Neutralist Armed Forces
In response, in April 1963, Colonel Deuane Sunnalath split off several battalions into a new party, the Patriotic Neutralists, which allied itself with the Pathet Lao.
Beginning on 23 December 1950, the United States began military aid to the French administration of the Kingdom of Laos as they fought the First Indochina War.
When Captain Kong Le impressed the American officials underwriting Laos as a potential communist, they backed Phoumi's return to power in November and December 1960.
After the Battle of Vientiane ended in his defeat, Kong Le withdrew his paratroopers northward to the strategic Plain of Jars on 16 December 1960,[6] there to form Neutralist Armed Forces (FAN).
[8] The revolutionists' withdrawal along Route 13 distracted attention from the nascent Operation Momentum starting up at nearby Ban Padong.
[9] In early 1961, French intelligence sources reported at a SEATO meeting in Bangkok that 20 Soviet aircraft were ferrying military aid to the coup force,[10] which had burgeoned to 4,000 men.
[17] The PAVN 19th Border Defense Battalion overran Khamkeut and Lak Sao, nearly severing the lower panhandle from northern Laos by the second week in April 1961.
As a result of PAVN success in these actions, PEO head General Andrew J. Boyle remarked that the communists were poised to take any of the Lao towns along the Mekong River.
On 22 November, as an Air America C-123 prepared to land the aid, pro-communist Neutralist antiaircraft gunners of the Phetsarath Artillery Battalion shot it down, killing the pilots.
[21] On 5 January 1963, a BirdAir PV-2T was fired upon and set aflame 30 kilometers south of Muong Sing; a crew member died of injuries.
On 1 April, the pro-Pathet Lao Neutralist Foreign Minister, Quinim Pholsena, was killed by his bodyguard; it was regarded as vengeance for Kettsana's homicide.
In the southern panhandle, the majority of Batallion Infanterie 4 (Battalion of Infantry 4) near Tchepone defected to the new movement, which allied itself with the Pathet Lao communists.
[25] As a result of an agreement struck between Vang Pao and Kong Le on 11 April, FAN's new ally, the Royal Lao Army, came to its relief.
While the reputed purpose of the new battalion was security for Neutralist officials in the capital, the Royalist General Staff suspected it was actually a potential coup force.
[30] In an offensive move coordinated with the Royalists, FAN supplied the forces for one of the columns that attacked Lak Sao in Military Region 3 in late 1963.
[30] With the FAN offering steadily less reliable support to the Royalists, and the communists on the offensive, neutralist Prime Minister Souvanna Phouma convened a conference on the Plain of Jars on 17 April 1964.
Failing in his attempt to calm or quell the three-sided conflict, and discouraged by his failure, Souvanna Phouma returned to Vientiane prepared to resign.
The following morning, coup troops arrested Souvanna Phouma and about 15 other important personages; the detainees were a mixed bag of Frenchmen, Royalists, and Neutralists.
[33] By the time of the coup, the Patriotic Neutralists had been largely absorbed into the Pathet Lao;[34] the two sides held the first of their biannual cooperative political congresses in 1964.
On 27 April 1964, as the Royalist garrison withdrew from Phou San, it was attacked and defeated by communist forces as nearby FAN units deigned to intervene.
However, when Pathet Lao occupied the vacated strongpoint overlooking Kong Le's headquarters at Muong Phan, his Bataillon Parachutistes 5 unsuccessfully assaulted the mountaintop.
[36] By 21 May, Ambassador Unger feared that the neutralist forces in Laos faced extinction if FAN's position at Muang Soui fell to the communists.
As they were short of expert gunners, a 279-man Thai artillery battalion was flown into Muong Soui on 4 July 1964 to reinforce FAN as part of the Royalist offensive, Operation Triangle.
[38][39] Elsewhere, the FAN garrison in Vang Vieng joined the slow north-bound Royalist offensive column up Route 13 as its contribution to Operation Triangle.
Their unsuccessful commander was not relieved for his failure, but was sacked by Kong Le for embezzling 1.5 million Lao kip from troop funding.
[42] Elsewhere, FAN Bataillon Infanterie 5 (Infantry Battalion 5) at Moung Hiem, commanded by Souvanna Phouma's nephew Tiao Sisouvanh, made a point of co-existing peacefully with nearby PAVN units.
When the Christmas bombing truce freed up sorties scheduled for strikes in Vietnam, there was an unsuccessful attempt to restart the air cover for further attacks, but it fizzled.
The mixed defense force of Hmong guerrillas and FAN troops held out until 06:00 on 27 June, at which time they scattered to abandon their post to the communists.
However, FAN and the Royal Lao Army fled the battlefield rather than move into the assault, leaving Vang Pao's guerrillas to carry on.
On 20 February 1970, a determined North Vietnamese battalion backed by tanks and led by Dac Cong sappers chased FAN and its co-located Hmong irregulars from the base.
