America absolutely ruled the skies over Southeast Asia - "air superiority" was the term used to describe it.  In South Vietnam, we were virtually unopposed in the air.  Of course, in the North there were the MIG's and AAA and Russian built SAM's (surface to air missiles) to contend with, especially in the heavily defended areas around Hanoi and Haiphong.  The SAM's were deadly, and many of our pilots who flew out of Thailand were shot down by them, and were taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese.  Most of them spent the remainder of the war, languishing in the "Hanoi Hilton" or in the other POW camps around Hanoi.  There, they endured frequent beatings and torture, both physical and mental.  Their ordeal has been the subject of many books.

But aside from taking a vigorous defensive posture against the air strikes in the North, the communists that year also redoubled their offensive efforts against our air bases.  For they knew full well where the strikes were originating, and they would try their damnedest to stop them, or at least slow them down.  The air base at Danang in South Vietnam became known as "Rocket City", because of the frequent rocket attacks there.  But attacks against American bases were not limited to South Vietnam alone.  Our installations in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia were also targets.  Isolated, as we were at Ramasun, it was fortunate for us,  the Communists weren’t so interested in us as they were in the air bases and radar installations.

Lima Site 85 was a radar navigational site located inside the borders of Laos.  It provided pinpoint navigation data for our Thai based planes that were making the bombing runs over Hanoi.  It gave them all-weather capability and allowed precision bombing under otherwise impossible conditions.  As part of the agreements of the Geneva Convention of 1962, Laos was officially taking a neutral stance in the war.   For this reason and because of the American public's opposition to expansion of the war outside of South Vietnam, this site and others inside Laos were considered Top Secret.   Yes, that’s right.  We were actually attempting to fight a war, even though our hands had been figuratively tied behind our backs!  Incredibly enough, there were then many, and still are some, who would have us apologize for that!

The men working there were mostly Air Force personnel, volunteers, who had been given leave from their "official" duties to be hired by the civilian high-tech firm that had developed the "cutting-edge" radar equipment in use there.  They had been "sanitized", or as we called it, "sheep dipped."  Posing as civilians, they were required to wear civilian clothes exclusively while in Laos.  They were not allowed to carry military arms, which would, of course, give away the fact that they were military personnel.  The men and their families were sworn to secrecy.  Three crews worked the site and rotated in and out of LS-85 at five-day intervals from Udorn via helicopter.  At any given time there were fifteen or so Americans on the site. Although Top Secret, the North Vietnamese knew of the site's existence, and they were well aware of its significance.  They wanted badly to eliminate it, for it was a tremendously valuable asset to us, and it was much more than just a "thorn in the side" to them.

The location had been chosen for its inaccessibility and for the clear radar view it provided.  In a bold, almost audacious move, it had been positioned atop a karst mountain, Phou Pha Thi, or "Sacred Mountain", in Northern Laos.  It was located a scant thirty miles from North Vietnam's borders, and was less than 150 miles from Hanoi.  The summit was more than a mile high, and the sides of the mountain were very nearly vertical, making a ground based assault almost impossible.  But that same rugged terrain was a two edged sword, for it would make escape from the site via the ground route equally difficult. The relative inaccessibility of Lima Site 85 can be seen in the above aerial photo, which was provided me by Ron Haden, who had worked the site in 1967.

On January 12th, 1968, seventeen days before the beginning of the Tet Offensive, the North Vietnamese sent in several Russian-built AN-2 biplanes in an attempt to destroy it.  The scene was one right out of World War I!  Beginning the attack at 1:20 PM, they made three bombing and strafing runs at the site, injuring three Lao soldiers and one US technician.  Some on the scene reported the concussions from the blasts felt like those of 250 pound bombs.  While it appears to have been within the capability of the large AN-2 biplanes to carry such a load, later analysis showed the "bombs" they dropped were not 250 pounders.  Instead, they had dropped 120 mm mortars through tubes in the floor of the aircraft.  "Rube Goldberg" fashion, they had been rigged to be armed by the air stream as they fell, another throwback to WW I technology.  Additionally, a number of Soviet 57 mm unguided rockets and machine gun fire had been hurled against the summit of Phu Pha Thi.

In spite of all that, very little actual damage was done to the site's radar equipment in the attack.  The fruit of their undeniably courageous attempt was only one antenna temporarily disabled. In return, their planes were shot out of the sky for their effort.  One was downed, crashing into a ridge after being hit by intense ground fire on its second bombing pass at the summit.  Another, in a surrealistic dogfight between a World War I biplane and a modern jet powered aircraft, was dispatched by a sharpshooter, armed with an assault rifle, while hanging out the door of an Air America (read that "CIA") Huey helicopter.  The enemy AN-2 pilots and crew were all killed in the crashes.

The account of the incident by the North Vietnamese was surprisingly similar to our own.  The following excerpt from the book "Air War over North Viet Nam" a history of the Vietnamese Peoples' Air Force 1949-1977 by Toperczer, tells the story from the enemy's viewpoint.

All in all, it was a pitiful attempt by the NVA at the use of air power.  And they certainly didn't get much return on their investment of three planes and their crews.  But what the North Vietnamese lacked in air power, they made up for in manpower.  For human life there was a cheap commodity, and they seemed to be ready and willing to spend as much of it as was necessary to achieve their ends.  I find it interesting to note, the primary lament in Toperczer's account of the incident was not so much the loss of human life, as the loss of Phan Nhu Can, "a very experienced AN-2 pilot."  In fact, the tenacity of the North Vietnamese in building and rebuilding The Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos always reminded me of the ants whose hills I used to kick down when I was a kid.  No matter how much devastation was wreaked, no matter how many of them you stomped, a hundred or a thousand more emerged from the burrows to replace every one you killed.  Just worker ants with no sense of self, only of community, they were driven by a single minded purpose - to build and rebuild what had been knocked down, no matter what the cost to the individual.

In spite of the enemy's lack of success in the January air attack, the fact they even attempted it was ominous.  It was indeed predictive that more attacks on Phu Pha Thi were to follow.  The North Vietnamese had sacrificed several of the precious few aircraft in their small air defense fleet.  That should have been a clear indication of how determined they were to take out Site 85.  Undeterred, in February, North Vietnam began massing a large force inside of Laos and commenced construction of a road that would enable them to bring in heavy artillery.  All of these activities were well known to us at Ramasun and Udorn, and reports of the enemy's progress were being sent regularly from the US embassy in Vientiane to the State Department back in the US.  The implications were fully appreciated by Major General Secord, who was responsible for defense of the installation.  Unfortunately, his repeated impassioned pleas for more support for the site's defense via preemptive air strikes on the road were met with lukewarm responses from 7th Air Force and the Vientiane US Embassy.  I quote here from Secord's book, "Honored and Betrayed"

In fact, this half hearted response by 7th Air Force had its roots in decisions made at the highest echelons of our government. The following excerpt is from a telegram from the Vientiane embassy to Department of State, dated February 20, 1968.

In a telegram dated 27 February, the State Department responded that Sullivan’s request had been discussed by the Joint Chiefs and his recommendations had been relayed to the Department of Defense. But the issue of dedicating air resources to Laos was fundamental and "requires resolution at the highest level." The communiqué further stated that the question was being considered by none other than the Secretary of Defense himself, Robert S McNamara

In their "infinite wisdom", rather than expending the resources necessary to defend the site and taking a chance our military presence in Laos be revealed, our political leaders, had decided on an alternative plan.  Taking into consideration the enemy's rate of advancement, our best intelligence estimates reported the site could not be held beyond March 10th.  But because the facility was so vital to the mission, it was decided by "powers that be" in the Administration to keep it in operation until it became apparent that it was about to fall.  Then the men would be air evac'ed out and the equipment destroyed - or so the plan went.  Of course, this superbly crafted "plan" begs the questions, "If the site was so damned vital to the mission, why then would we sit back and allow it to be taken by the enemy, without doing everything in our power to prevent it?"  And secondly, "What would we do to replace this purportedly all important facility, after allowing the enemy to take it?"   (It never was replaced, to the best of my knowledge.)

It seems apparent that those in charge were so frightened at the prospect of our "Secret War" being revealed to the public, they were not thinking beyond the ends of their noses.  Our presence and activities on the ground in Laos would be kept from the public at all costs!  For once revealed, the backlash would surely exact a heavy political toll on the Johnson Administration.  This is just one shining example of how the battle of wills between the Administration and the anti war faction at home further endangered the lives of those of us on the ground in Southeast Asia.  Would that our enemies had been only half as concerned about revealing their presence in Laos to the world as our leaders were of ours!

By early March, the enemy had amassed a ground force around the area, between five and seven battalions in strength.  Sure enough, heavy artillery and mortar shelling began on the evening of March 10th and continued throughout the night.   But unlike the air attack in January, this attack was devastating.  According to survivors, major damage had been inflicted very early in the shelling.  This came as somewhat of a surprise to us, for our weapons experts had underestimated the accuracy of their guns.  Was this attributable to poor intelligence or was it due to a certain amount of arrogance on our part?  Perhaps it was a little of both. 

At first light on the 11th, a rescue attempt was made to extract the men from the doomed site.   The rescue was only partly successful.  Five of the sixteen men on site at the time were picked up by Search and Rescue choppers, manned by the dedicated men of the ARRS, "Air Rescue and Recovery Service", flying out of Udorn.  Under heavy enemy fire, and disregarding their own safety, they swooped into the site in a desperate attempt to save the men trapped there.  One of the five picked up was killed aboard the chopper during the rescue, a victim of the intense ground fire.  While lifting off amidst a storm of hot flying lead, a round came crashing through the thin skin of the aircraft, ripping into the body of one of the men just rescued. In spite of desperate efforts to save him, he was dead before the chopper touched down again at Udorn. The other four were returned to Udorn in shock, but alive.

Eight were reported dead on the site.  For reasons unknown (possibly because they had little faith they would be rescued) they had apparently attempted to escape down the back of the mountain, instead of meeting at the rendezvous point where the choppers were to pick them up.  It was a fatal mistake!  Having reached a narrow ledge fifty feet or so below the summit, the desperate men found they had nowhere to go.  Meanwhile, unknown to them, an enemy suicide squad, one of a couple dozen men, had managed to scale the back of the mountain and surprised them, huddled there together on the narrow ledge.  The enemy squad was part of a unit believed to have been specially trained for the mission by Russian "Spetznatz" special forces.  Trapped like rats with no path of escape, the men of LS-85 went down on the spot and died violently amidst exploding grenades and a hail of Communist bullets that ripped their flesh.

It's safe to say, those men who died that day on that remote, lonely spot in Laos were not "blood and guts", battle hardened combat soldiers.   They were inadequately armed or entirely unarmed REMF’s - technicians, men trained to watch and interpret blips on RADAR screens, to maintain the high tech equipment, and to help direct the bombing strikes against the enemy’s stronghold.   They were ill prepared to engage in such a battle with well trained and well armed elite enemy special forces.  To the NVA, it must have been like shooting fish in a barrel, little more than an execution.  Three of the bodies were later recovered from the ledge, and the other five, never recovered, were presumed to have fallen over the sheer 2,000-foot precipice.  Three of the sixteen remained unaccounted for, presumed dead, but reported to their families as "Missing in Action".  For years afterward, persistent reports kept surfacing of one or more Americans having been captured from LS-85 by the NVA.

On the morning of the 12th, as I marked my 22nd birthday, F-4 Phantoms out of Udorn were sent in to drop Napalm on Lima Site 85 to insure that nothing of any value was left for the enemy to exploit.  As it turned out, the target was too small, situated atop a karst mountain in difficult terrain for the fast moving F4's to be effective. Not one of the bombs or napalm canisters dropped hit the mountain top.  Follow up flights of A1 Skyraider propeller driven attack planes were sent in to finish the job.  When the A1’s were done, the destruction of Site 85 was complete.  It was feared by some that one or more of the MIA's might have been still hiding in the rubble of the site when the Nape was dropped, but that, as far as I know, is pure conjecture.

Search planes had been sent in to look for possible survivors, but none were ever found. Even after the destruction of the site, the area around Phu Pha Thi was still crawling with enemy forces. One of the search planes, an A1E, piloted by Captain Donald Elliot Westbrook, was shot down near the site on the morning of the 13th by enemy fire. Rubble from the crash of his plane was seen strewn over a large area in the mountainous terrain. No signal beacon had been activated and no voice contact was made with him. His body was never recovered.

Perhaps the most tragic part of this whole story is that we knew it was coming and yet, did nothing until it was too little, too late.  As though frozen in place, we watched, literally for months, while an accident took place in slow motion before our eyes.  It was an accident that might well have been prevented.  Yet through our inaction, it became inevitable.  I quote from a telegram from the Vientiane US embassy to the US State Department in Washington DC, dated March 11th, 1968.  Reporting on the attack, it read in part, "We will, of course, continue reports as information comes in.  At first glance, however, it appears we may have pushed our luck one day too long in attempting to keep this facility in operation." And from a follow up communiqué, dated March 27, from Ambassador Sullivan in Vientiane to General Momyer at the State Department, "We made clear from the very beginning that this site could not be defended against a determined and superior enemy force.  We gave regular and accurate estimates of its progressive deterioration, and as early as Feb. 26, advised you that it could probably not be held beyond March 10.  Therefore, its fall should have come as no surprise to anyone."

Who was ultimately responsible for this tragedy?  I believe the American people were at least indirectly responsible. And perhaps we'll never really know for sure where the direct responsibility lies.  I’m sure there is plenty of blame to go around.  The communiqué above from Ambassador Sullivan to General Momyer gives us an idea of the kind of finger pointing that must have gone on in high places in its aftermath.

And what of the men of LS-85?  What did they think of it all?   The attack was no surprise to them.  They were certainly aware of the situation that was developing.  They had access to the same intelligence information regarding their situation that we had at Udorn and Ramasun Station and the Vientiane Embassy.  In fact, the site's own radar equipment was being used to track enemy movements.  They could easily see what was happening, as the enemy forces tightened the ring of death around Phou Pha Thi.  What must have gone through their minds in those last weeks and days?  Did they have any faith that they would be rescued in time?  They were told they would be!  Did they think the enemy would abort their mission?  Of course not!  They knew full well the gravity of the situation, yet continued with the rotations, allowing themselves to be ferried into the site, despite the imminent danger.  Why would anyone do such a seemingly suicidal thing?  It was simply their duty - what they had been trained to do!  Those brave men of Site 85 died unquestioning, to the end faithfully carrying out that duty to their country.  And in return for their devotion, they were betrayed by the nation they had served.  But as with all military men, "Theirs was not to reason why; theirs was but to do or die...."  And die they did.  I hope that one last day of operation was worth the lives of these patriots!

Our hands had been tied by the American people and by the politicians at the highest levels. Although at that very moment, the enemy was losing the battle for Khe Sanh and other major battles in South Vietnam, here in Laos, he had the advantage.  And he knew it full well.  For he was not operating under such constraints as were we.  We were not supposed to have US military personnel in Laos, and their presence there would be covered up and vigorously denied by our government, and by the Royal Lao government, at every turn.  Officially, those men never existed!  On the other hand, Ho Chi-Minh did not have to "ask permission" from anyone to do what was necessary to win.  His people would not dare question his decisions.  Nor did he worry about the Geneva Convention or Laos' supposed neutrality.  Ho Chi-Minh was not forced to fight a "Secret War".  Furthermore, he had as many conscripts as were needed to draft for military service, worker ants – ones who would not, indeed could not say, "Hell no! We won’t go!"