Mobile Guerrilla Force; With the Special Forces in War Zone D
Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1996. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. xiv, 205, [7] pages. Includes Acknowledgments, Foreword, Introduction, Epilogue, Appendix, and Index. This is one of the Naval Institute Special Warfare Series. James C. Donahue joined the Marine Corps when he was seventeen years old and subsequently served with the Marines through the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Once discharged from the Corps, he enlisted in the Army and volunteered for Special Forces. As a Green Beret, he served with the 6th and 7th Special Forces Groups (Airborne) at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and with the 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne) in Vietnam. Donahue fought with Detachment A-343 at Duc-Phong and Mobile Guerrilla Force Detachments A-303, A-304, A-361, B-36 at Bien-Hoa, No-Ngoc-Tao, and Trang-Sup. He earned a master's degree in social sciences at the State University of New York at Buffalo. His first book, No Greater Love, was awarded the Freedom Foundation's George Washington Honor Medal. Award-winning author James C. Donahue was a member of the Mobile Guerrilla Force, an experimental Army Special Forces unit conceived to emulate the tactics of Vietcong guerrillas. This authentic firsthand account of Operation Blackjack-31 chronicles the first foray of 13 hand-picked Green Berets and a company of free Cambodian guerrillas into War Zone D--the VC's secret zone about which allied intelligence knew little or nothing--in January 1967. Their orders were to conduct guerrilla operations for an undetermined period, without artillery support or possibility of reinforcement. Detachment A-303 turned the suicide mission into a dramatic success. Battered and depleted by the Vietcong guerrillas' sadistic style of warfare, allied intelligence unleashed their secret weapon: an experimental Army Special Forces unit that the government brass didn't know existed. They used the enemy's booby-trapped trails and grenade-in-you-backpack tactics in a sprawling mass of jungle. James C. Donahue, a member of Operation Blackjack-31, chronicles the treacherous trek through War Zone D by thirteen handpicked Green Berets who infiltrated the VC's "secret zone" and proved just how far determination can go.
With surgical precision and a novelist's grasp of dialogue, timing, and dramatic pacing, the author puts the reader on the ground with the force for 31 days without respite. A surprisingly fresh description of close-in combat, Donahue's account stands as a powerful testament to the few who mattered little in the big picture but who were all that mattered to each other. Blackjack-31 was a historic departure from the conventional military thinking that dominated the war in Vietnam, and it clearly demonstrated that American-led indigenous forces could conduct guerrilla operations against the enemy, and win. Condition: Very good / Very good.
Keywords: Vietnam War, Commando Operations, U.S. Army Special Forces, Regimental Histories, Unit History, Mobile Guerrilla Force, Operation Blackjack-31, Booby Trap, James Gritz, William Kindoll, Dennis Montgomery, George Ovsak, Viet Cong
ISBN: 1557501726
[Book #79695]
Price: $45.00