Publisher's Synopsis
The French, during the War in Algeria, innovated in many modern usages of helicopters in battle scenes. Americans were on the ground learning from the French experience. German Legionaires fighting for France in Wilaya 2 tell us this. El Milia's sky used to be covered with 'banana' helicopters flying east to battle scenes where fighting and fires were raging.
It was also in El Milia where Colonel Roger Trinquier, the master mind of subversive warfare, ended his Algerian war career in 1960.
But El Milia was only a microcosm of the whole of the Algerian war scene. Helicopters were used massively by the French because the paratroopers and Legionaires had to be transported swiftly from one battle ground to the other, from Jijel, to Setif, to the Aures, from Tebessa to the far west of Algeria, in the Oran region, from Greater Kabylia to the Sahara, wherever the fighting demanded it, for it was the whole of Algeria that was on fire.
Likewise, before he came to El Milia, Trinquier had done most of his trade in Algiers during the Battle of Algiers, and before that in Vietnam, where he put in place the world most successful counter maquis in history. He did that for France, but his effectiveness was such that the Americans sought his expertise in this and in all types and forms of subversive warfare.
This and more is the subject of this book. It listens to both Algerian and French participants in equal measure.
