He looked at his watch. They had been on the ground thirty-seven minutes. The program had called for forty-five.
(Five)
The message from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (in response to Colonel Felter’s message that OPERATION MONTE CRISTO had been successfully concluded) read as follows:
OPERATIONAL IMMEDIATE
THE JOINT CHIEFS WASH DC
TO COMNASFSEA
FOLLOWING EYES ONLY FOR COMNASFSEA AND OUTFIELDER.
DIRECTION OF THE PRESIDENT. FOR REASONS OF NATIONAL SECURITY ALL REPEAT ALL DETAILS OF OPERATION MONTE CRISTO REMAIN CLASSIFIED. NOTIFICATION OF NEXT OF KIN OF KILLED AND WOUNDED IN ACTION AND OF RETURNED PRISONERS OF WAR WILL BE ACCOMPLISHED BY THE OFFICE OF THE JOINT CHIEFS. COMNASFSEA IS APPOINTED OFFICER IN CHARGE RETURNED POWS, REMAINS OF KIA AND WIA. FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS WILL BE ISSUED. ARMY AND AIR FORCE PERSONNEL OF OPERATION MONTE CRISTO WILL RETURN TO HOME BASE AS PLANNED. WELL DONE.
DELAHANTY
ADMIRAL CINCPAC
Epilogue
Despite the orders to the contrary, all the Special Forces, wounded, as well as the bodies of the seven dead Green Berets, including that of Colonel Rudolph C. MacMillan, returned to Fort Bragg on the C5A aircraft that had carried them to the Far East. Colonel C. W. Lowell assumed responsibility for the action.
Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Sims, USAF, whom Colonel Lowell never saw at Dak Tae or on the Forrestal was reunited with his wife several weeks later, after a period of hospitalization and physical evaluation. He shortly afterward sued for, and was granted, a divorce on grounds of open and notorious adultery. As was the usual custom in such cases, he was awarded the custody of his children. He retired from the military service in 1980 as a Major General and Deputy Commander of the Air War College.
Colonel Rudolph G. MacMillan was buried, with full military honors, in Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania. In 1976, after President Carter made good his campaign promise to pardon draft evaders and deserters, Mrs. MacMillan mailed President Carter Colonel MacMillan’s decorations, including his Medal of Honor and the Distinguished Service Medal he had been posthumously awarded for his service in OPERATION MONTE CRISTO. She received the package back several weeks later, together with a form letter stating that the President could not accept a gift of military decorations no matter what the motives of the donor.
Lieutenant General Robert Bellmon died of cancer in 1976 in retirement in Carmel, California. Mrs. Barbara Waterford Bellmon was elected to the United States House of Representatives as a Republican in 1978, and reelected in 1980, 1982, and 1984.
Major General Paul Hanrahan retired in 1974. He is now Associate Professor of Romance Languages at Utica State Junior College, Utica, New York.
The remains of Master Sergeant Pietr Petrofski were returned to American control in 1976, in the next-to-the-last transfer of “previously unlocated remains.”
Examination of the remains by the Pathology Department of the Walter Reed U.S. Army Medical Center, Washington, suggested—but could not conclusively prove due to the advanced state of decomposition of the remains—that Sergeant Petrofski had died of injuries sustained shortly before his death. Other tests indicated that that had occurred in 1969, five years after he was captured, and approximately two months before OPERATION MONTE CRISTO freed other prisoners from Dak Tae.
Colonel Philip Sheridan Parker IV was retired in 1981. He had been a Professor of Military Science at Norwich University at the time of his retirement, and on his retirement was named Petrofski Professor of Military History at that institution. The Petrofski Chair resulted from an anonymous grant in 1981 of sufficient funds to establish it in perpetuity.
Dr. Antoinette Parker is Martin Haley Professor of Pathology at the Harvard Medical School. She and her husband live on a farm almost exactly equidistant between Norwich, Vermont, and Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Colonel William B. Franklin was retired in 1982. He now owns and operates Inter-Island Airways in Jamaica.
Lieutenant General William R. Roberts, who had commanded the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) in Vietnam, retired shortly after relinquishing command of the XVIII Airborne Corps. On his retirement, he was the last member of his USMA (’40) Class, Army or Air Force, on flying status. He then became Vice President of the Bell Helicopter company, but subsequently retired from that, too, and is now a consultant. When last heard from, he was on his way to Arabia, where he had been commissioned to evaluate rotary-wing aircraft for the Royal Saudi Arabian Government.
General E. Z. Black became Executive Vice President of the U.S. Steel Corporation. Following retirement from that position, he divides his time between Honolulu, Hawaii, and Dublin, New Hampshire.
Lieutenant General Sanford T. Felter retired in 1979. His last post was as Director, the Defense Intelligence Agency. He is now employed as a consultant to Arthur D. Little & Company in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Chief Warrant Officer Stefan Wojinski is proprietor of Wojinski Cadillac-Oldsmobile in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
After Peter-Paul von Greiffenberg Lowell renounced his American citizenship, in a decision that affirmed his right to German nationality, the Supreme Court of the Federal Republic of Germany granted permission for him to drop the surname “Lowell.” He remained estranged from his father and grandfather until 1979, when a reconciliation between the three was arranged by Mrs. Geoffrey Craig at Schloss Greiffenberg during the last illness of his grandfather. The eighth Graf von Greiffenberg is Managing Director, De Hessisches Nachtrichten, and sits on the Board of Directors of Craig, Powell, Kenyon and Dawes (Germany) G.m.b.H. The Graf and Grafin have three children, the youngest of whom is Craig Lowell, Baron von Kolbe, now three.
Colonel Craig W. Lowell was retired immediately upon returning from OPERATION MONTE CRISTO Colonel and Mrs. Lowell, the former Dorothy Persons Sims, maintain their legal residence at Broadlawns, Glen Cove, Long Island, but spend much of their time traveling. In 1982, while playing polo in Palm Springs, Lowell suffered a compound fracture of his right leg, and was hospitalized for six months. In 1983, after he had successfully crash-landed at LaGuardia Field, New York, a Lear jet aircraft whose landing gear refused to extend, Lowell was fined $35,000 for six violations of Federal Aviation Administration regulations, including operating an aircraft after his pilot’s license had been medically revoked. He was warned at the time that if he appeared in court again on similar charges he would be imprisoned. So far as is known, he has not flown—at least alone—since. In 1984, he won the International Live Pigeon Shoot in Madrid, Spain.
Colonel (Brigadier General Designate) Geoffrey Craig, who had commanded a regiment of parachutists in the Grenada rescue mission, was recently assigned as Chief, Special Operations Division, Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, Headquarters, Department of the Army.
W. E. B. Griffin
Fairhope, Alabama
June 15, 1985
W. E. B. Griffin is the author of the bestselling Brotherhood of War, Corps, Badge of Honor, Men at War, Honor Bound, and Presidential Agent series. He has been invested into the orders of St. George of the U.S. Armor Association and St. Andrew of the U.S. Army Aviation Association; is a life member of the U.S. Special Operations Association; and is a member of Gaston-Lee Post 5660 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, China Post #1 in Exile of the American Legion, and the Police Chiefs Association of Southeast Pennsylvania, South New Jersey, and Delaware. He has been named an honorary life member of the U.S. Army Otter & Caribou Association, the U.S. Army Special Forces Association, the U.S. Marine Corps Raider Association, and the USMC Combat Correspondents Association. Visit his website at www.webgriffin.com.
*Military Amateur Radio Service, a worldwide network of amateur radio operators, who relay personal messages for military personnel.
*Code Seven: Brigadier General
*The Army Aviation Board is charged with testing aviation equipment, from radios to entire aircraft, proposed for Army use. There are similar Boards for Armor, Arti
llery, etc.
*Military Occupational Specialty.
*TO&E: Table of Organization & Equipment, prescribing the type and amount of equipment a unit is authorized.
**TC: Transportation Corps.
*OCT: Office of the Chief of Transportation.
**DCSOPS: Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations.
*Brookley Air Force Base was ordered closed, as “an economy measure,” as the Vietnam War escalated in late 1964, shortly after the re-election of President Lyndon B. Johnson. Mobile, Mobile County, and Alabama had voted, two to one, for Senator Barry Goldwater.
*Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel.
*Department of Defense.
**Norwich, the Military College of Vermont, has a long tradition of providing Cavalry (and later, Armor) officers to the Regular Army. Its president traditionally is a West Point graduate of distinguished service in the Army. Norwich President Major General Ernest Harmon (USMA ’16), USA, Retired, led the 2nd Armored Division in World War II until turning command over to Major General I. D. White (Norwich ’20), USA.
*Helio-Courier: A special-purpose fixed-wing aircraft capable of operation from very short, unimproved runways.
*Aerodrome Officer of the Day.
*Hurlbert Field, on the Gulf of Mexico on the Florida Panhandle, was the home of the USAF Air Commando Wing.
*Chinook: U.S. Army Boeing-Vertol CH-47 helicopters capable of carrying either forty-four passengers or, for example, a 155-mm cannon, its crew, and a basic load of ammunition, on a mission radius of 120 miles.
**Jolly Green Giant: USAF Sikorsky HH-53C transport helicopters, equipped with two jettisonable 450-gallon auxiliary fuel tanks and normally used for long-range rescue of downed aircraft crews.
*TOW: Tactical, Optical Wire–guided rocket, a shoulder-fired missile with the impact power of a 155-mm artillery shell, intended to be used against tanks.
*C-4: Plastic explosive
*A ten-inch, think-bladed stiletto, designed by a World War II English Commando named Fairbairn.
The Generals Page 38