page_title: Ho Chi Minh trail
section_title: Ground operations against the trail
hierarchical_section_title: Ho Chi Minh trail / Interdiction and expansion (1965–1968) / Ground operations against the trail
caption_attribution_description: English: “In Laos a Studies and Observations Group (SOG) team reconnoiters the Ho Chi Minh Trail for installations and pipelines.”
context_page_description: The Ho Chi Minh trail to the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) through the kingdoms of Laos and Cambodia. The system provided support, in the form of manpower and materiel, to the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (called the Viet Cong or "VC") and the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), or North Vietnamese Army, during the Vietnam War.
  It was named by the U.S. after North Vietnamese president Hồ Chí Minh. Presumably the origin of the name came from the First Indochina War, when there was a Viet Minh maritime logistics line called the "Route of Ho Chi Minh", and shortly after late-1960, as the present trail developed, Agence France-Presse (AFP) announced that a north–south trail had now opened, and they named the corridor La Piste de Hồ Chí Minh, the 'Hồ Chí Minh Trail'. The trail ran mostly in Laos, and was called by the communists the Trường Sơn Strategic Supply Route (Đường Trường Sơn), after the Vietnamese name for the Annamite Range mountains in central Vietnam, and the communists further identified the trail as either West Trường Sơn (Laos) or East Trường Sơn (Vietnam).
context_section_description: On the ground, the CIA and the Royal Lao Army had initially been given the responsibility of stopping, slowing, or, at the very least, observing the enemy's infiltration effort. In Laos, the agency began Operation Pincushion in 1962 to accomplish that goal. The operation evolved into Operation Hardnose, in which CIA-backed Laotian irregular reconnaissance team operations took place.
  In October 1965, General Westmoreland received authorization to launch a U.S. cross-border recon effort. On 18 November 1965, the first mission was launched "across the fence" and into Laos by the MACV-SOG. This was the beginning of an ever-expanding reconnaissance effort by MACV-SOG that would continue until the operation was disbanded in 1972. Another weapon in the U.S. arsenal was unleashed upon the trail on 10 December 1965, when the first B-52 Stratofortress bomber strike was conducted in Laos.
  A common historical perspective supports the efficacy of the campaigns (despite their failure to halt or slow infiltration), as they did restrict enemy materiel and manpower in Laos and Cambodia. This viewpoint pervaded some official U.S. government histories of the conflict. John Schlight, in his A War Too Long, said of the PAVN's logistical apparatus, "This sustained effort, requiring the full-time activities of tens of thousands of soldiers, who might otherwise have been fighting in South Vietnam, seems proof positive that the bombing of the Ho Chi Minh Trail had disrupted the North Vietnamese war effort."
  Despite U.S. anti-infiltration efforts, the estimated number of PAVN infiltrators for 1966 was between 58,000 and 90,000 troops, including five full enemy regiments. A June 1966 DIA estimate credited the North Vietnamese with 1,000 km (600 mi) of passable roads within the corridor, at least 300 km (200 mi) of which were good enough for year-round use. In 1967 Senior Colonel (later General) Đồng Sỹ Nguyên assumed command of the 559th Group. In comparison to the above DIA estimate, by the end of the year the North Vietnamese had completed 2,959 km of vehicle capable roads, including 275 kilometers of main roads, 576 kilometers of bypasses, and 450 entry roads and storage areas.
  It was learned by U.S. intelligence that the enemy was using the Kong and Bang Fai Rivers to transport food, fuel, and munitions shipments by loading materiel into half-filled steel drums and then launching them into the rivers. They were later collected downstream by nets and booms. Unknown to the US, the enemy had also begun to transport and store more than 81,000 tonnes of supplies "to be utilized in a future offensive". That future offensive was launched during the lunar new year Tết holiday of 1968, and to prepare for it, 200,000 PAVN troops, including seven infantry regiments and 20 independent battalions, made the trip south.
  Throughout the war, ground operations by conventional units were somewhat limited to brief incursions into border sanctuaries.  One notable operation was Dewey Canyon which took place from 22 January to 18 March 1969 in I Corps. During the operation, the 9th Marine Regiment attempted to interdict NVA activity in the Da Krong River and A Shau Valleys. Ground units briefly entered the border areas of Laos during fighting with elements of the 9th NVA Regiment.
caption: NVA troops on the trail (photo taken by a U.S. SOG recon team)
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