Abandoned in Hell
The Fight For Vietnam's Firebase Kate
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4.0 • 5 Ratings
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
An astonishing memoir of military courage at a remote outpost during the Vietnam War
“A riveting, dead-true account in the tradition of Black Hawk Down and We Were Soldiers Once...and Young.”—Steven Pressfield, national bestselling author of The Lion’s Gate
In October 1969, William Albracht, the youngest Green Beret captain in Vietnam, took command of a remote hilltop outpost called Firebase Kate held by only 27 American soldiers and 156 Montagnard militiamen. At dawn the next morning, three North Vietnamese Army regiments—some six thousand men—crossed the Cambodian border and attacked.
Outnumbered three dozen to one, Albracht’s men held off the assault but, after five days, Kate’s defenders were out of ammo and water. Refusing to die or surrender, Albracht led his troops off the hill and on a daring night march through enemy lines.
Abandoned in Hell is an astonishing memoir of leadership, sacrifice, and brutal violence, a riveting journey into Vietnam’s heart of darkness, and a compelling reminder of the transformational power of individual heroism. Not since Lone Survivor and We Were Soldiers Once...and Young has there been such a gripping and authentic account of battlefield courage.
INCLUDES PHOTOS
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Former Army Special Forces Captain Albracht and prolific author and screenwriter Wolf (Buddha's Child) present a riveting look at a little-known but compelling Vietnam War story. It centers on how, in October of 1969, Albracht, a young Green Beret officer, managed to lead his vastly outnumbered American troops and their Montagnard tribesmen allies on a desperate and daring escape from a remote hilltop outpost deep in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. The authors mix a history of the American war in Vietnam through 1969 with Albracht's first-person story and the thoughts of survivors interviewed for the book. At Firebase Kate, some 200 Americans and Montagnards "positioned as bait, designed to lure the North Vietnamese across the border" came under a withering five-day attack by three enemy regiments, some 6,000 men. Despite being wounded and near exhaustion and with virtually no ammunition or water Albracht brought off a minor miracle, leading "a hundred and fifty fighting men, many suffering from wounds or battle shock, through a gauntlet of fire" to safety.
