Vietnam War history book – “Vietnam An Epic Tragedy: 1945-1975” (Harper, 2018) – Sir Max Hastings interview

Sir Max Hastings reported on the Vietnam War early in his prolific career as a journalist. He’s been a BBC correspondent, editor-in-chief of The Daily Telegraph, and editor of The Evening Standard. He’s written numerous books on military matters and has won numerous awards. We spoke about his most recent book on the Vietnam War.

1:01 – Sir Max explains how he got into writing on the Vietnam War. When he first reported on the war he didn’t think he’d end up writing a book on the war.

4:30 – Sir Max wants to make sure that readers understand the atrocities that the North Vietnam was inflicting on people that were hidden from view during the war.

6:39 – Sir Max discusses the problems with South Vietnam leadership.

9:00 – Sir Max talks about how Ho Chi Minh was able to control the situation in Vietnam. He also talks about the mistakes the French made in Vietnam.

12:43 – Sir Max talks about what he chose to tell in this 30 year story. He talks about he drove around the US to interview people who had been in the war, both veterans and Vietnamese.

15:01 – Sir Max talks about interviewing former Air Force navigator and Vietnam POW Norm McDaniel. He also discusses the touching reminisces of a nurse who was in Vietnam.

18:02 – Sir Max talks about the main themes of the book. He believes in the use of force to protect national interest but cultural and social links are needed between the US and the place they are operating in.

20:33 – Sir Max talked to retired Marine General Walt Boomer who provided Sir Max with important thoughts on Vietnam.

22:44 – Sir Max talks about the problems with sustaining public support for the Vietnam War.

24:42 – Sir Max compares British support for the Falklands Islands War to American support for Vietnam.

27:24 – Sir Max talks about the research he did. He used the Marine Corps and the Army historical archives. He also consulted with a retired CIA officer and Vietnamese linguist who has been translating Vietnamese documents, North and South, on the war for decades. Sir Max talks about Vietnamese information he got on a disastrous Marine battle at Di-do. He also came across a North Vietnam novel which was a thinly veiled history of the war from the North Vietnamese side.

31:38 – Sir Max has included material on what was going on in North Vietnam too. All the North Vietnamese thought about was food since they had so many problems with getting it.

33:10 – Sir Max also interviewed Doug Ramsey who was a Vietnam POW for seven years. Despite the ordeal, Doug had a couple of amusing anecdotes about his time.

35:14 – His favorite part of the research was talking to people.

36:48 – Sir Max talks about an interview he did with a former corpsman who often goes to the Vietnam War memorial in Washington, DC.

40:18 – Sir Max mentions having a good interpreter in Hanoi when he did research there.

42:24 – Sir Max mentions a sobering talk with a Holocaust victim.

45:00 – The Chinese and Soviets wanted out of Vietnam almost as much as the US did.

46:53 – Both North and South Vietnam became police states.

49:22 – Sir Max talks about how the media was handled during the war.

50:27 – Sir Max talks about the time he saw a dead soldier’s guts spilling out and how it affected him.

55:23 – Sir Max talks about the Troubles in Ireland which he covered extensively as a journalist. He mentions how US troops had not been taught street fighting even though they ended up having to do it.

1:02:45 – Sir Max had help from a Russian translator who helped with getting information on Russian air defense units in Vietnam.

For more “Military History Inside Out” please follow me on Facebook at warscholar, on twitter at Warscholar, on youtube at warscholar1945 and on Instagram @crisalvarezswarscholar

Guests: Sir Max Hugh Macdonald Hastings

Host: Cris Alvarez

Tags: military, history, military history, conflict, war, interview, non-fiction book, vietnam war, ho chi minh, france, United States, Irleand, the Troubles, POWs

Napoleonic Wars history book – “The Invisible Emperor” (Penguin Press, 2018) – Mark Braude interview

Mark Braude is a historian whose specialty is French history. He’s written a new book on Napoleon Bonaparte’s time on Elba and we discussed the book.

2:30 – Mark talks about his start in French history and how he started writing about Napoleon.

4:06 – Mark talks about the book.

6:45 – Mark talks about ideas on why Napoleon was sent to Elba. We talk about how the smaller characters in the book also become very interesting.

17:45 – We talk about French taverns and their interplay with public opinion.

20:59 – Mark talks about the historical valleys between periods of war.

22:35 – Mark talks about his research materials.

27:00 – Mark talks about a prison he visited on Elba where Napoleon had stayed before it was a prison and how this visit connects to the book.

33:24 – Mark talks about why no one has written on this subject before.

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43:53 – Mark talks about the women in Napoleon’s life.

49:06 – Mark talks about how he developed his skills in writing good narrative non-fiction.

53:18 – Mark talks about his research into the Michelin company.

55:59 – Mark has a website, markbraude.com

Links of interest

MarkBraude.com

For more “Military History Inside Out” please follow me on Facebook at warscholar, on twitter at Warscholar, on youtube at warscholar1945 and on Instagram @crisalvarezswarscholar

Guests: Mark Braude

Host: Cris Alvarez

Tags: military, history, military history, conflict, war, interview, non-fiction book, Napoleon, British, French Empire, Elba, Campbell, Navy, Bonaparte

WWI military history book – “Pershing’s Tankers” (The University Press of Kentucky, 2018) – Lawrence Kaplan interview

Lawrence Kaplan is a military historian who has worked for the US Army and has written numerous books on the subject. Today we spoke about his latest book on the American tank corps during WWI.

1:51 – Larry Kaplan talks about how he got into studying the American tank corps in WWI. He found a number of reports associated with the tank corps that hadn’t been discovered before or had been forgotten. Patton was one of the officers involved with the tank corps.

6:30 – Larry talks about the early development of the US Army tank corps. The French and the British helped the US in this effort. But not a lot was written about this history. Tanks were used for only 7 weeks at the end of the war.

11:20 – George Patton became the commander of the two tank battalions that were to be used in the war.

14:00 – Many of the records of these early tank battalions ended up missing. Larry found them among US Army Field Artillery records.

21:00 – Larry also collected newspaper accounts that were basically the letters home that some tank officers had sent home. He also made some extensive Congressional testimony on the WWI tank corps in WWI readable in a narrative form.

29:30 – Larry talks about what happened to the tank corps after WWI.

31:50 – Larry talks about a scandalous event that occurred during Patton’s time in WWI.

38:48 – The presence of American tanks helped US Army morale and hurt German morale.

39:39 – Larry summarizes how the end of the war went.

53:39 – Larry talks about how the tanks were moved around the theater of war. He also addresses problems with tank maintenance during combat. He gets into how an American officer named Brain was trying to develop requirements for an American-built tank.

58:30 – Larry will be publishing a translated and edited version of a Russian female soldier’s novel about serving in WWI.

For more “Military History Inside Out” please follow me on Facebook at warscholar, on twitter at Warscholar, on youtube at warscholar1945 and on Instagram @crisalvarezswarscholar

Guests: Lawrence Kaplan

Host: Cris Alvarez

Tags: military, history, military history, conflict, war, interview, non-fiction book, world war one, WWI, tank corps, armored warfare, George Patton, French, british, Germans