Death in the Highlands

The Siege of Special Forces Camp Plei Me

J. Keith Saliba

In fall 1965, North Vietnam’s high command smelled blood in the water. The South Vietnamese republic was on the verge of collapse, and Hanoi resolved to crush it once and for all. The communists set their sights on South Vietnam’s strategically vital West-Central Highlands. Annihilate ARVN’s defenses in Kontum and Pleiku provinces, the communists surmised, and the region’s remaining provinces would topple like dominoes. Their first target was the American Special Forces camp at Plei Me, remote and isolated along the Cambodian border.

As darkness fell on 19 October, 1965, two North Vietnamese Army regiments—some 4,000 troops— crept into their final strike positions. The plan was as simple as it was audacious: one regiment would bring the frontier fortress under murderous siege while the other would lie in wait to destroy the inevitable rescue force. Initially, all that stood athwart Hanoi’s grand scheme was a handful of American Green Berets, a few hundred Montagnard allies—and burgeoning U.S. airpower. Cut off and beleaguered, Plei Me’s defenders fought for their lives, while a daring band of close air support and resupply pilots helped keep the beast at bay.

But as the overland relief force bogged down, 5th Group ordered in the legendary “Chargin” Charlie Beckwith and his elite Project Delta to help hold the line. Soon, the 1st Cavalry Division would also join the fray, setting the stage for its bloody Ia Drang Valley fights a few weeks later. Before it was over, the siege of Plei Me would push its defenders to the brink and usher in the first major clashes between the U.S. and North Vietnamese armies.

Drawing on archival research and interviews with combat veterans, J. Keith Saliba reconstructs this pivotal battle in vivid, gut-wrenching detail and illustrates where the siege fit in the war’s strategic picture.

Globe Pequot / Stackpole Books

Pages: 280 • Trim: 6½ x 9½

978-0-8117-3881-1 • Hardback • September 2020 • $29.95 • (£22.99)

978-0-8117-6888-7 • eBook • September 2020 • $28.50 • (£21.99)

Subjects: History / Military / Vietnam War

Death in the Highlands

The Siege of Special Forces Camp Plei Me

Hardback

eBook

Summary

In fall 1965, North Vietnam’s high command smelled blood in the water. The South Vietnamese republic was on the verge of collapse, and Hanoi resolved to crush it once and for all. The communists set their sights on South Vietnam’s strategically vital West-Central Highlands. Annihilate ARVN’s defenses in Kontum and Pleiku provinces, the communists surmised, and the region’s remaining provinces would topple like dominoes. Their first target was the American Special Forces camp at Plei Me, remote and isolated along the Cambodian border.

As darkness fell on 19 October, 1965, two North Vietnamese Army regiments—some 4,000 troops— crept into their final strike positions. The plan was as simple as it was audacious: one regiment would bring the frontier fortress under murderous siege while the other would lie in wait to destroy the inevitable rescue force. Initially, all that stood athwart Hanoi’s grand scheme was a handful of American Green Berets, a few hundred Montagnard allies—and burgeoning U.S. airpower. Cut off and beleaguered, Plei Me’s defenders fought for their lives, while a daring band of close air support and resupply pilots helped keep the beast at bay.

But as the overland relief force bogged down, 5th Group ordered in the legendary “Chargin” Charlie Beckwith and his elite Project Delta to help hold the line. Soon, the 1st Cavalry Division would also join the fray, setting the stage for its bloody Ia Drang Valley fights a few weeks later. Before it was over, the siege of Plei Me would push its defenders to the brink and usher in the first major clashes between the U.S. and North Vietnamese armies.

Drawing on archival research and interviews with combat veterans, J. Keith Saliba reconstructs this pivotal battle in vivid, gut-wrenching detail and illustrates where the siege fit in the war’s strategic picture.

Details

Globe Pequot / Stackpole Books

Pages: 280 • Trim: 6½ x 9½

978-0-8117-3881-1 • Hardback • September 2020 • $29.95 • (£22.99)

978-0-8117-6888-7 • eBook • September 2020 • $28.50 • (£21.99)

Subjects: History / Military / Vietnam War

Author

Dr. J. Keith Saliba is an associate professor of journalism at Jacksonville (Fla.) University, where he teaches narrative nonfiction and media theory. He has written about military affairs and the Vietnam War for 20 years, first as a reporter and columnist for two daily newspapers, and later as an academic at the University of Florida and JU. His master’s thesis explored Esquire magazine’s coverage of the Vietnam War, and he is a contributing author to the Indochina book series published by Radix Press. In 2018, Saliba presented his research on the psychological effects of the 1968 Tet Offensive to the annual conference of Texas Tech University’s Vietnam Center & Sam Johnson Vietnam Archive. He continues to work closely with members of the Special Forces Association and Vietnam Veterans for Factual History. Saliba lives with his family near Jacksonville, Florida.

Reviews

Finally, here it is: a detailed, carefully researched book about the siege at Plei Me Camp in October of 1965—the real beginning of America's war in Vietnam. A full regiment of North Vietnamese Army regulars had the 12 American Green Berets and their Montagnard allies in a death grip. This story has it all: the bravery and suffering of men in extreme peril and how they lived and died. Plei Me was the prelude to the bloody battles of the 1st Cavalry Division troopers in the nearby Ia Drang Valley just weeks later. Keith Saliba has done them all proud.
— Joseph L. Galloway, co-author of the New York Times bestseller We Were Soldiers Once...and Young, We Are Soldiers Still, and Triumph Without Victory: A History of the Persian Gulf War

Military history at its best . . . a clear, detailed, and highly readable account of an important but little understood battle of the Vietnam War.
— Col. Andrew R. Finlayson, USMC (Ret.), author of Killer Kane: A Marine Long-Range Recon Team Leader in Vietnam, 1967–1968 and winner of the CIA’s Studies in Intelligence Award

Death in the Highlands

The Siege of Special Forces Camp Plei Me

J. Keith Saliba

Death in the Highlands

The Siege of Special Forces Camp Plei Me

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