Operation Igloo White - Operations in Laos

Operations in Laos

For more details on on the struggle in I Corps, see Battle of Khe Sanh. For more details on on U.S. aerial support at Khe Sanh, see Operation Niagara. For more details on on the U.S. aerial interdiction effort in southeastern Laos, see Operation Commando Hunt.

On 25 November 1967, Muscle Shoals began to undergo field testing and evaluation in southeastern Laos. This process was stopped by the battle of Khe Sanh, when an estimated three PAVN divisions approached, and then surrounded the Marine outpost in western Quang Tri Province adjacent to Laos. The U.S. commander in Vietnam, General William C. Westmoreland, ordered Task Force Alpha to support the aerial effort to defend the base (Operation Niagara). On 22 January, the first of 316 sensors were implanted around and near Khe Sanh in 44 strings by Navy squadron VO-67.

Although the Marine Direct Air Support Center was at first reluctant to trust the sensors (which in fact replaced ground patrolling), they were soon convinced of their utility. The Marines credited 40 percent of intelligence available to the Khe Sahn fire support coordination center to the sensors. General Westmoreland was ecstatic about Task Force Alpha's contribution to the victory at Khe Sanh. He had been one of the few high-ranking military officers that had supported the barrier concept since its planning stages.

With the conclusion of aerial operations around Khe Sanh and the close out of the Marine base, the focus of Igloo White (as the operation was redesignated in June) turned once again to Laos. On 15 November 1968, the Seventh/Thirteenth Air Force had inaugurated Operation Commando Hunt, a series of continuous interdiction operations against the Ho Chi Minh Trail that would continue until the end of American participation in the war. For the next four years Igloo White and Commando Hunt would be interlinked in the anti-infiltration effort.

With the advent of Igloo White/Commando Hunt, the aerial interdiction effort entered a new phase. Armed reconnaissance – the patrolling of known segments of the trail system by aircraft searching for targets of opportunity – gave way to strikes directed by the sensor system. That is not to say the Task Force Alpha had operational control of the aircraft that carried out the missions. The Seventh Air Force was not about to surrender the single air manager control that it had just fought so hard to obtain. Task Force Alpha supported the Seventh by gathering, analyzing, and disseminating intelligence. This intelligence was delivered from Nakhon Phanom to the Seventh's headquarters at Ton Son Nhut Air Base, where it issued the strike orders. The ABCCCs were also under the control of the Seventh, not Task Force Alpha.

The only exception to this arrangement was Operation Commando Bolt, a real-time, LORAN-based technique which utilized sensor strike zones derived from predicted target locations. These missions were coordinated by Task Force Alpha's Sycamore control center against targets that passed through strike modules (four strings of three to six sensors each). Air controllers at Sycamore then directly delivered the correct course, altitude, and speed necessary for the strike aircraft to deliver their ordnance to the correct coordinates.

There were some initial problems with the system. During Operation Commando Hunt I, for example, there were so many aircraft piling up in the air space over southern Laos that the air controllers and FACs could not keep track of them. Pilots, many of whom were veterans of Rolling Thunder, tended to arrive over the area in large waves instead of spacing out their arrivals over time. One technical failure, however, would have hugh ramifications for the entire program. The anti-personnel system, which was based on the dispersal of wide-area Gravel mines (the explosions of which would activate acoustic sensors) failed completely. The mines deteriorated too rapidly in the heat and humidity of Laos, thereby negating the system.

The North Vietnamese response to the threat posed by the sensors was swift. If PAVN troops could detect the general location of a sensor, they immediately began to search out others and destroy them. Another response was to simply avoid them. The final evolution of anti-sensor measures was to attempt to deceive them. The chief protection of the sensors proved to be the dense foliage that covered the majority of the logistical system, turning the enemy's chief protection against him. Doubtless, PAVN troops negated the effects of many sensors, but so many of them were sown over such a long period of time that the majority survived.