Synopses & Reviews
SOG was the Vietnam War's only covert special warfare unit. It reported directly to the Joint Chiefs, and all its missions were "black." So well did SOG keep its secrets that only a handful of Vietnam veterans ever heard of it till long after the war was over, and most SOG men thought their missions would never be declassified. In fact, when SOG was disbanded in 1972, its thousands of photographs and negatives were ordered burned. And there it may have ended.
But some SOG veterans had brought home personal copies of photos taken on operations. When Plaster, himself a three-tour SOG veteran, began working on his history of SOG he contacted his secret war comrades and uncovered this wealth of photos. The result is the greatest special operations photo collection ever assembled.
More than 700 photos bring to life the stories of such SOG heroes as Larry Thorne, Bob Howard, Dick Meadows and Bull Simon. See extremely rare photos of SOG recon teams in action behind enemy lines in Cambodia, Laos and even North Vietnam. Find out for yourself what really happened during Operation Tailwind, the Son Tay POW rescue attempt, SOG's defense of Khe Sanh, Hatchet Force operations, Bright Light rescue attempts and much more.
Synopsis
This is the companion photo history to SOG: The Secret Wars of Americans Commandos in Vietnam. In 1972 the U.S. military took steps to ensure that such a book could never be printed by destroying all the known photos that existed of the top-secret Studies and Observations Group. But unknown to those in charge, SOG veterans brought back with them hundreds of photographs of SOG in action and kept them secret for more than three decades. More than 700 irreplaceable photos bring to life the stories of SOG legends Larry Thorne, Bob Howard, Dick Meadows, George Sisler, Q and others, and documents what really happened deep inside enemy territory: Operation Tailwind, the Son Tay raid, SOGs defense of Khe Sanh, Hatchet Force operations, Bright Light rescues, HALO insertions, string extractions, SOGs darkest programs and much more.