At the end of 1970, two operations were carried out in Laos. One was a reconnaissance raid. The second is another attempt to cut off supplies along the Tropez.
Both used local forces. But otherwise the similarities ended. But at the end of 1970, the Americans finally had an idea of where to move on and why exactly this way.
Tailwind for Battle Group Ax
The Americans could not openly use their troops in Laos. They could conduct reconnaissance there and support other non-US forces. Their group of special forces MACV-SOG, specially created for work on the "Trope", regularly conducted reconnaissance operations there and directed aviation strikes. However, Laos was closed for American operations that would have required sending American soldiers into battle.
However, the end of 1970 was marked by a departure from this rule, not the first, but one of a very small number of such deviations. Contrary to common practice, the Americans planned a reconnaissance raid against Vietnamese forces in Laos, which included a direct attack. The operation was codenamed "Tail wind".
To reduce political risks, the Americans enlisted the so-called Hatchet force in the operation. This detachment, which was part of the MACV-SOG, from the very beginning of operations on the "Trail" initially consisted of soldiers of the South Vietnamese army and the Americans, but later it was based on volunteers from the group of Thuong people, inhabitants of the mountainous regions of southern Vietnam. The Thuong were and remain a discriminated minority. The only people who could guarantee this group of peoples any rights and protection were the Americans. And they did this, whenever possible, preventing the South Vietnamese authorities from pursuing a policy of assimilation, and protecting from the communist rebels, who, seeing in the Thuongs not only an ethnically alien element, but also henchmen of the United States (and earlier the French), were not shy about the means towards them. …
The United States trained the Thuongs and successfully used them for jungle fighting and reconnaissance. So, when the decision was made to conduct the raid, it was the Thuongs who became the basis of the battle group, which was to be thrown into Laos. Organizationally, they were part of Company B, which was fully recruited from the Thuong.
The team was led by Captain Eugene McCarley. Together with him, it consisted of 16 Americans and 110 Thuongs, who had special training and combat experience. The point of the operation was far beyond the zone in which the American special forces could operate, if only for reconnaissance purposes.
However, the Americans had information that an important Vietnamese bunker was located in the area of interest, which was also used as a command bunker. And the desire to implement intelligence exceeded the risk.
The area to which it was necessary to advance was on the Boloven plates, to the east of Thateng, not far from the intersection of roads.
On September 11, the roar of helicopters was heard over Vietnamese Dak To. Due to the fact that the transfer of special groups was carried out at a long distance, it was necessary to use CH-53, rare in those parts. The danger from fire from the ground was to be taken over by the AN-1 Cobra, which had not previously been used in Laos. Shortly after takeoff, the group crossed the border of Vietnamese airspace and headed for the Boloven Plateau.
The operation was going hard. The three Stallions, under the cover of the four Cobras, each landed three platoon battle groups in the designated area. The helicopters flew away, and the special forces carefully moved through the jungle, to the target, the area of which they knew only approximately. On September 12, the detachment ran into the Vietnamese infantry. A counter battle ensued. The forces were approximately equal. The wounded appeared immediately. Nevertheless, for the Americans, it was a symbol that they were in the right place, and the operation continued.
On the morning of September 13, a special detachment was at the Vietnamese camp. During a brutal frontal assault, the camp was captured.
But at first, the Americans did not find anything. It seemed that either reconnaissance had made a mistake, mistaking an ordinary strongpoint of the "Path" for an important command center, or the group was attacking the wrong object. But the Thuongs soon found a disguised passage down into the ground. And it immediately became clear that the reconnaissance was not mistaken, it really was a command post, moreover, a little later it turned out that this command center controlled all the logistics along Lao Route 165. Therefore, the bunker was so well camouflaged: only the depth at which it was built, was 12 meters.
The Thuongs quickly filled two large boxes with documents and it was time to evacuate. Now McCarley had to evacuate faster, the arriving air guidance planes reported about a battalion of Vietnamese directly near the camp.
McCarley had an evacuation plan that he imagined would not have allowed the Vietnamese to destroy the entire group due to some accident. He selected three landing sites from which the group was to evacuate by platoon. It was assumed that the Vietnamese were not enough to kill everyone at the same time; if they cover the site, then one. But first I had to break away from them, and that was not easy.
The next day was a nightmare for the group: the Vietnamese were not going to retreat, not to release a special detachment with such valuable information. The Americans had to fight the Vietnamese infantry at night, without the possibility of retreat.
The group managed to hold out, but by September 14 it was already a group of almost all of the wounded, with a minimum of ammunition, people exhausted by the continuous three-day fighting, many of whom could not walk because of their wounds.
Nevertheless, at the decisive moment, the group succeeded in their plans. Splitting into three platoons, the Americans and their allies arrived at the landing sites just in time. By this time, helicopters appeared. All the landing sites were under fire and the helicopter crews had to literally flood all the thickets around with tear gas, and only under his cover did they manage to take the saboteurs on board and take off. But even so, the last helicopters took off under fire, which the Vietnamese infantry led from a distance of tens of meters. All vehicles were damaged and many crew members were injured.
Soon after takeoff, two helicopters with special forces were successively hit by heavy machine guns and were shot down. But the survivability of the huge machines helped out. Both cars made forced landings in the jungle, the surviving Americans after a while were picked up by other helicopters.
On September 14, the task force returned to Vietnam, successfully delivering important intelligence information about what was happening on the trail. The Americans later stated that they had killed 54 Vietnamese army servicemen. The group itself, upon its return, had, according to various estimates, about 70 wounded and 3 killed.
It should be noted that such statistics did not take place on their own, but due to the personal will of an individual - the medic of the group of Sergeant Harry Rose. During the operation, Rose several times pulled the wounded out from under fire, many times entered into close combat personally to prevent the Vietnamese from seizing the wounded, being repeatedly wounded himself, did not provide himself with medical assistance until he finished with first aid to other wounded. he himself fought like a soldier, when there was no need to provide medical assistance to anyone. He was in the last helicopter, which had already risen from under the fire of the VNA soldiers and, having already been wounded several times, during takeoff, he fought with the Vietnamese from the open ramp of the helicopter.
Soon the helicopter was shot down, and one of the marines-machine gunners was seriously wounded by the same burst from the ground, which damaged the car. Rose began providing first aid while still in the air and did everything in his power to make the shooter survive the hard landing. Rose then climbed into the burning helicopter several times, pulling out soldiers unable to move.
Presumably, without this person, the number of those killed during the operation would have been several times higher. Rose survived the war safely, was awarded and retired with the rank of captain.
Operation Tailwind was thus a success, although it was not without losses.
There is one "dark spot" associated with this operation, namely the details of the use of gas, thanks to which the Americans and Thuongs were able to evacuate from the shelling in the last seconds.
In 1998, CNN and Time magazine jointly produced television and print reports claiming that soldiers in Laos were then evacuated not under cover of tear gas, but under the cover of sarin gas. Allegedly, this was the reason for the success of the operation. The journalists interviewed the participants in the operation, and the answers they received hinted that everything was really unclean with tear gas: for example, one of the platoon commanders, Robert van Böskirk, complained that when gas was blown to his people by the wind, several of them clogged in convulsions. True, no one died. In addition, the personnel then had health problems that were not caused either by the wounds they had suffered or by the consequences of a person's injury with tear gas (western CS marking).
But the scandal did not develop: the Pentagon managed to push through the official point of view that it was just tear gas. I must say that, on the one hand, the idea of using sarin looks strange: it was unusual for the Americans, and the troops were clearly not ready for chemical warfare.
On the other hand, the testimony of van Böskirk should be somehow explained, as well as the consequences for the health of many fighters, and it would also be worth explaining how the Vietnamese, who fired massive automatic fire at helicopters taking off from a distance of 50-60 meters, that is, from a pistol distance, in the end they were still missed. They knew how to shoot. What prevented?
Answers, apparently, will not be given by anyone.
Operation Tailwind shows well what enemy the VNA would have to deal with on the Trail if the United States had the opportunity to operate openly in Laos. But another enemy acted against them.
Second attack on Chipone
CIA unit in Savannaket examining failure last raid on Chipona, found nothing better than to arrange the same raid there again, simply with large forces. The operation was now to be carried out by six local battalions. According to the operation plan, it was assumed that one three-battalion column would meet with another immediately in front of the attacked VNA logistics center and then, during a joint attack, the Vietnamese base would be destroyed.
On October 19, 1970, the battalions moved towards the target. The first column left Muang Phalan with orders to capture the Vietnamese-held and Pathet Lao village of Muang Fine, near Chepone. The second column, also of three battalions, moved towards the Vietnamese stronghold and logistics points east of Chepone.
The first column immediately faced desertion: one of the battalion commanders did not have time for the operation, because he was having fun with his 17-year-old bride. Having reached Muang Fine, three battalions trampled on its outskirts and, after a languid firefight with the enemy, left. This was the end of the operation for them.
The second column reached the target and entered the battle. A few days after the start of the advance, the convoy destroyed a loosely guarded Vietnamese fleet of vehicles, setting on fire dozens of trucks and a mass of spare parts and equipment for repairs. Then the column continued its advance towards Chepona.
On November 1, the convoy was ambushed by the VNA, which, with forces up to the battalion, began to grind the militants trained by the CIA. The summoned air guidance planes faced excellent enemy camouflage and heavy fire from the ground. This time, the Vietnamese were not going to just sit under the bombs, and their communications were nearby. As a result, the royalists at the decisive moment simply did not have air support, none at all. Moreover, because of the powerful fire from the ground, it turned out to be impossible to remove the wounded, which the Americans, as a rule, provided for their wards.
On November 4 and 5, US air force stepped in, striking in front of the Royalist front lines. Under cover of these attacks, Air America's helicopter pilots succeeded, on their fifth attempt, in extricating all the wounded from the Royalist battalions. Freed from the wounded, the Royalists fled through the jungle, breaking away from the enemy.
American sources assess the losses of the Vietnamese as "heavy", but do not give figures, and, in truth, with the exception of the half-blind air strikes inflicted by the US Air Force, which did not have accurate information about the location of the enemy, it is not clear why they would be heavy.
Soon the royalist troops participating in the operation came under attack from the Vietnamese in the vicinity of Pakse and suffered heavy losses there, attributing, however, hundreds of enemy soldiers killed.
It was obvious that the CIA was simply not coping with the war in Laos. Against the background of the forces that the agency was preparing, the various tribal units that the US Army trained in Vietnam were simply a model of combat effectiveness, especially when the Americans themselves fought with them.
Meanwhile, 1971 was approaching.
By that time, the United States had already embarked on a course of "Vietnamization". Now it had to be sharply deepened for political reasons. Nixon was supposed to have an election next year. The 71st year was the year when it was necessary to "close" issues related to the ability of the South Vietnamese regime to fight on its own. And for this it was necessary to undermine the forces of the rebels in the south of Vietnam. And for this to do something finally with the "Path". Washington understood that this "something" could not be done by the CIA, although no one removed their responsibilities for waging a secret war in Laos.
They had to be different forces, and they had to act differently.
