Listening to every transmission from 35,000 feet

Episode 5.

Our RC-135M is for Signal Intelligence (SIGINT) and, particularly, Communications Intelligence (COMINT).  It is designed to intercept virtually anything transmitted into the airwaves, from taxi cabs to tanks, walkie-talkies to facsimile, Morse code to radar signals, tactical airfield communications with aircraft (TACAIR) to Anti-Aircraft Artillery (AAA) and SAM sites. 

Behind the “front end” crew’s cockpit is a compartment fully decked out as an electronics workshop manned by the two Airborne Maintenance Technicians. 

Then comes the main compartment filled with COMINT linguistic technicians.  I’m at the front, on the other side of the wall from the AMTs.

Next you come to the 7-Op, the TACAIR operator.  The job here is to monitor the enemy’s air activity.  Each North Vietnamese airfield has its radio frequencies used by their Air Traffic Controllers to communicate with their aircraft and pilots.  We are so personally familiar with these controllers and pilots that there are many of them that we recognize by their voice alone, even before anyone states the individual’s call sign.  Often, we know the name of the pilot, where his home station is and what type of aircraft he is qualified in, and we glean a little about his personality.

[NOTE:  Hognose Silent Warrior by George F. Schreader, a former 6990th 7-Op, lists many of the top North Vietnamese pilots and the details we knew about them, through our Combat Apple missions.  By the way, “Hognose” is a term of endearment.  See the photo at the end of the final episode.]

Centrally located is the “#1” position, which is the Airborne Mission Supervisor (AMS).  He has constant secure communications with battle commanders on the ground in Vietnam and elsewhere.  He coordinates all the activities of our crew.

Tonight, each of us will describe what he’s hearing to the AMS who, in turn, will relay warnings to the US aircraft and report the situation to Colonel Frisbie who is on an open line with General Manor. 

The next workstation is the 6-Op, which tracks AAA and monitors the flow of troops, vehicles and equipment (with a special focus on the Ho Chi Minh trail).  They are hearing the North Vietnamese making regular reports about the arrivals and departures of troops and materiel at truck stops and troop stations (“binh trạm”).  Our tactical aircraft planners are constantly basing interdiction strike decisions on this intel from our 6-Op stations.

At the very back, at positions 15 and 16 are the two Electronic Warfare Officers (EWOs) who are responsible for defending the RC-135 itself from threats such as missiles and enemy fighters.

The RC-135 pilots, navigators and EWOs are officers, all from SAC (Strategic Air Command).  The rest of us are enlisted men from the USAF Security Service (later called Electronic Security Command).

All this sensitive electronic equipment has to be kept dry and temperature-controlled to prevent overheating.  My position, just aft of the maintenance compartment, is quite warm right now.  Conversely, the aft end where the EWOs are typically too cold.  Some of this is due to the aircraft’s slightly nose up attitude in level flight.  Heat rises, cold sinks.  Often, I unzip my flight suit down to my waist and operate in my t-shirt.  In the back, the EWOs are wearing some of their winter equipment.  Coffee spilled on the floor back there sometimes freezes!

This three hours during which the helicopters are flying from Udorn to Son Tay must seem extremely long for a helicopter, but we are used to this—and we are busy this entire time.

We understand our Combat Apple missions to be the world’s longest combat missions at this time. Very often our duty day is about 24 hours, arriving two and a half hours before takeoff and then post-mission briefings keep us an hour and a half after landing.  Our squadron had one mission in which the flying time alone was more than 23 hours!  You may be surprised to hear that there is often very little break time during the flight for certain operators.  After your flight, you are scheduled for post-mission crew rest, but then it’s back to work at the secure facility translating, decoding and analyzing the intel take from other crews.

We linguists specialize in a variety of COMINT tasks.  Some of our guys who are newer to the mission run positions employing massive tape decks that have at least eight tracks simultaneously capturing eight different intercept signals.  These recordings will be broken out as separate tracks when back on the ground and translated/decoded for future action by intel briefers.

See more photos and stories on this website and in Who Will Go, which is just as much to honor the wives and family as the men themselves.

Click Here:  Now also available as an audiobook!

Listening to every transmission from 35,000 feet

Episode 4.

At 12:35am, the first problem arises.  Frog 1 has to abort due to a broken oil line.  Frog 1 is an EC-121 “College Eye” aircraft orbiting over the Gulf of Tonkin like us.  It is based on the “Constellation” airliner and has a role similar to today’s E-3 AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System).  Its role is to shine a radar on all aircraft in North Vietnam—especially on our low-flying assault force tonight, which would be too low for our land- and sea-based radars to follow.  In contrast, our RC-135’s role is to monitor every radio wave that the enemy transmits.

As a testament to the excellence in planning, there is a backup aircraft, Frog 2, already on station nearby.  Literally, within one minute, Frog 2 takes over that role.

At 12:40, at only 1,000 feet above the ground as observed by Frog 2 and according to plan, the six helicopters begin air refueling along their path over Laos with their HC-130 tankers Lime 1 and Lime 2.  In this unprecedented formation are the one HH-3 Jolly Green Giant and five HH-53 Super Jolly Green Giants.

“Combat Apple” is the name for our RC-135M missions.  We are the 6990^th Security Squadron from Kadena Air Base on Okinawa, Japan.  These reconnaissance missions were tasked with providing real time tactical and strategic intelligence to battle commanders on the ground—and back in Washington D.C., as you’ll see at the end of this Son Tay Raid mission. 

It’s a three-hour flight from Okinawa and we need to be on station for 12 hours over the Gulf of Tonkin, so our missions are long—our shortest mission is more than 18 hours!  This allows 24-hour coverage with the two 12-hour shifts in theater.  Every mission has at least one or two air refuelings of 80,000 pounds or so, which I love to watch up front in the cockpit when I can.  This is a mentally grueling, bumpy 30-minute period, (at moments, terrifying to me at night in monsoonal clouds, rain, and tropical lightning storms).  The pilots fly two airliners in formation with 8 to 12 feet of separation nose to tail, maintaining boom contact for half an hour—twice on many missions!

Further, there are overlapping flight schedules with one Combat Apple crew on orbit in the Gulf of Tonkin (referred to as the “Gulf bird”) that focuses chiefly on air operations and threats in the Gulf as well as activities over North Vietnam.  The second Combat Apple crew is orbiting over northern Laos (referred to as the “Laos bird”) where the focus is air activity over North Vietnam but closely covers ground action along the Ho Chi Minh trail from North Vietnam through Laos and Cambodia into South Vietnam.

Our RC-135M is for Signal Intelligence (SIGINT) and, particularly, Communications Intelligence (COMINT).  It is designed to intercept virtually anything transmitted into the airwaves, from taxi cabs to tanks, walkie-talkies to facsimile, Morse code to radar signals, tactical airfield communications with aircraft (TACAIR) to Anti-Aircraft Artillery (AAA) and SAM sites.  Our linguists interpret the most urgent signals while airborne, but the recordings are translated, decoded and analyzed later on the ground at the US Army’s Torii Station on Okinawa.  At Torii Station, adjacent to Kadena AB, all this transcription and analysis was done at a no-windows facility, with barbed wire and dog patrols at the perimeter. 

[NOTE:  Many years later, this was all consolidated onto Kadena AB with the construction of a new secure building, Larson Hall, named for our first squadron commander, Lt Col (later Maj. Gen.) Doyle E. Larson.  General Larson became the first commander of Electronic Security Command.]

See more photos and stories on this website and in Who Will Go, which is just as much to honor the wives and family as the men themselves.

Click Here:  The book.