"On the Ho Chi Minh Trail"

"On the Ho Chi Minh Trail"
Submitted by - Charley Barnes, Cpt, Headhunter 36, Pleiku May '67-May'68

In early 1968 the NVA started converting the Ho Chi Minh trail from a dirt path into a highway.  Because of the barrier posed by the high mountains along the border between Cambodia and Laos, the trail had to come through a small portion of Vietnam just west and south of Dak To known as the Plei Trap Valley before turning west into Cambodia.  In an attempt to forestall this project, the USAF directed a multitude of B-52 strikes into the area. 

In April 1968, three weeks before my DEROS, Captain Stan Irvin and I were assigned to conduct a two-ship bomb damage assessment of the area.  We initially surveyed the southern portion of the Plei Trap.  We found evidence of fuel dumps and saw a few enemy troops, upon whom we wasted all our rockets.  As we moved further north and east, slightly into Laos, where there had been no bombing, the highway was in plain sight and had bunkers every 40 or 50 meters.  Just up the road we saw a platoon of NVA pushing a gun south.  It was pretty large and had eight wheels.  Stan had a case of CS grenades and his observer dropped a few.  Then we had to skedaddle because we were low on gas, so we headed for Kontum, but cranked up the 175mm arty and fired blind while enroute.  Of course, we had to fudge a bit on the border between Laos and Vietnam.  As we departed I noticed a nearby hill top where the bamboo had all been cut down and wondered what that was all about. 

After refueling and grabbing a bite of lunch, we headed back to the area.  Thinking we were being sneaky, we flew low level up a valley toward the ridge line where the road was located.  I was lead ship and as I approached the ridge line I drew heavy fire from the smaller ridges to my left and right.  All I could do was evade and get over the higher ridge and road to my front, while Stan had room to turn around.  As I passed over the road, all I could see was masses of humanity running for the bunkers along the road.  We both put a  little distance between ourselves and this area, then climbed to an altitude of 1500 or 2000 feet above ground level.  We cranked up the 175mm arty again.  While adjusting the arty, I noticed that the area of cut bamboo I had seen before was cut in a clover leaf pattern.  This looked ominously like what an antiaircraft position was supposed to look like, and my suspicions were soon confirmed.  I heard a continuous boom-boom-boom sound, looked down, and saw what looked like green baseball bats coming up from the ground in my direction.  The only solution was to get low again, so I went into a spin until I was low, flew a good distance away, and then went back to altitude.  It was then that a USAF FAC called us on guard and told us to get away, he was putting in a flight of F-4s on the AA position.  But they were jinking so much when they went in that they didn’t come anywhere close.  After that we headed back to our base in Pleiku. 

I’m told that this road became a very dangerous place when it was completed, because the NVA had truck-mounted AA guns all along it.