A replica prison camp built of canvas and wooden frames stood at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., in 1970, and it was taken down at the end of every day’s training. Army Special Forces soldiers and Air Force crews used it for about 170 rehearsals of a single mission. In the early hours of Nov. 21, 1970, they flew it for real against the Son Tay prisoner-of-war camp in North Vietnam and found no American prisoners there.
The raid, Operation IVORY COAST, was a joint effort to free U.S. POWs held about 23 miles west of Hanoi. The prisoners, it was later determined, had been moved out of the camp in July, four months before the raiders arrived.
The account here follows “Operation IVORY COAST: A Mission of Mercy,” a history by Robert D. Seals of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command History Office, published on army.mil on Dec. 2, 2020. It describes the training this way: “Using a canvas and wooden framed mock-up of the POW camp that was taken down at the end of each day’s training to preserve operational security, rehearsals became progressively harder, and later conducted at night.”
Signals from a compound
Planning began in early May 1970, per the USASOC history, when U.S. Air Force photo analysts at Fort Belvoir, Va., saw what they believed to be ground-to-air signals from a known POW compound in North Vietnam. Brig. Gen. Donald D. Blackburn pressed for a rescue.
The Joint Contingency Task Group was activated Aug. 8, 1970, under Brig. Gen. Leroy J. Manor, with Col. Arthur D. “Bull” Simons as deputy commander. Lt. Col. Elliot P. “Bud” Sydnor Jr. commanded the ground force, and Capt. Richard J. “Dick” Meadows led the assault group.
Notices went out at Fort Bragg, N.C., and the Army ground force was selected mainly from the 6th and 7th Special Forces Groups, according to the history. “Soldiers selected were told they would be gone for 30 to 90 days, packed their bags, and were soon flown to Eglin AFB,” it says.
About 170 rehearsals at Eglin
Training began Sept. 9, 1970. By Sept. 28, the USASOC history says, Army and Air Force elements were training together, with full mission profiles of the raid starting in October. Across that period, “some 170 rehearsals” were conducted.
Air Force Special Operations Command, in an article marking the retirement of one of the raid’s helicopters, says the mission “was repeatedly rehearsed using a full-sized compound mock-up near Duke Field, known as Auxiliary Airfield No. 3.” That helicopter, HH-53 tail number 68-10357, flew on the raid under the call sign “Apple 1” and led a formation of HH-53 and HH-3 helicopters into North Vietnam, according to AFSOC. It later served as an MH-53 Pave Low.
The air side was large. The USASOC history lists 19 fixed-wing and six rotary-wing Air Force aircraft, among them HH-3E “Jolly Green Giant” helicopters and a C-130, plus a Navy air diversion of 59 aircraft.
Twenty-seven minutes at Son Tay
The force deployed to launch sites in Thailand in November and waited for the decision to go. “The lead helicopter landed on the courtyard of the small POW compound at approximately 0219 hours, November 21,” the Army history says. Inside the compound, Meadows led a 14-man assault group, while security elements initially landed several hundred meters south of the camp.
“It soon became apparent no POWs were present at Son Tay,” the history says. After a search of every building in the compound, Simons gave the order to withdraw. “It was twenty-seven minutes total from time-on-target to the last helicopter departure.” All raiders returned, with two casualties: a gunshot wound and a broken leg.
What the empty camp changed
The raid recovered no one. The USASOC history says it still “did boost morale for POWs in North Vietnam,” and that some camps were closed afterward and the prisoners consolidated, “resulting in better care.”
The Army history also draws a longer lesson: the raid showed that well-rehearsed joint special operations forces could operate deep in denied territory. The last American POW was released in April 1973, according to the history.
Top image: MH-53M Pave Low 68-10357, which flew the Son Tay raid as Apple 1, at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force. Image Credit: U.S. Air Force — Public domain / Wikimedia Commons