Invasion of Laos, 1971: Lam Son 719, by Robert D. Sander
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Invasion of Laos, 1971: Lam Son 719, by Robert D. Sander
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In 1971, while U.S. ground forces were prohibited from crossing the Laotian border, a South Vietnamese Army corps, with U.S. air support, launched the largest airmobile operation in the history of warfare, Lam Son 719. The objective: to sever the North Vietnamese Army’s main logistical artery, the Ho Chi Minh Trail, at its hub, Tchepone in Laos, an operation that, according to General Creighton Abrams, could have been the decisive battle of the war, hastening the withdrawal of U.S. forces and ensuring the survival of South Vietnam. The outcome: defeat of the South Vietnamese Army and heavy losses of U.S. helicopters and aircrews, but a successful preemptive strike that met President Nixon’s near-term political objectives.
Author Robert Sander, a helicopter pilot in Lam Son 719, explores why an operation of such importance failed. Drawing on archives and interviews, and firsthand testimony and reports, Sander chronicles not only the planning and execution of the operation but also the maneuvers of the bastions of political and military power during the ten-year effort to end Communist infiltration of South Vietnam leading up to Lam Son 719. The result is a picture from disparate perspectives: the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations; the South Vietnamese government led by President Nguyen Van Thieu; and senior U.S. military commanders and army aviators.
Sander’s conclusion is at once powerful and persuasively clear. Lam Son 719 was doomed in both the planning and execution—a casualty of domestic and international politics, flawed assumptions, incompetent execution, and the resolve of the North Vietnamese Army. A powerful work of military and political history, this book offers eloquent testimony that “failure, like success, cannot be measured in absolute terms.”
Invasion of Laos, 1971: Lam Son 719, by Robert D. Sander- Amazon Sales Rank: #501386 in Books
- Brand: Sander, Robert D.
- Published on: 2015-03-02
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.00" h x .73" w x 6.00" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 308 pages
Review “In the final days of the operation, I watched at Khe Sanh as every UH-1 helicopter returned fully loaded with withdrawing troops and an additional four to six ARVN troops hanging on the skids. Robert Sander has done a truly superb job of telling what really happened in Lam Son 719. Great book!” – Maj. Gen. Benjamin L. Harrison, author of Hell on a Hill Top: America’s Last Major Battle in Vietnam
“With the keen eye for detail that comes from having served in combat, Bob Sander’s Invasion of Laos is an important addition to the history of one of the pivotal battles of the Vietnam War. Sander's vivid accounts of the heroic actions of his fellow helicopter pilots and crewmen are especially noteworthy. Invasion of Laos deserves to be a part of any Vietnam War library or collection.”— Andrew Wiest, author of Vietnam’s Forgotten Army: Heroism and Betrayal in the ARVN
About the Author Robert D. Sander served twenty-five years in the U.S. Army and retired as a colonel in 1993.
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Most helpful customer reviews
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful. The Vietnam War, Ho Chi Minh Trail and U.S. helicopter forces in 1971 By Tom Marshall Robert Sander has succeeded in answering some of the most unsettled questions, lingering from the Vietnam War era. As a veteran of Lam Son 719, he understood how many other veterans felt about the little known invasion of the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos. The action occurred during February and March, 1971. As a retired Army Colonel, he understood the geo-political forces driving policy and planning, of President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger. With recently declassified U.S. State Department documents, coupled with his personal experiences, he has accomplished a definitive history of a complex, controversial and unsettling chapter in American history. It is a balanced accounting of the first sustained U.S. helicopter operations within a Soviet antiaircraft defense umbrella. It was the same AAA that NATO faced in Europe during the Cold War. As a veteran of the era and also an author, I have an understanding of how immense the complexities were to research and write an understandable history. Robert Sander has succeeded in piecing the puzzle into a concise history. I give it my strongest personal recommendation! Tom Marshall
18 of 19 people found the following review helpful. I Was There By M. Petty I was a Cobra Pilot (Redskin 26) with D/158th, 101st Airborne Division during Lam Son 719. Bob Sander tells it right and and his research is meticulous. He tells a real story of real men doing a real job and in so doing, documents what is arguably Army Aviation's finest hour. Thanks Bob for your service. I'm glad you made it home, Brother!
24 of 27 people found the following review helpful. A good Book on Operation Lam Son 719 By Nguyen Ky Phong A good Book on Operation Lam Son 719My salute and congratulations to author Robert D. Sander for his accomplishments in Invasion of Laos 1971. At last, a comprehensive, narrative history of Operation Lam Son 719 is written. By comprehensive I mean author Sander has consulted most of the books and official documents on the subject so far available to the public. Not to take anything away from prior books written by Phillip B. Davidson, Lewis Sorley, Bruce Palmers, or Keith Nolan, whose writings about Operation Lam Son 719 were stepping stones for anyone who wishes to dig deeper into the said subject. But those previous authors left the readers with much more to desire: no more than two chapters were written about Lam Son 719 heretofore. Sorley’s Vietnam Chronicles and A Better War have the most interesting details about the planning phase of the operation. … But most of the “juicy stuff” were remained classified (20.000 transcribed pages from the Abrams tapes were redacted to less than 1.000 pages for public consumption). As for Davidson’s chapter on Lam Son 719: at the time Vietnam at War was written, two vital government documents were yet to be released: The JCS and the War in Vietnam; and, volume 7 of FRUS: Vietnam Relations. Sander took the advantage of having all the latest declassified documents in writing Invasion of Laos. Having say that, I must quicken to add that another book about Operation Lam Son 719 (A Raid Too Far) is currently available. Written by professor James H. Willbanks, A Raid Too Far presents no less details on Operation Lam Son 719. But that’s another book review.Here’s my observation on this excellent book, Invasion of Laos:1. Endnote 6 on page 247 tells how LTG Sutherland insinuates that South Vietnamese planners had misread the dimensions of those “pot holes” and cuts on Route 9 -- the main attack venue and also the sole logistic land route to the front line. From aerial photos the SVN planners, General Sutherland said, misinterpreted 20 feet deep cuts, assumed that the cuts were only 2-3 feet deep, and that mistake altered the means of delivering logistic support for the front line.I take issue with this SVN aerial photo misinterpretation matter:(a) The US Air Force was the culprit for this deadly “snafu”: They owned all aerial intelligence/ photo reconnaissance of the entire Laos; they were the authority on Laos’ terrains. Having bombed the whole country for more than five years up to 1971, no other branch of armed forces in SVN knew more about Laos, topographically, than the 7th Air Force. It was their expertise to do the photo interpretation, not the South Vietnamese or anyone else for that matter. Route 9, from Lao Bao all the way to Tchepone, had been bombed since 1962, more intensely since 1965. Cuts up to 20 feet deep on the road were gradually covered by tall elephant grass and overgrown. It was hard to produce an accurate read as to how deep a cut on the road from aerial photos. To blame the misreading on the SVN is unjustified in this case. On planning Operation Lam Son 719 the US Army (MACV) totally depended on photo recon from the AF. And surely, the AF did it to the Army: not only the AF gave a wrong picture of the road’s condition, they also gave wrong estimates on the number of AA guns in the area of operation.(b) The Army, too, was not free of fault on the planning phases of the operation: How could you not carry out a foot reconnoiter to know the actual condition of the road – the only main road to the battle field? It’s unthinkable that a corps-size operation can be executed without knowing the actual condition of the road, where half of the heavy loads of logistic support were depended on (water; heavy ammo and fuel for armored units). As the result, the failure of land delivery taxed helicopter asset to the point of complete exhaustion. Who’s to blame? The USAF for inadequate Intelligence/ photo recon; and the US Army for not double checking the details.2. Most books and official documents often lay the blames on SVN task force for being too slow – if not immobile – after they had reached objective A Loui on D +3 day (Sander, page 120). The element of surprise was lost, the critics charged. “By halting the westward movement, the ARN coprs surrendered one of the greatest advantages – the tactical mobility by airmobile operations.” (Sander 125). This criticism can not be sustained.(a) Going back to the operations log we’d see the weather for both Feb 11 and 12 (D+4 and D+5) was at best marginal. Most of the support sorties were cancelled due to the weather. But the weather was not the only cause to blame for this delay. The over all planning of the operation was to blame, too. From Feb 10 to Feb 14 the main Task Force of Airborne and Armored Cav just sat on their newly occupied base, waiting for order from the powers that be. This was not the Task Force’s or SVN decision makers’ fault: The South Vietnamese realized that the operation plan was not going well as planned; there was not enough troops and helicopters to expedite the thrust; there’s a lack of intelligence on enemy order of battle. And worst of all, the aerial topography was way far from the reality, especially the condition of the road used as the main axis of attack (Route 9). The TF could not move out – or dared to move out – since the protective north and south flanks were yet firmly established: Both fire support bases Ranger North and FSB 31 on the north flank were not well-positioned until late Feb 11. On the same day, the CO of FSB 30 (eight km east of FSB 31; 10 km northeast of the TF), manned by the Airborne, declared a tactical resupply emergency. On the south flank, piecemeal occupation of frog-leaping hilltops by the First ID units was way behind the TF’s advancement: LZ Delta 1, farthest to the west (seven clicks southeast of A Luoi/ Task Force) was not occupied until after noon of Feb 12. With all things considered, there the TF faced a difficult tactical situation: the south flank protection force was seven kilometers behind; the north flank, FSB 31 (just a bit ahead of the TF to the west) could not receive their supply due to intense enemy’s AA (Sander, page 119-121; p. 249fn44). Compounding to those “inconveniences,” late evening of Feb 12 the CO of a CH-47 heavy-lift helicopter company told the aviation tactical center, to which his unit was under operation-control, that his helicopters were heading home since he received no support of gunships escort.(b) Having experienced the treacherous 18 km road distance from Lao Bao to A Loui, commanders of the TF now hesitated to trust intelligence assessments provided by the XXIV Corps. The shooting down of two helicopters with VIPs on board on Feb 10, and the aborted supply sorties to FB 31 two days later, were strong indications of enemy’s AA domination, and the lack of Allied intelligence on enemy OB. On Feb 14, LTG Sutherland, CO of the XXIV Corps (the de facto executer of Operation Lam Son 719) reported to MACV’s CO General Abrams that he had tried but failed to locate new enemy’s re-enforcement; he had searched but failed to locate many of the AA nests, the general’s message reads (Message 141220Z, Feb 14 1071, DNG 0443, Sutherland to Abarms). How do we know XXIV Corps failed in its assessment of enemy’s OB? To wit: Not knowing enemy’s disposition in the AO, the 37th Ranger Battalion was delivered to LZ Ranger North, less than one km from the headquarters of People’s Army of Vietnam’s 308 Division! Obviously a failure of communication intelligence. The Airborne’s FSB 31, farthest to the west and north of the attack axis, was placed eight kilometers from the PAVN’s 70B Corps’ headquarters (70B was the controlling Hqts for all combat activities west of Lao Bao to Tchepone). The dismantling (78 casualties and 23 missing in action) of the 6th Bn of the 3rd Airborne Brigade on Feb 13 when they were lifted to a position few miles northwest of FSB 31 (even closer to 70B Hqrts) showed that we did not know where – and how strong -- the enemy was. You were the TF commander at A Loui, would you venture farther to the west under those uncertainties and enemy pressure?(c) More than two weeks into the operation, judging from the messages between the XXIV Corps and MACV one may surmise that neither MACV nor the XXIV Corps nor the SVN I Corps was ready for or certain about the direction of the operation. Feb 21-23 witnessed the abandonment of LZs Ranger North and Ranger South. On the day Ranger South was lost LTGen Sutherland informed MACV that all helicopter support activities “has to be curtailed” due to the lack of gunships escort (Message 231600Z, Feb 1971, QTR 0135, Sutherland to Abrams). In between, the CO of 2nd Squadron/ 17th Cav reported that only six of his 27 Cobras were flyable (Sander, p 143). The paratroopers on FSB 31, with intermittent helicopter support since Feb 12, surrendered the base on Feb 25. On March 2 paratroopers on the last FSB of the north flank, FSB 30, abandoned their position after getting no logistic support for two days while incurring more than 200 casualties. Just two weeks into operation all protection on northern flank collapsed.3. By combining declassified details from State Department’s FRUS: Vietnam, 1970-1972 and Lewis Sorley’s The Abrams Tapes: Vietnam Chronicle, author Sander provides a vivid behind-the-scene picture of how the top command operated the largest military operation of the Vietnam war. And the picture was not pretty. On the SVN side, numerous bickering among senior commanders, and charges of insubordination were levied against two commanding officers of SVN Airborne and Marines Divisions by the CO of the I Corps. On the American side, well, it was not any batter than the Vietnamese’s: General Abrams chewed LTG McCaffrey (of USARV) out for not maintaining helicopter operational readiness; Gen Weyand blamed LTG Sutherland for failure of assessing the helicopter assets he had at hand. National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger accused Gen Abrams of drinking too much/ drinking on the job, and taking vacation in Thailand at the most crucial time of the battle. CJCS Admiral Moorer gradually disbelieved Abrams’ situation report since the timeline of events reported and the events happened were too apart (in one instance, SVN troops had already departed Tchepone on the night of March 9 (sander, p 173). Yet on a report to Kissinger and president Nixon the admiral says that the SVN would remain in Tchepone another week. The inconsistencies on timeline occurred frequently from D day of the operation.) All in all, Operation Lam Son 719 was a failure in term operational reasiness; of managing logistic support; and in employing intelligence on big and far away battle.It’s been a long break for good books on the Vietnam war. Robert D. Sander’s Invasion of Laos 1971 deserves to fill that break.Nguyen Ky Phong
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