DAK TO                                                                       

               America's Sky Soldiers in South Vietnam's Central Highlands

                                                             Edward F. Murphy

Their Officers and senior noncoms were drawn from the  U.S. Army's elite. They were an all- volunteer paratrooper unit, General Westmoreland's  "fire brigade," dropped from the air wherever the fighting was heaviest. They were the "Sky Soldiers," men of the 173rd Airborne Brigade. And during the five months from June to November, 1967, they fought many of the bloodiest battles of the entire,decade-long Vietnam War at the small mountain hamlet in the Central Highlands called Dak To.

From their very first engagement with the North Vietnamese Army, when a whole company of paratroopers was nearly wiped out, to the savage , climatic battle for 875, here is a riveting, hard hitting account of how the Sky Soldiers plunged into some of  Southeast Asia's  most forbidden terrain, against a professional enemy who held no fear of the airborne. Denied food and water, cut off from support, facing annihilation, the beleaguered fighters finally faced down the North Vietnamese in a nightmarish Thanksgiving Day confrontation.

As a result, three NVA Regiments, crippled by the 173rd, were forced to sit out the crucial Tet Offensive of January, 1968. The most eloquent testimony to the courage of the Sky Soldiers came during the memorial to their dead comrades, when pairs of jump boots were arranged in neat rows to represent each fallen paratrooper. It was a ceremony  every survivor of the 173rd Airborne and the battle for Dak To remembers to this day.****

Historian's Note: Here is one of Edward F. Murphy's best books. These battles, in and around Dak To, provides the reader with a great insight as to what the American fighting man was up against in Vietnam. Exposed here is the fighting spirit of both opposing forces and the shrewdness of the NVA.  Here too, is exposed the danger of close-in friendly fire support where just one ill-placed round or bomb can be devastating to a friendly unit..........An excellent historic story.

Paul Marquis

Web Master

Jim Cannon

Historian

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