Son Tay Revisited

[Mike Collins]

This is a two parter:

In 1970, the US sent a sizeable team of commandos to take down a prison camp in the Hanoi suburb of Son Tay. The operation itself went almost perfectly. They seized the POW compound, killed most of the guard force and some nearby Chinese advisors that got in the way. Only problem was the North Vietnamese moved the prisoners a week before! Even so, its been argued that the raid caused a sudden improvement in POW treatment.

But consider this:

1. What if POWs were rescued? It seems likely stories of their atrocious treatment would get out either officially or unofficially. Could this give the Nixon (and follow on) administrations some psychological capital to keep sending financial aid, advisors (civilian and military) and air power (Im assuming it wouldnt be enough to keep an American field army in place)?

2. What if the Son Tay Raider Force was not deactivated as it was OTL?

 

[Melvin Loh]

Son Tay/Op KINGPIN was indeed an extraordinary success only marred by the fact that the POWs had already been shifted. Had KINGPIN been conducted say a mth or so earlier in 1970, and POWs actually been freed, yeah maybe US political morale may've been improved, although I'm not too sure about to the extent of Washington authorising a substantial upping the ante with military and airpower support. KINGPIN with rescued POWs would also possibly have strengthened the hand of the Nixon admin re the return of POWs, and maybe facilitated a greater accounting for more captured Americans by the Commies instead of trying to hold onto them as bargaining chips (what did happen to all the backseater wizzos who weren't returned by 1973 ?). I don't think info on conditions in the camp would've been altered by that much, AFAIK there was plenty of anecdotal evidence pre-Son Tay of the extreme privations suffered by captured Americans in NV POW camps, the successful rescue of prisoners from Son Tay would only have confirmed such accounts at the most.

As to the KINGPIN raider force, weren't they just an ad hoc mission configuration specifically for the Son Tay raid ? But maybe if they weren't immediately disbanded, could this force have facilitated an earlier inception, under Bull Simons, of an SOF Delta-style unit than in OTL to undertake such specops tasks as POW/hostage rescue ? Perhaps another more immediate effect would've been the recognition for an indispensable integrated specops doctrine which could've avoided the MAYAGUEZ fiasco in 1975, where basically all the lessons of Son Tay were totally forgotten and the US Marines involved paid the price in blood.