Tales from The Secret War In Laos – Major Lee Lue

The Hunt For Major Lee Lue

Major Lee Lue was a fighter pilot in the Secret War, he flew over 5000 missions and was highly regarded as one of the best, he came up in conversation with a pilot i know,who knew of Lee Lue, he asked me could we go look his crash site in Northern Laos.  Yes was the answer to that, some research done and we head out to find the places. Captain Ruidi and me.

First place we go is to Muang Soui, which is about 50ks west of Phonsavan and home to LS108, not much to see now but it was a busy site back in the war, we asked  few questions and got some directions to a rather remote little village to the south, about 25ks away, time to go take a look.

The Village is very remote and we’re unsure we had arrived in the right place, we found an elderly gentleman and asked him, he knew what we wanted and summonsed 2 villagers to take us to the spot in question, about an hour away.

First leg is on the bike, then its walking up some rather steep hills for about 40 minutes, when we arrive at the correct hill, the guys showed us a small area where they say Major Lee Lue’s plane hit the ground. All around us where bunkers, fox holes and trenches, lots of UXO around as well, not a safe place to walk around without the locals.

It seems that when he crashed the Vietnamese army where all over the site, basically picked it clean, he was not liked by the NVA army, he bombed them many times, so his death was a cause for celebration and mementoes were taken from the site by the NVA.

The Special guerrilla forces, General Van Pao and the US Pilots mourned his death, he was a hero amongst his fellow pilots and soldiers. When i returned home my neighbour asked me where I had been for 3 weeks, I told him about Lee Lue, he knew all about him and praised him, remembered him from his childhood.