The southern Laos offensive, directed by a command staff headed jointly by the commanders of the PAVN 325th Division and Group 559, kicked off on April 11, 1961. The 101st Regiment of the 325th Division attacked and seized the town of Tchepone, Laos, on Route 9, west of South Vietnam's Quang Tri province. Meanwhile, the PAVN 927th Provincial Force Battalion from Ha Tinh province took Muong Phin, in Laos and southeast of Tchepone, and the PAVN 19th Border Defense Battalion, accompanied by Pathet Lao forces, conducted secondary attacks in the surrounding area. As soon as Tchepone and Muong Phin were secured, PAVN and Pathet Lao forces struck out both to the west and the east to secure as much of the Laotian panhandle as possible.

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By the time the Pathet Lao leadership announced their acceptance of a cease-fire throughout Laos on May 3, 1961, Laotian government forces in southern Laos had been crushed and PAVN troops were in control of 100 kilometers of Route 9 from A Luoi (which the North Vietnamese called Ban Dong), near the South Vietnamese border, to Muong Pha Lan, two-thirds of the way across the Laotian panhandle. While the foreign press occasionally mentioned the fighting in southern Laos during this period, the offensive was overshadowed in the press and in the eyes of U.S. policy-makers by the ongoing Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese attacks against more sensitive targets in northern and central Laos.

As soon as Tchepone and Muong Phin were taken, and even before the May 3 cease-fire went into effect, Group 559 shifted the Ho Chi Minh Trail's supply and infiltration routes from the eastern, South Vietnamese side of the Annamite Mountain chain to the western side of the mountains in Laos. Group 559's 301st Ground Transport Battalion, the group's sole ground transportation unit at the time, was immediately expanded to regimental size. Redesignated the 70th Regiment, the unit set to work building a new transportation route for porters and bicycle transports from Vit Thu Lu in North Vietnam, just north of the DMZ, west into Laos and then south through the PAVN's newly conquered territory in the Laotian panhandle.

The PAVN general staff immediately dispatched its 98th Engineer Regiment to the area south of Route 9, where the regiment began to rebuild a road segment from A Luoi, east of Tchepone, south of Muong Noong. After that road was completed, the engineers of the regiment built supply and infiltration trails onward from Muong Noong southeast into South Vietnam's Thua Thien and Quang Nam provinces. In the meantime, two PAVN engineer battalions, assisted by the 927th Provincial Battalion, began construction of a road usable by motor vehicles from Route 12 and the Mu Gia Pass on the North Vietnam­Laos border south to Route 9. This new road, designated Route 129, was completed in December 1961. As soon as the road was finished, trucks of the PAVN 3rd Motor Transport Group began regular service, bringing supplies and equipment from North Vietnam to warehouses at Muong Phin and Tchepone. For the first time, the North Vietnamese could rapidly move large quantities of supplies and heavy equipment over a significant portion of the route to the southern battlefields.

Ground transportation was not the only arrow in the North Vietnamese quiver. As soon as Muong Phin and Tchepone were taken, the PAVN history reveals that the PAVN 919th Air Force Regiment–equipped with Soviet-made Ilyushin Il-14, Lisunov Li-2 and Antonov An-2 transport aircraft and assisted by Soviet air force pilots, who handled the flight controls–began a supply airlift to stock the new PAVN logistics depots on Route 9. This assistance was the PAVN history's only reference to Soviet personnel directly involved in military operations during the Vietnam War. Weapons and military equipment, including recoilless rifles, heavy mortars, 75mm pack howitzers, ammunition, radios and the broadcasting equipment for the new National Liberation Front radio, were dropped by parachute at Muong Phin. Once the airport at Tchepone had been repaired by the 325th Division's engineer unit, drops were also made at Tchepone's Ta Khong airfield. In addition, after several abortive attempts at seaborne supply shipments in 1959 and 1960, in early 1961 North Vietnam reorganized its sea infiltration effort. The Communist Party committees of the coastal provinces of South Vietnam were ordered to send their own personnel and vessels to the North to receive supplies and to assist the PAVN's new Sea Infiltration Group 759 in planning and implementing the seaborne supply effort.

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