Going Downtown: The US Air Force over Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, 1961-75

Description

The involvement of the US Air Force in the Southeast Asian Wars began in 1962 with crews sent to Vietnam to train Vietnamese pilots, and with conflict in Laos, and finally ended in 1972 with the B-52 bombing of Hanoi, though there were Air Force pilots unofficially flying combat in Laos up to the end in 1975. The missions flown by USAF aircrews during those years in Southeast Asia differed widely, from attacking the Ho Chi Minh Trail at night with modified T-28 trainers, to missions "Downtown," the name aircrew gave Hanoi, the central target of the war. All were deadly. Many of these events have only in recent years emerged from the fog of "secret operations" in which the "secret" was US violation of international law and treaties, such as the continuing involvement in Laos after the 1964 agreement that allegedly neutralized the country, to the massive bombing in Cambodia, a country that was not involved in the Vietnam War, which led to the rise of the Khmer Rouge and their incredible crimes of mass murder following the end of US involvement in 1975. One cannot speak of a war in Vietnam regarding US Air Force operations. The war the Air Force fought was a war in Southeast Asia. Downtown will integrate the history of all those separate "wars" into a thorough account of an air war that still has many missing pieces. The book is based on personal accounts by participants on both sides of the war, including accounts of the "secret" wars that have never been told before.

Author Thomas McKelvey Cleaver, a veteran of the war in Vietnam who was a participant in the event known in history as the "Tonkin Gulf Incident," which led to open US involvement in Southeast Asia, has chronicled the US war in Korea in his best-selling The Frozen Chosen, Holding the Line and Mig Alley, and has turned to writing similar histories of "his war," with The Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club and now Downtown. Many reviewers have commented favorably with his previous books on his ability to put the reader "in the action" from his experience as a screenwriter and his ability to "take the reader from the foxhole to the White House" as he places the events in their wider historical context.

As ever, the author provides a sublimely distilled and perfectly readable account of a grueling period of history. * Flypast * A fascinating inside story of what it was like for pilots over south east Asia. * The Armourer * An outstanding overview of the Air Force's war in Vietnam...This is combat history in the words of the aviators themselves... and shaped by the author's detailed archival research, oral history interviews, and a commanding knowledge of the available literature... [A] riveting account that constitutes at once both an outstanding history and a tribute to the airmen who flew across Southeast Asia more than a half-century ago. * Dr Richard P Hallion, former Historian of the US Air Force and author of 'Rolling Thunder 1965-68: Johnson's Air War Over Vietnam' * In Going Downtown Thomas McKelvey Cleaver provides a rare combination, a macro-micro view of the war in the air. In setting the context of Southeast Asian air operations, the author adroitly combines Vietnam history with some heart-pounding combat episodes. * Barrett Tillman, author of 'Dragon's Jaw: An Epic Story of Courage and Tenacity in Vietnam' * There are many "I was there" books telling the USAF story in Vietnam; but Going Downtown: The U.S. Air Force in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia 1961-75 by Thomas McKelvey Cleaver paints a much broader picture of that air war. In this extensively researched and well written book, Cleaver gives you the action from the cockpits of both the North Vietnamese MiGs as well as the American jets. This book gives you the perspective of the decision makers in Washington, the generals in theater, and the pilots and crews in the cockpits. If you want to get a true understanding of USAF operations up North Going Downtown is for you. * Thomas E. Rodgers, Lt.Col., USAF (ret.) *