Content area
Full Text
A Very Short War: The Mayaguez and the Battle of Koh Tang. By John F. Guilmartin Jr. (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1995. xxvi, 238 pp. $39.50, ISBN 0-89096-665-6.)
Shortly after the orderly American evacuation from Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and the panicked withdrawal from Saigon in April 1975, the United States found itself engaged in one more battle in Southeast Asia The new Khmer Rouge rulers of Cambodia (John F. Guilmartin Jr. uses the unorthodox term "Khymer" Rouge) seized the Mayaguez, an American container ship that had strayed into Cambodian waters. President Gerald Ford ordered an immediate rescue mission. The result was "a very short war" on Koh Tang island, where the ship's crew was thought to be. Ironically, by the time the rescue attempt began, the Cambodians had transferred the crew to the...