Tag Archives: The Son Tay Raid

Today we first laid eyes on Barbara…

Air Force, Army, Marines, Navy,

Monday October 19th, 1970

…exactly 50 years ago today.

Security was tight. We were kept in the dark.
Then, on Monday October 19th, we were introduced to Barbara. She was a sight to behold! Everyone had been wanting to lay eyes on her. She was the talk of the week. She was housed in a separate building away from us and each of us was required to study her so that we had a mental image of every inch of her. Barbara was a model. And someday, Barbara would be famous.

When I was with her, I used a prism to study her so that, when the time was right and I exited the chopper, I would be oriented to everything around me. It was time well spent. You see, Barbara was a precise scale replica of a military compound (the Son Tay POW camp), created from CIA photographs taken from Buffalo Hunter drones and SR-71 manned reconnaissance aircraft. It was codenamed “Barbara” after Barbara L. Strosnider, a secretary from the United States Air Force Directorate of Plans, at the Pentagon where the model was created.

The CIA had done an excellent job of detailing the terrain and buildings at the camp. One item that really fascinated me was the bicycle that was parked in front of the Communications Building that Capt Dan and I had to neutralize as quickly as we could before enemy reinforcements could be alerted. On the night of the raid, as we approached the actual building—sure as heck—the bicycle was there!

The intel we had was amazing and the intel community deserves praise. Sadly, there are too many armchair quarterbacks who have a political agenda when they criticize the intel.

Barbara is in this photo.

You can see a full color “pin up” of Barbara in Who Will Go.

Click Here:  The book.

Admiral McCain’s calculation.

Air Force, Army, Marines, Navy, POW,

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.

What would happen to his son after the Son Tay Raid.

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

Click Here:  The book.

General Westmoreland and MSgt Herman Spencer…

Army,

[Earlier this week we posted a story with a photo that included Master Sgt Herman Spencer. We have a story about MSgt Spencer.]

For this episode, we’ll Fast Forward to one week AFTER the Raid.

All the Green Berets were back at Fort Bragg. Four-star General William Westmoreland, Chief of Staff of the US Army, wanted to honor the Son Tay Raiders. He held a dinner in our honor at the Officers’ Club.

Like many dinner speakers, after a few minutes the speech gets boring and this was the case with General Westmoreland. Now, most people will sit and listen as the speaker rambles on…and then there are people like Master Sgt Herman Spencer.

MSgt Spencer, after patiently listening to the General for 20 or 30 minutes, decided he had heard all he needed to hear. MSgt Spencer stood up and took his wife’s hand and proceeded to walk out, saying he had heard enough.

General Westmorland stops talking and watches, along with every other eye in the room, as MSgt Spencer walked out.

I can tell you that this was very typical of Spencer. He was not political. He was a warrior. When the bullets start to fly, he is the guy you want on your team. The Raiders all knew Spencer (and probably wanted to do the same).

The Fort Bragg O’Club looks exactly the same today.

Read the rest of Terry Buckler’s stories in Who Will Go.

Click Here:  The book.

Did we just lose all these men?!

Air Force, Army,

The Alternate Plans are approved…
Thursday, Oct 15th, 1970
…exactly 50 years ago today.

The TOC Log records that, as of today, the Green Berets began training on the three Alternate Plans that every Green Beret had to memorize:

Alternate Plan Blue (in case Blueboy Assault Group’s helicopter got shot down.)

Alternate Plan Green(in case Greenleaf Support Group’s helicopter got shot down.)

Alternate Plan Red (in case Redwine Security Group’s helicopter got shot down.)

Now Fast Forward to the night of the Raid:
0220 hrs, Saturday November 21st, 1970

When we were just about to land, I heard the chatter in my headset. The voice of Sgt 1st Class Howell came through. He was the RTO for LtCol Sydnor, the ground force commander for the raid:

“Alternate Plan GREEN!” “I repeat: Alternate Plan GREEN. Do you copy?”

[This was only the first of the bad news I would hear tonight.]
I responded, “SAY AGAIN?”
Sgt 1st Class Howell: “Alternate Plan GREEN! Alternate Plan GREEN. Over.”

I said back into my hand mic, “Roger. Alternate Plan Green. Over.”
I thought to myself, Holy crap. This can’t be real. I turned to Capt Dan and told him we were going to Alternate Plan Green. Capt Dan gave me that, “Oh S***” look and calmly told me to pass the announcement on to the others in Redwine.

Alternate Plan Green meant one thing to all of us on the Redwine chopper: We knew we had 22 fewer men. There would be a lot less fire power as we hit the ground. Whether Greenleaf Group had mechanical problems or had been shot down, we knew the mission, including the Alternate Plans. With or without the 22 men of Greenleaf Group, we were going to execute the mission and would now have to perform their role as well as ours.

Life Lesson 6: Don’t be “Indispensable.” Always be training a backup person for your job and always be learning to be a backup for your teammates. This applies to any job in life. The graveyards are full of “indispensable men.”

Had we lost these men?

Read the rest of the Raiders’ first-hand stories in Who Will Go.

Click Here:  The book.

Fast Forward: Joe Murray shot on the NIGHT OF THE RAID.

Army,

Terry Buckler tells this story of his Redwine Group mate Joe Murray.

What amazes me is that, in all this chaos, only one of us Green Berets gets wounded. That is Sgt 1st Class Joe Murray. Joe is a member of Master Sgt Herman Spencer’s team (Redwine Element 1, which also includes SFC Noe Quezeda, SFC Jerry Hill and SSG Tiny Young) whose job is to secure the area south of south wall. That’s the wall closest to where the helicopters dropped us off and later will pick us up.

MSgt Spencer is carrying a 40 lb block of C-4 explosives slung over his shoulder. It is to be used to blow the bridge. It turned out to be a good shield for him.

As we landed and spilled out of our helicopter, Spencer and Murray immediately rushed toward their objective, the guard shack (Building 8D in the diagram in the book Who Will Go) by the south wall. Spencer took a couple of rounds from a guard with an AK-47 in the block of C-4 he was carrying.

Joe Murray would not be that lucky.

When Spencer was dealing with that guard, that delayed Spencer such that Joe arrives at the guard shack alone. The building needs to be cleared immediately, before the enemy troops inside can all emerge. So, Joe decides to use a frag grenade instead of a concussion grenade. As he is about to toss it in the window, he feels his leg push forward with a burning sensation. Joe tosses the frag grenade in, neutralizing the guard shack. He then turns to eliminate the threat. Spencer, now arriving, fires his machine gun first and eliminates three guards. Joe was the only Army Raider to receive a Purple Heart.

(l-r) Standing: MSgt Herman Spencer, Sgt 1st Class Noe Quezada, and SFC Lance Hubel. Front: SFC Joe Murray and SFC Don Wingrove.
About October 20th, 1970. In this photo you can easily see the Special Forces patch on the left shoulder.

Read the rest of the Raiders’ stories in Who Will Go.

Click Here:  The book.