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The Lost Battalion Controversy and Casualties in the Battle of Hue
(Click to Enlarge)
By Charles A. Krohn
Foreword by F. Clifton Berry, Jr.
ISBN: 0-275-94532-4
ISBN-13: 978-0-275-94532-9
224 pages, maps, photographs,
Praeger Publishers
Publication: 11/30/1993
List Price: $106.95 (UK Sterling Price: £59.95)
Availability:
Media Type: Hardcover
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Subjects: Awards:
  • Military Book Club Selection
Reviews:
  • His first-rate account demonstrates what can happen in combat when such systems do break down.
    —Publishers Weekly
  • Endorsement From
    John Collins

    Senior Defense Specialist, Library of Congress
    :     Only the mediocre are always at their best. This book tells about the price a U.S. Army cavalry battalion paid in blood when a few senior officers were off form during the 1968 Tet Offensive.
  • Endorsement From
    General Donn A. Starry, USA-Ret.
    :     Anyone who has fought will recognize this as a real story about some very tough battles, written by a real soldier who was there. Fortunately, Charles Krohn is a keen observer who with just the right amount of trenchant humor tells a tragic story, tells it extremely well, and lets the emperor appear unclothed whenever it is appropriate to do so. A superb chronicle about a handful of brave men who did what they were asked to do despite the odds against them--on both sides.
  • Endorsement From
    Lewis Sorley

    Author of     Thunderbolt, a biography of General Creighton Abrams
    :     This book calls to account those responsible for 'cutting loose' the 2/12th Cavalry to suffer grievous losses in the fighting north of Hue. The account is very interesting, often moving, and authentic.
Description: In 1968 in South Vietnam, a U.S. infantry battalion was ordered to charge a fortified North Vietnamese Army force 200 yards away over an open field with no artillery or air support. The defenders had every advantage. The Americans started moving across the field just before noon, every man a target. By the time they reached the tree line at the other side of the open field, nearly one half of the 400-man battalion was a casualty. Nine long, agonizing hours afterwards, U.S. artillery units began support fire, although the units remained desperately short of ammunition. The entrapped men saw their fate: death or captivity. Help from headquarters was neither offered or available. The following night the battalion commander decided to make a run for it. It was a gamble with high stakes. But the battalion did make it through enemy lines to a mountaintop where the NVA could not follow. When the Lost Battalion finally escaped encirclement, after nine hours with no artillery or air support, and 30 hours of fighting against an enemy that outnumbered them three to one, the tragic episode disappeared from official memory and relevant U.S. Army records--as if nothing had happened. Krohn tells the whole story--and it tells it with the words of those present. That some of the testimony comes from those responsible is remarkable.
Table of Contents:
  • Foreword
  • America's Best
  • Cast of the Past
  • Curtain Raiser
  • Reasonable Worries
  • Operation Rawhide
  • Rehearsing the Gladiators
  • The Death Battalion
  • Sweet Takes Charge
  • Historical Moment
  • Hue's Burning
  • Getting the Word at Camp Evans
  • From Camp Evans to PK-17
  • Dead in Our Tracks
  • Attack Now
  • Scudder, A Miracle Man
  • Cordite Stinks
  • Artillery Fiasco
  • Take a Break, Death Will Wait
  • Day Two: Hell's Last Circle
  • Saving the Living, Leaving the Dead
  • Leaving TFP: Our Only Hope
  • Hugging Jeff
  • Helvey's Raiders
  • TFP
  • Heroes Not Forgotten
  • After the Battle Is Over
  • Forgotten Favor Repaid
  • View from the Other Side
  • Who Won? Who Lost?
  • We'll Never Know
  • Ambiguous Facts
  • Tet, Meet Desert Storm
  • Pascagoula Flashback
  • Infantry Battalion Organization
  • Where Are They Now?
  • The Presidential Unit Citation
  • Maps
  • Photos of Key Participants, Locations
LC Card Number: 93-2867
LCC Class: DS558
Dewey Class: 959.704
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