Operation Lam Son ??????

[splummer]

I thought the war ended Jan6th 1969. I never read a news paper or watched the news again until the POW's came back and was that maybe 1973 or so ? I keep hearing about L. S on this site and even more on the army trans vietnam association site. It was in ICorp where I had been. The trans guys really talk about bad nite convoys. WHAT HAPPENED BACK THEN??? thanks Steve

[Desdichado]

Lam Son was a South Vietnamese operation into Laos to disrupt North Vietnamese supply routes. The US supplied all the aviation assets for the op. Unfortunately AA defences were sophisticated, with interlocking .51 cal, 23mm, 37mm, 57mm...the whole shebang and the barn door too. No reliable ARVN casualty figures are available, but it's estimated some 10,000 were lost.

US losses were 65 helicopter crewmen KIA, 818 crewmen WIA, and 42 crewman MIA. 618 American helicopters were downed and damaged, 20% of which were not expected to fly again - 106 Helicopters lost outright - all from 30 January to 24 March '71.

This audio piece was recorded during one insertion: http://www.manchu.org/sounds/lamson.ram

It was bad.

[MORTARDUDE]

Thanks for the audio link. There are a lot of other audio files there also...excellent site...

>>>>

to any helicopter crewmen from Vietnam who might read this..a BIG THANK YOU for all you did, and WELCOME HOME !!

>>>

http://www.manchu.org/sounds/

The Sounds of Vietnam

The Rock and Roll war.....
To most Americans, the Vietnam War has a rock and roll soundtrack. Almost every novel, memoir or oral history of the war by a veteran mentions the music that the author listened to in Vietnam. All the songs of the '60s were part of the life in a combat zone. Troops listened to Sony radios, Akai stereos and Teac tape decks and new troops arrived weekly with the latest records from the states. Many of the sound clips below were recorded on a reel to reel recorder in Vietnam. They were then sent home and transferred to cassette. The sound quality is not the best but it sounded good to us back then.


More Real Audio on the Manchu Web Site


Vietnam 2000..The Return trip

The Western Frontier

World War I World War II Korean War

[DMZ-LT]

US forces ( me ) fought out to the border of Laos ahead of ARVN , then they went in to Laos along RT 9. within weeks they were pouring back over the border with a couple of NVA Div's on their ass. We fought a rear guard action against them. It was a slug fest. Pho and I were there and within a few hundred meters of each other but didn't know it then. Frank , xgrunt was a little south of us then and Beau was up there too. Small world

[catman]

Thanks guys, welcome home!

Trav

[Desdichado]

Originally posted by DMZ-LT

US forces ( me ) fought out to the border of Laos ahead of ARVN , then they went in to Laos along RT 9. within weeks they were pouring back over the border with a couple of NVA Div's on their ass. We fought a rear guard action against them. It was a slug fest. Pho and I were there and within a few hundred meters of each other but didn't know it then. Frank , xgrunt was a little south of us then and Beau was up there too. Small world

I was long gone to the world by then. Glad as hell I wasn't around for that one. Glad as hell.

[PHO127]

Had been tranfered to the 23rd ID from the 25th when it stood down in Jan 71. When I reported in they put me on a c130 to Khe Sahn to take over a battery that the CO had been dusted off from the day before. I took over a 155 split tail battery and fired over 2,000 rounds per day in support of ground troops. When we pulled out, DMZ-LT was our rear guard. We fought our way to Vandergrift and stayed there for about 10 days then convoyed to Da Nang then to Chu Lai. I lost 2 KIA and 12 WIA from Khe Sahn to Vandergrift and never had a shot fired from Vandergrift to Chu Lai. I am told that we were credited with killing two tanks side by side with one round while in Khe Sahn. LT and I figure that we probably spoke to each other on the radio and were within 500 to 1k of each other then.

[Beau]

for my own information and wondering:

Dewey Canyon II was the American name for it's part in support of the ARVN campaign "Lam Son 719". "Lam Son - was the birthplace of a famous Vietnamese patriot who defeated an invading Chinese army in 1427. The name is associated with victory and was used as part of the name in several ARVN operations. The numerical designation for 719 came by combining the year (1971) and the main highway to be used, Route 9"

Now ... I did not know any of this until decades after the fact, and I understand the fact resulted in the killings of ... what, 13,000 NVA people. During that time, us U.S. Army boaties were directly responsible for hauling tons and tons of artillery and small arms ammo ... and very obviously "it" killed and mutilated, perhaps hundreds, or thousands ... we were far more forward than the taxpayer back home .... kind of like the last man in a relay team, with the taxpayers being The Crowd in the bleachers .... it has not really dawned on me how involved us boaties were in the maulings ... we did not pull the lanyard; were mainly the objects of infrequent Indirect fire at ammo dumps; or the Direct Objects of Watermines .... they carry the Action Verbs .... we did not see the final mauling baton pass ... but we were the last leg .... @ thousands and thousands of rounds of arty alone ... lord knows how much small arms ammo we passed on .... with all that said, I am still not sure what I did ... my motives for volunteering were to escape soul rotting stateside duty but they say I "served my country." Well, I guess that with all they took out of me in Vietnam, and for the very direct involvement involvement with things like Dewey Canyon II and Lam Son 719 .... I gave more than was returned and my life was vulnerable to violent death, and the things we carried were the means to crush life in others that I could not even see ... I gather a whole bunch of killing as a direct result of our service, some of the 13,000 NVA .... see that top crate of Artillery up there ....

(See that one crate on top of the whole boatload of pallets of crates .... one shell of that crate killed 5 and wounded 6, horribly .... see that one box of M16 rounds .... the top box on the whole pallet .... one round of that box tore a man's jaw off ... Now I know more than way back then why the "enemy" targeted the ammo dumps ... the stuff was used alot against them ... for real. Now I know better that the Watermines were meant for us boats and no other vessel on the Cua Viet ... it just so happens that the Tub Boat that got hit ran into one meant for us, perhaps planted by some innocent looking Vietnamese fishing boat.)

I don't know what the other thousands and thousands of Artillery rounds and bullets did. I do feel that it was right to have that kind of Vietnamese Counteroffensive and to support it: I wished they would have told me what cause we were being spent on was ... I did not know it was Lam Son 719, until fairly recently. But, from here on out, "They" do not describe my "enemies" for me. Some acquaintances of mine are in Iraq helping to rebuild it ... probably better than it was ... they should feel good about what they are doing. I do not feel bad about my direct involvement with the operations of my time, but that involved destruction of life and body .... doesn't have the same feel good feeling no matter how you look at it.

http://www.angelfire.com/ga/wkb/ls719.html

Beau

[39mto39g]

Operation Lam son 277 April 22 1969, Quang Tri province I corps

Jan 30 1971 operation Dewey Canyon 2 begun by US forces 1/5 mec inf div. to secure launch site for operation Lam Son 719.

Feb 7, 1971 operation Dewey canyon 2 ends

Feb 8 1971 operation Lam Son 719 begins

April 6 1971 operation Lam Son 719 ends

Ron

[MORTARDUDE]

I am reading this book....


Keith W. Nolan, Into Laos: The Story of Dewey Canyon II/Lam Son 719; Laos 1971. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1986. The ARVN effort to cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail by an invasion of the Laotian panhandle in 1971, and the U.S. operation in the northwest corner of South Vietnam that supported the ARVN effort.


Excellent book and much detail. A truly bizarre operation from start to finish.

Larry