Talk:Operation Ivory Coast

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

MILHIST This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see lists of open tasks and regional and topical task forces. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the quality scale.
Vietnam Portal

This article is part of WikiProject Vietnam, an attempt to create a comprehensive, neutral, and accurate representation of Vietnam on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page.
Start This article has been rated as start-Class on the quality scale.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale.

When I first read this article, I found that it was two merged pieces, and that one of them was lifted in its entirety from a web page. So I did a major re-write from memory, checked my source material, and editted corrections of my flaws in memory. Buckboard 05:33, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanx for the clean-ups and the photograph--improves the article 100%.--Buckboard 09:28, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Feature Film, soon?

Rumor has it that notable screenwriter John Milius is writing script for a movie based on this operation. Does anyone know if those rumors are true? NiceDoggie 08:26, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Needs categorization - somebody else want to handle it?

[edit] Diversionary attack actually the real objective?

According to "Green Berets at War" by S.L. Stanton and other reports, the "secondary school" was full of Russians and Chinese. While Capt. Meadows was searching Son Tay for POWs, Col. Simons' 21 man team "mowed down"* the the Russian and Chinese troops.

  • Stanton's words.
It makes sense, because why would you assault a POW camp when the powers that be knew that there was no prisoners there, atleast a day earlier? In Benjamin Schemmer's book Colonel Simons initially denied that his team landed at the secondary school to Mr Schemmer, author of "The Raid", but "came clean" later on saying it was a mistake, albeit a fortuitous one. Who knows, really. Perhaps the POW rescue was a cover for the raid on the school. Maybe the Americans just wanted to make sure the Russians and Chinese know that their presence in North Vietnam is known, and might have wanted to use this as perhaps some sort of leverage, maybe for better treatment of POWs or something else? What would have happened if the US got some POWs out? What would have happened to the rest of the POWs still in captivity? WikiphyteMk1 05:27, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

66.82.9.57 23:54, 3 June 2007 (UTC) I'm not the guy that "Can't sleep, clown will eat me" blocked. I am some other person.

[edit] Aircraft reference

The link from the article for the HH-3 Jolly Green would be more correct if it pointed to the article for the S-61R (the protype for the HH-3) instead of the H-3 Sea King. Here's the better reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_S-61R.

I would make the edit myself, but I'm new to the Wiki thing. My strength now lies in topical knowledge and not so much on the page editing side.

[edit] Laotian Connection

Can anyone explain what exactly does a place called "SITE 32" have to do with this operation. If anyone has a copy of THE RAID maybe they can confirm to me the significance of that place. If I recall correctly the Mission planners and the CIA were talking about that place, but I can't recall why. Is this place one of those "Lima Sites" or something else entirely? WikiphyteMk1 15:36, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

SITE 32 is the Village of Baum Long, Laos near the border with North Vietnam, and was a CIA outpost during the Vietnam War. It had an airstrip that was frequently used by Air America assets. My guess is that the rescue force was to have staged through this place but during the time period in preparation for the rescue mission it was under attack by Pathet Lao or North Vietnamese ground forces. It think it got overrun, which may explain why it wasn't used in the actual rescue attempt. 58.164.9.10 (talk) 12:33, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
"Landing Site 32", aka "Lima Site-32" ("LS-32"), or more simply aka, "SITE 32", were indeed the nomenclature and the various acronyms used by covert American and Royal Laotian allied personnel operating against the communist military forces in the Laotian front of the Second Indochina War. For example, Long Tieng was known as "Twenty Alternate" {LS-20A), and Sam Thong was "LS-20". LS-32 was probably included in the operational plan as an alternate emergency extraction location after the assault. Perhaps someone else has more information in this regard. Dr. B. R. Lang (talk) 01:46, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] NVA / Chinese / Russian casualties

Various web pages (including that one) "estimates" NVA / Chinese / Russian casualties ranging from 50 up to 200. Nevertheless, a Trijicon page [1] says that Greenleaf team killed 16 ennemy. Steven Emerson Secret Warriors says 25 ennemy killed in the whole raid. I have read elsewhere (don't remember where) also 25 or 26. Has anyone a good source about thoses casualties ? Rob1bureau (talk) 21:46, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Even leisurely bodycounts with the victor posessing the battlefield can and have been over actual enemy casualties by as much as an order of magnitude. The notion that troops in the dark over the course of a raid lasting less than half an hour are going to have any idea beyond the vaguest about how many casualties the enemy suffered is pretty ridiculous. As such I'd consider the low figures a lot more credible than whoever is claiming we killed two hundred bad guys in a five minute firefight. Kensai Max (talk) 19:03, 3 February 2008 (UTC)