It was designed as a two phase attack consisting of five task forces of Thai mercenaries and Royalist guerrillas upon the People's Army of Vietnam invading Laos.
Key to the Lao defeat was the lack of competent staff work to coordinate the operation, the immaturity and carelessness of their troops, as well as a widespread outbreak of trench foot.
U.S. financial and military support of Laos began in 1953, and intensified through the succeeding years as the Laotian Civil War heated up.
[1] In 1961, the Central Intelligence Agency began arming and training hill tribes guerrillas on and around the strategic Plain of Jars.
[2] The Hmong soldiers of L'Armée Clandestine would fight the invading People's Army of Vietnam until the ceasefire of February 1973.
The 312th Division had been withdrawn from the Plain of Jars (PDJ) to fight in the Easter Offensive striking South Vietnam; this considerably weakened the Communist forces in northern Laos.
[5] Opposed to them were a bewildering hodgepodge of Royalist Hmong guerrillas and Thai mercenaries in shifting assignments and alignments.
The operation's daily air support also included a B-52 Arc Light strike (with two more on call), as well as one AC-130 and four AC-119 gunship sorties.
[7][8] With PAVN strength reduced to four regiments, the Royalist forces felt free to both refit their worn units and push the Vietnamese for territory.
On 11 May 1972, six Bataillons Commando (BCs) of Thai mercenaries recaptured the refugee relief center at Sam Thong; they established two artillery fire bases in the vicinity.
On 22 May, two Thai BCs that had been withdrawn in the midst of Operation Sinsay joined the fresh reinforcements of GM 30 to attack the mountaintop position the PAVN valued as a base for assaults on the Royalists.
The tribal leader was worried about the Communist troops' continuing proximity to the guerrilla main base at Long Tieng.
Phase one, planned to start on 15 August, would draw PAVN reinforcements southwestward of the Plain of Jars while capturing the mountaintop position at Phou Seu.
By the time Phou Phiang II was a week old, PAVN reactions were not following the Royalist planners' expectations.
From Godley's standpoint, the Hmong unit commanders left much to be desired for combat leadership of a force crippled by trench foot.
[13][14] On 19 September, the CIA station in Vientiane reported to Headquarters in the U.S. that the PAVN were successfully adapting the Hmong guerrilla small unit tactics of harassing opposing troop concentrations.
On 1 September, the Thai Battalion Commando 619A (BC 619A) was helicoptered in to occupy the mountaintop of Phou Then within the new GM 22 area of operations.
[19] On 13 August, Task Force Charlie was helilifted to a soggy landing zone in a tight little valley southeast of the Plain.
Dawn saw the arrival of the first GM 21 troops from Bouamlong via CH-53s of the 21st Special Operation Squadron; by afternoon, the entire regiment had been airlifted in.
And the case officer found it necessary to assign about a dozen pre-teen soldiers to communications and logistics duties to spare them from combat.
[7] On 26 August, the 1st Battalion of the PAVN 335th Independent Regiment moved west to contact GM 21 of Task Force Delta.
On 6 October, Vientiane cabled Washington the plans to interdict supply routes running from Vietnam to the Plain of Jars.
Operation Sentinel Lock was a combined photo-mapping and navigational emplacement program to enable radar-directed interdiction bombing by F-111s of the 474th Tactical Fighter Wing based in Thailand and B-52s, using a ground-based beacon for targeting guidance.
[25] Between 22 and 25 October, the task force was reinforced by a fresh regiment of 1,460 men imported to Lat Sen from Military Region 3, GM 32.
As Task Force Charlie was shoved back to Ban Pa Dong and Khang Kho, GM 32 took an additional 80 killed and 85 wounded.
[26] In mid-October, GM 28 graduated from training and became an unplanned addition to the Royalist movements, dubbed Task Force Foxtrot.
Operation Tulah ended on 25 October, after the Royalist regulars were unable to dislodge the Pathet Lao Hmong Communists from Xieng Dat.
[13] Task Force Echo was struck heavily by "friendly" air strikes on both 9 and 16 September, suffering 64 killed and at least 43 wounded.
However, whether staffed with one regiment or two, Task Force Echo was stopped by the PAVN after minor harassment of Communist supply Route 71.
On 6 December, some of the new arrivals were lifted by Air America into the Nam Bleung Valley to attack a numerically inferior garrison of PAVN troops.