Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Nine Days in May
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
https://www.usni.org/author/warren-wilkins * http://www.armchairgeneral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=111143
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 2010075595
Descriptive conventions:
rda
Personal name heading:
Wilkins, Warren
Address: warren.wilkins@threatswatch.org
Birth date: 1975-02-16
Field of activity: Vietnam War, 1961-1975
Fuller form of name
Warren K.
Found in: His Grab their belts to fight them, c2011: ECIP t.p.
(Warren Wilkins)
Nine days in May, 2017: ECIP title page (Warren K. Wilkins)
data view (birth date, February 16, 1975; e-mail,
warren.wilkins@threatswatch.org)
Associated language:
eng
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS AUTHORITIES
Library of Congress
101 Independence Ave., SE
Washington, DC 20540
Questions? Contact: ils@loc.gov
PERSONAL
Born February 16, 1975.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer. Consultant for the American Heroes Channel documentary Warrior POV: Search and Destroy.
AWARDS:Fellow at the Center for Threat Awareness.
WRITINGS
Contributor of articles to periodicals, including Vietnam magazine, Argentina Independent, and Desperta Ferro.
SIDELIGHTS
Born February 16, 1975, Warren K. Wilkins writes about the Vietnam War and the Viet Cong (VC). He has published academic articles in various periodicals and historical journals, such as Vietnam magazine, the Argentina Independent, and the Spanish military-political history journal Desperta Ferro. Tapped as an expert on the Vietnam War, he has served as a consultant for the American Heroes Channel (formerly the Military Channel) documentary Warrior POV: Search and Destroy and appeared on the John Batchelor Show. He is also a Fellow at the Center for Threat Awareness.
Grab Their Belts to Fight Them
In 2011 Wilkins published Grab Their Belts to Fight Them: The Viet Cong’s Big-Unit War against the U.S., 1965-1966, published in cooperation with the Association of the United States Army. Favoring big-unit conventional war over guerrilla warfare, the Communist Vietnamese army designed their strategy this way in an effort to expel the American military. However, this strategy was doomed to fail, which led to the decision to launch the Tet Offensive. Drawing on memoirs, unit histories, battlefield studies, Communist Vietnam and U.S. military sources, as well as personal interviews, Wilkins describes the formation, development, deployment, and participation of the Viet Cong in big-unit war tactics. He uses these sources “to reconstruct the deployment of major Viet Cong and NVA [North Vietnam Army] military units, battles, and campaigns,” according to a reviewer in Reference & Research Book News. A writer at Internet Bookwatch said that Wilkins provides “an absolutely invaluable contribution to military history shelves, especially those with a focus on the Vietnam War.”
In an interview online at Armchair General, Wilkins explained his aim in writing the book: “In researching the book, I quickly concluded that it was inherently unwise to divorce the VC big-unit war from Communist strategy overall. …In order for me to understand the VC big-unit war, I was obliged to include Communist strategy in my research because the latter governed the former.” Wilkins added, “Acquiring Vietnamese Communist material can be a daunting proposition.” Harry Knight, writing in Air & Space Power Journal, concluded: “Wilkins strikes a fine balance by offering a book accessible to everybody. One need not have extensive knowledge of the Vietnam War to understand the author’s highly academic and well-supported analysis of two years of VC strategy. Perhaps the book’s greatest strength is the inclusion of so much communist Vietnamese primary material, all wonderfully translated.”
Nine Days in May
Wilkins next published Nine Days in May: The Battles of the 4th Infantry Division on the Cambodian Border, 1967 in 2017, in which he explores the contested May, 1967, battles in the la Drang Valley near the Cambodian border and the remote jungle west of Pleiku. As part of Operation Francis Marion, the 4th Infantry Division soon became outnumbered, surrounded, and fighting for their lives after confronting three North Vietnamese Army regulars with AK-47 guns who led them into bloody battles with larger platoons that lasted more than a week. The encounter was one of the largest and most savage battles the 4th Infantry Division saw in Vietnam. Survivors of the battles received honors: a Presidential Unit Citation for the brigade and Medals of Honor for three soldiers.
Wilkins conducted interviews with participants and drew on historical records and primary sources from the U.S. Army Center of Military History to present a story of extraordinary courage and sacrifice during this largely unknown campaign that was part of a broader, intractable strategic stalemate. According to a writer in Publishers Weekly, Wilkins “delivers this little-known story admirably, and it will appeal to those who appreciate carefully dissected analyses of battle action.” Michael J. Carson, writing in Reviewer’s Bookwatch, called the book an invaluable contribution and added that it is “an extraordinarily informative and comprehensive account that is enhanced for academia.”
According to Thomas McClung on the New York Journal of Books website: “Wilkins has done a great service in writing about these battles and describing them for the edification of the public. The finished product is highly recommended to all as it is truly about time that our Vietnam veterans get their due. Whether or not they came home in glory, they at least deserve our respect for doing a dirty job as best they could.”
Overall, “Wilkins’s work provides readers with a well-written battle history grounded in historiographical progress and well-supported with evidence. The author offers a gripping account of the battles from the perspective of the American soldiers,” noted Robert J. Thompson online at RealClear Defense. Commenting on how Wilkins discusses strategy, Thompson added: “The author firmly links tactics with strategy, paying special attention to the search and destroy operations that ultimately produced significant contact between U.S. Army and People’s Army of Vietnam forces.” Moreover, when discussing tactics by the controversial American commanding General William Westmoreland, “Scholars of the war will appreciate how Wilkins’s book adds depth to works by others on Westmoreland’s strategy,” Thompson reported.
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Air & Space Power Journal, July-August, 2014, Harry Knight, review of Grab Their Belts to Fight Them: The Viet Cong’s Big-Unit War against the U.S., 1965-1966, p. 175.
Internet Bookwatch, May, 2011, review of Grab Their Belts to Fight Them.
Publishers Weekly, April 10, 2017, review of Nine Days in May: The Battles of the 4th Infantry Division on the Cambodian Border, 1967, p. 64.
Reference & Research Book News, June, 2011, review of Grab Their Belts to Fight Them.
Reviewer’s Bookwatch, September, 2017, Michael J. Carson, review of Nine Days in May.
ONLINE
Armchair General, http://www.armchairgeneral.com/ (July 18, 2011), author interview.
New York Journal of Books, https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/ (May 31, 2017), Thomas McClung, review of Nine Days in May.
RealClear Defense, https://www.realcleardefense.com/ (November 7, 2017), Robert J. Thompson, review of Nine Days in May.
U.S. Naval Institute Website, https://www.usni.org/ (January 29, 2018), review of Grab Their Belts to Fight Them.
Warren Wilkins
In addition to his groundbreaking study, Grab Their Belts To Fight Them: The Viet Cong’s Big-Unit War Against the U.S., 1965-1966, Warren has written for a number of publications, including Vietnam Magazine, Desperta Ferro, and The Argentina Independent. Warren has also appeared on the “John Batchelor Show” and in the American Heroes Channel (formerly the Military Channel) documentary, “Warrior POV-Search and Destroy.” Presently, he is finishing a book about the 4th Infantry Division in Vietnam.
ACG Interview: Warren Wilkins, author of Grab Their Belts to Fight Them.
The publication of Grab Their Belts to Fight Them – The Viet Cong's Big Unit War Against the U.S., 1965-1966 by the Naval Institute Press adds an important stone to the ever growing literature about the war in Vietnam, offering an in-depth analysis of the often overlooked Communist strategic thinking during the early years of the massive US ground intervention in that conflict. Its author, Warren Wilkins, kindly accepted to answer a few questions for Armchair General.
Armchair General: Can you tell us a bit about yourself and where does your interest for the Vietnam War come from?
Warren Wilkins: Quite honestly I suspect that my interest in the Vietnam War dates back to the discussions I had as a boy and then as a teenager with my uncle. A proud, unapologetic veteran of the conflict, my uncle treated the war and his part therein with uncommon candor and care – he was, for example, careful to avoid gratuitous detail and he never indulged in “beer hall” bravado – and only later, when I began my own research, did I come to appreciate just he how conversant he was on the subject. In any event, several years ago I became affiliated with the Center for Threat Awareness (CTA) and in that capacity had the privilege of interacting with some sharp thinkers on matters related to national security and armed conflict. Folks like Michael Tanji immediately come to mind. Back then CTA was investing considerable time and effort on the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I was encouraged to do the same. When I did, I discovered that individuals on all sides of the political-ideological divide had invoked the specter of Vietnam. Interestingly enough, at the time I was already engrossed in researching the Vietnam War to satisfy some of my own curiosities – and though I’m not entirely sure if it was a deliberate decision or more of a gradual evolution of sorts – I continued on with that research and began contemplating writing about it.
ACG: You chose to write about the Communist military strategy in the early years of the US intervention in your first book, why this particular subject? would you agree to say that our vision of the war in the West is, for the most part, one-sided, and that a lot remains to be learned about the Vietnamese perspective?
WW: To a certain extent, yes, I believe that our vision of the war has been a bit one-sided and one-sided with a discernibly Western tilt. This is not to suggest, however, that I regard most of the literature on the war as necessarily one-sided in favor of the West. Rather I believe that the aforementioned Western tilt manifests itself not in the form of any propagandist support of the West (ie the United States) but rather in the often cursory coverage devoted to the Vietnamese side, particularly the Vietnamese Communist side. Some of it, I concede, is a function of the difficulty many face in obtaining historical material related to the Vietnamese Communist side. Are we also guilty of assuming that we presently know all we need to know about the other side? I sincerely hope not as there is much we undoubtedly do not know. And,unfortunately, the less we know the more (in my opinion) we are inclined to project.
In researching the book, I quickly concluded that it was inherently unwise to divorce the VC big-unit war from Communist strategy overall. Consider, for instance, the 9th Viet Cong Division. Colonel Cam’s division received its marching orders from the B2 Front. The B2 Front, in turn, answered to Hanoi. I could not ignore that reality. Thus, in order for me to understand the VC big-unit war, I was obliged to include Communist strategy in my research because the latter governed the former.
ACG: How did you work for this book? researching Communist documents must have been particularly difficult, even today few North Vietnamese archives are available to the general public, and even fewer have been translated into English.
WW: Acquiring Vietnamese Communist material can be a daunting proposition. Similarly finding an interested, dispassionate party with the requisite expertise to assist in sorting out some of that material – what are the larger implications of a certain Communist history, what are the competing interpretations etc.– can be equally challenging. I was extraordinarily lucky on both accounts to have had the privilege of working closely with Merle Pribbenow. Unparalleled in his understanding of our Communist adversary in Vietnam yet remarkably magnanimous, Merle shared not only translated Vietnamese material but also his time and insight. To say that Grab Their Belts profited from his involvement is a profound understatement. Additionally I scoured archives and other such holdings for captured material and POW interrogations. Much can be gleaned from the Vietnamese Communist documents, reports, etc seized by allied forces during the war if one has the patience to comb through lots of material.
Researchers, however, should approach Vietnamese Communist histories, memoirs, battle studies and the like carefully. Generally speaking they are invaluable for determining the participation and dispositions of VC/NVA units in a given military campaign or battle. They are, moreover, absolutely indispensable to any study of Vietnamese Communist strategy and strategic thinking. We don’t rely exclusively on German sources to reconstruct Soviet strategic thinking when studying the war on the Eastern Front, and the same principle applies to the Vietnam War. Whenever possible, we ought to let the belligerents speak for themselves as it were. On the other hand, Vietnamese Communist battle histories are replete with overt propaganda and often suffer from a lack of objectivity, to put it charitably. Some accounts, in fact, border on fiction or at the very least are not easily reconciled with accepted historical truth. Nevertheless that’s not an indictment of the VC or NVA veterans who fought and bled in the battles recounted in Vietnamese accounts. Rather it is a frank assessment of the historical value of some of those accounts.
ACG: Do you think the higher echelons of the VC/NVA command were victims of their own dogmatism when they decided to fight the US forces head-on in 1965-66, underestimating the tactical prowess and superior firepower of their adversary?
WW: Dogmatism certainly played a role, at least with those that advocated emphasizing big-unit war and, by extension, a more head-on collision with U.S. forces. Remember, however, that even the proponents of big-unit war in Hanoi and COSVN (Communist Office for South Vietnam) never eschewed guerrilla war. After all Vietnamese Communist military strategy espoused waging both forms of warfare. Consequently it was always a matter of emphasis and not exclusivity.
With respect to the question at hand, I do indeed believe dogmatism was a factor. General Thanh, for example, once averred that the “militant spirit” of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces might counteract or help offset American advantages in firepower. Nonetheless there were other factors at work as well, and I discuss them in turn in Grab Their Belts.
Top North Vietnamese leaders (from left to right): Pham Van Dong, Truong Chinh, Nguyen Chi Thanh and Ho Chi Minh.
ACG: General Westmoreland is often criticized for his strategy in Vietnam, fighting a big unit war instead of focusing on counter-guerrilla. Do you think it is justified in regard of your analysis of the enemy’s strategy?
WW: Westmoreland has certainly received his share of criticism. That much is indisputable. Westmoreland in my opinion – notwithstanding his mistakes and he like all commanders made mistakes – correctly deduced the dual threat imperiling South Vietnam – Communist big unit war and a well entrenched Communist insurgency – and thereafter endeavored to confront and blunt the former (Communist big unit war) so that allied pacification might achieve ultimate success in the latter (Communist insurgency).
Military commanders are obliged to fashion a response commensurate with the nature of the enemy threat. In 1965-66, the period chronicled in my book, the Vietnamese Communists pursued a strategy predicated on big-unit war complemented by guerrilla war in the hopes of crushing South Vietnam quickly and conclusively. Recall that the U.S. intervened decisively in the spring and summer of 1965 precisely because well-trained and heavily-armed regimental-sized VC and NVA units, not a popular guerrilla insurgency, were on the verge of destroying the South Vietnamese army and causing the collapse of the South Vietnamese government. Westmoreland could not afford to ignore that unpalatable battlefield reality.
Even the PROVN Report (Program for the Pacification and Long-Term Development of South Vietnam) placed “the defeat of People’s Army of Vietnam and Main Force Viet Cong units and the reduction of Viet Cong guerillas and political infrastructure among the population” at the top of the list of its five key objectives. The authors of PROVN, like Westmoreland, understood that both enemy threats required allied attention. Jon Mikolashek and Sean Kalic, both professors of history at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, arrived at a similar conclusion. “General William C. Westmoreland did not have a choice between fighting an insurgency or the conventional North Vietnamese Army,” the pair averred in a recent article for Small Wars Journal, “he had to fight both.”
I do not believe, moreover, that my opinion renders me an inveterate Westy apologist. Nor do I believe that my less critical view of Westmoreland somehow banishes me from the mainstream of historical thought. Indeed I would encourage readers to consult the writings of Dale Andrade (“Why Westmoreland was Right”), Dr. Andrew Birtle (“PROVN, Westmoreland, and the Historians: A Reappraisal”), Mark Moyar (Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954-65), and the aforementioned Mikolashek and Kalic (“Deciphering Shades of Gray: Understanding Counterinsurgency”).
ACG: Do you plan on writing other books on the Vietnam War? a follow-up to Grab Their Belts maybe?
WW: Presently I am engrossed in the research and writing of a new book that chronicles a somewhat unheralded series of battles pitting three battalions of the 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division against two veteran North Vietnamese regiments in the foreboding Central Highlands of South Vietnam. Waged near the Cambodia border in Pleiku Province, the aptly named “Nine Days in May” featured no fewer than five savage engagements over a nine day span in May of 1967. Heroism and honor, sacrifice and loss, triumph and tragedy – the “Nine Days” quite frankly have it all – and I am honored to work once again with Naval Institute Press (NIP) and my intrepid editor at NIP, Adam Kane, on the project.
Although I have no immediate plans for a sequel to Grab Their Belts to Fight Them, I would certainly not rule out the possibility of writing one. I suspect, for the purposes of your question and without the benefit of any serious inquiry into such a project, that a sequel of some sort might prove to be a fascinating endeavor! At any rate, I am sure I will revisit the matter at some future date.
Nine Days in May: The Battles of the 4th Infantry Division on the Cambodian Border, 1967
30.4 (Dec. 2017): p58.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 World History Group, LLC
http://www.historynet.com/magazines/vietnam
Nine Days in May: The Battles of the 4th Infantry Division on the Cambodian Border, 1967 by Warren K. Wilkins
This book offers the first full account of the bitterly contested May 1967 battles in the la Tchar Valley near the Cambodian border. Outnumbered and surrounded, the 4th Infantry Division displayed the courage and sacrifice that would result in a Presidential Unit Citation and three Medals of Honor.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Nine Days in May: The Battles of the 4th Infantry Division on the Cambodian Border, 1967." Vietnam, Dec. 2017, p. 58. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A506828370/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=d416bfd9. Accessed 25 Dec. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A506828370
Nine Days in May: The Battles of the 4th Infantry Division on the Cambodian Border in 1967
264.15 (Apr. 10, 2017): p64.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Nine Days in May: The Battles of the 4th Infantry Division on the Cambodian Border in 1967
Warren K. Wilkins. Univ. of Oklahoma, $34.95
(496p) ISBN 978-0-8061-5715-3
Military historian Wilkins (Grab Their Belts to Fight Them) recreates a brutal Vietnam War engagement that took place in a rugged, remote valley in the Central Highlands near Cambodia. Never given an official title, the May 1967 fight became known as "the nine days in May border battles." Troops from three battalions of the U.S. Army's 2nd Brigade of the Fourth ("Ivy") Infantry Division faced off against a much larger force of two North Vietnamese Army regiments. The sustained fighting--which included hand-to-hand combat--was some of the most intense of the Vietnam War. The American troops fought "valiantly," Wilkins says, emerging "battered but unbowed." Three men received posthumous Medals of Honor. His short introductory analysis of American strategy, however, contains a minor but crucial error: that commanding Gen. William Westmoreland believed that pacification programs--rather than out-and-out combat--"were central" to his Vietnam War strategy. Westmoreland stubbornly advocated deploying increased numbers of combat troops to implement his search-and-destroy, attrition strategy while essentially ignoring hearts-and-minds pacification programs. Making good use of interviews with American veterans, Wilkins delivers this little-known story admirably and it will appeal to those who appreciate carefully dissected analyses of battle action. Illus. June)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Nine Days in May: The Battles of the 4th Infantry Division on the Cambodian Border in 1967." Publishers Weekly, 10 Apr. 2017, p. 64. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A490319299/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=824d8e7b. Accessed 25 Dec. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A490319299
Grab their belts to fight them; the Viet Cong's big-unit war against the U.S., 1965-1966
26.3 (June 2011):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2011 Ringgold, Inc.
http://www.ringgold.com/
9781591149613
Grab their belts to fight them; the Viet Cong's big-unit war against the U.S., 1965-1966.
Wilkins, Warren.
Naval Institute Press
2011
283 pages
$35.95
Hardcover
DS557
In 1965 and 1966, the Communist Vietnamese, orchestrated by militant hardliners in Hanoi, endeavored to crush South Vietnam and expel US forces with a strategy based on 'big unit' combat rather than guerilla warfare. This book draws on Communist Vietnamese sources, US military sources, and personal interviews to detail the formation, development, and participation of the Viet Cong during this period of the war, and to analyze how the failure of the big unit war influenced the decision to launch the Tet Offensive. These sources are used to reconstruct the deployment of major Viet Cong and NVA military units, battles, and campaigns, and to examine the debates that informed the big-unit war. B&w historical photos are included. In addition to books, articles, and papers, the bibliography lists Communist Vietnam sources; unpublished sources; US military reports and military handbooks; and Vietnamese interviews archived at the US Army Center of Military History. Wilkins is affiliated with the Center for Threat Awareness.
([c]2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Grab their belts to fight them; the Viet Cong's big-unit war against the U.S., 1965-1966." Reference & Research Book News, June 2011. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A257996212/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=efae941c. Accessed 25 Dec. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A257996212
Grab Their Belts to Fight Them: The Viet Cong's Big-Unit War against the U.S., 1965-1966
Harry Knight
28.4 (July-August 2014): p175+.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2014 Air Force Research Institute
http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/
Grab Their Belts to Fight Them: The Viet Cong's Big-Unit War against the U.S., 1965-1966 by Warren Wilkins. Naval Institute Press (http://www.usni.org/navalinstitutepress), 291 Wood Road, Annapolis, Maryland 21402, 2011, 288 pages, $35.95 (hardcover), ISBN 9781591149613.
One finds an unfortunate level of truth in Warren Wilkins's assessment that the Vietcong (VC) are popularly remembered as little more than a black-pajama-clad guerrilla force from a bygone chapter in American military history. The vision of men in black dress, sandals, and conical hats running around setting rudimentary booby traps and lining pits with bamboo spears often appears synonymous with Vietnamese guerrilla warfare and the VC's art of war. Wilkins's latest contribution to the literature on the Vietnam War demonstrates that this was not necessarily the case. Marrying both communist Vietnamese sources with US military recollections and after-action reports, the author undertakes to show that between 1965 and 1966, communist leaders in the North had a very specific strategy in mind for VC forces fighting in South Vietnam: the big-unit conventional war.
Wilkins, a Fellow at the Center for Threat Awareness, provides a richly detailed history of the VC's big-unit war by tracing events from the policy-making level in the North right down to the tactical experiences of VC main-force fighters in the South. As a result, he offers readers insight into the plenum meetings of the Communist Party Central Committee and Hanoi's strategic direction for VC and North Vietnamese army regiments designed to quickly and decisively defeat US and South Vietnamese forces and bring them to the bargaining table. Spreading his analysis to the tactical level of VC warfare, Wilkins underlines the practice of these main-force VC units "hugging" American units in both offensive and defensive actions to separate the American GI from the greatest tool in his inventory-supporting arms.
The book's title, Grab Their Belts to Fight Them, refers to an oft-recited army mantra that would dictate the VC's best means of overcoming American conventional military superiority. That is, by getting close enough to see the shine on a GI's buttons, the VC hoped to void the tactical impact of impressive American firepower employed in support of the infantry. Thus, during engagements at Bau Bang, Trung Loi, the Ia Drang Valley, and others, VC main-force units strove to get close enough to American infantry lines to make them think twice about calling in support from artillery and aircraft. Unfortunately for the VC, the US troops' superiority in maneuver and the employment of air mobility enabled them to keep their belts out of reach without losing the tactical objective. Simply put, according to Wilkins, the big-unit battles of 1965 and 1966 represent a continual failure for the VC in trying to force the United States out of the war quickly and decisively. By detailing a number of VC/US infantry clashes during those years and showing that VC units often went headlong into battle with their opponents, the author makes a strong case that the VC's pre-Tet Offensive modus operandi was more conventional than often thought.
In detailing VC big-unit warfare of the mid-1960s, the book also gauges another strategy of the war-Gen William Westmoreland's scheme of focusing US war efforts primarily on defeating conventional communist Vietnamese units. It is hard to find strategic successes in a war that, for years after, seemed the proverbial stain on the reputation of American proficiency of arms. Nevertheless, by highlighting the preeminence of big-unit warfare in VC strategy and displaying the perpetuity of tactical failures experienced by the VC between 1965 and 1966, Wilkins shows that Westmoreland's strategy in the South was not as misguided as it might appear. The author also underlines the effectiveness of the American military triad of maneuver, firepower, and combined-arms action that, in practice, saw a US conventional force able to outmaneuver, outgun, and outwit its communist counterparts. In relating the effects of American firepower and supporting arms on the VC's big-unit battles, this history demonstrates that airpower in the Vietnam War involved far more than the strategic bombing operations that targeted the North. Combined with artillery and helicopter guns-hips, fighter-bombers provided useful close air support in various US/ VC engagements that enabled American Soldiers to fight another day-and keep their belts too.
Wilkins strikes a fine balance by offering a book accessible to everybody. One need not have extensive knowledge of the Vietnam War to understand the author's highly academic and well-supported analysis of two years of VC strategy. Perhaps the book's greatest strength is the inclusion of so much communist Vietnamese primary material, all wonderfully translated, which gives readers insight into the mind-set of VC strategic leadership; further, it provides more of a frontline Vietnamese reflection of the conventional tactics employed by the VC to attain strategic success. By presenting the recollections of American troops and military reports, Wilkins illustrates the experiences from both sides of the VC big-unit war. The author does not set out to wholly destroy the image of VC irregular warfare; indeed, he notes that VC main-force units often fought in conjunction with their "local force" guerrilla affiliates. Rather, Wilkins shows that the VC's art of war entailed much more than bamboo spears and booby traps, a task he carries out very well. Grab Their Belts to Fight Them portrays the VC as a more complex organism than previously understood, and Wilkins's account of VC big-unit warfare between 1965 and 1966 is a necessary addition to the literature if we wish to keep learning from the Vietnam War. If nothing else, this assessment of VC fighting highlights the fact that, with the right strategic direction, seemingly unconventional armies are quite capable of fighting in a more conventional manner, whether or not they wear pajamas.
Harry Knight
Royal Military College of Canada, Kingston
Knight, Harry
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Knight, Harry. "Grab Their Belts to Fight Them: The Viet Cong's Big-Unit War against the U.S., 1965-1966." Air & Space Power Journal, July-Aug. 2014, p. 175+. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A378557611/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=874f9ba3. Accessed 25 Dec. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A378557611
Nine Days in May
Michael J. Carson
(Sept. 2017):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Midwest Book Review
http://www.midwestbookreview.com
Nine Days in May
Warren K. Wilkins
University of Oklahoma Press
2800 Venture Drive, Norman, OK 73069
www.oupress.com
9780806157153, $34.95, HC, 432pp, www.amazon.com
Synopsis: Moving through the jungle near the Cambodian border on May 18, 1967, a company of American infantry observed three North Vietnamese Army regulars, AK-47s slung over their shoulders, walking down a well-worn trail in the rugged Central Highlands. Startled by shouts of "Lai day, lai day" ("Come here, come here"), the three men dropped their packs and fled. The company commander, a young lieutenant, sent a platoon down the trail to investigate. Those few men soon found themselves outnumbered, surrounded, and fighting for their lives. Their first desperate moments marked the beginning of a series of bloody battles that lasted more than a week, one that survivors would later call "the nine days in May border battles."
"Nine Days in May: The Battles of the 4th Infantry Division on the Cambodian Border, 1967" by author and military historian Warren K. Wilkins is the first full account of these bitterly contested battles. Part of Operation Francis Marion, they took place in the Ia Tchar Valley and the remote jungle west of Pleiku. Fought between three American battalions and two North Vietnamese Army regiments, this prolonged, deadly encounter was one of the largest, most savage actions seen by elements of the storied 4th Infantry Division in Vietnam. Drawing on interviews with the participants, Warren K. Wilkins recreates the vicious fighting in gripping detail.
"Nine Days in May" is a story of extraordinary courage and sacrifice displayed in a series of battles that were fought and won within the context of a broader, intractable strategic stalemate. When the guns finally fell silent, an unheralded American brigade received a Presidential Unit Citation and earned three of the twelve Medals of Honor awarded to soldiers of the 4th Infantry Division in Vietnam.
Critique: An invaluable contribution to the growing library of Vietnam War literature, "Nine Days in May: The Battles of the 4th Infantry Division on the Cambodian Border, 1967" is an extraordinarily informative and comprehensive account that is enhanced for academia and the non-specialist general reader with the inclusion of black/white photos, thirty-four pages of Notes, a twelve page Bibliography, and an eleven page Index. While unreservedly recommended for both community and academic library 20th Century American Military History collections in general, and Vietnam War supplemental studies lists in particular, it should be noted for personal reading lists that "Nine Days in May" is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $9.88).
Michael J. Carson
Reviewer
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Carson, Michael J. "Nine Days in May." Reviewer's Bookwatch, Sept. 2017. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A511455023/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=c059c556. Accessed 25 Dec. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A511455023
The Military Shelf
(May 2011):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2011 Midwest Book Review
http://www.midwestbookreview.com
Grab Their Belts To Fight Them
Warren Wilkins
Naval Institute Press
291 Wood Road, Annapolis, MD 21402
9781591149613 $35.95 www.navalinstitute.org
Grab Their Belts To Fight Them: The Viet Cong's Big-Unit War Against the U.S., 1965-1966 is an analytical study of the early battles of the war between the Communist Vietnamese and the South Vietnamese and American forces, with especial attention paid to the tactics and strategies used by the Communist Vietnamese. In 1965 and 1966, the Communist Vietnamese forces adopted an aggressive tactic of "big unit" combat, intended to quickly and thoroughly yield a decisive victory. Yet the Communist Vietnamese did not have the firepower or mobility to support their offensive strategy, and their failure would force them to change tactics-as well as inducing the decision to launch the Tet Offensive. Grab Their Belts To Fight Them draws heavily upon an abundance of Communist sources to reinforce its portrait of the Communist Vietnamese perspective, including but not limited to Communist memoirs, unit histories, battlefield studies and reconstructions, and much more. The result is an absolutely invaluable contribution to military history shelves, especially those with a focus on the Vietnam War.
A Warrior's Quilt of Personal Military History
Brigadier General Albin F. Irzyk
Ivy House Publishing Group
5122 Bur Oak Circle, Raleigh, NC 27612
9781571975058 $24.95 www.ivyhousebooks.com
A Warrior's Quilt of Personal Military History is the military memoir of Brigadier General Albin F. Irzyk USA (Ret.), offering an up-close and personal perspective of profound historical events. Chapters tell true stories from World War II (such as the liberation of Ohrdruf, the first concentration camp freed by the Allies), the Cold War, and the Vietnam War. Reflections upon great military leaders such as Maj. Gen. John S. Wood and Gen. George S. Patton enhance this immersive testimony, written to be accessible to lay readers and military historians alike. Highly recommended.
Osprey Publishing
4402-23rd Street, Suite 219, Long Island City, NY 11101-5058
www.ospreypublishing.com
Andrew Brookes's VICTOR UNITS OF THE COLD WAR (9781849083393, $22.95) provides military libraries with another addition to Osprey's 'Combat Aircraft' series, which covers one of the most technologically advanced airplanes of the Cold War. First flown in 1952, the Victor entered service in B1 configuration in 1957 and came to be renowned for being the longest-ranging aircraft in the RAF. Vintage black and white and color photos survey its history and influences on battles. John Weal's FW 190 DEFENSE OF THE REICH ACES (9781846034824, $22.95) concludes the titles detailing the experiences of the fighter pilots of the German Luftwaffe of World War II that have been the foundation of Osprey's 'Aircraft of the Aces' series, which first appeared in 1994. There is no other narrowed focus on the FW 190 aircraft, making this a special pick that blends previously unpublished photos with aviation and military history key to any aviation or military library.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"The Military Shelf." Internet Bookwatch, May 2011. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A257467862/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=6283ef63. Accessed 25 Dec. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A257467862
Nine Days in May: The Battles of the 4th Infantry Division on the Cambodian Border, 1967
Image of Nine Days in May: The Battles of the 4th Infantry Division on the Cambodian Border, 1967
Author(s):
Warren K. Wilkins
Release Date:
May 31, 2017
Publisher/Imprint:
University of Oklahoma Press
Pages:
432
Buy on Amazon
Reviewed by:
Thomas McClung
War is never pretty, and in the case of Vietnam less so for a variety of reasons. Those who served there deserved better than we gave them when and since they came home. Now, going on more than four decades after the fact, military historians and the public at large have the opportunity now to learn at least some of what those men and women went through. The former is providing this to the latter and deservedly so.
In 1967, the war was still ramping up for American military forces, certainly in the manpower department. The Tet offensive was in the future and the possibility of victory was still extant. However, American hands were tied by the ostensible neutrality of neighboring Cambodia. Government policy was to avoid fighting there, patrolling there, bombing there—any sort of military activity from across the Vietnamese border was forbidden.
As a result, the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) was able to maintain sanctuaries there for purposes of rest, recovery, reinforcement, planning, supply, and all manner of offensive military action with impunity. For the U.S. Army and Marines, taking the war to the enemy essentially meant conceding the initiative and waiting for said enemy to come to you from over the border.
Fighting a war of attrition went hand in hand with a pacification policy meant to provide peace and security to the South Vietnamese people. In the effort to do so, the intention was to prevent the NVA from attacking the lowlands and coastal areas by confronting it in the central highlands away from population centers. However, this also meant a change in topography and terrain: Fighting would occur in the mountains and jungles close to the border.
In the spring of 1967, elements of the 4th Infantry Division found themselves engaged with enemy forces in a series of conventional battles in the divisional operational area. Indeed, soldiers from its 1st Brigade fought very close to the Cambodian border over the course of nine days in the month of May.
Although at times outnumbered and in danger of being overrun in some instances, with the support of artillery and air strikes, helicopter resupply, and outstanding leadership in the combat area and the rear, these GIs were able to defeat their foes—although not without incurring significant casualties themselves.
This summary, however, does not begin to describe the detail of what is basically a ground-level, small unit, tactical story. It tells not just what happened to whom, how, and where but also the very personal stories of the men who made up the forces, which comprised the 4th Infantry Division elements involved.
The story of those men, the survivors and the dead, demonstrates the sacrifices and commitments they made, even as draftees and replacements who may not have wanted to be in-country in the first place. They exhibited what most should know about combat: It’s not about the big picture, victory, a policy, etc. but about the guy or guys next to you in the foxhole.
Be forewarned, this is very much a graphic story with descriptions of bodies on both sides torn apart and mangled and wounds specifically detailed. It is also tragedy on a personal level, including at least one man killed in action who had only a short time left in his tour before heading home and another who would never get to see the daughter born while he was serving.
Of course, such sacrifice could hardly fail to be recognized as medals and decorations were awarded, many posthumously, including three Medals of Honor. That should be truly indicative of the valor displayed.
This publication is not only well written, but also well researched as indicated by the bibliography. The photographic section largely consists of personal shots of many of the men mentioned in the text. The multiple maps are basic but informative for purposes of context.
Author Warren Wilkins has done a great service in writing about these battles and describing them for the edification of the public. The finished product is highly recommended to all as it is truly about time that our Vietnam veterans get their due. Whether or not they came home in glory, they at least deserve our respect for doing a dirty job as best they could.
Nine Days In May, Battles of the 4ID
By Robert J. Thompson
November 07, 2017
Nine Days In May: The Battles of the 4th Infantry Division on the Cambodian Border, 1967. Warren K. Wilkins. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2017.
Battles like Ia Drang, Con Tien, Khe Sanh, and Hue standout in the history of the American war in South Vietnam. While hardly typical, those clashes resonate well in popular histories and documentaries. On the other hand, transpiring on tracks of land away from large urban areas and not on some named, fortified hilltop—and at a time when multiple larger American military operations occurred across South Vietnam—nine May battles took place that lacked the consistent intensity of the aforementioned engagements, but typified the experience of many in Vietnam. Although these May battles were both remote physically and mentally for those not involved, participants experienced the savagery that came with the few, intense instances of contact with the enemy.
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These nameless battles—the ones not beamed back to televisions in the U.S.—capture the often fierce struggle between American and North Vietnamese forces that materialized in the hinterlands of South Vietnam. Nine Days In May: The Battles of the 4th Infantry Division on the Cambodian Border, 1967, by Warren K. Wilkins, tells the story of battles that, although epic for those involved, lacked the size for official name designations. More significantly, the battles covered by Wilkins were born out of a strategy shared by both the Americans and North Vietnamese to fight a war in the remote hinterlands of South Vietnam.
Organized into three parts, with each covering a different battalion, Wilkins’s work provides readers with a well-written battle history grounded in historiographical progress and well-supported with evidence. The author offers a gripping account of the battles from the perspective of the American soldiers of the 1-8, 3-12, and 3-8 Infantry Battalions who fought in the jungled terrain of Pleiku Province in 1967. In that Central Highland province, I Field Force, Vietnam executed operations to achieve the strategy of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, fighting the war away from the more densely populated areas of the region. Operation Francis Marion was one of those efforts to bring the People’s Army of Vietnam to battle in Pleiku Province. Those operations spawned the search and destroy sweeps that ultimately resulted in the battles covered by Wilkins.
Both the Americans and North Vietnamese envisaged similar strategies for tying down opposing forces. As the author notes, the B3 Front—the entity that controlled the People’s Army of Vietnam forces in the Central Highlands—sought to draw American military forces to the borderlands. The People’s Army of Vietnam’s 32nd, 33rd, and 66th Regiments of the 1st Division operated under command of the B3 Front. In keeping U.S. Army units away from the cities and the guerrilla networks, the B3 Front adopted a strategy best suited to distracting Military Assistance Command, Vietnam from Hanoi’s own efforts to pacify South Vietnam.[1] This served the further purpose of drawing U.S. forces away from the urban areas to set the stage for the 1968 Tet Offensive. Thus, what transpired in Pleiku Province was a series of battles in line with the strategies of both belligerents.
THUS, WHAT TRANSPIRED IN PLEIKU PROVINCE WAS A SERIES OF BATTLES IN LINE WITH THE STRATEGIES OF BOTH BELLIGERENTS.
Critics of Westmoreland seem set on an overly negative view of the general, ignoring more recent scholarship. One recent review claims Wilkins mischaracterizes Westmoreland's strategy as the commander of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam. Nothing could be further from the truth. Wilkins follows the well-established historiography arguing that Military Assistance Command, Vietnam developed and pursued a strategy congruent with pacification.[2] Since 2008, through prodigious archival research, historians Andrew Birtle and Gregory Daddis have firmly countered the contention pressed by scholars such as Andrew Krepinevich and Lewis Sorley that the U.S. Army failed to appreciate the nature of the war in South Vietnam, and thus practiced a strategy focused on conventional warfare, ignoring its insurgency aspects. Essentially, such a contention amounts to an accusation the U.S. Army bungled its way through the Vietnam War under Westmoreland.[3]
Birtle, Daddis, and subsequent scholars make it clear, though, that Westmoreland was well versed in counterinsurgency discourse and keenly understood the unconventional aspects of the war in South Vietnam. Both scholars argue convincingly that Westmoreland understood the dual threat posed by the People’s Army of Vietnam and the People’s Liberation Armed Forces to pacification.[4] Indeed, Westmoreland was anything but the oft-painted caricature that lost the war in Vietnam by ignoring pacification for the sake of pursuing a big unit war against the People’s Army of Vietnam. Rather than continue the myth that Westmoreland’s strategy amounted to attrition and ignored pacification, Wilkins’s book expands on historiographical developments post-1999. This alone makes his work a valuable addition to the canon of Vietnam scholarship.
American military commander General William C. Westmoreland (right) reviews the men of the US Army's 1st Infantry Division | Vietnam, November 1966. (Photo by Co Rentmeester/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)
Nine Days In May goes far beyond an analysis of Westmoreland, however. The author firmly links tactics with strategy, paying special attention to the search and destroy operations that ultimately produced significant contact between U.S. Army and People Army of Vietnam forces. Indeed, the bulk of the book is on how his strategy played out—with emphasis on how soldiers experienced it. In getting into the weeds of history, Wilkins reveals that although Westmoreland had a strategy for combating the People’s Army of Vietnam’s presence in South Vietnam, the battles themselves transpired on the enemy’s terms. Indeed, the People’s Army of Vietnam deftly baited and ambushed the 4th Infantry Division’s battalions in Pleiku Province, often undermining the firepower advantage of their American counterparts by fighting within a few hundred meters or fewer.
With interviews from veterans of the battles, and primary sources gleaned from the U.S. Army Center of Military History, Wilkins takes readers into the thick of battle. Authors should take note of Wilkins’s style. He captures the visceral personal experiences of soldiers to color our affective understanding of the conflict, as in one instance in which he describes an American soldier exchanging provocations with his North Vietnamese foes: “‘Come and get us, you bastards,’ he taunted the NVA defiantly…’ Come and get us, GI,’ mocked a hidden North Vietnamese soldier.”[5] In another example, Wilkins demonstrates his ability to weave together the intensity of battle and biographical information to produce a vivid account of battle. Consider the scene:
Chunks of scalding-hot steel bounced off the boulders scattered atop the knoll. Crammed into a shallow hole, Pfc. Gary Mills of Wichita, Kansas, hugged the ground and waited for a lull in the fighting. Mills had leaped into the foot-deep hole–along with five other soldiers–after a mortar round had landed in front of them. Incredibly, the round did not go off, saving the six startled grunts. The hole, though, was dangerously vulnerable to 82-mm mortar and small-arms fire, but every time Mills or one of the other grunts attempted to wiggle away, a North Vietnamese sniper would snap off a round and force them back down.[6]
Ultimately, Operation Francis Marion exacted a heavy toll on People’s Army of Vietnam manpower. As stated by the author, the operation “frustrated a major enemy initiative in western Pleiku Province.”[7] Yet he notes I Field Force, Vietnam’s gains did “little to change the strategic trajectory of the war in the Central Highlands.”[8] While successfully countered in that province, the enemy elsewhere nonetheless remained capable of preparing for, and launching, the 1968 Tet Offensive.
SCHOLARS OF THE WAR WILL APPRECIATE HOW WILKINS’S BOOK ADDS DEPTH TO WORKS BY OTHERS ON WESTMORELAND’S STRATEGY.
It would have been helpful to see the author take his closing remarks a bit further. Did I Field Force, Vietnam want more operations like Francis Marion? As I Field Force, Vietnam often sought to replicate so-called successful operations, how, if at all, did Francis Marion factor into future war planning? In extending his closing commentary, the author could have demonstrated whether there was any capacity for I Field Force, Vietnam to learn lessons as the war progressed. All the same, Nine Days In May leaves readers informed of the operation’s impact, or lack thereof, on the war.
Scholars of the war will appreciate how Wilkins’s book adds depth to works by others on Westmoreland’s strategy. As his work covers the war from a bottom-up perspective, Wilkins adds an angle not covered in the top-down studies. This contribution to the body of scholarship introduced by Daddis is, in historiographical terms, quite new. The work of Wilkins is an exciting contribution to that new scholarship, but more is certainly to come. Therefore, Nine Days In May functions as a valuable companion to Daddis’s macro study of strategy in Westmoreland’s War: Reassessing American Strategy in Vietnam. And, in the end, readers searching for an engaging battle narrative of the Vietnam War will surely want to obtain a copy of Nine Days In May.
Dr. Robert J. Thompson completed his Ph.D. in U.S. History at the University of Southern Mississippi and is a Featured Contributor on The Strategy Bridge. His dissertation is titled "More Sieve Than Shield: the U.S. Army and CORDS in the Pacification of Phu Yen Province, Republic of Vietnam, 1965-1972"
This article appeared originally at Strategy Bridge.
NOTES:
[1] Warren K. Wilkins, Nine Days In May: The Battles of the 4th Infantry Division on the Cambodian Border, 1967 (Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 2017), 8.
[2] See: “Nine Days In May: The Battles of the 4th Infantry Division on the Cambodian Border, 1967,” Publishers Weekly, 10 April 2017, https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-8061-5715-3.
[3] See: Andrew F. Krepinevich, The Army and Vietnam (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986); Lewis Sorley, A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years in Vietnam (Orlando: Harcourt, 1999); Sorley, Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011).
[4] See: Andrew J. Birtle, “PROVN, Westmoreland, and the Historians: A Reappraisal." The Journal of Military History 72, no. 4 (2008): 1213-1247; Gregory A. Daddis, Westmoreland’s War: Reassessing American Strategy in Vietnam (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014).
[5] Wilkins, 75.
[6] Ibid, 266-277.
[7] Ibid, 353.
[8] Ibid.