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U.S. Navy planes in action. National Archives
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In response to a deadly Viet Cong attack on a U.S. Army barracks at Pleiku, carrier aircraft from the USS Hancock, USS Coral Sea, and USS Ranger executed retaliatory strikes against military targets in North Vietnam.
This mission marked the very first combat action for the USS Coral Sea (CVA-43)
Laos is a small landlocked nation that most people would struggle to point to on a map. It is one of the last solidly communist nations following the Cold War. Laos was heavily involved in the Vietnam War as a proxy battleground for the United States, the Soviet Union, and North Vietnam. This small nation of just 7.5 million happens to be the most bombed country in the world.
In 2016, then President Obama visited Laos, making him the first US president to do so. During the visit, he admitted that the United States dropped more bombs on Laos between 1964 and 1973 than they did on Germany and Japan during World War II. Combined.
The heavy concentration of bombs in such a small area over such a small population easily makes Laos the most bombed country in the world per capita.
Why Laos?
Why did Laos draw so much firepower from the United States? The small kingdom was embroiled in a civil war during the Vietnam War that pitted Laos royalists against upstart communists. The communists in Laos were getting support from the USSR and China, and in turn, they were supporting their communist neighbors in North Vietnam. The United States was hoping to bomb Laos into oblivion and then use covert CIA operations to prop up the struggling royalists.
Unfortunately, the efforts faltered. The royalists were ineffective against the combined communist forces in the region, and the US bombing campaign seemed to amount to nothing. Arms, intelligence, men, and supplies continued to flow through the dense jungles and jagged mountains.
The inability to subdue Laos through the air and stop reinforcements and supplies from reaching North Vietnam was a hallmark of the US campaign during the Vietnam War.
Despite the ineffectiveness of the bombings, the Americans continued to pile it on. Flights flew daily and dropped tons of cluster munitions on targets throughout the country.
According to data analyzed by Al Jazeera, the United States dropped a “planeload of bombs dropped on Laos every eight minutes, 24 hours a day, for nine years.”
The result was a more extensive bombing campaign than anything seen during World War II. The extended period of time, unopposed bombing runs, and an unending supply of bombs contributed to the massive effort to sever the Ho Chi Minh Trail that partly ran through Laos. The mission was a failure but the legacy of that failure is still present in Laos today.
Death Toll
The Laos civil war claimed an astonishing 200,000 lives representing a tenth of the total population at the time.
Many civilians were felled by US bombs, with some people claiming that the bombs fell like rain during intense periods of military activity. Estimates put the number of Laotians killed by US bombs at around 50,000.
Despite having no official involvement in Laos, nearly 800 Americans died in the country during the war. Most of the Americans who died on the ground were affiliated with or working for the CIA.
Bombs Today
Of the millions of bombs that fell on Laos during that period, 30% failed to explode. That unfortunate fact has left millions of unexploded cluster munitions hiding in the jungles of Laos, and the bombs continue to kill people today.
Since 1964, over 50,000 Laos civilians have been killed by US bombs. The bombings officially stopped in 1973, but since then, another 20,000 people have been killed or seriously wounded by unexploded munitions.
Today, an estimated 80 million pieces of unexploded ordinance remain in the country, and the most likely victims of the decades-old bombs are children. Kids wander in the woods and stumble upon the munitions. Some of the bombs are small remnants of bound cluster bombs. These remnants can sometimes look like balls or sticks that entice kids to pick them up with disastrous effects.
NGOs are on the ground in Laos attempting to educate, locate and eliminate unexploded munitions.
Conclusion
Laos remains the most bombed country in the world. The 7.5 million people of the southeastern Asian nation have faced more munitions than any other people in history. The bombs fell daily for almost a decade during the Vietnam War, and today the jungles are still littered with millions of pieces of unexploded ordinance. Civilians are still periodically killed by unexploded bombs in Laos.
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