This first volume, The Strategic Hamlet Programme, examines both the Counterinsurgency Plan and the Strategic Hamlet Programme (based upon British success in the Malayan Emergency) and explains how these began to strangle insurgent activity. In many parts of South Vietnam, the VC were reduced to scavenging and intimidating the local people in order to survive. Tragically, this was a period when victory against the VC was possible but political ineptness, arrogance and military delusion threw this chance away. Using documents captured from the Viet Cong, VC prisoner interviews and American military reports the book reveals just how close the insurgents came to being beaten. It contradicts and challenges many of the assumed notions of this time period; it reveals just how much American planners knew about Viet Cong methods, shows how they developed an excellent counterinsurgency strategy to combat insurgent violence and illustrates how - in contrast to the established wisdom - large parts of South Vietnam were under government control before the Diem coup in 1963. Hunting the Viet Cong - The Counterinsurgency Campaign in South Vietnam 1961-1963, Volume 1: The Strategic Hamlet Programme includes 180 photographs of the conflict prior to major direct US intervention and a range of specially commissioned color artworks of aircraft, vehicles and troops.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 96

Dimensions: 210 x 297 mm

Publication Date: 13-09-2022