Lieutenant Colonel Charles A.
Krohn, USA (ret.) is a combat veteran of Vietnam. As a civilian, he served as the Pentagon s deputy chief of public affairs
from 2001 to 2004, including three months in Iraq as an adviser to the director of the Infrastructure Reconstruction Program.
Recently, he was a visiting professor of journalism at the University of Michigan. A resident of Burke, Virginia, he now works
for the American Battle Monuments Commission. Charles A. Krohn is the author of Lost Battalion
of Tet: The Breakout of 2/12th Cavalry at Hue and The Lost Battalion: Controversy and Casualties in the Battle of Hue. According to the
book description of Lost Battalion of Tet: The Breakout of 2/12th Cavalry at Hue, “Published
to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Tet Offensive, this new paperback edition brings back into print a book that became
an essential source for a 2006 study of the battle by the U.S. Army s Center of Military History. It takes a critical look
at what went wrong in early 1968 during one of the first engagements of Tet, when a U.S. infantry battalion was ordered to
attack a large North Vietnamese force near Hue City without air or artillery support. The tragic military foul-up resulted
in over 60 percent casualties for the 2d Battalion, 12th Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, when the soldiers were surrounded
by the enemy and began running out of ammunition. The bold decision by battalion commander Lt. Col. Richard Sweet to break
out with his remaining soldiers under cover of darkness saved this encirclement from being a total disaster. Author Charles
Krohn, the unit s intelligence officer at the time, provides a much-needed analysis of what took place and fills his account
with details that have been confirmed as factual by other survivors. Krohn examines the battalion s involvement in two other
major attacks for lessons learned when vital systems break down lessons, he says, that are timeless and applicable anywhere.
This book is published in cooperation with the Association of the United States Army.” |
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Publisher’s Weekly said of The
Lost Battalion: Controversy and Casualties in the Battle of Hue, “Krohn, who served as the unit's
intelligence officer, draws an instructive comparison between two drastically different battles fought in early 1968 by the
2nd Battalion, 12th Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division. In the first, 2/12 successfully withstood a North Vietnamese assault on
firebase LZ Ross in the Que Son Valley. Essential to that success was the abundance of artillery and air support and adequate
ammunition. Monsoon weather, logistical bungling and poor command decisions at divisional level, dictated that 2/12 went into
the second battle, outside of Hue City, without air or artillery support. The battalion was surrounded by the enemy and began
to run out of ammunition. As casualties mounted, the unit commander, Lt. Col. Richard Sweet, decided to walk his troops out
of the encirclement under the cover of darkness. Led by "the ultimate point man," Private Hector L. Cammacho, the
bold maneuver succeeded. Krohn, a retired lieutenant colonel, calls for stateside training in which infantry battalions practice
operations after vital support systems have faltered. His first-rate account demonstrates what can happen in combat when such
systems do break down.”
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