Undercover Armies - CIA FOIA - Central Intelligence Agency

C05303949
Chapter Eleven
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jalternately walked and was carried 5 miles to a point safe enough
.to call down the H-34 relico}er that had just arrived on the scene. Dprevented
three uninjured rom boarding, insisting that the chopper had to
go back to Hong Non for the wounded. Pilot Bob N1unez protrted that the elevation
there was too high for a takeoff fully loaded, cut him short; he
had promised to return. And they did. The North Vietnamese had not resumed
the attack, and Nunez and a USAID doctor, who chanced to be aboard when
I Idistress call came in, hauled in a dozen wounded. The overloaded
H-34 staggered into the air for the run southwest to the sector beadquarters itt
Houa Muong, where the wounded were transferred to fixed-wing aircraft and
flown out for treatment.40
Houa Muong then also fell, and Vang Pao, desperate to reverse the momentum,
reacted by reinforcing the Sam Neua front with two battalions. At the station's
urging, FAR commander General Quane paid a rare visit to the front,
and he followed up by committing three more battalions-one neutralist and
two regular FAR. With this force, and the remnants of the units from Hong
Non, Vang Pao began a drive to recover lost territory. The days of hit-and-run
ambushes and raids were now behind him, and his troops moved forward
under the cover of US jets, T-28 fighter-bombers I
Iand
heavy mortars.'0
The well-disciplined North Vietnamese took heavy casualties trying to hold
their positions, and one SGU battalion commander reported finding some 50
bodies at a position that had taken repeated direct hits. Villagers reported the
evacuation of numerous wounded, and a Vietnamese-language radio message
in the clear reported "50 dead ... 50 at least ... and many wounded ... the
commander dead toO."60 .
While SGUs and regulars advanced to the northeast, militia units isolated
during the enemy's earlier advance were now to harass Hanoi's supply lines
running down from Sam Neua town. The NVA hurled fierce counterattacks on
Vang Pao's main force, which held its ground, on occasion in hand-to-hand
combat. Now logistically overextended, the North Vietnamese began to
shorten their defensive lines toward the northeast. For some, it was too late.
Three SGU companies infiltrated an enemy position in a rare night attack and
provoked a disorderly retreat. At dawn, the Hmong pressed the attack, turning
4 Ibid. By the time Warner interviewed him,1 Ihad become an unreliable witness to the
events of his own career. But close associates like Bill Lair and I see his conduct as
described here as entirely characteristic. Warner says nothing about the fate of thec=Jheavy
mortarcrew.DJ-
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