Blue Book of Coastal Vessels South Vietnam
From: Robert Whitehurst <whthrst@bellsouth.net>
Date: 2008/10/27
To: vsg@u.washington.edu
There were apparently two editions of the Blue Book of Coastal Vessels South Vietnam published, the more common one, of which I have a copy, was printed in 1967. The first edition was printed in 1962 and I would like to know if anyone is aware of where a copy of that might be, to be borrowed or purchased. The 1967 edition was prepared by the “Remote Area Conflict Information Center, Balttelle Memorial Institute, Columbus Laboratories in Columbus Ohio…with the Advanced Research Projects Agency Offfice of the SecDef and with the Combat Development and Test Center, RVNAF. For those of you unfamiliar with the guides they were bilingual in Vietnamese and English on facing pages.and served as an aid for indentification of different coastwise vessels, to separate the ones legitimately fishing or engaged in other “legal” coastal passages from those attempting to infiltrate South Vietnamese coastal waters with supplies of arms and munitions from North Vietnam. The books were heavily illustrated with photographs and drawings. A navy chief handed me the copy I have out of a wet collection of documents telling me that they had a brand new copy in which the pages were not stuck together. I still haven’t unstuck all the pages since coming home from VN in 1972 but on occasion get out the kettle and steam a few more free.
Regards…Rob Whitehurst
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From: John Kleinen <j.g.g.m.kleinen@uva.nl>
Date: Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 3:19 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear Rob,
My copy of the JUNK BLUE BOOK. A Handbook of Junks of South Vietnam is dated 06 Aug 1966 and was obtained from the NTIS of the US Department of Commerce. It was published as a roneotyped version and entitled The Junk Blue Book (Hai Thuyen Thanh Thu, with hand-written diacritical marks), reviewed and approved for publication on 6 august 1962. The NTIS copy was probably a copy of a microfilm and the pages (divided into A and B sections) are marked as kin (secret).
White Lotus Press in Bangkok reprinted the Blue Book of Coastal Vessels, Thailand, prepared by RACIC. Dr. R.D. Holbrook was the Director of ARPA at that time. The Vietnam version was prepared by William P. Brooks (a US military). Data were collected by Vietnamese.
John Kleinen (Amsterdam)
Robert Whitehurst schreef:
*There were apparently two editions of the _Blue Book of Coastal Vessels South Vietnam_ published, the more common one, of which I have a copy, was printed in 1967. The first edition was printed in 1962 and I would like to know if anyone is aware of where a copy of that might be, to be borrowed or purchased. The 1967 edition was prepared by the “Remote Area Conflict Information Center, Balttelle Memorial Institute, Columbus Laboratories in Columbus Ohio…with the Advanced Research Projects Agency Offfice of the SecDef and with the Combat Development and Test Center, RVNAF. For those of you unfamiliar with the guides they were bilingual in Vietnamese and English on facing pages.and served as an aid for indentification of different coastwise vessels, to separate the ones legitimately fishing or engaged in other “legal” coastal passages from those attempting to infiltrate South Vietnamese coastal waters with supplies of arms and munitions from North Vietnam. The books were heavily illustrated with photographs and drawings. A navy chief handed me the copy I have out of a wet collection of documents telling me that they had a brand new copy in which the pages were not stuck together. I still haven’t unstuck all the pages since coming home from VN in 1972 but on occasion get out the kettle and steam a few more free. *
* *
*Regards…Rob Whitehurst*
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From: Charles Wheeler <charles.wheeler@uci.edu>
Date: 2008/10/28
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Is there a difference between the two versions?
Regards,
Charles Wheeler
Charles Wheeler
History, UC Irvine
charles.wheeler@uci.edu
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From: Sidel, Mark <mark-sidel@uiowa.edu>
Date: 2008/10/28
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I certainly can't help Rob but queries like this are what makes VSG interesting and fun to read. Perhaps a few on VSG knew about this book, but most certainly not me, and now we all have this wonderful description and the story behind Rob's acquisition. Rob, I hope you get more substantive replies than mine, like the detailed message from John Kleinen today - but in any case, thanks for posting this....
Mark Sidel
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From: Judith Henchy <judithh@u.washington.edu>
Date: 2008/10/28
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
The University of Virginia Libraries has the 1962 edition, according to the OCLC database. They may lend.
Best
Judith