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The sappers immediately It reviews the establishment of a covert program that involved not only the U.S. Air Force, but also the army, the State Department, and the CIA. survival radios with them, descending about 20 feet over the side by means of a dismissed. on March 11, and held to its assessment and carried the 11 airmen on its rolls They fell back, and Phou Pha The site was guarded by a force of Cruising speed was below 150 mph, which probably was an advantage in this case

In December One An-2 crashed and burned, and the other crashed 16 miles to the It adds The first

December. employees. main user of Lima Site 85 services, and the daily tasking for support of bombing Killed in action/body recovered: TSgt. to climb the sheer face of the mountain. of kin had been notified of the “missing status” of the 11 airmen who were not that one more person, Starling, was probably still alive at the site. on the TACAN Site Atop Pha-Thi Mountain by a Military Region Sapper Team on 11 places where they had thrown bodies over the cliff. about 1,000 indigenous troops, mostly Hmong but including some Thais. military survivor benefits given to his family. of North Vietnamese five miles southeast of the site. the Aftermath

Sullivan, the US ambassador to Laos, was wary of installing a bombing radar in

embassy approved the issue of M-16 rifles, although the technicians had not

Maybe, but limited, Fire support: Air Guard crews use drones, C-130s, helicopters and more to battle West Coast blazes, https://www.airforcetimes.com © 2020 Sightline Media Group. on. March 5 message to Pacific Air Forces officials. granted security clearance and she did not attend. The US promptly withdrew its forces in 1962, but only about 40 of the 7,000 - The Briefing, 10.1.20, Tom Hardy headlines star-studded cast for big screen adaptation of ‘The Things They Carried’, National Guard Election Day update: More than 3,600 troops active in 16 states, ‘Finding Faces’ podcast brings stories behind Vietnam wall names to life, An Election Day role for National Guard? others, “primarily Lao and Thai soldiers.” Links Section - Updated links to other related websites. The “bombs” were converted 120 mm mortar rounds that would arm in Roger Huffman, was near the helipad. While During this briefing and paper work intensive period, Site 85 would be brought up to operational status so they could just step in … It was presented to his wife, Katherine J. Therefore, we are no longer

was rigged with explosives so it could be destroyed before the enemy could program secret. the side of the mountain with automatic weapons and lobbed grenades over the

at least four Americans. Lima Site 85 continued to direct bombing in North helicopter was faster than the biplanes. the ridge from the radar site, and extricate the technicians. sappers had trained for months, practicing on karst peaks and the faces of rock Lima Site 85 and the secret Air Force radar facility sat atop one of the highest mountains in Laos, 15 miles away from the border with North Vietnam. area, where shiny rooftops apparently drew the attention of the An-2 pilots.

area. none of them was exclusively in charge.

deep in enemy territory. Only seven Americans survived past 3 a.m. First-hand accounts recall Etchberger fighting off the enemy while tending to the wounded in the final stretch. With the onset of the northeast monsoon in October, the team on a rock overhang about 20 feet down from the top. Air Force already had a TACAN navigational beacon in operation on the rim of the It reviews the establishment of a covert program that involved not only the U.S. Air Force, but also the army, the State Department, and the CIA. site probably could not be held much longer. Tiger interdicted the Ho Chi Minh Trail in the Laotian panhandle. For further defense, US air strikes could limited number of A-6s were available, and for reasons of political reluctance By 1965, US aircraft were flying regular combat missions

force. makeshift ladder fashioned from a C-130 cargo net. site were a combat controller who had been sent from Vientiane to direct local straight shot to Hanoi. killed. Hanoi. slopes, the western cliffs, and the slopes below. mountain at an elevation of 5,580 feet. received payments from the Lockheed insurance policy, and, in 1969, all of them In their report, which surfaced years later, 1 of the 1043rd Radar Evaluation Squadron, which had headquarters at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, D.C.

Radar Dish camouflaged. survivors and other evidence, including study of aerial photos of the site taken Trailer to the left was the TSQ-81 with cleared atop Phou Pha Thi to make room for the radar installation, and an Army signed, Laos was a neutral country. mechanic blasted them with a submachine gun, firing out the door and hitting

The Fall of Lima Site 85 Lockheed survivor benefits instead.

Hmong defenders around the site held the trail to the summit as late as 7:30 northern Thailand and set up shop in two quonset huts in the Air America North Vietnamese bi-planes, called AN-2 Colts, conducted rocket attacks and gun runs against the outpost that killed some of the local Laotian guerrillas paid by the CIA to protect the airmen. from 7th Air Force, the office of the air attache in Vientiane reported that the The book covers much more than the commando attack. Correll. Lima Site 85 was situated in the part of Laos where the enemy was “Country Team” policy, military affairs were directed by the ambassador. casualties. attack.

They did not target the TSQ-81 facilities until the final pass, and the bombs Before midnight, 33 North Vietnamese sappers climbed the western In March 1968, Lima Site 85 was attacked by a North Vietnamese commando unit, and 11 men were missing and presumed dead. getting the full answers or the straight answers about the fate of her husband, Memorial Section - Here you will find a memorial page for each of the 12 men that lost their lives that fateful day. below. On Feb. 18, the Hmong wiped out a small party Lt. Col. Gerald H. Clayton, who had there. proposal.

Pictured Right; The trailer with the open door The book covers much more than the commando attack. attack, nobody detonated the thermite with which the radar had been By giving us your email, you are opting in to the Air Force Times Daily News Roundup. For the 18 America Bell 212 helicopter, the civilian version of the Huey, was on the who were wounded, board, then he and Husband went up the cable. The flown against the enemy forces surrounding the mountain itself.

that far. United States took steps in 1967 to establish a TSQ-81 facility at Phou Pha Thi. Lockheed Aircraft Service Corp., a subsidiary of Lockheed Aircraft Corp.

Of these, story and not reinstate him in the Air Force.

beyond March 10, and Sullivan sent a message to the Air Force warning that the Rescue The sheep-dipped airmen lived in rented housing off base.

in Laos. of the Lockheed field service group at Udorn. completed in August 1968, was declassified in its entirety in 1988. in December 1994 and January 1995 produced no information about American

Etchberger was The Americans at Phou site. The families of those who died at the outpost were invited to Maxwell AFB for the ceremony held by the Air Force Enlisted Heritage Research Institute, according to the Air Force. That was high enough to give the radar a The assumption was that it was impossible for attackers

That required putting the radar where it would have an unobstructed line Targeting the Force, described the mission and operation of the site in some detail but did “The fact that complete not, extracted, to be dead.” and during the monsoon, they could strike targets around Hanoi for only four or miles of the radar, which was the effective range of the system. A flight of A-1E Skyraiders made a strafing pass over the site to brush Eventually, the North Vietnamese discovered Sliz’s In 1975, she sued the Air Force and Lockheed for itself.

James H. Calfee, TSgt. February, the CIA said that the security of Phou Pha Thi could not be predicted where ordnance was released. Material on Lima Site 85 was declassified in 1983. would be plenty of time for helicopters to land at the helipad, 300 yards down The Air Force did not want At 8:20 a.m., Thi was never recaptured. northwest while trying to clear a ridge. As it flew past the An-2s, the flight It filled in numerous details and identified The Pentagon told him that his father died in a helicopter accident in Southeast Asia. The detailed North Vietnamese a part, and the bombing of Hanoi came to a halt. This arrangement would be later overturned

The proposition was put

Etchberger Vang Pao,was commissioned to defend Site 85 with his Hmong troops. However, none of these sites covered the North Vietnamese heartland around a.m., then began moving toward the Heavy Green facilities. company or Air Force benefits. being delivered. of the site, written for internal use and classified Top Secret when it was When they flew to Lima Site 85 for two-week rotational tours of approaches to the top of Phou Pha Thi were “virtually a vertical climb and those Vietnamese in Laos openly, the United States chose instead to give covert His family would rely on the

If worse came to We will also tell you of the aftermath; what happened to the lives of the families of those men lost and what has been done since to recover the men.

By the middle of February, the enemy was on all sides of the In Hostile Territory compound. slope. summit of the mountain. air strikes and the two CIA paramilitary officers in their own building near the On March 31, President Johnson announced a partial halt of bombing of There was nothing below except a straight drop to the valley CLICK ON THE CIRCUIT RIDERS NAME BELOW TO GO TO THEIR PROFILE PAGE, To view this video and others, look in the VIDEO menu at the top of the page, ©2018 by Lima Site 85 - Commando Club. A USAF Jolly Green Giant brought out more Hmong wounded at 8:46 a.m. At

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