Interdiction Point FOXTROT
FOXTROT was one of the best and most significant interdiction points in Steel Tiger. It was on the main route (911/91) south from Mu Gia and the Ban Karai Pass and the last good point before Tchepone, which is just beyond the top of the picture. The road comes in at the center of the bottom of the picture, then runs on the hillside above the Xe Namkok River until the river makes the sharp bend near the center of the picture. The bomb craters at the top of the picture are at the south ford of a bypass that looped around FOXTROT to the east. Since the bypass required two fords, it wasn’t used as much as the direct route along the
river.
When I left NKP in January 1968, there were no strings of B-52 strikes as you can see in this picture, so this picture may be from 1969 or later. The sandbars show in the river, so this probably is late in the dry season. The main target likely was on the right side of the river. However, the area now washed out with white craters was heavily populated with enemy gunners in late 1967, so the misses may have produced good results as well. The gun position we referred to as The Gunners with the Asbestos Buddha would have been very close to the middle of the picture.
