Download Abandoned in Hell: The Fight for Vietnam's Fire Base Kate AudioBook Free
In October 1969, Captain William Albracht, the youngest Green Beret in Vietnam, took command of the remote hilltop outpost called Open fire Base Kate, kept by only 27 American military and 150 Montagnard militiamen. He found their defenses woefully unprepared. At dawn the next morning, three North Vietnamese Military regiments - some 6,000 men - crossed the Cambodian border and attacked. Outnumbered three dozen to 1, Albracht's men kept off repeated floor assaults by communist makes with brutal hand-to-hand fighting with each other, air support, and a dangerously close B-52 punch. For days and nights, the NVA blanketed Kate in a rainfall of rockets, mortars, artillery, machineguns, and small forearms, blocking attempts to resupply, reinforce, or evacuate the outpost. Albracht continuously uncovered himself to enemy fire to immediate air strikes, to steer re-supply helicopters, to deliver ammunition and drinking water to his men, to get the dead also to rescue the wounded, often shielding men along with his own body. Wounded by rocket shrapnel, he refused medical attention or evacuation. Worn out from days and nights without rest, he prolonged to rally his men to overcome off each new enemy attack. After five days and nights, Kate's defenders were out of ammo and drinking water. Aerial resupply was suicidal, and reinforcements were refused by military services commanders who had written off Kate. Albracht refused to surrender or die set up. Refusing to allow his men to surrender, Albracht led his troops, including many wounded, from the hill and on a daring nighttime march through enemy lines. Left behind in Hell is an astonishing memoir of authority, sacrifice, and brutal violence, a riveting trip into Vietnam's heart and soul of darkness, and a compelling reminder of the transformational electricity of individual heroism. Not since Lone Survivor and We Were Troops Once, and Young has there been such a gripping and real bank account of battlefield courage.
