Peter A. Taylor's Home Page

Category: Military History

  • The Saga of Lieutenant Lancaster – Part Three

    Part Three The Saga of Lieutenant Lancaster In the previous post Leonard Lancaster had been tried before a court martial and convicted of mutiny against his commanding officer and had been condemned to death by a firing squad. He had refused to retract his statement calling for the resignation of Lieutenant Colonel Dale, the regimental →

  • “The Most Hated Man in Clarksburg”; historical Civil War fiction

    So how could someone be called or become the most hated man in a small town like Clarksburg Virginia? What could cause a man from Philadelphia, a doctor, a newspaper editor, and a friend of Abraham Lincoln to be so reviled in a small town? The answer to this question is to be found in →

  • The Chiêu Hồi Program

    The Chiêu Hồi (pronounced roughly as Chew Hoy) was an interesting program that I dealt with on a daily basis. In my book I talk about our “Man Friday”, Ông Hai, or Mr. Hai. He was our go-to guy as far as maintaining our Jeep, boats, trailer, generator, and almost anything else that we needed to →

  • The Brown Water Navy

    “Brown Water Navy” In my books I talk a lot about the relationship that we had with the US Navy River Division that we dealt with at Ap Bac (aka Ap Bing) and at Moc Hoa (aka Moc Loi) When I arrived at Ap Bac (Ap Bing in “The Advisor”, we were heavily involved with →

  • Kien Tuong Province in the Vietnam War

    I found this interesting article on-line and it is worth sharing with my readers. It is translated from Vietnamese to English and I’m certain that there are a number of translation issues however the gist of the material is very interesting. Much of it is a military history of the Kien Tuong Province and US →

  • The Phụng Hoàng (Phoenix) Program

     During my first assignment in Vietnam I was assigned to the Phoenix Program or Phụng Hoàng in Vietnamese. The program was very controversial especially during the early days of the war when it was run by the Central Intelligence Agency and the Special Forces teams. By the time I arrived the CIA and the Special →

  • Counterparts

    In my books I often describe some of the issues in dealing with our Vietnamese counterparts. As American Advisors we faced a philosophical and cultural difference with many of the Vietnamese that we dealt with. As westerners or Americans tend to think in concepts such as “never put off until tomorrow what should be done →