Hamburger Hill - A Shau Valley: Books, Audiobook, & DVDs

Winner of the Military Writers Society of America's 2017 Gold Medal for History Finalist, 2016 Army Historical Society Distinguished Writing Award. A Shau Valor is a thoroughly documented study of nine years of American combat operations encompassing the crucial frontier valley and a 15-mile radius around it--the most deadly killing ground of the entire Vietnam War. Beginning in 1963 Special Forces A-teams established camps along the valley floor, followed by a number of top-secret Project Delta reconnaissance missions through 1967. Then, U.S. Army and Marine Corps maneuver battalions engaged in a series of sometimes controversial thrusts into the A Shau designed to disrupt NVA infiltrations and to kill enemy soldiers. While other works have focused on individual battles or units, but A Shau Valor is the first to study the nine-year campaign--for all its courage and sacrifice--chronologically and within the context of other historical, political and cultural events.

As a first lieutenant in Bravo Company of the Third Battalion, 187th Infantry, Frank Boccia led a platoon in two intense battles in the Vietnamese mountains in April and May 1969: Dong Ngai and the grinding, 11-day battle of Dong Ap Bia--the Mountain of the Crouching Beast, in Vietnamese, or Hamburger Hill as it is popularly known. This vivid account of the author's first seven months in Vietnam gives special attention to the events at Dong Ap Bia, following the ¬hard-¬hit 3/187th hour by hour through its repeated assaults on the mountain, against an unseen enemy in an ideal defensive position. It also corrects several errors that have persisted in histories and official reports of the battle.

The battle for Ap Bia Mountain (Hill 937), was one of the fiercest of the entire Vietnam War.

The battle at Dong Ap Bia (Hamburger Hill) occurred during Operation APACHE SNOW, a XXIV Corps directed operation in the Northern Ashau Valley. This operation was initiated on 10 May 1969 with the specific purpose of destroying North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and Viet Cong (VC) forces believed to be grouping in the Ashau Valley, blocking enemy routes of egress into Laos, interdicting enemy lines of communication and locating and destroying known enemy caches. Allied forces participating in the operation consisted of elements of the 101st Airborne Division, 3d Marine Division, and the 1st ARVN Division. Table of contents includes a background, the Battle at Dong Ap Bia (fire support, enemy losses, and U.S. casualties summaries), consideration of allegations by Senator Stephen M. Young, and a draft insert for congressional record.

After World War II the first real action the 101st saw was in July 1965 when the 1st Brigade of the 'Screaming Eagles' was blooded in the Song Con Valley, Vietnam. It acted as a rapid reaction force, reinforcing American and South Vietnamese forces when necessary, becoming expert in rapid helicopter assaults. The 2nd and 3rd Brigades arrived in December 1967 in time to take part in the reaction to the North Vietnamese Tet Offensive. The 101st and the 1st Cavalry were sent in to recapture Hue in a battle that raged for three weeks and was the only extended urban combat of the war. Following Tet the 101st saw continuous combat including fighting on Hill 937-'Hamburger Hill'-which was some of the most brutal of the war. The last Army division to leave South Vietnam, the 101st spent almost seven years in combat. Book jacket.

See Chapter 6, "Operation APACHE SNOW: Brigade Employment in Vietnam."

First published in 1973. From the preface: "The purpose of this study is to trace the evolution of airmobility in the U.S. Army. The integration of aircraft into the organic structure of the ground forces is as radical a change as the move from the horse to the truck, and the process is only beginning. Because this change is not the product of one man or one small group of men but rather a fortunate confluence of technology, tactics, and imagination, proper credit to every responsible individual is impossible. I have tried to identify some of those people who made a major contribution throughout the years. Although Vietnam was the first large combat test of airmobility, air assault operations in Southeast Asia would not have been possible without certain key decisions a decade earlier. This study attempts to trace the most important milestones which led to the eventual formation of airmobile divisions."

See Chapter 8, "Dong Ap Bia."

THE RISE AND FALL OF AN AMERICAN ARMY provides a complete account of American ground combat forces in Vietnam- who they were, how they got to the battlefield, and what they did there. Stanton's book represents the first total battlefield history of ground forces in the Vietnam War, containing material previously incaccessible. SEE CHAPTER 4-4 "The Ia Drang Valley Campaign."

Based on official army records, these eyewitness accounts of seven hellacious battles serve as a brief history of the Vietnam conflict. From a fierce fight on the banks of the Ia Drang River in 1965 to a 1968 gunship mission, this illustrated report conveys the heroism and horror of warfare.

See Chapter 6, "Hamburger Hill: The Untold Story of the Battle for Dong Ap Bia."

United States Army in Vietnam. CMH Pub. 91-13.  Draws upon previously unavailable Army and Defense Department records to interpret the part the press played during the Vietnam War. See Chapter 6, "The Battle of Hamburger Hill."

Fourteen American soldiers in Vietnam battle for a mud-covered mound of earth that chews up soldiers like meat. They are fighting for their country, their fellow soldiers and their lives. War is hell, but this is worse.