The fall of Phou Pha Thi (CIA Lima Site 85)
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The Fall of Lima Site 85
Air Force Magazine Online ^ | 31 March 2006 | John T. Correll
Posted on 03/31/2006 10:15:39 AM PST by Hillarys Gate Cult
April 2006, Vol. 89, No. 4
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The radar site was deep in enemy territory. The assumption was that it
was impossible for attackers to climb the sheer face of the mountain.
The Fall of Lima Site 85 By John T. Correll Lima Site 85 and the secret
Air Force radar facility sat atop one of the highest mountains in Laos,
15 miles away from the border with North Vietnam. The site was defended
by a force of 1,000 Hmong irregulars in the valley below, but a key
element in its security was the mountain itself.
The drop on three sides was nearly vertical, and US officials did not
believe the enemy could climb the cliffs. The fourth side of the
mountain was fortified.
The assumptions were wrong. On the night of March 10-11, 1968, under
cover of a massive artillery and infantry assault on the mountain, a
team of North Vietnamese sappers scaled the cliffs, overran the radar
site, and killed more than half of the Americans they found there.
For years thereafter, the fate of Lima Site 85 was classified as top
secret. When reports finally began to emerge, they were riddled with
gaps and inaccuracies. Even now, almost 40 years after the attack,
questions and doubts persist about what happened that night on the
mountaintop.
The story of Lima Site 85 began with the weather.
With the onset of the northeast monsoon in October, the weather over
North Vietnam turned unfavorable for air operations and it did not
improve again until April. This was a big problem for Rolling Thunder,
the air campaign against North Vietnam from 1965 to 1968.
At the time, the US had two all-weather strike aircraft: the Navy's
A-6 and the Air Force's B-52. Only a limited number of A-6s were
available, and for reasons of political reluctance in Washington, the
B-52s were held to bombing near the Demilitarized Zone. That left it up
to F-105s and other tactical aircraft to carry the war to the north,
and during the monsoon, they could strike targets around Hanoi for only
four or five days a month.
A solution of sorts appeared in 1966 with an adaptation of Strategic
Air Command's radar bomb scoring system. This modification, called
the MSQ-77, guided aircraft to a precise point in the sky where
ordnance was released. It wasn't pinpoint accuracy, but it was good
enough for targets such as airfields and industrial areas.
By 1967, the Air Force had five MSQ-77 radars working in South Vietnam
and one in Thailand. However, none of these sites covered the North
Vietnamese heartland around Hanoi. That required putting the radar
where it would have an unobstructed line of sight to the airspace over
Hanoi. Also, the target area had to be within 175 miles of the radar,
which was the effective range of the system.
Such a place existed at Phou Pha Thi, a mountain in Laos 160 miles west
of Hanoi. The Air Force already had a TACAN navigational beacon in
operation on the rim of the mountain at an elevation of 5,580 feet.
That was high enough to give the radar a straight shot to Hanoi.
There was also a rough landing strip, Lima Site 85, on the flank of the
mountain. It was one of several hundred such Lima sites built all over
Laos by the CIA's proprietary airline, Air America, to supply Hmong
hill tribesmen fighting the Communist Pathet Lao. By strict definition,
the Lima site was the airstrip, but the area around the TACAN was
generally referred to as Lima Site 85 as well.
A portable version of the MSQ-77 radar, the TSQ-81, could be broken
down into sections and transported to Phou Pha Thi by helicopter.
In Hostile Territory There were several problems with Lima Site 85 as a
location for a radar bombing system.
According to a 1962 Geneva agreement, which the United States had
signed, Laos was a neutral country. No foreign troops were supposed to
be there. The US promptly withdrew its forces in 1962, but only about
40 of the 7,000 North Vietnamese troops in Laos ever went home. Rather
than confront the North Vietnamese in Laos openly, the United States
chose instead to give covert assistance to the Royal Laotian
government. (See "The Plain of Jars," June 1999, p. 78.)
As the conflict gathered momentum, the CIA and Air America supplied and
trained the Hmong hill tribesmen, who were the best fighters in the
Laotian Army. The war in Vietnam spilled over into Laos as well. By
1965, US aircraft were flying regular combat missions against targets
in Laos. In the north, Operation Barrel Roll supported the government
troops fighting the Pathet Lao, and in the south, Operation Steel Tiger
interdicted the Ho Chi Minh Trail in the Laotian panhandle.
It was a secret war in the sense that the American public was not told
about it, although Congress and the news media knew generally what was
going on.
Lima Site 85 was situated in the part of Laos where the enemy was
strongest. The mountain was 15 miles from the North Vietnamese border
and less than 30 miles from the Pathet Lao capital of Sam Neua.
William H. Sullivan, the US ambassador to Laos, was wary of installing
a bombing radar in Laos, and he was adamantly opposed to bringing in US
combat troops to defend the site. If there were to be a TSQ-81 system
at Phou Pha Thi, the defenders would have to be Hmong, trained and
organized by the CIA (which was known in Laos as CAS, or Controlled
American Source). For further defense, US air strikes could be used
against any forces that threatened the site.
If worse came to worst, air rescue could bring the people out. The
assumption was that there would be plenty of time for helicopters to
land at the helipad, 300 yards down the ridge from the radar site, and
extricate the technicians.
Sheep Dipped At the urging of the Air Force and the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, the United States took steps in 1967 to establish a TSQ-81
facility at Phou Pha Thi. Sullivan obtained concurrence-with
conditions-from Souvanna Phouma, the Prime Minister of Laos.
"If the unit were to be installed, Souvanna suggested that it must be
done without his knowledge," Sullivan notified Washington in June.
"Technicians servicing the site would have to be civilians or
military personnel with civilian documentation."
In July, Souvanna agreed to the proposal. Sullivan reported, "I
assured him that: a) All USAF markings would be removed from equipment,
b) Detonators would be affixed to permit immediate destruction in case
of imminent danger, [and] c) Personnel would be under civilian
cover."
The Air Force rejected the idea of sending airmen into Laos with
fraudulent ID. If they were captured in "shallow cover," pretending
to be civilians, they would have no protection under the Geneva
Convention as prisoners of war.
Instead, volunteers would go through a process known in the shadowy
world of special operations as "sheep dipping." They would leave
the Air Force, be hired by a legitimate civilian company, and go into
Laos as employees. When their mission was over, they would be welcomed
back into the Air Force. If they were captured or killed, their
families would be covered by company or Air Force benefits.
Lt. Col. Gerald H. Clayton, who had extensive experience with MSQ-77
radars, would head the team. He and Lt. Col. Clarence F. "Bill"
Blanton handpicked the airmen who would be asked to volunteer. They had
known most of them for years.
The proposition was put to the selected candidates at Barksdale AFB,
La., in September 1967. Forty-eight of them-four officers and 44
enlisted members-volunteered for the program, which was named Heavy
Green. They were separated from the Air Force and employed by Lockheed
Aircraft Service Corp., a subsidiary of Lockheed Aircraft Corp. While
they were in the program, they would be paid by Lockheed, which also
gave each of them a substantial life insurance policy.
Their wives were brought to Washington, briefed, and required to sign
security agreements to keep the program secret. SSgt. Herbert A.
Kirk's wife, a German national, could not be granted security
clearance and she did not attend.
Additional space was cleared atop Phou Pha Thi to make room for the
radar installation, and an Army CH-47 Chinook cargo helicopter brought
in the larger pieces of Heavy Green equipment. The expanded
TSQ-81/TACAN area reached about 150 feet inward from the southwest rim.
Beyond that point, the mountain rose in a tangle of rocky outcroppings
and scrub brush to a peak 1.6 miles to the north.
The radar was rigged with explosives so it could be destroyed before
the enemy could capture it. Heavy Green took over the TACAN as an
additional duty. The radar bombing system went operational on Nov. 1,
1967.
Targeting the North The Heavy Green team deployed to Udorn Royal Thai
Air Base in northern Thailand and set up shop in two quonset huts in
the Air America compound. The sheep-dipped airmen lived in rented
housing off base. Around Udorn, they wore uniforms and carried military
ID. Ironically, this was a cover role, since they were, in fact,
civilians, having separated from the force.
When they flew to Lima Site 85 for two-week rotational tours of duty,
they wore civilian clothes and carried their Lockheed ID.
Clayton was commander of Det. 1 of the 1043rd Radar Evaluation
Squadron, which had headquarters at Bolling Air Force Base in
Washington, D.C. He also was manager of the Lockheed field service
group at Udorn.
The clandestine nature of the site led to fuzzy lines of control and
responsibility. The Air Force was the main user of Lima Site 85
services, and the daily tasking for support of bombing missions came
from 7th Air Force in Saigon. However, Sullivan was the ultimate
authority over US activity in Laos and everybody knew it.
The Geneva agreement prohibited a US military headquarters in Laos.
Therefore, under a "Country Team" policy, military affairs were
directed by the ambassador. Sullivan was vigorous in the exercise of
his authority, and the war in Laos was marked by a power struggle and
antagonism between Sullivan and the military. Various arms of the US
government had an interest in Project Heavy Green, but none of them was
exclusively in charge.
The Pathet Lao were active in the vicinity of Phou Pha Thi and they
regularly clashed with the Hmong, who were trying to keep communist
forces from using the mountain valleys as a route into central Laos.
Concern about the vulnerability of Lima Site 85 was offset by its
operational value to the Air Force.
The site was guarded by a force of about 1,000 indigenous troops,
mostly Hmong but including some Thais. Of these, 200 were in the
immediate vicinity of the radar site with the other 800 on the lower
parts of the mountain. Two CIA paramilitary officers were stationed at
the CAS area, just south of the helipad. The approaches to the radar
site were strewn with mines and concertina wire.
Nobody expected the enemy to get that far. From the bottom of the
mountain, rocky slopes extended about halfway up at angles of 45 to 60
degrees. The rest of the way to the top was much steeper, rising in
places at 85 to 90 degrees.
In response to an inquiry from 7th Air Force, the office of the air
attache in Vientiane reported that the approaches to the top of Phou
Pha Thi were "virtually a vertical climb and those avenues which can
be traversed are heavily mined." Phou Pha Thi could be taken if the
enemy concentrated a large force-about four battalions-charged in
full strength, and was willing to accept heavy losses, the attache
office said.
The northeast monsoon of 1967-68 was especially severe. For the 18
weeks the Lima Site 85 radar was in operation-that is, from Nov. 1,
1967, to March 10, 1968-the Air Force relied on it for 23 percent of
the air strikes in the northern part of North Vietnam. Operations
conducted under the direction of Site 85 were called Commando Club.
Bombed by Biplanes The first attempt to destroy the radar site came
from the air. About 1 p.m. on Jan. 12, two Russian-built An-2 Colt
biplanes made three bombing passes against the summit of the mountain.
The biplanes had a World War I look to them, but they were really not
that old. The An-2 first flew as a crop duster in 1947. Cruising speed
was below 150 mph, which probably was an advantage in this case because
the biplanes were dropping improvised munitions through tubes in the
floor.
The "bombs" were converted 120 mm mortar rounds that would arm in
the slipstream and detonate on impact. The brunt of the attack fell on
the CAS area, where shiny rooftops apparently drew the attention of the
An-2 pilots. They did not target the TSQ-81 facilities until the final
pass, and the bombs they dropped there all missed. The attack killed
two Laotian civilians and two guerrillas, but it did no damage to the
radar site.
An Air America Bell 212 helicopter, the civilian version of the Huey,
was on the helipad at the time of the attack. The crew leaped aboard
and gave chase. The helicopter was faster than the biplanes. As it flew
past the An-2s, the flight mechanic blasted them with a submachine gun,
firing out the door and hitting both of them. One An-2 crashed and
burned, and the other crashed 16 miles to the northwest while trying to
clear a ridge. The rudder from one of the biplanes was recovered and
taken to the Air America base at Long Tieng for a souvenir.
The security challenges increased. On the evening of Jan. 30, the enemy
pounded the southern end of the mountain with a 30-minute mortar
attack. It did not amount to much and was written off as a probing
attack.
By the middle of February, the enemy was on all sides of the mountain,
about seven miles away. On Feb. 18, the Hmong wiped out a small party
of North Vietnamese five miles southeast of the site. Among those
killed was an officer who carried a notebook with plans for a coming
attack on Phou Pha Thi. It said three North Vietnamese battalions and
one Pathet Lao battalion would take part. The notebook contained the
word "TACAN" in English and it had the exact location.
Lima Site 85 continued to direct bombing in North Vietnam, but, by
February, more than half of the Commando Club strikes were flown
against the enemy forces surrounding the mountain itself.
In late February, the CIA said that the security of Phou Pha Thi could
not be predicted beyond March 10, and Sullivan sent a message to the
Air Force warning that the site probably could not be held much longer.
The Air Force did not want to pull out. "Due to the desirability of
maintaining air presence over [the North Vietnamese] during present
inclement weather period, Site 85 probably would not be evacuated until
capture appeared imminent," 7th Air Force said in a March 5 message
to Pacific Air Forces officials. "The fact that complete security
could not be assured in the original plan is noted."
Up to then, the Heavy Green personnel at the mountain had not been
armed. In March, the embassy approved the issue of M-16 rifles,
although the technicians had not achieved proficiency with them before
the big attack came.
On March 11-the TSQ-81's last day of operation-19 Americans were
at Phou Pha Thi. Sixteen of them were Heavy Green personnel. The radar
technicians were divided into two shifts, one led by Blanton (a
sheep-dipped lieutenant colonel and Clayton's deputy) and the other
by Stanley J. Sliz (a sheep-dipped captain). Also at the site were a
combat controller who had been sent from Vientiane to direct local air
strikes and the two CIA paramilitary officers in their own building
near the helipad. The Sappers Attack
The force that hit Phou Pha Thi on March 10 consisted of between five
and seven battalions, amounting to some 3,000 troops. Mortar,
artillery, and rocket rounds began falling about 6 p.m. The enemy was
firing on the mountain from the north and east.
The barrage stopped at 7:45 p.m., having inflicted some damage on the
living quarters, the TACAN antenna, and a defensive gun position.
Fighting continued at the lower elevations. Blanton's team took the
duty in the TSQ-81 van, while Sliz's team was sent to rest in
preparation for duty later. With their quarters vulnerable to shelling,
Sliz and his group decided to spend the night on one side of the
mountain, where they would be sheltered from the artillery that was
firing from the opposite direction.
They took their sleeping bags, weapons, and survival radios with them,
descending about 20 feet over the side by means of a makeshift ladder
fashioned from a C-130 cargo net. That took them to a small cliff,
partially protected by a rocky overhang. The airmen often went there
when off duty because it was a change from the tight confines of the
radar site. There was nothing below except a straight drop to the
valley below.
Through the night, A-26 bombers and F-4 fighters struck the attackers
repeatedly, guided by Blanton's radar team. Sullivan considered
evacuating the site, but the Air Force held to its position of
evacuating only as a last resort if the situation became untenable. At
about 9:30 p.m., Sullivan decided that nine of the Americans would be
brought out at first light the next morning. That, as Sullivan said
later, would be "one day too long."
Before midnight, 33 North Vietnamese sappers climbed the western side
of the mountain, a feat that US officials assumed was impossible. The
sappers had trained for months, practicing on karst peaks and the faces
of rock cliffs. They emerged on the top of the mountain at a point
between the radar buildings and a Thai guard post.
The sappers waited in hiding until 3 a.m., then began moving toward the
Heavy Green facilities. They bumped unexpectedly into an enemy guard,
who threw a grenade. The sappers immediately opened fire on the radar
buildings with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and submachine guns.
"The Americans were taken by surprise," the North Vietnamese report
said later.
Eventually, the North Vietnamese discovered Sliz's team on a rock
overhang about 20 feet down from the top. The sappers shot down the
side of the mountain with automatic weapons and lobbed grenades over
the slope.
Several of the Americans on the ledge were killed outright. Sliz and
John Daniel were wounded. However, CMSgt. Richard L. Etchberger was
unhurt and, because of him, his wounded companions would live to be
rescued. Etchberger kept the sappers at bay with his M-16 rifle.
At least eight Americans were still alive on the mountain. Etchberger,
Sliz, and Daniel were on the ledge. The TACAN technician, Jack
Starling, was by the TACAN, wounded and playing dead. Bill Husband was
on top of the mountain, just north of Starling. The combat controller,
Sgt. Roger Huffman, was near the helipad. The two CIA officers, Howard
Freeman and John Spence, were at the CAS area south of the helipad.
Rescue At 5:15 a.m., Sullivan decided the evacuation of all personnel
would begin in two hours, at 7:15 a.m. Incoming fire stopped just
before 7 o'clock. Air America and Air Force rescue helicopters were
standing by, ready to go in, but they were drawing fire from the
summit.
Hard fighting continued on the lower parts of the mountain. The senior
CIA officer, Freeman, and 10 Hmong soldiers went to TSQ/TACAN area to
determine the situation. Freeman got no response when he called out,
but his party exchanged fire with the North Vietnamese attackers.
Freeman was shot in the leg and several of the Hmong were killed. A
flight of A-1E Skyraiders made a strafing pass over the site to brush
back the enemy before the helicopters approached.
First in, at 7:35 a.m., was an Air America Huey from Long Tieng.
Spotting the men on the ledge, the pilot pulled close to the cliff and
the flight engineer brought the survivors up by cable. Husband ran to
join them.
Etchberger helped Daniel and Sliz, who were wounded, board, then he and
Husband went up the cable. Etchberger was no sooner inside the
helicopter than ground fire came up through the floor, mortally
wounding him. He died minutes later. (Etchberger was awarded the Air
Force Cross, posthumously. It was presented to his wife, Katherine J.
Etchberger, by Gen. John P. McConnell, the Air Force Chief of Staff, in
a closed ceremony in the Pentagon Jan. 15, 1969. Present, in addition
to the family, were Clayton and almost every senior officer on the Air
Staff.)
At 8:20 a.m., an Air America helicopter took out Thai and Hmong
wounded. Freeman went with them. A USAF Jolly Green Giant brought out
more Hmong wounded at 8:46 a.m. At 8:54 a.m., Air America picked up
Spence and Huffman. Husband told the rescuers that one more person,
Starling, was probably still alive at the site. A Jolly Green Giant
went to get him and picked him up at 9:46 a.m.
Of the 19 Americans on the mountain, eight had been brought out. Of the
remaining 11, the first count was eight dead and three presumed dead,
but that was updated by the Vientiane embassy within 24 hours:
"Latest interrogation and discussion with survivors has led to a firm
conclusion that three previously carried as missing were indeed seen
dead by one or more survivors. Therefore, we are no longer carrying any
personnel missing, but consider all of those who were not, repeat not,
extracted, to be dead."
In their report, which surfaced years later, the North Vietnamese
claimed to have killed 42 men at the site and wounded many others,
"primarily Lao and Thai soldiers."
Fall of Site 85 The Hmong defenders around the site held the trail to
the summit as late as 7:30 a.m., but they were badly outnumbered and
the North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao force was too powerful. Phou Pha
Thi soon fell to the enemy. In the furor of the attack, nobody
detonated the thermite with which the radar had been rigged.
"Presuming those who were not evacuated on the morning of 11 March
were dead, a fairly concentrated air effort was launched on that same
day to destroy the technical and personal equipment left behind on Site
85," the embassy in Vientiane reported.
Sullivan met with Souvanna Phouma and told him that Site 85 had not
been destroyed but that Air Force napalm strikes were being delivered.
"He urged me to destroy as much evidence as we can rapidly,"
Sullivan said.
A message from the embassy on March 16 said that the next of kin had
been notified of the "missing status" of the 11 airmen who were not
evacuated. The message said the Air Force wanted to delay for a
"reasonable period" or until confirmation of death before
officially going from "Missing in Action" to "Killed in
Action." That change was made March 25, thereby authorizing insurance
payments to the families.
The Heavy Green survivors were restored to membership in the Air Force.
The families of the 11 missing men received payments from the Lockheed
insurance policy, and, in 1969, all of them except Herbert Kirk were
reinstated in the Air Force. Kirk's wife did not have security
clearance to be told about the classified project. Apparently, Kirk
agreed that, in the event of his death, the government would stay with
his cover story and not reinstate him in the Air Force. His family
would rely on the Lockheed survivor benefits instead. This arrangement
would be later overturned in court.
The North Vietnamese and the Pathet Lao moved to consolidate their
victory. By September, they had more than 20 battalions in the Sam Neua
area. Hmong Gen. Vang Pao launched a major operation to retake the
mountain in December. His forces did recapture the landing strip, the
helipad, and the CIA area, but they were unable to take the
mountaintop. They fell back, and Phou Pha Thi was never recaptured.
There was no attempt to install another TSQ-81 in Laos. On March 31,
President Johnson announced a partial halt of bombing of North Vietnam
and made the bombing halt complete on Nov. 1. There was no longer a
need for a radar to guide strikes in the north.
The Americans at Phou Pha Thi on March 11, 1968
· Rescued: Capt. Stanley J. Sliz, SSgt. John Daniel, SSgt. Bill
Husband, SSgt. Jack Starling, Sgt. Roger Huffman, Howard Freeman (CIA),
John Spence (CIA).
· Killed during rescue: CMSgt. Richard L. Etchberger.
· Killed in action/body not recovered: Lt. Col. Clarence F. Blanton,
MSgt. James H. Calfee, TSgt. Melvin A. Holland, SSgt. Herbert A. Kirk,
SSgt. Henry G. Gish, SSgt. Willis R. Hall, SSgt. James W. Davis, SSgt.
David S. Price, TSgt. Donald K. Springsteadah, SSgt. Don F. Worley.
· Killed in action/body recovered: TSgt. Patrick L. Shannon.
Questions in the Aftermath The "Secret War" in Laos was publicly
disclosed in 1970, but the announcement revealed nothing about Lima
Site 85 and what had happened there. Up to then, the families had not
been told much of the story. In 1970, an Air Force team, which included
Clayton, visited the families and gave them more of the details.
One of the widows, Ann Holland, did not believe she was getting the
full answers or the straight answers about the fate of her husband,
TSgt. Melvin A. Holland. In 1975, she sued the Air Force and Lockheed
for negligence. She said the government had not candidly informed her
of the facts of his death. The suit lingered in the courts until 1979,
when it was dismissed.
According to Timothy N. Castle, author of a deeply researched 1999
book, One Day Too Long: Top Secret Site 85 and the Bombing of North
Vietnam, Ann Holland's lawsuit alerted the Kirk family as to what had
happened at Lima Site 85. Mrs. Kirk had never been informed of the
operation because she had no security clearance. The Kirk family filed
a lawsuit of its own. Not until then was Kirk's membership in the Air
Force posthumously restored and full military survivor benefits given
to his family.
The 11 men not recovered from Phou Pha Thi, including Kirk, were
awarded the Bronze Star posthumously in 1984.
The story came out in bits and pieces. Among the earliest public
revelations was an official Air Force history of the war, published in
1977. It described the fall of Lima Site 85, but described it as a
navigation facility, leaving out any reference to the TSQ-81 bombing
mission. In 1978, Airpower in Three Wars, written by Gen. William W.
Momyer, former commander of 7th Air Force, described the mission and
operation of the site in some detail but did not mention its capture.
A 56-page official Air Force history of the loss of the site, written
for internal use and classified Top Secret when it was completed in
August 1968, was declassified in its entirety in 1988. It adds
substantial detail but is marred by a number of factual errors. The
history is now available on the Internet.
The North Vietnamese report-titled "Raid on the TACAN Site Atop
Pha-Thi Mountain by a Military Region Sapper Team on 11 March
1968"-was published in 1996 and obtained and translated by the
Department of Defense in 1998.
Castle interviewed dozens of survivors and former officials for his
1999 book. It filled in numerous details and identified mistakes in
earlier works.
In recent years, there have been recurring reports that some of the
technicians at Lima Site 85 were captured, not killed. A former
high-ranking Pathet Lao officer told Castle that prisoners were taken.
He, however, had not been present at Phou Pha Thi, and his statement
was contradicted by the statements of others, including former enemy
soldiers who were there. They said there had been no prisoners. The
detailed North Vietnamese account of the attack, published in 1996, did
not report any prisoners either.
The Department of Defense credited the statement of the American
survivors and other evidence, including study of aerial photos of the
site taken on March 11, and held to its assessment and carried the 11
airmen on its rolls as "Killed in Action/Body Not Recovered."
Return to the Mountain Since 1994, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting
Command, headquartered at Hickam AFB, Hawaii, has interviewed witnesses
and made trips to Laos and Vietnam, gathering information about the
fate of Americans at Phou Pha Thi. Among those interviewed have been
villagers who lived near the site and former enemy soldiers who took
part in the attack.
Excavations at Phou Pha Thi in December 1994 and January 1995 produced
no information about American casualties. In March 2003, however,
acting on information from new witnesses, representatives of the
command searched the summit, the eastern and western slopes, the
western cliffs, and the slopes below.
Two former North Vietnamese commandos who took part in the attack
showed the investigators three places where they had thrown bodies over
the cliff. The investigators threw mannequins over the edge at those
points while a photographer in a helicopter videotaped their fall. That
pointed the investigators to a ledge, 540 feet below.
Mountaineer-qualified specialists scaled down cliffs to the ledge,
where they discovered human remains, leather boots in four different
sizes, five survival vests, and other fragments of material that
indicated the presence of at least four Americans. The team worked in
hazardous conditions, including strong winds and falling rocks, which
constrained the search.
In December 2005, the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office
announced the identification of the remains of TSgt. Patrick L.
Shannon, one of the 11 airmen at Phou Pha Thi. Further excavation of
the ledges is planned, assuming the willingness of the Laotian
government to approve access to the site.
Today, commentaries on the fall of Lima Site 85 appear with some
regularity in newspapers and military journals, but interpretations
differ and the controversy continues.
The losses at Phou Pha Thi seem all the more tragic because, 20 days
after the attack, the White House put an end to Rolling Thunder
operations above the 20th parallel, of which the Lima Site 85 radar was
a part, and the bombing of Hanoi came to a halt. The courage and
sacrifice of those who died on the mountaintop stood in counterpoint to
the strategic indecision and changing political winds in Washington.
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John T. Correll was editor in chief of Air Force Magazine for 18 years
and is now a contributing editor. His most recent article,
"Determination of a Sandy," appeared in the March issue.
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Copyright Air Force Association. All rights reserved.
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TOPICS: Extended News; Government; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: HISTORYLIST; LAOS; NOTEWORTHY; RADAR; VIETNAM; WAR; WARLIST
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A good long read. Includes one of the few offensive air opperations
done by the North Vietnamese in the entire war.
1 posted on 03/31/2006 10:15:42 AM PST by Hillarys Gate Cult
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To: Hillarys Gate Cult
Sounds like Aqaba
2 posted on 03/31/2006 10:31:46 AM PST by james500
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To: Hillarys Gate Cult
I'm a writer and have been fascinated by this story since the early 90s
when some of the CIA reports were released and I ran across them while
surfing. This guy's article is basically a rehash of those CIA
documents.
Been trying to find some of the American/Hmong participants over the
years for interviews but the Americans won't talk and I can't locate
any Hmong who made it to this country.
May turn it into a novel sometime.
3 posted on 03/31/2006 10:44:13 AM PST by wildbill
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To: Hillarys Gate Cult
Interesting. I worked at the Cam Rahn Bay comm center during all of
1968 and never heard of this. All the encrypted traffic for the command
passed through us.
4 posted on 03/31/2006 10:51:40 AM PST by js1138 (~()):~)>)
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30Xyoo
Retired General Aderholt & Secord, ob tug ua saib dej num nyob Phu Pha
Ti mas chim rau Ambassador Sullivan xuv. Nkawv tias yog nws tseem nyob
no nkawv xav muab nws court marshall no.
Hmong's fate were not on US Government's hands, but Ambassador
Sullivan's. Imagine that....
Just thought you know.
ntsuabxwm
talk about war, when i read this article it was impress me that how
much the hmong get involve in the war. Any one still alive who is
involving the Pha Thi fall that knigh. I would love to heard from.
DownUnder
DU.