Description
Known as I Corps, the northern five provinces of South Vietnam witnessed the bloodiest fighting of the entire war. I Corps also contained the Viet Cong's strongest infrastructure, key portions of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and the important political and economic prizes of Hue and Da Nang. For Americans, it was the site of the first major military operation (Operation STARLITE); the Battles of Hue City and Khe Sanh during the 1968 Tet Offensive; and a military innovation known as the Combined Action Platoon (CAP), a counterinsurgency technique designed to secure the region's villages. The Marine zone served as Saigon's "canary in the coal mine"-if the war was to be won, allied action must succeed in its most contested region. With such deep significance, I Corps holds many answers to the lasting questions of the Vietnam War.
Following the Marine Amphibious Force (III MAF)-the primary US tactical command in I Corps from 1965 to 1970-Corps Competency? provides the first composite analysis of the critical role of the senior Marine headquarters and offers a coherence missing in piecemeal accounts. Despite the critical importance of I Corps, relatively little is known about its overall impact on the war due to disconnected and patchy historical study of the region.
In this comprehensive and newly insightful study of the Vietnam War, Michael Morris tells a story that illustrates what can happen when a corps headquarters is not ready for the conflict it encounters and then fights the war it wants to rather than the one it must.
About the Author
Dr. Michael F. Morris is a retired colonel in the US Marine Corps and associate professor of Military History at Marine Corps University's School of Advanced Warfighting (SAW). Morris served thirty years as a Marine artillery officer and operational planner.
Reviews
In this groundbreaking book, Michael F. Morris delves deeply into Marine operations in Vietnam to refute widely held beliefs and assumptions about America's most controversial war. It is essential reading for anyone who wants a full understanding of what really happened.""-Mark Moyar, author of Triumph Regained: The Vietnam War, 1965-1968
""There have been thousands of books on the Vietnam War, covering a wide range of perspectives and topics, but there have never been any studies of operational headquarters at the corps level during the war. In Corps Competency, Michael Morris provides a much-needed and long-overdue corrective to that missing part of the historiography. Focusing on the Marine Corps, he analyzes the critical role of Headquarters, III Marine Amphibious Force, in the conduct of operations in I Corps Tactical Zone, arguably the most dangerous region in South Vietnam. Morris discusses how III MAF understood its enemy, how it managed the war in its assigned area of responsibility, why it made the decisions it did, and what outcomes resulted from those decisions. The author, a retired Marine colonel, is unflinching in his assessment of III MAF-both its strengths and its weaknesses. Morris closes the book with a consideration of the implications of his study for today's Marine Corps. Meticulously researched and effectively argued, this book is, as the author concludes, 'a piece of Marine Corps history too long untold.'""-James H. Willbanks, author of Abandoning Vietnam: How America Left and South Vietnam Lost Its War and A Raid Too Far: Operation Lam Son 719 and Vietnamization in Laos
Book Information
ISBN 9780700636938
Author Michael F. Morris
Format Hardback
Page Count 348
Imprint University Press of Kansas
Publisher University Press of Kansas
