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The mission was daunting: rescue approximately sixty American
prisoners of war from the Son Tay prison near Hanoi, North Vietnam.
A special task force of the USAF trained for several weeks for the raid.
It was the first major military operation to be conducted under the direct control
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Rank and service branch wouldn't matter. Only
the best of the best with extensive combat experience would be selected.
After thousands of hours of training, the mission was pulled-off with near flawless execution.
There was just one problem... when the rescuers arrived, no one was there.
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A Dangerous Mission
The risky rescue mission inside North Vietnam began on May 9th, 1970.
A series of aerial photographs were taken in a compound near Sơn Tây,
a town in the Hanoi province and suspected of being a camp for war prisoners.
The pictures proved that the center was withholding approximately 55 American prisoners.
At least six of them were in urgent need of medical care.
The prison camp was located near a station of 12,000 North Vietnamese troops.
Getting the Americans out of there safely would not be easy.
Two weeks after the footage was captured, deputy director for plans and policy at
the United States Air Force's Headquarters, James R. Allen,
organized a Pentagon meeting with Army Brigadier General Donald Blackburn.
After the gathering, Blackburn summoned General Earle G. Wheeler, the Department of Defense's
Joint Chiefs of Staff, and advised a rescue mission for all the prisoners at Son Tây.
General Wheeler authorized a series of discussions to study the raid feasibility, which required a
15 member planning group. Polar Circle, as the group was codenamed, began meeting on June 10th
of that same year. Together, they came to the conclusion that Son Tây contained 61 prisoners.
Some of the group members were men who would actually participate in the raid,
including an officer who would act as a rescue helicopter pilot.
Although General Blackburn wanted to lead the mission, he was turned down.
Instead, they chose Colonel Arthur D. Simons to command the entire mission's personnel.
Eglin Air Force Base in Florida was selected as the force's training site.
The personnel selection process for the hazardous mission was specialized and highly selective.
Previous combat experience in Southeast Asia was a requirement.
The Plan
For the rescue mission to be a total surprise, the raid was staged in
Thailand and launched at nighttime from south of the Laotian border in Udorn.
The flight route from Udorn to the prison camp in Son Tây was a journey of 687 miles over dense
jungle terrain. To succeed, the mission would have to be flown at low altitudes.
The mission would be led by Brigadier General Leroy J Manor, commander of USAF Special
Operations group at Eglin, and the actual assault portion of the task would be led by his deputy,
Army Colonel Arthur "Bull" Simmons, known for his unorthodox but effective operations.
The plan was tricky, but if they completed it successfully,
dozens of prisoners would be liberated.
First, an Army assault team would ride into Son Tay with Air Force HH-3E Jolly Green Giant
and five HH-53 helicopters. Two Air Force MC-130 Combat Talons would navigate for the team,
and two HC-130s would refuel the choppers.
A flight consisting of five A-1E Skyraiders would cover for them. Ten F-4s would fly a
MiG combat air patrol to intercept any North Vietnamese fighters that might try to interfere.
An F-105 Wild Weasel world bait the North Vietnamese surface-to-air missile site and
lure their attention away from the assault fleet.
The HH-3 helicopter would then land inside the prison compound with men
who would wake up the prisoners and release them from their cells.
The HH-53 helicopters would land outside of the area along with the entire assault force.
Some of the assault forces would secure the Son Tay area and fight off any enemy that appeared.
Other aircraft would blow a hole in the prison's
wall and lead the prisoners to their designated choppers.
Meanwhile, the A-1Es attack aircraft would also
provide cover and be available to assist against any enemy.
After loading the prisoners, the entire force would depart back to Udorn.
To confuse and distract the enemy, Navy planes would drop flares over an area close to Son Tay.
The mission's weapon arsenal consisted of assault rifles, grenades,
mines, and demolition instruments. To break into the prison,
the team would carry other tools such as bolt cutters, machetes, axes, and torches,
along with night sight glasses, ropes, fire extinguishers, and communication radios.
Concerned about the prisoners' physical condition, the rescue team prepared special medical kits
with pain killers, anesthetics, and splints. In addition, they loaded up the aircraft with water,
thermal clothing, pajamas, and baby food, in case the prisoners were too weak to consume solid food.
The training at Eglin Air Force Base began on August 20th. A full-scale rehearsal
was completed on October 6th. For the exercises, a scale model of
the Son Tay prison camp was constructed to plan all alternative approaches to the raid.
By November, the raiders had practiced their role on the mission over 170 times,
and the air elements of the force had flown 268 sorties and logged more than 1,000 hours.
The mission was highly secretive. According to Grady Vines, a Special Forces Non commissioned
officer [QUOTE]: "We had live-fire exercises, raided a mock stockade; trained around the clock,
no breaks, no let-up. Our wives or families were told we were testing new equipment."
A Risk Worth Taking
Unbeknownst to the task force, updated imagery of the Son Tay camp showed a sudden decrease in
activity shortly before the raid. On October 3rd, official reconnaissance photos showed no sign of
the prisoners. Still, the continued occupation of the site was apparent in other footage.
The Secretary of Defense was briefed about the possibility that there might
be no prisoners at all left on the camp. Still, General Blackburn and Director of the
Defense Intelligence Agency Lieutenant General Donald Bennett recommended the raid proceed.
Laird agreed. Somebody was staying in Son Tay Camp. And if there was even a remote
chance that there were starving Americans in the site, it was a risk worth taking.
The "go" message for the mission was on the night of November 20th.
Not all men who would take part in the mission were briefed about the real reason for the task,
such as the aircrews in charge of dropping flares for distraction. They were only told to fire their
ammunition against any foreign defense that posed a threat to the mysterious operation.
As the night began, all air and ground force personnel gathered in the base theater. There,
Colonel Simmons revealed that they were going to attempt rescuing American prisoners of war.
At first, the men were stunned into silence, but they stood up and began
cheering after the initial shock. They felt honored to rescue their fellow soldiers.
The task force members boarded their C-130 Hercules and prepared to fly to Udorn,
where the choppers and other aircraft were already waiting.
By the time they all crossed the Laotian border, at approximately 11:30 pm,
a force of no less than 116 aircraft had departed from seven different bases in Thailand
and three additional carriers in the Tonkin Gulf.
The lead helicopter carrying the initial attack force was an HH-3E Jolly Green Giant
ready to crash-land inside the camp to get the rescue started.
When they arrived at the Son Tay camp, there was only a partial moon,
and only the camp's outline was distinguishable.
But the task force had practiced for weeks, and they knew exactly what to do.
Their spirits were high, and everyone was looking forward to bringing Americans home.
They were positive the operation was going to be a success.
When "Banana," the HH-3 chopper, reached inside the area through a controlled crash landing,
a 13 man assault group stormed into the prison buildings.
Meanwhile, a helicopter crew guarded them against North Vietnamese reinforcement.
Assault team leader Major Meadows announced through a bullhorn that they were at the
site to rescue their fellow Americans. A few of the estimated 55 North Vietnamese
soldiers in the compound attempted to put up a fight, but most retreated into the night.
Meadows and his force scoured the prison compound. It was empty.
As it turned out, the prisoners had been moved before the team's arrival,
and so for reasons still unknown today, no prisoners were rescued that day.
According to former U.S. Air Force Col. Jay Strayer, who was one of the pilots in this rescue
attempt [QUOTE]: "The feeling of disappointment to find out people had been moved was huge.
We had been practicing for a long time,
and then to find no one there when we arrived was simply deflating."
The men had completed their mission in 28 minutes, only 3 more than their original plan,
and no Americans were killed. However, they rescued no one.
The men returned to their bases in silence, astounded.
Divided Opinions The unsuccessful mission divided critics.
On one side, the operation had been a tactical success because of its execution, the message
it conveyed, and the fact that there were no American casualties. But on the other side,
it was a catastrophic intelligence failure.
It turned out that the prisoners at Son Tay had been moved in July,
due to contamination by flooding.
They were instead at another camp 15 miles closer to Hanoi, known amongst prisoners as Camp Faith.
The secrecy of the operation was ultimately its downfall.
The mission's weakness was the compartmentalization of the information
and the isolation of the assembled task force members from other intelligence sources.
According to John Gargus, a planner and participant of the operation [QUOTE]: "We
concede that the raid was allowed to take place because those who had the correct intelligence
information were not aware that someone was contemplating a prisoner of war rescue."
The raid's failure was devoured by the media, haters of the Vietnam War,
and Nixon administration opponents. They criticized that the mission ran on outdated
intelligence and that it would provoke American prisoners still held captive to be mistreated.
However, as a result of the Son Tay raid, the North Vietnamese
soon combined their prisoner of war camps to local prison complexes.
A portion of the Hanoi Hilton, which housed South Vietnamese prisoners,
became Camp Unity, a block of communal areas that housed 50 people each.
After their repatriation, many prisoners of war mentioned that being in close contact
with others lifted their morale, as did the knowledge of the Son Tay rescue attempt.
Some Americans commented that after the raid, food,
medical care, and mail delivery vastly improved.