For this years War & Peace Revival we wanted to do something different, something more ambitious and something that told the wider story of SOG history. So we chose to portray Operation Spindown.
OPERATION SPINDOWN. Operation DescriptionThis SOG Hatchet Force operation saw Company A from Kontum insert more than 100 men into a hill overlooking Highway 110 in Laos about 12 miles west of Ben Het. Two large helicopter flights inserted this force.
They closed this section of the Ho Chi Minh Trail at the peak of the annual dry season. The occupied hill formed part of a natural choke point for trucks traffic on this route. At night the SOG force could easily coordinate USAF AC-119 and AC-130 gunships on the NVA.A. SOG Hatchet Forces. Some original photos of the operation can be seen below.
A Hatchet Force or Hatchet Team was a special operations team of American and South Vietnamese members of MACV-SOG during the Vietnam War, who operated in small covert operations along the Ho Chi Minh trail from 1966. The units specialized in search and destroy missions and in locating missing American servicemen in Laos, Cambodia and North Vietnam Hatchet Force teams were organized under three field commands: Command and Control North(CCN),Command and Control Center (CCC) and Command and Control South (CCS). Operating in small groups, usually three American Special Forces soldiers – a team leader, a radioman and a medic – and 20–40 indigenous soldiers, the teams' purpose was to "probe the border areas looking for a fight". Hatchet Force teams remained in operation until each field command was deactivated; for CCN this was on 16 October 1972, CCC on 18 October 1972, and CCS in January 1973.
So the display involved lots of digging, 300 sandbags (full of earth) and "special effects" such as sound effects and pyros.
Operation Spindown Display - Black & White pictures
Operation Spindown Display - Colour pictures
Operation Spindown Display - Video
Bomb Damage Assement (BDA) Mission
Basecamp
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