Raven Forward Air Controllers
The Raven Forward Air Controllers, also known as The Ravens, were fighter pilots (special operations capable) unit used as forward air controllers (FACs) in a clandestine and covert operation in conjunction with the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Laos during America's Vietnam War.
[1] On 23 July 1962, the United States and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) signed the Geneva Accords guaranteeing the neutrality of the Kingdom of Laos.
[2] The North Vietnamese deliberately ignored the accords because they were intent on keeping their supply corridor, the Ho Chi Minh trail, to continue their war against South Vietnam.
North Vietnam's representatives repeatedly stated they had "no military presence in Laos", even though they had at least 4,000 troops stationed there from the end of the First Indochina War on.
[4] As USAF tactical air strikes began in Laos, it became apparent that, for the safety of noncombatants, some means of control was necessary.
[5]: xvi–xvii, 3 Beginning at least as early as July 1964, the absence of a close air support control system caused a variety of enterprising individuals to improvise procedures for marking ground targets.
Once "civilianized", these "Butterflies", as they were known, flew in the right (co-pilot's) seat in Air America Helio Couriers and Pilatus Porters.
[6]: 29 Another of the Butterflies was Major John J. Garrity, Jr., who in future would spend several years as the éminence grise of the US Embassy in Laos.
[5]: 2, 3 Development of rules of engagement by the embassy placed more emphasis on increased control over in-country close air support.
[4]: 86 CIA's agent James William Lair recommended the use of Lao interpreters flying in the rear seat of light aircraft flown by US pilots, thus establishing the Ravens.
After screening by the 56th Special Operations Wing at Nakhon Phanom RTAFB, they received temporary duty orders, and were sent to the US Embassy, Vientiane, Laos.
However, Ambassador William Sullivan, and his successor, G. McMurtrie Godley, continued to oversee air strikes in Laos.
[3][6]: 113–114 The Ravens, however, liked the ambiguity of the situation because it left them free to coordinate air strikes with the CIA operatives running the local ground troops.
Lieutenants Jim F. Lemon and Truman Young had been directing air strikes on either side of the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone (VDZ).
Upon their return to Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai Air Force Base, they were told that their unauthorized aerobatics and drunken transgressions would be forgotten if they volunteered for a secret program—the Ravens.
Unlike the borrowed Air America planes, the O-1 had additional radios and smoke rocket tubes for improved communications and target marking.
Incoming air strikes arrived en masse, with as many as six flights of fighter-bombers stacked up at various altitudes awaiting their turn to bomb.
Rinehart would remain on station until his marking rockets were expended, all windows on his O-1 slathered in grease-penciled notes of air strikes, and his fuel tank empty.
[7]: 188–190 General Vang Pao, the ground commander of the CIA's clandestine army of Hmong hill tribesmen, used tactical air as airborne artillery.
The piston engines were tuned for optimum performance at Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base's low elevation.
Twenty-three of the Air Force Ravens died during the Secret War; Army Attaché Joseph Bush was the 24th.
[citation needed] As information about the Laotian Civil War is being declassified and publicly released, historians will continue to write additional reliable texts published by mainstream media.
