Operation Lam Son 719

Between 1959 and 1970, the Ho Chi Minh Trail had become the key logistical artery for the PAVN/VC, in their effort to conduct military operations to topple the U.S.-supported government of South Vietnam and create a unified nation. Running from the southwestern corner of North Vietnam through southeastern Laos and into the western portions of South Vietnam, the trail system had been the target of continuous U.S. aerial interdiction efforts that had begun in 1966. Only small-scale covert operations in support of the air campaigns had, however, been conducted on the ground inside Laos to halt the flow of men and supplies on the trail. Since 1966, over 630,000 men, 100,000 tons of foodstuffs, 400,000 weapons and 50,000 tons of ammunition had traveled through the maze of gravel and dirt roads, paths and river transportation systems that crisscrossed southeastern Laos. The trail also linked up with a similar logistical system in neighboring Cambodia known as the Sihanouk Trail. However, following the overthrow of Prince Norodom Sihanouk in 1970, the pro-American Lon Nol regime had denied the use of the port of Sihanoukville to communist shipping. Strategically, this was an enormous blow to the North Vietnamese effort, since 70 percent of all military supplies that supported its effort in the far south had moved through the port. A further blow to the logistical system in Cambodia had come in the spring and summer of 1970, when U.S. and ARVN forces had crossed the border and attacked PAVN/VC Base Areas during the Cambodian Campaign. With the partial destruction of the North Vietnamese logistical system in Cambodia, the U.S. headquarters in Saigon determined that the time was propitious for a similar campaign in Laos. If such an operation were to be carried out, the U.S. command believed, it would be best to do it quickly, while American military assets were still available in South Vietnam. Such an operation would create supply shortages that would be felt by PAVN/VC forces 12–18 months later, as the last U.S. troops were leaving South Vietnam and thereby give the U.S. and its ally a respite from a possible PAVN/VC offensive in the northern provinces for one year, possibly even two. There were increasing signs of heavy logistical activity in southeastern Laos, activity which heralded just such a North Vietnamese offensive. PAVN offensives usually took place near the conclusion of the Laotian dry season (from October through March) and, for PAVN logistical forces, the push to move supplies through the system came during the height of the season. One U.S. intelligence report estimated that 90 percent of materiel coming down the Ho Chi Minh Trail was being funneled into the three northernmost provinces of South Vietnam, indicating forward stockpiling in preparation for offensive action. According to General Creighton W. Abrams, the American commander in South Vietnam, the main impetus for the offensive came from Colonel Alexander M. Haig, an aide to National Security Advisor Dr. Henry Kissinger. Other possible benefits which might accrue from such an operation were also being discussed. Admiral John S. McCain Jr (CINCPAC) communicated with Admiral Thomas Moorer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, that an offensive against the Ho Chi Minh Trail might compel Prince Souvanna Phouma, prime minister of Laos, "to abandon the guise of neutrality and enter the war openly." Although technically neutral, the Laotian government had allowed the CIA and U.S. Air Force to conduct a covert war against an indigenous guerrilla insurgency (the Pathet Lao), that was, in turn, heavily supported by North Vietnamese forces. This advance would be protected by a series of leap-frogging aerial infantry assaults to cover the northern and southern flanks of the main column. During the third phase, search and destroy operations within Base Area 604 would be carried out and finally, the South Vietnamese force would retire either back along Route 9 or through Base Area 611 and exit through the A Shau Valley. Because of the notorious laxity of the South Vietnamese military when it came to security precautions and the ability of VC agents to uncover operational information, the planning phase lasted only a few weeks and was divided between the American and Vietnamese high commands. At the lower levels, it was limited to the intelligence and operational staffs of ARVN's I Corps, under Lieutenant General Hoàng Xuân Lãm, who was to command the operation and the XXIV Corps, headed by Sutherland. When Lãm was finally briefed by MACV and the South Vietnamese Joint General Staff in Saigon, his chief of operations was forbidden to attend the meeting, even though he had helped to write the very plan under discussion. At this meeting, Lãm's operational area was restricted to a corridor no wider than on either side of Route 9 and a penetration no deeper than Tchepone. Command, control and coordination of the operation was going to be problematic, especially in the highly politicized South Vietnamese command structure, where the support of key political figures was of paramount importance in promotion to and retention of command positions. Lieutenant General Lê Nguyên Khang, the Vietnamese Marine Corps commander and protege of Vice President Nguyễn Cao Kỳ, whose troops were scheduled to participate in the operation, actually outranked General Lãm, who had the support of President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu. The same situation applied to Lieutenant General Dư Quốc Đống, commander of ARVN Airborne Division also scheduled to participate in the operation. After the incursion began, both men remained in Saigon and delegated their command authority to junior officers rather than take orders from Lãm. This did not bode well for the success of the operation. Individual units did not learn about their planned participation until 17 January. The Airborne Division that was to lead the operation received no detailed plans until 2 February, less than a week before the campaign was to begin. This was of crucial importance, since many of the units, particularly the Airborne and the Marines, had worked as separate battalions and brigades and had no experience maneuvering or cooperating in adjoining areas. According to the assistant commander of the U.S. 101st Airborne Division, "Planning was rushed, handicapped by security restrictions, and conducted separately and in isolation by the Vietnamese and the Americans." The U.S. portion of the operation was to bear the title Dewey Canyon II, named for Operation Dewey Canyon conducted by U.S. Marines in the northwestern South Vietnam in 1969. It was hoped that the reference to the previous operation would confuse Hanoi as to the actual target of the proposed incursion. The ARVN's portion was given the title Lam Son 719, after the village of Lam Son, birthplace of the legendary Vietnamese patriot Lê Lợi, who had defeated an invading Chinese army in 1427. The numerical designation came from the year, 1971, and the main axis of the attack, Route 9. The decisions had been made at the highest levels and planning had been completed, but valuable time had been lost. The South Vietnamese were about to begin their largest, most complex, and most important operation of the war. The lack of time for adequate planning and preparation, as well as the absence of any real questioning about military realities and the capabilities of the ARVN were going to prove decisive. On 29 January Nixon gave his final approval for the operation. On the following day, Operation Dewey Canyon II was under way. ==Operations==

Dewey Canyon II Any offensive planning by the U.S. was, however, limited by the passage on 29 December 1970 of the Cooper-Church Amendment, which prohibited U.S. ground forces and advisors from entering Laos. Dewey Canyon II would, therefore, be conducted within territorial South Vietnam in order to reopen Route 9 all the way to the old Khe Sanh Combat Base, which had been abandoned by U.S. forces in 1968. The base would be reopened and would then serve as the logistical hub and airhead of the ARVN incursion. U.S. combat engineers were tasked with clearing Route 9 and rehabilitating Khe Sanh while infantry and mechanized units secured a line of communications along the length of the road. U.S. artillery units would support the ARVN effort within Laos from the South Vietnamese side of the border while Army logisticians coordinated the entire supply effort for the South Vietnamese. Air support for the incursion would be provided by the aircraft of the United States Air Force (USAF), Navy and Marine Corps and U.S. Army aviation units were tasked with providing complete helicopter support for the ARVN. Meanwhile, the brigade's infantry elements were choppered directly into the Khe Sanh area. By 5 February, Route 9 had been secured up to the Laotian frontier. The armored task force secured Route 9 all the way to Ban Dong (known to the Americans as A Luoi) (), 20 kilometers inside Laos and approximately halfway to Tchepone. The ARVN and U.S. forces soon discovered the extensive PAVN logistics network within the area. At 12:30 on 10 February troops of the 3rd Airborne Battalion operating 1 km east of FSB 31 were engaged by PAVN, they suffered light casualties, but captured six Molotova trucks loaded with ammunition. Extending their search north they found a cache of 14 82 mm mortars, four 122 mm rocket launchers and nine AK-47s. At 13:00 four RVNAF UH-1H helicopters flying to Ranger South were hit by 37 mm anti-aircraft fire, with two being shot down, killing all on board. On one helicopter were two ARVN colonels, the G3 (operations officer) and G4 (logistics officer) of I Corps and on the other helicopter were foreign correspondents Larry Burrows, Henri Huet, Kent Potter and Keisaburo Shimamoto. On 17 February heavy rain restricted air operations however an armored infantry task force consisting of the 17th Armored Squadron and 8th Airborne Battalion operating north of A Luoi had been engaging the PAVN killing 36 and capturing 16 AK-47s for the loss of four killed. At midday the task force engaged another PAVN force 4 km north of Al Luoi capturing one PT-76, two trucks and three machine guns. On the morning of 18 February the 1st Airborne Battalion conducting a B-52 bomb damage assessment 2 km north of LZ Bravo found an abandoned command post of the PAVN 308th Division. At midday U.S. air cavalry forces attacked a PAVN truck convoy 9 km west-northwest of A Luoi, while the 2nd Troop, 17th Armored Squadron operating 7 km west of A Luoi found and cut a fuel pipeline. ==Response==

Counteroffensive The North Vietnamese response to the incursion was gradual. Hanoi's attention was riveted on another diversionary maneuver being conducted by a U.S. naval task force off the coast of the North Vietnam. This force conducted all of the maneuvers necessary for the carrying out of an amphibious landing only 20 kilometers off the city of Vinh. On 19 February, the attacks commenced against Ranger North conducted by the 102nd Regiment, 308th Division, supported by PT-76 and T-54 tanks. Fujii and several Rangers were evacuated by helicopter, but it was hit by PAVN fire and autorotated onto Ranger South. The crew was rescued but Fujii was again stranded on the ground. The force remaining at Ranger South comprising 400 soldiers of the 21st Rangers and 109 soldiers of the 39th Rangers, held the outpost for another two days before Lãm ordered them to fight their way 5 km southeast to FSB 30. On 25 February the PAVN deluged FSB 31 with artillery fire and then launched a conventional armored/infantry assault. Smoke, dust and haze precluded observation by the FAC aircraft, which was flying above to avoid anti-aircraft fire. Tactical air strikes destroyed several armored vehicles attacking the southern perimeter, but at 15:20 20 tanks supported by infantry attacked the northwest and east. At that time a USAF F-4 Phantom jet was shot down in the area, the FAC left the area of the battle to direct a rescue effort for the downed aircraft crew, diverting air-support from the base. , the most numerous tank of the ARVN Between 25 February and 1 March in its efforts to relieve FSB 31 the armor-infantry task force comprising the 17th Armored Squadron, 8th Airborne Battalion and elements of the 3rd Airborne Battalion fought three major engagements on 25 February, 27 February and the night of 1 March. They lost 27 killed and one missing and three M41 Walker Bulldog tanks and 25 armored vehicles destroyed. The ARVN claimed the PAVN lost 1,130 killed, two captured, over 300 weapons captured and 17 PT-76 and six T-54s and two trucks destroyed. In each instance, however, the attacks were pressed home with a professional competence and determination that both impressed and shocked those that observed them. William D. Morrow, Jr., an advisor with the ARVN Airborne Division during the incursion, was succinct in his appraisal of North Vietnamese forces – "they would have defeated any army that tried the invasion." On to Tchepone While the main South Vietnamese column stalled at A Luoi for three weeks and the Ranger and Airborne elements were fighting for their lives, Thiệu and Lãm decided to launch a face-saving airborne assault on Tchepone itself. Although American leaders and news correspondents had focused on the town as one of Lam Son 719's main objectives, the PAVN logistical network actually bypassed the ruined town to the west. If South Vietnamese forces could at least occupy Tchepone, however, Thiệu would have a political excuse for declaring "victory" and withdrawing his forces to South Vietnam. Regardless, the decision was made to conduct the assault not with the armored/Airborne task force, but with elements of the 1st Infantry Division. That meant that elements of the 1st Division had to be redeployed to Laos and the occupation of the firebases south of Route 9 had to be taken over by Marine Corps forces, which lost even more valuable time. On 25 February U.S. XXIV Corps ordered the 3rd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division to replace the ARVN 2nd Regiment, 1st Infantry Division on the DMZ which was moved to Khe Sanh. In addition the 4th and 7th Armored Squadrons of the 1st and 2nd Infantry Divisions were moved into Laos. The assault began on 3 March, when the 1st Battalion, 1st Infantry Division was helilifted into FSB Lolo () south of Route 9. Eleven helicopters were shot down and another 44 were damaged as they carried one battalion into FSB Lolo. By 13:43 both the 2nd and 3rd Battalions and the 2nd Regiment tactical command post had been landed at LZ Hope. Searching the area the Regiment found the bodies of 102 PAVN killed by B-52 strikes and captured five 12.7mm machine guns and one anti-aircraft gun. Moving further south towards Tchepone the 3rd Battalion found 1,000 tons of rice, 31 dead PAVN and numerous weapons. The 2nd Battalion found an area which had been hit by B-52s with nearly 100 PAVN dead and numerous destroyed weapons. ==Aftermath==

The operation was supposed to disrupt PAVN Base Area 604 near Tchepone and Base Area 611 near Mung Nong, however the operation had only touched the northern boundary of Base Area 611 before being prematurely terminated. Although Lam Son 719 had set back North Vietnamese logistical operations in southeastern Laos, truck traffic on the trail system increased immediately after the conclusion of the operation. Truck sightings in the Route 9 area reached 2,500 per month post the offensive, numbers usually seen only during peak periods. The American command's claims of success were more limited in scope: MACV claimed that 108 PAVN tanks had been destroyed during the operation (74 by tactical airstrikes), plus 670 anti-aircraft guns and 600 trucks. It also fully understood that the operation had exposed grave deficiencies in South Vietnamese "planning, organization, leadership, motivation and operational expertise." In general, most of the military continued to believe that the incursion had harmed the North Vietnamese, that the South Vietnamese had fought well, and that the failure of Thiệu to reinforce the attack with another division had made all the difference. Thiệu was re-elected unopposed on 2 October 1971. One of Kissinger's staff experts, Commander Jonathan Howe, did an extensive survey of all the messages, telephone conversations, and memorandums on the subject that had passed between the White House and the various agencies responsible for the operation. He reported that the assurances Nixon had received from all quarters, even from Abrams, had rarely corresponded with what was actually happening in the field. Instead, from the perspective of the White House, the South Vietnamese had failed to give their American advisers an adequate picture of what was occurring. Meanwhile, Abrams had been "slow in reporting, in taking the initiative to correct the situation, and in grasping initially the importance of keeping Washington informed of developments.” As a result, administration spokesmen had again and again taken positions contrary to subsequent events in the field." Kissinger took up his misgivings with the president. According to Nixon's chief of staff, H. R. Haldeman, both decided they had been misled by Abrams in the original evaluation of what the operation might accomplish and that they should have followed Westmoreland's advice to cut off the Ho Chi Minh Trail to the south rather than drive toward Tchepone. The town had been "a visible objective" but the attempt to take it had turned out to be "basically a disaster." Nixon and Kissinger concluded, Haldeman noted, "that they should pull Abrams out, but then the President made the point that this is the end of the military operations anyway so what difference does it make." Dissatisfied with Abrams' performance during the operation, Nixon would eventually make the decision to replace him in May 1972 during the Easter Offensive. For the North Vietnamese, the "Route 9 – Southern Laos Victory", was viewed as a complete success. The PAVN claimed to have eliminated 20,000 enemy, destroyed 1,100 vehicles (including 528 tanks and APCs) and more than 100 artillery pieces, shot down 505 helicopters and captured over 1,000 prisoners, 3,000 weapons, six tanks and APCs and large quantities of radios, ammunition and other equipment. The military expansion of the Ho Chi Minh Trail to the west which had begun in 1970 at the expense of Laotian forces, was quickly accelerated. Laotian troops were soon withdrawing toward the Mekong River and a logistical artery in width was soon expanded to . Another result of the operation was a firm decision by the Politburo to launch a major conventional invasion of South Vietnam in early 1972, paving the way for the Easter Offensive. U.S. planners had believed that any North Vietnamese forces that opposed the incursion would be caught in the open and decimated by the application of American aerial might, either in the form of tactical airstrikes or airmobility, which would provide ARVN troops with superior battlefield maneuvering capability. Firepower, as it turned out, was decisive, but "it went in favor of the enemy... Airpower played an important, but not decisive role, in that it prevented a defeat from becoming a disaster that might have been so complete as to encourage the North Vietnamese army to keep moving right into Quang Tri Province." The number of helicopters destroyed or damaged during the operation shocked the proponents of U.S. Army aviation and prompted a reevaluation of basic airmobile doctrine. The 101st Airborne Division alone, for example, had 84 of its aircraft destroyed and another 430 damaged. During the operation American helicopters had flown more than 160,000 sorties and 19 U.S. Army aviators had been killed, 59 were wounded and 11 were missing at its conclusion. South Vietnamese helicopters had flown an additional 5,500 missions. U.S. Air Force tactical aircraft had flown more than 8,000 sorties during the incursion and had dropped 20,000 tons of bombs and napalm. B-52 bombers had flown another 1,358 sorties and dropped 32,000 tons of ordnance. Seven U.S. fixed-wing aircraft were shot down over southern Laos: six from the Air Force (two dead/two missing) and one from the Navy (one aviator killed). In total, the U.S Army lost 108 helicopters destroyed (10 OH-6A, 6 OH-58, 53 UH-1H, 26 AH-1G, 3 CH-47 and 2 CH-53) and another 618 damaged (25 OH-6A, 15 OH-58, 316 UH-1H, 158 AH-1G, 26 CH-47, 13 CH-53 and 2 CH-54). 20 percent of these helicopter damaged were so badly damaged that they were not expected to fly again. This figure excludes ARVN helicopters lost. ==Media coverage==

MACV established a press camp at Quảng Trị and the ARVN also set up a press center nearby. However MACV had no intention of giving Saigon based correspondents the true story of the battle or allowing reporters to cross into Laos. MACV refused to allow correspondents onboard U.S. military helicopters operating over Laos. Following the deaths of correspondents travelling on an RVNAF helicopter on 10 February, the RVNAF transported two groups of correspondents into Laos on 13 and 16 February, while ten travelled overland along Route 9. On 21 March, at a special briefing for Saigon correspondents, Abrams stressed the gains the South Vietnamese had achieved and denied that any sort of catastrophe had occurred. Continuing to concentrate on the large quantities of supplies destroyed, on kill ratios of ten to one, and on the loss by the PAVN of 13 out of 33 maneuver battalions, he conceded in response to hard questioning that the PAVN had routed the 2nd Airborne Battalion at FSB 30, whose own commander had deserted his men. Yet the members of the more successful units, he said, would emerge from Laos with confidence higher than they had ever possessed. Countering these assertions on 23 March NBC News reported the evacuation of an ARVN regiment on Route 9 where soldiers clung to the skids of helicopters rather than waiting for more helicopters that might not come. Moreover, there were claims that "American crews coated the skids with grease so the South Vietnamese would stop hanging on in numbers sufficient to bring down the choppers". That same evening Nixon was interviewed on ABC News, he cautioned that it was too soon to judge whether the incursion was a success or a failure, but still stressed that the raid had made considerable progress toward ensuring the continuation of American withdrawals and reducing the threat to the American forces that remained in Southeast Asia. He went on to emphasize that the impression of panic conveyed by television news films was inaccurate. "What have the pictures shown?" he said. "They've shown only those men in the four ARVN battalions... that were in trouble. They haven't shown people in the other 18 battalions. That is not because it's been deliberate. It's because those make news." The media views on the results of the operation were mixed, some accepted the Nixon Administration's claims that it was too early to tell what the effect had been, others concluded that it was a South Vietnamese defeat that had shown that the North Vietnamese remained determined to keep fighting. ==References==