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In 1953, Pathet Lao fighters accompanied an invasion of Laos from Vietnam led by Viet Minh forces; they established a government at Viengxay in Houaphanh province, northeast Laos. [ 7 ] : 71–2 The communists began to make incursions into central Laos with the support of the Viet Minh, and a civil war erupted; the Pathet Lao quickly occupied ...
The Laotian Civil War was waged between the Communist Pathet Lao and the Royal Lao Government from 23 May 1959 to 2 December 1975. The Kingdom of Laos was a covert theater during the Vietnam War with both sides receiving heavy external support in a proxy war between the global Cold War superpowers.
The change in emphasis can be judged by the fact that in 1967, the U.S. sank 431,000 troops into the Vietnam theater, at a fiscal cost about 700 times as great as the budget for the Lao war. As the Hmong irregulars joined the Royal Lao Army regulars in joint operations, the role of the hill tribes guerrillas began to mutate into that of light ...
By February they had occupied the entire Plain of Jars, Long Tieng had been surrounded, and, for the first time since 1962, Pathet Lao forces were camped within sight of the royal capital of Luang Prabang. [8]: 207 Douglas AC-47 gunship. Ominously, PAVN and the Pathet Lao did not withdraw to North Vietnam during the rainy season.
North Vietnam supported the Pathet Lao to fight against the Kingdom of Laos between 1958 and 1959. Control over Laos allowed for the eventual construction of the Ho Chi Minh Trail that would serve as the main supply route for enhanced NLF (the National Liberation Front, the Viet Cong) and NVA (North Vietnamese Army) activities in the Republic of Vietnam.
Group 579 was charged with infiltrating supplies into South Vietnam by sea, complementing the land based operations of Group 559. It was created in May 1959. (Conboy et al., p. 8) Group 959 was created in September 1959 to move supplies through Laos and to act as a headquarters for PAVN forces supporting the Pathet Lao. [2] [3]
The Pathet Lao left the coalition and repudiated Souvanna Phouma. Perforce he was driven to cooperate with the rightist Royalist politicians and military officers. None of the events affected the North Vietnamese usage of the Ho Chi Minh Trail to send troops into battle in South Vietnam .
During the North Vietnamese invasion of Laos, the Pathet Lao were backed militarily by the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and Vietcong. Laos was also dragged into the Vietnam War after parts of Laos were invaded and occupied by North Vietnam for use as a supply route for its war against South Vietnam.