Hamburger Hill by William Pelfrey

Title: Hamburger Hill
Author: William Pelfrey
Publisher: Avon Books, New York 1987 (first US paperback edition)
ISBN 0 380 75403 7

Summary:
A veteran standing at the Vietnam Memorial is overcome by memories flooding back that return him to Hill 937 in May 1969, and the men in  his unit that he lost during 10 days spent repeatedly scrambling up a muddy hill in pouring rain whilst being cut down by multi-layered NVA defences.

Thoughts:
This is a novel based on the screenplay to the film "Hamburger Hill", one of the best Vietnam War films ever made. I found it for a dollar in a charity store several years ago and finally got around to reading it. My hesitancy over reading it was due to my impression that film tie-ins are not usually well-written, but that is not the case with this one. William Pelfrey served in an infantry recon platoon in the tri-border region of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia from 1969 to 1970, so he is well-qualified to write this novelisation. I rewatched the film while I was reading the novel. The dialogues are faithfully lifted from the script, and the novel closely follows the film, but with the added layer of detail and background that only a novel can provide. Pelfrey's writing is tense and impactful, and hits you just as hard as the film. I recommend this one if you loved the film. William Pelfrey also published a novel in 1972 called "The Big V", which is one of the earliest Vietnam War novels written by a veteran - I'll have to track that one down too. It is available on Kindle.

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