Army Airmobile and Air Mobility: eBooks and Audiobooks for download

Rattler One-Seven puts you in the helicopter seat, to see the war in Vietnam through the eyes of an inexperienced pilot as he transforms himself into a seasoned combat veteran. When Chuck Gross left for Vietnam in 1970, he was a nineteen-year-old army helicopter pilot fresh out of flight school. He spent his entire Vietnam tour with the 71st Assault Helicopter Company flying UH-1 Huey helicopters. Rattler One-Seven (his call sign) is written as Gross experienced it, using his notes along with letters written home to accurately preserve the mindset he had while in Vietnam. He notes that Americans were left behind alive in Laos, when official policy at home stated that U.S. forces were never there. He also participated in Lam Son 719, a misbegotten attempt by the ARVN to assault and cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail with U.S. Army helicopter support. It was the largest airmobile campaign of the war and marked the first time that the helicopter was used in mid-intensity combat, with disastrous results.

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."