A Knavish Piece of Work

"A Knavish Piece of Work" is a novelization of the infamous Mayaguez Incident of May 15, 1975 wherein the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia captured a U.S.-registered container ship en route to Sattahip, Thailand on a routine resupply mission. Then president Gerald Ford called for an immediate rescue of the crew, believed to be held on Koh Tang, a minute island in the Gulf of Siam. A last-minute mission was thrown together in which a force of Marines would be airlifted from U Tapao, Thailand to Koh Tang by Air Force CH-53s and HH-53s. The mission was a disaster with eighteen men killed in the assault and only three of the original fifteen helicopters flyable at the end of the day. Among the dead was the author's friend, Richard Van de Geer, the last name on the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial Wall. Everything from inexperience to poor intelligence was blamed for the fiasco. And the captive crew? They were released by the Cambodians early in the morning of 15 May, not from Koh Tang, but from Rong Sam Lem, another island twenty-two miles away Moreover, Ford knew the crew was not on Koh Tang and he knew it some twenty hours before the assault began. Why would a president go through with an assault on an island that held no captives?