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Lavell, Kit. Flying Black Ponies. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2000. 376pp. $32.95
Flying Black Ponies is an effective combination of combat narrative, squadron history, and personal memoir, telling the story of Light Attack Squadron 4 (VAL 4, or the "Black Ponies"), a naval aviation squadron stationed in the Mekong Delta during the Vietnam War. During most of the war, the U.S. Navy made an intense effort with its Mobile Riverine Force to interdict enemy arms and supplies that flowed, primarily from Cambodia, across the Mekong Delta into the area surrounding Saigon. Kit Lavell's book is a readable account of the Black Ponies' important role in this hazardous interdiction campaign.
The Mekong Delta is not an easy place to conduct any type of military operation. It is a lush, steaming, tangled waterscape of swamps, soggy plains, and rice paddies crisscrossed with thousands of miles of rivers, streams, and canals. The canal-- interdiction war in the Mekong was limited in 1968 in part by the...