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In 1971, while U.S. ground forces were prohibited from crossing the Laotian border, a South Vietnamese Army corps, with U.S. air support, launched the largest airmobile operation in the history of warfare, Lam Son 719. The objective: to sever the North Vietnamese Army’s main logistical artery, the Ho Chi Minh Trail, at its hub, Tchepone in Laos, an operation that, according to General Creighton Abrams, could have been the decisive battle of the war, hastening the withdrawal of U.S. forces and ensuring the survival of South Vietnam. The outcome: defeat of the South Vietnamese Army and heavy losses of U.S. helicopters and aircrews, but a successful preemptive strike that met President Nixon’s near-term political objectives. Author Robert Sander, a helicopter pilot in Lam Son 719, explores why an operation of such importance failed. Drawing on archives and interviews, and firsthand testimony and reports, Sander chronicles not only the planning and execution of the operation but also the maneuvers of the bastions of political and military power during the ten-year effort to end Communist infiltration of South Vietnam leading up to Lam Son 719. The result is a picture from disparate perspectives: the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations; the South Vietnamese government led by President Nguyen Van Thieu; and senior U.S. military commanders and army aviators. Sander’s conclusion is at once powerful and persuasively clear. Lam Son 719 was doomed in both the planning and execution—a casualty of domestic and international politics, flawed assumptions, incompetent execution, and the resolve of the North Vietnamese Army. A powerful work of military and political history, this book offers eloquent testimony that “failure, like success, cannot be measured in absolute terms.”
An eyewitness account of the last major operation the Americans fought in Vietnam, focusing on the soldiers as individuals and on the previously neglected aspects of the battles that were not reported by the press
Includes over 30 maps and illustrations For several years, the eastern part of the Laotian panhandle was used by North Vietnam as a corridor for the infiltration of personnel and materiels required to sustain its war efforts in South Vietnam and Cambodia. In addition to the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the eastern panhandle contained many logistic installations and base areas. After the 18 March 1970 change of government in Cambodia which closed the port of Sihanoukville to the enemy, this trail-base area complex in lower Laos became even more important to North Vietnam in its prosecution of the war in the South. The real hub of this entire complex, where transportation and storage activities were coordinated, was Base Area 604 located west of the Demilitarized Zone and surrounding the district town of Tchepone. To disrupt the flow of enemy personnel and supplies into South Vietnam, a ground attack was launched across the Laotian border against this enemy hub of activity on 8 February 1971. Operation LAM SON 719 was conducted by I Corps with substantial U.S. support in firepower and heli-lift but without the participation of U.S. advisers with those ARVN units fighting in Laos. As a test of Vietnamization, this operation was to demonstrate also the progress achieved in combat effectiveness by the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces. Further, LAM SON 719 achieved the objective of forestalling a Communist offensive in the spring of 1971.
War.
In 1971, as American forces hastened their withdrawal from Vietnam, a helicopter was hit by enemy fire over Laos and exploded in a fireball, killing four top combat photographers, Larry Burrows of Life magazine, Henri Huet of Associated Press, Kent Potter of United Press International, and Keisaburo Shimamoto of Newsweek. The Saigon press corps and the American public were stunned, but the remoteness of the location made a recovery attempt impossible. When the war ended four years later in a communist victory, the war zone was sealed off to outsiders, and the helicopter incident faded from most memories. Yet two journalists from the Vietnam press corps -- Richard Pyle, former Saigon Bureau Chief, and Horst Faas, Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer in Vietnam-pledged to return some day to Laos, resolve mysteries about the crash, and pay homage to their lost friends. True to their vow, twenty-seven years after the incident the authors joined a U.S. team excavating the hillside where the helicopter crashed. Few human remains were found, but camera parts and bits of film provided eerie proof of what happened there.The narrative of Lost Over Laos is framed in a period that was among the war's bloodiest, for both the military and the media, yet has received relatively little attention from historians. It is rich with behind-the-scenes anecdotes about the Saigon press corps and illustrated with stunning work by the four combat photographers who died and their colleagues.
This is the second volume in a series of chronological histories prepared by the Marine Corps History and Museums Division to cover the entire span of Marine Corps involvement in the Vietnam War. This volume details the Marine activities during 1965, the year the war escalated and major American combat units were committed to the conflict. The narrative traces the landing of the nearly 5,000-man 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade and its transformation into the ΙII Marine Amphibious Force, which by the end of the year contained over 38,000 Marines. During this period, the Marines established three enclaves in South Vietnam’s northernmost corps area, I Corps, and their mission expanded from defense of the Da Nang Airbase to a balanced strategy involving base defense, offensive operations, and pacification. This volume continues to treat the activities of Marine advisors to the South Vietnamese armed forces but in less detail than its predecessor volume, U.S. Marines in Vietnam, 1954-1964; The Advisory and Combat Assistance Era.
“An incredibly powerful account of a little-known chapter in the Vietnam War saga” written by a CIA veteran who fought in the Secret War (Booklist, starred review). In the 1960s and ’70s, the Laotian Civil War became a covert theater for the conflict in Vietnam, with the US paramilitary backing the Royal Lao government in what came to be known among the CIA as the Secret War. In late 1971, the North Vietnamese Army launched Campaign Z, invading northern Laos on a mission to defeat the Royal Lao Army. General Giap had specifically ordered the NVA troops to kill the CIA army and occupy its field headquarters in the Long Tieng valley. The NVA faced the small rag-tag army of Vang Pao, mostly Thai irregulars recruited to fight for the CIA. But thousands more were quickly recruited, trained, and rushed into position in Laos to defend against the impending NVA invasion. Despite overwhelming odds in the NVA’s favor, the battle raged for more than one hundred days—the longest battle in the Vietnam War. In the end, it all came down to Skyline Ridge. Whoever won Skyline, won Laos. Historian James E. Parker Jr. served as a CIA paramilitary officer in Laos. In this authoritative and personal account, Parker draws from his own firsthand experience as well as extensive research into CIA files and North Vietnamese after-action reports in order to tell the full story of the battle of Skyline Ridge.
In 1970, John Kowalski was among the many young, inexperienced soldiers sent to Vietnam to participate in a contentious war. Referred to as “Cherries” by their veteran counterparts, these recruits were plunged into a horrific reality. The on-the-job training was rigorous, yet most of these youths were ill-prepared to handle the severe mental, emotional, and physical demands of combat. Experiencing enemy fire and observing death up close initiates a profound transformation that is irreversible. The author excels at storytelling. Readers affirm feeling immersed alongside the characters, partaking in their struggle for survival, experiencing the fear, awe, drama, and grief, observing acts of courage, and occasionally sharing in their humor. "Cherries" presents an unvarnished account, and upon completion, readers will gain a deeper appreciation for the trials these young men faced over a year. It's a narrative that grips the reader throughout.
The story of special air warfare and the Air Commandos who served for the ambassadors in Laos from 1964 to 1975 is captured through extensive research and veteran interviews. The author has meticulously put together a comprehensive overview of the involvement of USAF Air Commandos who served in Laos as trainers, advisors, and clandestine combat forces to prevent the communist takeover of the Royal Lao Government. This book includes pictures of those operations, unveils what had been a US government secret war, and adds a substantial contribution to understanding the wider war in Southeast Asia.