The Rescue of Bat 21 Hardcover – April, 1998

I decided to read the book after enjoying the Gene Hackman movie "Bat 21". The introduction clears up that this book came after and is to a great deal a response to that movie and the book it was based on. More thoroughly researched and able to divulge more details, this is a more commplete and accurate story of the late way SAR operation than the movie could have been. Yes, acronyms - there are a bundle in this work, seemingly touching every sentence in a work possibly geared at vets and other military pros. Fortunately, there is a glossary and an index to remind you where technology and operation code names were first mentioned and explained. Among the tech I never heard of before was the debilitating BLU-52 poison gas (seemingly in between tear and nerve varieties; very nasty stuff) and such things as WAAPM: "these weapons would release hundreds of bomblets that ... would not explode, but instead would extend trip wires, that when snagged by a person would explode" and other air bomblet "gravel". Wow! How did that work? Similary the air-dropped sensors and automatic guns along the persitent Ho Chi Min Trail.

The author makes an observation that some may want to apply to later excursions: "the story is also a warning about the dangers of alliances and pitfalls of coalition warfare in wars that are too drawn out, with objectives not clearly defined."

This book is also a lot about this, late period in the war when it was largely an air war of a withdrawing America and an invading North Vietname. A time when pilots had very little connection to the ground and the war at all, but the SAR missions were integral to morale: they kept would-be victims fighting and offered missions pilots and crews actually believed in.

There are a few items to take exception to in this book – perhaps because the whole picture on the ground wasn’t known or understood.
(Page 115) “But Seventh Air Force knew that the offensive was coming.” Indeed they did, but it seems that they suffered from a common malady - a tendency to only believe intelligence originating from a single source – SIGINT. My unit, the 571st MI Detachment (of the 525th MI Group), had been sending its information out for days. 7th AF, MACV, Special Forces, 196th LIB, CINCPAC, NILO (the conduit which the SEALs also received intelligence) and many other commands and units received this information during this time. “Much of that information came from Washington…” is preposterous because Washington didn’t want anything to interfere with Vietnamization and troop withdrawals and they had egg on their faces because they had proclaimed Tet as the date any enemy activity would begin.
As Dong Ha Bridge was blown, the NVA moved west to Cam Lo to cross and ford. It isn’t odd at all to have vehicles crossing by both means when you’re trying to rapidly move your forces crossing a natural obstacle, such as a river. “Perhaps the Cam Lo bridge itself was not important.” (Page 117) How many tanks, trucks, armored personnel carriers, artillery and troops were able to cross into South Vietnam for the 12 days it remained standing? How many NVA units then were able to engage ARVN and VNMC units and keep resupplied?
(Page 118) “3rd ARVN collapsed” because 1/3 of its force had a cowardly commander who surrendered his command (56th ARVN Regiment) and another 1/3 (the 57th ARVN Regiment), who threw down their weapons and ran. The senior officers in MR-1 (I Corps) and Saigon had either departed for an Easter Vacation or had planned to do so before the Offensive started. Also, relying on the ARVN generals’ recollections usually finds omissions of fact replaced with fiction. (The order of battle given in the book also shows the 24th NVA Regiment out of place, too – this unit accepted the surrender of Camp Carroll – there are other incongruities, as well.)
(Page 119) Hue was not the first objective of the NVA attack. The 324B Division and two independent infantry regiments had infiltrated from Laos earlier in the month of March in their usual pattern and were keeping 1st ARVN busy west of Hue once again. Two regiments actually acted as a blocking force northwest of Hue to prevent 1st ARVN from supporting 3rd ARVN, though there was little chance of that because Hue was so deeply rooted in the mindset of the military of both allies.
(Pages 119-21) North Vietnam had spies everywhere, even among ARVN intelligence. For instance, Lam Son 719 information was supposedly closely held, but the North moved units into the battle area before ARVN/SVMC units crossed into Laos.
Hambleton was certainly not the only person to have knowledge that was valuable to North Vietnam, the Soviet Union and China – look at the various intelligence units that pervaded South Vietnam.
In Busboom’s case study of Bat-21, he states that Hambleton “…had been plotting one site on the DMZ off and on for two months, but the Wing headquarters did not take it as a serious threat because there were no launches.” (p.10) And that, “…the shadow SAM site was using its aquisition (sic) radar but not firing its missiles, and that succeeded over a period of weeks in being ignored as a threat.” (p. 13)
A basic tenet of ground operations is that moving artillery forward is an indication of attack. After all, SAMs and AAA are Air Defense Artillery. Ignoring an air defense site because it only used one radar and didn’t launch any missiles calls into question many other things….

I highly recommend this book about the rescue of Lt. Col. Iceal Hambleton (USAF), especially to those who have seen the movie “Bat 21” (1988) with Gene Hackman and Danny Glover. William C. Anderson's book “Bat-21” was the basis for that movie. Darrel D. Whitcomb's “The Rescue of Bat 21” gives rich development of the background, circumstances, and aftermath of that story, which Hollywood already portrayed. It does give the Bat 21 storyline, but not through the eyes of Hambleton. Though more analytical, Whitcomb did come across with intense feeling about the Bat 21 episode.

It is difficult to watch the history of the American involvement in Vietnam without coming to the conclusion that it was a display of the failure of American leadership - and more specifically, the instability of the American people of whom they represented. There is enough blame to go around.

Whitcomb, a Vietnam era FAC (forward air controller) himself, established for his readers the circumstances of the tragedy of America's Vietnam experience, since the rescue of Bat 21 illustrated the range of what was both right and wrong with putting American lives in harm's way. On the one hand, we had the American attention span. “The United States likes it's wars to be quick and with clear purpose.” America's purpose of stopping Communist aggression against the nation of South Vietnam was so modified and mired by the Administration's rules of engagement that a military victory could never be won. America's political war had already been lost in the White House, on the college campuses, and in the streets. Contrast this with the opposition. “North Vietnam was prepared to wait until the United States tired of the war and went home. Time, they felt, was on their side.” And, they were right.

By the time of the Bat 21 incident (April 2-9, 1972), not only were the protesters back home against the war, the draftees didn't want to be there, the professional soldiers were frustrated, the South Vietnamese and Americans were tired of each other, but even the American ground forces were increasingly indifferent toward the American air war being waged. UUUU was the graffiti of the low morale of the troops: “the unwilling, led by the unqualified, doing the unnecessary for the ungrateful.” The SAR (Search and Rescue) - That Others May Live - activities were one of the few remaining functions that motivated the air elements of our forces in Vietnam. “I'd do it for you” - “Flight of the Intruder” (1991) - was the understanding of the downed airmen. Airmen took care of airmen. That was Bat 21.

Chapter 14 “Disconnect” is probably the most insightful analysis of the American experience in Vietnam extant. The initial commitment of the American soldier to accomplish the mission was portrayed by Mel Gibson's “We Were Soldiers” (2002). By the time of the fall of Saigon (1975), the war had already degenerated into an environment that was characterized by the Animals' song “We Gotta Get out of This Place Place” (1965) - “If it's the last thing we ever do.” “Fragging” a superior officer with a fragmentation grenade soon became a part of America's wartime vocabulary. Jane Fonda's photo at an NVA anti-aircraft gun emplacement (1972) cemented her role as Hanoi Jane and illustrated the power of the opposition against further involvement in Vietnam. America had already been defeated because it clearly lacked the way to win. America's polarization had to be brought to a conclusion. We lost. But, Bat 21 illustrated that Americans could overcome obstacles and win, if they were motivated. Bat 21's rescuers were.