teams and their Montagnard defenders, controlled and defended the Central Highlands, never losing a battle, and never abusing, violating, or oppressing the people there.
All of us who were able to come home felt that the cause for which we fought and sacrificed was worthy, justifiable, and right — our own freedom and the freedom of those we had been sent to defend.
I have the utmost admiration and respect for all with whom I was privileged to serve, especially the soldiers of the 1st Brigade and the Special Forces teams, and for their sacrifices and accomplishments in relieving the plight of the Montagnards. I also share their sorrow over the tragedies suffered by the Montagnards after U.S. forces were withdrawn. Though all Montagnards endured terrible retribution from the NVA — many were killed, and many others died in reindoctrination camps — the extraordinary and heartfelt efforts of the SF teams who served with them saved many others, who now live in the United States as productive citizens.
DEEP RECONNAISSANCE
Reconnaissance behind enemy lines is a traditional special operations mission — to put eves on otherwise hidden enemy activities. In Vietnam, because the enemy found it so easy to hide beneath triple-canopy rain forest or in tunnels, the need for deep reconnaissance was even more than normally pressing.
In the spring of 1964, MACV and the South Vietnamese Joint General Staff established a dedicated deep reconnaissance capability, called Leaping Lena, made up of CIDG and Vietnamese troops under U.S. Special Forces leadership. Its mission was to conduct critical, hazardous recon missions inside South Vietnam (though a few teams were also sent across the Laotian border against the Ho Chi Minh Trail, but with disastrous results). In October of that year, a control headquarters was established, called Detachment B-52, and the overall operation became Project Delta.
Throughout the war, Delta was involved in long-range reconnaissance against enemy sanctuaries and concealed enemy positions. This took many forms — reconnaissance-in-force missions (often using MIKE Force units), intelligence collection, directing artillery and air strikes, bomb damage assessment, rescue of downed pilots and allied prisoners of war, capture of enemy personnel in order to gather intelligence, deception missions, PSYOPs, photoreconnaissance, and many others — all deep within enemy territory. Teams would be inserted for several days, then brought out and debriefed. The program continued until 1970, when Detachment B-52 was deactivated.
Though Delta had a nationwide mission, other deep reconnaissance operations — Projects Omega and Sigma (Detachments B-50 and B-56) — had a more regional orientation. But their missions were otherwise very similar.
Deep reconnaissance across borders (into Laos or Cambodia, say) was by its nature a covert operation, and initially a CIA responsibility; but later it became a MACV-directed mission (though with some continued CIA participation), under what was called MACVSOG — the Military Assistance Command Vietnam Studies and Observation Group (it was called that for cover purposes). MACVSOG was activated in January 1964, and used Special Forces, Navy SEALs, Air Force Air Commandos, and Vietnamese to conduct covert and unconventional operations throughout Southeast Asia, but of course specifically against North Vietnam, the NVA, the Viet Cong, and the Ho Chi Minh Trail.[16]
MACVSOG was involved in a wide range of activities, not just deep reconnaissance. A great deal of effort, for example, was put into operations against North Vietnam: Agents were inserted, with the aim of setting up intelligence or resistance cells (most were captured soon after insertion and executed or turned). There were seaborne commando raids against the North Vietnamese Navy and North Vietnam's coast. There were psychological operations and dirty tricks. And teams were sent to observe the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Later, teams conducted raids against it.
Beginning in 1961, Special Forces personnel, under CIA direction, had been involved in cross-border surveillance into southeastern Laos. For the next two years, close to fifty teams sent over the border gave the Agency eyeball proof that the NVA had a strong and growing presence in Laos and were infiltrating at least 1,500 troops a month into South Vietnam. Between 1963 and 1965, for political reasons, this surveillance was halted. For those two years, Americans were not allowed to conduct cross-border deep reconnaissance against the Trail, allowing the NVA the opportunity to greatly build up and extend their facilities and capabilities. By 1964, it was estimatedthat at least 45,000 troops had infiltrated south, and the numbers were growing.
In March 1965—and after considerable struggle-the JCS finally convinced the Lyndon Johnson White House to allow MACVSOG to resume covert cross-border operations into Laos, with Special Forces personnel leading the teams. The SOG operational plan was ambitious (and just maybe workable). It had three phases: (I) Short-stay, tactical intelligence missions would identify NVA headquarters, base camps, and supply dumps. These would then be attacked by air strikes. This would be followed by (2) company-size raids against NVA facilities discovered by recon teams. This would be followed by (3) the recruiting, organizing, and training of local tribesmen living near the Trail to become the nucleus of long-term resistance movements against the NVA. This phase was based on the earlier — and successful — White Star Program in Laos. The overall aim of the plan was to interdict traffic on the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
No one will ever know how well the plan would have worked. Using the preservation of the 1962 Geneva Accords as a reason, the State Department successfully opposed the implementation of the second and third phases, and severely limited the first.
The terms of the deal worked out with the State Department allowed teams into Laos to observe the Trail, but only a few of them could go in each month, their time inside Laos was extremely limited, they had to walk in (they couldn't use helicopters or parachutes), only a very small part of the border was open to them, and they could penetrate no more than five kilometers into the country (their area of operations was in all about fifty square miles). Targets that the teams identified could be bombed, but only after the American Embassy in the Laotian capital had approved the target, and the targets would have to be bombed by U.S. planes based in Thailand.
The man chosen to run this program was (by then Colonel) Bull Simons.
He quickly put together a field organization and headquarters staff, and recruited teams-usually three Americans and nine Vietnamese from one of the minority tribes, such as Nungs and especially the Montagnards.
The mission was to be totally covert, and the teams infiltrated into Laos were to be, in the jargon of the covert world, 'sterile.' That meant they wore non-American/non-Vietnamese uniforms that were made somewhere in Asia for SOG. The uniforms showed neither rank nor unit insignia.
In the fall of 1965, the first teams crossed the Laotian border; excellent results soon followed. After two years of unrestricted operations in Laos, the NVA didn't expect trouble. They'd gotten overconfident. SOG teams quickly identified truck parks and fuel depots, supply caches, bridges, and other storage sites. Air strikes were called in, with the BDAs (Bomb Damage Assessments) often claiming eighty to a hundred percent destruction.
Continued success resulted in expanded missions. Thus, in 1966, helicopters were allowed for insertion of SOG missions, though they could penetrate no deeper than five kilometers inside Laos. The team inserted could now, however, go another five kilometers on foot. In other words, the limit was now ten kilometers and not five. Missions would last up to five days.
Though the SOG teams' primary mission did not change — covert teams identifying targets on the Trail for air strikes — other missions came to be added, virtually identical to those conducted by Project Delta within South Vietnam:
Teams conducted BDAs, tapped NVA land communications, captured NVA soldiers to gain intelligence, rescued U.S. personnel who were evading or escaping capture, and inserted electronic sensors along the Trail to detect targets for air strikes. Thousands of seismic and acoustic sensors were placed, most of them by air, but SOG teams also carried many in on their backs. Larger teams came to be formed and used for conducting raids, ambushes, and larger-scale rescue.
In 1967, the depth of insertion by foot or by helicopter was allowed to grow to twenty kilometers; the size of the teams was allowed to increase, as was the number of teams per month (from a high of fifteen to forty-two);
