I thought I had gone deaf after the A-1’s dropped their bombs. The TSQ-81 is a cargo-trailer, transportable version of the MSQ-77. The Battle of Lima Site 85 The Battle of Lima Site 85. Credit: DVIDS. )[15] In April 1967, Reeves Instrument Corporation was contracted to modify the trailer-mobile ("M") AN/MSQ-77 design to a helicopter transportable ("T") version without trailer chassis/wheels and other mobility equipment. Together, Husband and Etchberger were last up the line, tumbling aboard the Huey just as it began taking groundfire. In 2005 the remains of several American bodies were recovered where the enemy had thrown them—on a ledge 540 feet below the summit. On February 18 near the head of the road an NVA survey party was defeated (the NVA map with planned artillery positions was captured. Over the next few months, Lima 85 would direct 507—about 27 percent—of 1,899 bombing missions over northern Laos and North Vietnam. Willis R. Hall, a cryptographic technician, took cover in the jumble of rocks on the summit. HistoryNet.com is brought to you by Historynet LLC, the world's largest publisher of history magazines. We could see them through binoculars looking back at us.”, Over the first 10 days in March, Lima 85 directed only three bombing raids into North Vietnam but called for 230 within roughly 15 miles of Phou Pha Thi for the base’s own defense. )[13]:160 Fuel drums for the MB5 were landed directly at the mountaintop. We even knew the number of the units and the names of their commanders: two regiments of NVA regulars, about 3,000 troops—one of infantry and one of artillery drawing 85 mm divisional field guns. There was another military disaster in early 1968 that would remain unreported for many years. One of the little-known battles of the Vietnam War was the battle for Lima Site 85, where a top-secret US Air Force radar site was destroyed by North Vietnamese commandos. “It was like setting off a string of firecrackers, only a thousand times magnified,” Sliz said. The first substantial engagement in the Battle of Lima Site 85 came on the 12th of January when the North Vietnamese forces sent four Russian biplanes to try and destroy the radar from the sky. “We knew that the enemy was coming,” Sliz, the ex-captain, recalled. Husband told everyone that Starling was still on the mountaintop. As generator repairman and ex-Staff Sgt. He was the last of the seven American survivors pulled to safety. With the bomber near a designated "Initial Point" LS-85 would begin a radar track and the Bomb Directing Central's analog computer would calculate a computer track and solve the "bomb problem" for the aircraft's flight path. You will read of the Construction of the Site, as well as the infamous Battle for Lima Site 85. The mountain, which is about... Battle. Air America Capt. The TACAN beacon, a 105 mm howitzer and the command bunker were hit. “There were five of us in that little hole, with barely enough room for two. Richard Etchberger, shown in 1968 before going to Lima 85, received the Medal of Honor posthumously for his heroism during the fight. The Lost Battle of Lima Site 85 . Still, it’s a story that must be told, if only to let those who paid the final price rest a little easier.” V. Don Hollway wrote “Flaming Flattops” in the August 2020 issue. Video highlighting the LIMA Site 85 mission and impact after 50 years. The U.S. ambassador to Laos, William H. Sullivan, reluctant to further violate supposed Laotian neutrality, forbade American troops to defend the Lima 85 radar site despite an enemy response that was sure to come. Phou Pha Thi, the location of Lima Site 85. In this website you will learn the story of a USAF Top Secret Radar Site, in Northern Laos, that was overrun on March 11, 1968, resulting in the loss of 12 great American Patriots. The Colts reached Site 85 early in the afternoon, and two began bombing and strafing passes as the others circled nearby. [18]:36 Construction included leveling steel girders on vertical posts to allow a Corps of Engineers[19] CH-47s to airlift[20] the "new equipment, vans [rigid shelters], and prefab crew quarters". Orders came down direct from Washington to hold the site “at whatever cost. A calibration in September 1967[21] included an estimation of the AN/TSQ-81 antenna coordinates by "fly-in" using aircraft tracked by LS-85 while overflying previously-surveyed nearby peaks (surveyors at the peaks observed the flyover precision). The site had an air strip, a command post, helicopter landing zone, and commando club radar. “We saw that it would be difficult to use a large attack force and difficult to develop firepower,” admitted Do Chi Ben. Battle of Lima Site 85, concluding the 11th with largest single ground combat loss of US Air Force members (12) during the Vietnam War. Five more radar technicians were brought in, raising the crew strength to 19 and allowing for 24-hour operations to maintain the bombing runs on North Vietnam and protect the base itself. The LS-85 military installation began in August 1966 with TACAN radar installation at a supply site and command post for "Hmong officers and CIA paramilitary advisers [to control] harassing operations against the Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese". Donald K. “Monk” Springsteadah were killed almost immediately. The living quarters were riddled with shrapnel. servicemen with critical skills posing as civilian contractors on a volunteer basis,” Secord said. One more, Skyraider pilot Maj. Donald E. Westbrook, was shot down and killed during efforts to bomb and destroy the remaining facilities at Lima 85. [4] TACAN and AN/TSQ-81 personnel were included in the February plan[4] to evacuate when the site's risk became too high, and defense training had been provided. Stanley J. Sliz, the site day-shift coordinator, “and I still do believe that everybody up there was a special individual. One of the investigators is rappelling down the face of the mountain. An Antonov An-2 biplane dropping bombs on Lima 85 was spotted by a CIA-operated Air America helicopter and shot down with an AK-47 assault rifle. Ten days into 1968 the Hmong drove off an enemy probe at the foot of Phou Pha Thi. Sgt. The enemy barrage trailed off, although scattered gunfire could be heard below where the Hmong ground force was engaged. The U.S. facility atop of Phou Pha Thi, known as Lima Site 85, was the site of a major battle on 10 March 1968. Blanton and his night shift went to work calling in airstrikes, but Sullivan in the Laotian capital of Vientiane made the decision to evacuate at first light. Try. On March 9, a CIA assessment concluded: “The length of time which seven enemy battalions can be tied down in an assault on Site 85 will significantly affect the enemy’s ability to exercise other aggressive attack options in northeast Laos.” The U.S. military had its hands full with Tet and didn’t need those seven enemy battalions employed elsewhere. At the end of January 1968, the NVA and Viet Cong began the Tet Offensive, a mass of simultaneous attacks on towns and bases throughout South Vietnam. “We could see them on the other mountains around us. The Battle of Lima Site 85 was a Vietnam War attack by forces of the Vietnam People's Army on a clandestine United States base in the neutral Kingdom of Laos with airstrip, command post, helicopter landing zone, TACAN, and Commando Club radar. The Battle of Lima Site 85, also called Battle of Phou Pha Thi, was fought as part of a military campaign waged during the Lima Site 85 (LS-85 alphanumeric code of the phonetic 1st letter used to conceal this covert operation) was a clandestine Laos military installation of the Hmong "Secret Army", the Central Intelligence Agency, and the United States Air Force used for Vietnam War covert operations against communist targets in ostensibly neutral Laos. He lives in central Pennsylvania. Communist soldiers in a posed photo attack with an SKS carbine, AK-47 assault rifle and grenades in South Vietnam, much like they did in their assault on Lima 85. Ted Moore, piloting an inbound helicopter, couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw the biplane: “It looked like World War I.”. Battle of Lima Site 85; Part of the Vietnam War and the Laotian Civil War: The U.S. facility atop of Phou Pha Thi, known as Lima Site 85, was the site of a major battle on 10 March 1968. Lima 85 eventually received some 150 tons of material. 5. [5]:4 The "First Mobile Communications Group Team 72-66" deployed the 60 Hz diesel-powered[10] MB5 Generator Set and 1 kilowatt[11] ITT AN/TRN-17 Beacon-Transponder Set from Clark AFB to Udorn RTAFB in August 1966 via a C-123 cargo aircraft—then to the Sam Thong runway (LS-20) for transfer to "Army CH-47 Chinooks" which refueled later at Nakhang (LS-36) to complete the airlift to LS-85.[5]. He played dead. This curious little dogfight was the CIA’s first air-to-air victory—and is thought to be the first and only time a helicopter shot down an airplane. “The crest ran northwest to southeast straight out of a lush valley filled with opium poppies waving scarlet in the breeze.”. 1968 in the Vietnam War-Wikipedia See also Battle of Lima Site 85 , Commando Club James William Lair - Wikipedia * The May 11, 1997, DoD translation of Do Chi Ben's Tran Tap Kich Vao Khu 'TACAN' tren Nui Pa-thi cuar Phan doi Dac Cong Quan Khu, ngay 11 thang 3 nam 1968 by Robert J. Destatte (translation edited April 7, 1998) is entitled Raid on the TACAN Site Atop Pha-Thi Mountain by a Military Region Sapper Team on 11 March 1968. There were power generators and fuel tanks, frequency converters, various tactical radios and antennae, a weather station, a helipad, a command bunker, two 12-by-9-by-40-foot steel containers for living quarters and operations, and a clapboard shack for a latrine. [16], Commando Club was a US operation of the Vietnam War that used command guidance of aircraft by the Laos Site 85 radar for ground-directed bombing (GDB) of targets in North Vietnam and clandestine targets in Laos. The central at LS-85 automatically effected release of the ordnance from the aircraft to eliminate the variable crewmember delay during the greater vulnerability of the generally steady bomb run. [4] LS-85 was supplied via an "Air America STOL airstrip[5] … two-thirds of the way down the mountain"[6] and the command bunker was down the hill from the summit[2] (identified by the North Vietnamese as the "communications center". )[7] The airstrip was also used for refueling USAF rescue helicopters. Phou Pha Thi is a remote mountain in Houaphanh Province, northeastern Laos. Two days later Lima 85 was showered with grenades, mortar-shell bombs and rockets launched from a pair of Soviet-made North Vietnamese Antonov An-2 biplanes. )[24]:d LS-85 directing bombings of Laos' Ban Phougnong truck park on December 22, a target "25 miles west of Channel 97" on December 28, and "a target 20 miles east of San Neua" December 31; and "Commando Club under Wager Control" bombed the Kim Lo Army Barracks northwest of Hanoi on February 7, 1968,[24]:c a Route Pack V target on February 11, and the "Phuc Yen (JCS 6) airfield" & "the Ban Nakay truck park in Northern Laos" on February 19. Walter de la Mare, poet and novelist (Memoir of a Midget, Come Hither). Almost immediately all hell broke loose. “Dick never got hit during this time and was directing me on what was taking place and what to do,” recalled Daniel, who used their only radio to raise a pair of inbound A-1E Skyraider fighter-bombers. Lima Site 85 Battle of Lima Site 85: | | The |Battle of Lima Site 85|, also called |Battle of Phou Pha Thi|, was fought as... World Heritage Encyclopedia, the aggregation of the largest online encyclopedias available, and the most definitive collection ever assembled. The LS-85 mountaintop area included radar shelters ("Operations") with antennas and interior equipment normally in/on mobile, *The 99 Commando Club missions on NVN required ~500, (chapter transcription at Air Commando Association webpage), (LimaSite85.us webpage: "[Source: e-mail Robert J. Destatte to Ron Haden, January 4, 2003]"), CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (, Matagorda Island General Bombing and Gunnery Range, mobile version of AN/TRN-17 with generator trailers, during and after Heavy Green (5:50 shot of both airstrip & mountaintop), Raid on the TACAN Site Atop Pha-Thi Mountain by a Military Region Sapper Team on 11 March 1968, "TRN-17 TACAN installation, Lima Site 85, Phou Pha Thi, Laos", "Part II: Combat Lancer and Commando Club", http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3101/is_2_53/ai_n29269246/, http://www.parttarget.com/6115-00-504-1401_6115005041401_MB5.html/-DF018024-38DE-492A-8EE0-D4D9F13CE34F, http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=AD0402699, "Installation of MSQ-77 in Northern Laos", "Last Skyspot academic or practical qualified crews", "Captain Stan Sliz was the day shift Controller for Lima Site 85", "Acoubuoy, Spikebuoy, Muscle Shoals and Igloo White: An unofficial history of an electronic warfare operation during Vietnam", "34th Tactical Fighter Squadron – Thud Era", "Air Force Sergeant MIA from Vietnam War is Identified", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lima_Site_85&oldid=990795769, Military history of Laos during the Vietnam War, Radar stations of the United States Air Force, United States military bases of the Vietnam War, Military installations of the United States in Laos, Military installations established in 1967, Articles with dead external links from May 2017, Articles with permanently dead external links, Articles with incomplete citations from October 2012, CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown, Articles needing more detailed references, Wikipedia articles needing factual verification from October 2012, Wikipedia articles needing clarification from October 2012, Articles with self-published sources from December 2017, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 26 November 2020, at 15:25. They opened up on us from all over, throwing grenades and firing their AK-47s.”, Ex-Staff Sgt. For his heroism and sacrifice, Etchberger received the Air Force Cross posthumously. battle: Part of: Vietnam War: Location: Lima Site 85, Houaphanh Province, Laos : Point in time: 11 March 1968: Start time: 10 March 1968: End time: 11 March 1968: 20° 19′ 59.92″ N, 103° 49′ 58.8″ E The site's Initial inspection regarding suitability for ground-directed bombing was by its eventual 7th AF coordinator,[18]:36 and geodetic surveying[13]:100 was by a 1st Combat Evaluation Group team manned from existing Combat Skyspot operating locations. [12] The site was developed under USAF Major Richard Secord (assisted by[specify]Tom Clines) by first "clearing additional space on the white karst limestone mountaintop"[6] with blasting by a "Navy Seabee demolitions expert". For more stories from Vietnam magazine, subscribe here and visit us on Facebook: Oliver Cromwell, lord protector of England (1653-1658). 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