There will be a book sale. All three books will be available at the end of the program and just reminder also that a portion of the sale of each book goes into the virginia festival of the book program itself. The sessions are being recorded so during the question and answer period this is important because of the reporting of the programs. Please raise your hand and one of the volunteers of the festival will hand you a handheld microphone so your question can be heard and paid for however it hits the broadcast. The reason we have a wonderful program, features jan herman, the author of the lucky few the fall of saigon and the rescue mission of the uss kirk. This will be the order of their presentation. Second to speak will be general ira hunt, losing vietnam, how america abandoned Southeast Asia. He is a retired Major General and moderated his last book at the book festival. The chief medical historian, Frank Leith Jones, has offered offered 7 books for military history. And finally, Frank Leith Jones, author of blowtorch, vietnam and american cold war strategy, will conclude todays program. He is a professor at the u. S. Army war college at carlisle, pennsylvania and holds the eyes and our share of National Security. The groundwork we need to cover and with that, clean the jan herman to begin the program. The story of u. S. Ask kirk, a lucky few, the book i am speaking about. Seems almost insignificant. It is unknown and untold and for a simple reason. It is a vietnam story. The most dramatic and divisive conflict since the civil war ended in chaos and some say shame. Americans wanted nothing more to do with vietnam. Nightmare best forgotten. A little story, an insignificant one, on the contrary, it is very much worth telling. Allow me to let you sample late little piece of it. Lt. Bob wanted into the combat information center. Amid the many radar scopes was a large radar repeater the consolidated information from the other displays. One look at the repeater screen put everything in perspective. Each green blip was a ship of some sort making it easy to see the location of every craft on a master grid. But the screen image appeared on bond. The shoreline was out of focus. Going topside to the flying bridge he grabbed the large binoculars and scanned the brightening horizon. The mystery of the battery radar screen instantly cleared of. Hundreds of boats were headed out to sea in kirks direction. As the distance closed he noted every type of watercraft from small fishing vessel to rubber raft. The lieutenant was shocked to see a small wooden dugout with the man, woman and two children clinging for dear life. As he recalled, on that dugout were all the family possessions including a small motor bike. These people were simply paddling out to see hoping to get to the rescue ships. The magnitude of the nations final collapse suddenly became real and personal for this young navy lt. For days prior to the fall of saigon the byproduct of that relentless conquest by the north Vietnamese Army, thousands of panicked refugees trying to flee the country in anything that would flow. On that same tuesday the 438 foot destroyer escort uss kirk was operating off the coast near the port of long chao. Overhead, large c h 46 helicopters began shuttling american and vietnamese yvette hughies from saigon. These vietnamese were the people who had helped us during the war whose lives were not going to be worth much once the north vietnamese took saigon. Just as suddenly towards of unknown contacts began talking kirks radar screens again. South Vietnamese Army and air force hueys were following the large American Helicopters back out to sea and they were packed with fleeing refugees. Chairman donald cox and ships chief engineer recognized what was happening. We knew an evacuation was going on and with each helicopter that would pass us we had an open point. Doyle and many other crew members were caught up in the excitement and saw the possibilities. Lien never anticipated a helicopter landing on us but we started talking about it. Wouldnt it be great to grab a helicopter . Wouldnt it be great to take part in this . Be careful what you wish for. An attempt to advertise kirks hospitality, the ships firstclass door keeper who bespoke rudimentary vietnamese began broadcasting on the air distress frequency cough can 87, the whole number of kirk, lands here. 20 minutes later, airman Gerald Mcclellan waived his first qe on to the flight deck with a load of refugees. Seemingly brand new helicopter was the keeper, the trophies they would bring home. The following night which should have been the 30th of april 1975 commander paul jacobs, the ceo of the ship received a cryptic message from the Task Force Commander was ordered to dispatch the kirks whaleboat to pull alongside the uss blue ridge and was to take aboard a mysterious passenger. That passenger was a man named richard armitage, a 3yearold civilian. When he came aboard he incongruously dressed for the south sign it china sea, he was dressed in a sports coat, tie, and had 45 automatic in a shoulder holster. Capt. Jacobs said to him i am not used to having armed civilians come aboard my ship in the dead of night upon which our message entered in a very gruff voice im not used to coming the board on been a dead of night but i have a job to do. I work for the secretary of defense. On the edge then outlined what would be a secret mission for the kirk. The remnants of the South Vietnamese navy, 32 ships in all would gather just off the South Vietnamese coast glued to their job would be to rendezvous with these ships. At dawn the following day. And escort them across the South China Sea to safety in the philippines. Following morning as the kirk cool into view, the sun was just coming up and what was evident all around them, the 42 ships they expected but what they hadnt expected was what appeared to be a humanitarian disaster in the making. Lieutenant hued oil like and what he thought to a bunch of hershey bars dropped on a hot summer sidewalk and all of them crawling with pants. The ceo recalled the scene. Some of them were anchored, some were not, some were adrift, they were loaded with people all the way up to the bridge. I estimated 2,000 to 3,000 people, i said oh my god, this is going to be an insurmountable problem. How are we going to pull this off . Just how u. S. As kirk pull off the rescue of estimated 30,000 refugees aboard those 32 ships is the real story. The subject of my book the lucky few. In 2009 i was completing a book intitled Navy Medicine in vietnam which told the story of my generations war. The last chapter focused on the humanitarian task, medical personnel plating caring for the thousands of refugees who fled South Vietnam when that nation sees to exist. To complete the last chapter i had to get the stories of the medical personnel who took care of those folks. After determining the names of the ships that comprise the seventh Fleet Task Force i went to the internet as we all do now. I dont know what we did before the internet. To determine what vessels might have reunion organizations. The next step was emailing each organization to request information from those shot be. Within an hour of hitting send captain paul jacobs, former skipper of the u. S. Ask kirk called meat and told me what special role is it had played in this drama. I was phoneing and emailing other members of the crew. Weaver invited to a reunion in suburban washington, following the event admiral robinson invited capt. Jacobs to his headquarters in washington and invited me also to that lunge and during lunch the admiral turned to me and said you make documentarys. You must make a film about the u. S. S. Kirk. People have to know about this untold story. I spent countless hours poring over the logs of this rescue. We went around interviewing members of the crew and vietnamese rig refugees. We assembled all the components and documentarys. The next kirk reunion which took place in july of 2010 the lucky few, the story of u. S. S. Kirk, showed for the first time. That was the premier. Shortly thereafter National Public radio aired several stories about kirks rescue mission. The three part in pr series won national acclaim and on veterans day, nov. Eleventh 2010, we showed the lucky few at the Smithsonian Institution in washington. Was interesting that a 1hour film could scarcely do justice to the story. Writing a book based on a lucky few documentary offered a few opportunities to tell more of the story and incorporate what had unfortunately ended up on the proverbial cutting room floor. As with many films the book comes first followed by the movie. I would reverse the order with the advantage of adding flesh to the bones of an already larger than life event. I had the opportunity to tell the story of an extraordinary ship and its crew. One of the players in the lucky few drama, who in 1975 was a high ranking official in the department of defense pointed out the storys true significance. After the war president fords task force for the resettlement of indochina refugees resettled more the 130,000 the evacuees from laos, vietnam and communities in the United States. Since u. S. S. Kirk and her sister u. S. Navy vessels save 30,000 South Vietnamese refugees, that means one in four vietnamese resettled in the United States by that task force can trace their new beginning to the Mission Accomplished by u. S. S. Kirk. The true significance of the rescue comes in the perspective in very ironic ways. Limit tell you a story to illustrate my point. Huge blue whale, the kirks chief engineer, now lives near newport, road island. He gets his medical care at the naval station clinic which was run by the navy. Two years ago he went to the clinic for his routine checkup and learned his regular physician had been reassigned to the naval test of hospital in pensacola, florida and had a new physician Lieutenant Commander van nguyen. He asked his new physician 9 notice you have a vietnamese name. How did your family get to this country . He responded didnt know about the familys exodus since he was a baby at the time. Laurels father had died and never said anything about it. His mother only spoke vietnamese and she never talked about it. Pool will happen to havedoyle the lucky few and he gave it to dr. Nguyen. Did you see the film . I saw it but it didnt tell me much about my own story. It seems dr. Nguyens family settled in the San Francisco bay area and flourished. His family never discuss their flight from vietnam. After he watched the documentary he had probing questions to ask the other members of his family including his older sister who had been 15 at the time of the exodus in 1975. Dr. Nguyens sister and brother visited with him, taking their daughter to Boston College and stayed with dr. Nguyen and his family and he put the dvd on and put the film on the tv set and the daughter went crazy. Not the daughter, his sister saw the ship in the film, she saw the whole number, hq 1. That was the vietnamese designation. She saw 8 k 1 and she got very agitated and started crying and said that is the ship we came over on. They escaped on that ship. He remembered a small navy ship coming alongside delivering rice and water and medical care and that ship of course was the u. S. S. Kirk so doyle says another amazement what are the odds that this family would have escaped from vietnam . What are the odds they would have gone aboard a ship and gone from the island all the way across the South China Sea to the philippines . From the philippines to a refugee camp in guam. Whatever the odds they would have made it to california safely and he says what are the odds they would have sent their eldest son to medical school, he would excel as a physician, what are the odds he would have joined the navy and became a navy medical officer . What are the odds he would become my physician and start taking care of me . I will end by saying or asking the question, u. S. S. Kirk, a small story, insignificant one. I hardly think so. Read the lucky few and decide for yourself. [applause] thank you very much. Now, ladies and gentlemen, general ira hunt and his book losing vietnam. Thank you for coming. My book losing vietnam or how america abandoned Southeast Asia covers period 197375 after the peace treaty and after u. S. Troops vacated South Vietnam. Headquarters in vietnam was moved in northeast thailand. Its name was changed to United States support Activities Group and as under all the power of the seventh air force of the u. S. Air force. It was combined headquarters run by air force with an army deputy and the mission was very simple, just to coordinate with joint chiefs of staff, to take command of a huge organization we had, to ensure cambodia got resupplied and also take command of whatever has given you for whatever reason, has happened three times, evacuate saigon and find a container ship. When i was appointed Deputy Commander i had to get uptodate on the war. The war was still going on and the idea was how did this compare to the north vietnamese. At the time there with two studies, one by the north vietnamese and the other by the d a 0 in saigon. They all said exactly the same thing, South Vietnam had much more firepower, tactical mobility, better strategic mobility, much better logistics. If that is true you wonder how did South Vietnam lose the war . That is the story of my book, how they lost the war. The South Vietnamese strategy was wired in politics, it is all military strategy, they said they want to control all land and all people. They had 12,000 hamlets and the. S spread thin and had no reserves. The north vietnamese was the exact opposite. They wanted to grab land and grab people because that would give them sovereignty over South Vietnam while they waited to make a push several years later they fired at the time. When i got in country the first thing i did was visit the joint chiefs of staff in saigon. The chairman was a friend of mine 68, 69 when i was there and i was getting briefed and i asked him who is creating all the violations of the peace treaty . He didnt answer me but he said i have a record of every violation. He said we have the size of the enemy, enemy killed, friendly killed, attacks by fire, a number of rounds, that is exactly the data we used in my division in 68, 69. In order to improve combat effectiveness, i said i have old building, a lot of smart analysts. We can take that data but better yet if you give us that data on a daily basis, we would analyze it and and give the parameters that i know would help improve your effectiveness and save lives. They agreed to that. We set of protocolss and went back and analyzed nine months of data he already had. December of 1973 i reported back to him. From your data, doing 90 of the attacks, we are beating around the years by washington, why are you fighting around the war. How important, whenever you attack you are much more eat fish and if and much more effective. I said besides that, analyzing your data you are so spread out. North vietnamese at any time they want to get a preponderant of force and taking your land and taking your people and if you dont get on the offensive you are going to lose your country so they went on the offensive. Fantastic, much better, north vietnamese. Inside of several months they gained back all their territory, all their people. They had under control 93 of the people in South Vietnam but in july of that Year Congress reduced the amount of funding, gave them 700 million the we want you to pay 40 million. End you have not yet received 55 million and want you to pay for the packing of 30 million so 117 million leaving them 583 million, when you compare that to the year before which was 1. 1 billion and consider petroleum increased 100 , ammunition increased its 69 , vietnamese had 37 of funding the year before. They were doomed to. They could not win the war, they could not buy their bullets or repair parts, they kind their belts, said im going to conserve ammunition and firing a lot of ammunition. The air force said we plant 708,000 hours and cut it back to 332,000 to. Why do we want you American Contractors . We cant buy the repair parts for them to put in so we will cannibalize our own aircraft. Shortsighted but important at the time. Our headquarters were concerned about the reduction in funding and asked us to please determine what structures they need it. Our staff did a great job and picked out four different structures and focused on but funding. If they get less than 1 billion they will lose the war. Chris gave them several, we got and ask for supplemental from congress for 300 million. The president went and begged congress supplemental, kissinger went and begged for supplemental. All of these hot shots asking for money will get the money, we will be able to defend ourselves but they didnt change the strategy. They were still spread out and had no reserves so in november, very concerned about what was going on, every weekly analyzed and every week we get weaker and weaker. They didnt have the power, the air cover, but still much stronger than the north vietnamese. In march in that study we made, the vietnam assessment, we decided what would happen in march of 75 when the winter comes. We said the north vietnamese would go for a limited objectives if they had in the past, if they bring down two to five divisions, they only had five left in the north, they would overwhelm the South Vietnamese. In march of that year when they did attacks they attacked us from all provincial capitals, they came with multiple divisions, lot of firepower. The