Saving Bravo

August 15, 2018
A taut study of the largest military search-and-rescue operation in history and the lessons learned.Talty (The Black Hand: The Epic War Between a Brilliant Detective and the Deadliest Secret Society in American History, 2017, etc.) has a fascination for grim moments under seemingly impossible odds, as with the story that would eventually become the movie Captain Phillips. The yarn he spins here was already made into a movie three decades ago, the Gene Hackman vehicle Bat*21, recounting the harrowing experience of an Air Force navigator shot down over Vietnam in the late days of the war. Iceal "Gene" Hambleton (1918-2004) was one of the most experienced officers in the business, a master of signals intelligence whose capture by the North Vietnamese would probably have led to a strategic and propaganda victory not just for them, but also for the Soviet agents who were tracking him. Thus it was that when Hambleton's plane went down under enemy fire, the commanders in Vietnam assembled "an armada of fighter planes, B-52s, attack helicopters, Navy aircraft carriers" to extract him from the field--to say nothing of soldiers, sailors, aviators, Marines, and special forces troops. As Talty recounts, for 11 days these allies raced against equally determined North Vietnamese troops to locate Hambleton, sometimes coming up against each other; among the costs of these extraordinary measures were the deaths of nearly a dozen airborne troops. Too young for service at the time, the author shows informed appreciation for military culture and the workings of war. As he writes, knowingly, "the men at Da Nang that spring would have loved to fight for values like freedom and liberty on behalf of a grateful republic. But as it was, their leaders were feckless, their country had forgotten them, and their allies rarely felt like allies....All they had, many airmen felt, was their unbreakable bond to one another."A well-conceived work of military history dissecting a seemingly minor episode that still speaks volumes.

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August 27, 2018
Talty (The Black Hand) skillfully and engagingly tells the dramatic story of 12 fateful days in the life of then-52-year-old Air Force navigator Gene Hambleton. After he’d bailed out behind enemy lines in South Vietnam when his plane was hit by a surface-to-air missile, he hid from thousands of North Vietnamese Army troops as—unbeknownst to him and his rescuers—they launched the massive attack known to Americans as the Easter Offensive in 1972. An “unprecedented” number of personnel were sent to rescue Hambleton—11 died and two were captured—and eventually “the only force left with a chance of getting Hambleton out alive was a short, slim, soft-spoken 28-year-old Navy SEAL named Tommy ‘Flipper’ Norris and his small team of South Vietnamese sea commandos.” Talty’s tale is gripping. Along with the derring-do of the rescuers (especially Norris and South Vietnamese commando Nguyen Van Kiet) and Hambleton’s almost inhuman ability to survive in the jungle, Talty brings in geopolitical and military strategy issues in this fully realized rescue story that will appeal to those in search of a (mostly) positive event that took place during the Vietnam War. Photos. Agent: Scott Waxman, Waxman Literary Agency.

October 15, 2018

Talty's (The Black Hand) modern retelling of a story also told in William C. Anderson's BAT-21 and the film Bat*21 centers on Lt. Col. Gene Hambleton, an Air Force navigator whose aircraft was shot down during the Vietnam War. Using previously unavailable primary and secondary sources, the author includes brief biographies of the more prominent characters involved before moving on to the pertinent events. He discusses various controversies, including the wide no-fire zone declared around the downed navigator, the lives lost in the several rescue attempts, and Nixon's buildup of aerial and naval assets despite campaign promises to wind forces down. This is all told within the background of the North Vietnamese buildup for the Tet Offensive, which was happening in Hambleton's immediate area, thus further complicating the rescue efforts. The account concludes with balanced assessments of the film and Hambleton himself, along with his participation in promoting the tale. Stories of others involved, specifically those killed or missing during the operations, are also included. VERDICT This new interpretation of a famous Vietnam era rescue operation is recommended for anyone interested in military history, especially special operations.--Matthew Wayman, Pennsylvania State Univ. Lib., Schuylkill Haven

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