While most Americans watched the Vietnam War on television, another bloody conflict was transpiring next door in Laos, hidden from the news cameras and print journalists. A very small, select, group of volunteer U.S. Air Force pilots in a highly secret U.S. government program were fighting a secret war, wearing civilian clothes, piloting small, unarmed prop-driven aircraft, taking life-and-death risks on every hazardous mission and given little to no guidance other than to direct deadly fires on the enemy. These men were U.S. Air Force pilots called Ravens, guiding fast-mover U.S. fixed wing fighters and bombers onto enemy targets in an effort to stop the North Vietnamese invasion of Laos. Ravens flew and fought in Laos from 1967 to 1972, sustaining one of the highest casualty rates of any U.S. Air Force unit during the Vietnam War. This is Part I of their story.
VIDEO HERE (58:33 minutes)
Now this was interesting
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting story about the USAF in Laos is the battle for 1CEVG site 85, a secret Tacan radar site set up to help guide bombers further into North Vietnam. 13 Airmen were killed along with Hmong and Tai soldiers.
ReplyDeleteThey were technically civilian employees of the CIA. As a medic in a base in Thailand I was involved in the “sheep dipping” of a number of officers who were given discharge physicals from the Air Force as well as later giving them reenlistment physicals when their tours were up. We also processed the remains of some who were killed in our “secret” mortuary as they could not be sent to the big army mortuary in Vietnam to avoid anyone questioning who these “civilians” were.
ReplyDeleteFurther reading about the Ravens:
ReplyDeleteThe Ravens by Christopher Robbins (non-fiction)
The Laotian Fragments by John Clark Pratt (fiction)
Bury Us Upside Down by Rick Newman and Don Shepperd (non-fiction)
The later about the Misty FAC's, who flew F-100's over the Trail, not the Ravens but still a great read.
Wasn't "Air America" loosely based on these guys?....
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