CHAPTER 11
Marines In Operation Lam Son 719
The Preemptive
Strike: Lam Son 719-Marine Fixed Wing Air Support and the ASRT Marine
Helicopters Over Laos - Marine Trucks on Route 9-Diversion Off Vinh- Results of
Lam Son 719
The Preemptive
Strike: Lam Son 719
During late 1970, the evidence that the
North Vietnamese were preparing for a major offensive in northern
Military Region 1 became increasingly persuasive. U.S. aerial reconnaissance
recorded a growing movement of men and vehicles down the Ho Chi Minh Trail
network into the Laotian base areas north and west of the Demilitarized Zone.
Pilots flying bombing missions over the trail encountered reinforced
antiaircraft defenses. Reports from agents and prisoner interrogations
contained frequent mention of a large-scale attack sometime between the
beginning of the new year and the middle of the summer.1
These signs of a coming Communist
offensive spurred MACV to revive plans made earlier in the war for an attack
into Laos from northwest Quang Tri Province. Beginning in 1966, General William
C-Westmoreland, then ComUSMACV, had had his staff develop a series of plans for
an American and ARVN offensive, possibly in cooperation with Laotian or Thai
forces, to block the Ho Chi Minh Trail where it skirted the western end of
the DMZ. In spite of repeated requests Westmoreland never received permission to
carry out these plans.2
Late in 1970, General Abrams,
Westmoreland's former deputy and successor, proposed a raid into Laos, both
to forestall the threatened North Vietnamese offensive and to disrupt the
enemy's supply system while more U.S. troops redeployed. Precedent for
cross-border operations had been set with the incursion into Cambodia and, early
in January 1971, Washington agreed to a limited preemptive strike. On 7 January,
under direction from MACV, small planning groups from I Corps and XXIV Corps,
working in tight secrecy, began developing a detailed concept of
operations. General Abrams approved this plan on 16 January.3 Following General
Abram's approval, planning for the operation proceeded with continued secrecy.
Colonel Verle E. Ludwig, whose boss at the time was Army Colonel Bob Leonard,
the MACV Information Officer, recalled that Leonard sold Abrams on the idea that
the 'story should be embargoed for the press.' To serve as another layer of
deception as the planning continued, 'the MACV staff (and others) devised code
names for places in Laos, to make it appear that the operation was only going
into the Khe Sanh and A Shau Valley areas.' Ludwig himself was 'never cut in on
the fact that the operation actually was going over into Laos' despite his
having to give 'a daily briefing to the press at the press billet in downtown
Saigon....'4
The plan called for a four-phase
operation, code-named Lam Son 719- I Corps was to direct most of the ground
campaign while XXIV Corps commanded all the U.S. forces involved and
controlled the fixed-wing and helicopter air support on which the whole
offensive would depend. In Phase One, to begin on 30 January and be completed by
7 February, elements of the American 1st Brigade, 5th Infantry Division
(Mechanized) and the 101st Airborne Division were to reopen and secure Route 9,
the main east-west road through Quang Tri, from its Junction with Route 1 at
Dong Ha, west to the Laotian border. The XXIV Corps units would occupy the site
of the former Marine base at Khe Sanh, unoccupied since 1968, as the
forward supply base for the offensive.
In Phase Two, from 7 February to 6
March, elements of the 1st ARVN Division and 1st Armored Brigade, reinforced
from the national strategic reserve by the 1st Airborne Division and the newly
formed Vietnamese Marine Division, would move through the American units
into Laos. The ARVN units were to drive westward to Telephone, a major Ho Chi
Minh Trail junction 30 miles inside Laos, destroying enemy troops and supply
dumps as they advanced. The armored brigade would proceed along Route 9,
while the airborne division and the 1st Division, by heliborne assaults, were to
establish a series of fire bases on high ground to protect the road. In this and
the later phases of the operation, the Americans would furnish air, artillery,
and logistic support. In accord with general restrictions imposed by the U.S.
Congress, however, no American advisors or other personnel were to accompany
Vietnamese ground units into Laos, although Americans could fly support and
rescue missions across the border. Additionally, American Marine
advisors with the Vietnamese Marine Corps, who
