This is from my continued reading of the War in Vietnam.
During the Nixon years, there was an increased effort to rescue American POWs from prisons in North Vietnam. Nixon was very concerned about American POWs. Former democrat president LBJ didn’t give a shit about American combatants, POWs or MIAs.
During the Nixon administration, intelligence sources had indicated that American prisoners were being held at the Son Tay prison camp in North Vietnam, twenty-three miles west of Hanoi. Almost all of the American prisoners being held by NVA and their Russin Masters had been captured as a result of downed U.S. aircraft.
When Nixon was informed that a plan was in the works and that the location of captured American pilots and navigators was fairly certain, he said,
“How could anyone not approve this?” He paused thoughtfully, (thinking of blowback from the American public if the raid failed.) “But how could I say no? Go ahead with the plan. Bring some of ’em home. I just wish there was a way to get all of them.”
Leftist history has tainted our view of President Nixon. Yeah, he messed up. Don’t we all. Nixon was supposedly paranoid (perhaps for good reason…in view of present political drvelopments), but he was ALWAYS Pro-American.
President Nixon OK’d the raid to free the American POWs. This is an inventory of the small arms and gear that the Army Special Forces brought along on that raid.
There was a total of 111 weapons: two M16 automatic rifles (with 1,200 rounds of ammo), forty-eight CAR-15 assault rifles (18,437 rounds), fifty-one .45 caliber pistols (1,162 rounds), four M79 40mm grenade launchers (219 rounds), four M60 machine guns (4,300 rounds), and two twelve gauge shotguns (100 shells). In special equipment bags they carried fifteen Claymore mines, eleven special demolition charges, and 213 hand grenades. They checked the rescue equipment; axes, wire cutters, bolt cutters, coils of rope, oxyacetylene bottles and cutting torches, chain saws, crowbars, machetes, miner’s lamps, handcuffs, a fourteen-foot ladder, two big aircraft crash axes, fire extinguishers, a set of hammer and nails, bullhorns, infrared flashlights, strobe lights, night-vision devices, baton lights, beanbag lights, and two cameras. The platoon leaders went over each man’s personal gear: goggles, AN/ PRC-90 survival radio, pen gun flare, penlight, survival kit, strobe light, aviator’s gloves, compass, earplugs, and a razor-sharp six-inch knife strapped to each raider’s thigh. Each man pinned subdued rank insignia to his collar and used camouflage sticks to darken his face.
The operation was carried off flawlessly (On 21 November 1970) thanks to a full scale mockup of the prison camp and dozens of “raids” on the mockup. Army Special Forces undertook over 170 rehearsals of the raid on their mock-up.
The raid involved elements of the Army, Marines, Navy and Air Force. 56 U.S. Army Special Forces soldiers were flown in by helicopter to the Sơn Tây prisoner-of-war camp.
The attack and diversions began as follows:
It began with a suddenness which rudely shattered the early morning quiet. The Vietnamese People’s Army headquarters, located in the Citadel in Hanoi, immediately passed from drowsy idleness into confusion and near frenzy. Forty miles to their east multiple flights of USN A-7 Corsairs and F-4 Phantoms began appearing on radar screens, darting about on flight tracks which passed between Hanoi and Haiphong. From the western sky, four-ship flights of sleek F-105 Thunderchiefs soared and fired AGM-45 Shrike antiradar missiles toward three different surface-to-air missile sites that came up on the air to track the growing numbers of blips suddenly appearing on their radar screens. Special Operations C-130s flew at treetop level about the periphery of Hanoi and the crews released special wares which swung in huge black parachutes that added firefight noise to the confusion. More Navy aircraft, then more fighters from the Thailand bases appeared. The sky was filled with Americans. The F-105 Wild Weasels launched more Shrike missiles as more radars came onto the air.
In the midst of the thunderous confusion, a C-130 climbed and entered an orbit west of Hanoi, and dropped out a series of 200,000-candlepower flares, turning the darkness into brilliant daylight. Other C-130s released other flares and more special wares at other locations then quickly dipped back down to safer treetop altitudes.
Sadly, no POWs were found. They had already been moved. There was some conjecture that the NVA had been warned, but the operation was so Top Secret that this seems unlikely.
What was found there were Russians. Russian troops were housed in barracks at the camp.
They responded to the American’s attack and several Russians were killed. Evidence taken from the bodies proved that the Russians were Spetsnaz, Russian Special forces.
There were also high-ranking members of the KGB.
