Word: trailed
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Each day a woman hangs out her wash to dry alongside one of the myriad branches of the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos. This innocent-looking domestic scene is of particular interest to U.S. reconnaissance pilots, who daily "go around the corner"-their lingo for their semisecret flights over neutral Laos-to check on the lady's wash. When no laundry is on the line, that is a signal from the sharp-eyed housekeeper that North Vietnamese troops or trucks are moving near by. Within minutes after the pilots notice that the wash is not out, U.S. planes...
...washerwoman spy is but a tiny part of a vast, largely secret U.S., Vietnamese and Royal Laotian effort to detect, deter and destroy the primary funnel through which North Vietnamese men and materiel head for South Viet Nam. The Ho Chi Minh trail, a 200-mile "logistical wonder" according to U.S. officials, is a massive maze of roads, bridges, waterways and paths complete with primitive motels. In recent months its roads have been paved with crushed stone or topped with pressed laterite. Camouflages of bamboo and branch roof it over where the jungle canopy is balding. Bridges are often built...
Company Strikes. Some 5,000 to 8,000 men a month go down the network of trails to fight in South Viet Nam, though of late the traffic has largely been in supplies. To keep the roads open under the daily bombing, Hanoi employs a large assortment of heavy earth-moving equipment at night, plus the labor of some 40,000 coolies. An estimated 5,000 trucks ply the trail, but bicycles and even elephants are also used. Some 25,000 North Vietnamese troops are stationed in Laos to guard the vital Red flow southward. Where traffic is heaviest...
...what the Communists call "the special war," the Allies in a variety of ways monitor and attack the North Vietnamese operating in Laos. The trail runs through the portion of divided Laos that is largely controlled by the Communist Pathet Lao under Hanoi's tutelage, but Royal Laotian patrols infiltrate to report on trail traffic. From South Viet Nam come reconnaissance patrols of Vietnamese, Montagnard and Nung tribesmen, or of U.S. Special Forces led by local guides. Occasionally, when a Communist troop concentration is firmly fixed, South Vietnamese units as large as a company slip across for a swift...
Minding the Trail. The Allied and Laotian operations against the trail slow but cannot stop the Communist traffic into South Viet Nam. Inevitably, the U.S. has weighed more drastic measures, and in fact has drawn up a three-option contingency plan. In one version, U.S. troops would be helilifted in and out of Laos in rapid, frequent strikes against the trail. Another calls for the insertion of a sizable U.S. force, at least two divisions, into Laos to block the trail physically. The final and most far-out plan envisions a massive U.S. troops barrier drawn along the 17th parallel...