Ho Chi Minh trail. Vietnamese road of life. With all the faith of the Americans in the air power, which they unleashed on the "trail" (details here and here), they never gave up trying to destroy the "path" on earth. However, the prohibition to invade the territory of Laos (he did not cover reconnaissance operations, which the Americans once used) did not allow them to conduct serious offensive operations on the "trail" using ground forces. But they were looking for workarounds.
In order to understand why everything happened the way it happened, it is worth taking a look at what the general situation was in the countries bordering Vietnam.
At the time of the victory of the Vietnamese over the French, the neighboring countries (except China) were monarchies. This applied to both Laos and Cambodia. And if the Cambodian authorities "maneuvered" between the parties to the conflict, inclining to go over to the side of Vietnam and the USSR, then in Laos the royal power unambiguously sided with the Americans.
Laos. Battle for Nam Bak
In Laos, in 1955, at first a sluggish, then more and more brutal civil war resumed between the royalist government, the US supporting it and the rebel militias that the Americans formed from the Hmong minority on the one hand, and the left-wing national liberation movement Pathet Lao, which enjoyed the support of Vietnam and the USSR on the other hand. Periodically, since 1959, the Vietnamese People's Army entered Laos and openly intervened in hostilities, inflicting, as a rule, crushing military defeats on the Royalist troops. For the time being, Pathet Lao was required not to lose and hold those areas of Laos in which the 559th transport group of the VNA began to create a logistics route for the future (future - at that time) liberation of South Vietnam.
Soldiers and commanders of "Pathet Lao" during the civil war in Laos. Early 70s uniform
The Americans planned the destruction of these communications from the early 60s, for which the CIA formed ethnic rebel groups (mainly from the Hmong), and for which they tried to train the royal troops in Laos, but at first the Americans did not qualify for any large-scale operations. It should be noted that the royalist troops of the Kingdom of Laos were trained and motivated very badly. Even the irregular parts of the Hmong guerrillas looked better, and sometimes even achieved better results. The latter was explained by motivation: the Hmong hoped that the victory of the United States, for which they actually worked as a whole nation, would help them get their own state, where they would not be an ethnic minority. The Hmongs were inspired by their leader, the royalist general Wang Pao, a Hmong by nationality.
Hmong and US CIA operative
Wang Pao
At a certain point, after the open entry of the United States into the Vietnam War, the war in Laos became part of it. The Lao themselves fought there, and their fighting was largely conducted around Vietnamese communications and for control over them. Fought the US CIA, with its militias, Air America, by mercenaries and military instructors from the Green Berets, in what is now known as the Secret War. The US Air Force fought, dropping the largest number of bombs in history on Laos. The Vietnamese fought, for whom the retention of the regions through which the Viet Cong was supplied was a matter of life and death. Since 1964, a significant proportion of all operations in the Lao civil war revolved around whether the Americans, royalists and American mercenaries from the local population (mainly Hmong) could push the Pathet Lao into Vietnam and cut Vietnamese communications. Even before that, the Hmong tried to conduct subversive actions against the Vietnamese in the areas of the "trail", but these were "pin pricks". And after the start of open American participation in Vietnam, everything began to spin in earnest in Laos.
In 1964, beginning on May 19, the US Air Force conducted a series of reconnaissance flights over Laos, clarifying data on the Pathet Lao and Vietnamese communications whenever possible. The operation was named "Yankee team". In the summer, the Royalist army, led by American officers, went on the offensive and drove the Pathet Lao forces off the road between Vientiane and the royal capital of Luang Prabang. This operation was called the Triangle by the Americans.
And in December the royalists entered Valley of Kuvshinov, displacing Pathet Lao there as well. The presence of royalists in the Valley of Kuvshinov created a serious threat to the "Path" - along the Valley it was possible to reach the Annamsky ridge and cut the "path". But then, at the end of 1964, the royalists did not have enough resources to continue the offensive, and Pathet Lao had nothing to counterattack. For a while, the sides went over to the defense in this sector. Such passivity of both the Americans and their proxy troops was explained by the fact that, prior to the Teth offensive, the importance of the "trail" was underestimated by the Americans. Throughout 1965, the Vietnamese were engaged in strengthening the defense of the "trail". The Royalists did not advance further into the Valley of Kuvshinov, providing an opportunity for American aviation to work.
The Valley of Kuvshinov is one of the mysteries of mankind and a world cultural heritage site. American mercenaries turned it into a battlefield for many years, and the US Air Force bombed it so that most of it is still closed to tourists due to unexploded bombs and cluster submunitions. There are still millions of them
The latter did not disappoint. When Pathet Lao launched its counteroffensive at the end of 1965, it quickly fizzled out due to the fact that American bombing destroyed the supply system - warehouses with weapons, ammunition and food. By 1966, the bombing of Laos, as they say, “gained momentum,” and the royalists increased their pressure.
In July 1966, the Royalist army occupied the Nam Bak Valley, around the city of the same name. The Nam Bak Valley also allowed access to Vietnamese communications. It was an elongated strip of relatively flat land between the mountain ranges. Immediately following the success at Nam Bak, the royalists again increased pressure in the Valley of the Jugs. Exhausted by the bombing, the Pathet Lao forces retreated and by the end of August 1966 the royalists had 72 kilometers to go to the Vietnamese border. In this case, the "path" would be cut.
Nam Buck and Valley
These two events together threatened disaster.
Fortunately, the royalists went on the defensive - they simply lacked the strength for a further offensive, and a pause was needed in both directions.
The Vietnamese took advantage of this. Seeing that the Pathet Lao could not hold these areas, the Vietnamese began to transfer regular military units of the VNA to the Nam Bak valley. Vietnamese soldiers seeped through forested rocks and mountains, and occupied heights around the royalist troops. The Vietnamese quickly dug in and began to fire on the royalists where possible. Thus began the "siege of Nam Bak."
Entering the valley, the royalists found themselves in an uncomfortable situation. Yes, they controlled defensive installations. But there were almost no roads in this zone - all the supply of troops in the Nam Bak Valley was carried out by air with the delivery of goods to one single airfield, which very quickly found itself in the zone of actual fire of the Vietnamese heavy weapons. There were no roads allowing the Royalists to supply their group in the Nam Bak Valley.
C-123 Provider of the "airline" Air America. Such aircraft were used to supply troops in the Nam Bak Valley, both by landing and for dropping cargo by parachute.
For the Vietnamese, the situation was much better - one of the important Lao roads, the so-called "Route 19", which the Vietnamese included in their communications within the "Trail" passed just through their positions, and they could even transfer reinforcements in cars. And it was closer to the border with Vietnam than even to Luang Prabang. But the American aviation was already in full swing over the roads, and there were no free forces for the time being.
From the beginning of 1967, the Royalists began to transfer new battalions to the Nam Bak Valley and to expand their zone of control. Now these units no longer came across Pathet Lao, but Vietnamese units, although small and poorly armed, but very well trained and motivated to fight. The Royalist advance at this stage began to stall, and in some places stopped altogether. Closer to summer, the Vietnamese began to inflict small counterattacks, a little later their scale increased. So, at the end of July, a single surprise attack by small units of the VNA led to the defeat of the 26th Lao Royalist Infantry Battalion.
The royalist defenses had another flaw - extremely limited capabilities in providing ground forces with air support. During the sluggish battles on the borders of the royalist zone of control, an incident occurred - light attack aircraft T-28 "Trojan", piloted by Thai mercenaries, mistakenly struck at their "own" - the royalist battalion. The Royalists, unable to bear this blow psychologically, withdrew from their positions. As a result, the Royalist command withdrew the Thais from the front, and the entire burden of air support fell on the shoulders of freshly trained Lao pilots, of whom there were very few, and who, with rare exceptions, were insufficiently trained.
This made it very easy for the Vietnamese to carry out combat missions.
Royal Lao Air Force Trojans
By the fall of 1967, the Vietnamese were finally able to smuggle artillery into the valley. Despite the terrain, more suitable for climbing competitions than for troop maneuvers, despite the rainy seasons, despite the monstrous US air strikes on Route 19. It was, frankly, not easy.
But the enemy also grew stronger. In September 1967, two Royalist parachute battalions were deployed into the valley, one of which, the 55th Parachute Battalion, had some combat experience, and the second, the 1st Parachute Battalion, had just completed American retraining. 3,000 Hmong guerrillas were deployed into the valley, sent there by their commander, General Wang Pao. In total, by the end of September, the Royalists had 7,500 people in the valley, against about 4,100 Vietnamese. However, they had enormous supply problems through a single airfield by mercenaries from Air America. Also, these troops suffered from a lack of artillery. However, these forces made some progress, with the Hmong capturing an airfield near Muang Sai, northwest of the main battle zone. But they did not have time to start using it.
In December, the Vietnamese reached the Royalists' vulnerable spot - the Nam Bak airfield. Having dragged a sufficient amount of ammunition to the mountains around it, they began shelling the runway with 82-mm mortars, and the airfield itself and the surrounding area with heavy machine guns. This sharply worsened the situation for the royalists. Attempts to destroy Vietnamese firing points on the hills with air strikes were unsuccessful. The Americans had to stop landing planes at the airfield, and start dropping supplies for their allies on parachute platforms. Perhaps the royalists somehow planned to solve the supply problem, but they were not given.
On January 11, the Vietnamese launched an offensive.
The forces that they had in the area quickly regrouped, gathering in several shock groups. The first to attack were fighters from the 41st Special Forces Battalion, a US-documented unit that conducted an extremely successful and highly professional raid directly into Luang Prabang. Having bypassed all the lines of defense of the royalists, they struck deep in the rear, in the city, where the rear of the royalist group was based, and all their aviation. This raid caused panic in the royalist headquarters, which, in turn, did not allow them to later correctly assess the situation.
On the same day, the main forces of the VNA in the valley went over to the offensive. The Royalists were attacked in several areas. The bulk of the Vietnamese troops were part of the 316th Infantry Division, and the 355th Independent Infantry Regiment. The 148th Regiment of the 316th Infantry Division successfully attacked the Royalist positions in the valley from the north, while one of the battalions of the 355th Regiment delivered a chilling blow from the west. The Royalist commander threw the 99th parachute battalion to meet the advancing Vietnamese, and withdrew his command post and two of his 105-mm howitzers from the settlement itself. Buck us and the aerodrome on one of the hills. This did not help, on January 13, the 148th VNA regiment scattered all the units covering the commander's command post and began preparations for the final attack. Under such conditions, the Royalist commander, General Savatphayphane Bounchanh (translate yourself) considered that the valley was lost and fled with the headquarters.
Royalist troops were left without control, their morale was undermined first by the Vietnamese raid on their rear base, and then by the flight of the command. At the same time, they still outnumbered the Vietnamese twice. But that didn't matter anymore.
The Vietnamese blow cut the Royalist defenses to pieces. Without any direction, the 11th, 12th and 25th regiments of the royal army allowed a withdrawal from their positions, which almost immediately turned into a disorganized flight. Only the 15th regiment and the 99th parachute battalion remained in front of the Vietnamese.
This was followed by a hard and short battle, during which these units were utterly defeated.
The Vietnamese, having entered into combat contact with the 15th regiment, literally flooded it with "rain" of 122-mm missiles, which they fired from the Grad-P portable rocket launchers. A few hours later, a handful of survivors of the 15th Regiment were already trying to crawl through the jungle to avoid finishing off or being captured. Only half of those who were attacked at the beginning of the battle managed to survive.
An even more tragic fate awaited the 99th Parachute Battalion. He found himself in a situation where withdrawal was impossible due to terrain conditions and the location of the battalion relative to the enemy. In the course of close combat with units of the VNA, the personnel of the battalion were destroyed and partially captured almost completely. Only 13 people were able to break away from the enemy - the rest were killed or captured.
By the end of January 14, the disorganized fleeing Lao royalists were almost completely killed or captured. Several thousand fleeing fell under the sweeping maneuver of the 174th Infantry Regiment of the 316th Division and mostly surrendered. In contrast to them, the Vietnamese infantry could quickly maneuver through the heavy jungle-covered rocky terrain without losing control and "breaking" battle formations, shot well and was not afraid of anything. These people also did not suffer from sentimentality in relation to the running enemy. The Vietnamese were superior to the enemy both in preparation (infinitely) and in morale, and could fight well at night.
By the night of January 15, it was all over, the battle for Nam Bak was won by the VNA "clean" - with a two-fold superiority of the enemy in numbers and his absolute air supremacy. All that was left for the royalists was to ask the Americans to save at least someone. The Americans actually took out by helicopters a number of the surviving Royalists who fled through the jungle.
The Battle of Nam Bak was a military disaster for the royal government in Laos. Of the more than 7,300 people who were sent to this operation, only 1,400 returned. The luckiest units - the 15th and 11th regiments lost half of their personnel each, the 12th lost three quarters. 25th almost all. In general, the battle cost the royal army half of all available troops. The Vietnamese captured almost two and a half thousand people alone. They got their hands on 7 howitzers with ammunition, 49 recoilless guns, 52 mortars, military supplies that the royalists did not manage to destroy or take out, all the supplies dropped by American aircraft after January 11, and, as the Americans point out, "countless" small arms …
The area in the Nam Bak valley
Among the Americans who controlled the operation and helped the royalists in its implementation, a conflict broke out between the CIA, the embassy, and agents on the ground. Agents blamed the CIA chief of station in Laos, Ted Sheckley, for everything. The latter covered himself with his report, directed "up the command", in which, even before the attack on Nam Bak, indicated that it was impossible to provoke the Vietnamese to actively intervene. Sheckley blamed the failure on the office of the US military attaché in Laos, who, in his opinion, lost control and misjudged the situation. The US Ambassador Sullivan, who was the de facto commander of this war, also got it. Although he himself was against the attack on Nam Bak, and during the operation he was not in the country at all, he distributed weapons and ammunition in Laos, and was quite able to block the operation, about which he himself said that "it will be a fiasco." … But nothing was done.
One way or another, the threat to the "trail" in the north of Laos was removed, and half a month later the "Tet Offensive" of the Vietnamese began in South Vietnam.
This, of course, did not mean the end of the struggle for the "Path".
Operation Tollroad and the Defense of the Jug Valley
Although American troops were forbidden to occupy the territory of Laos, this prohibition did not apply to intelligence activities. And if MARV-SOG conducted reconnaissance and sabotage on the "Path" throughout the war, then after the Tet offensive the Americans decided to do something else. At the end of 1968, they carried out a successful operation "Tollroad", which was carried out by units of the 4th Infantry Division operating in South Vietnam. Taking advantage of the fact that the Vietnamese cannot provide a full-fledged defense of the entire "Path", and the constraint of their troops by fighting in Laos, the Americans undertook a raid aimed at destroying Vietnamese communications in the territories of Cambodia and Laos adjacent to South Vietnam.
The engineering units of the 4th Infantry Division managed to find a road passable for cars, as it was written in the reports "no more than 2.5 tons of gross weight," and foot porters. First, the Americans entered this route in Cambodia, destroying a number of Vietnamese caches and the roadway there, and crossed over to Laos, where they did the same. There were no clashes with Vietnamese units, as well as losses. On December 1, 1968, American soldiers were evacuated by helicopters. This operation did not have a serious effect, as well as a series of subsequent small-scale raids that the Americans nevertheless carried out against the Lao part of the "trail". But these were all "pin pricks".
The real problem was the invasion of the Jug Valley by the recovered Hmongs from Nam Bak with American air support.
Location of the Valley of Jugs. Vietnam is just a stone's throw away, but you don't have to reach it to cut the "path"
By November 1968, the Hmong leader Wang Pao was able to train eight battalions of his fellow tribesmen, as well as train Hmong attack pilots to participate in the planned offensive in the Valley of the Jugs. The main factor that gave Wang Pao hope for success was the number of combat missions of fighter-bombers agreed with the Americans to support the attacks of the Hmong - it was planned that there would be at least 100 of them per day. Also, to help Wang Pao, combat missions of "Skyraders" from 56 Special Operations Air Wing, based in Thailand, were promised.
The offensive was supposed to lead to the capture by the Hmong of Mount Phu Pha Thi, and the American radar observation post Lim 85 located on it, which was repulsed by the Vietnamese earlier during a series of battles for the key Na Hang base in the region. The mountain was considered sacred by the Hmong and Wang Pao believed that its capture would inspire his people. Further, Wang Pao planned to continue the offensive along the Valley of the Jugs to the Vietnamese border. If he had succeeded then, the "path" would have been cut.
The delivery of Hmong strike troops to the concentration area before the attack was to be carried out by American helicopters. The operation was codenamed "Pigfat" - "lard". After a series of delays, on December 6, 1968, the Hmong attacked with monstrous US air support. Looking ahead, let's say that the positions of one of the VNA battalions defending against the Hmong were bombarded with napalm for three days.
Sometimes a few shots from a Vietnamese 82-mm mortar were enough for American planes to immediately appear and start dropping incendiary bombs on the Vietnamese positions in tons. The actions of the Vietnamese were complicated by the fact that part of the vegetation in the area was destroyed by defoliants at the beginning of the year, and the Vietnamese could not everywhere use the vegetation as a cover for maneuver.
At first, the Hmongs succeeded, American air support did their job, although the Americans paid their price for it - so, on December 8, they immediately lost three aircraft - one F-105 and two Skyraders. But the Vietnamese losses were enormous, reaching up to half of the personnel in some battalions.
But something went wrong. First, the Americans were able to provide only half of the promised number of sorties. The lack of coordination between the CIA, in charge of the Laos war, and the US Air Force, which fought its war against the trail in the Vietnam War, led to the fact that shortly after the start of the operation, a significant part of the aircraft was withdrawn to hunt for trucks as part of the Air Force Operation Commando Hunt. A little later, this put the Hmong in a difficult position.
The Vietnamese fought back desperately and, as a rule, retreated only after heavy losses. In this operation, the Hmongs for the first time abandoned partisan methods and acted "head-on", which also cost them dearly. They had never suffered such losses before, and it was a serious demoralizing factor.
Nevertheless, by mid-December, the situation of the Vietnamese was already desperate - the losses were huge, and the command of the Vietnamese troops doubted whether they would be able to resist. However, the Vietnamese knew that the 148th regiment, which had distinguished itself earlier in Nam Bak, was coming to their aid, they had to buy quite a bit of time.
And they won it.
The Vietnamese managed to establish the location of the ammunition point through which the Hmong troops received ammunition for the offensive. On the night of December 21, the Vietnamese conducted a successful raid against this point, destroying it, and at the same time destroying one of the 105-mm howitzers, of which the enemy already had few. This forced the Hmong to stop, and on December 25, the 148th regiment turned around and launched an offensive. He had several days left before entering combat contact with the forces of Wang Pao. The latter, realizing what would shine on his troops if these soldiers got to them, undertook a series of propaganda actions aimed at undermining the morale of the Vietnamese. So, on December 26 and 27, recordings were broadcast to the Vietnamese troops in which Vietnamese prisoners tried to persuade them not to participate in hostilities. Wang Pao hoped that this would cause desertion in the ranks of the VNA. In parallel, mercenary pilots from Thailand were again brought to the combat area, and the Hmong stronghold in Muang Sui received an additional batch of ammunition.
None of this helped. On the night of January 1, 1969, the Vietnamese infiltrated the Hmong defensive lines, slaughtering eleven local fighters and one American adviser along the way. The appearance of the first units of the Vietnamese already behind the line of defense caused panic and the troops of Wang Pao fled in this sector. A week later, Wang Pao announced a general retreat. Operation Pigfat has ended.
But for the Vietnamese, nothing ended. They used the retreat of the Hmong in order to break into Na Hang, for which they had fought since 1966. However, this no longer had any special relation to the "path".
For several months, the threat of cutting Vietnamese communications was removed.
It must be said that the goals of both the operation in Nam Bak and the invasion of the Valley of the Jugs were not limited to interrupting the "path". Eo were civil war operations in Laos aimed at taking over communist-controlled areas. However, the loss of these areas would have led precisely to the cutting of the "path" and would have put the continuation of the war in the South into question.
The Vietnamese did not allow this.
For the Hmong, the failure in the Valley of the Jugs was a very painful experience. Of the 1,800 fighters who went on the offensive on December 6, 1968, 700 had died and gone missing by mid-January, and another 500 were wounded. They did not have such losses even in Nam Bak. The Vietnamese unambiguously won this battle, but for them the price was very high, their losses were calculated in even greater numbers.
The Hmongs were seriously scared by how it all ended - at the end of the fighting, the VNA units were a few kilometers from their areas of residence and they were afraid of revenge. Women and children fled from the front-line villages, all men capable of holding weapons were ready to fight for their villages and townships. But the Vietnamese did not come, dwelling on the successes achieved.
Despite these results, the Hmong still trusted their leader Wang Pao. And Wang Pao planned to fight further, relying on American support.
The Valley of Kuvshinov had to be a battlefield for a long time. But as long as the areas critical for the work of the "trail" were held by the Vietnamese, they were not going to retreat and also planned to fight further.
VNA unit on the march, on the "path". Photo: LE MINH TRUONG. This is 1966, but in such conditions they acted throughout the war.
