Reflections of Lam Son 719
submitted by: Alva Leon Matheson
In mid-February 1971, I was sent TDY to Quang Tri to support Lam Son 719. O-2s provided air support for the ARVN at night, flying with two aircrew members, the right-seater operating the starlight scope. Occasionally, the rear (third) seat was occupied by a Vietnamese translator, further degrading the already marginal performance of the overloaded Oscar Deuce.
To my recollection, all of the O-2 drivers (like myself) were night qualified over the Trail. I had spent the previous three months flying night interdiction out of Pleiku. Tactics were similar to those used during night interdiction missions, except that we were now working with ground troops, who could mark their own positions. Precise memories of Lam Son are clouded by the years and I had to refresh them by reading some of the voluminous information available on the Internet concerning this battle.
My general impressions:
1. A A A was heavy and typical of out-country operations over the HCM Trail. 23 mm and 37 mm were common and one night we had an unpleasantly close encounter with a four round clip from a radar controlled 57 mm, all four rounds passed one to two feet in front of the right side wing leading edge.
2. The Army helicopter pilots got their clocks cleaned. The ‘Official’ losses were over 100 destroyed and over 500 damaged, with over 100 aircrew members KIA or MIA. While the helicopters were not out there at night; when taking off at dusk or returning at dawn, you could rarely look around and not see a Chinook or Skycrane with a Huey or Cobra hulk slung beneath it.
3. ARVN quality was spotty. Many of the folks on the other side of the radio seemed panicked. The Army after action reports, while diplomatic, they were also blunt in assessing leadership deficiencies of some officers. These reports were pretty consistent with my knowledge of the battle of Loc Ninh, further south. Some of the ARVN officers and their troops were excellent, but others were worthless. It came through over the radio.
4. The operation itself was a gigantic fiasco. If designed to briefly move in and out and disrupt communications, it was too slow. If, as I think was the original intent, it was designed to take and hold Tchepone, it had insufficient assets. Significant supplies were destroyed and a fuel pipeline was temporarily cut, but instead of the ARVN being the force that would cut the HCM Trail, they wound up primarily being bait to draw out the NVA into the open where they were destroyed by Tactical Air strikes and Arclight B-52 strikes. After action Intelligence estimates indicated that we may have killed one half of the opposing NVA force.
5. For the NVA, Lam Son 719 seems to have provided them with a game plan for the 1972 Easter offensive in I Corps. They proved to themselves that they could push back an ARVN force if they had sufficient anti-aircraft assets and were willing to lose a sufficient amount of their own force.
On the lighter side, we lieutenants were assigned to the shit burning detail every morning, a terrible job. I’ve reminded my teenage sons of this several times when they complain about cleaning their bathroom.
Post Script to the story by Brad Wright, Covey 251/Hammer 251:
I met Glenn Wright at the Fort Walton Beach Florida FAC Reunion and we discovered we had both been at Quang Tri for Lam Son. The old night and day thing is probably why we didn’t remember that. Anyway, his comment about the shit burning detail brought back a great memory. Barry Hedquist and I were T-38 Instructor Pilots at Laredo after our SEA tours and Barry had an 8" x 10" picture under the Plexiglas on his table that showed him stirring a fire in one half of a 55 gallon drum. The flames were pretty high. One day, one of his Iranian students asked innocently enough, “Sir, what were you cooking in this picture?” Barry and I just looked at each other and laughed.
Neither of us had forgotten the smell of that detail and the pure joy of finding yourself eating cold C rations after an early morning mission (the Army chow hall was closed at that time of day, if I remember) with that pungent aroma in the air around you. Oh those were the days!
Glenn, I wish I had had the good sense to use that as a lesson for my kids in the same way you did. By the way, your comments on the entire operation were right on. I have a friend here in Atlanta who flew Hueys in support of the operation and his stories are pretty scary.