Battle of Lima Site 85 1968
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 10 March 1968 – 11 March 1968 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1968 | Wikidata P580 (start time) |
| Era | Post-1945 (1946 onwards) | derived from year |
| Location | Laos | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Asia | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | Vietnam War | Wikidata P361 |
| Participants | United States | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | 20.4461, 103.7142 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The Battle of Lima Site 85, also called Battle of Phou Pha Thi, was fought as part of a military campaign waged during the Vietnam War and Laotian Civil War by the North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and the Pathet Lao, against airmen of the United States Air Force (USAF)'s 1st Combat Evaluation Group, elements of the Royal Lao Army, Royal Thai Border Patrol Police, and the CIA-led Hmong Clandestine Army. The battle was fought on Phou Pha Thi mountain in Houaphanh Province, Laos, on 10 March 1968, and derives its name from the mountaintop where it was fought or from the designation of a 700-foot (210 m) landing strip in the valley below, and was the largest single ground combat loss of USAF members during the Vietnam War.
During the Vietnam War and the Laotian Civil War, Phou Pha Thi mountain was an important strategic outpost which had served both sides at various stages of the conflict. In 1966, the United States Ambassador to Laos William H. Sullivan approved a plan by the USAF to construct a TACAN site atop Phou Pha Thi; at the time they lacked a navigation site with sufficient range to guide U.S. bomber aircraft to their targets in North Vietnam. In 1967 the site was upgraded with the air-transportable all-weather AN/TSQ-81 radar bombing control system.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of Lima Site 85 (revision 1376912518), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
Nearby battles
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- Battle of Dien Bien Phu 1954 · 127 km
- Battle of Muong Khoua 1953 · 144 km
- Battle of Nghĩa Lộ (1951) 1951 · 153 km
- Battle of Ban Pa Dong 1961 · 162 km
- Battle of Hòa Bình 1951 · 174 km
Other battles of the Vietnam War
- Operation Crimp 1966
- Battle of Ong Thanh 1967
- Battle of Suoi Chau Pha 1967
- Battle of Tam Quan 1967
- Operation Bribie 1967
- Battle of An Bao 1968
- Battle of Ban Houei Sane 1968
- Battle of Coral–Balmoral 1968
- Battle of Hat Dich 1968
- Battle of Huế 1968
All 54 battles of the Vietnam War →
Browse more: battles in Laos · Asia · Post-1945 battles