Communist Forces Threaten Lima Site 85, in Laos

January 1, 1968 - January 31, 1968

An Antonov An-2 biplane dropping bombs on Lima 85 was spotted by a CIA-operated Air America helicopt

Overview

Lima Site 85, on top of Phou Pha Thi Mountain, in Laos, supports a covert U.S. tactical navigation station installed in late 1967. The station directs U.S. bombers to their targets in North Vietnam. Though important to the allied bombing campaign and defended by CIA, Air Force, and Hmong troops, Site 85 is highly vulnerable to being overrun.

Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese forces begin to converge on Lima Site 85, planning to destroy it. The U.S. Air Force and the CIA direct numerous airstrikes against the attacking troops, hoping to keep the site operational for as long as possible. On January 12, the North Vietnamese conduct their first air strike of the war against ground troops when two biplanes attack the site with 120-millimeter mortar shells. Both enemy planes are shot down by the crew of an Air America helicopter.¹

¹James C. Linder, “The War in Laos -The Fall of Lima Site 85,” 81–83, https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol38no5/pdf/v38i5a09p.pdf (accessed 4/10/2014); Timothy N Castle, One Day Too Long: Top Secret Site 85 and the Bombing of North Vietnam (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 76–78; Wayne Thompson, To Hanoi and Back: The United States Air Force and North Vietnam, 1966–1973 (Washington, D.C.: Air Force History and Museums Program, 2000), 102–3; Spencer C. Tucker, ed., The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History (2nd edition; Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2011), 657–58; Jacob Van Staaveren, Interdiction in Southern Laos, 1960–1968, The United States Air Force in Southeast Asia (Washington, D.C.: Center for Air Force History, 1993), 289.