Military Operations

Operation Kingpin

Contemporary

Citation Formats

General Reference

War and Military Atlas. "Operation Kingpin." Accessed September 8, 2026. https://military.interactiveatlas.org/military-operations/operation-kingpin.

APA Style

War and Military Atlas. (n.d.). Operation Kingpin. Retrieved September 8, 2026, from https://military.interactiveatlas.org/military-operations/operation-kingpin

BibTeX

@misc{warandmilitaryatlas-operation-kingpin,
  author = {War and Military Atlas},
  title = {Operation Kingpin},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://military.interactiveatlas.org/military-operations/operation-kingpin},
  note = {Accessed September 8, 2026}
}

Operation Kingpin, also called Operation Ivory Coast, was a joint United States Special Operations raid on 21 November 1970 against the Son Tay prisoner-of-war camp near Hanoi, North Vietnam, intended to recover American POWs believed held there. A combined Army Special Forces and Air Force task force executed a nearly flawless nighttime helicopter assault on the compound, but found it empty; the prisoners had been relocated weeks earlier.

Facts

Operation Type

Special-forces raid (prisoner rescue, no prisoners found) 1

Start Date

1970-11-21 1

End Date

1970-11-21 1

Location

Son Tay prisoner-of-war camp, near Hanoi, North Vietnam 1

Participants

U.S. Army Special Forces (6th and 7th Special Forces Groups), U.S. Air Force, under Brigadier General LeRoy Manor and Colonel Arthur Simons 1

Objective

Recover American prisoners of war believed held at the Son Tay camp 1

Outcome

No prisoners were found, as they had been relocated before the raid; the mission's execution was judged nearly flawless and prompted a major reorganization of U.S. POW intelligence 1

Cross-Tradition Connections