Operation Momentum
Operation White Star, RLA/ADC, PEO, PARU, USAID, Raven Forward Air Controllers, Air America, BirdAir, CASI | |
Outcome | Guerrilla army of 30,000 troops raised; project abandoned in 1974 |
---|---|
Casualties | 18,000–20,000 fatalities 50,000 civilian casualties |
Operation Momentum was a guerrilla training program during the
The Momentum technique of parachuting in equipment to train guerrillas was successful and copied widely by Americans during the
The success of Operation Momentum brought about more extensive training for the
Even as Operation Momentum expanded and spread throughout Laos, the burgeoning
Background
As the
Lair knew that his superiors felt that the hostilities in Laos could be settled only one of two ways: either direct military intervention with American troops, or a surrender of Laos to communism.
The proposition was approved; Lair was placed in charge, with funding coming direct from the office of the Director of Central Intelligence.[6] Fitzgerald arranged for the first class of Hmong basic training. Dubbed Project Momentum, it supplied the military gear necessary for equipping 2,000 soldiers as an experiment. As the Programs Evaluation Office was already in place in the U.S. Embassy, it was tasked with furnishing the needed equipment from Department of Defense stores. Trainers would come from Lair's Thai Border Patrol Police, in the form of the Police Aerial Reinforcement Unit cadre. The new troops would become members of 100 man irregular military units called Auto Defense Choc (roughly, Self Defense Shock (troops)).[2]
Momentum builds momentum
When Lair helicoptered back up to the Plain of Jars, he found that Vang Pao had seven separate concentrations of Hmong males gathered on high points surrounding the Plain of Jars. Lair and Vang Pao decided that if they parachuted in training equipment to the obscure village of Ban Padong, it would take three days for communist troops to show up. A three-day curriculum was set up. After receiving
The expected communist assailants not yet having arrived, Team D began a new training cycle. They were joined by two Central Intelligence Agency
The sixth CIA agent to report to Momentum was
By 1 April, funding had been authorized for a total strength of 7,000 ADC troops.[8] Seven CIA agents and five PARU teams had raised a guerrilla army ringing the Plain of Jars.[2] The new militia blocked all exits from the Plain of Jars except to the southeast; that was held by Royalist regulars blocking the route to Vientiane.[9] They were resupplied via contract with civilian airlines such as Air America and BirdAir. Supplies were landed at short takeoff and landing strips when available; otherwise they were parachuted in.[2]
With this accomplished, two new Momentum training sites were established between the Plain of Jars and the
By May, there were 5,000 Hmong ADC soldiers in the field. The success of Momentum sparked interest from the Programs Evaluations Office, which funded the first 2,000 trainees. They insisted on inserting their Special Forces trainers into the program. Drawbacks became apparent. Besides the language barrier between the Green Berets and the Hmong, there was the added attention from the PAVN to contend with during Operation Pincushion.[2]
By early June, the original ADC site at Padong was being shelled by
By August 1961, six months after Momentum began its three-day training program, the Clandestine Army of Hmong had reached 9,000 strong;[10] it was then slated to train an additional 3,000 recruits. At about the same time, President John F. Kennedy, acting as Commander in Chief, directed the transfer of Momentum's training programs over to the U.S. Special Forces. The Operation White Star teams moved into five Momentum training camps. The Green Berets also tried to raise their own guerrilla forces west of Route 13, which ran from Vientiane to Luang Prabang, with limited success.[10]
Momentum dampened
Also in August 1961, 120 picked candidates began training as 12 man Special Operating Teams in
Concurrently, eight teams of PARU moved northward past the Plain of Jars toward the Pathet Lao stronghold of Xam Neua. Another development was that of Special Guerrilla Units. These were formed by training ADC troopers in offensive operations at Hua Hin for four weeks. In May 1962, 500 candidates in five companies began their training in guerrilla tactics and parachuting. In June, they returned to Laos to become cadres for forming and expanding new guerrilla units. The SGUs would eventually become the size of a battalion.[11][12]
In July 1962, the
Momentum revived
The CIA had founded a Momentum type program in South Vietnam among the
Upon his return to Laos, Lair recruited Momentum soldiers from the largest nonaligned
Meanwhile, in northern Laos, Vang Pao had tried to counterattack in late 1964, with little success. He also renewed efforts to extend Momentum training to sites between the Plain of Jars and the Vietnamese border. Working in conjunction with the RLA, as he would for the rest of the war, he managed to reach as closely as only 13 kilometers from the border. In response, the North Vietnamese committed their most powerful force since the
By early 1965, the ADC program had extended westward from Military Region 2, into Military Region 1. Even without commitment of PARU trainers or CIA agents, three centers of Hmong resistance sprang up; two were north of Nam Bac, and the other in the far northern province of
By 1966, the Hmong involvement in Momentum had grown to the point that the hill tribe could no longer depend on its own gardens and herds for food. The villagers had become dependent upon
At this point, Momentum gained a new boss when Theodore Shackley transferred in as the CIA's Chief of Station in Laos. Shackley is credited with stating that Momentum was run like a country store, and it was his job to turn it into a supermarket. An ad hoc U.S. Air Force unit called the Raven Forward Air Controllers was founded to direct the swelling tide of airpower being unleashed in support of the Hmong and other irregulars. Rather than continuing to craft a strategy to defend Laos, the new emphasis in the war became the support of the combat in South Vietnam.[21]
By 1967, there were 431,000 American troops stationed in Vietnam; 15,000 had already been killed in action. The fiscal year budget for that theater was about $21 billion—approximately 700 times that of the budget for the Laotian Civil War. By contrast, there were still only a relative handful of Americans in Laos, and few casualties.[22] However, the trend toward using the guerrillas in the role of regular troops continued. Vang Pao's SGU battalions were redesignated to Bataillon Guerriers (Warrior Battalions) to reflect their new role. For the first time, they were organized into ad hoc regiment referred to as a Groupement Mobile.[23]
End
As both the war and Operation Momentum ran down, the Hmong irregulars suffered heavy casualties defending fixed positions as conventional infantry. The original arrangement that the Hmong would defend their homeland was subordinated to American interests in the Vietnam theater. Misused as light infantry instead of guerrillas, the Hmong's fighting strength was sapped by losses even as the population of new recruits dried up. Nor was it solely a case of military casualties. The Hmong families of the soldiers also suffered through repeated relocations and communist attacks.[24]
By 1973, about 120,000 Hmong—almost half their population—were refugees within Laos. About 18,000 to 20,000 Hmong soldiers had been killed in action; the civilian toll of killed and wounded amounted to almost 50,000. The communist advances captured more and more of Laos, crowding in on the Hmong, who had no line of retreat.[25]
Funding for Operation Momentum ended on 30 September 1974. As G. McMurtrie Godley stated about the dreadful human cost: "We used the Meo (Hmong). The rationale...was that they tied down three first-rate North Vietnamese divisions that otherwise would have been used against our men in South Vietnam. It was a dirty business."[26]
A hasty last-minute air evacuation from Long Tieng on 14 and 15 May 1975 moved 2,500 Hmong to Thailand. However, the overwhelming majority of the Hmong were left on foot to find their way as best they could. Many of them walked south to Thailand for refuge. By the end of 1975, there were 54,000 Hmong refugees known to be in Thai refugee camps; an equal number were believed to have found shelter with relatives in northern Thailand.[25]
Notes
- ^ Warner, pp. 26–29, 33–34, 45.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Conboy, Morrison, pp. 61–66.
- ^ Warner, p. 46.
- ^ Warner, pp. 45–47.
- ^ Ahern, p. 83.
- ^ Warner, p. 48.
- ^ Ahern, p. 44.
- ^ Ahern, p. 53.
- ^ Ahern, p. 66.
- ^ a b Conboy, Morrison, p. 88.
- ^ a b Conboy, Morrison, p. 89.
- ^ Warner, pp. 118–120.
- ^ Warner, pp. 83–84, 88.
- ^ Conboy, Morrison, pp. 89, 97–98.
- ^ a b Warner, pp. 130–132.
- ^ Warner, pp. 128–129.
- ^ Conboy, Morrison, pp. 125–126.
- ^ Conboy, Morrison, pp. 126–127.
- ^ Conboy, Morrison, pp. 130–136.
- ^ Warner, p. 178.
- ^ Warner, pp. 182–183.
- ^ Warner, p. 241.
- ^ Conboy, Morrison, p. 170.
- ^ Warner, pp. 58, 72–73, 152–153, 238–239, 243–244, 297–298.
- ^ a b Robinson, pp. 13–14.
- ^ Warner, p. 362.
References
- Ahern, Thomas L. Jr. (2006), Undercover Armies: CIA and Surrogate Warfare in Laos. Center for the Study of Intelligence. Classified control no. C05303949.
- Conboy, Kenneth and James Morrison (1995). Shadow War: The CIA's Secret War in Laos. Paladin Press. ISBN 0-87364-825-0.
- Robinson, Court (1998). Terms of Refuge: The Indochinese Exodus & the International Response. Zed Books. ISBN 1-85649-610-4.
- Warner, Roger (1995). Back Fire: The CIA's Secret War in Laos and Its Link to the War in Vietnam. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-80292-9.