The Raid on an Empty Camp: Son Tay, 1970 (Operation Ivory Coast)

21 November 1970, 2:19 in the morning. An HH-3 helicopter called "Banana" crash-lands on purpose inside a prison camp 23 miles from Hanoi. Fourteen Green Berets pour out to rescue American prisoners of war. The cells are empty. This is the story of the Son Tay Raid - Operation Ivory Coast - and the men who planned it: Brig. Gen. Donald Blackburn, Col. Arthur "Bull" Simons, Brig. Gen. LeRoy Manor, Capt. Dick Meadows and the 56 volunteers of the ground force. Months of rehearsals at Duke Field, Florida. A mock-up of the camp built from posts and cloth. A helicopter landing at the wrong compound. A coded warning that arrived the day before. And what the raid did for the prisoners it never reached. The prisoners' story continues in our episode The Hanoi Taxi (Operation Homecoming, 1973). CHAPTERS 0:00 2:19 a.m. inside the walls 2:45 The Son Tay Raid 2:55 Prisoners in North Vietnam, 1970 3:46 A camp spotted on reconnaissance photos 4:40 Bull Simons and the volunteers 5:56 Duke Field and the model called "Barbara" 7:14 The Combat Talons and 31 practice crash landings 9:26 "That's where we're going tonight" 11:20 Typhoon Patsy and the launch 12:35 The Navy's diversion 13:29 Alpha, Alpha, Alpha 13:46 The wrong compound 16:04 "Negative items" 16:54 The coded message 18:28 Getting out 20:26 What the prisoners heard 21:19 Camp Unity 23:22 What became of the raiders 24:23 What this raid leaves us with A NOTE ON THE FOOTAGE 3D map sequences are reconstructions on real terrain (elevation data) and satellite imagery; routes and positions are approximate. Archival photographs and films are public domain or openly licensed (U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, Department of Defense and National Archives via Wikimedia Commons). Some archival material illustrates the period rather than the exact moment described; captions give the source and date. Accounts of the raid differ in places; where they do, the narration says so. SOURCES Air & Space Forces Magazine: "The Son Tay Raid" and "Into Son Tay" HistoryNet: Son Tay (Simons' briefing and Terry Buckler's account) PBS American Experience: Honor in Hanoi - the consolidation of POWs Eglin AFB and Hurlburt Field histories of the raid; National Museum of the U.S. Air Force Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association; The Simons Center; Wikipedia: Operation Ivory Coast Archival film: U.S. Army Special Forces training films (1960s); "There Is a Way" (USAF, Korat AFB); USAF air strike films (1966); U.S. Navy "Carrier Operation Oriskany" (1966); U.S. Army helicopter films (1967); "Air Force Now: Prisoners of War" (1974). Terrain: AWS Terrain Tiles. Satellite imagery: Sentinel-2 cloudless by EOX IT Services GmbH (contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data), CC BY 4.0. Maps: (c) OpenStreetMap contributors. Narration: AI voice. Music: original score. #VietnamWar #SpecialForces #MilitaryHistory