A Very Short War The Mayaguez and the Battle of Koh Tang by John F. Guilmartin, Jr. Foreword by John Keegan

"I have long been an admirer of John Guilmartin and his work. . . . In his new book . . . Guilmartin uses analysis of local combat to illuminate another key military technology, not that of weapons but of communication. . . . The Mayaguez incident of May, 1975, precipitated only a short and small war; it might have been shorter and smaller still, Professor Guilmartin persuades us, had the top brass not thought they knew better than the men on the ground."—John Keegan, author of A History of Warfare, from the foreword

On May 12, 1975, less than two weeks after the fall of Saigon, Khmer Rouge naval forces seized the SS Mayaguez, an American container ship, off the Cambodian coast in the Gulf of Siam. The climactic showdown that resulted between U.S. Marines and an elite Khmer Rouge battalion is one of the most dramatic chapters in American military history—and one of the least discussed.

A Very Short War is a compelling account of the Mayaguez-Koh Tang crisis by soldier-historian John F. Guilmartin, Jr., a former air rescue helicopter pilot stationed in Thailand in May, 1975.

President Gerald Ford ordered a swift military response for strategic and political reasons. Quickly recapturing the Mayaguez and liberating its crew would demonstrate continued U.S. strength after the humiliating defeat in Vietnam. Guilmartin sheds new light on the politics, the tactics, the orders, the high-level decision makers, and the fighting men entangled in a crucial military action that nearly ended in disaster for U.S. forces.

"A Very Short War will become the standard by which operational history will be measured. It is brilliantly written by a warrior-scholar who ranks as one of the world's foremost military historians. Even the author's personal reflections in the appendices are classic."—Earl H.Tilford, Jr., author of Crosswinds

JOHN F. GUILMARTIN, JR., associate professor of history at Ohio State University, flew 119 combat missions over Southeast Asia. He earned his Ph.D. in history at Princeton University and is the author of Gunpowder and Galleys: Changing Technology and Mediterranean Warfare at Sea in the Sixteenth Century and America in Vietnam: The Fifteen Year War.

Number Forty-six: Texas A&M University Military History Series

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A Very Short War
ISBN 0-89096-665-6 cloth $39.50s

LC 95-17325. 6x9. 264 pp. 21 b&w photos.
5 line drawings. 11 maps. 1 table. Apps. Gloss. Bib. Index.
Military History. Vietnam.

Publication Date: November 1995.

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