Saving Bravo: The Greatest Rescue Mission in Navy SEAL History

Talty (The Black Hand) skillfully and engagingly tells the dramatic story of 12 fateful days in the life of then-52-year-old Air Force navigator Gene Hambleton. After he’d bailed out behind enemy lines in South Vietnam when his plane was hit by a surface-to-air missile, he hid from thousands of North Vietnamese Army troops as—unbeknownst to him and his rescuers—they launched the massive attack known to Americans as the Easter Offensive in 1972. An “unprecedented” number of personnel were sent to rescue Hambleton—11 died and two were captured—and eventually “the only force left with a chance of getting Hambleton out alive was a short, slim, soft-spoken 28-year-old Navy SEAL named Tommy ‘Flipper’ Norris and his small team of South Vietnamese sea commandos.” Talty’s tale is gripping. Along with the derring-do of the rescuers (especially Norris and South Vietnamese commando Nguyen Van Kiet) and Hambleton’s almost inhuman ability to survive in the jungle, Talty brings in geopolitical and military strategy issues in this fully realized rescue story that will appeal to those in search of a (mostly) positive event that took place during the Vietnam War. Photos. [em]Agent: Scott Waxman, Waxman Literary Agency. (Oct.) [/em]