In this stunning history, soldiers and civilians, both American and Vietnamese, tell what it was like in the spring of 1975 as Hanoi carried out its final, successful offensive against the Republic of Vietnam. Generals, ambassadors, pilots, marines, politicians, doctors, seamen, flight attendants, journalists, children, and even Vietcong soldiers describe the growing demoralization, panic, and chaos as the collapse gained momentum. American survivors recall with raw emotions the escape of the last airliner out of Danang, the chilling helicopter airlift from the U.S. embassy roof in Saigon, and the painful abandonment of their South Vietnamese allies. Former boat people relate their hair-raising encounters with Thai pirates; and in a new postscript, an American government official describes the resettlement of 130,000 Vietnamese refugees in America over the ensuing months. Touching, heroic, and unforgettable, these dramatic narratives illuminate the closing act of one of the central events of modern history.
Larry Engelmann is the author of six books: Intemperance(1979); The Goddess and the American Girl(1988); Tears Before the Rain(1991); Daughter of China(1998); They Said That(1999); and Feather in the Storm(2006). His books have been published in translation in 14 foreign languages, including Vietnamese and Chinese. He has also written for several national magazines including Life, American Heritage, Smithsonian, Playboy, Vietnam, the Saturday Review and Reader's Digest and for the Canadian magazine McLean's. He authored several stories published in American Way, the inflight magazine of American Airlines. His stories have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the Toronto Star, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Washington Post and the San Jose Mercury News. He is currently at work on a book examining the serial murders in San Jose and the surrounding area between 1969 and 1971 with the working title, "Our Share of Night." Three of the murders (the Snoozy/Furlong/Bilek crimes) were solved in 1971. Another, the Mallicoat murder remains unsolved to this day. Three other similar crimes in the 1970s in Santa Clara County with the same MO as the first three, remain unsolved, also. He is also composing a memoir of coming of age in a small town during the height of the cold war, with the working title of Sex, Lies and Spam: A Very Cold War Childhood.
Mr. Engelmann lives part of each year at his home in northern California. He travels widely gathering materials for his writing and he customarily spends several weeks each year in Southeast Asia. He is a graduate of Austin High School in Austin, Minnesota, and earned his undergraduate degree in history and economics at the University of Minnesota in the Twin Cities. He earned a PhD in American history and literature from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
