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Colonel Herman L. Gilster, USAF
(ret.) is the author of Vietnam Diary: From Inside Air Force Headquarters and The Air War in Southeast Asia Case
Studies of Selected Campaigns.
Colonel Phillip S. Meilinter, USAF
(ret.) said of Vietnam Diary: From Inside Air Force Headquarters, “Herman Gilster was a lieutenant
colonel with a Harvard PhD in economics when he left the faculty at the Air Force Academy for Vietnam. He arrived at Headquarters
Seventh Air Force outside Saigon in November 1970. The air war had been raging for over six years by that point; the cataclysmic
Tet offensive that broke American political will was two years past; and the bulk of US attack sorties were directed against
enemy supply lines—the Ho Chi Minh Trail—stretching through Laos and into South Vietnam. The bombing of North
Vietnam had halted in November 1968. Gilster served on the headquarters staff for one year, attempting to analyze the effects
of those thousands of interdiction sorties. Clearly, it was a frustrating experience, and this book reproduces his diary of
that year.”
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According to the book description of
The Air War in Southeast Asia Case Studies of Selected Campaigns, “The author subjects five
case studies of interdiction, close air support, and strategic bombardment to rigid analysis. Dr. Gilster shows the relationship
between the strike effort and target damage of several air campaigns during the Vietnam War.”
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