Bait: The Battle of Kham Duc [Hardcover]

An account of the battle of Kham Duc, one of the least known and most misunderstood battles in the American Phase of the Second Indochina War (1959 to 1975).The strategic potential of the three-day attack of two NVA regiments on Kham Duc, a remote and isolated Army Special Forces camp, on the eve of the first Paris peace talks in May 1968, was so significant that former President Lyndon Johnson included it in his memoirs. This gripping, original, eyewitness narrative and thoroughly researched analysis of a widely misinterpreted battle at the height of the Vietnam War radically contradicts all the other published accounts of it. In addition to the tactical details of the combat narrative, the authors consider the grand strategies and political contexts of the U.S. and North Vietnamese leaders.An account of the battle of Kham Duc, one of the least known and most misunderstood battles in the American Phase of the Second Indochina War (1959 to 1975).A new history of the battle of Kham Duc, reframing the American defeat. This book is one of those rare historical narratives that explains in rich detail a battle that was little understood or reported on at the time it was fought but was of strategic importance and heroic dimension. The account of the battle is both detailed and exceptionally well-written; McLeroys participation in the battle adds authenticity to the narrative...highly recommended for anyone interested in how large-scale battles were fought in Vietnam at the height of U.S. commitment on the ground there. For an authentic, detailed view of how large battles between U.S. combined-arms forces and regular North Vietnamese Army forces were fought in Vietnam in 1968, 'Bait: The Battle of Kham Duc' is required reading. This first-hand, exhaustively documented account of a large battle in the Vietnam War shows the decisive role of air power in all its forms. &a vivid, original narrative and authoritative analysis of the large but little known 1968 Battle of KhlC¼