EARLY WARNING – 1965 A young Army Security Agency soldier walked out of the back gate of Davis Station. The gate was located near the end of the runway and led to the flight line by the Huey pad at Tan Son Nhut airbase near Saigon. It was 0515 in the morning and the year was 1965. The soldier was one of less than a thousand members of a shadowy group recruited and trained by ASA, the National Security Agency’s ground force in Vietnam. He carried the military occupational specialty (MOS) of 058, “manual-Morse intercept operator.” Until 1965, even an ASA soldier’s MOS was classified, and he was listed under a fictional MOS of “General Duties.” ASA units carried the camouflaged and euphemistic title “radio research units,” and their mission was so highly classified that only the top-most echelons of the U.S. command in Vietnam had any inkling of what their mission was, assuming they had “the need to know.” As the young man walked, he was more focused than usual at that early hour. During the previous day’s flight, a small caliber round had come through the bottom of the De Havilland “Beaver” as he and the major piloting the plane were flying a mission near the Cambodian border. They had flown over the same area near a U.S. Special Forces outpost for three consecutive days, and each day, using their specially-equipped aircraft for locating low-level transmitters, they had plotted a Viet Cong unit moving ever closer to the camp. Taking ground fire was not unusual, especially when flying low over the same area for several consecutive days. The VC round had penetrated the belly of the plane and exploded a cushion lying on the floor of the plane near the Thompson sub-machine gun, but what made this occurrence different was the fact that the round had exited the plane just above the soldier’s head. Had he not been leaning forward while working the target signal, the round could have taken off the back of his flight helmet, or worse. If that were not enough, something unusual had taken place upon his return to base. After plotting the latest triangulation of the enemy unit transmitter, a sergeant had escorted the spc.4 to a nearby building for a debriefing. The major he had flown with was waiting there, along with several civilians and an Air Force officer. Laid out on a table was a map of the area they had flown over and the Special Forces camp. The questions the men asked were straight-forward: How sure was he of the call signs he had copied? Did the transmissions sound the same, and could he identify the “fist” (the unique characteristics of the operator sending the message) of the VC sender? How confident were he and the major of the locations they had marked on the map in order to get their triangulation of the signal? Then, he had been dismissed. Obviously something important was brewing. The next morning, the young op and the major headed back out. Flying over the same area as the day before, his intercom crackled to life. The major told him to come forward immediately, and climb into the right seat. As he maneuvered by the radio equipment and squeezed between the seats, he understood why. They had arrived over their target, and in the distance he could see two “fast-movers” (F-100s) rolling in for a bombing run. Black smoke billowed from the Special Forces camp below, and it was obvious it had been hit hard during the night. Tactical aircraft were making bombing and strafing runs along the jungle lines surrounding the camp. He knew his previous day’s VC target would not be up and sending today. There was nothing the ASA team could do but move off to the side and watch the show. Tomorrow, he and the major, or another crew would fly out to work the area, but it would be quiet for a while. The next contact with this VC target would probably have them holed up across the Cambodian border as they regrouped, recovered, and resupplied to come back. He prayed the intelligence he and the major had intercepted over the past few days had given the Green Berets enough advance warning to prepare for the attack that had hit them last night. Maybe he had helped save the lives of some of those men. On 19 October 1965, the 33rd Regiment of the 325th North Vietnamese Army Division and Viet Cong units attacked Plei Me Special Forces Camp (A-255) in the Central Highlands 215 miles north of Saigon. They were supported by the 32nd NVA Regiment, which was put in place to ambush any reinforcements that attempted to reach Plei Me’s defenders. The outpost was manned by twelve Green Berets and 350 Montagnards. There had been significant ARDF fixes of enemy troops moving into the area during the previous week and fixes the day before indicating NVA forces in close proximity to the camp, so the attack was not entirely a surprise. The NVA troops initially overran the post, but were repelled by its defenders and U.S. gunships, setting up a siege situation. The next morning, Special Forces Detachment B-52, comprised of 250 ARVN Rangers and their U.S. advisor, Maj. Charles Beckwith, arrived by helicopter and helped to reinforce the camp’s defenses. During the siege, the Green Berets and their allies repelled numerous enemy attacks, assisted by air strikes and C-130 airdrops of munitions, rations, and medical supplies. The siege was finally lifted with the arrival of an ARVN armored column on 25 October and the U.S. 1st Air Cav on the 27th. The siege of Plei Me was the opening round of the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley. On 04 November 1965, ASA Staff Sgt. Robert Franklin Townsend of Royal Oak, Michigan, was fatally shot in the chest by a VC sniper near Plei Me. Sgt. Townsend was serving with the 371st Radio Research Co., and operating in the field in support of the 1st Cav. He had been in the Army for almost twelve years, serving in France and Ethiopia, and had shipped out of Ft. Benning, Georgia, eleven weeks earlier with the 1st Cav. Townsend was married, and he and his wife, Mary, had three children, Richard age 4, Katheryn age two, and Daniel, eleven months. He was 29 years old. Based on material from “Unlikely Warriors: The Army Security Agency’s Secret War in Vietnam 1961-1973” by Lonnie M. Long and Gary B. Blackburn; iUniverse LLC, 2013 Copyright © 2013 Lonnie M. Long and Gary B. Blackburn
Posted on: Sat, 25 Oct 2014 20:13:57 +0000
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