Sang Kittirath | |
|---|---|
| Allegiance | Laos |
| Service | Royal Lao Army |
| Rank | General |
General Sang Kittirath was a prominent military leader during the Laotian Civil War in the Kingdom of Laos. Between January 1955 and January 1965, he was successively the commander of Military Region 2 (MR 2) and head of the Ground Forces Command. His performance as commander of the losing side at the Battle of Lak Sao in early 1964, plus the loss of support from its political patron Major-General Phoumi Nosavan, led to Sang's resignation from command.
General Sang Kittirath was placed in command of Military Region 2 (MR 2) [1] in January 1955. The deadline for the 1954 Geneva Agreement had expired, meaning that the Pathet Lao were supposed to hand over the control of Houaphanh Province and Xiangkhouang Province to the Royal Lao Government (RLG). Major Sang set up his forward headquarters in Moung Peun, which was the only RLG-occupied town in Houaphanh Province. He was assigned three battalions of government troops to enforce the return of the two provinces. However, he found himself facing eight defiant Pathet Lao battalions, probably backed by Democratic Republic of Vietnam's People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) troops. The Pathet Lao then besieged Moung Peun. In June 1955, an attempt was made at extending RLG influence by training irregular ADC militia units to operate to the north of Moung Peun, in Phongsali Province. In the first week of July, two battalions of reinforcements for Sang's forces were flown in from southern Laos. Also, the 1st Parachute Battalion (French: 1er Bataillon de Parachutistes – 1er BP) was dropped in, and one additional battalion had been recruited and trained in place. Moung Peun held, but the provinces remained under the control of the Pathet Lao. In October 1955, both sides agreed to establish a buffer zone between them. By the year's end, 3,000 Military Region 1 (MR 1) militia troops were raiding the enemy's supply lines in Phongsali Province. [2]
The stalemate at Moung Peun dragged on until the signing of the August 1956 agreement to integrate the Lao communists into the First Coalition Government. Another 15 months would pass while details were being worked out. Key to the coalition was the May 1958 national elections; the communists were running with their own candidates for office. The U.S. Embassy, which was supporting the Royalists, staged the Operation Booster Shot civic action program to attract votes for the Royalists, with little success. On 11 May, two battalions of Pathet Lao troops were supposed to be merged into the Royal Lao Army (RLA). One battalion stalled, then bolted on 18 May 1958. In the wake of their escape, Sang was removed from the command of MR 2. [3]
When Major-General Phoumi Nosavan's coup took over the nation in December 1959, Sang was one of the generals who supported him. [4] In March 1961, Phoumi re-organized the main combat elements of the RLA into regiments, designated "Mobile Groups" (French: Groupments Mobiles – GMs) or "Mobiles" for short, by gathering several RLA infantry and paratrooper battalions. To oversee the newly-created GMs, Phoumi created the Ground Forces Command and appointed General Sang as its Chief. [5]
In November 1963, Sang was again entrusted with a field command, when he directed a composite force of RLA and Neutralist troops during the unsuccessful Battle of Lak Sao. [6] He would remain a staunch Phoumi supporter until the very end, which finally came in January 1965. When Phoumi's final coup failed, he fled into exile in Thailand. With his patron now gone, Sang was forced to resign his post as Chief the Ground Forces Command, with the vacant post being subsequently abolished. [7]
Major general Phoumi Nosavan was a military strongman who is a prominent figure in the history of the Kingdom of Laos. At times, he dominated its political life to the point of being a dictator.
Captain Kong Le was a Laotian paratrooper in the Royal Lao Army. He led the premier unit of the Royal Lao Army, 2ème bataillon de parachutistes, which campaigned relentlessly during 1959 and 1960. The idealistic young American-trained Lao Theung officer became known worldwide when on 10 August 1960 he and his mutinous paratroopers overthrew the Royal Lao Government in a coup d'état. He declared he aimed at an end to government corruption; to the shock of American officials, he declared U.S. policies were responsible for the ongoing fraud.
Major General Kouprasith Abhay was a prominent military leader of the Kingdom of Laos during the Laotian Civil War. Scion of a socially prominent family, his military career was considerably aided by their influence. In early 1960, he was appointed to command of Military Region 5, which included Laos' capital city, Vientiane. Removed from that command on 14 December for duplicitous participation in the Battle of Vientiane, he was reappointed in October 1962. He would hold the post until 1 July 1971, thus controlling the troops in and around the capital. Over the years, he would be involved in one way or another in the coups of 1960, 1964, 1965, 1966, and 1973. His service was marked by a deadly feud with another Laotian general, Thao Ma; the feud was largely responsible for the latter two coup attempts against the government.
The Programs Evaluation Office was a covert paramilitary mission to the Kingdom of Laos, established on 13 December 1955 by the United States Department of Defense. The 23 July 1962 International Agreement on the Neutrality of Laos would cause it to be shut down in September 1962. It would be succeeded by the Requirements Office.
The Committee for the Defence of National Interests was an anti-communist right-wing political party founded in the Kingdom of Laos on 17 June 1958. Dismayed by the election of Lao communists to the National Assembly in the May 1958 elections, younger politicians and military officers founded CDNI as an alternative to older Lao politicians and senior officers then in power. The CDNI pronounced itself as a force for anti-corruption efforts in the Royal Lao Government. It was backed by the United States embassy; American support was manifested in political advice and civic actions such as Operation Booster Shot. In the 24 April 1960 elections, which were obviously rigged, the CDNI won 32 of 59 seats. The Pathet Lao leadership had been detained during the election; on 23 May 1960, they escaped to join their insurrection in the mountains. This ended the governing coalition, and fighting began in the Laotian Civil War.
The Royal Lao Police, was the official national police force of the Kingdom of Laos from 1950 to 1975, operating closely with the Royal Lao Armed Forces (FAR) during the Laotian Civil War between 1960 and 1975.
The Battle of Luang Namtha, fought between January 1962 and May 1963, was a series of clashes in the Laotian Civil War. It came about as a result of the turmoil following Laotian independence as a result of the First Indochina War with France. The Kingdom of Laos had foreign soldiers on its soil, and a political struggle in progress concerning those outside troops. Following a coup and counter-coup that left General Phoumi Nosavan in charge, the general decided on military action to settle the political issue of interlopers in Laos.
The Battle of Lak Sao, fought between November 1963 and January 1964, was a major engagement of the Laotian Civil War. In November 1963, General Phoumi Nosavan, who held the reins of military power in the Kingdom of Laos, launched a military offensive against North Vietnamese invaders that cut across the northern panhandle of the nation. Although unsupported in this proxy action by his backers in the U.S. Embassy, he went ahead with his plan to push northwards from Nhommarath, then veer eastwards to the Vietnamese border. Phoumi's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) advisors warned him that the North Vietnamese would retaliate, but he disregarded them.
The Auto Defense de Choc (ADC) was a militia training program for the Royal Lao Armed Forces. Begun by a French military mission in 1955, its 100-man companies were placed under command of the local Military Region commander when trained. By 1 September 1959, 20 ADC companies were in training, and there were 16,000 ADC soldiers nationwide. When Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives Theodore Shackley, James William Lair and others slipped into the Kingdom of Laos in the early 1960s, they instituted an American version of the ADC dependent on pre-packed airdropped materiel. Using a three-day training schedule in Operation Momentum, Shackley, Lair and others, worked with Vang Pao to raise a guerrilla force of 5,000 troops in several months.
The Battle of Vientiane was the decisive action of the 1960 Laotian coups. Fought between 13 and 16 December 1960, the battle ended with General Phoumi Nosavan winning control of the Kingdom of Laos with the aid of the Royal Thai Government and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Vientiane was left devastated by the fighting, with about 600 civilians dead, about the same number of homes destroyed, and 7,000 left homeless. The losing Forces Armées Neutralistes under Captain Kong Le retreated onto the strategic Plain of Jars, to begin an uneasy coexistence with the Pathet Lao and the invading People's Army of Vietnam.
The 1960 Laotian coups brought about a pivotal change of government in the Kingdom of Laos. General Phoumi Nosavan established himself as the strongman running Laos in a bloodless coup on 25 December 1959. He would be himself overthrown on 10 August 1960 by the young paratrooper captain who had backed him in the 1959 coup. When Captain Kong Le impressed the American officials underwriting Laos as a potential communist, they backed Phoumi's return to power in November and December 1960. In turn, the Soviets backed Kong Le as their proxy in this Cold War standoff. After the Battle of Vientiane ended in his defeat, Kong Le withdrew northward to the strategic Plain of Jars on 16 December 1960.
Kham Ouane Boupha is a Laotian soldier and politician. Appointed to command Phongsali Province in the Kingdom of Laos in 1957 or 1958 while he was in his mid-twenties, he would maintain that base throughout the impending Laotian Civil War. During that war, in April 1963, he would defect from government service to head the pro-communist Patriotic Neutralists movement. At the end of the war, as the Communists succeeded in gaining power through the Provisional Government of the National Union, Kham Ouane Boupha was appointed Deputy Minister of Defense on April 9, 1974. He was promoted to become Minister of Defense on May 12, 1975 and served as such for many years, even while he was also Minister of Justice. He retired from cabinet rank in 2006, becoming a minister in the Office of the Prime Minister.
The Directorate of National Coordination or DNC was the paramilitary police of the Royal Lao Police that specialized in anti-irregular military, CQB/CQC in urban areas, high-risk tactical law enforcement situations, long-range penetration, operating in difficult to access terrain with commando tactics, special reconnaissance in difficult to access and dangerous areas, and tactical special operations.
The 1964 Laotian coups were two attempted coup d'etats against the Royal Lao Government. The 18 April 1964 coup was notable for being committed by the policemen of the Directorate of National Coordination. Although successful, it was overturned five days later by U.S. Ambassador Leonard Unger. In its wake, Neutralist Prime Minister Souvanna Phouma forged a fragile coalition with the Pathet Lao communists. On 4 August 1964, Defense Minister Phoumi Nosavan attempted to take over Vientiane with a training battalion. This coup was quickly crushed by the local Royal Lao Army troops, as the police sat out the conflict.
The 1965 Laotian coups were two separate and simultaneous coups that struck the Kingdom of Laos in January 1965. General Phoumi Nosavan, a participant in four prior coups, had been deprived of troop command as a result; nevertheless, he managed to come up with troops for another try at overthrowing the Royal Lao Government. Simultaneously, Colonel Bounleut Saycocie independently mounted his own coup; after a short term takeover of Vientiane's radio station and infrastructure, he and his coup troops would rejoin the government forces sent to attack them. General Kouprasith Abhay, the military region commander, suppressed both coups. After re-acquiring Bounleut's troops, Kouprasith turned on the national police force and its commander, Siho Lamphouthacoul, as he felt they were untrustworthy and likely to join Phoumi's coup. The police force was defeated and disbanded. The troops Phoumi counted on never reached Vientiane; they were defeated and dispersed. By 4 February 1965, both coups were defeated. A purge of suspected dissident officers from the Lao officer corps followed.
General Sing Rattanasamay (1912–1973) was a Laotian senior military officer, being one of the co-founders of the Laotian National Army, the predessessor of the Royal Lao Army (RLA) during the First Indochina War and the Laotian Civil War. Initially a colonial police officer, Sing joined both the anti-Japanese resistance network during World War II, and the anti-French Lao Issara nationalist guerrilla movement from 1946 to 1949. He subsequently joined the ranks of the nascent ANL, and went on to serve the Kingdom of Laos until just prior to his death in 1973.
The Military Region 5 Commandos, MR 5 Commandos or MR 5 Cdos for short, were an elite military unit and Special Operations force of the Royal Lao Armed Forces, which operated during the final phase of the Laotian Civil War from 1969 to 1975.
The Royal Lao Army Airborne was composed of the élite paratrooper battalions of the Royal Lao Army (RLA), the land component of the Royal Lao Armed Forces, which operated during the First Indochina War and the Laotian Civil War from 1948 to 1975.
The Chinese Road were a series of highways built as a foreign aid project by the People's Republic of China (PRC) in northern Laos, beginning in 1962. The first new road was built from Mengla, Yunnan Province, PRC to Phongsali, Laos; it was completed on 25 May 1963. The next major road built was Route 46, begun in the 1966 dry season and stretching from the southern tip of Yunnan Province southward toward the border of the Kingdom of Thailand. As 25,000 Chinese troops and 400 antiaircraft guns came to be posted to defend Route 46, and Thai support of American war efforts in both the Laotian Civil War and the Vietnam War became widely known, there was uneasiness among both Thai and American intelligence communities concerning Communist China's intents in constructing the all-weather highway. American interest in the new road extended up to the White House.
Operation Maharat was a military offensive of the Royal Lao Government aimed at Communist insurrectionists. At stake was the sole road junction in northern Laos well in the rear of Royalist troops fighting in Campaign Z. On 30 December 1971, the garrison of a Royal Lao Army artillery battery and two Forces Armées Neutralistes battalions was besieged by an attacking force of Pathet Lao and Patriotic Neutralists. On 21 January 1972, the Royalists were reinforced by 11th Brigade, then overrun. The Communists spread north and south along Route 13 over a 110 km (68 mi) stretch. A Royalist counter-attack on 16 March 1972 would find both Route 13 and the intersection vacated.
