Operation Phoutah

Operation Phoutah (15 May – late September 1971) was one of a series of offensive operations aimed at the vital Ho Chi Minh trail complex during the Second Indochina War. Staged by a Central Intelligence Agency-sponsored Royalist Laotian irregular regiment, Operation Phoutah was a defensive strike against an oncoming offensive from the 50,000 North Vietnamese troops safeguarding the major transshipment point centered on Tchepone, Laos. The Royalist objective was the capture and occupation of Moung Phalane, which was needed to continue staging guerrilla raids on the Trail. In this, Operation Phoutah failed.

The Ho Chi Minh Trail was the key to the Second Indochina War. North Vietnam's People's Army of Vietnam depended on that logistics route to defeat South Vietnam. As a result, during 1969 and 1970, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) urged its guerrilla battalions to raid the Trail to disrupt or interdict the supply lines. Eventually, the South Vietnamese launched Operation Lam Son 719 on 8 February 1971 in a failed incursion to cut the Trail. The South Vietnamese failure to sever those lines of communications did not end ground assaults on the Trail.

At the end of January 1971, the People's Army of Vietnam captured the town of Moung Phalane from the CIA-sponsored irregular military battalion, Bataillon Guerrier 303 (BG 303). BG 303 retreated westward toward Dong Hene until ordered to reverse their course. To aid them, the rookie Bataillon Guerrier 314 (BG 314) was ordered to attack northeastward from their base at Kengkok. Both guerrilla battalions went on the offensive on 15 February. BG 314 broke up under enemy fire and was withdrawn. BG 303 managed to attack Moung Phalane, only to be repulsed and pursued back to Dong Hene.

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