered, though not in the way you Americans did. I’d joined the ROK Air Force in 1959, and so in 1972 I was a major working directly for the Chief of Staff of the ROK Air Force. He asked me at the time where I wanted to serve next and I told him Vietnam.

It was hard for Air Force officers to go there at the time as there were few of our personnel in Vietnam, so competition for the few slots was high. Since I asked the Chief of Staff directly, he agreed and made the arrangements.

U.S. Marines pass through a village during the Korean War.

What inspired you to volunteer?

I felt strongly ever since 1950, when the United States came to our aid and helped our country beat back the communist North, that Korea owed a debt to the U.S. We were poor then with few modern weapons and little ammunition.

A lot of equipment was shared with us and many U.S. soldiers died on our behalf. President Park decided the ROK would dispatch troops to Vietnam and I wanted to do my part to help repay that national debt.

Did you receive any special training before deploying to Vietnam?

Due to the nature of my mission the only training I received took place at the Ministry of National Defense in Seoul.

What unit did you serve in?

I served in the Air Force Support Group, with its headquarters located at Tan Son Nhut Air Base near Saigon. As it turned out, I only stayed there for three months before being dispatched to Clark Field in the Philippines as ROK Liaison Officer.

When did you first arrive in country and what was it like?

Late May 1972, on a ROKAF C-54.Saigon wasn’t exactly the frontier. We stayed at a small hotel. The soldiers and airmen stationed at Tan Son Nhut didn’t really feel the war like the men did out in the jungle. Our infantry were at the front and fighting, but would come back to Saigon for rest and recovery. My wartime duty station was a recovery site for others!

What was your mission there?

I handled all coordination for ROK personnel—military and civilian—moving between Korea and Vietnam. I managed a small village full of trailers for our people to overnight in when necessary. My NCO and I also provided escort duty to the medevac flights taking our wounded and dead from Vietnam back to Korea.

These missions were all-day flights for us, on ROKAF C-54 and C-9 aircraft specially adapted to transport litter and ambulatory patients. The medevac flights routed from Vietnam to Taiwan and then on to Daegu, Gimpo, or Gwangju Air Bases in Korea.

During the layover in Taiwan I arranged for meals—regular or soft food—and handled all financial transactions required as well as making whatever arrangements were necessary with the nursing staff. After landing in Korea and unloading both our wounded and deceased members, we had four hours before the return flight to Clark. Those missions took all day starting with a 3 a.m. briefing at Clark and not returning till late at night.

My duties required me to have dealings with the U.S. military hospital at Clark. That facility was very large and a lot of wounded and deceased U.S. soldiers came through there. I remember seeing so many coffins.

Did anything surprise you about Vietnam?

You couldn’t tell friend from foe. You couldn’t look at someone and see whether or not they were communists. Because of this, the Support Group commander, Lt. Gen. Lee, instituted a curfew and so we weren’t allowed into the city at night.

An ROK Marine (right) takes two Viet Cong insurgents prisoner as they emerge from an underground hiding place. The Republic of Korea had the second largest troop presence in Vietnam after the U.S., with 320,000 troops passing through the war zone.

Did you interact with local Vietnamese and, if so, what did you think about them?

We used to visit “Chollum” [sic] market. At the time I bought a set of 10 ceramic plates decorated in a French style for my wife. I still have three or four. People in the market smiled at us and treated us nicely but we always wondered if they weren’t really communist at heart. That said, unit regulations prevented us from any significant interaction with the locals.

How hard was it to do your mission, and how long did it last?

At times it was very difficult—especially the medevac flights—but I felt then that it was a job worth doing and I was honored to do it. I was very patriotic at that age and since I couldn’t go to the forward areas and fight, I really wanted to help those who’d been wounded doing so. There was a lot of job satisfaction for me there. Still, it was very hard for me to see our soldiers that way.

It was a one-year tour for me, 1972 to 1973. Three months at Tan Son Nhut and then nine more at Clark.

Do you recall any particularly memorable experiences while performing that mission?

So many. Some of our wounded had been blinded or lost limbs. It was pitiful to see them so badly injured. They were all so young, so full of life, but dedicated to the mission there and ready to sacrifice. I felt…it was just very pitiful to see them that way.

Did you work with American troops in Vietnam? If so, what was your experience with them?

I didn’t really work with Americans in Vietnam, but of course I worked with so many stationed at Clark Field. I thought they were generally very good soldiers and very patriotic.

How many trips did you make to Vietnam?

The medevac flights took place roughly once every three weeks or so. My NCO and I took turns escorting the medevac flights and so I made three or four trips back into Vietnam. He was a medical Technical Sergeant.

Besides soldiers, what kind of people passed through Clark from Korea?

Lots of entertainers, assemblymen, even Miss Korea, but not many so late in the war.

Col. Han’s wife, daughter, and son are shown in a photo taken circa 1974. Han’s daughter—born in 1973, halfway through his Vietnam deployment—could well be wearing baby clothes that Han bought for his family at Clark Field.

Was your family concerned for your welfare?

They were concerned, but I received combat pay while deployed to Vietnam and so that was good news. It was a lot of money for us back then and my wife saved up the excess pay to buy an apartment in Seoul. I remember my daughter was born halfway through my tour of duty, in 1973. Because I had access to the U.S. Air Force Base Exchange on Clark, I bought a bunch of baby clothes and sent them home to my wife. These things helped them and took their minds off the fact that I might be in a dangerous situation.

How did you feel when the U.S. withdrew from Vietnam?

It all kind of felt like a waste of time, and I hated the thought that the communists had won after all. It made me think that no matter how much help might be given, we could never change peoples’ ideology. It was the same with North Korea. The experience left me, if anything, even more anti-
communist, more dedicated to protecting our freedoms than before.

When you returned to Korea from your deployment, did you face any negativity because of your experience in Vietnam?

No, none at all. The government thanked us for our service in Vietnam and gifted us our first color television and a new refrigerator. You laugh, but there weren’t many color TVs in Korea in 1973, so we felt special. The military handed us coupons upon our return and we just went into a store and walked away with the new appliances. Our going to the war really wasn’t a political or social issue back then, though you must remember we had a military government at the time so protests were difficult.

Still, our participation in the Vietnam War didn’t become an issue at all until later, when left-leaning politicians used it for political gain. At the time, we were welcomed back home and those who returned with me just felt lucky to be alive.

Have you been back to Vietnam since the war ended?

No…and don’t really have any desire to do so. That was a long time ago.

ROK Marines travel to the combat zone on a U.S. resupply transport in late 1967. South Korea sustained over 5,000 dead and 11,000 wounded during the Vietnam War. Col. Han escorted medevac flights transporting wounded and deceased ROK soldiers from Vietnam back to Korea.

Is there anything you would like to say to Vietnam veterans in the U.S. reading this story?

The U.S. veterans of that war were heroes for standing up to the spread of communism overseas. I think it was a very difficult experience for them and I appreciate it so much.

What would you like young people to know about the Vietnam War?

War is a very cruel and difficult thing. My generation knew war and poverty, precisely because of communist aggression from North Korea and later North Vietnam. Our young must be thankful to their elders for all our sacrifices, but they know nothing of war or difficulty. They can’t understand enduring poverty, death, and destruction because of the communists up north. It’s all ancient history to them—almost like a fairy tale. This is why they lean toward leftist ideas. They just don’t understand what happened the last time those ideas marched south.

Is there anything you would like to add?

It seems rich countries always feel the need to help poorer countries.

And yet the ROK was quite a poor country when it decided to help South Vietnam.

Yes, and in a strange way, it ended up being our nation’s pathway to material success and the prosperity you see in Korea today. Our sacrifice served our nation well.

This interview appeared in the 2024 Winter issue of Vietnam magazine.

this article first appeared in vietnam magazine

Book Review: Showing A New Side to Rommel At War

Jerry D. Morelock — Fri, 26 Jan 2024 18:25:03 +0000

“Rommel, you magnificent bastard! I read your book!” shouts a triumphant U.S. Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr. (as played by Best Actor Oscar winner, George C. Scott in 1970’s Best Picture, Patton) while watching the March-April 1943 Battle of El Guettar in Tunisia, North Africa. This “gotcha!” exclamation implies the American general gained the key to victory over the German-Italian Axis forces he mistakenly thought were then commanded by Rommel from reading Rommel’s own impressive account of his development as a daring, tactically-innovative troop commander fighting French, Romanian, Russian and Italian units in World War I.

An avid reader of all things military history—his extensive, personally-annotated military history library was donated to the West Point Library—the real Patton probably did read Infanterie greift an, published by then-Lt. Col. Erwin Rommel in Germany in 1937, two years before World War II began and four years before Rommel earned his nickname, “The Desert Fox”. But the first English language edition—heavily abridged and edited by (understandably) anti-German wartime military censors only initially appeared in 1943.

What is certain, however, is that Patton never read this excellent, insightful, and revealing new English translation—which is much truer and exceedingly more faithful to Rommel’s highly nuanced, original German account than the extremely poor, indifferently translated wartime 1943 and 1944 English editions. Comparing Zita Steele’s (pen name of award-winning writer-historian-editor, Zita Ballinger Fletcher) brilliant new translation of Rommel’s classic book is akin to comparing Shakespeare’s Hamlet to a fourth-grade “Dick and Jane” grammar book. Steele’s deft translation finally does justice to Rommel’s original German text.

Bringing the Original Text To Life

Rommel’s original text comes vividly alive through Steele’s superb German-to-English translation and his account of how he reacted to and developed his innovative small-unit tactics to consistently defeat the forces arrayed against his own unit is exceptionally well-revealed in her new book. Usually outnumbered and outgunned, German mountain ranger assault troops under the young Rommel, time and time again overcame their enemies’ superior numbers and greater firepower to achieve their often daunting objectives. Steele consistently, and much more correctly, translates “German alpine troops” as “mountain rangers,” thereby better capturing the true nature of these, in effect, early versions of what would eventually be known as “special operations forces”.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

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Rommel describes how and why he developed the tactics he used to prevail in each engagement, revealing his constant development as an innovative troop leader. This excellent new translation traces the gradual but proceeding development during combat in France and in the mountains of the Eastern Front of the young Rommel whose later operational genius would suddenly burst forth upon the Belgian, French and North African battlefields of World War II. This translation demonstrates the roots of Rommel’s operational genius, showing “how Rommel became Rommel.”

Rommel As A Person

Steele also reveals Erwin Rommel as a person, with the all-too-human flaws he possessed. Although the enduring image of Rommel was that of a homebody “family” man, a devoted, doting husband to his wife Lucie (they married in 1916), his relationship with another woman produced an illegitimate daughter, Gertrud, in 1913, whom he manfully acknowledged and for whom he provided financial support.

Additionally, Steele presents a convincing argument—based on Rommel’s admitted life-long insomnia and recurrent nightmares—that he suffered from PTSD, post traumatic stress disorder. Given his WWI wounds, the nightmarish combat he endured in that war, and the loss of many close friends, that diagnosis seems completely credible. Coincidentally, Patton’s best biographer, Carlo D’Este, concludes—very convincingly—that Patton also suffered from PTSD. This reviewer strongly concurs with both authors’ “diagnoses.”

Was Rommel A Nazi?

Steele also delves into THE question involving Rommel: Was he or was he not a “Nazi?” Although it is a historical fact that Erwin Rommel was never a member of the Nazi Party, his promotions by Adolf Hitler always beg the question of was Rommel a “secret” Nazi, whether an official member of the Party or not? Steele concludes—correctly in this reviewer’s opinion—that Rommel was definitely not a Nazi. Clearly, Rommel personally benefited from Hitler’s support and indulgences, but so did other non-Nazis if they served Hitler’s interests when that service was beneficial to the Nazi dictator. Rommel was enough of a non-Nazi that he paid the ultimate price—Hitler’s toadies forced the field marshal to commit suicide on Oct. 14, 1944 in the wake of the July 20, 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler of which Rommel knew but of which he was not an integral part.

Zita Steele’s new book which is based on her new, insightful, nuanced and authoritative English translation of Erwin Rommel’s classic of military history 1937 book, Infantry Attacks, is a hands’-down, “must-have” book in any military history enthusiast’s library. It not only makes earlier English translations of Rommel’s book obsolete, it’s a “classic” account of World War I combat. Above all, it’s an insightful preview of one of the most famous commanders of World War II—and how he learned his trade! Buy it! Read it! Enjoy it!

ERwin Rommel: First War

A New Look At Infantry Attacks
By Zita Steele

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Unpacking the Myths Of the F-8 Crusader in Vietnam

Jon Guttman — Tue, 16 Jan 2024 18:42:13 +0000

Among the many myths and legends to emerge from the Vietnam War was that the U.S. Navy’s Vought F-8 Crusader was “the last of the gunfighters” and the only air superiority fighter of its time. Although the Crusader did pack four Colt-Browning Mark 12 20mm cannons at a time when other American fighters were relying on air-to-air missiles, its cannons were unreliable and virtually all Crusader victories over its Mikoyan-Gurevich-designed opposition were achieved using AIM-9 heat-seeking missiles.

It is true, however, that the Crusader established the highest kill-to-loss ratio over Vietnam, destroying 14 MiG-17s and four MiG-21s for the loss of three F-8s—all to the older but agile MiG-17s. The second of the downed Crusader pilots, Cdr. Dick Bellinger of fighter squadron VF-162 off the aircraft carrier USS Oriskany, was credited to Ngo Duc Mai on July 14, 1966, but the American survived and on Oct. 9 gained a unique revenge when he shot down Nguyen Van Minh, who also ejected just before his plane crashed, the third MiG-21 downed in Vietnam and the first credited to a U.S. Navy fighter.

Lt. Jack Terhune ejects from his F-8 Crusader after it flamed out over the South China Sea in 1965. He was rescued uninjured.

Straddling truth and myth on the other side is Vietnam’s crediting of an F-8E to Pham Ngoc Lan as Vietnam’s first air-to-air victory on April 3, 1965. That date is still celebrated as Vietnam People’s Air Force Day, in spite of the documented fact that Lt. Cmdr. Spence Thomas of USS Hancock’s VF-211 managed to get his damaged Crusader to Da Nang, where it was repaired and returned to service.

In the seventh in Osprey’s “Dogfight” series, F-8 Crusader, Vietnam, Peter E. Davies combines his extensive research, including interviews and combat reports, to give the reader an in-cockpit glimpse of what it was like to fly and fight in the plane. For all the successes described within its niche of aerial combat, however, the author does not shy away from including the wider, deadlier world in which the plane operated, harboring the dangers of surface-to-air missiles and ground fire, which added up to the highest operational loss rate of any U.S. tactical aircraft.

F-8 Crusader, Vietnam 1963-1973

By Peter E. Davies, Osprey Publishing, 2023, $23

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This review appeared in the 2024 Winter issue of Vietnam magazine.

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His Sergeant in Vietnam Became His Hero. He Never Forgot It.

John Magnarelli — Fri, 12 Jan 2024 17:37:50 +0000

Willie Johnson was a 35-year-old African American from South Carolina with a wife and six kids. What did I, a 20-year-old single white kid from Quincy, Mass., have in common with him, other than being stationed in Vietnam with the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment? Well, living with someone in an Armored Cavalry Assault Vehicle (ACAV) for five months will make for close relationships.

Willie was a career soldier, our first sergeant, a leader, advisor, confessor, and friend. He was firm but fair and full of life. He taught me to play pinochle, a card game I never played before and have never played since. I never called him Willie, but always “Top.” He was killed by a rocket propelled grenade (RPG) a few feet from me.

Near the Cambodian Border

On March 5, 1970, we moved from a location near the Cambodian border to a place just four or five miles away. The rolling terrain was a challenge for our 12-ton armored vehicles. We arrived at our night defensive position just before dusk and deployed our 20 ACAVs similar to how covered wagons would circle in Western movies. The track commander was Capt. Max Bailey, who sat on top of our vehicle behind a .50-caliber machine gun. The driver was Don, whose last name I forget. Top and I were the rear gunners behind M60 machine guns. I dismounted our track, set up trip flares covering our part of the perimeter, and positioned Claymore mines in front of our vehicle.

We had been in constant contact with the enemy for months and were always prepared for battle. Our enemy was not the Viet Cong but the North Vietnamese Army (NVA), and we never knew where or when they would hit us. I was still awake at probably around 10:00 p.m. when I heard the distinctive thump of a mortar tube being fired. Seconds later the first rounds hit in and around our perimeter. This was followed immediately by a barrage of enemy AK-47 and RPG fire.

We responded with volleys of machine gun and tank cannon fire. With 20 vehicles firing at once, the sound was deafening and the smell of cordite filled the air. Ground and aerial flares lit the night sky. Claymore mines exploded all around as the enemy closed in. The enemy attack died down after about 20 or 30 minutes. Bailey dismounted our vehicle and walked the perimeter to check on damage and wounded. Top, Don, and I pulled up more ammunition for our weapons.

The Fateful Call

Top received a call from Bailey that some enemy wounded had been spotted in a bomb crater a few ACAVs down from us. We had a directive from our headquarters’ G-2 Intelligence that if possible we should take prisoners for interrogation. Top would never order someone to do something he wouldn’t do himself. So he jumped off our vehicle and told Don and me to follow him to get more information. Bailey confirmed there were two or three NVA wounded about 20-40 meters from our perimeter.

Without blinking, Top said: “Let’s go get them.” So Top, Don, Bailey, and I lined up about five meters apart and headed for the bomb crater.

We made it about halfway to the crater when a figure jumped up with an RPG and fired at us. The rocket landed between Top and Don who were at the end of our line. We received more mortar and RPG rounds, followed by small-arms fire. I hit the dirt and returned fire at the shadowy figure. I lost sight of the other three as bullets whistled above me. I was caught about 20 meters outside our perimeter.

Bad News

Just as concerned about friendly fire from behind as enemy fire in front, I crawled back to our perimeter. I looked for Top, Don, and Bailey but couldn’t find them. As the battle raged, I returned to my ACAV, took my position and continued to return fire. When the other three hadn’t returned, I assumed they jumped on other ACAVs to continue the battle. Eventually things quieted down. This time we were sure the enemy had retreated.

Some time later, Bailey returned to our vehicle and told me that Top was killed by the RPG round and Don was wounded. Bailey was also wounded but continued to lead the battle and was awarded the Silver Star for his efforts. I was stunned. I had been in country for 10 months and through a lot. Although other men in my unit had paid the ultimate sacrifice, this was different.

Because I was so close to Top, it hit me hard. What made it worse was having to stay alert and man my vehicle in case of another attack. There was nothing I could do except live with the thoughts going through my head. You don’t plan for someone to get killed so you don’t know how to react.

At first light I went over to the medical area and saw Top’s body on the ground covered with a rubber poncho. I can’t remember if I cried, but I was in a state of disbelief. Here was a person I truly respected, confided in, told stories with, and a few short hours earlier had been laughing and joking with, and now he was gone.

A Step Closer to Closure

At my computer about 33 years later, I went to the 11th Armored Cavalry website and scrolled to Top’s name on a list of 700 troopers killed in Vietnam. Over the years I’ve thought about him many times and wondered about the family he left behind.

I saw a message that made me freeze. It was signed by a Ricky Johnson who wanted to hear from anyone who had served with his dad. I summoned the courage to give Ricky a call. It was extremely emotional. Ricky was 11 years old when his father was killed, and the Army never told the family how he died.

It was difficult for me to recount the events, but it was a step closer to the closure that neither of us will probably ever achieve. Memories fade with time but for the rest of my life I will remember my friend Willie and all that he taught me. To all the Willie Johnsons who never came home, may you always be remembered.

Adapted from the author’s book, 11B10: Memories of a Light Weapons Infantryman in Vietnam.

This story appeared in the 2024 Winter issue of Vietnam magazine.

Meet the Norwegian Warrior Who Fought in Vietnam

Zita Ballinger Fletcher — Tue, 26 Dec 2023 21:25:46 +0000

In one of the most outstanding memoirs that this reviewer has had the privilege of reading, retired U.S. Army Col. Henrik “Hank” Lunde gives a detailed account of his life experiences and strug-gles during the Vietnam War and beyond. Lunde served three tours in Vietnam, first commanding a rifle company with the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division before going on to serve as Brigade S-3 and battalion executive officer for the 9th Division, becoming a deputy operations adviser to II ARVN Corps and eventually commanding a Special Forces battalion from 1972-73. He was Chief of Negotiations for the U.S. delegation to the Four Party Joint Military Team (FPJMT), negotiating with North Vietnam to account for dead and missing. He also went on to serve as Director of National and International Security Studies for Europe at the U.S. Army War College.

this article first appeared in vietnam magazine

Leaving Norway

Lunde was born in Norway in 1936 and emigrated to the U.S. as a teenager. The early part of his memoir provides a fascinating and poignant glimpse of his hardscrabble beginnings in Norway and his family’s experiences. Living on the small island of Risoy in western Norway, he watched dogfights between British and German planes overhead and once had a dangerous encounter with German officers searching his family home during World War II. As a boy he was enthusiastic about stories involving military history and leadership, reading the Old Norse Kings Sagas by Snorre Sturlason, playing military-oriented games, crafting bows and arrows, and even (without his parents knowing) experimenting with gunpowder.

After moving to the U.S., Lunde had difficulty adapting to his new home, struggling with English and experiencing bullying. He overcame these challenges and eventually settled on pursuing a military career, as he “felt the best way to repay my new country’s opportunities was to serve the nation in some capacity.”

Insights Into Warfare

Lunde’s memoir has many merits. His writing is packed with detail. His style is concise but informative, enlightening the reader in crisp but illuminating sentences. In addition to possessing great personal courage, Lunde has great analytical powers that come across throughout the book. He demonstrates a far-reaching ability to evaluate all manner of problems and situations from various angles. Lunde’s personality comes alive in his book. He is highly organized, professional, firm, patient, self-controlled, and also extremely humble and conscientious. There are plenty of war stories in the book which will interest readers not only because of events described but because of how Lunde analyzes factors within each situation.

Henrik O. Lunde, left, receives the Legion of Merit from Brig. Gen. Robert L. Schweitzer at SHAPE on June 15, 1979.

Perhaps what stands out most of all in his autobiography is Lunde’s wisdom about warfare and human nature. Writing on human emotions in war, he says: “The emotion of hate has no place on the battlefield, despite what Hollywood movies portray. It interferes with a soldier’s logical reasoning process, leads to loss of self-control, self-respect and pride in the unit. Hate is ruinous to discipline and morale.” Lunde acknowledges that while elements of hate or malice “are practically impossible to eliminate in an environment where friends are killed or maimed…I am proud to say that these elements were kept on a tight rein by a group of exceptionally fine NCOs and officers.” He states, “I told my troops to fight like tigers but conduct themselves with honor.”

There is much military wisdom to be gleaned from Lunde’s writings and this makes his autobiography a must-have for any military historian. It is also a wonderful read for anyone simply seeking to read about and appreciate the life and experiences of a very fine soldier. “If I were ever again to find myself in a tight and dangerous combat situation, Hank Lunde is the one man that I would most desire to have at my side,” wrote the late Lt. Gen. Henry Emerson of his comrade. Emerson also praised Lunde as an “effective and brave combat leader” and a “magnificent soldier.” This reviewer heartily concurs.

Immigrant Warrior: A Challenging Life in War and Peace

By Henrik O. Lunde. Casemate Publishers, 2023, $52.95

If you buy something through our site, we might earn a commission.

This review appeared in the 2024 Winter issue of Vietnam magazine.

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An Inside Look At 100 Years of Honoring America’s War Dead

Zita Ballinger Fletcher — Tue, 19 Dec 2023 21:45:29 +0000

America is a nation built on distinct individualism as well as common values. This sense of diversity in unity is something reflected in a very physical sense in the war cemeteries and monuments maintained by the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC), which in 2023 marked its 100^th year anniversary.

The commission maintains 26 cemeteries and 32 battlefield memorials across 17 countries around the globe. No two sites are the same. In fact, they are non-standard by design. In an aesthetic contrast with the war cemeteries maintained by other nations, ABMC cemeteries are designed to appear unique in every aspect of their architecture, layout and memorial artwork, yet uniting the fallen with common headstone styles.

The chapel interior with names of the missing is shown at the Somme American Cemetery in Bony, France.

“I think what our nation does is a statement about our people and what it means to be an American,” Charles K. Djou, ABMC Secretary, told Military History Quarterly in an interview. “Every single site has something amazing and beautiful.”

Despite its tradition of individualism, the ABMC has several important factors common to every memorial site. “Where people are buried is not distinguished by race, rank, color or creed. This is something we take pride in,” said Djou. “Black and white soldiers are buried side by side. Generals are buried side by side with privates. There will always be a flagpole flying the American flag and that will be the highest point in all of our cemeteries.”

One Hundred Years of History

The ABMC originated in the wake of the First World War. It owes its name to the shared efforts of U.S. authorities to find fitting and respectful ways to preserve American war graves and battle monuments, which were then scattered across Europe and needed to be consolidated and maintained in a respectful manner.

“During the course of the war, temporary burials were marked in a number of different ways. If people had time, sometimes they would construct a wooden cross or sometimes stick a rifle in the ground with a helmet on it,” explained Michael Knapp, ABMC’s Chief of Historical Services. “People who made it back to rear areas and hospitals were buried in temporary gravesites that were more established and those generally had wooden crosses or some sort of grave marker.”

As these cemeteries were consolidated, graves were temporarily marked with white wooden crosses, with the exception of Jewish soldiers whose graves were instead marked with a white wooden Star of David by request of the Jewish community. Although many people argued for headstones similar to those in Arlington National Cemetery today to serve as the permanent grave markers, the ABMC’s first chairman, Gen. John J. Pershing, insisted that the white crosses be preserved.

“Pershing was adamant that we keep the look similar to the look of the temporary headstones with white crosses row on row – almost taken verbatim from the words of John McCrae’s poem ‘In Flanders Fields,’” said Knapp.

Art and flags are displayed in the Brittany American Cemetery at St. James, France,

Therefore all war dead, apart from those of Jewish faith, are buried with crosses regardless of their religious beliefs. “The Latin Cross in the ABMC cemetery usage is considered symbolic rather than religious,” explained Knapp. “Although predominantly it’s a Christian symbol, it was not chosen specifically as such.”

In contrast to the war burial arrangements of other nations, the U.S. government allowed American families to choose whether their loved one was brought back to the United States for burial or whether he would be buried overseas. This was the case in both world wars, Knapp said, and all expenses were paid by the U.S. government regardless of the family’s choice.

Works of Art

What sets each war cemetery apart is the artwork and conceptual design unique to each space. The ABMC consulted prominent architects and artists to propose designs for each war cemetery.

“You see a lot of variation,” said Knapp. “It’s fascinating because no two are alike. There is no standard blueprint. Even the physical layout of all the cemeteries is different. Every aspect of ours is different. It’s very unique. I don’t believe any other country does it that way.”

The art is particularly evident in the non-sectarian chapel found in each cemetery. This offers family members and visitors a quiet place to reflect. The design, architecture, and art inside also reflect different themes and images to honor the dead.

“The art tends to be symbolic and allegorical,” said Knapp. For example, the Brittany American Cemetery in France is arranged to resemble the flaming sword within a shield which was the emblem of Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF). The ceiling of the chapel in at the Sicily-Rome Cemetery reflects the constellations at the precise moment that Allied troops landed in Anzio.

The Need to Reflect and Respect

What stands out most of all to Djou, however, are the sheer number of war dead in each location. Standing amid the vast armies of white crosses is an overpowering experience. “It takes your breath away honestly,” he said.

Many of the cemeteries and war memorials, particularly in Europe, are within easy reach of major cities and popular tourist locations. However, Djou expressed the view that not enough Americans are coming to pay their respects to the fallen despite having opportunities to do so.

The white crosses stand row on row in the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery.

“So many Americans will go to Paris and see the Eiffel Tower. They will go to Rome and see the Colosseum,” he said. “They don’t realize that the reason that you can visit those places is because of all of those thousands of young American service members who fought to free all these places.”

Djou encourages all Americans traveling abroad to stop at a war memorial or cemetery even briefly, to visit those lost in battle who never had the chance to go home. “So many of these sites are just a few minutes away and so many Americans don’t realize how close they are.”

Judge Pauses Removal of Confederate Memorial at Arlington Cemetery

Claire Barrett — Tue, 19 Dec 2023 18:52:26 +0000

At the 11th hour on Monday, a federal judge in Alexandria, Va. issued a temporary restraining order to halt workers’ efforts — which had begun several hours prior — in removing the controversial Confederate memorial in Arlington National Cemetery.

The memorial remains one of the nation’s most prominent monuments to the Confederacy on public land and has been criticized “for its sanitized depiction of slavery,” writes The New York Times.

The removal, which was set to be completed by the end of the week, comes at the tail end of efforts across the United States for the past several years to remove symbols, flags and monuments honoring slaveholders and Confederate leaders.

According to NPR, a group called Defend Arlington, which is affiliated with a group called Save Southern Heritage Florida, brought their suit before U.S. District Judge Rossie Alston Jr. on Sunday.

The group is suing the Department of Defense, arguing that the “The removal will desecrate, damage, and likely destroy the Memorial longstanding at ANC as a grave marker and impede the Memorial’s eligibility for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.”

They were granted the injunction by accusing the Pentagon of rushing its decision and circumventing federal law by not issuing an environmental impact statement. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for 10 a.m. on Wednesday.

Fourteen years after Congress authorized Confederate remains to be reinterred at Arlington in 1900, the statue was dedicated by President Woodrow Wilson and funded by the United Daughters of the Confederacy — an organization that helped to largely forge the Lost Cause ideology.

According to Karen L. Cox, a professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, the statues around the United States didn’t appear in great numbers for more than 30 years after the war. Founded in 1894, “an early objective of the UDC was the erection of monuments as tangible signs of pride and appreciation,” Cox writes.

As such, during the early 20th century, more than 700 monuments were erected across the South before World War II.

The 1914 Arlington unveiling, however, served as a watershed moment for the UDC. By allowing the burial of Confederate soldiers in Arlington and “accepting the monument to honor them, the federal government had fulfilled the Daughters’ conditions for reconciliation,” Cox posits.

The bronze and granite memorial stands in what is now known as section 16, towering over the remains of the Confederate soldiers buried there.

Last week more than 40 Republican members of Congress signed a letter demanding that Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III halt the removal, the NYT reported. They argued that the memorial did not commemorate the Lost Cause ideology but rather the “reconciliation and national unity” between North and South.

Others, however, find the 32-foot pedestal more controversial. The 32-foot pedestal, designed by Confederate soldier Moses Ezekiel, features a bronzed statue of a beautiful woman that represents the South, standing over a frieze of figures that include two African Americans: “an enslaved woman depicted as a “Mammy,” holding the infant child of a white officer, and an enslaved man following his owner to war,” the cemetery website reads.

Virginia governor, Glenn Youngkin, has been steadfast in his opposition to the removal but had secured a plan for the Virginia Military Institute — where Ezekiel was once a cadet — to take ownership of the statue and place it at the Virginia Museum of the Civil War at New Market Battlefield State Historical Park, writes The Washington Post.

The debate over “heritage, not hate” continues to play out on the national stage, yet, as David W. Blight, professor of American history at Yale University, tells HistoryNet, “History and memory are not the same thing. History is based on reasoned research. Memory is born of groups and forged in myriad ways; passed down generation to generation, it tends to be more emotional and sacred.

“Heritage” can make us want to own a past, a story, a place against all other possible narratives or interpretations. A person using a symbol in public or in official ways must understand how the public views their actions. There is always going to be more memory than there is history, but those of us who are devoted to the craft of history have a deep responsibility to push back against memory even as we genuinely respect its power.”

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No Rules For Generals in Vietnam?

James Vaughn — Mon, 18 Dec 2023 15:04:30 +0000

In autumn 1969, I was stationed in a bunker on the radio. I was to communicate with the perimeter guards and helicopters if in trouble. If we were attacked, I was the one that blew the sirens. The infantry would scream on the radio, “Rockets in the air!” That was my cue to blow sirens. This particular month we changed our radio call sign from Roadrunner to False Minder. The operating manual was sent to all stations on my network. Our orders were not to answer someone using the wrong call signs.

Hawk 6

Evidently generals do not have to read these manuals each month. One day the commanding general of the 1st Aviation Brigade was flying to my base. He was known as Hawk 6 on the radio. So he called on the radio, “Roadrunner, Roadrunner. Hawk 6.” He was not using the right call sign, so I did not answer.

Radio operators’ standing orders are to obey proper radio procedures, one of which is to only answer proper call signs. That is a security standard. It prevents the enemy who could be monitoring our network from identifying all the units calling on a network. The general must have thought he was out of range, so a few minutes later I heard, “Roadrunner, Roadrunner! This is Hawk 6.”

This is when I did the bravest thing I did in Vietnam. I did not answer. Despite the orders not to answer someone using the wrong call signs, I was scared. I knew I would pay a price for this. I heard the anger in his voice when he came back with, “Anyone on this net know where Roadrunner is?” The response came in, “I don’t know, sir.” In two sentences all sorts of security violations occurred. One, by a general. The other referring to him as “sir.”

Enter The Captain

He was only calling for a ride. Let him walk like everyone else, I thought. I can only imagine what the door gunners and crew chiefs thought when they saw a general walking.

this article first appeared in vietnam magazine

The next person I saw was my captain. He came running into the bunker. His face was as red as Santa Claus’s suit. He was screaming, “Did you hear Hawk 6 on that radio?” I said, “Yes, sir.” That shocked him. There were only two ways I would not hear him: I was not there (AWOL) or asleep (dereliction of duty). Both were court-martial events.

“Why didn’t you answer him?” demanded the captain. I replied, “He was using the wrong call signs.” For a moment he did not know what to say. Then he said, “I don’t care if he calls you ‘Asshole’! You answer Hawk 6!”If I were truly brave, I would have asked for that order in writing, but I was a 20-year-old kid and he was as angry as any man I ever saw and had a .45 on his hip. I thought he might shoot me. And I had June 15, 1970 [the day I would leave Vietnam] on my mind.

I was sure there was a court-martial in my future, but if my defense was going to be that the general was using the wrong call signs, no one was going to embarrass a three-star general. I wondered where the list was of orders that you are not supposed to follow. I also wondered if my captain, when he reported back to the general, had the moxie to tell him that he was using the wrong call signs.

Good Decisions?

In November we changed our call sign to Roadrunner. When I left Vietnam in June, we were still Roadrunner. Apparently not troubling a general was more important than radio security.

I Googled the general years later because I wanted to see who he was. It was Allen Burdett Jr. When I read about him, it said he loved to be known as Hawk 6, so I knew I had the right guy. The other thing I read about him [from the Army Aviation Association of America] was that “in a subsequent Vietnam tour, he commanded the 1st Aviation Brigade during 1968-1970, tough and demanding years in the Vietnam War, where, as Hawk 6, he was known throughout Vietnam for his astute planning and tactical acumen.”

Acumen means the ability to make good judgments and quick decisions. To me making good judgments means reading your operating manuals and using the correct call signs. Compare this story to Adm. McCraven’s writings on duty.

After leaving Vietnam in 1970, James Vaughn became a CPA and ran his own tax practice.

This story appeared in the 2024 Winter issue of Vietnam magazine.

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World War I Enemies Played Football During A Christmas Truce–Except Maybe They Didn’t

Andrew Hamilton — Thu, 14 Dec 2023 15:52:52 +0000

Over the Christmas period in 1914, fraternization took place in No Man’s Land between British and German soldiers at St. Yvon in Belgium. Memorials in the Belgian villages of St. Yvon and Messines commemorate a football game played between the British and the Germans during the Truce. Whenever this author mentions that his grandfather Robert Hamilton, a captain in the 1st Battalion of the British Army’s Royal Warwickshire Regiment, was involved in the Christmas Truce at St. Yvon, he is invariably asked whether Hamilton played in a game of football against the Germans.

It is a fair question given that it is now widely accepted that there was an ‘international’ match there. However, evidence from accounts by those who took part in the Truce casts doubt over whether such a game took place at all and calls into question the justification for the installation of the three memorials, one on the edge of Ploegsteert Wood and two in Messines.

Where Did the Story Come From?

One of the most compelling accounts of the Christmas Truce and the warfare that preceded it, is to be found in Hamilton’s diary which he kept throughout his five months on the Western Front. It offers a graphic and harrowing account of mobile fighting before the onset of attritional trench warfare.

He vividly described the rain, mud, dangers and discomforts of life in the trenches and the daily fight for survival against shelling and sniping. His descriptions of life behind the lines, billets, estaminets and local hospitality are detailed and perceptive. His record of the humor and comradeship of his fellow soldiers is also heartwarming and entertaining.

This artistic interpretation of the Christmas Truce of 1914 depicts German and British troops mingling on the battlefield to exchange tokens of goodwill.

At the war’s outbreak in 1914, Hamilton was 37 years old. He had been brought up in Tiddington, a village near Shakespeare’s Stratford-on-Avon in Warwickshire, England and was educated at Glenalmond College in Scotland, after which he became a regular in the British Army. He joined the Norfolk Regiment with whom he fought as a 2nd lieutenant in the Boer War 1899-1902.

By 1914 he had been transferred to the 1st Battalion of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, whose men were commonly known as the Royal Warwicks. It is clear from his diary entries that he was a good friend of Bernard Law Montgomery, the future Field Marshal and architect of notable victories over Germany in World War II. On Aug. 8, 1914, Hamilton recorded when at Shorncliffe in Kent waiting to cross the Channel to France that, “Bernard and I walked down to get our valises, which they refused to let us fetch. This was the first major piece of red tape rot, which Bernard and I quite made up our minds must cease.”

Thirty-mile marches and ducking German shells exacted a toll on the Royal Warwicks. Hamilton complained on Sept. 12 that, “This is the hell,” and on Sept. 19 that, “I am sure I look fifty, I feel seventy.” Hamilton was promoted to the rank of captain after his superior, Charles Bentley, was court martialled for constant drunkenness, much to his and Montgomery’s relief.

On Oct. 13, 1914, in one of their first major actions of the war, the Royal Warwicks fought in the battle of Meteren, losing 42 men killed and 85 wounded. The battle ended Montgomery’s front line action when he was hit in the lung and knee. He was hospitalized in St. Omer and returned to Southampton, England via Boulogne on Oct. 18 to recover.

Andrew Edwards’ famous sculpture called “All Together Now” at the garden of St. Luke’s Church (the bombed-out church) in Liverpool.

Prior to the Christmas Truce, Hamilton and the Royal Warwicks were based in trenches on the edge of Ploegsteert Wood which on Nov. 22 were, he wrote, “in a shocking way. Dead bodies everywhere and the stink awful.” On Dec. 11, he wrote: “It rained all night and the whole of today. When I went round the sentries, I found them quite resigned to another flood. They were amused. One Private Carter said “it will lay the dust, sir, won’t it?” at which I laughed heartily and so did they. But poor fellows were on their last legs for this trench trip.”

Christmas at St. Yvon

In November, Hamilton had been delighted that Bruce Bairnsfather, a family friend from prewar days in Stratford-on-Avon, had arrived at the front. Bairnsfather would become celebrated for his cartoons of life in the trenches published in The Bystander magazine, especially his British “Tommy” characters Alf, Bert and most famously “Old Bill.” Bairnsfather captured life in the trenches in an inimitable style—for example, a Tommy caught in the light of a German star shell having drunk a whole jar of rum, the meeting of a British and a German officer in No Man’s Land, and the spectacle of a Birmingham barber cutting the locks of a long-suffering private of the Royal Warwicks with the warning, “Keep yer ’ead still or I’ll have yer blinkin’ ear off.”

At 6.30 p.m. on Christmas Eve 1914, Hamilton’s A Company of the 1st Battalion Royal Warwicks set off from their billets at La Crèche in France to relieve the Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the trenches at St. Yvon over the border in Belgium. Over 100 years later, if one follows in their footsteps from the magnificent Ploegsteert Memorial along Mud Lane to Prowse Point Military Cemetery, one will find the memorial unveiled in December 2014 by French football star and administrator Michel Platini, which has since been swamped by football shirts and scarves and surrounded by footballs. Behind the original German front line at Messines the main football-inspired memorial is a replica of a memorial first unveiled in 2014 in Liverpool outside St. Luke’s Church.

A wealth of accounts of what happened over the Christmas period at St. Yvon shed a different light on what actually transpired there. These accounts include firsthand British reports by four officers including Hamilton, three NCOs, nine privates and an account by a German officer, Leutnant Kurt Zehmisch of the 134th Saxon Regiment.

Of the many truces that took place on the Western Front in 1914, this one is unquestionably the best documented. Using this material, it is possible to paint a comprehensive and detailed picture of what happened during the fraternisation in that sector of the Western Front—including about whether the legendary football match ever took place.

Despite the doubt about whether men on opposing sides played football together, the football has become a symbol of the Christmas Truce and features in several memorials, including Flanders, Belgium.

Most of the British soldiers who had been at the Front since August 1914 were “regulars”—professional soldiers—rather than the thousands of volunteers who answered Horatio Herbert, 1st Earl Kitchener’s call to arms. Assured the war would be “over by Christmas” they found themselves tired and homesick after four months of tough combat.

Unsurprisingly they were, according to Hamilton’s diary, “a little sad at spending Christmas Day” in the trenches when they set off for them at 6.30 p.m. When the men approached their trenches, it was clear something was amiss. Hamilton recalled that, “Crossing the well worn danger zone to our consternation not a shot was fired at us.’ After much shouting to and fro across No Man’s Land, Private Gregory, was given permission by Hamilton to go and parley with the Saxons “at your own risk”. On his return, he informed his officer that, “they [the Germans] wanted me to meet their officer and after a great deal of shouting across I said I would meet him at dawn, unarmed.”

Meeting the Germans

For the Royal Warwicks who had suffered several weeks of wind, rain, flooded trenches, shelling and sniping, the interaction with the 134th Saxons on Christmas Eve was extraordinary and unexpected. Carols were sung by both sides. Leutnant Zehmisch ordered Christmas trees to be lit with candles along the trenches.

Lt. Cave recalled that “they had their Christmas trees blazing all night” and Pvt. Day wrote that on Christmas Day at “about 1 o’clock they struck up with a band of concertinas and a cornet; they played ‘Home Sweet Home’ first, then a lot of other tunes finishing up with “God save the King.” Pvt. Charlie Pratt was in awe that “the Germans sent up a star shell which lit up the place lovely and then for the first time we saw friend and foe.” Pvt. Walter Cooke considered that “the band sounded great, much better than hearing shells whistle overhead” while Pvt. Langton recalled that “we would sing a carol first and they would sing one. I tell you they can harmonize alright.”

It was inevitable that fraternization would take place on Christmas morning. Hamilton wrote he “went out and found a Saxon officer of the 134th Saxon Corps, who was fully armed. I pointed to his revolver and pouch. He smiled and said, seeing I was unarmed, ‘Alright now.’ We shook hands, and said what we could in double Dutch, arranged a local armistice for 48 hours, and returned to our trenches. This was the signal for the respective soldiers to come out. As far as I can make out this effort of ours extended itself on either side for some considerable distance. The soldiers on both sides met in their hundreds and exchanged greetings and gifts. We buried many Germans, and they did the same to ours.”

In the evening a number of officers enjoyed a concert in ‘D’ Company’s dugout until midnight. It was, according to Hamilton, “a very merry Xmas and a most extraordinary one.” There was nonetheless a feeling that the enemy could not be trusted, so Hamilton “doubled the sentries after midnight.”

Exchanging gifts

Hundreds of soldiers swapped postcards, photos, pipes, mufflers, tobacco, cakes, buttons, tins of bully beef and cap badges. The most popular exchanges were, as Day noted “cigarettes for cigars, a gift from the Kaiser.” He also received “some of their postcards which they signed and addressed.” Pvt. Layton was impressed with the Germans’ language skills: “There were a good many amongst them who could speak broken English alright and they said ‘You make it no shoot, we make it no shoot.’” For William Tapp, it was “a strange sight, unbelievable that we were all mixed up together.”

A Christmas Truce memorial located at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire, England.

The armistice meant that an important job could be carried out. The Brigade War Diary recorded that ‘men of the Somerset Light Infantry, 134th Saxons, Hampshires, a Prussian and an Uhlan were all buried. The Germans helped in the digging with the 1st Battalion of the Royal Warwicks supplied the “tools” since the Germans stated they had none. Burial of the dead was a convenient excuse for the Brigade commanders to play down the enormity of what had happened.

At the time when British soldiers were fraternizing with the enemy in No Man’s Land, their superiors, Generals John French, Douglas Haig and Horace Smith-Dorrien were lunching in St. Omer. They were furious to hear reports of what had taken place. On Boxing Day, Smith-Dorrien sought details of officers and units who had taken part in the Christmas Truce “with a view to disciplinary action.”

Fraternizing with the Enemy

He wrote in his memorandum of Dec. 27: “This is only illustrative of the apathetic state we are gradually sinking in to… to finish this war quickly we must keep up the fighting spirit and do all we can to discourage friendly intercourse.” For the author of the 1/ Royal Warwicks War Diary, Christmas Eve was “a quiet day. Relieved the Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the trenches in the evening.”

There was no mention of what had taken place. The Brigade War Diary also played down the event and observed a positive opportunity for intelligence gathering: “A quiet day. No firing. The Germans appear to think that an armistice exists for Christmas Day. An informal interchange of courtesies took place between troops in the fire trenches of both belligerents. Some valuable information was gleaned during the intercourse. The trenches seem fairly strongly held, the enemy cheerful and well fed.”

Fraternizing with the enemy during a war was unacceptable and unheard of, so concerns about potential sanctions were expressed. Hamilton was told that “the General and staff are furious but powerless to stop it.” William Tapp feared the worst: “I don’t know what our General would say if he knew about this.” Pvt. Harry Morgan wondered that “if all the troops along the line had refused to fight on both sides, would the War have ended there and then?” In the event no one was reprimanded.

Hamilton returned home on leave in early January, recording in his diary on Jan. 12 that “All’s well that ends well.” He had suffered throughout the campaign with troublesome ears and visited an Army doctor in London who spared him further active combat. His diary then chronicles the “battles” he fought with Conscientious Objectors’ and “red tape” as Commandant of the Hereford Military Detention Barracks, a role he detested but which was arguably a small price to pay for avoiding further involvement on the Western Front and the huge losses suffered by the Royal Warwicks in April 1915 during the 2nd Battle of Ypres when the Germans used poisonous chlorine gas for the first time.

What About The Football?

So was a game of football played during this particular Christmas armistice? Although the many accounts contain numerous details about the truce, no evidence exists whatsoever to justify the creation of the three memorials to an “international” football match. Zehmisch wrote that “a couple of English brought a football out of their trench and a vigorous match began.” Pvt. Smith commented that the “Germans were interested spectators” of the kickabout. Zehmisch recorded that towards evening the English officers asked whether a big football match could be held on the following day, but he was unable to agree to a match as his company would be returning to their billets. Hamilton’s diary entry corroborates Zehmisch’s account: ‘’A’ Coy would have played the 134th Saxon Corps tomorrow only that the company was relieved.” Pvt. Walter Cooke was disappointed that “the Germans wanted to play at football but that fell through” and Tapp, a Birmingham City supporter, was upset that a game could not be arranged.

There can be no doubt that if a game of football had taken place, Bairnsfather would have captured the event in a cartoon with his characters Alf, Bert and ‘Old Bill’ flooring their opponents with crunching tackles, no doubt breaking legs and sending Saxon pickelhaubes flying to all parts of No Man’s Land. Bairnsfather limited himself to describing the football as just “a kickabout amongst the Royal Warwicks” (not with the Germans) and later in 1929 concluded in The American Magazine that “there had not been an atom of hate shown by either side. It was a punctuation mark on all the combatants’ lives of cold and humid hate.” A contemporary photograph of No Man’s land at St. Yvon shows it pitted with shell holes and extremely uneven—conditions hardly conducive for a football match.

For those who participated in the Truce at St. Yvon, it was a truly memorable event that would have been beyond their wildest dreams. Words that appear frequently in their accounts are “astounding,” “extraordinary,” “strange,” “unbelievable,” and “unique.” Morgan was impressed that “there were no guns, no bullets, no voices.” Zehmisch felt it had been “marvelous and strange” and his opposing officer Hamilton, admittedly resorting to hyperbole, started his diary entry for Christmas Day 1914: “A Day Unique in the World’s History.” For Tapp, “it was like a clock that had stopped ticking… it was very different to the other Christmas days I had spent, especially the one in 1910 when I stood under the mistletoe with the girl I later married.” Tapp was later killed during the German gas attack on April 25, 1915 and his name is, along with nearly 500 other Royal Warwicks with no known grave, recorded on the Menin Gate Memorial in Ypres.

Flimsy Evidence of a Match

The Truce at St. Yvon was similar to many held along as much as two thirds of the British-held trenches along the Western Front. This Christmastide there will be the usual references to games of football in the media and social media…but how many actually took place?

In the most comprehensive work on the Christmas Truce, Malcolm Brown and Shirley Seaton are skeptical about the numbers, stressing that the ground in No Man’s Land was too pockmarked and uneven for there to have been many matches. They do however assert that “there are a sufficient number of references to games which allegedly took place for it to be difficult to believe that this is all smoke without fire.”

Yet in most cases the evidence is flimsy to say the least. The most likely game to have taken place may have been across the border at Frelinghien in France where Leutnant Johannes Niemann of the 133rd Saxon regiment recorded that a soldier in the Scottish 2nd Battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders produced a football and “now there developed a proper game of football with caps put down as goalposts. Quite a happening on that frozen field.” He concludes that “the game ended 3-2 to Fritz.” The Germans were much amused that the Scots were not wearing underpants beneath their kilts: “This delighted us hugely …” Unfortunately, Niemann’s evidence is not confirmed by any British accounts.

One thing we can be certain about is that a football match at St. Yvon is a myth and that the three memorials do no more than promote a legend. But at Christmas time why be Scrooge-like about this and let the truth get in the way of a marvelous story of peace and reconciliation—even if it was for only a day or two before the bitter war resumed in the New Year?

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

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Chiseled Canyons and a Sky That Stretches Forever

Carl Zebrowski — Tue, 12 Dec 2023 14:00:00 +0000

The view is spectacular from the ancient cliffside villages in the Southwest’s Four Corners region—chiseled canyons; orange, coral, and copper sandstone; desert flora; a sky that stretches forever.

But this view was just a bonus for the Pueblo ancestors who constructed these dwellings not far from the point where Arizona, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico meet. No one’s sure quite why the Ancestral Pueblos decided to build these houses in cliffside alcoves instead of on the ground. Theories include: the apartment-like clusters were sheltered from the elements; stored food was safer here from animals; and the ground below was freed up for planting. Then there was security from enemies. Gene S. Stuart, a writer with an exploration party for National Geographic, summed up the obvious defensive advantage: “One toddler with a long-stemmed lily could have held me at bay.”

The Ancestral Pueblos started settling into different pueblos (Spanish for “villages”) in the region around 900 CE, a time of increased rainfall in the desert that promoted their transformation from hunter-gatherers into farmers. Pueblos at Chaco Canyon, Mesa Verde, Betatakin, and Keet Seel featured as many as hundreds of rooms that could house thousands.

The people may have concentrated their homes like this for the sake of easier trade or to form tight religious communities. The largest Pueblos had dozens of kivas, circular rooms where ceremonies were held. It may have been religious leaders who were able to persuade the residents to build the multistory sandstone structures, staircases, roads, and the reservoirs and canals that managed water to make the dry environment livable.

Eventually drought won out. By about 1300, lack of water had forced the inhabitants to flee Four Corners for more habitable locations. The ruins they left behind remain here due in large part to the Antiquities Act of 1906, which banned unauthorized digging on federal and Native American lands. Regional authorities acted quickly after that to establish cliff dwelling locations as protected places.

this article first appeared in American history magazine

A Mesa Verde visitor experiences a bit of Pueblo life climbing a ladder.

Tourists walk by kivas built between the mid-800s and 1100 CE at Chaco Culture National Park.

The settlement of ancestral Pueblos at Chaco Culture.

A ladder descends to a reconstructed Kiva at Spruce tree house, a large underground room, at Mesa Verde. It is believed such rooms were used for religious and political meetings.

Yes! You can stand in four states at once at Four Corners Monument.

This story appeared in the 2024 Winter issue of American History magazine.

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At Auschwitz, Jews Composed Music in Secret. Now Their Works Are Being Performed in London.

Claire Barrett — Tue, 05 Dec 2023 15:01:50 +0000

After more than 80 years and many different lives away, the reverberations of the heartbreaking melody, “Futile Regrets” was heard inside a concert hall in London.

The song, reports the Washington Post, is part of a collection of more than 210 pieces of music found in the archives at Auschwitz, never played, until now.

In 2015, British composer and conductor Leo Geyer stumbled upon the historic ephemera while on a trip to the Nazi death camp after he was commissioned to create a piece honoring historian and Holocaust expert Martin Gilbert.

“I had a conversation with one of the archivists, and he said in a somewhat offhand way that there were some [musical] manuscripts in the archive,” Geyer explained to the Washington Post. “I nearly fell over at the time when he mentioned it because I couldn’t believe that such a thing could exist and that it had been overlooked all this time.”

From its opening in 1940 to the camp’s liberation in 1945, over 1.1 million men, women and children were systematically murdered at Auschwitz. More than 11 million were killed in the Holocaust — six million of whom were Jews.

During these five years music provided comfort — but also became a beat to its seemingly never ending horrors.

The Nazis used the arts “as part of the murder machine,” Norman Lebrecht, a British music journalist, told the German media outlet DW.

“Our task consisted of playing every morning and every evening at the gate of the camp so that the outgoing and incoming work commandos would march neatly in step to the marches we played,” Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, an Auschwitz survivor who played the cello at the camp, relayed to CNN.

“We also had to be available at all times to play to individual SS staff who would come into our block and wanted to hear some music after sending thousands of people to their death,” she continued.

Despite being intertwined with such hell, music was also a way for Jewish prisoners to express their pain and terror.

It was “a chink of daylight in the darkness,” Geyer stated to the Washington Post.

“Jews being held in concentration camps were unable to document what was happening to them by conventional means. Writing down or photographing this would have been impossible, so they turned to a long cultural tradition of telling their stories through songs and music,” historian Shirli Gilbert said in a news release. “ … Away from the eye of the SS officers, Jews secretly created their own music as a means to cope, survive and document.”

However, the task of bringing the camp music back to life was a tall order for Geyer. Many of the sheets of music were partially destroyed, burned along the edges or tragically, never completed.

Further complicating matters, writes the Post, was the fact that the orchestras often used a “hodgepodge of random instruments that were available,” Geyer said, including some that are not traditionally used in orchestras like accordions, saxophones and mandolins.

Geyer took it on as his mission to stitch together a proper coda to honor the victims of Auschwitz — a feat that would take more than seven years, extensive research, interviews with survivors and six visits to Auschwitz.

On Monday, Geyer’s work came to fruition as violin strings played the sorrowful sounds of a now completed “Futile Regrets” and three other pieces found at Auschwitz.

“I’m not Jewish, Romani, Polish, Russian or disabled, or descended from any person from Auschwitz,” Geyer told the Post. “But I do stand by those who are persecuted for no reason other than who they are. And I hope to live in a world where no evil could rise again.”

‘Proud To Be An American’: An Interview with Ann-Margret

Zita Ballinger Fletcher — Mon, 04 Dec 2023 16:41:29 +0000

Award-winning actress and singer Ann-Margret is known for her commitment to entertaining U.S. troops during the Vietnam War. In 1966, she responded to a request signed by over 3,000 troops to perform for them and traveled to Vietnam with three bandmates on a USO tour, traveling to Saigon, the USS Yorktown, and the dangerous “Iron Triangle.”

Despite the danger, she said she was determined to do the best job she could and was not worried for her safety because she felt protected by American servicemen. She focused on bringing them joy from home. She returned to the war zone two years later with Bob Hope’s Christmas USO show.

She continues to support military service members and was honored by the USO in 2003 with the Spirit of Hope award, named after her friend Bob Hope. “I am very proud to be an American. Always will be,” she told Vietnam magazine Editor Zita Ballinger Fletcher in an exclusive interview.

Ann-Margret shared insights into her wartime experiences and new limited-edition perfume, with all profits benefiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, available at www.ann-margretperfume.com.

You received a petition from troops in Vietnam in 1966 asking you to come perform. The war was unpopular and Vietnam was dangerous. What motivated you to go there despite those obstacles?

Honestly, I didn’t think about my safety at all at the time. I was very flattered by those signatures. Nothing would have stopped me from going.

What did your family members think about you going to Vietnam?

Well, they knew how much I wanted to go, and they of course were worried but I said to them, “There’s no way anyone can get to me because…my guys are there!”

Ann-Margret in Vietnam.

What songs did you most enjoy performing there?

I loved doing “Dancing in the Streets.”

You toured with Bob Hope on the USO Christmas Show in 1968. What was it like to work with him?

I loved working with Bob and did many times over the years. He was a gentlemen and always, always funny on stage and off. He was devoted to the soldiers. He shared many stories with us about traveling during World War II and all the marvelous and touching letters he received from them and their families. He was great at writing back, too.

When Bob and I were rehearsing our dancing for a duet for the tour he came out in a minidress and asked, “Who looks better, me or Ann-Margret?” I won, but he did get a couple of votes from the crew.

We knew that we would be safe. When I did Vietnam with Johnny Rivers there were just four of us, and when we went with Bob Hope there were 80 of us. We weren’t afraid at all, never. We all just wanted to bring a piece of home to those men.

What do you think young people should know about the Vietnam War today?

Our guys went through so much—and when they came back, some people were not very nice to them. They had to go through a lot, and to come back and have people be bad to you…We need to show respect and admiration for all the men and women who served, always. Never forget.

You are donating 100% of the proceeds from your new limited-edition perfume to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. Can you tell us more about this?

Yes, thank you for asking. My dear friend Justin Chambers of Grey’s Anatomy has wanted to make a fragrance for me for a long while since we worked together. So it’s a project that’s been on the drawing board. When he suggested it benefit the veterans, that was a slam dunk for me. I absolutely adore the fragrance.

Ann-Margret is donating 100% of the proceeds from her new limited-edition perfume to benefit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund.

We worked on the actual fragrance for a year before we selected this special scent. It has notes of gardenia and jasmine and ylang ylang. You can visit my website for all the details at ann-margretperfume.com and I’ll be wearing it. You can count on that!

You are a strong supporter of Vietnam veterans. Is there anything in particular you would like to say to Vietnam veterans reading this?

I love you all and I am proud to have been there with you.

This story appeared in the 2024 Winter issue of Vietnam magazine.

this article first appeared in vietnam magazine

The Complicated Vietnam War Legacy of Henry Kissinger

Zita Ballinger Fletcher and Larry Porges — Thu, 30 Nov 2023 17:45:36 +0000

Henry Kissinger, U.S. national security adviser and later secretary of state at the height of the Vietnam War, died on Nov. 29 at the age of 100. His polarizing career saw him serve every president from John F. Kennedy to Joe Biden, with achievements that included masterminding a new relationship with communist China, softening the Cold War friction with the Soviet Union through a diplomatic policy called détente, and eventually negotiating the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Southeast Asia and ending the Vietnam War, for which he was co-awarded (with North Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho, who declined his) the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize.

Born in Germany in 1923, young Kissinger and his Orthodox Jewish family emigrated to the United States in 1938 as the Nazis’ anti-Semitic policies ramped up. He was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1943, where he served as an interpreter in his native Germany as World War II was coming to an end—and where he saw firsthand the threats from the communist East that he feared were intent on upending democracy.

The intellectual Kissinger enrolled in Harvard in 1950, and soon began developing diplomatic theories of “realpolitik,” advocating for calculated foreign policies that delivered practical results, sometimes at the cost of a perceived larger morality. He was known and respected for his ability to broker high-level negotiations between nations with diametrically opposed ideological viewpoints. The BBC notes that Kissinger was the only American to have personally interacted “with every Chinese leader from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping.” In a testament to his ability to interface between nations with opposing worldviews, Kissinger’s passing was mourned in China as well as by leadership of the European Union.

Nonetheless, Kissinger’s approach to politics and diplomacy, which decidedly influenced U.S. foreign policy over the course of many decades, was controversial during his lifetime and remains so after his death. Kissinger was straightforward about his belief in separating morality from political affairs. Former Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes argues in The New York Times that Kissinger’s brand of realpolitik “mistakes cynicism — or realism — with wisdom.” A tribute featured in The Independent however praises Kissinger’s approach as “his finest of attributes”.

Rising quickly through the U.S. government’s ranks, it was during his tenure as national security adviser to President Richard Nixon in 1969 that Kissinger’s sense of realpolitik played out most controversially. Kissinger instituted a strategy of heavily-bombing Cambodia, a theoretically neutral country but long a sanctuary for North Vietnamese forces and resupply in the Vietnam War, to disrupt the flow of enemy troops and equipment.

While the policy may have had military merits, the bombing was too little, too late to have a strategic impact on the war’s outcome, and the deaths of tens of thousands of Cambodian civilians in the bombings remains a cloud on his record. The bombing, contends Rhodes, “did nothing to improve the terms on which the Vietnam War ended; if anything, it just indicated the lengths to which the United States would go to express its displeasure at losing.”

All the same, Kissinger negotiated the end of the war after years of talks with North Vietnam, resulting in the Paris Peace Accords of 1973 and the withdrawal of American troops. South Vietnam fell two years later when Hanoi broke the accords, invaded South Vietnam and overran the country within weeks.

Kissinger stayed on as secretary of state under Nixon’s successor, Gerald Ford, until 1977. He continued advising future presidents on a myriad of topics. He counseled U.S. President George W. Bush and controversially supported the Iraq War. He lectured and published books and policy papers for many years, and remained actively engaged in foreign policy discussions until his death.

Debates about Kissinger’s legacy will continue. An article published in The Rolling Stones blasted him as “a war criminal” immediately following his death. Marking his passing, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken hailed him as someone who “really set the standard for everyone who followed in this job.”

As for Kissinger himself? He was well-aware of the criticisms he faced but appeared to have been unfazed by them. “I’ve been thinking about these problems all my life…the recommendations I made were the best of which I was then capable,” he later said. With regard to the Vietnam War, Kissinger was typically matter of fact: “We did the best we could.”

Telling A Sniper’s Story

Zita Ballinger Fletcher — Wed, 29 Nov 2023 16:36:04 +0000

Fans of sniper stories will likely be excited to read this account of the life of Chuck Mawhinney, the top scoring U.S. Marine sniper to date. Mawhinney joined the U.S. Marines at age 18 and served in Vietnam from 1967-69, where he made 103 confirmed kills over a period of 16 months, killing four enemies a week on average.

The book, penned by writer Jim Lindsay based on in-depth interviews with Mawhinney, is written in a down-to-earth style that is easy to read. Readers will feel like they are getting to know Mawhinney as they progress through the book, which recounts the famed sniper’s early life and his postwar experiences in addition to his time in Vietnam. Readers who enjoy listening to soldiers telling their war stories over a few drinks or in a casual setting (like this reviewer) will likely enjoy the style in which the book is written, because it is very much as if you are listening firsthand to Mawhinney’s stories.

Readers looking for an in-depth account of Mawhinney’s war in Vietnam may be somewhat disappointed because the narrative is not a complete account of his experiences. The Vietnam War portion of the book consists of several Vietnam War stories from Mawhinney rather than a complete chronicle of his time in country. There are probably many more stories that will forever remain untold. Mawhinney himself was satisfied with the book. “This is the whole story. I think Jim did a good job,” he told Oregonian newspaper The Baker City Herald. Some readers, however, may be left wanting more.

Obviously one of the qualities of a good sniper is a certain degree of ruthlessness. This is evident in Mawhinney’s actions described throughout the book, from shooting animals in his youth, ambushing enemies throughout the Vietnam War, and in his postwar life exterminating coyotes. The passages dealing with these matters are not gory but matter-of-fact. Some readers may admire Mawhinney’s proficiency at killing while others may find it disturbing. Readers who are sniper fans or familiar with snipers’ memoirs will likely not be bothered by these anecdotes.

Mawhinney has a sense of humor which is reflected in many of the stories he chose to tell. One passage that stood out for its ironic humor related how Mawhinney struggled to adjust after being sent to assist an ROK Marine unit. He went on daily patrols with the South Koreans, with whom he could not communicate due to the language barrier. He remembered the Koreans as “ornery” fellows who at first surreptitiously swatted him with sticks to annoy him while he was walking. He had difficulty adjusting to patrol duty since the ROK men did not set up a perimeter when resting. “Instead of creating a perimeter, they dropped wherever—maybe in the hut of an abandoned village or they’d just curl up along a trail, leaving Chuck wide-eyed and sleepless,” author Lindsay writes. “If a sound woke the Koreans, they’d grab their weapons and run out into the dark to investigate. If an enemy was caught alive they just beat him to death and went back to bed.” While the Koreans eventually gained respect for Mawhinney due to his sniper skills, he also “considered the ROK some bad-ass dudes and was glad they were on his side.”

All in all, Mawhinney is a rather reserved character which is reflected by the material included in book; the Vietnam War takes up a significantly smaller portion of the book than one might expect. The narrative is engaging and reflective. Readers hoping for a sensational shooting saga or a blow-by-blow account of a sniper’s lethal achievements in Vietnam will feel let down. Readers eager to read and appreciate the memories and experiences of a humble Vietnam War veteran and Marine who happens to have been a sniper will be more than satisfied.

The Sniper: The Untold Story of the Marine Corps’ Greatest Marksman of All Time

By Jim Lindsay, foreword by Chuck Mawhinney. St. Martin’s Press, 2023, $38.82

If you buy something through our site, we might earn a commission.

This review appeared in the 2024 Winter issue of Vietnam magazine.

this article first appeared in vietnam magazine

Leap Back on the Political Merry-Go-Round

Richard Brookhiser — Tue, 28 Nov 2023 14:00:00 +0000

His fans compare it to the Second Coming, his enemies to the second coming of January 6. So far Donald Trump’s 2024 run for president seems most like a 1980s arcade game with an outlandish hero bouncing among indictments and own-goal interviews in pursuit of the big prize.

Trump is not the first ex-president to try to win one more time. (He does not think he is quite an ex-president, of course, since he believes contrary to all evidence that he won in 2020.) For nearly 200 years losers and voluntary retirees alike have sought to reoccupy the White House.

Five of the first seven presidents—Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Jackson—chose to step down at the end of their second terms. The one-termers had their own choices to make. After John Adams lost his reelection bid in 1800 he went home to Quincy, Mass., to lick his wounds for 25 years. His son John Quincy Adams was more ambitious. Elected in 1824 and beaten in 1828, he angled for the nomination of the new Anti-Masonic Party in 1832. JQA offered to reveal the secrets of Phi Beta Kappa, his undergraduate fraternity. The Anti-Masons were not interested. After this rebuff, he contented himself with the lesser office he already had—congressman from Massachusetts.

Another disappointed one-term president was already struggling to get back, with even more determination.

Martin Van Buren of Kinderhook, N.Y., was the first president to be born an American citizen (in 1782), and the only one whose first language was not English (his was Dutch). Van Buren rose in local, state, and finally national politics on the strength of populist principles, an easygoing manner, and hard work. He helped create the modern Democratic Party, uniting vote-rich New York with the South, and served its first champion, Andrew Jackson, as Secretary of State, then vice president. Van Buren succeeded his mentor—or had he really been his protégé?—in 1836.

this article first appeared in American history magazine

Van Buren’s term was almost immediately blighted by the depression of 1837. A new party, the Whigs, rose up to fight him. They appealed to Americans writhing under hard times by depicting Van Buren as a dude: Van Buren, son of a shabby innkeeper, had always worked a little too hard at his wardrobe. His 1840 campaign against William Henry Harrison was a disaster.

The Whigs soon encountered disasters of their own. Harrison died after 30 days in office and his veep and successor John Tyler quarreled with every other Whig. Van Buren took a nationwide listening tour in 1842—he spent one Illinois evening trading stories with a young Abraham Lincoln—and offered himself to the 1844 Democratic convention.

The party had a rule, however, that the nominee needed a two-thirds vote, not a simple majority. Although Van Buren had appeased the slaveholding South throughout his presidency, he had announced that he would not now annex the rebellious Mexican province of Texas: he didn’t want the political headache of integrating a new slave state. Angry expansionists withheld their support, and after 10 deadlocked ballots the convention turned to former Speaker James K. Polk.

Van Buren made slavery the linchpin of his last campaign, as candidate of the Free Soil Party in 1848. The party touted new territories and states whose soil for free White men, not Black slaves. Van Buren won only 10 percent of the popular vote, but that took up enough votes to prevent pro-slavery Democrat Lewis Cass from winning New York, helping Zachery Taylor gain the White House.

Throughout the 19th century, some ex-presidents, following JQA’s example, sought lower office: John Tyler was elected to the Confederate House of Representatives, Andrew Johnson to the U.S. Senate (both men died before taking office). Other exes aimed for the top: Whig Millard Fillmore, who succeeded Zachary Taylor at his death in 1850, ran in 1856 as the candidate of the anti-immigrant American (or Know-Nothing) Party. The Know-Nothings, wrote one contemporary, “came out of the dark ground, crawled up the sides of the trees, ate their foliage in the night, chattered with a croaking harshness, split open their backs and died.” Fillmore got 21 percent of the popular vote, and carried only Maryland.

Ulysses Grant, after serving two terms, took a triumphal tour of the world, and tried a third run for the GOP nomination in 1880. But the nominating convention tapped Ohio Rep. James Garfield instead. But one defeated president—like Van Buren, a New York Democrat—managed to win back the White House.

What’s It All Mean? Grover Cleveland, dressed as a beefy water fairy–or something like that–gazes at his reflection in this odd political cartoon.

Grover Cleveland was a Buffalo, N.Y., lawyer, noteworthy for his capacity for heavy labor, and heaviness: he “eats and works, eats and works, works and eats,” wrote one reporter. He was also personally honest and a stickler for administrative responsibility: noteworthy qualities in the post-Civil War era when an enlarged government was awash with cash to spend and contracts to assign. Cleveland became successively sheriff of Erie County, Mayor of Buffalo, and governor of New York. By the 1880s the Democrats had not won the presidency for a quarter-century. They ran urban machines like New York City’s Tammany Hall, and could count on a solid white-power South after the end of Reconstruction. But to win nationwide they needed the support of Republican defectors concerned with good government. Cleveland was the perfect candidate to lure them.

His opponent in 1884 was James G. Blaine, a Republican workhorse—congressman, senator, Secretary of State—who had, however, taken a bribe from a railroad earlier in his career. Republican researchers learned that Cleveland had fathered an illegitimate child (he had done more than work and eat, it seemed). But a late-breaking anti-Irish screed by a Blaine supporter tipped New York, and the election, to its homeboy.

Cleveland’s run for reelection in 1888 did not go so well. His vice president, Thomas Hendricks, had died in office, so the party gave him for a running-mate Allen Thurman, a 74-year-old congressman so feeble he could not finish speeches he began. Cleveland and Tammany meanwhile quarreled over the New York governorship. The GOP, led by former senator Benjamin Harrison, managed to carry New York by 1,400 votes, out of 1.3 million cast. Despite losing the national popular vote, Harrison won in the Electoral College.

Cleveland bided his time. In his 1892 rematch with Harrison, New York returned to the Democratic column, and Cleveland to the presidency.

How had Cleveland done it? The narrowness of his 1888 loss gave his party hope for a rematch; there was a dearth of viable challengers to the former POTUS. The key to victory was obviously New York, and that reality compelled both Cleveland and Tammany to stop feuding, if not to kiss and make up. Cleveland might better not have bothered. A depression in 1893 destroyed his term and his standing in his own party. Debt-pressed farmers in the South and West embraced populism, which marooned men of his stamp.

Trump counts on beating a Joe Biden enfeebled by age. But Trump himself is no spring chicken, and he has an array of legal issues to contend with. The lure is great, but the path is long and steep.

This story appeared in the 2024 Winter issue of American History magazine.

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