Dirty Little Secrets of the Vietnam War: Military Information You're Not Supposed to Know (Paperback)

by James F. Dunnigan (Author), Albert A. Nofi (Author) "All wars attain a certain mythic character as time passes, but the myth rarely invades historical treatments..." (more)
Key Phrases: lettered comments, psychoneurotic cases, sapper units, North Vietnamese, South Vietnam, World War (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews
Precious few secrets are revealed in this densely scattershot look at multiple aspects of the Vietnam War. Perhaps a better title for this wide-ranging book might be An Enormous Number of Vietnam War Facts and Figures Covering Many Different Aspec ts of the War, Some of Which Are Not Widely Known, and Many of Which Are Readily Available in Dozens of Books. Among the few facts that conceivably fit the title's sensational promise are that 30 percent of the Americans who died in the war were Roman Cat holics; that ``underage boys'' enlisted in the US military to fight in the war; that some renegade Japanese troops and Nazi Germans fought briefly with the Viet Minh against the French in the years following WWII; and that the communist side suffered from desertion and draft-dodging. Almost none of the other myriad facts on dozens of subjects, marshaled by the prolific military historians Dunnigan and Nofi (Victory at Sea: World War II in the Pacific, 1995, etc.), are bona fide secrets. The information gi ven is either merely not widely known, fairly well known, or very well known to nearly anyone. In the latter category belong sundry authorial proclamations: that during the war ``territory was commonly taken, lost, and retaken repeatedly, a particularly d isheartening experience for the troops who got shot up doing it''; that there ``was no hero's welcome for the returning [American] soldiers''; and that ``Americans held prisoner by the enemy had a rough time.'' Aside from such banalities, the authors incl ude a blizzard of statistical information on military hardware and personnel matters, much of it interesting and much of it seemingly accurate, although Dunnigan and Nofi provide only a minimal amount of supporting documentation. A decent enough look at many pertinent aspects of the Vietnam War that cant live up to its hyperbolic title. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review
"Informative and entertaining but sobering." --The New York Times Book Review on Dirty Little Secrets

"Dirty Little Secrets is full of surprises about the inner workings of war-making machinery around the world. and, with war and rumors of war no more distant than the front page of today's newspaper, Dirty Little Secrets is a useful briefing...A handbook for our times." --Los Angeles Times on Dirty Little Secrets
-- Review

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Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin (May 5, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 031225282X
• ISBN-13: 978-0312252823
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #674,411 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A entertianing, fact-filled overview of the Vietnam War, April 29, 2005

By	C. Ryan (Winthrop, WA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The title of this 375-page book about the Vietnam War is not accurate. There really aren't too many so-called dirty little secrets revealed and most of the material is not controversial, but the book does have a lot of interesting perspectives and factual data re the war. Eschewing the chronological approach Dunnigan and Nofi write a lot of short interesting chapters on everything from a sketch of the pre-U.S. involvement history of conflict in Vietnam and adjoining nations (which still continues as the growing ethnic Vietnamese population continues suppressing and displacing minority groups) to summaries of each aspect of combat (Army, USMC, helicopters, air war, Naval campaigns (perhaps the weakest section), etc.), descriptions of major actions and incidents and overviews of in-country "cultural" issues (drugs, racial relations, popular music, etc.).

One hallmark is lots of statistics on various topics (casualties, military demographics, air craft, weapons used, etc.). Most of these are from official sources and source references - increasing lacking in much today's politicized nonfiction - are provided. Some of the statistics are explained and provide illustrative insights but unfortunately some of the intriguing data are not well explained.

For instance, there's a general impression that surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) were the overwhelming danger to U.S. aircraft and air-to-air combat was a significant aspect of the war. But the authors present statistics which show that only 11% of aircraft lost in combat were lost to SAMs, 4% were lost in air-to-air combat while the remaining 76% were lost to anti-aircraft artillery and various conventional ground-based weapons fire. However, the authors don't clarify that many, if not most, of aircraft losses occurred over South Vietnam where SAMs and MIGs were not available to our adversaries. The 25% rate of US Navy loss to SAMs and MIGs compared with only 12% for USAF/USMC presumably reflects that the Navy operated relatively more over North Vietnam itself from Tonkin Gulf-based carriers while the USAF/USMC operated a larger percentage pf their fixed wing aircraft over the South.

Another fascinating tidbit are the statistics about deserters who accepted amnesty in the mid-1970s - many of whom had gone to Canada - showing they were disproportionately (86%) in the lowest two classifications out of four military intelligence test classifications.

A suggested reading list, multi-page glossary and extensive indexing give what is basically an entertaining read for military history buffs who are not expert on Vietnam a bit of extra value as a reference for further study.

Recommended for Vietnam War, Cold War and general military history buffs and is an excellent book about the Vietnam-era for people not even born before the war ended.

Reviewed on the 30th anniversary of the fall of Saigon. On April 29, 1975, Radio Saigon began playing Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" (an interesting fact NOT mentioned in this book) as a signal to begin Operation Frequent Wind, the evacuation of all American personnel from South Vietnam.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Average, November 18, 2002

By	John G. Hilliard (Toronto Canada) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Dirty Little Secrets of the Vietnam War (Thomas Dunne Book) (Hardcover)

The title of this book is very misleading in that it promises new items that you might find with a hard hitting investigative report or a new history of the war. What the book gives the reader is a nice overview of facts and interesting details from the war, but it is not a good general study of the Vietnam War. If you are looking for a book to start on the war or just have a book at hand with lots of facts, charts and lists then this is the one for you. There were also some parts of the book that the authors did try and get a little deeper into, but that is not there strong point and I got the feeling they we filling space and hurrying to the next list. Overall the book is a written well and easy to read bunch of facts.

4.0 out of 5 stars Well Sorta, April 20, 2009

By	David F. Mcginnis (Key West FL) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Jim Dunnigan and Al Nofi are well-known to wargamers everywhere -- they were behind the S&T magazine in its heyday, the late 70's. There we first saw his style, lots of data in the form of tables and charts, minimal text, crisp and clean.

This book is one of a series the two are doing, or were doing, "Dirty Little Secrets of..." Here the title is sort of correct, there are a couple of secrets we didn't know, but most of it is readily available information. Nonetheless the collation of factual data here is impressive. They cover a lot of ground.

One thing that was not a secret at the time was the extent to which the administration (LBJ) was LYING to the American people. This began with the Gulf of Tonkin incident and continued right through to the end. I would have liked to see Jim and Al get into that a little bit.

The book is worth getting at the library as I did. Just be aware, as other reviewers have noted, the data is incomplete. (How could it be otherwise with less than 1000 pages?) You will find stuff in here you did not know, e.g., how many guys were actually killed by tigers?