Black April

“The courageous men and women from South Vietnam, who fought for their country’s independence, have long needed a chronicle.  Veith’s book fills that need.  It deserves to be widely read.”

Henry Kissinger

“Black April illuminates the last, dark days of a doomed war, and reveals the high quality of the courageous and indomitable Nationalist soldiers who held their heads high and fought on in spite of shortages of even the most basic and essential resources, along with a host of morale and emotional difficulties. Black April is a source of deep, profound understanding of the Vietnam War, which was a life-or-death struggle between the Free World and the forces of democracy against communist dictatorship and repression. Kudos to George J. Veith for writing this book.”

Major General Tran Ba Di
ARVN 9th Division Commander, 1968-1973; Deputy Commander IV Corps, 1973-1974; Commander, Quang Trung Training Center, 1974-April 1975

“Black April illuminates the last, dark days of a doomed war. It reveals the high quality of the courageous and indomitable Nationalist soldiers who held their heads high and who fought on in spite of shortages of even the most basic and essential resources, along with a host of morale and emotional difficulties. Black April is a source of deep, profound understanding of the Vietnam War, which was a life-or-death struggle between the Free World and against communist dictatorship and repression. Kudos to George J. Veith for writing this book.”

Major General Tran Ba Di
Commander, Quang Trung Training Center, 1974-April 1975

“Veith’s exhaustively researched account of the undoing of South Vietnam is rich in detail mined from key South and North Vietnamese participants.  Faced with a faltering American ally and a formidably armed North Vietnamese foe, the South was forced to fight what Hanoi called ‘a poor man’s war.’ Veith artfully dissects that war, fought after the signing of the Paris Agreement, unmasking Hanoi’s calculations and challenges, while shedding unique light on the courage of the South Vietnamese military, whose sacrifices while resisting Hanoi’s juggernaut have been ignored by observers over the years.  Reading Veith’s gripping account, this reader felt like he was back in Saigon, watching the map turn red as the North Vietnamese marched south.”

Col., retired, Stuart A. Herrington
Author of Peace with Honor? An American Reports on Vietnam, 1973-1975 and Stalking the Vietcong: Inside Operation Phoenix

“In a prodigiously researched military account of the last two years of war in Vietnam after all American troops were withdrawn,George Veith has made a unique and major contribution to setting the historical record straight on the final phase of the conflict in Vietnam. Abandoned by the United States in a shameful failure to insist that the Communist leaders in Hanoi observe the  agreements they had signed, and the refusal of Congress to provide the military assistance to which the Republic of Vietnam was entitled under those agreements, the South Vietnamese armed forces far more often than not fought valiantly and tenaciously under the most difficult, at times hopeless, situations against the well prepared military juggernaut converging on Saigon at the end of April 1975.This book makes that case.”

Wolfgang Lehmann
Deputy Ambassador to the Republic of Vietnam 1974-1975