Thanks, Terry! The history and story of Operation TEXAS STAR, of which the battles for FSB RIPCORD were some of the central events, is probably the untold story of the war. At the time, spring-summer 1970, US domestic and international politics combined to deflect attention away from the actual war (not to mention a US Army near blackout on reporting of the operation conducted for various reasons). Operation TEXAS STAR and the battles for FSB RIPCORD received almost no reporting in by the US press and have been largely ignored by historians.
The campaign involved two, corps level conventional forces of regular allied and NVA infantry (one US, one ARVN, and two+ PAVN divisions) fighting it out in a campaign that rivaled or surpassed the size of many of the conventional infantry battles of WWII fought in the jungles of the Pacific or Asia. The evacuation of FSB RIPCORD, in just six hours on the morning of 23 July, 1970, remains the largest single airmobile operation ever conducted in combat (over 1000 rotary wing sorties along with uncounted fixed and rotary wing air to ground combat missions around the fire base involving aircraft of all four US services). There were no roads into or out of the area. The only way in or out was either by helicopter or foot. It was a truly massive battle fought between conventional forces largely hidden away from the world and history by the mountains and jungles of the Vietnamese central highlands.
For anyone looking for some of the details, you might find this research monograph drafted up to support the project interesting:
FSB RIPCORD Order of Battle and Timeline
Although closed to new group members, our project management FaceBook page has been opened to the public (now that the project has been completed). For anyone who might want to drill down into the details of the project, you’re welcome to read down through all the posts (which include a lot of in progress photos taken and posted by club members) along with many of the research photo albums on various subjects related to the project:
RIPCORD Wildcats:: FB Project Management Group Site
This was a project that was worthy of the effort and time, and we’re happy to have played a small part in bringing the story into the light.