Operation Ivory Coast
Operation Ivory Coast was a mission conducted by United States Special Operations Forces and other American military elements to rescue U.S. prisoners of war during the Vietnam War. It was also the first joint military operation in United States history conducted under the direct control of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The specially selected raiders extensively trained and rehearsed the operation at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, while planning and intelligence gathering continued from 25 May to 20 November 1970.
On 21 November 1970, a joint United States Air Force and United States Army force commanded by Air Force Brigadier General LeRoy J. Manor and Army Colonel Arthur D. "Bull" Simons landed 56 U.S. Army Special Forces soldiers by helicopter at the Sơn Tây prisoner-of-war camp, which was located west of Hanoi, North Vietnam. The objective of the operation was the recovery of 61 American prisoners of war thought to be held at the camp. It was found during the raid that the camp contained no prisoners as they had recently been moved to another camp.
Despite the absence of prisoners, the raid's execution was nearly flawless, with only two casualties and two aircraft losses. Criticism of the failure to detect the removal of the POWs prior to the raid, both public and within the administration of Richard Nixon, led to a major reorganization of the United States intelligence community a year later.
Planning, organization and training
Polar Circle
The concept of a rescue mission inside North Vietnam began on 9 May 1970. An Air Force intelligence unit concluded through analysis of aerial photography that a compound near Sơn Tây, suspected since late 1968 of being a prisoner of war camp, contained 55 American POWs and that at least six were in urgent need of rescue. 12,000 North Vietnamese troops were stationed within of the camp. After validation of their findings, Brigadier General James R. Allen, the deputy director for plans and policy at Headquarters USAF, met in the Pentagon on 25 May with Army BG Donald Blackburn, Special Assistant for Counterinsurgency and Special Activities. Blackburn reported directly to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and had also been the first commander of the covert Studies and Observation Group in Vietnam.Blackburn immediately met with General Earle G. Wheeler, the outgoing JCS Chairman, to recommend a rescue of all the POWs at Son Tây. To study the feasibility of a raid, Wheeler authorized a 15-member planning group under the codename Polar Circle that convened on June 10. One of its members was an officer who would actually participate in the raid as a rescue helicopter pilot. The study group, after a review of all available intelligence, concluded that Sơn Tây contained 61 POWs.
When Blackburn's recommendation that he lead the mission himself was turned down, he asked Colonel Arthur D. Simons on 13 July to command the Army's personnel. Eglin Air Force Base was selected as the joint training site for the prospective force. Personnel selection proceeded over the objections of the Marine Corps, which was excluded from participation, but selection and planning was performed by Special Operations "operators", not by the JCS, to avoid service parochialism, resulting in a force chosen for mission needs, highlighting combat experience in Southeast Asia and operational specialty skills, and not rank or branch of service.
Ivory Coast
The second phase, Operation Ivory Coast, began on 8 August 1970, when Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, the new JCS Chairman, designated Manor as commander and Simons as deputy commander of the mission task force. Ivory Coast was the organization, planning, training, and deployment phase of the operation. Manor set up an Air Force training facility at Eglin's Duke Field and brought together a 27-member planning staff that included 11 from the prior feasibility study.Simons chose 103 personnel from interviews of 500 volunteers, most were Special Forces personnel of the 6th and 7th Special Forces Groups at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. USAF planners selected key Air Force commanders, who then picked personnel for their crews. Helicopter and A-1 Skyraider crews were put together from instructors at Eglin and personnel returned from Southeast Asia. Two crews for C-130E Combat Talons were assembled from squadrons in West Germany and North Carolina. All were then asked to volunteer for a temporary duty assignment without additional pay and without being told the nature of the mission. 103 Army and 116 USAF personnel were selected for the project, including ground force members, aircrewmen, support members and planners. The 219-man task force planned, trained, and operated under the title of the "Joint Contingency Task Group".
The planning staff set up parameters for a nighttime raid, the key points of which were clear weather and a quarter moon at 35 degrees above the horizon for optimum visibility during low-level flight. From these parameters, two mission "windows" were identified, 18–25 October and 18–25 November. Training proceeded on Range C-2 at Eglin using an exact but crudely made replica of the prison compound for rehearsals and a $60,000 five-foot-by-five-foot scale table model for familiarization.
Air Force crews flew 1,054 hours in southern Alabama, Georgia, and Florida conducting "dissimilar formation" training with both UH-1H and HH-3E helicopters at night and at low-level, and gaining expertise in navigation training using forward looking infrared, which, until Ivory Coast, had not been part of the Combat Talon's electronics suite. A vee formation in which the slower helicopters drafted in echelon slightly above and behind each wing of the Combat Talon escort aircraft was chosen and refined for the mission to give the helicopters the speed necessary to keep pace with the Talons flying just above their stall speeds.
Special Forces training began on 9 September, advancing to night training on 17 September and joint training with air crews on 28 September that included six rehearsals a day, three of them under night conditions. By 6 October, 170 practice sessions of all or partial phases of the mission were performed on the mockup by the Special Forces troopers, many with live fire. On that date, the first full-scale dress rehearsal, using a UH-1H as the assault helicopter, was conducted at night and included a 5.5-hour, flight of all aircraft, replicating the timing, speeds, altitudes and turns in the mission plan. The rehearsal spelled the end of the option to use the UH-1 when its small passenger compartment resulted in leg cramps to the Special Forces troopers that completely disrupted the timing of their assault, more than offsetting the UH-1's only advantage over the larger HH-3. Two further full night rehearsals and a total of 31 practice landings by the HH-3E in the mockup's courtyard confirmed the choice.
On 24 September, Manor recommended approval of the October window to US Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, with 21 October as the primary execution date. However, at a White House briefing on 8 October with National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger and General Alexander M. Haig, Kissinger delayed the mission to the November window because President Nixon was not in Washington and could not be briefed in time for approval of the October window. This delay, while posing a risk of compromising the secrecy of the mission, had the benefits of additional training, acquisition of night-vision equipment and further reconnaissance of the prison.
Manor and Simons met with the commander of Task Force 77, Vice Admiral Frederic A. Bardshar, aboard his flagship on 5 November to arrange for a diversionary mission to be flown by naval aircraft. Because of policy restrictions of the bombing halt then in place, the naval aircraft would not carry ordnance except for a few planes tasked for Combat Search and Rescue.
Between 10 and 18 November, the JCTG moved to its staging base at Takhli Royal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand. The Combat Talons, using the call signs Daw 43 and Thumb 66 in the guise of being a part of Project Heavy Chain, left Eglin on 10 November, flew to Norton Air Force Base, California, and then routed through Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii and Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, arriving in Takhli on 14 November. The next day, four C-141 Starlifters departed one per day, carrying the Army contingent of the JCTG, its equipment and the UH-1 helicopter from Eglin to Thailand. The Special Forces personnel arrived in Thailand at 03:00 local time 18 November and later that date President Nixon approved execution of the mission, setting in motion the final phase, Operation Kingpin.
After overcoming in-theater friction with the 1st Weather Group at Tan Son Nhut Air Base, South Vietnam, planners began watching the weather during the week before the projected target date. On 18 November, Typhoon Patsy struck the Philippines and headed west towards Hanoi. Weather forecasts indicated that Patsy would cause bad weather over the Gulf of Tonkin on 21 November, preventing carrier support operations, and converging with a cold front coming out of southern China, would cause poor conditions over North Vietnam for the remainder of the window. The presence of the cold front, however, indicated that conditions in the objective area on 20 November would be good and possibly acceptable over Laos for navigation of the low-level penetration flights. A reconnaissance flight on the afternoon of 20 November by an RF-4C Phantom carrying a weather specialist confirmed the forecast. Manor decided to advance the mission date by 24 hours rather than delay it by five days.
Manor issued the formal launch order at 15:56 local time 20 November, while the raiding force was in the final stages of crew rest, and brought together the entire ground contingent for a short briefing regarding the objective and launch times. Following the briefing, Manor and his staff flew by T-39 Sabreliner to Da Nang Air Base, where they would monitor the mission from the USAF Tactical Air Control Center, North Sector at Monkey Mountain Facility. Three theater lift C-130s previously staged at U-Tapao Royal Thai Navy Airfield arrived at Takhli to transport the Army contingent and helicopter crews to Udorn RTAFB and the A-1 pilots to Nakhon Phanom.