Don't be Taken Alive!

This was one of the first things I was told at my initial briefing on my first trip into Laos.  Col. Bradley made it very plain.  It was better to die in a battle or a firefight than to be taken alive by the Pathet Lao or North Vietnamese.  Of the many people lost in Laos and named as MIA's, few ever surfaced again.  Only now, with the cooperation of the North Vietnamese government are we able to begin to understand what happened to these people.  Real numbers are hard to come up with because of the skewing of statistics.   Some 450 military personnel, USAF pilots, FAC pilots, Special Forces personnel, and various military advisers were lost in Laos never to be heard of again.  Yes, there were a few miraculous escapes, but not many and you could number them on two hands. 

There are some statistics that need to be stated here.  Of the losses in Laos, either aircrews shot down or special forces personnel in untenable positions , 61 percent were rescued.  Now, the term rescued can have two meanings and in Laos this was particularly true.  Being rescued either meant being rescued by SAR activities or taken alive by the Pathet Lao or North Vietnamese troops.  Because of this skewing of statistics, accuracy is hard to present.  I don't know how they managed to make those kinds of calculations, but they did.  After the war was over, the U.S. government said that 2 percent of American personnel captured in Laos by the enemy were returned.  I don't think it was that high.  That means that 37 percent of captured U.S. military personnel did not return and were listed as MIA's.  Later some of these were determined to be KIA's reducing slightly the MIA numbers.  As I wrote above, close to 450 Americans serving in the military were listed as missing in action in Laos. (If any one reading this blog has some different numbers, I would be glad to see them.) Literally scores of Special Forces troops went missing in N.Vietnam and along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.  Take into account that this does not include CIA, Air America, or indigenous troops that also went missing in that war.   Over the last few years Laos has allowed some Grave Registrations Teams to search Laos for remains at known crash sites and some remains have been returned to the United States.  It is much harder to track and find information on the Special Forces personnel that were lost as well as CIA and Air America people.  This doesn't account for many of those quote-unquote "rescued by the enemy" aircrew members.

Pathet Lao Soldiers

Col. Bradley told both Bailey and myself that you were as good as dead if taken captive.  You would be mistreated, abused, beaten, tortured, and after all of that, they would do it all again until you died from your injuries.  Or, if they saw you didn't have any information forthcoming, they would just take you out and shoot you.  There were a few who escaped, but with most cases of those who escaped and survived the ordeals of capture, it was because they had a will to survive. They were able to endure the beatings and mistreatment and never give in to despair or depression.  They waited for that one moment of inattention by the guards, or an unlocked cage or building to make good their escapes and most always had a plan on what they were going to do once they escaped.  They probably spent what time they had between beatings and interrogations to develop a plan of survival once out of their captors hands.

NVA Soldiers

I don't think any soldier, sailor, airman, or marine worries a lot about dying.  It's going to happen someday, someway, no matter how you try to avoid it.  What worries us all is how we are going to die.  I always figured, that if I took a bullet in the bush, it was probably better than dying of cancer or some other horrible disease. But, after hearing Col Bradley, I was convinced I did not want to be captured, that was for sure.  An interesting story from the Air America files is about Phisit Intharathat and how after an Air America C-46 was shot down north of Savannakhet, he survived capture, torture and injury to eventually escape his jailers.  We ran part of the SAR on this aircraft and in the process, were shot down as well.  However, we, at least, were able to crash land away from where large concentrations of Pathet Lao were located.  Plus, we were relatively heavily armed.   Phisit ws not that lucky.  I recommend you read his story at http://www.air-america.org/Articles/Phisit.shtml.  Hopefully, my next post will tell the story of our being shot down looking for the C-46.

I, like a lot of others in Laos at the time, had heard of the stories about Tony Poe.  I don't want to plagiarize anyone else's work, so I will only tell you that you can look up his name through a google search, and read about him.  I will tell a story or two about him later in this blog concerning my dealings with him.  But, I will say this, if you saw the movie "Apocalypse Now", the character of Col. Kurtz came from the life and times of Tony Poe.  The minute I saw the movie and saw Marlon Brando as Kurtz, I knew who they were portraying in the movie.  It was as if I was back at Long Tieng and reliving the past.  The one CIA person I had a lot of personal contact with, other than Col. Bradley,  was Tony Poe.  It was  ritual that when I came back to Long Tieng, I brought him a couple of fifths of Canadian Club Whiskey.  In my case, over the period that I came and went in Laos, that amounted to about 35 to 40 quarts of liquor.  He was a legend by the time I met him in 1963.

In Laos, growing rice between the mountains.  This was Pathet Lao territory in the eastern part of N. Laos. The setting
looks to made for a parachute drop, but along the edges of the rice patties were 22 an 37 mm AAA guns not to mention
the guns on the ridges.

 I am getting off track here, the point I want to make about Tony Poe is that he was doing to the Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese what the enemy was doing to our personnel.  There was a "no holds barred" kind of mentality going on. There were no boundaries you couldn't cross.  There were no stop signs when it came to cruelty on both sides.  Torture and death could await soldiers on all sides.  And, I have no idea what happened those individuals that the CIA took control of.  I will almost guarantee that they never surfaced again nor were they ever heard from.  

On the day of my first official briefing I was told something else.  Col. Bradley made a comment that has stuck with me since.  In essence, he said this: "Here in Laos we are not concerned about collateral damage.  We do what ever it takes to win no matter how many non-combatants are killed or injured.  You cannot let the collateral damage trouble your soul.  It's a fact of war."  Well, that was easy for him to say I guess, but it wasn't that easy to do.  I remember seeing the broken and torn bodies of women and children after an air strike or artillery barrage.  There is no way you can see that and not have it "trouble your soul."

One of my grandsons once asked me if I was ever afraid in Laos.  I was always afraid.  Sometimes I was scared s....less.  Anyone who was in that environment could never say they were unafraid unless they were crazy or lying. Fear is the biggest enemy anyone has to face. You were always in danger when you were in the field because, basically, you were always in enemy territory.  Sometimes you were working with indigenous personnel you had never seen before and didn't know if they were really on your side or not.  Missions originating in Saigon by MACV were always subject to compromise by moles at MACV headquarters.  The safest missions always turned out to be those run by the CIA.  They knew how to keep a secret and how to misdirect the enemy.  Afraid, yes I was afraid and I am not ashamed to say that, but in the end, you do your job, scared or not.  It was what you were trained to do, so you carried on.  It was what it was. By the time I had been in and out of Laos several times, I had the old "Indian fighter" mentality.  I would save the last bullet for myself rather than be captured and tortured.  And, like I said in another post, I really think that someone on my team had the responsibility to make sure I didn't fall into enemy hands.

Me and MACVSOG

One of the main groups I dealt with in Laos was MACVSOG personnel.  MACV-SOG stands for Military Assistance Command Vietnam - Studies and Observation Group. They were specially trained U.S. Army Special Forces troops who were trained to do a lot of covert things behind enemy lines, running ambushes, kidnappings, surveillance operations, and just being a thorn in the side of the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong.  Well, in Laos that did all that too.  Before I got there, they were running Shinning Star (I believe that was the call) missions.  Laos was known by its coded name, Shining Brass.  Officially, SOG did not come into existence until 1964, but by any classification of missions undertaken and how they operated in 1963, these guys were SOG teams that I worked with at that time.

MACVSOG Team at Nhuty Thuat, Vietnam

Most of the SOG teams consisted of four men.  Usually they were made up of two SF guys and two Vietnamese counterparts.  Soetimes it was three and three.  On occasion, it might be all SF guys, two of which were being trained by the 1-0.   I did insert teams as large as 15 members, such as the one above, on occasion.  SOG teams could be all American personnel, or like the picture above, made up of a mixture of American and indigenous soldiers. These indigenous soldiers were highly trained and motivated individuals.  A lot of teams in Vietnam were made up of Nhungs and Montagnards known for their ferocity in battle.  In Laos where I was stationed, they could be Hmongs or Thai special forces guys.   The SOG teams were typically made up as follows:  One-Zero was the team commander.  He could be an officer or a NCO.  One-One was the assistant team commander and could be any rank, but  normally an NCO.  One-Two was usually the radio operator.  He carried at least one radio and may have two or more on a particular mission depending on the mission requirements.  Other team members would carry the extra radios.  One-Two was usually a mission specialist in either heavy weapons or explosives besides being a radio operator..  Any extra members could be weapons specialists, explosives experts, or snipers.  All were highly trained and highly motivated individuals.  No doubt they were hard-core people.  Most of these guys spoke at least one, if not two, languages besides English.  I knew of one NCO who could speak 7 or 8 different languages along with a couple of dialects of the indigenous people in the area. The Vietnamese counterparts were designated as follows,  The team leader was 0-1, the radio operator 0-2, etc.  Just different from the SF guys.

Some of these guys carried M-14 rifles and 45 Colt sidearms .  Others, like those in the picture above preferred the Swedish K 9MM as did I.  Sometimes the heavy weapons guy would carry a M-79 grenade launcher.  All carried four grenades, usually two M-26 fragmentation grenades, one white phosphorus grenade and one smoke grenade.  However, there was no set number of any type of grenade I could see.  On certain missions they would carry AK-47's.  They usually had a few claymore mines as well.  C rations and water made up their mission food requirements.  Most carried two canteens.  Each carried  up to ten clips of ammo for their weapons.  One team member often carried an auto loading 22. caliber pistol with a silencer.  This was used to dispatch guards and anyone else you needed a silent kill for.  One thing I notice from looking at photos of the past is that you can pretty well date the photos by the small arms the guys are carrying.  I never saw an AR-15,  CAR-15, or an M-16 during my whole tour.  They must have showed up in late 1964 or even 1965.  Most photos dated before 1964 all feature sub-machine guns, M-1 carbines and rifles, or M-14 rifles.  I had heard that some AR-15's were introduced into South Vietnam with U.S.A.F. security personnel, but I don't know when that happened. 

AR-15 Rifle

 On the other hand, the indigenous troops either carried M-1 carbines, Swedish SK's, or AK-47s.  Some preferred the AK-47 simply because, as I said in an earlier post, it confused the enemy.  All of my PARU's normally carried AK-47's.

Some SOG teams were called "Spike Teams" or "ST", the abbreviated version.  It was a code name for "long range recon" teams.  Anyone who wasn't a member of that particular team, in other words, someone added to the team at the last minute or for a special purpose were referred to as "strap hangers."  I was called that by most SOG guys I worked with.  It more or less became my nickname.  I would hear taunts like, "Look, here comes strap hanger."  "You riding with us today, strap hanger?"  That kind of stuff.  It wasn't mean spirited or anything like that, it was just joking around, but the nickname stuck.  I did find out where the term "strap hanger" came from.  It was from NY City and people riding the subways.  The last people getting on a subway car probably wouldn't find a seat, so they would hold on to straps hanging from the ceilings of the cars, thereby they became "strap hangers."  I think you can connect the dots on this one.


Only twice, with the exception of Team Falcon, did I insert the same SOG teams into hostile territory and both insertions were along the northern border between Laos and N. Vietnam. I think these may have been the nastiest and most dangerous of missions.  The reason they were dangerous is that we were so far north and right next to North Vietnam's border with Laos.  I know of one team that we dropped into the border area that was never heard of again.  The last time I tried to find out something about them, they were still listed as missing in action. My interaction with most SF teams was sporadic and not interactive.  Not much was said between myself and the team members.  That was not the case with Team Falcon.  I ran at least ten missions with those guys. Like I wrote previously, these guys were definitely hard core and really dedicated to what they did.  If I had to be in a firefight, these are they guys I would want on my side.  On one mission, the SOG team leader looked at me and made the following statement:  "Strap hanger, we are about to be up to our asses in alligators.  I hope you are on your game today."  What he was referring to was that we were headed up to Sam Neua, one of the most dangerous places on earth for any one except Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese troops. It was the northern Laos headquarters for the Pathet Lao.  It was 24 miles from North Vietnam. Believe me, it was the place you didn't want to go.  A SOG team had gone missing in this area and MACV wanted to know what happened to them, so they were going to send in another team.  More about this in a later blog entry.

Map of N.E. Laos Showing Sam Neua

In the declassified map above, the shaded area of eastern part of Northern Laos was pretty much under Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese control.  There were some Hmong enclaves that supported the legitimate Laotian government, but they were always in danger themselves of being wiped out by the Pathet Lao.  Long Tieng (LS20-A) (located on the lower left part of the map) was basically my mission launch site when I was in Laos although I passed through Vientiane going in and out of Laos.  Vientiane was about 90 miles south of Long Tieng.

Someone has asked me about Navy SEALs.  I never ran across any of them while I was in Laos.  So I certainly never worked with them.  I looked up some history on them and found out they were in Vietnam in an advisory role in 1962 at DaNang.   I know that after the war was really underway, they were in everywhere in Vietnam.  I just never ran across them in my travels.

The firefights that Bailey or I were involved with, were, in almost every case, during the extraction faze of an operation.  I don't know about Bailey, but I had only a few problems during insertions.  However, there was one occasion when we did.  I will put that in a future addition to the blog as well as the others I have mentioned.  Normally on insertions, you got everyone down and on their way, or the LZ was too hot to even try and you just went away to try another day.

Now the nitty-gritty.  It was really apparent that the CIA and MACV were in bed together.  I was never sure who sponsored a mission, the CIA or MACV.  On a couple of occasions their personnel were mixed together.  MACV was not supposed to be involved in Laos, but the constant movement of  SOG teams  through Laos would contradict that.  There were Special Forces guys in civilian clothes walking the streets of Vientiane during every visit there.  Air America's (AA in future blog posts) airline business was a front company and owned by the CIA through connections in Taiwan.  Air America provided a means by which the CIA could move men, material and, yes, drugs, around Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand.  And whether anyone likes it or not, MACV and their SOG teams were truly involved in what was going on in Laos. 

The thing about all this is that I was a 20 year old kid caught up in all kinds of projects and missions that didn't make a lot of sense to me.  I soon learned that there would be killing and that I could be killed as well.  The term CIA didn't mean a lot to me.  I had heard about the CIA from news accounts and the Bay of Pigs invasion, but until I got to Laos, I was mentally blank as to what they really did.
It didn't take long to find out just what they were involved in.  I was really surprised to know that so much deception and lies were going on in Laos.  And, I was never in some of the loops where a lot of the more important CIA things were done.  In later blogs you will learn about a lot of different people, Tony Poe being the most prominent of the group.

Until next time.

Swedish K sub-machine gun (upper pic) and FN-FAL Battle Rifle with Full Auto
(lower pic)

The two pictures above are representative of the weapons I carried in Laos.  Notice that the Swedish K has a longer barrel that the one I carried.  The barrel ended at the front sight.

Snow White Part II

 

The warning light came on in the darkness of the C-123 letting us know we were close to the first drop site.  But since we were jumping pretty close to each other, all three teams did equipment checks and buttoned everything down they could.  The C-123's ramp lowered as we approached the drop zone five minutes away.  I heard the crew chief yell now just as the green light came on.  The TACAN went out first followed by four PARU soldiers.  The red light came back on and two minutes later it went green again and we all who remained went out into the night sky.  Our pilot must have been really good.  We were within 200 yards of the original LZ.  I watched as the assault team disappeared into the darkness.  My task was now to find a good hide for my team with a view of the valley below.

 

B-26's at Tahkli RTAFB

                           Above is a C-123 Provider at LS20-A, Long Trieng, Laos

As the sun came up, we found we were in an excellent position to see the entire valley.  I tried to spot the assault team but they too had gone to ground.  Now it was just a waiting game.  No one knew when this caravan would show up for sure.  All we knew is that it was on its way.  I radioed Vientiane that "all boots were on the ground."  I knew the assault team had the same radios I had, but I had no idea as to who they may be in contact with besides me.  We had a breakfast of dry spicy rice and water.  This was the standard fare for the Thai's and I learned to eat it as well.  It was easy to carry, had little bulk or weight and would keep you nourished for several days.  Not particularly tasty, but okay.  I ate it anytime the team was in the field and that is why to this day, I won't hardly eat rice.  Another reason I ate the rice instead of C rations in the field was because of what the Thais told me.  What you eat eventually comes out of your body.  If you eat American rations, what comes out will smell different that what the people in the area excrete.  The Laotians away from the cities did not have latrines or outhouses as such.  They just wandered out into the adjacent area to go to the bathroom. We did the same thing.  A good tracker will know that foreigners are in the area just from that smell alone.  So, for a day prior to going into the bush and during the hump, I ate exactly what the Thais ate.  I think my PARU's all appreciated my not trying to give them away to the enemy. 

We watched all day long and saw some foot traffic down through the valley, but mostly villagers and locals.  We did see a few soldiers pass through but nothing alarming. I sent a coded message to Vientiane that we had  a "no joy" situation.  Simply meant we had not seen the enemy.  Now, we had to hope the caravan would not come through at night.  The ambush would have to take place in darkness without air cover.  I could not see a good outcome from fighting at night and not having the superior force, at least in numbers.

About an hour after daylight on day two, I saw the first signs of the caravan.  Three or four heavily armed personnel proceeded down the valley and then I saw the mules.  They were about three miles down the valley.  I immediately got on the radio and sent the message to Vientiane that "Snow White was hot."  I then got on the other radio and contacted the assault team and let them know the caravan had entered the valley.  They "rogered" the transmission.  Then I notified the TACAN team which was aware of what was going on because they had been monitoring the radio transmissions and told them to fire up the TACAN.  Now, it was time to wait again for the aircraft to call me when they got about 50 to 70 nautical miles from the TACAN.  The TACAN was hardly ever called that in the field.  It was known as the "beacon."  It was hoped that the timing would work out so that the entire caravan would be strung out in the valley when the B-26's's arrived out of Tahkli.  I assumed these aircraft were out of Tahkli because that is the only place I ever saw those aircraft types.
                                                                     

  EB6 Flight Computer

Above is a picture of an E-6B Flight Computer.  Mine was a Dalton, but they are mostly all alike. This is what I was trained to use in computing attack aircraft data.   Given the speed of the aircraft, the wind direction, altitude, and temperature, I could pretty well  put an aircraft on target.    In the case above, the aircraft were flying at about 200 knots on a heading of 350 degrees at 5000 feet.  Winds were at 230 degrees at 6 knots. Temperature at altitude was 50 to 60 degrees.  Given that information I was able to compute that the flight would need to make a turn to 290 degrees 90 seconds after passing the beacon to put them down the targeted valley for the attack.  They would need to be 1000 feet AGL when they crossed the peaks to the south.  Once I turned them down the valley, they would be on their own to carry out the attack.  

And so it began.  The folks on the trail heard the aircraft long before they saw them.  They tried to take cover by jumping over the side of the lower slope.  However, they were immediately met with gunfire from the assault team.  Then then they tried to get back up the slope, the aircraft started their run, one behind the other, with their machine guns chopping up people and mules.  The squeal and cries of the mules will stick with me always as they were shot down.  The aircraft made three passes and then the assault team called on the radio and said to call off the aircraft as it looked as if everyone was down.  I told Tango One to orbit to the south in case I needed them again.  I saw the assault team go up on the trail and shoot all the animals, wounded or not.  I wondered why they were doing that but was told later is was to deny their use again by the people supplying the guns....yeah, right on the weapons! Then they checked each downed individual to see if they were alive or not.   I knew the seriously injured would be capped.  I knew these guys were not going to leave witnesses in their business.  Those not wounded and those not seriously wounded would be taken somewhere in Thailand for detention and interrogation.  At least that is what was supposed to happen.

T-28 With Hard Points Under Wings

The assault team again radioed that it looked as if I could release the aircraft.   I told Tango One to  fly up the valley and make sure no one was coming down the trail which he did.  About that time I got the call from  Echo One that they were about 70 miles out from the "beacon."  I told him to maintain 5000 feet and orbit south of the beacon.   I then told Tango One and his wing man to turn to 220 degrees and climb to 7000 feet and report reaching that altitude.  That would take his flight away from the incoming aircraft.  When he called back that he was at 7000 feet, I told him to turn to 180 degrees, maintain 7000 and return to base.  He rogered that and then I told him to change to his base frequency which I did not know since I wasn't sure where they had come from.  That's the last I heard from him.  

Just as I released him and his flight, then I got a call from the inbound helicopters that they were about 30 minutes out ready for extraction.  But before I could say a thing three helicopters of unknown origin showed up and went down into the valley and began landing along the trail. The first thing I saw happen after they landed was that what looked to be two bodies were thrown out of the lead helicopter.  Then some assault team members drug the bodies up to where the ambush had taken place and laid them in the midst of some of the dead men killed during the raid.  I can on speculate as to what they were doing.  The assault team loaded the survivors onto one helicopter and it immediately left the site.  I could not tell if any of the people on the first helicopter were wounded assault team members or just captured prisoners.  The assault team then began throwing the sacks and boxes on the other two choppers.  From my location, it was hard to tell what was in the boxes, but through my binoculars I could see white powder coming out of some of the bags that had been shot up.  The bags that were too shot up to be moved were ripped open and they put as much of the white powder as they could in bags brought in by the choppers.  The rest they scattered on the road. Then the assault team climbed aboard the choppers and they took off.  They were loaded so heavily that I didn't think one of them was going to get off the ground.  They finally cleared the ridge about the time the two extraction helicopters showed up on site.   One picked up the TACAN team and the other picked us up.  I then released the other flight of T-28's and told them to return to base.

We were flown to LS-20A and I and the team parted company again.  I went to Vientiane to be debriefed and the PARU's went back to their base in Thailand.  That was my first exposure to the poppy wars in Laos, but it wouldn't be my last.

Notes:  After having thought about this for some time, I have always been puzzled as to where the three helicopters came from that picked up the drugs and assault team.  They were not in contact with me at any time.   I don't know where they came from or who they were.  I don't know where they went.  They must have knew where the site was and were standing by pretty close to it when the raid started.  My guess is that they were in contact with the assault team on some separate channel or radio.   There is no way of knowing or of finding out such information.

Another thing that puzzled me at the time was the dumping of the two bodies along the trail.  I guess I can speculate on this as well as anyone.  It may have been to give an identity to the attackers that would lead who ever found the bodies to believe they were someone besides who actually made the raid.  Just speculation, for sure.

Col. Bradley asked me, at the debriefing: "If asked, what would you say you saw today?"  I knew the answer before he asked it.  It was asked at every debriefing.  The standard answer was, "I didn't see a thing, sir, not a thing."  If things had gone badly, I would have been asked a lot of other questions, but not when an operation went well.   He probably had already heard from the assault team commander and knew all he needed to know.  He just wanted to make sure I knew what I was supposed to say if asked about this operation.

It's kind of like when I got my first briefing at Udorn in 1962.  I was told that once I left Incirlik, I ceased to exist until I got back to Incirlik.  I was told I had no name, no rank, so serial number, no parents, no home, no friends, no nothing.  I was told that if I was killed in Laos, I would be listed as missing in action until all hostilities ceased, then I would be listed as killed in an accidental aircraft accident or helicopter crash.   I was told I could never speak of what I did or saw in Laos, ever.  And until, I started this blog, I have not.   But, being that I am seeing all the names of people I knew there and many of the MACSOG ops are coming to light, I thought it was time to put this stuff on paper before I get to old to remember it.  So, I hope that what I put to paper will help enlighten those who want to know about such things and times.