Undercover Armies - CIA FOIA - Central Intelligence Agency

C05303949
Chapter Eleven
of 17 February 1966, when an outpost a couple of miles south of the airstrip
came under attack. Using the single sideband radio-provided by USAID,
not CTA-j Icalled for air support, and while fighter aircraft were being
scrambled, the USAF forward air controller took off from the Na Khang strip
in a Porter. Hardly off the ground, it took small arms fire from an enemy unit
no one had detected. The arriving jets were directed to this target; along with
Na Khang's howitzers, they destroyed or drove off the attackers. oD 2
With a frontal assault imminent-this time, Colonel Phan's apprehensions
would be more than fulfilled-the defenders moved radios and equipment and
even the 105mm howitzer all the way to Muong Hiem, 7 miles away. Vientiane
ordered I
Ito abandon the Na Khang command post, and
IIand his compatriots took the last flight to Muong Hiem.]
'stayecI and identified targets to theCobservers aboard the AC-47 "Puff the
Magic Dragon" gunships."D
That night, the North Vietnamese stormed the hill above the airstrip and
broke through the defensive perimeter. But the desperate garrison regrouped
and killed 30 of the enemy at the command post, losing 12 of its own. The
next morning,r= and USAID man Don Sjostrom returned to Na Khang
with the air force forward air controller. The command post on the hill was
secure, but the remnants of enemy units still lurked in the brush. One group
was flushed out of hiding near the airstrip and, in a sharp skirmish, a dozen of
them were killed. A wounded sergeant was CjPtuTd, ando prepared to
send him out for treatment and interrogation.P
Yang Pao now arrived from Long Tieng in a helicopter. Standing on the
landing gear to relay instructions from the general to the pilot,r=heard a
burst of automatic weapons fire. The ,Pilot aruPtly applied power-his
windshield now had two holes in it-s-andl jumped off the landing gear.
Thinking the pilot had been spooked by the sound of friendly fire, he
screamed over his radio for the chopper to land. But the bullet holes in the H­
34 vindicated the pilot, who escaped around the hill to the alternate landing
pad behind it. As the chopper disappeared,[ ]saw Gen. Yang Pao holding
his bleeding right upper arm, shattered by a bullet that had also nicked
his throat. I
Ihelped him up the hill, but he stayed
on his feet until he reached the alternate pad and emergency evacuationD
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