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Steffes tells the "real" story of the incident off the coast of North Vietnam on June 16, 1968 that sunk PCF-19. The deaths of five crewmen were reportedly blamed on "friendly fire", but research and witnesses show that "hostile fire" took down the swift boat that day.
Author : John E. O'Neill,Jerome R. Corsi Publisher : Simon and Schuster Page : 256 pages File Size : 55,9 Mb Release : 2004-08-25 Category : Political Science ISBN : 9781596981102
Unfit For Command by John E. O'Neill,Jerome R. Corsi Pdf
"What sort of combination of hypocrite and paradox is John Kerry?" asks this heated critique of the Democratic presidential candidate’s Vietnam–era military service and antiwar activism. O’Neill, a lawyer and swift boat veteran, and Corsi, an expert on Vietnam antiwar movements, show how Kerry misrepresented his wartime exploits and is therefore incompetent to serve as commander in chief. Buttressed by interviews with Navy veterans who patrolled Vietnam’s waters, some along with Kerry, readers will discover how he exaggerated minor injuries, self-inflicted others, wrote fictitious diary entries and filed "phony" reports of his heroism under fire—all in a calculated quest to secure career-enhancing combat medals.
A Swift Boat is sunk by two rockets from an unidentified aircraft near the border between North and South Vietnam. It is June 15/16th, 1968, around midnight, and now five sailors are dead or missing. Two survivors and several witnesses report seeing lighted aircraft that move and hover like helicopters flying in the area. U.S. Jets are scrambled to the scene and report hits on enemy aircraft. The following night the jets return hunting the elusive helicopters and in the confusion, one American Cruiser and one Australian Frigate, are hit by air-to-air missiles. The result is two dead and eleven wounded aboard the Australian ship and minor damage to the American Cruiser. An investigation, based on pieces of U.S. Missiles found on the two ships, determine that it was “friendly fire”. This sailor was aboard another Swift Boat, PCF-12, patrolling south of the sunken boats position. Ordered to the scene to assist in the rescue, PCF-12 came under attack by helo type aircraft, identified as hostile, receiving one rocket and machine gun fire. This Swift Boat returned a deadly barrage of 50 caliber machine gun and other small arms fire causing the two helos to break contact and run away. The crew believes that one of the helos was damaged or shot down by this hail of gunfire. The investigation findings were “friendly fire” mostly because of the lack of wreckage of the helos and the pieces of Sparrow missiles found on board USS Boston and HMAS Hobart. News accounts attempted to connect the two incidents by blaming the same pilots for attacking the ships and sinking the Swift Boat. This book uses official records, logs, and message traffic to back up eye witness testimonies that refute the “friendly fire” decision. There are many people affected by this story. Those of us that were there have carried pieces of this incident in our memories for 37 years. Families and friends of the dead and missing have wondered about the truth behind the decision of “friendly fire” vs “hostile fire”. This book will answer many of those questions and put many lives at rest again. James W. Steffes ENC, USN Retired
A Swift Boat is sunk by two rockets from an unidentified aircraft near the border between North and South Vietnam. It is June 15/16th, 1968, around midnight, and now five sailors are dead or missing. Two survivors and several witnesses report seeing lighted aircraft that move and hover like helicopters flying in the area. U.S. Jets are scrambled to the scene and report hits on enemy aircraft. The following night the jets return hunting the elusive helicopters and in the confusion, one American Cruiser and one Australian Cruiser, are hit by air-to-air missiles. The result is two dead and eleven wounded aboard the Australian ship and minor damage to the American Cruiser. An investigation, based on pieces of U.S. Missiles found on the two ships, determine that it was "friendly fire." This sailor was aboard another Swift Boat, PCF-12, patrolling south of the sunken boats position. Ordered to the scene to assist in the rescue, PCF-12 came under attack by two helicopter type aircraft, identified as hostile, receiving one rocket and heavy machine gun fire. There were no hits or casualties to PCF-12. This Swift Boat returned a deadly barrage of gunfire from three .50 caliber machine guns and other small arms fire causing the two helicopters to break contact and run away. The crew believes that one of the helicopters was damaged or shot down by this hail of gunfire. The investigation findings were "friendly fire" mostly because of the lack of wreckage of the helicopters and the pieces of Sparrow missiles found on board USS Boston and HMAS Hobart. News accounts attempted to connect the two incidents by blaming the same pilots for attacking the ships and sinking the Swift Boat. This book uses official records, logs, and message traffic to back up eye witness testimonies that refute the "friendly fire" decision. There are many people affected by this story. Those of us that were there have carried pieces of this incident in our memories for 37 years. Families and friends of the dead and missing have wondered about the truth behind the decision of "friendly fire" vs "hostile fire." This book will answer many of those questions and put many lives at rest again. James W. Steffes ENC, USN Retired
A memoir of heroism, comradeship, danger, and laughter aboard a Vietnam patrol craft, as a small crew grew into a seasoned combat team. Includes photos. During the Vietnam War, 3500 officers and men served in the Swift Boat program in a fleet of 130 boats with no armor plating. The boats patrolled the coast and rivers of South Vietnam, facing deadly combat, intense lightning firefights, storms, and many hidden dangers. This action-packed account by the Officer in Charge of PCF 76 makes you part of the Swift Boat crew. The six-man crew of PCF 76 was made up of volunteers from all over the United States, eager to serve their country in a unique type of duty not seen since the PT boats of WWII. This inexperienced and disparate group of men would meld into a team that formed an unbreakable lifelong bond. After training, they were plunged into a twelve-month tour of duty. Combat took place in the closest confines imaginable, where the enemy could be hidden behind a passing sand dune or a single sniper could be concealed in an onshore bunker. In many cases, the rivers became so narrow there was barely room to maneuver or turn around. The only way out might be into a deadly ambush. This is not a Vietnam memoir filled with political discussions or apologies. It simply tells the stories of these young, valiant sailors with humor and heartfelt emotion—in a suspenseful, surprising book that pays tribute to these sailors who, upon returning home, asked little of their country and received less.
A Swift Boat is sunk by two rockets from an unidentified aircraft near the border between North and South Vietnam. It is June 15/16th, 1968, around midnight, and now five sailors are dead or missing. Two survivors and several witnesses report seeing lighted aircraft that move and hover like helicopters flying in the area. U.S. Jets are scrambled to the scene and report hits on enemy aircraft. The following night the jets return hunting the elusive helicopters and in the confusion, one American Cruiser and one Australian Frigate, are hit by air-to-air missiles. The result is two dead and eleven wounded aboard the Australian ship and minor damage to the American Cruiser. An investigation, based on pieces of U.S. Missiles found on the two ships, determine that it was “friendly fire”. This sailor was aboard another Swift Boat, PCF-12, patrolling south of the sunken boats position. Ordered to the scene to assist in the rescue, PCF-12 came under attack by helo type aircraft, identified as hostile, receiving one rocket and machine gun fire. This Swift Boat returned a deadly barrage of 50 caliber machine gun and other small arms fire causing the two helos to break contact and run away. The crew believes that one of the helos was damaged or shot down by this hail of gunfire. The investigation findings were “friendly fire” mostly because of the lack of wreckage of the helos and the pieces of Sparrow missiles found on board USS Boston and HMAS Hobart. News accounts attempted to connect the two incidents by blaming the same pilots for attacking the ships and sinking the Swift Boat. This book uses official records, logs, and message traffic to back up eye witness testimonies that refute the “friendly fire” decision. There are many people affected by this story. Those of us that were there have carried pieces of this incident in our memories for 37 years. Families and friends of the dead and missing have wondered about the truth behind the decision of “friendly fire” vs “hostile fire”. This book will answer many of those questions and put many lives at rest again. James W. Steffes ENC, USN Retired
Swift Boats at War in Vietnam by Guy Gugliotta,John Yeoman,Neva Sullaway Pdf
You-are-there stories of ambushes and patrols on the Mekong in the Vietnam War Developed specifically for the Vietnam War (and made famous by the 2004 presidential campaign), Swift Boats were versatile craft “big enough to outrun anything they couldn’t outfight” but too small to handle even a moderate ocean chop, too loud to sneak up on anyone, and too flimsy to withstand the mildest of rocket attacks. This made more difficult an already tough mission: navigating coastal waters for ships and sampans smuggling contraband to the Viet Cong, disrupting enemy supply lines on the rivers and canals of the Mekong Delta, and inserting SEALs behind enemy lines. The stories in this book cover the Swift Boats’ early years, which saw search-and-inspect operations in Vietnam’s coastal waters, and their later years, when the Swift Boats’ mission shifted to the Mekong Delta’s labyrinth of 3,000 miles of rivers, streams, and canals. This is an intimate, exciting oral history of Swift Boats at war in Vietnam.
Through charming illustrations and rhyming verse, readers follow a toy sailboat on its journey from brook to river to sea. Along the way, the boat passes by a variety of habitats and creatures, from beetles to bears to bullfrogs.
An instant New York Times bestseller, John Kerry’s revealing memoir offers “a detailed record of an important life…frank, thoughtful, and clearly written…A bittersweet reminder of what the country once demanded of its leaders” (The New York Times Book Review). Every Day Is Extra is John Kerry’s candid personal story. A Yale graduate, Kerry enlisted in the US Navy in 1966, and served in Vietnam. He returned home highly decorated but disillusioned, and he testified powerfully before Congress as a young veteran opposed to the war. Kerry was elected to the Senate in 1984, eventually serving five terms. In 2004 he was the Democratic presidential nominee and came within one state—Ohio—of winning. He succeeded Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State in 2013. In that position he tried to find peace in the Middle East; dealt with the Syrian civil war while combatting ISIS; and negotiated the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate agreement. “In these pages Kerry shows remarkable honesty, depth, even spirituality…There is remarkable poignancy—not the usual currency of the career politician and the country’s top diplomat” (The Boston Globe). A witness to some of the most important events of our recent history, Kerry tells wonderful stories about colleagues Ted Kennedy and John McCain, as well as President Obama and other major figures. He writes movingly of recovering his faith while in the Senate, and how he deplores the hyper-partisanship that has infected Washington. Every Day Is Extra “draws back the curtain on a life you thought you knew, but turns out to be a bit different…A surprisingly personal book” (The Washington Post) that shows Kerry for the dedicated, witty, and authentic man that he is and provides forceful testimony for the importance of diplomacy and American leadership to address the increasingly complex challenges of a more globalized world.
Edward J. Marolda,R. Blake Dunnavent,Naval History & Heritage Command (U S ),Navy Dept (U S )
Author : Edward J. Marolda,R. Blake Dunnavent,Naval History & Heritage Command (U S ),Navy Dept (U S ) Publisher : Government Printing Office Page : 86 pages File Size : 52,6 Mb Release : 2015 Category : History ISBN : 0945274734
Combat at Close Quarters by Edward J. Marolda,R. Blake Dunnavent,Naval History & Heritage Command (U S ),Navy Dept (U S ) Pdf
This work describes riverine combat during the Vietnam War, emphasizing the operations of the U.S. Navy’s River Patrol Force, which conducted Operation Game Warden; the U.S. Army-Navy Mobile Riverine Force, the formation that General William Westmoreland said “saved the Mekong Delta” during the Tet Offensive of 1968; and the Vietnam Navy. An important section details the SEALORDS combined campaign, a determined effort by U.S. Navy, South Vietnamese Navy, and allied ground forces to cut enemy supply lines from Cambodia and disrupt operations at base areas deep in the delta. The author also covers details on the combat vessels, helicopters, weapons, and equipment employed in the Mekong Delta as well as the Vietnamese combatants (on both sides) and American troops who fought to secure Vietnam’s waterways. Special features focus on the ubiquitous river patrol boats (PBRs) and the Swift boats (PCFs), river warfare training, Vice Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr., the Black Ponies aircraft squadron, and Navy SEALs. This publication may be of interest to history scholars, veterans, students in advanced placement history classes, and military enthusiasts given the continuing impact of riverine warfare on U.S. naval and military operations in the 21st century. Special Publicity Tie-In: Commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War (Commemoration dates: 28 May 2012 - 11 November 2025). This is the fifth book in the series, "The U.S. Navy and the Vietnam War." TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction The First Indochina War The Vietnam Navy River Force and American Advisors The U.S. Navy and the Rivers of Vietnam SEALORDS The End of the Line for U.S. and Vietnamese River Forces Sidebars: The PBR Riverine Warfare Training Battle Fleet of the Mekong Delta High Drama in the Delta Vice Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr. Black Ponies The Swift Boat Warriors with Green Faces Suggested Reading
One of our most acclaimed historians explores the decorated military service of one of America’s most intriguing politicians—the leading Democratic presidential candidate for 2004—and its profound effects on his career and life In Tour of Duty, Brinkley explores Senator John Kerry’s career and deftly deals with such explosive issues as U.S. atrocities in Vietnam and the bombing of Cambodia. Using new information acquired from the recently released Nixon tapes, Brinkley reveals how White House aides Charles Colson and H.R. Haldeman tried to discredit Kerry. Refusing to be intimidated, Kerry started running for public office, eventually becoming a U.S. Senator from Massachusetts. Covering more than four decades, this is the first full-scale definitive account of Kerry’s journey from war to peace. In writing this riveting, action-packed narrative, Brinkley has drawn on extensive interviews with virtually everyone who knew Kerry well in Vietnam. Kerry also relegated to Brinkley his letters home from Vietnam and his voluminous “war notes” journals, notebooks, and personal reminiscences written during and shortly after the war. This material was provided without restriction, to be used at Brinkley’s discretion, and has never before been published.
Serving on Swift Boats was at times a treacherous duty. The crew was made up of six men, an officer and five enlisted. For Coastal Division 13 in 1967 and ’68, our patrol area was the coastline, canals, and riverways just a little north of the Mekong Delta all the way to the tip of South Vietnam. We patrolled areas where there were no friendlies, and if we ran into trouble, we were basically on our own for quite some period of time. This book is about my year in Vietnam on one of these Swift Boats. It includes pictures of boats on duty, some of the scenes of South Vietnam, and excerpts from the Cat Lo base log. I have been in contact with my skipper and shared with him what I have written. He has inserted some things I had missed. This story is real and is shared to show you some of my experiences during this time. This was part of the ten and a half months before the Tet offensive occurred and my last month and a half after the Tet offensive. My experiences and time were a cakewalk compared to what others experienced during this time and the years that followed.
War stories are mostly innocent fables and understood as such by both the teller and the hearer. However, they have long been used for political and national purposes, and those about the war in Vietnam were no exception, as painfully evidenced in the 2004 presidential campaign. John Kerry campaigned as a war hero. His opponents cast him as a liar and a traitor and their war story prevailed. ""War Stories"" delves into the myths associated with the Vietnam veteran s experience and looks at them through the war stories they told and continue to tell. Kulik conducts an extremely thorough review of the Vietnam literature and interviews participants wherever possible, poking holes in the war myths of people throughout the political spectrum. War Stories discusses how returning Vietnam vets were treated and delves into the myths that atrocities were commonplace, that all veterans of that war suffer from PTSD, and that all are guilt ridden. Kulik s research and analysis of such stories lies at the heart of this book s originality and provides a new perspective on the Vietnam War for scholars, students, and general readers. His purpose in exposing such stories is not to deny or minimize American war crimes in Vietnam but to cut through the cant of false stories so that we retain our outrage at those that are true. As we are faced with future war stories from Iraq and Afghanistan and their likely exploitation, the moral stance and the lessons learned in this book will be especially important."
Celebrating 50 years of Tove Jansson's classic, bestselling novel Featured in the BBC 2 Between the Covers Bookclub Special (Eurovision series 2023) 'Distils the essence of summer' Robert Macfarlane 'Magical, life-affirming' Elizabeth Gilbert The Worldwide Classic about a tiny island and larger love. An elderly artist and her six-year-old grand-daughter while away a summer together on a tiny island in the gulf of Finland. As the two learn to adjust to each other's fears, whims and yearnings, a fierce yet understated love emerges - one that encompasses not only the summer inhabitants but the very island itself. Written in a clear, unsentimental style, full of brusque humour, and wisdom, The Summer Book is a profoundly life-affirming story. Tove Jansson captured much of her own life and spirit in the book, which was her favourite of her adult novels. With a foreword by Esther Freud and an afterword by Sophia Jansson (on whom the child 'Sophia' is based) who returns to the island during the pandemic at the point of becoming a grandmother herself. Includes a 15pp epilogue by Tove's niece Sophia Jansson - the inspiration for 'Sophia' - on a personal and moving return to the island. 'Eccentric, funny, wise, full of joys and small adventures. This is a book for life.' Esther Freud 'Tove Jansson was a genius. This is a marvellous, beautiful, wise novel, which is also very funny.' Philip Pullman
Cat Lo, a memoir of invincible youth Cat Lo is a story of young men who volunteer for Swift Boats in Vietnam and about war's indelible lesson for those who survive: life is too precious to waste. Thirty-six years after Vietnam, Virg Erwin sits with a disfigured marine convalescing from Iraq and asks, "Do you want to talk about it?" It is a question no one has ever asked Erwin. "It was hard to know who were civilians- who were bad guys," the marine says as he describes being caught in a violent ambush. For Erwin, the marine's story resurrects memories of sailors patrolling narrow rivers and canals, their naive sense of invincibility shattered by Viet Cong patiently waiting in bunkers with rockets. Cat Lois about conflict of compassion for the South Vietnamese who are caught in the middle of war without option of neutrality, and confusion by the question: Who is the enemy and who is not? Virgil Erwin enlisted in the Naval Reserve in 1963, received his Bachelors Degree from Western State College in Colorado and commissioned an ensign in 1966 after graduating from the Naval Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island. He served his first two years of active duty aboard a destroyer, the USS Berry (DD 858). After his tour in Vietnam as skipper of Patrol Craft Fast 67, Erwin joined Dow Corning, but interrupted his career to sail to the South Pacific. With his wife Pam as first mate and their yearling Christopher as crew, they sailed for eighteen months, a tenthousand mile round trip. Erwin retired after thirty-six years of corporate life as Vice President of Sales at Entegris Corp. Erwin is a Board Member of the Swift Boat Sailors Association, the Vietnam Unit Memorial Monument Fund and the Admiral Hoffmann Foundation, which provides financial aid to wounded men and women returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Erwin was chairman of the 2007 Swift Boat Reunion held in San Diego, attended by 500 men and women including Congressman Bilbray, Four Star Admiral Gehman, Vice Admiral Rectanus and Rear Admiral Hoffmann. Erwin resides in San Diego with his wife Jacqueline and their two Siberian Huskies. Cruising World, Pacific Skipper and Latitude 38 published his stories of sailing to the South Pacific."