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Ho Chi Minh trail

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The Ho Chi Minh trail was a logistical system that ran from the Democratic Republic of (North) Vietnam (DRV) to South Vietnam through the neighboring countries of Laos and Cambodia. The system provided support, in the form of manpower and materiel, to the Viet Cong and the People's Army of (North) Vietnam (PAVN) during the Vietnam Conflict. The Trail was not a single route, but rather a complex maze of truck routes, paths for foot and bicycle traffic, and river transportation systems.

File:HCMT.jpg
Ho Chi Minh Trail, 1967.

Origins

Parts of what were going to become the Ho Chi Minh Trail had actually existed for centuries as primitive foot paths that facilitated trade in the region and the area through which the system meandered was some of the most rugged in Southeast Asia. It was a sparsley populated region of rugged mountains (1500-3000 feet), triple-canopy jungle, and dense rainforests. During the First Indochnia War the Vietminh maintained north/south communication utilizing this system of trails and paths. When armed conflict heated up between the Viet Cong and the southern regime of Ngo Dinh Diem in 1958, Hanoi dispatched the newly-established 559th Transportation Group, under the command of Colonel (later General) Vo Bam, south in order to improve and maintain the system in its bid for a unified Vietnam. In the early days of the Vietnam Conflict the Trail was utilized strictly for the infiltration of manpower. This was due to the fact that the DRV could supply its southern allies more efficiently by sea.[1] After the initiation of US naval interdiction efforts in coastal waters, the Trail did double duty.

In April 1961 the Laotian transportation hub of Tchepone, on Route 9, had been siezed by PAVN and Pathet Lao forces. The 559th Group then "flipped" its line of communications to the western side of the Truong Son Mountains. This expansion was accomplished in order to beat the signing of the 1962 Geneva Accord on Laos. By the following year the 559th had a complement of 6,000 personnel in two regiments, the 70th and 71st. This figure does not include combat troops in security roles or DRV and Laotian civilian laborers.[2] During the year, US intelligence estimated that 4,000 men had moved south on the Trail; in 1962 5,300; and in 1964 4,700. During the same period it was estimated that there were an equal number (12,850) of probable infiltrators.[3] The supply capacity of the Trai reached 20 to 30 tons per day in 1964 and it was estimated by the US that 12,000 (actually 9,000) PAVN regulars had reached South Vietnam that year.

In 1965 the US command in Saigon estimated that PAVN supply requirements for their southern forces amounted to 234 tons of all supplies per day. Yet US Defense Intelligence Agency analysts concluded that during the 1965 Laotian dry season the enemy was moving only 30 trucks per day (90 tons) over the Trail.[4] This demonstrates one of the key issues when discussing the DRV effort and the US attempts to halt it. The Americans had only estimates of what its enemy was capable of doing and its various intelligence collection agencies often conflicted with one another. Thanks to improvemenmts to the Trail system (including opening new roads that would connect to the Sihanouk Trail in Cambodia), the amount of supplies transported during the 1965 almost equalled the combined total for the previous five years. 50,000 North Vietnamese cadre, including seven infantry regiments and twenty independent battalions made the trip south.[5]

The popular conception of the DRV logistical arrangements on the Trail sometimes borders on the romantic. The image of barefoot hordes pushing heavily-loaded bicycles, driving oxcarts, or acting as human pack animals, moving hundreds of tons of supplies in this manner bears little relation to reality. What most do not realize is that the truck (especially Soviet, Chinese, or Eastern Bloc models) quickly replaced the human as the main method of supply transportation. As early as December 1961, the 3rd Truck Transportation Group of the General Rear Services Department had become the first motor transport unit fielded by PAVN to work the trail. The use of motor transport quickly escalated.

By April 1965, command of the 559th Group devolved upon General Phan Trong Tue. He commanded 24,000 men in six truck transportation battalions, two bicycle transportation battalions, a boat transportation battalion, eight engineer battalions, and 45 commo-liaison stations. The motto of the 559th became "Build roads to advance, Fight the enemy to travel."[6] Two types of units served under the 559th Group, Binh Trams and commo-liaison units. A Binh Tram was the equivalent of a regimental logistical headquarters and was responsible for securing a particular section of the network. While separate units were tasked with security, engineer, and signal functions, a Binh Tram provided the logistical necessities. Usually located one days march from one another, commo-liaison units were responsible for providing food, housing, medical care, and guides to the next way-station. In December 1961, the 3rd Truck Transportation Group of the General Rear Services Department became the first motor transport unit fielded by PAVN to work the Trail.[7]

Interdiction

By 1965 interdiction of the Trail system had become one of the US' top priorities, but operations against it were complicated by the "neutrality" of Laos. The endless intracacies of Laotian affairs and American and North Vietnamese interference in them led to a mutual policy of each ignoring the other, at least in the public eye. This did not, however, prevent both sides from violating the neutrality of Laos; the North Vietnamese by protecting and expanding their supply conduit and by supporting their Pathet Lao allies; the Americans by building and supporting a CIA-backed clandestine army to fight the communists and by bombing the Trail incessently.[8]

On 14 December 1964 US Air Force Operation Barrell Roll had carried out the first aerial bombing of the Trail system in Laos. On 20 March 1965, after the initiation of Operation Rolling Thunder against North Vietnam, President Lyndon Johnson gave approval for a corresponding escalation against the Trail.[9] Barrell Roll would continue in northeastern Laos while the southern panhandle was bombed in Operation Steel Tiger. By mid-year the number of sorties being flown had grown from 20 to 1,000 per month. In January 1965, the US command in Saigon had requested control over bombing operations in the areas of Laos adjacent to South Vietnam's five northernmost provinces, claiming that the area was part of the "extended battlefield." This request was granted and the area came under the auspices of Operation Tiger Hound. The western area of the Demilitarized Zone, extending into Laos, was bombed under Operation Nickel Steel.[10]

Political complications were not all that hampered aerial operations. The weather in southeastern Laos played a large role in operations and posed myriad problems for any interdiction campaign. The southwest monsoon (from mid-May to mid-September) brought heavy precipitation (70 percent of 150 inches per year) with the heaviest rainfall in July and August. The sky was usually overcast and the temperatures were high. The northwest monsoon (from mid-October to mid-March) was relatively drier and with lower temperatures, but this was complicated by morning fog and overcast and by the smoke and haze produced by the slash and burn agriculture practiced by the indigenous population.

On the ground, the CIA had initially been given the responsibility of stopping, slowing, or, at the very least, observing the enemy's infiltration effort. Within Laos the agency had initiated Project Pincushion in 1962 for those very purposes. This operation later evolved into Project Hardnose, in which CIA-led reconnaissance team operations took place. In October 1965, General William Westmoreland, the American commander in South Vietnam, received authorization to launch a US military cross-border recon effort. On 18 November the first mission was launched "across the fence" and into Laos by the highly secret Military Assistance Command, Vietnam Studies and Observations Group (SOG).[11] This was the beginning of an ever-expanding reconnaissance effort by SOG that would continue until disbandment of the organization in 1972.

Despite the best aerial anti-infiltration efforts of the US, the estimated total of PAVN infiltrators for 1966 was between 58,000 and 90,000 men, including at least five full enemy regiments. A June DIA estimate credited PAVN with 600 miles of truckable roads within the corridor, at least 200 miles of which were good enough for year-round use.[12] 1967 saw a change in command of the 559th Group as Senior Colonel Dong Sy Nguyen assumed command. In comparison to the above DIA estimate, by the end of the year PAVN had completed 2,959 kilometers of vehicle capable roads, including 275 kilometers of main roads, 576 kilometers of bypasses, and 450 entry roads and storage areas.[13] It was also discovered by US intelligence that the enemy was utilizing the Kong and Bang Fai Rivers to facilitate food, fuel, and ammunition shipments by loading the materiel into half-filled steel drums and then launching them into the rivers. The were collected downstream by sytems of nets and booms. Unknown to the Americans the enemy had begun to transport and store more than 81,000 tons of supplies "to be utilized in a future offensive."[14]

Commando Hunt

By January 1968 the North Vietnamese were again showing signs of modernizing their logistical effort. The number of supply and maintenance personnel had fallen, mainly due to increased utilization of motor/river transportation and use of mechanized construction equipment. The CIA estimated during the year that the 559th Group was using 20 bulldozers, 11 road graders, three rock crushers, and two steamrollers.[15] As many as 43,000 North Vietnamese or Laotians (most of whom were pressed into service) were also engaged in operating, improving, or extending the Trail system.[16]

The rain of ordnance that fell upon the Trail peaked in 1969, when 433,000 tons fell on Laos. This was made possible by the close-out of Operation Rolling Thunder and the commencement of Operation Commando Hunt in November 1968. US aircraft were freed for interdiction missions and as many as 500 per day were flying the crowded skies over Laos. By the end of the year, bombing missions over southern Laos had climbed 300 percent, from 4,700 sorties in October to 12,800 in November. The aerial effort was supported by Operation Igloo White, run out of Nakhon Phanom, Thailand. This operation, utilizing strings of air-dropped electronic sensors, collected intelligence on the Trail, fed it into computers, and then launched aircraft to attack targets in Laos. The effort was supported by SOG recon teams, who besides carrying out recon, wiretap, and bomb damage assessment missions for Commando Hunt also hand-emplaced sensors for Igloo White.

One shocking development by American intelligence analysts during late 1968 was the discovery of a petroleum pipeline running southwest from the DRV port of Vinh. By early 1969 the pipeline had crossed the Laotian frontier and reached the approaches to the Ashau Valley in South Vietnam. The plastic pipeline, assisted by numerous small pumping stations, managed to transfer diesel fuel, gasoline, and kerosene all through the same pipe. Thanks to the efforts of the PAVN 592nd Pipelaying Regiment, the number of pipelines entering Laos would increase to six by 1970.

Notes

  1. ^ In 1964 the DRV created Transportation Group 125, equipped with 20 steel-hulled vessels to carry out just such infiltration.
  2. ^ Military Institute of Vietnam, Victory in Vietnam, Lawrence KS: University of Kansas Press, 2002, p. 88.
  3. ^ Victory in Vietnam, p. 88.
  4. ^ Interdiction in Southern Laos, p. 262.
  5. ^ Edward Doyle, Samuel Lipsman, and Terrence Maitland, The North. Boston: Boston Publishing Company, 1986, p. 46.
  6. ^ Victory in Vietnam, p. 170.
  7. ^ Victory in Vietnam, p. 127.
  8. ^ Two of the best works on the bizzare covert war in Laos are Kenneth Conboy with James Morrison, Shadow War. Boulder CO: Paladin Press, 1995 and Roger Warner, Shooting at the Moon. South Royalton VT: Steerforth Press, 1996.
  9. ^ John Morocco, Rain of Fire. Boston: Boston Publishing Company, 1985, p. 27.
  10. ^ Morocco, pps. 27-28.
  11. ^ Robert Gillespie, MACSOG: A Chronological History of the Legendary Covert Organization (work in progress), pps 89-90.
  12. ^ Edward Doyle, Samuel Lipsman, and Terrence Maitland, The North. Boston: Boston Publishing Company, 1986, p. 46.
  13. ^ Joint Chiefs of Staff, MACSOG Documentation Study, Appendix D, pps. 293-294.
  14. ^ Victory in Vietnam, p. 208.
  15. ^ Prados, p. 193.
  16. ^ Bernard Nalty, The War Against Trucks, Aerial Interdiction in Southern Laos, 1968-1972. Washington DC; Air Force History and Museums Program, 2005, p. 37.

References

See also

[1]

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