Joint Operation Ivory Coast

DATE: 23/08/2025

TIME (GMT): 18:00

ERA: Vietnam

MAP(S): Cam Lao Nam

TYPE: COOP

TEAMSPEAK: ts1.biaarma.com

GAME: Arma 3

EVENT: Official

AUTHOR(S): Aris Lord and Vuk for Brothers in Arms

SLOTS: 65 / 140

---

RATING: (7)

---

Operation Ivory Coast was a mission conducted by US Special Operations Forces and other American military elements to rescue US Prisoners of War.It was also the first joint military operation in United States history conducted under the direct control of the Chairmain 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 US Air Force and US Army force  force commanded by Air Force Brigadier General LeRoy Manor and Army Colonel Arthur Simons landed 56 US Army Special Forces   soldiers by helicopter at the Son Tay Prisoner of War Camp which was located 23 miles Northwest 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 (one of the aircraft losses was due to a planned crash landing during the assault on the prisoner compound).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 and Organization

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 Son Tay, suspected since late 1968 of being a POW camp, contained 55 American POWs and that at least six were in urgent need of rescue.12,000 North Vietnamese troops were stationed within 8 km of the camp.After validation of their findings,Brigadier General BG James 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 (SACSA). Blackburn reported directly to the Chairmain of the Joint Chiefs of Staff  and had also been the first commander of the covert Studies Observation Group (SOG) in Vietnam.

Blackburn immediately met with General Earle G. Wheeler, the outgoing JCS Chairman, to recommend a rescue of all the POWs at Son Tay.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 Son Tay 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.

Assault

At 02:18 Cherry 01 transmitted the execute command Alpha, Alpha, Alpha to all aircraft as it overflew the prison and deployed four illumination flares,then performed a hard-turning descent to 500 feet to drop two battle simulators south and southeast of Son Tay.After Apple 03 made its strafing pass with side-firing miniguns on the prison s guard towers,Cherry 01 successfully dropped one of two planned Napalm ground markers as a point of reference for the A-1s.

The assault helicopters in single file encountered winds that caused them to break formation 140 m to the right of their intended track. The pilots of Apple 03, the gunship helicopter preceding the others, observed a compound nearly identical to the prison camp in size and layout and steered toward it, followed by the assault lift force. However, they recognized their error when they saw the river next to the actual location and corrected their flight path.Banana,the HH-3E carrying the Blueboy assault team, descended on the wrong location and observed that the expected courtyard was much smaller than required and that the expected treeline enclosed the compound rather than crossing through it.By that time, Blueboy (as previously rehearsed) was firing its weapons from all openings in the helicopter.Banana s pilots also recognized the error, applied power and quickly veered north to the actual target.

Despite the error and trees taller than briefed that forced a steeper descent than rehearsed, the assault team crash-landed into the courtyard of Son Tay prison at 02:19 with all weapons firing. Although one raider, acting as a door gunner, was thrown from the aircraft, the only casualty was the helicopter flight engineer, whose ankle was fractured by a dislodged fire extinguisher.Army Captain Richard J. Meadows used a bullhorn to announce their presence to the expected POWs, while the team dispersed in four elements on a rapid and violent assault of the prison, killing guards and methodically searching the five prisoner blocks cell by cell.

Also at 02:19,Apple 01landed the Greenleaf support group outside the south side of the secondary school, thinking it to be the target prison compound. Unaware that it was 400 meters from the objective, it lifted off to relocate to its holding area.The secondary school was actually a barracks for troops that, alerted by Banana s aborted assault, opened fire on Greenleaf as two of its elements assaulted the compound. The support group attacked the location with small arms and hand grenades in an eight-minute firefight, after which Simons estimated that 100 to 200 hostile soldiers had been killed.Two A-1s supported Greenleaf with an air strike using white phosphorus bombs on a wooden footbridge east of the area. Apple 01 returned at 02.23, and by 02.28,the support group had disengaged under fire and reboarded the helicopter for the short movement to the correct landing area.

The pilot of Apple 02 observed the errors in navigation by the helicopters in front of him and made a hard turn towards the prison. He also observed Apple 01 unload at the secondary school and initiated Plan Green, the contingency plan for the loss or absence of Greenleaf. The Redwine security group, including ground force commander Sydnor, landed at 02.20 outside Son Tay prison and immediately executed the previously rehearsed contingency plan. In the meantime, Cherry 02 arrived with the A-1 force, dropped two more napalm ground markers, and created other diversions to disguise the target area by dropping MK-6 log flares and battle simulators at road intersections that North Vietnamese reaction forces might be expected to use. Cherry 02 then orbited in the area just west of the Black River acting as on-call support for the ground teams, jamming North Vietnamese radio communications, and providing a secure radio link to the mission command post in Da Nang.

After a thorough search that included a second sweep ordered by Meadows, Blueboy s three teams found that the prison held no POWs.Meadows transmitted the code phrase Negative Items to the command group.Pathfinders clearing the extraction landing zone blew up an electrical tower that blacked out the entire west side of Son Tay including the prison area.At 02.29,Sydnor ordered the A-1s to attack the vehicle bridge over the Song Con leading into the area and, three minutes later, called for extraction by the HH-53s idling on the ground in a holding area a mile away.Before the first helicopter arrived, a truck convoy approached the prison from the south, but was stopped by two Redwine security teams that each fired an M72 light antitank weapon into the lead vehicle.

At 02.28, Cherry 02 s electronic warfare operator noted that Fan Song fire control radars for North Vietnamese SA-2 SAM sites had gone active.SAM launches at the F-105 Wild Weasel force began at 02.35,with at least 36 missiles fired at the rescue forces.One F-105 was briefly enveloped in burning fuel by a near-miss at 02.40 and returned to base. Its replacement was severely damaged six minutes later by another SAM.Twenty other SAMs fired at Navy aircraft all missed.Two MiG-21 interceptors on alert duty were never given permission to launch, despite several requests to do so.

Extraction

The HH-53s returned singly to the extraction landing zone amidst the SAM barrage,flying well below the minimum effective level of the missiles, and Apple 01 landed first at 02.37.It lifted off with its passengers at 02.40,followed a minute later by the landing of Apple 02,which departed at 02.45.Apple 03, the last aircraft out, was cleared to leave its holding area at 02.48.The raid had been executed in only 27 minutes,well within the planned 30-minute optimum time.Although at first it was feared one raider had been left behind, all the troopers were accounted for.One Redwine trooper had been wounded in the leg and was the only casualty to hostile fire on the raid.

Shortly after its departure, Apple 03 mistook a support fighter for a MiG and called a warning, and although one of the Combat Apple KC-135s supporting the mission issued information that no MiGs had taken off, the entire force descended to treetop altitude. Apple 04 reported that an air-to-air missile had been launched at it and missed, but this was later found to have been aerial rockets fired into a hillside by one of the A-1 escorts, jettisoning ordnance to increase maneuverability as a result of the erroneous MiG call.

The assault formation was out of North Vietnam by 03.15 and landed back at Udorn at 04.28, five hours after launch.The crew of the damaged F-105 was compelled to eject over northern Laos, thirty minutes after being hit and within sight of its tanker,when its engine flamed out from lack of fuel.Alleycat, the C-130E Airborne Control and Command (ABCCC) aircraft in orbit at the time over northern Laos, coordinated with several USAF entities, including Brigham Control in Thailand and ground resources in Laos, to cover the downed crewmen with supporting aircraft until a search and rescue effort could be mounted. Lime 01, refueling at Udorn, took off again using the call sign King 21 to coordinate the recovery, while Lime 02 refueled Apple 04 and Apple 05 to extend their flight time. Supported by the C-123 Candlestick flare aircraft diverted from its station on another mission by Alleycat, a SAR force was launched, and when its A-1s arrived from Nakhon Phanom to cover the pickups, Apple 04 and Apple 05 each recovered one of the downed airmen at first light after three hours on the ground.