With 5 decades of research and fact-finding we can put away some of the untruths that abound.

Myth #1: “The North Vietnamese knew we were thinking about rescuing POWs at Son Tay.”

This post is going to be somewhat striking. How often do you get to hear the actual, heartfelt words of a loyal, atheist, Communist General? (His photo is below.)

General Phung The Tai, was the North Vietnamese Deputy Chief of the General Staff at the time of the Raid. He wrote the following comments at age 88 in 2008. He felt compelled to clear the air concerning boastful, untrue stories told by other military members of the North Vietnamese Army. The General’s story was provided by John Gargus as translated by Merle Pribbenow:

“In just two years I will be 90 years old and will have been a Party member for 70 years. I will not be long before I leave this earth to follow Uncle Ho. That is the reason that I wanted to tell people about all of the things that previous books have not been able to discuss about my seventy years of following Uncle Ho and the Party while serving in many different positions and participating in matters that were so secret we were supposed to keep them secret until our deaths.”

“There was an article about the Son Tay Raid by a certain author that claimed that our intelligence obtained advance information about this raid and that this was why we transferred around 100 prisoners of war to another location, and that was why the raid failed to rescue any prisoners. That is bull–it is not true. This raid took us completely by surprise. If we had received advance warning we would have captured several of their helicopters and all of the enemy commandos.”

“When the raid took place, I was away on a working trip to Military Region 4 with Van Tien Dung. Vo Nguyen Giap sent me an urgent message instructing me to return to Hanoi right away and summoning me to come in to brief him on the raid. All I could do when I got there was to hang my head in shame and accept responsibility. I strove to defend myself by saying that we had received not a single report from Department 2 (the Military Intelligence Department) to alert us that this raid was coming.”

“This may have been the most painful, most humiliating incident of my entire military career. For several days after the raid I could neither eat nor sleep. Sometimes I just sat in my office thinking about how almost one hundred American commandos had arrogantly swept through the prison camp…and then had climbed back onto their helicopters and got away scot free – it almost drove me crazy.”

“I gnashed my teeth and pounded my fist on my desk as I told myself, ‘If we had just had some advance warning, we would have gotten all six of their helicopters and captured this entire team of their most elite commandos!”

“However, I told myself that at least it was fortunate that I had transferred the prisoners to another location. If I had not done this, then a thousand years would not have been enough time for me to get over my anger and my shame about this incident.”

General Phung The Tai is no longer with us because he followed his Uncle Ho out of our midst in March of 2015. He was a very devout Communist who followed his Party’s guidelines for constructive self-criticism. His story is convincing. The North Vietnamese had no idea that a POW raid was being contemplated.

Thank you to the incomparable John Gargus, Colonel USAF (ret), for his research provided for this article.

Friday October 16th
“No Fail” Fridays

[This is the second in a series. It will be a weekly challenge to historians: The Son Tay Raid was a SUCCESS. No qualifier is appropriate. Over these next few Fridays, I’ll show you why.]
There is a word that is too often used in conversations about the Son Tay Raid. That word should be banished from any analysis of the Raid.

Challenge 2:

The Son Tay Raid’s highest objective was to SEND THE MESSAGE TO ALL THE POWs.
Consider this: The Raid was never designed to rescue ALL the American POWs. At the most, it would have rescued merely 15% of the POWs held by the North Vietnamese Government! No, the primary mission was to SEND THE MESSAGE to ALL THE POWS: “America is doing EVERYTHING possible to bring you home.”

The commanders’ calculation:
• The Raid would raise the morale of all the other POWs and
• It would strike fear into the heart of the enemy and
• The POTENTIALITY of reprisals against the remaining POWs was outweighed by the ACTUALITY of the hell they were currently living (some had been in solitary confinement never hearing an American voice for a year at a time) and
• EVEN IF IT BRINGS HOME NO POWS, it will send the message to the current and future generations that we will stop at nothing to get them home!

Among the other objectives:
• Rescue as many POWs as possible and, where feasible, return them to the fight.
• Put the communist government of North Vietnam on notice that the US can operate with impunity anywhere in their country.

Consider the gentleman in the photo below.
Each year while Admiral Jack McCain was CINCPAC (Commander in Chief of Pacific Command), he paid a Christmastime visit to the American troops in South Vietnam serving closest to the DMZ.

Admiral McCain would stand alone at the DMZ for a few silent moments and look north to be as close to his son as he could get.

Brigadier General Donald Blackburn, who first conceived the raid, told this story:
As the top-secret plan got approval with the CIA, DIA, and Kissinger, Gen Blackburn told Admiral [Thomas H.] Moorer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “We need to tell McCain about this.” On the day that Blackburn briefed Admiral McCain, the admiral almost had tears. He said, “Don, how about coming back this afternoon. I’ll discuss this further with you then.”
As Blackburn was escorted down the hall, Admiral McCain’s aide said, “You know about the son?”
In that afternoon meeting, McCain said, “You have got 100 percent support from me.”
Blackburn explains that, throughout the entire operation, McCain “supported us beautifully–anything we wanted.”

The risks were fully understood. Admiral McCain knew that the odds of his son being among the POWs rescued were extremely low and that there was a chance of reprisals against the remaining POWs. With full knowledge of that risk, he and the other commanders knew that the highest of the many priorities was to send the message.

It was a success.

12 POWs candidly tell us stories about the Son Tay Raid in Who Will Go.

Click Here:  The book.

“No Fail” Fridays
[This is the first in a series. It will be a weekly challenge to historians: The Son Tay Raid was a SUCCESS. No qualifier is appropriate. Over these next few Fridays, I’ll show you why.]

Challenge 1: There is a word that is too often used in conversations about the Son Tay Raid. That word should be banished from any analysis of the Raid. You could say it’s an ‘F-word.’ We will challenge your thinking. It may take some humility to accept the truth. For far too long, the humility requirement has only been one-way. The truth is only revealed when you can take on a more mature mindset.
* The simple mind obsesses over what is seen.
* The mature perspective takes into consideration the unseen (for two-and-a-half years after the Raid, there was major progress that no one outside Hanoi was aware of.)
* The simple mind is swayed by immediate shiny objects like punditry and political gossip.
* The mature mind trusts that a little time is needed to gather all the facts (even though Senators Gore and Fulbright and others were relentless in publicly scolding and scoring political points, the civilian and military commanders were mature in accepting the heat knowing they had made the right decision to approve the mission.)
* The simple mind is slave to personal bias against a political leader.
* The mature mind weighs the actual results, letting the data objectively guide their conclusions.

In yesterday’s photo, you saw President Nixon and Dr Kissinger. At least half of our country has pre-conceived biases against them. I’d like to challenge all of us give them credit for their noble intentions. Can we be humble enough to do that?

Humility accepts ambiguity in this world and doesn’t worry excessively about what other people will think. A commander has to make decisions even in the Fog of War. And character is to be judged in how they deal with the Friction of War—when things don’t go fully as you planned. Do you blame? Do you distance yourself from the results of your decisions? Or, to protect your image, do you avoid making difficult decisions in the first place?

It is important to note that yesterday’s Oval Office photo was AFTER the Raid. Nixon and his leaders did not distance themselves. They weighed all the best intel that technology could provide, committed themselves to the Raid’s prioritized list of objectives, made the hard decisions, and, with heroic integrity, stood publicly to honor the men who laid their lives on the line for their fellow man. We’ll post more photos of how proud America is of the Son Tay Raid.

When you consider this, how do you feel about President Nixon’s decision to approve the Son Tay Raid?

US Senator Jeremiah Denton (formerly a POW and then an Admiral) said it this way:

“The Son Tay Raid was the greatest thing that happened in Vietnam.”

Reading the Raiders’ stories in Who Will Go will challenge historians (and maybe you.)

Click Here:  The book.