Vietnamese Border Raids in Thailand - Timeline - 1985

1985

• January–February: A powerful Vietnamese offensive overruns virtually all key bases of the Cambodian guerrillas along the frontier, putting the Thais and Vietnamese in direct confrontation along many stretches.

• January 5: Paet Um attacked and evacuated.

• January 7–8: Five to six thousand Vietnamese troops, backed by artillery and 15 T-54 tanks and 5 APCs, attacked Ampil (Ban Sangae). Vietnamese troops were supported by 400–500 Cambodian PRKAF troops. The attack was preceded by heavy artillery bombardment, with between 7000 and 20,000 shells falling over a 24-hour period. Nong Chan and Nong Samet were also shelled. Ampil camp fell to the Vietnamese after a few hours of fighting in spite of General Dien Del's predictions. KPNLAF troops disabled 6 or 7 tanks but reportedly lost 103 men in combat. San Ro civilian population evacuated to Site 1. A Thai fighter plane, an A-37 Dragonfly, was shot down over Buriram Province during the fighting, killing one of the two crew members. During the assault on Ampil, Thai troops defending Hill 37 near Ban Sangae sustained 11 killed and 19 injured.

• January 23–27: Dong Ruk and San Ro camps shelled, 18 civilians were killed. Population of 23,000 fled to Site A.

• January 28–30: Vietnamese artillery fired about one hundred 130mm shells, mortars and rockets at positions of the Khmer Rouge's 320th Division near the Khao Din Refugee Camp about 34 miles south of Aranyaprathet. This was followed by an infantry assault on Khao Ta-ngoc.

• February 13: Nong Pru, O'Shallac and Taprik (South of Aranyaprathet) attacked and evacuated to Site 8.

• February 16: In a skirmish with non-communist rebel forces near Ta Phraya, four Vietnamese rockets containing toxic gas were fired, causing Thai villagers in the area to complain of dizziness and vomiting. A Royal Thai Army laboratory confirmed that the rockets contained phosgene gas.

• February 18: 300 Vietnamese troops assaulted Khmer Rouge positions near Khlong Nam Sai, 19 miles southeast of Aranyaprathet. Fighting began with small arms exchanges and escalated into a Vietnamese barrage with heavy artillery and mortars. Thai troops fired warning shots at Vietnamese soldiers as they crossed the border in pursuit of fleeing Khmer Rouge guerrillas. One Thai villager was killed.

• February 20: Vietnamese and Thai soldiers fought on a hill near the frontier that winds 450 miles between Thailand and Cambodia. Vietnamese forces tried to storm Hill 347, about half a mile inside Thailand's northeastern province of Buriram. A Thai officer was killed and two soldiers were wounded in the fighting, which included an artillery duel across the border.

• March 5: Tatum attacked. Green Hill population evacuated to Site B. Dong Ruk, San Ro, Ban Sangae, and Vietnamese Land Refugees are all moved to Site 2. Some 1000 Vietnamese troops were regularly intruding into Thai territory in attempts to outflank units of the Cambodian resistance groups. As these groups received support through Thailand and even had possible escape routes through Thai territory, their backs were kept free – as long as Vietnamese troops attacking the resistance factions respect Thai territory.

• March 6: Thai troops and aircraft forced Vietnamese troops to retreat from one of three hills on Thai territory which the Vietnamese had captured during preceding days. Royal Thai Air Force fighter-bombers flew missions against about 1,000 Vietnamese who crossed the Thai-Cambodian border in two places. The Thai counterattack against the intruding Vietnamese troops left some 60 people dead.

• March 7: Thai army troops supported by artillery and U.S.-supplied A-37 Dragonfly aircraft recaptured three hills seized May 5 by intruding Vietnamese soldiers. Hundreds of Vietnamese were said to have been driven back across the border into Cambodia. However, the Vietnamese counterattacked against Hill 361 on Thai soil behind the besieged Cambodian guerrilla base at Tatum, and the results of the battle were not immediately clear. 14 Thai soldiers and 15 Thai civilians had been killed.

• April 4: A clash occurred at Laem Nong Ian, a restricted area 15 miles southeast of this Thai border town, after five Vietnamese intruded about 875 yards into Thailand.

• April 6: Border policemen killed a Vietnamese soldier in Thailand during a 10-minute fight near the border.

• April 20: At southeastern Thailand's Trat Province, some 1,200 Vietnamese troops attacked Thai positions situated 3 to 4 km from the Gulf of Thailand. Instead of withdrawing the Vietnamese set up a permanent base on a hill in Thailand, about a half mile from the border, where they laid mines and built bunkers. Later, escalating Thai attacks had pushed some of the Vietnamese back into Cambodia, but the Hanoi government dispatched a fresh battalion of 600 to 800 men to reinforce the hilltop half a mile inside Thailand.

• May 10: A Thai soldier was killed after stepping on a land mine while on patrol.

• May 11: Thailand's American-made jet fighters and heavy artillery pounded Vietnamese troops occupying a hill half a mile inside Thailand, and Thai soldiers poised for an assault on the heavily mined position. The Thais bombed and shelled the Vietnamese before an infantry operation was to be launched in the Banthad Mountain range, 170 miles southeast of Bangkok. The Vietnamese were dug in along the hill and had laid a string of mines to counter any Thai ground assaults. Seven Thai soldiers have been reported killed and at least 16 were injured. Radio Hanoi reported a Vietnamese Foreign Ministry statement denying the latest reported incursion into Thailand. Thailand had accused Vietnam of at least 40 cross-border forays in search of Cambodian guerrillas since November 1984, but the Vietnamese government had denied the charges.

• May 15: Vietnamese and Thai soldiers clashed for about eight hours with mortars, antitank cannons and machine guns.

• May 17: Thai soldiers drove intruding Vietnamese soldiers back into Cambodia in intense fighting along Thailand's southeastern border. After more than a week of fighting, Thai rangers and marines seized part of a Vietnamese-occupied hill just inside the Thai border the previous days.

• May: An approximate 230,000 Khmer civilians were in temporary evacuations in Thailand after a very successful Vietnamese dry season offensive.

• May 26: Vietnamese soldiers crossed into the Thai province of Ubon Ratchathani from northern Cambodia, apparently searching for Cambodian guerrillas. A Vietnamese force killed five Thai soldiers and a civilian in a one-hour clash with Thai border patrols in northeast Thailand. The fighting prompted Thai provincial authorities to evacuate about 600 civilians from two border villages to safer areas in the Nam Yuen district.

• June 13: Thai forces battled 400 Vietnamese troops who crossed into Thailand.