by Orr Kelly
Project Shining Brass Code name for a program of dropping roadwatch teams near enemy supply routes in North Vietnam and Laos. The name was changed to Prairie Fire in 1968 and Phu Dung in 1971.
Project Water Pump Code name for program to train indigenous pilots in Thailand.
Quadrant Conference Meeting in Quebec in August 1943 in which Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt discussed the future course of the war.
Raven Call sign for a small group of forward air controllers in Laos.
Rebecca Eureka World War II system which used radar pulses reflected off the ground system—Eureka—to guide the plane, with its Rebecca device, to the target.
RTB Return to base.
Son Tay Site of raid near Hanoi on 20 November 1970. The suspected prisoner-of-war camp held no prisoners.
Spectre Call sign for the AC-130 gunship.
S-phone A kind of powerful walkie-talkie radio with a range of eight to ten miles, used in World War II.
Starlight scope Night-vision device capable of amplifying light four hundred thousand times.
Stray Goose Code name for an operation in which MC-130 Combat Talon planes flew alone and unescorted to drop leaflets and North Vietnamese currency over Hanoi and Haiphong. Carried on for several years during the 1960s, the operation was ended in 1969.
TACAN Tactical Air Navigation station.
Udorn Base for air commandos operating out of Thailand.
V-22 Osprey Tilt-wing plane.
Vang Pao Leader of Hmong units opposing North Vietnamese in Laos.
Vientiane Administrative capital of Laos.
Vietminh Military units opposing the French in Indochina.
White City Allied base behind Japanese lines in Burma. So named because the area was littered with white parachutes.
Winchestered Slang word used by gunship crews when they have fired all their bullets.
Zebra Code name for mass drop of supplies behind German lines in France in World War II.
Sources
With the exception of interviews conducted by the author, all interviews referred to in the Sources were conducted for the Air Force Oral History program and are available in the Air Force Historical Research Agency library at Maxwell Air Force Base, Montgomery, Alabama. Although many Vietnam-era documents have been declassified, a number of them remain classified, and access is limited to those with the appropriate security clearance. The oral history interviews are also available on microfilm at the library of the Air Force History Office at Bolling Air Force Base, Washington, D.C. However, if a declassified document is on a roll of microfilm that also contains a classified document, the entire roll is considered classified.
PART 1: Birth of the Air Commandos
One of the best accounts of Operation Thursday, the airborne invasion of Burma in 1944, is contained in the Air Force Oral History Program interview conducted with the late Col. Philip G. Cochran at Rochester, New York, and Washington, D.C., in October and November of 1975 by James C. Hasdorff.
An overview of the operation is also contained in Herbert A. Mason, Jr., SSgt. Randy G. Bergeron, and TSgt. James A. Renfrow, Jr., Operation Thursday: Birth of the Air Commandos (Air Force History and Museums Program 1994) and in R. D. Van Wagner, 1st Air Commando Group: Any Place, Any Time, Any Where, Military History Series 86-1 (USAF Air Command and Staff College, 1986).
The operation is also covered, with interviews of some of those involved, in Philip G. Chinnery, Any Time, Any Place, a History of USAF Air Commando and Special Operations Forces (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1994).
Also available is the Oral History Program interview with Maj. Gen. John R. Alison, conducted at Washington, D.C., 22–28 April 1979 by Maj. Scottie S. Thompson. Permission to cite or quote from this interview must be obtained from the donor.
These documentary sources were augmented with personal interviews I conducted with Stam Robertson, Ray Ruksas, John Dudak, and Richard D. Snyder at the 1st Air Commando Association reunion in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, in October 1994.
A brief overview of special operations is provided in an Air Force pamphlet, Heritage of the Quiet Professionals, covering the history of Air Force special operations from World War II through the Gulf War.
PART 2: Behind the Lines in Europe
The best overview I found of special operations activities in Europe during World War II is Special Operations: AAF Aid to European Resistance Movements, 1943–1945. Written by Maj. Harris G. Warren for the AAF Historical Office, headquarters, Army Air Forces, this manuscript was published in typescript form in June 1947. It covers not only the activities of the Carpetbaggers in northern Europe but also the aid to the resistance in southern Europe.
A similar but less inclusive account of the special operations war in Europe is provided by Maj. Bernard Victor Moore II, “The Secret Air War over France”: USAAF Special Operations Units in the French Campaign of 1944. A Historical Case Study of the Role of Air Force Special Operations Forces in High Intensity Conflict, a thesis presented to the faculty of the School for Advanced Airpower Studies, Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base, Montgomery, Alabama, May 1992.
The experiences of the Carpetbaggers are covered in Ben Parell, America’s Secret War in Europe (Austin: Eakin Press).
A broad overview of Air Force special operations, referring back as far as the campaign against Pancho Villa in 1916, is contained in AFSOC: The Air Force’s Newest Command, by Lt. Col. Jerry L. Thigpen, USAF (Carlisle Barracks, Pa.: U.S. Army War College, 1991).
Colonel Robert W. Fish, who was intimately involved in Carpetbagger operations throughout the war, has collected a treasury of both official records and personal reminiscences of that period. A group history, with original documents downgraded to unclassified, dates from 1962. In a much more ambitious effort, Fish put together Memories of the 801st/492nd Bombardment Group, As Told to Col. Robert W. Fish, 20 September 1990. This collection is especially valuable because it contains a full index. I subsequently interviewed Colonel Fish and his friend, Col. J. W. Bradbury, USAF retired, a Carpetbagger pilot who has contacted a number of Europeans who were on the receiving end of the supply drops by the Carpetbaggers. Both now live in San Antonio, Texas.
PART 3: Korea and Beyond
The history of the air commandos, beginning with Korea, is covered in a readable, heavily illustrated form in Col. Michael E. Haas, with TSgt. Dale K. Robinson, Air Commando! 1950–1975: Twenty-five years at the Tip of the Spear, published by the Air Force Special Operations Command at Hurlburt Field in 1994. As an active duty officer, Haas had the advantage of being able to examine material that is still classified and to request declassification of the material he needed for his book.
He was able, for example, to obtain excerpts from the still-classified Air Force Oral History Program interview with Brig. Gen. Henry “Heinie” Aderholt, whose career so closely parallels the history of Air Force special operations. I interviewed Aderholt at his office in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, in December 1993.
The story of the A-26 (known during the 50s as the B-26) is told in fascinating detail in Dan Hagendorn and Leif Hellstrom, Foreign Invaders: The Douglas Invader in Foreign Military and US Clandestine Service (Leicester, England: Midland Publishing, 1994).
Richard Snyder told me of his experiences as a B-26 pilot in Korea during the interview cited in Part 1.
My account of the adventures of Lt. Col. Robert A. Madden, who served as an air commando in three wars and was shot down in Korea, is based on his reminiscences as published in the journal of the Air Commando Association, the ACA Newsletter, of March 1992.
The material on the Air Resupply and Communications Service comes from my interview with Fish and from files of the Air Resupply and Communications Association Newsletter. Carl H. Bernhardt, Jr., provided me with a computer diskette containing the entire file of the newsletter.
PART 4: The Longest War
A good background of the early years of the air c
ommando involvement in Southeast Asia is provided in John Hawkins Napier III, “The Air Commandos in Vietnam: November 5, 1961 to February 7, 1965,” a Master’s thesis submitted to the graduate faculty of Auburn University on 16 March 1967.
The organization of the Jungle Jim unit at Hurlburt Field and the deployment of the Farmgate detachment to Vietnam are described in a letter from Wade Everett in the March 1992 ACA Newsletter.
The early Farmgate history is covered by Richard Secord in his biography, Richard Secord, with Jay Wurts, Honored and Betrayed: Irangate, Covert Affairs, and the Secret War In Laos (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1992).
That era is also covered in Oral History Program interviews with Maj. Frank J. Gorski, Jr., conducted by Lt. Col. V. H. Gallagher and Maj. Lyn R. Officer, at Eglin Air Force Base on 5 February 1973; with Lt. Col. Roy C. Dalton, conducted by Majors Victor Anthony, Ralph Rowley, and Riley Sunderland on 8 February 1973; and with Lt. Col. Roy H. Lynn, conducted by Lt. Col. Ray L. Bowers and Major Anthony on 9 September 1970.
Colonel Ronald Jones, USAF retired, told me of his experiences flying an MC-130 on leaflet-dropping missions over North Vietnam in the Stray Goose operation during an interview at his San Antonio home on 4 December 1994.
A rich source of information about air commando activities in Southeast Asia is contained in a series of historical documents prepared during the war for headquarters, Pacific Air Force. Known as CHECO Reports (an acronym for contemporary historical examination of current operations), most of these documents are not specifically concerned with special operations as such. But the air commandos seemed to show up wherever the action was hot and heavy—and dangerous—so the CHECO reports often provide a detailed description of their activities.
Among the CHECO reports that proved particularly valuable were:
Night Close Air Support in the Republic of Vietnam, 1961–1966, prepared by Lawrence J. Hickey. Covers Farm-gate, the introduction of the AC-47 gunship, the battles of Song Be, Dong Xoia, Quang Ngai, and Plei Me, the fall of the A Shau Special Forces camp, and deployment of the 4th Air Commando Squadron.
USAF Support of Special Forces in Southeast Asia, prepared by Kenneth Sams and Lt. Col. Bert B. Aton, 10 March 1969.
Kham Duc Special Report, 8 July 1968, prepared by Kenneth Sams and Maj. A. W. Thompson. Describes air support for evacuation of Special Forces camp at Kham Duc on 12 May 1968.
The Fall of A Shau, prepared by Kenneth Sams, 18 April 1966. Covers both the loss of an AC-47, whose copilot fought off the Vietcong while his colleagues were rescued, and the heroic rescue of Maj. Dafford W. Myers, after his plane had crashed on an enemy-held runway, by Maj. Bernard F. Fisher.
The development and use of fixed-wing gunships is described in detail in Jack S. Ballard, Development and Employment of Fixed Wing Gunships 1962–1972 (Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1982).
The use of the gunships in combat is covered in a series of CHECO reports, among them:
Pave Mace/Combat Rendezvous (u), prepared by Maj. Richard R. Sexton, 26 December 1972, describes the first use of the FC-47, later AC-47, gunship to support a South Vietnamese outpost on a dark night in 1965.
First Test and Combat Use of AC-47, interim report No. 2, prepared by Kenneth Sams with foreword by Col. Edward C. Burtenshaw, 8 December 1965.
Fixed Wing Gunships in Southeast Asia (July 1969-July 1971) prepared by Capt. James L. Cole, Jr., 30 November 1971, gives detailed history of gunships, from AC-47 to the Surprise Package.
Interesting background on the development of the fixed-wing gunship is provided by an article, “How the Gunships Came to Be,” in the June 1989 issue of the ACA Newsletter by Col. Gilmour Craig MacDonald, USAF retired. He tells how he proposed the idea of side-firing, pilot-aimed gunships in April 1942.
A personal account of the unfortunate deployment of the AC-47 gunships to the Ho Chi Minh Trail is provided in an article in the March 1990 ACA Newsletter by Lt. Col. Charles A. Riley, USAF retired. He describes how four aircraft and more than 30 crew members were lost in short order.
PART 5: Through the Looking Glass
The best overall account of the secret war in Laos, especially as it affected the Hmong people, is contained in Jane Hamilton-Merritt, Tragic Mountains: The Hmong, the Americans, and the Secret Wars for Laos, 1942–1992 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993).
A good deal of background on that shadowy phase of the war in Southeast Asia is also contained in Secord’s biography, cited in Part 4. His account of the loss of the critical radar base known as Lima Site 85 on Phou Pha Thi Mountain was especially useful.
An official account of the loss of the site is contained in a CHECO report prepared by Capt. Edward Vallentiny on 9 August 1968. An intriguing historical footnote to that battle was provided by author Neil Sheehan in “The Last Battle,” an article in The New Yorker for 24 April 1995. He located the Vietnamese leader of the commandos who scaled a two-thousand-foot cliff to attack the base.
Background on the air commandos’ war in Laos and Thailand was derived from the interview with Henry Aderholt, cited in Part 3; an interview with Clyde Howard, a combat controller who served a number of tours in Southeast Asia, at Navarre, Florida, on 15 October 1994; the Oral History Program interviews with Roy Dalton, cited in Part 4, with Maj. Donald Randle, conducted by Lt. Col. Robert G. Zimmerman at San Rafael, California, in December 1974, with Maj. Jesse E. Scott, conducted by Lt. Col. V. H. Gallagher and Hugh N. Ahmann, at Maxwell Air Force Base on 6 April 1973, and with Col. Robert L. F. Tyrrell, the longtime air attaché in Vientiane, conducted by Colonel Zimmerman in Seattle, Washington, 12 May 1975.
Jim Stanford, one of the enlisted forward air controllers known as Butterflies, told me of his experiences in an interview in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, in October 1994.
A battle in which another Butterfly, Charles Jones—known as Butterfly 44—played a pivotal role is described in Second Defense of Lima Site 36, a CHECO report prepared by Capt. Melvin F. Potter on 28 April 1967.
The story of the Ravens, the commissioned pilots who took over from the enlisted Butterflies, is told in Christopher Robbins, The Ravens: The Men Who Flew in America’s Secret War in Laos (New York: Crown Publishers, 1987).
Additional background on the Ravens came from Jerome “Jerry” Klingaman, who headed the secret Project 404/Palace Dog, managing the secret air war in Laos, in an interview at Hurlburt Field, Florida, in October 1994. Project 404/Palace Dog is described in a recently declassified five-page document, History of Participation in Project 404/Palace Dog, dated 28 January 1971. It was obtained from the Air Force Historical Research Agency at Maxwell Air Force Base.
Fascinating details of Raven operations are provided in Oral History Program interviews with Maj. Michael E. Cavanaugh, conducted by Lt. Col. Robert G. Zimmerman at Randolph Air Force Base, Texas, on 21 November 1974, and with Capt. Karl L. Polifka, conducted by Colonel Zimmerman, in Washington, D.C., on 17 December 1974. Permission to cite or quote from the Polifka interview is required. I obtained permission in a telephone conversation with Polifka, who now lives in Williamsburg, Virginia.
My account of the A-26 operations in Southeast Asia, in both the earlier Mill Pond deployment to Thailand and during the lengthy Nimrod period, is derived from Hagendorn and Hellstrom’s Foreign Invaders, cited in Part 3; from “‘Nimrods’—Truck Killers on the Trail,” an article in the July 1988 issue of the ACA Newsletter, by Thomas Wickstrom; from interviews with Wickstrom, Tim Black, and Gene Albee at the Nimrods’ 1994 reunion in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, and the Oral History Program interview with Major Gorski, cited in Part 4.
Wickstrom, a Nimrod pilot who now lives in Huntington Beach, California, has been most active in gathering information about the long history of the use of the A-26 in various parts of the world.
Further background material concerning the war in Laos was derived from the CHECO reports, Interdiction at Ban Bak, 19 December 1970-5 January 1971 (prepared by Maj. John W. Dennison, 26 Jan
uary 1971); Pave Aegis Weapon System (AC-130E GUNSHIP) (prepared 30 July 1973) and OV-1 AC119 Hunter-Killer Team (prepared by Maj. Richard R. Sexton and Capt. William M. Hodgson on 10 October 1972).
Three CHECO reports cover the development and use of Igloo White, the so-called McNamara Barrier of sensors intended to help block movement of North Vietnamese soldiers and supplies down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. They are Igloo White, Initial Phase (prepared by Col. Jesse C. Gatlin, 31 July 1968), covering the Muscle Shoals project through the operational period of 1 December 1967 to 31 March 1968; Igloo White, July 1968-December 1969 (prepared by Maj. Philip D. Caine on 10 January 1970), and Igloo White, January 1970-September 1971 (prepared by Capt. Henry S. Shields, 1 November 1971).
PART 6: Son Tay and the Mayaguez
A detailed account of the Son Tay raid is contained in Benjamin F. Schemmer, The Raid (New York: Harper & Row, 1976).
My research included interviews with Lt. Gen. LeRoy J. Manor, USAF retired, who commanded the operation, in Shalimar, Florida, 10 and 13 October 1994, and Col. Ronald Jones, USAF retired, a C-130 pilot who participated in preparations for the raid, at his home in San Antonio, Texas, on 4 December 1994.
The observations of Col. Royal A. Brown are contained in an Oral History Program interview conducted by Maj. Lyn R. Officer at Eglin Air Force Base on 9 February 1973.
Colonel Gary L. Weikel told me of his part in the Mayaguez operation in an interview at his office in the Pentagon on 25 October 1994.
Details of the capture of the ship, the subsequent rescue attempt, and statements issued by officials in Washington were obtained from the files of the New York Times.
Aderholt, in the interview cited in Part 3, told me of his involvement in training Cambodian air force crews as part of Project Water Pump. Clyde Howard, in the interview cited in Part 5, told me of the mistaken B-52 bombing of a Cambodian village.