Rattler One-Seven: A Vietnam Helicopter Pilot's War Story

Chapter 9–Quang Tri

C H A P T E R 9 QUANG TRI During the third week of January 1971 we received word that our unit would be moving again. This time it would not be just a short hop from the beach to the airfield. We were going to move our entire unit north, to a town called Quang Tri. Quang Tri was in Northern I Corps, just below the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). The U.S. Armed Forces, combined with the ARVN, were mounting a big offensive to push west out to Khe Sanh and into Laos. This would be one of the biggest operations of the entire Vietnam conflict. They were going to move half the country’s units north to support this offensive. Lam Son 719 would be the name of the operation. Lam Son had been the birthplace of a famous Vietnamese hero who had defeated the Chinese Army in 1427. The Vietnamese associated the name Lam Son with victory. As for the numbers, the 71 stood for the year 1971, and 9 was the name of the main highway leading out to Khe Sanh.8 Phase one of this operation, called Dewey Canyon II, would be an American operation to clear Route 9 out to the Laotian border and reopen Khe Sanh. The purpose of Lam Son 719 was to cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail and to occupy and destroy logistical installations and supplies in base areas 604 and 611 in Laos, thus preventing any NVA offensive into Vietnam for the rest of the year. This would buy time for Vietnamization to work and hopefully convince Hanoi to negotiate.9 The idea for this offensive came from the successful invasion of Cambodian base areas in May of 1970, which severely disrupted the logistic support of the large Communist forces in central and southern areas of South Vietnam.10 109 Lam Son 719 would change the way the war had been fought since American involvement in Vietnam. After the Cambodian incursion, Congress passed the Cooper-Church Amendment prohibiting American ground troops from entering Cambodia or Laos. This meant that the entire ground assault would be solely ARVN. There would be no American advisors, artillery forward observers, or air controllers on the ground with the ARVN troops when they entered Laos. The United States would provide nearly 10,000 combat, engineering, and support troops, but they were to remain in Quang Tri Province for logistical and combat support, security, and to maintain and arm the helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. The only U.S. troops that would be participating in Laos would be the pilots. The tactics used by the North Vietnamese in Lam Son 719 were different from their normal unconventional guerrilla warfare. Due to the overwhelming number of soldiers on their side (approximately two to one), they ended up fighting a much more conventional war. The ARVN started the campaign with 17,000 troops against an estimated 22,000 enemy troops, which in two weeks swelled to nearly 20,000 ARVN and 40,000 North Vietnamese troops.11 As the ARVN forces pushed west into Laos, they built several fire-support bases, but these isolated bases gave the NVA the opportunity to encircle and destroy them one by one. The NVA tactics were to cut the aerial supply lines with antiaircraft fire and demoralize the ARVN with artillery and mortar barrages around the clock. When ready, and if possible, they would storm the bases with combined infantry and armor forces.12 Lam Son 719 was the first time that the helicopter was used in a mid-intensity conflict. The ARVN soldiers were dependent on U.S. helicopter support for insertions and extractions, and for resupply and reconnaissance flights. During Lam Son 719, U.S. helicopters flew ninety thousand sorties, the greatest airmobile support that the United States committed to any one ground campaign during the Vietnam War.13 The NVA had an estimated 170 to 200 antiaircraft weapons that wreaked havoc on the helicopters. It was a battle like no other ever seen in helicopter warfare. This campaign would see the largest helicopter assault of the war. On March 6, 120 Huey helicopters lifted the ARVN 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the 2nd Regiment from Khe Sanh to Techepone in 110 R A T T L E R O N E – S E V E N a single-ship trail formation, with birds spaced thirty...