Early Covert Action on the Ho Chi Minh Trail

 | Vietnam  | 0 comments  | Print This Post  | Email This Post

The following morning, the commandos radioed headquarters word of their movements and continued heading west. After moving only 100 meters, however, they came under heavy fire. ‘We saw some footprints,’ said Huan,’so we again presumed they were Royalists. I yelled in the Lao language for them to cease fire.’ As the rifle reports died out, a platoon surrounded the South Vietnamese. The commandos lowered their weapons to offer greetings, but instead they were ordered to disarm and surrender. Huan now realized they were facing a mixed Pathet Lao/North Vietnamese patrol, but it was too late to put up a fight.

As the Communists collected their weapons, six of the South Vietnamese — three commandos and three Nung rangers — bolted into the jungle toward Attopeu. The remainder were marched a kilometer into the jungle and interrogated. Their radio was still operational, and they were ordered to contact Saigon and request a supply drop. The radio operator did as told, but he included his safety code, alerting headquarters they were under duress.

Aware his men were in danger, Major Kinh pondered his next move. Playing for time, he instructed the captured commandos to move back to their original drop zone. He intended to drop some airborne rangers to the west and then flush the Communists toward an infantry blocking force positioned along the border. The infantrymen, however, flatly refused to participate in the scheme.

As an alternative, Kinh contacted his Royal Lao counterparts and asked them to launch an airstrike. After a delay of four days, Kinh radioed his men in the field and told them to expect the promised drop. The Communist captors — with their South Vietnamese prisoners in tow — were met by a flight of Royal Lao Air Force North American T-6 fighter-bombers. As bombs exploded nearby, three more commandos — including the Team 4 radio operator — broke loose and disappeared into the jungle.

Incensed by the delay and the double-cross, the Communists forced the remaining captives to remove their shoes. Marching barefoot and with their hands bound, they were told they were headed north on a week-long trek to a jungle airstrip, where they would then be taken to North Vietnam. After only one day, however, another group of South Vietnamese — including Huan — managed to escape toward Attopeu. In the end, only one commando remained a captive.

Aware of the unfolding situation, the Royalist commander in Attopeu, Colonel Khong Vongnarath, dispatched two companies to meet the fleeing commandos. By the close of November, some 35 had made it to Attopeu. Kinh arranged for a C-47 to transport them back home.

Unfazed that a previous operation had gone sour, Typhoon units returned to the Tchepone sector in early December. Of the six teams selected, two — Nos. 1 and 5 — were on their second mission. Having learned a few things from the first time around, Team 5 commander Nguyen Ngoc Giang had proposed that his normal 14-man configuration be cut to six commandos to enhance mobility. Major Kinh agreed, although the five other teams retained their full complement.

After three teams were already on the ground, the remaining three teams boarded a pair of C-47s in Saigon and headed for the drop zone. For an hour, they circled in an attempt to locate the three teams below. Failing to do so, they scrubbed the mission. The following night they were back in the sky, and this time they managed to establish radio contact with the ground.

Flying in the lead plane, Team 5 leader Giang jumped first, with his radio set packed in a rucksack between his legs. That proved to be a major mistake. When Giang crashed through the jungle canopy, the heavy set drove him hard into the ground. He fractured both his right tibia and the right side of his jaw in the fall. The rest of his team found him an hour after the jump. Placing Giang in a small cave in the cave- and fissure-studded limestone karst, they took away his weapon after he threatened to commit suicide. Then they gave him a morphine injection. Miraculously, the radio was still intact and they were able to contact headquarters and request a heliborne evacuation.

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to

Tags: 20th - 21st Century, Historical Conflicts, Vietnam War