Book Description

Compiled with extensive help from previously unavailable documents that have emerged from official Vietnamese archives, and also with the assistance of narratives from dozens of participants and eyewitnesses, this volume reveals that air warfare over Vietnam did not end when the US pulled out of Southeast Asia. On the contrary, in the wake of the US withdrawal, and following the ceasefire in early 1973, North Vietnam redoubled its effort to conquer the southern part of the country. The often disparaged and underestimated South Vietnamese Air Force (VNAF) - at the time claimed to have been the fourth largest air arm in the world - fought a series of ever larger and more mechanized air-land battles under circumstances for which it was neither equipped nor designed to operate. This volume details these bitter battles and the final collapse of South Vietnam in unprecedented detail, and always in a dramatic and fascinating fashion. The book reveals the full details of the courage of the VNAF pilots and personnel, but also the sheer terror many of them had to endure.