Rescue Under Fire: The Story of DUST OFF in Vietnam

by John L. Cook

It is almost impossible to capture, in a single word, the enormous impact Dustoff had on the Vietnam War. However, John Cook has done it in a most compelling, sensititve manner. Here, for the first time, is one of the most incredible stories produced by Vietnam. This is the story of the men who risked everything to fly their evacuation helicopters into the teeth of the most intense fighting the war produced to achieve a single goal – evacuate the wounded. And that is what they did, day after day, night after night, under every condition imaginable. They flew through enemy fire, cloud banks, monsoons, fog, and darkness to reach the wounded. When it was all over, the men of Dustoff had performed an unbelievable feat – hundreds of thousands of wounded had been snatched from the battlefield. After exhaustive research and countless interviews, John Cook has skillfully woven all the threads of this epic story into a seamless fabric of dedication, sacrifice and courage. While it reads with the smoothness and consistency of a first-rate novel, there is no fiction here. The Dustoff crews are real, these events happened and Cook provides the absolutely critical human dimension that makes this story come alive. John Cook is also the author of The The Phoenix Program in Vietnam (available from Schiffer Publishing Ltd.).

175 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1988

Reviews

[Iain · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sadly, my search for a great read on the exploits of the Dust Off and Medevac units continues.

While this is a decent history of the Dust Off's evolution and deployment; it's too thin on anecdotes, narratives of actual operations, for my taste.

"Chickenhawk" for Dust Off, this is not.

The text also suffers from being replete with grammatical gaffs such as "Through out the country sides" (pg 118), hyperbole, and strategic commentary that hasn't aged well since the book's publishing. The captions to the otherwise decent photos are especially poorly edited: many have typos, one is sideways, and another describes what's clearly a truck as a helicopter.

[Chris Bartling · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book if you had family in Dust Off. Nice over view of how it all started and led to how helicopter rescues take place today.

[Haley Bartling · Rating 2 out of 5]

About the controversy between if helicopters should be used for combat or for medical purposes only

[BA Rae · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was looking for a non-fiction book with history and details about DUST OFF in Vietnam. The author traces the history of DUST OFF in Vietnam from 1962 to 1973. I found the descriptions of the challenges faced (such as opposition to dedicating helicopters to medical evaluations; communication between DUST OFF and the unit on the ground; evacuation from densely forested areas; just to name a few), and how those challenges were addressed, to be particularly informative. The first hand accounts provided were especially interesting and added a lot to the book. Statistics provided (number of evacuations provided per year, for instance) helped illustrate the incredible contribution of the DUST OFF crews. The photos added a lot to the book, but descriptions were missing for the photo series at the end of the book. A map showing the location of DUST OFF units was located at the end of the book as well and was appreciated. I learned a lot from this book and am glad I read it.