Coastal Warfare Against the Viet Cong Volume Two (1967) - by James Steffes (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

I was born and raised in St. Cloud, Minnesota, joining the U.S. Navy at the age of seventeen. It became my career of 26 years. This book continues the story of "Operation Market Time" rewritten and published as "Coastal Warfare Against the Viet Cong, Volume One, 1964-1966." Volume Two ended up as one-year 1967 due to the rapid expansion of the war and Operation Market Time. The next book in the series is "Coastal Warfare Against the Viet Cong, Volume Three, 1968. This completes the story of Operation Market Time because by the end of 1968, the Coastline was well secured, and it forced Ho Chi Minh to create and use the Ho Chi Minh trail and resulted in Game Warden forces moving upriver closer to the trails exit into South Vietnam. Market Time forces took over the combat zones vacated by Game Warden. This was a whole new type of warfare for PCF's, Riverine Warfare, not seen since the Civil War. This Author was assigned initially to Da Nang in June 1968 so some of this story was experienced by this author firsthand. The rest of the information comes from the COMNAVFORV monthly summaries which are declassified and now in Public Domain. This was a significant part of the war not covered very much in the United States media but very important to the success of the Vietnam War effort.