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Jimmie H. Butler
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Some CHECO Reports open with this information on what the CHECO Program was set up to accomplish.PROJECT CHECO
REPORTS
The counterinsurgency and unconventional warfare
environment of Fortunately,
the value of collecting and documenting our SEA experiences was recognized at an
early date. In 1962, Hq USAF directed CINCPACAF to establish an activity that
would be primarily responsive to Air Staff requirements and direction, and would
provide timely and analytical studies of USAF combat operations in SEA. Project
CHECO, an acronym for Contemporary Historical Evaluation of Combat Operations,
was established to meet this Air Staff requirement. Managed by Hq PACAF, with
elements at Hq 7AF and 7/13AF, Project CHECO provides a scholarly,
"on-going" historical evaluation and documentation of USAF policies,
concepts, and doctrine in
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * The USAF Academy Library includes a master index of approximately 250 CHECO Reports. Most were declassified in the 1990s although some remain classified. The Library has copies of all unclassified CHECO Reports, and I have started scanning a number of those reports, and I am starting to post more of them. Many document operations within weeks of the actual battles, so they have many original references. THE ABCCC IN SEA 15 January 1969: A good discussion of how the Airborne Command and Control Center (ABCCC) became an integral part of the command and control system in Southeast Asia. Figure 1 shows the layout of an early ABCCC Capsule what was loaded aboard specially modified C-130s to become the airborne command post. Figure 2 is a good illustration of geographical boundaries of Out-Country Operations in Laos and North Vietnam during the earlier parts of the War in Southeast Asia. The report chronicles some of the behind the scenes skirmishes in setting up control of the organization and the ground basing of the C-130s at Danang AB, South Vietnam and Udorn RTAFB, Thailand. As a FAC, I worked routinely with Cricket (day controller over Steel Tiger) and Alley Cat (night controller), and found the system worked extremely well. Air War in the DMZ, September 1967 - June 1968 1 August 1969: These excerpts from pp. 20-31 focus on the efforts to set up an anti-infiltration barrier near the DMZ between North and South Vietnam, and extending west across the main infiltration routes in Laos. This section includes some feedback about the effectiveness of sensors in defending Khe Sanh during the siege of early 1968. The Fall of A Shau 18 April 1966: This CHECO report covers the desperate and heroic battle to evacuate the A Shau Special Forces after overwhelming enemy forces and virtually impossible flying weather threatened to doom the camp's defenders. This battle included probably the most famous single air mission flown during the War in Southeast Asia. I have also included some additional documents pertaining to the battle. College Eye 1 November 1968: The entire document originally was published as Top Secret, NoForn. The extract included here includes a good diagram of Typical Antenna Locations on the EC-121D, a platform flown for airborne surveillance under College Eye; and a good outline of North Vietnam and Laos showing the operational areas in both countries. This excerpt summarizes Combat Lightning, the deployments to SEA following a decision in late 1966. The pages include some discussion to support for Rolling Thunder (Air strikes against North Vietnam), with deployments in April 1965 to fly surveillance orbits over the Gulf of Tonkin. Orbits over Laos beginning on 13 October 1966 are discussed, as well. You can download the document at: Excerpts from Project CHECO Report College Eye 1 November 1968 About 700K
Evasion and Escape, SEA 1964-1971/CHECO Digest: I extracted only a few pages from each. The first extracts from the E & E SEA Report cover two rescues in Dec 1969 and March 1970 in the heavily defended Dog House (which became known as Boxer 22 Country) just South of Mu Gia Pass. I have added a map to the online version to show the general area. The extract from the CHECO Digest illustrates the importance of lessons learned from two December 1967 rescue attempts. One failed--under much more favorable conditions--primarily because the survivor didn't follow normal procedures and directions from the SAR folks. You can download the documents at: Evasion and Escape, SEA 1964-1971 About 110K CHECO Digest About 140 K
Second Defense of Lima Site 36 28 April 1967: Lima Site 36 was an important friendly base in Barrel Roll in Northern Laos. The communists had overrun LS 36 on 17-19 February 1966, but had suffered heavy losses in the process. General Vang Pao's friendly forces retook LS 36 on 25 May 1966. The communist forces returned on 6 January 1967, encircled LS 36 and attacked early in the morning under the cover of low clouds. In less than 2 hours three-quarters of the compound had been overrun. Despite the low clouds, American pilots counterattacked and finally drove off the attackers. This CHECO report was based on interviews a month later and on documentary accounts of the attack and counterattack. Second Defense of Lima Site 36 28 April 1967: About 360K
Interdiction at Ban Bak 19 Dec 70 to 5 Jan 71 29 January 1971 This report covers the results of what can happen when all the elements of an interdiction plan come together and airborne FACs trail a convoy into a well camouflaged truck park and storage area. The target was near the village of Ban Bak in the southern panhandle of Laos about a third of the way from Saravane, Laos to Danang AB, South Vietnam. Over the two and a half week period, more than 40 trucks were destroyed and the estimates of secondary explosions exceeded 10,000. Interdiction at Ban Bak About 270K
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