Sappers in the Wire: The Life and Death of Firebase Mary Ann

By Keith William Nolan

Book Overview

During the night of 27-28 March 1971, a Viet Cong sapper company infiltrated Fire Support Base Mary Ann, the forwardmost position in the 23d Division (Americal), Snipping through the defensive wire and entering the base without alerting a single guard in a single perimeter bunker, they killed thirty U.S. soldiers and wounded eighty-two in a humiliating defeat that sounded the death knell for the reputation of the once proud U.S. Army in Vietnam. Although one of the most famous actions of the war, it has never before received a full-scale account. Keith William Nolan has drawn on recently declassified documents and interviews with more than fifty veterans of the 1st Battalion of the 46th Infantry--the unit on Firebase Mary Ann--to re-create minute-by-minute the events of that night, as well as to understand how the military situation in the waning days of the Vietnam War allowed such a disaster to occur. It was a period fraught with problems--combat refusals, drug abuse, racial strife, and fraggings--and Nolan shows how the 1-46th Infantry dealt with them. He describes in detail the personalities of the key players in the 1-46th and the battalion's previous operations around FSB Mary Ann. The heroism of the grunts, the horror of the carnage, and the nature of guerrilla fighting are all revealed in this first full account of the firebase's story. The vivid detail and immediacy of the first-person accounts give an unprecedented view of the day-to-day tempo of operations and state of morale in the U.S. Army in the tragic final period of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1585446432
• ISBN13: 9781585446438
• Release Date: October 2007
• Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

I was there

This book helped me remember how lucky I am to be here to read it. I was amazed at how much detail he found in his research, best one Ive read on viet nam and what it was really like. Thanks mr. Nolan

I was featured in the book. My name is Dennis Murphy and thi

The war was winding down but for the men of the 196th LIB home was just a distant dream. As a member of Charlie Company, I can attest to the accuracy and fairness the author treats the grunts of LZ MaryAnn. I only pray that we will never see a war like VN again.

cold turkey

i was with the 3rd/16th arty 155 splittrail.there are some true reasons why we got overrun. before that night we had highteck devices to let us know if even a rat came within 100 ft. of the wire.but the big wigs pulled them in and evacted the grunts leaving the guns defense nil.there was an platoon of arvn regs that went out after dark,and came back the next morning.in all 76 americans lost there lives,and 3 arvns.a site i will never forget.pvt b.brownell

A dead on summary of the attack on LZ MaryAnne

I agree totally with the previous reviewer that this should be required reading in the War Colleges of all the services. I was a MACV infantry advisor who pulled into LZ MaryAnne with two companies of my ARVN battalion the night before the NVA attack. I can remember clearly sitting on top of a bunker, looking at the hills that surrounded the firebase within easy mortar range and thinking that this was probably the stupidest place I'd ever seen to put a firebase. Added to that was the obviously slack discipline of the line grunts and the seeming lack of interest of their officers and I have to admit I was glad to get out of there the next morning. When the NVA assault broke out that evening, we were over 12 klicks away and all I could do was listen to it on the radio and shake my head at the waste of lives that I knew was taking place. Eleven years later when I met some of the survivors at a reunion that accompanied the dedication of the Vietnam Veteran Memorial, I was only slightly surprised to find that they agreed with my opinions on the battle.

Many died in their sleep when they should have been awake.

This is the true story of the destruction of Fire Support Base Mary Ann by a Viet Cong sapper company which was able to penetrate the outer perimeter wire undetected, because no one was awake in any of the bunkers. It was 1971, and nobody wanted to be the last GI killed in Vietnam. Officers and NCOs became complacent about night time security, otherwise this event shouldn't have been as deadly an attack as it was. Skillfully written, and exceptionally well documented, it is must reading for any career officer and NCO about the need for following seurity SOPs religiously. Keith William Nolan rightly has been credited as a "master of the personal interview," and his book brings out the best and worst in what went wrong the night of 27-28 March 1971. This is a story that you won't soon forget.