Dark Shadows in the Black Laotian Night
I need to make a point here before I go on to the writings that follow. These were events, actions and operations undertaken by the PARU's under my control as an Air Ground Controller or Forward Air Guide, whichever one prefers to use. I will not use actual names or places because a lot of what you are about to read is still classified. The DOD has slowly released information on Laos over the years, but a lot of it involving the CIA, Air America, MACV and several foreign countries are still being held as classified material to be released in 2035. I won't be around then, so I thought I would go ahead and tell the stories so that some of what I did in Laos will be told before I die. I will use the names of people that are known and their activities declassified. Such people as Bill Lair, Tony Poe, and James Bradley are examples. I hope what you read here will enlighten you as to some of the things that went on in the secret war in Laos. For your information MACV stands for Military Assistance Comand Vietnam. It replaced the old MAAG, Military Assistance Advisory Group in 1962, just before I got to Laos. MACVSOG stands for Military Assistance Command Vietnam Studies and Observation Group. This was the designator for those operating on the ground. In theory, SOG did not exist until 1964, but none-the-less, they were operational in Vietnam and Laos in 1962.
You will hear me mention Bill Lair's PARU on many occasions. My team was made up of Thai PARU mercenaries. I called them BL's mercs. Every PARU was efficient at a particular skill: heavy weapons, demolition, radio operator, and in hand-to-hand combat. Most PARU spoke not only Thai, but also one other language, usually Lao or Mhong and/or English. Some even spoke Vietnamese or Chinese. Bill Lair had been posted to Thailand in the mid to late 1950's by the CIA and he subscribed to the idea to build an irregular army to fight the communists in S.E. Asia. Bill Lair established at least two PARU training bases there and maybe more. The PARU were some of the best fighters I ever knew. PARU stands for Police Aeriel Reinforcement Unit. By the way, they were all jump qualified. An American front company, Southeast Asia Supply Company, or, as most of us knew it, Sea Supply, was also created to administer the training programs under Bill Lair. The layers of cover for the CIA were very deep in those days. Another group I need to mention are the "Butterflies." There were six of them that I knew of and I never knew any of their names until later.
These, or at least some of them, were Combat Controllers. This was a new class of airmen trained for combat situations. Some of them flew around in O1 Bird-dogs directing airstrikes on enemy positions, primarily in the panhandle and southern parts of Laos along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. known to most in country people as the HCM. I think they arrived in 1962 with the first contingent of Air Commandos who were sent to Tahkli and Udorn. I think, most however, were stationed at Ben Hoa or Ton Son Nhut in South Vietnam. They were replaced in 1964, after I left Laos, by Forward Air Controllers or "FAC's". Some FAC personnel later became part of the famous "Ravens" located at the secret base in the mountains 90 miles north of Vientiane, the capital of Laos. That base was LS20A also known as Long Tieng.
It's 02:30 AM Laos time. Out of the darkness of the night come five figures who, in the fog, you just make out to be men. Just seventy-two hours earlier my team inserted a MACVSOG team onto the Ho Chi Minh Trail east of Phou Phi Thi. Team Charlie now was ready to be extracted. There were four Special Forces guys and one man who was obviously oriental and non-cooperative. They had obviously got what they had gone in to get. We never knew what the MACVSOG teams were up to and never wanted to know. Everything in Laos was on a need to know basis and what they were doing, we didn't need to know. Because of where we were, we needed a helicopter pickup. I sent the following message to Vientiane: "Xtract. 181X2. 4+1X2 Reply Forcast Reply zulu. Reply Navigator." Then it was time to wait for Vientiane to reply. It was a two mile hump to the pick up at LS-81 and I told the 1-0 that we would need to get moving as soon as I heard from MACV. Approximately 30 minutes later we got the message that pickup would be at LS81 at 0600. I was to expect two UH-34's with two T-28's as escort and for ground support if needed. By this time is was about 0330 and it would take about two hours to get to LS81.
You could hear the UH-34's as we approached the landing zone. I immediately got on the VHF radio an directed the choppers to our location. Only one chopper would land at a time so that one was in reserve in case of trouble. The first one picked up the MACVSOG team and once it cleared the trees, the second set down and retrieved us. Both helicopters were owned and operated by Air America. Just like us not knowing what the MACVSOG teams were doing, the Air America pilots probably had their ideas about what we were doing, but really were not sure. Again everything in Laos was on a need to know basis, so they supposedly didn't know. We never saw the SF team again as they flew to some predestined location not known to us. We would return to Long Tieng, north of Vientiane, the capital of Laos. After landing, I met with a CIA operator who did know what was going on and was debriefed. My PARU team would return to their training base in Thailand and I would jump into a Helio-Courier and fly to Udorn RTAFB to catch a plane back to Turkey. Frankly, it had been a rather longer than usual mission because it required that we stay on the ground and wait for the MACVSOG team to come back for extraction. We had to find a good hide and stay put.
This mission had been different that previous ones. First, this was a Special Forces team I had not worked with previously. My primary team was Team Falcon. Secondly, normally we would have inserted the team and then returned to our base and waited to go back in for the extraction. This time was different. I don't know why we had to stay on site, but it was a dangerous strategy. Where we inserted the team was sparsely populated, but everyone there was in league with the Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese. You couldn't be seen by anyone, much less have contact with them. Other insertion teams had been lost because of discovery and it was an ever present danger. My team had inserted a South Vietnamese Special Forces team a few weeks before that into North Vietnam and they never showed up for extraction. They were never heard of again. No one to this day knows what happened to them.
It was a cat and mouse game with the North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao. They knew we were putting teams on the ground around the Ho Chi Minh Trail and into North Vietnam itself. Our job was to get the teams on the ground and underway and provide additional firepower for them inc case of an ambush. We would remain on station until they disappeared into the jungle. I don't know what their job was, but obviously it was important to MACV. Most of the time it was probably to gather intelligence data or, in the case above, kidnap some NVA officer or official.
Then, it was wait for the extraction of the teams as they returned from their missions. On two occasions we inserted South Vietnamese SF teams into N. Vietnam. But, unlike the team mentioned above, I don't know what happened to them because there was no extraction planned for either team. At best, it was a hairy place to be. On this particular mission, we were only 30 KM from the North Vietnam border with Laos and about 120 KM from Hanoi. You could never count on being one hundred percent safe. The darkness was your friend, the daylight your enemy.
The reason I was taken to Udorn was to return to the world of the military. Before going into Laos Baily and I were "sheep dipped." That means that all of our identity was taken from us including our uniforms. We wore either civilian clothes or some foreign nations uniforms. We left our dog tags, personal items, military clothing......anything that could identify us as American military personnel. I often carried Australian or Canadian passports. I worked under the alias of "Rick Richards." Kind of poetic I guess. Depending on which passport I was carrying, I was given love letters from my "sweetie" in either Ontario or Sidney to make it more real. MACV and the CIA were covering their asses all the time. If captured (and I wasn't supposed to be....more about that later) I was to claim that I was a national of the country whose passport I carried. I was to be a tourist or vacationer or big game hunter lost in the wilds of Laos. Now, about the "not supposed to be captured" part. I always had the feeling that someone had the job of killing me before I fell into the hands of the enemy. Never knew it for sure, but just felt that was the case.
We initially carried U.S. military weapons but were told to switch to some foreign weapon of our choice. A CIA operator gave me a Swedish K 9MM sub-machine gun and ten clips. It wasn't very accurate, but at close range it was devastating. It was also easy to disassemble and repair. One thing about the Swedish K, you could easily be identified as a drug runner because they all carried sub-machine guns and for the most part, drug runners were left alone by all parties involved in Laos. I also obtained a AK-47 and ammo after being told that it confused the enemy when we were firing weapons that sounded just like theirs. However, I rarely carried the AK because I just didn't like the rifle. However, all of my Thai team members carried them. Their thinking was that you could pick up ammo from dead enemy soldiers and therefore didn't have to carry as much on the mission. I came across a FN-FLN Belgian battle rifle that I fell in love with. It used .308 NATO ammo of which there was plenty available. I managed to obtain it and I will tell that story later. The FLN was extremely accurate out to 800 yards and I never had it fail me. It also provided a squad type light machine gun as the FLN had a rate of automatic fire around 700 rounds per minute. On a three day R&R to Bangkok, I had a Thai gunsmith accurize the FAL. It then became deadly out to about 100 yards if you could calculate the ballistics in your head. The only problem was that it weighed in at 9 plus pounds and the ammo was a lot heavier than either the 9MM or AK ammo. But that is how it was for us in the early 1960's in northern Laos. That's it for now, more to come later.
