Those of you who have been with Modeling Madness.com will be familiar with Tom Cleaver's articles. Tom is foremost an author and a very good one. He has produced a number of military history books that have all been critically acclaimed.

This particular volume is subtitled 'Naval Aviation in the Vietnam War', and it covers all of the important events during that time. It basically looks at the off-shore involvement of the US Navy and various squadrons aboard the aircraft carriers that operated in this part of the world during the times of 1964 until 1975 when South Vietnam fell and the nation was united under one government.

To fully understand how the US became involved in the Vietnamese civil war, you have to keep in mind the climate in the US at the time. Like most wars, this one was was based on politics and faulty assumptions. During the 1950s, there was a real frenzy concerning what was thought to be a plan for communist domination of the world. Communists were apparently everywhere, just waiting to strike. This paranoia also affected US politics and policy. One has to look no farther than the McCarthy era to see its most egregious effects. Still, by the early sixties much of this had become ingrained in American politics.

The takeover of Cuba by Fidel Castro, the failed Bay of Pigs operation, Soviet attempts to put missiles in Cuba and the Berlin Wall all helped to feed this paranoia about communists. So when a sequence of errors and misinformation caused the firing on ghosts (actually flying fish) by USN destroyers in the Tonkin Gulf in 1964, the results were inevitable. Through the political and military magic of the era, these fish became North Vietnamese torpedo boats, thus causing a chain of events that got the US embroiled in what was up to that time, the longest war in US history.

If you have read any of Tom's books, you know that they are very well researched, include lots of interviews (from both sides), and are eminently readable. If you don't learn something, you are just not paying attention. The book covers not only the events leading up to the war, but the aircraft used by both sides, the ever changing 'rules of engagement' for US forces, the air war itself in segments that include Rolling Thunder, the development of Top Gun, Linebacker, the evacuation of Saigon, and finally the operational mess with the capture of the SS Mayaguez by the Khmer Rouge (I got a ribbon for that one). There is, of course, a lot more in the book, but I'm going to let you read all about it. I know you will not be disappointed. This is one of the best books I've read on the subject and I'm not just saying that because Tom is a friend. It is true. It dispells a lot of myths and puts the entire campaign into the sort of perspective we get years after the events when all that classified stuff is unclassified. If you have even the least bit of interest in the Naval air war of Vietnam, then you simply have to buy this book.

January 2022

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