Fighting to Leave: The Final Years of America's War in Vietnam, 1972-1973

by Robert E. Stoffey, James L. Holloway

Overview

Perhaps more vexing than any part of the Vietnam War--Americas longest--was getting out. This book offers a chronicle of those last difficult years, 1972 and 1973, that is at once a detailed and thorough overview and at the same time a vividly personal account. The year 1972 found Marine Corps pilot Robert E. Stoffey beginning his third combat tour in Vietnam.

After flying 440 combat missions out of Da Nang and Marble Mountain Airfields in South Vietnam (and being shot down twice) between 1965 and 1970, Stoffey was in a unique position to judge the United States changed strategy. From the vantage point of the USS Oklahoma City, he fought--and observed--the critical and complex last two years of the war as Marine Air Officer and Assistant Amphibious Warfare Officer on the staff of the Commander, Seventh Fleet. As the South Vietnamese battled for survival against the onslaught from the Communist North Vietnamese Army, the U.S. Seventh Fleet, afloat in the Gulf of Tonkin and the South China Sea, was a significant supporting force.

With the U.S. Navys mining of North Vietnams waterways, concentrated shore bombardments, and air attacks, this sea power was instrumental in leading to the negotiated end of the war and return of our POWs. This is the story that Robert Stoffey tells in his firsthand account of how the Vietnam War finally ended and what it took to get our POWs home.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781616732356
Publisher:	Zenith Press
Publication date:	09/15/2008
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

Robert E. Stoffey (ret.) served as a Marine Corps pilot for twenty-five years and flew twenty-two different types of airplanes and helicopters. His numerous military decorations include two Distinguished Flying Crosses, the Navy-Marine Medal for Personal Heroism, twenty-five Air Medals, the Bronze Star, the South Vietnamese Medal of Honor, and the South Vietnamese Air Cross of Gallantry. After retiring from the Marine Corps, Stoffey worked for Rockwell International Microelectronics and Hughes Semiconductors and was vice president of a laser manufacturer before taking civilian retirement. He is the author of Cleared Hot! and is currently writing novels. Stoffey lives with his wife, Eleanor, in Southern California.

Table of Contents

Contents

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1—Afloat with the Seventh Fleet

Chapter 2—The NVA Invades

Chapter 3—The Fall of Quang Tri City

Chapter 4—Bat 21

Chapter 5—The Seventh Fleet Counterattacks

Chapter 6—B-52s Return to the North

Chapter 7—MiGs and the Redeye Missile

Chapter 8—Mining Haiphong Harbor

Chapter 9—Operation Linebacker

Chapter 10—The Defense of Hue City

Chapter 11—Lam Son 72

Chapter 12—Retaking Quang Tri City

Chapter 13—Stranglehold on North Vietnam

Chapter 14—Marine Hunter Killers

Chapter 15—Preparing for End Sweep

Chapter 16—Linebacker II

Chapter 17—The End Nears

Chapter 18—Ceasefire

Chapter 19—Operation End Sweep

Chapter 20—Operation Homecoming

Chapter 21—Back to the Real World

Epilogue

Appendixes

A. Maps

B. Organizational Charts

C. Where Some of Them Are Now

D. Amphibious Squadron Ships of the Seventh Fleet, 1972–1973

E. Task Force 76 and 9th MAB Chronology, 1972–1973

F. U.S. Aircraft and Aircrew Losses in the Vietnam War

G. Navy and Marine Corps F-4 MiG Kills, 1972–1973

H. Vietnam War Facts

Bibliography

Glossary

Index

Foreword

This is a book that needed to be written, and Robert E. Stoffey was the man to write it. Vietnam was the most intensely reported war in the American experience. The daily headlines, the continuing editorials, and the grim scenes on the living room TVs of millions of Americans every night during the evening news exerted an influence on national policy that determined the strategic direction of the war. So powerful was this influence, and so profound was its impact, that in the future our military may have to accept a new criteria for defining a "winnable" war. A successful outcome must be assured in the first six weeks or so. Vietnam conclusively demonstrated that the American people will no longer support an inconclusive conflict of continuing carnage.

In spite of the most comprehensive, real-time coverage that saturated the American public, the history of the Vietnam War is far from complete. Historians are still struggling to put the Vietnam years into a national perspective, although both ends of the spectrum are being addressed. There are excellent accounts of the individual in combat by battle experienced infantrymen such as Webb and Puller. At the other extreme, the political side of the Vietnam War is becoming better documented as national policy makers such as Clark Clifford and Henry Kissinger publish their memoirs.

What has been missing until now is the view of the man in the middle, the military commander in the field-this is an aspect of special interest and importance in the history of the Vietnam War that has gone undiscussed. Until Vietnam, the role of the National Command Authority was one of strategic direction, succinctly expressed in broad objectivessuch as strike, invade, seize, or defend. During Vietnam a new term had to be invented to describe the function of the White House and the Pentagon-micromanagement.From the earliest days of our involvement in Southeast Asia, the office of the Secretary of Defense generated a suffocating mass of rules of engagement that had been dutifully accepted by the operating forces in military operations. In Vietnam, not only were sanctions established and military installations prescribed, but the control of friendly fire became so detailed that for many targets the directions of approach and pullout for attacking aircraft were specified by compass headings.

It became the job of the senior on-scene commander, such as the Commander, Seventh Fleet, to develop the tactics and conduct the operations to pursue the military objectives in Vietnam in spite of the complex web of well-meant but almost paralyzing restrictions constantly flowing from Washington, D.C. It was the responsibility of the local area commanders to see that the Washington rules of engagement were implemented and enforced. But it was also their responsibility to continue to try to "win" that war.

For the first time, with Colonel Stoffey's book, we have an account that focuses on the Vietnam War at the level of the field commander. It is not only exciting reading, but fascinating as a seminal element of Vietnam military history.

The Seventh Fleet, at the time, included all U.S. Navy ships and aircraft, U.S. Marines, and allied forces operating off the coast of Vietnam in the Gulf of Tonkin. The extent of the participation of the navy and the Marines in Vietnam was remarkable for what must have seemed to many to be an army-air force theater. The first air strikes against North Vietnam came from the Seventh Fleet carriers. In the course of the war, half of the sorties flown into North Vietnam were by U.S. Navy and Marine Corps aircraft. And the majority of the maneuver battalions actually engaged in combat with the enemy ground troops were Marines. The mines laid in North Vietnamese waters were implaced by navy tactical aircraft, and all the minesweeping done in conformance with the terms of the ceasefire agreement was accomplished by U.S. Navy and Marine helicopters.

During 1972 and 1973, the period covered by Fighting to Leave, the operations of the Seventh Fleet were especially significant. U.S. ground forces were no longer engaged with the enemy, but carrier planes continued to strike targets inside of Vietnam. Cruisers and destroyers conducted gunfire shore bombardments to support the friendly forces on land, and the amphibious ships with their Marine helicopters moved South Vietnamese troops over the beach and around the battlefield to outflank the attack of the North Vietnamese Army. Seventh Fleet sailors, airmen, and Marines were heavily engaged in combat operations.

Robert E. Stoffey is admirably qualified to write this book. His is the narrative of a trusted staff officer, who was often the point man for the combat direction of the Seventh Fleet military operations. His unique contribution in his staff capacity, as well as his special qualifications to author this book, are due to his previous tours of duty in combat as a Marine pilot, and because Robert E. Stoffey was a damn fine professional officer: smart, articulate, with a can-do attitude. Stoffey earned the confidence of the fleet commander and as a consequence was intimately involved in the concept, planning, and conduct of the fleet's operations during 1972 and 1973, our final two years in Vietnam.

Fighting to Leave is more than just a thoroughly readable book. It is important history, as a firsthand account of a special part of a major epoch in our country's Vietnam experience, the wind down of American combat operations. It is important because Robert E. Stoffey was one of the young planners who parlayed his professional competence and combat experience into the sharpened perceptions, skillful planning, and superior staff work that has become a tangible part of the story he tells.

James L. Holloway III
Admiral, U.S. Navy (Ret.)
Chief of Naval Operations (CNO 1974-1978)
Commander Seventh Fleet (1972----1973)
President, Naval Historical Foundation, Washington, D.C.