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Air Combat First – CIA
Am Shooting Journal ^ | 3/8/2018 | J Hines

Posted on 03/08/2018 4:52:34 AM PST by w1n1

About 50 years near Vietnam, a helicopter that wasn’t officially there fended off an attack on a post that didn't officially exist, with the help of a single Kalash.
It may have been the unofficial report of the shot down of an airplane with an AK-47…from a helicopter by the CIA.

"An Air Combat First" painting by Keith Woodcock in the CIA's collecton remembers the occasion that an Air America helicopter fought off at attack on a remote radar site just over the North Vietnamese border with Laos. (Photo: CIA)

The story is during the Vietnam War, Lima Site 85 was a secret radar station on top of a mountain in northeastern Laos known as Phou Phath manned by U.S. Air Force personnel under civilian cover, guarded by Hmong commandos, and supplied by the CIA-run Air America cargo service.

This important site became a valuable target due to its vicinity of 150 miles or so from the North Vietnamese capital of Hanoi.
Once discovered on Jan 12, 1968, it became crucial for the North Vietnamese to take out it down.
The NVA sent four An-2 Colt biplanes armed with improvised bombs set out to attack the facility.

That’s when an unarmed civilian-marked Air America Co. UH-1 Huey flown by..... Read the rest of the air combat first story here.


TOPICS: History; Hobbies; Military/Veterans; Outdoors
KEYWORDS: airamerica; cia; needaneditor; proofread

1 posted on 03/08/2018 4:52:34 AM PST by w1n1
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To: w1n1

An otherwise interesting article has serious grammar problems. They need an editor.


2 posted on 03/08/2018 5:13:12 AM PST by budj (combat vet, 2nd of 3 generations)
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To: w1n1
The plane that can fly backwards. The AN-2 is an awesome plane but it's not a fighter bomber.


3 posted on 03/08/2018 5:51:11 AM PST by BBell (calm down and eat your sandwiches)
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To: w1n1

“As I was going up the stair
I met a man who wasn’t there!
He wasn’t there again today,
Oh how I wish he’d go away!”


4 posted on 03/08/2018 5:54:52 AM PST by PapaBear3625 (Big governent is attractive to those who think that THEY will be in control of it.)
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To: w1n1

The book about the events surrounding the loss is “One Day Too Long”. Some of those KIA were GCI controllers such as myself.


5 posted on 03/08/2018 6:19:12 AM PST by Portcall24
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To: Portcall24

“Some of those KIA were GCI controllers such as myself. “

I am sorry to hear of your death.


6 posted on 03/08/2018 9:35:32 AM PST by TalonDJ
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To: TalonDJ

I laughed when I wrote it and thought in keeping with the rest of the artcle...


7 posted on 03/08/2018 12:53:20 PM PST by Portcall24
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