THE UNITED STATES AIR FORCE IN SOUTHEAST ASIA THE ADVISORY YEARS 1950-1965

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• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 23, 2013
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: January 1, 1971
• Content Type: REPORT

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COMMENT EDITION
THE UNITED STATES AIR FORCE
IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
THE ADVISORY YEARS
1950 - 1965
OFFICE OF AIR FORCE HISTORY
EXCLUDED FROM AUTOMATIC REGRADINGI
DOD DIR 5200. 10 DOES NOT APPLY
STAT
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This is a 4111 SECRET document and will be handled in
accordance with the provisions of APR 205-1, as amended. It
contains information affecting the National Defense of the United
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(This page is UNCLASSLeIEU)
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? THE UNITED STATES AIR. FORCE IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
THE ADVISORY YEARS, 1950-1965
by
ROBERT FRANK FUTRELL
Office of Air Force History
Headquarters, United States Air Force
1971
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CONTENTS
Chapter
1 THE DEVhLOPMENT OF AMERICAN INTEREST
IN SOUTHEAST ASIA, 1943-1954
Page
1
Emerging Guidelines of United States Policy 1
Southeast Asia as a Regional Problem 5
American Aid to French Union Forces in Indochina 9
Dien Bien Phu and the Geneva Conference 24
2 SOUTHEAST ASIAN REGIONAL AND COUNTRY DEFENSE
PROGRAMS, 1954-1959 48
Concepts of Regional and Country Programs 48
Thailand as a Free World Ally 52
American Assistance for the Republic of Vietnam 59
Laos and Cambodia were Special Problems 76
Evolution of US Military Organization and Strategy 94
3 BEGINNINGS OF THE NEW SOUTHEAST ASIAN WAR IN
LAOS, 1960-1962 113'
Analyses of the Developing Ccomminist Threat 113
Uneasy Peace and Renewed Hostilities in Laos 116
Diplomacy at Geneva and Continued Fighting in Laos 135
14 BUILDING COUNTERINSURGENCY CAPABILITIES IN SOUTH
VIETNAM, 1959-1962 146
Origins of the CINCPAC Counterinsurgency Plan
for Vietnam 146
President Kennedy Expands Assistance to Vietnam 150
US Military Command Arrangements: 2D ADVON
and MACV 163
AIR ACTIONS AGAINST THE VIETCONG IN 1962 185
Emerging Concepts of Military Strategy 185
Early Employments Test Counterinsurgency Tactics
and Techniques 187
Air Defense at Saigon and Pleiku 192
Air Interdiction Proves Controversial 195
Air Support for ARVN Operations Proves Complex 208
Herbicide Operations Remain Politically Troublesome 226
Aerial Reconnaissance Fails to Meet Requirements 229
Air Transport Developments 235
Expanding Requirements Strain VNAF and Farm Gate 243
ill
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Chapter Page
6 THE NEUTRALIZATION OF LAOS, 1962-1963 257
The United States Responds to a Threat to Thailand 257
The Geneva Neutralization of Laos and Its
Aftermath 276
7 NATIONAL COUNTERINSURGENCY PLANNING IN
VIETNAM, 1962-1963 298
The MACV National Campaign Plan: Concepts
and Requirements 298
ARVN Defeat at Ap Bac and Review of MACV
Plans and Organization 306
Improvisations of Air Control Systems and
Air Capabilities 3114
Increasing Strains in US-GVN Relations
Affected Military Plans 327
8 INDECISIVE OPERATIONS AND POLITICAL COLLAPSE
IN SOUTH VIETNAM, 1963 331
Air Missions Under the RVNAF General Offensive Plan 331
Developments in Air Defense and Air Traffic Control 332
Border Control and Air Interdiction Operations 334
Successes and Failures in Air Strike Support 340
Problems of Aerial Reconnaissance 362
Air Transport Capabilities Exceeded Requirements 371
Collapse of the Diem Government Precipitates
Military Crisis 382
9 MONTHS OF CRISIS IN VIETNAM AND LAOS, NOVEMBER
1964-FEBRUARY 1965 401
FOOTNOTES
Communist Escalations Affected US Policy 401
Reorganization of Command Structures in South
Vietnam 410
Collapsing Tactical Air Capabilities in Vietnam
Demanded Attention 418
American Responses to Hanoi's Summer Crisis in Laos 439
Tonkin Gulf Attack and Its Aftermath 451
Continuing Counterinsurgency Preparations in
South Vietnam 463
Developments in Air Reconnaissance and Air Transport 473
Communist Field Attack Ends the US Advisory Era 491
iv
511
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GHAP'IER I
THE DEVELUMENT OF AMERICAN INTEREST
IN SOUTHEAST ASIA, 1943-1954
1. Emerging Guidelines of United 3tates Policy
In a pf..ess conference on 23 February 1945 aboard the USS Quincy while
homeward bound from a wartime conference with Prime Minister Winston S.
Churchill and Marshal Joseph Stalin at Yalta, President Franklin D. Roosevelt
told newsmen that he had been "terribly worried" about Indochina for two
years. Roosevelt said that the Indochinese people wanted independence from
France but were not ready for it. In his opinion the French had done nothing
about educating the Indochinese people, had exploited their colonial posses-
sions in Southeast Asia, and ought not to be allowed to go back into Indochina
after the area was cleared of Japanese occupation forces. In planning for the
postwar period, Roosevelt wanted to put the French possessions in Indochina --
the protectorates of Tonkin, Annam, Cambodia, and Laos and the colony of
Cochin China -- under an international trusteeship in order to educate the
Indochinese people for self-government. (1)
In his news conference remarks, President Roosevelt suggested a potential
line of American policy which, as he noted, had been in the making for two
years. At a conference with Secretary of State Cordell Hull on 5 October
1943, President Roosevelt had suggested that Indochina and the Japanese-mandated
islands of the Pacific, along with security points in many parts of the world,
might be placed under international trusteeship. Speaking very frankly. with
British Ambassador Lord Halifax in January 1944, Roosevelt had regretted the
reluctance of the British and Dutch to end their colonialism and had noted
that the case for Indochina was very clear. "France," he said, "has milked it
for one hundred years. The people of Indochina are entitled to something bet-
ter than that." Roosevelt told Halifax that both Marshal Stalin and
Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek "wholeheartedly supported" the view that Indochina
should be made independent. (2)
During the Dumbarton Oaks Conference, held in the autumn of 1944 to discuss
the formation of a new United Nations security organization, Secretary Hull was
hopeful that he could obtain agreement whereby all mandates and colonies would
be ceded to the new international organization, which would tutor them for
independence. This proposal, however, was not acceptable to several colonial
powers, and it was also resisted by the US War and Navy Departments, which
believed that the United States would need to acquire the sovereignty over
former Japanese mandates for use as postwar bases. Spokesmen for the US Navy
and members of the House Naval Affairs Committee actively supported a need for
US bases in the mandates. (3) President Roosevelt nevertheless continued to be
particularly interested in the fate of Indochina. When Roosevelt learned that
France proposed to send a military mission to Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten's
Allied Southeast Asia Command to consult on military operations affecting
Indochina, he issued orders that American approval must not be given to such
a mission and that no American representative in the Far East was authorized
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to make any "decisions on political questions with the French mission or any-
one else."(4) In a session with Marshal Stalin at Yalta on 8 February 1945,
Roosevelt explained his plan to place French Indochina under a trusteeship
noting that the British feared the implications of such an action in Burma.(5)
A few months later, in a personal conversation in Washington, President
Roosevelt told US Ambassador to China; Patrick J. Hurley, that he was not
pleased by Vichy France's cooperation with Japan and that he wanted the
establishment of a United Nations or international trusteeship, to prepare
Indochina for independence according to the principles of the Atlantic
Charter. (6)
When the Dumbarton Oaks Conversations did not provide a definite proposal
for handling international trusteeships, President Roosevelt secured agree-
ment at Yalta that the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, China,
and France would consult on the matter prior to the meeting of the United
States Conference on International Organization in San Francisco on 25 April
1945. But President Roosevelt died on 12 April 1945, and on 18 April a meet-
ing at the US State Department attended by the Secretaries of War and Navy
and other governmental representatives drew up a US position, which was
approved by President Harry S. Truman. The US military input to this posi-
tion sought to establish a system which would embody the high ideals of the
United States toward dependent peoples while safeguarding the vital security
interests of the United States. As initially stated in the US position paper
of 18 April and ultimately incorporated in Article 77 of the United Nations
Charter approved at San Francisco, the United Nations trusteeship system was
made broad enough to include "territories voluntarily placed under the system
by states responsible for their administration."(7) Under the new policy,
the US State Department informed Ambassador Hurley on 10 June 1945 that France
was not likely to "volunteer" Indochina as a United Nations trusteeship, but
that President Truman intended "at some appropriate time to ask that the French
Government give some positive indication of its intention in regard to the
establishment of basic liberties and an increasing measure of self-government in
Indochina before formulating further declarations of policy in this respect." (8)
Meeting with Mr. Georges Bidault, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the French
Provisional Government, on 18 May 1945, President Truman accepted the principle
of French participation in World War II in the Far East, but because of a
pressing shortage of ocean shipping US military planners estimated that a two-
division French Expeditionary Corps would not be moved from France to the
Pacific and made ready for operations before the spring of 1946. When they
met at the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, the Combined Chiefs of Staff
agreed that the French corps should be employed in the liberation of Indo-
china under the command of Lord Louis Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander,
Southeast Asia Command. Since Indochina had been within the borders of the
China theater of operations, the (CS proposal involved a new dividing line in
Indochina, which the Combined Chiefs of Staff recommended should be drawn to
include the portion of Indochina lying south of the 16th parallel within the
Southeast Asia Command. The Combined Chiefs rationalized that Lt. General
Albert C. Wedemeyer, Chief of Staff to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek in the
China theater, required control of northern Indochina in order to cover the
flank of projected Chinese operations in China.(9)
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Because the theater boundary changes discussed at the Potsdam Conference
also involved the transfer of large portions of the Southwest Pacific Area
theater to the Southeast Asia Command, Admiral Mountbatten was given time to
study-the proposals. When Japan surrendered on 14 August 1945, however, -
Mountbatten was immediately assigned the mission of occupying and receiving
the surrender of Japanese forces in the portion of Indochina south of the
16th parallel. After establishing an air staging base at Don Muang Airfield
at Bangkok, Thailand, British forces were landed by air at Saigon on 13
September.(10) While British forces arrived in Saigon with instructions to
cooperate with a French administration, the Chinese Nationalist Army which
occupied northern Indochina would refuse to hand back any authority to the
French until February 1946. In conversations with President Truman in
Washington on 22-25 August 1945, General Charles de Gaulle protested that
the French return to Indochina was being hampered by Allied occupational
arrangements made without French consultation. De Gaulle recorded that
President Truman assured him that the United States would make "absolutely no
attempt" to hamper French undertakings in the Far East.(11)
Although the United States did not hamper French undertakings, some
American leaders were nevertheless alarmed when France's effort to reestablish
control over Indochina met an active guerrilla resistance, centering in the
Hanoi area of Tonkin. This movement was led by an old Vietnamese Communist,
Ho Chi Minh, who was able to hide his Marxist ideology and flaunt a banner of
Annamese nationalism. In September 1946, Ho's Vietminh guerrillas Shifted to
open warfare against the French. After returning to the United States from
long service as American Ambassador to France, William C. Bullitt published
an article in December 1947 which decried the fact that Ho Chi Minh was being
followed by many Annamiteswho disagreed with his Communist ideology but
accepted him as a symbol of resistance to French Colonialism. Believing that
it would be a disaster if France surrendered to Ho's Communists, Bullitt
specifically proposed (1) that France issue a statement promising the
Annamites preparation for freedom and eventual independence; (2) that France
announce that it would give freedom to Annam but would not hand it over to
the Communists; (3) that France would permit the non-Communist nationalists
of Annam to prepare completepolitical, economic, and military organizations
for control of the country; (4) that as soon as those organizations had
been created France would negotiate a treaty providing that there would be
no discrimination against French institutions and for the maintenance of
necessary French bases; and (5) that France would leave to the Annamite
nationalists the task of winning over Ho's nationalist adherents and of
crushing the irreconcilable Communists in Hors forces. Bullitt believed
that the Annamites would be willing to accept a basic principle of "inde-
pendence within the French Union," This article by former Ambassador Bullitt
was entirely unofficial, but it was widely accepted, especially in France, as
being a statement of American policy. (12)
Following two years of negotiations, the French persuaded Bao Dai, scion
of the Annamese royal family who had briefly headed the Annamese government
sponsored by the Japanese in 1945,
to become chief of state of Vietnam
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4859 1.01.01 n? IL I
effective on 14 June 1949. Formed by the union of the former protectorates
of Tonkin and Annam and the colony of Cochin China, Vietnam was promised
complete internal sovereignty, a national army, and membership in the
French Union. On 8 December 1949, France further established the Associated
States of Indochina, to include Vietnam, the Kingdom of Laos, and the King-
dom of Cambodia. France agreed to provide the Associated States the use of
French Union forces for defense, and the agreements also provided that the
foreign policy of the Associated States would be coordinated with that of
the French Union through a French High Commissioner and a high council,
composed of representatives of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Before agreeing
to serve as Vietnamese Chief of State, Bao Dai had demanded that the native
militarized police formed by the French from remnants of colonial Garde
Indochinoise rifle regiments should be reorganized as Vietnamese armed
forces. Shortly after taking power, the Bao Dai government issued a series
of decrees providing a juridical basis for the Armed Forces of the Republic
of Vietnam. The Vietnamese units, however, were small auxiliaries to the
French forces, and kept outside of Rao Dai's control.(13)
Although the establishment of Bao Dai's government drew some nationalist
supporters away from the Vietminh, Ho Chi Minh's guerrilla movement got a
boost from the victory of the Communists in China. After 1949, Ho became
an openly-avowed Communist. His government was officially recognized by
Communist China in January 1950, and the Soviet Union added its support to
Ho Chi Minh without delay. On 7 February 1950, the United States extended
diplomatic recognition to the State of Vietnam, the Kingdom of Laos, and
the Kingdom of Cambodia and announced that the US consulate-general in
Saigon would be raised to the status of a legation with the arrival of a US
minister to the three Associated States.(1)4) After talks with French
Foreign Minister Robert Schuman, US Secretary of State Dean Acheson further
announced his conviction that the Indochina area was imperiled by Soviet
imperialism and that accordingly the United States would begin to provide
economic aid and military equipment to France and to the Associated States.(15)
Even before the Communist attack on Korea, the United States was recog-
nizing that the Vietminh war in Indochina comprised Communist aggression
rather than simple anti-colonial aspirations, but the Soviet-inspired North
Korean invasion of the Republic of Korea launched on 24 June 1950 made it
plain beyond all doubt to President Truman that the Communist nations had
"passed beyond the use of subversion to conquer independent nations and
will now use armed invasion and war." Truman considered that the Communist-
led Vietminh drive against Indochina was a part of a general Communist
offensive in the Far East, whose northern front was in Korea and which
endangered all free nations on the periphery of Communist China.(16) From
Tokyo, General of the Army Douglas MacArthur sent President Truman an
assessment that Communist China would probably not move south with her own
forces but would instead train and equip indigenous forces to infilter and
take over the free nations of Southeast Asia.(17)
14
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2. Southeast Asia as a Regional Problem (18)
Meaningful as a term of convenience rather than as of a well-defined
geographic entity, mainland Southeast Asia thrusts dawn into the South
China Sea from continental land mass of Asia and is a composite of mountain
systems, interior highlands and plateaus, and alluvial basins and deltas.
Three great rivers form the basins and deltas which were occupied by
Monogoloid peoples from Asia. The Chao Phraya basin and delta form the
heartland of Thailand. The Red River and its delta dominate the Tonkin
area of Vietnam, while the 2,700-mile-long Mekong River provides a border
between Thailand and Laos, forms a heavily populated plain in Laos, and
its tremendous delta provides the heartland of Cambodia, as well as the
characteristic feature of the old Cochin China area of Vietnam. The
Mekong enters the sea through five mouths, and while this delta is
heavily cultivated and is crisscrossed by canals it is also marked by
many swamps, marshes, and reed covered areas.
Most of Indochina and much of Thailand is covered by natural vegeta-
tion, which ranges from mangrove swamps at the coastal fringes, to open
decidious forests and grassed savannas in the interior lowlands, and to
heavy canopied evergreen rain forests on the mountains. For the most
part, the grassed savannas have been the result of primitive slash and
burn agriculture. In this common procedure, trees are girdled and later
burned, leaving a rudely cleared and temporarily fertile area which can
be cultivated for a short time. Once abandoned, the burned area rapidly
covers with a tall groWthof tough grass, bamboo, and scrub trees.
The climate of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand is monsoonal,
and is characterized by the southwest summer monsoon from roughly mid-May
to mid-September in the north and early October in the south and by the
northeast winter monsoon which lasts from mid-October in the north and
from early November to mid-March in the south. In the tropical environ-
ment tempwatures are generally high as is the relative humidity, which
is high during the southwest monsoon and only moderate during the north-
east monsoon. The monsoons also affect precipitation: heavy Showers
and thunderstorms characterize the rainy season which coincides with the
moist air of the sammer monsoon, while the northeast winter monsoon brings
the driest period of the year. Typhoons may occur from March through
December, but July through November are the predominant months for these
tropical hurricanes. During a typhoon, torrential rains may occur over
wide areas, and, in association with high sea swells, contribute to flooding
of the deltas and coastal areas. Cloudiness and low visibility are greatest
during the rainy season, and ground fogs commonly blanket the interior val-
leys during night and early morning hours. Although visiblities are gen-
erally best in most areas during the relatively dry northeast monsoon,
tepperature inversions frequently cause haze as well as the ncrachin"
combination of fog and light drizzle over northern Vietnam which severely
limits visual flying in the winter months.
5
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The terrain features of mainland Southeast Asia channelized the move-
ments of Mongoloid peoples southward from China over the centuries and
gave rise to eventual national boundaries. In their historic southward
movement the Annamese occupied the Red River delta of Tonkin, the coastal
lowlands fronting on the South China Sea, and pushed aggressively into
most of the Mekong delta, which became Cochin China. The Annamese drew
deeply from the culture of China in their language, generally Confucian
social order, and in their religion, which remained predominately a
mixture of Taoism and northern Buddhism, although many Annamese were con-
verted to Catholicism by the French. As formed in 1949 by the union of
Tonkin, Annam, and Cochin China, Vietnam was a long, narrow, "S" shaped
country, often being described as similar to two rice baskets (the Red
and Mekong deltas) on a carrying pole (the interior Annam Mountain Range).
Near the middle, the country is only about 25 miles wide, while its
maximum width is in the north is 300 miles and in the south 130 miles.
In most cases, mountain ranges formed Vietnam's borders with Communist
China on the north and with Laos and Cambodia on the west. At many points,
however, the borders between Vietnam and Laos and CaMbodia remain indefinite.
The aggressive ways of the Anname:e :rail tem historically
With the Khmer ethnic group which is he maority stock of Cambodia. The
Cambodians are predonfnately descendants of the Mon-Khmers, whose culture,
with definite Indian antecedents, reached its heights in about 900 to
1200 AD in the construction of the temples at Angkor. The state religion
of Cambodia is southern Buddhism, and, while the family is the base of the
social structure, the Cambodian family may be extended and scattered over
a relatively wide region.
The predominately mountainous landlocked country of Laos is generally
bounded by the Mekong River on the west and the crest of the Annam Mountain
chain on the east. The Lao are a tribal grouping of Thai-speaking people
who migrated southward around the ninth century AD. With the center of
their agricultural livelihood established in the Hekong basin lowlands,
the culture of the Laotian Thai is similar to that of neighboring Thailand.
TheLao religion is southern Buddhism superimposed upon an original primi-
tive base of Animism. Long inaccessible to the outside world, the culture
of Laos remained essentially primitive and agrarian.
As historically established by by a southward emigration of Thai people
from China over many centuries, Thailand became a Texas-sized nation
roughly shaped like a letter "P." The bulk of the country is a southwest-
facing river basin bounded by mountains on the west, north, northwest,
northeast, and southeast, and by the Mekong River on the east. Through a
combination of adaptability and shrewd diplomacy, the Thai rulers main-
tained the historic independence of their country, despite challenges to
them by western colonial powers. Centering in the Chao Phraya River basin,
the basic Thai population is remarkably homogenous, except for oversea
national peoples. The Thai government attempted to assimilate minority-
peoples who live in the northern mountains and on the orat (Korat)
plateau frontier region of eastern Thailand.
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Throughout Southeast Asia the major Annamese, Khmer, and Thai ethnic
groups occupied the best agricultural land of the deltas, coastal areas,
and river basins, forcing aboriginal people and earlier immigrants back
into the highland plateaus and mountains. In the north, these more prim-
itive and tribal people include the Muong, who live in the hills fringing
Tonkin's Red River delta. The Man and Meo tribes occupy the mountains
and mountain valleys on the frontiers of northern Vietnam and Laos, while
tribal Thai people (as distinguished from the Laotian-Thai) range south-
ward in the central Annam Mountain chain. Southern Vietnamese and
Cambodian highland groups include the Rhade, Harai, Mbong, Stieng, Bahnar,
and Sedang tribal peoples, often collectively described as ?Montagnards."
Living in remote villages and governed by headmen and councils of elders,
these tribal peoples are generally self-sufficient and historically have
avoided contact with the major lowland ethnic groups. For centuries the
highland tribes provided barrier; 5etween the Thai, Annamese, and Khmer
people, but in the years after 1945 they found themselves living on key
frontier areas where they were increasingly drawn into the prevailing
conflict.
Especially in the period of western colonialism, some 1,500,000
Chinese came to Vietnam and Cambodia, while about 3,000,000 settled in
Thailand. These Overseas Chinese located in cities and towns as shop-
keepers, money-lenders, rice merchants, and sometimes laborers. They kept
their own language, customs, and social organization; many of them avoided
local citizenship and treasured an intention of returning eventually to
China. Some 7,000 Indians also came to Cambodia and Vietnam, where they
too held themselves aloof and were an aggressive group of money-lenders
and small shopkeepers. In addition to these immigrants, as many as 40,000
Europeans settled in Indochina -- most being French by birth or marriage
The attitudes of the ethnic majorities toward the recent immigrants were
varied. The Vietnamese generally regarded the Chinese as exploiters,
whereas the Cambodians, although economically dominated by them, liked
and admired the Chinese. The Thai regarded the Chinese as useful for
economic purposes, but generally excluded them from political life. The
Indians were almost universally disliked. The Vietnamese had little fond-
ness for the French, while the Cambodians, Laotians, and many of the
mountain tribesmen long considered the French to be protectors against the
Vietnamese and held them in better regard.
In view of the predominant agricultural pursuits of the people -- chiefly
rice production with some European-managed plantations producing rubber and
other similar products -- the vast majority of the population of Southeast
Asia lives in rural villages and hamlets. The few urban centers -- notably
Saigon and Hanoi in Vietnam, Phnom Penh in Cambodia, Bangkok in Thailand,
and the towns of Luang Prabang (the residence of the King) and Vientiane in
Laos -- served as local or regional centers of trade, light industry, govern-
ment, and religion. All of these urban units are on waterways, and the
coastal cities of Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam were served by railways.
Although the French constructed a well-developed road system consisting of
(
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23 national highways in Indochina, this road system deteriorated markedly
under the Japanese occupation during World War II. While Laos had no
railways, it had been provided with a rudimentary road system by the French.
Despite these roads, however, Laos was most accessible to the outside world
through Thailand (via the Thai railway which connected Bangkok with Udon
Thani (Udorn), near Vientiane) rather than through Vietnam.
Prior to the Japanese occupation of Indochina, the French had built
four fully equipped airports at Hanoi, Saigon, Vientiane, and Vinh, and
over 100 landing fields scattered widely over the country. The Japanese
took over Gia Lam Airfield at Hanoi and Tan Son Nhut Airfield just north-
west of Saigon and developed them into sizeable air facilities. The
Japanese also developed secondary airfields at Cat Bi near Haiphong; at
Bien Hoa near Saigon; at Hue, Vinh, and Tourane (Da Nang) on the east
coast; and at Phnom Penh. Using an abandoned French emergency landing
ground at Nha Trang, the Japanese built an extensive hard-surfaced naval
airfield, which supported wartime air patrols over the South China Sea.
In Thailand aviation developed as early as 1922 when the Siamese Royal
Air Force instituted an airmail service, and regular internal air services
were inaugurated in 1931 by an Amer:Lcan-organized Aerial Transport Company
of Siam. In view of limited surface transport, air services were extensive
between landing grounds at principal Thai towns. Don Muang Airfield at
Bangkok served international air services. In preparation for their Malayan
and Burma campaigns, the Japanese energetically developed Thai airfields
during 1941, including Don Muang, Chiengmai, Koke Kathiem, and Phitsanuloke.
Late in 1944 as the situation deteriorated for them in Burma, the Japanese
improved still other "fall-back" air facilities in Thailand, including work
of major dimensions at such locations as Ban Takhli, Ubon, and Udon Thani
(Udorn). After World War II the Thais virtually abandoned most of the
Japanese facilities, but they continued to maintain Don Muang as a major
civil and military airfield. The Royal Thai Air Force also operated a
flight school at Korat, and the Thai Navy maintained an air base at
Sattahip.(19)
Throughout Southeast Asia the social and environmental situation in
the post World War II period appeared to meet the conditions which Communist
China's Mao Tse-Tung had outlined as favorable for a "People's Liberation
Movement." Peasant discontent could be mobilized against French colonialism
in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia and against economic oppression -- including
"landlordism" in both Indochina and Thailand. Once formed and motivated,
the guerrilla forces could establish remote jungle bases without great dif-
ficulty, and Communist China itself provided both sources of supply and a
safe rear base for the Vietminh who were already fighting in northern
Vietnam. As a whole, Southeast Asia was a large physical area, with limited
communications, so that existing governments could not quickly mobilize to
defeat the Communist guerrillas.
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3. American Aid to French Union Forces in Indochina
When President Truman made the decision to extend aid to French Union
Forces in Vietnam and to other Southeast Asian nations, the United States
employed organizational arrangements that had been established for giving
assistance to Greece and Turkey in 1947 and had been modified by experience
since that time. In the case of Oreece and Turkey, President Truman's
announcement of the need to resist Communist threats to those nations and
the Congressional passage of requested aid appropriations had been followed
by the survey groups of State-War-Navy representatives to each of the two
countries to study and report their exact requirements. When the survey
reports had been studied and adjusted in Washington, President Truman
established the American Mission for Aid to Turkey and the American Mission
for Aid to Greece, the former being headed by the US Ambassador to Turkey
and the latter by a civilian chief designated by Truman. Each of these
aid missions included separate and co-equal Army, Navy, and Air Force Groups,
with the senior ranking officer being designated as coordinator in matters
of common interest to the separate military groups.(20)
According to Congressional criticism, the US Ambassador and the US
Administrator of Aid to Greece tended to run "two shows," and when a new
US Ambassador was appointed he was given over-all authority over the aid
program. On 31 December 1947, the Joint Chiefs of Staff also directed
the establishment of a Joint US Military Advisory and Planning Group (JUSMAP)
in Greece, under a director with Army, Navy and Air Force Sections.(21)
On 30 December 1948 the US Secretary of State suggested a similar unification
for the separate Army, Navy, and Air Force Groups in Turkey; he further sug-
gested that in as much as the interest of the Army was "paramount" in Turkey
that an Army officer should head the unified military mission. At Ankara,
the incumbent Chief of the Air Force Group agreed that a new over-all chief
of a unified military mission might be useful, provided he did not also
command the US Army Group. This suggestion, however, was not accepted.
When the Joint Military Mission for Aid to Turkey (JAMMAT) was established
on 7 November 1949, the Chief of the Army Group assumed the duty as JAMMAT
Chief and retained his former assignment as well.(22)
In visualizing the type of politico-military organization required to
put American military assistance to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
for the years to follow 1949, US Secretary of State Dean Acheson conceived
that there would need to be a close relationship between the foreign policy
of the State Department, military aid to be provided by the National Mili-
tary Establishment, and economic aid to be administered by the Economic
Cooperation Administration. He also favored a system which would permit
aid programs to be administered abroad through existing diplomatic and
military channels. (23) Toward these ends and looking toward Congressional
action on the Mutual Defense Act of 1949, an interdepartmental agreement
between State, Defense, and ECA was signed on 15 June 1949 wherein all
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agreed that the Chief of the US Mission -- normally the US Ambassador -- in
a country receiving military assistance would be the executive director of
the military assistance program in the country and would coordinate the
political, military, and economic aid staffs to the extent that they were
concerned with the military aid program. They further agreed that a Military
Aid Program Section, under a senior military officer, would normally be
established within the diplomatic mission -- the head of the MAP Section to
act as military advisor to the ambassador on military matters. Since the
MAP function was clearly understood to be separate from an intelligence
gathering objective, the interdepartmental agreement did not address the
old relationships whereby Army, Navy, and Air Force attaches had laag been
accredited to foreign embassies. Passed by Congress in October 1949, the
Mutual Defense Assistance Act of 1949 authorized President Truman to pro-
vide military assistance and to exercise his authority under the act through
such agency or officer as he might direct. Truman accordingly delegated
such authority to the Secretary of State, and the interdepartmental agree-
ment of 15 June came into effect, except that through a terminology change
the military unit in a recipient country would be known as a Military
Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG).
In the process of providing military assistance to European and Asian
nations in 1949-1950, each recipient nation was normally first visited by
a survey group, including experts on military planning, logistics, and
training. Within a country, the US MAAG prepared "country programs,"
which were ,coordinated with the US Ambassador and submitted to the Depart-
ment of Defense, with separate requirement plans for the ground, naval,
and air forces. The system worked as long as programs were concerned with
country requirements for equipment and training, but the MAAGs ran into
difficulty whenagreements were needed to expand a country's military
facility infrastructure and military-supporting industrial production.
Such matters required intergovernmental political discussions that were
beyond the capabilities of a MAAG.(25) Farly in 1951, General Lucius D.
Clay, Special Assistant to the Director of the Office of Defense Mobiliza-
tion, made studies of these problems and sponsored negotiations between
State, Defense, and ECA looking towarcl better coordination between economic
aid, defense production, and military aid. An interagency memorandum of
understanding signed on 15 February 1951 provided that in countries
receiving aid the Ambassador, the MAAG Chief, and the BaA Mission Chief
would "constitute a team under the leadership of the Ambassador." This
"Clay-paper" also declared: "The Ambassador's responsibility for coordina-
tion, general direction, and leadership shall be given renewed emphasis,
and all United States elements shall be reindoctrinated with respect to
the AMbassador's role as senior representative for the United States in
the country."(26)
Although US military assistance actions in Southeast Asia took place
in context with worldwide programs and procedures for rearming Free World
nations, the actions in Southeast Asia had to be accelerated to meet the
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crisis confronting France and the Associated States in Vietnam. At Saigon
on 6 July 1950, Donald R. Heath became the US Minister to the Associated
States when the Consulate General was raised to the status of Legation.
In August 1950, Brigadier General Francis G. Brink, US Army, established
the US MAAG in Saigon. At first, Lt Colonel Edmund F. Freeman, Air Attache
in Saigon, handled air aid matters, but on 8 November, Flight A, 1173d
USAF Foreign Mission Squadron, was opened as the Air Force Section, MAAG,
Indochina, and Colonel Joseph B. Wells assumed the duty as Chief, Air Force
Section. The immediate problem of the MAAG was to secure napalm, ammunition,
and barbed wire as a matter of urgency since newly trained Vietminh bat-
talions, now using modern arms from China and field assault tactics, had
begun to score substantial victories. In October the Vietminh captured two
of the principal French Union forts at the Chinese border which guarded the
classic invasion routes into Southeast Asia, forcing the French to retreat
into a perimeter around Hanoi and Haiphong.(27) While French Union Forces
in Indochina urgently requested military assistance, the French desired
that the MAAG in Saigon would be limited to a duty of receiving and transmit-
ting logistics requirements. As signed on 23 December 1950, the Mutual
Defense Assistance Agreement between the United States, France, Vietnam,
Cambodia, and Laos (the Pentalateral Agreement) expressly precluded direct
relations between the Associated States and the US MAAG and provided for
indirect American military aid through France to Vietnam, Cambodia, and
Laos. (28)
When French Premier Georges Bidault formally requested American mili-
tary assistance for the French effort in Indochina on 22 February 1950
(and Shortly thereafter followed up with particular requirements for $30
million worth of equipment), the French attached immediate importance to
the desperate situation cf.-their air units in Southeast Asia. The French
Union ground forces had been built up by such expedients as the recruit-
ment of German war veterans, but the Trench Air Force in Indochina in the
spring of 1950 was a worn-out collection of miscellaneous aircraft. The
French Air Force order of battle included two squadrons of British Spitfire
IX's (46 planes), three squadrons of American King Cobra F-63As (63 planes),
two squadrons of German JU-52 transports (15 planes), and one squadron of
American C-47As (20 planes), plus additional light liaison aircraft. The
French Navy operated a PBY-5A patrol squadron (8 planes) and a reconnais-
sance squadron with 9 Sea Otter aircraft. Lack of specialized aircraft
types forced the available planes to perform missions for which they were
not designed. Fighters were used for strafing, reconnaissance, and
bombing, but generally-bombing missions were carried out by JU-52 transports
which were rigged for the purpose. In metropolitan France the French Air
Force largely depended upon civil contract maintenance and as a result very
few French military maintenance technicians were available for service in
Indochina.(29) In the first assistance action for Indochina the French
urgently requested an expedited shipment of 8 C-47 aircraft and sufficient
fighter aircraft to replace the old qpitfire us. Since the eight C-47s
were already being prepared for delivery to metropolitan France and merely
required a change in place of destination, the USAF delivered them to
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Saigon during June 1950. In October, 1,D F6F Hellcat fighters from US Navy
sources arrived in Saigon on the French aircraft carrier Dixmunde, accom-
panied by a training unit of three US Navy air officers and 10 enlisted
men. (30)
Even though the office of Secretary of Defense gave the Indochina pro-
gram priority over all other MDA programs in the last half of 1950, the
United States met some delays in meeting deliveries to Saigon. On 30
August, MAAG Saigon requested immediate supply support for the F-63 air-
craft, which the French (who liked their 37-millimeter cannon for ground
support) wanted to keep in action. In the United States, the King Cobras
were long obsolete, and, after a futile search, the USAF Air Materiel
Command found it impossible to procure either spare parts ci 37-millimeter
ammunition for the F-63s. This project had to be cancelled, and a new
project was established to replace the F-63s with 90 F8F Bearcat fighters
from US Navy stocks. Another high priority project established in October
involved the renovation and flight delivery of 24 3-26 and 5 RB-26 aircraft
to Vietnam. iphen the B-26s were rady fc? Light in early N67mber, adiers
head winds prevented them from makL- Ls,ni; o:-3.2-water :llght tc
on the first leg of their journey. in December, of the 3-26s were lifted
o Hawaii aboard an aircraft carrier a,la proceeded in flight from HicLasi Air
Force Base to Tourane Airfield in Vietnam. thy the end of the year, the
remaining 9 B-26s had gotten favorable winds and had departed Sacramento by
fly-away.(31) Ferried in non-flyable status aboard aircraft carriers, the
first delivery of 44 F8Fs reached Vietnam in February 1951 and the balance
of the F8Fs arrived during the following month. Because of delays incident
to the installation of a reconnaissance system, the RB-26s did not reach
Vietnam until July 1951, but their delivery completed the planned MAP air
program for Indochina. With the new equipment, the French Far East Air
Forces retired its old Spitfires and King Cobras and greatly increased its
sortie rate. The French had been averaging 450 sorties a week during the
sia/wrier of 1950, and the average weekly sortie rate jumped to 930 during
the spring of 1951.(32)
Encouraged by military successes in the autumn of 1950, the Vietminh
openly sought a quick victory in open field warfare early in 1951. At this
juncture, however, assignment of an energetic new French high-caadssicner
and commander-in-chief, General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, as well as the
first arrivals of American aid, helped the French to score important suc-
cesses. When the Vietminh struck the Northern perimeter defenses of Hanoi
in force on 6 January 1951, American material was rushed from the docks at
Haiphong into immediate combat. General de Lattre attested that American
aid "especially napalm bombs, arrived in the nick of time for use in repulsing
. . . Viet Minh daylight offensive." After surveying the battle area, US
Minister Heath believed that "French superiority in aviation and artillery
was responsible for turning back the Viet Minh offensive. In particular the
use of napalm, furnished by MWAP, was a decisive factor in the French holding
operations." In.May 1951 the Vietminh attacked again in force, this time
south of Hanoi along the Day River, and they were again repulsed with very
heavy losses.(33)
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In view of the French successes against the incautious Vietminh offen-
sives, President Truman was able to satisfy himself that the French were
making progress against the Communists. He mentioned this fact to French
Foreign Minister Rene Pleven when the latter visited Washington in late
January 1951. At this time, Pleven pledged that France would do its utmost
to resist the Communists, and Truman assured the French of continued
American aid.(34) Following the victory at the Day River, Truman could
state that the Communist assault had been "checked by the free people of
Indochina with the help of the French." (35)
Although the Communists were indeed "checked" in the spring of 1951,
American leaders wanted to resolve the conflict in Indochina in order that
France could make progress in producing and training the 20 divisions that
it had promised for the defense of Western Europe under NATO. In order to
resolve the conflict, France would reouire larger forces in Indochina.
This conclusion became even more apparent after April 1951 when the Vietminh
returned to widespread guerrilla operations. Under circumstances short of
an overt Chinese Communist intervention, the United States was resolved not
to commit American combat forces to the war in Indochina. Another problem
affecting the conflict was the apparent fact that the French had given only
token independence to Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, with the result that the
Indochinese people were willing to sit on the fence and await the outcome
of the war. By making a definite and public pledge of full independence to
the Associated States as soon as military victory could be attained and by
pursuing a vigorous effort to buildupnative military forces, France could
hope to capture the loyalty of the Indochinese masses and simultaneously
provide much of the military force needed to combat the Vietminh, although
specific French reinforcements.would still have to be dispatched from France.
The United States could provide increased materiel assistance to France and
the Associated States. These American assessments and proposed actions were
revealed to Congress in statements by Secretary of Defense George C. Marshall
and Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs Dean Rusk. In Paris,
General Dwight D. Eisenhower urged them upon the French after January 1951
when he established Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers in Paris. And they
were explained in detail when General de Lattre visited Washington in
September 1951 for conversations with the Departments of State and Defense.(36)
At the request of Chief of State Bac) Dai, who called for the establishment
of an indigenous air capability to accompany the expansion of the Vietnamese
army, the French agreed to the creation of a Vietnamese air force in June
1951. Effective on 25 June, Vietnam established an Air Training Center at
Nha Trang Airfield, and on 1 July an agency known as the "Air Force Office"
was opened in Saigon. The French turned over 30 MOrane-500 Criquet liaison
aircraft (a French-built version of the German Fiesler Storch) to the
Vietnamese, who opened a liaison flight at Nha Trang. On 1 August 1951 the
French also established a Vietnamese 312th ppecial Mission Squadron at Tan
Son Nhut Airfield, equipped with Mbrane-500s, two C-47s, and two C-45s.
According to the first plans, the Vietnamese air arm was to include 660 men,
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including 44 aircrew members. The first Vietnamese pilots received their
flight training in French flying schools in France, Algeria, or Morocco,
but French instructors initiated pilot training at Nha Trang in March 1952,
with a contingent of 15 students. The Nha Trang Center also instituted
Vietnamese observer training at this same time. A maintenance training
school and a military training school for cadets and recruits were also
opened at Nha Trang during 1952. Two Vietnamese db servation squadrons were
activated with Criquets in 1953, and on 1 July 1954 a light combat squadron
was added to the inventory and equipped with 16 twin engine Marcel Dassault-
315 combat liaison planes. The observation squadrons and the combat squadrons
were organized into the 1st Group Liaison for Combat. At all times, French
personnel retained command, administrative, and logistical control over the
Vietnamese air arm, which was increased in size beyond initial plans but
nevertheless remained relatively small and had little military consequence.(37)
The beginnings of the Vietnamese air arm would be of later significance,
but the French initially kept the undertaking outside the cognizance of the
US MAG, whose major concern followirg the re-equipment of the French Air
Force in mid-1951 was the continuing prnvisioning of air maintenance sup-
plies and the procurement of equipment required in the expansion of native
ground troops. In his Washington conversations in September 1951, General
de Lattre had thought it possible with French and American aid to build the
Army of Vietnam to 120,000 men and 4,000 officers, all Vietnamese. As the
planning objective matured, the Vietnamese Army was to be built to a four-
division organization by incorporating already existing battalions in a
division structure and recruitment and training of new battalions. Modest
battalion-structured augmentations were planned for the Laotian and Cambodian
armies.(38) In support of the native troop buildup, the United States
delivered more than 106 shiploads of materiel to Indochina by 1 February 1952.
The armies of the Associated States were largely equipped with Mel rifles from
the MAP supplies.(39)
Early in 1952, United States spokesmen were optimistic that the Vietminh
could be defeated if the French gave real independence to the Associated States
and if the intended native forces were built up to provide a base for stable
political governments. (Lo) In conversations with Mr. Jean LeTourneau, French
Cabinet Minister for the Associated States in June, Washington officials
agreed that the United States would further increase its aid for Indochina
(which was already approximating one-third of the total annual cost of opera-
tions there) in the expectation that the aid would be especially devoted to
the building of native armies.(41) Denoting the greater significance of the
native governments, the United States raised the status of the Saigon Lega-
tion to that of an EMbassy in July, and Donald Heath was accredited as
Ambassador to the Associated States.(42)
Despite the political emphasis placed upon the expansion of the national
armies of the Associated States, the program lagged badly. As the Americans
saw it, the efforts to recruit in Vietnam were affected by a struggle between
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Bao Dai, who insisted on being given control over the Vietnamese army,
and the French, who insisted that native forces be kept within the frame-
work of the French Expeditionary Forces. Under the circumstances, the
educated and middle-class Vietnamese, who might have come forward for
officer training at the Dalat military academy or one of the officer
training schools, generally did not seek military service. Troop units
were filled with men who were either conscripted or enlisted for short
terms. The death of General de Lattre from cancer in January 1952 also
represented a severe loss of a charismatic leader who was sympathetic to
Indochinese independence and was pushing the formation of native armies.
On the other hand, French sources would state that two of the four
Vietnamese national divisions planned for 1952 had to be dropped from the
program because the US military assistance programming cycle was too slow
in providing adequate weapons and equipment to put them in the field. (143)
Whatever the reason for the slowness of the Associated States troop
Expansion, the strength of the Vietnamese Army in October 1952 totalled
71,000 men (2 divisions - 24 battalions), the Cambodian Army 11,000 men
(6 battalions), and the Laotian Army 10,500 men (5 battalions).(44) The
troop strength was considerably less than General Raoul Salan, the new
French Commander, had expected to have available at the beginning of the
dry-weather campaigning season in this month. In the past, the French had
used air transport to good advantage in rapidly moving French Union forces
to critical areas. In the kind of environment in Indochina, the French
were especially fond of the slow flying Junkers-52 which posed minimum air-
field requirements, but these ancient aircraft could not be sustained in
operations. To maintain the airlift, General Salan drew upon American aid
for 10 additional C-47s delivered in March-April 1952 and 10 more which
arrived in September-October 1952.(45) In the weeks following 14 October,
the French would have to fly Lheir available transport aircraft to the
limit, since the Vietminh chose to launch their expected autumn offensive
against scattered French fortresses in northwestern Tonkin rather than
against the Hanoi perimeter. Achieving initial surprise, the Vietminh
captured outposts on the Nghia Lo Ridge-Black River line, but the French
escaped a complete catastrophe by flyin reinforcements to surviving
defensive positions at Son La and Na Sam, which the Communists were then
unable to capture.(46) From Saigon, however, Major General Thomas J. H.
Trapnell and Colonel Arvid E. Olson, Jr., who had taken over as Chief of
MAAG and Chief of the Air Force Section MAAG earlier in 1952, signalled
that the French air transport squadrons could not meet requirements laid
on them. Acting on direction from Washington, the US Far East Air Forces
hurriedly assembled 21 C-47 aircraft, moved them to Clark Air Base in the
Philippines where the 24th Air Depot removed USAF insignia and added
paradrop equipment, and delivered the planes to the French at Nha Trang
Airfield in Vietnam. The project was nicknamed "Sea Dog," and the C-47s
were lent rather than given to the French. Although the French could
provide aircrews for the planes, they were unable to maintain them. After
discussions in December, the 24th Air Depot Wing moved a temporary duty
maintenance and supply detachment to Nha Trang effective on 4 January 1953.
The detachment -- the first such movement of American service forces to
Vietnam -- would remain at Nha Trang until 14 August 1953.(47)
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During the fighting in northwest Tonkin, the French inflicted more
casualties on the Vietminh than they took, and General Salan seized the
opportunity to mount Operation Lorraine out northward from the Hanoi
perimeter against Vietminh base areas. But in spite of some limited
successes, the situation in Vietnam was increasingly discouraging to the
French. In a long talk with Ambassador Heath in early November, Resident
Minister Le Tourneau was preoccupied with the difficulty he faced in
securing appropriations for continued military operations, both from Bao
Dal's government and from the French National Assembly. At this same time
in France, influential commentators -- who stressed France's limited fiscal
resources -- began to express interest in an "internationalization" of the
Indochina war, not by the commitment of free world military forces but
through increased free world financial aid to France and the Associated
States. (L8)
In Washington the decisions of the Truman Administration from 1950
through 1952 to afford greater assistance inside Indochina were accompanied
by a continuing apprehensive assessment of the role of the Chinese Com-
munists in the conflict, as well as the possibility that the Red Chinese
might overtly cormit forces in Southeast Asia. Addressing the American
people on 7 May 1951, President Truman pictured Communism as rampantly
aggressive throughout Asia and as being separately checked by American,
French, and British responses in Korea, Indochina, Malaya, and the
Philippines.(49) In the case of Indochina in mid-1951 there was no doubt
that the Chinese Reds were actively training, equipping, and supplying
Vietminh forces, but there was no evidence of overt Chinese intervention. (50)
The intervention of the Chinese Communists in Korea during November 1950
provided a similar expectation that the Chinese Reds might openly enter the
Indochinese war. Moreover, from a military point of view, the Red River
Delta of Tonkin was directly exposed to a Chinese attack, since easy access
routes led southeastward dawn the valleys from the Chinese province of
Yunnan. In 1951-1952 the Red Chinese air force was deployed at bases in
Manchuria, but existing airfields in South China could accommodate the Rea
air forces during an air offensive against the Tonkin area. Published in
April 1952, a USAF intelligence assessment pictured the French as totally
unprepared to meet a Chinese air attack. It was true that the F6Fs and
F8Fs that had been provided to the French could be used as interceptors,
but French pilots were not trained for such tactics, and the planes had
been so exclusively committed to low-level air-to-ground work that their
air-to-air systems had deteriorated. None of them had oxygen, and water-
injection equipment had rusted out. The French had no early-warning radAr
or ground controlled interception capability; antiaircraft artillery was
very scarce; and the airfields around Hanoi were packed with planes. The
intelligence estimate concluded that a surprise air attack against Tonkin
airfields could knock out 60 percent of France's operational aircraft,
including 75 percent of its fighter strength. In view of the French
vulnerability to air attack, the Special Assistant for Mutual Defense,
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Department of Defense, proposed in October 1952 that 60 F-86E Sabre jet
fighters should be allocated as military aid to the Itench in Indochina.
While the USAF generally concurred that the action would be desirable,
there was little evidence that the French Far East Air Force could main-
tain the aircraft, and in the end the planes in question were allocated
to the British Royal Air Force, which would use them for the protection
of American strategic deployment airfields in the United Kingdom. (51)
In the event of an overt Chinese Communist attack across the border
of Vietnam, the US State Department assumed that France and the Associated
States would take the aggression to the United Nations.(52) In 1952 mili-
tary representatives of Britain, France, Australia, New Zealand, and the
United States began to hold periodic intelligence conferences to discuss
courses of action that could be taken in the event of - organized Chinese
Communist aggression in Indochina, but these conferences failed to provide
any firm agreements for united action.(53) In a diplomatic conversation
with British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden on 26 May 1952, Secretary of
State Dean Acheson noted that in case of Chinese aggression against Indo-
china the United States would probably issue a severe warning and, if it
were ignored, would then find it necessary to blockade China's coast and
dislocate her communications. In this conversation, however, Eden
expressed disbelief that China would enter the Indochina conflict and
stated that, in any event, Great Britain was ?strongly opposed to any
action which would seem likely to result in war with China."(54) When
he briefed President-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower on the situation in Indo-
china on 18 November 1952, Secretary Acheson emphasized that the French
were wavering in their support for the war, both in Paris and in Vietnam,
and had begun to express some interest in getting international support
for their cause. Acheson also not that the United States had been
unable to secure any multinational consensus on a common policy in the
event that the Chinese Communists entered the war.(55)
Already familiar with the problem of France in Indochina as a result
of his command of NATO forces with headquarters in Paris, President-elect
Dight D. Eisenhower nevertheless held discussions of the matter with the
men who would be key members of his administration when they were aboard
the cruiser Helena in December 1952,. returning to the United States from
a visit to the stalemated battlefront in Korea. At this time, Eisenhower
determined that three steps must be taken in Indochina: (1) The French
should give "greater reality" to the independence of the Associated States,
thus depriving the Vietminh of their false claim that they were struggling
for independence. (2) At the same time that the people of Indochina were
given a national cause for fighting, greater reliance should be placed upon
native armies, and better equipment and training facilities should be
provided to them. (3) The Free World should give greater assistance in
Indochina, since France had been carrying on a struggle which was over-
burdening her economic resources.(56) In accordance with President
Eisenhower's policy, the United States assured France of its willingness
to increase its aid programs if France would produce an adequate plan for
resolving the conflict in Indochina. (57)
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Before the French could respond to the American offer of increased
assistance, the Vietminh mounted another offensive in western Tonkin
which possibly proved more successful than they had planned. Employing
forces that had remained in northwestern Tonkin and beginning the cam-
paign on 9 April, the Vietminh drove westward into Laos. As the Reds
reached Sam Neua, the predominantly Laotian French Union forces began
to retreat on foot toward the airhead at Xieng Khouang near the Plain
of Jars, the high plateau that dominates north-central Laos. French air-
craft harried the Reds and dropped supplies to the retreating troops, but
only about 700 of the 2,400 French Union forces arrived at the Plain of
Jars. The French believed that many of the Laotian soldiers simply went
home. Coordinated with the drive from Sam Neua, another Vietminh force
pushed westward out of central Annam along Colonial Route 7 as a southern
prong of a pincers aimed at Xieng Khouang. With the approach of the Reds,
the French evacuated the town of Xieng Khouang but maintained possession
of the airfield in the vicinity which was successfully defended by bat-
talions that were flown in and supplied by air. This position blocked
further Vietminh movements toward Vientiane, but the Reds sent a small
force southward to threaten Paksane, on the Mekong border of Thailand.
Probably because of supply shortages, the Vietminh began to backtrack
eastward on 6 May, but two regiments remained behind in the Sam Neua
area, where Communist Laotian Pathet Lao insurgents now developed a posi-
tion of strength. (S8)
The successful Vietminh invasion of Laos -- basically a campaign of
containment and movement rather than pitched battles -- caused great alarm
in Washington, Bangkok, and Paris. In Paris, where a NATO foreign minister's
conference was in progress, French officials asked US Secretary of State
John Foster Dulles for additional transport aircraft. Given the directive
to provide the aircraft, the Far East Air Forces appropriately modified
six 0-119 aircraft and flew them from Clark Air Base to Nha Trang, where
Civil Air Transport contract pilots employed by the French moved them to
Cat Bi Airfield near Haiphong on 5 May. The civilian pilots flew the C-119s
on operational missions until French pilots could be checked out. Once
again, the 24th Air Depot 'iving provided a maintenance and supply detachment
to support these "Project Swivel Chair" C-119s, first at Cat Bi and later
at Gia Lam Airfield near Hanoi. With the completion of the requirement
for these planes, both the aircraft and the detachment were withdrawn from
Vietnam in late July. (S9) In response to another request made by Thai
Ambassador Pote Sarasin, who called upon Secretary Dulles on 5 May to
express alarm for the safety of Thailand, emergency air shipments of
military assistance ammunition and other urgently needed items were rushed
to Bangkok within 24-hours of the time they were requested. (60)
Recognizing the gravity of the situation in Indochina, the French cabinet
on 8 May 1953 appointed General Henri Eugene Navarre as the new Commander-in-
Chief of French Union Forces in Indochina. Later in the month, Navarre
arrived in Vietnam, bearing instructions to draw up a plan to defeat the
Vietminh and to report back to Paris with recommendations and suggestions.
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In order to assist with the planning, as well as to study local conditions,
the United States assembled a Joint Military Mission to Indochina, headed
by Lt General John W. O'Daniel, which arrived in Saigon on 20 June. Already
in the Far East as Commander of the 315th Air Division (Combat Cargo), Major.
General Chester E. McCarty, joined the O'Daniel mission, and as the senior
air member was assigned to study air transport, training of the Vietnamese
Air Force, employment of combat air, and air logistics. The air section of
the initial O'Daniel mission report filed on 15 July was critical of French
Air Force resource management and pointed out that the greatest factor
limiting French air operations was a shortage of maintenance and logistical
support personnel. The air mission members contended that the French needed
additional maintenance personnel far more than additional aircraft and
argued that any augmentation of French aircraft without the addition of more
logistical personnel would decrease rather than increase the air sortie rates.
With proper management and support. the French should be able to double their
air transport capability without additional aircraft. Despite this conclusion,
the mission took note of General Navarre's requirement for sufficient aircraft
to support a simultaneous three-battalion paratroop employment: It proposed
that if such an airborne assault were necessary, the United States would lend
the French a requisite number of C-119s with French insignia affixed, to be
delivered at Cat Bi Airfield on the day prior to an operation. After execu-
tion of the drop by French aircrew personnel, USAF crews would return the
planes to their home bases.(61)
In making his plan for operations, General Navarre proceeded from a recogni-
tion that the French Union Forces were spread-eagled over too many defensive
positions and could not be effectively employed as mobile striking forces
against the Vietminh main force units. He called for building a battle corps,
with requisite artillery, engineer, armor, and communications support. He
planned to maintain a reserve of special armor, commando, and light infantry
battalions for attachment to battle corps groups and divisions. He visualized
maximum cooperation between ground, naval, and air forces, including sufficient
air transport capability to drop three paratroop battalions. So that his
battle corps would be roughly equiValent in size to the Vietminh main force,
Navarre would need to relieve French Expeditionary Forces from garrison duty
and secure nine additional battalions from Trance, thus increasing the strength
of French forces to 250,000 men. In order to take over defensive positions,
Navarre recommended that Associated States forces should be improved in cali-
ber (especially the native officers) and expanded. His goal was to form from
50 to 55 new native battalions by the end of 1954, which would involve building
the Vietnamese Army to 300,000 men. (62)
According to his writings, General Navarre included with his plan a state-
ment of his belief that with reorganized and augmented forces he could secure
a coup nul -- or draw -- with the Vietminh, thus permitting negotiations to
take place under favorable circumstances. (63) Such a caveat did not appear in
the summary of the Navarre plan studied in Washington during August 1953.
Secretary Dulles would subsequently state that the United States acceptance of
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the plan in September 1953 was in some part predicated on General Navarrels
design to lure the Vietminh into open battle and break up organized Communist
forces by the end of the 1955 fighting season and thereby reduce the fighting
to a level of guerrilla warfare which could then be met for the most part by
the national forces of the three Associated States. (614) In addition to aid
funds already committed to France and the Associated States, a joint Franco-
American communique issued on 30 September announced that the United States
would make up to $385 millions available to France prior to 31 December 1954
to support intensified prosecution of the war against the Vietminh. This
stipulated US financial support would be increased, and in March 1954 the
United States would commit itself to reimburse France up to a maximum of $785
millions for Indochina expenditures undertaken during calendar year 1954.(65)
In a speech in the Senate on 30 June 1953, Senator John F. Kennedy stated
his firm conviction that American aid to Indochina should be administered in
such a way Has to encourage through all available means the freedom and
independence desired by the peoples of the Associated States, including the
intensification of the military training of the Vietnamese." To attain such
an objective, he suggested that some change would need to be made in the terms
of reference of the US MAAG at Saigon which was limited in authority to supply
matters, had no operational or training functions, and could deal only with
French military authorities, who in turn dealt with the Associated States.(66)
By agreement with the French, the US MAAG-Indochina was limited to receiving
logistical requirements, transferring title to MAP materiel, and insuring that
proper use was made of the items supplied. (67) Possibly because of the limited
duties, the Air Force Section of the MAAG was authorized only 7 officers and 8
airmen when it was established in 1950, and any increase in the section's man-
ning required recommendation by the MAAG Chief, approval by the US Ambassador,
and final review and approval of the Office of Secretary of Defense. Even
though the volume of USAF materiel sent to Indochina increased markedly, the
strength of the Air Farce Section was augmented very little. With a small staff
and a heavy paper workload, members of the Air Force Section were in effect
chained to their desks in crowded offices in Saigon and were unable to get out
into the field to provide logistical advice or determine the end use being made
of MAP items. Under the circumstances, Colonel Olson frequently requested field
assistance teams from the Far East Air Materiel Command to assist the French
with logistical problems, and Colonel Harold E. Kofahl, who replaced Olson as
Air Force Section Chief in August 1953 continued the practice. As one of its
recommendations, the O'Daniel mission advocated a substantial personnel aug-
mentation for the entire MAAG. These recommendations were approved by the
Office of Secretary of Defense in January 1954, and in the following month
the USAF began moving 10 additional officers and 20 additional airmen to its
Air Force Section in Saigon. As a result of the increased manning authority,
the Air Force Section was authorized 20 officers and 35 airmen as of 1 July
1954. The new men included one Air Force lieutenant colonel for assignment
as a liaison officer with the French Far East Air Force.(68)
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Under normal aid procedures the French authorities in Indochina were
expected to provide annual fiscal year MAP requirements to the US MAAG for
its study and approval, for review by the US Ambassador, and then for
processing in the Office of Secretary of Defense. In addition to these
reviewing authorities, the Commander-in-Chief Pacific Area (CINCPAC), with
headquarters in Hawaii, was responsible for planning in a theater area
which had been extended to include Southeast Asia, and in January 1954
CINCPAC was given the responsibility for reviewing all MDAP submissions
and making recommendations on them as required in line with his responsi-
bility for area planning. (69) Both the annual NEAP country submissions
and any changes to them required the MAAG to provide elaborate justifica-
tions, including a certification that the country's military forces were
prepared to make good use of the materiel requested. The exacting procedures
required for handling M1AP aid made it difficult for the MAAG Chief in
Saigon to provide prompt logistical support to the French war effort. (70)
In view of their military situation, the French found it very difficult
to provide the US MAAG with programmed yearly aid requirements. This was
particularly true of the French Far East Air Force, which had to relate its
activities to a constantly changing and reactive surface campaign.(71) In
this respect, the US MAAG could sympathize with the French, but its members
nevertheless noted a certain changing attitude on the part of French
authorities, particularly after high-level announcements were made in
Washington as to the all-out support that the United States was prepared to
offer to the Free World cause in Indochina. In a general description of its
relationships with the French after mid-1953 the MAAG noted that French
authorities were not only reluctant to accept advice, but they generally
appeared to expect the United States to provide everything they requested,
regardless of their ability to use or maintain it.(72)
The expectant French attitude toward limitless American aid to be made
available for the asking and their reluctance to accept advice was well
manifest in demands for more and more air materiel, beginning in mid-1953.
As already seen, both MAAG-Saigon and the O'Daniel mission warned the French
that the manpower ceiling of the French Far East Air Force -- 10,000 per-
sonnel, including approximately 2,500 Vietnamese guards and ordinary
laborers -- was totally inadequate to operate and maintain the number of
aircraft already possessed in mid-1953 and that the addition of more aircraft
would reduce rather than increase operational capabilities. To meet the French
requirement for augmented air transport capabilities, General McCarty had
proposed to lend the French operational C-119s on their demand. The French
Air Commander, Major General Charles Lauzin, would not accept the American
solution. Instead, late in August 1953, Lauzin informed the US MAAG that he
wanted to use C-47s rather than C-119s for paratroop employments. He promised
to get 650 additional air personnel from France and proposed to use an
additional 1,000 Vietnamese Army soldiers to relieve other Shortages in man-
power. On this basis, he requested the MAAG to obtain by 1 October through
NEAP from USAF sources 25 additional C-47s and necessary equipment to permit
permanent activation of a fourth C-47 squadron. (73) The C-47s were delivered
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in December 1953.(74) The strength of 100 c-47s had been initially justi-
fied to meet General Navarre's requirement for a three-battalion airdrop
without employment of borrowed C-119s. In order to drop supplies to
entrenching troops at Dien Bien Phu, however, the French called for addi-
tional C-119 support. Accordingly, the315thAir Division instituted
"Project Iron Age" on 5 December, whereby its C-119s were ferried to Cat
Bi Airfield and flown from there on combat air drops by either French or
Civil Air Transport contract crews. In support of these continuing "Iron
Age" drops the 315th Air Division would keep from 12 to 22 C-119s ready
on station at Cat Bi and later Tourane until the project was terminated
on 23 July 1954.(75)
Subsequent to the first deliveries of 3-26 and RB-26 aircraft to Indo-
china, the US military assistance program had kept the two French light
bomber squadrons up to an authorized strength of 24 B -26s, and it had
continued to maintain the 4 RB-26s which were also operated by the light
bomber squadrons. During the Vietminh invasion of Laos in mid-1953, the
French needed additional longer range strike aircraft and requested
additional military assistance B-26s. Because of USAF requirements in
Korea, the planes could not be immediately provided, but after 27 July
1953 the military armistice in Korea permitted a planned shipment of 6
WAP B-26s and 1 R3-26 to Indochina, the former to be delivered to the
French in January 1954. In this month, however, General Navarre requested
that his two B-26 squadrons be increased to a unit strength of 25 planes
in each and that he be given a third B-26 squadron with a similar unit
strength. Once again, the French Far East Air Force did not have the
ability to support the B-26s but on 8 January 1954 the Assistant Secretary
of Defense (International SeQurity Affairs) directed the Army, Navy, and
Air Force to provide aid to Indochina in the highest NEAP priority, without
regard to funding. On 16 January 1954 the US National Security Council
formally indorsed the ISA directive and additionally directed the services
to make certain that all echelons of command understood that they would
expedite supply and training support for Indochina "through any organiza-
tion or procedure as may be considered necessary to insure effective and
prompt support." Acting on a USAF order received on 30 January, the Fifth
Air Force ferried 16 B-26s from Japan to Clark Air Base, where French
markings were painted on the planes prior to their delivery to Tourane
Airfield on 14-16 February. These 16 "Project Market" planes were on loan
to the French, but 22 MDAPB -26swere delivered in January and February and
3 MAP RB-26sarrived in Vietnam in March. (76)
In March and April 1954, French demands for more aircraft became
increasingly desperate. Expedited deliveries to Indochina included 6 H-19
helicopters drawn from Marine units in the Far East, 24 L-20 aircraft from
the USAF inventory, and 12 F-87 aircraft diverted from the Thailand MDAP.
Early in April, French High Commissioner Maurice Dejean told Ambassador
Heath that the French required 18 C-47s "immediately" to cover attrition.
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The Far East Air Forces was directed to provide the planes on loan on 1
April, and they were moved out of itazuke on "Project Green Turnip" and
were in place at Tourane on 9 April. To meet another demand early in %
April, the Far East Air Forces staged an additional 25 B-263 aircraft
("Project Saddle Soap") from Japan to Indochina, again on loan to the
French. With the additional B-26s on hand, the French again requested
that they be authorized a fourth NEAP light bomber squadron. This pro-
posal was turned down until the French could provide flight crews and
maintenance crews, but during June the Far East Air Forces prepared and
delivered 8 B-26C aircraft to the French Air Force in exchange for 8 B-26B
planes that required heavy maintenance. (77)
When he began to request additional aircraft in August 1953, General
Lauzin had mentioned the prospects of getting augmented French personnel
and of using more Vietnamese in support roles. As the added aircraft were
received in the winter of 1953-1954, however, the personnel strength of the
French Far East Air Force rose to only 11,2.41 men (8,145 French and 3,096
indigenous) and the French air units remained approximately one-fourth
understrength in authorized personnel.(78) In France, the United States
Air Force in Europe opened an expedited training program for French 3-26
crews and mechanics, and the French mechanics were scheduled to begin to
reach Indochina in June.(79) To meet this emergency, USAF directed the
Far East Air Forces on 31 January 1954 to use the resources of the Far
East Air Logistics Forces (FEALOGFOR) to establish and man a provisional
maintenance, unit in Vietnam. The directive specified that 200 Air Force
mechanics plus other necessary personnel would be used to perform 0-47 and
B-26 maintenance. Brigadier General Albert G. Hewitt, Commander FEALOGFOR,
reached Saigon on 2 February, where he arranged for the establishment of a
3-26 detachment at Tourane and the 0-47 detachment at Cat Bi. In a highly
classified operation -- first nicknamed nProjec-6 Revere" and later "Duke's
Mixture" -- the provisional FEALOGFOR field maintenance squadron was put
together and airlifted to the operating locations at Tourane and Cat Bi
beginning on 5 February. In a relaxation of security five days later,
President Eisenhower announced that "some airplane mechanics. . MID
would not get touched by combat" htd been sent to Vietnam. President
Eisenhower further stated that these men would be withdrawn not later than
15 June, and the French agreed during March to allocate 450 additional
technicians in relief of the AmeriCan mechanics. While the President's
timing could not be exactly accomplished, the US operating location at Do
Son would be closed on 29 June and the other at Tourane on 17 July 1954.(80)
In an effort to get information relating to the air logistical situation
in Indochina, General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, USAF Chief of Staff, directed the
dispatch of a study mission to be headed by General Hewitt. The Hewitt mis-
sion arrived in Saigon on 29 March 1954 and its report on 6 April was a
thorough coverage of the entire French air logistics situation. While some
of General Hewitt's findings have been noted above, the main theme of his
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report dealt with essential French Air Force deficiencies. He pointed out
that the French Far East Air Force's manpower ceiling (11,241 persons in
March 1954, although the authorized ceiling was still 10,000) was essentially
too small to support a ground force of 182,000 French Union troops. Many of
the ground troops supported were at isolated positions that had to be sup-
plied by air; moreover, the Vietminh had so effectively cut rail and road
communications throughout Indochina that materiel could be moved only by air
or by water shipping. Among other basic difficulties, Hewitt pointed out
that the French Air Force was essentially weak in logistical training,
especially in supply, which had not been a recognized technical specialty for
career development.
These basic deficiencies were further compounded by the situation in Indo-
china. The majority of air supplies were at Bien Hoa Air Depot near Saigon,
while the heavy fighting was in northern Vietnam. Since the French Army was
reluctant to release air transport planes, aviation supplies had to be moved
to the airfields at Tourane, Cat Bi and Do Son by slow water transport. Air
:service stocks were maintained at these airfields, but the poorly trained
stock technicians frequently could not find items that were actually in the
local stocks. Consumption records generally were not kept, and logistical
planners were unable either to calculate and requisition their advance needs
or to keep available maintenance crews assured of a steady flow of work. In
swnnary, greatly varying requirements for flying hours, too-long elapsed
time out-of-commission for periodic maintenance, slow distribution of critical
aircraft supplies, lack of built-up engines on hand at maintenance sites, lag
in delivery of aircraft to maintenance sites and subsequent pick-up, and
inadequate service stocks caused low in-commission rates for B-26s and C-47s.
In April, during the Hewitt visit, the in-commission rate for these French
aircraft was averaging less than 50 percent. Uhile the logistical situation
confronting the French Air Force was very grave, General Hewitt nevertheless
noted that it was improved over what it had been in late 1952 when he had
earlier visited in Indochina.(81)
Dien Bien Phu and the Geneva Conference
At the level of international strategy, the military armistice in Korea
and the augmented American support for the French and Associated States in
Indochina involved a danger that Communist China, which had long provided
support to the Vietminh, would at the least increase its support for the
Vietnamese Communist forces and might send its awn military forces into
Indochina. In an address on 2 September 1953, US Secretary of State John
Foster Dulles warned Red China against sending its forces into Vietnam, as
she had done in Korea. "The Chinese Communist regime," Dulles said, "should
realize that such a second aggression could not occur without grave con-
sequences which might not be confined to Indochina."(82) In a broader
application of this same idea enunciated on 12 January 1954, Dulles let it
be known that aggressors could no longer expect to prescribe battle con-
ditions that suited them. In deterrence of local aggression, Dulles said
that the Eisenhower administration would emphasize a "capacity to retaliate,
instantly, by means and at places of our own choosing." (83)
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Secretary Dulles, statements had particular relevancy to the situation
in Indochina, where the United States wished to contain Communist aggression,
secure the national independence of Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, and was
determined to assist the French in achieving a successful conclusion of the,
Vietminh insurgency, without a unilateral commitment of US combat forces and
without relieving the French of their own responsibilities. (8k) Possibly
intending to act before the Navarre Plan could strengthen the western posi-
tion, Red China proposed on 15 September 1953 a Korean-like peace conference
on Indochina. At this time, a desire for peace was strong in the Associated
States, and France had indicated a willingness for negotiations, but the
Vietminh spurned the idea of negotiations, probably because their military
operations were quite successful.(85) French Foreign Minister Georges Bidault
also recognized that large-scale American aid had been dependent upon his
pledge to the United States on 29 September 1953 that France would cease all
negotiations with Red China and the Vietminh. (86) If negotiations were
eventually necessary, the United States wanted to negotiate from a position
of strength. Secretary Dulles, therefore, Specifically opposed a prior
commitment to negotiate at some fixed future date because he feared that the
Vietminh would redouble their military effort and attempt to achieve a feat
of arms and thus strengthen their diplomatic bargaining power. However, at
quadripartite talks in Berlin, held from 25 January to 18 February between
Dulles, Bidault, Eden, and Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov, Dulles
was over-ridden, and the conferees agreed that the problem of restoring peace
in Indochina would be discussed at.a conference to begin at Geneva on 26 April,
to which representatives of the United States, France, the United Kingdom,
the USSR, Communist China, and other interested states would be invited.(87)
Shaken by the Vietminh invasion of Laos in mid-1953, the French political
and military position in Indochina remained weak in the winter of 1953.-1954.
On the political level, King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia denounced France in
June 1953 for failure to provide defense or carry out its commitments in
Indochina and then fled to Thailand to publicize his criticisms. Seeking to
ease these internal problems on 3 July, the French Government addressed notes
to each of the Associated States, inviting them to enter bilateral discussions
in Paris on the political, military, judicial, and financial issues involved in
completing their independence and sovereignty within the French Union. His-
torically.on better terms with France than the other two states, Laos concluded
a treaty with France on 22 October 1953, whereby She accepted membership in the
French Union and was promised independence and internal sovereignty. Convened
by Bao Dai in October 1953, a Vietnamese National Congress demanded that Vietnam
be given complete independence, after which Vietnam would decide whether it
would join the French Union. In return for concessions including full sovereign
control within Cambodia and control of the Cambodian army, Sihanouk returned
from exile but proved to be in no hurry about accepting any permanent relation-
ship with the French Union.(88)
Under his announced plan, General Navarre expected to start spoiling
attacks against the Vietminh beginning in September 1953 in order to fore-
stall enegy offensives. To this end he expected to operate against the
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flanks and rear of the enemy. Navarre also knew that the French Government
expected him to defend Laos, and the political necessity for this became
more pressing after Laos cemented its relations with the French Union in
October 1953. The activities of the Vietminh in northwest Tonkin had
weakened the hold of the French over Black Thai tribal guerrillas, and it
would be desirable to reestablish French authority in the Black Thai country.
For all of these reasons, Navarre wanted to recapture an appropriate site
in northwest Tonkin and to build a fortified ground-air base there. General
Salan had already pointed out the strategic importance of the plain of Dien
Bien Phu near the Laotian border and astride the main highway leading into
northern Laos. Three paratroop battalions dropped upon the already existing
airstrip at Dien Bien Phu on 20 November 1953, displaced Vietminh forces
without difficulty, and immediately began to fortify the area.(89)
As the French worked to develop an enclave of strength in northwestern
Tonkin, their limited attacks elsewhere failed to close upon the elusive
Vietminh, who again moved out of the central highlands of Vietnam in a
Christmas 1953 offensive that carried all the way through the Laotian pan-
handle to Thakhet on the Mekong River. The need to respond to the mobility
of the Vietminh cut into the mobile reserve that Navarre was attempting to
gather together from dispersed locations, at the same time that the expan-
sion of native Vietnamese forces was giving difficulty. The withdrawal of
experienced Vietnamese troops from existing units to encadre new levies
weakened positions along the southern defenses of the Hanoi perimeter, thus
allowing widespread infiltrations into the Red River delta. Around Dien
Bien Phu, the Vietminh concentrated three divisions and a fourth division,
which thrust at the Laotian capitol of Luang Prabang in January 1954, fell
back and joined the siege at Dien Bien Phu. (90)
The Communist investment of Dien Bien Phu was accompanied by an air-
lifted augmentation of the French and Associated States forces to the air-
head in ahill-surrounded valley. Since the Vietminh controlled all surface
routes into Dien Bien Phu, the defensive garrison was completely dependent
upon airlift from the airfields 150 miles away around Hanoi, and by mid-
January 1954 this air supply effort was requiring 20 C-119 and 50 C-47
sorties each day. In the past, when the Vietminh had possessed no anti-
aircraft artillery, the French had been able to maintain fortified air-ground
bases inside Communist areas, but early in January the French received radio
intercept information indicating that at Son La (which the French had evacuated
and was now in enemy hands) the Vietminh were stockpiling 37-mm antiaircraft
artillery ammunition. At the request of the US Army attache in Saigon, two
Far East Air Forces antiaircraft artillery intelligence experts, Captains
Robert M. Lloyd and Robert W. Hickey, visited Vietnam between 16 January and
5 February. In their briefings Captains Lloyd and Hickey explained the
characteristics of the rapid-firing Soviet-made 37-mm weapons and emphasized
that if such weapons were sited against the limited air -approach zones into
Dien Bien Phu they could have "considerable success" against low-flying
transport aircraft. After close study of the photographs of the enemy .
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positions around Dien Bien Phu and other fragmentary intelligence data,
the two experts concluded that the French had probably over-appraised the
threat to Dien Bien Phu and that the Vietminh had not deployed any 37-mm
weapons. (91) The Far East Forces Intelligence Roundup for February 1954
noted that Vietminh 37-mm weapons would pose little additional threat to
French F8Fs and B-26s but that they would considerably increase the
hazard to slow-flying French transport aircraft.(92)
At Far East Air Forces Headquarters in Tokyo, the FEAF Commander General
Otto P. Weyland, already believed in January 1954 that the United States was
getting over-committed in Indochina, possibly because high-level American
officials were too largely influenced by high French officials and French-
selected Vietnamese. Weyland did not like the creeping involvement of FEAT
in support of the French, with no straight-forward policy. As a matter of
fact, he wanted the United States to give the French adequate MMAP funding
so that they could prosecute the war and let the French bear full responsi-
bility for its outcome. He specifically recommended that the French use
MDAP funds for contract maintenance of their aircraft rather than rely upon
FEAT detachments. (93) While General Weyland did not presume to be an expert
on Indochina, he made a trip there early in February 1954 that left him with
the overall impression that the problem there was "primarily political and
psychological.? He observed that the Vietnamese thoroughly disliked the
French and that Vietnamese troops serving under French officers did not per-
form very, well. He was particularly impressed with the fact that Vietnamese
laborers who worked at the Hanoi airfields by day might well be joining the
Vietminh in depredations at night. (9L.)
In Washington President Eisenhower was apprehensive about the prospects
of troops invested in an isolated fortress, and he had the State and Defense
Departments communicate his concern to the French.(95) General Navarre,
however, was more optimistic. His advisers, citing their studies in col-
laboration with the American antiaircraft artillery experts, told him that
the Vietminh would have great difficulty in bringing in and siting 37-mm
weapons, that such weapons could be neutralized by counter-battery fire,
and that flight approaches and drop zones could be so arranged as to mitigate
the weapons and continue air resupply withoutexcessive losses.(96)
According to Navarre, the French Minister for Defense Rene Pleven and Lt
General Paul H. R. Ely, Chief of Staff of the French Armed Forces, were
impressed with the strength of Dien Bien Phu when they visited there in
February. Navarre also said that General O'Daniel voiced enthusiasm for the
organization of the fortress after making a personal inspection. In addi-
tion to its key location, the investment of Dien Bien Phu was consuming the
large part of the Vietminh military forces and, if the Communists attenpted
to storm the fortress, the Frenoh defenses could expect to inflict heavy
casualties on the enemy in a set-piece battle.(97) While General Navarre
would not have known of such assessments, two USAF assistant air attaches
who returned from duty in Saigon early in 1954 expressed the belief that
the Vietminh had no antiaircraft artillery-since a French raid on Vietminh
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supply dumps near the border north of Hanoi at Lang Son had not disclosed
a single antiaircraft weapon or shell.(98) In March 1954 one of the top
ranking officers in the USAF Directorate of Intelligence, could only con-
clude that Ho Chi Minh was "stupid" to attack Dien Bien Phu and decimate
his forces when the Vietminh "hit and run" tactics had been so much more
effective. (99)
In the Indochina War the Vietminh had not had the artillery firepower
that they required to break through major French defenses, but, unknown to
General Navarre, the Chinese Communists had been training and equipping
Vietminh artillery and flak forces. In preparation for the assault on Dien
Bien Phu, the Communists brought in disassembled weapons on the back of
human carriers, assembled the weapons, and carefully emplaced them in dug
out positions concealed by heavy vegetation. The French Air Force was
using infra-red photography in an effort to ferret out Communist activities
and this photography was effective against artificial camouflage, but the
Communists very seldom disturbed the natural jungle canopy. Artillery
pieces included 75- and 105-mm guns (the latter of American manufacture)
and the antiaircraft order of battle was built around Soviet-made 37-mm
automatic weapons and 12.7-mm heavy machine guns. In addition to these
weapons, the Vietminh were well equipped with heavy mortars. As the siege
progressed, the Communists brought in additional 105-mm guns and several
Katyusha rocket launcher batteries. According to US air attache figures,
the probable Vietminh antiaircraft defense deployed around Dien Bien Phu
included 57 x 12.7-mm machine guns organic to the four Vietminh divisions
and two separate antiaircraft battalions, each possessing 121L37-mm auto-
matic weapons and 18 x 12.7-mm machine guns. There were some reports that
the 37-mm weapons were radar directed, but the air attache report believed
these reports in error and suggested that well-trained weapons crews aimed
and tracked only by sound and sight. To provide support the Communists
opened a 100-mile road route to their major depot at Lao Cai on the Chinese
border and were able to provide resupply needed to maintain a high rate of
fire for theLr artillery. While the new artillery units were nominally
Vietnamese, Chinese Communists advisors were very numerous and may have
operated the artillery batteries. Chinese technicians also installed and
maintained an extensive Vietminh field telephone net in the battle area,
and Chinese Army personnel probably operated the fleet of 1,000 trucks used
for Vietminh supply, about one-half of which arrived from Red China after
early March.(100)
The harbinger of the impending battle for Dien Bien Phu may have been
guerrilla attacks against Gia Lam and Cat Bi airfields. Using plastic
explosives, Vietminh infiltrations damaged or destroyed 10 civil transport
aircraft at Gia Lam on the night of 3-4 March. On the night of 6-7 March,
some hundred guerrillas raided Cat Bi, destroying a B-26 and 6 Criquets,
and damaging three other B-26s.(101) The attack against Cat Bi appeared
intended to destroy the C-119s parked there, but extra security guards
had been posted and only one C-119 received minor shrapnel. holes. (102)
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On 10 March secretly emplaced Communist guns began harassing fire
against Dien Bien Phu's two airstrips, and at nightfall on 13 March the
Vietminh launched massed attacks against French hill-position outposts.
Both sides lost heavily in fightihg of unprecedented fury. The Vietminh
suffered the heavier casualties, and the French replaced their losses by
dropping two paratroop battalions into Dien Bien Phu on 14 and 16 March.
But the Vietminh retained their hold on the hills surrounding Dien Bien
Phu and sent plunging artillery fire down on the garrison and airstrips.
All French air units -- including the French Air Force, naval aviators
from the carrier Arromanches, and naval patrol airmen flying PB4Y-2
Privateer bombers from Cat Bi -- contributed to the ground support at
Dien Bien Phu, which averaged 43 sorties a day in the week of 11-17 March.
Both in the air and on the ground, the French lost more aircraft in this
week than in any similar period of time up until then. On 14 March,
Communist gunners closed the principal airstrip at Dien Bien Phu and then
proceeded to chop up some 7 F-8F8, 2 C-47s, 1 0-119, 4 Criquets, and 2
H-19B helicopters caught on the ground. The 0-119 had been grounded after
a mechanical failure several days earlier. On 14 March, Communist anti-
aircraft fire scored on a B-26 which crashed on landing at Cat Bi, and on
the following day Red gunners shot down an F-6F and an F-8F. In the week,
Communist flak also damaged 3 F-8Fs, 1 Criquet, and 1 C-119, the latter
receiving a 37-mm hit in its wing. For two weeks, C-47s and smaller planes
would be able to sneak into Dien Bien Phu at night to evacuate casualties,
but the last air ambulance to attempt such a mission was destroyed by
Communist 'artillery on 28 Mhrch.(103)
After 13 March air landings of supplies and replacements were no longer
possible, and the 170 tons of ammunition and 30 tons of food required each
day to sustain the garrison at Dien Bien Phu had to be dropped from the air
into zones which became smaller with each Communist advance. All military
air transport aircraft including the US C-119s were committed to the air
resupply effort. High altitude drops (8,000-10,000 feet) resulted in much
of the cargo landing in enemy hands, and the expenditure of parachutes and
other drop equipment so nearly depleted USAF stocks in Japan that emergency
shipments had to be made from the United States. Parachuted drops from
3,000-4,000 feet would have been more effective, but the air transport
capability could not stand the losses arid damages from the 37-mm weapons
at such an altitude, and the decision was made to lose supplies rather than
the planes and their crews.(104). While the aircrews estimated that one-half
of the supplies they dropped fell into enemy hands, French Foreign Legion
soldiers who had been at Dien Bien Phu believed that the enemy recovered and
use fully two-thirds of the supplies dropped. (l0)
During Vietminh attacks the French fighters and light bombers gave
direct support to their fellow troops on the ground, and at other times
the tactical aircraft attacked lietminh artillery and flak positions. The
fighters commonly dive bombed with bomb releases at 4,000 feet, and flights
of two to three B-26s made low-1eve1 (8 to 1,200 feet) bomb runs. The
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French also used PB4Y-2 patrol bombers in single-ship level bomb runs from
10,000-12,000 foot altitudes. In the early days of the battle at Dien Bien
Phu, French C-47s dropped napalm against suspected Red positions. Forced
to attack from higher and safer altitudes, the French aircraft had greater
difficulty locating and hitting the dispersed, dug-in, and carefully
camouflaged Red artillery positions. Napalm, which had been so effective
in the rice paddies of the Red River delta, made little impression against
the canopied and rain-soaked forest cover on the hills around Dien Bien Phu.
Communist ground-to-air fire was especially effective against French air-
craft in the early stages of the battle for Dien Bien Phu when attacking
pilots were incautious and used stereotyped tactics.(106) After these
initial losses, however, Americaaobservers reported that the French apparently
decided to conserve aircraft at the expense of combat effectiveness.(107)
The increasingly serious situation at Dien Bien Phu was reflected in
developments at Paris and Washington. At a meeting of the French Council
of National Defense in Paris on 11 March 1954, Defense Minister Pleven and
Foreign Minister Bidault agreed to send General Ely to Washington on an
information mission, which, among other matters, would seek to ascertain
what the United states would do if Communist China eqployed its air force
against the French Expeditionary Forces in Indochina. Before Ely could
leave Paris, the surprisingly strong Vietminh attack against Dien Bien Phu
made it evident that the French were in trouble. In a memorandum on 19
March, Air Force Vice Chief of Staff General Thomas D. White directed the
Air Staff to examine as a matter of priority the capabilities of air forces
to resolve the military problem in Indochina and to present conclusions on
the subject of employing air force units there. Concerned with talk about
employing US combat air and naval forces in support of the French, General
Matthew B. Ridgway, Army Chief of Staff, sent a team of army experts to
Vietnam to examine all factors that would need to be known in case American
ground forces had to be deployed there. Since President Eisenhower also
felt a need to get military information and judgment from sources in which
he had utmost confidence, he ordered that General O'Daniel, then in Indo-
china on a tenporary basis, be designated as Chief of the MAAG at Saigon.(108)
Earlier in the spring of 1954, well before the crisis at Dien Bien Phu,
President Eisenhower had decided that any, prospective US military inter-
vention in Indochina must be based upon a legal right under international
law, a favorable climate of free world opinion, and favorable action by
Congress. Since he considered that there were adequate ground forces in
Indochina, he had told his associates that he could see no value to putting
US ground forces into Southeast Asia. President Eisenhower had reservations
about employing US air strikes in support of the French, and he was not
willing to consider these at all unless a coalition of powers including the
British and French would give moral meaning to the intervention. (109)
Following his arrival in Washington on 20 March, General Ely held con-
versations with President Eisenhower, Secretary Dulles, and the Chairman of
the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Arthur W. Radford. Apparently, General
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Ely did not completely understand the exact positions of the American leaders.
When Ely and Radford met with President Eisenhower, Eisenhower directed
Radford to give the French whatever they requested with priority. In view of
his previously stated position, President Eisenhower was speaking of logis-
tical assistance, but Ely had the impression that there was no limit to the
offer. In a meeting with the Secretary Of State, Dulles would not answer
Ely's question of what the United States would do in the event of a Chinese
Communist air attack, but Dulles said that overt US participation in the war
would call for a better partnership than had prevailed with the French in the
past, notably a willingness on the part of France to give independence tothe
Associated States and to work cooperatively to expand the training of indigenous
forces. In a number of talks with Admiral Radford, Ely was introduced to the
possibility of direct US intervention against the Vietminh forces surrounding
Dien Bien Phu with a force of 60 B-29 bombers, escorted by 150 carrier air-
craft of the US Seventh Fleet. General Ely reported the possibility of the
American air strike -- soon nicknamed "Operation Vulture" -- to the French
government, which on 29 March dispatched an officer to Vietnam to determine
from General Navarre whether American intervention would be necessary to save
Dien Bien Phu.(110)
While the French pondered the possibility of American combat assistance,
the battle for Dien Bien Phu entered a new stage. The Vietminh launched new
massed attacks on the evening of 30 March, but French counterattacks met the
assault with limited success. Taking advantage of a lessening tempo of
Vietminh activity on 2-3 April, the French Union forces reinforced and
adjusted their defenses enough to withstand another major Vietminh assault
on the night of 4-5 April. The Communists were taking extremely heavy
casualties: replacements employed on 4-5 April were young and poorly trained.
(111) In Hanoi on 1-2 April, General Navarre heard the Paris emissary,
Colonel Raymond Brohon, on the possible American air strike and, for the
moment, doubted its advisability because he feared that it might trigger
avert Chinese Communist intervention. (112) On the night of 3-4 April, how-
ever, Navarre reconsidered his position and messaged General Ely that the
intervention of which Colonel Brohon had spoken "may have a decisive effect
particularly if it comes before the Viet-Minh assault ."(113) In Paris on 3
April, the French Government asked the United States to fly two battalions
of paratroopers from France to Vietnam, beginning in about two weeks. Before
the day ended this was approved and 15 April was specified as the date for
the first airlift. (lib) At midnight on 4-5 April, French Premier Joseph
Laniel explained the situation at Dien Bien Phu to US Ambassador Douglas
Dillon and indicated that only American heavy bombers could destroy the
Vietminh artillery around the besieged French forces. (115) Such strikes
could be flown by American airmen, or, on the other hand, the French Govern-
ment asked the United States to consider the immediate loan of 10-20 B-29s
to France, to be maintained by the USAF and flown by French aircrews. (116)
In earlier references to Southeast Asia, Secretary Dulles had spoken
of the determination of the United states to resist overt Chinese Communist
aggression, but in a speech to the Overseas Press Club in Washington on
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29 March he expressed strong opposition to the extension of Communism into
Southeast Asia by "whatever means" and noted that the United States felt
that this "should be met by united action."(117) This being stronger
language than Dulles had previously used, British Foreign Minister Anthony
Eden wanted to be sure that Dulles meant what he appeared to say: Eden
though it important not to encourage the French by offers of limited military
assistance that could not succeed. Accordingly, on 1 April, the British
Ambassador informed Dulles that his government believed that the French situa-
tion in Indochina might be beyond salvage and that it was important not to
jeopardize the forthcoming negotiations at Geneva.(118)
After a discussion with President Eisenhower and acting at his direction,
Secretary Dulles, Admiral Radford, and Deputy Secretary of Defense Roger
lyes briefed the Indochina situation to a selected group of Congressional
leaders on 3 April. The group included Senators Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard
Russell, FArl Clements, Eugene Millikan, and William &lowland, and
Representatives Joseph Martin, John W. McCormack, and J. Percy Priest.
From the discussion it became clear that Congress would not support unilateral
US intervention in Indochina. Instead, Congressional support would be con-
tingent upon three conditions: intervention must include a united action of
Southeast Asian nations and the United Kingdom; the French would have to grant
complete independence to the Associated States; the French must agree not to
remove their forces when the other nations entered the conflict.(119)
Since Congressional support for US air and naval assistance to France was
now largely contingent upon a British alignment, President Eisenhower wrote
Prime Minister Winston Churchill a personal letter on 4 April seeking united
action. Three days later Churchill responded with little enthusiasm for the
Eisenhower proposal. (120) In testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Com-
mittee on 5 April, Secretary Dulles revealed the extent of Communist Chinese
activity around Dien Bien Phu and warned that the Red Chinese were ?coming
awfully close" to overt military intervention, which President Eisenhower
would not countenanae.(121) On 6 April, however, the United States informed
France of the developments which would be necessary prior to a direct US
intervention in Vietnam.(122) On this same day, the USAF recommended against
lending 10-20 B-29 aircraft to the French: the planes would have to be flown
from Clark Air Base; the French had little ability to operate B-293 and none
to support them; and the large bombers probably would be ineffective against
tactical targets existing in Indochina. (123) On 7 April, General Navarre also
informed Paris that he did not have the capability to man borrowed B729s with
flight crews and he posed the additional objection that, in the absence of
fighter escort, the Communist Chinese might send in MIGs and shoot down the
B-29s.(124)
In the Far East, American officers sought to provide maximum logistical
support to the French together with as much advice on the employment of
weapons as very sensitive French commanders would accept. Prepared as a
background input to USAF planning, a Far East Air Forces staff study completed
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on 13 April was not very optimistic. This study noted that the French were
still following their "arrogant" colonial policy in Indochina, which had so
alienated native loyalties as to make a military solution in Vietnam prob-
ably impossible. Even so, rigid French ceilings on military manpower and
reluctance to develop native forces had prevented what hope there might be
to deal with the Vietminh. The French had not fully exploited the military
power of airplanes, and as a result the French air force was insufficient to
meet combat requirements at Dien Bien Phu, where the situation demanded
interdiction of Vietminh supply routes leading to the area plus effective air
strikes against the Vietminh concentrations ringing the fortress. (125)
Despite the basic misgiving arising from the eroded political situation
in Vietnam, both General Weyland and General Earle E. Partridge, who relieved
Weyland in command of the Far East Air Forces on 26 March 1954, attempted to
provide as much support as possible to the French air effort in relief of
Dien Bien Phu. Eager for more aerial firepower against the Vietminh siege
forces, the French high command on 18 March asked permission to use the 0-119
transport aircraft that it had on loan from the Far East Air Forces to make
drops of napalm upon the Communists, The French intended to fly such mis-
sions on moonlight nights. In January, General yland had ruled that the
C-119s would be used only for air transport. In response to the new emergency,
Wayland advised the French to use B.-26 combat aircraft for massed napalm
drops, stated that tests of C-119s for dropping napalm during the Korean War
had shown them too vulnerable for such work, but he nevertheless agreed that
he would not attempt to prohibit the French from using the aircraft on napalm
missions if such was believed necessary. (126) On 23 March, a C-119 loaded
with 4,000 gallons of drummed napalm crashed while attempting to take off at
Cat Bi and was damaged beyond repair, The French nevertheless continued to
use 0-119 napalm drops around Dien Bien Phu during March and April and good
results were reported, better than FEAFs tests in Korea had shown. (127)
Implementing General Partridge's emphatic policy that "full, prompt, and
effective" ammunition support should be provided to the French, the Far East
Air Forces made air shipments of paraflares and white phosphorous bombs to
Vietnam, while large Shipments of heavier ordnance went by surface vessel
from Korea and Okinawa. (128) Early- in April, FEAF staff officers also called
the attention of Major General Jacob E. Smart, Deputy for Operations, to the
fact that FEAF had a large quantity of Hail or Lazy Dog munitions on hand,
which had been manufactured for anti-personnel attacks during the Korean War
but had never been used in combat. Each of these missiles was a small finned
bullet, and 11,200 of them could be packed into a cluster adapter about the
size and weight of a 500-lb bomb. The recommended tactic was to drop the
clusters from 15,000 feet and burst them at 5,000 feet, allowing the finned
bullets to attain a lethal velocity by the time they hit the ground. Con-
ventional trenches and foxholes would provide no protection against the
vertical trajectory of the finned bullet. (129) On 7 April, General Smart
offered to provide Hail missiles to the French, provided they were to be
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used in relief of Dien Bien Phu under observation of FEAF officers. When
the French accepted the conditions, 500 cluster adapters and 5 million of
the finned bullets arrived at the port of Haiphong on 16 April. Lt Colonel
William B. Sanders and Major Robert V. Prouty arrived at Saigon on 19
April, and, pending the unloading of the bombs, visited Hanoi and Cat Bi
to explain their operational employment. (130)
The munitions ship carrying the Hail missiles was delayed getting
berthing space at Haiphong and did not unload until 23 April. When the ship-
ment was unpacked, about half of the missiles were corroded and many had
damaged fins that affected their ballistic flight. Although the FEAF observers
recommended that the missiles be employed in a fairly large strike against
personnel, the French preferred to use them against antiaircraft artillery
batteries. Four PB4Y-2 aircraft, each carrying 12 cluster units, opened
the attack on 26 April and through 2 May, the PB4Y-2s dropped 228 of the
units and B-26s dropped 132. Colonel Sanders and Major Prouty were not
able to get any concrete evaluation of the effectiveness of the missiles.
The French, however, were happy with circumstantial evidence. On 30 April
and I May the missile bombs were emp1o7ed extensively in support of air-
resupply missions, and on these dates -,he C-119s eperienced less anti-
aircraft fire than usual. In addition, the Vietminh were observed
dispersing their antiaircraft batteries. On this basis, the French requested
new shipments of the Hail missiles. In his formal report, Colonel Sanders
stated that "the finned bullet attacks were successful but only due to
volume rather than good delivery tactics."(131) Later on, same of the sur-
vivors from Dien Bien Phu reported that their Vieminh captors had questioned
them about the Hail missiles, and one repatriated French officer stated that
the "cigar Shaped pellets" were very effective against the Vietminh.(132)
In an effort to get a better firsthand understanding of the situation in
Indochina, Generals Partridge and Smart visited Vietnam from 14 through 18
April and conferred with General Navarre at Hanoi before returning to Japan.
While enroute homewards, Partridge radioed Brigadier General Joseph D.
Caldera, Commander, PEA' Bomber Command (Provisional), to meet him at Haneda
Air Base at Tokyo when his plane touched down there. Here Partridge told
Caldera that Navarre had asked for supporting air strikes. Partridge
instructed Caldera to go to Vietnam and confer with the French. Partridge
specifically enjoined that Caldera would have complete operational control
over any operation flown by his 3-29 bombers and that the bomber force would
be employed as a total unit under mass-strike conditions. At this juncture,
Caldera had available for combat the 98th Bombardment Wing with 32 B-29s at
Yokota Air Base in Japan and the 19th and 307th Bombardment Wings with 67
B-29s at Kadena Air Base on Okinawa.(133)
Traveling with selected members of his staff in a B-17 rather than a
3-29 to avoid an appearance of action on the part of the FEAF Bomber Command,
General Caldera left Japan on 19 April and went directly to Saigon where he
reported to Robert McClintock, the Charge d'Affaires at the American Embassy.
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The Bomber Command staff was quartered at a downtown Saigon hotel, but
only Caldera participated with McClintock and French officials in con-
versations at the Governor General's palace. On the basis of intelligence
briefings and personal flights over Dien Bien Phu, General Caldera and his
staff prepared a plan to fly a maximum effort strike with 1/10-second
delay fused 500-pound general purpose bombs against the enemy forces who
were lightly dug in around Dien Bien Phu. "The bombing raid," Caldera
would reminisce, "could have effectively destroyed the entire enemy force
surrounding Dien Bien Phu." According to General Navarre, the Caldera
saturation-bombing plan required ground-based radar guidance, which could
not be provided. Thus a mass strike so close to the entrenched can was
out of the question, although Navarre indicated that he would have welcomed
an American air strike against the major Vietminh supply base at Tuan Giao,
the road-junction town about 50 miles northeast of Dien Bien Phu. In his
recollection of this actions and conversations, General Caldera noted that
General Navarre repeatedly requested information as to whether the B-29s
could destroy the hostile antiairc&ft capability around Dien Bien Phu.
Caldera also made a personal aerial'reconnaissance of the enemy supply
lines from Dien Bien Phu to the Chihese border and presented targets to
the French. He recalled that in Hanoi he discovered that the French
possessed more fighter-bombers and light bombers than were being used on
any given day, and that Brigadier General Jean Dechaux, the Commander of
the Northern Area tactical air force, told him that the French air force was
restricted as to the number of aircraft it could commit to a given strike.(134)
During the same period that General Caldera was beginning his operational
survey in Vietnam, Secretary Dulles had arrived in Paris and was told on 19
April by Minister Bidault and General Ely that the situation at Dien
Bien Phu was "virtually hopeless" and could not be saved except by massive
US air intervention. Dulles suggested that Navarre and 01Eaniel ought to
hold an emergency consultation. Or 23 April, however, in response to a request
from Navarre to Paris that Operation Vulture be flown, Dulles told Bidault
that B-29 intervention seemed out of the question under the -casting circum-
stances. Dulles conferred with Admiral Radford on the matter when Radford
arrived in Paris on the evening of 24 April. They both now comidered the
time to be too late for American support to be provided at Dien Bien Phu,
but, as will be seen, their discussions with the French and British involved
new allied policy to follow a French defeat in northwest Tonkin.(135)
In Vietnam, General Caldera did not consider that he had been able to
arrive at a meeting of minds with the French that would permit him to follow
his instructions and enploy the Far East Air Forces Bomber Command as a mass-
strike force. He so informed General Partridge, who directed him to return
to Bomber Command headquarters in Japan, which he did on 28 April. (136)
Interestingly enough, Caldera did not learn for many years that the proposed
B-29 operation was called "Operation Vulture." He thought this to be "a
helluva name for Smokey Joe f5aldera7 and his Fearless Flyers in the FEAF
Bomber Command."(137)
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Although American combat air intervention was ruled out, there was
still some hope for continued French resistance at Dien Bien Phu if the
embattled garrison could be effectively reinforced and if its aerial sup-
ply could be maintained. The arrival of the French paratroopers from
France who were being flown to Vietnam by USAF aircraft would permit
release of experienced paratroop battalions held in reserve at Hanoi.
Actually though, such reinforcement of Dien Bien Phu, as well as the dis-
patch of relief columns eastward from Laos, depended upon air transport
supply. If the air transport planes could not buildupsupplies at Dien
Bien Phu, reinforcements would be of little value. The thrust of Foreign
Legion and Laotian troops from Northern Laos to Dien Bien Phu -- called
Operation Condor -- would require air resupply whenit moved out eastward
on 21 April.
Alerted on 3 April for "Project Bali-Hai" -- the air movement of French
paratroopers and some additional naval personnel to Vietnam -- the United
States Air Force in Europe initially planned to accomplish the task with
C-119 aircraft belonging to its 322d Air Division (Combat Cargo). These
plans failed on 6 April when Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru refused to
permit aircraft flight over India with French troops, even though the
troops would be unarmed and dressed in civilian clothes. Because of
longer distances between way stations, USAF directed the 62d Troop Carrier
Wing to deploy C-124 aircraft from Larson Air Force Base, Washington, and
perform the airlift. On 20 April, 6 C-124s picked up 514 passengers at
Paris and Tunis and made the trip to Vietnam, with refueling stops at
Tripoli, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Ceylon, and Thailand. The planes
unloaded at Tourane on 23-24 April. The second lift of 5 C-124s departed
Marseilles with 452 passengers on 5 May and followed the same route except
for overflying Dhahran, since King Ibn Saud had been angered by French-Arab
relations in North Africa and would not allow a landing. The second lift
arrived at Tourane on 8-9 May. All of the aircraft made the flights without
incident, but the reouirement to by-pass India necessitated a long and
hazardous over-water flight from Ceylon to Bangkok via the Nicobar Islands,
passing south of the southern tip of Burma. (13t1)
Anticipating the arrival of the additional troops from France, General
0T Daniel outlined a plan for the relief of Dien Bien Phu that would have
used forces held in reserve in the Hanoi perimeter. He visualized a para-
drop of three battalions at Dien Bien Phu plus an attack out of the Hanoi
perimeter to Dien Bien Phu by armored groups and mechanized infantry.
Because of Navarre's sensitivity to American advice, O'Daniel gave the
plan to Mr. McClintock, who presented it to Commissioner DeJean. While
the plan was considered, it was not accepted.(139) On 26 April, however,
Navarre turned down a similar plan offered by Major General Rene Cogny,
the commander at Hanoi, on the grounds that an operation from the perimeter
would be too far distant from Dien Bien Phu, would deprive the Red River
delta of needed defense and would drain the airlift capabilities required
to sustain Dien Bien Phu.(140)
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The arrival of the reinforcenents did permit General Navarre to drop
small increments of the 1st Colonial Parachute Battalion into Dien Bien
Phu on the nights of 3-5 May, but another planned troop drop in support
of the Condor force had to be cancelled because of the scarcity of airlift.
During April and early May, both French combat aircraft and air transport
planes were vitally required. at Dien Bien Phu, but they were operating
under severe restrictions of adverse weather, terrain, and hostile ground
fire. Except for French carrier-based fighters, both the combat aircraft
and the transport planes operated from the Hanoi area and were affected by
weather there as well as over Dien Bien Phu. In early May, the "Cat Paw"
detachment of the 483d Troop Carrier Wing which maintained the C-119s at
Cat Bi Airfield had secured a Ground Control Approach (GCA) radar, but it
would not be installed, and weather operations by relatively undisciplined
pilots in the Hanoi area would often be hazardous. "The French," one
American observer noted, "are not very well disciplined in air traffic
control. They will navigate to a: homer and descend at each individual's
discretion without consideration of lateral or vertical separation."(141)
Air operations in the vicinity of Dien Bien Phu were under the nominal
direction of an ir controller insthe garrison there, but General Hewitt
reported that the scheduling of planes into the area tended to be sporadic,
causing times of very heavy congestion both of the air and of radio
frequencies and other periods of very light activity. (l1.2)
The combination of well-trained Communist antiaircraft artillery per-
sonnel admirably sited in terrain which channelized air approaches to the
drop zone at Dien Bien Phu effected growing destruction to French aircraft.
As the Communists trenched closer-to the French positions, the drop zone
shrank to a diameter of about 2,000 yards by late April. Communist anti-
aircraft weapons sited on the high ridges on each side of the drop zone
could catch aircraft flying through "the slot" at Dien Bien Phu in a
murderous cross fire. To escape the flak, French C-47s commonly dropped
parabundles from 10,000 feet, a safe altitude in that the C-47s might have
to make several passes over the target before their complete loads could
be kicked out. In deference to the ground fire, the C-119s raised their
drop altitude to 5,000 feet, from which altitude they dumped their loads
quickly in a single pass. The CAT-pilots were not entirely safe from flak
at this height; they also complained that French C-47s dropped parabundles
through their flights and that escorting flak suppression aircraft were
known to drop bombs through their formations. These were hazardous condi-
tions for civilian crews, whose contracts did not call for flights into
active combat areas. (1/13) In an effort to increase dropping accuracy from
8,000-10,000 feet, French airborne technicians devised a procedure whereby
a reefing line was used to hobble a cargo parachute until it neared the
ground, at which time an explosive time-delay fuse cut the reefing line and
allowed the parachute to deploy. Since the device appeared to work, the
detachment of the US Army 8081st Quartermaster Airborne Supply and Packaging
Company, which loaded the C-119s at Cat Bi adopted the parachute delay
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apparatus and used it on all C-119 air drops during the last two weeks of
the Dien Bien Phu campaign. (144) With the device, C-119 crews claimed that
they could put cargo pallets in a 330 yard square from 10,000 feet, but the
official French supply report from Dien Bien Phu noted that the device was
disastrous ? on 27 April when only one-third of C-119 supplies could be
retrieved. (1145)
Among cargo-dropping aircrews -- both French and American -- there Was
general agreement that escorting flak suppression flights operated too high
to be effective and were not infrequently absent when the air transports
needed them. (146) In April 483d Troop Carrier Wing records showed that 19
C-119s received flak damage (major damage in 9 cases) while flying 477
sorties to deliver 7,868 tons of supplies toDien Bien Phn0(147) On 24 -April,
CAT-pilot Paul Holden was badly injured by 37-mm fragments, whereupon his
fellow civilian pilots refused to fly to Dien Bien Phu again until they
received adequate combat air support. (i18) Arrangements were made for
French military pilots to man the vacant C-119 pilot seats, but on 26
April Red flak shot down an F-6F and two B-26s. In view of the situation,
General Lauzin assigned an absolute priority to flak suppression missions,
at the epense of close air support strikes for the Dien Bien Phu defenders
and interdiction of Vietminh supply lines.(149)
Accompanied by very heavy flak suppression efforts including a heavy
concentration of Hail missiles, the GAT pilots returned to their C-119s on
30 April, and aerial resupply went well during this and the following two
days. Heavy rains from monsoon clouds then greatly reduced aerial supply
on 3-5 May, but on 6 May both flak suppression flights and transport sorties
were flown in an intensive effort. Throughout the morning, Communist gun
positions were either neutralized or elected to avoid revealing their posi-
tions, but in the late afternoon 37-mm guns opened up to score hits on a
C-119 and to shoot down another C-119, flown by a legendary CAT pilot --
James B. McGovern, or "Earthquake McGoon" as he had come to be known in the
Far East in deference to his huge size and bushy black beard. A Fourteenth
Air Force fighter pilot in World War II, McGovern had remained in Asia with
the Civil Air Transport Company and now died in the C-119 crash. (150)
With the delivery of 196 tons of supplies on 6 May, the Dien Bien Phu
garrison was in better shpe, although the heavy delivery did not compensate
for a nuMber of poor supply days in the preceding two weeks. As it hap-
pened, however, the supply delivery on 6 May was not too important since
Ho Chi Minh had given the order for a final assault to begin on the evening
of that day. From its contacts within the close circle of Ho Chi Minh's
advisors, French intelligence was able to inform the Dien Bien Phu garrison
that the assault was coming. But in the preceding month the Vietminh divi-
sions had tunnelled closer and closer and were in good position for an all-
out assault. At 1730 hours on 6 May the Vietminh began a heavy artillery
barrage, which was followed by massed infantry attacks. The Vietminh
advanced without regard to casualties. At about noon on 7 May, the Vietminh
308th Division broke into the heart of the French defenses, and the battle
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was over by that evening. According to French statistics as of 5 May, the
French Union forces had sustained 8221 casualties at Dien Bien Phu since
November 1953 and the garrison on 5 May numbered 8,158 men. An unknown
number of the French troops were killed in the last fighting; 885 wounded
men were turned over to the French for repatriation; some men escaped; and
about 7,000 men were kept by the Vietminh as prisoners of war. In the
campaign the Vietminh lost 7,900 killed and an estimated 15,000 wounded.
(151) While the Vietminh had suffered heavier personnel casualties than
the French, Ho Chi Minh had scored a major political victory which was
obviously timed to coincide with the beginnings of negotiations in Geneva.
During March and April 1954, while attention was given to expedited
actions that might assist the French at Dien Bien Phu, the main thrust of
US military planning was concerned With a larger question of more extensive
intervention in Indochina that would be required to meet an overt Chinese
Communist aggression. The preparation of such contingency plans had to be
based upon background studies which evaluated environmental factors, out-
lined force requirements, and considered necessary command arrangements.
As directed on 19 March, the USAF Directorate of Plans assembled a
task force of representatives from the Air Staff, the Tactical Air Command,
and the Air Training Command, who on 19 April completed a study of the
capabilities of air forces to affect military operations in Indochina. This
study offered the general conclusion that airpower could contribute to the
efforts of friendly surface forces in a war confined to the geographical
boundaries of Indochina, but that it would be seriously limited in its
effectiveness by the character of the enemy operations, the terrain, the
weather, the lack of a will to fight on the part of the indigenous popula-
tion, the general scarcity df good air targets, and of target information.
It further concluded that in the event of Chinese Communist intervention,
air attacks could be progressively directed against mainland China's lines
of communication and ultimately against her economic, governmental, military,
and urban centers. While lacking in much essential detail, the study was
not too optimistic about air intervention within Indochina. (152)
While this Air Force study was in progress, Major General James M.
Gavin, Assistant Chief of Staff for Plans and Operations, US Army, headed
the team of Army experts that General Ridgway dispatched to Southeast Asia.
Members of this team visited Taiwan, Saigon, and Thailand, and the team
report envisioned that some eight US divisions, plus some 35 engineer
battalions, would be required to fight in the Hanoi delta and possibly to
seize Red China's Hainan Island, which flanked the Tonkin seacoast. Logis-
tical support requirements in Southeast Asia would be tremendous since the
area lacked good ports, airfields, land communications, and air facilities.
Based upon the team's findings, Gavin concluded: ulimle finally decided when
we were all through what we were talking about doing was going to war with
Red China under conditions that were appallingly disadvantageous." General
Ridgway passed the Army report up to President Eisenhower, and he believed
that the report had a considerable effect upon the President.(153)
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The preparation DI' contingency plans required new studies of the
American theater command arrangements in the Pacific-Far East. In 1950
the US Far East Command with headquarters in Tokyo had been responsible
for US security interests throughout East Asia, but in 1951 and 1952 the
Far East Command's area of responsibility was reduced to include the
Ryukyu Islands, Japan, Korea, and Mainland China north of the 32d Parallel.
Other areas of the Pacific-Far East, including Southeast Asia and Mainland
China south of the 32d Parallel were then assigned to the US Pacific Com-
mand, with headquarters in Hawaii. The Air Force did not have enough
tactical air unit strength to organize a separate theater air force in each
of the theaters. Accordingly, all tactical air units and air facilities in
East Asia continued to be under the Far East Air Forces. Since no tactical
air force units were assigned to the Pacific Command and in view of stringent
personnel limitations, the Air Force did not organize a theater air force
headquarters under the Commander-in-Chief Pacific (CINCPAC) but instead gave
the senior Air Force officer located on Hawaii (who happened to be the com-
mander of the Military Air Transport Service's Pacific Division) additional
duty as Commander, US Air Force Pacific (COMUSAFPAC). Without a staff or
units to command, COMUSAFPAC was unable to take part in any operational
planning generated by CINCPAC.(154) Upon repeated recommendations from
CINCPAC, the Joint Chiefs of Staff directed on 31 March 1954 that the Air
Force would established a Headquarters, Pacific Air Force, at Hickam Air
Force Base. While Commander, Pacific Air Force was to be directly responsible
to CINCPAC, the Joint Chiefs stated that he would act as a subordinate com-
mander to Commander, Far East Air Forces on matters pertaining solely to the
United States Air Force.(155)
During the winter of 19.53-1954, the Far East Air Forces provided logis-
tical support to the French Union Forces on direct orders from Washington
even though Southeast Asia was under the theater jurisdiction of Admiral
Felix Stump as CINCPAC. When the time came to plan a formal contingency
operation for supporting the French Union Forces and for evacuation of US
personnel from Indochina, however, the Joint Chiefs of Staff assigned the
task to CINCPAC. As directed, Admiral Stump issued a draft plan on 28
April and followed it up with several operations plans for various contin-
gencies on 4 May. Following a pattern that he had already used in organizing
the US contribution to the defense of Taiwan, Admiral Stump established a
Southeast Asia Defense Command as a subordinate unified command directly
under CINCPAC and charged COMSEADEFOOM to plan and prepare for operations in
Indochina. The subunified commander would be provided with Navy, Air Force,
and Central Intelligence Agency forces, and he was instructed to make provisions
to employ up to eight Army divisions at a later date. In regard to his rela-
tions with the French, Admiral Stump specified that COMEADEFCOM would
coordinate his operations with the CINC French Armed Forces Far East; he
could assume operational control over French Union Forces, but the French CINC
would not be permitted to command US forces. The Chief of MAAG Indochina
would continue to coordinate logistical support for French Union Forces, but
he would report to COMSEADEFCOM for additional planning and liaison duties.
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At the start, US naval and air force forces would support the French
Union Forces, but US operations would be expanded into a coordinated air,
ground, naval action to destroy Communist forces in Indochina and to
reduce the Chinese Communist capability to wage aggression in Indochina.
CINCPAC would direct the execution of attacks against Mainland China with
conventional and atomic weapons, out atomic weapons would be employed only
on specific direction and only against targets supporting enemy action in
Indochina. The Commander, Strategic Air Command, would conduct conven-
tional and atomic attacks against targets specified by CINCPAC, who would
exercise control over the assignment of targets, timing of attack, and
other coordination to insure that the attacks were limited to strictly mili-
tary targets. COMSEADEFCOM would maintain his headquarters afloat until
he was directed to go ashore at Saigon.(156)
Senior Air Force officers in Washington and Tokyo were already con-
cerned about the compartmentation of airpower involved in the division of
the Pacific-Far East between two US unified theater commands. Air Force
studies showed that possible contingencies in the Far East -- especially
simultaneous Red Chinese aggression in both Korea and Southeast Asia --
would be difficult to oppose with divided American responsibilities, and
the studies indicated to air planners that one US theater command --
preferably the Far East Command -- should be given an undivided authority
in East Asia.(157) The Far East Air Forces staff was additionally troubled
by Admiral Stump's organizational pattern which utilized subordinate unified
commanders, each of whom would control packets of tactical air units. This
arrangement was contrary to Air FOrce experience, which had shown that air-
power should be centrally controlled and employed when and where it was most
needed. As soon as he had studied Admiral Stump's operations plans for
Southeast Asia, General Partridge informed the Air Force on 4 May that he
was distressed by the impending division of Far East Air Forces resources
between two theater commands and now another subunified defense command.(158)
In additional thinking on the command problem in Southeast Asia, Major
General K. P. McNaughton, Vice Commander, Far East Air Forces, called
attention to the fact that Admiral Stump was somewhat insensitive to Franco-
American relations. He had no idea that France would place its forces in
Indochina under CINCPAC or COMSEALEFCOM, and he believed that France ought
to be treated as a respectable great power. In a personal communication to
Air Force Plans, McNaughton suggested that the joint war effort in Indochina
should be given over-all direction from a Military Council, to be located
in Paris and staffed by representatives of the US and French Chiefs of Staff.
He recommended that military operations in Indochina should be directed by
individual army, navy, and air force commanders, located in close proximate
headquarters and jointly responsible for joint matters but each in command
of their respective forces. The land force commander would be from the French
Army, the naval commander from either the US Navy or the French Navy, and the
Air Force commander would be a US Air Force officer, who would command all
Air Farce theater air force units throughout the Pacific, as well as in
Southeast Asia. This air commander would be able to deploy and employ air
units anywhere they might be nee1ed.(159)
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While the Pacific commanders were preparing their recommendations,
President Eisenhower and the Joint Chiefs of Staff were making their own
studies of a proposed command structure and concept of operations for
Indochina. To get French thinking, President Eisenhower sent General
Trapnell to Paris to discuss command arrangements with General Ely, who
would relieve General Navarre as CINC French Union Forces in Indochina
on 3 June and would also serve as French Commissioner General. Ely was
not willing to accept any over-all American commander in Indochina and
was also unenthusiastic about American ground troops, although he thought
one or two US divisions might be acceptable as a show of good faith.(160)
Completed on 22 May and briefed to President Eisenhower on 28 May, the
Joint Chiefs of Staff plan for Indochina emphasized that in the event of
overt Red Chinese aggression and US intervention, the United States should
not rely upon a static type of defense as in Korea but rather upon an
offensive against Mainland China facilities supporting the aggression.
Based upon this appreciation, the Joint Chiefs recommended that US par-
ticipation should be primarily limited to fast carrier task forces and
USAF forces operating from bases outside Indochina. They strongly recom-
mended that the French should agree to firm programs to build indigenous
defense forces as a prerequisite to US participation in the conflict. As
for command, the Joint Chiefs recommended establishment of a top-level
committee of military representatives, drawn from France, the United States,
and other nations contributing substantial forces. In Indochina, the
Allied CINC would be French, with an American deputy who would have a suf-
ficient staff to provide liaison with the French and coordinate US activ-
ities. The French CINC would also be provided with a US Air Advisor.
CINCPAC would exercise command over all US forces based in Indochina and
over other forces assigned to him for operations in Indochina. When the
brie-Ped for him, President Eisenhower noted that he approved of
the thinking that it included, although he did not believe that overt
Chinese Com/mist aggression was likely. (161)
If the American contingency plan for Indochina had been put into
effect, CINCPAC and COMSEADEFCOM would have assumed direction over Strategic
Air Command strikes and control over FEAF forces operating in or against
Indochina. General Partridge therefore hurried the preparations to activate
the Pacific Air Force headquarters, which opened under the command of Major
General Sary Smith at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii, on 1 July 1954.(162)
In conversations with General Twining at a USAF Commander's conference on
24-25 May, Partridge indicated that in the event of US intervention in Indo-
china he would favor a full use of US Navy aircraft from fast carrier task
forces and noted that what he had seen in Indochina did not make him very
enthusiastic about employing B-29s there with conventional weapons. In a
personal message to Twining on 7 June, Partridge spelled out his thoughts
in greater detail. He conceived that the war in Indochina was basically a
civil war, where long-term pacification and unification (as opposed to
destruction) were the prime objectives. He urged that the employment of
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conventionally-armed B-29s against Indochina targets might provide favor-
able Short-term psychological effects upon French and Vietnamese forces
but could not possibly produce decisive results. He did not think that
the United States would do well to use indecisive, destructive air attacks,
when the real task in Indochina was to build indigenous military, economic,
political, and psychological leadership.(163)
On the political level, President Eisenhower was in basic agreement
with the Congressional belief that the United States should not intervene
in Indochina without broad-based international support, but he was none-
theless convinced that Indochina was of major strategic significance to
the Free World. In response to a newsman's question on 7 April, Eisenhower
explained that Indochina was strategically important because it produced
basic raw materials (tin, timesten, rubber) needed by the world, because
it provided potential markets for a new, democratically-oriented Japan,
because the surrender of any free people to Communist dictatorship was
inimical to freedom, and because the loss of Vietnam would expose other
Southeast Asian nations to Communist aggression. In illustration of the
last point, he referred to the "falling domino' principle," or, as he said,
"You have a row of dominos set up, you knock over the first one, and what
will happen to the last one is the certainty it will go over very quickly.
So you have tbe beginning of a disintegration that would have profound
influences."(164)
Convinced of the importance of Indochina, President Eisenhower and
Secretary Dulles believed that a Show of Free World solidarity was neces-
sary to strengthen French resolution on 8 May, when negotiatiors from the
United Kingdom, Soviet Union, France, United States, Communist China,
Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and the Vietminh regime commenced discussions in
Geneva. In Great Britain, Prime Minister Churchill and Foreign Minister
Eden were willing to discuss the establishment of a Southeast Asia regional
defense organization, but they were more immediately interested in the
success of negotiations at Geneva. They were very fearful that Franco-
American military planning might unduly encourage France and threaten the
success of the Geneva negotiations,(165) For their part, the French began
the Geneva talks at a time of great disadvantage. The French people were
tired of the long losses, and the Vietminh victory at Dien Bien Phu was
very damaging to both French and Vietnamese morale. The Vietminh, moreover,
did not rest after their victory, but began to move troops and weapons
toward Hanoi. On the night of 12 May 500 Vietnamese regulars deserted with
their weapons at Hanoi; the French enclave was already riddled with
guerrillas; and General Cogny, although optimistic with newsmen, let the
American Consulate know that he had grave doubts about holding the Red River
Delta. (166) In the emergency, the French war council directed that the
safety of the Expeditionary Corps in Vietnam was now the prime consideration
of the French Union Commander. He was directed to plan successive with-
drawals in the Red River perimeter, and, if possible, he would hold a line
at the 18th parallel to safeguard the southern areas of Indochina. (167)
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In the negotiations in Geneva, the Vietminh delegate, Pham Van Dong,
appeared in no hurry to reach a cease-fire, and, as the discussions dragged
on through Mr and most of June, President Eisenhower and Prime Minister
Churchill grew closer together in their views. At a meeting in Washington
on 25-28 June, Eisenhower and Churchill accepted a seven-point joint posi-
tion which they offered to the French Government as the basis for an
armistice agreement that would be respected by the United States and Great
Britain. Such an armistice would: (1) preserve the integrity and indepen-
dence of Laos and Cambodia and assure withdrawal of Vietminh forces from
those countries; (2) preserve at least the part of Vietnam south of a line
drawn inland from Long Hoi (roughly midway between the 17th and 18th
parallels) and possibly an enclave in the Red River Delta as non-Communist
territory; (3) not impose on Laos, Cambodia, and non-Communist Vietnam any
restrictions impairing their right to maintain adequate forces for internal
security, to import arms, or to employ foreign advisers; (4) not contain
political provisions that would risk loss of the non-Communist area of
Vietnam to Communist control; (5) not exclude the possibility of the
ultimate reunification of Vietnam by peaceful means; (6) provide for the
peaceful and humane transfer, under international supervision, of the
Vietnamese who desired to move from one zone to another; (7) provide
effective machinery for international supervision of the agreement. There
was one all Anglo-American disagreement on the seven points: Churchill
and Eden wanted merely to inform the French of the "hope" that the French
would not accept less than the seven points, while Eisenhower and Dulles
wanted themregarded as "minimal" negotiating points. (168) The joint
statement issued by Churchill and Eisenhower pledged that the United States
and Great Britain would press forward with plans for the collective defense
of Southeast Asia and warned that "if at Geneva the French Government is
confronted with demands which prevent an acceptable agreement regarding
Indochina, the international situation will be seriously aggravated."(169)
When the principal negotiators returned to Geneva beginning on 8 July,
the most serious discussions centered upon a dividing line in Vietnam. The
French insisted upon the 18th parallel, while Pham Van Dong argued that the
Vietminh were in control of the central Vietnam highlands and that the 14th
parallel should be the demarcation. The Red Chinese Foreign Minister Chou
En-Lai appeared more interested in demilitarizing Indochina, thus denying
possible bases there to the United States. It is also possible that Red
China recognized that the United States would not accept the 14th parallel,
and that the atomic might of the United States could not be pressed too
far. Following a private discussion between the new French Premier Pierre
Mendes-France and Chou En-Lai in Berne, the Vietminh were willing to accept
the 17th parallel as a dividing line and the Geneva negotiations moved for-
ward so rapidly that US Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs
Walter Robertson would later charge that the Geneva agreements were not
negotiated but represented "a deal between Chou En-Lai and Mendes-France,
negotiated privately in Berne and brought to the conference as a fait
accompli."(170)
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As concluded on 21 July, the Geneva Agreements on Indochina comprised
separate military accords for Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, an unsigned
final declaration of the Geneva nations, and a number of unilateral national
declarations. The military agreement for Vietnam was signed by military
representatives of the Vietminh and French Union Forces. It provided for a
provisional military demarcation line at the 17th parallel (as well as a
demilitarized zone on each side of the line) and for the removal of French
Expeditionary Forces and the Vietminh to their respective sides of the line.
It banned the introduction of frestrcops, military personnel, arms and
munitions, or the building of military bases in Vietnam. Worn-out military
equipment could be replaced on a piece-by-piece basis and personnel could
be rotated on a man-for-man account, but the agreement prohibited reinforce-
ments "in the forms of all types of arms, munitions, and other war materiel,
such as combat aircraft, naval craft, pieces of ordnance, jet engines and
jet weapons, and armoured vehicles." The military agreement on Laos pro-
vided for the withdrawal of Vietminh fo:ces and for the concentration of
Pathet Lao troops at specific locations in Sam Neua and Phong Saly provinces
pending national unification elections to be held in the summer of 1955.
The French were authorized to leave 3,500 troops in Laos at Seno and
Vientiane and to keep 1,500 instructors with the Royal Laotian Army. In the
case of Cambodia, Vietminh forces were to be removed and Khmer Issarak
dissidents reincorporated in the national community. In Vietnam, Laos,
and Cambodia, International Control Commissions, with representatives from
Canada, India, and Poland, would supervise the agreements. When dealing
with questions involving violations or threats of violations that might lead
to resumed hostilities the International Control Commissions were required
to act with unanimity. The final declaration of the Geneva conference pro-
vided that Vietnamese elections would be held by July 1956, to be preceded
by preparatory consultations between competent representatives of the two
zones which were to begin not later than 20 July 1955.(171)
In the final hours of the Geneva Conference, the Soviet Union pressed
for a resolution to require formal acceptance of the final declaration.
The United States was not prepared, however, to join the final declaration,
but the American delegate, Under Secretary of State Walter B. Smith, issued
a statement which provided that tne United States would "refrain from the
threat or the use of force to distarlba the agreements and would "view any
renewal of the aggression in violation of the . . . agreements with grave
concern and as seriously threatening international peace and security."
The delegate from the State of Vietnam solemnly protested the hasty con-
clusion of the negotiations by an agreement in which it was not a party.
He expressed concern that the French High Command had further arrogated to
itself a right to fix a date of a future Vietnamese election, which was
clearly of a political rather than a military character. (172) The official
Soviet statement on the Geneva agreements noted that the decisions
prohibiting establishment of foreign military bases in Vietnam, Laos, and
Cambodia, as well as the commitments of these countries not to enter military
alliances, were "of greatest importance." It further declared that the
decision to hold free elections t.n Vietnam "creates conditions for the
national unification of Vietnam in conformity with the national interests
and aspirations of the entire Vietnamese people."(173)
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Alerted by General Cogny's pessimistic view of the situation in the
Red River Delta reported on 13 May 1954, General Partridge directed all
Far East Air Forces detachments in Indochina to make quiet plans to
evacuate both Tonkin and other parts of Indochina on short notice. (174)
Under this direction, the personnel of the /483d Troop Carrier Wing,
8081st Aerial Resupply Unit, and the FEALOGFtDR Provisional Maintenance
Squadron which comprised the "Cat Paw" 0-119 detachment at Cat Bi Air-
field were moved to Tourane (Da Nang) Airfield on 22 May. Although safer,
Tourane was nevertheless comparable to an island in an enemy sea of
rural areas controlled by the Vietminh. Five enlisted members (three Air
Force and two Army men) of the detachment were captured by Vietminh guer-
rillas on 14 June while they were on an illicit swimming party outside
the perimeter defenses. These men were held prisoner until 31 August when
they were released to the French. Within the perimeter, the Americans heard
small arms and artillery fire each night; aircraft setting down at Tourane
were subjected to harassing fire; and on 13 July the Vietminh directed fire
across the runways. (175)
While the Far East Air Forces couIi control the movement and Evacuation
of its own personnel, it was harder pressed to determine what was expected
of it in other Evacuations. Planning for the implementation of "ProjF!ct
Wounded Warrior" began as early as 10 June, when the French requested
United States help in moving repatriated wounded from Dien Bien Phu to
France. After many starts and stops, the project was finally initiated by
C-1214 aircraft on 26 June. Under the operations plan, FEAF's. 315th Air
Division and 61481st Medical Air Evacuation Group handled the evacuation
from Saigon hospitals to Tachikawa Air Base near Tokyo via Clark Air Base.
The Military Air Transport Service accepted the patients in Japan and
evacuated them through the United States to destinations in France and North
Africa. Five C-124 flights from 26 June to 10 July moved the 504 repa-
triates out of Vietnam.(176) Except for the problem of coordinating flight
schedules and the availability of patients for movement on a given day,
"Wounded Warrior" progressed smoothly. The employment of airlift in
evacuating US, friendly-foreign, and Vietnamese nationals from Hanoi gave
more difficulty, chiefly because of a lack of coordination among the various
US agencies involved. At the direction of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
CINCPAC undertook on 3 July 1954 to prepare plans for the recovery of US
personnel and materiel from Indochina. CINCPAC directed MAAG Indochina to
recover or destroy MDAP materiel and the Commander Naval Forces Philippines
(COMNAVPH1L) to evacuate US nationals and selected aliens. NO one knew the
magnitude of the tasks, and planning was conducted on the basis of gross
rumors. In an aura of great confusion, FEAF air transport planes evacuated
USAF personnel, the Philippine Air Lines evacuated Filipino residents of
Hanoi, Civil Air Transport planes lifted Chinese evacuees, while French and
Vietnamese civil and military aircraft, French naval vessels, the US Navy
Fifth Amphibious Group, and the US Military Sea Transport Service lifted
NEAP supplies and Vietnamese refugees to safe havens in South Vietnam. The
confused evacuation from Tonkin began on 10 July and continued into the
autumn of 1954 as some 880,000 persons moved southward.(177)
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In Washington on 21 July in quick response to the Geneva cease-fire,
the Office of Secretary of Defense directed immediate suspension to the
delivery of all M1AP equipment. This instruction was supplemented by a
second memorandum on 24 July, which directed the US military departments
to cease unloading MBAP cargo on US controlled vessels in Indochina ports.
A third memorandum on 3 August provided that undelivered and diverted
equipment scheduled for Indochina would be used to empedite the buildup
of military aid to Taiwan, Thailand, Japan, and the Philippine Islands,
pending a revalidation of the aid programs for Indochina. (178) In response
to these directions, USAF implemented nProject Paper Sack" which froze
MDAP Shipments from the United States, diverted airlifted supply already
enroute to a holding location at Clark Air Base, and took delivery of water-
borne supplies at the US military ports of Manila, Okinawa, and Yokohama.
Considerable materiel -- notably ammunition -- was proceeding to Indochina
on French vessels, and the title to these shipments had already passed to
France. In case this and other NEAP equipment could not be used, the
United States could legally recover it, but several years would be required
to determine exactly what items were in the French dumps and depots. As of
12 August usu instructed that all requisitions from Indochina would be
submitted directly to Air Force headquarters for validation and that, for
the time being, only requisitions for supplies needed to alleviate suf-
fering, prevent disease, and assist in the evacuation from Tonkin would be
approved. (179)
Most of the Far East Air Forces logistical support detachments were
phasing out before the Geneva agreement, and the remainder were quickly
terminated after 21 July. In August USAF directed FEAF to remove its
loaned B-26s and C-119s from Indochina as soon as possible. The last of
the 24 B-26s on loan to the French (one had been damaged beyond repair)
arrived at Clark Air Base on 4 September, where the planes were inspected
and repaired and then returned to the Fifth Air Force in Japan. The last
of the 0-119 aircraft on loan to the French returned to Clark on 6 September,
and the members of the "Cat Pawn detachment returned to their normal duty
stations on the same day. With the removal of the FEAF personnel, USAF had
completed its emergency support for the French and awaited the completion of
any new military assistance policies that might originate in Washington. (180)
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CHAPTER 2
? SOUTHEAST ASIAN REGIONAL AND
? -COUNTRY DEFENSE PROGRAMS, 1954-1959
1. Concepts of Regional and Country Programs
In the wake of the Geneva Conference, President Eisenhower and Secre-
tary of State Dulles did not conceal their dislike for many of the features
of the agreements terminating hostilities. President Eisenhower welcomed
the,end of blooded, but he thought it unfortunate that French policies
and operations had not been more successful. He believed that the American
aid that had been given to the French Union Forces had been unable to cure
a fundamentally "unsound relationship between the Asiatics and the French
. . . and therefore was of only limited value."(1) In a news conference,
Secretary Dulles stated that the Geneva negotiations reflected the military
developments in Indochina, where France had lost nearly half of Vietnam and
the French people did not desire to prolong the war.(2)
After Geneva the national policy of the Eisenhower Administration toward
Southeast Asia pledged that the United States, in accordance with the United
Nations Charter, Would not seek by force to overthrow the Geneva settlement.
The United States remained firm in its dedication to the principles of self-
determination of peoples and its hope that the Geneva agreements would permit
Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam to be fully sovereign and independent nations.
Toward this end, President Eisenhower intended to maintain the US embassy to
Vietnam in Saigon, and he requested the governments of Cambodia and Laos to
accept the appointment of an ambassador or minister to be resident in their
respective capitals. As A major element of policy, President Eisenhower
indicated his hope that ".concert of Nations" would rally to the defense of
free people in Southeast Asia. Secretary Dulles spoke of the requirement
for developing collective defense in advance of aggression, not after it was
underway. "In this connection," he added, "we should bear in mind that the
problem is not merely one of deterring open armed aggression but of preventing
Communist subversion which, taking advantage of economic dislocations and
social injustice, might weaken and finally overthrow the non-Communist
governments."(3)
In conversations both before and during the Geneva negotiations, Secre-
tary Dulles wanted a formal Southeast Asian collective defense organization,
whereas the British and Asian neutralist nations including India wanted a
loose, mainly economic, organization. A middle ground was found at the
eight-nation conference held in Manila in September 1954 and in the Southeast
Asia collective defense treaty signed by the United States, Great Britain,
France, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Thailand, and the Philippines on
8 September 1954. These nations agreed that armed aggression from the out-
side against any of the signatories would be regarded as a common danger and
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met as such, the United States adding that the external aggression must be
Communist. Under the Geneva agreement, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam were
unable to join the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), but a
protocol to the treaty extended the provisions of the articles providing
for economic and technical assistance and for action against aggression to
Cambodia, Laos, and the "free territory under the jurisdiction of the State
of Vietnam." (14)
On the part of the United States, the Southeast Asia collective defense
treaty represented a broadening of the bilateral mutual defense treaties
already existing with all of the signatories except Thailand. The Thai
Government, gravely concerned about Communist activities in Laos and else-
where on Thailand's borders, would be a strong supporter of SEATO, but in
1954 it would have preferred a bilateral defense pact with the United States
that would have a definite commitment of US forces to the defense of Thailand.
Thus US Ambassador William J. Donovan indicated that Thailand would be recep-
tive to US development of a jet airfield at Korat and the deployment of an
F-814 tactical fighter wing there. As will be seen, the United States was
actively undertaking to buildup Thai military forces and the Thai military
infrastructure, but the Joint Chiefs of Staff were opposed to any commitment
of US forces to a static defense of Southeast Asia, a view which was both
shared and promoted by US Air Force leaders. In Senate hearings on the
Southeast Asia treaty, Secretary Dulles pointed out that the United States
had defensive commitments to Japan, Korea, and Nationalist China and would
be compelled.to utilize mobile forces in support of its Pacific treaty com-
mitments. 1,Jhile the Joint Chiefs remained unwilling to express definite US
force commitments to SEATO, they noted in 1956 that CINCPAC would inform
the SEATO military advisors in broad terms of the status of US forces avail-
able in the Western Pacific, thus reassuring the SEATO nations of US support
without definitely committing forces to SEAT0.(5)
Within the week following the effectuation of the Southeast Asia Col-
lective Defense Treaty on 19 February 1955, the foreign secretaries of the
SEATO nations, who would also comprise the SEATO Council, met in Bangkok
to establish a necessary working organization. Here it was agreed that the
SEATO Council would be served by a permanent secretariat in Bangkok, and
that each Council representative would have a military advisor as well as
counsellors on economic affairs to assist him. The military advisor would
be at Chief of Staff or Theater Cammander level, and, in the case of the
United States, the CINCPAC would function in this capacity. The SEATO
Council recognized that Communist subversion would be a major threat in
Southeast Asia, but it believed that counter-subversive activities would be
primarily the responsibility of the individual nation concerned. The
Council therefore did not establish a permanent committee to supervise
countersubversive activities but instead provided that technical advisors
on the subject would meet as necessary to exchange information and discuss
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common policies useful for countering subversion. In an early report
issued on 5 May 1955, the SEATO Military Advisory Group's staff planners
determined that Communist China threatened Southeast Asia both politi-
cally and militarily, but that, of the two threats, the political threat
of subversive activities was most immediate. This assessment coincided
with the USAF strategic estimate for the period 1960-1965 which judged
that aggression against friendly governments in Southeast Asia would
most likely be conducted by indigenous dissidents, covertly supported by
adjacent Communist nations.(6)
On 1 October 1954 when President Eisenhower proposed to provide US
assistance to Vietnam, he stated that the purpose of the offer was "to
assist the Government of Viet-Nam in developing and maintaining a strong,
viable state, capable of resisting subversion or aggression through mili-
tary means ?"(7) Later in the year, the Department of State announced
that arrangements have been completed so that on 1 January 1955 the
United States could begin supplying financial aid directly to the govern-
ments of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos "for the purpose of strengthening
their defense against the threat of Communist subversion and aggression."(8)
Even though American policy statements continued to stress the purpose
of military aid as being to develop defenses against ComMunist subversion
and aggression, air staff officers at Far East Air Forces noted in January
1955 that the Southeast Asian nations were building "balanced" three-arm
military services for the sake of "show." Prepared under the direction of
Colonel Grover Brown, a FTAY Intelligence staff study particularly concerned
with MLAP requirements in Thailand was soon expanded into a follow-on
Southeast Asia study. Both studies believed that the major danger to free
Southeast Asia nations was from subversive groups with covert external Com-
munist support. The studies recommended that Thailand and the other South-
east Asia nations should build forces and techniques for countering local
subversion. Drawing upon British experience in combating guerrillas in
Malaya, the studies noted that one of the principal objectives of military
forces should be to maintain and strengthen a population's faith in the
anti-Communist government. The Communist guerrilla would not attempt static
defensive warfare, and an anti-guerrilla military plan would have need of the
flexibility and rapidity of movement inherent in suitably-selected aircraft.
The study of Thai requirements noted: "The use of light infantry units,
capable of rapid movement by air, in undertaking forceful military actions
in conjunction with air operations would demonstrate strength and deter-
mination on the part of the government forces. These ground forces should
be used to launch bold strikes against guerrilla forces, camp sites, supply
routes, and supply areas." Before guerrilla hostilities began, each nation
would need to develop an adequate intelligence system, adequate air and air-
ground communications facilities, and a strong air-ground training program.
The study of Thailand was passed on to the Royal Thai Air Force, and the
larger study on Southeast Asia was dispatched to the Pacific Air Force for
such use as it could make of its thinking in CINCPAC mutual. defense
assistance planning. (9)
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The concept of building Southeast Asia indigenous defense forces for
an especial role of combatting internal Communist subversion was congruous
with an Air Force concept that the Southeast Asia nations would never be
able to develop the forces required to resist an overt Red Chinese attack
and that such an eventuality would necessitate the employment of US mobile
forces under SEATO. On the basis of what he had seen in Vietnam, General
Otto P. Weyland had returned to the United States in March 1954 with a
conviction that the USAF would have to develop within the Tactical Air
Command a ready air task force which could be rapidly deployed to meet
local Communist aggression. During 1955, General Weyland secured Air
Force acceptance of the principle of a Composite Air Strike Force (CAF).
(10) The United States, moreover, planned to move mobile forces already
in the Western Pacific to implement SEATO defenses. In an obvious com-
bination of the FEAF proposals with the concept of defending Southeast
Asia with mobile forces, General Nathan F. Twining, USAF Chief of Staff,
approved an Air Force Council policy statement on 5 May 1955 regarding
MDAP, which read: "National air forces must be developed in such a man-
ner that they can cope with indirect aggression and be able to defend
themselves, to a limited degree, against avert aggression by other nations.
At the same time these coalition nations must be encouraged to develop
base complexes which can be used by USAF forces, when and if required."(11)
In the Deputate of Operation:3, Pacific Air Force, during September
1955, Colonel Davison Dalziel directed the preparation of a very compre-
hensive staff study outlining Air Force recommendations as to MDAP
objectives in Southeast Asia. Major General Sory Smith, Commander, Pacific
Air Force, took the study to Admiral Stump with a recommendation that it
be followed in CINCPAC planning. This study concluded that indigenous
Southeast Asia national air forces could not be developed to meet a major
external Communist air attack, an eventuality that would require American
air forces. It noted that Taiwan and the Philippines could aid the Free
World air effort by performing reconnaissance and local air defense mis-
sions, but, other than this, the Southeast Asia air forces could contribute
most markedly to mutual air activities by developing abilities to combat
internal subversion within their individual countries. Drawing upon
experience of Malayan, Philippine, and Indochina guerrilla operations, the
study called for immediate beginnings of (1) counter-guerrilla country-
intelligence systems; (2) rapid country cOmminications for intelligence
reporting, air, and air-to-ground operations; (3) a strong air-ground
training program; (4) an intense reconnaissance program both by aerial
and air-lifted ground scouting teams; and (5) special psychological war-
fare programs in suspected areas, including the dispatch of psywar teams
to such areas. (12)
The Pacific Air Force study included an annex of operational concepts,
which rather remarkably included nearly all the "lessons" of counter-
insurgency that would be relearned after 1961. These concepts visualized
and recommended the development of indigenous counter-subversive forces,
to include relatively slow-flying strike aircraft capable of carrying a
diversified weapons load and of remaining in a target area for a long
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period of time, as well as a colleCtion'of light transport aircraft and
helicopters and photo and visual reconnaissance aircraft. The concept
of effective counter-subversive activities included very close coopera-
tion of air operations with the operations of highly-mobile ground
commando troops. It visualized and discussed the employment of air and
commando troops in air-mobile; psychological warfare, interdiction,
attrition, and resources denial missions.. It urged; "The cohtinual use
of air sureillahce, air commando teams; and the build-up of a strong
and locally organized militia Should gradually overcome communist military
and psychological. warfare efforts." (13)
During 1956 the Pacific Air Force continued to urge CINCPAC to work
toward the development of counter-subversive military force capabilities
in Southeast Asia. It submitted another formal study looking toward this
objective on 2 March 1956.(14) Alter a visit to Southeast Asia as a mem-
ber of a CINOPAC survey team in October-November 1956, General Smith
reported to Admiral Stump that he was still convinced of the validity of
the concept of preparing Southeast Asia air forces to perform internal-
security- missions which he had recommended in September 1955.(15) Viewed
in retrospect, the FTAF/PACAF concepts of preparing US and Southeast Asia
air forces for the tasks that they were best able to perform was very sound.
As far as policy went, the Joint Chiefs of Staff fiscal year 1957 mili-
tary assistance program guidance stated that the military aid program would
reach its greatest significance in terms of its contribution to the attain-
ment of US :national objectives and in the support of joint war plans. (16)
While efforts would be made to develop integrated force capabilities in
Southeast Asia, the circumstances affecting US mutual assistance programs
in each country were extremely varied, with the result that the whole MAP
program was enormously complex both at. the individual country level and in
its administration.
2. Thailand as a Free World Ally
In beginning the expanded US assistance program for the Indochina
countries, the Mated States had already accumulated some related exper-
ience from its assistance td Thailand; and, with Thailand's adherence to
SEATO, Thai assistance programs became ad integral part of the defense of
Southeast Asia. American decisions to extend military assistance to
Thailand, culminating in the formal agreement signed at Bangkok on 17
October 1950, were not oblivious to the fact that Thailand, although
nominally a constitutional monarchy since 1932, was ruled by a civilian-
military bureaucracy rather than by the mass Of the Thai people. (17)
Thailand's rultarshad historically preserved Thai independence by fol-
lowing an opportunistic foreign policy. The Thai monarchs traded upon
Anglo-French rivalries to preserves their hational independence during the
age of European colonialism, and, is Japan appeared to gain influence in
Asia, Phibun Songgram, head of the Thai military caste, seized control of
the Thai government in 1938. After a few hours resistance to Japanese
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invaders in December 1941, Phibun allied Thailand with Japan against the
United States and Great Britain. Phibun's rival, Pridi Banomyong left the
country and headed a Free Thai movement, which, with Japan's declining
fortunes, recaptured the Thai government by constitutional means in July
1944. On the defeat of Japan, Pridi was able to cite a record of assistance
to the allies and to conclude an easy peace treaty. With US support,
Thailand was admitted to the United Nations in December 1946. In another
short and bloodless coup in November 1947, Phibun returned to power in
Bangkok, and Pridi fled to Communist China to head a . -Communist inclined
"Free Thai" movement. At the outset of the 1947 coup, the Thai military
remained discretely in the background; but in April 1948 the army moved in
and openly took over the government, installing Phibun as premier. As a
rice-surplus area, Thailand's principally agricultural population was well-
fed and fairly prosperous, but Thailand knew a Communist threat from Pridi's
regime, from some 50,000 Vietnamese who lived on the northeast frontier
(many of them refugees from the fighting in Tonkin), and from overseas
Chinese in Bangkok.(18)
At the outset of the US military assistance program, Brigadier General
John T. Cole, US Army, was named Chief, US MAAG-Thailand, in Bangkok, and
on 10 October 1950, the USAF section of the MAAG arrived in Thailand and
established itself adjacent to the Headquarters, Royal Thai Air Force (RTAF),
at Don-Muang Airfield, a few miles from Bangkok.(19) At the-arrival of the
American aid team, the RTAF possessed a record of tradition that went back
to 1911 when the Ministry of War had sent three officers to France to study
aviation. In December 1941, Thai airmen had attempted to resist the
Japanese, but their aircraft had been easily destroyed by Japanese Zero
fighters. Thereafter, during this conflict, Thai airmen had built-up a
good record of cooperation the US Office of 3-pecial Services and the
British Force 136 in recovering and returning Allied aircrews downed in
Thailand.(20) In 1950 the Thai Air Force was organized at the top on a
grandiose scale as the equal of the Army and Navy while its tactical strength
consisted of three fighter and one transport groups. Except for the pur-
chase of American T-6 and De Havilland Chipmunk training planes, the RTAF
was equipped with a variety of old American, Japanese, and British planes.
The Royal Thai Naval Air Force possessed one operational patrol squadron
and three training squadrons. The Naval Air Force employed old Japanese
seaplanes and had a few American L-4 and T-6 aircraft for training. In
1950 Thailand had on order 20 T-i6s, 18 Chipmunk trainers, 18 Spitfire IX
fighters, and 2 Grumman amphibians. While the Thais had long emphasized
flight training, the strength of the combined air force and naval air arm
was approximately equivalent to one USAF group. (21) The RTAF was capable
of supporting the army against internal dissidents, but it had virtually no
offensive or defensive capability against a strong or determined enemy. (22)
In January 1951 the first shipments of American military assistance for
the Thai Army reached Bangkok, and in April the RTAF received a shipment of
30 T-6F training planes under MLAP. During 1950, the USAF also programmed
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86 F-8F fighters for ultimate delivery from US Navy stocks to the RTAF.(23)
Apparently-because of Thai Army-Navy rivalry rather than any ideological
motivation, Thai naval officers attenpted a coup on 29 June 1951 during
ceremonies incident to the delivery of the US ECA dredge '11Manhattanfl at
Bangkok. Navy conspirators seized Premier Phibun at gunpoint and carried
him away to the Navy's flagship. In the following 48-hours, Marshal Sarit
Thanarat of the Thai Army, General Phao Sriyanon of the Thai police, and
Air Chief Marshal Fuen Ronnapakas Riddhagni of the Thai Air Force rallied
to the support of Phibun. Thai airmen sank the naval flagship, allowing
Phibun to escape. They also attacked rebel positions around Bangkok and
effectively ended the rebellion. When rumors spread that Americans had
done the air bombings, the Thai government issued a denial that any US
equipment had been used and stated that the attacks had been as moderate
as possible. The Royal Thai Navy was reorganized by decree on 12
July, with the RTAF receiving control over the Navy Air Force and the
Army taking responsibility for coastal defense. In the wake of the
unsuccessful COUP, Air Marshal Riddhagni gained influence with the emergent
rulingtriurrvirate of Phibun, Phao, and Sarit. kith the military support,
Phibun staged his own coup in November 1951 when he abolished the existing
bicameral Thai parliament and replaced it with a unicameral legislative
body, half of whose members were appointed by the government, chiefly from
high-ranking military officers. (21.)
Thailand's government was anti-communist and authoritarian, but it was
also paternalistic and sensitive to external criticism, especially to -
frequent Red Chinese charges that Thailand was an American stooge. The Thai
Army, Air Force, and Navy sought to obtain as much American aid as they:
could with as few strings as possible. Under American aid allocations, the
Thai Army received by far the largest amount of assistance, but the RTAF
received an initial 50 F-8F fighters together with a US Navy training detach-
ment on 6 September 1951. The remaining 36 F-8Fs reached Thailand in October
1952. The RTAF used the F-8F Spitfire ICs, and some armed T-6s to equip
five fighter squadrons. According to Admiral Radford, Thai pilots were good
flyers and had little difficulty with more modern planes. With MAAG assistance
the RTAF progressed from a "flying club" to an incipient air force, but its
capabilities were still very limited. A lack of radar and very limited com-
mercial electrical communications made it bluntly true that Thailand had no
air defense capabilities. In an effort to develop air facilities, Air
Marshal Riddhagni was willing to overspend the RTAF's yearly-budget to improve
facilities, but Thailand nevertheless continued to have a Hone-airfield air
force." Only Don Mang Airfield possessed hard-surface runways and neces-
sary fuel storage.(25)
The Vietminh invasion of Laos and movement toward Luang Prabang in
April 1953 was greatly alarming to Bangkok since Thailand's borders were
directly-threatened. At the urgent request of Thai Ambassador Pote
Sarasin, the 'United States made airlifted shipments of ammunition and
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other items to Thailand.(26) The Thais also placed an expedited request
for 27 F8F aircraft to equip another fighter-bomber squadron and wanted
more C-47 aircraft. USAF committed the 27 F8Fs to Thailand, but 15 of
them had to be diverted to the French in Indochina and only 12 of the
planes were delivered to Bangkok in December 1953. The C-47s were also
badly needed in Indochina, but three of these planes were granted to
Thailand and the RTAF purchased four others on the commercial market,
bringing its inventory of C-47s up. to 11 aircraft.(27) In an effort to
ascertain the exact state of affairs in Thailand, the United States sent
a joint military mission there in September 1953. The mission was headed
by Major General William N. Gillmore, who returned to Bangkok to head the
expanded Joint US Military Assistance Group (JUSMAG) established as a
result of the mission's recommendations.(28)
In the spring of 1954, Thailand grew even more apprehensive about
Vietminh successes in Indochina and on 29 May requested the United Nations
Security Council to send a peace observation mission to prevent the Com-
munists from overthrowing the governments of Laos and Cambodia, only to
have the Soviets block action on the request.(29) In this same season,
the US Army survey visit to Southeast Asia led by General Gavin called
attention to the strategic importance of Thailand and recommended US
assistance for the construction of an all-weather highway from central
Thailand through Korat toward the northeastern frontier with Laos.(30)
As already noted, Ambassador Donovan recommended that the United States
build airfields in Thailand and deploy USAF units there. Early in July
1954, a joint Thai military mission headed by General Srisdi Dhanarajata,
Deputy Defense Minister, arrived in Washington with substantial requests
for military assistance that went well beyond anything previously planned. (31)
Although the Joint Chiefs 7-)f staff recogni:ed the importance of Thailand,
they were on record in opposition:to expanding Thai assistance at the expense
of other international aid requirements. The Air Force was opposed to a
static defense of Southeast Asia that would result in stationing USAF units
there.(32) At Department of Defense level, however, the Thai military mis-
sion received better results. On 12 July the Deputy Secretary of Defense
personally handed General Srisdi a letter pledging $25 million in US aid
additional to military assistance that would be normally programmed.
Another grant of $3 million was promised to begin the construction of a
strategic northeast highway from Saraburi through Korat toward Udorn.(33)
In the revalidation of Title III military assistance programs following
the Geneva agreements, the United States agreed to provide Thailand
(including aircraft already delivered) with a total of 169 F8F fighter-
bombers, 3 c-47s, 30 T-6F basic trainers, 6 T-33A jet trainers, and 31
F-84G jet fighter bombers. The program also included a 45-day war reserve
of ammunition.(34) This program would be supported by deviations from
other mutual country programs: most of the ammunition stock would be
diverted from Indochina and, in the spring of 1955, 20 F8Fs were released
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by the French in Vietnam and moved "as is" to Thailand. As revisions of
the fiscal 1950-55 MDAP continued in 1955, the RTAF would be additionally
authorized three RT-33A jet reconnaissance aircraft.(35)
The Department of Defense decision to allocate $25 million of addi-
tional military assistance and the programming of the RTAF for jet air-
craft were obviously intended to permit Thailand to go beyond its own
defense and to add to the collective security of the SEATO area.(36) At
the outset, this intention was not completely understood by American
officials in the Far East-Pacific area. Within the Thai government the
Army, Navy, and Air Force agreed to divide the $25 million on a $17:$345
ratio, and the Air Chief Marshal Riddhagni intended to spend most of the
$5million to be received by the RTAF to develop Don Mang, Takhli, and
Korat airfields for jet air operations.(37) General Gillmore, however,
over-ruled the Thai recommendations on 22 September and proposed to
emphasize Army development by allocating $18.1 million to the Army, $3.6
to the Navy, and $2.4 to the Air Force. At the Pacific Command, Admiral
:tumn indorsed Gillmore's propo,:ed allocation but recommended that con-
Linued cognizance be given to urgent requirements for the improvement of
Thai airfields and of the naval base at Sattahip. In Washington, the Navy
and the Air Force non-concurred with General Gillmore's proposals, the Air
Force position being that the principal impediment to the Thailand assistance
program was a lack of an adequate communications system and airfield complex.
In December the Joint Chiefs accepted an ad hoc study committee recommenda-
tion that $7 million be allocated for construction and that material alloca-
tions be divided $10 million for the Army, $2.3 for the Navy, and $5.7 for
the Air Force. Counting its share of the construction fund and its material
allocation, the RTAF was authorized $6.2 million instead of the $2.4 million
recommended by General Gillmore.(38)
In a briefing on 14 October 1954 L'epresentative.3 of the office of Secre-
tary of Defense and the three military services explained their requirements
in Thailand to newly-appointed US Ambassador John E. Peurifoy, who was then
on his way to Bangkok. The Air Force briefing stressed a requirement for the
development of communications and air facilities in Thailand.(39) With the
allocation of a larger share of the $25 million extra defense assistance plus
some additional economic aid money -- the entire US fiscal year 1955 funding
finally amounting to $9.1 million for airfield work and $2.2 million for FCC
storage -- Air Marshal Riddhagni laid out a program at Takhli, Korat, Koke
Kathiem, and Phitsanulok and for some additional fuel storage at Don Muang.
(40) The program turned out to be based upon optimistic cost estimates: even
when cheaper hard surfacing was used for airfield surfaces instead of the
originally-planned pierced steel plank, the program had to be cut back to
10,000-foot cement concrete runways at Takhli and Korat and a shorter asphalt
airstrip at Koke Kathiem.(41) According to its planning, the RTAF intended
to station F-84 aircraft at Don Muang, Takhli, Korat, and Koke Kathiem. The
improvements funded by the United States in 1954-55 would give Thailand the
beginning of a strategically located base system, but the movement of aviation
fuel to the up-country bases would continue to be very difficult since
Thailand lacked pipelines, POL tank car capacity, and even an all-weather road
net.(42)
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In justifying American mutual security assistance for Thailand,
Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs Walter S. Robertson
described the Thai government as "one of the strongest anti-Communist
governments in all Asia." He viewed the threat to Thailand as being
from Pridi's "Free Thai" movement based in Communist China and from
Chinese terrorists in Bangkok. (1.43) In 1954-55, the Joint Chiefs of Staff
approved the combat force level for the RTAF at six fighter-bomber squadrons
and one transport squadron with one of the fighter-bomber squadrons slated
for modernization with F-84.G aircraft.(44) The decision to allocate jet
fighters to the RTAF was a useful method of encouraging Thailand to develop
jet air facilities that would be available to SEATO forces in an emergency,
but it was contrary to the already-noted FEAF and PACAF concepts that
Southeast Asia forces ought to be developed to combat internal subversion.
In the Far East, American officials were somewhat less optimistic about
Thailand than was the expressed view of the US State Department. In a visit
to Thailand late in 1955 a PACAF inspection team commented: "The Thai govern-
ment, RTAF and people were friendly and definitely pro-US; however, their
attitude seemed, generally, to be that if a requirement existed, the US would
do it and pay for it. . . . The possibility of utilizing the RTAF effectively
in a war mission appeared marginal. because of inadequate planning, stemming
from the unwillingness of the Thais to recognize that they might have to
fight with their air force -- it seamed impossible to convince them that they
might have to 'fight in anger."(45) During the SEATO amphibious-airlift
"Firm Link" maneuvers at Bangkok in February 1956, the RTAF refused to permit
a static display of rubber-treaded tanks at Don Mnang, leading American
observers to believe that the RTAF was wary lest the presence of tanks on the
airfield would give General phaots national police an unfortunate balance of
power that could lead to a coup. 'till in poor repute, the Thai Navy was the
only service not represented in the parades that accompanied the "Firm Link"
demonstrations.(46) There were alb() reports that the Thai Army was opposed
to General Phaofs creation of a voluntary police defense corps which would be
useful against subversive activities. The Thai Army also mistrusted US MAAG
support for the voluntary defense corps, whose 40-man companies were being
provided American financed uniforms and arms. (Li?) As a further complication
to the American aid program, a very senior RTAF officer was quoted as saying
that the Thai desire for jet aircraft was based primarily on political and
prestige factors -- that the jets were desired only for show purposes: After
visiting Thailand in November 1956, General Sory Smith wrote: "The Thais are
definitely pro-US, yet at the same time there is a feeling that the Thai
governmental leaders would not be inclined to fight a last-ditch stand against
the Oommunists."(48)
In making its post-fiscal year 1955 policy for mutual security assistance
to Thailand, the US National Security Council stated the position that no
more than one jet fighter squadron would be provided to the RTAF. At PACAF,
General Smith considered this policy valid, especially after the RTAF official
stated that Thailand wanted jets for prestige. ()9) In making recommendations
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for continuing US assistance to the RTAF in March 1956, PACAF had accepted
the earlier Washington decision that the RTAF would get F-84 jets as "a
case of accepting reality" and without much enthusiasm. Given the fact
that the Thais would get jet fighters, PACAF had recommended that the
United States should build an aircraft control and warning system in Thai-
land and convert the RTAF to F-86F jets, which could be egployed either
as fighter-interceptors or fighter-bombers. PACAF also recommended that
RTAF force goals should include two transport squadrons, a helicopter
squadron, and one-half of a RT-33 tactical reconnaissance squadron. (So)
This force composition would give Thailand an indigenous air defense capa-
bility and increase its counter-subversive potential. The NSC policy
limiting jets for Thailand gave PACAF an opportunity to emphasize a buildup
of conventional air capabilities for the RTAF, but it posed a problem in
that the F8F5 in Thailand and Vietnam were being supported by cannibalizing
other F8Fs in the United States to get spare parts (Project "Swing Back")
and spares support for F8Fs would be very difficult after fiscal year 1958.
(Si) And, as General Smith pointed out, a policy of restricting the pro-
visioning of jets to the RTAF would make it rather more difficult to secure
the development of airfields and an air control system in Thailand that
would be needed as a base for SEATO operations. (52)
In recognition of the NBC policy, the tactical situation, and the supply
factors, the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1956 established the MAP-supported
force basis of the RTAF at three squadrons of fighter bombers (2 F8F and 1
F-84G), two squadrons of C-47 transports, and one composite reconnaissance
squadron (3 RT-33s, 8 H-19 helicopters, and 7 T-6s).(53) Under this force
posture, the US MAP completed the delivery of 31 F-84Gs to Thailand by mid-
1957, as well as two H-19A helicopters and five additional C-47s. In
response to a request made by Chief Marshal Riddhagni in 1955 for
primary training planes to replace his aging and unsupportable Chipmunks,
the United States also delivered 75 T-6G aircraft during 1957.(54) In
fiscal years 1959 and 1960 the United States would deliver no additional air-
craft to Thailand, and on 23 November 1957 Major General Richard C. Partridge,
Chief US MUSMAG-Thailand, told Congressional investigators the flow of US
military to Thailand was very slow. Partridge said: "Every program we put
in is a mixture of stuff that has been on the program for the previous year
and what we feel is necessary for the future. . . . Many, many things that
are programmed do not get delivered here. . . . We make a new program each
year, but the request is based on what we have not gotten before." (55)
Even though the Thai ruling oligarchy of Phibun, Sarit, and Phao was
considered to be anti-Communistic and pro-American, the struggles between
the three men weakened the viability of the Thai government, leaving some
doubt as to Thailand's value as a SEATO ally and no doubt at all that the
Thai government could not affect internal policies without elaborate
negotiation. During 1957 the Thai Army became increasingly resentful of
corruption under Phaots police and fearful that Phibun might be growing
soft in opposition to internal and external Communism. In a bloodless coup
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on 16 September 1957, the Thai Army overthrew the Phibun government.
Phibun fled to Cambodia, and Phao was allowed to leave the country
several days later. 'Without delay, the police forces were reorganized
and deprived of artillery and tanks. Although Marshal Sarit Thanarat
emerged as the single strong man in Thailand, he was suffering from
illness that would require extended treatment in the United States.
The revolutionary party installed Pote Sarasin as head of a provisional
cabinet which held office until a national election was held on 15
December 1957. After this election Pote Sarasin resigned to fill the
position of Secretary-General of SEATO and Lt General Thanom Kittikhachorn
was, installed as Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, while Field
Marshal Sarit continued for the time as CINC of the Thai Army. After the
coup, Air Chief Marshall Chalermkiat Watanangura emerged as CINC BTAF.(56)
The Sarit coup of September 1957 established a government in Thailand
that was more authoritarian but nevertheless more popular than the trium-
virate that it replaced. Thailand continued to be staunchly aligned with
SEATO, fearful of Communist aggression in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam,
and heavily dependent upon American assistance. As 1957 ended, Thailand
had an army of 95,000 men, composed of units which by US standards were
about 60 percent effective. The navy had 90 ships (the largest was of
the frigate class) and 18,560 men. The Thai Air Force had 24,498 per-
sonnel and 398 aircraft, organized into six fighter-bomber squadrons, two
transport squadrons (one C-47 and one helicopter squadron), and a flying
training school. None of the air units were combat ready by US standards,
but there were sufficient trained pilots and operational aircraft to give
an overall effectiveness of about 50 percent. The RTAF was training
conscious, but its technical training programs were not very effective.(57)
As this initial phase of US assistance to Thailand was ending, CINCPAC and
the Joint Chiefs of Staff had recognized that in order for the RTAF to be
effective it would have to be provided an aircraft control and warning
radar system and additional jet aircraft, the latter because suitable con-
ventional fighters were unavailable to keep the F8Fs in operation.(58)
3. American Assistance for the Republic of Vietnam
In winning his war against France, Ho Chi Minh had built a Communist
elite and the Vietminh army, which served as a basis for establishing and
controlling the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Throughout history,
emerging nations had usually developed leadership through revolutionary
struggle and this would be the case in North Vietnam, even though Ho Chi
Minh would reveal himself as a Communist "Benedict Arnold" who stole the
revolutionary gains from the Vietnamese people and established a totali-
tarian regime based upon military force and Red terror.(59) Hard intel-
ligence of Communist activities in North Vietnam was difficult to obtain
for several years, but American officers in South Vietnam knew that Ho Chi
Minh was freely violating the Geneva agreements and building the North
Vietnamese Army to new high levels with strong Chinese Communist support.
By June 1956 the effective strength of the Vietminh had approximately
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doubled, and its artillery firepower was reported to have increased by a
factor of six. A year later, Ho Chi Minh possessed some 350,000 to
400,000 troops in at least 20 divisions that were trained, equipped, and
supported by Red China. According to the Chief, US MAAG Vietnam, Ho's
army "could have walked through Vietnam to Saigon standing up" in 1956.
In 1957 American intelligence reported that North Vietnam's economic
conditions were bad, but, militarily, North Vietnam was "given the capa-
bility of overrunning South Vietnam within thirty days, provided no help
were furnished to the south."(60)
In the Republic of Vietnam south of the 17th parallel the French had
permitted very little Vietnamese leadership to develop either at the
political or military level, and, in President Eisenhower's opinion, the
"lack of leadership and drive on the part of Chief of State Bao Lai was
a factor in the feeling prevalent among Vietnamese that they had nothing
to fight for."(61) Bao Dai left Vietnam for Europe prior to the Geneva
Conference and did not return. The affairs of state in the Republic of
Vietnam thus developed upon Ngo Dinh Diem, who was designated to succeed
Prince Buu Loc as head of the cabinet in Saigon on 18 June 1954 and was
formally invested as president of the council of ministers on 7 July. A
scion of a mandarin family in Hue, Diem was a Vietnamese Catholic
nationalist who had long been absent in France and the United States. At
the outset of his tenure of office, Diem was counted to be honest but
politically naive, as well as aloof, Obstinate, and suspicious. (62)
In the aftermath of Geneva the Ngo Dinh Diem government not only
looked northward toward Hanoi but also to the chaotic conditions south
of the 17th parallel. Despite many demands, France had never given Bao
Dai real authority over Vietnam's domestic institutions -- including the
police and armed forces -- and the transfer of French control over the
police, justice, security, public utilities, civil aviation, and army
would be a lengthy and frequently bitter process. Contrary to the Geneva
accords, the Vietminh left behind approximately 10,000 cadremen for a new
Vietcong resistance movement when they evacuated the south in the autumn
of 1954. With an obvious eye on the national elections prescribed to
take place before July 1956, the Vietcong abandoned military operations
temporarily in favor of political disruption.(63) In addition to the
Vietminh, South Vietnam's incipient national unity wasfractured by three
major sectarian organizations, which the French .had often subsidized for
politico-military purposes. Centered in Tay Ninh province northwest of
Saigon, the Cao Dai was a religious movement with an estimated 1,500,000
adherents, an armed force of about 10,000 equipped troops, and about
20,000 partly trained reserves. The Hoa Hao sect lacked unified leadership
and was scattered at villages on the Ca Mau peninsula and in the Mekong
Delta; the sect numbered about 500,000 members, 8,000 active military forces,
and an unarmed reserve of about 7,000 men. Unlike the religious sects, the
Binh Xuyen was an armed group of about 2,600 disciplined men who controlled
gambling and vice around Saigon. Through intimidation of the French, the
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Binh Xuyen had taken control of the local National Security Police and the
Saigon-Cholon municipal police early in 1954.(64) The situation confront-
ing South Vietnam in the summer of 1954 appeared almost hopeless: thus a
Far East Air Forces intelligence estimate starkly concluded: "Indochina
is considered lost to the Communist bloc, and complete consolidation of
their control is only a matter of time." (6S)
During the eight years of the Indochina War, the French had built up
their French forces to about 170,000 men by July 1954, and, chiefly during
the few years prior to Geneva, the French had recruited a Vietnamese army
of some 250,000 men, the exact nutbers being uncertain since desertions
were heavy in mid-1954. Together with suppletivs who manned anall guard
posts, as many as 4c0,000 South Vietnamese were under arms in July 1954.
As organized in 1953, the Vietnamese army was nominally headed by a Chief
of Staff, General Nguyen Van Hinh, an officer who had flown with the
French Air Force in World War II and who held French citizenship. Under
the French colonial system, French officers and non-commissioned officers
normally commanded and were integrated in Vietnamese combat and logistical
units. Vietnamese very seldom got above the rank of major in their own
army, and in 1954 most Vietnamese officers were young, recent graduates of
the Dalat military academy or an Officer candidate school. The Vietnamese
army had almost no staff, artillery, armor, or engineering sections and
no communications capability. (66)
With a ceasefire imminent in mid-June 1954, Prime Minister 3uu loc
requested formally that the United States assume responsibility for training
the Vietnamese army vice the French, a proposition to which General Ely
tacitly agreed. In Saigon, French and American officers worked out the
details of a US training orogram, but in Washington on 4 August the Joint
Chiefs of Staff were knowledgeable about the precarious state of political
affairs in Saigon (in particular the fact that General Hinh was plotting
to overthrow Diem) and recommended that the United States not assume a
training mission in South Vietnam prior to establit:ment of political
stability there. During SepteMber the Joint Chiefs reiterated this position
on several occasions. On 24 SepteMoer, they stated that forces on the order
of five divisions would be approoriate for Vietnam, that effective forces
of this size could not be produced within a two-three year period, and they
recommended that implementation of such a program be accomplished at low
priority and not be permitted to Impair the development through MLAP of
effective and reliable forces elsewhere. (67) From a military point of
view, the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended against increased involvement
in support of the South Vietnamese army, but there were political reasons
on the other side. Occupying ar advisory capacity in Saigon, Air Force
Colonel Edward G. Lansdale, who had earlier advised the Philippine govern-
ment in successful anti-Communist campaigns, foresaw that the Vietnamese
army was the only national organization that possessed any of the
administrative abilities, executive skills, discipline, and strength to
carry out actions directed by Diem's government in Saigon. (68)
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In the progressive development of US policy, political considerations
took precedence. On 17 August, President Eisenhower directed that American
aid to Indochina would be rechannelled directly to the Associated States
rather than through France. (69) Franco-American talks in Washington on
27-29 September reached an agreement that France, with US monetary assistance,
would retain expeditionary forces in Indochina pending the development of
national forces for security purposes and that both the United States and
France would continue to assist Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam in their efforts
to safeguard their freedom and independence and advance the welfare of their
peoples.(70) In a letter to Ngo Dinh Diem on 1 October, President
Eisenhower said that he was instructing Ambassador Heath to examine with
Diem ways in which American aid could assist "in developing and maintaining
a strong, viable state, capable of resisting attempted subversion or aggres-
sion through military means." In return for aid, the US Government expected
the Vietnamese government to undertake needed reforms responsive to the
nationalist aspirations of the Vietnamese people.(71) On 11 October
Secretary Dulles asked the Joint Chiefs of Staff to re-examine their stand
on US responsibility for training the Vietnamese army. While the Joint
Chiefs did not substantially change their earlier position, a National
Security Council meeting on 22 October engendered a Presidential directive
to Ambassador Heath and General OlDaniel instructing them to strengthen
the government of South Vietnam by insuring the loyalty of the South
Vietnamese armed forces and by increasing their effectiveness. On 28
October the Joint Chiefs were requested to develop a long-range program
to produce the minimum South Vietnamese forces capable of insuring internal
security. (72) In order to make a military evaluation of the situation and
to dramatize the fact that the United States was interested in Vietnam,
President Eisenhower designated General J. Lawton Collins on 3 November as
Special US Representative ih Vietnam with personal rank as ambassador and
authority to coordinate the operations of all American agencies in the
country. One of Collins' principal tasks was to insure that there was a
single Vietnamese army, loyal to President Diem; another was to make
decisions on a crash program of assistance and to develop ground work for
a long-range assistance program. (73) General Collins arrived in Saigon on
8 November, and in this month the bitter struggle in which General Hinh
(with apparent backing of Bao Dai) had been fighting for control of the
government was cleared up. In the struggle about 20 percent of the
Vietnamese officers backed Hinh, a like number backed Diem, and the rest
tried to stay neutral. In November Hinh went to France to "consult!' with
Bao Dai and a little later he was relieved as Chief of Staff.(74) In the
reorganization of the army, all personnel took a loyalty oath to the
government, and Diem installed Lt General Le Van Ty as Chief of Armed
Forces General Staff. General Ty was also Chief of Staff of the Vietnamese
Army, and because of the dominant size of the army the Joint General Staff
and the Army General Staff were essentially one and the same (75)
Where the French had been thinking in terms of a large Vietnamese army
of some 270,000 troops that would cost the United States upwards of WO
million a year to maintain, the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended a force
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buildup of three divisions plus small supporting air and naval forces.
This small army of up to 90,000 troops was to be organized into mobile
battalions. On 7 December, General Collins was authorized to use these
force figures as a basis for further discussions with French and
Vietnamese authorities.(76) In negotiations with General Ely and directly
with the Government of Vietnam after 1 January 1955 (when the Associated
States terminated their union with France), General Collins matured a plan
on 19 January whereby the Vietnamese army would be supported at a strength
of 90,000 men and the US MAAG would assume "full responsibility for
assisting the Government of Viet-Nam in the organization and training of
its armed forces." Since 342 US officers and enlisted men had been in
Vietnam at the time of the Geneva agreements, the new US MAAG Vietnam
would be limited to this strength, which was insufficient for training
purposes. General O'Daniel accordingly split this strength between the
MAAG and a separate Training Relations and Instruction Mission (TRIM)
which included French, American, and Vietnamese personnel. Given Presidential
approval on 29 January, the United States assumed responsibility for Viet-
namese army training on 12 February 1955, at which time Diem gained command
authority over the Vietnam army from the French. But, even though General
O'Daniel received the top-level training responsibility, the TRIM arrangement
perpetuated a dual French-American training system, and many senior advisors
to Vietnamese army units continued to be French officers.(77)
Having made the decision to support and strengthen the government of
Ngo Dinh Diem and to hold South Vietnam, President Eisenhower looked to
Diem to use his reorganized Armed Forces and companion social reforms to
further increase the stability and unity of his government. (78) Basically,
the United States wished to see the pacification of areas previously occu-
pied by the Vietminh; establishment of a Vietnamese national assembly;
streamlining and utilization of the Vietnamese national army; proper resettle-
ment of evacuees from North Vietnam; a program of land reform; establishment
of an independent, fiscally responsible national Vietnamese budget; and
establishment of an independent currency and foreign exchange program for
Vietnam.(79) On a trip to confer with President Eisenhower in late January
1955, General Collins was privately concerned about the strength of the
Binh Xuyen, the Hoa Hao, and the Cao Dai as well as a fear that good men
would not or could not work under Diem. Publicly, however, Collins
indicated on one occasion that Diem would have "at least a reasonable chance
of success," and on another that Free Vietnam "would at least have 50 out
of 100 chances of safeguarding its freedom and escaping the claws of com-
munism" if it applied the entire program recommended by the United States.(80)
Late in '954, after Diem had insured the loyalty of the Vietnamese army,
he issued a national security directive which placed all insecure provinces
under military authority, with this military authority to be phased out as
civilian administrators became available and capable. With advice from TRIM,
Diem employed a brigade in a pacification operation against the Ca Mau
peninsula between 8 February-12 March 1955. After studying the lessons of
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the "Freedom Campaign" in the Ca Mau area, an approximately corps-sized
force was employed to pacify Quang Ngai and Binh Dinh provinces between
19 April-1 June. Essentially, these operations were march-ins by army
troops into areas from which Vietminh had been evacuated northward. The
army forces rehabilitated public works, broke up armed bands, gave security
to local inhabitants, and destroyed communist organizations and arms caches
left behind.(81) At the same time that the pacification operations were
underway, the Binh Xuyen politico-bandit group precipitated a revolt in
Saigon on 29 March that spread as elements of the Cao Dai and Hoe. Hao sects
joined against the government. The Vietnamese army effectively dealt with
these revolts, the Binh Xuyen being driven from Saigon and crushed in a
final campaign in the Rung Sat area southwest of Saigon in September and
October 1955. In January 1956, Vietnamese army units occupied Tay Ninh,
breaking the Cao Dai armed insurgency, and the capture of various Hoa Hao
leaders terminated this sect's revolt by 13 April 1956. Although organized
revolts were ended, many sect members remained dissident and would be
useful to the Vietcong.(82)
By May 1955, when a new American Ambassador, G. Frederick Reinhardt
arrived in Saigon, US plans for South Vietnam were being modified by a
changing situation. Even though the United States reimbursed France for
the cost of maintaining its forces in Indochina, the French needed troops
for employment in Algeria. Mbreover, Frenchmen were increasingly
unpopular with Diem. Rather suddenly in the spring of 1955, Paris directed
substantial troop withdrawals which would cut its forces in Indachina to
approximately 60,000 men by June. Within the following year, the French Air
Force in Indochina would be reduced to an F8F operational training unit, a
C-47 squadron, an L-20 liaison squadron, and an H-19 helicopter squadron. (83)
During a visit to Saigon at the end of February 1955, Secretary Dulles
and Assistant Secretary of State Walter S. Robertson had found Ngo Dinh
Diem "tense and gravely concerned," but the United States had not deviated
from a policy of backing Diem, and by June a State Department spokesman
noted that events in April and May "give us increased ground for optimism
that the situation will gradually stabilize itself and that the Government
of Ngo Dinh Diem will pull through." (8L) From Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh called
for Diem to begin discussions looking toward a national plebiscite for
national reunification. When asked about the possibility of such an
election on 28 June, Secretary Dulles pointed out that neither the Govern-
ment of Vietnam nor the United States had signed the Geneva agreements.
If national elections were really free, Dulles favored them as a means of
restoring freedom and unity to Vietnam. (85) In an open letter to his
countrymen on 16 July, Diem also favored free elctions, but he thought it
"out of the question for us to consider any proposal from the Viet Minh
if proof is not given that they put the superior interests of the National
Community above those of communism, if they do not cease violting their
obligations as they have done by preventing our countrymen of the North
from going South or by recently attacking, together with the communist
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Pathet Lao, the friendly state of Laos."(86) When the Vietminh made a
third demand on 19 July for a pre-election conference, the Government of
Vietnam announced on 9 August that such elections would be impossible as
long as the Communist regime of North Vietnam refused democratic freedoms
and basic fundamental rights to the people of North Vietnam. (87)
In October 1955 Diem took his position on the Vietnamese plebiscite
to his countrymen in an election. The South Vietnamese were satisfied with
his stand and also voted to depose Bao Dai as Chief of State. Having been
elected president, Diem proclaimed the Republic of Vietnam and took office
on 26 October. On this same day, the United States undertook diplomatic
relations with the State of Vietnam(88) Assistant Secretary Robertson
explained that the United States intended: "To support a friendly non-
Communist government in Viet-Nam, and to help it diminish and eventually
eradicate Communist subversion and influence. To help the Government of
Viet-Nam establish the forces nece-L4ary for internal security. To encourage
support for Free Viet-Nam by the non-Communist world. To aid in the reha-
bilitation and reconstruction of a country and people ravaged by 8 ruinous
years of civil and international war."(89)
In the light of developments in Vietnam, the Joint Chiefs of Staff
readdressed their policy on force level recommendations during the summer
of 1955. In 1954 they had recommended a Vietnamese force that would be
sufficient to maintain internal order, but now, in view of the reduction
of French forces and Ngo Dinh Diem' e stand against an inevitably dishonest
national plebiscite, there was a strong possibility that the Vietminh would
use their superior forces in an invasion across the 17th parallel. To
repulse such aggression the Joint Chiefs proposed to place reliance on
Vietnamese ground forces, aided by US air and naval forces which would use
atomic weapons as needed. On 17 August, the Joint Chiefs recommended that
Vietnamese force levels be raised tO a ceiling of 150,000 personnel -- to
include 4 field divisions, 6 light divisions, 13 territorial regiments, plus
apprwd_mately 4,000 air, 4,000 navy, and 5,000 civilians and supporting
forces.(90) At this time, new decisions had to be made to comprehend the
Geneva limitation that only 342 US military personnel could be assigned in
Vietnam. Even though the United States had assumed that military mobile
training teams sent to Vietnam on temporary duty would not count against
this total, the limit of 342 individuals caused US strength to be spread
quite thinly, especially as the French were withdrawing their personnel.
On 25 August, the International Control Commission for Vietnam further
ruled that all TDY military personnel had to be included in the 342-man
personnel ceiling. For several years the United States would be unable
to secure any relief from the 342-man limit on the MAAG, which would super-
vise training in the 150,000-man Vietnamese armed forces, as well as a
40,000-meMber Vietnamese Self-Defense Corps. Since more advisory effort
would be needed the only possible contingency was to use US civilian
teams where possible to supplement the military effort. Thus the Vietnam
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Ministry of Interior and the US Operations Mission were given responsi-
bility for developing a 55,000-man Civil Guard, which was to be primarily
responsible for dealing with insurgent groups inside South Vietnam. Under
contracts with the US and South Vietnamese government, Michigan State
University undertook to assist in training and equipping the Civil Guard
and sought to make the guard a rural police force. (91)
Before Lt General Samuel T. Williams left Washington for Saigon where
he assumed the position as Chief, US MAAG on 15 NaveMber 1955, he was
briefed to prepare for a North Vietnamese invasion across the 17th parallel
which would likely occur sometime after July 1956. Before General Williams
arrived, the US MAAG had begun to organize the Army of Vietnam (now
abbreviated "ARVN" and pronounced as "Arvin") into four field divisions
(each with 8,500 men), six light divisions (each with 5,000 men), and 13
territorial regiments unassigned to divisions. It was soon obvious to
Williams that these miscellaneousunits could not be effectively employed
against a Vietminh assault and that the association in which both US and
French advisors were working to train ARVN units was both unsatisfactory
and unacceptable to President Diem. In each Vietnamese unit under the TRIM
arrangement, if the senior officer was French the second senior was an
American. Or if the senior was an American, the second senior was French.
Williams noted that there was considerable backbiting by the French, and,
at the request of Diem, he removed the French advisors from ARVN units. In
Saigon, however, the French continued to work in association with the US
MAAG unti1.26 April 1956, when Lt General Pierre-Edie Jacquot, the French
CINC Indochina, closed his headquarters and departed for France.(92) This
action did not affect the associated training of the Vietnamese Navy and
Air Force, which, as will be seen, would continue for another year.
In the early part of July 1956 -- the month of the possible Vietrdnh
attack across the 17th parallel -- General Williams went to Hue and
attempted to put together enough ARVN resources to defend the line of
demarcation. If the attack had come, Williams did not believe that the
ARVN was well enough organized, manned, and equipped to resist it. With-
out definite table of organization and equipment, moreover, it was difficult
if not impossible to state definite manning and equipment requirements for
the Vietnamese army units. At Williams' recommendation, the Government of
Vietnam convened a board of experienced officers, who studied the jungle,
swamp, and mountain warfare requirements expected to be faced in Vietnam
and recommended by mid-1957 a divisional organization suited to ARVN's needs.
In view of the lack of roads in Southeast Asia, the new division's TO&E
specified a bare minimum of motor transport and provided for a hand-carrying
force. (93)
Coincident with the termination of the French command in Vietnam on 26
April 1956, the US MAAG redesignated the Training Relations and Instruction
Mission (TRIM) as the Combat Arms Training and Organization Division (CATO)
of the MAAG. At this same time, approval was given for a 350-US man
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(including 68 Air Force personnel) Temporary Equipment Recovery Mission
(TERM) which was able to free MAAG personnel from the former laborious
diversion to tasks of recovering a large amount of surplus mutual security
equipment and supplies remaining from the Indochina war. General Williams
was able to assign American advisors to ARVN units down to regimental and
separate battalion levels. (9L) Under the 150,000-man US MAP, the ARVN
would be reorganized by 30 June 1959 into seven standard ARVN infantry
divisions, a minimum-strength airborne brigade, plus five territorial regi-
ments, the latter being standard infantry regiments not assigned to divisions.
By 1958 General Williams considered that ARVN had progressed so markedly as
to prevent the Vietminh from considering an orthodox military invasion. In
the event of a full-scale Communist invasion across the 17th parallel, the
ARVN was expected to be able to conduct an effective delaying action for up
to 15 days before taking up a close-in defense of the Tourane. (Da Nang)
base area, where it could possibly hold 30 days more. Outside military help
would be required to continue the defense of South Vietnam, provide for a
counter-offensive, or defend the Saigon-Mekong Delta area againat large
enemy forces advancing through the,Mekong Valley. (95)
In public addresses in 1957-58, President Eisenhower viewed the US
military and economic assistance programs, together with the courageous
response of the Vietnamese people under the dedicated leadership of
President Diem, as being the means whereby Vietnam had been saved for
freedom.(96) There were, nevertheless, criticisms of the military
assistance stance in South Vietnam. After visiting Southeast Asia in
November-December 1956, Clement Johnson, Chairman of the Board, US Chamber
of Commerce, thought that the time was ripe for substantial reductions in
troop and equipment levels in Vietnam and the other countries. In view of
SEATO, Johnson felt that the forces were larger and more heavily equipped
than necessary for internal security.(97) US Ambassador Elbridge Durbrow,
who arrived in Saigon on 20 March 1957, viewed the maintenance of a
150,000-man regular military force level in Vietnam as a necessity but
nevertheless emphasized that the cost of this force level made it very
difficult for Vietnam to improve its domestic economy as fast as was
desirable. In November 1957 Durbrow also pointed out that in the original
defense plans for Vietnam it had been expected that Cambodia and Laos
would be "basically with the West. . . and the main thought was to be sure
the Communists didnIt cross that narrow 17th parallel." Since there was
increasing Communist influence in Laos and Cambodia, President Diem saw
new requirements to strengthen his defenses along the western frontier.(98)
As reorganized for field campaigns, the Army of Vietnam had a capability of
engaging and defeating large guerrilla bands, but this did not preclude
small isolated attacks by small bandit and other dissident groups against
civilians friendly to the government and against small Vietnamese military
detachments.(99) The Self Defense Corps and the Civil Guard were expected
to provide local protection and deal with small incidents. In order to
meet Communist activity in remote areas, Diem established the Self Defense
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Corps late in 1955 under ARVN. Members of the Self Defense Corps were sup-
ported by MAP and were given short periods of military training at pro-
vincial training sites from which they returned to their villages to serve
in small squads and platoons under village and district control. The Self
Defense Corps units were armed with obsolete French weapons.(100) As
already noted, the Civil Guard was under the Vietnamese Ministry of Interior
and was financed, trained, and equipped by the US Operations Mission of the
American Embassy, with the actual training and equipping being performed on
contract with Michigan State University. The Civil Guard forces were
assigned to province chiefs as rural police, to be employed either offen-
sively or defensively within a province as necessary. If Civil Guard forces
were assigned to assist an ARVN operation, the forces remained under the
command of the province chief who might or might not cooperate with the ARVN
commander. (101)
After observing that the Civil Guard forces were inadequately trained
and equipped and had no established logistical supply channels, General
Williams recommended repeatedly as early as mid-1957 that the Civil Guard
should either be transferred to the direct control of the Vietnamese
Ministry of Defense or that USOM should employ capable civilian training
officers and buy the necessary equipment for the guardsmen. According to
Williams, Ambassador Durbrow refused to make a change in the assignment.
President Diem made the same recommendation and was quoted as saying that
Durbrow was impatient at Diem's over-concern with security and lack of
proper stress upon economic development. Williams also stated that the
Embassy informed Diem in June 1957 that assistance funds would be withheld
if he transferred the Civil Guard to military control. In William's view
the small, poorly armed guard detachments were "sitting ducks" for the
Vietcong attacks which came in increasing numbers after mid-1957. "I think
undoubtedly," Williams recalled, "that our failure to assist the Government
of Vietnam by providing US military advisers, arms and equipment, and
training guidance for the Civil Guard -- and giving them a logistical base
to work from -- was one of the biggest mistakes our policy makers made in
Vietnam. "(102)
The American mutual defense program for Vietnam gave transcendent
priority to the development of the Army of Vietnam and only passing emphasis
to the building of indigenous naval and air forces. The Vietnamese Navy
was organized with some assigned river assault boats in 1952. Though some
large craft were added after the 1954 Geneva agreements and US Navy advisory
efforts began in early 1955, the Vietnamese naval program remained under the
direction of the French high commissioner for Indochina and was carried out
by a joint TRIM staff, under the immediate command of a French Navy captain,
who was also CINC of the Vietnamese Navy. At the severe reduction of French
forces in the first half of 1955, France formally relinquished command over
the Vietnamese Navy an 1 July 1955, and an 20 August the senior Vietnamese
naval lieutenant commander was appointed CINC of the Vietnam Navy. In the
following year, the French gradually ceded control over naval installations
in Vietnam.(103)
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As has been seen, the Vietnamese Air Farce (VNAF) came into being at
Chief of State Bao nails insistence in June 1951, without any guiding con-
cept other than General Nguyen Van Hinh's desire to build a close support
tactical air arm specifically designed far local flying conditions. (104)
On 12 January 1954, the French Air Farce requested that the United States
modify its MDAP force basis in order to equip the Vietnamese Air Force
with a transport squadron, a fighter squadron, and a training center. At
this time, the US Air Staff was willing to provide an armed T-6 aircraft
complement for a VNAF squadron, but it thought that any Vietnamese trans-
port pilots should be employed in the undermanned and over-equipped French
transport squadrons.(105) In a public interview in March 1955, General J.
Lawton Collins stated the concept that would be used in building an
indigenous Vietnamese air force. Noting that South Vietnam would depend
chiefly upon SEATO for air and naval support in case of external aggression,
Collins stated that the Vietnamese would have "only light planes, and we
will not attempt to build up any combat Air Force. It will be a small Air
Force that will be used for liaison purposes, observation and adjustment of
fire -- that kind of thing.u(106)
In reviewing Vietnam force requirements on 17 August 1955, the Joint
Chiefs of Staff recommended a force level of approximately 4,000 individuals
for the Vietnamese Air Force and specified its major cambat force objective
as being two transport squadrons, one fighter bomber squadron, and two
liaison squadrons.(107) Later that month in Washington, a USAF MDAP planning
conference refined the fiscal year 1950-55 commitments and provided for
equipping VNAF Squadrons generally with MDAP aircraft and materiel to be
released by the French Air Force in Indochina. This programming called for
VNAF to receive 20 F8F fighter bombers, 35 C-47 air transports, and 60 L-19
liaison planes, 32 of the latter to be assigned to liaison squadrons and the
remainder to the training school at Nha Trang.(108) This basic program
would be followed with only a few deviations. MAAG-Saigon secured a devia-
tion to permit the allotment of 17 F8Fs and eight RF8Fs to the VNAF fighter-
bomber squadron. The RF8Fs were programmed in order to provide the
Vietnamese with a small reconnaissance capability but as will be seen they
would not be delivered. In addition to the JCS major force levels, the
Pacific Air Farce also recommended that VNAF should be provided with one
helicopter support squadron with a dual mission of airlift and air rescue.
Since the French had received H-19 helicopters in Indochina under the fiscal
year 1950-55 programs and the United States had agreed to continue to sup-
port these planes during the buildup of indigenous Indochina forces, the
proposal to provide VNAF withahelicopter unit at such time as the French
returned excess H-19s to MDAP custody was accepted in the Vietnam air
program. (109)
In his plan for Vietnamese training submitted in January 1955, General
O'Daniel made the decision that the Air Force Section of MAAG Vietnam would
be allocated 55 of the permissible 342 US military spaces.(110) The small
size of the Air Force Secticn -- together with the fact that the USAF per-
sonnel were also responsible for making inventories, receiving, and
determining disposition of huge quantities of excess MDAP air materiel that
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had been retrieved in Tonkin and dumped at the Bien Hoa air depot -- had a
major effect upon Franco-American plans for VNAF training. As was the
case with the Army advisors, General O'Daniel divided USAF personnel
between the MAAG Air Farce Section located in downtown Saigon and the
TRIM section which operated at another.location and also at field locations.
Air Force personnel in the two sections often displayed contrary views on a
given subject, and an inspection team noted that the division Of Air Force
responsibilities between MAAG and TRIM made for frequently uncoordinated,
inefficient, and somewhat strained relationships between Air Force personnel.
(111) In the delineation of responsibility for VNAF training, France agreed
to provide officers and non-commissioned officer personnel in advibory
capacity with major air headquarters and operational units; provide tech-
nical training support for Vietnamese assigned to an-the-job training (OJT)
with French units; provide training spaces for Vietnamese in air training
schools in France and North Africa; provide OJT training for Vietnamese
maintenance and logistical personnel; and provide French Air Force personnel
to staff and man VNAF units and the training school at Nha Trang until
Vietnamese personnel were available. The United States agreed to provide
advisory personnel to work in association with French personnel in major
headquarters and operational units; maintain a small nucleus of personnel
at the Nha Trang training school and the Bien Hoa air depot; provide limited
air training in the United States; and furnish personnel to advise VNAF in
logistical and supply procedures.(112) In the in-country training managed
by TRIM, the French lir Force employed 123 advisors while the USAF could
provide only 13 people.(113)
USAF officers who were assigned in Vietnam and those who made inspection
trips there reported unfavorably upon French training of the VNAF, both as to
its progress and quality. On the operational side, USAF officers did not
think that VNAF was progressing rapidly enough, and they were unhappy that
the French were training Vietnamese logisticians according to inefficient
French maintenance and supply procedures. Uncertainty as to how long the
French would leave advisors in Vietnam was troubling, as well as the fact
that French Air Force withdrawal plans turned bases over to the Vietnamese
before the latter could man and operate them. In withdrawing, the French
also withdrew certain equipment (such as portable electrical generators)
which the VNAF required. Moreover, the French were increasingly unpopular
with the Vietnamese and with President Diem, who wanted the French military
advisors removed.(114)
Although France's occupation of Vietnam ended with the withdrawal of
the French GING on 26 April 1956, the French Air Force continued to bear the
major responsibility for VNAF training. In fact, for several months after
the dissolution of TRIM, the French were solely responsible for advising
VNAF, and all that USAF officers could do was to give advice when requested,
attempt to stay abreast of VNAF programs, and program for Vietnamese training
in the United States.(115) In November 1956, however, the French agreed to
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relinquish responsibility for VNAF depot supply training to USAFadvisors,
since it had become apparent that if VNAF was to benefit from MAP support
something similar to the USAF logistical system had to be installed. (116)
After a visit to Southeast Asia, General Sory Smith reported that the
United States could not hope to develop an effective aid program for the
VNAF until it could take over the training mission from the French. (117)
In April 1957 negotiations between President Diem and the French Ambassador
led to a decision that all French training missions could be withdrawn
from Vietnam at the completion of training classes in progress. In view of
the fact that: the Air Force Section MAAG would have to advise VNAF, its
authorization for USAF personnel was increased to 10 administrative and 29 ,
training officers and 30 administrative and 53 training airmen, for a total
of 122 persons. All French military missions were removed from Vietnam by
31 July 1957, leaving the United States completely responsible for assistance
to Vietnam's army, navy, and air force. (118)
Having failed to train Vietnamese Air Force command and logistical per-
sonnel, the French Air Force had great difficulty in turning over its
authority to the VNAF, and these difficulties left long-lingering defects
in the fledgling air arm. A French air officer commanded VNAF until 1 July
1955, when VNAF came under the command of President Diem's government. At
this time, Lt Colonel Nguyen Khanh, a Vietnamese Army paratroop officer
already serving as Deputy Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces General Staff,
assumed command of VNAF. (119) In a rather hurried undertaking coincidental
to the removal of French Air Force units, the 1st VNAF Air Transport Squadron
was activated with C-47 aircraft an 1 July 1955, but for some time Frenchmen
continued to fill most of the squadron's supervisory slots. After a year,
the C-47 squadron was reorganized an 1 July 1956 as the 1st Air 'Transport
Group, with the let and 3d Air Transport Squadrons and 32 unit equipment C447
transports.(120) Already in being under other designations, the let and 2d
VNAF Liaison Squadrons received MDAP L-19 liaison aircraft in 1955-56; and
following VNAF assumption of authority over the training establishment at
Nha Trang on 7 July 1955, this organization was also equipped with L-19s.
(121) As the time approached for organizing the VNAF fighter-bomber
squadron, Pacific Air Force officers were skeptical of the ability of the
available Vietnamese pilots to handle F8Fs and made a tentative suggestion
that this squadron might better be Outfitted with armed T-6 planes, a sug-
gestion which they knew would be poorly received by the status-conscious
Vietnamese. Proceeding with the original program, the French operated a
transition school at Cap Saint Jacques in the winter of 1955-56, and the
1st VNAF Fighter Squadron was activated at Bien Hoa Airfield an 1 June 1956
with 25 F8Fs and an expectation of receiving RF8Fs at a future date.(122)
In addition to these MAP provided aircraft, the VNAF also operated a Special
Air Mission Squadron with an Aero-CoMmander transport, three C-47s, and
three Beechcraft C-45s -- planes that had been purchased by the Vietnamese
gavernment.(123) With four officer pilots and 25 airmen, all French trained,
the VNAF activated its 1st Helicopter Squadron at Tan Son Nhut Airfield on
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1 June 1957. Lacking helicopters, the pilots maintained their flying
proficiency with the French helicopter unit that transported members of
the International Control Commission. The French unit terminated its
activities an 26 April 1958 and 10 of its excess H-19 helicopters were
reallocated to the 1st VNAF Helicopter Squadron. (124)
By way of general summary, USAF persannel in Vietnam would note that
VNAF proved more proficient in flying planes than in maintaining the air-
craft and the air facilities that were received from the French. Since the
Indochina war had largely been fought in the north, the French had devoted
most of their efforts to developing the air facilities around Hanoi. As a
result, the air facilities that would be turned over to VNAF had numerous
deficiencies. Tan Son Nhut Airfield near Saigon was South Vietnam's inter-
national airport and best air facility. Here with American aid a main
7,200-foot asphalt runway and adjacent ramps-t were opened in mid-1956, and
the US International Cooperation Agency would begin planning and ultimately
complete another 10,000-foot cement concrete runway. At Tourane Airfield
(which the Vietnamese began to call by its Annamese name, Da Nang, in 1958)
the French laid down a NATO standard 7,800-foot asphalt runway in 1953-54,
but this field lacked maintenance buildings and permanent facilities, such
as runway lights. The old French air depot at Bien Hoa had permanent ware-
houses and hangers, but its pierced steel runway was short, even for con-
ventional F8F operations. Nha Trang's flight surfaces and buildings could
accommodate light training functions, but the field had limited capabilities
for tactical aircraft. At Cap Saint Jacques (which the Vietnamese would
call Vung Tau) the French built and used an air base with a 5,900-foot
pierced steel plank runway during 1955-56, but, in withdrawing, they stripped
the airfield and left it almost demolished.(125) Even if the South Vietnamese
air bases had been in good order, the VNAF's limited strength of 3,300 per- ,
sons as of 1 July 1955 (including 1,245 individuals still in training) would
have made it difficult to take over the Vung Tau base; moreover, the base
had been too completely gutted to permit it to be retained in use. (126)
Under the French regime some Vietnamese had received aircraft main-
tenance and supply training in France ar at Nha Trang, but French Air Force
personnel had managed VNAF logistics and had operated the Air Depot at Bien
Hoa. Thus in July 1955 the VNAF had very little internal support capability
and for a time was virtlially incapable of even squadron maintenance and
supply. A major logistical crisis ensued when the MAP took over operation
of the Bien Hoa Air Depot on I March 1956. While the Vietnamese adequately
manned the facility with 359 military and 150 civilian technicians, VNAF
supervisors were too inexperienced to manage control of supply, quality
standards, or production. The situation was further complicated when the
French suddenly withdrew their supply advisors in mid-August 1956, but, as
has been seen, US HAAG advisors were able to step into this breach and
begin to introduce USAF supply practices. Under American tutelage in 1957-58
the VNAF logistical posture &mod some improvement. Prior to this, the Air
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Force MAAG had been stymied in computing VNAF logistical requirements by
a lack of inventories and the failure of using organizations to turn in
excesses accumulated from the French, but in the last half of 1957 a
temporary equipment-recovary mission (TERM) from the Southern Air Materiel
Area Pacific (SAMAP) in the Philippines made headway in reducing excesses
and implanting a consumption data reporting system. The Air MAAG estab-
lished and monitored a VNAF production control unit at the Bien Hoa depot.
In 1958, composite MAAG, VNAF, and SAMAP teams made extensive surveys and
prepared a document to serve as a guide for a proper logistical posture
to be achieved in a time-phased schedule.(127)
Although the VNAF logistical situation showed marked improvements in
1957-1958 and the Vietnamese were entirely cooperative, the transition from
French to American air logistical systems was very difficult. In general,
the VNAF liaison squadrons became able to maintain their L-19s, but the
fighter squadron had considerable difficulty with its F8Fs. Here the problem
was a composite of limited Vietnamese skills, aged and obsolete aircraft, and
declining supply support from Navy, sources in the United States. In October
1958, Washington notified MAAG-Vietnam that armed T-28 aircraft would have to
be programmed as replacements for the VNAF F8Fs. Such planes were unaccept-
able to the VNAF commander, who was galled that the Thais, Filipinos, and
Chinese Nationalists had jets, and later in the year the US MAAG convinced
the Office of Secretary of Defense that the VNAF was actually unable to con-
vert to any sort of new aircraft in the immediate future.(128)
In mid-1958 the Vietnamese Air Farce attained an authorized strength
of 4,140 military personnel, which at this time included 126 pilots, 105
trainee pilots, 179 other aircrew Personnel, and 3,730 ground personnel.(129)
In terms of the disproportionate17. large ARVN force, VNAF was very small
and would not be able to provide a hard core for future expansion when this
would be urgently required.(130) The VNAF was in theory an independent
service, but in terms of organization and leadership it was dominated by the
Vietnamese Any. Organizationally, VNAF was dependent upon ARVN for ordnance,
quartermaster, engineering, signal, and other specialized services, including
the maintenance of its physical air base plants. Only in the realm of air
technical items was VNAF in any way independent and even then its directives
and procedures had to be approved by the ARVN-controlled Joint General Staff.
The Joint General Staff also directed such operations as the VNAF was expected
to perform in tactical support of ARVN undertakings. VNAF's assigned mis-
sions included airlift of personnel and supplies; paradrop of personnel and
supplies; visual and photographic reconnaissance; medical air evacuation; and
tactical air-ground support. VNAF. used its liaison squadrons for visual
reconnaissance, but it had no formal photographic reconnaissance capabilities
since expected RF8Fs would not be made available to the 1st Fighter Squadran.(131)
As the older and far larger service, ARVN also dominated VNAF's leader-
ship. At its beginnings in 1951, Vietnamese air officers were selected from
the top cadets at the military school at Dalat, who upon graduation were
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assigned to flying schools in France or North Africa, or to the Vietnamese
flying school at Nha Trang. Non-commissioned officers and airmen were
recruited from the Army.(132) When VNAF became independent on 1 July 1955,
Lt Colonel Nguyen Khanh permitted many ARVN officers to transfer into VNAF .
command and staff positions. Other high-ranking VNAF officers who conducted
operations, planning, and support functions were "washed-out" pilot trainees
who were "early returnees" from French aviation schools and arrived at a
good time to be integrated into top staff positions. These "political officers"
were resented by VNAF flying officers and were often less than competent in
their performance of duty. On the other hand, VNAF flying officers were very
young and relatively inexperienced. Lt Colonel Nguyen Xuan Vinh, who was
appointed Acting Commander of VNAF in February 1958 and would continue to
hold this title until 1962, had been born in North Vietnam in 1930. Colonel
Vinh's effectiveness benefitted from personal favor he found with President
Diem, but other young flying officers -- and most were about Vinh's age --
found it difficult to give and even more difficult to enforce orders.
According to American observers, the officers liked to identify themselves
with their subordinates down to and including enlisted grades, a trait that
was partly due to integrated kinship ties throughout the country. Very few
of the Vietnamese air officers seem to have had a basic concept of how their
aircraft ought to be employed to have a maximum effect upon the enemy. If
the strength of the VNAF officer corps left something to be desired, the
morale and effectiveness of Vietnamese airmen -- with a MAAG-reported desertion
rate of somewhere between 8 and 12 percent -- was even less satisfactory.(133)
The American offer of assistance to South Vietnam made by President
Eisenhower to Ngo Dinh Diem on 1 October 1954 was designed to aid the Vietnamese
in developing a government that would be capable of resisting military aggres-
sion or subversion and would be politically enlightened and effective toward
its citizens. Most American estimates in 1958-59 credited Diem with making
progress toward achieving these objectives, although not as much or as fast
as many observers would have liked.
On the political level, President Diem led the Republic of Vietnam
through general elections for the establishment of a National Assembly on 4
March 1956 and the adoption of a constitution on 26 October of the same year.
In his foreign policy Diem was a supporter of Free World programs. In con-
versations with Ambassador Durbrow in 1957, Diem favored the establishment of
very close relations between South Vietnam and SEATO, but the United Kingdom
and Canada objected that this would disrupt the status quo as viewed by the
Communists and would have an adverse effect on India, and Diem dropped the
idea of affiliation with SEATO. (134) In mid-1958 Pacific Air Force intel-
ligence estimated that Diem was popular enough with the Vietnamese people to
win a free and democratic election if such could be held throughout Vietnam.
(135) Other official evaluations recognized that Diem had weaknesses. Vice
Admiral George W. Anderson, Chief of Staff, Pacific Command, pointed out that
Diem's government in Saigon was "rather naive and that there is not too much
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depth to its leadership." At this same time, Lt Colonel H. C. McNeese,
Air Attache at Saigon, described Dien as "dedicated" but authoritarian.
Diem himself described his government as a "controlled democracy. "(136)
In speaking about Vietnam, Assistant Secretary of State Walter S.
Robertson recognized that Diem had instituted firm control measures that
caused criticism, but Robertson considered that the measures were largely
justified by the continued threat of the Vietminh and the fact that about
80 percent of Diem's countrymen were illiterate and required strong
leadership. (137)
With American assistance South Vietnam's economy steadily forged
ahead from the chaos that had existed in 1954. In 1956 Diem issued a
presidential decree aimed at breaking up large land holdings created
during the colonial period and providing for the distribution of over
600,000 acres of land to over 115,000 tenant farmer households. Other
aspects of Diem's economic policy inclined toward economic nationalism.
Concerned about Chinese domination of Vietnam's trade and commerce, Diem
promulgated a series of decrees and ordinances restricting commercial
operations to persons who had been born to Vietnamese citizenship, or had
officially assumed it by 9 May 1957. The economic nationalism was popular
with the Vietnamese, but American observers noted that French investors
were withdrawing from the country and Chinese capital was idled.(138) In
the spring of 1957, Ambassador Durbrow impressed on Diem the danger of
bringing too much pressure upon the indigenous overseas-Chinese.(139)
Official US. observers also did not believe that Diem was serious enough
about establishing a comprehensive national budget or heavy-enough internal
taxes. South Vietnam was nevertheless able to demonstrate substantial eco-
nomic prqgress, with the main gains taking place in agriculture. Rubber,
the largest source of foreign exchange, surpassed pre-1941 production in
1956, and exports of rubber would earn almost $48 million in 1960. In 1957,
rice production passed pre-war levels, earning about $20 million in foreign
exchange that year, and over $27 million in 1960. Also in 1960, the gross
national product of South Vietnam amounted to $110 per capita as compared
to only $70 per capita in North Vietnam. In view of this economic program,
US economic aid, which totalled $281 million in fiscal year 1957, would be
cut to less than $145 million in fiscal year 1961.(140)
Given the establishment of a Southeast Asian regional defense organiza-
tion and the increasing strength of the Republic of Vietnam, American
leaders saw the Communist threat to South Vietnam as shifting from overt
attack from the north to possible internal subversion. By March 1958
Admiral Stump considered that there was no chance that the North Vietnamese
Army would be able to "walk-inn inta South Vietnam. The North Vietnamese
would be delayed a sufficient time by ARVN forces and by the terrain to
permit help to arrive from SEATO. (141) There were significantly different
estimates of the strength and capabilities of Communist guerrillas remaining
in South Vietnam. According to ARVN estimates as many as 10,000 Communist
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guerrillas had remained in South Vietnam at the withdrawal of the Vietminh
in 1954, but in late 1957 ARVN intelligence was reporting only 160 Vietcong
in the central mountains of northern South Vietnam and only 1,100 in the
Mekong delta. On 22 October 1957 Communist terrorists bombed US MAG and
Information Service installations in Saigon, wounding 13 American military
personnel, but President Diem was nevertheless optimistic about the military
situation. On 26 October 1957, in an address occasioned by the second
anniversary of the founding of the Republic, he stated that "order has been
restored notwithstanding some isolated acts of brigandage or assassination
perpetrated by Communist adventurers."(1)42)
Subsequent events would make it evident that Diem was optimistic about
South Vietnam's internal security and that the ARVN estimates did not sug-
gest the true power of the guerrilla forces. By mid-1957 the Communists
had begun to infiltrate men and materiel assistance into South Vietnam,
where the cadres grouped with sect remnants.(143) In 1958 Republic of
Vietnam Armed Forces (RVNAF) estimates of Vietcong strength ranged upward
from 2,000 to 9,0oq and BVNAF figures showed that Diem's district and village
officials were being assassinated at a rate of 25 a month in the last six
months of 1958.(1)i)i) The internal threats to Diem's government were reported
to Washington, but there were different evaluations in Saigon as to the
significance of the Vietcong threat.(145) Alarmed at the guerrilla activities,
General Williams arranged for the MAAG to receive. weekly ARVN reports of
Vietcong atrocities and submitted them to the US Embassy, which, Williams said,
dismissed the reports as Vietnamese propaganda and a ruse to justify increased
military aid. (146) On 8 April 1959 Diem declared that the Republic of
Vietnam was engaged in a "hot war" and described its southern provinces as
being in a "state of siege.1(147) According to Diem, however, Ambassador
Durbrow believed him to be obsessed with the security problem and advised him
to lay more stress on economic progress. (1h8) And in July 1959 Durbrow told
an inquiring delegation of US Senators that according to his estimates there
were perhaps 3,000 Communist cadremen in South Vietnam but that they were
compelled to hide in the jungles, forests, and swamps and were only able "to
sneak out and make attacks an individuals and different posts. "(1h9)
3. Laos and Cambodia Were Special Problems
In post-Geneva Conference assessments of Southeast Asia's potentials
and vulnerabilities, Laos and Cambodia would clearly never contribute greatly
to collective Free World defense efforts, but the two nations were geo-
graphically situated an the flanks of Thailand and South Vietnam in such a
position as to provide a convenient corridor southward fram Hanoi. In the
French Indochina war, the Vietminh had shuttled men north and south over a
network of rude trails in the Lao panhandle, which would become known col-
lectively as the Ho Chi Minh trail. If Laos were to be taken into the
Communist bloc in its entirety, J. Graham Parsons, US Ambassador at
Vientiane from 22 June 1956 to 6 March 1958, pointed out "it would bring
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Thailand into immediate proximity to Communist-controlled territory and
would expose the flank of free Vietnam."(150) While Laos was a corridor
for Communist infiltration, Cambodia was the heart of the old Indochina
peninsula. Speaking at a MAP conference in November 1956, Captain J. E.
Gilroy, a member of MAAG-Cambodia, described the strategic significance
of this nation: "In Communist hands, Cambodia could be the springboard
from which the Communist could launch political, economic, or military
thrusts for the complete conquest of all Southeast Asia and even Indonesia.
Vietnam is particularly vulnerable to attacks emanating from Cambodia.
Excellent routes of advance also exist into Thailand and thence to Malaya
and Burma."(151)
Throughout most of the Indochina War, Communist groups in Laos and
Cambodia caused France little difficulty, and this condition prevailed
until 1953 when Vietminh drives into Laos established Communist Pathet
Lao strongholds in Phong Saly and Houa Phan (Sam Neua) Provinces and
centers of activity in the hills east of the town of Thakhek in the
southern panhandle of Laos. At Geneva the Vietminh delegation unsuccess-
fully sought to secure recognition far the Pathet Lao as the true Laotian
government, a position which President Eisenhower rejected in a letter to
King Sisavang Vong on 10 May in which he also expressed conviction that
the forces of freedom, working in unison, would repulse the Communist
imperialism that threatened his kingdam.(152)
The agreement on the cessation of hostilities in Laos signed on 20
July 1954 by a representative of the French Union and a Vietminh officer
who signed for the "Commander-in-Chief of the fighting units of the Pathet
Lao" accorded special political rights to the Pathet Lao "pending a
political settlement." Pathet Lao forces -- approximately 3,000 individuals
-- were to be regrouped in Phong Saly and Houa Phan pending integration into
the Royal Lao Army or demobilization. The Royal Lao Government was to
administer the provinces but with the provision that it would take measures
for representation of the interests of the Pathet Lao until scheduled Lao
general elections were held in August 1955. Vietminh and most French troops
were to withdraw from Laos, and no new military bases could be established.
The French were authorized to leave up to 1,500 military personnel in Laos
to train the Laotian army and to maintain two French military establishments
in Laos, manned by not more than 3,500 men. These agreements were to be
monitored by the International Control Commission for Laos, with India as
chairman and members from Canada and Poland. The Geneve agreement an
Cambodia reflected a general lack of Vietminh activity in the country.
Vietminh forces were to be withdrawn, the Communists Khmer Issaraks were to
be integrated into the national community, and the agreement was to be
monitored by another International Control Commission.(153)
On the basis of the Pentalateral Agreement of 23 December 1950, the
United States was authorized to provide military assistance to Laos and
Vietnam, and after negotiations on 27..29 September 1954 the United States
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and France agreed that both nations would continue to support Cambodia,
Laos, and Vietnam, with direct channels of US aid to the new states.
Pending the establishment of American embassies at Vientiane and Phnom
Penh, Donald It. Heath represented the United States in these capitals as
well as in Saigon. On 14 September 1954, however, Ambassador Robert
McClintock arrived in Phnom Penh and on 4 February 1955 an American lega-
tion was opened in Vientiane. With the arrival of Ambassador Charles W.
Yost in Vientiane on 10 August 1955 the legation became an embassy. (154)
In preparation for the Franco-American diplomatic talks in September
1954 and in view of Cambodian requests for US military aid on 20 May and
for combined military and economic aid on 1 September 1954, the Joint Chiefs
of Staff undertook studies of the feasibility of providing US military
assistance to Laos and Cambodia and these studies would continue for more
than a year. The Royal Laotian Army (Forces Armees du( Royaume, or "FAR")
had had its legal basis in the Franco-Laotian accords of 1949 which had
established it under the operational control of the French CIN0 in Indo-
china. A rudimentary force of about 1,200 men under French cadres in 1949,
the Lao army increased to 9,500 men in 1952. Under the impetus of US
HEAP the Cambodian army was increased to 9,000. The French had provided
officers and non-commissioned officers to both the Laotian and Cambodian
armies, with the result that native officers and non-coins had not been
developed. In their initial study and report concerning US military
assistance to the former Indochina states, the Joint Chiefs recommended
that the United States could not develop effective forces in Cambodia
unless it dealt directly with the armed forces there, without French
participation and control in the undertaking. They further stated that
they could not recommend any force objectives for Laos since the Geneva
agreement would not allow the United States to train Laotian military
personnel or supervise the use of US MDAP equipment. (1%)
When Laos and Cambodia gained their independence on 1 January 1955,
however, the political situation demanded that the United States undertake
support of the indigenous armies. Even though there were reports that the
exact strength of the Lao army was not known, the United States effective
an 1 January 1955 provided direct cash grants to Laos through its newly
established national bank to provide pay to the Lao military forces at
rates set by the French, this unique arrangement being justified by a
belief that the Lao army was the principal bulwark against Communism in
Laos. Early in 1955 the American Minister in Vientiane pointed out that
the United States was already paying the Lao army and that the Geneva agree-
ment did not prevent the provision of military equipment to Laos and
asked for guidance as to an appropriate strength for the Lao military forces.
Citing their original objections, the Joint Chiefs would again refuse to
specify a MDAP military force level, but in view of the Lao political situa-
tion they advised that 23,500 Lao troops should be adequate for internal
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security. Early in 1956, following recommendations by Ambassador Yost and
Admiral Stump and as the result of Admiral Radford's very strong support
for the action, the Joint Chiefs acknowledged a requirement for expansion
of the Lao army to 25,000 personnel, this modest increase being acceptable
in view of psychological, political, and morale -- rather than military --
reasons.(156) In the case of Cambodia, the Joint Chiefs continued to find
themselves unable to specify military force levels for MDAP as long as the
French controlled the program. Pursuant to the Cambodian request and fol-
lowing an interchange of notes at Phnom Penh, however, the United States
agreed effective on 16 May 1955 to provide direct military assistance to
Cambodia. As the result of a MDAP survey, Ambassador McClintock favored
US support of 31,000 Cambodian military personnel, with the Army to be
organized into battalions. In the iatter half of 1955, the Joint Chiefs of
Staff acknowledged the commitment made by the Ambassador, but they advised that
the 31,000 strength figure ought to be considered a maximum requirement.(157)
The peculiar circumstances under which American military aid was to be
rendered to Cambodia and Laos affected the US organization in the two
countries. At Phnom Penh, Brigadier General Edwin S. Hartshorn, Jr.,
opened a MAAG in June 1955 with a strength of 29 officers and 30 enlisted
men. Since MAP planning for Cambodia at this time did not encompass USAF
equipment, no USAF people were incladed in the predominantly Army-manned
MAAG. A French military mission of some 400 officers and men was solely
responsible for advising the Cambodian general staff and for training, while
the US MAAG provided technical and logistical assistance, to include end-use
checks of US equipment at battalion level. In the first of many subsequent
misunderstandings of US policy, the Cambodian government charged in April
1956 that the United States was using its aid to coerce Cambodia into joining
SEATO and had obliged Vietnam and Thailand to impose measures of economic
warfare against Cambodia for the saMe alleged end. The United States flatly
denied the charge, but the sensitive Cambodians arbitrarily limited the
strength of the US MAAG to a maximum of 61 regularly assigned people and 35
temporary duty (not to exceed 90-days) personnel.(158) When the first
American aviation assistance was allocated to Cambodia in the latter half
of 1956, the small program was monitored by USAF personnel from the MAAG in
Saigon without difficulty. Being on bad terms with Vietnam, however, the
Cambodian government objected to the procedure, compelling the United States
to increase its air personnel in the JUSMAAG-Thailand by one officer and
one airman to handle Cambodian air assistance programming. (159)
In Laos the United States paid the Royal Army and provided equipment
to it on the recommendation of the French, with only a small ability through
the Embassy to determine what was happening. By agreement between the
State and Defense Departments, a US Programs Evaluation Office (PEO) was
activated. at Vientiane on 15 December 1955, headed by Thomas H. Unger and
eventually consisting of 40 individuals, some of whom were retired US mili-
tary personnel. Organizationally, the PEO was assigned to and manned by
the International Cooperation Administration and was attached to the US
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Operations Mission in Vientiane. The functions of the PEO were similar to
those of a MAAG with the exception that a French military mission was res-
ponsible for all Lao military training. The PEO personnel were authorized
to make end-use inspections of American equipment held by Laotian army
units in the field, but the Lao government did not like for PED people to
be exposed to public view, and the US Embassy demanded that any end-use
checks would be carried out with cautious discretion. On occasions, such
as one for six weeks in September-October 1956, the US Embassy suspended
field inspection visits by PED personnel.(160)
Where army units organized during the Indochina War provided a basis
for post-Geneva ground forces in Laos and Cambodia, the French had made
only the most embryonic beginnings of Lao and Cambodian air forces, and
these had been undertaken primarily to enhance the prestige of the local
rulers. Established on 1 April 1954, the Cambodian air arm was a part of
the Cambodian army and was initially to be equipped for training and
occasional transport of key officials. Cambodia received its first planes
from the French in mid-1955 and by November 1955 possessed 3 C-47, 2
Cessna-180,. and 3 Cessna-170 transports, 4 FD-25A Fletcher attack planes,
14 MS-733 and 3 MS-500 trainers, and 3 ms-500 liaison aircraft. In
November 1955 33 Cambodian pilots and 12 pilot candidates were being
trained by the French. The Cambodian aircraft were not organized into units
and all of them were located at Pochentong Airfield at Phnom Penh, the only
improved air facility in the country. (161)
In Laos in 1955 a Lao air arm existed as a part of the Lao army, but
it was chiefly a courtesy title for a small force of 220 people, 12 Lao
pilot officers in training in France, 4 C-47s, and 9 mS-500 Crickets. The
aircraft were located at Vientiane on loan from the French Air Force. A
detachment of six French officers flew the Lao planes, and the French also
operated 2 L-20s and 5 H-19 helicopters located at Vientiane, Xieng Khouang,
Sam Neua, and Boun Neua in support of the International Control Commission.
Lao Army troops in the field frequently required air resupply in excess of
the Lao air arm's capability. In these cases, the French usually chartered
civilian C-47s flown by Air Laos pilots. (162) The Lao unit was commanded
by a French air officer, and French military ground crews maintained the Lao
aircraft until late 1956. At this time the French maintenance crews
returned home and contract maintenance had to be arranged.(163)
In both Laos and Cambodia terrain conditions demanded aerial resupply
for any effective military ground movement and the lack of all-weather
roads in the mountains of Laos virtually demanded air support for any field
undertaking. The air facility system in both countries, however, was
extremely poor, the facilities in Laos being poorer than in any neighboring
country except Cambodia which was the poorest. In a program begun in 1954
the French improved Seno Airfield near Savannakhet for their awn use, giving
it a 5,250-pierced steel plank runway and making it the best military air
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facility in Laos. A US ISA project would provide another PSP runway at
Vientiane which would be able to accommodate aircraft as large as C-130s
in dry weather. There was a short aspihalt runway at Pakse, and a 31950-foot
flight surface on the Plain of Jars near Xiang Khouang. The other Lao
fields -- including that at Luang Prabang, the royal capitol -- were flat
surfaces, usable only in dry weather. With ICA funding, Lao air facilities
would be improved in 1957-59, but they would continue to be rudimentary.(164)
Of a total of 15 usable airfields in Cambodia, only eight airfields had
possibilities for handling a C-47 aircraft. In fact, Pochentong Airfield at
Phnom Penh -- with a 5,298-foot PSP runway -- was the only developed airfield
in the country. (165)
The people of Laos and Cambodia were so predominantly rural and lacking
in mechanical skills as to make recruitment and training of indigenous air
force personnel very difficult. Very few Laotians understood the English
language, and only 10 percent of than were literate. Very few Cambodians
possessed a western education or any sort of a technical background, and
most of them had no interest in any type of a military career.(166) Taking
into consideration the lack of suitable manpower and economic poverty in
Laos and Cambodia, the Pacific Air Force recommended in March 1956 that no
efforts should be made to develop any.air forces in those countries beyond a
minimal capability for air transport and air liaison. For Cambodia and Laos,
PACAF accordingly recommended that both countries be allotted one composite
transport/liaison squadron with C-47,.LT-6C, and T-6 aircraft.(169) Under
review in PACOM in the spring of 1956, these force recommendations were
substantially raised. In June 1956, CINCPAC proposed that Cambodia be pro-
vided an L-19 liaison squadron, a composite C-47/L-20 transport squadron, and
an LT-6G armed reconnaissance squadron. The CINCPAC farce recommendation for
Laos included a C-47 transport squadron, an LT-6G armed reconnaissance
squadron, and a composite L-19/H-19 squadron.(168) In Washington at the
direction of the Office of Secretary of Defense, four C-47 aircraft were
included in the fiscal year 1956 MAP for Laos. As they had also done in
regard to Army MAP commitments, the Joint Chiefs of Staff wished to see what
political developments were going to occur in Laos and Cambodia before making
aviation assistance commitments to these countries. In their final decision,
moreover, the Joint Chiefs accepted PACAF's recommendations rather than those
of PACOM, establishing the force objective for Cambodia as being a composite
squadron with 25 C-47 and L-19 aircraft and for Laos as another composite
squadron with 30 C-47 and L-19 aircraft.(169) There would be some substitu-
tion of aircraft types, but the camposite squadron objectives would not be
changed for several years.
The social, political, and economic situation prevailing in Laos after
1954 greatly complicated the initiation and implementation of American
assistance programs. When Laos gained its complete independence on 1 January
1955, its government was a constitutional monarchy headed by aged King
Sisavang Vong, who maintained his royal residence at Luang Prabang. Because
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of infirmities, Sisavang Vong lived in virtual retirement, and Crown Prince
Savang Vathana had exercised the royal powers since 1950 and would be
formally invested as king following the death of the old king on 29 October
1959. As a part of his ceremonial duties, the Lao king promulgated laws
and designated the prime minister and cabinet members. Both Sisavang Vong
and Savang Vathana were counted to be pro-western and anti-Communist.(170)
Under the Lao monarch's ceremonial umbrella, political power in the
land-locked kingdom was centered at the political capital of Vientiane,
where factional politics sprang fram familial groupings of the French-
educated elite. Each family group had a base of power in a particular
region, but its political following was not necessarily restricted to a
region since a few individuals had begun to attain more general support
throughout Laos, even though the vast majority of the two million Lao
were for the most part not politically conscious. These clan groups
included the Champassak family, whose head, Prince Boun Oum, was the
dominant figure in southern Laos; the Sananikone family, important in
Vientiane and headed by Phoui Sananikone; the equally-prestigious Souvannavong
family which often shared political authority in Vientiane; and the cadet
branch of the royal family, which included neutralist-inclined Prince Souvanna
Phouma and his half-brother, Prince Souphanouvong, who nominally headed the
Communist Pathet Lao.(171)
Under close surveillance of the International Control Commission, Prime
Minister Katay Sasorith worked to accomplish the goal specified by the Geneva
agreement which called for a reintegration of the Pathet Lao into the Lao
community, a feat which would also include reestablishment of government
control over Houa Phan (Sam Neua) and Phong Saly provinces. During 1954-55
the Pathet Lao showed no signs of adhering to the Geneva agreement but
instead demanded continued control over their occupied provinces and recog-
nition as equals in the national government. As a price for participating
in a national election, the Pathet Lao demanded election law changes that
would have been advantageous to them. When their demands were not net, the
Pathet Lao boycotted the election held on 25 December 1955 and refused to
allow balloting in Sam Neua and Phong Saly.(172)
Even though the Pathet Lao lost political influence which they might
have attained in the National Assembly by boycotting the 1955 election, a
strong sentiment for national unity led to the appointment of neutralist
Souvanna Phouma as prime minister on 31 March 1956, with a pledge to settle
the Pathet Lao issue. With the assistance of the International Control
Commission, Souvanna Phouma and Souphanouvong made an agreement effective on
1 August 1956 to stop sporadic fighting between Royal Lao Army (FAR) and
Pathet Lao troops. At a meeting in Vientiane in the same month preliminary
agreements were made looking toward the reintegration of the Pathet Lao
battalions into the Royal Army. Soon after this, Souvanna Phouma accepted
a Red Chinese invitation and visited Peking with ten of his cabinet members.
(173)
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The activities of Prime Minister Souvanna Phouma caused some apprehen-
sion to the US government and to US Ambassador J. Graham Parsons, who
arrived in Vientiane on 22 June 1956. The basic American concern was that
Souvanna Phouma might make damaging concessions to the Pathet Lao to secure
national unity. The United States opposed the visit of the Lao cabinet
members to Peking, and it was additionally alarmed when it appeared that
as many as 5,000 Pathet Lao troops might be integrated into the Royal Lao
Army.(174) The corrupt Lao administration of the US aid programs as well
as the inflationary effect of the aid programs on the Lao economy also
began to be apparent in late 1956. As has been peen, the US aid programs
had begun effective on 1 January 1955 when the United States had begun to
provide about $34 million a year to pay and equip the Lao Army. Other
programs in economic, health, and education fields amounted to an addi-
tional $34 million a year. To support most programs, the United States
purchased Lao kip from the National Bank of Laos at the rate of 35 kip to
each dollar. In order to absorb the new kip thus placed in circulation,
arrangements were made whereby Lao importers would pay 35 kip to the Lao
treasury for every dollar's worth of goods they were licensed to import,
and the exporters would be paid in dollars outside Laos. In the interest
of establishing support without delay, the Lao government was given pri-
mary control over cash-grant dollars. The flow of American goods into
Laos under these programs was not only at a rate approximately ten times
higher than the Lao economy could support, but the cash-grant arrangements
were corruptly administered. Because of Lao inflation the prevailing kip-
dollar rate in Southeast Asia was 100 to 1, and Lao importers found them-
selves able to settle their accounts quite advantageously with cheap kip
obtained in Thailand and Hongkong. In addition, import items were over-
invoiced, delivered short or defective, or diverted to other countries,
particularly Thailand. when these abuses became apparent, the United States
pressed Souvanna Phouma to devalue the kip was well as to tighten up on the
issuance of import licenses. In December 1956, US aid to Laos was tempo-
rarily suspended but it was renewed when the Lao government undertook
reforms in the management of import licensing.(175)
Late in 1956 the Pathet Lao increased their price for integration
within the national community, and by 28 December Souvanna Phouma had
agreed to integrate Pathet Lao troops into the Royal Army, to give civil
service positions to Communist functionaries, to accept the Pathet Lao
as a legal political party, to schedule supplementary elections for an
enlarged National Assembly, to include the Pathet Lao in his cabinet,
and to accept economic aid from any nation. These concessiaas appeared
quite dangerous to the United States, and, mainly as a result of efforts
made by Deputy Prime Minister Katay Sasorith,. they were not placed before
the National Assembly prior to its adjournment in March 1957. When the
Pathet Lao increased their demands in early 1957, to include a demonstra-
tion of Lao neutrality involving exchange of diplomatic representatives
with the Communist bloc and immediate acceptance of aid from Communist
China, the US State Department expressed a hope that the Royal Government
of Laos would ?not be dictated to by dissident groups enjoying no
constitutional status. "(176)
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After a period of political instability marked by Souvanna Phouma's
resignation in May 1957 and the Assembly's failure to agree on any other
successor, Souvanna Phouma returned to the premiership in August 1957 and
reinstituted negotiations with the Pathet Lao. The United States and
Great Britain now opposed the establishment of a coalition government,
but India and France wanted to see a settlement of the Lao problem. The
articulate population of Laos also wanted a settlement, and, in early
November 1957, Souvanna Phouma and Souphanavong reached an agreement which
called for the installation of two Pathet Lao leaders into the national
cabinet, integration of some 1,500 Pathet Lao troops into the Royal Army,
the holding of national elections for an expanded National Assembly, and
finally the reincorporation of Phong Saly and Sam Neua into the national
community.(177) On a visit to Washington in January 1958, Souvanna Phouma
assured President Eisenhower that he "recognized that the Communist ideology
is a danger to the Free World, and stressed that any system which throttled
the dignity and freedom of the individual could have no appeal for the Lao
people." Nhen State Department representatives pressed Souvanna to devalue
the kip to its appropriate worth, he pointed out that such devaluation
would create popular discontent and handicap the anti-Communist parties in
the May election. An agreement subsequently arrived at, however, provided
that beginning 1 April 1958, US dollars would be placed in a blocked
segregated account, that kip at a rate of 35 to the dollar would be issued
against these dollars to pay Lao troops, and that the dollars would not be
used by the Lao government until agreement had been reached on monetary
reform. (178)
According to J. Graham Parsons, who returned fram Laos on 8 February
1958 to become Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs,
the United States hoped that the Lao elections scheduled for 4 May 1958
would go badly for the Communists. In the election, 20 new seats were to
be filled in the National Assembly, raising the membership to 59, and an
additional seat of a deceased legislator would be at stake. If the Pathet
Lao . -- who were campaigning as the Neo Lao Hak Sat (Lao Patriotic
Front) -- could be held to three or four seats in the full legislature,
it might be possible, when the Souvanna Phouma government resigned after
the election, to form a new government that would not include Communists.
If this came about, Laos would have arrived at a point where the fighting
was ended, the Communists would have been rolled back in Sam Neua and
Phong Saly and eliminated from the governmeAt, and Laos would be united
and independent. (179)
Before leaving Vientiane, Ambassador Parsons had feared that us aid
had not penetrated far enough into the rural areas of Laos to have an
impact upon the villagers, who might well succumb to Communist propaganda
and support NLHS candidates in the May election. Parsons therefore
inaugurated "Operation Booster Shot" -- a village aid program with some
90 work projects, including well-digging, erection of small irrigation
and flood control dams, repair of schools and temples, repair of roads
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and airfields, construction of hospitals, and delivery of some 1,500 tons
of food, medical and construction supplies, and other useful commodities
to rural areas.(180) Few of the villages could be reached by road, and
most of the aid goods would have to be dropped from the air. As directed
by the Pacific Air Forces, Brigadier, General C. H. Pottenger, Commander of
Japan-based 315th Air Division (Combat Cargo), established a small trans-
port task force under Lt Colonel Harry B. Bankard which arrived at Bangkok
on 27 March and moved to Vientiane on 4 April. In missions flown from 27.
March through 14 May, the mission commander used a total of two C-124s of
the 1503d Air Transport Wing, seven C-130s and eight 0-119s of the 483d
Troop Carrier Squadron, and four C-119s from the 21st Troop Carrier Squadron.
The aircraft were brought to Don Muang or Vientiane as needed and employed
on 280 flights that airlifted 1134.8. tons and airdropped 301.1 tons of
construction equipment, building supplies, medical supplies, food, and
clothing. Heavy equipment drops into Houa Khong, Phong Saly, and Sam Neua
included such items as D-4 bulldozers, quarter-ton trucks and trailers, a
sheeps-foot earth roller, soil brick machines, and pre-fabricated hospitals.
The C-119s operated successfully froM the 3,900-foot PSP strip at Vientiane,
but all crews -- even though accompanied by a Civil Air Transport pilot who
knew the country -- had difficulties locating small drop zones in moun-
tainous areas. In the morning hours before the clouds formed, a layer of
smoke from native slash and burn farmer fires normally rose to 12,000 feet
and critically reduced visibility up to that level. Despite the fact that
the operation mushroomed and continued longer than anyone originally
anticipated, the air phase of "Operation Booster Shot" was effectively
accomplished under difficult conditions.(181)
As a whole "Operation Booster Shot" cost less than one-tenth of the
American aid to Laos in 1958 and for the fizsttirne made the assistance pro-
gram meaningful to Lao villagers. Commenting on "Booster Shot" on 18 June
1958, the new US Ambassador Horace Smith wrote: "It can safe4-.- be said
that this particular aid program . . . has had a greater impact on Laos
than any other aid program which the United States has undertaken in this
area to date."(182) The effort, however, had come too late to counteract
the Pathet Lao propaganda which charged that Chinese merchants and Lao
officials reaped the benefits of American aid rather than the Lao villagers.
The pro-government forces also hopelessly weakened their chance for
electoral victory by running 85 candidates for the 21 seats at stake. Only
13 NLHS candidates ran and nine were elected, while another four seats were
won by a peace party that was headed by a Chinese Communist sympathizer,
Quinim Pholsena, and favored contacts with Soviet bloc countries. Standing
for election at Vientiane, Prince Souphanonvong received more votes than
any other winning candidate. Shaken by the extent of the leftist victory,
Phoui Sananikone's Independents and Katay Sasorith's Nationalists merged to
form the Laotian People's Rally (LPR) under the leadership of Souvanna Phouma.
In Washington, a Congressional inquiry into the administration of American
aid was already underway, and, in view of the corruption in the import pro-
gram and the need for monetary reform, the United States did not make its
normal deposit of dollars in the Lao bank account in New York on 1 July
1958.(183)
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In the interval that his government remained in office, Souvanna
Phouma announced that Laos had accomplished the objectives of the Geneva
agreement and asked for the removal of the International Control Commis-
sion, which adjourned sine die on 20 July 1958 over the objections of its
Polish member. For a Nir1472s it appeared that Souvanna might weather
the crisis, but he had begun to get serious opposition from anti-Communists.
During earlier crises, the Royal Lao Army had remained aloof from politics,
even though the Army's Chief of Staff, Colonel Ouane Rathikone, had often
remarked to US representatives that he could resolve the political indeci-
sion with military action. Instead of attempting a coup, Ouane met with a
group of other young reform-minded men on 17 June to form a new political
organization called the Committee for the Defense of National Interests
(CDNI). On a vote concerning monetary reforms on 23 July, the young
reformers combined with other National Assemblymen opposed to Souvanna and
brought down Souvanna's government. On 18 August 1958, Phoui Sa.nanikone
inaugurated a new cabinet which excluded Souphanouvong and the other Pathet
Lao representatives and included four CDNI members. Phoui emphasized that
Laos would remain neutral, but that it would not accept a Communist ideology.
In negotiations with the United States, Phoui on 10 October revised the kip
to dollar exchange rate from 35 to 1 to 80 to 1, thus in effect introducing
free convertibility of the kip and eliminating the need for the notorious
system of import licenses. In view of the monetary reform, the United States
promptly reinstituted its aid program. In other world affairs, Phoui refused
aid from the Soviet Union and Communist China and also refused to exchange
diplomatic relations with the Communist bloc nations.(184)
As viewed from Washington, the Phoui government was the best that Laos
had had since achieving its independence. "Despite all the things that went
wrong in Laos in the administration of the aid programs," observed Secretary
Robertson, "Laos has the best government today it has ever had and has been
saved from being taken over by the Communists."(185) Both North Vietnam
and the Pathet Lao, however, vigorously demanded that the International Con-
trol Commission be reinstituted in Laos, Hanoi making the assertion that peace
in Indochina was indivisible. After a visit to Vientiane in September 1958
incident to the establishment of closer relations between Laos and the Republic
of Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Nhu, brother and political advisor to President Diem,
stated that the new Phoui government was the strongest that Laos had ever had.
Nhu nevertheless pointed out that the presence of a strong government in Laos
could lead to covert Communist intervention aimed at bringing about a more
stringent neutralization of the country.(186)
Although the United States had been paying and providing some military
equipment to the Royal Lao Army, the French had exercised sole responsibility
for Lao military training. As France withdrew her forces from Vietnam,
French diplomats in Saigon by mid-1957 were urging a similar withdrawal from
Laos. At the request of OINCPAC and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary
of State informed the French government that it was important to SEATO plan-
ning for the air base at Seno to be kept in operation. Accordingly, France
agreed to continue to maintain Seno though on a reduced scale.(187) At this
same time, the Laotians were growing impatient with the French. The French
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major who commanded the Laos air arm reported a loss of discipline in
late 1957 and asked the Minister of National Defense to name a Lao as
commander; this was done in January 1958 when a Lao army colonel, S. K.
Sasorith, assumed the post as an added duty.(188) By late 1958 the
French force in Laos, originally 5,000 strong had fallen to approximately
800, and Seno was the only remaining French base in Laos. In November
1958, Premier Phoui advised US Ambassador Horace H. Smith that the French
ambassador had told him that the French would reduce the Seno garrison still
further both for the sake of economy and to transfer more personnel to
Algeria. Phoui felt that the Seno garrison reflected an Lao sovereignty,
but he wanted increased training assistance for Lao military forces.(189)
Where the Joint Chiefs of Staff had initially considered military
assistance for Laos to be a political problem, General Maxwell D. Taylor,
Army Chief of Staff, became concerned about the military situation in Laos
in July 1958, especially the effect that the withholding of US assistance
might be having upon the Lao army. In August, Taylor persuaded the Joint
Chiefs of Staff to send a memorandum to the Secretary of Defense asking him
to express grave concern to the Secretary of State concerning the danger of
delaying US aid funds. In order to obtain first-hand military information
about Laos, Brigadier General John A. Heintges was placed on detached ser-
vice from the US Army and sent there In November 1958. After spending
approximately a month in the country, he prepared recommendations which were
generally accepted by the new CINCPAC, Admiral Harry D. Felt, and incorporated
in a conceptual plan for improving the Lao army, which Felt submitted to the
Joint Chiefs on 13 December. These proposals included a reorganizations and
increased staff for the Program Evaluation Office, dispatch of a logistics
team to inventory Lao military equipment on hand and speed delivery of needed
items, employment of US mobile training teams, training of Lao officers at
the Infantry School in the United States, and the dispatch of Army Special
Forces and psychological warfare teams to work with the Program Evaluation
Office. The plan was approved by the Program Evaluation Office, Ambassador
Smith, Lao civil and military officials, and the French Embassy and French
Military Mission in Vientiane.(190)
The prospective withdrawal of French forces from Laos also demanded that
some action be taken to provide added airlift and air-resupply to the Lao
ground troops, who would otherwise have limited maneuver capabilities. When
Major General Donald R. Hutchinson, USAF Assistant for Mutual Security, visited
Laos in October 1958, Ambassador Smith convinced him that strengthening the
Lao air arm might prove decisive. As its share of the 25,000-man Lao army
strength, the Lao air force was authorized 721 spaces to man a single com-
posite squadron. Under French tutelage, however, the Lao air force had made
little progress. In mid-1958 it had 527 persons assigned, including one
fully qualified pilot, 36 pilot trainees, and 490 ground personnel. Under
the US MAP, old French aircraft had been removed from Laos, and at mid-1958
Laos had 6 C-47s, 6 L-19s, and 1 L-20. The L-20 Beaver was the sole
remaining plane of the four of this type that had been delivered during 1958.
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The L-20s were very useful for reconnaissance and lightly-loaded lifts
into crude airfields, but three out of the four that had been provided
had been lost in crashes. The Lao L-19s were sometimes used for liaison
but more frequently were employed in the difficult task of attempting to
train Lao pilot candidates.(191) Although Lao pilot training had been
very slow and tedious and some arrangement would have to be provided to
take care of logistical support of the Lao aircraft, Ambassador Smith
stated a requirement for two additional C-47s and three L-20s to be
delivered as soon as possible.(192)
In the winter of 1958-1959 the French wanted to withdraw from Laos
and the United States was considering additional military assistance.
Atidst this background of changing policy, the North Vietnamese moved to
extend their control into Laos. Between 23-29 December 1958, Hanoi sent
two companies of regular North Vietnamese troops into Laos, and this
force dug in at positions near the town of Tchepone in Savannaket province,
just west of the demarcation line between North and South Vietnam. These
forces were the first increment of the NVA 70th Battalion, 559th Transporta-
tion Group, which would be fully emplaced in the Lao panhandle by May 1959
with a responsibility for transporting weapons, ammunition, mail, and
supplies into South Vietnam. The battalion would also guide infiltrating
groups southward and bring same sick and wounded men back to North Vietnam.
(193) At the first deployment of NVA forces into Laos the full implication
of the North Vietnamese action was not fully apparent, but Premier Phoui
Sananikone immediately protested the invasion to Hanoi, where Foreign
Minister Pham Van Dong countered with an accusation that Lao aircraft had
repeatedly violated North Vietnam's airspace and that Lao troops had made
incursions into North Vietnamese villages. When Hanoi offered to negotiate
on the withdrawal of its troops from Laos, Phoui angrily rejected the pro-
posal, believing that the North Vietnamese were attempting to get the
International Control Commission returned to Laos. In the emergency Phoui
called the National Assembly into session and obtained on 15 January 1959
special powers both to govern for a year without recourse to the Assembly
and to remake his government. In the remodeled Phoui government announced
on 24 January, CDMI men secured cabinet posts for influential Lao army
officers, including Colonel Phoumi Nosavan, who became Secretary of State
for Defense and the strong man in the new government. A relative of
Thailand's Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat, Phoumi had become active in the
CDNI following his return from a military school in Paris in August 1958.
In an announcement of new policies at a press conference on 11 February
1959, Phoui stated that the Lao government considered "the application of
the Geneva agreements as fully accomplished? and that Laos "as a sovereign,
independent country could not tolerate interference in her internal affairs.?
For these reasons he would not accept the Communist position that Laos
would continue to be bound by the terms of the Geneva agreement until such
time as a settlement was found in Vietnam. (194)
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On 13 January 1959 the US Department of Defense accepted the Heintges-
Felt military assistance recommendations for Laos, and the Joint Chiefs of
Staff proceeded on the assumption that the recommendations would win final
approval after intergovernmental negotiations in France. As a matter of
fact, Phoui's announcement that Laos was no longer bound by the Geneva
agreement provided a legal basis for the introduction of American military
training into Laos without international negotiations. Within the Program
Evaluation Office, the United States began to replace key people with active
duty military personnel in civilian clothing. This number included General
Heintges who became PEC chief. The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Inter-
national Security Agency also accepted the recommendation that Laos would be
provided with two additional C-Las and three L-20s, and the USAF was
authorized to get the planes to Laos as soon as possible. At this point
three hitches developed in the projected Laos assistance program. The US
State Department issued public denials that US military personnel were in
Laos and demanded that augmentations of American advisors be kept small.
In consultations in April the French government considered that the Geneva
agreement was still binding on Laos and rejected the Heitges-Felt assistance
plan. Under accords subsequently reached in Paris in May and June 1959, the
French would continue to have the responsibility for military training in
Laos, but each French military supervisor would have an American deputy and
problemsbetween the two authorities would be referred to the Chief of the
French Military Mission and the Program Evaluation Office. The French would
continue to be responsible for all Lao tactical training, but they would
have only nominal supervision over logistical training and support which
would be taken over by Americans. Under this agreement the United States
undertook on 23 July to furnish additional technicians (who would wear
civilian clothing and were expected to be in Laos no more than six months)
to conduct an emergency training program that would expand the Lao army from
25,000 to 29,000 men. The combined Franco-American joint training program
was scheduled to begin on 1 September-1959, with an objective of training
6,250 Lao active and potential officers and non-commissioned officers in a
seven-week long course.(195) The proposal to provide Laos with additional
aircraft also ran into a difficulty arising from the fact that the USAF had
no excess C-47s in its inventory and raised questions as to whether the MAP
aircraft should be purchased from commercial sources. The procurement of
the L-20s was held up by an uncertainty in Washington as to how many of
these planes were still operational in Laos.(196)
When Premier Phoui Sananikone announced in February 1959 that the
Royal Lao Government was no longer bound by the Geneva agreements, Communist
China began a very strong series of denunciations of the Phoui government.
In notes to the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom, Red China's Fbreign
Minister Chen Yi demanded immediate action to restore the ICC in Laos. A
little later, the Peking Foreign Minietry stated that US and Lao authorities
aimed to drag Laos into SEATO and to turn the country into a military base.
(;97) Instead of yielding to the Camhunist demands, the Phoui government
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resolved to proceed with the integration of the two battalions of Pathet
Lao troops that continued to exist after the Vientiane agreement. Each
battalion numbered about 750 men. One was camped in a valley south of
Luang Prabang, and the other had been living in an old French cantonment
on the Plain of Jars. On 17 May the battalion near Luang Prabang accepted
integration into the Royal Axmy, but on the morning of 19 May the canton-
ment an the Plain of Jars was empty. Lao paratroops were dropped along the
fugitive battalion's apparent route of flight, but the Pathet Lao troops
escaped and began to prepare for renewed hostilities. According to Lao
reports, the Pathet Lao recruited previously demobilized Communist troops
in June and were further reinforced by several companies of Black Thai
troops that had been armed and indoctrinated in North Vietnam. On 20 July
the Pathet Lao seized Muong Son village near Sam Neua, and ten days later
they moved back into Phong Saly province. On 4 August the Lao government
proclaimed a state of emergency in its five northern provinces. That same
day it requested the Secretary General of the United Nations to inform mem-
bers of the situation and charged that North Vietnam was giving support to
the Pathet Lao guerrillas. (198)
Occurring during monsoon rains, the renewed Pathet Lao attacks sur-
prised the Lao Army, and the meaning of the Communist operations proved
difficult to determine both at the time and afterward. In view of the
outbreak of fighting in Laos, the US State Department expressed concern
on 1 August that the Communist Pathet Lao and the Communist regimes in
China and North Vietnam were seeking to promote a serious crisis and to
obtain concessions contrary to the will of the Royal Lao Government. (199)
After this initial statement, the United States held firm in its support
for the Government of Laos, and, as will be seen, increased military
assistance and also mobilized forces preparatory to an active SEATO under-
taking in the battle area. The Soviet Foreign Ministry, on the other hand,
charged that Laos had violated the Geneva agreements, the Vientiane agree-
ments of 1956-57, and had "flooded the country with U.S. servicemen." Both
the Soviet Union and Communist China called for reinstitution of the Laos
International Control Commission, a proposition which was unacceptable at
this time to Laos and to the United States.(200) On 8 August Phoui
Sananikane stated that the Communists were attempting to form "a base from
which to attack the south and a corridor through which to attack South
Vietnam."(201) Based upon retrospective observations from Saigon, Ambassador
Durbrow would also believe that the attacks in Laos were designed to bring
pressure an the Lao government to prevent its alignment away from the left
and also to draw attention away from the Vietminh buildup in the Lao pan-
handle and the preparation of the Ho Chi Minh trail routes into South Vietnam.
(202) On the other hand, US Ambassador Horace Smith would note that General
Phoumi Nosavan was prone to use the threat of Communism to further his own
purposes, (203) and W. J. Lederer, coauthor of The Ugly American (a best
selling novel very hostile to US assistance which was having a large impact
in the United States) would charge that the 1959 crisis in Laos was pur-
posefully inflated by the Phoui government to reduce the effect of the report
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of the House Committee on Government Operations, which had been published
on 15 June and was very critical of the US military aid program in Laos. (204)
Although it was difficult to get solid information in Washington about
the early fighting in remote northeastern Laos, US estimates were that the
Pathet Lao did not have more than 3,000 troops available and that they
probably were unable to employ more than 1,000 of these at one time.(205)
The Pathet Lao, however, were operating in familiar and very favorable
terrain. Phong Saly was bordered on one side by Communist China and on the
other by North Vietnam, while Sam Neua was bordered on the north, east, and
south by North Vietnam. Both provinces were very vulnerable to Communist
ground thrusts into them. Still, the 3,000 Pathet Lao could hardly be
expected to stand against superior units of the 25,000-man Lao army, if
Lao troops in sufficient numbers could be concentrated in the northeastern
provinces, most feasibly by air transport. In early August the Lao army was
resolved to hold the town of Sam Neua at all costs, since among other reasons
its short clay-surfaced airstrip was the only air facility in the province that
could serve C-47 aircraft. The Lao air arm committed its transports on a
troop shuttle-between the Plain of Jars and Sam Neua, and to get additional
airlift, J. C. Skinner, the retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who handled
air matters in the Vientiane PEO, chartered transport planes and crews from
Air Laos and Civil Air Transport. At this time nine Lao military pilots
were qualified to fly C-47s under visual flight conditions, and other Lao
pilots in training were used as copilots aboard the Lao C-47s. The air-
craft carried soldiers, ammunition, and supplies into the mountain-surrounded,
rain-soaked airstrip at Sam Neua and evacuated civilians on their return
trips.(206)
Under the Franco-American combined training agreement, France was
pledged to keep 600 regular troops in Laos, half at the training school
at Seno and half with Laotian military units. By 1 August the initial
increments of 12 US Army Ranger training teams were positioned in each of
the four Lao military regions, and on 21 August Washington approved the
PEO's plan to add 17 US military and 103 Filipino technicians to its staff
to supervise operations of the Lao military technical services. During
August Ambassador Smith and Admiral Felt recommended still further expan-
sion in the Program Evaluation Office, but US Under Secretary of State
Robert Murphy objected to the rapid increase in the number of Americans in
Laos, from 249 on 15 July 1959 to 494 if all of the new proposals were
approved. Murphy pointed out that India had been surprisingly cooperative
in the expanded use of American military personnel in Laos and ought not
to be embarrassed by being confronted with still more Americans.(207)
Spurred into action by the airlift crisis in Laos, USAF resolved the long-
delayed commitment of the two additional C-47s and three L-20s to Laos.
The two C-47s were taken from the PACAV's active inventory; the L-20s were
increased to five in number and were obtained from the US Army; and the
planes were delivered in Laos on 8-10 September. (208)
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In the last days of August the Lao Army commander at Sam Neua reported
that two outlying positions were under attack by combined North Vietnamese
and Pathet Lao forces. Although the commander considered that he could
repel the Pathet Lao, he did not believe that he could stand against the
North Vietnamese. President Eisenhower was prepared to participate in a
SEA:TO intervention in support of Laos, but there were still some unresolved
questions as to whether North Vietnamese troops were actively engaged in
the fighting. In discussing the matter on 29 August President Eisenhower
and British Prime Minister Harold MacMillan agreed that it would be helpful
if the United Nations would send observers to Laos to reveal the true facts
of the situation. On 4 September, Laos appealed to Secretary General Dag
Hammarskjold for assistance of the United Nations against the North Vietnamese
aggression, and on 8 September the United Nations Security Council voted to
send an observation mission to Laos. When this was announced, the Lao Army
reported that the Communists promptly ceased attacks around Sam Neua and
hastily withdrew. After arriving in Vientiane On 15 September, the UN
investigating subcommittee viewed documentary evidence for two weeks before
visiting the battle area. In its report on 3 November, the subcommittee
stated that evidence presented to it by the Royal Lao Government indicated
that military activity in Laos had been undertaken by Pathet Lao and North
Vietnamese regular army units. On the other hand, the subcommittee was
unable to secure testimony from the Pathet Lao or the Democratic Republic
of Vietnam. US Secretary of State Christian Herter endorsed the report,
since he considered that it revealed that: "Pathet Lao or enemy groups
. . . had received their supplies, equipment, logistical assistance, and
the help of political cadres, from across the border."(209)
At the time of the apparent crisis at Sam Neua, USAF Chief of Staff
General Thomas D. 'White recommended that the United States should establish
a full-scale MAAG in Vientiane and take over Lao military training. The
Joint Chiefs substantially accepted White's recommendations on 4 September,
and on 20 September Ambassador Smith also recommended that a full-scale US
MAAG be established, though as an operational segment of the US Operations
Mission and with the PEO designation. Once again, Under Secretary Murphy
opposed any additional expansion of US military advisors, and in fact
recommended that the United States cut its staff rather than increase it.
(210) As a result of the American decision to continue to respect the
Geneva agreements in regard to Laos, the combined US-French training pro-
gram instituted on 1 September remained heavily dependent upon French
participation. This program included the twin objectives of preparing
the Lao armed forces both for conventional field operations and for counter-
insurgency work. Accomplishment of the counterinsurgency task involved
turning out 600 six-man military psychological warfare teams, each of which
would be able to go into a remote area and demonstrate positive govern-
mental betterment programs to the people. Because of the Sam Neua crisis,
the joint training program was slow to receive cadres from the Lao army for
training. The first psychological warfare teams did not complete their
courses until December 1959, and only about 328 of these teams would be
trained.(211) As a result of increased US MAP support levels, the Lao
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army would be increased to 29,000 men, organized into 24 infantry, 1
artillery, 2 parachute, and 1 armored cavalry battalions. Augmentation
forces included 2,900 national police and 20,000 "Auto Defense" or militia
forces.(212)
The potential of aviation for the support of military operations in
Laos was well demonstrated in the autumn of 1959. Even though it was only
a rudimentary force, Jake Skinner considered that the Lao air force per-
formed well in the air transport function. In October the total airlift
requirement in Laos was about 700 flying hours, and with eight C-47s and
six L-20s the Lao airmen flew more than 530 hours of cargo pay time.
Skinner also pointed out that a few armed aircraft would have been invalu-
able for interdiction and close support, and he suggested that the Lao
airmen needed and could operate up to six armed T-28 aircraft in tactical
support of ground operations. In line with this reasoning, three T-28s
were programmed for delivery to Laos under the fiscal 1961 MAP, but, as
will be seen, the delivery of these planes would be overtaken by events.
Helicopters would also have definite utility in Laos both for logistical
support and for the deployment of the psychological warfare teams to
remote operating locations. Four SH-19 helicopters were available from
a MAP commitment to Indonesia that had been cancelled, but it would be
impossible to prepare the Lao air force to operate or maintain these air-
craft without great delay. When the French were unable to assume respon-
sibility for the helicopter project, the Air Materiel Force Pacific Area
bailed the four H-19s to Air America, Inc., the newly incorporated local
off-shoot of Civil Air Transport, and in the early spring of 1960 Air
America would begin to operate and maintain the helicopters under a MAP-
financed agreement with the Government of Laos, monitored by the PEO.(213)
The Lao air MAP projections, like the planned expansion of the Lao army,
was heavily dependent upon French participation. The French Military
Mission assisted with air operations and planning, conducted flight train-
ing, and either supervised or performed most of the air maintenance. (214)
The story of developing US military assistance programming in Cambodia
remained fraught with local political considerations rather than manifesta-
tions of avert Communist aggression. Although Cambodia had requested and
had begun to receive American military and economic assistance in 1955, the
country was described as "frantically neutralist" and often appeared more
pro-Communist than pro-Western. The political complexities, which so
greatly complicated American aid programs in Cambodia, were largely produced
by the one-man rule of Prince Norodom Sihanouk. He had become king in 1941,
but in March 1955 he abdicated in favor of his father and promptly organized
a political party, which won all National Assembly seats in September 1955
and returned Sihanouk to power as premier and foreign minister. Interspersed
with frequent resignations and returns to power, Sihanouk would be in and out
of the premier's office until 1960 when, at his father's death, he would
accept a title of Head of State.(215)
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At the same time that Sihanouk was willing to accept American
assistance, he was equally solicitous of aid from the Soviet Union and
Communist China. A Cambodian-Red Chinese aid agreement signed on 21
June 1956 pledged both nations to observe mutual coexistence and pro-
vided that Red Chinese economic assistance be offered without conditions.
The Soviet Union also gave Cambodia a 500-bed hospital. After alleging
that South Vietnamese troops had invaded Cambodia some 19 times in 1957-58,
Cambodia signed a trade agreement with North Vietnam on 19 November 1958.(216)
In explanation why the United States was willing to provide military
assistance to Cambodia, Assistant Secretary of State Robertson stated in
1959: "'We are supporting the Cambodian Army because the alternative of
our support is to have the Cambodian Army supported by the Chinese Com-
munists."(217) Other than this, the US MAP expectation was that the
Cambodian military forces would be capable of maintaining internal security
in populated areas and along communications routes within the country. (218)
The US MAP authorization for Cambodia did not change from the initially
authorized 31,000 armed force personnel, including an 1,100-man Navy and a
950-man air force. At the end of 1959, the Cambodian air force consisted of
28 MAP-supported aircraft and 20 non-MAP planes, the MAP aircraft being 5
c-47s, lo L-19s, 12 LT-6Gs, and 1 LT-20. Since the French handled all air
operations and training, the Air Force Section, MAAG-Cambodia, consisted of
only one officer and one airman, who provided technical advice.(219)
Because Cambodia obviously could not be relied upon in any emergency,
the Pacific Air Force followed a policy that MAP support for the Cambodian
air force should be a token aid to maintain Cambodia as a possibly friendly
neutral. (220) This policy held good until mid-1960, when Prince Sihanouk,
shortly after taking over as Chief of State an 13 June, denounced American
aid programs and declared that if they were not changed he would ask the
Communist bloc for aircraft and arms. At this juncture and in the months
that followed, USAF insisted that there was no valid military reason for
providing sophisticated combat aircraft to Cambodia. In a visit to the
United States in November 1960, however, the Cambodian Minister of Defense
Major General Lon Nol again proposed requirements for military aid,
including jet aircraft. Once again, neither CINOPAC nor USAF recommended
providing Cambodia with jets, even in token numbers, but as a gesture of
favor to Sihanouk on 27 April 1961 a joint State/Defense message directed
that four T-37 jet planes would be delivered to Phnom Penh to be available
for a fly-by an Cambodian Independence Day -- 9 November. The aircraft
were delivered at considerable cost by special airlift, but the expedited
action had little significance since the Cambodians did not fly tne new
planes for several weeks after their arrival.(221)
L. Evolution of US Military Organization and Strategy
To USAF thinkers the establishment of Headquarters, Pacific Air Force
in Hawaii effective 1 July 1954, as a component of the unified US Pacific
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Command but as a subordinate to the Far East Air Forces on purely Air
Force matters, was a useful but hopefully temporary measure designed to
mitigate the existing US Unified Command Plan which divided the Pacific-
Far East between the US Pacific Command and the United Nations Command/
Far East Command. To the Air Force this arrangement violated two basic
principles -- unity of command and economy of force. Because Air Force
units were assigned to the Far East Air Forces, Commander FEAF was com-
mitted to provide forces to satisfy the contingency plans made by CINC
UNC/FEC for operations in Northern Asia and by CINCPAC for operations in
Southeast Asia. With only limited air resources available, the Far East
Air Forces would not have been able to satisfy both theater commanders if
the Chinese Communists had commenced simultaneous aggression both to the
north and the south.(222)
At the same time that the Pacific-Far East was divided between two
unified commands, Admiral Felix Stump implemented a PACOM organization
that established additional "subordinate unified commands," including the
Taiwan Defense Command, the Philippines Command, Marianas-Bonins Defense
Command, and the Hawaiian Defense Command. In August 1954, shortly after
taking command of the Pacific Air Force, Major General Sory Smith
approached Admiral Stump to protest that the divided PACOM structure
would paralyze the employment of airpower since the theater air commander's
forces were being partitioned out to subordinate unified commanders who
would use them for defense of local pieces of real estate. General Smith
urged that the theater air commander should be responsible for all air
operations in the theater in order that the available air force units
would be used in their most effective role regardless of their location.
Admiral Stump had some sympathy for Smith's point, but he would not modify
the PACOM organization because he said that the Pacific Command's area was
so vast that overall direction must be on the spot and that a unified com-
mand could not be exercised from Hawaii over forces located as far away as
the Philippines and the Marianas. Stump also stated that division of res-
ponsibility by command, exercised through component commanders, had led to
disaster at Pearl Harbor in 1941. He insisted that a single commander in
each area be responsible for all military operations in the area.(223)
In a major Air Force policy action on 6 May 1955, the Air Council in
Washington approved a study which concluded that air operations in the
Pacific-Far East required centralized direction and control, that deploy-
ment of air units in depth with dispersed forward operating bases would
be required in order to reduce vulnerability, and that preparations should
be made for the employment of cellular components of air units (possibly as
small as a single nuclear-capable air vehicle) from forward bases. (22L)
In line with this decision, General Laurence S. Kuter, who took command of
the Far East Air Forces on 4 June 1955, was opposed to the divided unified
command structure in the Far East-Pacific and to the further segmentation
manifest in the PACOM subordinate unified commands. "The operation of
aircraft," he stated, "should not be confined to arbitrary geographic
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boundaries nor should they be placed under the operational control of a
commander during wartime who has had no previous opportunity to develop
experience in training, equipping, and operating Air Force units. By
virtue of the system of subordinate unified commands, air strength is
dissipated and confined within relatively small geographic areas. Further
the air units so dissipated are placed under the operational control of a
component commander with a limited objective."(225)
With much the same reasoning that he opposed compartmentation of
tactical air resources, General Kuter was favorable to USAF Air Materiel
Command proposal to centralize global air logistics management under its
jurisdiction, even though such a reorganization would divest the Far East
Air Forces of its command authority over its subordinate Far East Logistics
Force. "To continue to partition our logistic support system," Kuter
believed, "is just as wasteful and dangerous as to partition our air power."
After a period of study, the Far East Air Logistics Force was transferred
from FEAF to the command jurisdiction of the Air Materiel Command effective
on 1 October 1955 and redesignated as the Air Materiel Force Pacific Area
(AMFPA). As a result of internal reorganization during the several following
months, AMFPA assigned its Japan-based Northern Air Materiel Area Pacific
(NAMAP) area support and technical assistance responsibilities for Japan and
Korea, while the Southern Air Materiel Area Pacific (SAMAP) located at Clark
Air Base received similar responsibilities for Okinawa, Taiwan, the
Philippines, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Guam. (226)
During 1954 the Pacific Air Force had some degree of success in
indoctrinating planning officers at PACO'S with the Air Force position that
forces ought not to be permanently assigned to subordinate unified commands.
menu. ar in ? existing INCPAC planning or e ?e ense o
Taiwan was tested when Red Chinese threats forced the evacuation of the off-
shore Tachen Islands. CINCPAC's plans comprehended US activity during three
phases: Phase I, comprising Chinese Nationalist patrols, reconnaissance,
and training; Phase II, military operations necessary to defeat Communist
forces in the event of actual attack or invasion of Taiwan or the
Pescadores Islands; and Phase III, expanded air operations against the
Chinese mainland if directed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In Phase II,
Vice Admiral 1. M. Pride, Commander US Seventh Fleet, was authorized to
establish the US Taiwan Defense Command with authority over Air Force (CTP
78) and Navy components (CTF 72 and UTY 77). On 25 January, Brigadier
General Harold W. Grant established a Headquarters Air Task Force Fifth
(Provisional) at Taipei. According to plan, this air task force should
have been under the operational control of Admiral Pride, but instead
Admiral Stump agreed to place COMATF5 under the operational control of
COMPACAF during the emergency. Working with the Chinese Nationalist Joint
Operations Center, the air task force provided air cover over Taiwan and
the vessels used to evacuate the Tachen Islands. (228)
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As it happened during the Tachen crisis, the conduct of air operations
was divided between CINCPAC's air and naval component commanders as well as,
the subordinate mlified commander, and to alleviate this in the future the
Joint Chiefs of Staff ruled that full responsibility for Taiwan defense
would be placed under the Taiwan defense commander.(229) It was also evi-
dent that the US Taiwan defense organization would need to be a joint head-
quarters rather than arradled designation for the Commander of the Seventh
Fleet. In Hawaii, General Smith recommended that a Taiwan defense command
should be established as a joint headquarters, with an Air Force officer to
serve as its deputy commander. This proposal was backed by usa and FEU
and was approved by Admiral Stump in April 1955. In order to provide the
Pacific Air Force with personnel to handle duties in Taiwan, as well as .
elsewhere in Southeast Asia, the Thirteenth Air Force, with headquarters at
Clark Air Base in the Philippines was transferred to PACAF effective on 1
June 1955. For psychological reasons, the new US organization at Taipei was
initially named the Formosa (Taiwan) Liaison Center (US) but it provided a
joint staff to Admiral Pride. AE of 24 June 1955, the USAF component was
passed to Thirteenth Air Force command and designated Air Task Force-13
(Provisional). Under command of Brigadier General Benjamin 0. Davis, Jr.,
ATF-13 would be subordinate to the Thirteenth Air Force in Phase I opera-
tions. In Phase II, General Davis would be controlled by COMTAIWANDEFCOM(US)
and would become his air component commander (CTF-78). Early in 1956,
Admiral Stump regularized these agreements in a comprehensive directive.
This provided that the senior naval officer in the Taiwan area would be
the Taiwan Defense Commander as well as the Navy service component commander.
The Chief US MAAG-Taiwan, an Army general officer, would retain responsibilities
for MDAP materiel and training and would function as TAIWANDEFCOM Army com-
ponent commander. The Commander ATF-13 would be the Air Force service com-
ponent commander and he would also support the Chief MAAG-Taiwan in
training the Chinese Nationalist Air Fbrce.(230)
Generals Kuter and Smith agreed to Admiral Stump's regularized plan
for the US Taiwan Defense Command largely because Stump assured Smith
verbally an 31 January 1955 that Taiwan was a special situation and that
ATF-13's subordination to Thirteenth Air Force and to the Commanders of
FEAF and PACAF would not be affected.(231) In this same month, however,
CINCPAC began to use the Taiwan Defense Oommander as a model for other con-
tingency planning in Southeast Asia. In the case of Laos, the CINCPAC
operations plan called for commitment of six lir Force tactical squadrons
to an operation in support of Royal Lao forces. If this plan were approved,
General Kuter assumed that it would be shortly followed by other similar
plans for the defense of Cambodia, Vietnam, and Thailand that would contain
additional camnitments of air units and would amount to a "further
emasculation of air power." Kuter urged that the Southeast Asia area
ought to be treated "as a whole, rather than as several smaller problems
with limited objectives." Air Force planners posed Kuter's objections
when the plan came before the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and it was withdrawn
from consideration without action.(232) Subsequent to guidance provided
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by President Eisenhower and the National Security Council, however, the
Joint Chiefs of Staff on 11 July 1956 directed CINCPAC to prepare a special
contingency plan for US participation in the event of North Vietnamese
aggression in Vietnam. As prepared in Hawaii, CINCPAC Operations Plan
46-56 again used the Taiwan model. It provided that a US Vietnam Defense
Command would be established and that the Fifth Air Force would pass opera-
tional control of air defense and supporting forces earmarked for service
in Vietnam to the Commander, Vietnam Defense Command. Commander PACAF would
designate a senior USAF officer to serve as air component commander of the
Vietnam Defense Command and also provide appropriate personnel to serve on
the joint staff of the Vietnam Defense Commander. This was accepted by the
Joint Chiefs of Staff.(233)
In the same period that the Pacific air commanders were unable to pre-
vent the proliferation of subordinate unified commands, they got acceptance
of only a portion of their thinking in regard to the consolidation of the
US unified commands in the Pacific-Far East. In the spring of 1955, US
Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson informed the Joint Chiefs of Staff
that the worldwide unified command structure was too large, unwieldy, and
overly expensive in manpower and money. He directed the Joint Chiefs to
study simplification, reduction, and consolidation of commands, and they
in turn directed similar studies by unified and specified commands. As he
was requested to do, General Kuter on 11 July 1955 gave the CINCFB a very
comprehensive study which called attention to the major problems stemming
fram the existence of two unified commands in the Pacific and recommended
that a single unified command be established. He also provided a copy of
the study to the Chief of Staff, USAF, and General Smith brought a copy to
the attention of CINCPAC. In their final report to the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, both Unified Commanders stated that the idea of a single unified
command had some merit but neither specifically recommended it.(234)
When the US Unified Command Plan came under discussion in the Joint
Chiefs of Staff early in 1956, the Chairman, Air Force Chief of Staff,
Chief of Naval Operations, and Commandant US Marine Corps recommended that
the Far East Command be disestablished and that the Pacific Command remain
as the single US unified command in the Pacific-Far East: This majority
recommendation was approved by Secretary Wilson on 27 June 1956 for more
detailed study and implementation. In elaboration of his plan of the
preceding year, General Kuter recommended an 5 August 1956 that the Pacific
Command should consist of two categories of subordinate commands: principal
component commands (namely US Army Pacific, US Navy Pacific, and US Air
Force Pacific) and four subordinate joint commands (Hawaiian Command,
Southern Pacific Command, Northern Pacific Command, and Marianas-Bonins
Command). He conceived that all forces allocated to CINCPAC would be
assigned to the principal component commands and retained under the
operational control of the service component commanders in peace and in
war. Under conditions of local war, operational control of joint forces
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could be assumed by a CINCPAC designated task force commander who would
be selected from the service component predominantly involved. Thus, the
Taiwan Defense Command should be disestablished and replaced by a Joint
Task Force Taiwan. The subordinate joint commands would not have combat
responsibilities but would support the US Ambassadors and MAAGs in their
areas, coordinate administrative and logistical activities in their areas,
and perform other required non-combat obligations. While Kuter assumed
that the CINC United Nations Command would be preserved in Korea because
of the armistice arrangements, he insisted that the CINC Air Force Pacific
should have complete responsibility for air defense throughout both the
CINCPAC and CINCUNC areas.(235) In Hawaii, General Smith touched upon
another aspect of PACOM-PACAF relationship on 6 August 1956 when he requested
permission to provide representation at SEATO military meetings, specifically
a forthcoming ad hoc intelligence meeting that would discuss the Communist
air threat to Me SEATO area.(236)
In response to General Smith's request for authority to send Pacific
Air Force representatives to SEATO military conferences, Vice Admiral George
Anderson, PACOM Chief of Staff, informed Smith on 22 August: "CINCPAC
is charged with the responsibility of acting as the United States Military
Advisor for SEATO. It is the policy, of this headquarters to utilize CINCPAC
staff members as representatives at SEATO meetings, except When technical
assistance is required from the components. This policy, in part, is based
upon CINCPAC's desire to arrive at SEATO meetings with a United States posi-
tion. In arriving at the United States position, the views of the component
commanders will be appreciated and utilized in preparing this US position.
. . . On this basis, CINCPAC must continue to furnish the US representatives
and provide them with the best obtainable information prior to their
attendance at such meetings:" Although the CMCPAC response was negative,
it had one favorable aspect in that it stated that the PACOM components
would participate in the preparation for SEATO conferences, an opportunity
which had not previously been afforded to the Pacific Air Force.(237)
In the inter-command negotiations that took place between Admiral
Stump and General Lyman L. Lemnitzer, CINC Far East Cumilaand, from 30
September to 5 October 1956, neither General Kuter nor General Smith was
allowed to be present and each was Instructed not to discuss command
amalgamation plans with USAF.(238) Admiral Anderson would later reveal
that Stump and Lemnitzer had discussed one form of command organization
which was vaguely similar to General Kuter 's recommendation. This would
have established a subordinate command structure that would have included
a Northwest Pacific area and a Southwest Pacific area, with subordinate
commanders, joint staffs, and assigned units. Anderson said that this
structure was not accepted because Stump and Lemnitzer felt that it would
not be economical in terms of personnel requirements and because it would
parcel out the command of operational forces. Instead of this alternative,
CINCFE and CINCPAC recommended a plan to the Joint Chiefs of Staff on 5
October that would recognize the three component commanders -- the Pacific
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Fleet, the Pacific Air Forces, and the US Army Pacific -- as the principal
subordinate PACOM commands with responsibility for the administration,
training, logistics support, and operation of assigned type forces. The
recommendations also included the retention of all existing subordinate
unified commands including two additional ones to be established in the
northwestern Pacific. (239)
When the Stump-Lemnitzer plan was submitted to the Joint Chiefs of
Staff on 5 October 1956, Air Force studies indicated that it fell short
of meeting the basic guidance that had been provided by Secretary Wilson
and Admiral Radford. In preparation for the transfer of the Pacific Air
component command from Tokyo to Hawaii, Headquarters, Pacific Air Force,
was redesignated on 1 July 1956 as Headquarters, Pacific Air Force/Far
East Air Forces (Rear) under Major General Sory Smith, and on 10 September,
as studies were proceeding on the Stump-Lemnitzer plan in Washington,
General Smith released a file of PACAF/FEAF (Rear) consolidated policy
statements in order to insure that Air Force command problems were resolved
in consonance with policies that he and General Kuter laid down. These
statements reminded air officers that all USAF forces in the Pacific (other
than JCS-exempt strategic forces) should be assigned to a single air com-
mander rather than to a local area commander; that PACAF/FEAF (Rear) was
opposed to parcelling out air forces and that, in any event, the command
and control of air forces should be vested in an air force component com-
mander at any level of command; that effective utilization of SEATO air
forces would need to be based upon centralized control, coordination of
effort, mobility, and flexibility; and that, despite the existence of the
US TAIWANDEFCOM, it was the PACAF/FEAF (Rear) policy to urge that any USAF
forces allocated for the defense of Taiwan and deployed to Taiwan be
under the operational control of the Air Force component commander of a
joint task force organizational structure.(240)
In Joint Chiefs actions In Washington, the Chief of Staff USAF sub-
mitted comments on the Felt-Lemnitzer proposals on 5 November 1956 together
with an alternate draft plan which reduced the number of subordinate unified
commands for the Pacific. The Army and Navy comments submitted on 26
November and 17 December generally approved the Felt-Lemnitzer plan. After
additional review, the Joint Chiefs of Staff resolved divergencies and
recanmended a final reorganization plan to Secretary Wilson an 28 December
1956.(241) On 20 June 1957, CINCPAC issued an instruction defining the
tasks and responsibilities of the command, and, on 1 July 1957, CINCPAC
assumed responsibility for the entire Pacific-Far East area, with his
headquarters and joint staff opening at Camp Smith, Hawaii. Also on 1
July, Headquarters, Far East Air Forces completed its movement from FUchu
Air Station, Japan to Hickam AFB, Hawaii, and on this date this old head-
quarters was redesignated Headoparters, Pacific Air Forces (PACAF) and
Headquarters, PICAF/FEAF (Rear) was disestablished.(242)
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As defined in the CINCPAC instruction, the US Pacific Command was
the single US unified command in the Pacific-Far East, directly respon-
sible to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with the US Navy to serve as the JCS
executive for PACOM. The three major component cammands-were the US Army ?
Pacific, the US Pacific Fleet, and the Pacific Air Forces. These commands
were expected to perform functions previously outlined in preliminary plan-
ning, but CINCPAC additionally stipulated that both CINCPACKT and
CINCPACAF would perform assigned offensive air tasks on a mutually-supporting
basis. The new organization included three subordinate unified commands. In
Japan, Commander US Forces Japan would be an additional responsibility of the
Commander, Fifth Air Force, who would be jointly staffed to execute authorita-
tive coordination over US Forces but would not have either offensive or defen-
sive operational responsibilities. In Korea, Commander US Forces Korea would
be an additional responsibility of the Commanding General, US Eighth Army,
who after a year's transition would also serve as CINC United Nations Command.
The Taiwan Defense Command continued to be a different type of subordinate
unified command, since COMTAIWANDEFCOM was charged with planning to assist
the Chinese defense and had a joint staff and in-being service components,
the latter to remain under operational command and control of their parent
service organization in Phase I operations but to COMB under the operational
control of the COMTAIWANDEFCOM in Phase II operations. The US MAAGs and
JUSMAAGs were militarily responsible directly to CINCPAC and thence to the
Department of Defense with the Navy as executive agent. In the Philippines,
the Ryukyus, and in the Marianas-Bonin Islands, CINCPAC appointed CINCPAC
representatives who would personally represent him in administrative,
logistic, and political matters. The CINCPAC representatives were charged
with coordinating joint matters between the services and reporting resolved
issues to CINCPAC. In countries where there were no US operating forces,
the Chief of the MAAG or JUSMAAG wonld act as the CINCPAC representative.(243)
Looking back in short retrospect, General Kuter hailed the establishment
of the Pacific Air Forces as the attainment of a long-sought objective of the
? United States Air Force. "For the first time in its history," Kuter wrote,
"all USAF fighting forces assigned to the Pacific and the Far East areas were
consolidated under a single commander in the field."(244) As the PACOM
reorganization went into effect, however, the future of the US Taiwan Defense
Command remained to be determined since Admiral Stump's instruction of 20
June 1957 required a study to determine how the command structure on Taiwan
could be consolidated. As they existed, the Taiwan Defense Command, the US
MAAG-Taiwan, and Air Task Force-13 provided three chains of command concerned
with the coordination of US and Chinese military air training and operational
measures. In Washington, Air Force and Army planners would have preferred to
have eliminated the Taiwan Defense Command and to have consolidated all mili-
tary activities on Taiwan under a Chief, MAAG, who would have been an Army
lieutenant general, but ',Admiral Stump considered this arrangement impracticable
and politically infeasible since it might imply a decline of US interest in
Taiwan. As an alternate and preferable solution, COMTAIWANDEFCOM proposed to
make a combination of the Taiwan Defense Command, the MAAG, and ATF-13. The
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Joint Chiefs of Staff approved the plan on 31 January 1958, and an 14
March 1958 the headquarters of the Taiwan Defense Command and the MAAG
were consolidated and designated as the US Taiwan Defense Command and
Military Advisory Group. The Commander of the Taiwan Defense Command was
designated as commander of the new command, and the Chief MAAG became its
deputy commander. In a further adjustment effected on 1 April 1958 when
Major General Fred M. Dean assumed command of ATF-13, Dean would continue
to exercise operational control of all USAF units assigned or deployed to
Taiwan, but he was additionally designated as Chief, Air Force Section,
US Taiwan Defense Command and Military Advisory Group. This change com-
bined the advisory functions of the Air Force Section and the operational
control functions of ATF-13 into a single channel while retaining the
separate functions of the two groups.(245) This organizational model
would be subsequently used in Southeast Asia, and, when it was completed,
an Air Force review of the PACOM reorganization concluded that the
organizational structure and mission responsibilities in the Pacific were
sound and adequate, with the single exception that the assignment of
offensive air tasks to both CINCPACAF and CINCPACFLT was "questionable
from the Air Force point of view. "(2L6)
Under the diplomacy of the Eisenhower-Dulles administration as early
as 1953-54, a major objective of the US Mutual Defense Assistance Program
was to build the internal strength of Free World nations in order that
they would be able to participate in a collective defense effort against
a monolithic Sino-Soviet Communist threat. In an address on US policy
toward Communist China an 28 June 1957, Secretary Dulles stated that
Communism in China was "a passing and not a perpetual phase" and that the
United States ought to do all that it could "to contribute to that passing."
(247) In a dialogue before a Congressional committee on 12 June 1958,
Assistant Secretary of State Walter S. Robertson argued the US policy of
isolating Communist China and making the Chinese Communists dependent upon
the Soviet Union had been "one of the greatest factors in maintaining the
peace in Asia." He explained his reasoning by saying: "For instance,
the Chinese Reds cannot engage in a major war in Asia unless they get a
green light from Russia. And Russia has to be sure that the situation
in Europe, in the Middle East, and in other areas where they have res-
ponsibilities is such that they can commit themselves to supplying China
in a major war in Asia. In my humble opinion, the greatest factor for
peace and the safety of the free world is to keep the Chinese Communist
economically and militarily dependent upon the Russians. To the extent
they become independent, you double their combined capacity for aggressions
against the free world."(248)
Even though the US objective visualized that mutual defense assistance
would enable recipient East Asian nations to resist internal and external
Communist threats and participate in collective free world security efforts,
the organization for managing MAP aid that emerged in 1954-1955 was not .
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conducive to the establishment of a common collective defense posture.
The US Far East Command remained responsible for developing military
forces in Japan and the Republic of Korea to the level of the MDAP force
objectives established by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. In developing
the type forces for Japan and the Republic of Korea, the Far East Command
had made good use of its component commands. Thus the Japanese and ROK
air forces were built up under guidance provided by the Far East Air Forces
and in close association with the Fifth Air Force.(249) According to Joint
Chiefs of Staff decisions in early January 1954 (which were further imple-
mented during the year) the US Pacific Command was given the regional MDAP
responsibility for Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, and
Cambodia. Under the unified command arrangement already outlined, the Far
East Air Forces was the superior authority to PACOM's Pacific Air Force as
far as purely Air Force matters were concerned; in addition, the Far East
Air Forces was the superior headquarters to the Far East Air Logistics
Force which was responsible for providing through its 6410th Materiel
Group (DAP) the air logistical support required by air MAP components in
all of the recipient countries in Fast Asia. (250)
-Although Admiral Stump as CINCPAC possessed regional MDAP planning,
review, and implementation responsibilities for Southeast Asia, the initial
country MDA programs were devised by Washington emissaries and, as has been
seen, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff felt themselves unable on the basis of
their military judgment to specify initial force objectives for Vietnam and
any force objectives at all for Laos and Cambodia.(251) From the point of
view of PACOM, military aid programs in Southeast Asia would remain polit-
ically complex. "It seems in many respects," commented Vice Admiral
Anderson, PACOM Chief of Staff, "that every time we propose something which
will improve our military posture we run into the traditional response of
our friends in the State Department: You can't do that, we have an election
coming up!"(252)
Initially issued on 26 March 1954 and revised on 14 July 1955, Depart-
ment of Defense Directive 5132.3 established the Secretary of Defense as
the authority within the Department of Defense for developtent and imple-
mentation of the military assistance program. It also provided that CINCPAC
and other unified commanders would be in the direct military channel of com-
mand over the MAAGs and JUSMAAGs in their commands. By interpretation Army,
Navy, and Air Force personnel assigned to MAAGs and JUSMAAGs were not con-
sidered to be "allocated to CINCPAC" and the service elements of these groups
were regarded as being under command of CINCPAC rather than of the PACOM
component commanders. In order to handle his MAP responsibilities, Admiral
Stump integrated the functions into PACOM's J-Staff with the single exception
that within the J-4 Joint Logistics Division a small Foreign Aid Branch,
consisting of seven officers of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, was assigned
to administer the logistics portion of the military assistance program. By
the basic CINCPAC directive on MAP, MAAG chiefs were allowed to communicate
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directly with the military departments, the component commanders, or
other service agencies only on technical and other matters concerned
solely with service military assistance such as equipment nomenclature,
pricing, and financial procedures. On 20 February 19551 however, OINCPAC
stated that he would require the continuing advice and assistance from
his component commanders regarding MAP matters and that the component com-
mands would maintain continuing studies, participate in field trips, and
maintain close liaision with the CINCPAC joint staff.(253)
While Admiral Stump was organizing a highly-centralized MAP organiza-
tion early in 1955, the Far East Air Forces in Tokyo was operating on a
belief that there should be only one Air Force position in the Pacific and
that all airmen should contribute to the achievement of the common objec-
tive. Thus in February 19553 General Partridge held two conferences of
air attaches and MAAG-air representatives from all the East Asian nations
to discuss mutual plans and problems.(254) Looking toward a nuclear strategy,
the Air Council's approval of a proposed Air Force composition in the Pacific
in 1960 recognized the need for a great many dispersed airfields, and as
General Kuter pointed out in his study of the Pacific Command organization
on 11 July 1955 allied air units would become increasingly important to the
defense against Communist aggression in the Far East. According to schedules,
there would be 74 MDAP air squadrons in the Pacific and only 46 USAF squadrons
by 1958, and Kuter urged that FEAF -- as the major USAF component in the
Pacific -- must be recognized as the agency charged with developing and
integrating mnAP air forces throughout the Western Pacific.(255)
As far as USAF was concerned, the Far East Air Forces did have uni-
lateral responsibilities in the Pacific, but, in Hawaii, Admiral Stump was
described as a man who was "exceedingly, if not unduly sensitive an the
subject of command prerogatives."(256) In February 1955 Stump reminded
General Smith that CINCFAC was primarily responsible for Southeast Asian
MAP. He also directed General Smith and the other PACOM component com-
manders to review the status of MAP-supported units to insure that they
were developing in a manner compatible with US military and political
objectives and would complement and enhance US strategic plans.(275)
During the time that the Far East Air Logistics Force had been in the
FEAF command jurisdiction, the Far East Air Forces had possessed a major
logistical control over MAP air activities throughout East Asia, but the
transfer of the materiel function to the Air Materiel Command and the
establishment of the Air Materiel Force Pacific Area an 1 October 1955
removed FEAF's MAP air responsibilities for countries in CINCPAC's area of
responsibility. Despite this changed circumstance, the Far East Air Force
obtained approval from USAF and held another East Asian air attache con-
ference on 17-22 October 1955. At least a part of the air attaches felt
that they were far separated from the mainstream of Air Force thinking and
had benefited by being brought up to date on the Air Force and FEAF "party
lines."(258) In November 1955, when FEAF proposed to hold another meeting
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of MAAG-air representatives from all of the East Asian nations in Tokyo,
the CINCPAC staff objected strongly to the reference in the invitational
message which referred to "FEAF's unilateral responsibilities" in PACOM's
area of the Far East. Some members of the CINCPAC staff stated that this
was "an apparent attempt by FEAF to indoctrinate the Chiefs of the Air
Force Sections with FEAF philosophy and concepts."(259) Air Force Section,
MAAG, meetings would continue to be held in the Far East, but they would
be conducted at periodic intervals under the logistical support aegis of
the Air Materiel Force Pacific Area. Held in Japan and the Philippines,
these AMFPA MAAG conferences would be generally limited to logistical
problems, and they would include USAF and CINCPAC representatives.
In his role as advisor to Admiral Stump an MAP progress, General
Smith sent a team of PACAF staff officers headed by Colonel W. F. Bond
to Southeast Asia in November and December 1955. The team was not able
to get transportation into Laos and Cambodia, but in the other countries
it found that the MAAGs were dominated by the Army and functioned as Army
organizations. In each country, the MAAG chiefs, deputy chiefs, and
chiefs of staff were Army officers, and especially in the Philippines and
in Vietnam the air sections were described as "relegated to a minor role
and treated as junior partners." The team reported that the air sections
did not have access to pertinent war plans, did not and were not expected
to coordinate or consult with other MAAG-air sections in neighboring
countries, and that there was in general "a deplorable lack of definite
relationship between the MDAP supported country air forces and objectives
of the US strategic operational concept."(260)
Working together in the Air Force proposals, Generals Kuter and Smith
undertook to improve the air organization for insuring that MAP air forces
would develop in a manner consistent,- 4iLdi an overall strategy. Kuter had
observed that the Japanese and Korean air forces had been closely associated
with the Fifth Air Force and had made- excellent progress. Toward this same
end on 17 February 1956, General Smith charged the Thirteenth 21r Force to
monitor and review MDAP air activities throughout Southeast Asia, with a
view toward insuring that the development of country air forces would be
consistent with US strategic plans and that air facilities would be developed
to implement such plans.(261) On 2 March 1956, General Smith submitted a
basic concept for Air MAP to CINCFE which proposed that country air forces
in Southeast Asia be developed only to a capability necessary to combat
guerrilla-type hostilities, to maintain internal order, and to provide a
dhow of force in conjunction with other Free World air units and that the
development of the country air forces should be handled in such a manner
as to provide a basic environment in terms of air bases, navigational aids,
and logistic facilities that would be required if USAF units were employed
to meet aggression in Southeast Asia. In order to bring about the develop-
ment of improved air bases, navigational facilities, and basic logistical
facilities, Smith recommended that F-86 Sabre jets to be released by con-
version of FEAF fighter wings should be programmed for Thailand and the
Philippines. (262)
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The PIDAF/FEAF mutual air assistance program proposals could not be
immediately implemented. In Washington, the National Security Council
ruled against giving Thailand more jet aircraft. With very limited per-
sonnel, Headquarters, Thirteenth Air Force could not undertake the respon-
sibility of monitoring MDAP air activities in Southeast Asia unless it was
authorized 28 additional people. The Far East Air Forces requested the
personnel from USAF, only to be turned down because the Air Force was
engaged in "Project Wring Out," the desperate effort to reach an authorized
137-wing augmentation strength within restrictive and rigidly set manpower
levels. In April 1956, Kuter and Smith discussed the manning problem and
agreed that they would seek to increase Thirteenth Air Force participation
in Southeast Asia air activities even if it could not review and monitor
the MAP activities.(263) On 10 September 1956, one of General Smith's
policy statements directed that MAP activities would be encouraged to give
more attention to the development of air facilities, to include a modern
communications and electronic environment.(264) An Air-MAAG conference
held in January 1957 laid heavy stress upon the need to develop air base
complexes and necessary environments through country MAP recommendations.
(265) Although the need for air facilities in Southeast Asia was well
apparent, an object lesson occurred during SEATO Exercise Air Link held in
Thailand an 29-31 May 1957. At Don Muang Airfield the US ICA had developed
a fuel distribution system on the basis of a relatively small predicted use
by Royal Thai Air Force and civilian aircraft. The system proved incapable
of meeting the added requirements of RAF Venom and USAF F-100 and C-119
aircraft staged to Don Muang for the air-ground maneuver. The Thirteenth
Air Force Considered that the USAF made a very poor showing in the exercise.(266)
Knowing that airpower was a composite of professional airmen, air
vehicles, and operating facilities, General Kuter expected that the estab-
lishment of the Pacific Air Forces on 1 July 1957 would allow the Air Force
to pursue a single position in the Pacific and to implement air objectives
in a systematic manner.(267) Through several circumstances, the PACOM
reorganization did not work out as Kuter expected. As the US military
representative to SEATO, Admiral Stump still did not choose to permit his
component commanders to attend the meetings of the SEATO military advisors,
thus ruling out a prospective means whereby PACAF might have influenced
developments in a part of the Southeast Asia country air forces.(268)
In his statement of tasks and responsibilities under the new PACOM organiza-
tion, moreover, Admiral Stump provided that service personnel in the MAAGs
and JUSMAGs would continue to be outside the command of PACOM component
commanders. He also visualized that the Chiefs of the MAAGs and JUSMAGs
would, in the direct line of command from CINCFE, perform military functions
other than MAP, such as preparing implementing operations plans to support
CINCPAC plans. Under the old CINCPAC MAP directives which remained in
effect, the MAAGs were allowed to communicate directly with service depart-
ments or their agencies, including component commanders, on technical
matters, but, with the establishment of the Air Materiel Force Pacific Area,
the MAAGs had begun to depend upon this agency for technical support and
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would expect very little of this type of assistance from PACAF. (269)
Seeking to accomplish by persuasion what he could not do by command,
General Kuter invited all the Pacific-Far East Air attaches and Air-MAAG
chiefs to Hickam AFB in early November 1957 and urged them to work
together and establish a mutual understanding which could integrate the
more than a dozen separate "packets of democratic air power" which now
existed with little coordination in the region. (270)
In the first half of 1958, the Pacific Air Forces made plans and
issued a detailed description of a PACAF Mobile Strike Force that would
be available for an initial 15 days of combat in Southeast Asia and be
capable of departing its home bases within 24-hours after an execution
order was received. Named Commander Thirteenth Air Force on 4 March
1958, Major General Thomas S. Moorman, Jr., was charged to take command
of the PACAF Mobile Strike Force as it deployed to Clark Air Base and
thence to Southeast Asia bases. The units allocated to the Mobile Strike
Force included three troop carrier squadrons and a combat airlift support
unit (CALSU) from the 315th Air Division (Combat Cargo); a tactical
fighter squadron, tactical bomber squadron, reconnaissance task force
(RTF) with a photo processing center (PPC), and ane-half of an air
refueling squadron from the Fifth Air Force; a tactical fighter squadron
from the Thirteenth Air Force; and a search and rescue detachment from
the 31st Air Rescue Squadron of the Air Rescue Service (Pacific).
Logistical support for the strike force would be provided from Clark Air
Base, and the Thirteenth Air Force would draw upon PACAF resources to
establish air base group detachments for location at forward air bases.(271)
As finally issued the PACAF Mobile Strike Force directive incorporated
some of the lessons learned in SEATO Exercise Vayabut which culminated in
Thailand on 24-25 April 1958. Tha exercise involved the employment of
PACAF, United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Royal-Thai Air Force units in sup-
port of two Thai infantry divisions which were defending a line not far
north of Bangkok against a simulated Communist land aggressor force. For
the first time, the use of nuclear weapons was inserted into the scenario
of the exercise. As he witnessed the maneuver, Lt General Frederic H.
Smith, Jr., Commander Fifth Air Force, was concerned about the lack of
reality in the whole affair, based upon his experience in jungle warfare
during the Buna-Gona and Luzon campaigns of World War II. In these
campaigns, American airmen had successfully interdicted the Japanese
when they had attempted to cross New Guinea's Owen Stanley Mountains
between Buna and Port Moresby, and in the last year of the war on Luzon
Smith's V Fighter Command had saturated an area at the Ipo Dam with
napalm permitting friendly troops to overcome strongly fortified Japanese
positions with light casualties. "In jungle warfare," Smith told his
Fifth Air Force Staff when he returned to Japan, "you never see the enemy
until he cuts your throat or you cut his. He encircles and approaches
you from the rear." He reminded his staff about the fetish against
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using nuclear weapons against populated areas and asked the staffmen to
study how nuclear weapons could be used against terrain objectives both
to interdict hostile movement and to denude jungle cover. "If you can
reduce forest to desert," he thought, "you can change the whole theory
of war."(272)
In Headquarters, Fifth Air Force, a Tropical Concept Committee drew
upon a study of the history of World Wer II and Korea, a knowledge of
nuclear weapon effects, and an analysis of the situation in Southeast Asia
to prepare a study entitled "Atomic Weapons in Limited Wars in Southeast
Asia" which was issued on 22 July 1958. The nuclear effects portion of
the study would be published in unclassified form after a two-year clearance
process: this part of the study demonstrated how atomic bombs could be used
for "situation control" in rain forests, valley routes, mangrove forests,
bamboo groves, karst areas, and mountain defiles both to block hostile move-
ment and to clear away concealment cover. The air logistics portion of the
study was even more startling since it revealed that the scarcity of air
facilities (especially jet fuel storage) in Southeast Asia would not permit
a mobile air strike force to operate for any substantial length of time in
the strength that would be needed to fight a war with conventional weapons.(273)
Admiral Harry D. Felt, who relieved Admiral Stump as CINCPAC on 1
August 1958, postulated his concept of forward defense of the Pacific on the
two pillars of the strong mobile forces of the United States and the support
of friendly allies who would be strengthened by the military assistance pro-
gram.(274). This strategy received a severe test in the operations in defense
of Taiwan in August and September 1958. Where the current CINCPAC operations
plan for the defense of Taiwan visualized the employment of nuclear weapons
against threatening Chinese Communist airfields, President Eisenhower directed
that nuclear weapons would not be authorized in the initial stages of a Red
Chinese assault. While PACAF's mobile air strike force and the Tactical Air
Command's CASF X-Ray Tango deployed to Taiwan without great difficulty, the
communications-electronic environment there was very limited, and air
facilities -- runways, taxiways, ramps, and dispersal areas -- needed a lot
of improvement. Emergency actions incident to the Taiwan operation cost the
military assistance program $200 million over and above the moneys programmed
for the Republic of China requiring cuts elsewhere in the world-wide fiscal
year 1959 commitments.(275) On 15 December 1958, General Curtis E. LeMay,
USAF Vice Chief of Staff, might well have been thinking of the Taiwan opera-
tion when he provided reactions to the Fifth Air Force study on the use of
atomic weapons in Southeast Asia. He thought that the proposed use of nuclear
weapons for "situation control" was "a valuable addition to present concepts
for limited war." But he noted: "The President, of course, must approve the
release of atomic weapons for a limited war contingency, and the authority
for expending weapons, even on an individual basis, might well be retained
by the Joint Chiefs of Staff or at a higher level."(276) In August 1959,
USAF would direct PACAF to qualify aircrews for the delivery of high explosive
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ordnance by 1 June 1960, a directive which PACAF handled by qualifying
the crews of the two F-100 and one B-57 squadrons of its mobile strike
force for conventional bombing. At this same time, PACAF also requested
CINCPAC to make arrangements to stock conventional ordnance in Southeast
Asia. (277)
In the same season that the experience in Taiwan was forcibly
demonstrating that Southeast Asia countries lacked an operation environ-
ment required to support American contingency plans, the Department of
Defense Reorganization Act of 1958 was being put into effect. The new
organizational framework for the Defense Department was outlined in a
revised DOD directive on 31 December 1958. Both the reorganization act
and the directive envisioned a marked strengthening of the authority of
the Secretary of Defense and the unified commanders. The commander of a
unified command was directed to exercise "full operational command" over
assigned service forces, but the military departments and the component
services were responsible for the administration and support of their
respective theater forces. (278)
Within PACOM the authority of CINCPAC was greatly strengthened, but
his operational command would continue to be exercised through the com-
ponent commanders or the commanders of subordinate unified commands, and
the component commanders would be responsible for the administration and
support of the theater forces.(279) Acting promptly under his new
authority and mindful of the lack of coordination between MAP and the
theater strategy, Admiral Felt embarked in the fall of 1958 upon a pro-
gram designed to provide the MAAG$ with detailed guidance in the form of
a CINCPAC Priority List of Accomplishments. This document was designed
to establish a priority order for improving the capabilities of country
forces to perform missions. It also provided guidance to MAP agencies
since it contained guidelines for country undertakings in accordance with
regional and country priorities. The priority undertakings were listed as
projects that could be programmed by the MAAGs as country dollar ceilings
would permit.(280)
In the aftermath of Taiwan, Air Force officers redoubled their efforts
to secure the development of an adequate operating environment in South-
east Asia countries. General Kuter made a strong presentation on the sub-
ject at the UsAF Commanders Conference held at Patrick AFB in November 1958.
The Air Materiel Forces Pacific Area prepared a MAP study which was briefed
for Lt General W. F. McKee, Vice Commander AMC, during a visit to Hawaii,
also in November 1958. This study pointed up the inconsistencies between
PACAF's mobile strike force planning and the lack of adequate operating
facilities in Southeast Asia. It saw no reason -- other than lack of
previous coordination -- why MAP/ICA projects could not be closely related
to PACAF requirements. The study revealed a belief that the establishment
of closer programming relationships between PACAF and the MAAGs would
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result in PACAF requirements such as POL, ammunition storage facilities,
ground-to-air communications, fire trucks, refueling vehicles being in
place, utilized, and maintained by the indigenous air forces and thus
available for PACAF or USAF use, should this become necessary. (281)
While the solutions to the problem of providing a need air operating
environment in Southeast Asia appeared simple, the divided responsibilities
for MAP which had existed for so long made the problem too complex for
solution in 1959. In the first place, the Military Assistance Program had
not been designed and funded for the purpose ofbuildingfacilities to be
ultimately used by USAF units, and in reality the requirements were US
defense requirements rather than MAP/ICA responsibilities. In final pro-
gram reviews in Washington, DOD-ISA frequently deleted country projects
that could not be justified in terms of indigenous requirements as indeed
it was required to do by law.(282) The predominantly-Army orientation of
the MAAGs gave trouble, especially since air equipment was high-priced and
diverted funds from other competing projects. Even when the MAAGs were
directed to include air projects from CINCPAC's priority list of accomplish-
ments, the MAAG people were sensitive to the criticisms that had appeared
in The Ugly American. Speaking for the Laos PED, for example, Jake Skinner
poigga out that it was "extremely difficult to explain why you need an
8,000 foot heavy duty runway, flat concrete and sweepers to go with it in
a country that uses Gooney Birds."(283)
Another set of problems in coordinating PACAF plans with MAP programs
came from PACAF's very limited associations with military assistance mat-
ters. The MAAGs communicated directly with the Air Materiel Command or the
Air Materiel Force Pacific Area on technical air logistical matters, and
only in rare instances was PACAF called upon for assistance or advice and
only then when a MAAG needed a specific item of supply from PACAF tactical
units.(284) While USAF looked to PACAF for information about Southeast
Asia country base development projects, the construction programs were
handled for CINCPAC by the Navy's Bureau of Pacific Docks, and even the
responsible PACOM officers noted that they found it hard to get specific
facts about the exact status of construction programs.(285) In addition
to these problems, CINCPAC procedures made it very complicated and time-
consuming for persons from PACAF or AMYPA to visit a MAAG, even at the
invitation of the MAAG Chief. In 1959 a minimum of seven messages was
necessary in order to accomplish an approved clearance.(286)
At the conclusion of the SEATO Air Progress maneuver held at Don
Muang on 2-8 March 1959, Air Vice Marshall Kamol Thejatunga and General
Moorman prefaced their report to SEATO with the warning that they had not
gamed logistics in the exercise and recommended that matters of POL and
armament stores ought to be tested in the future. They also suggested that,
in order to move toward standardized national force logistics, all of the
participating SEATO air force units ought to be supported from in-place
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logistical systems at SEATO bases.(287) As it happened, the logistical
deficiencies of Southeast Asia would not have to wait another SEATO
exercise but were instead demonstrated in August and September 1959 when
President Eisenhower took steps to implement CINCPAC's contingency plan
for the support of Laos. US planning for Laos had begun at the Joint
Chiefs of Staff level on 28 October 1955 when General Maxwell Taylor had
asked for a study of the movement of a two-division US force there, and
the Joint Chiefs had subsequently accepted the plan to move the initial
combat elements into Laos by air and to employ sealift to move- the required
supply buildup and follow-up echelons.(288) Published in June 1959, CINCPAC
Operation Plan 32(L)-59 *called for the deployment of Joint Task Force
116 from Pacific bases with combined airlift and sealift swiftly into Laos.
The task force would hold the main cities, freeing Lao army for concen-
trated operations against hostile forces. On 5 September 1959, President
Eisenhower approved a CINCPAC alert and directed that if the operation were
launched it should be done "with great swiftness." Under the operation plan,
PACAF was charged to move expeditionary forces to the airfields at Vientiane
and Seno and provide logistics support for 30-days or until overland supply
could be established from Bangkok. At a critical moment on 16 September,
however, the airfield at Vientiane was made unusable by heavy rains. The
large airlift scheduled for Vientiane could have been diverted to Udorn
Airfield in Thailand, 40 miles south of Vientiane, but it was doubtful that
the road from Udorn to Vientiane would support sustained truck traffic. At
this point, the Laotian erisis subsided and the CINCPAC contingency opera-
tion would not be required, but the experience had again demonstrated the
very limited capabilities of Southeast Asian airfields to support mobile
air force deployments. (289)
After a visit to PACAF.in November 1959, Major General D. R. Hutchinson,
USAF Assistant for Mutual Security, offered the terse conclusion that there
had been absolutely no correlation between CINCPAC war plans and the country
military assistance programs in the past and that such correlation must be
obtained in the future.(290) Back in Washington on 11 March 1960, General
Hutchinson raised the question of the imbalance of service representation
in the US MAAGs. Pointing out that the May 1957 JCS assignment of MAAG
chiefs had given the Army 16 of the 23 worldwide positions, he suggested
that this resulted in unbalanced MAP recommendations from the field. The
Air Force now became actively interested in getting a more equitable balance
of service representation in the MAAGs, but the Joint Chiefs of Staff would
need several years to redress the imbalance.(291)
The immediate task in the Pacific in the winter of 1959-60 was to
insure that PACAF was permitted some regular authority to act on the USAF
portion of the PACOM military assistance program. One avenue of approach
open to General Emmett O'Donnell, Jr., who took over as CINCPACAF on 1
August 1959, was an internal Air Force action that would make PACAF the
principal air logistical advisor to the Air Force slections of the MAAGs.
In amendments to pertinent Air Force manuals an 25 September and 2 November
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1959 the function of administering Air Force contract technical service
for the MAP (which had been performed by the Air Materiel Force Pacific
Area) was transferred to PACAF. Another change in an Air Force regulation
on 5 February 1960 eliminated the previously authorized direct communica-
tions between Air Materiel Command activities and PACT and provided that
all such communications on air logistical matters would flow through
CINCPACAF. In addition to these Air Force actions, a revision of DOD
Directive 5132.3 issued on 29 February 1960 instructed Unified Commanders
to draw upon the advice and assistance of component commanders in the
development of long-range military assistance plans and programs. EMphasizing
the significance of the new directives, General Thomas D. White, USAF Chief
of Staff, wrote to O'Donnell on 25 March 1960 emphasizing that O'Donnell must
play an important role in influencing the preparation of the air portion of
PACOM's military assistance program. "To an inereasidg degree," white
wrote, "the capability of MAP air forces must be oriented toward complementing
the USAF war effort, and your active participation in MAP planning toward that
end is urged."(292)
After the spring of 1960, the Pacific Air Forces would have a more
substantial part in the direction of US military assistance activities in the
Far East. In retrospect, however, it was obvious that too little attention
had been given to the development of indigenous air forces in the Southeast
Asia countries, while the allocation of efforts, funds, and manpower to the
indigenous Southeast Asia ground forces had been disproportionately large.
As a result; the country air forces in Southeast Asia were small and chan-
nelized and did not have a sufficiently broad base of personnel with basic
skills and education to permit necessary expansion. None of the country air
forces had well-organized systems for operations and training, supply and
maintenance, intelligence, communications-electronics, or civil engineering. (293)
In 1958-1959 it was very obvious that the Southeast Asia MAP air programs
had not been properly balanced either in terms of internal country defense
requirements or in terms of an overall Pacific-Far East cooperative defense
strategy. Arrangements were being made to improve the situation, but in view
of the Communist threat to South Vietnam and Laos time was running out. In
the case of Laos, J. C. Skinner, the air representative an the PEO, was
encouraged in November 1959 by the prospects for a more realistic air pro-
gram, but he nevertheless noted that in Laos it might already be getting "too
late to plow."(29)) The same conclusion was equally true in South Vietnam
where defense preparations after 1954 had been dominated by ground force
thinking, with the result that the Vietnamese Air Force was hopelessly
inadequate to meet requirements which arose when, by May 1959 at the latest,
Hanoi in effect declared war on South Vietnam and committed its political and
military apparatus to the struggle.
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CHAPTER 3
BEGINNING OF THE NEW SOUTHEAST ASIAN WAR IN LAOS
1960-1962
1. Analyses of the Developing Communist Threat
As late as April 1958 US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles found it
possible to believe that the Communist proceas "of trying to pick up one
country after another has been pretty well brought to a stop by our col-
lective defense treaties around the world which give notice that the Soviets
cannot attack one without everybody coming to its defense."(1) From 1954
to 1958 the American threat of massive strategic retaliation coupled with
collective Free World defense alliances had preserved the peace in South-
east Asia, but by 1957 the Soviets :were approaching a condition of plentiful
nuclear weapons, and on 4 October 1957 the globe-circling flight of Russia's
Sputnik indicated that the Soviets:nad scored a significant breakthrough
in ballistic missile technology.. These developments encouraged Hanoi,
Peking, and Moscow to attempt new and more aggressive ventures in Southeast
Asia beginning in 1958.
At the Geneva Conference in 1954 Ho Chi Minh had been bitterly dis-
appointed when the Soviet Union and Red China were willing to settle for a
military armistice and a politically divided Vietnam, whereas Ho considered
that the French colonials had been defeated and that all of Vietnam lay
within his grasp. In backstage maneuvers at Geneva, however, Soviet Foreign
Minister Vyacheslav Molotov had been more interested in defeating the
European Defense Community than in securing maximum gains for Hanoi, and
there was informed speculation that an arrangement was made between Mendez-
France and Molotov to trade off French participation in EDC for a settlement
in Indochina that was not too unfavorable to France.(2)
In addition to other gains, the Vietminh delegates at Geneva had hoped
to secure an autonomous sovereign,Pathet Lao area in northern Laos, but, in
private talks with Mendez-France, Red China!s Chou En-lai (who was unwilling
to push the risk of US intervention in Indochina too far) had settled for
reintegration of Laos under a coalition government.(3) In the years after
1954 Communist China provided substantial military assistance for the North
Vietnamese Army, but the Soviet Union showed less interest in the future
of North Vietnam, as well as some evidence of concern that Hots extremely
brutal land reform program had seriously diminished his popularity through-
out Vietnam. According to one informed reporter the Soviets actually did
not want the national plebiscite called for in the Geneva Agreements in mid-
1956 because they believed that an internationally supervised secret ballot
might well go against Ho, and in any event, Soviet support for the election
was no more than perfunctory.(4) In 1957 the Soviets proposed that North
and South Vietnam and North and South Korea be admitted to membership in
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the United Nations as separate entities, the Soviet spokesman arguing that
the "realistic approach is to admit that there are two States with conflict-
ing political systems in both Korea and 7iet-Nam."(5)
On the day following the final session of the Geneva Conference Ho
Chi Minh had emphasized his determination to establish Communism over all
of Vietnam by calling for a "long and arduous struggle" to win the southern
areas, which he described as "territories of aurs."(6) In the first year
after Geneva, Hanoi sent a small number of Vietcong cadres across or around
the 17th parallel, and in 1955-56 General Van Tien Dung, chief of staff of
the North Vietnamese Army, dropped from sight and was in South Vietnam
expanding the Comhmmist apparatus and preparing for future infiltration.
In these years, however, the Vietnamese Communist Lao Dong party worked
for unification by political means, including subversion and actions short
of open armed conflict. This Lao Dong policy was maintained over active
protests of the Communist party members and cadres in South Vietnam, who
felt themselves losing substantial strength to President Diem's pacification
programs. In the wards of a major Vietcong analysis of its experience
captured in 1966, the majority of party members and cadres in South Vietnam
were convinced by 1958 that "it was necessary to launch immediately an
armed struggle in order to preserve the movement and protect the forces."(7)
In the mid-1950's the Chinese Communists followed the Soviet lead in
announced policies of peaceful coexistence with the West and the develop-
ment of internal socialism as a transitional base for an eventual Communist
society, but by 1958 the Chinese Rads were impatient with the slowness of
Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to exploit Russia's apparent breakthrough
in strategic technology. In 1958 Peking launched a "Great Leap Forward,"
with bold goals of advancing doctrinnaire Communist both inside and outside
China. In China the "Great Leap Farward" would attempt to build a Marxist
order of peoples' communes. In its foreign policy, Peking expressed willing-
ness to risk the danger of general nuclear war in order to spread international
Communism. As they appeared to Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern
Affairs Walter S. Robertson, the first signs of Red China's "increasing
arrogance" came in mid-1958, when Peking launched all-out economic warfare
against Japan, urging Overseas-Chinese merchants to boycott Japanese products
and flooding Southeast Asian markets with cut-rate priced Chinese goods.
Armed aggression soon followed in July 1958, when Red China commenced armed
attacks against Chinese NationsliAt garrisons an Quemoy- and Matsu Islands
in the Taiwan Straits. (8) During the Taiwan Straits crisis Khrushcher
respected the Sino-Soviet defense pact of 1950 and placed the threat of
Soviet nuclear weapons behind China. In an Obvious change in Soviet
position from the year before, moreover, a Soviet veto in the United Nations
Security Council on 9 December 1958 blocked the admission of the Republic
of Vietnam to the United Nations which was sponsored by France, japan, the
United Kingdom, and the United States.(9)
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The bristling belligerency of Red China was paralleled by aggression in
Southeast Asia. As has been seen, NVA troop movements into the Lao pan-.
handle in December 1958 were preparatory to an expanding North Vietnamese
program for moving men and supplies into South Vietnam. Making public a
decision probably taken earlier, the Lao Dong party on 13 May 1959 called
for the reunification of Vietnam by "all appropriate means," thereby signalling
the beginning of revolutionary armed warfare against the Republic of Viet-
nam. In this same month, North Vietnam organized the 559th Transportation
Group with a mission of forwarding support to Vietcong bases within South
Vietnam. The 70th Battalion went to the Lao panhandle, and in June the
603d Battalion was formed near the Narth Vietnamese naval base at Quang Khe
with responsibility for clandestine maritime infiltrations into South
Vietnam. By January 1960 a special training base for Vietcong infiltrators
was operational at Son Tay, northwest of Hanoi. In Nghe An Province, the
NVA 324th Division was ordered to begin training infiltrators, and at this
same time the Xuan Mai infiltration center was set up southwest of Hanoi,
with a capacity to handle several 1000-man classes at one time.(10)
Intelligence of the NVA activities was not yet available in 1959-1960, but
early in 1959 it was nevertheless evident that the directing hand of
Communist activity inside Laos and South Vietnam was shifting from indigenous
Pathet,Lao and Vietcong leaders to Hanoi and Peking. (ii) The sudden
resumption of Communist warfare in Laos in July 1959, moreover, coincided
with Chinese Communist probes against India's borders and also with Chair-
man KhrUshchevls imminent arrival in the United States for talks with
President Eisenhower--discussions which the Chinese Reds opposed.(12)
In subsequent years it would be apparent that Red China's increasingly
doctrinnaire stance after 1958 offered an ideological challenge to the
Soviet leadership of international Communism that Khrushchev would not accept,
and the Sino-Soviet split was beginning in 1958. During the Taiwan
Straits crisis, Khrushchev honored Russian defense agreements with China,
but Khrushchev was clearly frightened by the strident Red Chinese assertion
that a general nuclear war would advance the cause of international
Communism. The Sino-Soviet split would be quite useful to Hanoi, since
both China and Russia would cultivate the support of Ho Chi Minh. In
Washington during 1959-1960, however, a continuing concept of monolithic
international CammardEmi, said to have been most deeply implanted in the
State Department's Bureau of Far Eastern Affairs(13), made it difficult
for US policy planners to recognize the exact nature of the Communist
threat to Laos and Vietnam. On 12 August 1959, Allen W. Dulles, Director
of the Central Intelligence Agency, identified Communist China as the
principal danger in East Asia, warning the National Security Council's
Operations Coordination Board that the United States should be prepared
for trouble from Red China anywhere in the Far Eas1o.(14) On 17 August,
Assistant Secretary of State J. Graham Parsons discounted the likelihood of
a Sino-Soviet split and stated his belief that Communist China would "remain
firmly alined with its nuclear partner, the Soviet Union, which has on
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several recent occasions thrown the weight of its nuclear threats behind
Chinese Communist actions." Parsons envisioned that local forces in Laos
and South Vietnam would deal with small incursions from alien territory and
with internal insurgencies that were "believed" to be organized by the
North Vietnamese, but he saw no change in the concept that SEATO would be
the "broader deterrent" to Communist aggression against Laos, Cambodia, and
Vietnam.(15) In August 1960 another State Department spokesman indicated
that overt Chinese Communist aggression against Southeast Asia would be
met by nuclear strikes against Chinese targets.(16) In the months that
would follow, a continuing belief in the monolithic Communist threat to
Southeast Asia would affect US policy toward the conflict in Laos and South
Vietnam.
2. Uneasi Peace and Renewed Hostilities in Laos
The Lao crisis of 1959 had demonstrated weaknesses in the government
headed by Prime Minister Pilau' Sananikone, the Royal Lao Army, and in
CINCPAC plans for rendering active military aid to Laos. Any prospects of
alleviating these weaknesses depended upon diplomacy and the US mutual
assistance programs, neither of which promised a quick fix to the problems.
As a matter of national policy, the United States had no desire to
intervene in the internal affairs of Laos and undertook to support duly
constituted governments in Laos in their efforts to maintain the independence
and integrity of Laos against Communist encroachment either from within or
without the country. (17) As a matter of fact, however, uncertain consti-
tutional precedents in Laos made it difficult for Western nations to remain
aloof from internal Laotian politics. When the Phoui government was ending
its year of exceptional powers in December 1959, Brig Gen Phoumi Nosavan
and four other Army generals led a military coup on 31 December, demanding
caretaker status over the Royal Lao Government pending the election of a
new National Assembly. On 4 January, US Ambassador Smith, together with
the British and French ambassadors and the Australian charge d' affairs,
called upon King Savang Vatthana and informed him that he had been misinformed
if he believed that a military dictatorship would receive the approbation
of friendly foreign governments. Heeding the advice, the King named a
venerable Lao, Lou Abhay, as Prime Minister and limited military membership
in the transition government to Phoumi, who continued to be Minister of
National Defense. (18)
In the Lao elections for the National Assembly on 24 April 1960, General
Phoumi was generally credited with making the arrangements which gave the
Communist Neo Lao Hak Sat party the privilege of naming candidates but
insured that Army-sponsored candidates would gain an overwhelming victory.
The Red Prince Souphanouvong, although held under house arrest in Vientiane,
was encouraged to name nine candidates who could meet stringent criteria
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specified as qualification for the national legislature. The new Lao Army
psychological warfare teams proved useful in presenting government programs
in remote sections of the country. A nine-battalion Army force swept through
the region heavily infested'hy guerrillas east of Pakse. This force
crossed the Bolovens Plateau as far asSaravane and Attopeu. In six weeks,
no guerrillas were encountered, but the force dropped off the new psychological
warfare teams in important villages to safeguard the election. (19) One
315th Air Division combat cargo mission reminiscent of "Operation Booster
Shot" was attempted and generally miscarried. At a request from the Laos
PEO made in March, PACAF on 16 April directed the .315th Air Division to
stage a C-130 to Udorn Airfield in Thailand for an airdrop of two D-4
bulldozers and two quarter-ton trucks to Phong Saly, Laos--the equipment
to be used to construct an airstrip. In the first drop on 26 April two
trucks and one of the bulldozers were successfully delivered but the bull-
dozer damaged the plane at its exit. After repairs to the aircraft, the last
bulldozer was dropped on 29 April, but now only one of five cargo chutes
deployed properly and the bulldozer was demolished.(20)
The result of the Lao election on 24 April was a landslide for the pro-
government forces, and General Phoumi night well have been offered the
leading post in the new government. Partly because of renewed Western
Objections to military rule, however, King Savang Vatthana selected Tiao
Somsanith, a man of more moderate leanings, to head the Royal Government
which took office on 2 June. Phaumi Nosavan remained as Minister of Defense,
but there was now no doubt that he was the strong man in the government.
One of Phoumi's announced intentions was to press the trial of Prince
Souphanouvong on long delayed changes for offenses against state security.
In view of this development, Souphanouvong and fifteen other imprisoned
Pathet Lao leaders escaped from detention on the night of 23 May and rejoined
Pathet Lao military units in northeastern Laos.(21)
Apparently unknown to anyone in Laos or even in Bangkok, a 30-year old
Lao Army Captain Kong Le, Commander of the elite Royal Lao 2d Parachute
Battalion, had been plotting a coup d'etat for several months, and, during
the early hours of 9 August, Kong Le's force of 600 paratroopers seized
Vientiane. According to first reports, Kong Le's men were disgruntled
because their pay had been delayed and they were tired of pursuing the
Pathet Lao. General Heintges, Chief of the PEO, knew Kong Le personally
and did not believe that the young Kha tribesman had the intelligence or
the education to plot the course that his revolt subsequently took.
Heintges believed that the Communists seized the golden opportunity and
furnished Kong Le's propaganda. At a rally on 11 August, Kong Le demanded
an end to the military campaign against the Pathet Lao. In the next few
days Kong Le forced the National Assembly to depose Prime Minister
Somsanithrs government and to approve a new government headed by Sauvanna
Phauma. In the new cabinet, General Phoumi was allocated the positions of
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Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister, but Phoumi, who was in close
contact with Marshal Sarit in Thailand, would not leave his base in Savannakhet
to take the offices in Vientiane. In a statement of policy, Souvanna Phduma
stressed his intention of ending the civil war, maintaining a struggle
against foreign interference, accepting aid from and maintaining friendly
relations with all countries, and implementing a policy of strict neutralism. (22)
In Washington during the week following Kong Le's coup, President
Eisenhower described the situation in Laos as "very confused." He needed
time to secure clarification of what had happened.(23) On 17 August, Acting
Secretary of State Douglas Dillon announced that the United States would
have nothing to do with General Phoumi and was keeping its hands off affairs
in Laos. In Vientiane, Ambassador Winthrop G. Brown, who had arrived at
his new post less than a month before the coup, told Souvanna Phauma
that the United States would remain absolutely neutral in the government
crisis. At this sane time, Brown told Phoumi that the United States would
not support any separatist movement, or attempt to Solve the situation by
force but rather believed that Phoumils participation in the new government
was most important.(24) On the other hand, Marshal. Sarit was sympathetic
to Phoumi and deeply distrustful of Souvanna Phouma. Applying economic
pressure, Thailand closed off commerce with Vientiane, and Sarit told a
Free World ambassador that he might well take a new look at his relations
with the United States in view of its mishandling and inaction in the
Laotian crisis. South Vietnamese leaders, worried about Souvanna's talk of
reducing South Vietnam's representation in Vientiane, closing the Chinese
Nationalist consulate, and recognizing the Soviet Union, were also critical
of the United States' refusal to back Phoumi. They felt that the United
States was permitting a situation to develop to a point that would lead to
a Communist takeover of Lacs.(25)
At the time of the Kong Le coup, the Lao army outside Vientiane was
widely dispersed on anti-guerrilla operations throughout the country. By
late August, however, the Lao Army Commander, General Duane Rathikone,
estimated that Kong Le controlled about 1,800 troops out of the total regular
strength of 29,500. By distributing weapons from the warehouses in Vientiane,
Kong Le armed a number of civilians, thus bringing his strength up to approx-
imately 6,000 men. In Savannakhet, General Phoumi could count upon troops
loyal to Prince Boun Oum Champassak, wham Phoumi put forward to head the
counter-revolutionary regime. Phoumi could also expect covert assistance
from Marshal Sarit in Thailand, including the release to him of 200 Lao
paratroopers who were in training in Thailand. In a myriad of political
moves and countermoves, Phoumi brought most of the Lao military to his side,
but the Pathet Lao radio on 19 September directed guerrilla forces loyal to
Prince Souphanovvong to avoid clashes with the Souvanna-Kong Le troops and,
wherever possible, to join them in fighting Phoumi. The first victories
went to Kong Le's paratroopers, who drove Phoumi forces out of their
advance position at Paksane in mid-September, forcing many of the men to flee
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across the Mekong into Thailand. On 22 September King Savang told
Ambassador Brown that his first concern was to reestablish the integrity
and unity of the armed forces, and an 26 September Savang dismissed Phoumi
from the Souvanna cabinet.(26)
In Washington during August and September a division in the germane
positions of the US State and Defense Departments toward the Laotian crisis
allowed the situation to deteriorate and caused the United States to miss
an opportunity to intervene overtly without entailing a direct risk of
a major-power confrontation. The State Department wanted a political
settlement of the situation by compromise and coalition government in Laos.
The Defense Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff pushed for solid and
effective support of Phoumi as the only known pro-Western element in Laos.(27)
The United States joined France and Great Britain on 27 September in a state-
ment in support of the Souvanna Phouma government, but in October the actions
of this government made it appear ta President Eisenhower that "Souvanna
Phouma was either an accomplice or a: captive of Captain Kong Le who,
himself, was an accomplice of the Ccirffaunist Pathet Lao." On 28 September
Pathet Lao guerrilla pressure compelled troops loyal to Phoumi to abandon
Sam Neua town and its airfield, yet Souvanna expressed willingness to
negotiate with the Pathet Lao to form a coalition government. Souvanna was
also willing to receive an ambassador from the Soviet Union and requested
a Soviet airlift of "foodstuff and her supplies" into Vientiane. A
special US mission to Laos--headed by Assistant Secretary of Defense John
N. Irwin and Assistant Secretary of State J. Graham Parscns--arrived at
Vientiane on 12 October, but this mission was unable to persuade Souvanna
to break off his negotiations with the Pathet Lao. The following day, the
Soviet Ambassador arrived in Vientiahe, where he met a warm demonstration
from Kong Le's forces and promised that gasoline, food, and medical supplies
would begin to arrive from the Soviet Union via Hanoi. After conferences
with Secretary Parsons in Bangkok, Ambassador Brown secured Souyannals
approval for a plan whereby the United States would restore cash-grant
aid to Souvanna but would also provide military assistance to General
Phoumi under a gentlemen's agreement that Phoumi would use the equipment
only against the Pathet Lao. (28)
Soviet delays in providing promised aid to Souvanna indicated that
Moscow was assessing the prospects of a great power confrontation in Laos
and might also be having difficulty mobilizing airlift forces. On the
political level, a declaration by Ihrushchev at the United Nations General
Assembly in September 1960 had called attention to "the grave danger of
colonial wars growing into a new world war." On the other hand, the
Chinese Communists asserted Lenin's teaching that war was useful for
extending Communism. These Sino-Soviet doctrinal divergencies were placed
in debate in November 1960 by a world conference of Communist parties in
Moscow (with Ho Chi Minh representing North Vietnam). The outcome of the
debate would be a new Connunist doctrine an war that would represent a
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compromise between the Chinese position that war was useful and the Soviet
rationalization that any hostility could expand into thermonuclear destruction.
Khrushchev described the new doctrine which had been worked out in November
and December in an address entitled "For New Victories of the World Communist
Movement" which he delivered an 6 January 1961. He noted that "world wars"
and "local wars that would grow into a world thermonuclear war" were to be
avoided. On the other hand, "national liberation wars" through which
colonial people could attain independence were "not only admissible but
inevitable" and could be fully supported by Communists. (29)
During November 1960 the United States was committed to support
Souvanna Phouma's government of Laos and to give military assistance to
General Phoumils counter-revolutionary group. Souvanna's actions, however,
seemed increasingly unwise, especially his flying trip to Sam Neua an
18 November where he met Souphanouvong and received the latter's agreement
to participate in a coalition government. When Souvanna appeared to move
to the left, General Phoumi benefited from defections of Lao military
commanders--including General Ouane--to his side. By 23 November all
organized Lao troops were under Phoumi command except for the units in
Vientiane under Kong Le and Souvanna Phouma. With the beginning of dry
weather, General Phoumi started a march from Savannakhet toward Vientiane,
and an 9 December Souvanna Phouma delegated his civil and military powers
to the High Command of the Lao Army and flew to exile in Cambodia. Mambers
of the National Assembly, meeting in Savannakhet, voted no confidence in
Souvanna, and, acting without delay in Luang Prabang on 12 December, King
Savang Vatthana recognized Prince Bonn Oust as the head of a provisional Lao
government. (30)
In addition to the political complexities involved, the Soviets also
apparently had some difficulty mobilizing an airlift task force for
service in Southeast Asia. In late November, however, the Soviet Air
Force brought Ilyushin-14 planes that had been engaged in the Congo to
Hanoi, and the Soviet Union commenced shuttle flights into Vientiane Air-
field on 3 December. American Observers were not able to approach too closely,
but General Heintges believed that the first Soviet flights included not
only petroleum products requested by Souvanna Phouma but also advisors and
weapons for Kong Le, whose forces had begun to melt down to the hard core
of his paratroopers. At any rate on 10 December, Quinim Pholsema, the pro-
Chinese and anti-American member of Souvanna's cabinet who had remained in
Vientiane, went to Hanoi aboard an IL-14 and made a firm arrangement with
the Russians whereby arms and supplies would be airlifted to Kong Le, in
return for an alliance between Kong Le and the Pathet Lao. After 3 December,
the Soviets began to employ five IL-14's each of which made two daily flights
between Hanoi and Vientiane. The Ilyushin flights arriving an 11 December
unloaded six 105 mm. howitzers and ammunition for Kong Le, who could of
course also use the food and gasoline regularly transported to Vientiane.(31)
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When Fhoumi's forces attacked Vientiane an 13-14 December, the Soviet
assistance to Kong Le proved too limited to permit the latter's forces to
mount an adequate defense of the administrative capital. But the Soviet
supplies enabled Kong Le to begin an orderly withdrawal to the Plain of
Jars, where the Soviets opened an airhead and began to lay down equipment
for Kong Le and also for North Vietnamese troops that were moving into Laos.
The Soviet transport planes also parachuted supplies along Kong Lets line
of retreat, enabling his three surviving companies of paratroops to reach
the Plain of Jars on 31 December.(32) In Washington as General Phoumi was
retaking Vientiane and Prince Bonn Oum's government was recognized by the
King, President Eisenhower hoped that the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization
would take charge of the Lao controversy in support of a properly constituted
provisional government of Laos. Preparatory to a SEATO intervention in
which US forces would be expected to occupy Vientiane and Luang Prabang,
CINCPAC declared an alerting Defense Condition 3 for all forces earmarked
for Joint Task Force 116 on 14 December. At this early juncture,
however, Eisenhower thought it important that Phoumi receive air trans-
ported supplies from Thailand and that some air reconnaissance flights be
flown to check enemy activities. For one thing, the United States needed
some photographs of the Soviet air transport planes in action. (33)
Employing a VC-47 airplane borrowed from the US Embassy in Saigon, the
USAF air attache to Vientiane commenced low level reconnaissance flights
over northeastern Laos on 17 December. This improvised reconnaissance
plane got definite intelligence on its first flights and a hand-held oblique
camera was used to secure photos of Russian aircraft dropping supplies on
21 and 27 December.(34) With intelligence in hand concerning the illegal
Soviet airlift activities, Admiral Felt proposed to the Joint Chiefs of
Staff on 20 December that a few pilots an armed reconnaissance could find
good hunting along the route between Vientiane and Luang Prabang and around
Xieng Khouang. He pointed out that the Royal Thai Air Force had at least
50 T-6 aircraft equipped with .30-caliber machine guns and capable of
carrying light bombs or napalm and that it might be possible to get some
combat-ready Thai pilots to volunteer for missions in Laos. For the long
run, however, Felt proposed that the United States should get Thailand to
provide Laos with 10 armed T-6's and to give transition training in the
operation of the planes to Lao pilots.. Then, after a Laotian warning to the
Russians, the Lao pilots could begin attacks against the Soviet air transport
planes and Pathet Lao artillery and vehicles. As an initial reaction, the
State and Defense Departments authorized Admiral Felt to go ahead with plans
to prepare the Lao pilots to operate T-6's in combat.(35)
Although President Eisenhower favored SEATO support for the Bolin Cum
government and the State and Defense Departments reacted favorably to
Admiral Felt's suggestions for offensive air action, the SEATO allies were
less enthusiastic. For one thing, there was some question as to the
legality of the Boun Own government and as to whether the Soviet airlift
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which had been requested by Souvanna Phouma was in fact illegal. Before
leaving Vientiane for Phnam Penh, Souvanna Phouma had not resigned the
Prime Minister's portfolio, and he continued to refuse to do so, rationaliz-
ing that his formal resignation was not required since King Savang Vatthana
(even though acting under coercion) had automatically removed the incumbent
premier when Bonn Own was installed. Sauvannais action permitted the Soviets
to maintain the fiction that Souvanna remained the lawful head of the govern-
ment of Laos and that the Soviet airlift was supporting this government. In
a letter to President Eisenhower on 30 December, British Prime Minister
Harold Macmillan recommended that the first essential to SEATO action in
Laos would be to establish "a proper legitimate government" under Bonn Own,
a matter which could best be done by persuading Souvanna Phouma to resign
and by having the Lao National Assembly confirm Bonn Own as premier. In a
staff meeting concerned with Laos, President Eisenhower directed that the
political actions suggested by Macmillan be pursued and that a new appeal
for united action be made to France. He was not optimistic about France,
however, since he noted that the French disliked Phoumi Nosavan and hoped
that Souvannars neutralist government would work. Eisenhower also directed
that Task Force 116 should be brought to a condition of intense readiness
and that the Russians should be warned that the United States was gravely
concerned about Laos. At the conclusion of this meeting on 31 December, the
State Department issued a note declaring that the United States was mindful
of its SEATO obligations and would "take the most serious view of any
intervention in Laos by the Chinese Columnists or Viet Minh armed forces or
others in support of the Communist Pathet Lao, who are in rebellion against
the Royal Laotian Government." (36)
On 30 December Admiral Felt recognized the political problem in Laos,
but he nevertheless messaged the Joint Chiefs of Staff that he favored
military action to stop the Soviet airlift and to burn up Communist supply
dumps and aircraft on the ground.(37) In fact, the crisis in Laos was
worsening. In its mission on 27 December, the improvised air attache
reconnaissance C-47 was damaged by ground fire, a fact that led Felt to
suggest that Phoumi request both the United States and Thailand to initiate
air reconnaissance flights over Laos. Despite the growing danger, however,
the air attache crew flew the D-47 an another reconnaissance mission from
Vientiane north to Luang Prabang and east to Xieng Khouang on 31 December.
Near Xieng Khouang the C-47 crew received very damaging ground fire, but it
nevertheless reported a large convoy of 40 to 50 enemy vehicles in the area.
A radio message from the crew permitted Mao troops under Lt Colonel Tang
Pao to escape from Xieng Khouang into surrounding mountains, where these
farces commenced a very effective harrassment of the Pathet Lao.(38) As
directed by Washington, Admiral Felt declared Defense Condition 2 for Joint
Task Force 116 on 31 December, and he further requested the dispatch of a
CASF 0-130 transport squadron from the United States to Clark Air Base.
With the arrival of the 773d Troop Carrier Squadron from Sewart Air Force
Base on 2 January 1961, JIT-116 was fully ready to go to the assistance
of the Lao government. (39)
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In exile at Phnom Penh, Sourana Phouma refused to accept a proposition
whereby the King would send him to Paris as ambassador if he would resign .
his claim to the Laotian premiership, and he also refused to return to Laos
until a coalition government was possible. On 4 January 1961, the Lao
National Assembly nevertheless unanimously voted its support for Boun Oum's
cabinet.()0) As far as the United States was concerned, Boun Gum's govern-
ment was completely legitimate, but on 5 January President Eisenhower
received a letter from French President Charles de Gaulle which made it
evident that France would not participate in a SEATO intervention. De
Gaulle stated that the failure of the United States to accept an earlier
tripartite approach to global problems was partly responsible for the
situation in Laos.(41) On instructions from Washington, CINCPAC reduced
the alert of JTF-116 to DEFCON 3 on 6 January, and on the following day
a US State Department white paper on Laos stated that the United States
would work with other free nations to pursue "whatever measures seem most
promising."(42) In the closing fortnight of his administration, President
Eisenhower was regretfully unable to find an answer to the "cloudy and
serious" situation in Laos. At a briefing for President-elect John F.
Kennedy an 19 January 1961, Eisenhower nevertheless emphasized that Laos
was the key to all of Southeast?Asia. He believed that any new Lao coalition
government that included Communists would be fatal and said that he would
be willing "as a last desperate hope, to intervene unilaterally."(43)
The failure of SEATO to act in Laos meant that General Phoumi's
military campaign against the Pathet Lao and Kong Le forces would be
conducted by the Royal Lao Arnv (FAR), with some assistance from the
United States, Thailand, and South Vietnam. Phoumi envisioned a six months
campaign, to begin with initial operations to clear Route 13 between Vientiane
and Luang Prabang. His force would then commence a second phase offensive
along Route 7 which would disperse and destroy Pathet Lao-Kong Le forces in
Sam Neua. A third phase offensive would clear Phong Saly province. Phoumi
estimated that the second and third phases would be accomplished by 31 May
1961. His campaign would require 10 battalions of Laotian troops, thus
necessitating a withdrawal of most government forces from the southeastern
Lao panhandle. To cover this area the FAR would need increased forces, but
meanwhile Phoumi revealed that he had an agreement with South Vietnam for
one of its divisions to move into southern Laos as an intervention force
when and if he asked for assistance. Previous American aid programs had
provided the Lao Army with light weapons that could be easily transported in
difficult terrain, with the result that Lao forces were deficient in artillery.
Phoumi also required additional airlift. The United States had already
provided four H-34 helicopters to Laos, and it now agreed to expedite the
delivery of 11 additional H-34's, all to be maintained and operated on a
contract basis by Air America. Already scheduled to be relieved as Chief,
Programs Evaluation Office by Brig Gen A. J. Boyle in January 1961, one of
General Heintges' last duties in Vientiane was to arrange to provide US
logistical support for PhoumiTs projected six-month field campaign. ()4)
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As outlined in December 1960, Phoumi's optimistic campaign plan did not
anticipate the fact that the North Vietnamese and the Russians were rapidly
transforming the Plain of Jars into a vast armed camp and that the ragged
Pathet Lao were being encadred by regular Vietminh forces. At the sane time
that the Soviets were ferrying in 105 mm. howitzers, mortars, and 37 mm.
flak guns, the North Vietnamese were opening overland transportation on
Route 7 from Barthelemy Pass on the border to the Plain of Jars. The Soviet
IL-14's were also developing other strong points in Laos outside the Plain
of Jars. On 31 December, the Embassy C-47 recce flight noted that an old
airstrip at Pang Vieng, on the Royal Highway between Vientiane and Luang
Prabang, had been lengthened to 4,350 feet and that an IL-14 was an the
ground there unloading cargo.(45)
Early in January 1961 Admiral Felt made a determined effort to improve
the Lao Army's fighting spirit by providing air reconnaissance and fighter
support. As suggested by Felt, Phoumi requested reconnaissance from both
Thailand and the United States. Both governments recognized the requirement,
but each apparently believed that the other should provide it. The Joint
Chiefs of Staff authorized Felt to raise the question with Thai officials
of using one of their RT-33's, preferably without insignia and piloted by a
Thai volunteer. Prime Minister Sarit was skittish about assuming the task
and instead urged the United States to fly the missions with U-2 planes.
As a temporary expedient, PACAF provided a camera-equipped Fifth Air Force
SC-47 and a professional reconnaissance crew who began to fly missions out
of Vientiane on 11 January. These flights drew some ground fire, but they
confirmed the existence of a good many potential aerial targets both in
the Plain of Jars area and on Route 7 toward the Vietnamese border.(46)
Late in December 1960, Thailand was willing to transfer 10 T-6 aircraft
to Laos, provided the United States would provide the RTAF with more-modern
T-37 jets in exchange. The first four T-6's, with wing-mounted .30 caliber
machine guns and equipment to handle either 5 inch rockets or bombs were
ready for transfer an 4 January. Lao pilots were flown to Thailand for
transition, a task that met some delay when several of the Lao airmen
experienced difficulties, including air sickness, in gunnery maneuvers. On
9 January, Lao pilots flew the T-6's to Savannakhet, and they moved to
Vientiane on the following day. (147)
On 7 January the Joint Chiefs of Staff informed Admiral Felt that Phoumi
was authorized to make inmEdiate use of the T-6 aircraft?armed with guns
and rockets but not with bombs?with first priority to be given to Communist
airlift an the ground or in the air and second priority to hostile troops,
dumps, and other similar military targets. On the afternoon of 10 January,
the Lao Government delivered a note protesting Soviet air violations of
Laos to the Soviet Embassy, where an official read and refused to accept
it, stating that the Soviet Union did not recognize the Boun Own government.
On 11 January, the Lao T-6 pilots flew their first combat mission on a road
sweep from the Nam Lik River north of Vientiane to the Pang Vieng airstrip.
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They located no targets and expended their ordnance on two bridges.
Admiral Felt was not pleased and directed that air strikes aught to be .
scheduled against specific targets. On 15 January, the Lao pilots located
and destroyed two large trucks at yang Vieng. On the ground, after failing
to get started for several weeks, Phoumi's forces crossed the Nam Lik River
on 14 January and captured yang Vieng on 16 January. (L8)
The morale of Phoumi's flyers soared when they destroyed the trucks on
15 January, but two days later one, of the T-6's was shot down by ground
fire, and the Lao pilots began to complain about the slaw speed of the
T-6's and the difficulty they had in making attacks with guns and rockets.
On the ground, Phoumi's commanders did not continue their attack after
taking Vang Vieng, and the Pathet Lao-Kong Le forces continued to hold the
important ground at Phau Koun, at the junction of highways 7 and 13.
Unless given more effective armament, the Lao pilots refused to consider
attacking flak-defended targets on the Plain of Jars, and Phoumi posed
requirements for B-26 light bomber for attacks against more strongly
defended enemy positions. Both General Bayle and Admiral Felt recommended
that the Joint Chiefs authorize the use of bombs and napalm on the T-6' s,
but in this they were opposed by Ambassador Brown, who held the strong
Presidential mandate as head of the US Country Team. Brown had not been in
favor of moving the T-6's into Laos in the first place; he did not want to
escalate the conflict and argued that bombing would invite retaliatory air
attacks against Royal Lao airfields and depots. On 30 January, Admiral
Felt took exception to a message in which Ambassador Brawn apposed the
introduction of new weapons and techniques into Lace but nevertheless
expressed hope that Phouthi would recapture the Plain of Jars area. In a
message to the Joint Chiefs, Felt thcught the Ambassador's analysis
contained small basis for the hops expressed. "There is a larger and better
basis for hope," he said, "by removing restraints which have been self-
imposed on the kind of support we can give Phoumi's fighting men, by continu-
ing to bolster leadership at troop level and by building morale by winning
the fight." (L9)
Late in January the Lao T-6's 'reportedly made some successful rocket
attacks in support of Phaumist forces closing on Phou Khoum from both
north and south, and the road junction town was captured an 3 February.
American Observers now thought that the Phoumi forces would proceed eastward
at a good clip along Highway 7 to.the Plain of Jars, while another column
moved northward from Paksane along Route 4 aiming at Xieng Khouang. But the
enemy forces had been allowed to build up defenses, and both of the
government drives faltered and halted. In citing reasons for the failure
to break the stalemate on the approaches to the Plain of Jars, a ranking
Lao general pointed to law troop morale due to poor logistical support, to
Phoumi's inability to delegate authority or to give an order with any
assurance that it would be carried out, and to the political negotiations
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that were progressing during the campaign. King Savang Vatthana proposed
that Burma, Cambodia, and Malaya should send a peacekeeping neutral nations
committee to Laos. He also spoke of reconciliation with the Pathet Lao
and did not condemn Souvanna Phouma. The implication that the King did not
wholeheartedly support the Boun Own government weakened Phoumils position,
and observers reported that Phoumi gave more time to politics than to his
lagging military operations.(50)
In an assessment of practical steps that could be taken to hasten the
capture of the Plain of Jars and Xieng Khauang with a minimum of escalation,
General Boyle reported on 27 February that the Pathet Lao-Kong Le-Vietminh
forces (undoubtedly with foreign advice and assistance) were increasingly
professional in the use of mines, artillery, and terrain. Boyle counted
the Lao T-6 pilots to be only marginally effective because they refused to
risk enemy ground fire, but he noted that the prohibition against their
using bombs and napalm also limited the air effort. On the other hand, he
observed that his intelligence was uncovering many specific military targets
for air strikes. In consideration of these factors, Boyle recommended that
the most immediate practical step that could be taken to capture the Plain
of Jars-Xieng Khouang area would be to remove the prohibition against
bombing and to provide volunteer pilots to fly the Lao aircraft. He
proposed that air strike missions would be flown selectively and only
against specific pinpointed concentrations. Boyle said that he had not
discussed these proposals with Phoumi and that he did not know what his
reaction would be. He could preserve security by stationing volunteer pilots
at out-of-the-way airfields such as Thakbek. While Ambassador Brown forwarded
Bqyle's assessment to Washington, he emphatically disagreed with it. He
assumed that the enemy would retaliate in kind to air attacks with bombs
and that the government's airfields, depots, and population centers would
be far more vulnerable to aerial bombing than would hostile targets. He
also thought that T-6 attacks against the Plain of Jars and Xieng Khouang
would not be effective because these areas were defended with antiaircraft
artillery. He said that the use of napalm had a "particularly bad odor for
Laos and the world generally." He did not want the United States to escalate
the conflict and provoke retaliation upon Laos and Thailand, for which the
United States would be blamed. "I think," Brown concluded, "we must accept
fact that this war is going to be long and conducted under certain limita-
tions imposed by larger considerations."(51)
In evaluating Baylets recommendations and Brown's reactions, Admiral
Felt suggested that the American Embassy in Vientiane would contribute to
the military effort if it would indicate that it was fully in support of
Phoumi's operations--a remark that may have been occasioned by a belief that
King Savang's proposal for the three-nation peace-keeping mission had
originated in the US State Department. In an interchange of messages with
General Boyle, Felt urged the PEO Chief to see Phoumi and to get him to send
the Lao T-6/s against Communist motor convoys and supply dumps. On I March
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Boyle reported that Phoumi would push the T-6 pilots to undertake such
strikes, but he noted that Phoumi did not feel secure enough with his
subordinates to issue positive orders and to take the necessary disciplinary
action to see that they were carried out. It needs to be repeated again
and again," Felt messaged the Joint Chiefs on 1 March, "that the only sure
way to save Laos now is by successful military action."(52)
In his 1 March message to the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Felt stated that
the Kong Le-Pathet Lao-Vietminh forces had became strong enough on the Plain
of Jars to attempt an offensive when they wished, most probably against
Luang Prabang. Almost as CINCPAC visualized, the enemy probed the Phoumist
force holding the Phou Khoun road junction on 6 March. Phoumits poorly led
Mobile Group 2 yielded to panic, and the Reds gained the road junction town
on 8 March, after which they quickly moved north and scuth to block the
Vientiane-Luang Prabang highway for a distance of 55 miles. In the course
of all-out efforts to support the Lao ground forces, the Lao pilots cracked
up a T-6 in a landing accident at Vientiane on 11 March and lost two T-61s
either to ground fire or in a mid-air collision on 12 March. During the -
fight, the Laotians captured a member of the 925th Independent North
Vietnamese Infantry Regiment, who admitted that North Vietnamese regulars
were being employed as artillerists, truck drivers, engineers, and as other
specialists in Laos.(53) Already shaken by military reverses, the morale
of the Boun Own government dropped still lower because of political develop-
ments. .According to Phoumi, King Savang was prepared to accept almost any
political formula for ending the war. Phoumi himself went to Phnom Penh on
10 March to seek an accord with Souvanna Phouma, and the two men cautiously
endorsed the idea of a 14-nation international conference to end the
hostilities. Upon returnina to V4.entiane, Phcumi appeared desperate and
could not be persuaded to go on a military offensive on any front. General
Boyle reported that the military'situation was dangerously critical, with
the Communists increasing pressure everywhere.(54)
During the first two months of his administration in Washington,
President John F. Kennedy made no revealing public commitments on Laos, but
one of his associates recollected that the new President "probably spent
more time on Laos than on anything else." Kennedy established an inter-
departmental task force on Laos, headed by Walt Whitman Rostow of the
White House staff who later in 1961 would become Chairman of the State
Department Policy Planning Council, and demanded daily briefings from it on
the situation in Laos. At a White House meeting on 9 March attended by
Admiral Felt, President Kennedy heard a program for action from the Laos
task force and directed 17 actions. These actions included increased military
assistance to Laos, with an especial effort to be made to increase the
quality of leadership of the FAR and the size of the Mao force. Thailand
was to be persuaded to provide Phoumi four Thai-operated 105 mm. artillery
batteries. The PEO and the JUSMAG in Bangkok would be augmented with
additional officers and men.
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At tne same time tnat iJresident Kennedy was authorizing a far-reaching program
of increased American involvement in Laos--a program that would be
implemented under the code-name "Millpond"--his public allusions expressed
hope that the war could be ended by negotiation. On 8 March, Kennedy was
"hopeful that it would be possible to set up some procedures where neutral
nations could guarantee the security of Laos and also isolate it from
military pressures on both sides." In a reference to the Souvanna-Phoumi
discussions at Phnom Penh, Kennedy emphasized on 15 March that the United
States would resist external aggression against Laos but actually hoped that
negotiations could provide "a genuinely independent and neutral Laos."(56)
Upon his return to Hawaii, Admiral Felt urged General Boyle to persuade
Phoumi to return to an attack before the enemy seized all of northern Laos.
For the moment, however, Phoumi replaced some of his discredited commanders,
directed his troops to begin preparations to dislodge the enemy from bong
Kassy an Route 13, and then took off to escort King Savang an a seven day
series of ceremonial functions.(57) The Lao government's military situation
worsened each day. On 23 March, Vietminh assault forces spearheaded a Pathet
Lao attack against Kam Keut, thus opening a drive into the Lao panhandle.
On 24 March, Communist antiaircraft gunners on the Plain of Jars deliberately
shot down the US air attache SC-47 that had been providing excellent recon-
naissance photos of Red activities. The only survivor was Maj Lawrence R.
Bailey, an Assistant Army Attache from Saigon. At the end of iiierch, a
professionally directed Communist attack decisively defeated the Lao govern-
ment forces at Tha Thom, thus driving the Phoumists back down Highway 4
toward Paksane and ending a potential threat to Xieng Khouang. In this
defeat the Lao air force lost another T-6 when the Thai pilot flying it
crashed south of Tha Thom. (58)
As the situation worsened in Laos, President Kennedy met with the
National Security Council on 20 March. At this meeting, Rostow proposed
to move a limited number of Marines into the Mekong valley of northern
Thailand not to fight the Pathet Lao but to indicate to the Soviet Union
that it had a choice between a ceasefire and negotiations or American
intervention. Reportedly over the objections of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
who favareda stronger aation,the President accepted Rostow's proposal. That
same day, CINCPAC increased the readiness of JTF-116 and directed the move-
ment of Seventh Fleet units to the Gulf of Siam. On 21 March, the 315th
Air Division (Combat Cargo) began a three-day airlift of personnel drawn
from Marine Air Group 16 from Okinawa to Udorn Air Base in northeastern
Thailand, where the Marines were charged to develop a helicopter operational
base and to turn over 17 HUS-1 (H-34) helicopters to Air America. Other
"Millpond" actions placed PACAF personnel on temporary duty with the PEO in
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Laos and the JUSMAG in Thailand. (9) In a major public Statement on Laos
on 23 March, President Kennedy called attention to the large-scale Soviet
airlift, the delivery of heavy weapons to anti-government forces, and the
presence of North Vietnamese "combat -specialists" in Laos. He emphasized
that SEATO was mindful of its special responsibilities. He said that the
United States supported the goal of a neutral and independent Laos, a
cessation of armed attacks by externally based Communists, and constructive
negotiation which could help Laos back to independence and neutrality.(60)
Before leaving Hawaii on 19 March to attend the SEATO Military Advisors
Conference in Bangkok, Admiral Felt directed his staff to prepare a plan
for a SEATO action in Laos that would include American, Thai, Filipino,
and Pakistani forces. On this direction, the CINCPAC staff prepared and the
Joint Chiefs approved on 29 March an outline plan for the administrative
movement of friendly forces into key Lao cities to free Royal Lao forces
for combat operations.(61) In crier to signify the gravity of the situation,
Secretary Rusk went to Bangkok to .the SEATO Council meeting on 27-29 March.
In these discussions, French reluctance to participate in a military opera-
tion apparently influenced the Council to issue a statement favoring
negotiations and promising appropriate actions if diplomacy failed. The .
British and Australians, however, appeared agreeable to participation in the
implementation of SEATO Plan 5, with the result that the improvised "go
along" CINCPAC intervention outline could be replaced with a stronger
operation plan. (62)
At the end of March while Admiral Felt was in Southeast Asia, he held
conversations withGeneral Phoumii who wanted the United States to expedite
delivery on all the support scheduled for the Ro7e1 Lao Arm and aleo wanted
the United States to intervene ard help him. Felt urged, however, that
the Laotians should ocanterattaolon their own and demonstrate that they
would fight for their freedam.(63) While he was in Bangkok, Admiral Felt
also discussed the employment of the unmarked B-26 Millpond aircraft which
had arrived in Thailand. On 21 March the Joint Chiefs of Staff suggested
that the B-26's be committed in an emergency with strike priorities to be
supply dumps, enemy heavy weaponsiand transport, and close support for troops
as third priority. Felt agreed that the B-26's should be committed in a way
which would get the greatest possible shock effect, but he explained that
all hands in Laos were convinced that it would be necessary to use the
B-26's with bombs to break up Comtunist defense of the Plain of Jars.(64)
General Boyle also asked Admiral Felt to consider the feasibility of equipping
the helicopters that were being brought to Udorn with rockets and machine
guns so that they could support Lao ground operations. After investigation
Felt concluded that it would be impractical to arm H-34's because the
advantages of suppressive fire would not offset the loss of lift capability.
He wanted to rely upon the B-26's for armed air support.(65)
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As April began the professionally directed Communist forces were every-
where victorious over the defensive minded Phoumists. On 3-4 April, Soviet
I1-14's dropped Kong Le paratroopers west of Pang Vieng, establishing an
immediate threat to the Lao supply line from Vientiane. This Communist
attack occurred just as the American PEO got Phoumi to renew his own offensive.
In Phoumi's air-ground maneuver, seven 0-47's and 14 helicopters, covered
and escorted by four T-6's, lifted 640 men of Phaumi's 1st Paratroop and
26th Infantry Battalions to an airhead east of the Communist defenses at
along Kassy. This Muong Kassy offensive should have severed the Communist
troops on the Royal Highway from their logistic support base on the Plain
of Jars, but the vertical envelopment failed because the FAR troops were
reluctant to engage the enemy. On the other hand, the Kong Le paratroopers
who had dropped west of Pang Vieng made rendezvous with Pathet Lao
guerrillas and, swarming out of the mountains, captured Pang Vieng on 22 April.
As April progressed, the Communists launched attacks in the Lao panhandle,
driving panic-stricken government forces to the Mekong at Thakhek.
Intelligence available to the PEO revealed that the Communists were well
equipped and well supplied: overland convoys from North Vietnam into Laos
via Route 7 were running twice a week with average loads of 120 to 150 tons
per convoy.(66)
On 5 April Admiral Felt advised General O'Donnell and the other PACOM
component commanders that the situation in Laos was approaching a crisis and
directed them to be prepared to move forces into Thailand. As the situation
worsened, the Thirteenth Air Force used 0-124 aircraft that were standing by
at Clark Air Base to move a heavy radar Combat Reporting Center (CRC) of
the 5th Communications and Control Group to Don Muang Air Base on 15-17 April.
To provide air defenses for Bangkok, the Clark based 510th Tactical Fighter
Squadron sent a "Bell Tone" detachment of six F-100 'S to Don Milang on
16 April.(67) Effective on 20 April, Headquarters Joint Task Force 116 at
Camp Courtney, Okinawa, and Headquarters Air Component Command JTF-116,
were respectively redesignated as Headquarters SEATO Field Forces, and Head-
quarters Air Component Command SEATO Field Forces.(68) In an action
planned earlier but held up until the Lao government formally requested it,
President Kennedy on 20 April converted the PEO-Laos into the MAAG-Lacs,
ordering the Americans at Vientiane to put on their military uniforms and to
get out into the field with the demoralized Lao troops.(69)
The Communist successes in Laos more than ever convinced Admiral Felt
that the way to deal with the hostile forces would be with air attacks against
their communications lines and logistics inside Laos. Except for the
heartening ambushes made by Colonel Pang Paols Meo guerrillas in the central
Laotian mountains, the Communists were operating their air and surface
supply lines with impunity. Felt urged that air attacks with effective,
conventional ordnance against hostile supply routes and similar fixed targets
could blunt the Red offensive.(70) In addition to the American Millpond
B-26's, the Lao Air Force had 10 qualified T-6 pilots, and the delivery of
the final two T-6's on 26 April would give the Laotians seven of the armed
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trainers. If necessary, sone of these T-6's could be flown by non-Lao
volunteer pilots. (71) Ambassador Brown had earlier opposed any US action
that would increase the risk, but on 23 April he asked the State Department
for authority to use bombs if a ceaeefire could not be arranged or if the
enemy threatened Vientiane or other major objectives.(72) That same day,
the Departments of State and Defense authorized Ambassador Brawn and General
Boyle to use bombs an the B-26's and T-6's if the enemy pushed toward
Vientiane; they also authorized immediate moves to reinstate American aerial
reconnaissance over Laos.(73) The reinstatement of air reconnaissance was
not too difficult since PACAF borrowed an RT-33 photo jet from the Phillipine
Air Force and began "Field Goal" reconnaissance flights from Udorn on
24 April.(74) On 26 April, General Phoumi pled for authority to use bombs
both to make the air effort more effective and to have a shock effect on
the enemy forces. General Boyle and Admiral Felt endorsed the request for
immediate employment of bombs, but Ambassador Brown was more hopeful that a
ceasefire could be arranged and stated that half-measures such as bombs for
the T-6's would be "wholly ineffective." At this juncture Brown did not
want to commit the Millpond B-26's and he would not authorize the use of
napalm. Admiral Felt now requested the Joint Chiefs to see that Ambassador
Brown was directed not to interfere with military commanders once military
action has been joined. Quite shortly after this, President Kennedy would
issue a new directive more closely defining the relationship of a country
ambassador with a theater military commander, but on 30 April Ambassador
Brown instructed General Bayle that the Lao air arm would not be authorized
to employ bombs.(75)
At the highest policy level in Washington, President Kennedy's decisions
on Laos were by all reports influenced by the failure of the American-
supported Bay of Pigs invasion of Communist Cuba that began on 15 April
1961. When called to the White House on 20 April to confer with President
Kennedy about the failure of the Bay of Pigs operation, former Vice-
President Richard M. Nixon would recall that the conversation turned to
Laos and that he urged the President to take some affirmative action
there, at least a commitment of American air power. Nixon remembered that
Kennedy replied: "I just don't think we aught to get involved in Laos,
particularly where we might find ourselves fighting millions of Chinese
troops in the jungles. In any event, I don't see haw we can make any
move in Laos, which is 5,000 miles away, if we don't make a move in Cuba,
which is only 90 miles away."(76)
President Kennedy was also said to feel that he had not adequately
examined the plans for the Cuban invasion, and at the National Security
Council meeting on Laos on 27 April Kennedy actively questioned the whole
range of planning alternatives for handling the military crisis in Laos.
As a basic position, the State Department's Laos task force, supported
by Ambassador W. Averell Harriman who was at this time in the Far East on
an inspection trip, reccrimended a limited commitment of American troops in
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the Mekong valley. While they differed individually on some specific
details, the Joint Chiefs of Staff agreed on the fundamental proposition.
that: "Any intervention with US forces in Laos, either unilaterally or under
SEATO auspices, should be taken only after firm US governmental decision to
the effect that the United States is thereby prepared and committed to succeed
in its military intervention regardless of the extent of possible consequent
Communist escalation; this is an unequivocal position which is fundamental
to US military actions." When this meeting failed to reach common agree-
ments, the President accepted Vice-President Johnson's suggestion that
individual written positions of the Service Secretaries and Joint Chiefs
ought to be prepared. In New York City for a speech on the evening of
27 April, President Kennedy visited General of the Army Douglas MacArthur
who advised against committing American ground forces on the mainland of
Asia and added that, if the United States intervened in Southeast Asia, it
must be prepared to use nuclear weapons if the Chinese entered the conflict
in force. He also reminded Kennedy that it would be politically difficult
to justify intervention against Communism in Laos while rejecting it against
Communism in Cuba.(77)
Where the British had appeared earlier to be agreeable to an implementa-
tion of SEATO Plan 5, high level discussions at the end of April revealed
that they were concerned about an automatic extension of operations on up
to an engagement with Red China which was implicit in the wording of the
plan.(78) To Roger Hilsman,who was Director of Intelligence and Research
in the State Department during this period, the Joint Chiefs of Staff seemed
to hold a "never again" determination to avoid a limited war on the
continent of Asia and were demanding an advance commitment that if there
was to be US fighting no holds would be barred--including the use of nuclear
weapons.(79) For the military services, the situation was far more complex
than Hilsman thought. Speaking of PACAF capabilities, General O'Donnell
estimated that his air forces could successfully prosecute a small "small
war" in Laos with conventional weapons but that a large "small war" against
large, organized North Vietnamese or Chinese Communist forces could not be
defeated with conventional weapons unless there were a "truly massive increase"
in the size of the US Air Force and Army. Some progress has been made in
improving Southeast Asian airfields, but there still were very few fields
that would be usable for sustained transport operations or for Century
Series aircraft. O'Donnell thought that national policy aught to recognize
the military facts of life.(80) In a similar strategic analysis, General
George H. Decker, DS Army Chief of Staff, was unenthusiastic about a ground
war in Laos. The US Army could fight there, but because of terrain,
communications, and possibilities for logistic support any conflict in Laos
could evolve into a war which night mire down sizeable US forces. "This
is the last place in the world," Decker said; "I would like to see . . .
/ffs Forcei7 committed unless absolutely necessary . . . . If it were only
The Father: Lao that were involved, there would be no problem. But
undoubtedly North Vietnamese would come in and probably the Chinese Communists,
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and when they do, it is hard to predict where our commitment would stop."(81)
In response to a Secretary of Defense query on 31 March 1961, the Joint
Chiefs of Staff had been studying the question as to whether the United
States should or should not employ nuclear weapons in a conflict with
Communist China. The completed study approved on 9 June 1961 would recognize
that with existing military capabilities the United States could not
successfully engage the Communist Chinese with conventional weapons. Giving
a well-rounded presentation, however, the JCS study enumerated the existing
force deficiencies for a conventional war and recommended positive courses
Of corrective action. (82)
When President Kennedy and the National Security Council met on 1 May
to consider the individual written responses from the military services, the
government of Laos had already requested a cease fire and negotiations, but
the Communists had not officially responded. The papers from the Service
Secretaries and the Joint Chiefs 'were nevertheless said to have revealed
many specific considerations unknown to the President. According to
Presidential Assistant Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., President Kennedy was
?appalled at the sketchy nature of American military planning for Laos--the
lack of detail and unanswered questions." In order to get a ceasefire in
Laos, the majority of the papers seemed to favor a landing of American
troops in Thailand, South Vietnam, and in the Lao panhandle (which at the
moment had not been fully occupied by the Reds); if this did not produce the
armistice, air attacks on Pathet Lao positions would follow. Schlesinger
also recorded that the military proposals seemed to require 140,000 men
and a potential employment of tactical nuclear weapons.(83)
In the few days at the end of, April during which Washington was so
closely examining its alternatives in Laos, the Royal Lao government was
able to obtain some military assistance from Thailand and South Vietnam,
although not as much as Phoumi requested. Marshal Sarit of Thailand had
urged SEATO action from the time of the Kong Le revolt, and on 25 April he
obtained his cabinet's approval fbr the commitment of Thai forces in Laos.
Believing that the Communists would continue to drive on Vientiane pending
ceasefire talks, Phoumi asked Sarit to commit a Thai regimental combat team
(3,500 men) to recapture yang Vieng. Instead of this force, Sarit passed
two Thai artillery batteries to Phoumi, who immediately attempted to send
one of them to the defense of the village of Muong Phalane in southeastern
Laos' Savannakhet Province. The Communists prevented the battery from
reaching its destination and captured Muong Phalane on 3 May, thus preparing
for their occupation of the important air strip at Tchepone after the cease-
fire took effect. In a recasting of its agreement to send a division into
southeastern Laos in case the Communists became active there, South Vietnam
dispatched a 150-man special force unit across the border into Laos. By-
agreement with Vientiane, the South Vietnamese rangers were free to operate
on a security mission in a 10-kilometer strip inside the Lao frontier, and
the special force unit was chiefly interested in guarding the entry routes
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into South Vietnam. These rangers picked up remnants that fled Tchepone,
but they reported that the morale of the Lao troops was so low that they
would not patrol unless the South Vietnamese formed an advance guard. (8b)
Perceiving the helplessness of Phoumi's troops to defend any major Lao
population center, American observers in Vientiane were fearful that Phoumils
nerve would break and that he would call for SEATO intervention, even though
he had promised to consult with US officials before doing so. Instead,
Phoumi took advantage of the proposal put forward by the Soviet Union and
Great Britain an 24 April, calling for the reestablishment of the International
Control Commission to supervise a ceasefire in Laos and then for an international
conference of nations at Geneva. The proposal received immediate backing
from Hanoi, and on 27 April the Lao government accepted the armistice,
proposing that the ceasefire take effect on the following day. There was
no response from the Pathet Lao, who were scoring victories; by 3 May,
however, the Communist forces had accomplished their apparent military objec-
tives, and the ceasefire orders were issued from Sam Neua and Vientiane.
Members of the Interational Control Commission arrived in Vientiane on
8 May, but they would not be allowed to enter Communist territory for several
days. As a matter of fact, neither the Phoumists nor the Communists would
observe the ceasefire, even though the civil war was entering a phase of
international negotiations at Geneva.(85)
When the conflict in Laos appeared to be entering a negotiational phase,
the US State Department examined the problem that had arisen between Admiral
Felt and Ambassador Brown concerning the status of an American ambassador
in a country in which active military operations were in progress. In an
executive order issued on 3 November 1960, President Eisenhower had markedly
increased the primacy of the US ambassador in a US country team by providing
that he would have "affirmative responsibility" for all US country programs
including military assistance, would keep informed of all US activities in
the country for which he was responsible, and would report "promptly to the
President as to any matter which he considers to need correction and with
respect to which he is not empowered to effect correction."(86) On 29 May
1961 President Kennedy dispatched a letter to each US ambassador abroad
which informed them that they were in charge of the entire US mission in the
countries where they served. The mission included representatives of all
US agencies, but did not include US military forces operating in the field
where such forces were under the coomnand of a US area military commander.
Kennedy explained that the line of authority to military forces ran from
the President, to the Secretary of Defense, to the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
and to the area commander in the field. "Although this means," Kennedy
wrote, "that the Chief of the American Diplomatic Mission is not in the line
of military comnand, nevertheless, as Chief of Mission, you should work
closely with the appropriate military comander to assure the full exchange
of information. If it is your opinion that activities by United States
military forces may adversely affect our overall relations with the people
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and government . . . you should probably discuss the matter with the military
commander and, if necessary, request a decision by higher authority."(87)
Under Secretary of State Chester Bowles had drafted the Presidential letter
and ardently championed it as a means to insure that all US representatives
in a foreign country would "speak with a common voice and are not played
off one against the other by a foreign government." (88) In a circular to all
ambassadors on 8 July, Bowles noted: "The President's letter makes clear
that the Ambassador's decision stands pending appeal, if any, to Washington."(89)
Under the new authority a US ambassador would not have operational control
of US combat forces, but he would be kept informed of what they were doing
and if he disagreed with the activity he was authorized to inform Washington
where the Departments of Defense and State would make a decision on the
matter. Moreover, an ambassador had the authority to contact the President
directly if he disagreed with departmental decisions.(90)
3. Diplomacy at Geneva and Oontued Fighting in Laos
One of the difficult tasks confronting President Kennedy and his
advisors was to determine the exact nature of the Communist threat to South-
east Asia, which was changing from the old monolithic threat directed from
Moscow and welding together the actions of the Soviet Union, Red China, the
Vietminh, and the Pathet Lao. President Kennedy and his senior policy makers
could see that monolithic Communism had been fractured, but the effects of
polycenttism were only beginning to unfold in Southeast Asia. (91) It was
clear that one of the basic causes of conflict in Southeast Asia was the
deeply held ambition of Hanoi to unify Vietnam under Communist control.
It was equally clear that the Soviet Union, Communist China, and North
Vietnam did not represent a single sweeping threat to the world. But
President Kennedy was familiar with Khrushchev's 6 January 1961 address
"For New Victories of the World ,3ommunist Movement," and he considered that
any weakening of US resolution in support of threatened Southeast Asian
nations would tend to encourage separate Soviet pressures in other areas of
the world and that unless checked "the aggressive ambitions of Communist
China and North Viet-Nam?largely North Vietnamese in old Indochina, over-
lapping in Thailand, Chinese in the rest of Southeast Asia?would surely
feed on one another." (92)
One of the most difficult decisions to be made concerned the real
import of Khrushchev's new doctrine of support for local insurgency in
emerging nations which was apparently already being implemented in Laos.
Shortly after he took office, President Kennedy secured a detailed analysis
of Khrushchev's speech, which he circulated among top governmental officials
with instructions to "read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest."(93) In a
special message to Congress on 28 March 1969 Kennedy pointed oat that non-
nuclear war and "sub-limited or guerrilla warfare" had been the most active
and constant threat to Free World security since 1945. He urged that the
United States must seek to increase its ability to respond to limited aggression
with non-nuclear weapons. Although the main burden of local defense against
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overt attack, subversion, and guerrilla warfare in most areas of the world
would have to rest on local populations and local military forces, Kennedy
said that the United States would require strong, highly mobile forces
trained to combat lesser forms of aggression, some of wham would have to be
deployed in forward areas, with a substantial airlift and sealift capability
and prestocked overseas bases to support them. (914)
On the other hand it was possible to see in Khrushchev's address (and
in the Soviet support for the Communists in Laos) a man who was driven by
an impelling need to retain the allegiance of Ho Chi Minh in a developing
split with Red China. On 4 April the Soviets broadcast exclusively in the
Vietnamese language a message which stated that the major Soviet objective
was to get an international conference on Laos and that a ceasefire,
although not a "precondition" to the conference in the Soviet view, would
create a situation favorable to negdtiations. This direct appeal to North
Vietnam implied that Hanoi had the necessary authority to stop the fighting
in Laos.(95) In a candid discussion of the Lao problem with the Indian
ambassador later in April, Khrushchev reportedly said that the USSR had
entered the Lao struggle to prevent Chinese involvement, explaining that a
Chinese involvement in Laos might have caused the conflict to spread to the
Taiwan Straits, raising the question of Soviet obligations to support China
under the Sino-Soviet defense pact.(96) Early in April Peking urged the
North Vietnamese not to agree to a ceasefire when victory was so close to
the grasp of the Communists, but Hanoi apparently accepted the Soviet
position, and on 24 April the Soviet Union joined with Great Britain in a
call for an immediate ceasefire, the convening of an international conference
on Laos to meet in Geneva on 12 May, and a request to India to reconvene
the Laos International Control "ommission.(97)
Although it appeared that Khrushchev might have compromised Soviet
support for "wars of national liberation" in the case of Laos, President
Kennedy and Secretary of State Dean Rusk got a mixed impression of Soviet
intentions when they attended a summit conference with Khrushchev in Vienna
on 4 June 1961. Khrushchev agreed with Kennedy's proposal that "we all get
out of Laos," and their joint statement reaffirmed their support of "a
neutral and independent Laos under a government chosen by the Laotians
themselves, and of international agreements for insuring that neutrality
and independence, and . . . the importance of an effective ceasefire."
But while Khrushchev considered Laos negotiable, he was completely unwilling
to regard Vietnam in a similar light. In conversations, moreover, Khrushchev
stressed the historical inevitablity of the triumph of Communism and went
around the globe pointing out countries that were ripe for revolution. He
told Kennedy that the Soviet Union aught not to be blamed for all the disorders
in the world, but he stated bluntly that he would support revolutionary
groups in countries where it was possible to do so. Khrushchev was careful
to say more than mice that he was not speaking for China. "We came away,"
Secretary Rusk said, "feeling that he looks upon what is happening in these
underdeveloped parts of the world as an opportunity, as fertile ground . .
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and he looks upon the kind of technique that they are using now as a way to
jump over alliances, to outflank alliances like NATO."(98) In June at
Geneva Soviet Minister Andrei Gramyko would shrug off any Russian respon-
sibility for continued Communist ceasefire violations in Laos with the
explanation that, while the Soviet Union desired a ceasefire, the Pathet
Lao, prompted by the Chinese Communists, were pressing for military
advantages.(99) Even though indications such as these pointed to some
flexibility in Soviet policy, Khrushchev's 6 January 1961 address looked
more and more like a controlling Soviet policy. Referring to the address
in 1962, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara would comment that in
it Khrushchev "stated as clearly as any one has ever stated, to my
knowledge, the strategy of the Soviet Union." (100)
In the negotiations for the neutralization of Laos the Soviets had
indicated that they would expect Prince Souvanna Phouma to head a coalition
government which would include Pathet Lao representatives. The United
States, on the other hand, was committed to Boun Gum's government and to
the rightist Phoumi. Souvanna Phouma, moreover, had a reputation of being
very close to the Communists. Americans found it hard to understand Souvanna's
fond, familial relationship with his Pathet Lao half-brother, Prince
Souphanouvong, and Souvannal,s insistence that the Pathet Lao were a group
of Lao nationalists?who were only secondarily Communists and whose goals
were similar to those of the neutralists.(101) As a matter of fact,
responsible Lao officials tended to look upon the Chinese and North Viet-
namese as being Communists and the Pethet Lao as something else. Even though
Prince Souphanouvong was obedient to Communism, Premier Phoui's Minister
of Justice explained to an American in August 1959 that Souphanouvong had
never lost his loyalty to the Lao monarchy. Indication of this had occurred
in 1953 when the Pathet Lao-Vietminh troops approached to within four kilometers
of Luang Prabang but turned back when Souphanouvong had promised to "cut
off the head of anyone who attacks the royal city."(102) Ambassador Harriman
met Souvanna Phouma when both were in New Delhi late in March 1961; Harriman
was favorably impressed with Souvanna and recommended him to Kennedy for a
position in a coalition Laotian government.(103) .Acting on President
Kennedy's instructions, Lt General James M. Gavin (US Army-Ret.) the US
ambassador to Paris, also met Souvanna Phouma and determined that he was
indeed dedicated to a "free, neutral, and independent Laos."(104) Possibly
indicative of new thinking, an Administration spokesman would soon Observe
the lesson from Laos was that "anticommunism is not enough for men to live
or die for."(105)
The Communist success, the failure of SEATO to respond, and the
prospects for neutralizing Laos troubled both the Joint Chiefs of Staff and
the free Southeast Asian nations. On 12 April the Joint Chiefs of Staff
forwarded a memo to the Secretary of Defense which concluded that from a
military point of view any political solution involving the establishment of
a neutral government in Laos could result in great military disadvantages.
They also supplied the Secretary with a list of measures which would aid in
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counteracting the adverse military implications of a political settlement
in Laos.(106) If Laos were dragged behind the Iron Curtain, General Lyman
L. Lemnitzer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pointed out, it would
expose the frontiers of Thailand and South Vietnam to Communist infiltration.
During a visit to Southeast Asia, Lemnitzer had learned that most of the
12,000 Vietcong guerrillas operating in South Vietnam had recently come
down through the Lao panhandle and had infiltered across the western border
of Vietnam.(107) In Thailand, Marshal Sarit was reported to be considering
a more neutral foreign policy and an offer of foreign aid from the Soviet
Union. Thai officials complained that US aid was proportionate;y less for
their country than for Cambodia. (108) In Phnom Penh, Sihanouk told the US
ambassador the Communist agents and guerrillas from North Vietnam were using
the thinly populated northeast corner of Cambodia as a corridor from Lace
into South Vietnam. Sihanouk was attempting to move additional Cambodian
troops to his northern border and said that it was inportant to establish
International Control Commission posts in the area to observe Communist
movements.(109) When he visited Southeast Asia early in May 1961, General
Earl G. Wheeler, US Army Chief of Staff, observed that America's friends
had a feeling of "almost despair . . . with respect to the situation in
Laos ."(110)
To reassure America's friends, President Kennedy sent Vice-President
Johnson to Southeast Asia in May 1961 with letters assuring the Asian leaders
of continuing and increased US support. Johnson stopped first in Saigon,
where he met with President Diem. He next visited Manila, where a joint
communique with President Carlos Garcia announced "complete agreement on
the seriousness of the situation in Southeast Asia." On 14 May, Johnson
flew to Taipei for consultations with President Chiang Kai-shek and then on
16 May to Bangkok for talks with Field Marshal Sarit about the situation
in Laos. In his trip report to President Kennedy, Johnson recommended:
"Ally help, economic as well as military, we give less developed nations to
secure and maintain their freedom must be a part of a mutual effort. These
nations cannot be saved by United States help alone. To the extent the
Southeast Asian nations are prepared to take the necessary measures to make
our assistance effective, we can be and we must be unstinted in our
assistance." (iii)
In preliminary sessions of the 14-nation International Conference for
the Settlement of the Laotian Conflict beginning at Geneva an 12 May 1961,
the Soviets insisted that Pathet Lao representatives be seated along with
representatives of the Boun Own and Souvanna Phouma governments. Secretary
Rusk opposed this as tantamout to recognition of the rebels, but an 15 May
the conference agreed to seat all three Lao groups as ',spokesmen" for the
forces operating in Laos thus preparing for the beginning of plenary conference
sessions an 16 May. On 17 May the United States and the Soviet Union proposed
that all foreign troops be withdrawn from Laos, but the Soviets proposed
that the International Control Commission should be governed by a rule of
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unanimity and also that it act only on instructions of Great Britain and the
Soviet Union as co-chairman of the conference. The United States opposed
this as giving the Soviet Union a "double-barreled veto.-" In his major
presentation on 17 May, Secretary Rusk stated that a broad outline for the
settlement of the Lao problem must include three separate points: "First:
A definition of the concept of neutrality, as it applies to Laos, which all
of us gathered here could pledge ourselves to respect. This definition must
go beyond the classical concept of nonalinement and include positive assurance
of the integrity of the elements of national life. Second: The development
of effective international machinery for maintaining and safeguarding that
neutrality against threats to it from within as well as without. Third:
Laos will need, if it wishes to take its place in the modern world, a
substantial economic and technical aid' program. We believe that such aid
could be most appropriately administered by neutral nations from the area
and that it should be supported by contributions from many states and
agencies. "(112)
At the summit in Vienna, Kennedy and Khrushchev endorsed a concept of
neutral and independent Laos much like the status of Burma or Cambodia and
recognized the need for an effective cleasefire.(113) This concept was not
acceptable to Communist China's Foreign Minister Chen Yl who stated at Geneva
on 12 June that Red China would "never be a party to . . . enforcing an
international condominium over Laos in the name of international control over
its neutrality."(114) There were two other difficulties confronting the
Kennedy-Khrushchev concept. Although the three Laotian Princes--Boun Oum,
Souvanna Phouma, and Souphanouvong--professed harmony when they met at
Zurich on 21 June, they made no progress in agreeing about the exact details
of a Laotian coalition government.(115) The Communist rebels in Laos showed
no inclination to respect a ceasefire while the Royal Lao Army was being held
generally to a defensive. The Communists had started an artillery attack
against a Meo mountain position at Padang a few miles south of the Plain of
Jars on 22 April. When the artillery continued after the ceasefire, three
Lao T-613 made a strafing mission against the guns on 26 May. This mission
and other support was ineffective, and on 7 June Padang had to be evacuated.
On 12 June, following three days of attack, Kong Le/Pathet Lao infantry
forced the retreat of Lao Army units farther toward Paksane, and on 14 June
the Red forces captured two villages in the Paksane area. When Padong fell,
the US delegation temporarily boycotted the Geneva negotiations, but it soon
returned Without altering the situation or obtaining an effective ceasefire.
(116) Despite the best efforts of the United States and the Republic of
Vietnam to get the Vietnam ICC to go to Hanoi and stop the traffic, the Soviet
IL-14's continued to airlift military supplies from Hanoi into Laos, now
increasingly to the airhead of Tchepane.(117) Beginning in April when he
visited Hanoi, Souvanna Phouma had signed a number of economic and cultural
agreements with North Vietnam, including one which permitted the North Viet-
namese to run trucks with construction workers and materials into Pathet Lao/
Kong Le territory. There was no control over this privileged traffic, which
was, of course, free to transport military supplies.(118)
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On 24 June, the Joint Chiefs of Staff forwarded a memorandum to the
Secretary of Defense stating that if the current trend at Geneva continued
the result would be a Laos more Communist than neutral. They therefore
recommended that Secretary McNamara should seek high governmental decision
that in the event of the next proven Communist ceasefire violation the United
States should withdraw its delegation from the Geneva conference and under-
take military operations into Laos through SEATO, or with the SEATO members
who would participate, or if necessary unilaterally.(119) With the dry season
in Laos approaching without any substantial accomplishments at Geneva, the
Joint Chiefs of Staff reiterated an 7 September that the United States must
take immediate and positive action to prevent a Communist takeover in Laos
and the ultimate loss of Southeast Asia. In further planning, the Joint
Chiefs still wanted a SEATO type intervention or a variation of such a plan,
which could include South Vietnamese forces.(120)
Showing good faith toward the Laotian ceasefire the United States had
suspended the RT-33 Field Goal photo reconnaissance flights over Laos on
10 May 1961, and Project Field Goal was withdrawn from Udorn to Don Muang,
where the flight crew flew photo missions along the uneasy Thai frontiers.
At the direction of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Project Field Goal resumed
photo missions over Laos on 4 October against several key Communist-held
areas north of Vientiane, including Pang Vieng airfield and Route 13. The
single RT-33 aircraft completed 32 missions over Laos by 10 November, and it
observed hostile ground fire on four of the missions. (121) As a part of the
same reconnaissance requirement but under a cover story that it was
photographing flooded Mekong River lowlands, the Fifth Air Force, as will
be seen, deployed "Project Pipe Stem" to Tan Son Nhut Air Field at Saigon.
This project included four RF-101 aircraft, six flight crews, a photo processing
cell, and support personnel. It began flights on 17 October, hurriedly
flying 67 sorties in a 31-day operation in which it photographed assigned
targets in South Vietnam, along the Laotian-Cambodian-South Vietnamese border,
and in the Tchepone area of southern Laos. As a replacement for both Field
Goal and Pipe Stem, another "Project Able Mable" with a detachment of four
Fifth Air Force RF-1011s, flight crews, photo processing cell, and support
personnel arrived at Don Muang on 6 November and took over the reconnaissance
mission four days later. The RT-33 was now converted into a "Mail Pouch"
photo courier which ferried film back either to a photo processing center
which remained at Tan Son Nhut or on the Clark Air Base. Able liable was
charged to provide immediate tactical reconnaissance to the MAAGs in Laos
and South Vietnam and to meet intelligence requirements levied by theater or
national level. (122)
At the insistence of Ambassador Brown, Field Goal reconnaissance flights
were required to operate at 40,000 feet or above, allegedly to avoid detection.
Since the flights received ground fire, they had obviously been detected.
On 4 November, Ambassador Brown further directed that no reconnaissance
flights would be flown over the Plain of Jars and Xieng Khouang areas without
his prior approval, and from 6 through 10 November he directed that no recon-
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naissance would be flown over the Plain of Jars. At this juncture, Admiral
Felt informed General Boyle that frequent reconnaissance of the Plain of
Jars and Xieng Khouang was a military requirement and that Bayle would schedule
the flights when he considered them necessary. Later in the month, PACAF
was also able to secure an agreement waiving the arbitrary 40,000 foot rule
and allowing the photo planes to operate at an optimum altitude in context
with camera equipment and enemy defenses. (123) Despite the operational
restrictions, the photography of the RT-33 and RF-101's revealed a large
Communist buildup on the Plain of Jars, at Vang Vieng, Sam Neua, Phong Saly,
and Tchepone. At the latter place, the Reds were building a very large
logistical depot. The depots were being supplied by Russian aircraft and
truck convoys. If the logistical buildup continued, the Vietminh would possess
logistical support quite close to both the Mekong lowlands of Laos and the
other battle area in South Vietnam. (l2))
When the American Program Evaluation Office in Vientiane was converted
into a US MAAG on 20 April 1961, the United States assumed primary respon-
sibility for training and advising the Royal Laotian armed forces--
previously a cooperative endeavor with France. The arrival of American
advisors at Lao troop units increased the morale of the Lao forces, while
the helicopters operated by Air America increased the tactical mobility of
the Lao Army and permitted it to hold many enclaves within otherwise
inaccessible Communist territory. As a matter of fact, however, some time
(111. was required to build the former PEC into a full-scale MAAG effort and to
prepare the Laotian forces to absorb additional equipment that the United
States could undertake to provide.(125) In the newly established MAAG Laos
the USAF element was authorized a strength of 13 officers and five airmen. (126)
In the US fiscal year MAP, the Lan Air Force was funded to receive 14 T-28
Nomad ground-support configuration aircraft, with a scheduled delivery of
not later than 30 June 1962. To be delivered at Bangkok, these more modern
aircraft were to replace the T-6's in the Lao Air Force.(127)
The immediate task of the new P03 team of air advisors which reached
Savannakhet in September 1961 was to increase the practically nonexistent
discipline, motivation, and operational effectiveness of the handful of
Lao pilots who could fly T-6 aircraft. At this time, 12 Lao pilots were
undergoing training in Thailand to augment the 10 T-6 pilots who were flying
from the rudimentary airfield just southeast of the city of Savannakhet.
This field had a 4,800-foot scd surface runway which was in very poor con-
dition, despite Laotian promises to rehabilitate it. Only about 16 miles
away, the French Air Force continued to maintain title to Seno Air Base though
they were now keeping it on standby status. By November 1961 the T-6 pilots
were displaying greatly improved tactics, aggressiveness, and air discipline.
Lao pilot training conducted in Thailand also progressed satisfactorily:
12 pilots graduated in December 1961 and an additional 12 in February.
Furthermore, two pilots graduated from a flying school in France and were
assigned to fly Lao O-47's. As of 1 March, there were 39 qualified RLAF
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pilots on hand, with an additional eight in training in Thailand. Still
a part of the Royal Lao Army, the Lao Air Force--under the command of a .
young flying officer, Colonel Thao Ma--was progressing, but its capabilities
were limited. After a briefing during a visit to Thailand in December 1961,
General O'Donnell had some doubts that the Lao Air Force would be able to
operate the T-28's by the date when they were slated for delivery. (128)
Through provident management, the US MAAG built up good stocks of most
munitions and supplies to a level sufficient to maintain the Royal Lao Army'
in combat for three or four weeks. The estimate of the military situation
in Laos included two factors in favor of the Phoumists: the Kong Le
Neutralists and the Pathet Lao forces were not getting along together very
well, and the Meo guerrillas commanded by Colonel Vang Pao
posed a constant danger to the Communists.
Generally loyal to the Royal Lao government, the Meo tribesmen liked to fight
and were at home in the mountains and jungles of northeastern Laos. The Meo
troops forced the Vietminh and Pathet Lao to stick rather closely to the
roads and highways. Because of the great success with the Meo people, MAAG-
Laos began to train and equip a guerrilla unit of Kha tribesmen who
inhabited the Plateau des Bolovens region of southern Laos. The Kha were
well disposed to anyone with military and economic aid, but they generally-
considered themselves inferior to the Lao and were far less willing to fight
than the Meo. On the other hand, the Soviets had delivered large quantities
of military supplies to the Neutrnlists and the Pathet Lao and the Vietminh
had not only trained the Pathet Lao but encadred the Pathet Lao units. Thus
while there had been a substantial increase in the capability of the Royal
Lao Army after the ceasefire, this increased capability was offset by even
greater improvements in the capabilities of the Pathet Lao and Kong Le forces.
In the winter of 1961-1962, CINCPAC intelligence stated unequivocally that
the Royal Lao Army could handle the Pathet Lao/Kong Le forces but could not
stand successfully if these forces were spearheaded by the Vietminh forces
known to be stationed in Laos. In the latter case, the Pathet Lao/Kong Le/
Vietminh were capable of taking Vientiane in 30 days and other major cities
such as Paksane and Thakhek within two to four weeks.(129)
Although troubled by ceasefire violations, the International Conference
on Laos made gradual progress in working out acceptable agreements on the
international aspect of the problem. By December 1961, the conference had
reached a point where negotiations could not proceed until there was a
coalition government in Lace that could speak for the entire country and under-
take the responsibilities and Obligations of neutrality and independence.(130)
In the judgment of Ambassador Harriman, who assumed the duty as Assistant
Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs this same month, the declaration
of Laotian neutrality and implementing protocol that had been drafted in
Geneva would serve US security objectives if they could be put into effect.(131)
In Laos, however, Prime Minister Boun Oum and General Phoumi were opposed
to participation in a coalition government with Souvanna Phouma and repre-
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sentatives of the Pathet Lao. Asked to consider ways in which Boun Oum
and Phoumi could be brought into line, Ambassador Brown remarked: "The .
hard fact is that the sanctions we have available to us are somewhat like
the atom bomb--too big to use without causing us almost as much harm as
those to whom they are applied." In order to impress Phoumi without weaken-
ing the Royal Lao Army too much, Brown recommended suspension of further
deliveries of military supplies into Laos.(132) While hesitant to hinder
military assistance or refugee relief, the State Department suspended the
$3 million cash grant aid payment to Laos in January 1962.(133)
For a brief moment on 19 January) Souvanna Phouma got agreement from
Boun Oum and Phoumi on a new coalition government in which Souvanna would be
prime minister, and the US cash grant was restored. On 25 January, however,
Pathet Lao/Vietminh forces began to direct mortar fire against a Royal
Laotian position at Nam Tha, only about 15 miles from the Chinese border in
far northwestern Laos. The mortar fire was directed against Nam Tha airfield
where Phoumi, contrary to American advice, had been airlifting troops.
Despite the ceasefire violation, President Kennedy expressed hope that a
meeting scheduled with King Savang Vatthana on 2 February where the member-
ship in the new government was to be determined would not be abandoned.
Boun Own nevertheless announced that he was breaking off negotiations until
the Pathet Lao ceased their attacks. In view of the developments, the
United States again suspended its cash grant payments in February, March,
and April. But to get operating funds Boun Own released unsupported currency
from the Bank of Laos, thus sustaining his government but greatly inflating
the Lao price level. Angered by the impasse, Souvanna Phauma demanded that
the United States and Thailand cease their military assistance to the Boun
Oum-Phoumi government and threatened to abandon his conciliation efforts,
leaving the other factions to fight out a solution.(134)
Any action that the United States could take to hasten the establishment
of a coalition government in Laos involved its relationships with Thailand,
whose government was disturbed both by SEATO's lack of responsiveness and
by a fear that a Neutralist coalition government in Laos would soon be
dominated by the Communists. In a conversation in Bangkok in December 1961,
General Wallop, the J-2 Intelligence. Officer of the Thai Armed Forces
Supreme Command, had expressed the opinion to General OTDonnell that after
the formation of a coalition government Laos would turn completely Communist
within two to three years.(135) After discussions of the SEATO treaty
relationships with Foreign Minister Thanat Khoman in Washington, Secretary
Rusk issued a formal statement on 6 March 1962 noting that the United
States, in accordance with its constitutional processes, would act unilat-
erally to defend Thailand against Communist aggression. Rusk reasoned that
the obligations of the SEATO treaty were individual as well as collective and
reaffirmed that the American obligations did not depend upon the prior
agreement of all of the other parties to the treaty. (136)
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In a Secretary of Defense Conference in Hawaii an 21 March 1962, Secretary
McNamara discussed the military situation in Laos and the feasibility of .
bringing pressure on Phoumi by withdrawing the US MAAG. Al]. of the military
leaders agreed that the MAAG should not be withdrawn, because, as General
Lemnitzer expressed it, this would be an "irrevocable step" that would hand
Laos over to the Communists and have a devastating psychological effect on
Thailand. In the course of the discussion, Secretary McNamara noted that
he had not realized that the Vietminh/Pathet Lao/Kong Le forces were capable
of taking all of the major Lao cities in very short order and asked for
comments on what the United States could do in case the Communists resumed
all-out fighting. Admiral Felt believed that Communist logistics would be
overextended and vulnerable to Meo guerrilla attacks and to American air
strikes within Laos against identified supply buildup points in key locations
such as Xieng Khouang, Tchepone, Saravene, and the border passes. He pointed
out that the air activity could be "a graduated response," which could be
accompanied by movement of a task force headquarters to Vientiane, the
deployment of US air units to Udorn and Don MUang, and the employment of
US ground units to secure the urban areas 'of Laos and to release the Royal
Lao Army for active fighting. General 0/Donnell and Admiral Felt disagreed
on the capability of the Chinese Communist Air Force to affect an American
air campaign. O'Donnell thought that the Chinese could move air units into
North Vietnam and take out the airfields being used by the United States.
Admiral Felt pointed out that Seventh Fleet aircraft carriers off the east
coast of Vietnamand USAF air units deployed in Thailand could stop any
volunteer Red Chinese air effort from North Vietnam before it could be
effectively employed. Speaking of the climate of opinion in Washington
against the commitment of US or SEATO forces into Laos, General Lemnitzer
favored an ultimate strategy whereby Phcumi would regrcup into the Lao
panhandle and defend a line running just north of Thakhek and Tchepone. He
felt that if fighting were resumed the only US recourse would be "to
continue to support Phoumi and make him fight." He remarked that he would
like to see Phoumi begin to regroup his forces to the south, partionlArly
those in the far northwestern Nam Tha area.(137)
While the American military leaders were meeting in Hawaii, Secretary
Harriman was in Bangkok in conference with Marshal Sarit, whose intercession
might persuade Phoumi to participate in a coalition government. At a
meeting with Phoumi at Nang Khai on the Thai bank of Mekong on 24 March,
Sarit explained why it was advisable for General 'Mound to accede to the
coalition. When Phoumi's response appeared to be argumentative, Secretary
Harriman was reported to have interrupted and to have told Phoumi with
"brutal frankness" that "he could not expect American troops to come to Laos
and die for him and that the only alternative to a neutral Laos was a Communist
victory." Harriman had further conversations with Phoumi in Vientiane which
were described as having been marked by an "animated and occasionally venomous"
atmosphere. During the trip, Harriman's assistant, William H. Sullivan,
visited Souvanna Phouma at his "capital" in Kiang Khay and assured him that
the United States was doing its utmost to expedite the formation of a coali-
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tion government.(138) After returning to Washington, Harriman told the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee on 13 April that the United States,
Thailand, and France were urging the government of Laos to negotiate for a
coalition government, but he nevertheless remarked: "It is very hard to
prophesy about what is going to happen in Laos."(139)
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CHAPTER 4
BUILDING COUNTERINSURGENCY CAPABILITIES
IN SOUTH VIETNAM, 1959-1962
1. Origins of the CINCPAC Counterinsurgency Plan for Vietnam
One of the most successful Communist myths of the Vietnam war, successfully
perpetrated in spite of the preparatory Communist aggression in Laos as early
as December 1958 and the Lao Dong's directive for the initiation of revolution-
ary warfare in South Vietnam an 13 May 1959, would be that the conflict in
South Vietnam was a civil war and thus an internal matter between the Vietnamese.
This myth was demonstrably false. In explaining Hanoi's policy on 10 July 1959,
Ho Chi Minh wrote: "1,101 are building socialism in Vietnam, but we are building
it in only one part of the country, while in the other part, we still have to
direct and bring to a close the middle-class democratic and anti-immerialist
revolution." (1) In the progression of events, the Vietcong would also record
that their revolutionary warfare operations began in late September 1959 when
two ARVN battalions, searching for guerrillas in the marshy Plain of Reeds near
the Cambodian border southwest of Saigon, were successfully ambushed and
defeated by two companies of Vietcong troops. (2) Hanoi's policy directives,
the buildup of NVA infiltration-support activities, and a marked increase in
confirmed infiltration of at least 4,556 Vietcong oidremen into South Vietnam
in 1959-1960 would make it evident that as early as mid-1959 at the latest
Hanoi had declared war an the Republic of Vietnam and had committed its political
and military apparatus to the struggle. (3)
Among US authorities in Saigon the full dimension of the threat that Hanoi
posed to the Government of Vietnam was obscured by an optimistic belief that
with moderate American assistance President Ngo Dinh Diem's government had made
substantial progress in bringing economic growth and internal stability to
South Vietnam. Vietnamese national intelligence activities, moreover, were
closely controlled by Diem for his awn political purposes, and there was little
or no readily available basic intelligence from South Vietnamese sources
relative to the specifics of the Vietcong threat, including such items as
leadership, tactics, '!organization, logistics, or projected plans. (4) As a
result of such factors, modifications of US assistance programs made in
1959-1960 were not so much concerned with the internal threat inside South
Vietnam as with the avert threat presented by Communist activities in Laos,
particularly to the sparsely populated Central Highlands, closely adjacent to
the Lao border. This was an area in which Diem had been intensely interested
since 1957, when he had conceived a program for building nagrovilles" or
"new communities" around Pleiku, Kontum, and Ban Me Thout with the idea that
yeoman farmers would be settled there an new agricultural lands, thereby
extending security into the area. Unable to secure American funds for the
construction of roads and resettlement projects in the Central Highlands,
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(Ny
Diem nevertheless proceeded with such plans. By February 1959 he had
established some 28 of the outposts, and an 7 July 1959 he announced an
expanded program to create more of the "prosperity and density centers" in
the exposed rural areas. (5) Although the United States did not support
the Highlands resettlement activity, the US MAP was extended in the first
half of 1960 to provide support for ARVN Ranger campanies, which the Govern-
ment of Vietnam indicated in February 1960 were necessary to operate on its
borders as trailwatchers and commandos.
pr the ARVN Ranger training
center, initially at Da Nang and later au Trang, successful implementation
of the program required US Army Special Forces training teams, with an increase
of the size of the US MAAG to 685 persons. Over objections of North Vietnam
to the International Control Commission, the United States accepted the added
advisory strength an 5 May, and the US Army teams arrived during the month.
At this same time, Diem established an ARVN Ranger force with a planned strength
of 10,000 men. (6)
In a first recognition that the US MAP efforts required revision in order
to assist the Government of Vietnam in expanded efforts against the Vietcong,
Admiral Felt initiated a Vietnamese counterinsurgency study by the CINCPAC
staff in April 1960. Phrased in broad terms, this CINCPAC study called
attention to the fact that successful Vietcong guerrilla operations were
aggravating a spreading discontent with Diem's government that was already
prevalent among Vietnamese intellectuals and to some extent among the laboring
class. Nhen Felt received the study in July, he ordered preparation of an
outline plan which he sent to Washington with a recommendation that the Joint
Chiefs of Staff coordinate it with interested departments and agencies. After
review in the Departments of State and Defense, the counterinsurgency plan was
sent to Saigon for further development by Ambassador Durbrow and by Lt. Gen.
Lionel C. McGarr, who on 31 August 1960 replaced General Williams as Chief of
the US MAAG. Elaborated by the Vietnaft country team during the autumn and
winter of 1960, the Vietnam counterinsurgency plan envisioned that the principal
task confronting the Government of Vietnam would be the restoration of individual
security, a task that would involve military,economic, and political reforms,
many of which would not be palatable to President Diem. Other items recommended
by Admiral Felt and General McGarr were not approved by Ambassador Durbrow. (7)
The Vietnam counterinsurgency plan envisioned that President Diem should
relax his direct control over the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces (RVNAF).
It recommended that the Joint General Staff be strengthened and that it would
establish a joint operations staff with responsibility for developing national
pacification plans. Military control would be exercised through normal command
channels, but supreme authority in an area in which pacification operations
were to be conducted would be vested in a senior tactical military commander.
The US MAAG also believed that Vietnamese military and paramilitary forces
should be placed under one control and that the ARVN strength should be increased
from 150,000 to 170,000 -- 15,000 of the additional men to be organized into
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added infantry, ranger, and marine units and the other 5,000 to be used for
increased logistic support for ARVN and for the assumption of logistic support
for the Civil Guard. In October 1960 General McGarr and Admiral Felt recom-
mended the proposed ARVN strength increase through military channels in
Washington, but Ambassador Durbrow opposed the increase for economic reasons
and it remained under study. In November 1960, however, the Vietnam Civil
Guard was transferred from the Ministry of Interior to the Ministry of Defense,
and in early December the US MAAF became responsible for providing it with
training and equipment. Because of shortages of MAP funds the US MAAG was
able to program immediate support for only 32,000 of the 68,000 members of the
Civil Guard. (8)
In a general description of the US MAP support for the Republic of Vietnam
up through 1961, Maj. Gen. Theodore R. Milton, Commander, Thirteenth Air Force,
would note that it was "entirely dominated by classic ground-force thinking."
(9) When sustained interest focused on the VNAF it was seen to be limited by
lack of trained pilots, technically qualified support personnel, and obsolescing
aircraft. In August 1959 President Diem worsened VNAFIs limited personnel
situation when he terminated contracts with French aircrews and service personnel
who operated the Air Vietnam commercial airline and replaced the Frenchmen with
flight crews and mechanics drawn from VNAF. (10) Also in August the VNAF Com-
mander, Colonel Vinh demonstrated his dissatisfaction with the long obsolete
F8F fighters in his 1st Fighter Squadron by grounding all of them after a
mysterious crash which appeared to have been staged. In September 1969 the
Government .of Vietnam stated a requirement for jet aircraft to replace the
F8Fs, pointing out that the United States had provided jets to Thailand and
the Philippines. In sympathy with the requirement, Admiral Felt got two T-33
trainers and four RT-33 photo aircraft included in FY 1961 MAP funding for
VNAF. These jet versions of the old USAF Shooting Star F-80 fighter promosed
to provide VNAF a beginning of jet capabilities, as well as an initial recon-
naissance force. As replacements for the R8Fs in FY-1961 MAP funding, VNAF
was first programmed to receive AD-4s from US Navy stocks, but upon further
study the Navy could not forecast continued supply support for these obsolete
planes. As a result the program objective was amended early in 1960 to include
25 AD-6 aircraft, a type of aircraft still operational in US fleet units, and
which would be redesignated several years later as A-IHs. The first six of the
AD-6s arrived in Vietnam in September 1960, and the last of the 25 planes
would be delivered on 22 May 1961. As will be seen the RT-33s were pledged to
VNAF in MAP commitments, but they would not be delivered because of the Geneva
prohibition against jet aircraft. (11) Late in 1960, when some of the new
ARVN: ranger units were ready for field employment, the US Office of Secretary
of Defense recognized that the H-19B helicopters handed down by the French to
the VNAF 1st Helicopter Squadron were worn out and gave approval for an
expedited delivery of 11 H-34C helicopters to Vietnam, the machines being
obtained from the US Army and airlifted to Saigon without renvation, the first
four in December 1960 and the others a little later. (12)
Arrival of the more modern AD-6s and H-34s did not immediately benefit
VNAF capabilities. Poor maintenance and supply support at Bien Hoa and a
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long pipeline time required to process spare parts requisitions to Army and
Navy sources through Air Force Logistical Command MAP channels caused excessive
aircraft-out-of-commission rates, and the tupply support for AD-6s and H-34s
would not begin to catch up with requirements until late 1961. Meanwhile, in .
the three months of August through October, the 1st Fighter Squadron flew 20
combat sorties, the L-19 liaison planes 917 combat hours, the H-19s made 166
hours on operational missions, while the C-47 transport group flew 32 operational
sorties. (13) Based in the Saigon area and rigidly controlled by President
Diem and the Joint General Staff, VNAF units had virtually no country-wide
operating capability in these months in which the Vietcong were expanding their
attacks throughout South Vietnam. A PACAF survey team reported: "The high
level approval required for on-call.fighter strikes, along with poor communica-
tions and/or procedures for requesting strikes, builds in excessive delays for
efficient use of tactical air effort. This is particularly true in view of the
hit and run guerrilla tactics of the Viet Cong." (14)
In Hanoi on 10 September 1960 the Third National Conference of the Lao Dong
Party announced the objective of forming in South Vietnam "a broad national
united front" of workers, peasants, and soldiers that would overthrow President
Diem, and the tempo of Vietcong insurgency and infiltration quickened after this
new manifestation of Communist intention. In base areas around Saigon hard-core
Vietcong strength reached an estimated 4,000 men, and the Vietcong units were
able to mount raids with 100 to 300 men.- In October the Government of Vietnam
charged that attacks in the Kontum-Pleiku area involved regular NVA units
operating out of Laos, thus constituting avert aggression. (15) The apparent
Nue inability of the Diem government to deal with the Vietcong insurgency sparked
dissatisfaction within the Vietnamese Amy, and in a surprise coup attempt on
11 November 1960 a paratroop force led by Colonel Nguyen Van Thi seized. most
of the key government centers in Saigon and prepared to attack the Presidential
palace. The leaders of this attemptea military coup called for Diem's resigna-
tion, citing his autocratic rule, nepotism, and inability to save the country
from Communism. The leaders made no effort to seek support of disaffected
civilians, and the coup was put down on 12 November when Brig. Gen. Nguyen Khanh,
Chief of Staff of the Joint General Staff, led loyal troops into the capital
and subdued the rebels. (16)
In the wake of the November 1960 coup attempt, Diem's brother and political
advisor, Ngo Dinh Nhu, announced that the Diem government would introduce far-
reaching reforms in South Vietnam, but as it happened both Diem and Nhu emerged
from the crisis more reluctant than ever to decentralize authoritarian controls.
Instead of providing the independent military authority which Admiral Felt and
General McGarr wanted for counterinsurgency operations, Diem intended to secure
his position where possible by pitting one officer against another within the
military hierarchy. Moreover, Nhu would continue to believe that US officials
in Saigon had been involved in the attempted coup, and relations between
Ambassador Durbrow and Diem became very difficult after November 1960. Although
Nhu's suspicions were groundless, US military advisors observed and reported
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continuing manifestations of RVNAF discontent with the Diem government. An '
Air Force officer, Who served with the MAAG in 1960-1961, noted that hope
built up with many VNAF officers when Diem promosed reform after the 1960
coup attempt but then waned as Diem failed to produce the promised liberaliza-
tion of his government. On several separate occasions during the autumn of
1961 US representatives in South Vietnam would be approached by military
leaders, who sought to determine the prospective American reaction to a coup
attempt against Dim. (17)
The Communist politburo in Hanoi apparently viewed the November 1960 coup
against Diem as an evidence of massive dissatisfaction within the RVNAF and
moved quickly, although with some confusion, to establish the promised Shadow
government in South Vietnam. Announced as having been formed on 20 December
1960, the National Front for Liberation of Vietnam (NLF) was said to include
a broad range of non-Communist and nationalist opposition to Diem. Under the
NLF facade the Lao Dong Party would continue to direct the insurgency, but in
a further move to obscure Hanoi's control late in 1961 the southern branch of
the Lao Dong party would be renamed the People's Revolutionary Party (PRP).
The .PRP immediately volunteered its support to the NLF and was organized on
lines exactly parelleling the NLF hierarchical structure. And instructions
from the Provincial Committee of the Lao Dong party in South Vietnam's
Ba Xuyen province issued on 7 December 1961 explained: "The People's Revolu-
tionary Party has only the appearance of an independent existence; actually
our party is nothing but the Lao Dong Party of Viet-Nam, unified from North
to South, under the direction of the Central Executive Committee of the Party,
the chief of which is President Ho." President Diem would obtain a copy of
these instructions and would ?end it to President John F. Kennedy with the
observation: "Here at last is a public admission of what has always been
cloar -- that the Viet Cong campaign against my people is led by communists."
Under Hanoi's overarching command and the NLF nationalist facade, the People's
Revolutionary Party culminated in a standing committee of high ranking members
known as the Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN), and COSVN would provide
local direction to the insurgency in South Vietnam. (18)
2. President Kennedy Expands Assistance to Vietnam
When President Kennedy took office on 20 January 1961 the subversive effort
against South Vietnam was well underway, but the situation in Laos was deterio-
rating even more rapidly and for a time overshadowed the problem in South
Vietnam although, of course, the new US national planners recognized that Laos
and Vietnam were intimately related. Following a briefing of the US counter-
insurgency plan for Vietnam, President Kennedy approved it in principle on
30 January and agreed that the United States would support the proposed 20,000
man increase in the RVNAF and expanded military training for the Civil Guard.
During the next several months, however, the International Security Agency
of OSD would be unable to determine a proper source for the additional MAP
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(745
funds that would be required to support the added Vietnamese forces, and
any implementation of the broad aspects of the counterinsurgency plan would
require actions that President Diem was going to be reluctant to order. (19).
Although President Kennedy's attention was momentarily diverted from Vietnam,
he was greatly impressed with the threat posed by Communist insurgency in
developing nations. On 1 February he directed Secretary of Defense Robert S.
McNamara to examine ways of placing more emphasis upon the development of
American counterinsurgency forces. At this time there were no US forces
especially prepared to conduct operations against insurgents; even the US
Army Special Forces were principally trained to conduct offensive guerrilla
warfare in support of conventional military operations. Two other Presidential
actions followed the Bay. of Pigs invasion and placed the Department of Defense
in the business of paramilitary activity. In June 1961 Kennedy issued a
National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) stating that the Joint Chiefs of
Staff had na responsibility for the defense of the nation in the cold war
similar to that which they have in conventional hostilities." Another NSAM
in July 1961 stated that any large paramilitary operation, wholly or partly
covert, that required significant numbers of militarily trained personnel,
amounts of equipment that exceeded normal stocks, or military
experience of a kind and level peculiar to the Armed Services, would properly
be a primary responsibility of the Department of Defense,
During the early months of 1961 the Vietcong redoubled their campaign
of terror in an effort to disrupt South Vietnamese presidential elections
scheduled for 9 April. The number of hard-core Vietcong estimated to be in
South Vietnam increased to 14,000, and in March General Nguyen Khanh stressed
to an American observer that the NVA forces in southern Laos had become strong
enough to push over the border and set up a "popular" government in the
Central Highlands any time that this would be politically desirable. If the
Communists did this, Khanh speculated that the Sino-Soviet bloc would follow
the technique used in Laos by recognizing the shadow regime as the legitimate
government of South Vietnam and providing assistance to it. Renewing his
interest in Vietnam in the course of public addresses delivered in April,
President Kennedy expressed concern that well-disciplined Vietcong guerrillas,
organized and sustained by North Vietnamese support from across South Vietnam's
borders, had assassinated over 4,000 civil officers, 2,000 state employees,
and 2,000 police during 1960. (21)
After 9 April, when President Diem and Vice President Nguyen Ngoc Tho
received an overwhelming majority in the South Vietnamese election, the US
Embassy was able to present the CINOPIC counterinsurgency plan, with its
recommended actions. During April, Diem ordered the minimum essential reforms
asked by the Americans, at least on paper. He reactivated a National
Internal Security Council, established a National Intelligence Agency, and
appointed Maj. Gen. Duong Van Minh as Commander ARVN Field Forces, with
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instructions to work with General McGarr in counterinsurgency planning.
Other directives inactivated former military regional headquarters and
replaced them with three ARVN corps tactical zones and one Saigon divisional
tactical zone. The tactical zone commanders were made responsible for con-
ducting all anti-guerrilla military operations in coordination with the
aovernmentis psychological and political campaigns. Diem accomplished the
minimum organizational actions recommended in the CINCPAC plan, but he was
in no hurry to implement a national counterinsurgency plan or campaign. (22)
. In April President Kennedy set up an interagency Vietnam Task Force
headed by Deputy Secretary of Defense, Roswell L. Gilpatric, to determine
the need for additional measures in support of Vietnam, and an 21 April, he
named Frederick E. Nolting, Jr., who had been counsul general in Paris, as
Ambassador to Vietnam, vice Ambassador Durbrow. At a National Security
Council meeting on 29 April, Kennedy approved several measures recommended
by the Gilpatric task force. These included the establishment of a combat
development and test center in Vietnam, expansion of civic action and
economic development programs, the augmentation of the 685-man MAAG by
approximately 100 military advisors as the beginning of an expanded advisory
effort, and a last-minute addition to the fiscal year 1961 MAP of a heavy
radar facility to be sited near Da Nang where it was expected to observe and
report Soviet flights across the Laotian border. (23)
At a meeting with Chairman J. W. Fulbright of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee an 4 May, President Kennedy discussed the possibility of sending
US. forces into South Vietnam, but on the following day, Kennedy told newsmen
that this would not be appropriate until it could be discussed with Vietnamese
leaders by Vice President Johnson, who would arrive in Saigon on 11 May. At
the request of Secretary Maamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff nevertheless
considered the possible commitment of US forces to South Vietnam and on 10 May
recommended in favor of an immediate deployment of sufficient US forces to
provide a visible deterrent, to release RVNAF forces from static deployments
to undertake active counterinsurgency operations, to assist in training
Vietnamese forces, provide a nucleus for US SEATO operations, and to indicate
the firmness of US policy in Southeast Asia. Asked to give the Joint Chiefs
an estimate of force requirements, Admiral Felt discussed the matter with
his component commanders on 11 May. At this conference, General O'Donnell
pointed out that South Vietnam was so deficient in airfields and ground
environment that it could not accommodate any air strike force larger than
a few rotational B-57s and F-102s which could operate frau Tan Son Nhut for
short periods of time. In his response to the Joint Chiefs on 11 May,
Admiral Felt recommended that forces sent to Vietnam should comprise a single
US Army infantry division with appropriate supporting troops; 8 B-57s for
border surveillance, close support and counter-VC operations; L. F-102s for
?air defense; and possibly two or three jet reconnaissance aircraft. If
American forces were sent to Vietnam, Admiral Felt recommended that the Chief
MAAG be designated Commander, US Forces Vietnam, and that he would exercise
control -- under CINCFAC -- of all American forces in South Vietnam. (24)
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On 11 May President Kennedy directed that the Department of Defense
would continue to study the size and composition of US forces which might
be required in Vietnam in case the Diem-Johnson talks indicated a need for
them, but he also asked for an assessment of the value and cost of increasing
the RVNAF from 170,000 to 200,000 by creating two additional divisions for
service in the northwest border region. The communique issued on 13 May at
the conclusion of the Diem-Johnson talks agreed that the United States and
thellbpublic of Vietnam would work together to augment the RVNAF and made no
mention of a requirement for US forces. Upon his return to Washington,
Moreover, Vice President Johnson did not envisage a need to commit any
American troops other than training missions, and he emphasized that the
Southeast Asian nations must make decided efforts -- with stronger support
from the United States -- to develop their economic and political systems
as well as to defend themselves. In conversations with Johnson and his party,
however, Diem had been fearful that the Communists would employ the same
strategy against South Vietnam that they had used against Laos -- infiltration,
aerial resupply, and establishment of a recognizable government. (25)
The Presidential program for Vietnam was sent to Admiral Felt and
Ambassador Nolting on 20 May as 30 separate but mutually supporting military,
political, and economic action items that were to be carried out on a priority
basis with a sense of urgency. The political actions were intended to increase
Diem's confidence in the United States, Diem's popular support in his own
country, and to improve Vietnam's relations with its neighbors, particularly
Cambodia. Economic actions included assistance for Vietnam's economy, as well
as a determination of the ability of the Vietnamese economy to support larger
military forces. The military actions included installation of a radar surveil-
lance system; immediate increases in the size of the RVNAF by 20,000 men; MAP
support for the Civil Guard and Self-Defense forces, and necessary MAAG
augmentations. In addition, studies would devise means to prevent enemy
infiltration into South Vietnam, examine the prospects of increasing the
manning of the RVNAF above the 170,000-man ceiling, and look toward establish-
ment of a facility in Southeast Asia which would develop and test new tech-
niques to assist the United States and South Vietnam in a joint campaign
against Communist insurgents. (26)
President Kennedy's 20 May 1961 program was designed to provide urgent
assistance that would help the people of South Vietnam to help themselves,
but the program had hardly been started before it began to be evident that
the threat to the Republic of Vietnam was more severe than had been thought.
At the Vienna summit early in June 1961, Kennedy found that Khrushchev was
willing to accept a neutralization of Laos but would not include Vietnam in
a similar agreement. Looking backvard upon Khrushchev's grim refusal at
Vienna to ameliorate the conflict in Vietnam, Secretary of State Dean Rusk
would speculate that after the summit conference in June 1961 the United
States should have put down "a lot of blue chips immediately" to head off
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"the other side" and to have said: "You can't have South Vietnam." He
suggested that such action would have prevented misunderstanding within the
Communist world regarding the United States position in South Vietnam. (27)
Although both CINCPAC and the Joint Chiefs of Staff advocated and would
reiterate recommendations for the deployment of US combat forces to South
Vietnam, President Kennedy preferred to continue the actions ordered in his
20 May program but to accelerate them in view of Vietcong successes.
The original proposal for the expansion of the RVNAF to a strength of
200,000 men had visualized that the additional personnel would form two more
ARVN divisions, but the Joint Chiefs of Staff accepted a changed planning
objective calling for "two division equivalents, including necessary Navy
and Air Force augmentation." In view of the deteriorating situation in
Southeast Asia, the Joint Chiefs recommended an 21 June that the increase of
the RVNAF from 170,000 to 200,000 would be in the best interests of the
United States. At this time Acting Secretary of Defense Gilpatric advised
the state Department of the assessment but recommended that the increase not
be initiated until the earlier 20,000 man addition was amalgamated. (28)
To obtain a judgment on the economic ability of South Vietnam to support
expansion of its military forces, President Kennedy sent a financial survey
group headed by Dr. Eugene Staley to Saigon. In its report in July the
Staley group favored additional aid for Vietnam, following three tenets:
security requirements should have first priority; military operations could
not achieve lasting results unless economic programs were continued and
accelerated; and it was in the interest of both countries to achieve a free
society and self-sustaining economy in South Vietnam. On 11 August, President
Kennedy approved MAP support for a RVNAF of 200,000 men, but he directed that
Diem be informed of the Staley committee's basic recommendations. (29)
Plans for expanding VNAF followed Vice President Johnson's visit.
It included MAP support for a second fighter squadron, a second helicopter
squadron, a third L-19 liaison squadron, and a photo reconnaissance unit.
In planning for the fighter squadron, USAF assistance thinking rationalized
that the Communists had abrogated the Geneva accord of 1954 and that VNAF
should be provided with F-86 jets rendered surplus by the conversion of
American fighter squadrons to more modern aircraft. (30) In May 1961,
however, OSD/ISA accepted a North American Aviation Company proposal to
modify 100 excess USAF T-28A aircraft in an armed "Nomad" configuration
similar to T-28B models, this despite USAF reservations as to the potential
effectiveness of such modified aircraft. On 30 June, OSD funded the "Nomad"
program and provided that 30 of the aircraft would be committed to Vietnam.
(31) When OSD/ISA requested recommendations for providing MAP planes for a
VNAF reconnaissance unit, the Joint Chiefs accepted the USAF position that
the Geneva accord had been broken by the Communists and recommended that
several T/RT-33 jets be provided. The Joint Chiefs also pointed out that
the introduction of even a few jets into South Vietnam would result in an
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expansion of facilities, ground environment, and "know how" that would be
most valuable if US air units were subsequently forced to operate in the
country. When the Secretary of Defense did not acknowledge the JCS
recommendation, Admiral Felt asked 03D to secure State Department approval?
for the introduction of photo jets into the VNAF. On 18 October, Ambassador
Molting opposed this as a violation of the Geneva accords, terminating the
MAP proposal for the remainder of the year. (32)
Although Ambassador Molting opposed jet aircraft for VNAF, both he and
Admiral Felt thought it imperative that the T-28s be sent to Saigon very
quickly, well before the MAP project could provide the Nomad-modified T-28s.
After review of possible sources, the OSD directed that the US Navy would
provide 30 T-28Cs to VNAF. In an expedited action, USAF received these
planes on the west coast of the United States and handled their transporta-
tion to Saigon, where the first 15 of the aircraft arrived on 15 December.
(33) As worked out in MAAG Saigon With VNAF, T-28 pilots would be provided
by upgrading Vietnamese liaison pilots to the fighter cockpits. Activation
of the VNAF 3d Liaison Squadron at Nha Trang on 1 December was handled by
discontinuing the Nha Trang training center and mustering instructors and
L-19s there into the liaison squadron. Where the Nha Trang center had not
been very efficient in the past, the action nevertheless meant that VNAF
flight training would have to be accomplished in the United States. In the
fiscal 1962 MAP, 12 additional H-34As were committed to VNAF, but it was
obvious that VNAF was experiencing great difficulties with the 1st Helicopter
Squadron and would find it very difficult to provide a cadre for the pro-
jected 2d Helicopter Squadron. (34) While the VNAF expansion plans were
getting underway, the activity was complicated by a proposal advocated by
high-ranking ARVN officers, including General Khanh, that the VNAF liaison
and helicopter squadrons should be transferred to the ARVN and that the
three ARVN corps commanders shoula also be given operational control of
detachments of VNAF fighters and transport aircraft that would be based in
their corps areas. (35)
The problem of attempting to control border infiltration into South
Vietnam had been under consideration some time before it was mandated for
special study in President Kennedys program of 20 May 1961. Over 900 miles
of South Vietnamese territory bordered on neighboring Cambodia, Laos, and
North Vietnam. Three-quarters of the linear distance was in rugged moun-
tainous terrain and the remainder in the swamps and jungles of the Mekong
Delta. Portions of the border with Laos and Cambodia had never been agreed
upon. An early MAAF recommendation had favored the use of a large number
of helicopters to patrol the border, but this proposition held recognized
disadvantages in the number of helicopters that it would require and the
absence of facilities for maintaining them. On 2 June the Joint Chiefs
recommended that CINCPAC examine a?concept of aerial border surveillance
with high-performance planes. In May 1961, incident to the Lao crisis,
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the RVNAF established patrol bases and austere airstrips along the border
of Laos and, from the experience, favored the use of roving ground patrols
mounted from fairly large bases along the border. At the end of August,
the RVNAF approved the reorganization of the border outposts in the northern-
most I ARVN Corps in accordance with, the patrol base concept. In October
Deputy Secretary Gilpatric quizzed the Joint Chiefs of Staff about the
feasibility of requesting employment of SEATO forces in South Vietnam for
border control. The Joint Chiefs replied that this would place the SEATO
units in a very vulnerable position, would grossly compound communications
and logistical support problems, and would reduce but not stop VC infiltration.
The Joint Chiefs also recommended that any real defense of Southeast Asia
would include a concentrated effort in Laos where SEATO could take a firm
stand, rather than in spreading out SEATO forces throughout Southeast Asia.
(36)
As a part of the expanding American advisory effort
opened an enlarged Ranger Training Center at Nha rang
October, the US MAAG proposed to employ 27 Ranger Companies and 39 ARVN or
Civil Guard Companies, augmented by Montagnard scouts, to man 25 border bases
from which aggressive patrols would operate on both sides of South Vietnam's
borders to locate, harass, and ambush VC infiltrators. The plan required a
c-47 landing strip at each border base and would necessitate increased amounts
of air transport to provide logistical supply. General McGarr submitted the
MAA 4 plan for using Rangers on border patrol on 8 November, and the RVNAF
Joint General Staff accepted the basic concept an 13 December when it also
directed the Field Command to prepare a final Vietnamese plan. ? di-
ately began to recruit and instruct 3,000 Montagnard scouts, bu e Joint
General Staff proved to be in no hurry to commit the 5,000 Rangers that
would be needed to initiate the plan. The JGS was reluctant to release
Ranger units for border patrol until they could be relieved from posts in
South Vietnam's interior by newly trained Civil Guard and Self Defense Corps
units. (37)
President Kennedy's requirement calling for the development of a South
Vietnamese radar surveillance capability to warn of Communist overflights
for clandestine supply or intelligence purposes "on a priority basis as a
matter of urgency" did not promise to be easy to accomplish since VNAF had
no aircraft control and warning capability. At Tan Son Nhut the VNAF 1st
Radar Squadron possessed two light TPS-1D search radar sets and two TPS-10D
height finders. This equipment had been in storage in Vietnam from 1954 to
1958, when the VNAF had begun to try to use it for training. The 1st Radar
Squadron had never controlled any aircraft, and many of the technicians who
had received radar training in the United States were spread throughout the
VNAF, often in jobs unrelated to their training. (38) In Washington, MAP
funds were immediately provided for two heavy combination FPS-20/6 radar
installations, most feasibly to be located at Tan Son Nhut and Da Nang, but
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delivery of this equipment could not be promised until September 1962. To
fill the interim gap and to provide immediate refresher training to the VNAF
technicians, Admiral Felt requested and on 11 September the Joint Chiefs of
Staff directed the deployment of a mobile combat reporting post from the
507th Tactical Control Group at Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina, to
Tan Son Nhut. Equipped with MPS-11 search and MPS-16 height-finder radars
and manned to the CRP level with 67 people, the 507th began its airlifted
movement on 26 September and completed the journey on 3 October. Even
though all identification marks on boxed equipment had been ordered painted
out and the Americans were not allowed to do any assembly work after dark
the CRP at Tan Son Nhut was operational on the morning of 5 October. In
addition to providing control and warning services, the 507th detachment
immediately began training 37 VNAF technicians. Personnel of the detachment
the first USAF unit to arrive in Vietnam -- were also pressed into service to
supervise the building of a tent city, to meet incoming aircraft, and in
general to facilitate the arrival of other USAF personnel in Vietnam. (39)
Because of President Kennedy's penetrating interest in counterinsurgency,
Secretary McNamara gave an extremely high priority to the establishment of
a facility in Southeast Asia that would develop and test new techniques to
combat insurgency. This interest engendered Project Agile, under the direction
of the Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). The
establishment of a combat development and test center in Vietnam promised to
be potentially overlapping with the legal functions of the US MUG, but, by
29 June 1961, Vietnamese, Department of Defense, and MAAG officials agreed to
establish a small center manned by research and development personnel within
Headquarters RVNAF in Saigon, under the supervision of the Vietnamese Joint
General Staff. This Combat Development and Test Center (CDTC) was given a
direct channel of communications to ARPA on R&D matters, with information
to be provided to CINCPAC. The small nucleus of ARPA personnel also served
as a focal point for technical contract people who were sent to Saigon under
the auspices of ARPA or the Director of Defense Research and Engineering.
By 5 August, the CDTC had commended work on projects that included a chemical
to kill the tapioca plant which was an important source of food for guerrillas,
use of patrol dogs, and the use of Chemical defoliant agents to destroy jungle
foliage in Vietcong assembly, ambush, and hiding areas. (40)
As Air Force Chief of Staff, General Curtis E. LeMay was impressed with
the imperative nature of President Kennedy's instruction on 3 March 1961 that
the military services would examine their capability to engage in counter-
guerrilla operations and to render training assistance to developing countries.
Reflecting back to Army Air Forces air-commando experiences in Southeast Asia
during World War II, LeMay directed the Tactical Air Command to form a small
unit that would have a capability to conduct selected covert air operations.
Accordingly on 14 April 1961, the Tactical Air Command activated the 4400th
Combat Crew Training Squadron -- nicknamed "jungle Jim" -- at Eglin Air Force
Base, Florida. Under command of Colonel Benjamin H. King, the 4400th Squadron
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was authorized a personnel strength of 124 officers and 228 airmen and an
aircraft complement of 16 C-47s, 8 B-26s, and 8 T-28s. To man the organiza-
tion, Colonel King accepted Volunteers, most of whom described as "gang ho"
individuals who were attracted by the challenge of unconventional air
operations. (41) In August 1961 the Jungle Jim squadron was operational, and,
after a study of the problem of interdicting infiltration into South Vietnam
had been made by the Joint Strategic Survey Council, the Joint Chiefs of Staff
on 24 August informed the Secretary of Defense that since the Vietcongxere
receiving their support from North Vietnam both by inland trails and coetal
junks an interdiction of Communist support would facilitate military control
of the Vietcong. In the event the United States did not desire to commit its
forces openly, there were covert, unconventional, and guerrilla-type opera-
tions that could be made effective. (42)
On 5 September, Secretary McNamara informed the departmental secretaries
that he intended to establish an experimental command in South Vietnam under
the MAAG as a laboratory for the development of improved organizational and
operational procedures for conducting sub-limited war. On the basis of this
information, General LeMay called Secretary of Air Force Eugene M. Zuckert's
attention to the potentialities of the Jungle Jim squadron, and on 19 September
Zuckert recommended to McNamara that a detachment of the 4400th Combat Crew
Training Squadron Should be moved with C-47s, T-28s, and B-26s to Vietnam where
it could serve as a vehicle for acquiring and developing experience in counter-
insurgency.operations, while at the same time contributing to VNAF training.
(43) Secretary McNamara liked the proposal, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff
recommended an 5 October that a detachment of the 4400th should be placed
with the MAAG in Vietnam with a mission of training the VNAF and participating
in research and development testing of counter-guerrilla techniques. (44)
Despite the increased American economic and military aid that began to
arrive in Vietnam under President Kennedy's 20 May program, the war continued
to go badly for the Government of Vietnam. In June Ambassador Nolting reported
an increase in Vietcong attempts to assassinate provincial chiefs and other
intermediate-level government officials. Beginning an 20 June, the RVNAF
mounted an elaborate triphibious campaign in the Mekong Delta, employing some
5,000 ARVN troops, an airborne battalion, river boat groups, and combat air
support. This ponderdus force easily entered guerrilla-dominated areas,
but its results were temporary since there were no available paramilitary
forces to control the area when the regular forces withdrew. (45) In August
ARVN reported 41 engagements between its forces and the Communists. In
September the Communists mounted attacks with forces of up to 1,000 men in
Kontum province, and an 18 September an estimated force of 1,500 guerrillas
overran and seized Phuoc Vinh, the capital of Phuoc Thanh province. Terrorist
activity increased. A grenade was thrown into Ambassador Nolting's automobile
in September. After the serious setbacks in September, government forces
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undertook no major operations until 28 October. On that day they launched
a planned ten-day operation against the Vietcong base area northeast of
Saigon known as Zone D which progressed until an ARNN paratroop battalion
ran into an ambush on 1 November, whereupon the campaign was cancelled. (46)
Although established by President Diem on paper, the RVM National Intelli-
gence Agency had been incapable of performing its mission, and the explosion
of Vietcong insurgency in the swnner and autumn of 1961 was apparently a
great surprise to everyone except the Communists. In October 1961 CINCPAC
estimated that the Government of Vietnam fully controlled only about 30
percent of the villages in the rural areas of the country. (47) In an
address before the Vietnamese National Assembly an 2 October 1961, President
Diem was deeply apprehensive. Speaking of the war, he said: "It is no
longer a guerrilla war . . . . It it a war waged by an enemy who attacks us
with regular units fully and heavily equipped and who seeks a strategic
decision in Southeast Asia in conformity with the order of the Communist
International." President Kennedy read Diem's speech, and he also took note
of the stream of threats and vituperation against the Republic of Vietnam
and the United States that was flawing night and day from Hanoi. In addition
to the Communist problem severe floods on the Mekong River in mid-October
inundated the greater part of three delta provinces, leaving an estimated
500,000 people hungry and homeless. (48)
In a consideration of the situation in Vietnam an the morning of
11 October 1961, President Kennedy authorized US advisors to assist with
counter-guerrilla operations against the Communist supply center at Tchepone
in Laos and he directed deployment Of a detachment of the 4400th Combat Crew
Training Squadron to South Vietnam, subject to Diem's concurrence and for
the initial purpose of training Vietnamese forces. Later in the day, Kennedy
also announced that he was sending a mission headed by his military advisor,
General Maxwell Taylor, to Saigon to secure an "educated military guess" on
the situation and to discuss "ways in which we can perhaps better assist
the Government of Viet-Nam in meeting this threat to its independence." In
his letter of instructions to Taylor, Kennedy stressed that the mission
"should bear in mind that the initial responsibility for the effective
maintenance of the independence of South Vietnam rests with the people and
government of that country." The mission would be concerned with political,
social, and economic problems as well as the military problem, and Walt W.
Rostow was included as deputy to General Taylor. (49)
President Kennedy's announcement that he was sending the Taylor mission
to Vietnam produced immediate responses from the Communist nations which
were in part predictable but nevertheless influential an American policy.
On 12 October Chinese Communist Premier Chou En-lai warned that Red China
could not "be indifferent to the increasingly grave situation caused by
United States imperialism in South Vietnam." In the next several dayS
Ho Chi Minh went to Peking to discuss the situation with Mao Tse-tung and
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Defense Minister Lin Piao. The Soviet Union connected the Taylor mission
with the flagging diplomatic discussions an Lacsat Geneva, charging that the
United States was planning to send troops to South Vietnam in order to
affect the situation in Laos. On 14 October North Vietnam protested to the
Vietnam ICC that the Taylor mission was intended to "intensify United States
intervention in South Vietnam and prepare the way for introducing United
States troops." (50) In the words of one US diplomat, President Kennedy
"was in a delicate and fragile phase of the negotiations in Geneva, which
could be upset by ham-handed political or military moves in Vietnam." (Si)
One of the problems at the time of the Taylor mission was to determine
the exact military situation in South Vietnam. On 18 October, the day that
Taylor and Rostow landed at Tan Son Nhut, President Diem proolaimed a state
of national emergency throughout South Vietnam. In private discussions,
Diem asked Taylor for a bilateral defense treaty with the United States and
for deployment of US combat troops to South Vietnam. In conversations and
also in a letter to the International Control Commission on 24 October, Diem
emphasized the international aspects of the Communist threat, the stated
determination of Hanoi to "liberate the South," the massive infiltration of
Communist agents, and the ruthless strategy of terror against the South
Vietnamese people, women and children included. (52) In Diem's view the
major Communist threat to South Vietnam was the likelihood that the Vietcong
would establish a "liberated territory" in the central reaches of the Republic.
This was a possibility, but CINCPAC intelligence assessments had begun to
question it after 1 October and to assert instead that the Communists were ,
seeking to consolidate control over the rich agricultural areas of the south,
to isolate Saigon and the Diem government from the remainder of the country,
and to keep the infiltration approaches to Laos open. (53) In order to
provide needed intelligence coincidental with the Taylor visit, the US
Fifth Air Force was permitted to deploy a detachment of its 15th Tactical
Reconnaissance Squadron from Okinawa to Saigon, under the cover story that
the men and planes would participate in the Vietnamese National Day Celebration.
The cover story was abruptly changed to one of photographing the Mekong floods
when Diem unexpectedly declared the national emergency and cancelled the
National Day Celebration, but the Pipe Stem reconnaissance detachment arrived
at Tan Son Nhut on the morning of 18 October, and began to operate its four
RF-101 photo jets on tactical missions two days later. The planned 8-day
operation was extended until 24 November, and the Pipe Stem detachment flew
67 photo sorties against objectives in South Vietnam, along the Vietnamese
borders, and up to the Tdhepone area of Laos. (54)
In separate submissions of military actions to the Joint Chiefs of
Staff before and during the time that the Taylor mission was in the theater,
Admiral Felt outlined steps that he considered should be taken at once in
South Vietnam. As soon as he was informed that President Kennedy had approved
movement of a detachment of the 4400th COTS to South Vietnam, he recommended
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(70
that the Air Force should prepare 4 SC-47s, 4 RB-26s, and 8 T-28s for
deployment without delay. On 18 October he recommended to the Joint Chiefs
that the Pipe Stem reconnaissance flights be continued as long as possible,
quick deployment of the Jun le Jim s adron d ta- ed delivery
of the T-28s to VNAF, 00-4
improvement
of communications, ana aeployment or two US Army transport helicopter
companies to Vietnam. He also urged that the airstrip at Pleiku be improved
and that stores of ammunition, common equipment, and war consumables be pre-
positioned in Vietnam preparatory to a possible introduction of SEATO forces.
On 21 October Felt validated a request that had been made by General McGarr
for the deployment of six spray-equipped aircraft to Vietnam to be used for
aerial defoliation and crop destruotion according to the concept worked out
by Project Agile, favored by President Diem, and approved by Ambassador
Nolting, provided the planes would be unmarked and the crews would wear
civilian clothing. At meetings in Hawaii on 28 October, PACAF officers
assured Colonel King, who would lei Detachment 2 of the 4400th Squadron to
Vietnam, that there would be no major logistical problems in preparing a tent
camp and other support arrangements at Bien Hoa Airfield. Thus reassured,
CINCPAC asked that the detachment be sent to Vietnam immediately, without
waiting for the Air Force to procure some desirable L-28 liaison aircraft
for it or to configure the T-28s with Sidewinder air missile intercept
capabilities. (55) On 28 October in Washington, Secretary Rusk was sensitive
to the international implications of increased US military activity in Vietnam.
He recommended that the USAF aircraft sent to Bien Hoa should be marked with
VNAF insignia and arrive at Tan Son Nhut at staggered intervals in order to
obscure the fact that the planes belonged to the same unit and to avoid
getting the ICC interested in Bien Hoe. If need be, the arrival of the planes
could be covered with a story that they were required for flood relief or
else would be used to train the VNAF. Admiral Felt ruled out the flood relief
story because the flood waters were already receding. He thought that the
most valid explanation would be the overt Vietcong and North Vietnamese
aggression, but he accepted the USAP recommendation that the detachment of
Jungle Jim would have the unclassified mission of training the Vietnamese
Air Force. (56)
In an interim report to President Kennedy an 25 October, General Taylor
described the Diem government as lacking confidence because of Vietcong
successes and uncertainty in regard to the US policy in Laos. The South
Vietnamese military was ineffective because of unreliable intelligence and
unclear command channels. At this time Taylor suggested a number of actions,
none entailing commitment of US military forces and all hinging upon an
agreement on Diem's part to undertake reforms. The Joint Chiefs of Staff
generally agreed with the interim recommandatians but went on record that
the United States should commit itself to the clear objective of preventing
the fall of South Vietnam, including involvement of US military forces if
necessary. (57) After accomplishing individual survey tasks, the principals
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of the Taylor mission assembled at Baguio in the Philippines where they
continued to receive information While they were drawing up a very long
report for President Kennedy that was completed on 3 November. In addition
to recommendations for political, governmental, and administrative reforms'
by the Diem government, the basic thrust.of the report favored increased
military aid and advisory support for a broadly conceived counter-guerrilla
campaign inside South Vietnam. In this effort the United States should
expand its HAAG into something approximating an operational headquarters in
a theater of war, build up its military advisors to some 8,000 men, step up
Vietnamese training, improve intelligence and communications, place more
emphasis on research and development, and give quick military and economic
support to limited RVNAF offensive operations. In addition to the use of
US military units for combat support tasks, the report mentioned an alter-
native deployment of possibly 10,000 US ground troops to Vietnam, this
force to be used for defensive duties, releasing ARVN units for service
against insurgents. Although Taylor and his colleagues conceived that the
major requirement was for American support for a counterinsurgency campaign
inside Vietnam, they warned that future requirements beyond the recunnended
counterinsurgency program would depend upon the nature of the settlement
ultimately attained in Laos and the manner in which Hanoi adjusted its
conduct to such a settlement. If Hanoi continued its guerrilla infiltration
the time could come when the United States would be compelled "to attack the
source of guerrilla aggression in North Viet-Nam and impose an the Hanoi
government a price far participating in the current war which is commensurate
with the damage being inflicted an its neighbors to the south." (58)
As had been their attitude toward the interim report, the Joint Chiefs
of Staff regarded the final Taylor mission proposals as being less forceful
than the situation demanded. Observing that loss of South Vietnam would
lead to rapid communization of neighboring nations, they desired deployment
of strong US military forces rather than a gradual entry of combat support
units. They proposed to warn Hanoi of punitive action unless Vietcong
aggression ceased. (59) Back in his post as Chairman of the State Depart-
ment Policy Planning Council, Rostow was reported to have argued forcibly
for a contingency policy of retaliation against North Vietnam, graduated to
match the intensity of Hanoi's support to the Vietcong. At his request
PACAF had provided Rostdw with two aerial target lists to support such a
concept of reprisal harassment against North Vietnam. (60) Admiral Felt
could see advantages and disadvantages in introducing US combat forces into
Vietnam, but he held' to the opinion that the United States should not
introduce large numbers of combat forces until it had taken the other means
available to support, the South Vietnamese that he had recommended on
18 October and which had been substantially accepted in the Taylor report.
(61)
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The proposed military options in South Vietnam were discussed at the
National Security Council on 11 November. A joint State-Defense memorandum
of 13 November, made after consultations in which the Joint Chiefs did not
participate, was unfavorable to a commitment of US combat troops in Vietnam,
reasoning that such could cause a military escalation, would provoke apathy
and possibly hostility among South Vietnamese, might jeopardize chances of
securing a political- settlement in Laos, and could promote political reper-
cussions within the United States if ITS forces were unilaterally employed
independently of SEATO. (62) On 13 November, President Kennedy approved
increased US airlift for the Diem forces to include helicopters, light
aviation, and transport aircraft and USAF personnel and aircraft for air
reconnaissance and aerial spray operations. (63) After discussing the
State-Defense memorandum with the Nttional Security Council, President Kennedy
announced on 16 November that he would follow the recommendations of the Taylor
report and bolster South Vietnam's military strength but that he would not
commit US combat forces at that time. On 22 November he further directed that
Diem would be informed of US willingness to increase aid in a joint undertaking.
The United States would provide more men and equipment, step up training, and
help establish better communications and intelligence systems. In turn, Diem
would be expected to place South Vietnam on a war footing, mobilize its
resources, give its government adequate authority, and overhaul the RVNAF
military establishment and command structure. The military clause of NSAM 111
issued on 22 November authorized uniformed US military personnel in South
Vietnam for "air reconnaissance, photography, instruction in and execution of
air-ground support techniques, and for special intelligence." (64)
3. US Military Command Arrangements: 2d ADVON AND MAO'
In May 1961 Admiral Felt had irdicated that in the event that US combat
forces were sent to Vietnam he would expect the US MAAG Chief to be designated
Commander, US Forces Vietnam, and given operational control -- under CINCPAC --
of all American forces. In contingency plans for possible US operations in
Southeast Asia, Admiral Felt had approved the concept that Joint Task Force
116 would be deployed to the threatened area and that the Commander JTF 116
would be provided Army, Navy, and USAF component commanders. The impending
deployment of US combat support units to Vietnam early in November 1961 did
not exactly fit either contemplated situation, and new ideas were required
to meet the command situation.
In Hawaii, Lt. Gen. Paul D. Harkins, CC Army Forces in the Pacific,
considered that the command situation in Vietnam could be most adequately
managed by a "double-hattind'arrangement whereby the Chief US MAAG Vietnam
would be recognized in an expanded role as Commander US Forces Vietnam.
General McGarr in Saigon also indicated that he expected to exercise control
over the Jungle Jim squadron detachment when it reached Vietnam. At first
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Admiral Felt was willing to accept this arrangement, which would have been
appropriate to a training situation. On the other hand, PACAF protested
that the Jungle Jim detachment would have both an overt training and a covert
operational mission and that by law a MAAG was not authorized to command or
control military operations. PACAF also anticipated a significant increase
in air operations both in Vietnam and throughout Southeast Asia and recommended
that it be permitted to establish an advance echelon of Thirteenth Air Force
headquarters in Saigon to exercise command and control over USAF units in
Southeast Asia. (65)
The PACAF recommendation was in context with existing CINCPAC contingency
planning, and an 2 November Admiral Felt accepted it in his directive issued
to Generals O'Donnell and McGarr. Felt noted that the detachment of the
4400th Combat Crew Training Squadron would have an avert training mission
but that it might be called upon to conduct covert operational missions in
support of RVNAF actions against the Vietcong within the borders of South
Vietnam. The CINCPAC responsibility for the avert training mission would
be carried out through the Chief MAAG, who would function through the Chief,
Air Force Section, MAAG. The CINCPAC responsibility for the covert opera-
tional mission would be carried out through CINCPACAF, and by CINCPACAF
through the commander of an Advance Echelon, Thirteenth Air Force, to be
established in Vietnam. In order tb provide close coordination of both overt
and covert air missions, the Chief, Air Force Section, MAAG, and the Commander,
Advance Echelon, Thirteenth Air Force, would be the same man, and, although
assigned to the MAAG, he would have dual but equal responsibilities to both
CINCPACAF and Chief, MAAG Vietnam. The advance echelon commander would also
be responsible for all Air Force activities in Southeast Asia that were not
assigned MAAG functions, and for this reason PACAF was authorized to establish
detachments of the advance echelon at Don Muang in Thailand and elsewhere as
required. In recognition of the increased responsibilities incumbent upon
the new position, Felt recommended to the Joint Chiefs of Staff that the
rank of the Chief, Air Force Section, MAAG Vietnam be raised to that of
brigadier general. He also recognized that the Advance Echelon, Thirteenth
Air Force, would have to have some activity name against which it could levy
requisitions for personnel and support, but he enjoined that such a name
would avoid any appearance that a new US command was being introduced into
Southeast Asia. (66)
The movement of PACAF units into South Vietnam were conducted with the
utmost secrecy. The 6009th Tactical Support Group was established at
Tachikawa Air Base in Japan as a contingency war plan organization under
command of Colonel Claude G. McKinney. It was alerted an 28 October and
deployed to Clark Air Base an 1 November. Three days later the group went
to Bien Hoa where it began to establish base facilities to receive the
Jungle Jim detachment. (67) Detachment 2, 4400th Combat Crew Training
Squadron commenced departure from Florida an 5 November, and while the
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deployment was in progress the detachment was given the nickname of
"Farm Gate" in order to avoid continuing confusion with the "Jungle Jim"
designation of the parent squadron organization remaining in Florida.
Colonel King led the oversea flight of Farm Gate's four SC-47s, while the
eight T-28s were disassembled and airlifted to Clark Air Base, where they
were reassembled and flown by two's to Tan Son Nhut and thence to Bien Hoa.
The planes arrived at Tan Son Nhut on international flight plans as American
aircraft, but at Bien Hoa they were given new tail numbers and repainted
with VNAF insignia. The first planes arrived at Bien Hoa an 14 November,
and Farm Gate was operationally ready on 16 November, although all of its
SC-47s and T-28s were not on hand until 24 November. Early in December
Colonel King took delivery of four of the B-26s that had been sent to the
Far East earlier in the year for possible clandestine employment in Laos;
these attack bombers were euphemistically described as RB-26s, but they
were hard-nose strafing models and not photo aircraft. By all reports the
151 men of Farm Gate were highly motivated. General O'Donnell described
Farm Gate as "a hot outfit ready to go" and said that it would be "hard to
hold back.? (68)
By 11 November, Farm Gate was enroute to Vietnam, additional deployments
of a Ranch Hand detachment of six aerial spray-equipped C-123s and a Mule
Train 0-123 air transport squadron were impending, and plans were being
made to use USAF personnel to establish a tactical air control system in
Vietnam. Preparatory to closing out the Pipe Stem RF-101 reconnaissance
operations at Tan Son Nhut, the 45th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron from
Misawa Air Base was beginning Able Mable detachment reconnaissance flights
from Don Muang Airfield in Thailand, but Detachment 1, 15th Tactical Recon-
naissance Squadron, would continue to operate a photo processing cell at
Tan Son Nhut after the withdrawal of the Pipe Stem RF-101s. Even though
Secretary McNamara had not yet given approval for the assignnent of a USAF
brigadier general in Saigon, General O'Donnell thought it imperative to
proceed with the establishment of a PACAF command organization that would
be able to take control of Air Force activities in South Vietnam and
Southeast Asia. (69)
As his personal selection to fill the two-hat position of Chief, Air
Force Section MAAG Vietnam and Commander, Advance Echelon Thirteenth Air
Force, General O'Donnell nominated Brigadier General Rollen H. Anthis, who
was serving as Vice Commander, Thirteenth Air Force. Anthis had a good back-
ground on the situation in Southeast Asia, and both General O'Donnell and
General Moorman agreed that there were "few brigadiers in whom we have
any greater confidence." While Anthis awaited orders from Washington,
PACAF issued instructions an 15 November for an air unit in Southeast
Asia which met the criteria of anonymity specified by Admiral Felt two
weeks earlier. The order directed the establishment of Detachment 7,
Thirteenth Air Force, in Saigon, and Detachments 8, 9, and 10 of an
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organization described as "2d Advon" at Tan Son Nhut, Bien Hoa, and Don Muang.
The designation "2d Advon" had no meaning and was used because of Admiral
Felt's admonition that the advance echelon in South Vietnam would not be
described as a command. The advance echelon commander was not supposed to
have a staff, but Felt winked at the burying of such a staff in Detachment 7.
At Tan Son Nhut, Detachment 8 (2d Advon) was established to serve as what
Anthis would describe as the "prime set-up" for an air operations center,
combat reporting center, and the photo processing cell. Detachments 9
(2d Advon) and 10 (2d Advon) were organized at Bien Hoa and Don Muang vice
the 6009th and 6010th Tactical Support Groups, the emergency war plan units
that had been used as a vehicle for deploying base service personnel to
-those locations. In General Moorman's words, 2d Advon was a "freak," but
the arrangement provided a means for controlling USAF operations in South-
east Asia and met requirements that unit designations Should be meaningless.
(70)
Having received authority from Secretary McNamara to assign a USAF
brigadier general as Chief, Air Force Section MAAG Vietnam, Admiral Felt
concurred on 16 November in the assignment of Anthis to the dual position of
Chief, Air Farce Section MAAG Vietnam and Commander, 2d Advon. (71) On
20 November, Anthis arrived in Saigon, first establishing the 2d Advon office
in a roam in the downtown Brink Hotel. Within a few days, however, Anthis
secured another office adjacent to the one occupied by Colonel Vinh in the
VNAF headquarters building at Tan San Nhut. The reason for Anthis' assignment
was quite puzzling to Colonel Vinh, and Ambassador Nolting, who first learned
about the 2d Advon on 24 November, informed the State Department that he
found it incomprehensible that a new US military headquarters Should have
been established in Vietnam without prior consultation with the US Ambassador
and the Government of Vietnam. Molting asked Anthis to delay any further
organizational activities until he could get some clarification, and he
wanted it precisely understood that any combat or quasi-combat operations
carried out by 2d Advon in Vietnam would be cleared with him in advance.
After several messages were passed, Admiral Felt convinced Molting that the
2d Advon was not a new command but rather an organization to administer
and control PACAF elements that might be deployed in Southeast Asia, in
coordination with MAAG Vietnam if such were appropriate, and by early
December the EMbassy had no further objections to 2d Advon. (72) As
initially set up, Detachments 7, 8, and 9 were small units, austerely manned
by key personnel drawn on temporary duty from the Fifth Air Force, Thirteenth
.Air Force, and Headquarters PACAF. The absence of key personnel necessarily
affected the other PACAF activities, so much so that it was obvious by
mid-December that General O'Donnell was going to have to get personnel
assistance from USAF. (73)
While the organization of 2d Advon was in progress, similar discussions
were in progress looking toward a reorganization of the overall US military
command function in South Vietnam. In Washington, US Army officials were
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(71_or
a driving force in an effort to establish a completely new US unified
command in Vietnam separate from the US Pacific Command. Generals Harkins
and McGarr, however, continued to advocate a double-hatting whereby the
Chief, MAAG Vietnam, -would also serve as Commander US Forces Vietnam. (74)
On 22 November the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended to Secretary McNamara
that a subordinate unified command under CINCPAC designated as US Forces
Vietnam would be organized in Saigon, with Army, Navy, and Air Force
component commands. The Joint Chiefs conceived that the COMUS Vietnam would
be co-equal in status with the US Ambassador, and that the new command would
draw together all US activities in the country (including intelligence, the
MAAG, and economic assistance with military implications) that were related
to the counterinsurgency effort. (75) On 27 November Secretary McNamara
approved the establishment ofCOMUS Vietnam and provided that it would be
headed by a four star commander. (76) Where this recommendation negated
the CINCPAC contingency planning concept for a possible employment of
JTF-116 into South Vietnam, Admiral Felt considered that the enlargement
of the MAAG with additional personnel, ? the deployment of PACAF units into
Vietnam, and the impending arrival of US Army helicopter companies indicated
a need for COMUS Vietnam. He proposed that the Commander, 2d Advon, would
immediately begin to serve as the air component commander to COMUS Vietnam,
that an Army component command would be organized upon the arrival of the
US Army helicopter companies, and that a Navy component would be provided
for but not established until some US .naval forces were assigned. (77) Felt
proposed that the COMUS should be provided a small joint staff, and on
8 December he forwarded a detailed table of distribution for the MACV
J-Staff to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, under which a US Army general would
be the COMUS and the Air Force would be allocated responsibility for filling
the positions of Chief of Staff, J-2 Intelligence, and J-5 Plans. (78)
In the high policy level discussions of the US command arrangements in
South Vietnam it was obvious that the establishment of a four-star COMUS
Vietnam would signal a major commitment of US prestige and would constitute
an endorsement of the viability of President Diem's government. In their
recommendation on 22 November, the Joint Chiefs therefore proposed that
before altering the command structure the United States should clearly define
its objectives in Vietnam and extract a commitment for a joint military
program from Diem. (79) Admiral Felt suggested that the establishment of
the new US command might well provide Diem with the assurance of American
support that he appeared to require before implementing corrective reforms
in his government. (80) On 5 December General LeMay was so gravely concerned
that the level of assistance proposed for South Vietnam would not be sufficient
to defeat the Vietcong that he asked the Joint Chiefs of Staff to inform
Secretary McNamara and the President that a clear statement of US objectives
was urgent, together with a positive contingency commitment to introduce US
forces into South Vietnam for overt operations if enemy military actions
demanded it. (81) Other than for making a few RVNAF organizational chanes,
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however, President Diem had not been willing to accept a military counter-
insurgency plan. In an effort to get an acceptable plan, MAAG Vietnam in
October 1961 had prepared a limited venture for clearing the Vietcong out
of Zone D, one idea being that a pilot-experience would give the RVNAF
experience in counterinsurgency operations and the other being that the
Diem government badly needed to score a military victory to maintain morale.
On 6 December Admiral Felt provided General McGarr with a revised draft of
a CINCPAC outline plan for comprehensive military action with a suggestion
that it be given to General Minh to be used as his awn. One of the essential
features of this plan involved important authority to be given to an ARVN
counterinsurgency task force commander who would be able to concentrate
military units in the area in which counterinsurgency operations were under-
taken, the concentration being thought necessary in order to provide something
on the order of an 18 to 1 preponderancy of force believed essential for anti-
guerrilla warfare. (82)
Where the Department of Defense appeared to favor stronger support for
Diem including establishment of COMUS Vietnam, the Department of State was
more skeptical. In New Delhi, US Ambassador John Kenneth Galbraith received
an impression from Indian diplomats that Diem was losing his evocative
leadership and support within South Vietnam. Unhappy about the Taylor-
Rostow report, Galbraith made a personal trip to Saigon and on 20 November
wrote President Kennedy a personal letter urging that Diem was "a wasting
asset" who was "losing, not gaining popularity." He recommended that the
United States should not seek to build Diem up and was strongly opposed to
putting US ground troops into Vietnam. (83) In regard to COMUS Vietnam both
Secretary Rusk and Ambassador Nolting opposed the proposal on the ground
that it was too drastic a change. In a counter-proposal the State Department
recommended extension of the authority of the MAAG Chief over the additional
US military forces and over portions of economic aid and intelligence related
to counterinsurgency. State was particularly opposed to assignment of a
four-star US military commander in Saigon, believing this would be "an
irrevocable and 100 percent cammitment to saving South Vietnam." (84)
In November and December the actions of Diem's government were not
reassuring to the United States. In an apparent response to American demands
for reform, the Presidential Palace in Saigon was credited with preparing a
series of newspaper articles which denounced the United States for imperialism.
(85) Diem continued to drag his feet in regard to the establishment of an
inviolate chain of command in the RVNAF and giving General Minh unimpeded
authority as Chief of the Field Command, and General Minh reported that his
friends were asking him if his request to command the joint task force proposed
for the operation in Zone D was designed to give him control over forces for
a possible coup. (86) Other RVNAF officers felt that the United States was
pushing too hard; they referred to counterinsurgency planning as the "American
Plan." (87) Conversation between Diem, Nolting, and McGarr revealed that
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Diem did not believe that American ideas and methods would necessarily fit
his country. In the matter of military advisors, Diem wanted to approve
categories of US advisors on a case by case basis because he explained that
"he didn't want to give the monopoly an nationalism to Ho Chi Minh." (88)
Having employed resettlement projects of his own, Diem was attracted to the
ideas of Sir Robert K. G. Thompson, the former Permanent Defense Secretary
of Malaya during the insurgency there, who arrived in Saigon in September 1961
as head of a British advisory mission. In the month of Thampson's arrival,
the Government of Vietnam Strategic Hamlet Program was initiated under the
guidance of Diem's brother and political advisor, Ngo Dinh Nhu. Diem quoted
Thompson as saying that the British had lost three years in their counter-
insurgency effort in Malaya by not building a pacification and development
infrastructure and by initial reliance on military solutions. He pointed
out that the American Zone D plan was an example of a militarily-oriented
plan. It would be fine if it were a successful operation, but a failure
would be very detrimental to the morals of the ARVN and of the country. At
any rate, no ground work had been laid in Zone D which would permanently
separate the Vietcong from the people. Diem believed that permanent victory
would depend upon a restoration of faith of the people in the government, and
that resettlement would be necessary in accordance with a long range strategic
plan. (89)
The uncertainties involved in the proposals for the organization of the
expanded US assistance effort and the strategic concepts to be followed made
it very difficult for General O'Donnell and his PACAF staff in Hawaii. On
13 November O'Donnell nevertheless advised Felt that the establishment of a
country-wide tactical air control system (TACS) to permit the most effective
use of the limited VNAF capabilities was the single most pressing requirement
in Vietnam. The Vietnamese did not have such a system and could not provide
it. This proposal was taken under study by the PACOM staff, where the initial
reaction was that the existing VNAF control system was rudimentary but possibly
adequate. (90) General McGarr,s plan for handling the US Army H-21 helicopter
transport companies contributed to the TACS problem. He was preparing to
assign the two companies which the Joint Chiefs ordered deployed on 21 November
to the control of the US Army Senior Corps Advisors, one at Tan Son Nhut in
support of the III Corps and the other at Qui Nhon in support of II Corps.
The Joint Chiefs authorized a third H.21 company on 4 December, and McGarr
slated it for location at Da Nang in support of the I Corps. McGarr also
urged the RVNAF Joint General Staff to reorganize VNAF's three L-19 squadrons
and one H-34 squadron into four composite squadrons, three of which he con-
ceived would be located at the three corps field headquarters under operational
control of the corps commanders and the fourth to be held in general support
under operational control of the Commander, Field Command. With this reorgani-
zation, McGarr conceived that each ARVN corps would have an organic capability
for adequate L-19 reconnaissance, sufficient helicopter lift to move combat
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patrols of platoon or company-size forces and to effect critical resupply
and casualty evacuation, and a means for accamplishing staff and command
liaison. On 2 December General McGarr also requested allocation of a
number of US Argy AC-1 Caribou light air transports, L-20 and L-28 liaison
aircraft, and UH-1 helicopters to be used in support of MAAG Army field
advisors, a request which the Department of Army preferred to meet by
assigning officially constituted units rather than detachments of aircraft.
(91) During late November and early December there was uncertainty as to
how the 16 Mille Train C-123 air transport aircraft which the 346th Troop
Carrier Squadron (Assault) was deploying from Pope Air Force Base, North
Carolina, would be controlled and employed in Vietnam. In order to secure
maximum utilization of this airlift General O'Donnell visualized central
control; he proposed that the Mule Train squadron would be based at Clark
and would maintain a detachment of operational aircraft at Tan Son Nhut
subject to mission priorities and allocations of airlift space by General
McGarr but under operatibnal control of Commander, 2d Advon. But Admiral
Felt had agreed to the allocation of the US Army helicopter transport
companies to the ARVN corps areas and early in December he was considering
a similar division of the C-123s between the corps areas. (92)
On the other hand Admiral Felt agreed that Farm Gate tactical aircraft
must be under the control of Cammander, 2d Advon, and shortly after Secretary
McNamara directed USAF on 10 November to furnish six Ranch Hand spray-equipped
aircraft for employment in Vietnam, Felt assigned operational control over
spray operations to PACAF and 2d Avon and gave planning and coordinating
responsibilities to General McGarr. There was now same question as to how
the Ranch Hand and Farm Gate units would be profitably employed. In regard
to herbicide operations the Vietcong had already gathered their seasonal
crops and it was too late to employ the Ranch Hand spray aircraft against
the enemy's food, but General McGarr's plan for Zone D visualized defoliation
flights into this heavily forested, lightly populated, jungle area. The plan
envisioned selective strip defoliation around the zone's perimeter and along
roads and trails penetrating into the base area. (93) Despite the original
concept that Farm Gate might be employed in covert operations, Admiral Felt
advised General McGarr on 16 November that the primary mission of the detach-
ment would be to conduct tactical training and tactical pilot up-grading for
VNAF, the objective being to get VNAF pilots checked out and combat ready in
T-28s on a priority basis. (94)
On 3 December General O'Donnell began a six day visit in South Vietnam
and Thailand, and in a two hour visit with Diem he found that the Vietnamese
President was intensely interested in getting a better employment of airpower
against the Vletcong. Diem presented an elaborate map talk of the Vietcong
organizational structure extending dawn the north/south Annamite mountains
into base areas in the "Nam Bo," the "southern area" or roughly old Cochin
China. In the northern mountains including parts of Kontum, Quang Tin, and
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Quang Ngai provinces, Interzone V provided a receptacle for infiltrators
arriving from the north and west, the main area of Interzone V being called
War Zone X or the Do Xa war zone. Interzone V funnelled men and supplies
south to the Nam Bo war zones, which included Zone C in northwestern Tay Ninh
province adjacent to the Cambodian border; Zone D northeast of Saigon in
heavy jungles of Phuoc Long, Binh Long, and Phuoc Thanh provinces; the
Cong Thap Mtoi war zone where the Cambodian province of Svay Rieng juts out
into Vietnam in the conformation called the "Parrot's Beak;" and the Upper
and Lower U-Minh war zones, in the U-Minh forest of the Mekong Delta's
Ca Mau peninsula. Diem developed as a principal theme the vital significance
of airfields and air transport to his national communications; he stressed
the point that air operations must assume considerably increased importance
in the more intense operations he foresaw. Defense Minister Thuan also
talked with O'Donnell about an increasing role for the air effort and stressed
the importance of accelerated construction of an airfield in the central high-
lands at Pleiku. These conversations led O'Donnell to believe that Diem was
willing to approve an expanded air effort, and, if the TACS could be installed,
O'Donnell believed that Diem would get a demonstration of the advantages that
could be attained by establishing clear channels for the control of his military
forces. On the other hand, Colonel Vinh was gravely concerned about General
MhGarr's desire to divide up the small pilot and technical capability of the
VNAF and to establish an "ARVN air force." Vinh's main hope for expanding
VNAF tactical fighter strength lay in up-grading L-19 and C-47 pilots; if the
liaison squadrons were transferred to ARVN control this would be impossible.
And, of course, the transfer of the VNAF helicopters and liaison squadrons
could not be supported by very limited maintenance and repair facilities.
Vinh not only opposed the plan very vocally, but in November he sought to
forestall its effects by approving the requests of a good many L-19 pilots
and instructors for fighter transition, admitting privately that possibly
half of the men were probably not really qualified for fighter training. (95)
In his increased manifestation ,of interest in air matters, President
Diem approved a concept for a Ranch Hand defoliation of jungle cover along
key roads on 4 December, and on this same day Admiral Felt directed PACAF
to develop a concept for a combat employment of Farm Gate within South
Vietnam. On 4 December in Washington, Secretary McNamara met with the Joint
Chiefs of Staff and approved the use of Farm Gate aircraft on combat missions
with "US/GVN" crews, and on 6 December the Joint Chiefs approved such missions,
provided a combined US and Vietnamese crew was aboard the aircraft. (96)
Submitted to CINCPAC on 6 December the PACAF concept for Farm Gate provided
that, using the training function as a cover, US aircraft and personnel would
be employed in support of RVNAF actions against the Vietcong within the borders
of South Vietnam with the objectives of denying Vietcong supply routes and
concentrations, establishing armed air patrols of South Vietnam's borders and
shore lines, seeking out and destroying/disrupting Vietcong command and control
organization, seeking out and destroying any Communist airlift into South
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Vietnam, and developing and implementing an aggressive program of offensive
air operations. Thase Farm Gate missions would be controlled by Commander
2d Advon, but as soon as possible a simplified TACS would be needed to
permit full utilization of both Farm Gate and VNAF strike aircraft. (97)
The CINCPAC draft outline plan for comprehensive military action against
the Vietcong sent to Saigon on 6 December contained many of these air
actions. The objectives would be to attack Vietcong lifelines and support
bases with anti-guerrilla ground operations and air actions. The plan
called for development of combat air bases at Da Nang and Pleiku and provided
that air operations would stress photo reconnaissance, air surveillance of
coastal regions, and close air support to include timely strikes against
enemy targets located by operating forces. (98) In reporting his conversations
with Diem to Admiral Felt, General O'Donnell noted that US evaluations were
turning up many lucrative targets for air strikes, and he again emphasized
that a limited TACS and a jointly manned VNAF-USAF air operations center would
be needed. On 8 December, Admiral Felt gave his approval for the establishment
of the limited tactical air control system, and for the moment it appeared
that Eft Gate would be cleared for combat operations. On 15 December, however,
Ambassador Nolting directed that no F_arm. Gate combat mission should be flown
until he authorized it. (99)
While in a conversation with President Kennedy in November, Secretary
McNamara had "volunteered to look after" the war in Vietnam, (100) and in
order to examine approaches to the Vietnamese problem McNamara and General
Lemnitzer met with Admiral Felt and the CINCPAC component commanders in
Hawaii on 16 December, thus initiating a series of Secretary of Defense
conferences which would be held each month for several months and periodically
in either Hawaii or Saigon following this. In initial remarks, McNamara
revealed on 16 December that State-Defense negotiations would delay organiza-
tion of a new US military headquarters in Saigon and that it was President
Kennedy's policy not to introduce US combat troops into Vietnam at this time.
After hearing an intelligonce briefingL)r.1 27NAF operations, McNamara expressed
concern at the danger of antagonizing people by indiscriminate bombing. He
also stated that Nhile naval and air support operations are desirable, they
won t be too effective and we should not think they will end the war." When
briefed on General McGarr's Zone D plan and Diem's reluctance to implement
it, McNamara expressed some sympathy for Diem's personal position and
suggested that McGarr and Nolting should attempt to get agreement on specific
proposals rather than press Diem to agree to general concepts. At the close
of this discussion item, McNamara and Lemnitzer instructed Felt and McGarr
to continue to press for the Zone D operation but to try to get Diem to
agree to smaller warm-up operations as a beginning of a counterinsurgency
campaign. The same instructions were applicable to border control; here it
was important to start active patrolling and ambushing measures at the most
vulnerable spots along the Lao border. (101)
In area of special Air Force interest, General O'Donnell considered that
he got a fairly favorable reaction from the Secretary of Defense and the
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Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. McNamara and Lemnitzer approved a
combat employment of Farm Gate within South Vietnam, provided operational
missions were flown with a Vietnamese on board. General Lemnitzer thought
that there might be some covert employment for Farm Gate later on, but he
again specified that all missions would be limited to South Vietnam, since
Farm Gate was an experimental unit committed to South Vietnam -- not Laos.
Where Admiral Felt had been querying OlDonnelLas to the practicality of
installing a TACS in phased increments, the Secretary of Defense directed
O'Donnell to set up the tactical air control system from PACAF assets as
soon as possible, a time that O'Donnell promised would be about two weeks.
When General NbGarr's plan to transfer VNAF units to ARVN control was dis-
cussed, Admiral Felt opposed it on the ground that team-work was required
rather than reorganization, and MbNamara agreed. Instead of establishing
an ARVN air force, the Secretary of Defense and CINCPAC asked McGarr and
Nolting to press Diem for a truly unified defense organization and to
elevate the VNAF and Vietnamese Navy to an equal level with ARVN on the
Joint General Staff. McNamara also agreed with O'Donnell's proposal that
USAF and VNAF. air operations Should be coordinated and directed through a
joint operations center, with a USAF commander controlling US operations
and the VNAF commander controlling Vietnamese air operations. In the
discussion of the deployment of Mule Train, McNamara emphasized that this
was combat air lift and he intended it to be used not for taxi service but
to support combat effort, to include, for example, air drops of material
and South Vietnamese personnel. The discussion of an employment for the
spray-equipped Ranch Hand aircraft brought out the fact that there was little
experience as to how well defoliation would work and that Diem had not agreed
to assume responsibility for such activity. General O'Donnell thought that
the success of the Zone D operation might depend too much on untried ?
defoliation, and Ambassador Nalting pointed out that defoliation would alert
the Vietcong to impending operations. Secretary McNamara nevertheless expressed
eagerness to see limited defoliation of key transportation routes begin quickly
in order to get the project going. (102)
Throughout the day-long conference, Secretary McNamara emphasized that,
except for the limitation against employment of US combat forces, manpower
and money would not be permitted to stand in the way of getting the job done
in Vietnam. He wanted to get US Army operations and intelligence advisors
into the field with ARVN units, and he announced an intention of calling
upon the services to augment the MAO with highest quality personnel to
provide intensive guidance at the South Vietnamese unit level. He approved
construction items to provide POL facilities at Qui Nhon and Tan Son Nhut
and to improve the airfield at Pleiku. As the conference ended, McNamara
concluded by stating that he had only one objective in South Vietnam "that
is to win this battle." (103) In summarizing the significant developments
of the Secretary's Conference, General O'Donnell was impressed by Secretary
McNamara's "extremely strong statement of US determination that South Vietnam
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would not be permitted to fall to Communism." (104) Very soon, however,
organizational and operational policies originating both in Washington and
in Saigon revealed that the United States would continue to follow a cautious
course emphasizing ground rather than air action.
Both Admiral Felt and General O'Donnell believed that over-cautious
policies that had restricted air employment in Laos had not been in the best
interest of the United States, and, given authority to employ Farm Gate
aircraft with combined US-VNAF crews inside South Vietnam, they were anxious
to commence air strikes. On 23 December, Admiral Felt informed Generals
McGarr and O'Donnell that Able Mable and Pipe Stem reconnaissance had revealed
many Vietcong targets which were "ripe for popping." He directed them to
coordinate with the Government of Vietnam and to begin to employ Farm Gate
and VNAF aircraft against targets that would "carry fight into the heart of
the Vietcong." (105) Since the Farm Gate Crews were ready and impatient for
action, General Anthis received the directive with high optimism. (106)
In Washington, however, General Lemnitzer received an information copy of
the Felt message, and on 26 December he messaged CINCPAC that Farm Gate
would be employed on combat missions only when the TTAF did not have the
capability (because of lack of training, equipment, etc.) to perform the
required missions. Such a utilization of Farm Gate would be with a combined
US and VNAF crew, and all such missions would be for the purpose of pro-
viding necessary training for Vietnamese personnel so that the VNAF could
perform the required missions at the earliest possible date. (107)
The same cautious attitude was evidenced in connection with defoliation
operations, which the US State Department mistrusted because it feared that
the employment of even common non-toxic herbicidal chemicals in world-wide
agricultural use would provoke Communist charges of chemical warfare. As a
result of conceptual planning already noted, the USAF Tactical Air Command
was directed to deploy an aerial spray detachment as a crash project. The
on17 ITS_47 r,r7nr7ati= 7:4th any Juch activizy was an aeriai
spray detachment at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia. On 211 NovPmbr,
personnel from Langley and aircrews and six C-123 aircraft from the 464th
Troop Carrier Wing at Pope Air Force Base, North Carolina were organized as
Tactical Air Force Transport Squadron Provisional-1, with Captain Carl W.
Marshall as Officer-in-Charge. Bringing six C-123s and 69 men, this provi-
sional squadron -- nicknamed Ranch Hand -- arrived at Clark Air Base on
6 December, where it awaited policy decisions as to its use. In the next
several weeks very meticulous plans were prepared by the country team in
Saigon, reviewed and substantially reduced in scope and tightened in
procedure by CINCPAC, and again reviewed and limited by the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, who on 12 January 1962 authorized a test spray flight along
Highway 15 between Bien Hoa and Vung Tau (Cap St. Jacques). Arriving at
Tan Son Nhut on 6 January, the Ranch Hand crews studied aerial photographs
and made two familiarization flights along Highway 15 before flying their
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first spray mission an 13 January. According to the rules for such operations,
RVNAF personnel were to be aboard etch spray plane to identify the proper
objective; Vietnamese were to be used to the maxillxum extent possible in the
ground handling of the defoliant ahamicals; all areas where food crops were
growing were to be strictly avoided; and province chiefs were to be given
three days advance notice of spray flights in order to explain the non-toxic
activity to citizens who might be affected. Since the 0-123 spray aircraft
had no armor plating, General O'Donnell feared that advance notice of their
activity would make them very vulnerable to Vietcong ground fire, and 2d
Advon scheduled fighter cover for the 0-123 spray operations. Despite this
precaution, a 0-123 on a familiarization mission was lost on 2 February with
its entire crew. The cause for this first US aircraft loss in Vietnam was
unknown, but enemy ground fire or sabotage were distinct possibilities. (108)
At the same time that Washington policy makers were providing Farm Gate
and Ranch Hand with operational restrictions, fewer precautions were attached
to the US Army helicopter and fixed-wing aviation units and to the USAF Mule
Train 0-123 squadron deployed to South Vietnam to provide combat support for
the RVNAF. In fact the H-21 helioapters of the 8th and 57th Helicopter
Companies arrived at the port of Saigon aboard a US aircraft carrier on
11 December, in full view of representatives of the International Control
Commission, who promptly recorded the violation of the Geneva agreement.
According to the HAAG plan, these companies were based at Tan Son Nhut and
Qui Nhon under the operational control of the US Army senior advisors to the
ARVN III and II Corps. On 26 January 1962, the US Army 93d Helicopter
Company arrived at Da Nang and was placed under operational control of the
US Army senior advisor to the ARVN I Corps. These helicopter companies were
charged to fly combat support missions for the RVNAF for which VNAF units
were not yet qualified and to help:in training ARVN in air mobility tactics.
In addition to these helicopters, the Army deployed the 18th Fixed Wing
Aviation Company with 16 U-1 Otter!aircraft; after arriving at Nha Trang
on 7 February the liaison aircraft: (which could transport 2,000 pounds of
cargo or seven passengers) gave support to US Army field advisors. In its
initial planning, the MAAG considered that one H-21 helicopter company to
each ARVN corps "was about right," but in January 1962 Secretary McNamara
emphasized that if more helicopter:companies were required the MAAG should
not hesitate to ask for them. (109)
As was the case with the US Army helicopters, rules of operation for
the USAF Mule Train 0-123 assault transport aircraft deployed to Vietnam
permitted the aircraft to bear US markings. Under command of Lt Col
Floyd K. Shafner, the 346th Troop Carrier Squadron -- which would comprise
Tactical Air Force Transport Squadron Provisional -2, also known as the
Mule Train detachment -- launched its first eight C-123s from Pope Air Force
Base on 20 December, and the first four Mule Train planes went on from Clark
to Tan Son Nhut on 2 January, where they flew their first mission on the
following day. According to a revised basing plan, the Mule Train squadron
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was in place in South Vietnam by 27 January, 12 of the C-123s being operated
from the main location at Tan Son Nhut, two from Da Nang, and four being in
rotation to and from Clark for necessary maintenance. In the organizational
control of Mule Train PACAF was able to prevent division of the C-123s
between the ARVN corps areas, and instead the planes were operated under
2d Advon as a part of a tactical airlift system in South Vietnam which included
the C-47s of the VNAF 1st Transport Squadron. With the arrival of the first
C-123s, the US MAAG established a joint airlift allocations board (JAAB) to
determine the priorities and make space allocations for airlift requested by
US users. In the VNAF-USAF Joint Operations Center being established at
Tan Son Nhut, airlift officers from PACAF's 315th Air Division (Combat Cargo)
joined VNAF representatives to man the JOC Airlift Branch, which received
validated requests for airlift and planned, controlled, and directed the
actual performance of air transport flights by either USAF C-123 or VNAF
C-47 aircraft. In addition to airlift services, Mule Train was charged to
provide training and support for the operations of the ARVN airborne brigade.
(110) While this rudimentary airlift organization provided some centralized
control and permitted a more efficient use of scarce air transportation, it
failed to work as efficiently as expected. The JAAB never functioned according
to the concept for it, and, unable to get firm advance priorities for airlift,
the JOC Airlift Branch frequently had to make sudden changes in the daily frag
orders issued to Mule Train, causing inefficiency and confusion at the opera-
ting and air terminal levels. Within the JOC Airlift Branch, VNAF personnel
handled the scheduling of Vietnamese air transport planes and seldom provided
an exact accounting of the VNAF C-47 activities. As a matter of practice,
the USAF officers in the JOC Airlift Branch scheduled C-123 sorties when the
C-47 lift could not meet RVNAF requests. PArly in 1962 it was evident that
the VNAF 1st Transport Group did not have enough crews to attain a maximum
aircraft utilization. (ill)
At the 16 December Secretary of Defense Conference, General O'Donnell
was especially pleased when Serretnr7 M.7.1niaTa stated that TTA? mast be made
a part of a Joint General Staff team responsive to corps commanders require-
ments, this to be accomplished through VNAF representation on the Joint
General Staff, organization of a VNAF-USAF Joint Operations Center, and the
establishment of a country-wide Tactical Air Control System (TACS). Following
the Secretary of Defense conference, General McGarr secured a directive
establishing spaces for nine VNAF officers on the Joint General Staff and for
twelve an the staff of Field Command, and General Anthis obtained a commitment
whereby VNAF would provide officers and airmen to a JOC at Tan Son Nhut and to
subordinate Air Support Operations Centers that were to be opened at Da Nang
and Pleiku. Despite these commitments VNAF was extremely short of highly
qualified operations and intelligence officers and could not produce enough
men to fill the spaces made available. The non-flying VNAF colonel who had
been serving on the JGS was promoted to brigadier general and three VNAF
lieutenants were added to the JGS, and, as will be seen, many of the VNAF
officers assigned to the JOC had additional duties. (112)
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In World War II and Korea the tactical air control system had proven
its value both for air defense and for close air support of friendly ground
forces. The JOC was the highest eohelon of the TACS and provided centralized
planning, direction, and control of tactical air operations in a combat
theater. It was supported by an Air Force Control and Reporting Center (CRC)
which provided central radar control and warning services. Subordinate to
the JOC, Air Support Operations Centers (ASOCs) were designed for location in
each major subordinate ground command area. Each ASOC was supported by an
Air Force Control and Reporting Post (CRP) which also extended the radar
warning and control capabilities of the CRC. On the ground in Vietnam after
mid-December PACAF and Thirteenth Air Force officers rapidly put together
a plan -- nicknamed "Barn Door" -- for the TACS in Vietnam, including a
combined VNAF-USAF JOC at Tan Son Nhut and two tailored ASOCs to be co-
located with the ARVN I and II Corps headquarters at Da Nang and Pleiku.
Since the ARVN III Corps headquarters was located in Saigon it appeared that
it could be served directly by the JOC at Tan Son Nhut. In the plan the
USAF Sth Tactical Control Group would expand its GRP at Tan Son Nhut into
a CRC and it would also install and operate the CRP at Da Nang. The VNAF
would operate the CRP at Pleiku, using equipment it had on hand and newly
trained technicians. The USAF 1st Communications Group was directed to
operate a communications center at Tan Son Nhut and high frequency radio-
teletype circuits to Da Nang, Bien Hoa, Pleiku, and Nha Trang. (113)
General O'Donnell had told Secretary McNamara that he would establish the
TACS within two weeks, and the installation task was expedited after
31 December. 1961 when Ambassador Nolting obtained the Vietnamese government's
approval for the system. The JOC was opened at Tan Son Nhut an 2 January,
with a VNAF major as Director and a USAF lieutenant colonel as Deputy
Director. The I ASOC was also opened at Da Nang, this also with a VNAF
Director and a USAF Deputy Director. Air transport aircraft of the 315th
Air Division lifted men and equipment for the TACS into South Vietnam from
2 to 14 January. (114)
As a result of expedited action, the TAWS was reported as operational
on 14 January 1962, but it was admittedly austere and left a lot to be
wanted. In the Joint Operations Center both the VNAF Director and the VNAF
Chief of the Combat Plans Divisian had additional duties and spent little
time within the center. VNAF personnel insisted upon accustomed three-hour
afternoon siestas which came at the very time that the operations officers
needed to plan and issue warning orders for a following day's air operations.
In addition to this, several of the USAF officers temporarily assigned to
the JOC were inexperienced in the duties that they were expected to perform.
(115) Manning and equipment of the I and II ASOCs took more time to complete.
At Da Nang the CRP was erected on 13 January and became operational later in
the month. At Pleiku the II ASOC was established on 17 February, but it was
not fully operational until the following month. The VNAF light radar unit
began to move to Pleiku on 12 February and was in limited operations late
that month. (116)
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The single greatest obstacle to the effective operation of the TAOS
was the limited capacity and frequent failure of point-to-point communications
between the JOC, the ASOCs, and the operational airfields. On 15 January
1962 Secretary McNamara approved a proposal made by the Joint Chiefs of Staff
that an MRC-85 tropospheric scatter communications system be procured and
installed by a civil contractor in South Vietnam. The contract for the MRC
project -- nicknamed "Back Porch" -- was awarded to Page Communications
Engineers on 26 January, and the project would provide numerous main link
communications channels to interconnect Saigon, Nha Trang, Pleiku, and
Da Nang, with a connecting link from Pleiku to Ubon, Thailand. (117) In order
to support the TAOS until the Back Porch system became operational PACAF
requested and received newly developed AN/TSC-15 high frequency single side-
band radio sets which were delivered to Clark an 30 December 1961 for installa-
tion in the field by the USAF 1st Mobile Communications Group. The TSC-15
sets theoretically provided long distance Channels of voice and teletype to
the TAOS, but several unforeseen problems plagued the equipment. Operators
were compelled to work in small mobile vans and were asked to endure temper-
atures of up to 130 degrees. Atmospheric conditions in Southeast Asia made
for very poor high frequency transmission, and the fact that practically
everyone was using high frequency bands caused jamming. In summary, from
January to September 1962, when the Back Porch system became available for
beneficial occupancy, the TAOS did not have the fast, positive, and dependable
communications required to permit centralized control over decentralized air
operations. (118)
As a result of the prolonged State-Defense negotiations concerning the
organization of an appropriate US superior military command in Vietnam, the
US MAAG was described as "over its head in operations and intelligence planning
to the neglect of its primary duty, the training and advisory effort." (119)
Where MAAG Vietnam had been authorized a strength of 685 persons in May 1961,
it was authorized 2,394 MAP supported and 5,1i35 non-MAp supported spaces at
the end of December 1961. Of the 2,394 MAP supported spaces, 2,066 were
allocated to the Army, 6 to the Marine Corps, 135 to the Navy, and 187
(68 officers and 119 airmen) to the Air Force. (120) After the December 1961
Secretary of Defense Conference in Hawaii, Secretary McNamara entered dis-
cussions with Secretary Rusk and worked out a compromise agreement whereby
the subordinate command to be established under CINCPAC in Vietnam would be
named the United States Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, and would be
roughly modeled after the US Command in Taiwan. Secretary McNamara continued
to insist that COMUSMACV must be a four-star Army commander in order to
emphasize the "positive impact of Change" in US policy. (121)
After Presidential approval and selection of Lt. Gen. Paul D. Harkins
as COMUSMACV, the US Military Assistance Command was established in Saigon
on 8 February 1962, and Harkins was promoted to four-star rank. As COMUSMACV,
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Harkins was charged with the mission of assisting and supporting the
Government of Vietnam in its efforts to provide for its security, to defeat
Communist insurgency, and to resist avert aggression. COMUSMACV was assigned
direct responsibility for all US military policy, operations, and assistance
in South Vietnam and the authority to discuss both US and Vietnamese military
operations directly with President Diem and governmental leaders. He had
direct access to CINCPAC and through him to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the
Secretary of Defense. COMUSMACV was to consult with the US Ambassador on
political and basic policy matters and was instructed to keep the Ambassador
fully informed on military matters. In cases of difference in view, both
CCMUSMACV and the Ambassador were to be free to communicate the difference
to Washington for decision. As CINCPAC's single spokesman in South Vietnam,
COMUSMACV was given operational command of all US forces and military agencies
assigned or attached to his command, including the US MAAG. (122)
As a subordinate unified commander to CINCPAC, General Harkins was
authorized a MACV joint staff with representative Army, Navy, and Air Force
officers in proper positions of responsibility. As seen, Admiral Felt had
recommended to Washington on 8 December that the positions of MACV Chief of
Staff, J-2 Intelligence, and J-5 Plans should be filled by Air Force officers,
this in view of Felt's belief that air action would be important. General
Harkins, however, wished to select Maj. Gen. Richard G. Weede, USMC, as his
Chief of Staff and proposed that an Air Force officer should be assigned to
the pivotal staff position as J-3 Operations instead of to the Chief of Staff
post. In final recommendations to Secretary McNamara an 31 January 1962,
the Joint Chiefs of Staff proposed to allocate the MACV staff positions of
Commander, J-4 Supply, J-5 Plans, and J-6 Communications and Electronics to
the Army; J-1 Personnel to the Navy; Chief of Staff to the Marines; and J-2
Intelligence and J-3 Operations to the Air Force. (123) While in Hawaii on
19 February, Secretary McNamara informed Admiral Felt that he was going to
take the J-3 billet from the Air Force and give it to the Army. In Felt's
view this would unbalance the MACV staff and he accordingly proposed that
the rank of the J-5 position be up-graded to a brigadier general slot and
allocated to the Air Force and that a colonel position as Deputy J-3 should
also be changed from the Army to the Air Force. On the afternoon of
20 February in Washington, General La:May personally attempted to persuade
Secretary McNamara to change his mind about the J-3 position, but McNamara
was unpersuaded in his intended action, although he remarked that he would
re-examine the question should circumstances develop which mightwarrant
reconsideration. As a consequence, General LeMay knew no alternative but
to support Felt's recommendations. The Joint Chiefs also accepted the
CINCPAC proposals and with Secretary McNamarals consent they approved a
MACV manning authority on 2 March which allocated the J-3 position to the
Army and the J-5 and Deputy J-3 slots to the Air Force. In this allocation
of the MACV staff positions, the Air Force received none of the key opera-
tional billets (Commander, Chief of Staff, Operations) and only one of the
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five flag rank billets, this being the position of Assistant Chief of Staff
Plans, which was initially filled by Brig. Gen, John A. Dunning and later by
Brig. Gen. Milton B. Adams. Of the 105 officer spaces authorized on the
MACV staff, the Army was allotted 54, the Navy and Marines 29, and the Air
Force 22. (124)
In the organizational planning for MACV the Joint Chiefs of Staff and
Admiral Felt envisioned that MACV would be the superior headquarters to the
US MAAG and to Army, Navy, and Air Force component commands, the Navy component
to be organized at a later date if required: As managed by General Harkins,
however, the organization of MACV components deviated significantly from the
JCS planning. In the case of the US MAAG, operations and intelligence functions
which had been bogging down the organization were moved to MACV. Maj. Gen.
C. J. Timms, who had been serving as Deputy to General McGarr, was appointed
Chief of the MAAG, which continued to be divided into Army, Navy, and Air
Force sections and responsible for MAP plans and programs, providing training
and logistical advice and assistance to the RVNAF, and administration of US
field advisory detachments with the RVNAF. (125) Although Harkins expressed
satisfaction with the division of MACV and MAAG functions, the dividing line
was less neat than it appeared. In the reorganization, Harkins did not want
General Anthis to serve as both MACV air component commander and Chief of
the MAAG Air Force Section, and at Harkins' suggestion Admiral Felt directed
on 12 May that Anthis be relieved as Chief of the MAAG Air Force Section and
that the position be filled iwith the USAF Colonel who was the incumbent
Deputy Chief of the Air Force Section. Felt also requested General LeMay to
issue the necessary orders to accomplish the change. From the Air Force view
the action promised to complicate a situation whereby Air Force liaison
officers with ARVN divisions should be under Anthis' command but were instead
assigned to the MAAG. General LeMwr, moreover, objected to thel nrcposed
reduction in rank of the Chief, MAAG Air Force Section, and delayed issuing
any orders until Anthis' authority as MACV air component commander could be
more clearly defined. In October Felt and Harkins would agree to accept
Brig. Gen. Robert R. Rowland as Chief, MAAG Air Force Section, and, effective
on 1 December 1962, Anthis was relieved of the MAAG duty and General Rowland
took over a few days later. Although Anthis and Rowland worked together in
close cooperation, the division of functions between the two left some
"gray areas." Some of the Air MAAG people were responsible for advising and
training in connection with MAP matters. How far they could go in advising
before they entered into operational activities, or in their training before
they became operators, posed some recurring differences of opinion. (126)
The organization of MACV subordinate force commands led to numerous
complications and resulted in deviations from usual standards for joint action
of US Armed Forces. The MACV Air Force Component Command was established on
10 February, when PACAF designated Commander, 2d Advon as the MACV air component
commander, with the additional specification that Commander, 2d Advon would
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continue to serve as the Thirteenth Air Force/PACAF forward air commander
responsible for any unilateral Air Force operations in Southeast Asia. (127)
On the other hand, General Harkins conceived that COMUSMACV was "responsible
for all that US military do or fail to do in SVN" and argued that he should.
have full operational command over all US military resources in South
Vietnam, including any projected combat operations that might be performed
by the Farm Gate detachment. He also maintained that he should have command
over the service support for Army and Air Force units deployed in South
Vietnam. In spite of Harkins' arguments, Admiral Felt issued a directive
an MACV command relations on 20 April which established the principle that
all US military units deployed to South Vietnam with the primary mission of
advising and assisting the training and operations of South Vietnamese
military and paramilitary forces would be under the operational command of
COMUSMACV, but other units deployed to South Vietnam in a supporting role
would remain under the command of CINCPAC component commanders, unless
voluntarily placed under COMUSMACV. In exercising operational command,
moreover, COIMUSMACV would act through his component commanders, this being
a provision that General Anthis considered to be very important in view of
the thin USAF representation on the MACV staff. (128) Under the MACV command
relationship directive of 20 April, Commander, 2d Advon was responsible to
COMUSMACV for training and assistance matters inside South Vietnam and to
Thirteenth Air Force/PACAF for unilateral service matters and prospective
combat operations in Southeast Asia. Unlike the Air Force choice in command
relationships, the CINC Army Pacific elected to give COMUSMACV operational
command over DS Army helicopter companies in South Vietnam. Established as
the MACV component Army command, the US Army Support Group, Vietnam, provided
only administrative and logistical support to Army units in Vietnam, and
General Harkins exercised direct operational command over Army helicopter
companies through the MAAG Senior Army Advisors at each ARVN corps. This
arrangement appeared contrary to aocepr-ad US Armed Forces organizational
principles which specified that a unified commander should not personally
command one of the component forces. It also required that the MACV joint
staff handle many peculiar Army matters, more appropriately the work of an
Army component command staff. In regard to a MACV Navy component command,
Admiral Felt continued to believe that there was no requirement for it. On
1 July 1962, however, the MACV structure was rounded out with the establish-
ment of Headquarters Support Activity Saigon. Since the Department of the
Navy was responsible for the logistical support of CINCPAC, the Headquarters
Support Activity Saigon was a Department of Navy agency which provided
common administrative and logistic support including construction, commissary
and exchange, and housekeeping services to MAAG and MACV units. (129)
In view of the publicity accompanying the establishment of the Military
Assistance Command Vietnam an 8 February, Lt. Gen. Thames S. Moorman, Vice
CINCPACAF, taw no reason why 2d Advan should continue to be a secret and
freakish organization. The fact that the anonymous Detachment 7, Thirteenth
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Air Force, was known as "2d Advon" was classified, and it was very difficult
to process classified orders for the movement of personnel, equipment, and
supplies to 2d Advon and its anonymous units. On 20 February Moorman asked
Felt to accept a reorganization of 2d Advon as a standard USAF air division,
thus providing a meaningful designation that could provide a basis for
clearing up the air organization in Southeast Asia. (130) This proposal
came at an inopportune time. The International Control Commission was
examining the establishment of MACV to determine whether it was a violation
of the Geneva agreements. In Washington Under Secretary of State George
Ball urged that the United States should go along with the ICC and "play
the game partly their way" by approaching problems on a case by case basis
and maintaining "a decent veil of hypocrisy." In response to questions
President Kennedy insisted that there were no US combat forces in Vietnam
in the usual sense of the word, although he said that training missions
were authorized to fire back in self-protection if fired upon. (131) In
late February Admiral Felt and General Harkins considered that it would be
impolitic to organize 2d Advon as an air division since this could be mis-
construed as the introduction of a large operational command. (132)
In the course of a visit to South Vietnam early in April 1962 General
LeMay and the members of his party determined that something must be done
about the anomalous organization of 2d Advon and its non descript detachments.
On some bases as many as nine separate air detachments were present, with no
single individual in charge of them. LeMay's trip report recommended that an
air division should be authorized to replace 2d Advon and that an air base
structure should be organized at each major operating location, and the
Department of Air Force unilaterally prepared to establish 2d Advon as an
organized and constituted unit to which USAF units and personnel could be
legitimately assigned. (133) While new organizational plans were being
staffed two events hastened their acceptance and affected their tenor. As
will be seen, US forces were deployed to Thailand on 15 May, and at this
time General Harkins was designated COMUSMACTHAT as well as COMUSMACV.
And on 2 June, the Vietnam ICC found North Vietnam to be in aggression but
nevertheless recorded that establishment of USMACV constituted a violation
of the Geneva agreements. (134) In view of these PACAF issued orders on
7 June officiPlly redesignating the Thirteenth Air Force detachments:
Detachment 7 was designated 2d Advon, Thirteenth Air Force; Detachments
8, 9, 11, and 12 were discontinued and the 6220th, 6221st, 6222d, and
6223d Air Base Squadrons were designated and organized at Tan Son Nhut,
Bien Hoa, Da Nang, and Nha Trang Air Bases, with assignment to 2d Advon.
(135) On 19 July Ambassador Molting was no longer opposed to the organiza-
tion of an air division in South Vietnam, provided it was accomplished
without publicity. After SOMB delay incident to discussions of an overall
US command in Southeast Asia, Hq 2d Advon was discontinued an 8 October
1962, and the 2d Air Division was concurrently organized at Tan Son Nhut
with assignment to the Thirteenth Air Force and under the command of General
Anthis. (136)
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In manning the two Air Force general officer positions authorized in
Saigon, Generals LeMay and ()Mennen had handpicked Anthis and Dunning and
were completely satisfied with them, but LeMay and 0Mbnnell nevertheless
recognized that General Harkins required closer day-to-day associations
with senior Air Force officers on the ?WV staff. Early in April during
his visit to Saigon, LeMay attempted to persuade Harkins that there was a
need for added air representation on the MACV staff, and Harkins agreed to
consider it if Anthis or Dunning could make a convincing case. On returning
to Washington General LeMay was very critical of the fact that air activities
were "depreciated in South Vietnam rather than appreciated." At a Joint
Chiefs of Staff meeting attended by Secretary McNamara, LeMay stated that
air planning was often omitted from field operations in South Vietnam, that
Anthis had difficulty getting to see. Harkins, and that neither General Harkins
nor General Weede properly understood air operations. When asked to comment
on the matter, Anthis readily agreed that he had direct access to General
Harkins and had never been reluctant to give Harkins his views. Admiral Felt
also informed Washington that Anthis: could see Harkins at any time and added
that he considered Harkins and Weede to be superior officers who were fully
experienced in air-ground tactics. (137) As will be seen, General LeMay
would continue to work for increased air representation on the MACV staff
without achieving positive results.
As the US military command organization took shape in Southeast Asia
during 1962 the Air Force was successful in establishing General Anthis as
the single Air Force component commander in the area and in maintaining his
command and control over USAF units. This arrangement insured that a single
USAF officer would be responsible through General Harkins to Admiral Felt
on bilateral matters and through the Thirteenth Air Force to PACAF on
unilateral Air Force operational, slministrative, and logistical matters.
(138) Other than this, the Air Force did not salvage much. While it was
not always apparently easy for the Air S-Gaff in Washington to understand,
the evolving CINCPAC organization was fairly well divorcing CINCPACAF from
operational considerations and limiting his primary authority to the task
of providing logistical support to the 2d Air Division. (139) The very thin
Air Force representation in positions of responsibility on the MACV staff
made it difficult for the 2d Air Division to secure a needfully expeditious
staffing of air proposals through the preponderantly Army-manned MACV staff
to the COMUS. In the pursuit of his duties General Harkins was necessarily
absent from Saigon for periods of time with the result that his MACV staff
carried on much of the business of command. Where it was true that General
Anthis and the air officer who headed the MACV J-5 Plans Division -- initially
General Dunning and later General Adams -- had direct access to General
Harkins, it was also true that General Anthis found that at least some of his
written communications were only belatedly referred to Harkins' attention.
In addition, Harkins followed the Army practice of using his J-3 Division
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for day-to-day operational planning, with the result that the MACV J-5
Plans Division was somewhat outside the routine activity of the MACV staff.
As a matter of fact, the J-5 Division was physically located in another
part of Saigon, some distance from the main MACV staff offices. (140)
During 1962 the deficiencies in the MACV staff were very clear to Air Force
officers who were attempting to establish a control medium through which
air and ground power could make a maximum cooperative contribution to
counterinsurgency operations, but the deficiencies were not so easily
recognized by other influential men who appeared to believe that counter-
insurgency. was predominantly an Army mission and that VNAF-USAF contributions
to such operations would be limited.
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JCL.KC
Chapter 5
Air Actions Against the Vietcong in 1962
1. Emerging Concepts of Military Strategy
At the time that the expanded Aterican assistance effort for South
Vietnam was authorized in November 1961 the Vietcong believed that victory
was virtually in their grasp. Their forces surrounded Saigon and other
urban centers and were effectively blocking many of South Vietnam's strategic
highways. (1) In the American assessment of the situation at the end of
1961 the Communists had completed the first phase of insurgency -- organiza-
tion of a subversive organizational apparatus -- and had begun second-phase
overt military attacks led by hard-core guerrilla forces, most of wham had
been trained in North Vietnam. During the first four months of 1962 as many
as 1,000 Communist cadremen were moving into South Vietnam each month, and
in addition the North Vietnamese were using Soviet airlift support to main-
tain two regiments in the Lao panhandle for probable commitment in South
Vietnam. It was possible that the Communists meant to move through the
Central Highlands and cut South Vietnam in half. On the other hand, there
were reports that the Vietcong were attempting to build up supplies within
Zone D sufficient to sustain operations of a division-sized force against
Saigon. (2)
In the American view the composite North Vietnamese-Vietcong threat to
the Republic of Vietnam demanded a centralized nation-wide counterinsurgency
strategy which would provide security for Saigon and the other major govern-
mental and communications centers and lines of communications, keep the
Vietcong off balance with strike and destroy operations, clear and hold the
Vietcong base areas, and seal off South Vietnam's land and sea borders against
further infiltrations from North Vietnam. (3) Dien, however, feared a RVNAF
coup against his government and remained unwilling to accept the central
military authority required for nation-wide counterinsurgency strategy. In
January and February 1962, however, he gradually acknowledged a general con-
cept for national action against the Vietcong which was incorporated in
separate plans for accomplishing various counterinsurgency tasks. Each plan
represented compromises, and more often than not the separate plans were
poorly intercoordinated. (4)
In discussions concerning employment of military forces against the in-
surgency, President Diem wanted VNAF and Farm Gate to insure that the Communists
did not provide aerial resupply to the Vietcong as they had been doing for the
Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese in Laos. In conversations with Generals
O'Donnell and McGarr, Diem was also quite willing to authorize saturation air
attacks against the Vietcong war zones without much concern for exact targeting
in these areas, which he assumed to be solidly hostile since ARVN forces were
unable to enter then. Neither O'Donnell nor &Garr was willing to undertake
indiscriminate bombing that could well be counterproductive to pacification
efforts. (5) In his post as head of the British Advisory mission,
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Sir Robert Thompson was quite fearful that air actions would result in
innocent casualties with a resultant alienation of potentially friendly people
from the government cause, and this same fear was shared by influential men
in the US State Department, including Assistant Secretary Harriman and Roger
Hilsman. (6)
On the basis of his experience in Malaya, where the Chinese insurgency
had been limited to one country and had received little or no outside assistance,
Sir Robert Thompson actively advocated the necessity for a governmental pacifi-
cation infrastructure of strategic hamlets in South Vietnam. He considered
that South Vietnam's villages were the foundation of the countryrs social life,
as well as the source of food and manpower for Vietcong irregular forces.
These ideas were well received by President Diem late in 1961, and Thompson
developed them into a "Delta plan" of proposed operations. This Delta plan
conceived that the rich agricultural regions along the Mekong were the most
vital area of South Vietnam and that Diem should protect them by beginning
to build strategic hamlets in relatively safe "white" areas controlled by
the government and to extend them out into Communist dominated "red" areas,
thus establishing a "spreading oil spot" pacification program which would
result in a solid mantle of security. (7) Assistant Secretary of State
Harriman agreed that the strategic hamlet program had merit since it had
given victory in Malaya. Admiral Felt also thought that Thompson's concept
was sound, but both he and General Lemnitzer disagreed with what Felt under-
stood to be Thompson's proposal "to concentrate on the Delta and forget about
the rest of the country." Too great a concentration of effort in the Delta
might result in losses in the northern ARVN I and II Corps Areas. (8)
Under unusual circumstances the emerging strategic guidelines for counter-
insurgency operations in South Vietnam were worked out in context with pro-
posals that were acceptable to President Diem at Secretary of Defense
Conferences held in Hawaii on 15 January and 19 February 1962. Diem would
not accept a single RVNAF task force for counterinsurgency operations because
of internal political reasons, but he was willing to agree that each ARVN
coprs should establish a "forward command post" to control counterinsurgency
clear and hold operations within each of the corps areas. Diem had already
initiated the strategic hamlet program under Nhu's guidance in September
1961, and on 3 February 1962 he signed a decree designating an Inter-Ministry
Committee for Strategic Hamlets under Nhu with the mission of developing a
national plan for secure villages to include technical, logistical, and
administrative aspects. He wanted to construct 6,066 defended hamlets during
1962, in addition to 784 already constructed and 453 under construction.
When Diem would not agree to conduct a major operation against Zone D,
Secretary McNamara directed on 15 January that this plan should be dropped
and that plans for a smaller clear-and-hold operation should be prepared.
In response to this direction, Admiral Felt's staff surveyed Vietnam and
determined that Binh Duong province was an optimum area for a clear-and-hold
operation since it contained significant Vietcong groups which hazarded Saigon__
and Bien Hoa. In Thampson's view Binh Duong province was a "red" area which
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if cleared would be difficult to hold without a considerable commitment of
ARVN troops to maintain security. Diem nevertheless accepted the Binh Duong
operation -- to be called Operation Sunrise -- and to be implemented in
March 1962 -- as the publicized beginning of the national strategic hamlet
program. When Thompson pointed out the potential defects of Sunrise to Diem,
Diem responded: "It makes the Americans happy, and it does not worry either
me or the Viet Gong!" (9)
After uncertain beginnings the combination of decentralized ARVN clear
and hold operations and the loosely directed strategic hamlet program rapidly
burgeoned into the major strategic undertaking against the Vietcong. Reflecting
the fears of Admiral Felt and General Lemnitzer that too great an emphasis on
the Delta might result in losses in the north, Secretary McNamara directed on
19 February that attention should be given to a clear-and-hold operation in
guerrilla ridden Quang Ngai province, the region of Vietcong activity on
Vietnam's east coast which had never bee. completely returned to government
contra. (10) Manifesting American interest in the hamlet program, the US
Interagency Committee for Province .ichabilitation was established in April
1962, and the United States undertook to provide some 1,830 hamlet construc-
tion kits during 1962 with additional projections for 1963. Nhu encouraged
each province commander to establish strategic hamlets, and the accelerated
program progressed so rapidly that no one was sure how many were under con-
struction or where. In July 1962 General Harkins estimated that 2,400 had
been built and that 6,000 should be completed by the end of the year. (11)
In the strategic hamlet program and other political matters, Diem relied
heavily on Nhu for decisions, but Diem also followed his own convictions.
During July in the east coastal province of Phu Yen, he launched Operation
Sea Swallow, which included an initial construction of strategic hamlets on
the narrow coastal plan to protect a critical section of the main north-south
road and rail lines. From this beginning, Diem envisioned that Sea Swallow
would extend and enclave of strategic hamlets westward up the valleys into
the Annamite foothills, thus cutting the Vietcong infiltration routes. (12)
In August 1962, around Lac Thien, south of Ban Me Thout in Darlac province,
Diem employed special force units 7,o bring in bulldozers in disassembled
pieces and to construct strong points, an airstrip, and roads in the midst
of a Vietcong area. All efforts by, the military to dissuade Diem from this
activity fell on deaf ears, since he maintained that the operation was
essential in order to protect the large area of rice cultivation around
Lac Thien that would otherwise go to the Vietcong. Surprisingly, the Lac
Thien operation was initially successful: the Vietcong moved out and govern-
ment forces secured and maintained control of the area. (13)
2. Early Employments Test Counterinsurgency Tactics and Techniques
Where General Anthis and other American airmen -- especially the highly
motivated air commando crews of the Farm Gate detachment -- came to Vietnam
with an expectation of carrying an air offensive to the Vietcong, apparently
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changed orders from Washington instead charged them to train and supplement
the VNAF and to develop tactics and techniques for air combat in a situation
which Secretary McNamara described to the press as "not full-scale warfare
but guerrilla warfare." (14) Since there was no initial agreement at higher
levels concerning the strategy to be followed, the early military operations
tended to be improvised rather than systematic, and there was no overall
plan for the conduct of air operations which in the initial months took place
on a day-to-day experimental basis. (15)
Upon arriving at Bien Hoa the Farm Gate detachment found a run-down French
air base, virtually surrounded by the Vietcong. This was well demonstrated
in December, when the Vietcong captured an American Army sergeant travelling
on one of the roads between Bien Hoa and Saigon. At this time American person-
nel were not allowed to possess sidearms off base, and they were instructed
to move about in small groups for safety. According to reports the Vietcong
had three companies of trocps in Bien Hoa province and four additional
companies within 20 kilometers of Bien Hoa City. Approximately 700 ARVN
soldiers defended the airfield, but heavy vegetation and swampy terrain sur-
rounding it promised easy cover to any of the enemy who wished to make a
surprise attack. The flight surface at Bien Hoa used by the Farm Gate planes
and the AD-6s of the VNAF 1st Fighter Squadron consisted of a single pierced
steel plank runway 5,800 feet long and 150 feet wide. Tearouts in the tie
strips of the steel plank required constant attention of welding crews, and
the 315th Air Division C-130s that brought Barn Door communications equipment
to Bien Hoa for the tactical air control system further deteriorated the
PSP runway. (16)
After completing local familiarization and orientation flights, Farm Gate
undertook its immediately assigned task of teaching ccunterguerrilla tactics
and techniques to the already combat capable flight crews of the 1st VNAF
Fighter Squadron. At Nha Trang in November and December USAF T-28 mobile
training teams were beginning to provide pilot transition and technical
training for the newly formed 2d VNAF Fighter Squadron, which was being
equipped with T-28 tactical fighters. After completion of transition at
Nha Trang, the new T-28 pilots were brought to Bien Hoa for gunnery, bombing
and rocketry training by the Farm Gate detachment. As handled by Farm Gate,
this training cycle lasted three weeks per class. (17) With the return of
Colonel King to the United States, Lt. Col. Robert L. Gleason assumed command
of Farm Gate on 21 December 1961, and the detachment continued training while
awaiting expected combat employment. This first American combat mission
came on the afternoon of 26 December, when General Anthis believed that Farm
Gate was cleared to strike and sent an attack against a collection of Vietcong
sampans located on a waterway near Saigon. The strike was successful against
a clearly hostile target, but the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued immediate
orders that Farm Gate would be employed on combat missions only when the VNAF
did not have the capability to perform the missions and then only with a
combined US and VNAF aircrew. (18)
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The operating restriction limiting Farm Gate to combat missions that
would not be performed by VNAF and then only with mixed USAF-VNAF aircrews
left same doubt about a profitable employment for the American airmen.
Already proficient Vietnamese AD-6 pilots were not T-28 qualified and, while.
committed to do so on a day-to-day basis, did not enjoy flying with Farm Gate
in the back seats of T-28s when they could be piloting their awn AD-6s. The
pilots fram the 2d VNAF Squadron who were being prepared for combat in T-28s
fitted the back seat employment much better, but here too there was a
difficulty: Occasionally, it was proposed that all of the new T-28 pilots
should be flown in a front seat position in combat missions prior to com-
pleting their training with Farm Gate, but this was to be rejected because
it seemed imperative that the pilot actually flying an aircraft on operational
missions with heavy ordnance should be completely qualified. And after the
VNAF pilot became completely qualified there was no need for a Farm Gate
instructor pilot to fly a rear seat position. In short, it was soon obvious
that the back-seat operational training for VNAF pilots might be more
political than utilitarian. (19)
Under the stated restrictions affecting Farm Gate, several employments
of the American unit appeared possible and were undertaken. Implementing
CINCPACis requirement for a coastal surveillance to determine the magnitude
of waterborne infiltration into South Vietnam, Farm Gate employed an SC-47
and two T-28s in Operation Short Coant air surveillance flights, the first
series between 6-22 December 1961 and the second series between 5-7 February
1962. In the December Short Count flights the Farm Gate planes sighted
6,294 junks and sampans moving in South Vietnam's coastal waters. While
these sightings were recorded, the air crews were unable to determine whether
or not a given vessel might be hostile, and MAAG Vietnam was unable to develop
meaningful intelligence fram the surveillance. (20)
In the USAF concept for counterinsurgency operations, a capability for
waging airborne psychological warfare was of high importance, and Farm Gate's
SC-47s had a capability both for dropping leaflets and for disseminating
information by aerial broadcasts. Such an ability to broadcast messages to
people in remote and semi-literate areas held definite potential, and the
Farm Gate SC-47s were equipped with a loud-speaker system mounted underneath
the planes. From 14 December through 11 February 1962, Farm Gate flew seven
psychological warfare missions, four of them over Vietcong-dominated areas.
In the first tests of the aerial broadcast technique, Vietnamese villagers
were impressed by the voice fram the sky, but the belly-mounted speakers
proved to be only marginally effective and potentially hazardous. To deliver
an intelligible message with this speaker configuration the 5C-47 had to
make a run over a target at an altitude of 600-feet and with an airspeed
of 100 knots or less, and even then the message length time could not exceed
about 50 seconds. Mountainous terrain or enemy ground fire would obviously
make such low-level broadcasts very hazardous. Amore powerful speaker
system was a definitereqairement !but meanwhile the Farm Gate personnel got
improved operating results by removing the belly speakers and mounting them
in the door of the SC-47. This configuration allowed the aircraft to circle
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a given spot while a crewman kept the speakers aimed at a specific target.
Even with this change, the SC-47 still had to operate at a hazardous altitude
of 400-600 feet. On a psychological warfare-leaflet dropping mission near
Dalat on 11 February, Farm Gate lost its first aircraft when a low-flying
SC-47 crashed from unknown causes with the loss of six USAF, two US Army,
and one South Vietnamese crewmen. As soon as news of the crash reached the
United States, Farm Gate's psychological warfare mission was in trouble.
Secretary McNamara received queries fram Congress and the public, and he
himself was more than a little interested as to why eight Americans and only
one Vietnamese had lost his life on a mission that was supposed to be flown
to train the South Vietnamese. (21)
Because of a lack of landing lights and usually unserviceable flight
instruments, the VNAF tactical fighter pilots had little experience and less
inclination to operate at night, even though the Vietcong habitually used the
hours of darkness for their attacks against the small RVNAF outposts that
were spread widely throughout South Vietnam. Farm Gate's SC-47s were equipped
for dropping aerial flares to illuminate targets, and both the T-28s and
B-26s were capable of night attack. On the night of 7 January, AIWN requested
the VNAF to strike a collection of sampans, and since VNAF pilots could not
operate at night the Joint Operations Center directed Farm Gate to employ
joint USAF/VNAF crews and to fly the mission with an SC-47 and two T-28s.
The Farm Gate planes proceeded to the specified target area, and the SC-47
crew illuminated the area. As it happened there were no sampans in the area
and no ordnance was expended, but the tactics were thoroughly feasible.
After this the JOC maintained a Farm Gate SC-47 on strip alert for night
defense employment and cammitted either T-28s or B-26s to accompany the flare
ship. In these night defense operations, the SC-47 approached the target
area with the T-28s or B-26 in trail and about 2,000 feet higher. When the
SC-47 illuminated the target the strike aircraft attacked the Vietcong.
These tactics invaribly forced the Vietcong to break off their attacks, but
they were not so successful in destroying enemy troops, who rapidly faded
back under jungle cover as soon as they saw the flares. Many forts and hamlets,
moreover, lacked rapid communications required to let the JOC know that they
were under attack. Under Farm Gate tutelage VNAF C-47 crews began to fly some
of the nigitiflare missions on 5 February, but the VNAF tactical fighter pilots
remained reluctant to participate in the night operations. (22) In January
1962 General LeMay proposed that the combination of flare-fighter defense
offered a fruitful potential for development as a means of protecting the
new strategic hamlets. LeMey proposed to the Joint Chiefs of Staff an outline
plan for quick reaction forces consisting of AWN airborne troops, either
Mule Train or VNAF air transport detachments, and VNAF T-28 strike aircraft.
He proposed to deploy these forces at nine locations in South Vietnan placing
any area within 50 miles of one of the quick reaction forces. He also proposed
that trained communications teams should be established in each South Viet-
namese village (a village being a collective grouping of dispersed hamlets)
to forward requests for assistance and to direct the quick reaction forces
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to objective areas. The Joint Chiefe approved the concept and sent it to
CINCPAC. The CINCPAC staff thought the concept good, but the staff shelved
the plan for several months because of its requirement for an extensive
communicationa network and because of the possibility that it would idle
mobile airborne reserve forces. while they were standing by awaiting
occasional employment. (23)
Both VNAF and Farm Gate were available for the close support of ARVN
operations, including cover and support for air mobile force employments.
The first combined US/South Vietnamese employment of air mobile forces
occurred between 23-30 December 1961 in an area held by the Vietcong north-
west of Saigon. On the first day the two US Army helicopter companies lifted
360 Vietnamese airborne troops to five locations in the objective area, and
additional troops were helicoptered in an 27 December. During the critical
phases of the helicopter lifts, a VNAF airborne forward air controller (FAC)
L-19 and two ADI-6s orbited the area, but no targets appeared. This exercise
resulted in two Vietcong killed, one wounded, and 46 suspects captured.
Another larger cambined air-ground ooeration was mounted on 5 January 1962
in an attempt to rescue prisoners iincluded the captured US noncan) from a
reported Vietcong prison camp. Under cover of AD-6s, T-28s, and B-26s
which expended ordnance in preparatory strikes directed by a VNAF airborne
FAC, approximately 1,000 ARVN troops were landed in lifts made by 31 H-21
helicopters. Here again the operation was a successful training exercise,
but the information about a Vietcong prison camp in the area proved erron-
eous. (24) .In his analysis of the large-scale WRAF strike and destroy
operations conducted during January and early February, General Timmes drew
the lessons that preliminary aerial reconnaissance of the objective areas
sometimes resulted in loss of surprise, same of the plans were too complex
for the state of training of the RVNAF, movement of ARVN troops tipped off
the Vietcong to the operation, and there was a need for better coordination
through the Joint Operations Center between ground and air units. (25)
In the same weeks new tactics and techniques were under development by
Farm Gate, the Ranch Hand C-123 aerial spray detachment was having difficulty
with its defoliation operations. Leaving three of its aircraft at Clark,
Ranch Hand deployed three of its C-123s to Tan Son Nhut. Each of these planes
was fitted with an internal 1,000-gallon chemical tank and demountable spray
bars attached under their wings. On 13 January the three aircraft at Tan Son
Nhut began to spray a swatch 200 meters wide on each side of Route 15 for the
distance of 43 miles between Bien Hoe. and Vung Tau. Between 13 and 16 January,
ten sorties were flown to spray the 6,812 acres of jungle growth along Route
15, the spray being dispensed on a basis of approximately one gallon per acre.
Camplete defoliation was expected to occur within ten days after spraying,
but while leaves turned brown the Vegetation remained alive and there were
very few immediate military advantages. Several attempts were made to burn
the sprayed areas, but these were also unsuccessful. The Vietcong had a
field day with the spraying: they not only claimed that the spraying con-
stituted chemical warfare, but they encouraged the Vietnamese peasants to
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believe that any plant that died anywhere was due to the spraying. The
Government of Vietnam established a board to sift and evaluate claims for
accidental destruction, but any claim that was turned down would obviously
antagonize the claimant. Early in February it was clear that the spray
project's start had been badly managed. General O'Donnell described it as
"a blooper from start to finish." PACAF was not at all opposed to a prospec-
tive decision that would discontinue the herbicide program and convert the
Ranch Hand C-123s back into standard transport planes as an augmentation to
Mule Train. (26)
3. Air Defense at Saigon and Pleiku
One of the purposes of the expanded American assistance to South Vietnam
in 1961 had been to provide insurance against the possibility that the Soviet
Union might expand its airlift flights already being flown in Laos and provide
aerial support to the Vietcong in South Vietnam. Air defense was also a
reason for establishing the Tactical Air Control System in South Vietnam:
the Barn Door operations plan for the TACS issued by PACAF/Thirteenth Air
Force in December 1961 provided that the Joint Operations Center at Tan Son
Nhut would "allocate and control all available or assigned tactical air
resources for counter air (air defense), interdiction, close air support,
reconnaissance, airlift, and special air operations. (27) In accordance
with existing US Army-USAF joint doctrine, a Joint Operations Center was
expected to provide a unity of control over air defense, air interdiction,
and air support for ground forces.
Employing transport aircraft which were operational at Hanoi, the Soviets
had an ability to provide either overt or covert aerial resupply to Vietcong
forces in South Vietnam, and early in 1962 there were rumors in Hue that the
Vietcong forces in the Central Highlands were receiving clandestine air
resupply drops. The air warning radars at Tan Son Nhut and Da Nang frequently
picked up unidentified tracks of flying objects that sometimes proved to be
atmospheric phenomena but were more often US Army aircraft which were making
flights unknown to the Combat Reporting Center at Tan Son Nhut. Ekperience
with the Da Nang radar, moreover, showed that terrain screening to its west
was such that early warning and detection of medium and low flying aircraft
was inadequate. If Communist planes did enter South Vietnam's airspace they
would have to be intercepted with AD-6s, T-28s, or B-26s, none of which were
admirably suited for the purpose. (28) In order to provide unity of air
action in South Vietnam General O'Dbnnell made a strong recommendation at
the 19 February Secretary of Defense Conference for what he described as the
need for "law and order in the air," or maintenance of centralized control
and coordination of all air operations -- including helicopter combat support
operations -- by the Joint Operations Center. The discussion which ensued
indicated apparent agreement by all participants that all air operations
should be closely coordinated by the JOC both to insure effective air defense
and tactical air operations. (29)
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Guy,
Although the air defenses of South Vietnam were designed to defend
against Communist intrusions, the air defense system was first tested and
found wanting by two personally disaffected Vietnamese flyers. On the
morning of 27 February, two VNAF lieutenants diverted their combat-loaded
AD-6s from a planned air strike in the Delta and repeatedly attacked the
north wing of President Diemls Gia Long Palace with 500-1b. general purpose
bombs, napalm, rockets, and 20-mm. gun fire. Antiaircraft fire shot dawn
one of the AD-6s and its pilot was captured; the other pilot escaped to
Phnon Penh where he emerged uninjured fram a.crash landing. During the
attack the VNAF 1st Fighter Squadron at Bien Hoa launched two flights of
AD-6s in an effort to intercept the rebels, but these planes were unsuccess-
ful in their main mission and also picked up numerous hits from small arms
fire'. Farm Gate aircraft at Bien Hoa were scrambled to avoid possible
destruction on the ground; the American pilots found themselves in the air
without knowing whether their "guns were hot" or who the enemy might be.
Interrogation of the captured VNAF lieutenant eventually indicated that the
two pilots were engaging in a personal vendetta against Ngo Dinh Nhu and that
there was no general VNAF plot agaitst President Diem. While the investiga-
tion continued, however, Diem grounded the VNAF, and, as will be seen, VNAF
aircraft operating in the III Corps Area around Saigon would not be permitted
to carry heavy ordnance as a result of this incident. In the immediate
aftermath to the attack on the Presidential Palace it was obvious that South
Vietnam's air defenses were imperfect and that President Diem would not be
willing to agree that the air defenbe system should be given controlling
authority over ARVN antiaircraft fire. (30)
In view of the Da Nang radar's inability to cover the western approaches
to South Vietnam and the limited range of the light radar operated by the
VNAF at Pleiku, PACAF forwarded nn P.5 March an rnmediate requirement to
CINCPAC for the location of a USAF heavy radar at Ubon, Thailand, where the
set would be able to cover air movements over southern Laos and northwestern
South Vietnam. PACAF also asked for a deployment of F-102 jet interceptors
from the Philippines to South Vietnam if this were politically feasible. (31)
In March Vietcong activities were soaring toward a new all-time high of 1,861
armed attacks, incidents of terrorism and sabotage, and subversive operations,
causing apprehension that the Communists might make an even more substantial
move to escalate the wax. (32) On the night of 19/20 March the newly opera-
tional VNAF radar at Pleiku -- nicknamed "Pagoda" -- picked up seven unknown
tracks in flight over the Central Highlands. In an attempt at an interception,
Farm Gate scrambled an RB-26 from Bien Hoa and when it arrived in the area
Pagoda control placed the B-26 crew directly over one of the unknown tracks.
The RB-26 crew, however, was unable to see anything below it. Visual recon-
naissance next day sighted some bundles in the trees in the general area of
the previous night's suspected hostile air activity. On the night of 20/21
March Paris CRC at Tan Son Nhut observed sightings of unknown tracks coming
out of Cambodia, but these tracks faded out when two Farm Gate T-28s were
scrambled. As soon as the T-28s were recalled to Bien Hoa, Pagoda CRP at
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Pleiku reported ten to fifteen tracks coming out of Cambodia, proceeding
at 80-120 knots at low altitude. An SC-47 and two RB-26s were dispatched
from Bien Hoa. The SC-47 dropped flares in the vicinity of the unknown
tracks, but once again the RB-26 crews made no visual sightings. A Viet-
namese officer at Pleiku nevertheless reported that he monitored Chinese
and Vietnamese radio transmissions which may have come from an unknown
aircraft. (33)
Already concerned about the soaring rate of Vietcong incidents, President
Diem requested on the morning of 21 March that US jet interceptors should be
brought to South Vietnam to deal with any repetition of enemy overflights.
Ambassador Molting quickly cleared a deployment with Washington, and on
22 March the 405th Tactical Fighter Wing moved a Water Glass detachment of
three F-102 and one TF-102 jet interceptors to Tan Son Nhut from Clark Air
Base, obstensibly for the purpose of VNAF training. The Joint Chiefs of
Staff authorized US aircraft to engage and destroy hostile aircraft encountered
inside the geographical limits of South Vietnam, if other practical means of
bringing the hostile intruder under control were not possible. (34) At the
Secretary of Defense Conference underway in Hawaii on 21 March Secretary
McNamara gave immediate approval to an emergency proposal to move the mobile
radar that the 5th Tactical Control Group was operating at Don Muang Airfield
and to relocate it as a CRP at Ubon Airfield, Thailand, provided that the
Thai government would approve. (35) The speedy arrival of the Waterglass
F-102 jets at Saigon favorably impressed the Vietnamese government with the
American intention to react quickly in the event that the Communists raised
the tempo of operations in South Vietnam. (36) As a matter of fact, however,
the air defenses of South Vietnam remained far fram perfect. In day training
missions flown from Tan Son Nhut, theF-102s were much too fast to intercept
low, slow-flying liaison planes which simulated enemy intruders. Accumulated
experience also showed that two pilots in a TF-102 would have a better change
for an interception than a single pilot in an F-102,, with the result that
subsequent rotational Water Glass deployments to Saigon employed TF-102s
drawn from the Fifth and Thirteenth Air Force. On 31 July Admiral Felt
ordered the F-102s to be relieved by three US Navy AD-5Q interceptor aircraft
from Cubi Point in the Philippines. These slower interceptors carried a
pilot and radar operator, and they were quite successful when operating with-
in 50 miles of Saigon. The Navy interceptors maintained the air defense alert
for six weeks and were then relieved by the rotational Water Glass F-102s. (37)
After an agreement was reached with the Government of Thailand, the 5th
Tactical Control Group disassembled its mobile radar at Don MUang and moved
it on a deployment called "Barn Door II" to Ubon Airfield in eastern Thailand,
where this installation tied into the South Vietnamese air defenses was
declared operational on 10 May 1962. (38) In their deployed locations the
radars at Tan Son Nhut, Da Nang, Pleiku, and Ubon could cover the airspace
of most of South Vietnam at altitudes above 5,000 feet, but because of
screening by mountainous terrain they were limited in overlap coverage
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at altitudes below 5,000 feet. Other sites where the coverage would have
been more advantageous could have been obtained, but these sites were
impracticable because of inaccessibility or insecurity. (39) Although
General Anthis was never able to determine whether the Pleiku and Tan Son
Nhut radars had actually sighted Communist aircraft on the nights of 19/20
and 20/21 March and there would be later reason to discount this, the incidence
rate of unknown radar tracks diminished after the expanded air defense system
was established and air traffic control over South Vietnam improved. At
Anthis' request, MACV issued a directive on 22 August 1962 that all US military
aircraft would display radar identification signals if so equipped and would
in any event contact and identity themselves to one of the radar control
centers when they werewithin radio range of such a center. (40) This directive
did not establish the "law and order in the air" under the Joint Operations
Center thought necessary by General O'Donnell, but with the passing of months
without any sign of enemy air activity General Harkins would state that every-
one knew that there was "no air battle in Vietnam, and there are no indications
that one will develop." (41)
4. Air Interdiction Proves Controversial
Early in 1962 the combined capabilities of VNAF and,Farm Gate exceeded
opportunities for their employment. General Anthis figured that Farm Gate's
four B-26s and eight T-28s were capable of one operational sortie for each
aircraft each day, but by political direction the Farm Gate planes could be
employed only on missions that could not be performed by the VNAF and then
only witha combined VNAF-USAF crew. In January 1962 the VNAF 1st Fighter
Squadron also should have had an ability to fly at a rate of one operational
sortie a day for each of its 20 AD-6s, but only in day operations since its
crews were not trained for night and bad weather flying. (42) In World War II
and Korea tactical airpower had to be able to interdict the flow of enemy
supplies, equipment, and reinforcements into and within a battle area, and
Air Force doctrine envisioned that air interdiction was second in importance
only to the maintenance of friendly control of the air over the battle area.
General Anthis understood these airpower lessons, and he went on record with
the statement that aerial interdiction objectives -- such as Vietcong training
areas, troop concentrations, supply depots, and sampans -- would comprise the
"host lucrative targets" in South Vietnam. (43) In the initial planning for
Vietnam, Admiral Felt and General O'Donnell conceived that interdictory air
attacks against the Vietcong base areas in South Vietnam would be very
effective in reducing these hostile redoubts, many of which had never been
entered by AWN farces. (44)
In the counterinsurgency environment of South Vietnam, however, the task
of air interdiction was unusually complex. The Vietcong seldom wore distinc-
tive uniforms and usually intermingled with the civilian population, any
sanpan could be either Vietcong or friendly, there were innocent people as
well as Vietcong in the -Communist war zones. In this environment it was
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obvious to General Anthis that successful air interdiction depended upon
timely intelligence and effective aerial reconnaissance which would permit
targeting for air interdiction strikes. (45) Intelligence and reconnaissance
capabilities were weak in early 1962 and were slow to develop. Within the
RVNAF the Vietnamese Air Force had two C745 transports that had been rigged
with cameras for day photography; an RVNAF Air Photo Intelligence Center was
located in the J-2 Division of the Joint General Staff and 12 Vietnamese
photo interpreters were being trained to man the center; the Vietnamese L-19
air observers were capable of visual reconnaissance, but the VNAF L-19
squadrons were being drained of their most experienced pilots to man the new
tactical fighter squadron. (46) Operating from Bangkok, Able liable RF-101s
maintained a sustained sortie rate of 2.8 photo flights each day, and Able
Mable flights were available to cover objectives of highest priority interest
to MACV and the RVNAF, but this was a second priority effort during the first
half of 1962 since the major national concern at this time called for photog-
raphy of Laos. When operating over South Vietnam the RF-101s customarily
staged through Tan Son Nhut and upon the completion of their missions turned
their film over to the USAF Photo Processing Cell (FPC) at Tan Son Nhut for
Processing and interpretation. The RF-101 was a good vehicle for general war
reconnaissance of clearly fixed hostile targets, but it was hardly appropriate
for the situation in South Vietnam where the enemy customarily kept under
heavy foliage by day and moved at night. (47) Scanty of human source intelli-
gence made the task of air reconnaissance much more difficult. One of the
major US assistance efforts undertaken in December 1961 was to build up RVNAF
intelligence activities with US intelligence advisors. The MACV J-2 Division
was manned with 44 persons and 230 US military intelligence advisors were
assigned to RVNAF units, but from the air viewpoint, the MACV intelligence
organization was oriented toward Amy ground operations. (48) Under normal
conditions RVNAF J-2 interrogations of captured prisoners should have provided
significant human intelligence, but South Vietnamese law gave little time for
questions since a prisoner could be held in military custody for only tvo
days before being turned over to provincial authorities for a court hearing.
(49)
Although aerial reconnaissance and military intelligence shortcomings
affected all military operations they were especially relevant to a prospec-
tive air interdiction activity. Early in 1962 requests for air interdiction
strikes came to the VNAF-USAF JOC from province chiefs, ARVN units deployed
in the field, and covert agents. If the VNAF accepted an approved inter-
diction target, USAF officers had no authority to question such a strike,
but General Anthis demanded that mature consideration be given any inter-
diction mission to be flown by Farm Gate personnel. During daylight hours
no strike was permitted unless the target was specifically marked by a VNAF
FAC. During the hours of darkness, when use of a FAC was not feasible,
additional assurances were required that there were no friendly people in
the vicinity of a target. Essentially, however, the American airmen were
completely dependent upon Vietnamese sources for tactical target information,
and targets were usually described in vague terms such as "groups of huts,"
"troop concentrations," or "VC strong points" at specified map coordinates.
(SO)
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Despite elaborate precautions air strikes carried some element of danger,
especially in the heavily populated and poorly mapped delta area. In one
incident in January ARVN officers were particularly insistent upon securing
an early morning air support strike against the Vietcong-dominated village
of Bathu, located very close to the Cambodian border in the "Parrot's Beak."
The VNAF lacked capability to fly a. mission that was to arrive at daybreak,
and the Farm Gate commander initially turned down the mission because the
target area was too close to the Cambodian border. The ARVN insisted that
the mission was critically important, and on 21 January the Farm Gate
commander led a strike in an SC-47 which he positioned along the Cambodian
border and from which an airborne coordinator directed bomb, rocket, napalm,
and strafing passes flown by eight T-28s and three RB-26s. A second C-47
carried the Minister of Defense and the ARVN III Corps commander as observers.
Although the Farm Gate commander was confident that no one made a mistake,
three separate maps of the area planed the border in three different places,
and on 22 January the Cambodian government charged that two single-engine
fighters had crossed into Cambodia And killed one villager and injured three
others. South Vietnam's Defense Minister Thuan shrugged off the incident
since he said the whole area was a "VC hot bed," but at Washington's
insistence South Vietnam subsequently issued an apology and provided monetary
compensation. The US State Department also suggested that steps should be
taken to minimize any further incidents that might disturb always delicate
relations between South Vietnam and Cambodia. On 25 January General Anthis
issued a secret directive providing that no Farm Gate strike would take place
within five miles of the Lao-Cambodian borders during daylight or within ten
miles of them at night. He recognized that the directive would give the
Vietcong a sanctuary along the borders, but he pointed out that his directive
did not affect the VNAF which could continue to operate up to the border
provided there were no violations of Lao or Cambodian air space. (51)
In view of the uncertainty about some portions of South Vietnam's borders
General Anthis thought his order of 25 January to be a prudent safeguard, but
he also believed that elsewhere in South Vietnam interdiction strikes could
and should be properly managed against the Vietcong. On 29 January a joint
VNAF-Farm Gate effort employing all available strike aircraft in flights
from Bien Hoa, Pleiku, and Da Nang simultaneously attacked 14 carefully pin-
pointed enemy targets in five major target areas. Strike results were
reported to be good. In a conversation with General Moorman, Defense Minister
Thuan quoted a Vietcong document which indicated that the air strikes flown
in Ba Mayen province had been exceptionally accurate. In fact, Thuan said
that the Vietcong were becoming concerned about spies in their midst because
of the timeliness and accuracy of the strikes. Despite assurances such as
these, Moorman, Anthis, Molting, and McGarr had some nagging doubts about
the validity of targets recommended by the South Vietnamese and needed as
much assurance as they could get that hostile objectives were being hit.
Toward this end on 3 February, General McGarr emphasized to the Joint General
Staff the importance of developing accurate and timely intelligence for air
strikes, exercise of proper controls to assure that only Vietcong targets
were struck, and the need for maximum post-strike assessment of the results
of air strikes. (52) Sensitive to Washington criticisms of air operations,
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Admiral Felt prepared an assessment of the potentiality of air operations
in Vietnam based upon an analysis of counterinsurgency experience in Greece,
the French Indochina war, and Algeria. He was unwilling to accept restricted.
air strikes that would make innocent and guilty suffer alike when Vietcong
were detected in a village. He recognized that when friendly and hostile
people were intermingled, the only positive system of target location was to
employ ground forces who could identify the people who shot at them. But to
wait until foot troops could run down and fix a will-of-the-wisp guerrilla
enemy in considerable lumps would curtail the maximum employment of available
airpower. Felt was personally impressed with the good intentions of RVNAF
officers to avoid indiscriminate use of weapons against innocent people, and
he believed that the problem of profitably directing air strikes could best
be handled by developing an effective air/ground communication capability
for close air support, and, as far as independent air attacks were concerned,
everyone should be as careful as possible when attacking targets near
friendly areas. (53)
During early February US State Department officials were very concerned
about air operations in Vietnam. An influential group, including Assistant
Secretary for Far Eastern Affairs Harriman and Director of Intelligence and
Research Hilsman, felt that air attacks could well be counterproductive to
the pacification of South Vietnam since they wouldalienate the families and
friends of innocent persons who might be accidental victims of air attack. (54)
Secretary Harriman announced that he would attend the Secretary of Defense
Conference to be held in Hawaii on 19 February, and it appeared that the
future of air operations in Vietnam could well be determined in the discussions
to take place at this time. ,General Anthis was warned of this eventuality and
prepared himself to give a "make or break" briefing in Hawaii.
As it happened the principal subject addressed at the Secretary of Defense
Conference on 19 February was the emerging strategy for employment of ARVN in
clear and hold operations and the concomitant strategic hamlet program, and
General Anthis emphasized that close air support operations would contribute
to the clear and hold activity at the same time that air interdiction strikes
launched throughout South Vietnam would keep the enemy off balance. Anthis
stressed that every effort was being made to prevent counterproductive air
attacks and that the employment of airpower would become even more precise
as improved intelligence generated better targets. After hearing Anthis'
briefing, Ambassador Harriman quoted Sir Robert Thompson as having told him
that bombing was not productive. Ambassador Nolting camnented that he felt
air operations were best in a close ground support role rather than in inter-
diction. In a few general comments Secretary McNamara ruled that US partici-
pation in air missions should "balance risk vs gain," that air strikes must
not trespass on Cambodia s borders, and that air operations should be
conducted only when the net result would be "plus" -- they should not be
attempted when there was a chance of killing innocent people in order to
kill a few Vietcong. In other air matters, McNamara appeared impressed with
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Anthis' discussion of flare strike air tactics for relieving outposts under
night attack, and he saw no reason why strategic hamlets could not be provided
with cheap but effective radios that would permit them to call for prompt
military assistance. He directed CINCPAC and MACV to work with the US Opera-
tions Mission to provide hamlets with short range VHF-FM voice radio sets.
McNamara was quite concerned that eight Americans and only one Vietnamese had
been lost in the crash of the Farm Gate SC-47 psychological warfare aircraft;
when he asked and was told that VNAF could take over psychological warfare
operations, he stated that he did not want Americans to do anything that the
Vietnamese could do. In the discussion of the aerial spray herbicide opera-
tions, the State Department view was that the mission was "too reminiscent
of gas warfare . . . and the Viet Cong would use it to good propaganda
advantage of the Americans making war on the peasants." Both O'Donnell and
Moorman thought that defoliation should be phased out as militarily ineffective.
McNamara, however, wanted the experiments with herbicides to continue: he would
press ARPA to discover why the aerial spray technique had not worked. McNamara
also stated three policies applicable to all US advisors in Vietnam: do not
employ US personnel to do a job that could be done by the Vietnamese, do not
expose US personnel to casualty hazards except where necessary in the perform-
ance of an assigned mission: do not refer to US activities as "combat opera-
tions" but rather as "training or support activities" regardless of the fact
that incidental combat might be involved. (55) In context with these policies,
Farm Gate surrendered psywar missions to VNAF as soon as a VNAF C-47 could be
modified with speakers. Effective with the beginning of VNAF leaflet drops
and psywar broadcast flights in March, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff directed
that US aircraft would refrain from such operations except in unusual
circumstances. (56)
Where Air Force leaders in Washington had feared that Assistant Secretary
Harriman would advocate very restrictive air operations at the meeting held
in Hawaii on 19 February, General O'Donnell thought that Anthis' briefing was
well received and had reduced interest in applying further restrictions to
air operations. (57) In fact Secretary McNamara approved O'Donnell's suggestion
for an added interdiction task which involved locating the sites of the 20 to
4o Vietcong radio transmitters in South Vietnam with radio direction-finding
planes and then destroying them with air strikes. (58)
The issue of "indiscriminate" and "counterproductive" air attacks, however,
was far from dead. During an orientation tour of Vietnam late in February,
Brig. Gen. Harvey J. Jablonsky, US Army Chief of Infantry, was told by two
Army advisors that the Vietcong were exploiting strafing and bombing attacks
effectively for propaganda purposes. After an air attack the Vietcong were
said to remove killed or wounded males, leaving only women and children, so
that when the people returned to the village they got the impression that
only women and children were targets of air strikes. After hearing Jablonsky's
report, Ambassador Nolting assembled Generals Harkins, Timmes, Jablonsky, and
Anthis on the afternoon of 3 March for a discussion centering around a
positive identification of friends and foes. Nolting's immediate thought
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was to reduce air activity, but Jablonsky could not provide any specific
instances of indiscriminate air attacks, and Harkins urged that further
restrictive actions would benefit the Vietcong. (59) In addition there
was evidence that well managed interdiction based on good intelligence could
be very successful. Thus on 2 March the ARVN II Corps commander requested
an immediate air strike against a group of Vietcong who were holding a
meeting in the village of Hung Nhon. The JOC validated the request and
dispatched two VNAF AD-6s and a Farm Gate B-26, the latter required for
augmented firepower. The strike surprised the Vietcong, and napalm, frag
bombs, rockets, 20-mm., and 50-caliber fire killed at least 12 of the enemy
and produced a large secondary explosion. (60)
In a further debriefing at PACOM on 13 March, General Jablonsky repeated
the charges that he had made in Saigon, adding that ARVN forces were not
getting air support when they needed it.. Apparently-because of Jablonsky's
allegations the Secretary of Defense Conference held on 21 March reopened
the examination of air activity. At this time Ambassador Nolting did not
suggest reducing air operations which were currently having a good effect,
but he urged that they must be kept under close analysis to prevent the
adverse effect of killing innocent people. Other participants including
Secretary McNamara agreed that air operations should continue, but under
strict controls and stringent intelligence criteria. In the view of Roger
Hilsman, who returned to Washington from a trip to Southeast Asia at this
time, the compromise in regard to interdictory air strikes brought the worst
of two worlds: military men were disturbed by the stringent restrictions
on air effort, while he and other State Department men fretted about the
propaganda advantage of the air attacks to the Communists. (61)
As a result of the controversy in regard to the possibility that air
interdiction strikes might kill innocent people, General Anthis was on
notice not to undertake an air strike that could injure the civil population.
Effective implementation of the interdiction mission required timely intelli-
gence, which was difficult to obtain despite efforts to improve the intelligence
establishment in Saigon. A proposal to establish a Joint Target Acquisition
Group in Saigon to help solve the problem of preplanning air strikes against
fixed targets was unacceptable to the Vietnamese for political reasons. (62)
In a move to improve the flow of human source intelligence that might be
obtained from prisoners of war, the Government of Vietnam gave the RVNAF
jurisdiction over all prisoners who had infiltrated fram North Vietnam, who
might be held in military custody pending interrogation. With assistance
from American advisors the RVNAF Joint General Staff J-2 opened a prisoner
of war interrogation center in Saigon. (63) In order to assist the RVNAF
in handling human source intelligence of air force interest, Admiral Felt
authorized the establishment of a detachment of the USAF 6499th Support
Group in Saigon. Six officer and six. airman intelligence specialists from
the 6499th reached Saigon during March 1962, but the detachment carmiander
and another officer were soon removed because of lack of qualifications.
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By July the 6499th Group detachment received authority so that its intelli-
gence specialists were permitted to place questions of air interest through
RVNAF interrogators to prisoners held in the J-2 JIGS POW interrogation
center in Saigon. (64)
Under normal circumstances the JOC Intelligence Branch and the 2d Advon
Intelligence Directorate might have used intelligence originating in Saigon
and in the field to plan country-wide air interdiction activities, but the
round rules of the war made these activities little more than "record
keeping and statistic gathering agencies." (65) Any namination for a pre-
planned air strike originating in Saigon had to follow a lengthy verification.
Thus the 2d Advon Intelligence Directorate could submit a recommended target
to the JGS Air Photo Intelligence Center where further research was initiated
and target data sheets and folders were prepared. One copy of the product
was sent to the responsible local Vietnamese province chief for verification
that the targets were hostile anc another copy to the JOC for preliminary
planning. If the province chief verified the target and wanted it attacked
he passed the word up to Field Command, which determined whether the target
would be attacked by air or ground action. This process took from several
days to several weeks. On the other hand, most intelligence actually
originated at ARVN division/province chief levels, and these authorities
usually originated the requests for action against identified enemy activities,
these requests being passed fram division/province to the ARVN Corps, to the
ASOC, and then to the JOC. In either procedure determination whether a
target would be attacked rested solely with a local province chief, who was
best able to certify that friendly people would not be hazarded by the
military activity. (66) .
The restrictive procedures made it difficult to attack Vietcong activities
that could be discovered, and it was also true that hard intelligence of
Vietcong activities remained difficult to obtain. General O'Donnell's
expectation that the location of Vietcong radio transmitters could be pin-
pointed for air attack, for example, proved optimistic. In March special
airborne homing radio units that had been developed for the US Army Security
Agency were installed in three Army L-20s and it was thouglt that these
planes could secure very accurate "fixes" of the sites of the enemy radios.
Also in March, USAF delivered a C-54 aircraft, nicknamed "Hilo Hattie" and
outfitted with a high frequency/direction finder, an infrared system, and
cameras to include a 100-inch oblique installation, to the 6091st Recon-
naissance Squadron in Japan for testing against the Vietcong radio trans-
mitters in South Vietnam. Hilo Hattie flew its first operational mission
from Tan Son Nhut on 12 April. The Army L-20s and Hilo Hattie revealed
that there were more Vietcong transmitters in South Vietnam than had been
thought, but the existing state of the art in high frequency/direction
finding equipment did not permit a precise location of the radio sets. In
the ten months after April 1962 the Hilo Hattie crew made five separate
tours from Tan Son Nhut And flew a total of 102 special missions. The plane's
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day and night camera systems worked well for ordinary photography, but the
infrared and DF equipment could not be made to function satisfactorily. (67)
In the spring of 1962 most air interdiction strikes were directed against
small collections of Vietcong guerrillas and sampans which appeared near ARVN
positions, but late in May meticulous oas/mAcv planning completed the targeting
of the Do Xa war zone headquarters area of Interzone V for air attack. The
targeting activity identified, authenticated, and prepared folders with photo-
graphs of 19 pinpoint objectives spread over an area of approximately 230
square miles. Even though the objective area was under observation for some
time, prestrike reconnaissance was flown on 25 May, and on the following day
a Vietcong defector was flown over the area in a last re-validation of the
targets. In repeated strikes on 27 May a composite force of VNAF/USAF
aircraft flew 11 B-26, 11-AD-6, and 6 T-28 sorties against 14 of the pin-
pointed targets, five of the targets being found to be weathered out on this
day. Despite the elaborate briefings, one B-26 crew hit a friendly village,
killing four persons and destroying 10-12 structures. The strike pilots did
not see any Vietcong, but bomb damage assessment photography showed an instal-
lation described as a command post destroyed, 140 other structures burned and
destroyed, and 30 damaged. General Nguyen Khanh described the attacks as a
"total success," and Ngo Dinh Nhu reported that approximately 400 Vietcong
were killed. Vietcong defectors from Interzone V attributed their desertion
to the bombing attacks. (68) In an assessment of the Do Xa attacks and also
of the other limited air interdiction activity that had been conducted PACAF
and 2d Advan officers considered that the air strikes disrupted Vietcong
security in base areas that were beyond the reach of ARVN ground operations.
In a message to Washington on 4 June, however, the American Embassy in Saigon
questioned the wisdom of the 27 May attack, describing it as area bombing of
a "strike zone covering . . . about 230 square miles." (69) Other unnamed
"American observers" offered assessments that the results of the 27 May
attack were exaggerated, that only about 50 enemy personnel had been killed,
and that the commander of Interzone V had escaped the attack. (70)
Most of the early controversy concerning air interdiction attacks involved
assertions that they were counterproductive to pacification because they were
apt to injure innocent people, but by the late spring of 1962 there was also
a growing belief in the MACV J-2 Intelligence Division that air interdiction
could not be made to be militarily effective against the Vietcong. (71) The
first substantial activity of the J-2 was the assembly of data required for
an initial Vietcong order of battle. Published on 15 April, this order of
battle listed 18 battalions, 79 companies, and 136 platoons, with an overall
Vietcong strength of 16,305 hard-core troops in South Vietnam -- the total
being somewhat less than the 25,000 strength that the RVNAF had accepted.
In addition to the regular troops, the Vietcong were estimated to possess
a paramilitary organization of some 10,000 part-time guerrillas. (72) The
order of battle fixed the tentative locations of the Vietcong hard-core
forces in the base areas of the Nam Bo and Interzone V. (73) According to
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MACV intelligence an additional 1,000 to 1,800 Vietcong infiltered from Laos
between 1 May and 15 June, and enough of these men reached Zone D to encadre
another Vietcong battalion. (74)
Although the Vietcong were operating their hard-core forces from protected
base areas, the MACV J-2 study on Vietcong logistics completed in June 1962
described the enemy as being relatively invulnerable within his base areas to
conventional attack, other than to ground operations that would isolate his
forces from the populace and which would stop or substantially reduce infil-
tration from Laos. Some heavy weapons with ammunition, some small arms, and
some medical supplies were brought from North Vietnam. In May 1962, for
example, ARVN patrols captured several Chinese Communist weapons as well as
several French submachineguns that had been modified to accept the common
7.62-mm. ammunition used by Communist nations. Inside Vietnam, however, the
Vietcong military structures rested upon an organized political echelon, a
layer of part-time guerrillas, and finally the hard-core forces. Most Vietcong
supplies including food were being procured inside South Vietnam. In the base
areas the Vietcong would husband their resources and could sally forth for
combat when they chose to do so. (75)
After receiving and studying the MACV J-2 Vietcong logistics study,
Admiral Felt informed General Harkihs on 9 July that he could not accept the
conclusion that the Vietcong were relatively invulnerable to logistical
problems in their base areas. In his view air strikes were already destroying
bits and pieces of the Vietcong logistics system and he wanted them continued.
In addition he wanted to send ARVN rangers and regular ARVN units into the
Vietcong war zones to fight, guerrilla style. "It is, of course," Felt
messaged, "basic to our side that the initiative be denied the VC. Our
concept is to harass them, push them down and extend them far beyond the
capabilities of their logistics support, thus destroying them." (76) General
Harkins accepted the concept of small ARVN actions of longer duration, but
he pointed out that ARVN commanders ,were not up to large-scale efforts except
on rare occasions and that the ARVN .rangers lacked sufficient trained leader-
ship that they would require for extended field operations. (77)
Unlike the ARVN, VNAF had an ability to carry the war into the tangled
jungle areas held by the Vietcong, if it could obtain valid target intelligence.
In a presentation to USAF Corps and Division air liaison officers on 9 August,
Colonel Ralph A. Newman, ALO with the RVNAF Field Command, stressed the need
to strike Vietcong concentrations before they could attack and instructed
the new Liaison officers to work closely with ARVN division and regimental
G-2 and G-3 personnel to identify air targets. Two days later, General Anthis
asked Defense Minister Thuan to consider the fact that VNAF was flying a
substantial number of sorties which did not have occasion to expend ordnance.
Most of the VNAF crews were reluctant to land with unexpended external
ordnance; hence since 1958 they had been accustomed to jettison their un-
expended stores in uninhabited areas -- called "free areas" -- near the
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operational airfields. Anthis pointed out that better use could be made of
unexpended ordnance. Each ASCC oukht to be furnished a list of pre-planned
targets, which could be assigned as alternates to be hit if ordnance remained
available after an escort mission. He also proposed that "free areas"
could be designated in Vietcong territory, most desirably in Zone D. Anthis
suggested to Thuan that Vietnamese province chiefs were familiar with Vietcong
concentrations within their areas of responsibility and could be encouraged
to submit both pinpoint and free area targets, which, of course, would be
checked through ARVN intelligence channels prior to listing them for ordnance
expenditure. (78) Even though the rules of engagement precluded apy classic
armed air reconnaissance operations in Vietnam, General Anthis had a plan
in August for activities along those lines. In deployments from their home
bases to forward airfields, tactical aircrews were briefed to reconnoiter
primary areas of Vietcong activity. If they encountered a likely air strike
target, this information was passed to the TACS for the development of an
immediate target mission. (79)
General Anthis, the ASOC directors, and the air liaison officers pressed
ARVN to designate pre-planned air targets, but the expanded interdiction
program was slow in getting started. After a visit to Vietnam, General
Moorman informed General Harkins on 3 September that the I and II ASOCs had
no backlog of pre-planned air targets, and he advised General Harkins that
a target backlog at each ASOC would insure better scheduling, distribution,
and utilization of aircraft as well as keeping continuous pressure on the
Vietcong. (80) On 12 September, Admiral Felt added support for air inter-
diction when he advised General Harkins that Zone D ought to be re-elevated
to a top priority and that "area denial" techniques ought to be used to
make this zone too hot for the Vietcong to occupy. "Entire extent of
techniques and devices available for such purpose," Felt advised, "should
be used. We have in mind, for example, scatter bombing with butterfly
bombs, proven lethal in Korea, and other type AF mines. We also visualize
use of chemical irritants and defoliants to expose targets for air strikes ....
In other words we want to destroy or drive sick, starved, blistered, and
blasted Viet Cong from Zone D so that we can scoop them up outside of their
nest or prevent them from setting foot in the area again." (81)
Spurred into action by Admiral Felt the MACV J-2 in coordination with
the Joint General Staff commenced an all-out effort to target Zone D,
preparatory to mounting an intensive air campaign against the area as soon
as possible. As soon as Zone D was targeted Generals Harkins and Anthis
planned to do the same type targeting nation-wide. (82) On 3 October, the
ARVN 5th Division submitted an outline plan with 129 specific air targets
for aerial bombing of Zone D, providing the beginning of the targeting
effort. As planning progressed, President Diem laid plans for a large-
scale five-day bombing attack against Zone D desirably to begin on
1 November and to be followed by an ARVN special force penetration through
the area. In Diem's opinion, the one man who had the greatest knowledge
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of this area, the best record as a guerrilla fighter, and the best rapport
with local Montagnards was a Lieutenant Colonel Dien, the Chief of Phuoc
Long province. Diem therefore intended to place Dien in supervision of
operations in Phuoc Long, Binh Long, and Phuoc Thanh provinces -- the new
command to be designated the PET Special.Tactical Zone. Simultaneously
with the PBT operation in III Corps against Zone D, Diem intended that the
I and II Corps would cooperate in a similar bombing and follow up penetration
into War Zone X, the headquarters of Vietcong V Interzone, which lay in the
mountain astride the dividing line between the two ARVN corps. (83)
The high level American and Vietnamese interest in air interdiction
attacks was reflected by increased targeting of both pinpoint and area
objectives for bombing attack, notably in War Zones D and X. In both regions
the provincial chiefs, as the individuals most knowledgeable of enemy and
friendly disposition, designated "free areas" for air attack, these areas
comprising known centers of Vietcong activity, usually deep in the jungles
or mountains, where population was scarce. The areas nominated by the
province chief were forwarded upward through military channels for approval
by the AWN Corps Commanders and the Field Command. VNAF strike crews
were prebriefed on these free areas as alternate targets and could attack
them without a FAC; Farm Gate aircraft, on the other hand, were not permitted
to attack a target in the free areas unless it was marked by a VNAF L-19 FAC.
Free areas, bounded by map coordinates, were established in each corps area,
but most of them were located in War Zones D and X. (8)4.) The JOC and ASOCs
also began to frag the limited type of armed reconnaissance over known areas
of Vietcong activity that was permitted by the rules of engagement. For
the most part this activity amounted to visual reconnaissance performed by
strike aircraft while enroute to and from forward airfields; here again,
Farm Gate aircraft could not attack any target of opportunitL, they
without control by a FAC, unless they were called upon to act in self-defene.
(85)
In addition to the formal targeting of Zone D objectives worked out
at the JGS-MACV J-2 level, the ARVN III Corps Cammander accepted the objective
that no atrike aircraft would leave his area with unexpended ordnance and
lent his active support to an Authorized Low Priority Interdiction Target
(ALM) program. In this program, air liaison officers worked with province
chiefs to identify pinpoint locations of Vietcong activity by map coordinates.
The province ,chiefs forwarded ALPIT target lists to the ARVN corps commanders
for final approval, and the ASOCs held them for use as alternate targets for
strike aircraft. Since the Vietcong moved about from one place to another
and as a precaution against friendly people moving into the area, the province
chiefs were required to revalidate the ALPIT lists every seven to ten days.
In fact, the PBT ALO monitored and supervised the ALPIT lists pertinent to
his zone every day, because he understood that one air strike against friendly
people could destroy the whole program. In practice, strike pilots who were
not able to attack their primary targets reported to the III ASOC and asked
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for an ALPIT secondary. The use of the ALPIT lists greatly reduced the
previous situation where 40 to 45 percent of strike sorties had not been
able to place ordnance on the enemy. Under the rules of engagement, Farm
Gate aircraft could not attack an ALPIT objective unless it was marked by
a VNAF FAC. (86)
At the time that the expanded air and ground operations against Zone D
were being planned, South Vietnam's usually strained relations with Prince
Sihanouk, Cambodian Chief of State, worsened in a manner that would affect
operations against the Vietcong. Believing himself threatened by both
South Vietnam and Thailand, and more aggressively by the former, Sihanouk
on 20 August appealed to President Kennedy to summon a meeting of representa-
tives of the nations that had neutralized Laos and accord Cambodia a similar
neutrality and territorial integrity. In response, Kennedy stated that the
United States respected Cambodia's neutrality, territorial integrity, and
independence and suggested that other interested nations could do the same.
?resident Diem, however, rationalized that such a guarantee would imply
that Sout4 Vietnam had been an aggressor against Cambodia in the past and he
would not take the action outlined by President Kennedy. To President Diem
the weight of some captured Communist weapons, including Chinese Communists
heavy infantry weapons such as 57-mm. recoilless rifles and associated
ammunition captured as far south as the Delta, indicated that they came into
South Vietnam by sea, and there was little doubt that the Vietcong redoubts
in the Nam Bo drew support fram across the border in Cambodia. Information
available to President Diem led him to assert that Vietcong direction in
Zone D came from a point just across the border in Cambodia. Fran time to
time South Vietnamese troops disguised as fishermen went across the border
into Cambodia and captured munitions. Sihanouk was concerned about this
activity. On 10 September, he charged that South Vietnamese amphibious
craft with air cover violated Cambodian soil by making landings at Koh Raker,
a village on the lower Mekong River. Sihanoux threatened that if South
Vietnam committed two more such aggressive acts Cambodia would sever its
diplomatic relations with South Vietnam and recognize North Vietnam. (87)
On 21 October the South Vietnamese provided one of these incidents when a
RVNAF naval operation against the island of Phu Quoc, lying just off the
Cambodian coast, seized 17 tons of ingredients for making explosives, all
packed in old Japanese cement bags overprinted with Cambodian legends. (88)
The US State Department was very concerned about the Cambodian border
problem and about Sihanouk's threats to invite Chinese Communist assistance.
In meetings with Diem and Thuan, Ambassador Nolting stressed that South
Vietnam must avoid any military actions that might lead to the introduction
of Chinese Communist forces on the flank of Vietnam. (89) On 15 November, the
RVNAF OIS issued a directive that no ground or air operations would be
planned or initiated within a ten kilometer area on South Vietnam's borders
without its prior approval; where the border was clearly distinguished by
a river, road, or similar geographical feature, RVNAF forces could pursue an
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enemy to within two and on-half kilometers of the border, but if the border
was not clearly distinguishable the pursuit would cease at five miles
distance from it. VNAF pilots were authorized to open fire on a hostile
aircraft which penetrated ten kilometers into South Vietnam but they were
cautioned that any aircraft they fired upon must fall inside Vietnamese
territory. (90)
President Diem accepted the border restriction since, as he told
Ambassador Nolting, he did not want to disturb the situation "at a time
when Washington was using a magnetic influence on Sihanouk," but the
restriction was unpopular with South Vietnamese officials who observed
that the Vietcong moved back and forth across the Cambodian border at
their pleasure. The restriction would make it difficult for the Govern-
ment of South Vietnam to control the people who lived just inside its own
borders: in the heavily populated Delta, 408,500 people lived within ten
kilometers of the border. As will be seen, the restrictions sheltered
Vietcong headquarters installatiom.discovered in December 1962 in northern
Tay Ninh province and complicated RVNAF operations against these hostile
activities. (91) In Washington early in December, however, both the Joint
Chiefs of Staff and Secretary Rusk were apprehensive about the serious con-
sequences of border incidents and wondered whether the border restrictions'
went far enough. Rusk asked Nolting and the Joint Chiefs queried Felt
about the location of several "free areas" near the Cambodian border.
Rusk urged that the political significance of another border incident
outweighed any probable military advantage of air operations in the border
area. "Militarily," Rusk stated, "there is general agreement that success
Ides not in drawing tight cordon sanitaire in Maginot manner along vaguely
.Thfined frontier, but primarily in working outwards from rural areas won
over to GVN and, secondarily, through strikes against VC strongholds.
Usefulness of latter, when carried out near frontier, must be considered
less important than political-diplamatic problem of GVN-RKG relations."
The Joint Chiefs also suggested to Felt that some other name should be
given to the "free areas." Admiral, Felt was unwilling to give the Vietcong
more sanctuary by broadening the restricted zones any farther. He had no
objection to changing the name of the "free areas," and as a matter of
expediency the 2d Air Division began to refer to them as "approved inter-
diction targets." (92)
Admiral Felt had visualized "area denial" air actions against Zone D
including the use of such munitions as delayed-fuzing ordnance and butterfly
bombs, but as General Anthis would observe this concept had to be laid
aside because "it smacked of 'indiscriminate bombing.'" Even in Zone D it
was impossible to be certain that all victims would be Vietcong. On
11 November, Admiral Felt also proposed that C-123 aircraft be uted to
drop large quantities (he specified 10,000-pound drops) of napalm on marked
targets in the up-coming Zone D offensive. On 1 December, the US State
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Department questioned this proposal, and on 8 December Secretary Rusk stated
that political considerations suggested limiting the use of napalm to high
priority targets which were clearly Vietcong installations. Rusk also
informed Nolting that future plans for using large amounts of napalm in
any one operation should be cleared with the State Department. In the end,
General Harkins did not permit the use of US aircraft to deliver napalm
in the Zone D operation because of the absence of hard evidence of Vietcong
concentration sufficiently large to promise military benefits outweighing
political and psywar risks involved. He did not agree, however, that any
more restraints ought to be placed upon RVNAF military operations, and
Ambassador Nolting supported Harkins' position that the restraints already
imposed upon the RVNAF were making it very difficult to carry the war into
the heart of the enemy's sanctuaries. The restrictions ruled out most
psychological weapons, but Anthis nevertheless lent his support to an
activity wherein F-102s made high speed flights across Zone D at night,
breaking the sound barrier and causing sonic booms. It may not destroy
anything," Anthis cumnended, "but I can say positively there has been
considerable VC sleep lost in the last few weeks." (93)
S. Air Support for ARVN Operations Proves Complex,
At the 19 February 1962 Secretary of Defense Conference sensed agreement
that the major airpower mission in South Vietnam would be to provide air
support for ARVN operations. At this time the rudimentary tactical air
control system (TACS) was in being, and on 28 February General Moorman urged
Anthis to take the initiative in offering air support to ARVN commanders. (94)
In the next several months the program of "selling" air support included a
necessary strengthening of the VNAF-USAF JOC at Tan Son Nhut and the ASOCs
at Da Nang and Pleiku. It included procurement and deployment of USAF air
liaison officers (AL0s) and forward air controllers (FACS). It also involved
"selling" air support to locally powerful AWN commanders who were jealous
of their personal authority, naturally secretive about their plans, and had
no previous experience in the employment of tactical air support.
In addition to providing a unitary air defense capability for South
Vietnam, the VNAF-USAF tactical air control system was designed to provide
positive control over all offensive aircraft in South Vietnam. In the
basic organization, the JOG was equipped with a combat plans division, with
responsibility for handling all preplanned air support requests, and a
combat operations division, which was expected to manage immediate air
support requests and to monitor air activities in progress. On the basis
of VNAF and Farm Gate strike capabilities, the JOG was charged to determine
how requests developed by ARVN units could be accomplished and to issue
fragmentary orders for the camnitment of aircraft. The I and II Air Support
Operations Centers were located adjacent to the I and II Corps Tactical .
Operations Centers, and were responsible for receiving requests for air
support that came up through the TOCs, passing these requirements on to the
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JOC, and exercising final responsibilities for the control and coordination
of aircraft sorties which the JOG allocated to them. As an economy measure,
the JOC served in lieu of a III ASOC. Rotational fighter detachments were
maintained at Da Nang and Pleiku to provide quick response, but these
planes were to be fragged by the JOC., In the basic concept it was intended
that the VNAF-USAF Joint Operations center would be a vehicle for overall
air planning throughout South Vietnam as had been the function of such
operations centers in previous wars. It would thus need to have a day-to-day
knowledge of ARVN operations, and toward this end an ARVN liaison officer
and a US Army liaison officer were assigned to the JOC in late February 1962.
The US Army lieutenant colonel assigned to the ground liaison officer (GLO)
function was highly enthusiastic and undertook to prepare and maintain data
on all planned ARVN operations so that tactical air could be injected into
the operations very early in the planning. (95)
Although the functions and organization of the proposed Joint Uperati,....ns
.bnter and the Air Support Operatirns Centers were ciaal'ly described in
joint US An/USAF manuals, the ehtironmental situation Ln South Vietnam
early in 1962 worked against the proposed centralization of control inherent
in the doctrinal tactical air control system. The VNAF/USAF JOC was promptly
manned, but problems of personnel, communications, and lack of experience
reduced its effectiveness. Failure of the ranking VNAF officers to perform
their assigned functions forced a heavy burden on the first USAF officers who
served relatively short temporary duty tours in the JOC. A number of these
USAF TDY officers, moreover, lacked experience in the duties that they were
expected to perform. (96) As has been seen, communications between the JOC
and the ASOCs were unreliable until the Back Porch communications system was
in use. There were frequent communications outages in the long lines, and
as late as April the system between Tan Son Nhut and Pa uc luau
a three day. stretch. In addition to this problem, the VNAF uonsidered thau
the. aircraft asoigned on rotation al duty at Da Nang and eleaku could not
be moved from these posts wdtnout ipecial deployment approval Zrom VNA.1?
Headquarters. This prevented the JOC from moving these aircraft rapidly
and efficiently to areas where they might be most needed, The kRVN I and
II Corps Look it for granted that the AD-6s at Da Nang and Pleiku "belonged"
to the respective corps, and, in addition, in April the JOG learned that
the 2d fighter Squadron at Nha Trahg was flying T-2d strikes in response to
local requests without informing the JOC about the matter. On the other
hand, the ARVN I and II Corps observed that the JOC was heavily committed
to operations requested by Field Gammand and the ARVN III Corps and thus
believed that they were expected to rely exclusively on the few planes
deployed at Da Nang and Pleiku. In April General Anthis made staff visits
to ARVN crops, division, regiment, and battalion levels and found that there
was very little understanding of the manner in which the TACS was expected
to provide support for ARVN operations. (97)
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Despite the general agreement at the 19 February Secretary of Defense
Conference that the JOC should exercise a centralized authority over all
air operations in South Vietnam, it was difficult to bring helicopter
operations under the JOC authority. General Harkins took it for granted
that the assignment of the US Army GLO to the JOC solved the problem of
coordinating helicopter operations. The GLO was expected to prepare and
display data on all ARVN ground operations that were planned or in progress
and if tactical air was not requested he was to determine the reasons why
this had been the case. On 12 April Harkins also issued an order drafted by
General Dunning, directing: "All helicopter support missions being flown
where enemy ground opposition can be expected will normally be accompanied by
suitable armed tactical aircraft. Mission planning will include air cover
required. This support will be requested through the appropriate ASOC in
each corps area." When General LeMay visited Saigon on 20 April, General
Harkins assured him that the JOC was fully aware of all US Army activities
in South Vietnam, but in a subsequent briefing at the JOC the US Army GLO
stated that the COMUSMACV order was seldom observed. At 2d Advon General
LeMey was briefed that only 10 percent of the heliborne operations in
Vietnam used air support. (98) At this time a majority of ground actions
were involving ARVN forces of company-size or smaller, and many were ex-
tremely brief fire fights involving a handful of troops. The statement
that tactical air was used in only 10 percent Of ground operations was thus
misleading, but it was nevertheless, true that the ARVN was not fully
exploiting air support and that the JOC was not coordinating all air opera-
tions. In the JOC the US Army GLO found it next to impossible to secure
data on planned ARVN operations because the ARVN commanders were very sensitive
to efficient Vietcong espionage and personally planned and launched operations
with minimum notification, even to their awn staffs. Some of the ARVN com-
manders were fearful that the JOC could be a ready source of information to
the Vietcong if it learned of their plans. Since the VNAF dispatched its frag
orders from Tan Son Nhmt to its squadrons in the clear over possibly insecure
teletype circutits there were such dangers of security leaks. (99)
General LeMey's criticisms produced some beneficial effects at the JOC.
Shortly after LeMay's visit USAF officers -- including Lt. Col. Charles J.
Bowers as deputy director -- were assigned to the JOC on permanent change of
station orders. Under the new and more vigorous USAF deputy director, the
JOC required the ASOC's to submit daily requirements for air support sorties
to the AOC, which allocated sorties on the basis ofrequests and availability.
The fact that aircraft were physically collocated with the I and II-ASO-Cs
did not give them license to use the planes without prior approval of the
JOC or proper accounting to it. At Harkins' direction, General Timmes in
coordination with Anthis sent out a personal letter to all US Army advisors
pointing out the importance of using tactical air to support ground
operations. (100)
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On the other hand, US Army oiCicars in South Vietnam Rere dissatisfied
with the operations of the TACS. A meeting of MAAF Sen .r Advisors on
4 May, presided over by General Harkins and Times, was eritical of the
operations of the TACS and voiced 4 general belief that the system was too
rigid to meet counterinsurgency requirements in Vietnam. On 7 May Anthis pro-
posed to Harkins that joint directives should be issued giving the JOG control
of all air activities within South! Vietnam. While Harkins did not respond,
a MACV letter of instruction on the conduct of heliborne/close air support
operations issued on 18 July provided that helicopter support operations
normally required and would be provided appropriate air escert but authorized
US Army senior corps advisors to waive the requirement for escort with the
advice and consent of a helicopter unit commander. (101) A CINCPAC instruction
issued on 6 June 1962 provided that an Air Force component commander would
have "coordinating authority" over all air operations in a subunifi6:1 ,oplwand
area, and on 3 August Admiral Felt messaged Harkins (:::.sidered it
-tsen1ial tnat aLl air operation would be -;oordinated :ne .J;) ,na
there was not question but that nalicopter operations -..-T41ceu ruet t,.ont
fixed wing aircraft. (102) As will ce seen the CINCFAO insbruotion of
t June 1962 would affect the MACV plans for a country-wide counterinsurgency
campaign which were being drawn up, but meanwhile on 18 August MACV Directive
No. 34 provided that the Air Force Component Commander would act as coordina-
ting authority for COMUSMACV to coordinate VNAF activities and all US air
operations of air units operating in the MACV area but not assigned or
attached to the Air Force Component Commander. After this directive was
published, the Assistant Deputy J3 MACV drafted an implementing directive
that gave the Air Force Component Commander authority to issue relations
binding on all air units to effect direct coordination of all aic operation.
This draft directive went tbroflothe NACV staff 1114'Y
cf Staff ' s office, .ilere ,no aut1.2i ty to cocriiiato all -n,
nded 1, tho additL-Jia ur "L'Jr c,,,5C )fl
Ln october the Ub Lc1tIy the J00 was witnaree :eee no
for him would be provided until December 1962, and tkn orly on Admilal.
Jolt's specific direction. (104) '
In addition to the coordination actdvitiE,:s of the Jeine Oeeretone Citer
and the Air Support Opeiations Gentbrs, US Army/USAF mnuale that deseeibed
the TACS committed the Air Force to provide Air Liaison Officers (AL0e) to
Array units and Forward Air Controllers (FACs) Who were expected to accompany
frontline Army units and direct tactical air support strikes in the field.
The US Army was committed to provide and maintain the communications equipment
employed by the Tactical Air Control Party which was to serve the Air Force
FAC in the field. In addition to these doctrinal requirements affecting US
organization, President Diem required that no VNAF air strike could deliver
ordnance unless the targets were marked by a technically and politically
qualified VNAF air observer who was assigned to one of the VNAF liaison
squadrons. The air observers were low-ranking officers, many of whom had
been shot at for years, and they were subject to severe punishment if they
made e mistake which resulted in friendly castalties. Tai2Z',CAZ/11,.irteentn
ill 1 I
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Air Force Barn Door operations plan required this same positive control by
a VNAF FAC for the delivery of Farm Gate ordnance. Under the Barn Door
order PACAF also sent five temporary duty USAF FACs to Vietnam, but since
the VNAF FACs would continue to direct air strikes three of the PAGAF FACs
were assigned as JOC duty officers and -only Captains Thomas N. Cairney and
Douglas K. Evans were used to coordinate the FAC program. In the new TAGS,
VNAF designated liaison pilots to perform FAC duty with specified ARVN
regiments, but because of the shortage of these pilots the men designated
as FACs had to continue to fly as liaison pilots from squadron airfields.
In case of a commitment to an operation they were expected to go to their
respective regiments, get briefed, and then return on the day of the
operation to perform the FAC duty, each accompanied by a VNAF observer
who alone had the specific authority to mark a target. In a recognition
of the fact that US Army and USAF radio equipment was designed for different
purposes and could not inter-net, the Barn Door operations plan envisioned
the organization of ground mobile air control teams -- each to include an
AN/VRC-30 jeep equipped with radios for ground-to-air communications with
air control and strike aircraft. (105)
In maneuvers in the United States the AN/VRD-30 ground mobile air control
jeep provided an adequate interface between USAF supporting forces and the.
supported Army units, but the vehicle was of no real value in Vietnam in a
situation where there was a heavy use of ARVN heliborne movements and where
surface mobility was circumscribed by cut, mined, or ambushed roads and
next-to-impossible jungle and swamp terrain. Only the L-19 aircraft could be
employed for FAC work. Its radios were compatible with VNAF and Farm Gate
aircraft, although the VNAF FACs frequently could not speak English and thus
could not communicate with the Farm Gate crews who could not speak Vietnamese.
In order to have communications with ARVN, Civil Guard, and Self Defense Force
units, the VNAF L-19s were provided with portable AN/PRC-l0 Army radios,
which were lashed in their back seats. Because of electrical problems the
L-19 could power only one radio antenna at a time, and In practice the pilot
of the L-19 customarily handled transmissions to strike aircraft and the
observer in the rear seat talked to ground units ahd also marked targets with
manually-thrown smoke grenades. In addition to the language difficulty,
there were not enough VNAF L-19s or VNAF observers to meet expanding require-
ments for controlling air strikes, and the VNAF L-19s were customarily flown
at altitudes of about 5,000 feet, much too high for an effective marking of
targets. (106)
As a matter of policy General Anthis conceived rightly enough that VNAF
ought to provide air liaison officers to ARVN divisions, since Vietnamese
flying officers among other obvious advantages would have disciplinary
authority over VNAF personnel who provided support to the divisions. But
it was manifestly impossible for VNAF to divert scarce pilots to ALO duty,
and early in 1962 it appeared possible that US Army advisors with the ARVN
divisions could also handle air liaison functions. In February 1962 a
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travelling instructional team from the USAF Air-Ground Operations School
visited the ARVN divisions and attempted to indoctrinate ARVN commanders
and US Army advisors with the workings of the TACS, the availability of
VNAF and Farm Gate support, and how to obtain it. Despite this indoctrina-
tion, some of the ARVN commanders remained reluctant to request air support
because they did not understand the capabilities of the air weapon systems.
(107)
At the institution of the TAOS it was obvious that the scarcity of the
VNAF FACs would be a major limitation on effective employment of effective
close air support, and a VNAF-USAF FAC seminar conducted on 12-13 February
1962 visualized ways to use indigenous forces to perform the mission. At
this seminar Captains Cairney and Evans urged that USAF FACs be brought to
Vietnam both to train VNAF FACs and to assist in controlling Farm Gate air
strikes. In handling Farm Gate, the USAF FAC would pilot the VNAF L-19 and
give language asistance to the VNAF air observer, who would ,ontinue to
bear the basic responsibility forimarking targets. Another proposal appearing
to have merit was to train ARVN officers as Forward Air Guides (FAGs) and to
return these men to their ground units where they would be prepared to work
closely with airborne VNAF FACs in identifying and marking targets. This was
a fix favored by General Walter C. Sweeney, Jr., Commander, USAF Tactical
Air Command, as a means of conserving pilots. At the end of his tour as
Farm Gate commander in March, Lt. Col. Robert L. Gleason also recommended
that USAF FACs be brought to Vietnam, where they would fly VNAF L-19s with
VNAF air observers aboard. As an alternate proposition Gleason also recom-
mended that Farm Gate be provided with L-28 Helio Courier light aircraft
to be employed for airborne forward air control under conditions such as
adverse weather or darkness .when VNAF L-19 pilots were unable to fly. Under
L;uch an arrangemen, t-ne iam onto. aircrait uca,.Lu alcr-.) air
observer, who would perform the FAC target marking duties. (1CC A_t a series
of meetings in MarfTh a MACV ad hp0 air-ground cammuatinsccaee
recognized that the jury-rigged PRC-10 frequency modulated Army radio sets
lashed in the back seats of the VNAF L-19s were a poor makeshift that did
not provide adequate air-ground liaison communications. The committee
acknowledged that the best solution to the problem would be to give Army
units some man-pack equipment that could communicate with existing UHF,i'MF
aircraft radios. Such equipment, however, could not be available in
necessary quantity from US production sources before mid-1963. As an
interim improvisation the MACV committee elected to retrofit the VNAF and -
Farm Gate and the US Army helicopters in Vietnam with US Army AN/ARC-)4
radio equipment which could net With the PRC-10 radios possessed by ARVN
units. (109)
Each of the recommendations for improving the FAC capability was accepted
and was put into effect with varying results over a period of many months
that followed. In the period of operational doldrums after the 27 February
air attack on President Diem's Palace, the VNAF readily agreed to train
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ARVN FAGs. It began classes of two-week duration, each for 40 ARVN guides,
at Tan Son Nhut on 16 April. The FAG training continued for a year without
positive results. Most of the ARVN commanders sent staff officers to take
the training, men who enjoyed the temporary duty at Saigon but upon return
to their units disappeared in their old staff assignments and were never
available for duty with frontline battalions and companies. In the end the
VNAF would remain unwilling to issue a directive that authorized an air
strike against a target marked by a FAG, even in the absence of a VNAF air
observer. The VNAF rationalized that the FAGs were not adequately trained
and that only a trained VNAF air observer could be trusted not to make a
mistake in marking a target. The FAG program continued for many months
after it should have been abandoned and diverted attention from the efforts
that might have been given to training additional VNAF air observers. (110)
In September 1962 Farm Gate received the first two of four L-28s, planes
subsequently designated U-10As, for testing to include their use as airborne
control aircraft. In a FAC employment these planes gave good results as far
as aircraft performance was concerned, and they proved especially worthwhile
for carrying an airborne coordinator into a mission area where numerous
strike aircraft would be working. The use of the U-10 did not obviate the
requirement for a VNAF air observer, however, and the 11-10 Helio Courier was
too expensive an aircraft for general usage as a FAC plane. (111)
The program for retrofitting VNAF and USAF aircraft with AN/ARC-44 radio
equipment was carried out but was less than satisfactory on two counts. The
US Army procured the sets from a single production source in the United States,
and the Air Force Logistics Command had great delays in getting the sets
required to equip USAF and VNAF aircraft. Ry January 1963 all US Army heli-
copters in Vietnam were equipped with the ARC-4h, while the VNAF had 20 planes
so equipped and the USAF units had 18 aircraft equipped. As a matter of fact
USAF C-123s, the last aircraft to get the ARC-44 sets, would not be equipped
until early 1965:- In operationaluse the PRC-44/PRC-10 combination permitted
air-to-ground contact, but the quality of the frequency modulated, short-
range communications was poor. The PRC-10 ground radios had an effective
range of only five to six miles, and jungle canopy foliage further attenuated
their transmissions. Aircrews found it hard to raise contact with the PRC-10s,
and the few frequency channels available for air-ground communications led to
serious jamming over target areas. Particularly in helicopter escort missions
the incompatibility of various radios remained a serious detriment to success-
ful operations. (112)
Early in April the 2d Advon stated a requirement for USAF FAGs to be used
for training and in operations in Vietnam, and later in the month General
LeMay not only accepted the program but expanded it to include ALOs. General
Harkins agreed with the expanded ALO/FAC program, and PACAF undertook to
provide temporary duty officers pending the arrival of the first PCS personnel
from the United States in early August 1962. According to manning authoriza-
tions, the 2d Advon was authorized ALOs in the ranks of lieutenant colonel for
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assignment to the ARVN corps and in the ranks of major for assignment to
ARVN divisions, airborne brigade, special forces, and to an ALO/FAC section
in the JOC. Assignment of company ,grade tactical fighter pilots as FACs
was based on one for each regular ARVN infantry regiment plus one each for
the ARVN airborne brigade and for autonomous ARVN infantry regiments. (113)
When the TDY ALOs and FACs arrived from?PACAF units in May and June they were
sent into the field with admittedly vague instructions asking them to "sell
air power" and to provide reports of their experience that would provide a
,basis for the formalization of the:A.LO/FAC program. General Anthis expected
the USAF representatives to urge ARVN commanders to request air escort for
overland convoys, to integrate fixed-wing air cover and escort into,heliborne
operations, to make use of ARVN forward air guides that had been trained, to
buildup a backlog of interdiction-type targets that could be attacked by
crews who were released from other missions with unexpended ordnance, and
to speed the transmission of air support mission requests through ARVN communi-
cations networks. The ALOs were :also asked to discover missions for tactical
airlift, and to encourage th,s ARTI. to make orderly requirements for aerial
reconnaissance. (114)
The USAF ALOs and FACs approached their duties with high enthusiasm and
made excellent contributions. Records of MACV ground actions from I May
through 12 August 1962 showed that, air support was used on 133 out of 336
actions, giving a 39.5 percent ratio. (115) The statistics bore out the fact
that the ALO-FAC program was "selling" airpower, but there were some problems
in the undertaking. One of the problems was transitory, having to do with
the initial 120-day temporary duty tours of the first ALOs and FACs. Under
agreement with VNAF each ALO was allocated an L-19 for his use and the FACs
flew with the VNAF liaison squadrons. Most of the American pilots had to be
checked out in L-19s, requiring a non-productive period of time at the begin-
Tf temporary duty. 11 TAF liaison ci-,..adr,ins ted Jat that
this check-out responsibility warted operational flying hours, resulted in at
least two check-out accidents, and reduced the value of s-loro-tour personnel.
(116) This problem passed with the arrival of PCS personnel, but there was
continuing uncertainty as to the organizational responsibilities of the ALOs
and FACs. At the ARVN divisions, the USAF ALOs joined the US Army MAAG and
received housing and other support from the MAAG. Although designated for
service with ARVN regiments, the USAF FACs lived with the VNAF liaison
squadrons where they piloted L-195 on missions with VNAF air observers aboard
to mark targets. In the I Corps, for example, the USAF FACs spent about 75
percent of their time with the VNAF liaison squadron and only about 25 percent
with the ARVN regiment, even though a regimental FAL was expected to be avail-
able to advise a regimental commander. In the MACV organization General
Anthis insisted that the ALOs and FACs should be assigned to 2d Advon rather
than to the Air Force Section of the MAAG, his rationale being that the men
were an integral part of the TAGS At a meeting on 24 September, however,
Generals Harkins, Weede, and Timmes indicated to Anthis that they considered
the ALOs to be US air advisors and further asserted that each ALO ought to
be the principal air advisor to the US Army corps or division advisorsin
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matters of tactical air support. After much discussion it was agreed that
the ALO would not be a subordinate to the Army advisor, but Anthis never-
theless instructed all of the ALOs to work cooperatively in a MAAG-team
relationship with Army advisors. Shortly after this time, however, the
rank of the US Army MAAG advisors at ARVN divisions was increased to colonel
and the deputy US Army divisional advisors became lieutenant colonels, with
the results that the USAF ALO major was in no position to act as an equal with
this array of rank, the matter of rank being very important to ARVN officers.
In an effort to fit the USAF FACs into a proper organizational framework, Lt
Colonel Byron K. Kahn, the USAF I Corps ALO, established a procedure whereby
all new FACs spent a month with the VNAF liaison squadron and then joined
their respective ARVN regiments and served much the same liaison function as
an ALO did at a division. These procedures brought some order into the ALO-
FAC program, but the individual ALOs and PACs were nevertheless quite sure
about the matter of for whom they were supposed to work; the FACs especially
thought that they had too many bosses. (117)
As a matc,er of policy General Anthis and other 2d Air Division officers
urged that the VNAF must take over the ALO-FAC function as soon as it could
possibly secure enough qualified officers to do so, and in the meanwhile USAF
personnel performed these functions, solving some problems and encountering
others with which they could not effectively cope. The ALOs reported that
it was very difficult to have any sort of a daily planning conference because
the ARVN commanders were reluctant about revealing their intentions for an
operation until the very last moment. Frequently the ARVN commanders would
not reveal .the nature of a proposed forthcoming maneuver, but merely requested
the ALO to insure that a certain number of VNAF aircraft would be held on a
ground alert commitment in case they might be needed. The ARVN unit commanders,
moreover, were sensitive about the loss of face that they would sustain if
they requested air suppert that could not be provided. Frequently the ARVN
commanders would attempt to vet an informal feel as to whether air support
might be available to them in case they asked for it, and if they were told
it might not be available they would seldom follow up with a formal request.
Nhen a division ALO learned of a forthcoming operation it was frequently at
a last moment, giving very little time to gat a FAC from a liaison squadron
and have him briefed an the operation for which he would be expected to mark
targets. None of the Americans were fluent in the difficult Vietnamese
language and all of them found it difficult to understand ARVN preoperational
briefings When they were held. In their flights with the VA P liaison
squadrons, the USAF FACs made a contribution by demonstrating that the L-19s
were less vulnerable to small arms fire than many VNAF pilots imagined and
that adequate visual reconnaissance and target marking demanded flying at
low altitudes. The USAF FACs also checked the effectiveness of VNAF observers,
but the USAF personnel had no disciplinary authority and the VNAF tended to
resent criticism of its personnel, even when it was deserved. (118)
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In 1962 nothing could be done about getting the desirable VNAF personnel
to man ALO and FAC positions with ARVN units, but it appeared to General
Anthis that arrangements could be made to speed requests for air support
through ARVN channels. In jungle warfare, when there was hardly any chance
to use supporting artillery as an alternate form of firepower, Anthis could
see no reason why air support requests had to be passed slavishly up the ARVN
chain of command. At Anthis' recommendation the RVNAF JOS accepted a stream-
lined air request concept in June 1962 whereby regiments were authorized to
send air support requests directly to the Corps TOC, with the divisions
monitoring and having an authority to cancel the request. In the paramilitary,
a province chief was authorized to request air directly from the ASOC with
the division tactical zone monitoring. Although the JGS authorized the stream-
lined air request procedure, lower unit ARVN commanders remained generally
unwilling to act independently of their higher echelons. Most of them insisted
on sending their requests up through channels, where at each echelon of command
the requests had to be acted upon, often by named individuals who were not
infrequently difficult to locate at a particular moment. In the retransmissions,
the air support requests were frequently disapproved, delayed, or lost. Anthis
understood what was happening, but he could not change ARVN habits overnight.
He did, however, instruct the USAF regimental FACs and the division ALOs to
monitor mission requests and to inform the ASOCs When mission requests were
made. This procedure allowed the ASOCs to check and identify instances of
delayed or lost mission requests. (119)
Although the TACS in its initial establishment had recognized weaknesses
resulting from the inexperience of Vietnamese airmen and communications
difficulties, it made the most efficient use of the very limited VNAF-Farm
Gate tactical air capabilities. But where the TAGS involved a central control
and allocation of air effort, President Diem was unwilling during 1962 to
approve a central control over nation-wide counterinsurgency operations,
which he preferred to take place as decentralized activities under local
command arrangements. Thus in the MACV plans for "Operation Binh-Minh" or
"Operation Sunrise" submitted to Diem early in March 1962 as a desired beginning
of counterinsurgency campaigns, General Harkins recommended that ARVN operations
against the villages and hamlets on the southern fringe of Zone D north of
Ben Cat in Binh Duong province ought to be under a joint task force commander
and would desirably yield a badly needed military victory to the South Vietna-
mese as well as continuing pacification of the area. Where the MACV recommenda-
tions called for a joint task force commander, Diem instead chose to use the..
ARVN 5th Division for the operation and gave the division commander, Colonel
Vanh Thadh Cao? responsibility for conducting the operation. At the beginning
of action on 16 March, Cao made planned helicopter airlift impossible by
moving without advance notice. He made no use of committed VNAF air support,
which sat on call at Bien Boa. As Gaols troops marched in, the Vietcong.
easily withdrew back into Zone D, obviating any decisive accomplishment other
than a simple occupation of territory. Relocation of the peasant population
in the area was poorly handled. Cao's troops brutally uprooted homesteads
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and held the peasants in camps for several weeks before these local people
were compelled to build the new strategic hamlets in which they would live.
Since the Vietcong remained as strong as ever in Zone D, AWN rangers would
have to be kept on duty in the new strategic hamlets to protect them against-
Cammunist attack. (120)
? The lack of success with large operations on the nature of Operation
Sunrise together with Diem's mistrust for centralized military authority
brought changes in the MACV concepts of counterinsurgency operations. Instead
of large operations, the greater proportion .of operations were designed to
maintain pressure on the Vietcong in short-duration hit and withdraw actions
(soon referred to as "search and clear operatione) designed to exploit the
initiative with heliborne movements, most frequently conducted during single
daylight periods, the troops returning to fortified positions prior to
darkness. (121) In their initial employment in Vietnam early in 1962, the
three US Army H-21 helicopter companies -- each employed in support of one of
the ARVN corps -- greatly improved the mobility of ABVN units and had provided
a means of bringing force quickly to bear against the elusive Vietcong.
Enhancing surprise, Army helicopters usually made low-level, contour-flights
(usually maintaining about 700 feet altitudes) to objective areas. In view
of the successful employment of the Army H-21s, Secretary McNamara approved
the deployment of a US Marine Corps helicopter squadron with 24 UH-34D heli-
copters to Soc Trang Airfield to support ARVN operations in the Makong Delta.
The Marine movement began on 9. April, and the squadron helicopters came
ashore from. an aircraft carrier on 15 April. In July Secretary McNamara and
the Joint Chiefs of Staff approved movement of two additional H-21 companies
to Vietnam, one to be located at Pleiku and the other at Bien Hoa. When the
additional Amy companies arrived in September the Marine helicopter squadron
at Soc Trang traded stations with the Army H-21 compamr at Da Nang, since
the more-powerful UH-34s would be more effective than the H-21s in operating
in mountainous terrain. The Marine helicopters customarily remained at 2,000
foot altitudes while enroute to and returning from lproing areas. At their
objective the Marine H-34s landed quickly in high-speed downward spirals.
When hostile ground fire was expected the US Army helicopter lifts were
escorted by a VNAF L-19 FAC and VNAF fighters, the latter being on hand to
provide enroute protection, to soften enemy resistance in the landing zone,
and to work against the flanks of the landing area as the H-21s landed.
Where fixed-wing air support was optional with Army helicopter companies,
the Marine helicopter squadron made routine use of fixed-wing support,
both for escort and for preparatory strikes against landing zones. Under
the circumstances whereby the Army helicopter lifts frequently did not employ
tactical air support, only 81 tactical fighter sorties were flown in support
of helicopter opetations in the months of January through May 1962. (122)
According to a sympathetic record of Vietcong experience, the Communist
guerrillas did not understand how to oppose the new ARVN air mobile tactics
early in 1962, but they were provided with information about the anti-helicopter
tactics that had been useful against the French in Algeria. (123) In order
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to obstruct helicopter landings on potential terrain proximate to their
positions, the Vietcong began to plant stakes, two to three inches in
diameter and six to 15 feet tall throughout the area, close enough together
to engage the rotor blades of helicopters. (124) By digging a circle of
six megaphone shaped holes in the ground, each deep enough to accommodate
a single aural observer, the Vietcong designed and used a crude but effective
acoustical early-warning post that was able to provide a rough vector of
approaching aircraft. The &errillas also dug defense positions on the edges
of logical landing zones, usually in the fringes of adjacent tree lines.
Even more importantly, since the Vietcong continued to be lightly armed,
Vietcong instructions for dealing with helicopter landings enjoined that the
concealed troops must aim. volley fire up underneath the helicopters while
they were approaching and departing landing zones. (125)
At the Secretary of Defense Conference on 21 March, Secretary McNamara
had asked what was being done to protect the transport helicopters and being
dissatisfied with the answers he received directed that emphasis be given to
providing the protection. In experiments in the United States looking toward
the development of air cavalry the U5 Army had developed a capability for
employing armed HU-1A turbine-powered helicopters to provide local fire
support for airmobile operations, and the Army Chief of Staff General George H.
Decker proposed that the Army was prepared to deploy HU-ls to Vietnam to provide
suppressive fire. On the other hand, Admiral Felt was convinced that fixed-
wing aircraft would be superior to armed helicopters for covering landing
operations. (126) PACAF assessments also emphasized that heliborne assaults
ought to have mandatory fixed-wing air cover, escort, and preliminary air
strikes against landing zones. Although the evidence was fragmentary, the
PACAF position was in some degree supported by experience in Vietnam through
June, by which time 84 US Arty and Marine helicopters had been damaged by
ground fire and four US Army helicopters had been destroyed in action, two
of the latter by friendly air to avoid their capture after they had been
shot down. Although the Marine emphasis on fixed-wing support appeared to
have reduced the Marine helicopter losses, the difference in tactics between
the Army and Marine helicopter pilots also probably affected the loss rate.
On the other hand the OSD/ARPA Field Unit in Saigon studied the increasing
Vietcong success against helicopters and demonstrated that most of the
damaging small arms fire was received from underneath the helicopters during
their approach to a landing zone and during their departure from it. The
OSEVARPA field study stated that fixed-wing aircraft could not feasibly
maintain suppressive fire at these junctures, and recommended that armed
helicopters be tested as a supplement to fixed-wing helicopter escort. Each
heliborne assault force should be assigned sufficient armed helicopters to
provide lead, front, and rearward protection, a minimum of four armed heli-
copters being therefore recommended for each helicopter force. (128) At about
this same time a Defense Intelligence Agency staff member visiting in Vietnam
returned to Washington with the report that VNAF softening-up strikes prepara-
tory to heliborne landings alerted the Vietcong, who rushed to prepared
trenches and fox-holes from which they directed volley fire against the
approaching helicopters. (129)
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Because of the growing damages sustained by the heliborne forces, 139
combat air sorties in support of helicopters were flown in July. (130)
During the month the Farm Gate detachment, now commanded by Lt. Col. E. H.
Mueller, Jr., also perfected tactics whereby an element of two T-28s was
in support of Army helicopter flights. In enroute escort the T-28s waited
at altitude while the helicopters got into formation and gained their cruise
altitude. Then one of the T-28s descended to approximately 200 feet above
the terrain and proceeded slightly ahead of the lead helicopter, making slaw
S-type maneuvers and searching for indications of-enamy action. The second
T-28 maintained a position above the helicopters in readiness to make an
immediate firing pass against any target located by the lead T-28. At the
landing zone the helicopters usually assumed an in-trail posture for landing,
and the T-28s broke off formation and flew on each side of the helicopters,
ready to strafe the flanks of the landing zone if enemy fire was received.
Mueller reported that these tactics were considered very satisfactory by
helicopter pilots. (131)
Although Admiral Felt remained convinced that the transport helicopters
ought to make maximum use of fixed-wing air support, General Harkins supported
the US Army position that helicopter gunships were necessary. On 9 July
Harkins concurred in the OSD/ARPA proposal for armed helicopter tests in
Vietnam. (132) At the Secretary of Defense Conference held on 22 July,
Harkins further justified armed helicopters on the basis that fixed-wing
aircraft often could not support helicopters because of weather conditions,
lack of endurance of the fighters, and inability of the fighters to fly slow
enough to stay with the helicopters. Anthis stated privately that Harkins'
justification was without basis of fact, but Secretary McNamara accepted
Harkins's requirement for armed helicopters. On 27 July the Joint Chiefs
of Staff directed the deployment of the US Army Utility Tactical Transportation
Company (Provisional) with 15 armed HU-1A and HU-1B helicopters from Okinawa
and Thailand to South Vietnam. US crews would be utilized to fly the HU-1
gunships, and "suppressive fire" from helicopters would be considered fire
in self defense. On 6 September the Joint Chiefs amended their original
instruction to provide that the US marked and piloted helicopter gunships
would carry a Vietnamese observer, and they stated that the flights would be
considered defensive in nature and that suppressive fire resulting from
escort missions would be considered defensive fire. (133)
Admiral Felt initiated actions to move the HU-1 helicopters to South
Vietnam, but he nevertheless cautioned General Harkins on 3 August that
increasing Vietcong ground fire made it mandatory that a professional job
of preplanning be done prior to each helicopter lift operation. "We may
find," he messaged Harkins, "that armed helos can make a contribution, but
there is no question whatsoever regarding the concept of providing air
cover with fixed-wing aircraft." (13).j.) In conversations with Harkins and
other members of the MACV staff relative to the employment of armed Army
aircraft in Vietnam, General Anthis emphasized that there could not be two
separate air wars conducted in the limited confines of South Vietnam and
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that Army air operations must be under the TACS. nthis also favored a
mandatory requirement for fixed-wing fighter support of helicopter operations,
and, as has been seen, attempted to get a positive MACV regulation on the
subject. Anthis nevertheless noted a growing belief on the part of US Army
officers that the new armed Army aviation was strictly organic to the Army
and was to be flexibly employed to accomplish locally independent operations.
MACV Directive 34 issued on 18 August recognized the overall coordinating
authority of the TACS only for air traffic control purposes. (135) Despite
Admiral Felt's strong admonition that heliborne operations ought to have
coordinated fixed-wing support, General Harkins took the position that fixed-
wing air support could not be provided for all helicopter operations because
of the limited capabilities of VNAF and Farm Gate and other requirements for
tactical air operations. (136)
Although the Vietcong were only beginning to learn about effective anti-
heliborne tactics in June, the Communist guerrillas had long been proficient
in ambushing ARVN road and rail movements. Successful Communist ambushes
not only damaged the government cause but provided a ready source of equipment
and weapons to the Vietcong. In -the months of January through August 1962
there were 462 convoy ambushes: 32 in I Corps, 74 in II Corps, and 356 in
III Corps. The highways north of Saigon near Zone D showed up in the statis-
tical accounting as the favorite locale for Communist ambushes. (137) On the
morning of 16 June some 400 to 500 members of two Vietcong battalions sortied
out of Zone D and working after daylight established ambush positions along
the highway to Bien Hoa, about five kilometers south of Ben Cat. Local
civilians living in the new strategic hamlets provided no alarm, and at 1000
hours the Communist guerrillas successfully ambushed a motorized ARVN convoy,
killing two American advisors and 23 ARVN personnel. Air support was not
requested and scrambled from Bien Hoa until 1257 hours; by this time the
Vietcong were in full withdrawal back toward Zone D but a B-26 and two AD-6s
under L-19 control nevertheless killed 50 of the enemy and enabled pursuing
ARVN troops to recover nearly all of the weapons and equipment taken from the
convoy. (138) For the moment the Ban Cat ambush confirmed Admiral Felt's
early assessment that Zone D was a major threat to Saigon that would have to
be eliminated by air strikes and ARVN penetrations. (139) On the other hand,
2d Advon staff officers pointed to an obvious conclusion that an L-19 observer
airborne over the ARVN convoy could have sighted and reported the presence of
the Vietcong, thus preventing the convoy from running into the ambush. Another
object lesson occurred on the morning of 14 July when a Vietcong force of
battalion strength ambushed another ARVN convoy enroute from Saigon to Phuoc
Long, a distance of only 33 miles. In this attack the Vietcong killed 25
persons including a US Army advisor and wounded 29 others. No air cover for
the convoy had been requested, and as a matter of fact nei#her the ARVN III
Corps nor the Field Command knew that the convoy was on the road. Air support
was requested an hour and a half after the attack began, long after the
guerrillas had completed their work and withdrawn with their booty. (1)40)
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In a briefing to MACV on the subject of Communist ambuehee General Anthis
made the point that air power could make a major contribution to successful
counterinsurgency operations by deterring Vietcong actions. Air cover for
convoys and rail movements would provide employment for unused VNAF and Farm
Gate sortie capabilities, and it was entirely possible that guerrillas would
be deterred from an ambush by the simple presence of an unarmed L-19 over a
convoy, since the liaison aircraft would be able to call for immediate air
support, thus preventing the guerrillas from looting the convoy, which was
their principal object for laying ambushes. General Anthis argued that air
escort of selected trains and convoys should be made mandatory, and General
Harkins took the case to Secretary Thuan and General Ty. After JGS staffing,
General Ty issued a very strong directive on convoy escort at the end of
July. The directive required mandatory overhead combat air cover for trains
or convoys that carried arms, ammunition, or other important cargo. All other
important convoys were to be escorted by an L-I9 02 Other airc.l'aft oecomnended
by VNAF, and. tile resbonAble authority for ailes,0Ae:A conlioy that was
ambushed with heavy damages would be relieved from commnd. (141)
As soon as the Joint General Staff order requiring air escort for convoys
anu trains was issued, it bore good results. On 3 August two L--.0s sighted
200 guerrillas lying in wait for an ammunition train headed north between
Quang Ngai and Da Nang. The Vietcong immediately fled. Later in the month
another L-19 stopped the lead vehicle just short of the explosive charge. (142)
Only 32 requests for convoy escort had been made from January through July,
but 5o6 requests were submitted and honored between August and October. Most
train and convoy escort was provided by L-19 aircraft, which were expected
to observe the track or road in advance of the train or convoy for signs of
ambush and to radio for ground or air reinforcements in evert of an ambush.
Lxkeot in bile oas,, of high priority cargoes where combat air .over was
mandatory, combat airdraft committed to train cr convoy escert were normally
held on ground alert awaiting call from L-19s. Although the little L-19s
,eterred attack, the work was not without complexities. On many occasions
convoys were very late getting started; this used up L-19 flying time and
sometimes a second L-19 had to be sent out to complete the escort run.
Especially in 1962 incompatibilities in L-19 and vehicular radio equipment
made air-ground radio communications difficult to impossible. The convoy
escort task was also expensive in terms of air sortie capabilities. Counting
both L-19 and combat air sorties, convoy escort sorties averaged 175 a month
from August through December 1962, or approximately 10 percent of the total
tactical air effort. The task could have been simplified: 2d Air Division
operations analysts pointed out that ARVN road movements within the III Corps
could be restricted to given days and hours on which all vulnerable roads
could be covered by L-19s while a couple of armed fighters or a B-26 could
stand airborne alert in the vicinity of the roads that were being used.
This proposal was not followed through, and air cover for trains and convoys
continued to be expensive but very effective: no train or convoy escorted
by air would be ambushed for many months after July 1962. (143)
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The success of aerial cover for trains and convoys in deterring Communists
ambushes -- long a source of materiel to the Vietcong and damaging psychologi-
cal losses to the ARVN -- provided an indication that a similarly mandatory .
order for fixed-wing air support for US Army heliborne operations might have
prevented victories that stimulated the lagging morale of the Communist
guerrillas. On the other hand, General Harkins pointed to the large cammitment
of VNAF and Farm Gate to convoy escort as an added reason why it could be
impossible to provide tactical air support for all heliborne operations. (1)44)
At the same time that VNAF and Farm Gate capabilities were quite limited the
emphasis on short-duration "search and clear" operations by ARVN resulted in
a.high percentage of small operations, some 26 percent being of company size
and 58 percent of platoon size in the last months of 1962. (145) Conducted in
substantial numbers the short hit-and-withdraw operations were effective in
keeping the Vietcong off balance, but they weredifficult to support with
tactical aircraft, unless the aircraft could operate from forward airfields.
Thus, in short heliborne operations on the Ca Mau peninsula in July and August
1962, ARVN forces surprised the Vietcong and knocked out the U-Minh battalion
headquarters, killing 197 and capturing 98 guerrillas in two actions. The
first operation was covered with AD-6s from Bien Hoa, but in the second VNAF
attempted to use the short and waterlogged airstrips at Soc Trang as an
advanced base. The airstrip was too hazardous for effective AD-6 flights,
and the VNAF logistical support for the forward deployment was poorly handled,
again demonstrating that VNAF had difficulty operating away fram its regular
bases. (146)
Another air-ground operation -- Lam Son 2 -- conducted by the ARVN I Corps
against the Vietcong 90th Battalion at a.point some 55 miles south of Da Nang
and inland from Quang Ngai on 30 August illustrated the complex nature of
joint operations and the enemy's growing ability to counter heliborne assault.
Operational planning required some 200 ARVN Rangers and 200 Vietnamese Special
Force troops to be airlifted both from Da Nang and for an advance operating
location at Quang Ngai in two lifts by 10 VNAF H-34s and 12 US Argy H-21s,
the commitment of four T-28s to fly helicopter escort, and preparatory landing
zone strikes by four AD-6s, four T-28s, and one 3-26. US Army advisors were
insistent that a US Army Caribou transport plane, flying from Da Nang, would
serve as the airborne command post (ACP) for the mission, this in spite of
objections by the I Corps ALO, Colonel Kahn, that the fuel range and orbit
capability of the Caribou would require it to land and refuel some time during
the operation, thus removing airborne:: command and communications capability
from the area of the operations. Early on the morning of 30 August six C-123
transports ferried 200 ARVN troops from Da Nang to the advance base at Quang
Ngai, while at the same time the Caribou ACP checked the weather in the objec-
tive area and gave a go-ahead for the beginning of the first heliborne lift
of 200 troops fram Da Nang. The tactical strike planes made their pre-
landing attacks between 0700 and 0730, but when the first helicopters appeared
at 0730 fog had rolled into some of the landing areas and the ACP ruled
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against a landing and diverted the helicopters to Quang Ngai. When the fog
lifted, the ACP called for the mission to continue, and the four T-28s escorting
the helicopter lift were directed to make a short pre-landing strike between
0915 and 0925. This strike was cancelled when an H-34 reached the landing
area prematurely. In the two hours that had elapsed since the first landing
zone strikes, the Vietcong had rallied and directed intense fire at the heli-
copter lift. One H-21 was damaged but escaped to an emergency landing where
after the crew was retrieved the helicopter was destroyed by a T-28 to prevent
its capture. The second wave of helicopters landed without incident at
approximately-1030 hours, shortly- after which the Caribou ACP had to return
to Da Nang, where it remained for more than an hour getting refueled. Alerted
for this eventuality-, orbiting fighter aircraft provided a relay for passing
messages back to Da Nang, but the AHVN forces on the ground had no contact
with their commander while the Caribou remained in Da Nang. At 1545 a first
wave of helicopters withdrew troops without incident, but the last helicopter
lift out was not finished until 1800, and by this time the Vietcong regrouped
and directed fire against the helicopters. Another H-21 was hit and crashed;
the wounded crewmen were retrieved, and this helicopter was also destroyed
by T-28s. (147)
Already troubled by the increasing tempo and effectiveness of Vietcong
ground fire against helicopters, AdsrLral Felt required a full report of the
Lan Son 2 engagement. Air evaluations sought reasons why the T-28s that
covered the objective area had not been able to suppress the fire that shot
down the two helicopters. For one thing, the limited communications Aboard
the Caribou, even when it was over the objective, had to be used either to
communicate with the fighters or the ground troops and fighter control was
frequently interrupted. A USAF FAC flying an L-19 also had difficulty getting
his VNAF observer to allow him to fly below 5,000 feet the pilot finally
managed to get dawn to 2,000 feet by cranking up his altimeter to show the
higher altitude, but in three hours over the objective area the Vietnamese
observer attempted to mark, only one target and his smoke bomb missed this by
3,000 feet. In his analysis, General Harkins pointed to the delays between
the pre-landing air strikes and the initial helio landing and the other delay
in the withdrawal, both of which had permitted the Vietcong to rally and
shoot down the helicopters. (148)
The search and clear operations continued in each ARVN corps area, with
a greater concern for increasing enemy defenses which in some measure reduced
the possibilities of surprise. At Da Nang on 22 September the ARM 2d
Division commander laid plans for a heliborne attack -- Ngo Quyen 20 --
against two Vietcong companies reported that day to be in the Phuong IA Dong-
Thanh Truc valley region. The division commander wanted to start the operation
on 24 September, but he did not consider that the six VNAF T-28s in the 2d
Fighter Squadron detachment on station at Da Nang had enough fire power to
provide adequate air support. Delayed until other aircraft could arrive,
Ngo Auyen 20 was executed on 26 September but failed to find the Vietcong,
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who had apparently slipped away southward. In his report of the operation
the USAF ALO with the 2d Division., Major William J. Kuntz, recammended that
a small number of AD-6s or B-26s ought to be kept at Da Nang in readiness
to provide immediate support for the 24 Marine helicopters located there.
In their operations from Soc Trang the.Marine helicopter crews considered
that Farm Gate had done a good job supporting their operations, but after
moving to Da Nang in September the Marines did not feel that the VNAF T-28s
had enough firepower to support them adequately. (149)
By early autumn of 1962 the 2d Advon and Farm Gate were very concerned
about increasingly effective Communist ground fire, which not only continued
to hazard American transport helicopters but demonstrated a new ability when
it shot dawn a Farm Gate T-28 on 28 August and one of the Farm Gate U-10s on
17 October. (150) On the other hand, US Army officers accompanying the Army
Utility Tactical Transport Company when it arrived at Nha Trang were most
optimistic about the defense abilities of the UH-1 helicopter gunships, each
of which was equipped with two 2.75-inch rocket pods, each containing 8 tubes.
Each UH-1 also carried two .30 caliber machineguns, one mounted on each landing
skid. After assembling at Nha Trang during September, the UTT company was
committed to test operations on 14 October, initially on the Ca Mau peninsula
where the ARVN 21st Division was operating against the U Minh guerrillas.
In this area President Diem was very anxious to clear out the guerrillas since
they were blocking the production of charcoal required for cooking in Saigon,
forcing the Vietnamese government to bring in coal at a considerable expense
to the economy. (151)
In a conversation on 19 October General Anthis expressed a hope that the
US Army UH-ls and other Army aircraft being brought to Vietnam for test could
be kept under the TACS, only to be informed by the Army test director, Brig.
Gen. E. L. Rawny, that he had directions from Washington "to close his eyes
to present doctrines and methods of operations -- look into the future --
not bound by old and outmoded concepts." Rowny told Anthis that he expected
the armed helicopters to provide firepower previously furnished by artillery
and to handle "close in air support targets," but that tactical fighters
could continue to handle targets out in front of the ground troops. (152)
In the Delta tests beginning on 12 October, however, the armed HU-ls were
operated in coordination with fixed-wing air cover obtained through the Joint
Operations Center. In fact during the initial phase of operations running
from 12-21 October two VNAF L-19s'positioned at a forward strip at Ha Tien
flew an average of two reconnaissance sorties each day over projected
objective areas. To provide air escort for the helicopter lifts on 21-24
October, two T-28s were deployed to an airstrip at Rach Gia, and AD-6s were
employed to provide pre-landing strikes and overhead cover for the helicopter
columns. In the new helicopter formation, one HU-1 was placed on either side
of the H-21s, slightly in advance but on the same level; two additional HU-is
were placed above and toward the center of the H-21s; a fifth HU-1, carrying
the armed helicopter tactical director, was positioned to the rear of the
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helicopter formation and above all of the other ships. One minute from
helicopter landings, the RU-is became responsible for suppressive fire in
the landing zone; at this time the escort fighters pulled up and orbited
over each side of the zone, thus being in a position where they were safe
from HU-1 fire but still available On call. (153)
In the initial armed helicopter tests the Army project officers emphasized
that the RU-is supplemented but did not replace fixed-wing fighter protection,
and since the Ca Mau heliborne operations continued to have fighter escort
it was difficult to assess the value of the armed helicopters. Air Force
officers who flew in the armed RU-is reported that they were quite maneuverable
and that their rocket and machinegun fire was reasonably accurate. Except for
extreme overcrowding of the limited number of poor airstrips on the Ca Mau
peninsula, the 21st Division operation against the U Minh guerrillas progressed
well. Initially the guerrillas had probably been alerted by the large amount
of L-19 reconnaissance into their area and were lying low. As the operations
continued hostile ground fire increased. Six of the HU-1 gunships absorbed
hits successfully, but on 5 November ground fire downed a low-flying Farm Gate
B-26. Other Farm Gate planes met damaging fire. On a night strike with
napalm near Soc Trang, the Farm Gate commander, Lt. Col. Myles M. Doyle,
barely managed to limp his B-26 home after losing an engine to Vietcong
30-caliber hits. In Doyle's estimation the Communist ground fire against low
flying planes in the Delta was becoming very serious. He accordingly issued
orders for his pilots to strafe while delivering ordnance at low levels, thus
hopefully pinning dawn enemy gunners. (154) Unknown to the Americans at this
time, the growing Communist fire in the Delta was an indication that the
Vietcong were confident that they had discovered tactics that would be effec-
tive against heliborne operations and they were preparing for an opportunity
to inflict a Major defeat on an incautious ARVN airmobile operation.
6. Herbicide Operations Remain Politically TrOublesome.
On the basis of the first trials of aerial herbicide defoliation missions
flown by the C-123 spray-equipped Ranch Hand detachment, General O'Donnell
informed Secretary McNamara at the 19 February 1962 Secretary of Defense
Conference that the activity was a waste of transport airframes. O'Donnell
recommended that the tanks and spray plumbing be removed from the five Ranch
Hand C-123s so that they could be added to the airlift force. At this time
Secretary McNamara wanted the spray tests to continue until technical judgments
were available, but it was nevertheless possible to reduce the number of
Ranch Hand aircraft. In April the USAF Tactical Air Command moved two of
the spray C-123s to the Middle East, where they were needed to spray locust
infestations and save food crops. At this time the Tactical Air Command
added two standard C-123 transports to the Mille Train airlift detachment. (155)
At Secretary McNamara's direction a scientific team headed by Brig. Gen.
Fred J. Delmore, commander of the US Army Chemical Corps Research and Develop-
ment, visited South Vietnam in April and fairly easily determined what had
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(vmsf
Nome-
gone wrong in the early Ranch Hand defoliation flights. The flights had
taken place at a time that most of the plants were in a dormant stage and
had not readily absorbed the herbicide. The herbicide defoliant had also
been too thinly dispensed and it was necessary to adjust the spray nozzles
of the C-123s to release a larger volume of the liquid defoliants. In
April President Diem assured General LeMay that he was willing to allow
the continuation of defoliation flights. He also wished to use chemicals
against the food crops that the Vietcong had under cultivation in their
base areas. Diem explained that the Communist guerrillas in the Central
Highlands were seizing food from Montagnard tribal people; if same of the
crops could be destroyed the Montagnards would relocate in strategic hamlets
being provided for than and the Vietcong would go hungry. (156) General
DeImore's report of the technical difficulties previously encountered by
Ranch Hand at the Secretary of Defense Conference held in Saigon on 11 May
cleared the way for undertaking a spray mission which could involve either
defoliation of jungle cover or crop destruction. Ambassador Molting requested
that the two activities should be considered as separate categories of activ-
ity, and this would be the case after this time. Secretary McNamara autho-
rized General Harkins to submit proposals for defoliation to Washington. (157)
Although the Goverment of Vietnam and the rank and file of the ARVN
displayed a consistent opinion during 1962 that herbicidal operations --
both defoliation and crop destruction -- could be profitably exploited in
the campaign against the Vietcong, the United States chose to continue to
handle the herbicidal activity on a limited, closely controlled, test basis.
At the Secretary of Defense Conference on 11 May Admiral Felt was concerned
with the fact that the Vietcong had killed two ARVN perimeter guards in the
forest just north of Bien Hoa Airfield. He accordingly suggested that the
area around Bien Hoa should be sprayed with defoliant, and on 25 June
Washington approval was received for the defoliation of the forest area north
of the runway at Bien Hoa to be done by VNAF H-34 helicopters. These spray
flights were conducted on 17 and 21 July. In addition to the lien Hoa
project, General Harkins recommended that Ranch Hand C-123s be used to
defoliate some 9,000 acres or about 50 linear miles of mangrove forests
along the rivers and canals of the Ca Mau peninsula, thus depriving the
Vietcong of ambush cover along these main arteries of travel in this region.
This was approved on 21 August, and the spray operations were begun on
3 September by the two Ranch Hand C-123s which were now joined by another
spray-equipped C-123 sent from the United States. The Ca Mau operations were
completed on 11 October, and the results were favorable: 90 to 95 percent
of the growing vegetation along the waterways was not only defoliated but
killed; vertical visibility was increased by a factor of 5 to 7 times.
Following this demonstration of technical feasibility and tactical utility,
the RVNAF on 3 December recommended an extensive defoliation of 88,629 acres
of vegetation along South Vietnam's principal highways. On this same day a
Joint US State-Defense directive authorized General Harkins and Ambassador
Nolting to approve defoliant operations for clearing roadsides, power lines,
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railroads, and other lines of communications, as well as areas adjacent to
depots, airfields, and other field installations. Other defoliation targets
had to be referred to Washington for approval by the President. Despite
the new authority for defoliation, Ambassador Molting and General Harkins
refused to undertake the large operation desired by the RVNAF. In addition
PACAF was skeptical about the tactical value of such an extensive defoliation
operation in terms of its costs. The Ranch Hand C-123s were equipped with
975-ga1lon spray tanks and would have to despense "Purple" herbicides (a mix-
ture of 2, 4-D and 2, 4, 5-T common agricultural chemicals) at a rate of a
gallon and a half per acre to obtain desired technical results. Added to
the expense of C-123 flying hours, the Purple herbicide cost $6.25 a gallon.
(158)
Although aerial spray operations promised to deny food to the Vietcong,
crop destruction carried much more complex political implications than did
defoliation. On 7 July Ambassador Molting and General Harkins jointly recom-
mended approval of a limited test crop destruction mission in Phu Yen province
wherein VNAF aircraft would do the spraying and in Phuoc Long province where
ARVN ground troops would destroy growing crops with hand sprays. In discus-
sion on 23 July Secretary McNamara doubted whether the United States should be
associated with food destruction and wondered why Diem did not buy weed killing
chemicals on the open market and proceed on his own. At any rate, the proposals
demanded mature study in Washington because of their potential world-wide
implications. (159)
In the months that crop destruction remained under study, Vietcong propa-
ganda against defoliation gave an unexpected advantage to the Government of
Vietnam, especially among the Montagnard tribal people. According to Nhu,
the Montagnards had been impressed with the victory of Ho Chi Minh over the
French and had not given South Vietnam much change of success. The Montagnards
were animists and were impressed with the Vietcong charges that a tree that
died anywhere in Vietnam was killed by chemicals. Nhu said that the high-
landers believed that a power to kill trees would permit a South Vietnamese
victory, and they began to leave the highlands in numbers and present them-
selves for resettlement in strategic hamlets. The movement of the Montagnards
deprived the Vietcong of an accustomed source of food. Reports from Vietcong
prisoners captured in II Corps indicated that food was very short and that
the guerrillas were having to turn from fighting to farming in order to
sustain themselves. (160)
On a visit to Washington late in September, Defense Minister Thuan
pressed the United States to provide chemicals for crop destruction, and
on 4 October the US State Department announced that crop destruction was
approved in principle, provided precautions were taken to avoid damage to
non-Communist crops and to provide food relief for any refugees from affected
areas. On 20 October the State Department added the additional provision
that any crop destruction target should be submitted for Washington clearance
before it was sprayed. (161) By this time the rice crop in Phu Yen province
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had matured and was no longer a valid target. As a test case, however, four
VNAF H-34s sprayed 745 acres of rice, potatoes, manioc, and soya beans in
Zone D, destroying food in an amount sufficient to feed 1,000 Vietcong for
more than a year. On 3 December the State Department approved a hand-spraying
operation in Thua Thien province, which, when finally conducted in February
1963, would merely serve to demonstrate that the use of hand sprayed chemicals
for crop destruction saved troop labor. (162)
On the basis of the herbicidal defoliation operations and the crop
destruction tests conducted during 1962, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff informed
President Kennedy that defoliation should be continued as necessary in Vietnam
because properly applied herbicides provided a degree of military and psycho-
logical advantage that might deter an enemy from military operations. They
also noted that the use of herbicides in crop destruction denied food to
insurgents and recommended that the Vietnam country team should be given
authority to approve crop destruction targets as well as defoliation objectives.
Although herbicidal defoliation and crop destruction had demonstrated military
utility, President Kennedy recognized the adverse internation political impli-
cations of such operations and would extend no blanket authority for them.
He did not wish Americans to appear to be making war upon the Vietnamese
peasants. (163)
7. Aerial Reconnaissance Fails to Meet Requirements
In the early months of 1962 the Able Mable RF-101 photographic reconnais-
sance detachment operating fram Don Mhang Airfield in Thailand adequately
accomplished US national requirements for strategic reconnaissance throughout
Southeast Asia, but the aerial reconnaissance system did not meet tactical
requirement in South Vietnam. The procedure whereby the Able Mable RF-1Ols
staged through Tan Son Nhut to cover objectives of highest priority interest
to MACV and the RVNAF, turned their film over to the small Pipe Stem photo
production center (PPC) at Tan Son Nhut, and then returned toBangkdk did not
satisfactorily meet requirements for tactical air targeting, and it was even
less responsive to ARVN needs for aerial reconnaissance. Under the JGS
procedure for requesting aerial photography issued on 7 May 1962, two
categories of reconnaissance requests -- immediate and pre-planned -- were
forwarded up from requesting ARVN units through ARVN G-2 channels into the
TACS in the same manner that air support requests passed upward through G-3
channels. At the Joint Operations Center the reconnaissance branch received
the mission requests and fragged Able Mable to fly them. Resultant photogra-
phy was of necessity processed in Saigon, interpreted by either the RVNAF
Air Photo Intelligence Center or the Pipe Stem PPC, and delivered to requesting
units in the field by a US Army courier plane. In this process elapsed time
between a photo request and the delivery of photography ran to many days.
The ARVN 2d Division G-2 at Da Nang) for example, expressed himself as being
more than unhappy that 30 to 45 days elapsed between the time that he filed
preplanned photo requests and his receipt of interpreted photos. (164)
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As early as January 1962 it was obvious to PACAF reconnaissance officers
that aerial reconnaissance system requirements in the insurgency situation in
Vietnam were different from those of World War II or Korea. In January PACAF
pointed out the need for abilities to locate Vietcong night activities through
night photography, intra-red photography, and side-looking air radar, and
adaptations of infra-red "snooper scope" techniques for visual air observation.
Most of these systems would require research and development. Meanwhile, the
2d Advon required night photography to help in the location of small Vietcong
buildups that occurred mostly at night and dispersed with daylight. Although
the classified Hilo Hattie aircraft provided same night photo capacity, MACV
secured Government of Vietnam and US Embassy clearance during April and
requested that two RB-26 night photo aircraft be added to the Farm Gate
detachment. (165)
During April MAAG Vietnam also prepared MAP projections for the establish-
ment of a VNAF air reconnaissance program. In 1961 the US State Department
had indicated that it might relax its opposition to VNAF receiving the four
RT-33 photo aircraft progr.zuned in FY-1961 MAP, and the Thirteenth Air Force
was prepared to provide jet transition to a first camplement of VNAF jet
pilots. The MAAG study therefore recommended that VNAF be provided four
RT-33s, three RC-47s, and approximately 14 RT-28s, the RC-47s being recommended
as an interim fast first step to provide VNAF with an immediate photo capability
and because it was anticipated that there could be continued objections to
providing jet aircraft to the VNAF. In order to provide responsiveness to
user's requests, the study proposed to locate small VNAF PPCs (each with
approximately 6 persons and requisite equipment) at Pleiku and Da Nang but
visualized that the Pipe Stem PPC at Tan Son Nhut would accomplish bulk print
production and immediate photo interpretation reports. This program was
recommended in April, and ii was examined in June by a CINCPAC intelligence
survey team which visited South Vietnam. The survey team additionally recom-
mended that the three camera-equipped C-14.7s should be locally deployed in
each of the ARVN corps, that two Able Mable RF-101s be wholly committed to
missions in Vietnam, and that in addition to the two limited PPCs to be
deployed to Pleiku and Da Nang the VNAF should also develop a PPC at Tan Son
Nhut which would be able to meet RVNAF bulk printing and IPIR requirements.
The CINCPAC intelligence survey team also recommended that the USAF should
establish an austere USAF reconnaissance technical squadron in Saigon that
would be prepared to meet detailed photo interpretation and target production
duties for all of Southeast Asia. (166) In a visit to Saigon on 17 July,
General Walter C. Sweeney, Jr., Commander, USAF Tactical Air Command, urged
General Anthis to proceed with the establishment of the small VNAF PPCs at
Pleiku and Da Nang as soon as possible because he judged that these facilities
would be able to speed the delivery of reconnaissance products to the I and
II Corps. (167)
Where the MAAG and CINCPAC programs for VNAF air reconnaissance emphasized
aerial photography, the OSD/ARPA Field Unit in Saigon on 26 June recommended
approval of a new research and development task concerned with attaining
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maximum air surveillance over a selected sector of Vietnam (Tay Nith was
recommended) so that all major roads, railroads, villages, hamlets, and
outposts would be observed around the clock from the air on a varied
schedule but as frequently as possible (desirably every two hours). The
Field Unit proposed that the Vietnamese sector commander would provide
observers for the surveillance flights,-and that the continuing visual air
reconnaissance would not only deter Cammunist activity but it would be able
to maintain a constant check on guerrilla activity. Understanding that L-28
(1f-10) aircraft were being assigned to Farm Gate, the Field Unit proposed
that these planes should be committed to a four-month test of the maximum
air surveillance proposal. (168) The OSD/ARPA Field Unit proposed that it
would exercise control over the project as a research and development effort,
but it asked that an especially competent Air Force officer be assigned to
the test agency as project officer. General Harkins immediately non-concurred
with the project since he stated that it was of an operational nature not
properly within the scope of the authority of the OSIVARPA Field Unit. On
29 June Admiral Felt also non-concurred because the project would commit
significant numbers of aircraft and personnel to an operation in a single
province for a four-month period. He favored a broader undertaking whereby
air surveillance concepts would be exploited as part of a country-wide air
reconnaissance plan. (169) Felt also objected to the maximum air surveillance
undertaking because as he said it had taken three years of labor to get
President Diem to centralize the RVNAF organization to a point where ARVN
forces conducted operations under-cammand of ARVN division commanders rather
than province chiefs. He conceived that a national counterinsurgency campaign
must be a unified effort, not a series of uncoordinated and unrelated actions
at province levels. (170)
On 14 July Admiral Felt .approved the deployment of two Black Watch RB-26
night photo aircraft from Thailand to the Farm Gate detachment, and the RB-26s
arrived at Bien Hoa within the week. (171) At the Secretary of Defense Con-
ference held in Hawaii on 23 July, Felt spoke strongly in favor of providing
the RT-33 photo jets to VNAF but he based his rationale on the fact that the
United States had provided jets to Thailand, Cambodia, and even Burma but had
not delivered the promised T-33s to South Vietnam. Secretary McNamara told
Felt to provide additional justification, but MdNamara was at the mament
quite negative on the subject since he did not want to violate the Geneva
accords and questioned the superiority of a jet photo plane over conventional
photo aircraft. In a continuing dialogue, General Harkins also supported the
photo jets on 8 August, but as an alternative he recommended that two USAF
RF-101s be introduced into South Vietnam and that the VNAF should be provided
with the RC-47s and RT-28s. In amessage to the Joint Chiefs of Staff on
8 August, Admiral Felt urged strongly that fram a military point of view the
RT-33s were superior reconnaissance vehicles and ought to be used to provide
vitally needed intelligence. He pointed out that the US Army was introducing
jet turbine-powered HU-1A helicopters into Vietnam in violation of the Geneva
accords. He opposed the use of RC-47s because of their demonstrated vulner-
ability in Laos, and he pointed out that the RT-28 would be difficult and
expensive to modify into a camera plane and could at best be equipped with
only limited camera installations. (172)
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In Washington the State Department opposed jet photo aircraft for VNAF
on political grounds while Secretary McNamara did not judge that Admiral Felt
had made an adequate justification of the military requirement for the action.
Although the RT-33 photo jets remained in the VNAF MAP commitments, the VNAF
MAP reconnaissance program was firmed up in September to include three RC-47s
to be fitted with cameras in an emergency deviation from FY-1962 MAP funding
and 18 RT-28s to be provided from FY-1963 MAP funds. VNAF was expected to
deploy the three C-47s at airfields within the three ARVN corps areas, and
it was also expected to operate small PPCs to be built at Da Nang, Pleiku,
and Tan Son Nhut. The VNAF 716th Squadron was activated at Tan Son Nhut as
a reconnaissance unit in September, and at this time the two VNAF C-45 photo
aircraft (planes that had been in the Special Air Mission squadron, one
equipped with a 6-inch vertical camera and the other with a 12-inch vertical
camera) were assigned to the 716th Squadron. On the basis of MAP funding the
VNAF reconnaissance program could not expect to attain full operational
capabilities before the midsummer of 1964, and, as will be seen, the program
was not attractive to the Vietnamese and would be overtaken by events. While
awaiting projected reconnaissance aircraft the 716th Squadron would fly strike
T-28s. Of the several PPCs projected for VNAF operation, only the small photo
cell at Da Nang would begin limited operations in January 1963. (173)
In approving the two Black Watch B-26s for Vietnam on 14 July 1962, Admiral
Felt remarked that these planes would provide an interim night photographic
capability until VNAF was able to assume the responsibility. Other theoretical
interim arrangements soon followed. On 28 July Admiral Felt accepted the
objective of establishing an austere USAF reconnaissance technical squadron
to be assigned to 2d Advon and located at Tan Son Nhut. By September the
Joint Chiefs of Staff approved the proposed project, and on 20 November they
accepted the cost submissions for the reconnaissance technical squadron.
This 13th Reconnaissance Technical Squadron, with an austere strength of
13 officers and 84 airmen, would be activated at Tan Son Nhut on 10 April
1963. (174) Meanwhile still other arrangements were being made for USAF to
operate reconnaissance aircraft in Vietnam. Based on the precedent of the
operation of rotational F-102 jet interceptors in Vietnam, the US Embassy
did not object to a deployment of RF-101s to Saigon, provided the basis were
temporary. Generals Harkins and Anthis both wanted to move Able Mable from
Bangkok to Tan Son Nhut, but for several months Admiral Felt opposed this
because he hoped that high altitude reconnaissance over Laos could be con-
tinued. By October 1962, however, Able Mable was flying approximately 88
percent of its sorties over South Vietnam, and when all aerial reconnaissance
over Laos was suspended it was no longer reasonable to retain Able liable at
Don Mtang. Accordingly on 14 December 1962 Able Mable moved its four
rotational RF-101s to Tan Son Nhut. At the new operating location Able Mable
continued to maintain a flying rate of 2.8 sorties a day, but the total photo
objective coverage per sortie greatly increased as a result of the reduction
of the previous deadhead time spent between Bangkok and Tan Son Nhut. (175)
In the last half of 1962 the two RB-26 photo aircraft attached to Farm Gate
gave good service despite operational difficulties. Flash-illuminant
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cartridges required by the RB-26 night photo system were in short supply,
somewhat limiting night photography. Another operating problem had to do
with night photos of the flooded rice paddy terrain of the Delta: illuminant
reflections from the water-covered areas tended to blur night photos. In -
addition to these things, one of the R3-26 photo planes was lost in a ground
accident at Bien Hoa on 20 October. (176)
When Admiral Felt nonconcurred with the proposed OSD/ARPA Field Unit
recommendation for the maximum air surveillance test project on 29 June 1962
he expressed a concern that air projects with local applications would inter-
fere with the most effective utilization of scarce air capabilities in country-
wide applications such as air escort for trains and motor convoys. In
Washington, however, Secretary McNamara accepted the OSD/ARPA Field Unit
proposal and remanded it to General Harkins for implementation. The 2d Air
Division proposal for handling the project was devised by its Director of
Operations, Colonel Winston P. Anderson, who worked out planning for "Opera-
tion Cat and Mouse." In this pLan, Anderson outlined a requirement for
continuous day visual coverage o be flown by Farm Gate L-28 (U-10) crews
over the ARVN 7th Division area south of Saigon, this area being proposed
because there was a great amount ,of Communist movement back and forth through
the area and because intelligence of Vietcong activities was relatively good.
Anderson proposed that the air liaison surveillance crews would locate
targets and call for immediate air strikes to be flown against them by B-26s
or AD-6s. Anderson's plan failed for one essential reason: the VNAF could
not provide air observers to serve as airborne FACs aboard the L-28s, and
VNAF would not accept an alternate solution which would have authorized
airborne ARVN FAGs to mark targets for air strikes. (177)
At the same time that the 2d Air Division could not produce capabilities
to test the concept of maximum air surveillance, the US Army proposed and
secured approval for the deployment of its 23d Special Air Warfare Detach-
ment to Vietnam for test purposes. The detachment at its arrival at Nha
Trang on 20 September was equipped with six US Army OV-1 Mohawk turboprop
observation aircraft, planes equipped with cameras and also .50-Caliber
machineguns. It also possessed two portable photo laboratories which could
process photography at divisional headquarters or other remote locations.
The initial US Army test proposal visualized that VNAF pilots would be
trained to fly the two-place Mohawks and that the planes were to be used in
support of local province/sector operations as both strike and reconnaissance
aircraft. Admiral Felt would not accept the province/sector allocation and
instead demanded that Mohawk air operations must be coordinated through the
Joint Operations Center as a part of a unified air effort. In accordance
with this CINCPAC guidance the initial test directive prepared by the Joint
Evaluation Group-Vietnam (JOEG-V) required that the US Army Mohawks be
integrated under the TACS, but in processing the directive the MACV Chief
of Staff deleted the provision from the plan and directed that the Mohawks
be assigned as organic air in support of the ARVN II Corps. Under this
arrangement teams of two Mohawk aircraft were placed in direct support of
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ARVN divisions when the 23d SWAD became operational on 14 October. The team
of two Mohawks at Qui Nhon in support of the ARVN 9th Division received its
missions and reported to the 9th Division tactical operations center. The
Mohawk team commander was merely responsible for providing the TACS with
flight plans that would permit identification of the aircraft. Although
primarily employed for visual and photo reconnaissance the Mohawks also
carried ARVN artillery observers and were authorized to return fire in self
defense when the ARVN observers approved strike targets. (178) The Mohawk
control arrangement was unsatisfactory to General Anthis, who urged that the
limited air reconnaissance capabilities available in South Vietnam did not
permit the luxury of giving aircraft to unit commanders for their awn use.
But when Anthis protested to Harkins, Harkins only response was: "We must
all be objective." (179)
When General Anthis first learned that the US Army was sending the Mohawk
reconnaissance aircraft to South Vietnam he pointed out that the Air Force
was in danger of losing assigned roles and missions through a failure to
provide resources to perform them. (180) Air Force officers who flew the
Mohawk considered it a hazardous aircraft for field operations, since it was
not rugged enough for rough field usage and was blind to its rear, making it
potentially vulnerable to attack from that direction by hostile aircraft or
to ground fire when pulling up from a target. (181) The combination of the
Mohawk and the portable field photo labs, however, was very responsive to
local ARVN requirements. In November the USAF FAC with the 23d ARVN Division
at Ban Mb Thuot pointed out that the II Corps Mohawk detachment made a
9-hour delivery on photo requests, whereas the best Air Force photo delivery
was usually seven days. (182) In the best time possible, with RF-101s flying
from Tan Son Nhut and the Pipe Stem PPC working at maximum efficiency', a
typical RF-101 mission in periods of good photo weather could turn out an
exposed and interpreted photo in an elapsed time of 5 hours and 15 minutes,
or in 3 hours and 30 minutes if an aircraft was already airborne when the
mission request was received and no photo interpretation was required. The
major slowness in the centralized air reconnaissance system continued to be
delivery of photos from Tan Son Nhut to requesting units in the field by
US Army liaison courier aircraft, but it was nevertheless true that the
locally deployed Mohawks could make delivery of emergency photo requests
within two to three hours. (183) There was another defect in employing
local air reconnaissance in that the intelligence gathered by the Mohawks
was often not made available to the overall intelligence system where it
could be useful to increase, confirm, or deny information held by the
intelligence community. (184) Admiral Felt pointed out that the local
employment of the Mohawks did not represent an economical use of forces
and that the deployment of US aircraft of any- description to Vietnam ignored
the basic US policy that the American task was to train the RVNAF and not
to fight the war. (185) Notwithstanding these things, COMUSKACV cited
excellent results that had been attained by the Mohawk aircraft that were
operating with the 9th ARVN Division. On 14 December he asked that four
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additional Mohawks be assigned to the 23d SWAD in order that other tests
could be undertaken in the other ARVN corps areas under different terrain
conditions. General Harkins urged that the Mohawks accomplished immediately
responsive reconnaissance of targets of interest to ARVN division commanders
and that the Mohawk activities were complementary to rather than competitive
with Air Force reconnaissance capabilities. (186)
8. Air Transport Developments
At the establishment of the South Vietnam airlift system in January 1962
temporary duty airlift specialists from PACAF's 315th Air Division (Combat
Cargo) joined VNAF transport officers to man the JOC Airlift Branch, which
was expected to control the operations of the Mille Train C-123 detachment --
actually the USAF 346th Troop Carrier Squadron -- and the VNAF 1st Transport
Group. In March 1962 arrival of rotational TEY personnel from the 776th
Troop Carrier Squadron allowed the original Mule Train crews to begin to
rotate, and by June Mule Train was completely manned by 776th Squadron crews
and personnel. (187) During February 1962, Mule Train transported 1,035
passengers and 449 tons of cargo; air dropped 174.5 tons of resupply to
RVNAF outposts; and dropped 996 airborne personnel for training purposes.
Considering the fact that the C.-123s were frequently employed in long hauls
with light loads, MAN calculated that the Mule Train transports were
operating at 91 percent of their capability. (188)
Although the tempo of Mule Train operations during February 1962 indicated
that the detachment needed more C-123s to meet airlift requirements, it was
soon apparent that South Vietnam airlift system was not working in the manner
that was planned. The JAAB never functioned according to the concept for it,
and, since it was unable to get firm priorities for airlift, the JOC Airlift
Branch often made sudden changes in its daily frag orders after they were
issued to Mule Train, causing inefficiency and confusion at the operating
and air terminal levels. (189) Within the JOC Airlift Branch, USAF personnel
scheduled the C-123 airlift while VNAF personnel handled RVNAF requests for
VNAF C-47 flights. When MAI reouests exceeded C-47 capabilities, C-123
sorties were scheduled to supplement the C-47 lift, but routinely the JOC
Airlift Branch did not get a comprehensive reporting of VNAF C-47 activities.
It was obvious, however, that the VNAF 1st Transport Group did not have
sufficient aircrews to attain maximum aircraft utilization, and as far as
could be determined the VNAF devoted about 25 percent of its total effort to
transporting Vietnamese VIPs and civilians. (190) Although the C-123s were
deployed to Vietnam for a tactical employment, statistics of Mille Train
operations for January-May 1962 indicated that the C-123s were being primarily
employed to haul cargo and passengers. (191) In the absence of an effective
airlift system, it was impossible to get a feel concerning whether airlift
requirements were being met. (192)
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MULE TRAIN C-123 AIRLIFT OPERATIONS, JAN-MAY 1962
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Sorties
296
418
506
545
751
Hours Flown
493
596
725
750
1214
Passengers Airlifted
1638
2523
2878
2943
4266
Troops Airdropped
402
916
852
1423
229
Cargo Airlifted (Tons)
382
399
644
942
1176
Cargo Airdropped (Tons)
46
175
44
23
48
Total Cargo (Tons)
428
574
688
965
1224
Source: Hist. 2d Advon, I, 172
The Air Force had developed and procured the 0-123 Provider as a 12-ton
capacity assault transport with Army requirements taken into consideration,
but in the late 1950s the Army had also procured DeHaviland CV-2B Caribou
light air transport planes for its organic use. The Caribou had a 2-1/2-ton
capacity and good short take-off and landing characteristics. A single
Caribou was tested in Vietnam in the winter of 1961-1962, and in early March
1962 Admiral Felt informally remarked to General Anthis that he was getting
a lot of pressure placed upon him to authorize the deployment of an Army
Caribou company to Vietnam. In a formal proposal on 19 March, General Harkins
submitted a request to Felt for expanded airlift to include a Caribou company,
another squadron of C-123s; and removal of the spray equipment from four of
the five Ranch Hand C-123s so that they could be used for airlift. While
Harkins said that he could not forecast future airlift requirements, he was
sure that they would increase. He also rationalized that the Caribou trans-
ports would be needed to operate into airfields that would not accommodate
C-123s and he said that there were 162 airfields in South Vietnam that could
be used by Caribou transports while only 115 could handle 0-123 aircraft.(193)
The deployment of additional C-123s and CV-2Bs to South Vietnam promised
to overload limited air facilities, and Admiral Felt wanted more consideration
to be given to increasing the utilization of the USAF C-123s and the VNAF
C-475 before recommending additional transport planes. One question requiring
clarification was the number of airfields in South Vietnam that could accom-
modate C-123s. General Harkins' estimate that only 115 of the 182 airfields
in South Vietnam could serve C-123s while 162 could handle Caribous was based
solely upon the stated length of the air strips; little informatLon was
available an wheel load capacities, but it was presumed that the surface of
remote strips would break down much sooner from repeated landings of heavier
C-123s than the lighter Caribous.(194) At the end of March, the C-123s had
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not refused any trip into any airfield because of operational limitations,
but 2d Advon nevertheless commenced a survey of aerial photographs and
launched a C-123 on exploratory sorties into little known airfields to
examine operating conditions. A survey, of aerial photographs also revealed
fewer airfields than previously listed since some fields had been listed
separately by their French and Vietnamese names. (195) Based upon evidence
accumulated in April 1962, the 2d Advon would conclude that many of the
small airfields appearing on the maps of South Vietnam were actually un-
suited for either C-123 or Caribou operations because of low loading bearing
capacity, overgrowth with vegetation, or lack of security from Vietcong
attack. The directory of usable airfields in South Vietnam distributed by
2d Advon on 6 April considered 83 airfields suitable for C-123 operations,
but the 2d Air Division later estimated that C-123 aircraft could land at
145 of the 153 airfields in South Vietnam under unrestricted combat and
dry weather conditions. (196)
In view of his desire not to overload available Vietnamese air facilities
with excessive numbers of aircraft, Admiral Felt favored the greater load
carrying ability of the C-123 over the Caribou, provided the C-123 could be
shown to have approximately the same short field capability as the Caribou.
(197) Pending accumulation of more evidence on the requirements for additional
transport airframes of any kind, the Secretary of Defense Conference in March
1962 determined to secure improved utilization of aircraft already in Vietnam.
As noted earlier, one decision of this conference concerned the future of
aerial spray operations for herbicidal purposes, and in April two of the
Ranch Hand spray C-123s were removed and replaced with standard transport
C-123s. In an organizational change directed by the USAF Tactical Air Command
to improve management, Tactical Air Transport (11:ac'ron, Pro1isional-2, was
established at Tan Son Nhut on 29 May, and Mule Train and Ranch Hand were
consolidated in this provisional squadron under a single commander. (198)
At the recommendation of General Anthis, Secretary McNamara and Admiral Felt
also agreed at the March Secretary of Defense Conference that it would be
practicable to augment the VNAF 16t Transport Group with 30 USAF C-47 pilots,
thus permitting better use of the VNAF C-47 squadrons, whose pilot strengths
were being drawn down by the use of transport pilots to fill T-28 cockpits.
These USAF C-47 pilots reached Tan Son Nhut in March and April, where someone
referred to them as a- rather untidy lot and thereby engendered their collec-
tive nickname as the "Dirty Thirty." At first the relations between the
Americans and Vietnamese C-47 pilots were strained since the VNAF pilots
regarded themselves as fully as capable as the Americans, even though they
employed flight techniques that they had been taught by the French. Tension
mounted between the two groups of pilots until an occasion in August, when
the VNAF 1st Group commander, Lt Col Nguyen Cao Ky, assembled both the
American and Vietnamese pilots and asked them either to roll up their sleeves
and fight out their disputes or else end the "prima donna" business, shake
hands, and have a drink all around. This meeting cleared the air and resulted
in a very close and cordial relationship vetween the American and Vietnamese
C-47 pilots as well as an increased utilization of the VNAF transport planes.
(199)
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Despite Admiral Felt's unwillingness to approve the deployment of Caribou
or additional 0-123 transports to South Vietnam at the time of the March
Secretary of Defense Conference, General Harkins persisted in efforts to
provide a justification for a Caribou company-. By late March, Army officers
in MACV conceived that the Caribou company could be based at the unoccupied
airfield at Vung Tau, thus avoiding overcrowding at Tan Son Nhut. Pram
Vung Tau, the Caribous could be dispersed to provide intra-corps support
for American advisors in the field as well as aerial supply to isolated US
and ARVN troops at remote locations. On 9 April General Harkins recommended
this concept to Admiral Felt, urging that it was to be in addition to the
logistics airlift being performed by VNAF and USAF transport aircraft. (200)
At about this same time, Colonel Jasper Wilson, MAAG Senior Army Advisor
with the ARVN II Corps at Pleiku sent a letter to COMUSMACV inclosing a long
list of complaints about delays encountered in airlift of food and personnel
to that place. (201) Once again, Harkins' proposal of 9 April left Admiral
Felt unconvinced. For one thing, the Army 18th Fixed Wing Aviation Company
with 16 U-1A Otter aircraft was already located at Nha Trang with the mission
of providing intra-corps support, and each of the Otters could transport a
ton of minimum-size bulk cargo or seven passengers. (202)
When they visited South Vietnam in April 1962, General LeMay and his staff
representatives concluded that additional transport aircraft -- either C-123s
or Caribous -- were not required for a normal airlift mission at the time, but
they were critical of the lack of an effective airlift system and recommended
that an officer experienced in theater airlift should be sent to Vietnam to
set up an airlift system. In conversations with President Diem and General
Harkins, however, General LeMay strongly recommended that something be done
about the "Quick Reaction" plan that USAF had recommended to the Joint Chiefs
of Staff in January and the Joint Chiefs had transmitted to CINCPAC. This
plan included a "Fire Brigade" concept, in which C-123s and ARVN paratroopers
would stand alert for on-call scrambles and employments in response to calls
from Vietcong-besieged hamlets. Very shortly after the LeMay party visit,
PACAF traced dawn the Quick Reaction plan which had been held in the CINCPAC
staff, and Admiral Felt sent it to CCMUSMACV for review. On 1 May, Colonel
George M. Foster, PACAF Director of Transportation, reported to General Anthis
for duty to assist in establishing an optimum airlift system. (203)
With the deployment of American forces into Thailand and the designation
of General Harkins as COMUSMACTHAI as well as COMUSMACV on 15 May, arrangements
had to be made to establish a Southeast Asia airlift system which would be
more complex than the initial thinking about an in-country South Vietnam
system. PACAF's 315th Air Division (Combat Cargo), with headquarters in
Japan, handled the air movement of JTF-116 forces to Thailand with facility,
but, after the air movements were accomplished, the 315th Air Division had no
direct relations with COMUSMACV/THAI. (204) Still attempting to justify
additional air transport aircraft for Vietnam, General Harkins on 22 May.
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was willing to accept the fact that the C-123s could operate into most of
the airfields of South Vietnam, but he pointed out that an "eye-ball" survey
made by members of the MAAG-Vietnam Army Aviation Division had located 45
other airfields that would best be served by Caribou aircraft. Harkins also.
thought that the Quick Reaction concept of employing ARVN troops on alert,
immediately ready to be airlifted to troubled areas, was highly desirable
and would be implemented as additional aircraft became available. Harkins
asked Felt to accept a concept whereby C-123 aircraft would be employed for
main-line, long-haul airlift to 39 airheads, while Caribou aircraft would be
employed to provide short-haul feeder air transport from the airheads to
54 locations. The Caribou was desirable for this local air transport task
because it could handle bulky and heavy items that could not be lifted by
U-1A Otters or HU-1A helicopters. In regard to specific aircraft require-
ments, Harkins requested the assignment to MACV of one additional C-123
squadron of 16 aircraft (5 for Mule Train, 5 for strip alert, 2 for training,
and 4 on maintenance) by 1 June 1962. He also asked that one Army Caribou
company be assigned to MACV by 15 June, and he proposed that two Caribous
would be used in each corps in direct operational support of corps advisors,
four would be committed to the logistical air transport system, two would be
used for COMUSMACV staff support, and four would be on maintenance. (205)
On 25 May Admiral Felt accepted the COMUSMACV requirement for an
additional 0-123 squadron and requested the Joint Chiefs of Staff to provide
it as soon as practicable. At this time, Felt told Harkins that his plan for
daily air supply to 54 locations through 39 airheads "would mean that many
of your customers are eating too high on the hog," and accordingly he would
not accept the concept of using Caribou aircraft for feeder services. He did,
however, permit the deployment of the Army 1st Aviation Company (Caribou) to
Thailand with JF-1l6 in order to wit a good test of a new type airplane
under operating conditions in Southeast Asia, and he suggested that Harkins
as COMUSMACV/THAI had authority to operate an element of the Caribou company
in South Vietnam on a temporary basis, if he maintained the parent organiza-
tion with supply and maintenance facilities in Thailand. (206) On 26 May
the Joint Chiefs of Staff directed that the USAF Tactical Air Command would
undertake an immediate deployment of C-123 squadron to Vietnam under the
nickname "Saw Buck II." Under this order, the 777th Troop Carrier Squadron
moved with 16 C-123s from Pope Air Force Base to Clark Air Base by 7 June.
Four of the C-123s went to Don Muang Air Base in Thailand on 11 June, and
the last of the remaining 12 aircraft arrived at the squadron deployment base
at Da Nang on 15 June. In South Vietnam the Saw Buck II squadron was placed
under control of Tactical Air Transport Squadron Provisional-2, and the
arrival of the additional planes brought the total to 33 C-123s, one of which
was lost without crew fatalities in a major accident on 15 July. (207) After
getting established in Thailand under JTP-116 at Korat Air Base the Army 1st
Aviation Company deployed six Caribous to South Vietnam, where they were
employed in pairs under corps advisors. (208) In July General Harkins was
already discussing plans to move the entire Caribou company to Vietnam, and,
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with the reduction of American activities in Thailand, he would succeed in
reassembling the entire 1st Aviation Company at Vung Tau in mid-December
1962, an action which was justified by the increasing need for airlift
support and for the conduct of Army tests to evaluate the effectiveness of
the Caribou in a counterinsurgency role (209)
In the words of General Moorman the establishment of a Southeast Asia
Airlift System ccmplete with a combat cargo group turned out to be "the
damnedest exercise in overstaffing a proposal that I have ever heard of."
(210) Since the 315th Air Division (Combat Cargo) possessed a concentration
of the airlift expertise in the Pacific, the initial PACAF proposal in May
1962 was that the 315th Air Division should establish a subordinate combat
cargo headquarters in South Vietnam and take control of the C-123s. At
Thirteenth Air Force, General Milton objected to this proposal since it
would complicate relations with MACV by creating another air headquarters
in Vietnam separate from 2d Advon. Accordingly, General Moorman asked Milton
to consider an alternate proposal whereby the 315th Air Division would estab-
lish and man a combat cargo group in South Vietnam that would be placed under
the operational control of the Air Component Commander MACV. The combat
cargo group would be the facility through which the Air Component Commander
would exercise operational control over airlift units assigned or attached to
2d Advon, and it would operate all USAF air terminal facilities in Southeast
Asia. Both of the PACAF proposals envisioned the establishment of a viable
MACV airlift allocation board that would receive airlift requests and allocate
the airlift capability of USAF transport units that were under MA-CV/THAI
operational control. General Milton accepted Moorman's alternate proposal
since it promised to provide professional supervision of airlift operations
"without creating another little empire." (211)
During June cognizant members of the COMUSMACV were briefed on PACAF's
concept for the Southeast Asia airlift structure and generally agreed with it.
On 6 July, General Moorman pointed out to CINCPAC that airlift was a limited
resource that required careful, effective, and efficient management through
centralized control and direction. He asked CINCPAC to approve the establish-
ment of a combat cargo group in South Vietnam assigned to the 315th Air
Division but under the operational control of the Air Component Commander
MACV. He also asked that MACV set up an airlift allocations board. The
establishment would require about 50 additional personnel in Thailand and
Vietnam to man the combat cargo group, an aerial port squadron, and small
transport movement control (TMC) sections at Tan Son Nhut, Da Nang and Don
Muang. On 18 July, Admiral Felt requested Harkins to comment on the PACAF
proposal, and, on 23 August, Harkins approved the general concept with some
changes. A MACV study showed that the function of the proposed airlift
allocation board could be performed within the MACV J-4 staff, and Harkins
wanted the airlift allocation system to include all Army, Navy, and Marine
resources except helicopters. (212)
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During July the 315th Air Division had hand-picked some of its most
professional and dedicated airlift specialists to proceed on temporary
duty in South Vietnam, but weeks passed while these alerted men awaited
orders. (213) Because of the delay in securing a MACV response to the
airlift system proposal, General Moorman also discovered that the CINCPAC
staff had forgotten all about it, requiring new PACAF briefings. On
17 September, however, CINCPAC directed MACV to establish a joint airlift
allocations board within its J-4 staff and PACAF to establish a combat
cargo group responsive to the JAAB. The combat cargo group was to be
assigned to the operational command of COMUSMACV/THAI to be exercised
through the AFCC MACV; it would exercise operational control over USAF
airlift units under the control of MACV/THAI and would be responsible for
air terminal operations of the USAF aerial port squadron in South Vietnam.
Employing TDY personnel from the 315th Air Division, PACAF designated and
organized the 6492d Combat Cargo Group (Troop Carrier) and its subordinate
6493d Aerial Port Squadron at Tan:Son Nhut effective on 21 September, both
being provisional units that would be replaced by the 315th Troop Carrier
Group, Assault, and the 8th Aerial Port Squadron effective on 8 December
1962. These units were assigned to the 315th Air Division but further
assigned to the operational command of COMUSMACV to be exercised through
his AFCC. (214)
Anticipating CINCPAC s directive of 17 September on the Southeast Asia
airlift system, COMUSMACV directed on 9 September that all C-123 missions
in Southeast Asia would be approved by the JAAB located in the MACV J-4
staff. (215) On 11 October MACV Directive No. 42, "U.S. Military Airlift
System Within Southeast Asia," generally but not completely followed the
guidance of the CTNCPAC directive ox 17 September. The cover letter signed
by the MACV Chief of Staff omitted the Air Component Commazder's responsi-
bilities in the airlift system, and the body of the directive did not make
it clear that the air terminals would operate under the operational control
of the combat cargo group. At the working level, airlift specialists on
TDY from the 315th Air Division organized the combat cargo group, and worked
with the MACV J-4 staff to organize the JAAB. The board began to accept
requirements and determine priorities and then to pass them to the combat
cargo group for mission accomplishment even though, because of Anthisf
objections, MACV Directive No. 34 was not officially released. On 1 November,
Anthis discussed his views on the directive with General Harkins, and on
8 November the directive was issued with an appropriate change, stating:
"AFCC will act as coordinating authority in coordinating operations of all
air resources." (216) As it was established, the Southeast Asia airlift
system was broad enough to encompass contributions of Army Caribous, Marine
R4Ds, and VNAF C-47s, and General Harkins had led Admiral Felt to believe
that one of the principal reasons Tor deploying the Caribou to South Vietnam
would be to supplement C-123 air logistical transport operations. As he had
agreed to do, General Harkins directed that four Caribou aircraft be allocated
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to the airlift system as they became available, and four of the planes were
declared available for airlift missions during the period of 1-8 December.
After this, and despite Anthis' verbal protests to Harkins, no Caribou
would be available to the airlift system pending several months of
negotiations. (217)
Although the professional airlift specialists in the combat cargo group
were naturally interested in establishing a clean, straight line airlift
organization, General Anthis insisted that the C-123s be responsive for
tactical airlift missions within the TACS through the JOC or the ASOCs.
In June 1962 the new TDY ALOs were urged to "discover" tactical airlift
missions for the C-123s, and the arrival of the Saw Buck II C-123s permit-
ted implementation of the fire brigade, quick reaction plans. Basically,
the fire brigade was a composite fast-reaction force composed of 5 c-123,
5 C-47, and 1 L-19 aircraft with 500 ARVN airborne brigade troops on a
30-minute alert for emergency employment, 24-hours a day. The 0-123 alert
status was increased to 6 aircraft (5 at Tan Son Nhut and 1 at Da Nang),
and 500 ARVN paratroopers were successfully dropped in a capability demon-
stration on 5 June 1962. A coordinated MS/2d Advon joint operations plan
for the fire brigade concept was formally published on 17 October 1962,
but the concept, which visualized the co-location of paratroop battalions
and transport aircraft at eight dispersed locations throughout South Vietnam,
was never completely implemented. In a reduced fire brigade plan, 5 C-123s
and 5 VNAF C-47s and 350 ARVN paratroopers were committed to one-hour alert
at Tan Son Nhut and one 0-123 and one C-47 were held on similar alert at
Da Nang. Tests showed that the force could react in 30 minutes, but several
months would pass before it would be used in an active operation, indicating
that while the fire brigade might have intrinsic merit it was not proving
out because it was not being requested. Under such circumstances, the com-
mitment of C-47s and C-123s to alert appeared a waste of airlift. (218)
The record of Mule Train/Saw Buck airlift accomplishments between June-
December revealed that the C-123s continued to be used more as logistical
carriers than in the primary tactical role for which they had been designed.
It was obvious that Army helicopters and light transports were performing
tactical transport missions. At the same time, MACV had to provide a very
large airlift for logistic support throughout Vietnam because of a lack of
secure surface transportation. (219)
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MULE TRAIN/SAWBUCK II C-123 AIRLIFT OPERATIONS
JUN.0DEC 1962
Jun Jul
Aug
Sep
Oct
Nov
Dec
Sorties 1102 1132
1454
1473
1300
1426
922
Hours Flown 1947 1841
1865
1930
2019
1837
1718
Passengers Airlifted 5741 4946
6668
7096
7534
6759
5535
Troops Airdropped 170 664
139
560
759
1572
2023
Cargo Airlifted (Tons) 1237.6 1309.1
1651.6
2015
2236
2427
2073
Cargo Airdropped (Tons) 90.5 10 ?
1757
2175.4
.
2401
I
2525
P
2175
Total Cargo (Tons) 136E71-1437.7
Source: Hist. 2d Advon, I, 172-173
9. Expanding Requirements Strain VRAF and Farm Gate
When President Kennedy made the decision to provide expanded US advisory
assistance to the RVNAF in November 1961 he bore a conviction that the war in
Vietnam could be won only as long as it was South Vietnam's war. Although
this Presidential conviction was not exactly spelled out in formal policy
statements, President Kennedy continued to emphasize in public statements
that American advisors were expected to assist in training and transportation.
He maintained that the United States had not sent combat troops to South
Vietnam in the usual sense of the word, although, he explained, "the training
missions that we have there have been instructed if they are fired upon they
would, of course, fire back, to protect themselves."(220) In other state-
ments of US policy President Kennedy manifested a clear determination to resist
the attempted Communist subjugation of South Vietnam.(221) With the progress
of events it became apparent to General Sweeney at the USAF Tactical Air
Command that US national policy an-counterinsurgency was to assist indigenous
military personnel to assist themselves and that the primary effort must be
indigenous.(222) On the other hand, President Kennedy was also deeply
interested in increasing the counterinsurgency capabilities of the US Armed
Services, and toward this end at the 15 January 1962 Secretary of Defense
Conference Secretary McNamara announced that he hoped to make South Vietnam
"a proving ground, training ground, or laboratory for tactics-techniques
and weapons."(223) During a visit to Southeast Asia shortly after he became
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Maxwell D. Taylor emphasized
in September 1962 that all of the US Armed Services should use South Vietnam
as a laboratory to bring in new hardware and to develop new tactics and
equipment for counterinsurgency operations.(224) The lack of clear hierar-
chical values assigned to the three US national policies relevant to the
Republic of Vietnam -- resisting Communist subjugation, developing indigenous
(145 fir 3
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forces to fight their awn war, and training in and development of US Armed
Services counterinsurgency capabilities -- greatly complicated the task of
fielding air force units necessary to meet expanding operational require-
ments.
At their arrival at Bien Hoa in November 1961 the highly-motivated men
of the Farm Gate detachment fully expected to employ their 4 SC-47s, 4 RB-26s,
and 8 T-28s in clandestine combat operations against the Vietcong. On 16 Novem-
ber, however, Admiral Felt stated that the primary mission of the Farm Gate
detachment was to conduct tactical training and tactical pilot up grading for
the VNAF. (225) On 6 December the Joint Chiefs of Staff authorized the use
of the Farm Gate aircraft on combat missions with a combined US and &VII crew
aboard as a part of combat crew training requirements in South Vietnam. (226)
This instruction was confirmed at the 16 December Secretary of Defense Con-
ference when Secretary McNamara authorized Farm Gate missions in active
combat roles within the borders of South Vietnam provided at least one South
Vietnamese national was aboard each aircraft so committed. McNamara verbally
commented that Farm Gate operations ought to be closely monitored and used
for "important jobs." (227) On 26 December, however, the Joint Chiefs of
Staff stated in additional clarification and amplification of the Farm Gate
mission that the US aircraft were to be employed on combat missions only when
the VNAF did not have the capability (because of lack of training, equipment,
etc.) to perform the required missions. Any such missions would be with a
combined US and GVN crew, and such missions would be for the purpose of
providing necessary training for GVN personnel so that the VNAF could perform
the required missions at the earliest possible time. (228)
In computing available cqmbat sorties early in 1962 General Anthis
figured that Farm Gate's four B-26s and eight T-28s were each capable of
operating at a rate of one operational sortie each day, but the rule of
engagement limited Farm Gate plans to missions that could not be performed
by the Vietnamese and focused attention on the capabilities of the VNAF as
they existed and were programmed. In the MAP projection the VNAF 1st Fighter
Squadron at Bien Hoa was authorized 20 AD-6 unit strength aircraft, which
Anthis figured should be flown at a rate of one operational sortie for each
aircraft each day. The VNAF 2d Fighter Squadron being readied for combat
at Nha Trang was scheduled to receive a total of 30 unit equipment T-28Cs
with 14 T-28Bs to be committed to transition training. The VNAF 1st, 2d,
and 3d Liaison Squadrons possessed their authorized strength of 15 L-19s
in each squadron. The VNAF expansion was being managed by upgrading L-19
pilots from the liaison squadrons and from the VNAF flight training center
into T-28s, but the shortage of trained Vietnamese pilots still fundamentally
affected plans for VNAF augmentation. At the beginning of 1962 VNAF possessed
only 225 pilots, and in order to provide 271 pilots needed to man cockpits
and fill other high prioritypositionAadditional flight training would have
to be conducted in the United States. The VNAF AD-6 pilots were proficient
244
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in daytime flight, but the AD-6s were former carrier aircraft and had no
landing lights. As a result the AD-6 pilots had never flown at night to
any extent. Flight instruments had became inoperative and very few
Vietnamese aviators were qualified for night or all-weather operations.
(229)
Inability of VNAF pilots to operate at night or in adverse weather
provided an operational mandate for Farm Gate, while VNAF pilots who required
combat training provided crew members for the B-26s and T-28s. Although both
Farm Gate and 1st Fighter Squadron were located near each other at Bien Hoa,
relations between these two squadrons remained almost indidental. As has
been seen, the AD-6 pilots did not like to fly in the rear seats of Farm Gate
T-28s; moreover, the two squadrons were separately fragged for operations by
the Joint Operations Center, a practice which worked against a common partici-
pation in missions. Unlike the 10-6 pilots, the VNAF T-28 pilots from Nha
Trang required gunnery, bombing, and rocketry training provided by Farm Gate
and also provided the Vietnamese -_,.rewmen that Farm Gate required for opera-
tional missions. (230) In addition to the training mission Farm Gate developed
tactics for night hamlet defense and demonstrated that aircraft detachments
could operate from remote locations for extended periods of time. Before the
arrival of Farm Gate the Vietnamese airmen had convinced President Diem that
aviators had to work from the established airfield at Bien Hoa where they
could secure logistical support. But when Farm Gate sent a detachment to
Pleiku, Diem saw that this was feasible, and the 1st Fighter Squadron began
to stage rotational detachments of two AD-6s to Pleiku and to Da Nang. (231)
The statement by Secretary MeNtmara on 19 February that US advisors must
not be employed in jobs that could be done by the Vietnamese impacted upon
the Farm Gate mission, but the attack by the two VNAF AD-6 pilots against
President Diem's Palace on 27 February provided a new operational mandate for
Farm Gate. Greatly shaken by the bombing of his residence, President Diem
grounded the 1st Fighter Squadron pending security investigations. The
squadron was released for flying late on 1 March, with the proviso that the
AD-6s could carry only 20-mm. ammunition. On 14 March the 10-6s were allegedly
authorized to employ a full spectrum of ordnance, but the Joint General Staff
would continue to restrict the employment of bombs in the II and III Corps
areas. In the emergency, when VNAF was restricted in operations, Ambassador
Nolting secured authorization from Washington for the use of Farm Gate planes
to support planned and approved operations, with the understanding that AD-6s
would fly missions with the Farm Gate aircraft, thereby avoiding a public
impression that the United States was taking over combat operations. (232)
On 10 March the Thirteenth Air Force requested that immediate action be taken
to augment Farm Gate with the four additional B-26s that were already in the
Far East and that four additional T4.28s be assigned to the American detachment,
the rationale being that the B-26s had proven themselves to be the best
tactical aircraft for the counterinsurgency mission, the T-28s were required
245
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to permit Farm Gate to maintain detachments of these planes at airfields
readily adjacent to the ASOC's, and finally that ARVN was being educated
to the use of air power and would require additional support. General
Harkins and Ambassador Nolting initially supported the movement of the
four additional B-26s to South Vietnam, but at the Secretary of Defense
Conference on 21 March Secretary McNamara took note of the fact that the
VNAF 2d Fighter Squadron was becoming operational and asked haw much longer
US pilots would have to fly with VNAF. In response to the question General
Anthis stated that Farm Gate would have to continue to fly withthe VNAF
for some time as a demonstration force and in order to check on the state of
training and standardization in the Vietnamese air force. McNamara accepted
this response, but in Saigon the proposal to expand Farm Gate with the four
additional B-26s stalled on General Wbede's desk. (233)
When General LeMay visited South Vietnam beginning on 21 April the initial
buildup of VNAF strike aircraft was nearing completion. In the 2d Fighter
Squadron, 25 T-28 pilots were programmed as combat ready, and the assignment
of 30 US C-47 pilots to the VNAF 1st Transport Group not only beefed up the
VNAF transport squadrons but also released enough experienced Vietnamese
transport pilots to complete-the pilot manning of the 2d Fighter Squadron.
In context with a programmed utilization rate of 30 hours per month for
T-28s and 25 hours per month for AD-6s, PACAF projections considered that
VNAF should be able to fly 140 T-28 and 55 AD-6 sorties each week. Since
the combat training of VNAF T-28 pilots was nearing an end, Farm Gate was
having more and more difficulty getting a Vietnamese crewman for its flights.
Although General LeMay noted that the VNAF had improved considerably, he did
not consider that it would have an ability to meet all of the operational
requirements in South Vietnam for some time to come. In addition, LeMay was
concerned that Farm Gate was not flying anywhere near its potential. He
emphasized to General Harkins that Farm Gate crews must fly more missions in
order that American airmen being rotated through South Vietnam would get
valuable counterinsurgency experience that might well be needed in some other
part of the world. LeMay thought it important to get some relaxation of the
restrictions which required a VNAF crewman to fly aboard Farm Gate planes
and limited Farm Gate to offensive missions which the VNAF was unable to
perform. (234) Back in Washington, General LeMay found little support for
his proposals to reduce the operating restrictions on Farm Gate. Instead of
expanding US participation in Vietnam, Secretary McNamara wanted to reduce
it by maximum programming of Vietnamese military capabilities. In context
with the counterinsurgency doctrine that indigenous forces should fight
their own war, General Sweeney urged Anthis to make plans whereby VNAF would
take over the Farm Gate planes at some target date that should be established
as soon as possible. (235) BY local arrangements with VNAF, General Anthis
nevertheless managed to secure an arrangement whereby 11 Vietnamese cadets
were assigned to Farm Gate until they could be sent to the United States for
flight training, and these cadets were used to provide the Vietnamese member
of Farm Gate flight crews. (236)
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When it became fully operational in May and June 1962 the VNAF 2d Fighter
Squadron, based at Nha Trang with a rotational detachment of six T-28s at
Da Nang, provided a much needed combat air capability in the central and
northern areas of South Vietnam. This allowed the VNAF 1st Fighter Squadron
and the Farm Gate detachment, to concentrate operations in the southern portion
of the country. (237) As a result of the added strike squadron and some
improvement in VNAF AD-6 pilot proficiency, VNAF offensive sorties inclined
upward in the first half of 1962, while Farm Gate provided additional sorties,
as shown in the following chart:
VNAF-USAF OPERATIONAL SORTIES, JAN-JUN 1962
1M0NTH
JAN
FF,A
MAR
APR
MAY
JUN
VNAF
AD-6
150
1L8
195
155
155
15)4
T-28
0
0
12
58
112
235
TOTAL
150
10
207
213
267
'89
USAF
1-28
61
30
114
102
113
99
B-26
)40
42
43
54
96
88
TOTAL
101 '
72
157
156
209
187
(SOURCE:
Hist. 2d Advon, I
133
The operational statistics for the months of January through June also revealed
that air interdiction strikqs and close air support was the principal offensive
employment of both VNAF and Farm Gate aircraft:
VNAF-USAF AIR. SUPPORT & INTERDICTION SORTIES. ;!kl-,TITIN '1962
-
vIONTH
'VNAF
JAN
FB
MAR
APR.
ii
Ttfl
AIR SUPPORT
VNAF AD-6
16
10
51
30
58
57
VNAF T-28
0
0
0
28
6
11
jSAF T-28
4
, ,,
32
26
76
72
USAF B-26
2
b
6
4
29
20
INTERDICTION
VNAF AD-6
78
90
124
67
79
43
T-28
0
0
0
19
68
137
USAF T-28
23
c
-
17
54
9
5
USAF B-26
3
t
13
33
31
17
OURCE: Hist. 2d Advon, I, 1
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Since the January-June operational statistics revealed that the combined
VNAF-USAF strike capability had remained substantially higher than monthly
sorties flown, the statistics could be interpreted to mean that the VNAF
augmentation had been generally successful. In a forecast of VNAF require-
ments projected for six months from mid-1962 a PACAF reference paper called
attention to the fact that available air assets were not being exploited
fully, called for continued training of VNAF personnel, and recommended
eventual replacement of the VNAF T-28s, which did not have enough firepower
or external ordnance stores capability to support counterinsurgency operations
to an optimum degree. (238)
In the air estimates during June 1962 it appeared that the expanded VNAF
together with Farm Gate could accomplish substantially morecombat missions
than were being requested, including fixed-wing air cover for convoys and
trains, mandatory fixed-wing air escort for helicopter assault operations,
and additional interdiction and close air support strikes. Secretary McNamara
was also pleased on 23 July with the progress of short-term actions in South
Vietnam, but he directed that General Harkins would prepare a plan for a
long-range three-year RVNAF program to include phasing out of major US combat,
advisory, and logistics support activities. (239) M9Namara's directive marked
the beginning of long-term planning for VNAF expansion, and in the short term
it made it more difficult to provide USAF reinforcements for Farm Gate. On
the other hand, as has been seen, movement of two additional US Army helicopter
companies to Vietnam in September would require additional fixed-wing escort
and support sorties.
Even though VNAF had progressed markedly in a few months, VNAF failed to
generate combat sorties expected from it in July, when new operational missions
began to be requested in increasing numbers. With 27 T-28s and 22 AD-6s as
unit equipment General Anthis considered that VNAFs two fighter squadrons
should be able to generate 1470 operational sorties a. month, 70 percent to be
allocated to the TACS and 30 percent to be used for training and maintenance.
Instead VNAF made an average of only 7 AD-68 out of 22 and 11 T-28s out of
27 available to the TACS each day. In addition VNAF usually allocated to the
TACS only 11 L-19s out of approximately 44 and 8 C-47s out of 34. Even though
there was a recognized shortage of pilots, the available pilots continued to
lack night and all-weather proficiency. Pilots were reluctant to fly during
siesta times or over weekends. The turn-around time between missions averaged
two hours and sometimes took three, whereas a reasonable turn-around time
should have been an hour or less. The best scramble time available from a
VNAF C-47 flare ship had been 40 minutes, and it often required over an hour
to get one of the flare alert planes airborne. Although the Americans had
understood that VNAF had been cleared to operate with a full spectrum of
ordnance, VNAF strikes after February had continued to be armed with only
napalm, rockets, small fragmentation bombs, and cannon fire, except for two
operations in the I Corps area. In addition to these operational problems,
VNAF was very reluctant to move aircraft to advanced deployment locations.
248
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This reluctance appeared to be a product of a lack of VNAF housing and
messing facilities for crews deployed to Da Nang and Pleiku and the fact
that the VNAF units received only a 1000 piasters a month for temporary
duty per diem. Where the 2d Fighter Squadron had been expected to maintain
detachments at both Da Nang and Pleiku,.it had demurred at accepting the
later assignment, which had been assumed by the 1st Fighter Squadron and
Farm Gate. (240) As a result of VNAF h failure to produce anticipated combat
sorties and increasing demands for air missions, Farm Gate operations reached
new high levels beginning in July. By the end of this month it was becoming
obvious that the soaring mission requirements could not be met unless VNAF
increased its effectiveness and that Farm Gate could not continue a high
rate of operations unless it got additional aircraft and crews. (241)
Although Colonel Nguyen Xuan Vinh was considered to have done a generally
creditable job as VNAF commander, he was a product of early French flying
training and had always been more of a scholar than an operational flying
officer. In order to prepare himself for a higher position in the Vietnamese
government, Vinh wanted to attend an aeronautical engineering graduate course
in the United States and with President Diem's indorsement he requested and
received MAP orders on 8 August to proceed to the United States. At mid-month
Lt. Col. Huynh Huu Hien, a man considered to be a highly qualified operational
officer, replaced Vinh as VNAF commander and was promptly promoted to the
rank of colonel. (242) In a meeting with Defense Minister Thuan on 10 August,
General Anthis pointed out the progress that VNAF had made, but he detailed
all of the problems that existed within the organization, most notably the
requirement that VNAF must begin to generate more operational sorties for
employment against the Vietcong. (243) Upon taking command Hien was given
personal authority to employ 100-pound bombs against the Vietcong, but
heavier ordnance still required JGS approval. (211)1) MCre ilitereoted in
operational matters than his predecessor had been, Hien actively cleared
lists of pre-planned interdictiou targets through the jGS -In order to provide
last resort targets for VNAF planes released from escort missions with unex-
pended ordnance. (245) Allegedly to confuse the Vietcong, Hien secured JGS
approval for a redesignation of VNAF squadrons effective on 19 September,
namely the 514th Squadron (1st Fighter), 516th Squadron (2d Fighter), 110th
Squadron (1st Liaison), 112th Squtdron (2d Liaison), 114th Squadron (3d
Liaison), 211th Squadron (1st Helicopter), 213th Squadron (2d Helicopter)
43d Group (1st Transport), 413th Squadron (1st Transport), 415th Squadron
(2d Transport), 312th Squadron (Special Air Mission), 716th Squadron
(Tactical Reconnaissance), 12th Air Base Squadron (Nha Trang Air Base),
23d Air Base Squadron (Bien Hoa Air Base), 30th Air Base Squadron (Tan Son
Nhut Air Base), and 41st Air Base Squadron (Da Nang Air Base). (2).6) The
new designations also emphasized the organizational unity of the VNAF and
may have been partly inspired by a proposal made by the US Army Chief of
Staff on 16 August to transfer the VNAF helicopter and liaison squadrons
to the ARVN. (247)
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Under Colonel Hien's more vigorous leadership the VNAF greatly increased
its operational sorties beginning in August, but in this month it became
evident to General Anthis that VNAF was too limited in pilots and trained
flight leaders to meet his standard of an operational mission each day from
each assigned AD-6 and T-28. The two VNAF fighter squadrons possessed only
seven or eight qualified flight leaders, and the plan undertaken in the
winter of 1961-1962 whereby Vietnamese pilot training had to be conducted
in the United States was working poorly from unforeseen causes. In emergency
actions early in 1962 the projected MAP training program for Vietnamese pilots
was increased from 65 to 115 pilot spaces during fiscal year 1962 and from
35 to 150 pilot spaces during fiscal year 1963. After the February bombing
incident, however, President Diem demanded extensive security investigations
on all applicants for overseas training, and these extensive personal investiga-
tions delayed the flaw of trainees and caused some quota spaces to go unfilled.
In October only 133 Vietnamese were in flight training in the United States
and it would be September 1963 before all of these men could complete their
training and return to Vietnam. Moreover, language and other problems of the
strange training environment was making for a very high wash-out rate among
Vietnamese flight trainees in the United States. Although the shortage of
trained pilots was the principal factor affecting VNAF's rate of operations,
other problems defied immediate solutions. VNAF ground crews continued to
require two to three hours to refuel and rearm strike aircraft where the Farm
Gate crews could turn a strike aircraft around in an hour or less. Because of
poor living conditions and shortages of per diem funds the VNAF squadrons
resisted forward deployments, preferring instead to fly longer and less
responsive missions from their home bases, a procedure which also increased
non-productive flying hours. As a result of all these conditions, General
Anthis figured in September that the best that VNAF would be able to do in
the way of generating strike sorties for some time to come would be to fly
about 1,000 sorties a month, of which approximately 675 sorties could be
used for combat operations and the remainder for continuation flying
training. (248)
Early in August at the same time that General Anthis was applying spurs
to the VNAF, he also asked PACAF to consider augmenting Farm Gate to meet
immediate pressing requirements. He predicted that the mission demands
during August would compel the existing Farm Gate planes to overfly their
monthly programmed flying hours and pointed out that the arrival of the
additional US Army helicopter companies at Pleiku and Bien Hoa during
September would generate still more mission requests for fixed-wing aircraft
support. Anthis specifically suggested that additional USAF forces be
allocated that would enable him to keep a deployed air strike team on perma-
nent station at Pleiku and another at Soc Trang in the Delta. As one response
to Anthis pressing requirement the Thirteenth Air Force Obtained authority
and deployed the four additional B-26s that were in the Far East to Farm
Gate in mid-August. (245) Even though VNAF increased its sorties during
August, Anthis was forced to fly Farm Gate planes and crews flat out during
250
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the month in order to meet mission requirements. The B-26s and T-28s were
programmed with support for 400 flying hours a month but were flown at a
rate of 500 hours during August. Manned on a basis of one crew per aircraft,
B-26 crews averaged 56.5 hours and T-28 crews 63.7 hours of combat flying.
Early in September General Anthis reluctantly recognized that he must cut
back the rate of Farm Gate flying, even though the combined VNAF-Farm Gate
capabilities would be insufficient to meet requirements, forcing the Joint
Operations Center to turn down mission requests made to it. (250)
Unable to meet operational requirements and facing the additional prospect
that the arrival of the two additional US Army helicopter companies and
improving dry season weather would generate still additional requirements,
General Anthis on 14 September fontally submitted a requirement to MACV that
Farm Gate be augmented with 10 B-26s, 5 T-28s, and 2 C-47s. He proposed to
maintain a deployed air strike tean of 6 B.-26s and 1 C-47 at Pleiku and
another deployed air strike team of T-28s and 1 C-47 at Soc Trang. The
main body of B-26s would be held at Bien Hoa, from which their speed and
range would permit them to operate where they were most needed. General
Harkins did not respond to Anthis' 'request, but held it without action.
On 14 September, however, Anthis had sent a copy of his message to PACAF,
and, when nothing was heard from General Harkins, PAOAF submitted the
proposal to USAF on 29 September with a recommendation that it be examined
and made an item on the agenda of the Secretary of Defense Conference to be
held early in October. In the USAF examination of Anthis' proposal, General
Sweeney at the Tactical Air Command and Brig. Gen. Gilbert L. Pritchard,
commander of the Special Air Warfare Center, agreed that USAF could provide
the planes and crews but cautioned that Anthis ought to go slow in adding
to Farm Gate until he was completely convinced that VNAF was doing as much
as it could. Sweeney urged that Farm Gate "should not be permitted to
become a crutch to compromise progressive and objective development of
indigenous capabilities." On 6 Octobei, USAF advised PACAF that the specified
aircraft could be provided, and on the following day PACAF recommended to
CINCPAC that Farm Gate be augmented as Anthis recommended. On 8 October
in Hawaii Secretary McNamara was briefed on the requirement for additional
air support in Vietnam. He was most interested in taking steps to develop
a wholly adequate Vietnamese air force. Instead of the 130-odd Vietnamese
officers in flight training in thel United States, he said that there ought
to be 300 or more. Since no Vietnamese pilots were being trained to fly
B-26s, he instructed Admiral Felt to examine the prospects for securing
30 Chinese Nationalist pilots for assignment to the VNAF C-47 group, thereby
releasing 30 VNAF transport pilots to begin B-26 transition training.
Specifically in regard to the Farm Gate expansion, McNamara stated that if
General Harkins was convinced that he needed a bigger Farm Gate program he
should present his case in detail to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. McNamara
added that he would be "cool" to such a proposal, recalling that it was
contrary to the policy position taken by the President to build indigenous
forces. He wanted Farm Gate to train rather than operate. (251)
251
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At the same time that his proposal for Farm Gate expansion was being
considered at higher levels, General Anthis was having operational problems.
He considered that the August mission requirements were a fair statement
of what was needed. In this month Farm Gate operations were up 65 percent
over July totals, but in September they had to be reduced to 37 percent of
the July totals, chiefly because the 1/1 crew/aircraft manning could not
sustain the high rate of operations at the August level. One possibility
would be to increase Farm Gate crew manning to a 1.5/1 ratio and augment
maintenance and support by one-third thereby increasing utilization of
assigned airframes. During September Anthis also had a difficult time
getting Vietnamese crew members. The VNAF would make no pilots available
for such assignment and pressed for the return of the 11 aviation cadets
so that they might receive language training preparatory to going to the
United States. General Ty wrote Harkins a letter asking relief from the
restriction that a VNAF crewman fly aboard Farm Gate planes. This appeared
impossible and as a result Colonel Hien assigned 15 VNAF non-commissioned
officers to Farm Gate who would be available to fly on combat missions.
This arrangement provided a ready source of Vietnamese bodies, but it was
a subterfuge since the enlisted Vietnamese had no aspirations for flight
training. When he heard of the arrangement General Moorman urged Anthis
to be as legitimate as possible. (252) When Admiral Felt visited South
Vietnam on 22 October, Anthis got little satisfaction as to whether Farm
Gate would be augmented, Felt merely reporting that Secretary McNamara was
cool about the matter and suggesting that any augmentation might have to
be put through in very small piecemeal basis. On the other hand, Colonel
Hien opposed the proposal to use Chinese pilots to fly VNAF transports and
this possibility for VNAF pilot augmentation fell through. When Felt was
in Saigon Anthis told him about the 15 Vietnamese NCOs who had been assigned
to fly with Farm Gate. Felt accepted this, but he cautioned: "Let's not
make a point of spreading this around." (253)
Although Admiral Felt queried Harkins about MACV requirements
for the 2d Air Division and Farm Gate, Harkins continued to make no recom-
mendation on the matter of the Farm Gate augmentation. According to
information reaching the 2d Air Division, Anthis' recommendation went through
the MACV staff readily enough until it reached General Weede. While the
Farm Gate recommendation languished, other aviation matters received faster
consideration. On 25 October, for example, Harkins recommended to CINCPAC
that the US Army Special Forces (Provisional) being formed at Nha Trang
should be provided an organic US Army aviation unit for its support, in-
cluding four liaison aircraft, four Caribous, 12 HU-1D helicopters, and
four armed Mohawks. (254) As will be seen, some part of the MACV delay in
forwarding the request for Farm Gate augmentation had to do with calcula-
tions in progress of aviation requirements to support the MACV National
Campaign Plan being drawn up for presentation to the Vietnamese. The
proposed Farm Gate expansion also involved planning for the three-year
252
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expansion of VNAF. After some seeming delay, General Harkins accepted the
Farm Gate augmentation that Anthis had proposed in September and on 7 November
formally recommended to CINCPAC that Farm Gate had an immediate requirement
for augmentation with 5 T-28s, 10 B-26s, and 2 C-47s. It was likely that an
additional augmentation would be required in order to support the larger
aviation requirements of the National Campaign Plan. The CINCPAC staff
required only two days to handle the recommendation, and Felt forwarded it
to the Joint Chiefs of Staff on 9 November with the notation that there was
no reasonable alternative in sight to provide urgently needed combat air
power. (255)
In view of President Kennedy's mandate that the primary thrust of American
assistance in South Vietnam should be to prepare the RVNAF to fight its own
war, the proposal to augment Farm Gate received detailed study in the Joint
Chiefs of Staff and at higher levels during November and December. In the
continuing justification of the Farm Gate expansion the PACAF commanders
offered evidence that during 1962 -VNAF had demonstrated significant growth
but by September 1962 had reached a plateau of operational sorties which
would continue until the return of the 133 Vietnamese pilot trainees from
the United States sometime in 1963. (256) In 2d Air Division-PACAF analyses
the VNAF-USAF monthly operational sorties flown in the last half of 1962,
shown in the following chart, represented a maximum accomplishment which
nevertheless did not meet operational requirements.
VNAF-USAF OPERATIONAL SORTIES
JUL-DEC-1962
MONTH
JUL
AUG
SAP
OCT
NOV
DEC
VNAF
AD-6 .
144
2413
274
277
291
265
T-28
178
283
354
446
474
451
Total
322
531
628
723
765
716
USAF
1-28
173
283
212
187
211
268
B-26
102
171
166
140
104
89
Total
275
454
378
327
315
357
SOURCE:
Hist. 2d Advon
134-137
In the last half of 1962 air support and air interdiction continued to
be the principal offensive employment of VNAF and Farm Gate aircraft. The
activities of the USAF ALOs and FAes stimulated ARVN commanders to request
air support and to nominate air interdiction targets, with the result that
these air activities increased. By September 1962 the Joint Operations
Center was being compelled to turn down some air support requests for lack
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of available aircraft; other air, support missions were scheduled with less
than an optimum number of strike aircraft; and it was likely that still
other air support missions were not requested by ARVN commanders who did
not want to lose face by asking for missions that might not be available.
The increasing numbers of air interdiction sorties recorded in operational
statistics in the same months that the JOC was turning dawn requests for
air support did not reflect a lack of transcendent interest in air support.
Instead, improved targeting of hostile interdiction objectives permitted
the ASOCs to direct strike aircraft released fram other missions with un-
expended ordnance to alternate last-resort interdiction targets.
VNAF-USAF AIR SUPPORT & INTERDICTION SORTIES, JUL-DEC 1962
MONTH
JUL
AUG
SEP
OCT
NOV
DEC
AIR SUPPORT
VNAF AD-6
18
33
59
102
107
16
VNAF T-28
24
50
23
21
43
28
USAF T-28
107
30
14
26
26
29
USAF B-26
16
6
7
12
25
17
INTERDICTION
VNAF AD-6
69
89
125
79
71
101
VNAF T-28
94
107
294
217
232
211
kISAF T-28
38
58
42
23
26
46
USAF B-26
34
55
62
42
19
20
SOURCE: Hist.
2d Advoni I,
134-137
In the last half of 1962 the Joint Operations Center also gave mandatory
overriding priorities to the escort of Vietnamese trains and motor convoys
and of ARVN heliborne operations. The escort of the trains and convoys was
more expensive in terms of VNAF L-19 resources than of strike aircraft, but
trains and convoys that carried ordnance or other valuable cargo required
fixed-wing strike air cover and thus required a commitment of strike sorties.
As a result of Admiral Felt's emphasis upon fixed-wing combat air escort
for heliborne operations, air escort for helicopter assault operations in-
creased in August 1962 but did not materially enlarge in the monthly totals
after this time, this despite increasing enemy opposition and the greater
number of heliborne operations that were being mounted.
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L
vNAF-USAF EscoET soRTIEsi JUL-DEC 1962
AONTH
JUL
',Lid
6EP uCT NOV
DEC
TRAIN & CONVOY
VNAF AD-6
4
12
20
12
21
28
VNAF T-28
10
12
8
22
6
20
USAF T-28
-
4
10
2
-
-
USAF B-26
-
lo
4
2
I.
2
BELICOPTER
'VNAF AD-6
11
37
20
10
-
14
f AF T-28
24
50
23
21
43
28
AF T-28
107
30
14
26
26
29
SAF B-26
16
6
7
12
25
17
OURCE: Hist. 2d Advon
T..2_134-137
The question as to whether Farm Gate should be augmented with additional
strike aircraft also involved a reconsideration of the proposition often stated
during the winter of 1961-1962 that the counterinsurgency war in South Vietnam
would be primarily a ground war, possibly something on the order of 90 percent
ground and only 10 percent air actions. During 1962 the HVNAF estimated that
the Vietcong had sustained an estimated 25,000 casualties, of which 6,800 or
26 percent were claimed as casualties inflicted by air operations. In addition
to inflicting casualties, information from Vietcong prisoners indicated that
the pressure of air operations limited the enemy's options and courses of
action. Airpower was making a major contribution by deterring Vietcong actions,
this by escort of surface trains and convoys, by protecting vulnerable heli-
borne operations, by preventing the enemy from forming large concentrations in
the field. The latter activity was keeping the level of violence at a guer-
rilla stage, small enough hopefully to be handled by government forces. As a
result of air operations during 1962 General Moorman considered that airpower
had demonstrated that it was of equivalent importance to ground operations in
a counterinsurgency effort. (257) This military assessment of the role of
airpower in the counterinsurgency environment in South Vietnam was not com-
pletely shared in Washington. After a visit to Southeast Asia during December
1962 Roger Hilsman and Michael Forrestal reported to President Kennedy: "On
the use of air power and the danger of adverse political effects, our impression
is that the controls on air strikes and the procedures for checking intelligence
against all sources are excellent. In spite of this, however, it is difficult
to be sure that air power is being used in a way that minimizes the adverse
political effects . . . and the 1168 of air power is going up enormously." (258)
The decision to augment Farm Gate for combat was not lightly or easily
made in Washington. In order to secure Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
approval for his recommendation of 9 November, Admiral Felt found it necessary
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to indicate to General Taylor that he would not be asking for additional US
combat aviation to support the MACV National Campaign plan. (259) On L. Decem-
ber the joint Chiefs recommended approval of the Farm Gate expansion on the
grounds that increasing requests for air support far exceeded the combined -
capabilities of VNAF and Farm Gate. Early in December, Secretary McNamara
concurred in the augmentation but directed that the State Department's coordina-
tion would be obtained before he submitted the matter to President Kennedy for
his personal decision. On 31 December, Deputy Secretary of Defense Gilpatric
finally informed the Joint Chiefs that President Kennedy approved the Farm
Gate expansion as requested. (260) The time required to make this decision to
increase the strike aircraft capabilities in South Vietnam unfortunately was
working in favor of the Vietcong. At the same moment that President Kennedy's
decision was being delivered to the Joint Chiefs, the Communists were preparing
to defeat an ARO heliborne operation in an engagement in which a lack of
strike aircraft would prevent proper air support, and the Communist victory at
Ap Bac was going to be a significant turning point in the war in South Vietnam.
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_
Nor?
Chapter 6
The Neutralization of Laos, 1962-1963
1. The United States Responds to a Threat to Thailand
In analysis of potential US actions which might bring pressure upon Boun
Oum and General Phoumi Nosavan to agree to a neutralist coalition government
for Laos on 2 January 1962, US Ambassador Winthrop Brown remarked that any
drastic action might drive the rightist Phoumi to take some military move in
hope that inevitable Pathet Lao reaction would force the United States to
implement the Southeast Asia Treaty and came to his support. (1) Under the
protocol to the SEATO treaty the Government of Laos had the authority to call
upon the SEATO powers for assistance against Communist aggression, and in the
course of Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings on 9 April 1962,
Secretary McNamara explained that the SEATO powers had not intervened in Laos
because the Government of Laos had not requested it and because there has not
been "any large movements of LCommunistl troops introduced into Laos."
McNamara continued: "Had it been .necessary [for the Communists] to introduce
such movements of combat forces into Laos from outside the country, I think
it is entirely possible that SEATO would have been called upon, would have
responded, and would have effectively contributed to the defense of that
country." (2)
In the weeks after 25 January when the Communists had begun to harass
Nam Tha in northwestern Laos, General Phoumi ignored American advice and air-
lifted reinforcements there, building the garrison's strength to some 5,000
men. Pathet Lao and Vietminh forces kept the Phoumist garrison under a light
siege until 2 May, when a Cammunist force about equal in size to Phoumi's
defense forces commenced a well-coordinated three-pronged assault preceded
by artillery preparations. In each case, the Vietnamese acted as shock troops
and Pathet Lao conducted follow-up actions. On 3 May, the Communists captured
Muong Sing and its airfield west of Nam Tha, and concerted assaults were
launched against Nam Tha on 6 May. Shortly after American advisors were evac-
uated by helicopter, Communist troops infiltrated into Nam Tha, whereupon
Phoumi's officers abandoned their troops, seized available vehicles, and
began a disorderly retreat toward the Mekong. Communist elements had preceded
the retreating Phoumist forces to Vieng Phu Kha, about halfway between Nam
Tha and Ban Houei Sal on the Thai border. Contact at this point turned the
retreat into a rout, and Phoumi s force of about 5,000 men was pursued the
last 40 miles by two or three truck loads of Communist soldiers. About 3,000
of the completely demoralized Lao troops destroyed government stocks at Ban
Houei Sai and fled into Thailand. The New China News Agency reported the
Communist capture of Ban Houei Sal, but Able Mable photographs and MAAG visual
air reconnaissance (both being used to locate Phoumist stragglers as well as
to get definite information on a very confused situation) revealed that the
Communists were careful not to come to the Mekong, thus directly hazarding
Thailand. There was no 'evidence that Chinese Communist troops participated
in the battle, as charged by the Lao government. (3)
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The initial Washington press reports of the Nam Tha ceasefire violation
stated that President Kennedy and his advisors felt that the Laotian govern-
ment had provoked attack by reinforcing Nam Tha against the advice of
American officials, and at a news conference on 9 May Kennedy expressed the
hope for a restoration of the ceasefire and continued political negotiations.
(4) With Michael V. Forrestal, the President's Special Assistant for Far
Eastern Affairs, working as coordinator, the State Department put together
a paper representing the ideas of Secretary Harriman, William H. Sullivan,
and other specialists in the Intelligence and Far Eastern Affairs Bureaus.
The paper estimated that the Communists meant to discredit Phoumi but believed
that they might well continue their probing if the United States did not apply
counterpressure. It recommended a series of diplomatic moves designed to make
it clear that the US goal was to reestablish the ceasefire and create a
neutral Laos through a government of national union but that the United States
should if compelled occupy the territory held by the Royal Lao government up
to the ceasefire line. It specifically proposed to send the Seventh Fleet
to the Gulf of Siam, to move a US battle group already in Thailand on SEATO
maneuvers to the Thai border opposite Vientiane, to transfer another battle
group of about a thousand men to Thailand, and to take steps to improve
communications routes in northeast Thailand in case an occupation of parts
of Laos were actually necessary. (5)
On 10 May Roger Hilsman and Secretary Harriman presented the State Depart-
ment paper at a meeting of the National Security Council. In his initial
reaction, President Kennedy was reluctant to send American troops into Thailand
because it might prove to be difficult to withdraw them. While the President
agreed that a do-nothing policy might encourage the Pathet Lao to further
attacks, he nevertheless found it distasteful to intervene without a full
knowledge of what was happening. According to Hilsman, the Joint Chiefs of
Staff additionally recommended a crash training and re-equipment effort to
restore the Lao military forces. Without finally committing himself, President
Kennedy directed that orders be issued to start the Seventh Fleet moving to-
ward the Gulf of Siam. During the evening two emissaries sent by President
Kennedy discussed the Lao situation with former-President Eisenhower, who
favored a very strong move, if necessary putting American troops into Laos.
(6)
Even though President Kennedy required more exact data before committing
American forces, he approved a very strong policy statement after it had
been staffed by concerned agencies. This statement noted that US policy was
based upon the fundamental assumption that the Lao Army was totally incapable
of preventing the Communists from over-running Laos, if North Vietnamese
units remained actively engaged. It continued: me Nam Tha debacle is a
graphic demonstration of the correctness of our basic assumption. No matter
from what perspective this debacle is viewed, the root cause rests with
General Phoumi. We can only arrive at a position of absolutely no confidence
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4
NNW
Nare
in Phoumi either politically or militarily. We believe our best interest
would be served if he were eliminated entirely from the Laotian scene.
This effort will be pursued as an undeviating policy objective parallel
with our continuing fundamental policy of attenpting (A) to restore the
cease-fire, (B) to establish a coalition government, and (C) to put the
Geneva agreements into effect." It Vientiane the US MAAG personally delivered
the news to Phoumi that the United States had lost confidence in him as a mili-
tary leader. The re-equipment of the defeated troops would be initiated only
when Phoumi completed a long list of needed military reforms. (7)
Always anxious that the Communists might establish positions of strength
on Thailand's borders, the Thai government viewed the rout at Nam Tha with
the utmost gravity. In a statement issued in Bangkok, the Government of
Thailand noted that the Communist seizure of Muong Sing and Nam Tha in
flagrant violation of the Lao ceasefire had pushed Communist forces toward
the Thai border, and it requested that American forces be stationed in
Thailand to cooperate with Thai armed forces in defense of Thailand. (8)
"I can honestly do no less, despite implications," US Ambassador Kenneth
Todd Young messaged Washington from Bangkok, "than recommend preparation
for pre-emptive occupation of strategic areas in the Mekong Valley on
opposite sides of the river in Laos and Thailand." (9) On 12 May, as directed
by President Kennedy, Admiral Felt alerted Joint Task Force 116 for an immedi-
ate deployment to Thailand. Within the next few days, President Kennedy
emphasized that the Americans were going to Thailand at the request of the
Thais to stabilize the situation rather than to change the US policy toward
Laos, which Continued to be the reestablishment of an effective ceasefire
and prompt negotiations for a government of national union. He pointed out
that the United States did not know whether or not the Communist breach of
the ceasefire at Nam Tha was the beginning of a general series of ceasefire
violations that would imperil Thailand. (10) After meeting in Bangkok on
16 May, the SEATO Council Representatives emphasized that the movement of
forces into Thailand was "entirely precautionary and defensive in character"
but it was also "a warning that any Communist aggression would be resisted."
(11) In retrospect Roger Hilaman would note: "The purpose of putting the
troops in Thailand rather than Laos was to say, 'Look, if you don't have a
cease-fire and don't negotiate and you do break the cease-fire and attack in
Laos, then we will introduce troops.' We put them into Thailand to deliver
a double message, a message that we would stand if challenged but that it
was a limited response. We were not ambitious to unite Laos and make it a
bastion of anticommunism." (12)
When President Kennedy issued orders for the movement of American forces
into Thailand, both the Joint Chiefs of Staff and CINCPAC were presented with
a number of unforeseen planning difficulties. The existing CINCPAC 32 series
operations plan was the basic plan for US operations in Southeast Asia. The
plan was developed to meet four phases of prospective hostile activity:
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Phase I -- Alert, Phase II -- Insurgency, Phase III-- External aggression
by North Vietnam, and Phase IV -- External aggression by Communist China.
In this plans series, Operations Plan 32-59 Phase II (Laos) was available
for implementation. This plan required the movement of Joint Task Force
116 to Laos very quickly. With a small permanent nucleus staff (USMC TF-79)-
in being on Okinawa, the Commanding General, 3d Marine Division was the
designated commander of JTF-116. While PACAF was canmitted to provide an
Air Force Component Commander and combat forces to include an F-100 tactical
fighter squadron and a reconnaissance air task force (six RF-101s), the
surface forces designated for JTF-116 were predominantly US Marine units.
If needed after the additional deployment, Army battle groups would reinforce
the Marines and command of JTF-116 would pass to an Army general officer. (13)
Even though CINCPAC would implement Operations Plan 32-59 Phase II
(Laos) as the instrument for effecting the US deployment, the plan had to be
modified to meet unforeseen conditions. The Thai government was genuinely
alarmed and required reassurance in addition to the deployment of JTF-116.
The Army 1st Battle Group, 27th Infantry, which had just completed partici-
pation in the SEATO Air Cobra maneuvers, was already in Thailand and would be
present when the Marines arrived. According to arrangements made with
Marshal Sarit, the Joint Chiefs of Staff directed CINCPAC on 13 May to estab-
lish the US Military Assistance Command Thailand (USMACHTHAI), thus giving
Thailand the same over-all American command status already accorded to Vietnam
by the organization of the US Military Assistance Command Vietnam (USMACV)
earlier in the year. The Joint Chiefs of Staff provided that General Paul D.
Harkins, COMUSMACV, would also serve as COMUSMACTHAI. As COMDSMACHTHAI,
General Harkins would report directly to CINCPAC, and USMACTHAI would consist
of JTF-116, JUSMAG Thailand, and such other US military elements as were in
Thailand or ordered there separately. The Joint Chiefs also directed CINCPAC
to designate Lt. Gen. J. L. Richardson, Deputy CINC US Army Pacific, as
Commander dliT-116 and to send him to Thailand. (14) On this same day, General
O'Donnell designated Brig. Gen. Stephen D. McElroy, Vice Commander, Thirteenth
Air Force as Air Force Component Commander for JTF-116. (15)
Preparations for the aerial phase of the deployment of American forces
to Thailand began on Okinawa between UC Task Force 79 and the 315th Air
Division on 10 May, when the air division received a revealing order cancel-
ling the retrograde airlift of the Army battle group from Thailand. (16)
For the next few days, however, the air deployment planning was general.
On 15 May CINCPAC established USMACTHAI, designated General Richardson as
Commander JTF-116 under CINCPAC Operations Plan 32-59, Phase II (Laos), and
directed Richardson to assemble an advance echelon staff in Hawaii and to
proceed to Bangkok as soon as practicable. CINCPAC defined the mission of
JTF-116 as being: (1) to give a clear indication of US intention to carry
out commitments in defense of Thailand, (2) to have a "precautionary impact"
on the situation in Laos, and (3) to position US forces for faster reaction
time for possible future actions. (17)
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Hastily assembling a small advance echelon staff, General Richardson
left Hawaii on 15 May, stopped briefly in Saigon for conversations with
General Harkins and then flew on to 'Bangkok where he opened his command
post in the US MAAG compound on the evening of 16 May. Meanwhile on 15 May,
the. 1st Battle Group, 27th Infantry moved to a bivouac near Korat, where it
would be reinforced by 1,200 troops later in May and early June. To assist
the movement of the Marines who were arriving at Bangkok on naval vessels,
the 315th Air Division concentrated a force of C-130 transports at Don Muang.
The 3d Marine Expeditionary Brigade began to come ashore on 16 May, and the
315th Air Division plied a two day shuttle service between Don Mhang and
Udorn beginning on 17 May. The Marine garrison going into Udorn included a
battalion landing team of about 1,800 men, Detachment "Z" of Navy Mobile
Construction Battalion No. 3, and a Provisional Marine Air Group, the latter
comprised of an A4D jet fighter squadron and a helicopter squadron. At the
completion of the shuttle flights between Bangkok and Udorn, 315th Air
Division C-130 aircraft want to Naha Air Base, where on 19 May the 315th
commenced an airlift stream moving personnel and equipment from Okinawa to
Thailand which continued until 3 June. With the arrival of designated
JTF-116 headquarters personnel from Okinawa, General Richardson established
Headquarters, JTF-116 at Karat on 22; May but left a Rear Echelon of the
headquarters in Bangkok. Headed by Maj. Gen. Donald M. Weller, USMC, who
was chief of staff of JTF-116, this Rear Echelon would work with Maj. Gen.
J. T. Conway, Chief of MUSMAG, in performing the functions of USMACTHAI.
Elements of the Army 9th Logistical Command already in Thailand were grouped
together at .Korat. Late in May, an Army Utility Transport Company, with
10 HUlA armed helicopters, was moved. fram Okinawa to join the Army battle
group. The Army's 1st Aviation Company arrived at Korat on 10 July with
18 Caribou light transport planes, six of which were soon sent to Vietnam.
(18)
Drawing upon the Thirteenth Air Force headquarters staff, General
McElroy formed the first increment of the Air Force Component Command staff
at Clark Air Base on 14 May. The serious nature of the assignment was ex-
pressed in a warning in the travel orders, which contained: This is not a
Field Training Exercise." On 14 May, the Thirteenth Air Force's 510th
Tactical Fighter Squadron deployed its F-100 jets from Clark to Takhli.
As soon as he received a task force movement directive, General McElroy
accompanied the advance cadre of the AFCC to Don Muang on 16 May, where the
Royal Thai Air Force allowed the AFCC to set up on the second floor of the
Thai air-ground operations school building. As early as 18 May same USAF
personnel were integrated into the Thai Air Operations Center (AOC), but
a full-scale USAF AOC was in operation on 1 June. Getting a US Combat
Reporting Center (CRC) set up took longer since at the end of the Air Cobra
exercise, Detachment 1, 5th Tactical Control Group, which had been operating
a CRC at Don Muang, had torn down its heavy radar and had begun an expedited
movement to Ubon Airfield, where it was setting up to cover the critical
northwestern air approaches to South Vietnam. A fix for this situation
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awaited the accomplishment of a Tactical Air Command CASF deployment --
nicknamed "Sawbuck" -- which the Joint Chiefs of Staff directed on 18-22 May.
In this CASF, the 478th Tactical Fighter Squadron deployed from Cannon AFB,
New Mexico, to Clark Air Base on 20 May and then on 4 June further deployed
to Takhli, where it relieved the 510th Squadron for return to Clark. On
19-20 May, the 62d Troop Carrier Squadron began to move 16 0-130 transports
from Sewart AFB, Tennessee, to Clark Air Base, where it would augment 315th
Air Division Airlift for a month. Personnel required to establish the
separate US CRC at DonMaangwere drawn from the 728th Aircraft Control and
Warning Squadron at Shaw AFB, South Carolina. This CRC moved from Clark
to Don Muang on 5 June, and it became fully operational on 22 June. Added
to these initial deployments, the Joint Chiefs of Staff further authorized
"Sawbuck II" encompassing the deployment of the 777th Troop Carrier Squadron,
with 16 C-123 aircraft. This CASF departed Pope AFB, North Carolina, on
28 May. Four of these aircraft were sent to Don Muang and the others were
located at Da Nang Airfield in South Vietnam. (19)
When asked to describe the work of the Air Force Component Command of
Joint Task Force 116, one member of General McElroy s staff would recall:
"AFCC was required to play it by ear." (20) Where the American forces had
rushed to Thailand with some expectation of being employed in active opera-
tions, it was soon evident that the whole affair would turn out to be an
extended exercise. According to JTF-116 plans, General McElroy should have
moved his headquarters and AOC to Korat to join General Richardson, but the
existing Thai communications links radiated out from Don Muang to the up-
country airfields and there were no cross-communications between the forward
airfields. As a result, the AFCC had to remain at Don Muang. General
Richardson also wanted to move the Able Mable photo processing center from
Don Muang to Korat, but here again Richardson somewhat ruefully reported
that the PPC was "in concrete" and could not be moved from Don Muang. (21)
Even though the Royal Thai Air Force was extremely cooperative, the Thai
government ruled that all allied forces in Thailand would operate on a
coordinated basis under separate national control. Under this rule, Allied
air units that came into Thailand in May and June -- Royal Australian Air
Force No. 79 Squadron with Avon Sabres at Ubon, a Royal New Zealand Bristol
Freighter Squadron at Korat, and the Royal Air Force No. 20 Squadron with
Hawker Hunter aircraft at Chiang-Mai -- were outside the control of JTF-116.
General McElroy nevertheless established working relationships whereby the
Thai, British, Australian, and Marine tactical fighter effort was coordinated
through his AOC. The American fighters were fragged for high explosive
attacks against Lao targets and maintained strip air defense alert commit-
ments, but the major air effort comprised simulated air defense missions and
cooperative air-ground training sorties. The Allied tactical fighter squadrons
consistently honored American requests for training sorties, and the RNZAF
Bristol Freighter squadron shared intra-Thailand airlift responsibilities
with the C-123s of the 777th Troop Carrier Squadron. (22)
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Although General McElroy was able to improvise working procedures
lending Some semblance of unity to the air effort in Thailand, the command
arrangements were nevertheless inconsistent with the PACAF objective of
establishing a unity of USAF activities throughout Southeast Asia, most
desirably under the aegis of the Thirteenth Air Force. Under the PACAF
command arrangements in effect after November 1961 the 2d Advon in Saigon
had command authority over the collection of USAF detachments in South
Vietnam and also over Detachment 10 at Don Muang. Under command of Colonel
William J. Jones after 27 February 1962, Detachment 10, Thirteenth Air Force,
possessed operational control over Bell Tone and Able Mable and also provided
them housekeeping services. In this manner the Bell Tone detachment of four
F-102 air defense fighters which periodically rotated from Clark Air Base
to Don Muang was made a part of a theater-wide air defense complex. The
versatile RF-101 day photo reconnaissance planes, rotated to the Able Mable
detachment by the 45th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron until 23 May 1962,
and by the 15th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron for a stint after this,
happened to be based at Don Muang but performed missions for American activi-
ties in Laos, Vietnam, Hawaii, and Washington. When night photography was
needed to cover Communist activities in Laos, PACAF added two Black Watch
RB-26s to the Able Mable task force on 18 May. This was intended to be a
temporary expedient to be used until "Toy Tiger" camera and illumination
modifications could be made to permit RF-101s to perform night photography.
(23) Although 2d Advon, Thirteenth Air Force, had became subordinate to
COMUSMACV when this headquarters was established, PACAF nevertheless con-
tinued to possess a direct channel of authority to both Bell Tone and Able
Mable, which was appropriate since they performed theater air functions.
When CINCPAC was preparing his orders to CJTF-116, Lt. Gen. Thomas S. Moorman,
Vice CINCPACAF, argued that Bell Tone and Able Mable ought not to be placed
under a local area commander, but his reasoning was not accepted at the time,
and CJTF-116 was authorized control of all US forces in Thailand. (24)
On a higher level, Admiral Felt also had misgivings about the command
arrangement in Southeast Asia. The establishment of COMUSMACTHAI and the
deployment of J2F-116 to Thailand, when coupled with the "two hat" status
for General Harkins as both COMUSMACV and COMUSMACTHAI, produced a layering
of staffs and an unnecessary duplication of command functions. And if General
Harkins was to serve in a "two hat" capacity he needed a small separate staff
and operational deputies who would be in active charge of the two country
organizations -- MACV and MACTHAI. After discussions with General Harkins
and securing the endorsement of-PACOM component commanders, Admiral Felt
recommended to the Joint Chiefs of Staff on 30 May a general reorganization
of the command arrangements in Southeast Asia. Coincident with an early
disestablishment of JTF-116, Felt proposed that General Harkins' dual role
as COMUSMACV-COMUSMACTHAI be formalized by establishing a new Headquarters
USMACV/THAI. In this position, General Harkins would have a small staff in
Saigon and would be superimposed over the separate headquarters of USMACV
and USMACTHAI, each of which would be headed by a Deputy Commander. The
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Deputy Commander, USMACTHAI could be either an Army or Marine major general,
but Felt recommended that the Deputy Commander, USMACV should be an Air Force
lieutenant general. He demonstrated that this recommended command structure
would permit an easy transition into the implementation of the CINCPAC
32-series operations plans or the SEATO contingency plans. (25)
For a variety of reasons that would be disclosed over the next several
months, the Joint Chiefs of Staff did not directly reply to CINCPAC's command
reorganization recommendation of 30 May. Informal information from Washington
nevertheless indicated that the concept of a single command structure in
Southeast Asia was acceptable in principle to the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
although only the Army chief wanted to go to the extreme of establishing a
separate US unified command in Southeast Asia. (26) Rarly in June, Admiral
Felt was instructed to proceed with planning for an early disestablishment
of JTF-116 and the establishment of a single COMUSMAC over both Vietnam and
Thailand. On 16 June, CINCPAC accordingly issued a planning concept whereby
most of the US forces in Thailand would be assigned to the operational control
of the new COMUSMACTHAI but that some other forces -- including the Able Mable
air reconnaissance task force -- would be kept directly under command of
PACOM component commanders. (27)
In any coMmand arrangement in Southeast Asia, Genera150'Ebnnell and
Moorman were adamant that there should be a single Air Force component command
that would be responsive to theater air as well as local air missions. In
line with CINCPAC's 30 May recommendation, General Moorman believed that an
air component commander ought to be designated to General Harkins. Toward
this end, PACAF requested USAF to act unilaterally to redesignate the
anomalous 2d Advon, Thirteenth Air Force as an organized and constituted unit
and to replace its equally anomalous detachments with regularly organized
units. As far as Thailand was concerned, this woula involve redesignation
of Detachment 10 as the 6010th Tactical Group, with command over two air base
squadrons, the 6011th at Takhli and the 6012th at Ubon. This was not only an
organizational ploy but it was sorely needed since Colonel Jones' Detachment
10 had been compelled to split its strength into small units which were pro-
viding housekeeping services to the AFCC at Don Muang, the fighte-: squadron
at Takhli, and the radar Combat Reporting Post (CRP) at Ubon. (28) As far
as he was personally concerned, General Harkins was in favor of a single
Air Force component commander, but the CINCPAC planning concept of 16 June
envisioned a separate assignment of forces to COMUSNACV and COMUSMACTHAI.
At this juncture, General O'Donnell still hoped that the over-all reorgani-
zation would provide a single air component, but meanwhile General McElroy
and Colonel Jones were having administrative problems which demanded relief.
On 20 June, General 0' Donnell announced that the air organization in
Thailand would be separate from but parallel to the 2d Advon organization
in Vietnam. He therefore directed that General McElroy would be the Air
Force Component Commander to COMUSMACTHAI and also the Commander of the
6010th Tactical Group. As commander of the 6010th General McElroy would be
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directly responsible to the Thirteenth Air Force and would have operational
control of Able Mable. This cammand organization went into effect on
10 July, when PACAF published orders establishing the 6010th Tactical Group
and its two air base squadrons. (29)
Encouraged by tentative agreements of the Lao princes in early June
looking toward a Lao union Government, President Kennedy dramatized the
good intentions of the United States by ordering the withdrawal of 1,000
Marines from Thailand. Following a White House announcement, the Provisional
Marine Air Group and one Marine company began to move out of Udorn on
2 July for Bangkok, where the units loaded aboard waiting vessels. (30)
Later that month, at the Secretary of Defense Conference in Hawaii on
23 July, Secretary McNamara said he wanted to remove the remaining Marines
and the Army battle group from Thailand within two to three months. He said,
however, that the USAF tactical fighter squadron on deployment at Takhli
would have to remain in Thailand for the time being since its removal would
doubtless lead the British, Australians, and New Zealanders to follow suit.
In a general discussion of the removal of the American forces, no one posed
objections to the redeployment of the Marines, but General Harkins wanted
to continue to send US Army units into Thailand for training, perhaps every
four months, after the withdrawal of the battle group. McNamara agreed and
authorized expenditure of approximately $50,000 to construct a temporary
camp near Korat for deployed US forces. (31)
On 27 July the Joint Chiefs of Staff directed the withdrawal of the
remainder of the Marine Expeditionary Brigade from Thailand, and in early
August these forces were withdrawn from Udorn and returned by airlift and
sealift to their station on Okinawa, the withdrawal being completed on
7 August. By this time Admiral Felt was also considering the removal of
the Army battle group and the Air Force tactical fighter squadron, but the
,political implications dictated that any withdrawal be coordinated with the
Thais far in advance of actual withdrawal. In lieu of withdrawing the
Army battle group without relief it was decided on 13 August to relieve
this battle group with another from Hawaii and that prior to the completion
of a four months training tour a final decision would be made as to whether
the new battle group would be replaced or relieved. In late August and
early September, the 1st Battle Group, 35th Infantry (Reinforced) was
replaced by the 1st Battle Group, 27th Infantry (Reinforced), the rotation
being completed on 4 September. On 14 August, the Joint Chiefs decided
that a tactical fighter squadron would be a continuing requirement in
Thailand for some time. Accordin glY, 430th Tactical Fighter Squadron crews
and personnel were flown out fram Gannon AFB to Takhli, where they relieved
the men of the 478th Squadron on 3-4 September. (32)
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The question of when Joint Task Force 116 could be disestablished in
Thailand was, of course, affected by political relations with the Thais,
but it was also dependent upon inter-related factors including Southeast
Asian command organization under discussion in Washington, future American
strategic plans for Laos, and future US military and logistic plans for
Thailand. At a closed-door session on Laos held on 10 May during a visit
of Secretary McNamara and Admiral Felt to Saigon, Admiral Felt strongly
insisted that US air strikes should have been conducted against the
Communists in Laos from the beginning of their campaign against the Royal
Lao forces and a future US strategy ought to be based upon offensive US air
action. General Lemnitzer partially agreed with Felt's emphasis upon air
action, but he laid even greater stress upon requirements for large amounts
of US ground strength. In a private conversation following the conference,
Admiral Felt remarked that he had been unable to get McNamara and Lemnitzer
"to understand that all actions do not have to be taken on the ground --
they had to tie all operations with ground operations." Felt was also dis-
turbed that McNamara had stated that Laos had "nothing to do with South
Vietnam" -- a statement which Felt said was just not true. Upon his return
to Hawaii, Felt initiated planning for Laos according to a concept that
provided for increased employment of airpower and for the commitment of
additional air units. With Joint Chiefs of Staff approval of the new con-
cept, CINCPAC operations Plan 32-63, Phase II (Laos) was prepared and
published on 7 September 1962. This plan visualized that in the event of
renewed Communist aggression, US and Thai forces would hold around Vientiane
while cutting-off and securing the panhandle area of southern Laos. The
tactical concept of the revised plan put more emphasis on the offensive use
of airpower and the probability that US forces would be required to seize
ground objectives against enemy opposition, rather than make unopposed
movements into Laos. The concept also provided that early air strikes would
be conducted against enemy forces, bases, and lines of communications and
that a positive aerial interdiction program would be conducted, with the
objective of isolating southern Laos from Vietnam. American forces to be
committed in Thailand and Laos included two tactical fighter squadrons, one
tactical bomber squadron, a tactical reconnaissance task force, and a detach-
ment of an air commando group from the Air Force; one infantry division and
one light armored cavalry regiment from the Army; and an expeditionary
brigade, composite air group, and appropriate supporting elements from the
Marines. (33)
The deployment of American forces to Thailand in May and June 1962
adequately demonstrated that the existing Thai logistic base was inadequate
to support US or SEATO operations. As a result, CINCPAC and the Joint
Chiefs of Staff established an anticipatory action program for Thailand
which was soon referred to as "Special Logistics Actions Thailand" or "SLAT".
The preliminary planning for SLAT was mainly accomplished by the Rear Echelon
of JTF-116 at Bangkok in coordination with the US Navy Officer in Charge of
Construction (OICC). In this matter, the Rear Echelon, JTF-116, was
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%we
functioning in lieu of USMACTHAI, which was not manned. Projects were
drawn up and forwarded to Washington, where on 22 and 29 June Secretary
McNamara approved 15 of them, some tentatively pending completion of
engineering studies. The project list included additional locomotives and .
rolling stock for Thai railways; building of POL pipelines inland from the
ocean terminal at Bangkok; the construction of a "major air terminal" at
Nakhon Phanam; the construction of engineer storage depots at Korat and
Udorn and storage of tactical pipeline, pierced steel planking, and other
engineer supplies in them; the construction of PSP taxiways and parking
areas at various Thai airfields; and the development of a tropospheric
scatter communications system between Bangkok and Saigon. (34) With the
exception of US pre-positioned equipment and supplies, it was planned that
title to the logistical improvements would pass to the Thais, who would use
them to enhance their defense capabilities while sibultaneously maintaining
than in readiness to support US or SEATO contingency operations. (35)
During the summer and autumn of 1962, both the CINCPAC "Panhandle"
operational concept and "SLAT" were under active examination. Ambassador
Young spent "numerous strenuous hours" with Maj. Gen. J. T. Conway, Chief
of JUSMAG, "probing many military, economic and political problems affecting
optimum and feasible security forces for Thailand from purely American view-
point." Ambassador Young was convinced that the major danger to Thailand
was internal subversion and insurgency, and, as he said: "Our tasks here
as in Vietnam are to beat Mao and Ho at their awn game of fluid village
warfare." .In short, Young wanted to equip and train the Thai armed forces
for a counterinsurgency mission. After discussions with General Harkins,
Richardson, Conway, and Weller, however, Young reluctantly agreed with the
military plan to develop Thai forces according to a "two track" approach,
whereby infantry battalions and airlift mobility would be emphasized. This
would permit the regular Thai forces to be used for combatting insurgency
incidents, while maintaining a rfadiness for conventional military operations.
Ambassador Young explained his feelings and "reservations as Chief of Mission
and the President's representative" in a message to Secretary Rusk on
30 September 1962. Early in 1963 he would became even more convinced that
the American MAP for Thailand should be principally used to prepare the Thai
armed forces to resist insurgency. (36)
Where Ambassador Young had political reservations that could affect
the conduct of proposed CINCPAC operations in Laos, General Maxwell D. Taylor,
the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, displayed some military
skepticism about the "Panhandle" plan when he was briefed by General Harkins
in Bangkok on 14 September. Noting that the Allied force consisting of a
US Army division, Thai division, and US Marine brigade was expected to hold
Vientiane and cut off southern Laos against a potential opposition of 14
North Vietnamese divisions, Taylor suggested the facts of life would indicate
that a more modest objective might be in order, or at least a coordinated
effort, including an operation from South Vietnam or possibly a threat from
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the east by way of the South China Sea. Taylor was also interested about
the logistics actions that would be required to support the US force of
some 100,000 men through Thailand. (37)
While Air Force officers did not question the CINCPAC operation plan
for Laos, they were actively concerned about the SLAT project which called
for the construction of a major air terminal at Nakhon Phanom. No one at
General McElroy's Air Force Component Command was consulted about the proposal
to locate a new airfield at the site at Nakhon Phanom, which was on the left
bank of the Mekong River directly opposite Thaknek in Laos. Air Vice Marshal
Dawee Chullasapya of the Royal Thai Air Force did not like the site because
it would be extremely vulnerable to infiltration from Laos and because the
generally swampy terrain in the area was likely to cause drainage problems.
Both Air Vice Marshal Dawee and General McElroy thought that consideration
whould be given to locating the airfield farther from the border and where
soil conditions would be better and pointed out that such a site was available
near the town of Sakon Nakhon. When directed to prepare design instructions
for an engineering study of a major air terminal, PACAF specified a require-
ment for an 8,000-foot runway that could be expanded to 10,000 feet. Both
the objections to the site and the PACAF criteria were rejected by CINCPAC
on 7 August, when he issued his own design instructions for an airfield at
Nakhon Phanom, to include a 6,000-foot PSP runway capable of handling C-130
and C-124 landings. CINCPAC reasoned that the field would be advantageous
for injecting troops into the Thaknek area and thence across the narrow
neck of Laos. If it became necessary to establish air superiority over the
airhead, this could be done from existing airfields in Thailand or from
Seventh Fleet aircraft carriers. (38)
At the Seventh Secretary of Defense Conference held in Hawaii on
8 October 1962, Secretary McNamara and Assistant Secretary Harriman were
briefed on CINCPAC Operations Plan 32-63, Phase II (Laos). Although Secre-
tary McNamara directed that the entire plan would be reviewed in Washington
for logistic feasibility, neither he nor Harriman had any critical suggestions.
McNamara advised that the plan ought to be made generally acceptable to the
Thais, to include provisions for maintaining protective forces in northern
Thailand, and to provide that Thai forces would fight beside US forces, this
in order to make the plan acceptable to the American public. McNamara also
emphasized that the SLAT program should be responsive to CINCPAC's Ops Plan
32-63. (39) Following the Secretary of Defense Conference, the SLAT program
was firmed up as quickly as negotiations with Thailand would allow. Early
in September Detachment "Y" of Navy Mobile Construction Battalion No. 3 had
already replaced Detachment "2" of Navy Mobile Construction Battalion No. 10
at Udorn, and Detachment "Y" was almost immediately moved to Nakhon Phanom.
The main body of Navy Mobile Construction Battalion No. 3 closed into Nakhon
Phanom in November 1962, under CINCPAC orders to complete bare-base air
facilities as earlier specified as early as possible but in any event by
June 1963. (L4) When negotiations failed to settle the question of the
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ownership of the proposed POL line from Bangkok to Don Muang, this item
was removed from the SLAT program for separate consideration, and other
projects were finally approved early in 1963. As finalized, the US-Thai
logistics agreement provided for increasing the rolling stock of the Thai
railways, the construction of Nakhon Phanom airfield, developing a tropo-
scatter communications system, the construction of the engineer storage
depots, and for an additional road construction project which would permit
military traffic to by-pass the congested city of Bangkok. (41)
The progress in developments looking toward an international neutrali-
zation of Laos as well as other US undertakings allowed military planners to
get back to the task of devising a command structure for Southeast Asia as
a necessary preliminary to the disestablishment of JTF-116. Within the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, General LeMay firmly believed that airpower was being
"depreciated rather than appreciated" in Southeast Asia because of several
factors, not the least of which was an Army orientation in the commands
there. LeMay accordingly pushed hard for acceptance of an Air Force lieu-
tenant general as Deputy Commander, USMACV, and on 22 August the Joint Chiefs
concurred in the assignment and requested Secretary McNamara to approve it.
In this and in general principle, the Joint Chiefs were favorable to Admiral
Felt's recommendations of 30 May, but the State Department and the Secretary
of Defense were not. The State Department was critical of the "formidable
array of rank" that would result in Saigon and also objected that it would be
a "political minus" to place US activities in Vietnam and Thailand under a
single US military commander. Secretary McNamara withheld his approval in
deference to President Kennedy"s mandate that the level of US forces in
Thailand be reduced as rapidly as possible. (42)
The protocol of the declaration of the Geneva Conference on the
neutrality of Laos signed on 23 July 1962 provided that all foreign troops
were to be withdrawn from Laos by 7 October 1962. At the time of the agree-
ment, the United States had 685 military advisors in Laos, and orders were
issued to Maj. Gen. Reuben H. Tucker', US Army, to select 70 members of his
MAAG Laos staff for integration into the JUSMAG Thailand. (43) On 15 Sep-
tember 1962, Admiral Felt had no positive indicators as to the withdrawal
of US forces from Thailand, but he told General Harkins that he doubted that
Harkins would be authorized a COMUSMACTHAI staff to be resident in Thailand.
He suggested that Harkins employ the Chief JUSMAG Thailand as his resident
chief of staff for USMACTHAI without an additional staff allowance. (L44)
When he visited Saigon and Bangkok early in this same month, General Taylor
was actively interested in plans for command organization. In regard to
the existing organization, Taylor told Harkins it looked like he was "putting
layer upon layer upon layer and that the Sec Def would not stand for it."
In Bangkok Taylor observed that the Air Force did not believe "in fragmenting
the air effort to the same extent that ground forces were required to tdo7"
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McElroy assured Taylor that "General OIDOnnell's ultimate objective for
the air effort in Southeast Asia was one single command for both South
Vietnam and Thailand." (45)
After having studied Admiral Felt's advice and discussing command
organization with General Taylor, General Harkins was opposed to employing
a MAAG for operational and intelligence planning since this would dilute
its primary training and advisory duty. Harkins wanted to retain the
COMUSMACTHAI designation because of its prestige value with the Thais and
with SEATO nations. He was sure that it would be practical to have a single
air command for both Vietnam and Thailand, while maintaining separate,
USMACTHAI and USMACV headquarters to handle local operational functions.
(46) On 19 September, Admiral Felt nevertheless proposed two alternate
command reorganization plans which could be effected at the dissolution of
JTF-116. The first alternative would disestablish COMUSMACTHAI and retain
CHJUSMAG Thailand as the senior US representative in Thailand with some
augmentation to handle SLAT and other operational functions. Operational
control of units rotating through Thailand would be exercised through
PACOM component commanders with CHJUSMAG in a coordinating role. The second
alternative was applicable in case USMACTHAI had to be retained through
political necessity. In this case, Felt proposed to give CHJUSMAG Thai an
additional hat as Chief of Staff COMUSMACTHAI and to allow General Harkins
as COMUSMACV/THAI to exercise operational control of forces in Thailand.
He noted that CINCUSARPAC and CINCPACAF concurred in either proposal but
preferred the second, but that General Harkins probably would agree only
with the second alternative. (47) While General Taylor did not make detailed
recommendations on the subject of command after visiting East Asia, he told
President Kennedy and Secretaries Rusk and McNamara that military command
in Southeast Asia required attention since "it appears layered, fragments
the US air power in the area, and fails to provide General Harkins with an
adequate staff." (48)
In preparation for a closely-held discussion that was to take place
between Secretary McNamara, Admiral Felt, and Generals Taylor and Harkins
during the Secretary of Defense Conference at Hawaii on 8 October 1962,
Admiral Felt solicited his commanders' final thinking on command organiza-
tion in Southeast Asia. Late in September, General Harkins sent Felt a
working paper which argued the case for a USMACTHAI organization separate
from JUSMAG Thailand. In addition to his earlier ideas, General Harkins
made a case for an organization that would provide a quick transition into
a fighting situation wherein a CINCPAC or SEATO plan might be implemented
and proposed that General Tucker's 70 persons who were arriving in Bangkok
from Vientiane could staff a USMACTHAI organization. Admiral Felt would
not accept these proposals. In case a CINCPAC or SEATO operations plan
should be implemented, appropriate combat component commanders would arrive
in Southeast Asia very quickly. Felt further visualized that CHJUSMAG ought
to be returned to his former high status in Thailand. He had already
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provided directives which allowed General Tucker to know that, even though
located in Bangkok, he would continue to perform US MAF support functions
for Laos. (49) On L. October General O'Donnell sent Admiral Felt a detailed
analysis of the PACAF position on a Southeast Asia command structure. In
summary, PACAF supported moving with all possible speed toward the establish-
ment of one subordinate unified commander responsible to CINCPAC for US
efforts in Southeast Asia, and the identification of General Harkins' estab-
lishment in Saigon as the focal point for all planning and operations on the
Southeast Asian mainland. PACAF recognized that actually identifying Harkins
as the single over-all commander might be a political problem, but it believed
that "deliberate, progressive steps should facilitate and accelerate" such
an eventuality. It might be temporarily necessary for CHJUSMAG Thailand to
double as chief of staff USMACTHAI, but the CHJUSMAG Thailand should not have
operational or planning responsibilities but should concentrate on advisory
and training functions. General O'Donnell pointed out that General Harkins'
staff in Saigon should be a proper joint staff and urged that Harkins'
deputy commander should be an Air Force lieutenant general. He urged that
the Commander, 2d Advon (which would appropriately redesignated as the USAF
2d Air Division) should be recognized as the single air component commander
in Southeast Asia subordinate to General Harkins in the unified cammand
chain. (50)
Held as planned on 8 October, the discussion of Southeast Asia military
command organization was limited to McNamara, Taylor, Felt, and Harkins. These
men agreed that General Harkins would continue as CCHUSMACV/THAI and would be
assisted by a small joint staff to handle Southeast Asian planning as directed
to be done by CINCPAC. In Bangkok, CHJUSMAG Thai (General Conway) would serve
concurrently as Deputy COMUSMACTHAI. Secretary McNamara stated that General
Harkins would remain in direct charge of the counterinsurgency program in
South Vietnam and would not require an Air Force deputy in South Vietnam.
The conferees considered two other matters which would require subsequent
decision. It was proposed to concentrate "all air responsibilities" in
Southeast Asia (less Air MAA( functions) in the Commander, 2d Air Division,
who would report to Harkins in his dual Thai/Vietnam position. Here, Admiral
Felt noted that he would prefer to have the Commander, 2d Air Division,
report directly to C1NCPACAF for US air operations. Similarly it was proposed
to place the Army Logistical Support Group in Thailand and any Army troops
rotated into that country under General Conway. Here again, Admiral Felt
preferred to keep these responsibilities under CINCUSARPAC. (51) Admiral
Felt's position on the control of Air Force and Army troops in Southeast Asia
sprang from his concept that US forces in Thailand and Vietnam were "performing
advisory and military assistance functions and are not there for combat....
If a fighting plan should be executed, a combat component commander would
arrive on the scene quickly." (52) After the Secretary of Defense Conference
and just before General Harkins left Honolulu for Saigon, Admiral Felt reminded
Harkins that there had been no change in the relationship existing between
CINCPAC and COMUSMACV/THAI. (53)
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Not completely settled at the Hawaii conference, the command organiza-
tion in Thailand required subsequent discussion. In an action planned earlier,
the US MAAG Laos was withdrawn on 6 October, and, on the following day, General
Tucker assumed the title of Deputy Chief, JUSMAG, Thailand. (54) Immediately
following the Secretary of Defense conference, Felt again expressed his desire
that COMUSMACTBAI would not normally exercise anything more than a necessary
coordination over PACAF and ARPAC forces in Thailand, which would be working
there for support rather than combat purposes and could be appropriately
controlled by CINCPACAF and CINCARPAC through their local agents -- the 2d
Air Division and US Army Support Group "A". (55) After a meeting with
Generals Harkins and Conway at Bangkok on 18 October, however, Admiral Felt
agreed that Deputy COMUSMACTHAI would comprise two major divisions: (1) JUSMAG,
and (2) Engineer, Communications, Planning, and Support Activities. He
further agreed that operational control over Army support elements would be
exercised by Deputy COMUSMACTHAI, who would be "the US voice in Thailand."
When a joint table of distribution was being prepared for DEPCOMUSMACTHAI,
Felt further agreed that planning for SEATO and CINCPAC exercises and war
contingencies did not fit very well under support activities and approved
three functional divisions: (1) JUSMAG, (2) Planning, and (3) Functional
support groups. Admiral Felt's concession in regard to Army support forces
did not apply to the 2d Air Division. "In other words," he messaged the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, "there is no change in current arrangement wherein
one air force commander serves both SVN and Thailand." (56)
After long existence as an anomalous organization described for political
reasons as "2d Advon," the Pacific Air Force was permitted to discontinue this
headquarters effective on 8.0ctober and to designate and organize the Head-
quarters, 2d Air Division, at Tan Son Nhut airfield with assignment to the
Thirteenth Air Force.(57) Although the Air Force was not giving up its
position that COMUSMACV/THAI required a high-ranking air officer as his deputy,
General Anthis continued in command of the 2d Air Division at its establishment
and was recognized as Air Force Component Commander, MACV/THAI. In a wrap up
approval of the Southeast Asia command organization which had been worked out,
the Joint Chiefs of Staff directed on 10 November 1962 that operational control
of all Air Force activities in Southeast Asia (except for MAAG functions
which would remain under the MAAG Chief) would be exercised through a command
channel running from CINCPAC to COMUSMACTHAI-COMUSMACV to Commander, 2d Air
Division. The Commander, 2d Air Division, would be responsible to COMUSMACTHAI-
COMUSMACV for all operational matters with which the units of his command
were concerned. CINCPACAF was responsible for administration and logistics
of the 2d Air Division. (58)
Coincidental with their approval of the reorganized US military organiza-
tion the Joint Chiefs of Staff directed the return of Commander, Joint Task
Force 116 to "designate" status. On 24 November, General Richardson began
disestablishment of the task force. On this date, the advance party of the
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1st Battle Group, 35th Infantry departed Thailand for return to Hawaii, and
three days later Military Air Transport Service C-135s commenced redeploying
the main body of the army battle group in an airlift completed on 4 December.
The Air Operations Center at Don Muang was inactivated on 24 November, and
the personnel returned to their home stations. On 5 December the Air Force
Component Command at Don Muang was inactivated and General McElroy and his
staff returned to their former duties. In September, the Army's Utility
Transport Company had moved its armed HUlA helicopters to Vietnam, and in
early December the 1st Aviation Company moved with its CV-2B Caribou light
transport planes to Vietnam, bedding down at Vung Tau. With the departure
of General Richardson on 8 December, JTF 116 was inactivated. (59) As agreed
upon in the command reorganization, all USAF units in Thailand remained
attached or assigned to the 6010th Tactical Group. On 8 December, the 6010th
was assigned to the 2d Air Division, thus reuniting all Air Force units in
Southeast Asia under a single commander. (60)
The removal of Air Force tactical air units from Thailand -- although
accepted as a planning objective -- proved difficult to accomplish without
a reduction in needed capabilities or political repercussions. Using Don
Muang Airfield as its forward operating base, the 15th Tactical Reconnaissance
Squadron had assumed responsibility for operating the Able Mable air recon-
naissance task force on 23 May. This force flew photographic reconnaissance
missions for JTF-116 and for other requesting agencies. In addition to a
normal four RF-101 day photo aircraft, Able Mable used two RB-26s to fly
50 night photography sorties over Laos between 29 May and 21 July, when the
RE-26s were released at Don Muang and transferred to Bien Hoa Airfield in
Vietnam. Representing an especially modified photo system for night use and
improved low-level high-speed photo work, two "Toy Tiger" RF-101s were placed
in operation at Don Muang between 2 July and 4 September. On nightmissions
over Laos, the modified RF-101s got good results, but photoflash cartridge
illumination required them to operate below 1,500 feet. This altitude was
quite hazardous for high-speed navigation in mountainous terrain. Upon
spotting a target, moreover, the pilot had to check 26 switches, dials,
settings, and indicators, and to activate his cameras he had to use switches
in two widely separated positions, While the Toy Tiger system was judged
too hazardous for night operations, it was used extensively for day pin-
point photography before 7 September, when the Toy Tiger project was can-
celled and the modified aircraft were removed from Able Mable. (61)
The agreements on Lao neutrality signed in Geneva on 23 July did not
reduce the national and theater requirements for intelligence of continuing
Communist activities in Laos, especially in the southeastern provinces
flanking South Vietnam. Except for Able Mable, Admiral Felt had only meager
intelligence collection capabilities in Laos. A continuation of Able Mable
flights necessarily carried some element of risk since the Pathet Lao had
demonstrated a mobile antiaircraft artillery capability, but both Ambassador
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Young and General Richardson wanted Able Mable to continue to gather intelli-
gence from Laos as long as Washington did not forbid it. (62) For these
reasons, Able Mable continued to operate in Laos, albeit with some circum-
spection. During a daily road reconnaissance over Route 7 on the morning
of 14 August, Captain Thomas A. O'Meara spotted a convoy east of Phong Sayan
and when he descended to 8,000 feet to get a photograph his RF-101 was hit
by antiaircraft fire. O'Meara returned his badly damaged plane to a success-
ful crash landing at Don Muang, but the ground fire shot off his right forward
camera access door with US markings on it. The Communists recovered the door
and claimed a violation of Laotian neutrality. (63)
Acting on instructions from Washington, CINCPAC suspended all Able Mable
flights into Laos on 15 August, but he requested the Joint Chiefs of Staff to
permit a minimum of one reconnaissance flight a week at 8,000-foot altitudes
qcross Pathet Lao strongholds to include Tchepone, Saravane, the Plaine des
.1.17res, Sam Nreua, Ban Nam Bac, and Veng Vieng. (64) In -fiashington General
-lor assured ?rE.,.,:ideht Kennedy that reconnaissance flights across Southern
taos at attitudes of 35,000 feet would not be detected; moreover, such
flights could be made in the course of movements of RF-101s from Bangkok to
aigon. On 6 September, Able Mable was permitted to make flights through
tans south. of 17030' north at altitudes not less than 35,000 feet, With
notification for each such flight to be provided to CINCPAC 24-hours in
advance. While visiting in Bangkok on 14 September General Taylor was visibly
startled when told by General McElroy that the Able Mable Flights possibly
could be tracked by North Vietnamese radar located south of Vinh. At Taylor's
direction the flights were again suspended for a few days until PACAF intelli-
ence determined that hostile radar had only a marginal capability to detect
-lrcraft c,verflying southern Laos and no ability to determine the type,
nationality, or purpose of such a flight. (65)
inc.7tuction to fly a: not less than 35, :0(..) feet, Able Mable
was able to secure photographs of Communist activity in the Lao panhandle, but
the effectiveness of the photography was reduced. After study at DOn Muang,
General McElroy also pointed out that Communist radars could doubtless detect
all flights over southern Laos at altitudes above 20,000 feet and flights
lower than this could be visually identified. (66) In an effort to improve
the scale of photography, CINCPAC requested the Joint Chiefs of Staff to
authorize Able Mable flights over southern Laos at altitudes of 20-25,000
feat. On 27 September the Joint Chiefs authorized this altitude but now
ruled that the RF-101 flights would remain south of the 15th parallel. (67)
As Washington placed more and more of Laos off limits to aerial recon-
naissance, Able Mable found that 88 percent of its requests for photography
received in October 1962 originated in South Vietnam and involved coverage
of targets there. Located at Don Muang, the RF-101s had to make unnecessarily
long flights to accomplish reconnaissance in South Vietnam. While a move of
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Able Mable from Don Muang to Tan Son Nhut promised some possible political
difficulties with the International Control Commission for Vietnam, the
relocation of Able Mable in South Vietnam would be sensible from an opera-
tional viewpoint. For reasons of his awn, however, Admiral Felt resisted
the move and even asked the US Ambassador. in Saigon to pose some objections
to it. On 6 November, the Joint Chiefs of Staff nevertheless authorized
the stationing of up to four RF-101s at Tan Son Nhut, provided they were
rotated periodically to counter possible ICC queries. At the same time,
the Joint Chiefs ordered a discontinuation of RF-101 flights over Laos except
when prior authority was requested from and granted by them. Admiral Felt
now proposed to station two RF-101s at Tan Son Nhut and leave two at Don Muang,
but the Thirteenth Air Force demonstrated that such a split operation would
be too costly to support. On 14 December the Able Mable air reconnaissance
task force accordingly deployed from Don Muang to Tan Son Nhut. In the opera-
tions fram Thailand, Able Mable had turned in a splendid record of more than
a thousand sorties, many over defended areas in Laos, without the loss of a
single reconnaissance pilot. (68)
For political reassurance to Thailand the Joint Chiefs of Staff were
compelled to maintain a Tactical Air Command F-100 rotational squadron at
Takhli for longer than a real military requirement existed for it. For its
part, the Tactical Air Command was already committed to maintain a rotational
F-100 squadron at Kadena Air Base on Okinawa from April 1962 to November 1963
while PACAF s 18th Tactical Fighter Wing converted to F-105 aircraft, and
the requirement for the additional rotational squadron at Takhli doubled the
burden. In October 1962 at the height of the Cuban missile crisis, the
Tactical Air Command made strenuous efforts to recover the squadrons at
Kadena and Takhli, but despite this grave emergency the joint Chiefs would
not permit redeployment. In another review of the Takhli requirement in
November, the Joint Chiefs again found it valid. Therefore, the 522d
Tactical Fighter Squadron deployed personnel by MATS airlift and relieved
the 430th Squadron at Takhli on 15 December. (69) After prolonged negotiations
between the Departments of State and Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff were
at last able to approve a reduction of the Takhli commitment from 18 to 6
F-100s effective on 1 February 1963. On this date, the 4440th Aircraft
Delivery Group (TAB) began a very laborious job of ferrying the "tired
condition" F-100s from Takhli to the United States, and the 27th Tactical
Fighter Wing established Detachment 1 at Takhli, comprising six F-100s and
56 men (including eight pilots). Rotated every 60 days, the personnel of
Detachment I was charged with the mission of providing a show of force,
conducting air patrols along the Thailand border with Laos, and maintaining
readiness for implementation of CINCPAC-USMACTHAI contingency plans in Laos.
(70 At Don Muang the 405th Tactical Fighter Wing also continued a now semi-
permanent Bell Tone detachment, to which the 509th Fighter Interceptor
Squadron rotated four F-102s with necessary personnel from Clark Air Base
every two weeks. Attached to the 6010th Tactical Group, the Bell Tone F-102
crews flew training missions with Thai controllers and F-86s, concurrently
providing a continuing evidence of American interest in Thailand. (71)
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2. The Geneva Neutralization of Laos and Its Aftermath
Following the military debacle at Nam Tha and the US announcement that
it had lost faith in Phoumi Nosavan, negotiations in Laos looking toward a .
coalition government progressed rapidly. After meetings on the Plaine des
Jarres, Souvanna Phouma announced on 11 June that Boun Gum and Souphanouvong
had joined him in signing an agreement establishing a coalition cabinet.
Souvanna Phouma was to be prime minister; Souphanouvong was to be one of
the two deputy prime ministers and Phoumi would be the other. Souvanna
would retain the key portfolio of defense to be given up by Fhoumi, and the
latter would be minister of finance. Boun Oam would return to Savannakhet
and retire from government. Of the 19 cabinet ministers, 11 were to be
neutralists, four rightists, and four Pathet Lao. In the arrangement, either
deputy prime minister was empowered to veto a decision at a cabinet meeting.
72) In an exchange of notes on 12 June, Chairman Khrushchev and President
:,hat the ormation of a government of national union under
13ouvanna would make it possible for the Geneva Conference to push on toward
71n international neutralization of Laos. (73)
In a national television broadcast and a news conference early in July,
Secretary Rusk emphasized that the agreement on Laos under renewed negotiation
in Geneva would "clearly provide that Laos is not to be used as a channel of
communication or pathway into neighboring countries...." This would be an
obligation of the Lao Government, of the Soviet Union and Great Britain as
co-chairmen. of the Geneva conference, and of the International Control Com-
mission for Laos. With the compulsory withdrawal of all foreign military
personnel from Laos and the internationalization of aid for Laos, Rusk
believed that infiltrated ,unblies would cease to flow out of Laos to
neighboring countries. He pointed out that intelligence in South Vietnam
reveal. whether the areement on Laos was being carried out; while the
United States was going to approach the agreement with the expectation that
all parties would carry out their commitments, he noted that if they did
not "the agreement would become unhinged." (74)
At Geneva, Quinin Pholsena, now representing Souvanna Phouma's new
government, presented the fourteen nation conference with a declaration on
the neutrality of Laos, which was incorporated into the final agreements,
together with a conference declaration and a protocol signed by the delegates
on 23 July. The signatories accepted the Lao government's statement of
neutrality and further agreed that they would not commit or participate in
impairments of Lao sovereignty, independence, neutrality, unity, or territorial
integrity; would not resort to force, threats, or other measures that would
impair peace in Laos; would refrain from all direct or indirect interference
in Lao internal affairs; would not attach political conditions to their
assistance to Laos would not bring Laos into military alliances or agreements;
would respect the Lao wish not to be protected by alliances or coalitions,
including SEATO; would not introduce foreign troops or military personnel
into Laos would not establish any foreign military base or installation of
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any kind in Laos; would not use Lao territory for interference in the internal
affairs of other countries; and would not use the territory of other countries
for interference in Lao internal affairs. The protocol recognized the Inter-
national Control Commission for Laos and provided that it would act unanimously
on matters regarding foreign forces in Laos but by majority vote on other
matters, including procedural questions." All foreign military personnel were
to be withdrawn from Laos under the supervision of the ICC and, except for
French military instructors in limited number and for a limited time, the
introduction of foreign military personnel into Laos was prohibited. It
further provided: "The introduction into Laos of armaments, munitions and
war material generally, except such quantities of conventional armaments as
the Royal Government of Laos may consider necessary for the national defense
of Laos, is prohibited." (75)
In order to get the agreements on Laos, the United States made sub-
stantial concessions, including the acceptance of the Soviet nominee --
Souvanna Phouma -- to be the prime minister. (76) President Kennedy expressed
optimisn on 23 July that international problems could be settled by patient
diplomacy, and a joint statement issued by Kennedy and Souvanna Phouma on
31 July confirmed Souvanna's determination to perfect independence, unity,
and neutrality and Kennedy's willingness to support the efforts. (77)
Handled as US executive agreements, the Geneva declaration did not require
Senate confirmation, but Assistant Secretary Harriman defended it as consonant
with US policy objectives. Harriman candidly admitted that except for the
fact that the Soviets had made it plain that they would be responsible for
Communist bloc adherence to the agreements he would have very little confidence
in the accords. "It is hard to see," he added, "what Mr. KhrushChev gains in
personal reputation if he fails to carry out his agreement with President
Kennedy and his agreement as signed in Geneva." In a letter to Congressman
Melvin R. Laird, Harriman reiterated the same thought that the Soviet Union
had agreed to be "responsible to see that the Communist countries, particularly
Communist China and North Vietnam, live up to the agreements." Harriman was
additionally confident that the ICC was more powerful than before and could
plan an effective role in reports to Great Britain and the Soviet Union on
possible violations to the agreements. (78) In an address in Chicago on
18 September Roger Hilsman expressed confidence that if the North Vietnamese
did not honor the Geneva agreement on Laos but continued to infilter men
through Laos that it would still be possible for the South Vietnamese to
interdict the infiltration routes, especially by the use of armed Montagnard
tribesmen. In retrospect, Hilsman believed that the Geneva agreement was
advantageous to the United States since the North Vietnamese would have to
keep their use of Laotian infiltration routes "down to a guerrilla warfare
level." (79)
After having suspended its monetary support to the Boun Oum government
for five months at the beginning of 1962, the United States made an interim
cash grant payment to the Boun Oum Government at the end of June and another
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to Souvanna Pouma's government in July immediately before the Geneva agree-
ment was signed. (ao) In regard to military assistance to the Royal Lao
vvernment after neutralization, Assistant Secretary Harriman stated that
US policy envisioned continued and very important assistance to the coalition
Twernment in implementing an orderly demobilization of the Laotian military
forces, thus determining that the Royal Lao forces were not demobilized more
rapidly than the Pathet Lao. (81) The manner in which US military assistance
that might be requested by the Lao government would be administered presented
3rme difficulty, since the US MAAG would be withdrawn. Arriving in Vientiane
to July, Leonard Unger, a career diplomat who had just spent four years in
3angkok, part of the time as deputy chief of mission, became the US Ambassador
to Laos. In order to handle US military assistance after withdrawal of MAAF
personnel to Bangkok, Secretary McNamara proposed that additional military
attache strength be added in Vientiane to provide assistance to the US
ierations Mission in its undertaking of any MAAG function. This had not
7,)rk(i well in the past since military attache duty was of an intelligence
:1-re: consequently, Admiral Felt got acceptance of the augmentation of US
tU with 25 capable individuals who would handle MAP matters in Vientiane in
-;00peration with General Tucker's nonresident MAAG Laos in Bangkok. Under
this arrangement US personnel would be available to process and coordinate
7.1A.P equipment requirements, but no American military advisors would be
q7ailable for service with Laotian army and air force units. (82)
According to 1961 MAP projections Laos was scheduled to receive 14 T-28
Nomad aircraft not later than 30 June 1962, but political considerations
affected this and other Lao air assistance programs. With only five T-6s
remaining in operation in March 1962, General Phoumi asked for three replace-
;nt planes of this type. The planes were available in storage in Thailand,
rn 22 March the US State Department asked that no action be taken to
--place the damaged planes in order to avoid encouragement to Phoumi. In
727der to expedite Lao trainel.rg in the T-28s, three of these aircraft were
diverted to Thailand from a shipment to South Vietnam, and a training program
was completed on 22 August when 12 Lao pilots, 16 Lao mechanics, 16 civilian
contract mechanics, and 16 RTAF mechanics had been trained. On 27 April,
Iowever, the Office of Secretary of Defense directed that the T-28s would
not be delivered to Laos, and on 14 August CINCPAC directed that four of the
planes already enroute would be delivered to Thailand and the remainder
stored in the United States tentatively earmarked for Laos. In October,
the 14 stored planes were committed to South Vietnam. (83)
During his visit to Washington in late July 1962, Souvanna Phouma
revealed tentative plans to reduce the size of the Royal Lao Ar (FAR),
the Pathet Lao, and the Neutralist forces and to create a new neutral Lao
Army with a strength of something like 25,000 men, with each of the factions
providing about a third of the strength. This planning objective was subse-
quently revised to provide a permanent Lao army of 30,000 and a police force
of 6,000, both to be manned in equal increments from the Phoumist forces (FAR)
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the Pathet Lao, and the Kong Le Neutralists. (84) After a cabinet meeting
in Vientiane, Prince Souphanouvong announced on 6 August that the Lao
coalition government would continue all previous aid agreements that were
not prohibited by the Geneva protocol. (85) Thus the Soviets could continue .
to supply the Kong Le Neutralists and the Pathet Lao. Believing that the
United States should continue to support the FAR until it was merged into
a neutral Laotian government force, Admiral Felt proposed on 18 August that
unless otherwise directed he would consider only austere FAR training require-
ments for vehicles, weapons, aircraft, and organizational equipment and did
not intend to replace combat losses of equipment. He would, however, continue
to provide POL, spare parts, commercial consumables, clothing, and small
closely-controlled shipments of ammunition to the FAR, all in quantities
required for continued training. Felt also proposed to provide POL and spare
parts for Air America and construction material for civic action projects
approved by Ambassador Unger. In the latter case, Felt was very anxious
that ths civic action program among the Kha people of the Bolovens area
proceed without interruption. (86) Fe recommended that a selected number
of the Kha be used to man an intellience and warning network along the
Ho Chi Minh trail through southeastern Laos, to be prepared to receive South
Vietnamese commando or ranger troops, and to serve as potential evasion and
escape teams. (87)
In accordance with International Control Commission procedures, all
foreign military forces weretobe withdrawn from Laos through established
checkpoints before 7 October. At Adthiral Felt's direction, Thai volunteers
who were serving with the MAAG in Laos were not assembled for withdrawal
but were returned to Thailand as quietly as they had been introduced into
Laos. (88) In regard to the. American withdrawal, however, Felt instructed
General Tucker to delay the removal until the last practicable time and
then insure a maximum exposure. "I want final departure of personnel,"
Felt instructed, "to be of significant size with flags flying and tails
over the dashboard." (89) On 6 October, the last group of MAAG personnel,
including General Tucker, passed through the ICC checkpoint. Altogether the
United States withdrew 193 officers, L1.70 enlisted men, and 3 civilians from
Laos for a total of 666 persons. About 400 Filipino advisors who had been
repairing equipment and handling supplies in Laos were also checked out. (90)
On the day that he closed the MAAG in Vientiane, General Tucker explained
to General Fhoumi the guidelines that Admiral Felt had provided for future
FAR supply, which would be adhered to. Under this program, continuing US
MAP would amount to supplies valued at about $268,000 a month -- this being
the total for October 1962. (91) In order to provide supplies to the ethnic
hill peoples of Laos whose regular livelihood had been disrupted by war,
representatives of the United States and of the Souvanna Phouma government
signed a formal agreement on 7 October whereby Air America planes and crews
would operate in support of the Royal Government with US AID funding. (92)
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In an expectation that good faith on the part of Chairman Khrushchev
and the Soviet Union, President Kennedy had hoped that a genuine political
settlement could be reached in Laos, but Secretary Rusk would remember
that President Kennedy was ifbitterly disappointed" with the Communist
adherence to the Geneva accords. (93) At the time of the Laos ceasefire
there were known to be about 10,000 North Vietnamese troops in Laos, of wham
only 40 checked out through the inspection sites that the Communists permitted
the ICC to set up on the Plaine des jarres and at Nam Ping in Khammouane
Province. Some of the North Vietnmese troops infiltered into South Vietnam,
since 1,000-1,800 Cunaunist Vietnamese were reported to have moved out of
Laos into South Vietnam in a sudden spurt of activity between I May and 15
June 1962, but in January 1963 General Tucker was convinced that 8,000
Vietminh troops were still in Laos, acting both in battalion-sized units
and as cadres for the Pathet Lao forces. (9)4) At the first evidence that
Hanoi was going to perpetnfe a massive violation of the Geneva agreement,
British diplomats wanted to insist on a strict observance of the Geneva
c,Alference intentions with !-spect to the International Control Commission,
but the United States hesitaed to make a disturbance that might prevent
Couvanna Phouma from getting the coalition government firmly established,
rationalized that the ICC would be inadequate to the task of finding Vietminh
troops in the jungle, and believed that Vietminh "guerrilla" infiltration
could be successfully met in the Mekong Lowlands or the South Vietnamese
Highlands. As a matter of fact, the Pathet Lao generally forbade the ICC
from entering areas held by their forces, and on other occasions allowed
ICC investigations only at sites that were clearly sanitized for inspection.
(95)
In an assessment of Communist activities in Southeast Asia presented
at a PACAF Commanders Conference on 4 April 1962, Maj. W. J. Phillips, a
PACAF intelligence staff officer, called attention to a prevalent belief
that the battles in Laos were being fought by small guerrilla bands who waged
elusive and fleeting attacks. On the contrary, Phillips pointed out that
from the time of Kong Le's revolt onward, the Soviets had utilized airlift
in a well-planned, sustained, and fairly massive logistical effort from
Hanoi into Laos. By virtue of initial Soviet airlift support followed up
by road construction effort, the Vietminh/Pathet Lao/Kong Le forces had been
able to consolidate their control over virtually all of Laos except the
Mekong River Valley. Phillips described the Communist activity at Tchepone,
which the Vietminh clearly wanted as a base for use against South Vietnam,
as a classic example of the use of airlift in support of a ground campaign
in a region with initially limited surface communications. Hard after
Vietminh/Pathet Lao troops captured Tchepone, Soviet 11-14 aircraft began
operating into the new airhead. Then road construction outward from Tchepone
began, and truck convoys took over the movement of men and supplies as soon
as surface communications were built or improved. Looking backward, Phillips
noted that less than a handful of World War Il fighter aircraft offensively
employed in Laos could have disrupted the Communist campaign. Looking forward,
he predicted that under an impotent neutral government, Laos would continue
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to be "the principal, open supply artery to enemy forces in South Vietnam."
(96) North Vietnam had already begun a substantial road improvement program
in Laos during the cease-fire, and both North Vietnam and Communist China
lent economic assistance to the Souvanna Phouma government in the form of
road construction. The Vietnamese made substantial improvements on the
routes through the Annamite Mountains between North Vietnam and Laos. The
Chinese built roads across their Yunnan border into Phong Saly Province. (97)
Even though the removal of the MAAG from Vientiane reduced the amount of
information about North Vietnamese infiltration through Laos, PACAF never-
theless estimated in October 1962 that: The failure of the Vietnamese
troops to make any significant withdrawal from Laos, and the continued refusal
of the Pathet Lao to permit members of the coalition government to travel to
areas under Communist control, leaves little doubt that the Communist fully
intend to continue to use Southeastern Laos to infiltrate troops into South
Vietnam." (98)
Lacking real power other than the prestige of having been picked to
head the Laotian troika government, Souvanna Phouma was unable to secure
cooperation from either the Communists ar the conservatives. Where the
Pathet Lao forces had earlier supported Souvanna, only Kong Le's military
force now remained directly loyal to him. Plans to reform all elements into
a single neutral Lao army made no progress, and the three military forces
continued to occupy positions that they had been holding. Still effectively
in control of the Royal Lao Army (FAR), Phoumi Nosavan was inclined to carry
out the wishes of Ambassador Unger. While Phoumi talked of demobilization
plans, he actually demobilized only a few ineffective units and continued
to maintain a strength of same %,000 men with American supply support.
Kong Le claimed to command 6,000 troops, but his Neutralist forces (now
sometimes called "Centrists") were divided between Vang Vieng and the Plaine
des Jarres. Altogether, the Pathet Lao were estimated to have 9,000 troops
with a heavy concentration virtually surrounding Kong Le's garrison on the
Plaine des Jarres. (99) Kong Le was supported by Soviet supplies, and the
Pathet Lao drew support both from the Soviet Union and North Vietnam. In
September 1962, however, Kong Le found his support on the Plaine des Jarres
drying up due to Pathet Lao diversions and also discovered that the Pathet
Lao were making efforts to alienate same of his subordinate commanders. In
the first week of October, Souvanna Phouma suddenly requested that both
American and Soviet planes would be used to airlift supplies to isolated
pockets of Kong Le troops. (100)
Prime Minister Souvanna Phouma's request for American airlift in support
of General Kong Le's forces surprised Western observers, but Ambassador Unger
authorized Air America aircraft to be used for the purpose. Later in October,
however, US AID Laos requested General Tucker to provide supplies -- including
clothing, personal equipment, and mosquito netting -- for Kong Le's forces.
While Tucker had the ability to provide supplies for the Neutralists out of
FAR MAP commitments, Admiral Felt frankly questioned whether it would be
?
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sound to support Kong Le forces until the United States had same assurance
that they would not again be hostile. At the most, he proposed to restrict,
supplies to the Neutralists to health and comfort items such as blankets,
tentage, and medicines and requested guidance from Washington. (101)
The Soviet Union also gave outward appearance of being taken by surprise
by a decision obviously made in Hanoi to strangle the Kong Le Neutralists.
When the Soviet Embassy received Souvanna Phouma's request, it immediately
promised him use of the Soviet transport planes flying out of Hanoi. The
promised planes, however, were not available for same time. While the
Soviets were evidently considering policy, the Soviets suffered a serious
defeat when they attempted to introduce ballistic missiles into Cuba and
they were additionally concerned about the Chinese Communist invasion of
India's borders. During the Geneva negotiations of 1961-1962, the Soviets
and the Chinese Communists had displayed a degree of solidarity, but the
events of October 1962 broadened the Sino-Soviet schism. (102) As President
Kennedy would point out, the Soviets were in a position to exercise control
over Communist activities in Laos as long as the supply lines were being
maintained by Soviet airlift. (103) Now, however, Hanoi wanted to isolate
Kong Le and get on with the civil war in Laos and the subjugation of South
Vietnam; in the yawning Sino-Soviet schism, Hanoi was in a position to in-
crease its demands upon both the Soviets and Red China. In order to
extricate themselves fram an embarrassing situation, the Soviets delivered
the first of a consignment of nine LI-2 (Russian version of the DC-3) air-
craft to Vientiane on 2 December. Russian crews accompanied the planes to
operate them until Lao crews could be trained, and the Soviets stressed
that three of the planes would be for the Neutralists, three for the Pathet
Lao, and three for the FAR. At this same time, the Soviets turned over to
North Vietnam the IL-14 aircraft that the Russians had been operating in
Southeast Asia since December 1960. The Vietminh were accordingly expected
to provide supplies to the Pathet Lao, principally over the improved roads
into Laos from North Vietnam. (104)
The Communists were determined to isolate the Kong Le Neutralists, and
they had been making some progress in subverting one of Kong Le's subordinates,
Col. Deaune Souvannarath, who would soon announce himself as head of the
"True Neutralist Forces." On 27 November, Deaune's men shot down an Air
America C-123 while it was landing at an airstrip on the Plaine des Jarres,
killing the US crewmen. Kong Le's efforts to arrest Deaune's gunners were
frustrated by the Pathet Lao, who asserted that Air America was a para-
military organization that was being used by the United States to drop arms
and ammunition inside Laos. Assistant Secretary Harriman reasoned that this
was a clear test case of US determination as well as a defiance of the
Souvanna Phouma government, in whose service Air America was operating.
Admiral Felt suggested that F-100s of the 430 Tactical Fighter Squadron
from Takhali could be used to escort Air America planes. (105) At the
instigation of the Polish member, however, the ICC took note of the Pathet
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NNW
Lao charge that Air America was a paramilitary organization forbidden by-
the Geneva agreement and asked Souvanna Phouma for an investigation. In
discussions with Ambassador Unger, Souvanna pointed out that the Soviets
had given transport aircraft to him and that it would be possible for the
United States to do the same, thus permitting the contract support to be
phased out as soon as possible. When his opinion was requested, Admiral
Felt demonstrated that the United States would lose its ability to insure
that the Meo tribesmen would continue to receive supplies if the US Aid
contracts with Air America and Bird et Son (this being a newly-negotiated air
service contract with an American firm operating in Thailand) were phased out.
In January 1963, Ambassador Unger secured acceptance of a compromise whereby
the United States would give two C-46 transports to the Laotian government
and the contract air services would continue to operate. Unger indicated
that he would accept distinctive markings to show the humanitarian aspect of
the Air America Planes and allow representatives of the ICC or the three
Laotian factions to accompany supply-drop flights. As the matter wound up,
Souvanna Phouma still held to an oblective of phasing Air America out of
Laos over a period of time, but, in the meanwhile, he did not make a reply
to the ICC request for an investigation. (106)
Souvanna Phouma's indecisive handling of the Air America incident
revealed the essential weakness of his position. Kong Le's Neutralists
were the only military forces directly loyal to Souvanna, and, as General
Tucker pointed out in a military assessment on 12 January, Kong Le's troops
on the Plaine des Jarres were so surrounded by the Pathet Lao as to place
Kong Le in a position of "talking from the jail-house." If a conflict
began, Tucker did not believe that Kong Le's forces could escape from the
Plaine des Jarres with anything but their small arms. (107) Under the
circumstances, Souvanna Phouma began to compromise his Neutralist position
by moving closer to General Phoumi and the United States. In a strange turn
of events, Roger Hilsman and Michael Forrestal, both visiting in the Far
East at President Kennedy's direction, flew to the Plaine des Jarres in one
of the Russian aircraft early in January 1963 to talk with Kong Le. The
Neutralist commander claimed to have the Plaine des Jarres under control,
though he said he knew the Pathet Lao were out to get him. In case of a
Pathet Lao attack, Kong Le estimated he could hold out for a week. He had
a great amount of Soviet equipment, but some of it was inoperable and he
was short of POL. Kong Le also remarked that the morale of Air America
crews had declined since the loss of the C-123. Back in Vientiane, Ambassador
Unger in concurrence with Hilaman and Forrestal recammended that the United
States should begin to support Kong Le. The State Department promptly
approved the recommendation on 14 January, despite an expression of mis-
giving from Admiral Felt who cited General Tucker's appraisal of Kong Le's
vulnerability and hoped that the MAP "would not be used as a grab bag."
Admiral Felt did not want to divert support from the FAR in order to
bulwark Kong Le's vulnerable forces. A joint State/Defense directive
issued on 20 February nevertheless provided that the Kong Le forces would
be given the MAP equipment they needed, including ammunition, if they were
attacked by the Pathet Lao. (108)
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In an effort to secure support for the neutralization of Laos, King
SavangVatthanaand Souvanna Phouma left Laos on 11 February for a six-week
tour of the signatory countries of the Geneva protocol. On the following
evening at his home at Phong Sayan on the Plaine des Jarres, Col. Ketsana
Vongsouvanah, one of Kong Lets key neutralists who had resisted Cammunist
subversion, was assassinated. American and Lao officials suspected that
the murder had been arranged by the leftist Lao foreign minister, Quinim
Pholsena. (109) Heartened by the beginning of a receipt of American
consumable supplies at the end of February, Kong Le began to eliminate some
of the dissidents from his forces. Upon his return to Vientiane in the
latter part of March, Souvanna Phouma acted through intermediaries to get
an assurance that General Phoumi would aid Kong Le in a joint defense of
the Plaine des Jarres, and he approved Kong Le's arrest of several of the
pro-Cammunists in his ranks. (110) In the last week of March, Colonel
Deuan's dissidents began to fire on Kong Les positions, and on 31 March
the Pathet Lao joined the sporadic fighting. Adding more fuel to the
renewed flames, Quinim Fholsena was machine-gunned and killed by one of
his personal guards. The guard later said that the foreign minister had
been plotting with the Chinese Communists to overthrow Souvanna Phouma,
but a statement signed by Deputy Premier Souphanouvong and broadcast over
a Pathet Lao radio station asserted that the United States was responsible
for the murder of Quinim. (111)
Early in April, Kong Le managed a relatively orderly withdrawal of
small bodies of his troops from exposed positions in Khang Khay, Xieng
Khouang, and Ban Ban, concentrating in the western third of the Plaine des
Jarres. He established his command post at Muong Phanh, three miles west
of the Plaine des Jarres airfield. On 8 April, Souvanna Phouma requested
the ICC to send a ceasefire team to the combat area, a motion resisted by
both the Polish Commissioner and Souphanouvong who claimed that the fight
was between factions in Kong Le's forces. Led by Souphanouvong, who flew
to Khang Khay on 17 April, Pathet Lao officials began to leave Vientiane,
alleging that security precautions were inadequate to protect them. On the
morring of 18 April, a Pathet Lao-Dissident attack shelled the Plaine des'
Jarres airfield out of operation and forced Kong Le farther westward, but
he continued to hold a dirt landing strip at Muong Phanh. The US Argy
attache reported that the attack was so seriously waged that Kong Le would
be expelled from the Plaine des Jarres unless he received assistance.
Following a meeting with Kong Le in Vientaine on 22 April, Phoumi used
RLAF planes to fly two battalions of FAR troops to the Plaine des Jarres,
and on 23-24 April the United States made a first airlift of machine guns
and infantry weapons to Kong Le. With the arrival of Indian and Canadian
ICC representatives (the Polish members would not participate) a ceasefire
quieted the hostilities for the moment, but Kong Le had nevertheless lost
most of his outposts on the Plaine des Jarres. (112)
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In the evolution of American policy toward the April crisis in Laos,
the US State Department issued a statement on 8 April which noted the Kong Le
Neutralists were under attack by Pathet Lao supported by Vietminh military
forces and called upon Great Britain and the Soviet Union to stop the
fighting. On the same day in Paris where he was attending a SEATO Council
of Ministers meeting, Secretary Rusk noted that the United States fully
supported the Geneva agreement and asked the ICC be accorded access to Pathet
Lao areas which had not been opened to its inspection. Enroute to Europe
and to Moscow for discussions of Laos, UnderSecretary of State Harriman told
a television interviewer on 14 April that President Kennedy had decided that
the United States must not became involved in Laos. He stated that there
were no plans to commit US troops and that military supplies would be sent
only if requested by the Lao government. (113) At the diplomatic level there
was hope that the Soviet Union, as a co-chairman of the Geneva Conference,
would take steps to end the crisis, but on 22 April Pravda echoed Chinese
Communist charges that the United States was to blame for the tension in Laos.
After a three-hour meeting with Khrushchev on 26 April, Harriman announced
that the Soviet Union joined the United States in its support of the 1962
agreement on Laos. Privately, however, Harriman reported that Khrushchev
said that he was bored by the subject and asked irritably why Washington
bothered so much about Laos. (114)
In an appearance before a Congressional Committee, Roger Hilsman, who
had became Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs, implied on
14 May that the United States was waiting to see whether Khrushchev was going
to live up to his commitments on Laos. "Our policy in Laos," Tinsman said,
"is to pursue the Geneva Agreements to the bitter end.... If we pursue the
Geneva accords to the end we still have all the options we had a year ago."
(115) During May and June Great Britain pressed the Soviet Union to ensure
that the Left-Wing party in Laos respected the Geneva settlement, but nothing
was accomplished. By 19 June, a joint State-Defense analysis of the Lao
situation recognized that both Moscow and Peiping, in view of their dispute
over Communist strategy, were going to compete with each other to support
the Pathet Lao erosion attacks in Laos. Both regimes would hope steadily
to improve Communist positions without arousing free world counteraction. (116)
The task of devising a new United States policy on Laos required exami-
nation of many options and the collection of estimates and opinions in South-
east Asia, Hawaii, and Washington. Both in Paris when he was attending the
SEATO Council meeting and later in Bangkok on 23 April, when he met with the
SEATO Military Advisors, Admiral Felt discussed the prospect of accelerating
an already-scheduled SEATO exercise, thus placing SEATO forces in Thailand
at a time that might influence Communist activities in Laos. The SEATO
allies were unenthusiastic, but Felt nevertheless maneuvered Seventh Fleet
units off the coast of South Vietnam. (117) After returning to Bangkok from
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Paris, SEATO Secretary General Pote Sarasin sought out Ambassador Young
and attempted to impress upon him that an Asian's view of Laos was evidently
different from that of a Westerner. Pote explained that SEATO shows of force
in Thailand might impress the Russians but would have little effect on the
Pathet Lao and Vietminh. He compared the Pathet Lao/Vietminh with mice
eating away at the foundations of the free position in Laos. He said that
to try to stop the nibbling by deploying the Seventh Fleet was "quite like
trying to shoot mice with cannon." In an Asian s opinion, Pote urged that
actions would have to be undertaken inside Laos to strengthen and assist
Souvanna Phouma. A few days latter, Marshal Sarit told Young that Thailand
was waiting for the United States to give leadership and take actions inside
Laos to stop Pathet Lao and Vietminh encroachments, to support Souvanna, and
to restore the territory from which Kong Le had been driven. (118)
In assessments as early as January 1963, General Tucker had been
very pessimistic about the military prospects in Laos and had suggested that
the best that the United States colJd hope for was a partitioned country.
He was convinced that the "Director'3 of the Hammer and Sickle forces" could
take over all of Laos within two wcek3 if they wanted. They had not done so
because this would arouse the United Aates, saddle the Reds "with the care
and feeding of all the Laotian people who live in the Mekong River cities,"
and would not contribute to the advantageous position that the Communists
already occupied. The Communists already controlled eastern Laos and the
important system of Ho Chi Minh trails leading into South Vietnam. (119)
In March the Red Prince Souohanouvong voiced a proposal that it might be well
for Laos to be partitioned into Communist and non-Communist areas along
existing lines. At this time the State DepartMent did not like the proposal
because it would involve the loss of the enclaves in Communist territory
held by Kong Le, but it asked Admiral Felt whether Phoumi!s FAR forces would
be able to restore government control over southeastern Laos prior to a
partition agreement. Both Admiral Felt and General Tucker replied that the
Communists would make a strong fight to hold Tchepone and the Ho Chi Minh
trail complex -- areas which the FAR was unable to hold in 1961-1962 and
which it probably could not reconquer. (120) In April and May, both President
Diem and Marshal Sarit believed that Communist activities on the Plaine des
Jarres were designed to cover Vietminh buildups in southeastern Laos and were
more than a little interested in rumors that Laos might be partitioned. Diem
was not adverse to a partition plan that would end the futile attempt to
give substance to the Geneva accords, but Sarit rejected partition completely
since it would be preliminary to a Communist takeover of all of Laos. Sarit
believed that the Communists wanted Laos only because it was an avenue of
approach to Vietnam, Thailand, and Singapore. (121) In a summarization of
the partition option, the State Department ruled out this option since the
Reds would have nothing to lose by it, the Neutralists would be squeezed out,
and because it would be more difficult to support the Meo in areas behind
Communist lines. (122)
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In undertaking to provide Kong Le s Neutralists with American weapons
to replace the Soviet equipment which they held, Secretary Rusk instructed
Ambassador Unger on 23 April that the United States was confronting a diffi-
cult situation. Rusk did not want to encourage Phoumi Nosovan and Kong Le
to a point where they would undertake a foolish military move and be defeated.
At this same time, Rusk did not believe that Kong Le should be discouraged
from some offensive actions, since the United States had long urged Souvanna
Phouma to be more resolute against the Communists. (123) American fears that
the old Neutralist, Souvanna Phouma, might not be resolute enough.to deal
with the Communists or might be alienated from the Souvanna-Kong Le-Phoumi
coalition began to be dispelled in early May. Although Ambassador Unger found
Souvanna notably discouraged, Souvanna now recognized that Souphanouvong had
completely gone over to the Vietminh and that the Pathet Lao wanted war rather
than peaceful negotiations. (124) In continuing harmony, Phoumi provided kip
funds for paying Kong Le's Neutralists troops. Phoumi also pointed out that
the Neutralist forces lacked staff teaining and cooperated in the establish-
ment of a Neutralist general staff neadquarters in Vientiane. (125)
Despite these favorable developments, American military assistance
policy continued to be circumscribed by a determination to avoid violation of
the Geneva agreements and by a persuasive fear that General Phoumi might
generate a situation which would lead to a severe defeat for the FAR. Even
though ICC Chairman Avtar Singh told Ambassador Unger that it was important
that Kong Le not be driven from the Plaine des Jarres, Unger was reminded:
lath respect augmenting Armed Forces memory of Nam Tha debacle made one
think that was not the answer." (126) In order to increase the capabilities
of the FAR, General Phoumi asked the US AID Director on 22 April for in-
creased financial assistance for the Lao military and also for six of the
T-28 aircraft which had been earlier scheduled for Laos but had been diverted
to other recipients. (127) Souvanna Phouma agreed that the T-28's would be
needed and recommended that they be moved to Savannakhet. (128) On 4 June,
Prime Minister Sarit agreed to make a gift of six Thai T-28s to Phoumi,
and the US JUSMAG in Bangkok promptly initiated arrangements whereby the
RTAF would provide refresher training to 12 Lao pilots and 16 Lao mechanics
that had received T-28 training in 1962. The Thais approved the arrange-
ments and waited for the Lao government and the American Embassy in Vientiane
to implement them. (129) In Hawaii, Admiral Felt was enthusiastic about the
prospect that the "wraps" might be removed from the Lao Air Force. He
forwarded a list of prospective air targets appropriate for General Phoumi
to strike with his T-6 aircraft (and perhaps the T-28s) if the situation
developed and requested the Joint Chiefs of Staff to authorize a USAF
colonel or lieutenant colonel to serve as an air attache with the RLAF
Commander, Colonel Ma, at Savannakhet. (130) Ambassador Unger questioned
Phoumi on his proposed use of the T-28s, but he took the occasion to tell
Phoumi that he hoped it was not going to be necessary to introduce any T-28s
into Laos, since this would represent a rather large escalation of the
conflict. (131) On the same day, Unger warned Secretary Rusk that Lao forces
simply did not have a will and capacity to fight the Vietminh no matter how
well equipped, trained, or advised they might be. (132)
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As a result of habesseJior Unger's admonition, the matter of air rein-
forcements for Laos would be held up. In the meanwhile, the RLAF got an
opportunity to demonstrate !_ts mettle with its old T-6s, only three of which
could be counted combat capable. These old planes lacked instruments, had
no operational radios or gun sights, and were armed only with 30-caliber
wing guns and 5-inch rockets. (133) The opportunity came in southeastern
Laos where in April and May. US Aid field representatives
the Pathet Lao and Vietminh were on the move toward the
FAR-garrisoned towns of Attopeu and possibly Saravene. (134) Purely as a
precaution, since the use of heavy munitions would have to be approved by
higher authority, Admiral Felt got permission in May to earmark a stock of
100-pound general purpose and frag bombs in Thailand for possible employment
on Lao T-6s in an emergency either on the Plaine des Jarres or in southeastern
Laos. (135) In early June when two battalions of Pathet Lao and three battal-
ions of Vietminh forces were reported to be concentrating around Attopeu,
Colonel Ma sent his three aeilable T-6s to the airfield at Pakse. The T-6s
flew daily rocket sort:Lee e-Lnst hostile positions and supply points around
Attopeu. The attacks were eaaluated as effective
against the enemy. Since he lacked artillery, the FAR commander of the
southeastern military region was willing to state that Attopeu would have
been lost without the T-6 attacks. In a message from Washington on 2 July,
the State and Defense Departments indicated they would be willing to autho-
rize the use of bombs to prevent a communist capture of Attopeu, but by
this time the US Acting Chief of Mission in Vientiane (in the absence of
Unger) could message that the situation at Attopeu was greatly improved.
At this time, however, the Embassy requested that arrangements would be
facilitated -- regardless of opposition -- for the movement of T-28s into
Laos if the situation worsened at Attopeu. (136) On this same day, three
T-6s hit a lathet Lac ricamgent during a lunch-siesta period; FAR ground
troops moved in behind the strike to count 32 PL/VM dead and easily routed
the remainder of the 'zed enemy soldiers. (137)
During the June crisis around Attopeu, US State and Defense planners
were working on a study of proposed courses of action to stabilize the situation
in Laos for presentation to President Kennedy. Ready for circulation on
19 June, the draft State-Defense paper recognized that the root of the problem
in Southeast Asia was the aggressive effort of the North Vietnamese to
establish Communist control in Laos and South Vietnam as a stepping stone
to control all of Southeast Asia. The paper proposed that the United States
should continue to respect Lao neutralization but should nevertheless begin
to effect a program of graa'aated increases of political and military pressure
that would provide stabilization of the situation in Laos without setting
in motion an irreversible pattern of US commitment. The planners proposed
three escalating phases of political and military activity: Phase I, with
the objective of securing a reconstitution of the Lao coalition government
and the Geneva agreemens; Phase II, with the same objective but with a
decided increase in the miRtary effort in Laos including same measures within
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the Geneva framework; Phase III, with the objective of achieving a "hard"
partition of Laos that would insure a friendly control of the Laotian pan-
handle, the Mekong lowlnads, and, if possible, a foothold on the Plaine des
Jarres. The military measures. proposed. for the three phases included: I,
the use of non-US forces that could be supported with some stretching of
the Geneva accords; II, the non-combatant use of US forces; and III, the
combat use of US forces in Laos. In their review of the State-Defense study,
the Joint Chiefs welcomed the intent to pursue positive actions rather than
to react to Communist initiatives, but in Phase III they preferred to apply
direct military pressure against North Vietnam instead of committing US
forces to ground action in Laos. (138) In his submission of requested
comments on the State-Defense paper, Admiral Felt believed that the situation
in Laos demanded earlier and more dramatic actions than would be possible
under the gradually escalating concept of actions outlined in Washington,
many of which would require coordination with the SEATO allies. In his
recommendation, Felt proposed six sequential "packages" of actions each to
contain diverse but related undertakings that could proceed simultaneously,
thus avoiding taking individual single actions and then waiting for the
enemy's reaction before proceeding to the next action. (139)
The State-Defense paper on Laos, together with the Joint Chiefs'
comments were presented to President Kennedy on 19 June. At this time,
Kennedy approved most of the proposed actions of Phase I for tentative imple-
mentation and announced that he would again review the Lao problem in about
a month. The discussion on 19 June did not resolve disagreements as to
Phase III, but after the meeting Secretary McNamara directed the Joint Chiefs
to develop the new approach to waging pressure against North Vietnam in lieu
of committing the United States to a ground campaign in Laos. Accordingly,
the Joint Chiefs directed CINCPAC to prepare a new operations plan that
would include air and naval (including amphibious) operations against North
Vietnam that would be followed by other appropriate and feasible operations.
This directive would produce a new OINCPAC Operations Plan 99-64, but mean-
while on 30 July President Kennedy again reviewed Phase I actions and
directed an implementation of them. These actions included American aid for
the FAR and Kong Le forces without further demobilization and including
heavy weapons; establishing US contact with the FAR, the Neutralists and
pro-Western tribal groups! increased American air resupply and augmentation
of Souvanna Phouma's airlift capabilities; encouragement of the FAR to
eliminate pockets of Pathet Lao within its area of control; provision of
T-28 aircraft and armament to the FAR to conduct reprisal strikes; commence-
ment of a strategic hamlet program in the Mekong Valley; and expansion of
the use of highly mobile South Vietnamese border patrols in Laos to inter-
dict entry into South Vietnam and to gather intelligence. The last action
had not been included in the initial State-Defense draft paper which had,
instead, proposed that as a last step in Phase I the United States should
resume aerial reconnaissance over Laos, even though this would be an overt
violation of the Geneva Agreement. (140)
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In a meeting with representatives of the British and French Embassies
in Washington on 3 July, Assistant Secretary Hilsman asked for cooperation
in new policies toward Laos designed to stop Communists "nibbling" while
remaining within the framework of the Geneva agreement. Hilsman said that
the United States had been thinking about increasing the heavy weapons
of the FAR and the Neutralists; increasing Phoumi's airlift; encouraging
the FAR and the Kong Le forces to gain firmer control over the areas they
held; providing refresher training for Lao T-28 pilots and mechanics; and
improving intelligence capabilities in Laos. HiIsman said that the United
States was "not particularly impressed by the military utility" of the T-28s
in Lao hands but that they would help considerably to build morale, since
Souvanna had requested them. (141)
Even though Hilsman did not indicate unusual concern about the T-28s,
the State and Defense Departments were more actively exercised about the
situation in southeastern Laos and the impact that the T-28s could have at
a moment of crisis. On 3 July, a State-Defense message directed the American
Embassy in Vientiane to make progress to perfect an arrangement whereby
Thailand would release the T-28s to Laos on American direction in a moment
of crisis. The message also advised Vientiane to pre-position bombs in Laos,
where they would be immediately available for use in a crisis. (142) In
accordance with earlier agreements, Thailand conducted the refresher training
for the Lao pilots and mechanics in two increments beginning on 9 July, (1).3)
but other aspects of the T-28 program proved vastly complicated. The American
Embassy in Vientiane opposed pre-positioning of bombs in Laos because it did
not believe it could control their use. This matter was resolved by a State-
Defense directive which authorized the Embassy to maintain the physical posses-
sion of the fuzes for the bombs stocked in Laos. (144) Where Phoumi had
believed that Sarit had agreed to turn over T-28s to the RLAF on a simple
directive, the Thai Prime Minister seemed to have second thoughts. Accordingly,
Thailand demanded that the United States take title to the T-28s-and deliver
them to Souvanna Phouma at his request. In a letter marked "very secret"
on 20 July, Souvanna formally requested the United States to replace the worn-
out RLAF T-6s on a one-for-one basis with T-28s. (145) On this dame date in
London, the British Foreign Officer informed the United States that it did
not believe that T-28s flown by Lao pilots would be very effective as any-
thing more than a morale booster and doubted that there was enough emergency
in Laos to justify an action that could be exploited as a violation of the
Geneva Agreement. (146) On 26 July, a French Embassy representative called
upon Assistant Secretary Hilsman and told him that France's position was
that the T-28s could be legally introduced into Laos as replacements for
T-6s but that the United States would need to be sure that it could keep
Phoumi under control. (147)
As a result of the Anglo-French reactions, US authorities made a rather
careful analysis of Phoumi's concepts of operations and especially his ideas
about employing the T-28s. When the matter of the T-28s began to be discussed,
General Phoumi indicated on 11 June that he wanted the planes to work against
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Pathet Lao and Vietminh artillery positions hazarding the Plaine des Jarres.
(148) This employment of the planes was not inconsistent with the State-
Defense position that Phoumi should not be allowed to over-extend himself.
(149) At a briefing on 10 July, however, the US Military Attache found
Phoumi in excellent spirits and disposed to undertake a vigorous campaign to
free Laos of Communists. He proposed to stage a large airborne operation
astride Route 7 near the Vietnamese border and to strike east from Nhommarath-
Mahaxay. With these two routes chopped off, the Pathet Lao would be trapped
for destruction. Phoumi did not think the Vietminh would enter the conflict
because they would fear international reprisal. Phoumi urged that T-28s
would be essential in the operations. (150) When the Pathet Lao began to
probe Kong Le positions on the Plaine des Jarres on 13 July, Phoumi urgently
proposed to employ T-28s in attacks both around the Plaine des Jarres and
along Route 7 and to jump six parachute battalions across Route 7 east of
Ban Ban. (151) When Admiral Felt responded that jumping six battalions so
close to North Vietnam would surely provoke the Vietminh, Phoumi modified
his plan of action. He proposed to permit the Pathet Lao to penetrate into
the center of the Plaine des Jarres before loosing T-28s on attacks along
Route 7 and jumping same FAR battalions close to the Plaine des Jarres to
mouse-trap the Pathet Lao. (152)
The American country teams in Vientiane agreed that Phoumi's military
plans seemed to be designed to entrap the United States into an active inter-
vention in Laos, but there was little question that the RLAF needed replace-
ments for its old T-6s. When the fighting flared up on the Plaine des Jarres,
Colonel Ma moved his three combat capable T-6s from Pakse to Paksane, thus
permitting them to cover the Plaine but leaving the Attopeu-Saravane area
without air support. (153) .0n 20 July, Souvanna Phouma expressed a fear of
an imminent attack from the Plaine des Jarres and formally requested delivery
of T-28s. (.54) Responding to Phoumi's request for a critique on his suggested
plans, the DB State and Defense Departments messaged on 20 July that Phoumi
must not be allowed to over-extend himself or undertake an injudicious
offensive in an expectation that the United States would bail him out of a
bad predicament. The message further provided that the mission of the T-28
aircraft would be "defensive in the broad sense." Phoumi was to be impressed
with the fact that the T-28s "should only be used when the military situation
requires and should not be used in such a way as to extend area or scope of
fighting." (155) Under these guidelines, the United States passed the title
to the T-28s to Laos on 26 July, and the first three of them were flown to
Pakse on 29 July. Early in August, the remaining Lao T-6s were replaced on
an individual basis by the other T-28s. (156) On 30 July, the US Chief of
Mission visited Phoumi and impressed upon him that Washington had reacted
negatively to his offensive planning. Phoumi agreed that the T-28s would be
used only for defensive actions and that he would limit his operations to
a "highly mobile defense" on all fronts. (157)
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Although other Lao air reinformement actions stretched the Geneva
agreement more than the transfer of the T-28s, these actions gave less
difficulty in their execution. In order to provide same air reconnaissance
capability in Laos, Thailand transferred a camera equipped C-47 to the
RLAF in late March 1963. Flying this-C-47 on 17 April, a US Air Attache
crew first discovered the extensive Chinese Communist road building effort
in Phong Saly province. (158) When the Russian transport aircraft were
wearing out, Souvanna Phouma requested additional US transports, preferably
as gifts but as contract operations if necessary. At about this same time
in May, ICC Chairman Singh overruled the objections of the Polish commis-
sioner and announced a conclusion that Air America was a purely commerical
organization not falling within the terms of the Geneva protocol. (159)
As a part of the Phase I stabilization actions, the Department of Defense
on 23 July approved delivery to Laos of C-47 cargo aircraft, three U-17A
liaison aircraft, and three additional H-34 helicopters. These aircraft
were delivered during September and October 1963. The three H-34e would
be operated by Air America, and this company's operations were generally
limited by decision to governmental-ordered non-military missions including
resupply for the Meo and Iia tribal groups. On the other hand the other
civil contractor -- Bird and Son -- employed leased and awned C-46s and
other special aircraft including two Caribou and three Helio Couriers pro-
vided or leased under Phase I actions. Because Bird and Son aircraft
regularly and Air America H-34s on occasion transported troops and war
materials, the companies were in technical violation of the Geneva protocol.
(160) But the RIAF lacked the capabilities to operate the transport aircraft
required to supply the Conservative-Neutralist forces, and the United States
had little alternative but to undertake this technical violation of the
international neutralization of Laos. (161)
Other Phase I actions were being undertaken at the same time additional
aircraft were being provided to Laos. At first, Admiral Felt protested
the allocation of heavy 105-mm. howitzers and 4.2 mortars to the Neutral-
ists on the Plaine des Jarres since these weapons would be vulnerable to
capture there and because Kong Le's troops were not trained to operate
them. In the end, Felt was overruled because of Presidential interest in
demonstrating a determination to assist Kong Le. In order to increase the
capability of FAR and Neutralist forces, both Felt and Unger favored an
extensive encadrement of Lao units with Thai instructors, who could accept
Laotian citizenship overnight. Phoumi accepted some Thai volunteers in
artillery and air units, and he supported an extensive training program for
Lao military specialists that was begun in Thailand in September 1963, but
he resisted any encadrement of Lao units with Thai personnel, preferring
instead to expect a commitment of large Thai units to combat in Laos in
a time of emergency. The employment of the Thai personnel was not without
embarassment: on 11 September 1963 a Thai pilot left a T-28 formation in
which he was flying and may have defected. No trace of the pilot or
aircraft was found. Increased American aid for the FAR and Neutralists
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logically demanded the return of American advisors to Laos, which was
forbidden by the Geneva agreement but could be managed by assignment of
additional assistant military attaches in colonel or lieutenant colonel
ranks. Admiral Felt placed a requirement for two additional Army
assistant attaches to serve on the Plaine des Jarres, an Army assistant
attache to serve with General Phoumi, and an Air Force assistant attache
to advise Colonel Ma. The three Army assistant military attaches were
provided in July, but PACAF had more difficulty producing an officer for
assignment as advisor to Colonel Ma at Savannakhet since this individual
was supposed to be experienced in tactical air warfare and also fluent
in the French language but the position was filled early in August. (162)
In addition to the military actions, the State-Defense study on Laos
called for simultaneous political actions to place pressure on the Com-
munists to live up to their part af the Geneva Agreement. In the develop-
ing political actions, the Laos International Control Commission flew to
Pathet Lao "capitol" of Khang Khay on 29 July, only to be lectured by
Souphanounvong in what was described as being a "professorial" manner.
The Red Prince found it regrettable that Souvanna and Kong Le had let
themselves serve as a screen behind which the American imperialists were
again introducing war materials into Laos. (163) British Foreign Secretary
Lord Home tackled Soviet Foreign Minister Gramyko early in August, again
seeking to persuade the Soviet Union to accept its role as a Geneva co-
chairman.. Recalling Khrushchev's remark to Harriman that he was bored
with Laos, Home pointed out that such boredom could lead to another great
power confrontation. Gromyko nevertheless said that the three Lao princes
obviously could not get,along with each other and that there was nothing
that Russia could do about this. He also said that the obstructionist
Polish ICC commissioner was acting correctly under the Geneva instructions
and that it was up to the members of the ICC to work together in harmony.
(164) In an assessment of the Lan situation on 12 August, Secretary Rusk
found no change in the Soviets. "Khrushchev's response to recent western
approaches," Rusk stated, "clearly indicates persistent Soviet refusal
to give more than nominal cooperation .... Soviet attitude attributable
in large measure to their obvious inability [to] influence Chi Cams and
unwillingness to test whatever authority they may still have over the
Democratic Republic of Vietnam." (165) In an effort to get Souphanouvong
to return to his vacant posts in the coalition government, Souvanna Phoma
proposed to neutralize Luang Prabang and move the administrative capital
there, but this offer was rejected, Ostensibly to secure medical treatment
but actually to request the Soviets to renew their supplies to him, Kong Le
went to Moscow in August. This diplomatic probe also failed. In an
address before the United Nations General Assembly on 20 September, Prime
Minister Souvanna Phouma was clearly despondent about the disorders and
failure of the ICC to act effectively in Laos. In the interests of peace,
he appealed to .the great powers, especially the signatories of the Geneva
agreements, to respect "both the letter and the spirit of the undertakings
into which they have entered." (166)
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In the event that the Phase I actions failed to secure a genuinely
neutralized Laos and Communist adherence to the Geneva agreement, the
State-Defense paper of 19 June envisioned a progressive application of
additional pressure in Phase II actions to include expansion of the US
military advisory role with the FAR and Kong Le forces and the removal of
any restrictions on the offensive action of these forces and on the use
of Lao T-28s and T-6s. While political soundings indicated that no progress
had been made in attaining a neutralized Laos, Washington authorities pre-
ferred to continue to maintain a defensive in Laos during the autumn of 1963.
Developments in South Vietnam were very serious and demanded the utmost
attention of the Kennedy administration. And, although there had been some
apprehension that the news of the arrival of the T-28s in Laos might set off
a vigorous Pathet Lao/Vietminh offensive on the Plaine des Jarres, this was
not the case. Instead, the beginning of very heavy monsoon rains in early
August flooded the mountain streams of Laos and made all travel and resupply
very difficult. (167) By 14 August, General Phoumi indicated that all
Vietminh battalions had been withdrawn from the eastern Laos as far south-
ward as the Nape Pass. There was, however, no reduction in the Vietminh
activity in the Tchepone area, and Phoumi believed that the Vietminh were
having difficulty with supply rather than purposefully de-escalating the
war. (168) Events on 5 September proved Phoumi right. Late on the afternoon
of that day, an Air America C-46 on charter to US AID outbound from Sayan-
nakhet and bound for Ban Houei Sane on a rice-dropping mission was shot down
by heavy ground fire received while in the vicinity of Tchepone. A Bird and
Son C-46 with Lao markings also reported encountering bursts of flak at
10,500 feet a couple of hours later in the same area where the Air America
plane went down. (169) As a reprisal to this hostile action, there was an
option of using the Lao T-28s in support of guerrilla operations in south-
eastern Laos. On 11 September, however, the Department of State reiterated
the policy that it was not the intention of the United States to take the
initiative in a military escalation in Laos and refused to grant approval
for the use of the T-28s in support of guerrilla operations. (170) In a
briefing at Udorn on 15 December, a representative of the US Embassy in
Vientiane explained the Ambassadors concern that military and air operations
against the Pathet Lao were to be clearly in context of defense or
retaliation. (171)
When President Kennedy addressed the United Nations General Assembly on
20 September, he found more optimism in the situation in Laos than did
Souvanna Phouma. "A neutral coalition in Laos, while still in difficulty,"
Kennedy said, "is at least in being." (172) On the positive side of the
assessment, the Phoumi-Kong Le forces were gaining in effectiveness during
the lull in fighting, and Phoumi used airlift to reinforce the Plaine des
Jarres with eight FAR infantry battalions -- four located in the Plaine
and four in the area near Xieng Khouang. This represented a decided
advance for the FAR into areas that it had failed to penetrate by combat
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in 1961 and 1962. (173) In the economic field, the United States, Britain,
France, and Australia negotiated with Souvanna Phouma's government to
restore a value to its monstrously inflated currency. In the agreement
that became effective on 1 January 1964, the Lao government devalued the
kip from 80 to 240 to the dollar, increased taxes, and created a legal
open market for the kip (which had been selling at around 400-500 to the
dollar). The western nations set up a foreign excnange operations fund
to buy excess kip and thus stabilize its value. As a part of the economic
reforms, the United States also changed the system whereby it provided
aid to Laos, so that the bulk of the general economic assistance would
take the form of financing very carefully controlled commodity inports.
(174)
During his tenure as Ambassador to Laos, Ambassador Brown had estab-
lished himself as the undisputed leader of the US Country Team, and, after
the neutralization of Laos and the withdrawal of the American MAIG, Ambas-
sador Unger occupied a position of unique supremacy in military as well as
civil matters. While Unger kept CINCPAC informed of military operations,
the Ambassador to Laos had no responsibility to the US unified command in
the Pacific. In regard to general military and policy advice, Unger
depended upon the US Military Attache. He was reported to ask advice of
the USAF Air Attache only on technical matters. These attaches, moreover,
were responsible to the Ambassador and were outside CINCPAC military com-
mand channels. Any communications from the attaches to CINCPAC or their
respective military departments went through the EMbassy and to the State
Department for retransmission. (175)
As has been seen, the Joint Chiefs of Staff frequently queried Admiral
Felt to solicit his recommendations regarding military matters in Laos.
CINCPAC's recommendations on military matters, however, were frequently
not accepted in Washington, and his position on actions to stabilize the
situation in Laos which he forwarded on 19 June 1963 was reported to have
arrived too late to be fully considered at the meeting during which
President Kennedy approved the new course of US policy in Laos. (176)
Despite its responsibilities for Air Force MAP, the PACAF only monitored
the more than fifty State/EMbassy messages passed to it by PACOM concerning
the Lao T-6/T-28 transaction. Commenting on this, Maj. Gen. Glen W. Martin,
PACAF Deputy Chief of State for Plans and Operations, exclaimed: "The
extent to which the State Department has gotten into the details of routine
Air Force business is actually fantastic." (177) In Saigon, where he was
Air Force Component Commander, MACV-THAI, General Anthis, wrote Martin:
"We do not have access to the messages you refer to but the end product
as sent down through CINCPAC/MACV channels reflect some pretty fuzzy
thinking on State's part." As a matter of fact, Anthis needed information
from Laos as an input to his planning for Vietnam and Thailand. To a
degree he was kept abreast of developments in Laos by fairly regular
briefings given to him by Lt. Ccl. C. E. Rigney, Air Force Attache in
Vientiane. (178)
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In the formulation of the Thai Master Force Plan during 1962, Ambassador
Young was convinced that internal subversion rather than external attack
was the main Communist threat to Thailand, but, as has been seen, he was
persuaded to accept a "two track" plan whereby infantry and air force units
would be prepared for conventional military defense operations and would be
additionally employed in civic actions and counterinsurgency projects. In
April 1963, however, Young sent CRJUSMAG Thailand a memorandum requesting
that the MAP plans reflect a greater emphasis on counterinsurgency. In a
very unusual action, Ambassador Young also wrote directly to Secretary
McNamara disagreeing with the MAP projection for Thailand and recommending
that a predominant emphasis should be given to counterinsurgency. In July,
the Embassy informed the State Department that money should be taken from
MAP and applied to AID political and economic development projects or else
the MAP-supported Thai armed forces should be influenced to provide much
larger returns in terms of increased deterrence to subversion and insurgency.
(179) At a conference of State and Defense personnel held at Udorn in
December 1963 in an effort to harmonize policy, a member of the Bangkok
Embassy staff argued that the USAF F-100 flight should be removed from
Thailand and replaced with an allegedly more useful Air Force Special Air
Warfare (SAW) detachment. (180)
Among some officials of the Kennedy administration, a very high degree
of authority for the US Ambassadors in Southeast Asia appeared right and
appropriate. After their visit to South Vietnam and Laos at the beginning
of 1963, Eilsman and Forrestal gave President Kennedy an "eyes only"
recammendation calling for the appointment of a very prestigious individual
who could dominate all other governmental representatives as ambassador
to Vietnam. (181) Held by Admiral Felt in May 1963, a PACOM MAAG Chiefs
Conference discussed the "country team." Even though Ambassador Young's
direct correspondence with Secretary McNamara was believed to be unprece-
dented, Felt advised the MAAG Chiefs not to get too excited about it since
all MAAG s could justify their programs through a military chain of cammand.
But Felt urged the MAAG Chiefs to give him their best military judgments;
concurrence of the ambassador in the judgment was not important. (182)
In Thailand the arrival of J. Graham Martin as the new U.S. Ambassador
brought a more measured view of MAP planning in the latter part of 1963.
Martin favored a development of Thai counterinsurgency capabilities,
though not as a crash program at the expense of MAP. Later that year,
Martin would also accept the PACAF position that an F-100 flight and a
SAW detachment could not be equated against each other and that both were
in fact required in Thailand but for different reasons. (183) The harmoni-
zation of defense and political policy in Laos was less felicitious, even
after October 1963 when the rainy season ended and the Communists renewed
their probes of FAR and Neutralist defenses, and the Western defenses of
South Vietnam neared collapse. Already on record as being somewhat less
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than enthusiastic about the failure to employ airpower in Laos, Admiral
Felt was very skeptical about the Vientiane Embassy's description of the
fighting in Laos as "skirmishes" since Felt pointed out that the Pathet
Lao/Vietminh had established control over most of Laos in three years
of "skirmishing." (184) As will be seen, Ambassador Unger would reluctantly
be compelled to release bombs to the Lao Air Force, but he would continue to
believe that it would be in the best world-wide interest of the United States
"to keep low emphasis on the situation in Laos." (185)
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CHAPTER 7
NATIONAL COUNTERINSURGENCY PLANNING IN VIETNAM,
1962-1963
1. The MACV National Campaign Plan: Concepts and Requirements
In the Communist estimate of the situation in Vietnam, 1961 had been
a "Front" year in terms of victories, but there were unmistakable signs
in mid-1962 that US actions in Southeast Asia had disrupted Communist
plans. Inside South Vietnam the National Liberation Front was troubled
by the establishment of strategic hamlets, and it issued carders on 23
June for intensified Vietcong attacks against them. Heliborne operations
had caught the Vietcong off balance.(1) The strong US show of force into
Thailand in May 1962 affected the situation in Vietnam. According to Ngo
Dinh Nhu, the Soviet Union was reluctant to continue to supply the two
North Vietnamese Army (NVA) regiments stationed in the Lao panhandle, and
Hanoi was not prepared to take over their support. Nhu said that the NVA
regiments in Laos were in trouble. In a sudden spurt of activity between
I May and 15 June 1962 some 1,000 to 1,800 infiltrators moved from Laos
into South Vietnam, but in the month after 15 June only 80 infiltrators
from Laos were sighted, and these men apparently returned to Laos after a
foraging raid on a South Vietnamese village. The remainder of the NVA
force in Laos marked time, awaiting new policy and consuming supplies
that the Communists had consigned for movement into Zone D, where the
Vietcong had been attempting to stockpile enough food and equipment to
support a division-sized unit for attacks against Saigon. (2)
Indicating that Hanoi might be willing to give up its efforts to
unify Vietnam by force, the National Liberation Front released a state-
ment on 17 July 1962 calling for the creation of a neutral state in
South Vietnam along the lines of the neutralization of Laos. At the same
time Ho Chi Minh was quoted as praising Diem's patriotism and nationalism.
After an interview with Ho Chi Minh in July, the historian Bernard Fall
noted that Hanoi was impressed by the result of US bombing of North Korean
industry during the Korean war and was apprehensive for the safety of its
new factories if the Vietcong war should spread and bring US bombs over
North Vietnam.(3) Where in 1959 Ho had predicted defeat of the Government
of Vietnam in one year, he had begun by September 1962 to say that victory
might take 15 to 20 years.(4)
In Washington some consideration was given to the prospects for a
political solution to the Vietnamese problem, a proposition suggested to
President Kennedy in a memorandum from Ambassador Galbraith on 4 April
1962. At his post in New Delhi, Galbraith continued to believe that Diem
was a weak and ineffectual leader and that US policy ought to look toward
political solutions for Vietnam. The Joint Chiefs of Staff vigorously
disagreed on 13 April, stating that the effect of such an action would be
to put the United States in a position of initiating negotiations with the
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Communists in search of a disengagement from what had become a well-known
commitment to take a forthright stand against Communism in Southeast Asia.(5)
In Saigon President Diem told the National Assembly on 9 October that the
war against the Vietcong had taken an "incontestable turn" for the better,
but in private conversations Vietnamese governmental leaders Diem and Nhu
did not understand the reasons why the United States had agreed to a neu-
tralization of Laos. They opposed any similar neutralization for Vietnam,
which they considered would be merely a siren-song to lull the war-weary
and would result in an eventual Communist takeover. In conferences with
President Diem and Nhu on 22 October, Admiral Felt and Ambassador Nolting
found both men worried about US policy toward South Vietnam and assured
them that the United States had not weakened its resolution to resist
Communism in Vietnam.(6) In his awn government, Diem put off all sug-
gestions that he broaden the base of authority since it was well known
that the Communists had approached many of his opponents with proposals
for a neutralized coalition.
At mid-1962 it was evident that US support for the Government of
Vietnam had arrested many former adverse trends. As already noted,
Secretary McNamara recognized this fact on 23 July when he directed
General Harkins to look ahead to -a three-year program to train and equip
the RVNAF and phase out major US combat, advisory, and logistics support
activities. Since US requirements planning for South Vietnam would depend
upon some definite nationwide campaign plan, MACV staff officers in the
period from July to September 1962 prepared a MACV National Campaign Plan
(NCP) that would hopefully guide the RVNAF. General Harkins briefed the
NCP to Secretary McNamara on 8 October, following which it was presented
to the RVNAF Joint General Staff, to Secretary Thuan, and to President
Diem, all of whom accepted it in 'principle and authorized joint RVNAF-US
planning.(7)
In its essentials the MACV National Campaign Plan was a collection of
concepts rather than an exact military plan. It took note of the fact
that ARVN was being manned with nine regular divisions, but that if the
total fighting people in South Vietnam were reckoned in division strength
figures South Vietnam would possess approximately 51 divisions. It
envisioned that all South Vietnamese forces would be brought under unified
leadership, this through reforms of the Joint General Staff and the estab-
lishment of four largely autonomous ARVN corps tactical zone (CTZ) area
field commanders. The concept of operations was predicated on destruction
of low echelon enemy elements and their replacement capabilities; the
maintenance of pressure on Vietcong supply, communications, control, and
support facilities, and the limiting of insurgents to designated areas;
and, following the accomplishment of these preliminaries, the RVNAF would
launch a general offensive to annihilate the enemy. The planning called
for three time-phased activites in the OTZs: I--Preparation, II--Conduct
of the Campaign, and III--Consolidation. In late 1962 General Harkins
conceived that an explosion of the total RVNAF capabilities would destroy
the Vietcong, hopefully in 1962. Harkins conceived that the Phase II
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"Explosion" operations would begin immediately after the "Tet" Lunar New
Year holiday on 28 January 1963, and at a meeting on 9 January 1963
Harkins pointedly reminded Diem that he had promised to win during 1963.
Diem responded, "Sure, sure," but demurred that the strategic hamlets
would have to be completed first and that this would not be done before
the spring of 1964. Following Diem's lead, the Joint General Staff
ruled that the Phase I preparation phase could not start until three-
quarters of the strategic hamlets had been completed and two-thirds of
the national population was under such control. (8)
On the positive side the MACV NCP was the first expression of a
countrywide counterinsurgency strategy that was acceptable to President
Diem, but on the negative side the plan's generalized concepts provided
an uncertain basis for computing exact military requirements, although
1L was evident that the plan represented Navy and Army views about the
nrganization and employment of air power and would be quite expensive in
Lf-,s reauirements for aviation resources. Issued by Admiral Felt on 6
June 196L, a new CINCPAC Instruction, "Policy Governing the Establishment
of Combat Operations Centers and Air Operations Centers," accepted -- in
the view of General O'Donnell -- the US Marine Corps position that air
operations in a contingency situation did not require the degree of
central control by an Air Force component commander judged necessary by
the Air Force. As has been noted, this instruction made it incumbent upon
PACOM subunified commanders to organize a combat operations center for
joint planning and coordination and an air operations center which would
function under an Air Force component commander to control the operations
of USAF units and to serve as a coordinating authority over the operations
of other air units not assigned to ar made available to the Air Force but
which were operating in the area of responsibility of the Air Force com-
p=ent commander. On the other hand, Admiral Felt conceived that this
instruction recognized the fact that each of the US armed services pos-
sessed aircraft units which might or might not be volunteered to Air Force
control and required that air operations in a contingency situation should
be coordinated by the Air Force component commander.(9) In an implementing
directive on 18 August, MACV referred to the already operational VNAF-USAF
Joint Operations Center as the "Air Operations Center" and envisioned the
organization of a RVNAF "Combat Operations Center" under the JGS. The NCP
made the same requirements, and orders issued by President Diem an 26
November for some unknown reason designated the JGS center as the "Joint
Operations Center" and redesignated the VNAF-USAF JOC as the "Joint Air
Operations Center. "(10)
Other concepts relating to force organization contained in the NCP
appeared to trace back to a US Army conceptual study submitted to
Secretary McNamara on 16 January 1962 which proposed that since counter-
insurgency operations would be conducted primarily in a land environment
and among people the US Army should develop and provide both the air units
and the ground forces required to provide support to friendly indigenous
ground forces engaged against insurgents. This concept had not been
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approved, but on 19 April 1962 Secretary McNamara had requested the
Secretary of the Army to provide.him with an imaginative study of the
future role of Army aviation without regard to traditional military .
doctrine. The Army had establiShed a Tactical Mobility Requirements
Board under the presidendy of Lt. Gen. Hamilton H. Howe, and after 18
weeks study the Howze Board had recommended an 20 August the estab-
lishment of a new air-assault (later airmobile) division, Which would
possess 459 Organic aircraft, including armed helicopters and Mohawk
aircraft for an important part of its firepower. In addition to
organic transport helicopters, the airmobile division would be supported
by an air transport brigade, which would possess 54 transport helicopters
and 80 Caribou transport aircraft and would be prepared to pick up cargo
delivered by Air Force transports and carry it forward to the airmobile
units in the field. The Howze Board suggested that the airmobile con-
cept would be extremely useful to meet local requirements for air-ground
operations in a counterinsurgency environment such as that in Southeast
Asia.(11) In the same month that the Howze Board report appeared, the
US Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations stated that experience in
Vietnam demonstrated that "a counterinsurgency force commander must have
instantaneous authority and capability to utilize any element of his
force, including aircraft and crews without going through interservice
coordination machinery. 11(12) In the RVNAF reorganization recommended by
the NCP and accepted by President Diem in a series of decrees, arders,
and directives on 26 November, the central Field Command was inactivated
and South Vietnam's territory (outside of the Capital Military District
around Saigon) was divided among four corps tactical zones (the new IV
CTZ being established in the Mekong Delta with headquarters at Can Tho).
The draft command and force annex to the NCP, which was drawn up by the
MACV staff and coordinated with the South Vietnamese government before
being shown to the 2d Air Division, provided that the corps tactical zone
commanders would exercise operational control over VNAF elements allocated
to support their operations.(13)
As will be seen, the CINCPAC instruction of 6 June did not provide the
Commander, 2d Air Division, with an effective degree of positive control
of air operations over South Vietnam, and the designation of the Joint
General Staff center as a "Joint Operations Center" produced confusion
among RVNAF personnel who had only begun to understand the duties performed
by the VNAF-USAF agency at Tan Son Nhut, which was immediately redesignated
as the Joint Air Operations Center (JAW) and subsequently the Air Opera-
tions Center (AOC). By mid-December the JGS-JOC was established under
direct control of Lt. Can. Le Van Ty, Chief of Staff of the JGS. In manning
the JGS-JOC, ARVN was allocated 81 officer spaces and VNAF 15 (only 6 of
which could be immediately filled). As a counterpart advisory element to
the JGS-JOC, MACV organized the MAC Staff Element (MACSTELM), and the
MACSTELM officer spaces were divided so that 24 US Army officers, 3 US Navy
officers, and 6 USAF officers were assigned.(14) The relationships between
the JOS-JOG and the JAOC were not precisely defined, but in general the
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JGS-JOC provided broad strategic guidance to the JACO, established
priorities for air support when air resources could not meet all
requirements requested by the CTZ's, and maintained information status
boards on current RVNAF combat activities.(15)
It appeared at first that the NCP command and force annex would
result in control of VNAF units at the CTZ level, thus limiting the
functions of the JACC to a control over USAF aircraft through the
tactical air control system. After viewing the draft annex, however,
General Anthis stoutly maintained that operational control of Air Force
units would not be assigned to CTZ commanders, and that air support must
be made available through the TABS. In subsequent force tasking the
VNAF was charged to provide special support to CTZ's (not the CTZ com-
manders), to provide unrestricted strafing of secret Vietcong bases, and
to perform close air support, air reconnaissance, photography, and air-
lift.(16) The RVNAF reorganization required the organization of an
additional VNAF-USAF air support operations center at the new IV CTZ,
and at this same time the 2d Air Division took note of the fact that the
arrangement whereby the VNAF-USAF JOC at Tan Son Nhut had functioned in
lieu of a III ASOC had not worked too well although it represented a
saving of personnel. In the III Corps arrangement a III corps representa-
tive had been located in the operations center at Tan Son Nhut and had
received requests for air missions directly from the corps or its divisions
and passed them to responsible persons in the operations center. Under
this arrangement no single agency at III Corps had had complete knowledge
of air requests made within the corps. In January 1963 initial manning
was provided for the III ASOC in Saigon (later Bien Hoa) and for the IV
ASOC at Can Tho. The new ASOC's were officially recognized as opera-
tional effective on 15 March, but both had been functioning with limited
personnel for several weeks before this. (17)
At the same time that General O'Donnell pointed out the defects in
Admiral Felt's policy in regard to aviation organization in a subordinate
unified command, he also questioned the wisdom of Felt's increasing use
of MACV for the performance of planning. In order to maintain unity of
air capabilities throughout the Far East, PACAF's organizational concept
visualized that the 2d Air Division was a forward operational echelon of
the Thirteenth Air Force and conceived that the Thirteenth Air Force and
PACAF would be responsible for planning and implementing the air phase of
operations in Southeast Asia. On the other hand, MACV was charged to pre-
pare the national counterinsurgency plan for Vietnam, and also for con-
tingency and exercise planning in mainland Southeast Asia. As an operating
headquarters in a forward area, the 2d Air Division was not in a proper
position to assume basic responsibilities for air planning in Southeast
Asia, but COMUSMACV nevertheless looked to the 2d Air Division to provide
supporting air plans as inputs to MACV plans. Since the responsibility for
planning followed a direct chain of command from COMUSMOV to CINCPAC, the
Thirteenth Air Force and PACAF staffs were not in line to review plans,
although they were responsible for providing administrative and logistical
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support for air activities required in the plans. The fact that the
MACV J-staff was predominantly manned,by US. Army officers further com-
pounded the problem.(18) Back-channel information messages from 2d Air
Division to Thirteenth Air Farce and PACAF allowed the latter two
organizations same knowledge of MACV planning, and the Thirteenth Air
Force sent temporary duty officers to augment 2d Air Division plans
functions thus in same measure preserving the integrity of PACAF's planning
cycle, but the command arrangement was nevertheless awkward and had some
adverse impact upon air actions necessitated by the MACV NCP.
Unlike the earlier CINCPAC counterinsurgency plan for Vietnam, which
had visualized a most effective use of limited RVNAF resources through
the central agency of the Field Command as a national counterinsurgency
task force, the MACV NCP's requirment for simultaneous "explosion"
operations in the four separate CTZ's posed a very large requirement for
force capabilities. Where nscessary ground capabilities to support the
plan could possibly be obtained by mustering all ARVN and popular defense
force units into the effort, air!support could not be so simply attained.
In the view of USAF officers in Saigon the NCP concept of operations was
too vague to provide definite computations of air requirements, but as
far as could be determined the strike sortie rate under the expanded
explosion operations would more than double and there would be increased
requirements for reconnaissance, target spotting/identification, and
aerial resupply.(19) Plans for meeting expanded NCP air requirements
necessarily involved the question of haw much and how fast VNAF's still
limited pilot and support base could be expanded.
The three-year RVNAF. military assistance program requested by.Secre-
tary McNamara on 23 July 1962 was prepared by MAAG Vietnam, in which ariz.
Gen. Robert R. Rowland served as Chief, Air Force Section, and handled
VNAF augmentation planning. Available in August, Rowland's "get well"
program for VNAF followed McNamara's guidance and was quite ambitious.
It projected the activation of a secand-VNAF AD-6 (now being redesignated
as the A-IH) fighter squadron in fiscal year 1964, the activation of two
additional VNAF fighter squadrons in fiscal year 1966 both to be equipped
with Northrup-156 light jet fighters (the aircraft that USAF was developing
for MAP and Which would be designated as the F-5 Freedom Fighter), and
replacement of the planes in the VNAF T-28 squadron and in one of the VNAF
A-Ill squadrons with the F-5 Freedom Fighters in the fiscal year 1966-68
time frame. The projection included a total of nine VNAF L-19 liaison
squadrons (one for each ARVN division) and four VNAF helicopter squadrons.
The VNAF air reconnaissance program included the already projected squadron
with 4 RT-33s and 18 RT-28s, and the air transport projection visualized
combination of the VNAF C-478 into a single squadron during fiscal year
1965 and provision of two VNAF C-123 squadrons, one in fiscal year 1965
and the other in fiscal year 1968.(20)
In the presentations of the proposed VNAF program, Maj. Gen. C. J.
Timmes, Chief of the US MAAG ob,jected that the helicopter and liaison
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squadrons should be assigned to the ARVN rather than to VNAF. When
Admiral Felt heard the RVNAF MAP projection briefed an 20 October, he
questioned the prospective cost of the VNAF program and also suggested
that where the US State Department might conceivably approve the four
RT-33 jet reconnaissance it. would not likely accept F-5 light jet
fighters. Felt was receptive to Rowland's proposal to provide VNAF
with a total of four H-34 helicopter squadrons, but he cut the VNAF
liaision squadron projection back from nine to a total of four squadrons,
the additional liaison squadron to be activated in fiscal year 1964.
Although Felt remarked that the F-Ss would probably be shot down
politically, he allowed the jet projections to stay in the VNAF program
because he thought that it was important to provide jet aircraft to VNAF.
VNAF pilot and technical training in the United States would continue
and be expanded, but General Rowland called attention to the advantages
of pilot training in Vietnam. In October it was agreed that a USAF Air
Training Command field training detachment would come to Vietnam, use
H-19s taken out of local storage, and open a helicopter pilot training
program at Tan Son Nhut. In December it was also agreed that a USAF ATC
field training detachment would be sent to Nha Trang to initiate liaision
pilot training, thus not only providing personnel for the new liaison
squadron but also permitting experienced VNAF L-19 pilots to up-grade to
T-28s and experienced T-28 pilots to move up to A-1H cockpits.(21)
As will be seen, the VNAF MAP projections would be overtaken by events
and would be changed by higher authority, but they nevertheless provided
an indication to General Anthis that prospective VNAF air capabilities
would be insufficient to support the aviation requirements of the MACV NCP.
In addition to the Farm Qate augmentation Which had been requested on14
September 1962 (and, as was seen, reflected current rather than NCP
requirements), the 2d Air Division submitted a request for a USAF aug-
mentation to support the NCP to MACV on 6 October 1962, The request went
through the MACV staff with general concurrence until it reached the MACV
Chief of Staff, who returned it with a memo citing "lack of specific
justification." After getting more specific ground action data from MACV,
another 2d Air Division requirements study was submitted on 23 November.
These calculations indicated a requirement for a temporary USAF augmenta-
tion for service in Vietnam to include one T-28 squadron (25 aircraft),
one 3-26 squadron (25 aircraft), two additional RF-101 aircraft, two
additional RB-26 aircraft, and three squadrons of USAF liaison aircraft.
General Anthis considered it necessary to get the USAF liaision squadrons
(which could be equipped with USF L-28s, US Army L-19s, or commercial
Cessna-185s) because many strike missions had been delayed or deferred
for lack of FAC aircraft, because more visual reconnaissance and convoy
cover was required, and because the VNAF liaison objective had been cut
back from nine to four squadrons.(22)
Airlift requirements for the support of the NCP were calculated an the
basis of the NCP logistical support plan prepared in MACV J-4 under the
direction of Brig. Gen. Frank A. Osmanski, whose concepts of "wholesale"
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and "retail" air transport channel operations followed thinking similar
to that of the Howze Board. The logistic plan visualized sea lift to
five port areas -- Saigon, Da Nang, Qui Nhon, Nha Trang, and Can Tho --
with 0-123 airlift radiating out from these ports to third destination
airfields where air cargo would be picked up by integral corps air-
craft including Otters, Caribous, and helicopters. The C-123s would
also handle high priority movements between Saigon and the second-
destination port airfields. Osmanski estimated that it would be neces-
sary to move 36,000 short tons per month by air to support NCP operations.
An estimated 4.3 million ton miles of airlift per month was visualized as
necessary, some 2.1 million ton miles more than could be provided by the
two 0-123 squadrons and one Caribou company that were in Vietnam.
Accordingly, on 2 December, General Harkins requested that two more
squadrons of C-123s (32 aircraft) and one additional company of CV-2B
Caribou aircraft (16 planes) should be sent to Vietnam, the first addi-
tional 0-123 squadron to arrive ab Da Nang in the first half of January
1963 and the second additional C-123 squadron to be prepared to move to
an airfield that would be designated to receive it during the last half
of March. (23)
In its early development the Civil Irregular Defense Group program
in South Viet am had been managed by the US Embassy's
ith assistance provided by US Army Special Forces training
a en s. By July 1962 pure7lyllitary contributions to the CG pro-
gram had begun to outweigh th
ontribution, leading to the decision
e
to transfer the program to MACV, which would organize Hqs. US Army Special
Forces (Provisional) at Nha Trang on 15 September 1962 and complete the
entire transfer by 1 July 1963. In the United States the US Army recom-
mended to the Secretary of Defense that Army special warfare aviation
detachments should be formed to pl-cvide organic airlift and strike support
for US Army Special Forces, and the Howze Board report made a similar
recommendation. Within USAF, moreover, Brig. Gen. Gilbert L. Pritchard,
Commander, USAF Special Air Warfare Center, conceived that USAF air
commando units ought to work very closely with US Army Special Force units,
receiving requests from Special Forces directly and performing the mission
Both in meetings with
Col. George C. Morton, who woild command the US Army Special Forces
(Provisional) Vietnam, and in MACV staff considerations during October,
General Anthis argued that Farm Gate and the Combat Cargo Group were
already providing strike and logistical air support to the Special Forces
and could continue to do so. "If every operation in South Vietnam were
provided with its awn separate air force," Anthis maintained, "the result
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would quite obviously be a fragmentation and waste of the limited resources
available, and non-effective use of air power." On 25 October, however,
General Harkins recommended to C/NCPAC that US Army Special Farces Vietnam
should be provided an organic airlift and fire support unit to comprise
four L-20s or L-28s, four Caribous, 12 HU-1D helicopters, and four Mohawks.
Harkins specified that all operations of the organic Special Farces air-
craft would be fully coordinated with the TACS.(25)
In advice to Admiral Felt in regard to air support for the US Army
Special Forces, PACAF emphasized that General Anthis could respond to the
total air requirements in Vietnam and that separate air forces for each
functional operation would be unwarranted and wasteful. This position
was reinforced by MACV estimates that the Special Forces would require
some 36 close air support sorties a month, plus a monthly airlift of
approximately 680 short tons of cargo from the Nha Trang Special Forces
logistical depot to Special Forces supply points in the ARVN CTZs.
Obviously in some agreement with PACAF's position during November, Admiral
Felt ruled that air support in Vietnam should be closely coordinated and
centrally controlled and stated that he would not permit any direct assign-
ment or allocation of air support specifically to the CIDG or Special
Forces. When Harkins then proposed to employ Air America contract airlift
in support of the Special Forces, Felt again replied that if such air-
craft were employed they should be operated as a part of the total air
capability and not committed to the exclusive use of the Special Forces. (26)
Despite the CINCPAC objections to the further proliferation of aviation
forces in Vietnam, the issue of organic US Army aviation support for
Special Forces remained under consideration in Washington. In a command
decision in Vietnam in early December, moreover, General Harkins withdrew
the four Army Caribou transports that had been available for a short time
tD the Southeast Asia Military Airlift System for common-use scheduling
and committed them for the support of the Army Special Forces in the four
CTZs. On 14 December, Harkins also cited excellent test results obtained
from the six Army Mohawks assigned to the 23d Special Warfare Aviation
Detachment at Nha Trang, and he recommended that four additional Mohawks
should be sent to Vietnam, possibly to be used for Special Forces support.(27)
2. ARVN Defeat at Ap Bac and Review of MACV Plans and Organization
During conversations with Admiral Felt on 22 October, President Diem
was not ready to think about countrywide "explosion" operations, but he
believed that the time had come for a series of all-out attacks against
Vietcong strongholds. In the Delta it would be important to work against
the U Minh guerrillas on the Ca Mau peninsula, who were preventing move-
ment of charcoal to Saigon, thus denying the people fuel for cooking fires
and forcing the government to bring in coal at an unnecessary expense. The
Plain of Reeds southwest of Saigon was also important since this marsh area
afforded the Vietcong access to that Diem called the "Holy Sanctuary" of the
Cambodian border and also dominated the one main highway leading northward
from the rich food resources of the Delta. Diem nevertheless believed that
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it would be difficult and time-consuming to bring the Delta under full
government control, and he was most-interested in clearing the enemy out
of War Zones C and D to the north of Saigan.(28)
As has been seen, the ARVN 21st Division mounted heliborne opera-
tions against the U Minh guerrillas in October 1962, now having additional
support from newly arrived US Army HU-LA helicopter gunships. The major
operations, however, were cast against Zones C and D, under the overall
direction of Brig. Gen. Ton That Dinh, the former commander of the ARVN
II Corps who took command of the ARVN III CTZ. At Diem's personal direc-
tion, ARVN Ranger forces were committed to penetration operations into and
through Zone D under command of a Lieutenant Colonel Dien, who was placed
in charge of operations in Phouc Long, Binh Long, and Phuoc Thanh provinces
-- the new area of operations being designated as the PBT Special Tactical
Zone. Diem had highest respect for Dien and for the difficulty of the
Ranger mission in the dark jungle reaches of Zone D; Diem emphasized that
when Dien asked for air support he must be sure to get it. While PBT
Special Zone Ranger worked against Zone D, the ARVN 5th Division was
expected to intensify its campaign into Zone C in northwestern Tay Ninh
province. (29)
The PBT Special Zone operations against Zane D began on 20 November
1962, when after a pre-landing bombardment, five Mule Train C-123s and
12 VNAF C-47s dropped 500 ARVN paratroopers at an obscure zone selected
for a base camp at the eastern edge of Zone D. The weather was poor, the
drop zone inadequately marked, and the C-123s had difficulty putting their
strings of paratroopers into the small zone, but the pre-landing attacks
by 15 AD-6s were reported highly effective in shielding the drop zone from
Vietcaag apposition.(30) On 19 December the PBT Rangers launched Operation
Holiday as a panetration into Zone 0, where double tree canopy cover
extended upward to 80 foot heights. In the penetration, Dien asked for air
support only as a last resort. Close support included a B-26 which dropped
napalm on 23 December, and a B-26 and two T-28s which delivered general
purpose bombs on 1 January. In additian, Dien requested and received eight
interdiction strikes against Vietcong activities plotted in the near vicinity
to his line of march. The effect of, air ordnance against targets in the
heavily forested (but fairly dry) terrain proved better than expected. The
napalm exploded in the tree tops but_ enough of it burned down to reach the
jungle floor. The deputy Senior US Army Advisor visited four of the inter-
diction targets and found evidences that the enemy had hurriedly left them
during the air attacks. Rockets and .50-caliber fire had penetrated the
jungle canopy and 500-1b. bombs had burst trees, scattering lethal wood
fragments. No casualties were noted but ten fresh graves were found. Mid-
way in a three week operation, Dien replaced the three Ranger companies
used in the initial drive with three fresh Ranger companies that were lifted
in by helicopter on 3 January. In addition to disrupting the Vietcang
sanctuary, the Rangers killed 62 and captured 10 of the enemy at a cost of
12 killed and 68 wounded. They also captured quantities of enemy equipment,
including a 60-mm. mortar made in Rod China.(31)
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In response to a report of a large Vietcong assembly east of Tay
Ninh City, the ARVN III Corps hurriedly conceived and launched an ARVN
5th Division heliborne attack called ?Autumn Breeze Phase IV between
19-21 December. The size of the Vietcong force was exaggerated, but
the ARVN troops caught three Vietcong, who yielded exact information
about the location, functions, and staffing of 12 NIS-COSVN head-
quarters installations scattered through northern Tay Ninh province.
This information was additionally verified by special agent reports,
and General Dinh requested the Joint General Staff to authorize a maxi-
mum three-day air strike against the target that would be designed to
exploit surprise and inflict maximum personnel casualties. Most of the
targets, however, lay within the 10-mile restricted attack zone that had
been established a month earlier at US insistence along the Cambodian
border. Hesitating to disturb relations with Cambodia, President Diem
initially disapproved the air attacks but upon reconsideration he felt
that the opportunity was too great to forego. Instead of the intensive
air strikes, the Joint General Staff directed that Operation Burning
Arrow, scheduled to begin on 2 January 1963 would include a heavy hour-
long air attack (including Some delayed action bombs) against nine of
the 12 targets farthest from the Cambodian border, preparatory to an air
drop of some 1,250 ARVN paratroops and a heliborne landing of a battalion
of ARVN rangers to seize the nine objectives. The air plan included
additional "light strafing attacks" to be mounted against the enemy posi-
tions during the landings, to be followed by airborne alert Lr-19s and
fighters from daylight to dark and airborne C-47 flare ships on station
through the night of 2/3 January. Diem directed that American pilots
would watch the ARVN troops closely so that they would not inadvertently
cross the Cambodian border. To forestall warning the enemy by pre-
liminary reconnaissance flights (as many as ten observation flights had
been made over same objective areas in past operations) the people with
a need to know the lay of the land in the objective areas were assembled
in a C-123 and taken over the areas in one straight-through flight.(32)
On the morning of 2 January 1963, the Joint General Staff committed
the entire farce of VNAF AD-6s and Farm Gate B-26s and T-28s at Bien Hoa
to the support of Burning Arrow. The elanding air attacks apparently
surprised the Vietcong. In the paradrops that followed some element of
surprise was probably sacrificed, since the ARVN Airborne Brigade com-
mander found Vietcong stakes in his drop zone and kept the C-47s and
C-123s circling for some time until he decided to go ahead with the drops.
Including prelanding air strikes and some continuing strikes through the
day, 26 AD-6, 16 B-26, and 24 T-28 sorties were flown before the ter-
mination of Burning Arrow. General Dinh called the air support "splendid"
and so informed President Diem and General Harkins. In light ground
combat, ARVN troops sustained 9 killed and wounded, while the Vietcong
lost 76 killed and 16 prisoners. The paratroops and rangers also captured
a number of individual weapons and an important cache of documents at
COSVN's communications center. Initial assessments based upon POW reports
and upon an intercepted Vietcong radio message credited the air strikes on
2 January with killing some 400 persons, but later information obtained by
General Dinh from Cambodia led him to report that the initial air strikes
and the delay-fuzed bombs had inflicted heavier losses than earlier reported.
Dinh stated that three NLF VIPs had been killed, two others had been
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seriously wounded, and that betwnen 800-1,000 Vietcong had been killed.
Dinh refused to release this information to be public because it had
come from within the Communist sanctuary in Cambodia, and he did not
wish to aggravate South Vietnam's delicate relations with Sihanouk.(33)
In the US assessment, Operation BUraing Arrow was evaluated as the most
successful operation yet to have been conducted in the ARVN III Corps.
General Dinh was judged to have made an intelligent use of tactical air
support in the operation.(34)
On the same day that III CTZ operations in Zones C and D were meeting
substantial success, it was doubly unfortunate that a Vietcong victory
was shaping up on 2 January 1963 in the new IV CTZ south of Saigon at the
village of Ap Bac -- a victory that would restore the lagging morale of
the Vietcong to a remarkable degree and would also cast a pall over US
relations with President Diem's government. In the war in the Delta
during 1962, the ARVN 7th Division, under command of Lt. Col. Bui Dinh
Dam, had enjoyed a reputation of having killed more Vietcong than any
other ARVN division, and the 7th Division's operations in the Plain of
Reeds had appeared likely to deprive the Vietcong of their control over
this important area, covering access routes between the Delta and
sanctuary bases north of Saigon. American armored M-113 amphibious
vehicles had proved very useful in the swamps of the Plain of Reeds.
The Vietcong agreed with this estimate of the situation: the NLF leader-
ship was getting desperate and had almost concluded that it must yield
control of the Plain of Reeds and withdraw Vietcong regular force units
to northern sanctuary bases.(35)
Late in December ARVN intelligence pinpointed the location of a
Vietcong radio that was believed to be protected by a company of hardcore
Vietcong in a relatively inaccessible area near the village of Ap Bac,
about 15 miles northwest of the 7th Division command post at My Tho, and
an 29 December Colonel Dam revealed to his staff his intention to con-
duct Operation Due Thang against the objective. Dam envisioned heliborne
landings in an arc north and west of Ap Bac, from which the troops would
sweep southward to meet a mechanized M-113 armored company that would be
moving northward. The US Army Senior Advisor, Lt. Col. John P. Vann,
recommended that the operation should begin on 31 December, but helicopter
lift would not be available an this day and Dam decided to postpone it to
2 January, since New Year's Day was an American holiday. The USAF ALO,
Maj. Herbert L. Prevost, first learned of the planned operation an 30
December, and he prepared a plan for fixed-wing air support. Prevost
visited the JAOC on 31 December and was told that the JGS had committed
all available aircraft to the support of Burning Arrow on 2 January and
that no fighter cover or escort could be committed for Due Thang. Despite
this information, the USArmy' 93d Helicopter Company agreed to go ahead
with the heliborne operations, with one HU-1B and four HU-1A armed heli-
copter gunships to be used for cover and escort. In final briefings on
1 January 1963, Major Prevost reiterated that no fighter support would be
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available for Duc Thang, but he suggested that in an emergency the JAOC
might respond to immediate air support requests from the 7th Division.
Prevost also informed the JAOC that Operation Due Thang was going to be
conducted on 2 January. His telephone call to the JAOC was informal and
was prompted by his concern that the operation was going to be conducted
without tactical air support. He also hoped that some tactical air sup-
port might still be available at a last moment.(36)
Where the 7th Division expected to meet a Vietcong company in the
vicinity of Ap Bac, Operation Due Thang commencing at 0648 hours on 2
January 1963 was instead opposed by a well-trained Vietcong battalion,
armed with several heavy machine guns and a number of automatic rifles,
and well dug in under tree lines bordering the selected helicopter
landing zones. The first three helicopter lifts from Tan Hiep airfield
landed ARVN companies in the northern arc positions at 0703, 0910, and
0935, but the Vietcong opened a strong fire against the fourth H-21 lift,
shooting down an H-21. The HU-I gunships began to attempt to suppress
the enemy fire, expending altogether 8,400 rounds of .30-caliber and
7.62-mm. machinegun amnunition and 100 x 2.75-inch rockets. Another H-21
that was attempting to rescue the crew of the downed helicopter was shot
down, and an 1W-1B was disabled and crashed. Two other disabled H-21s
also went down before they could return to Tan Hiep. At 1005 hours, the
VNAF L-19 over Ap Bac sent an immediate air support request to the JAOC,
which responded to the emergency by diverting two AD-6s that had been
armed for strafing attacks in Tay Ninh province. These planes arrived
at 1035 and thereafter the JAOC kept either B-26s or T-28s continuously
active in the Ap Bac area. These planes were also armed for strafing
and were unable to quiet the Communist guns. At about 1540 a Fart Gate
B-26 came in with heavy ordnance, and its multiple runs with napalm, bombs,
rockets, and guns broke the Vietcong defense positions at the edge of Ap
Bac village. In the meantime, the Vietcong battalion had won the ground
battle. The armored M-113 company was put out of action when the Viet-
cong concentrated fire against unprotected gunners an the amphibious
vehicles. ARVN heliborne forces were pinned down by enemy fire. At noon
the ARVN IV Corps commander, Brig. Gen. Huynh Van Cao, and the US Army
Senior Corps Advisor, Colonel Daniel B. Porter, Jr., arrived at Tan Hiep,
and Colonel Porter with support from Vann and Dam proposed that ARVN
paratroops be called for an dropped east of Ap Bac to close the unguarded
escape route open to the Vietcong. In mid-afternoon, Cao asked for a
company of paratroops and at the JGS General Ty provided three companies.
At 1610 hours the JOS directed that the paratroops be dropped; 319 troopers
were assembled at planesides at Tan Son Nhut; the six C-123s of the
immediate-response "Fire Brigade" force blocked at 1740 hours; and the
drop took place at 1815 hours; but at Cao's order the drop zone was to
the west of Ap Bac rather than to the east. During the night hours of 2/3
January, the separate groups of ARVN troops engaged in fire fights with
each other, while the Vietcong battalion escaped with all of its wounded
and all but four of its dead. As ARVN troops moved cautiously into Ap Bac
on 3 January, advance elements came under short round fire of friendly
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4.2-inch mortars, losing 5 killed and 14 wounded. In the final reckoning,
65 1BVN and 3 US advisors were killed, 100 ARVN and 6 US advisors were
wounded; 14 helicopters were hit by enemy fire and five were shot down.
The South Vietnamese captured two Vietcong, found four bodies, and
estimated that 101 of the enemy were killed. In a briefing of the opera-
tional results, Lt. Col. Vann recommended that several ranking ARVN
officers should be relieved from oommand, and he would continue to
criticize the decision to drop the paratroops west of Ap Bac, saying to
newsmen: "They chose to reinforce defeat rather than try for victory. "(37)
In the Communist assessment the battle at Ap Bac was a major turning
point in the war in South Vietnam. It provided Vietcangtroops with an
indication that they could stand and fight against the American heli-
copters and M-113s. The Communist leaders at Ap Bac took credit for the
development of a new tactic of the deliberately invited battle and defeat
of government forces: a tactic described as "wipe-out-enemy-posts-and-
annihilate-enemy-reinforcements." The tactic would be used in numerous
battle to follow in the Delta and almost always to good advantage.(38)
The outcome of the battle and the press reports about it produced serious
mistrust between Americans and Diem's government. Initial press reports
by American newsmen stated that American advisors had been killed while
attempting to lead ARVN troops who would not follow or fight. These
reports gave the impression that embarrassed President Kennedy, whose
State of the Union message to Congress an 14 January 1963 would declare
that the spearhead of aggression had been blunted in South Vietnam. The
reports also embittered South Vietnamese leaders. In a conversation with
Admiral Felt on 9 January, Minister Thuan and General Ty professed amaze-
ment about the press coverage of Due Thang. Thuan complained that
American correspondents lere only dnterested in splashing news on the
front pages when Americans got hurt. He also told Felt that he had been
present at General Cao's command post on 4 January and had been surprised
to hear the US Advisor openly criticizing Cao's decision in regard to the
employment of the paratroops. In another revealing nuance, Madam Ngo
Dinh Nhu recalled American press reporting of the earlier Presidential
palace bombing incident, when she and her Children had been in grave
danger and the news stories, in her opinion, revealed an 'Till-concealed
regret that the bombing had failed in its objective."(39)
Arriving in Saigon an 8 January for three days of conferences, Admiral
Felt was strongly critical of the unescorted helicopter operation at Ap
Bac. He suggested to General Ty on 9 January that the Joint General Staff
should iSSUB an order similar to the order an convoy cover and requiring
fixed-wing air support for all heliborne operations. General Harkins
insisted, however, that the helicopters at Ap Bac had not been shot down
because of a lack of air cover and argued that with the limited number of
tactical aircraft available in South Vietnam mandatory air cover simply
could not be provided for every heliborne operatian.(40) Next day at MACV
headquarters, Felt bluntly stated that the Dug Thang heliborne attack
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should never have been conducted without fixed-wing air support and
that it was time that people learned that armed helicopters were not
an adequate substitute for fixed-wing support. Before departing for
Bangkok on 11 January, Felt took Anthis aside and told him that he
had put on the "show" at MACV for definite purposes, a remark which
Anthis understood to man that Felt wanted to emphasize that the Army
was not giving proper recognition to air activities.(41) In line with
Felt's remarks, General Anthis formally recommended to General Harkins
on 16 January exact procedures to insure that ARVN commanders and US
Army helicopter company commanders would coordinate all heliborne assault
operations with the JAOC and locally-responsible ASOC; that every heli-
borne landing would be protected and preceded immediately by fighter
aircraft; and that MACV instructions governing heliborne operations
should be modified to require fighter escort for all heliborne operations,
as well as prior coordination of the operations with the JAOC and res-
ponsible ASOCs.(42)
At a meeting on 7 January the US Joint Chiefs of Staff agreed that
General Earle G. Wheeler, US Army Chief of Staff, should lead a team of
senior representatives to South Vietnam to obtain an up to date assessment
of the situation. Upon arriving in Vietnam on 16 January, the Wheeler
team was interested in a broad assessment of the situation and did not
take a detailed look at Duc Thang. In response to questions put to him
at a wrap-up session, General Harkins informed General Wheeler that he
did not =eider that he required stronger Air Force representation on
his staff: if the Air Force got permission to assign a lieutenant general
as MACV deputy commander, Harkins said it would be a waste of good talent.
Harkins professed satisfaction with air organization, and Anthis told
Wheeler that he had info/111(3d Harkins of changes that he considered to be
needed, more snecifically the definite requirement that the JAOC must be
completely informed on US Army air activities. Harkins insisted that the
Mohawks ought to be allowed to carry rockets, and that the rule whereby
armed helicopters were restricted to returning fire only when fired upon
was too restrictive. Wheeler agreed with this. In other remarks, Wheeler
indicated that his team agreed that the TAGS must be fully informed of all
military air operations in South Vietnam.(43) Lt. Gan. David A. Burchinal,
the senior USAF representative on the Wheeler team, urged that US Army
representatives ought to be assigned to the ASOCs$ that air planning
should be accomplished jointly with ground planning, and that there should
be mandatory reports of all air operations to the JAOC. The Wheeler team
report, however, noted that the JAOC aught to be "fully exploited," with
the proviso that this did not imply centralized control of all aviation
assets, certain of which would continue to be more appropriately controlled
at lower organizational levels of the army and air structures. The team
report also noted that South Vietnam was in a large measure "a special
situation," which ought to be approached not in terms of "textbook solutions"
but with a possible view to "new techniques and different applications." The
Wheeler report also recommended change in the rule limiting armed helicopters
to return fire in self defense: on 17 February the Joint Chiefs of Staff
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accepted the recommendation, authorizing US helicopters "to engage
clearly identified Viet Cong elements which are considered to be a
threat to the safety of the helicopters and. their passengers. 't(4)
In November 1962 Admiral Felt had insisted that the Mohawk armed
reconnaissance aircraft should not be armed with rockets or used in
an offensive role, but after the Wheeler team visit he relaxed this
earlier stand and permitted the Mohawks to be armed with 2.75-inch
rockets.(45)
During the visit to South Vietnam, the Wheeler team also examined
the MAOV National Campaign Plan, and the Wheeler team report generally
endorsed the planning concept, which involved "many small operations,
with decentralized control" which would be undertaken "at an accelerated
pace by each corps, division, and sector commander in his own area."(46)
The Wheeler team noted that the tempo of small operations had reached 450
a month and would substantially increase in the months to come. The team
report expressed confidence that the NCP provided for adequate coordina-
tion of political, economic, and military operations. On tha other hand,
Roger Hilsman and Michael Forrestal made a visit to Southeast Asia at
President Kennedy's recommendation in December 1962, and were critical of
"elaborate, set-piece" military operations and of the fact that it was
difficult to be sure that air power was being used "in a way that minimizes
the adverse political effects." Hilsman and Forrestal informed President
Kennedy that the large US effort in South Vietnam was being managed by a
multitude of people without any real over-all direction. They recommended
that a single strong executive -- possibly the right kind of general but
even better a major civilian public figure -- should be appointed as US
ambassador and given authority to dominate all departments and agencies. (L7)
Said to reflect the views of Hilsman and Forrestal, a State Department
paper released under the authority of Under Secretary Harriman an 22 March
endorsed the employment of air transport planes and helicopters to increase
RVNAF mobility, the use of air to relieve units, posts, and hamlets under
attack, aerial reconnaissance, and possibly close air support of government-
initiated offensive operations. The paper was very critical of air inter-
diction operations, Which were described as basically a conventional war
concept, requiring clearly defined hostile territory that did not exist
within South Vietnam. Although the Wheeler team report endorsed emphasis
on small unit operations under decentralized control, the Department of
Defense would not concur in the Harriman paper, but Harriman sent it to
Ambassador Molting for a response. Ambassador Nolting prepared a fully
factual evaluation of the conduct of air operations in Vietnam, and his
reply to Harriman and Hilsman supported the continuation of air inter-
diction missions under careful controls to prevent accidental air strike
damage. (48)
The defeat at Ap Bac, particularly the press reporting of the US
advisory role in the combat there, produced new guidance affecting plans
for air capabilities to support the National Campaign Plan. When General
Harkins briefed Admiral Felt on 10 January concerning aviation require-
ments to support the NOP, Felt, more or less heatedly, tore the briefing
apart. Felt said that the proposed USAF tactical augmentation ignored
the fact that the United States was training the Vietnamese and not
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fighting the war in South Vietnam and that the augmentation would be
intolerable to President Kennedy's administratian. If the analysis of
air requirements was correct, Felt said that it proved that the National
Campaign Plan was not feasible and aught to be revised. Felt also sug-
gested that USAF could not support the proposed tactical augmentation,
that MACV had given him canflicting stories about the capability of
South Vietnamese air bases to support additional aircraft, and he remarked
that in order to get General Taylor's approval for the limited Farm Gate
augmentation which President Kennedy had accepted on 31 December 1962 he
had assured General Taylor that he would not be requesting an additional
augmentation of USAF units.(49) On the other hand, the Wheeler team was
more sympathetic to an effort to provide the aviation forces considered
necessary to support the NCP, and before leaving the theater General
Wheeler remarked that the matter of providing Mohawks and Caribou trans-
ports for the support of the US Army Special Forces was "still up for
grabs." Wheeler pointed out to Felt that the Secretary of Defense had
not prohibited US Army special warfare aviation detachments: if the
Special Forces in Vietnam required organic Army air support, CINCPAC
should feel free to recommend this to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.(50)
As will be seen the National Campaign Plan would not be revised to
reflect reductions in planned requirements for aviation support, but
rather efforts would be made to improvise aviation capabilities to support
the ambitious plan. As general guidance, Washington policy continued to
play down the role of the United States in the war effort and to seek to
turn the conflict over to the South Vistnamese. Already concerned about
news reports of US combat air activities in Vietnam, Secretary Rusk was
additionally anxious on 2 February, when Hanoi called upon the Vietnamese
International Control Commission to secure the withdrawal of USAF air units
which it said were "playing a key role" and causing widespread damage in
South Vietnam. On 15 February Rusk conceded that American reporters could
not very well be prevented from witnessing US operations, but he demanded
that the Embassy and MACV would give out no information relative to US
combat air operations because the United States ought not to accuse itself
of violating the Geneva accords or give the Communists an excuse for overt
escalation of the hostilities.(51) Later in February, US news media
carried stories that US helicopters were authorized to fire upon identifi-
able Communist concentrations. Secretary McNamara refused to discuss the
matter other than to say that US military personnel were under instructions
to fire only when it was necessary in the interest of their own safety.
Rusk reiterated: "Our policy remains that American role in Vietnam be
strictly limited to advisory, logistic, training functions."(52)
3. Improvisations of Air Control Systems and Air Capabilities
In World War II and Korea, the US Army had not possessed significant
numbers of organic aircraft in field units and had taken an active interest
in making theater air control and allocation systems function most effectively.
But in Vietnam the arrival of US Army organic aviation units presented General
Anthis with an entirely new situation which he described as being one in which
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he had to attempt to "sell" kir Focce support to the try, which was "a
customer that is also a competitor."(53) Mindful that the US mission in
South Vietnam was to make a maximum development of the scarce capabilities
of the Vietnamese kir Force and that available air facilities in South
Vietnam were quite limited, Admiral. Felt and General O'Donnell fully
accepted the Wheeler team's recommendation that the Joint Air Operations
Center and the Joint Airlift Coordination Board should be "fully exploited"
to plan and program the joint US Army-USAF air effort in Vietnam. (5t) Con-
fident that OCMUSMACV shared this same "common ground" as to how aviation
should be controlled, General O'Donnell wrote Harkins an 8 March 1963,
asking him to make a proper use of the Air Operations Center and the
tactical air control system to ensure unity or the air effort in Vietnam.
"Until the Army air effort joins the club, with the intent to cooperate
wholeheartedly in the achievement of valid operational objectives,"
O'Donnell wrote, "there will not be unity in the air effort. "(55)
In an effort to improve the responsiveness of the tactical air
control system, a team of officers -- including Generals Anthis and
Khanh, Colonel Hien, and other MACV and HVNAF officers -- had visited
II CTZ units down to the battalion level in November 1962 and had
determined that the chief defect in the TAGS was the inability of ARVN
administrative communications to pass air support requests to the ASOCs.
The ARVN communications moved air support requests very slowly at best
and often the requests were lost somewhere in transit and never reached
the ASOC. (56) Air-ground maneuvers conducted by the US Strike Command
in the United States during 1962 had recommended that the United States
should return to organizational procedures used in World War II whereby
air request communications down to Army battalion levels should be .owned
and manned by the Air ForCe.(57) In order to get needed field communica-
tions for USAF ALOs and FACs, USAF provided the 2d Air Division in the
winter of 1962-63 twenty contingency teams, each with an airman operator
and a commercial KWM-2A single-sideband "suitcase" radio. When accom-
panied by a contingency team, an ALO or FAC had quick radio communication
to the ASOC; he could insure that requests for air support passed through
ARVN channels reached the ASOC, and if the emergency were appropriately
serious the ALO/FAC radios could be uaed to request immediate air support
directly from the ASOC. This contingency "information" capability was not
up to the standard to be expected in the required ARVN air request net,
and there were not enough of the 1W111-2A radio sets to provide them to each
ALO/FAC. After the visit to II CTZ, Anthis -formally recommended to the
JOS that an air request net be established within the ARVN.(58)
It was General O'Donnell's view that the tactical air control system
had proved its value during the battle for Ap Bac, when strike aircraft
had been diverted to support the defeated ARVN forces. With additional
communications -- either an ARVN or a STRICOM air request net -- the TACS
could be made sufficiently flexible to support the decentralized National
Campaign Plan in South Vietnam. General Harkins did not agree. In let-
ters to Felt and O'Donnell on 22 March, Harkins stated that the geography
and the imperfect communications in South Vietnam ruled out any concept
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of direct centralized control of the total air effort from the central
j.A.OG. Harkins intended to commit deployed VNAF-USAF air strike teams to
the specific support of the CTZs in which they were based and to place
them under the direct control of the ASOC in the CTZ where they were
located. The main effort of the JACC would be to redistribute strike
potential among the several CTZs in response to the tempo of local opera-
tions and in consonance with the priorities established by the JGS-JOC.(59)
In March MACV established a Flight Service Network, hubbed by a Flight Ser-
vice Center continuously located with the CRC at Tan Son Nhut, and
Harkins argued that a mandatory requirement that all military air flights
be reported to the flight following service would satisfactorily meet
Admiral Felt's. directive that the MACV air component commander possess
"coordinating authority" over all air operations in South Vietnam. In a
conversation on 27 April, General Moorman pressed Harkins to state a
requirement for the ARVN air request net. Harkins assured Moorman that
such a requirement would be forthcoming, but it was not.(60)
Seeking a settlement of the air organizational problem on 20 May,
Admiral Felt informed Harkins that all USAF assets in South Vietnam must
be operated under the TACS, with the Air Operations Center assigning or
allocating the air resources to the ASOCs, which, in turn, would directly
commit and control the resources for whatever period of time the AOC made
them available. Felt also suggested that Harkins could place US Army air .
units under the TACS, but that in any event operations of the units would
have to be coordinated through the TACS in order to prevent mutual inter-
ference,.to facilitate flight following, to simplify air defense identifica-
tion problems, and to provide for offensive combat support when the tactical
situation so required.(61) Harkins did not agree that he could place non-
USAF air units under the TACS because, he said, the TACS did not possess
sufficient common communications to provide precise coordination of all air
activities throughout South Vietnam. Instead, Harkins accepted a task
organization and management plan for US Marine and US Army aviation resources
prepared by the MACV J-3, Maj. Gen. Richard G. Stilwell, Which was briefed
on 7-8 June and issued as MACV directive an 8 July. This task organization
placed general supervision over allocations of Army and Marine aviation in
the MACV J-3 Army Air Operations Section, but brigaded all Army and Marine
aircraft under aviation headquarters in each CTZ headquarters: specifically
a Marine headquarters in the I CTZ and Army aviation battalion headquarters
in the II, III, and IV CTZs. Working through the commanders of the aviation
headquarters, the Corps Senior Army Advisors would plan, direct, and control
the employment of all US Army and Marine Corps aviation units and aircraft
operating in direct support of their respective corps. Harkins also issued
strict orders that Army and Marine aviators must scrupulously comply with
flight following rules to the full extent of their communications capabilities.
General Anthis did not concur in this aviation organization plan and asked
General Harkins not to approve it, stressing that the new arrangement would
result in at least two and probably five separate air control systems -- and
separate air wars -- within the limited area of South Vietnam. But Harkins
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replied: "Letts give these things a three or four month trial and if it
doesn't work out we will change it." Within a few months Anthis' pre-
dictions about separate control systems proVed correct: General Harkins
(who had not stated a MACV requirement for an ARVN tactical air request
net) approved a request for experimental command communication nets
within the CTZs for controlling ArmY and Marina aviation.(62)
During its survey of the situation in South Vietnam, the Wheeler
team was skeptical of the MACV requirements for transport airlift in
addition to the 31 VNAF C-47s, 36 USAF C-123s, 16 US Army Caribous, and
16 US Army U-1A Otters that were already present. Both Wheeler and Felt
were apprehensive that additional transport aircraft would overburden the
limited air facilities, and the Wheeler team report recommended that MACV
"fully exploit" the Southeast Asia Airlift System and the Joint Airlift
Coordination Board mechanism to secure a greater utilization from avail-
able transport airframes. The report also offered General Harkins a team
of airlift experts who would be abaB to get increased results. As has
been seen, the C-123s were not being fully utilized: practically all air
transport movements radiated with Cargo out of Saigon and the C-123s
frequently returned home empty. The US Army, moreover, wanted its
Caribous and Otters deployed in direct support of the CTZs rather than
to be committed to the common-user airlift system. At the time of the
Wheeler visit, PACAF was additionally concerned that General Osmanski's
NCP airlift plan -- with three stages of airlift and consequent transfers
of cargo -- would be inefficient.(63) Admiral Felt took no action on the
MACV reqUest for airlift augmentation until be sent a member of his staff
to Vietnam to examine prospective Airbase loadings. In late January, Felt
informed the Joint Chiefs of Staff that better utilization could be made
of available airlift resources in Vietnam, but he requested deployment of
an additional C-123 squadron and another Caribou company, provided the
latter and the Caribou company already in Vietnam were included in the
established airlift system. In order to replace the Caribous assigned to
US Army Senior CTZ advisors, Felt asked the Joint Chiefs of Staff for an
additional platoon of light transport Otters, which would be employed in
the CTZs. Felt's recommendation in regard to the C-123s reflected planning
actions at PACAF, where note was taken of the fact that MACV NCP airlift
projections had been scaled down fram 36,000 to 24,000 tons per month.
PACAF also demonstrated that an increase of tie C-123 aircrew/aircraft
ratio to 1.5/1 would provide added airframe utilization, thus reducing the
immediate need for the second of the two additional C-123 squadrons requested
by MACV. (64)
In a message to General Wheeler on 1 February, General Harkins declined
to accept service of a team of USAF airlift experts, and he agreed to place
the Caribous under the SEAAS when additional Otters arrived.(65) Based upon
Admiral Felt's recapitulation of airlift requirements made on 23 February,
the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended and Secretary McNamara approved the
deployment of an additional C-123 squadron to Da Nang to be operational in
May 1963, the increase in C-123 crew manning recommended by PACAF so as to
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permit the C-123s to operate at a rate of 60 hours a month for each air-
craft, and the alerting of a fourth C-123 squadron to be on standby status
in the United States for deployment if it were needed. The Washington
authorities also directed deployment of eight Otters, 16 0-1A liaision
aircraft, and 10 UH-1B helicopters, these for assignment in direct support
of the CTZs, one mission, as will be seen, being to provide service to the
Army Special Forces. An additional Caribou company was approved for
deployment to South Vietnam provided MACV found it necessary to airlift
POL during the NCP. At Admiral Felt's direction shipment of the heavy
equipment for this Caribou company was begun by sea, with the idea that
the planes would be deployed by air if they were required.(66)
During March and April projected monthly NCP airlift tonnages did
not reach projected estimates, and the arrival of the USAF 777th Troop
Carrier Squadron at Da Nang with 16 C-123s on 17 April increased SEAAS
airlift capabilities. In May, MACV reduced the monthly NCP airlift pro-
jections from 24,000 tons to 16,500 tons, but General Osmanski continued
to insist that his airlift estimates would become realistic and that MACV
had a reuirement for the three squadrons of C-123s and the additional
company of Caribou aircraft. Where General Harkins had agreed that the
Caribous would be placed under the SEAAS, CINCARPAC in Hawaii objected to
this, urging Admiral Felt to recognize that the US Army had purchased the
Caribous in order to provide a short take off and landing plane that would
be immediately responsive to Army commanders in combat zones for the move-
ment of troops and critical supplies. Although centralized control of
airlift might be more efficient for the movement of cargo, CINCARPAC urged
that at corps level and below immediate responsiveness to a commander's
requirement was more important than efficiency. During May Admiral Felt
attempted to hold COMUSMACV to the agreement that both Caribou companies
would be assigned to the SEALS, but he was overcome by counter argumenta-
tion and accepted the formula incorporated in the MACV directive on task
organization and management of USMC/US Army aviation resources issued an
8 July whereby the two Caribou companies were assigned the mission of sup-
porting the SEAAS but one of the Caribou ccmpanies was further required
to deploy its aircraft within the CTZs for immediate support to corps
activity. Although NCP airlift tonnage requirements were not materializing
and it was not necessary to airlift POL, Admiral Felt permitted the US Army
61st Aviation Company to proceed to Vung Tau with its 16 Caribous early in
July. Effective on 1 August, the US Anny 1st Aviation Company's Caribous
were committed to active participation in the SEAAS; the 61st Aviation
Company was also committed to the SEAAS, but its aircraft were withdrawn
and divided among the CTZs where they operated under control of the US
Army Senior CTZ Advisors.(67)
As has been noted, the organization and requisite force capabilities
for providing air strike and airlift support for the US Army Special Forces
(Provisional) Vietnam was still undecided in the winter of 1962-63 and
negotiations continued in Washington and Saigon. Possibly reflecting HOWZ8
Board thinking, General Harkins wanted an organic airlift and fire support
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unit for the Special Farces, but General Anthis saw no reason why support
for the Special Forces could not be accomplished through the tactical air
control system and the Southeast Asia Airlift System, albeit with high
priorities for support since the Special Force "A" teams would be operating
with Vietnamese CIDG units in remote areas where they would have urgent
requirements for air support. Determined in December 1962 to give the
Special Forces the kind of air support through the TAGS that would be
"difficult to criticize," General-Anthis assigned a full-time liaison
officer to duty with Colonel Morton's Special Farces headquarters at Nha
Trang, and Lt. Col. Charles J. Bowers, USAF Deputy Director of the JAOC,
impressed upon the ASOCs that Spedial Farces should be given a first
priority for strike, airlift, and: reconnaissance requests. In January.
1963, a small VNAF-USAF Sub-ASOC was established in the command post of
the VNAF 516th Squadron at Nha Trang, the Sub-ASOC being useful to provide
closer coordination of the activities of the VNAF T-28s, for the processing
of emergency requests originated by Special Forces, and prepared to inte-
grate Army Mohawk operations into the TACS had this been ordered.(68) In
Washington Secretary McNamara told the Secretary of the Army to see what
he could work out with the Air Force in regard to Special Forces support,
and at a meeting on 8 January 1963 Air Force Secretary Eugene C. Zuckert
explained that the Air Force did not feel strongly about the assignment of
liaison aircraft and helicopters to the Army Special Farces but opposed
an organic assignment of Mohawks and Caribous.(69) When Wheeler team
representatives visited Nha Trang later in January, Colonel Morton expressed
satisfaction with the strike and airlift support he was receiving from the
2d Air Division and he saw no reason why, with augmentation, this support
could not continue to take care of Special Forces needs. Morton made the
specific point that he did not want to create a "Special Forces Air Force;"
all that he wanted was a'"taxi service" of liaison planes and helicopters so
that Snecial Forces B-teams located at the CTZ headquarters could vii the
Special Forces A-teams at remote locations in the field.(70)
In the resolution of US Army Special Forces air support question,
Admiral Felt wanted maximum use to be made of the Joint Air Operations
Center and the Joint Airlift Coordination Board, and on 23 February the
Joint Chiefs of Staff approved the addition of US Army Otters, liaison
aircraft, and helicopters to the MICV strength which were expected to
operate under the CTZs and provide the additional services desired by
Colonel Morton. Under 2d Air Division policy, the US Army Special Force
teams received first priority consideration when they requested air sup-
port, but Special Forces regulations regarding air strike support reflected
the proprietary interest of the CTZ commanders in their geographical areas
of authority. No combat air strike could be requested by an A-team unless
approved by the locally responsible Vietnamese province chief and all
requests had to be approved by the tactical operations center (TOC) of the
CTZ responsible for the area in which the A.-team was operating. Preplanned
air support requests were submitted through ARVN command channels, but
immediate air support requests were transmitted directly from the A-team
to its parent B-team located at each CTZ and thence to the ASOC, which
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checked for approval with the CTZ TOC before ordering the mission. In
view of the red tape involved with preplanned support, the Special Force
A-teams tended to request immediate 'air support which could be obtained
more rapidly.(71) Beginning on 27 March and for several days afterward,
a US Army Special Forces team, working with the responsible province
chief and irregular force units, requested and received immediate air
support from USAF air commando crews in an operation in the Seven Mountains
area of southwestern Vietnam near the Cambodian border. The IV Corps TOC
processed the requests for air strikes, but the IV CTZ commander had not
approved the operation, and the Joint General Staff protested that US Army
Special Forces and 2d Air Division crewmen had initiated an uncoordinated,
unilateral US air-ground operation without its knowledge or approval. (72)
The JCS demanded that the Special Force teams adhere to normal ARVN air
request channels, but after extended discussions a JOS directive issued an
21 August recognized the Special combat air support requirements of the
Special Forces. Forecast or preplanned air support requests originating
with an A-team had to be forwarded through ARVN command channels, but the
A-team simultaneously passed information about the request up through its
B-team to Headquarters, Special Forces. Emergency or immediate air support
requests went from the A-team to the B-team to the ON TOC, and at the same
time the A-team informed Headquarters, Special Farces, directly about the
special request and it notified the appropriate CTZ TOC. The informational
channel permitted the B-teams and the Headquarters, Special Forces, to main-
tain a check and prevent requests for air support from becoming lost in the
ARVN bureaucracy. (73)
In the same months that the TACS was adapted to the task of providing
strike and reconnaissance support for the US Army Special Forces, the
Southeast Asia Airlift System provided airlift support which Colonel Morton
reported to be excellent. It their remote operational locations US Army
Special Forces A-teams and CID& units were chiefly supported by air-landed
or air-dropped supply. The A-teams made logistical support requests through
their parent B-teams, Which relayed the requests to the Special Forces
Logistical Operations Center, this center being located at Tan Son Nhut
until 1 July 1963, when it opened at Nha Trang coincident with the transfer
of CID* support from CAS to MACV. The Logistical Operations Center prepared
cargo packages and manifested them for delivery, either directly to the
field unit or through forward supply points, the principal one of these
being located at Da Nang in support of Special Forces operations in the I
CTZ. At a meeting on 7 March, the Army Special Forces were guaranteed a
daily allocation of 40,000 pounds of SEAAS airlift, and in addition the
Special Forces were authorized support by Army Caribou, Otter, and heli-
copter aircraft allocated to the control of the CTZs.(74) The Airlift
Section of the JAOC had no difficulty meeting Special Forces requirements
for C-123 airlift, and each day it scheduled Farm Gate C-47s for light
Special Forces loads and for pinpoint paradrops. According to the Special
Forces, the C-478 were greatly respected by A-team commanders for their
dependability and efficiency in the delivery of supplies. When the Special
Forces Logistical Operations Center moved to Nha Trang on 1 July 1963, the
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2d Air Division established a transport movement control (TMC) section
in the Sub-ASOO there, and it also deployed three C-123s and two 0-47s
to Nha Trang to handle the bulk of Special Forces supply requests. In
June Colonel Morton freely stated that the C-123s and C-47s were pro-
viding the backbone of his supply system; he also remarked that he was
generally unable to rely upon CTZ Caribou aircraft for logistical sup-
port since these planes were not made available an a regular basis and
were subject to last minute cancellations.(75)
When 2d Air Division computations of requirements for liaison air-
craft to provide air support to the National Campaign Plan first emerged
in the autumn of 1962, the requirements produced unusual complications.
General Anthis justified an increased number of liaison aircraft because
many strike missions had been delayed or deferred because of insufficient
FAC planes, because more visual reconnaissance was needed, and because
there was an increased need for convoy cover.(76) The three VNAF liaison
squadrons (the 110th at Da Nang, the 112th at Tan Son Nhut, and the 114th
which was moving from Nha Trang to Pleiku) possessed 52 L-19s, or approx-
imately half of the minimum figure of 102 L-19s which the 2d Air Division
calculated would be needed to support expanded strike operations under the
NOP. The 112th Squadron at Tan San Nhut, moreover, was committed to the
support of both the III and IV OTas, and its strength was spread rather
thin. Under the VNAF program approved by Admiral Felt another VNAF
liaison squadron would not be activated until the first half of 1964;
meanwhile, General Anthis asked that three USAF liaison squadrons be
crganized and deployed to Vietnam. At the force requirement briefing on
10 January 1963, Admiral Felt's first thought was that the USAF liaison
squadrons were out of the question because the Air Fbrce could not provide
the light planes or the crews for many months. Later in January, however,
:JT-lt evaluated the requirement and submitted a request for two instead of
three USAF liaison squadrons, each to be equipped with L-283 or equivalent
light planes.(77)
In discussions in the United 'States during 1962, Generals Sweeney and
Pritchard had made a strong case for the proposition that the USAF could
not stand the expense of a worldwide forward air control/strike control
and reconnaissance (FAC/SCAR) program in terms of money and pilot costs,
and they favored the use of Army forward observers to supplement Air Force
FACs. On L. December 1962 a USAF program review conference turned down a
PACAF requirement for Air Force airborne forward air controllers, both
because of costs and the belief that low and slow flying aircraft could
not survive in a modern combat environment.(78) In January 1963 the USAF
Air Staff knew some doubts as to whether the Air Force ought to procure
the 44 light planes for service in Vietnam, but in view of the fragmenta-
tion of air resources that would reault if the Army performed the mission
it supported the 2d Air Division requirement. In Joint Chiefs of Staff.
studies during February, the Air Force took the position that Felt's pro-
posed employment of the two liaisonisquadrons for forward air control and
visual reconnaissance -- both being Lir Force missions -- demanded that
USAF provide the liaison squadrons. The Army, on the other hand, considered
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that these employments were normal duties of Army liaision squadrons and
also pointed out that it possessed inventories of Lr-19 (0-1) aircraft,
while the Air Force had no suitable light planes that could meet the
requirement.(79) On 11 March, the Joint Chiefs of Staff forwarded the
two-squadron liaison augmentation requirement to the Secretary of Defense
with the request that he meet with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and
the Secretaries of the Army and Air Force to determine the service that
would provide them. If the squadrons were primarily for RAC work and
visual reconnaissance, the Air Force ought to provide them; if not, the
Joint Chiefs were in favor of sending one USAF U-10 (L-28) squadron and
one Army 0-1 (L-19) squadron.(80)
The 2d Air Division conceived that the liaison squadrons would be
employed primarily for FAC-type operations and only incidentally for
other missions and insisted to MACV that they should be Air Force units.
But in a teleconference with CINCPAC on 21 March, General Weede estimated
that only 25 percent of the mission would be FAC-type operations, had no
objection to receiving one USAF U-10 squadron and one US Army 0-1 com-
pany, and further stated that irrespective of service affiliation, both
squadrons would operate under the TACS, with the JAOC and AS0Cs allocating
aircraft employment to satisfy combat requirements. (81) At this point
Admiral Felt considered that a compromise was in order to get a decision
that might otherwise be hung up indefinitely; he also noted Weede's
statement that both of the squadrons would be under the direction of the
JAOC, even though one would be manned by the Air Force and the other by
the Army: Admiral Felt therefore accepted the compromise, and on 25
March Secretary McNamara ruled that one USAF liaison squadron and one DS
Army liaison company would be provided. In the interest of simplifying
logistical support, General LeMay further directed that the USAF squadron
-uculd be equipped with 22 0-1s, to be procured from the Army. (82)
Even in short retrospect the handling of the liaison squadron matter
did not give good results. When added to the 52 VNAF 0-1s, the 44 American
0-1s did not total the 102 liaison aircraft that the 2d Air Division com-
puted as necessary to meet TADS requirements for support of the NCP.
General Anthis attempted to hold MACV to the commitment that the US Army
0-1A company would operate under the JAOC, but under the MACV directive
on Army aviation organization of 8 July General Weede committed the newly
arriving US Army 72d Aviation Company's 0-1s to meeting specific support
functions in the four CTZs and authorized any Army 0-1s not so committed
to be made available to the JAOC and the ASOCs. While the Army 0-1s were
employed for convoy escort and visual reconnaissance, they were not avail-
able for FAC duty. As will be seen, the USAF 19th Tactical lir Support
Squadron (TASS) was activated at Bien Hoa an 8 July 1963, but its aircraft
and aircrews trickled in slowly and the squadron did not become fully
operational with its main body at Bien Boa and a detachment of six 0-1Ds
at Can Tho until 15 September. Other factors plagued the FAC/SCAR program,
these having to do with the draw down of the VNAF 0-1 liaison squadrons .
to man the additional fighter cockpits. At the time that he authorized
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the deployment of the two US liaison squadrons, Secretary McNamara stated
that the American personnel would not remain in Vietnam for more than a
year and would turn the 0-is over to the VNAF as soon as it could operate
them. McNamara would also remark later on the introduction of the USAF
liaison squadron had been an error in judgment on his part, this because
the 0-is were in McNamara 's view simple aircraft that should have been
operated by the Vietnamese. (83) In the programmed VNAF expansion, it was
in fact expected that expedited in-country training by USAF field training
detachments would produce quick results. In the case of helicopter
training, the results were very favorable. An elite group of 12 officers
and 47 airmen comprising ATC FTD 917s arrived at Tan Son Nhut in January
1963, began training of 15 VNAF helicopter student pilots in H-19s in
February, and graduated the entire class in June, thus bettering results
attained in the United states where 44 percent of VNAF helicopter trainee
pilots normally washed out.(84) But Air Force preparations to open a
FTD for liaison pilots at Nha Trang were delayed by lack of existing
in-house proficiency: 25 Cessna-185 aircraft were purchased for use as
U-17A training planes, and the 25 officers and 69 airmen Who would com-
prise AM FA) 921R underwent Cessna factory training in July and August.
These preparations took time, with the result that the Air Training
Center did not open at Nha Trang until 14 September 1963. The initial
liaison pilot course accommodated 50 students, with one month preflight
instruction and three months (80 hours) primary flight training, but under
this schedule the products of VNAF in-country liaison pilot training would
not be available before early 1964.(85)
The completion of plans for increases in air strike and reconnais-
sance capabilities in support of the National Campaign Plan required an
exacting review of Air Force abilities to support an enlarged USAF air
commando effort, as well as planned augmentatians of VNAF strength. In
October 1962, when the requirement to augment Farm Gate's strength with
5 T-28s, 10 B-26s, and 2 C-475 was under study, PACAF had asked the
Tactical Air Command to consider an alternative proposal to increase the
existing 1/1 Farm Gate aircrew/aircraft manning to 1.5/1, thus permitting
greater utilization of assigned aircraft. The Tactical Air Command had
such an ability to increase aircrew manning, though it would require TAC
to provide some craws who did not have- Special Air Warfare Center training.
These same studies had revealed that USAF would have difficulty in pro-
viding additional T-28s and B-26s for service in Vietnam since B-26s were
held in a rather scarce category and air planners were casting about for
SOMA other more satisfactory aircraft type to replace the relatively
lightly armed T-28s in special air warfare forces.(86) At the MACV force
requirement briefing in Saigon on 10 January 1963, Admiral Felt refused
to accept the requirement for an additional squadron of USAF B-26s and
another of USAF T-28s and instead said that USAF should program addi-
tional support and personnel including pilots to increase the flying hours
of the existing air commando detachment strength. Felt acknowledged the
2d Air Division requirement for two additional Able Mable RF-101 jet phpto
aircraft and two more Black Watch RB-26 reconnaissance aircraft, but he
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indicated that as an alternative he would prefer VNAF to be given the
four jet reconnaissance RT-33s which had long been authorized in the
MAP. At this same briefing Felt approved the recommended three-year
VNAF projection to include a second A-1H fighter squadron to be
activated during fiscal year 1964 and the eventual activation of other
VNAF fighter squadrons to be equipped with F-5 Freedom Fighter jets.(87)
Later in January the MACV-2d Air Division requirements were discussed
with General Wheeler's team. The aviation requirements were further
refined in these discussions and in negotiations in Washington.
Given approval by President Kennedy on 31 December 1962, the Farm
Gate augmentation package of 5 T-28s, 10 B-26s, and 2 C-Las was
expeditiously deployed to South Vietnam during January 1963. As he had
proposed to do, General Anthis established a deployed air strike team
(DAST) of 6 B-26s and 1 C-47 at Pleiku and another DOT of 5 T-28s and
1 c-47 to Soc Trang airstrip in the Delta. The airstrip at Pleiku had
been developed with MAP funding during 1962 and could accommodate the
S-26s, but the unimprovea 3,200-foot runway at Soo Trang permitted only
limited operations with the light T-28s.(88) In February Admiral Felt
formally proposed that Farm Gate's manning should be increased by up to
100 percent and that its aircrew/aircraft ratio be increased to 2/1, with
additional support as necessary to permit the existing unit to increase
its sortie rate. This recommendation was accepted by the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, in lieu of the additional T-28 and B-26 squadrons.(89) Where
Admiral Felt had hoped that the State Department might permit VNAF to
receive the four jet reconnaissance RT-33s, Secretary Rusk announced on
6 February that "over-riding political considerations" and "international
risks" prevented this, and shortly thereafter the Joint Chiefs of Staff
approved and authorized ah increase in USAF reconnaissance, including
authority for Farm Gate to possess four reconnaissance configured RB-26s
and the deployment of two additional RF-101s to Tan Son Nhut, thus giving
Able Mable six jet photo planes. Two of the Farm Gate planes would be
night photo RB-26Cs and the other two were to be experimental Sweet Sue
RB-2614,- especially outfitted with night photo and Reconofax IV infrared
sensing devices.(90) In addition to the Sweet Sue infrared aircraft,
USAF put forward an added request for authority to send two RB-57 jet
reconnaissance planes to Vietnam for testing, aircraft to be equipped
with improved day and night cameras and infrared sensors. Ambassador
Molting was agreeable provided the aircraft would have no offensive
strike capability. With approval in Washington during March, PACAF
made arrangements whereby these two Patricia liynn RB-57s would be
operated by the Fifth Air Force's 6091st Reconnaissance Squadron from
a temporary duty location at Tan Son Nhut.(91) In the developing RVNAF
MAP projection early in 1963, VNAF possessed the 514th Squadron with 26
A-1Hs, the 516th Squadron with 23 T-28s, the 716th Squadron which was
operating 14 T-28s pending programmed deliveries of RT-28s early in 1964$
and was authorized to organize the 518th Squadron although A-IH aircraft
for it would not be delivered until early 1964. Admiral Felt supported
the follow-on requirement that VNAF be provided F-5 jet fighters, but on
6 may 1963 Secretary McNamara opposed the introduction of any type jets
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into the VNAF both because of political reasons and cost of the planes.
He directed that more attention should be given to building VNAF transport
and helicopter squadrons and that proposals for jet fighters should be
dropped.(92)
During 1962 the 2d Air Division had been chiefly manned with tem-
porary duty personnel an short rotational assignments that permitted a
large number of Air Force people to gain personal experience in a
counterinsurgency environment. Although this was a desirable objective,
the 2d Air Division nevertheless found it difficult to maintain con-
tinuity of purpose with short-tour people. Moreover, the 2d Air Division
lacked complete control over the Farm Gate detachment and the Mule Train
C-123 squadrons which were attached to it from the USAF Tactical Air Com-
mand. In order to increase the USAF manning incident to the greater
requirements of the National Campaign Plan it would be necessary to draw
upon Air Force at-large personnel, and USAF therefore agreed in February
1963 that Farm Gate and the C-123 squadrons should be assigned to PACAF
on a permanent change of station and that aircrews would be provided for
a one-year PCS tour of duty.(93) The transfer of Tactical Air Command
resources to PACAF was accomplished an 1 July 1963. At this time
Detachment 2A, 1st Air Commando Group (the Farm Gate detachment) was
redesignated as the 1st Air Commando Squadron. Effective on 8 July, the
personnel and equipment of the Tactical Air Command C-123 troop carrier
units serving in Vietnam were used by PACAF to activate the 309th, 310th,
and 311th Troop Carrier Squadrons, with assignment to the 315th Troop
Carrier Group, Assault. In the transfer PACAF gained assignment of the
51 C-123Bs, 4 SC-47s, 11 T-28s, L. U-10s, and 21 B-26 aircraft in Vietnam
that had previously belonged to the Tactical Air Command.(94)
While the reorganization planning was in progress, the 2d Air Division
r-ecc;mmended that the magnitude oifits efforts justified a regulation Air
Force wing structure and the assi*Imant of regularly constituted units,
but this was not allowed and the -objective of the reorganization became one
of preparing a provisional organization largely within existing manpower
authorizations, that could be expanded.(95) Effective on 8 July PACAF
orders established the following 2d Air Division unit organization: (96)
Unit Designation
23d Air Base Group
23d CAMRON
Det. 1, 23d ABG
33d Tactical Group
33d Air Base Sq.
33d CAMRON
Det. 1, 33d Tac Gp. (Recce)
Det. 2, 33d Tac Gp.
37th Air Base Sq.
2
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Location
Da Nang
Da Nang
Qui Nhon
Tan Son Nhut
Tan Son Nhut
Tan Son Nhut
Tan Son Nhut
Can Tho
Nha Trang
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34.th Tactical Group Bien Hoa
34th Air Base Sq. Bien Hoa
34th CAMRON Bien Hoa
1st Air Commando Sq. Bien Hoa
19th TASS Bien Hoa
Det. 1, 34th Tac Gp. Pleiku
Det. 2, 34th Tac OP. Soc Trang
35th Tactical Group Don Muang
35th Air Base Sq. Don Muang
Det. 4, 405th Ftr. Wg. Don Muang
331st Air Base Sq. Takhli
332d Air Base Sq. Ubon
Det. 4, 5th Tac Air Control OP- Ubon
Det. 5, 35th Tac Gp. Korat
In the reorganization PACAF and the 2d Air Division gained command
authority aver former Tactical Air Command TDY units, but the 2d Air
Division remained dependent upon other PACAF commands. The logistical
concept underlying the reorganization visualized that the Thirteenth
Air Force's Clark Air Base in the Philippines would provide "hard core"
maintenance and supply support and that the consolidated air maintenance
squadrons (CAMRONS) in South Vietnam would accomplish only limited
organizational and field maintenance. (97) The 315th Troop Carrier Group
continued to be assigned to PACAFTe 315th Air Division (Combat Cargo)
with its headquarters in Japan and attached for operational command to
the 2d Air Division. According to Col. Thames B. Kennedy, commander of
the 315th Group, this arrangement appeared more awkward than it was,
since his prime loyalty was to Ganeral Antbis and he was additionally
able to draw upon the 315th Air Division for personnel required to
establish transport movement control offices and aerial port detachments
required in South Vietnam.(98) One of the major weaknesses in the new
organization was the lack of a single organizational control aver the
packets of Able Mable, Black Watch, Sweet Sue, and Patricia lynn recon-
naissance effort. While the reorganization was being planned, Anthis
and his deputy commander, Col. Harvey E. Henderson, had requested that
the 2d Air Division be authorized a USAF tactical reconnaissance squadron
under command of an experienced "Mr. Recce" lieutenant colonel which
could provide a central control aver the diverse reconnaissance capabilities.
USAF was not able to authorize the tactical reconnaissance squadron within
its authorized force structure. Under the improvised arrangement effected,
the Commander, Detachment 1, 33d Tactical Group had some central control
aver recannaissance activity, but Colonel Henderson would continue to
maintain that the 2d Air Division required a properly constituted tactical
reconnaissance squadron to knit together the fragmented reconnaissance .
elements.(99) In view of the requirement for organizational flexibility
in a counterinsurgency environment, the 2d Air Division reorganization was
slowly accomplished: a 2d Air Division study called attention to the
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lengthy time required to prepare, justify, and process unit manning docu-
ments up through Air Force command channels. Colonel Winston P. Anderson
expressed the same thought more bluntly: "We seem," he observed, "to
scratch, beg and go through endless conventional channels of red tape for
everything we get. "(100)
L. Increasing Strains in US-GVM Relations Affected Military Plans
After examining the situation in South Vietnam in January 1963,
General Wheeler's Joint Chiefs of Staff team concluded: "The situa-
tion in SVN has been reoriented, in the apace of a year and a half,
from a circumstance of near desperation to a caadition where victory
is now a hopeful prospect." At this time MACV intelligence estimated
that, through infiltration and local recruitment, the strength of Viet-
cong main force units had grown to 22,000-25,000 men. The Communists
were also estimated to be infiltering about 500 men a month into South
Vietnam by way of Laos and Cambodia, but the rata of this infiltration
was actually undetermined. During his visit, General Wheeler pressed
MACV intelligence for some hard evidence of the exact extent of the
infiltration and was unable to get it. In final analysis the Wheeler
team report noted that the cantinuation of the infiltration of trained
Vietcang cadremen from North Vietnam was an indication that "it is not
realistic to ignore the fact that we have not given Ho Chi Minh any
evidence that we are prepared to call him to account for helping keep
the insurgency in South Vietnam alive," but it also stated that "we are
winning slowly on the present thrust" and there was "no coapelling
reason to change."(101)
One of the most encouraging marks of progress in South Vietnam
by the Wheeler team was the marked increase in US military advisory
strength with RVNAF units from some 900 men at the beginning of 1562 to
over 3,000 at the end of 1962. At the beginning of 1962 there had been
no advisors at battalion levels in the ARVN, but at the end of the year
there were over. 400 US advisors serving with battalions and comparable
units in the Vietnamese armed forces. The number of US advisors with
province chiefs had grown from 2 in January 1962 to over 100 in December
1962.(102) As a result of the buildup of US advisory strength which
occurred in the first half of 1963 following the Wheeler visit, MACV in
June 1963 was authorized a total US military strength of 16,652 individuals,
of whom 4,790 were USAF personnel.(103)
From the beginning of increased US assistance to South Vietnam early
in 1961, General Harkins had expected that the culmination of the American
assistance effort would come in the spring of 1963 by which time he con-
ceived that. the RVNAF would saturate the Vietnamese countryside with
military actions, small and large, to seek out and destroy and fragment
the Vietcong effart.(104) As already noted, Harkins wanted the
"explosion" operations to begin immediately after the Tet holiday on
28 January 1963, and in the meeting on 9 January 1963 he pressed Diem
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to make good his promise to win in 1963.(105) Immediately after the
victory at Ap Bac, the Vietcong were not notably aggressive, but Admiral
Felt suggested that the lull in military action could have "both visible
_andhick1.anmeann,nirasfore]anintel1igencereportof""ereT.
January 1963, where representatives of Hanoi, the NLF, and the Soviet
Union reportedly agreed to a plan to add 12 battalions to the Vietcong
strength, two-thirds of these troops to be transferred into South Vietnam
from Laos and the remainder to be recruited in South Vietnam. (106)
Despite General Harkins' growing impatience, the RVNAF Joint General
Staff proved in no hurry to begin the general offensive operations. Pre-
pared on the basis of the concepts of the MACV National Campaign Plan,
the RVNAF General Offensive Plan was not signed out by General Ty until
22 February 1963, and at this time General Ty directed each of the CTZ
commanders and the commander of the Capital Military District to prepare
individual plans for Phase I preparatory operations for submission to the
JGS prior to 15 March. Implementation of the Phase I plans would await
the direction of the JGS. Obviously concerned about the delays, Harkins
wrote Diem a letter on 23 February, calling upon Diem to move swiftly to
exploit the initiative that had been established over the Vietcong.
"Time and weather," Harkins expostulated, "are either for us or against
us. In the high plateau, and in Southern Vietnam, half of the dry sea-
son has already passed. When the wet season arrives, we will no longer
be able to apply all the mobility and firepower we have developed.
Between now and then, the VC must not be allowed to regroup or rest.
We must attack and destroy them. We must hurt them so badly that they
will be forced to apply all their remaining resources merely to survive.
If we don't, the VC may /neutralize much of the gain we have won at great
cost and effort)
The reluctance of the RVNAF to undertake the General Offensive
Campaign was only one symptom of "less good" relations between the United
States and the Government of Vietnam. According to reports reaching
Admiral Felt, President Diem had became increasingly seclusive during
1962 and left many decisions to Ngo Dinh Nhu and to the "functionaires?
within the Saigon government. (108) Nhu and Diem were fearful of US
policy in Laos as a harbinger of weakening US policy in support of South
Vietnam. Issuance of Senator Mike Mansfield's report on Vietnam on 24
February 1963, with its description of a country less stable than it had
been seven years earlier and "more removed from . . . the establishment
of popularly responsible and responsive government," appeared to be a
further indication of weaker US support. (109) Both the Saigon government
and the RVNAF high command were deeply resentful of the US journalistic
reporting of the defeat at Ap Bac, and in early March Defense Minister
Thuan told General O'Donnell that irresponsible allegations of indis-
criminate bombing done by the VNAY were having aflcorrosive influence" an
the military effart.(110)
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At the same time that Diem and Nhu were fearful of weakening US
support, they also regarded the growing number of American advisors in
South Vietnam and many of the military undertakingss urged upon them as
infringements on South Vietnam's nationalism and sovereignty. Diem
acknowledged the need to arm and organize Montagnard CG units, but he
was slow to take action on US Army Special Force projects among the
mountain tribes, probably because these people had always been closer
to the French than to the Annamese.(111) American efforts to organize
and exploit human source intelligence appeared logical to MACV since
human source intelligence promised to provide testimonial evidence of
the enemy's intentions, but Diem's government did not fully support the
establishment of intelligence organizations, which in the oriental view
could threaten the security of a governing regime. (112) Interior Minister
Luong stated that difficulties arose with the United States because many
Americans, specifically US military personnel and USOM representatives,
involved themselves in affairs that affected the internal politics of ;Ile
Republic of Vietnam. Diem found the activities of the Special Forces,
Rural Aid Advisors, and Sector Advisors to be Varticularly irritating."
(113) Even though US economic assietance financed the major portion of
the counterinsurgency program in Vietnam, Diem objected that US controls
over South Vietnamts matching counterpart piaster funds degraded Vietnam's
internal savereignty.(114)
American relations with the Government of Vietnam appreciably declined
during the early months of 1963 and becamecritical in April, When Ngo Dinh
Nhu decried US "infringements" on Vietnamese sovereignty in a series of
private and public statements. At a meeting on 5 April, Nhu discussed
relations between the United States, mentioning that US aid came with too
many strings attached and repeating his apparently long-held belief that
the United States had supported the November 1960 coup attempt against
Diem. Obviously acting on higher direction, the VNAF commander, Colonel
Hien, discussed with his commanders on 10 April the subject of preparation
for a total withdrawal of US support. Hien announced that VNAF must con-
serve resources, prepare to go it alone, and get ready for hard days ahead.
In a press interview with an American newsman late in April, Nhu was quoted
as demanding withdrawal of more than 2,000 US advisors at lower unit levels,
saying that some American casualties had occurred because the advisors were
ndaredevils" who exposed themselves needlessly to enemy fire. Nhu also
repeated the charge that Americans were behind the attempted coup in 1960.
(115)
Although the Government of Vietnam made no official request for a
reduction in US advisors, Nhu's press statement embarrassed Washington.
On 29 April, Secretary McNamara indicated that he was considering a
1,000-man reduction in the US force level in Vietnam. At the Secretary
of Defense conference in Hawaii an 6 May, McNamara stated that a program
would be prepared to remove the 1,000 US advisors in one package by
December 1963. The conference also emphasized that US military personnel
must respect the fact that actions in South Vietnam were controlled and
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directed by the Government of Vietnam and that: "This is not a U.S.
war and personnel being interviewed should not imply the U.S. is
fighting this war."(116) Secretary McNamara' also emphasized that
American efforts should be directed toward turning over equipment in
US units to the Vietnamese as rapidly as possible. (117) As it hap-
pened, the direction to plan a US fotce reduction came before all of
the additional US personnel and units committed to MeV for support of
the National Campaign Plan had arrived in South Vietnam. In light of
this, CINCPAC obtained approval for a policy whereby units and personnel
enroute to Vietnam could continue onward travel but the MACV strength
was frozen: other than on a man-for-man replacement basis, any, addi-
tional personnel movements to Vietnam, either PCS or TDY, would require
special approval. (118)
Except for the "somewhat less good" relations between the Saigon
government and the United States, which Ambassador Nolting described as
not "bad" but "delicate," most indicators in South Vietnam were favor-
able to the Government of Vietnam. Both Nolting and Harkins agreed
that "the current RNN leadership is the best the US can get. It is
sincere, albeit not particularly adept, but it is better than most in
Southeast Asia."(119) USOM evaluations of the political and socio-
economic situation were encouraging. Successful collection of an
excellent rice crop had improved the economic outlook, and with the
completion of about 50 percent of the strategic hamlet program, some
60 percent of the population was sheltered in defended locations.(120)
During April RVNAF forces reported 900 offensive engagements, leading
General Harkins to suggest that the Phase II general offensive had
already started -- a suggestion which overlooked the fact that the
Vietcong were more aggressive than at any time in the previous year,
mounting 391 incidents including 128 armed attacks.(121)
As the spring of 1963 and the sunner rainy season approached, the
RVNAF provided no definite clue as to when the general offensive might
be expected to begin, other than suggestions that the long delayed
undertaking could probably begin on 1 July 1963. On 18 June confirmed
this date in an order, stating: "Per agreement with the Secretary of
the Strategic Hamlet Program . . . Phase Two will officially launch on
1 July, and all ground forces in Vietnam will operate a minimum of
twenty days out of each month." The "total general offensive" would be
expected to attain "complete annihilation of the enemy to support com-
plete RVN control. "(122) General Harkins was enthusiastic about the
beginning of the all-out campaign and convinced that the strategy was
correct. "The whole idea of this plan," he would say, 'Vas to saturate
the countryside with RVNAF actions, small and large, to seek and destroy
and fragment the VC effort."(123) Unfortunately the emphasis upon the
"total general offensive" would shortly develop into a fatal defect in
the MACV planning, which had displayed slight regard for Vietcong offen-
sive capabilities. As early as the end of April, the Communists launched
their own general offensive in South Vietnam, and the war would begin to
go badly for the RVNAF, which was poorly prepared to resist the enemy
attacks.
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CHAPTER 8
INDECISivt OPERATIONS AND POLITICAL COLLAPSE IN SOUTH VIETNAM
1963
1. Air Missions Under the RVNAF General Offensive Plan
In the view of the Pacific air commanders, the relatively favorable
position attained in South Vietnam during 1962 would have been impossible
without the air operations conducted by VNAF with USAF support. They also
understood that the VNAF/USAF tactical air control system simultaneously
provided centralized allocation and direction of scarce air resources
through the Air Operations Center and decentralized control of air opera-
tions through the Air Support Operations Centers. The system was
sufficiently versatile to handle countrywide air operations and local air
support within the CTZs.(1) On the contrary, General Harkins concepts
of the National Campaign Plan visualized decentralized command of VNAF
aviation by ARVN CTZ commanders. In the case of nationwide air defense
Harkins saw a requirement for a central air control system, but in this
regard he believed that there was little likelihood that the Cammunists
would send aircraft over South Vietnam. (2)
Under CINCPAC instructions the MACV Air Force component commander had
mission responsibility for air defense in the subunified command area of
operations, and, in addition to this, 2d Air Division officers successfully
secured a broader statement of VNAF responoibilities i.. the force
tasking of the RVNAF General Offensive Plan than had been contained in the
original MACV National Campaign Plan. As issued by the Joint General Staff
on 22 February 1963, the General Offensive Plan charged VNAF to provide
special support to CTZs, to provide "unrestricted strafing" of secret
Vietcong bases, and to perform close air support, air reconnaissance,
photography, and airlift. The General Offensive Plan included provisions
for centralized control over VNAF-USAF resources through the tactical air
control system and decentralized operations from staging bases to provide
quick reaction in support of friendly ground forces in the corps tactical
zones and in the special zones. (3)
The RVNAF General Offensive Plan, however, did not envision a
coordinated nationwide campaign but instead all-out ground operations
mounted and controlled by ARVN caamanders in the separate tactical zones.
The CTZ commanders were charged to prepare operational plans for their
separate areas. Both in the preparation of these operational plans and by
controlling requests for air support, the CTZ commanders in effect controlled
the dimensions of air activity within their zonal boundaries and thus
throughout the whole of South Vietnam. Thus, early in 1963, air inter-
diction was practically out of the question in the IV CTZ area since the
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CTZ commander would not approve such a mission, even against known and
confirmed Vietcong installations, for fear of political repercussions that
would result from possible casualties to non-combat personnel. (4) In the
I CTZ on 2 January, the CTZ cammander issued an order that no air strike
would be flown in his area without his personal approval, or, if he were
absent, the approval of his chief of staff. Both men were frequently
absent from the I CTZ headquarters in Da Nang, making it impossible to
provide immediate air support strikes when they were requested from the
field. (S) In mid-1963 Brig General Do Cao Tri was moved to the command
of the ARVN 1st Division and soon afterward to the command of the I CTZ.
One of the most determined fighting men in Vietnam, Tri insisted-that all
aviation in his CTZ should be under his command. He habitually used the
VNAF C-47 flare ship at Da Nang as his personal transport for flights
throughout Vietnam, and he required VNAF to assign helicopters and liaison
aircraft to divisions and task forces on a continuing basis rather than a
mission assignment basis, thus tying up a considerable nunber of aircraft
and aircrews and restricting flexibility to meet mission requirements.
Even though Tri's orders were contrary to standing regulations, the
relatively low-ranking VNAF persons in the I A50C were afraid to refuse to
obey Tri's directions to them.(6) Under such command arrangements, a
countrywide air campaign against the Vietcong was impossible, and as a
matter of fact the Joint General Staff required advance notice of CTZ
operations only whenthe CTZ commander required a commitment of additional
resources from Saigon.
2. Developments in Air Defense and Air Traffic Control
In the MACV/RVNAF operational planning for 1963 the only countrywide
mission visualized for VNAF/2d Air Division was to provide air defense
for South Vietnam, especially against the feared eventuality that Canmunist
ilrcraft might make air supply deliveries to the Vietcong under cover of
darkness. The establishment of air defense radar control centers at Tan
Son Nhut, Da Nang, and Pleiku, and the addition of the radar at Ubon in
Thailand, provided high level surveillance over South Vietnam, and the
rotational deployments of USAF Water Glass F-102s and US Navy EA-1F
(AD-5Q) all-weather fighters to Saigon provided an interceptor capability;
but mountain screening prevented overlapping radar coverage at altitudes
lower than 5,000 feet, the USAF jet F-1028 were only marginally effective
in low level interceptions, and the US Navy conventional EA-1Fs did not
have enough speed to react to possible Communist intrusions in areas
remote from Saigon. In July 1962 a USAF orientation group stated that
Vietnam appeared "to be wide open to hostile air activity below 2,000
feet. "(7) During the meeting with Admiral Felt and General Harkins on
9 January 1963, President Diem stated that ARVN units had found Vietcong
weapons that had dropped by parachute; although General Harkins doubted
the reliability of the report, there was nevertheless same continuing
uncertainty as to whether the Vietcong were receiving air resupply. (8)
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In the early months of 1963 Water Glass F-102 teams and US Navy
EA-1F interceptors continued to rotate to Tan Son Nhut on six-week tours,
and the unknown tracks they investigated proved friendly. In an expansion
of the radar coverage, VNAF deployed a TPS-1/10D training radar from Tan
Son Nhut and established it at BanMe. Thuot, where it went on the air as
"Pyramid" combat reporting post in February 1963, thus filling in radar
coverage over much of south-central South Vietnam.(9) On the nights of
10-15 February, an unusual number of low-level, slow-flying radar tracks
were detected in the vicinity of Pleiku and Da Nang. The tracks appeared
shortly after midnight and- disappeared shortly before dawn, and, as had
been the case at the same season the year before, there was a possibility
that the Communists were making low-level night flights over northern South.
Vietnam. Water Glass F-102s and Navy EA-1Fs were deployed to Pleiku, where
they remained on combat air patrol overnight before shuttling to Da Nang
in the morning. Various techniques were used, including the dropping of
flare a in the vicinity of the unknown radar tracks. None proved successful,
since the targets invariably disappeared from both ground and air intercept
radars when aircraft approached them. Near Da Nang on 14 February, however,
an EA-1F finally intercepted a flight of ducks, leading to the conclusion
that the unknown tracks (and those observed in 1962 as well) had been
generated by flights of migrating water fowl. (10)
After the episode with the migrating water fowl, General Harkins
was more than ever convinced that there would be no air battle for Vietnam
but, as has been seen, Harkins recognized the requirement for a flight
following service in South Vietnam. Although General O'Donnell could not
agree that this service would provide General Anthis the coordination
authority over air operations requisite to the situation, there had been
a requirement for a flight following service in Vietnam from November 1961
onward. As a safety measure, the Ittle Train tranzport squadrons had
established their awn flight-following network, using high frequency radio
sets. As a normal procedure, Farm Qate crews reported their in-flight
positions to the nearest control radar every thirty minutes, but on 10
January 1963 an Army Mohawk was lost during an unreported flight out of
Qui Nhon, and more than 250 search sorties were flown before the downed
plane could be located. On MACV orders, the Flight Service Network, hubbed
at a Flight Service Center continguous with the CRC at Tan Son Nhut, went
into limited operations in March 1963, although the system would not be in
full operational use for a number of months after this. (11)
The reduced likelihood of Communist air intrusions into South Vietnam
and the opening of the MACV Flight Service Network raised questions as to
whether it was necessary or appropriate to keep the Water Glass F-102s
and Navy EA-1Fs at Tan Son Nhut. At this juncture, General Anthis was
very concerned about the large number of miscellaneous military aircraft
(233 planes, ranging from Army helicopters and liaison planes to Air Force
RF-101s and F-102s) crowded into Tan Son Nhut, which also served commercial
and civil air traffic. If a jet tangled up with one of the Army planes
that jammed the traffic patterns, there would be a nasty situation. Anthis
would have preferred to clear Tan Son Nhut's 10,000 foot runway by moving
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out some of the helicopters, but this could not be managed, and he agreed
to PACAF's proposal that the F-102s and EA-1Fs could just as well held on
call in the Philippines for rapid movement to Vietnam if they were needed.
At PACAF request, Admiral Felt authorized this withdrawal of Water Glass
and the Navy detachment on 21 May,'and at this time the Thirteenth Air
Force was tasked to maintain a capability to return the supersonic F-102s
to Tan Son Nhut within 12 hours and the Navy unit was charged to be prepared
to return its slower EA-1Fs there within 48 hours. The new USAF activity
was nicknamed "Candy Machine," and the mission was stated to be to "prevent
the intrusion of any hostile aircraft into RVN airspace."(12) In the last
half of 1963 no-notice deployment tests checked the ability of Candy Machine
to deploy on rapid notice, but in these months there were no combat require-
ments for the interceptors in South Vietnam.
3. Border Control and Air Interdiction Operations
One of the first tasks assigned by President Kennedy for US military
activity in South Vietnam was to determine a means to control cross-border
infiltration, and toward this end had worked to recruit, train,
and deploy CIDG border control units to be led either by ARVN Rangers or
US Special Force advisors. In the I, II, and III CTZs early in 1963
Montagnard scout units backed up by CIDG strike companies manned border
defenses. Altogether along Vietnam's 900-mile land border, there were 103
border outposts, manned by detachments ranging in size from platoon to
battalion. In addition to border defenses, these outposts had a potential
to support cross-border penetration missions. (13) Since Diem believed
that the Communists enjoyed sanctuary bases in Cambodia, he was not at all
opposed to clandestine cross-border operations, but, as has been seen,
pressure from the US State Department caused the RVNAF Joint General Staff
to issue an order on 15 November 1962 that no ground or air operation would
be planned or initiated within a 10 kilometer area on South Vietnam's borders
without its prior approval. Since this strip of demilitarized territory
along South Vietnam's borders permitted a de facto Vietcong safe haven, MACV
considered the RVNAF border restriction to7e-177ipletely incongruous with
the present and proposed border control plans. "(1J4)
Although President Diem allowed Admiral Felt to know that he considered
the border operational restriction to be "worrisome, "(15) both Diem and the
ARVN CTZs were suspicious of US Army Special Forces activities among the
tribal people who comprised many of the CIDG border control units. Some of
this resentment surfaced during the incompletely coordinated US Army Special
Forces operation against Vietcong forces in the Seven Mountains of south-
western South Vietnam on 27 March-1 April 1963. In support of this
operation, USAF air commando pilots mounted a pre-assault bombardment which
the US Army Special Forces commander credited with killing some 150 of the
enemy, permitting the Special Forces to move into the mountains. During
continuing ground penetrations into the enemy sanctuary, Captain John Sercel,
the 2d Air Division FAC assigned to the ARVN 33d Regiment, accompanied the
Special Forces on foot and directed support air strikes with a PRC-10 radio.
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The operation was admittedly successful not only in penetrating into the
enemy held area but in bringing Vietnamese off the mountains and into
government control, but, as already noted, the IV CTZ commander, General
Cao, protested the uncoordinated intrusion into his territory, and new
OGS rules required Special Force teams to go through ARVN channels to
secure air support. (16)
In the aftermath of the Seven Mountains operation, the South Viet-
namese also indicated that they wanted to take complete charge of border
operations. On 10 April the Joint General Staff announced new operational
procedures to apply to operations along South Vietnam's borders, almost
completely eliminating the restrictions that had been imposed on 1.5 November
1962. ARVN ground forces were authorized to operate up to the border where
it was clearly distinguished by a geographical feature such as a river or
road. In other cases, they were restricted to 1,000 meters of the border,
and along the demilitarized northern border a corridor of 10,000 meters
applied. Vietnamese aircraft were authorized to operate up to the border
if it were clearly distinguished by a geographical feature; in other areas,
air operations could be conducted within 2,000 meters of the border if a
FAC were utilized or 5,000 meters if a FAC were not present. All operations
in the border areas were to approved by the CTZs rather than by the
JGS.(17) The US State Department quickly instructed Ambassador Nolting to
attempt to get the new procedures suspended penAing a study of the military
justification for them. In conversations with Minister Thuan and General
Ty, Nolting and Harkins stressed that border violations seriously affected
the common interest of the United States and the Republic of Vietnam, but
the South Vietnamese were unwilling to change their new instructions, which
went into effect on 1 May 1963. Ambassador Nolting believed that there was
no question but that considerable eUpplies were coning to the Vietcong from
Cambodia and consequently had some sympathy for the new border operating
procedures. Admiral Felt's posiLiud was that border incidents with
Cambodia were disturbing but that military considerations demanded that
every possible step be taken to stop the infiltration, including steps
through diplomatic channels to let the Cambodian government know that the
United States was aware of the Vietcong use of Cambodian territory and was
concerned that the Cambodians had not eliminated Vietcong supply lines.
In a letter to Felt on 30 April, General O'Donnell proposed that USAF
resources be sent into Vietnam to make aerial surveys of the borders and
correct map inaccuracies, a project which would yield both civil and
military benefits. (18)
The subject of South Vietnamese border control was discussed as an
agenda item at the Secretary of Defense conference in Hawaii on 6 May.
Here, summarized the plan to place up to 8,000 men on
stations at the border, but he did not expect that the Special Forces and
Vietnamese irregulars could do more than restrict Communist movement into
South Vietnam. General Harkins stated that the Vietnamese border ought to
be defined, marked, and cleared, but this could not be done in the near
future, and he accordingly agreed with assessment that the
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border control posts would hinder and not stop infiltration. The near
impossibility of stopping infiltration into South Vietnam (and Laos as well)
at the borders led to a restricted-attendance session which discussed the
feasibility of bringing pressure on Hanoi to stop the aggression. In
discussions with President Kennedy during April in connection with the
situation in Laos, the Joint Chiefs of Staff had briefed a list of eight
illustrative targets in North Vietnam (Dong Ho! and Vinh airfields, a couple
of highway bridges, POL storage, the Haiphong thermal power plant, a
rolling mill, and a chemical plant) which could be attacked by US carrier-
and Thai-based aircraft with the design of convincing Ho Chi Minh that he
should desist fram intervention. Such attacks would probably cause Chinese
Communist air assistance to be given to North Vietnam. In the discussions
in Hawaii, Secretary McNamara indicated that the option of air strikes
against North Vietnam ought to be incorporated in CINCPAC planning, but at
this time he directed that State Department policy decisions which had
1-lameered into North Vietnam should be cleared up/
ough Roger Hilaman
das present at the Hawaii conference an se assessments, he was
more sanguine about the future of the Special Forces-Montagnard border
control effort. He stated on 14 May that the canbination of strategic
hamlets and the Montagnard irregular force units was making dramatic gains
in South Vietnam. He said that US Special Forces teams were training the
Montagnard irregular units, which were "patrolling so as to cover the
mountain trails and choke down the Communist infiltration." He predicted:
"You have circles; in the center of each circle is a special is a special
forces team. These circles are getting bigger. When they close up, I
think you will see a noticeable choking down of the use of the infiltration
groups. 11(20)
In addition to the employment of air power against Vietcong infiltra-
tion routes, Admiral Felt held to his conviction that coordinated air
strikes against Vietcong war zones and secret bases would accamplish
significant results during the HVNAF general offensive of 1963. He
accepted the assessment that the Vietcong bases and zones were the "vortexes
of VC power," which contained the "nuclei of the VC 'governmental'
structure," served as "protective sanctuaries" from which tactical military
power was launched, and were "little arsenals and installations" that
served the need of the Vietcong. (21) Although Felt wanted maximum use of
airpower against the Vietcong sanctuaries, all air interdiction activity
under the FUNAF command arrangements depended upon the individual interest
of the largely independent CTZ commanders, and interdictory strikes had to
be very closely managed to prevent casualties to non-hostile people. Despite
efforts of USAF air liaison officers to "sell" interdiction, air attacks
against enemy targets not associated with AHVN ground operations, with a
few notable exceptions, declined in effectiveness during 1963. In the IV
CTZ, for example, General Cao, who habitually feared that air interdiction
might cause political repercussions, was reluctant to name interdiction
targets. In one case during Operation Due Thang 4, conducted in Chuong
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Thien province between 8-11 February, Cao yielded to persuasion that
interdiction would be in order: he requested and received two B-26 strikes
into the middle of a remote mangrove swamp, an area which as far as the
Corps ALO could determine was absolutely devoid of any human activity. ?
Other ARVN commanders limited air interdiction strikes to abandoned
villages from which the people had been removed incident to relocation in
new strategic hamlets. These interdiction strikes deprived the enemy of
potential shelter and used up ordnance on aircraft which had not expended
in a primary mission, but they doubtless were not very damaging to the
Cammunists.(22)
During continuing penetrations into Zone D in February and March 1963,
the PBT Tactical Zone commander, Lt Colonel Dien used preplanned air inter-
diction strikes to good effect as cover and support. These Hard Times
ranger probes reached and burned the Vietcong Zone D headquarters early in
February, and early in March they destroyed a number of 'Vietcong camps
along the Ma Da river. As time parsed, the Communists adapted to the
initially successful air strikes. In the later stages of the Hard Times
operations, Diens men found that the Communists had built deep, log-
covered bunkers, and a prisoner stated that the Vietcong counted upon
attacking aircraft to circle before striking, allowing sufficient time for
everyone to take cover in the relatively invulnerable underground shelters. (23)
During March, the USAF ALO and US kimy advisors serving with the PBT Special
Zone secured plots of Vietcong installations and Obtained approval for a
sustained assigned low priority interdiction target (ALPIT) bombing program,
in which aircraft returning to base with unexpended ordnance were given
interdiction objectives in the PBT Special Zone for attack under the direction
of a VNAF FAC. These ALPIT strikes Commenced on 1 April, and some were flown
almost every day. The results were difficult to assess since the targets
Ilere deep within the jungle, but on 30 April an aerial response to an
immediate strike request surprised a group of assembled Vietcong. The
Phuoc Thanh province chief who inspected the area on the day following the
strike estimated that more than a hundred of the enemy had been killed.
Vietcong deserters said that the ALPIT strikes created casualties, damaged
morale, and kept the Communist troops on the move. The program, however,
probably constituted no more than a harassment. Most of the strikes were
made by only one or two aircraft; objectives were not based on current
intelligence since the best average time between agent sightings of Vietcong
groups and the arrival of their reports at PBT headquarters ran to two days;
and, in any event, the list of ALPIT objectives in Zone D had been bombed
out at the end of May. At this time the Vietcong were still in firm
possession of Zone D, and they continued to collect road use taxes and
exact tribute from plantation owners for the privilege of living in or near
the area. (2b)
Where the air and ranger operations against Zone D were modest,
President Diem spared no RVNAF resources when, after several months
planning, Operation Dan Thang 99 was mounted between 24 April and 24 May
against the Do-ka headquarters area of the Vietcong V Interzone located in
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the mountains on the borders of Quang Ngai, Kontam, and Quang Tin provinces.
The II CTZ commander, Brig General Nguyen Khanh, was in personal charge of
the operation; five regiments of ARVN troops and two battalions of Viet-
namese Marines (approximately 10,000 men) were committed; and an advance
party of the II AMC, under direction, of Maj Tran Van Minh, the VNAF
director of the JAOC, deployed to the II CTZ advance cammand post at Plateau
Gi to handle preliminary interdictory air strikes and subsequent close air
support. Flown on 1-3 May, the three-day preliminary air interdiction
effort committed 36 A-IH, 14 T-28, and 34 3-26 sorties to strikes against
Vietcong targets, and a total of 115 A-1H, 108 T-28, and 74 B-26 sorties
were flown during the operation. All requests for air support were honored,
and the support was described as timely, adequate, and effective. The three-
day bombardment probably permitted the heliborne assault deep into enemy
territory to proceed without opposition, but the air strikes also doubtless
flushed the Vietcong, who dispersed into the mountains and generally avoided
contact with ARVN and Marine troops. Dense foliage in many of the target
areas hit by aircraft obscured exact mission results, but the air strikes
were credited with killing 5 Vietcong, destroying 238 structures, and
damaging 77 other structures. The RVNAF ground troops began to retire from
the Do-Xa area on 8 May and the withdrawal was completed on 24 May, at which
time the over-all results of Dan Thang included 106 Vietcong KIA, 6 captured,
and 1 surrendered. (25) Operation Dan Thang 99 yielded significant tactical
advantages: if they had not been destroyed, the Vietcong had been driven
out of the Do-XA area and badly scattered, and they would need several months
to return, there and again establish Vietcong Region 5, which like the old
Interzone V guarded infiltration routes to the other Communist base areas. (26)
In the conduct of air interdiction missions during 1963 both USAF and
VNAF airmen worked under the rigid rule that aircraft delivering ordnance
would be under positive control of a VNAF FAC. As a matter of record,
General tothis considered this a sound precaution and did not desire to
change it, even though it prevented potentially lucrative attacks against
targets of opportunity that could have been flown by armed reconnaissance
missions. VNAF and USAF aircrews staging to and fram forward airfields
were encouraged to fly low and look for enemy activities, and this activity
was described as "armed reconnaissance," but these crews were not authorized
to attack the activities they located unless they could secure assistance
from an airborne FAC. (27) The rigid requirement for FAC direction was
aggravating to USAF crews who observed and reported that US Army Mohawks,
operating under less restrictive rules of engagement, frequently flew at
altitudes of 50 feet, looking for the Vietcong to shoot at them so that they
could fire back. (28) The inability to attack targets of opportunity was
also troubling to USAF air liaison officers, who reported that frequent
enemy movements made it very difficult to target fixed interdiction
objectives. In early August, the PBT Zone ALO noted that much of Zone D
could be certified to be free of friendly civilians and recommended that
"target of opportunity zones" be established within the enemy-held area in
which aircraft would be able to attack enemy activities they observed. This
would allow strike planes to attack targets of opportunity which in the past
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had slipped away during the time required to get strike approval. At this
same time, the II CTZ ALO also reported difficulty in securing good targets
for preplanned interdiction strikes and recommended that armed reconnaissance
missions accompanied by FAC aircraft should be scheduled into areas of known
Vietcong activity to seek out targets of opportunity. If no such targets
were located the strike aircraft could expend their ordnance on the huts
and minor structures that were currently being nominated as preplanned
interdiction objectives. (29)
Issued on 2 August, a revision of the 2d Air Division regulation
concerning operational policy and restrictions authorized USAF pilots to
return enemy air or ground fire directed against them, but, as a matter
of policy, continued the requirement that day strike targets should be
marked by a VNAF FAC. (30) At this time, the 2d Air Division was not willing
to use the self-defense authority as a means of promoting armed recon-
naissance,(31) but in the III CTZ the USAF ALO, Lt Colonel David S. Mellish
nevertheless secured authority in September to begin a selected counter-
insurgency air targets (SCAT) interdiction program. In this program the
Vietnamese province chiefs certified target areas as free of friendly
people and the III ASOC received authority to schedule air strikes under
FAC control into the areas, each such target area normally being reviewed
at weekly intervals by provincial authorities to insure that it remained
clear of friendly people. The SCAT targets were struck on a priority, pre-
planned basis rather than as low-priority, last-resort targets, as had been
the case with ALPIT.(32)
The SCAT interdiction effort gave good results in Tay Ninh and Phuoc
Thanh provinces during October, but Mellish observed that enemy personnel
concentrations rapidly scattered and took cover as soon as the L-19 smoke
grenade was fired to mark the target for strike planes. In flights over
Zone D in unarmed L-19s, USAF ALOs had no difficulty observing Vietcong
concentrations and receiving fire fram them, but these groups rapidly
dispersed when strike planes appeared. "Armed reconnaissance," Mellish urged,
...is desperately needed in wholly VC areas. We have
extensive areas of III Corps in which province officials
will guarantee that anything which moves is VC. Viet-
namese pilots should sweep these areas and shoot VC on
sight. At present, we are ineffective because our
politically inspired target marking is the best possible
air raid warning system the VC could hope to have. (33)
At the 2d Air Division, Colonel Donald H. Ross, Director of Operations,
personally agreed with Mellish, but he reminded his associates that the
war was being waged by the South Vietnamese and not by the United States.
The requirement that air strike targets be marked by VNAF FACs was a
safeguard against killing friendly people and could not be abandoned. (3L)
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4. Successes and Failures in Air Strike Suppprt
Although General Anthis considered that carefully targeted and
precisely controlled aerial interdiction strikes against the heart of the
Vietcong war effort -- his base camps, assembly areas, logistic
installations -- to be a necessary complement to the RVNAF campaigns to
clear and hold South Vietnam, he recognized that the over-riding mission
of the V1TAF/2d Air Division during the nationwide counterinsurgency campaign
would be to provide unstinting air support to ARO operations. This support
included close air strike support, aerial cover and landing zone preparations
for heliborne operations, night hamlet defense, and air escort for convoys
and trains.(35) During the first half of 1963, the CTZ commanders were,
in the words of the RVNAF General Offensive Plan, charged to engage in
operations to "prepare the battlefield to include relocation of Republic
of Vietnam population. "(36) In the several months after their victory at
Ap Bac, the Vietcong were not notably aggressive, and the pattern of RVNAF
operations conducted in the CTZs proceeded according to planned undertakings
rather than in response to Communist attack. Under these circumstances the
incompletely developed VNAF/USAF tactical air control system met require-
ments, and VNAF/2d Air Division flight capabilities could be stretched to
meet programmed needs, but there were evidences of emerging weaknesses in
the TACS and in air capabilities that would be very damaging in the last
half of 1963, when the RVNAF attempted the "explosion" operations at a
time that the Communists were also in full attack.
During the first half of 1963 most vulnerable South Vietnamese surface
movements continued to be escorted by overhead VNAF L-19s, and important
trains and convoys were assigned strike aircraft cover. In this task,
7TP7 ond UFVC7 ninnos fls 'LI sorties in January-, 142 in February, 174 in
March, 157 in April, 246 in May, and 152 in June. No convoy with air cover
was attacked by the Vietcong, and, while it was impossible to say whether
the Communists refrained from ambushes because of the air cover, the Viet-
cong would be quick to attack motor convoys and trains later in 1963 when
the movements took place without aerial escort. (37)
Developed from original Farm Gate tactics, night flare/strike air
support in defense of friendly outposts and hamlets under attack continued
to be a most effective employment of airpawer in the counterinsurgency
environment. In support of the mission VNAF maintained a C-47 flare
aircraft on night ground alert at Pleiku, another C-47 on ground alert
at Da Nang, and a third C-47 on airborne alert each night over the III and
IV CTZ areas, the airborne flare ship answering the earlier problem of
getting a VNAF flare C-47 scrambled at Tan Son Nhut in less than an hour.
Where the VNAF thus assumed the flare function, the commander of the VNAF
514th Squadron persistently refused to accept JAOC frag orders for A-1H
night strike alert crews at Bien Hoa and Pleiku, maintaining that his
pilots were not prepared to fly at night. By May General Rowland proposed
to Colonel Hien that VNAF pilots could be accompanied by Americans in
night flights. Hien tartly rejected the offer, saying that this would give
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the Vietnamese a feeling that they were being "controlled and watched,"
and later in the month VNAF A-1H crews began to stand about half of the
night alerts. In the conduct of a flare/strike support mission, the
strike aircraft normally worked under the direction of the VNAF flare
plane, but they did not require a 7NAF FAC in order to expend ordnance in
defense of an installation which was under attack. Night close air support
of friendly troops under attack, however, required the target marking
services of a VNAF FAC. Success of flare/strike defenses depended in a
large degree upon the speed with which the incidence of an attack could be
reported to an ASOC. By May most of the villages in South Vietnam had been
provided with USOM radios, and the time from an attack to the arrival of
the attack report in the ASOC averaged about 48.4 minutes, one reason for
this excessively long time being the short ranges of the provincial radio
transmitters which necessitated retransmissions of messages, often at
district, sector, and division levels. Early in 1963 the Vietcong night
attacks were not persistent and were customarily broken off when a flare
plane arrived. As a matter of fact, Vietcong attacks against hamlets and
outposts in this season were not numerous, the night flare activity
averaging only 33 C-47 sorties a month from January through April. (38)
In the far northern I CTZ, USAF air liaison officers reported during
the spring of 1963 that no one, from the CTZ commander at Da Nang on down,
appeared to be pushing operations "in a more or less status quo type region."
The ARVN 1st and 2d Divisions considered that they controlled the coastal
plain back to the mountains. The mountains belonged to the Vietcong except
in the immediate vicinity of Special Forces camps, but the ARVN nevertheless
considered that the Vietcong did not amount to more than a harassment
capability. In making hellborne supply missions to Special Forces camps,
the Marine H-34 squadron insisted upon enroute fixed wing air cover from
the VNAF 516th Squadron's detachment of eight T-28s at Da Nang, but
regimental US Army advisors seldom asked for T-28 pre-heliborne landing
Zone preparations, apparently becauee the operations were being run against
platoon-size or smaller Vietcong bands and also because of a belief that
the preparatory air strikes would alert the enemy to impending landings.
As already seen, the I CT2 commander or his chief of staff had to approve
any request for an air strike mission, and periodic reports of 2d Air
Division officers who visited the IiASOC from January to July suggested
that the US Army advisors dominated the I CTZ tactical operations center
and funnelled many air support requests to the two Mohawk aircraft
stationed at Da Nang. (39)
In the central II CTZ the area of operations stretched over the
central highlands, through the central mountains, and into the coastal
lowlands of Quang Ngai, Binh Dinh, And Phu Yen provinces. In the central
highlands successful resettlement of the Montagnards had deprived the
Communist guerrillas of ready sources of food, forcing them to divert their
efforts from military operations to agriculture. Except for one battalion
on semi-static duty as protection to the II CTZ headquarters at Pleiku, the
22d Division at Dalat was reported to be engaging the Vietcong in company-
sized independent actions. In the coastal reaches of the II CTZ, the 9th
Division had became combat ready at Qui Nhon in October 1962 and was
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responsible for clear and hold operations associated with the strategic
hamlet program in Binh Dinh, Phu Yen, and Phu Bon provinces. The 25th
Division became operational in Quang Ngai province in January 1963 and
was charged with the pacification of this single province, which as far back
as the French colonial times had been a hot-bed of Communist resistance. (1O)
Air Support activities in the II CTZ materially increased when the eight
USAF B-26s joined the four VNAF A-1Hs kept on deployment at Pleiku,
probably because the planes couldipe seen by ARVN officers and were readily
available for II ASOC employment. But, where the planes at Pleiku were
readily available to meet air support requirements in the central highlands,
communications between Pleiku and the division command posts at Qui Nhon
and Quang Ngai were frequently unreliable and monsoonal weather conditions
in the mountains east and northeast of Pleiku often hampered flights from
Pleiku into the coastal provinces. (t1)
In order to receive ready air support of their operations in the II
CTZ coastal provinces, the commanders of the 9th and 25th Divisions wanted
detachments of T-28s or A-Ills permanently stationed at Qui Nhon and Quang
Ngai airports, as was the case with the US Army Mohawks. In deference to
the weather problem, two B-26s were posted from Pleiku to Da Nang where
they received II ASOC frag orders for operations in the II CTZ coastal
provinces, but the VNAF lacked capabilities or an inclination to operate
detachments at Qui Nhon or Quang Ngai, with the result that the operations
of the 9th and 25th Divisions had to be supported by VNAF planes staged
forward from either Pleiku or Nha Trang to meet pre-planned activities. (42)
This procedure met endemic complaints from the ARVN division commanders,
who did not wish to disclose their plans until the last moment. For a time
in January, moreover, the commander of the VNAF 110th Squadron refused to
send any L-19s to Quang Ngai because he resented an occasion when an ARVN
G-3 officer had "usurped the job of a VNAF observer" in an artillery
adjusting mission. Throughout the spring the 9th Division ALO, Lt Colonel
Henry C. Meier, protested that the lack of control over VNAF FACs staged
to Qui Nhon was a persisting problem. Similarly, VNAF T-28 pilots sent to
Qui Nhon and Quang Ngai usually arrived late for planned operations, even
with two days' advance notice. Because of late arrival of T-28s at Qui
Nhon on 12 February, the H-21s conducted a heliborne operation with no
air cover. TWhen we speak of immediate air strikes in this division,"
Meier wrote, "the ARVN only laugh and I can hardly blame them. "3)
As has been noted, VNAF aircrews performed well during the II CTZ
operation against the Communist Do-Xa headquarters area from 24 April
through 24 May, one of the probable reasons being the close personal super-
vision of Major Tran Van Minh, the very capable director of the JAOC who
was on temporary duty at the advance command post of the II ASOC at
Plateau Gi. On the other hand the Vietnamese airmen did not perform
according to professional standards on 13 June when the 9th Division
conducted Dan Thang 888 (Phase I), an 800-man heliborne attack against
Vietcong positions around An Khe, midway in the mountains along Route 19
between Pleiku and Qui Nhon, The L-19 that marked the landing zone was
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late because his observer could not be found at the appointed time; only
one of four prestrike A-1Hs properly delivered napalm on the prestrike
run; and the H-21s were required to circle and wait until the preliminary
air preparations were completed. When Dan Thang 888 (Phase II) was
conducted in the same area on 15 Juney the VNAF director of the II ASOC
went to the staging base at An Khe in an attempt to supervise the VNAF
crews. He was not successful. The VNAF FAC brought prestrike A-1Hs onto
the landing zone ten minutes early, and on five different occasions during
the operation VNAF L-19 pilots and observers were not available to accept
strike aircraft at assigned rendezvous points. The only feasible solution
to the problems experienced with the VNAF FACs appeared to be the use of
USAF piloted L-19s with VNAF air observers for FAC duty. (1414)
In the view of the USAF AI0s, VNAF air crews did not meet professional
standards in the operations in the II CTZ during the first half of 1963,
and at times their poor performance jeopardized the success of the RVNAF
operations.(45) On the whole, however, the combat situation in the II CTZ
demonstrated marked gains for the government cause. The operation into
the Do-Xa area disrupted a major Vietcong base. Moreover, efforts of the
Communists to take advantage of the removal of 25th Division troops from
their normal stations during the Do-aa operation failed badly. During the
week of 15-20 April, the strategic hamlet defenses,in Quang Ngai province
held up against major Communist attacks: the local people volunteered
information about Vietcong movements, enabling the popular defense forces
to kill 383 of the enemy as against 33 friendly dead. In view of the
favorable developments, General Harkins considered that the Communists had
lost their opportunity to bisect South Vietnam by making a drive from Laos
across the II 012. In order to intensify explosion operations in the IV
CTZ, Harkins recommended to Diem that the 9th Division be moved from Qui
Nhon to a new combat assignment in the Delta.. (L.6)
In the III CTZ north of Saigon the preparatory operations preliminary
to the RVNAF general offensive committed PBT Special Zone forces to ranger
probes into Zone D, the ARVN 5th Division to operations against the
Communists in Zone C of Tay Ninh province, while the ARVN 23d Division
engaged the Vietcong bands in the Ban Me Thuot area and also lent
protection to the somewhat soft hamJets in the same vicinity. Tactical air
support in the III CTZ was potentially limited because it was necessary to
divide the L-19s of the VNAF 112th Liaison Squadron at Tan Son Nhut between
the III and IV CTZs, making for a deficit of FAL services in both corps.
Availability of communications also affected III CTZ tactical air support:
the III ASOC drew on USAF and VNAF aircraft at Bien Hoa and supported the
PBT Zone and 5th Division, but, in recognition of poor communications
between the III Corps and Ban Mb Thuot, the 23d Division was authorized
eight T-28 sorties a day from Nha Trang, sorties which were requested from
and fragged by the Sub-ASOC at Nha Trang. In addition to these communications
problems, the deeper probes of the 5th Division into Tay Ninh province
beginning in March 1963 outran dependable land lines of communication, making
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it difficult for the III ASOC to keep abreast of requirements developing
in this sector. By mid-1963 the deficient ARVN air request communications
impeded prospective air support almost everywhere in the III CTZ. A study
of the TACS showed that an average of 31.4 minutes elapsed between the time
that a III CTZ unit request for immediate air support was filed and its
receipt at III ASOC. After this, VNAF ground alert aircraft required 30
additional minutes to scramble. (147) In an incident in June the divided
control between the III ASOC and the Sub-ASOC at Nha Trang produced a mix-
up when two force units engaged against a Vietcong stronghold northwest of
Phan Thiet each requested air support from both the III ASOC and the Sub-
ASOC, resulting in separate flights of A-IHs and T-28s appearing over the
same area at the same time, neither knowing that the other would be there. (148)
In May the III ASOC also began to have difficulty meeting III CTZ requests
for preplanned air support, principally because of lack of VNAF FAL aircraft
and crews but also for want of tactical aircraft. Both because of delays
in getting immediate tactical air support and because of growing turn-downs
in requests for preplanned fixed wing missions, the employment of US Army
armed helicopters for fire support became routine in the III CTZ, the ARVN
staff officers explaining that Thedivisions Would not use VNAF and USAF
support when organic helicopter gunships were so readily available. (149)
At its establishment in November 1962 the IV CTZ controlled operations
in the area stretching through the Mbkong lelta from Saigon to the tip of
the Ca Mau peninsula, the ARVN 7th Division being responsible for the
military zone from Saigon to the southernmost channel of the Mekong and the
ARVN 21st Division, with a command post at Bac Lieu, bearing the respon-
sibility for operations against the Viet Cong on the Ca Mau peninsula. The
generally flat and water-sodden terrain of the heavily populated Delta
provinces, where transportation was by criss-crossing canals and only
secondarily by roads, promised to complicate military operations against the
elusive Vietcong guerrillas, who were able to bring together substantial
forces for battles at places and times of their choosing. Land-line
communications were limited and generally impracticable when command posts
moved into remote areas, necessitating heavy use of radio communications.
The Communists obviously monitored the radio communications, and were also
believed to get information from informers, possibly in IV CTZ headquarters
at Can Tho. (So) During January and February 1963, the IV ASOC became
established at Can Tho, and the deployment of five USAF T-28s to Soc Trang
and a detachment of L-19s from the VNAF 112th Liaison Squadron to Can Tho
provided locally available strike and control aircraft. (51) In common
with all of the airfields in the Delta, Soc Trang was a very limited air
facility: its unlighted, 3,200-foot runway was suitable only for daytime
T-28 operations. The glide slope was too steep for a T-28 to make a safe
landing on the runway when it was wet; a T-28 could take off at night or in
inclement weather but it could not again land at Soc Trang under such
conditions and thus had to go on to Saigon to recover at the end of its
mission. In April 1963 the MACV MAP submission included a project to
construct a conbat airfield at Can Tho to replace Soc Trang. It was estimated
that the construction of a 6,000-foot runway at Can Tho would cost some
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$4.5 million of MAP funds and would require about two years.
and the project was kept under study in Hawaii. (52) The col
against the construction of the Can Tho air facility were i-
and the possibility that it might not be ready for operatioi
Delta was brought under military control.
In the months after Ap Bac the ARVN 7th Division was nc
aggressive. The division commander correctly believed that
had monitored his communications during the defeat at Ap Bac
required any of his unit commanders who wanted tactical air
deliver the request to the division TOC, a practice which re.
inclination of these commanders to plan to use such support.
TOC requests for air support, moreover, were for on-call grc
aircraft, which seldom were summoned for strikes. (3) On th
General Huynh Van Cao, the IV CTZ commander, kept the 21st D
engaged in heliborne operations during February and March
which appeared to the IV Corps ALO, Lt Colonel Donald K. ReE
La the 11eputy Director of the IV ASOC, It Colonel James O. C_
entirely too large for the forces committed and questionable
encountering an enemy, who never seemed to be where he was p
be.(54) Postponements of operations and no-notice changes
operations plans, usually made without prior knowledge of Am
made air scheduling of escort and strike planes very difficu
February, Reamy described the FACs who were flying from Can
"lackadasical and unprofessional," and similar remarks by Ma.
Burgin, the 21st Division ALO, provoked resentment on the pa
director of the IV ASOC.(55) Events on 27 March, however, b:
stantion to the charges of dissatisfaction with the VNAF L-34
General Timmes, Eggleston; and Rowland were pinned down by e]_
dd-:ing a visit to a 21st Division regimental operati(
aircraft were circling overhead and no FAC was to be had. L:
this thi-en USAF pilots were assigned to the VNAF L-19 detachv
Tho. (56)
At a conference held at Bac Lieu on 28 March, the US An
the 21st Division told General Eggleston that the Vietnamese
requesting tactical air support in all of the cases where -bilk
said that he would encourage the use of air fire power in ft-I_
Early in April, however, the US Army Delta Aviation Eattaliox
new helicopter tactics known as "Eagle Flight," basically fol.
with a reduced strength ranger company, escorted by six arme
designed to add speed and flexibility to heliborne operation!
Flights, for example, would be useful to pursue and engage az
Vietcong troops who were fleeing from the vicinity of larger
landings. The Eagle Flights promised difficulties: it woul
for the flights to take prisoners; the flights would be burnd
to accomplish immediate objectives; and they would be very dj
with flied wing aircraft. (58)
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The initial employment of Eagle Flight tactics in a 21st Division
heliborne operation known as Due Thang 9/42 on 9-10 April produced first
evidences of confusion. Preparatory to this operation the ARVN G-3
requested air cover and support from the IV ASOC without informing either
the US Any or the USAF advisor and the request made no mention of projected
Eagle flights. Early on 9 April, Major Burgin learned that an Eagle flight
was going out without escort; he called for T-28 cover from Soc Trang and
covered the flight, but later in the morning another Eagle flight went out
without escort. No one got hurt, possibly because there was no enemy
opposition. (S9) OperationEuc Thang 10/42 on 19-20 April represented a
second employment of Eagle flight tactics and produced reports of confusion
that went all the way back to the United States. In this operation, the
objective was the Vietcong regional headquarters in western Kieng Giang
province, located between the Seven Mountains and the Cambodian border. The
scenario was very ambitious, calling for the 21st Division troops to move to
the town of Rach Gia by motor convoy on 18 April and to direct a surface
feint toward the southeast and away from the intended objective, while
concurrently on 19 April helicopter lifts landed troops to assault the Viet-
cong headquarters. Eagle flights would land blocking forces along the
probable Vietcong escape route to the Seven Mountains. The IV ASOC was
requested to provide air cover and support for the helicopter operations
and also strikes against the westernmost of the Seven Mountains on the
mornings and afternoons of 20 and 21 April. The plan was basically good,
but it may have been compromised since the Vietcong abandoned their head-
quarters several days before the assault. Ultimate confusion marked the
fighter efforts to cover helicopter flights, whose plans changed without
notice in what Major Burgin described as a "Chinese firedrill" employment.
On the second day, all helicopter radio frequencies were changed from those
specified in the frag orders, without notice to Burgin and to the great
confusion of supporting strike pilots who orbited the area waiting for
helicopters which often did not appear as fragged and could not be contacted
when they did became airborne. There was no contact with the Vietcong on
the ground, but two HU-lBs and seven H-21s were hit by enemy fire. The
interdiction bombing in the Seven Mountains provided the only real element
of success in the operation since USAF and VNAF strike pilots claimed 345
fleeting Vietcong killed in action. (60)
In evaluating the conduct of Duc Thang 10/42, Colonel Cowee commented
upon the "whimsical uncoordinated changes in planned helicopter operations
directly affecting the escort. "(61) A USAF pilot wrote a.letter back to
the United States expressing bewilderment about the lack of Army-Air Force
coordination.(62) In an effort to improve communications, General Anthis
requested the MACV Joint Frequency Coordinating Board to establish standard
radio frequencies for heliborne operations and to require them to be used.
The 2d Air Division also assigned one of its KWM-2A radios and an operator
permanently to the 21st Division ALO, thus giving him a rapid communications
link back to the IV ASOC which would permit him to manage sudden changes
in air support requirements. (63) During May an Air Ground Operations
School orientation team from the United States spent time with the 21st
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Division and developed good understandings of the procedures for air
support at battalion and campany levels. (6)4) Always aggressive and now
convinced of the value of tactical air support, the 21st Division commander
insisted that helicopters have air cover overhead before they took off and
established a new policy whereby the USAF ALO would be in the air over
objective areas in an L-19 to provide local coordination for air support.
Where the 21st Division G-3 had previously been content to make a lump one-
time operation requirement for air support prior to a planned engagement,
he began to provide the IV ADC with timely requests and changes in air
support requirements while operations were in progress. Pre-strikes,
escort, and air cover became mandatory in 21st Division planning. (6S)
As early as 30 April, Colonel Cowee had begun to point out that the
limited number of tactical aircraft available for the support of IV Corps
was proving adequate to support the 21st Division only became the 7th
Division was not very active, and the increased interest of the 21st
Division in tactical air support introduced still larger tactical air
requirements. Even with improving coordination, it was still exceptional
for troop lift helicopters to take Off as scheduled, and the spur of the
moment activities of Eagle flights were impossible to anticipate in advance
plans. The only sure way to cover helicopters was to have substantial
numbers of air alert fighters overhead and to improvise cover and escort
according to the helicopter actions. In June, however, the 7th Division
remained relatively inactive, and the 21st Division obtained maximum
tactical air support for two well-managed heliborne operations. On 14-15
June, in the vicinity of Kien Giang, Operation Due Thang 19-20/42 employed
B-26 pre-strikes and T-28 cover and escort, and the successful 21st Division
troops killed 33 of the enemy (10 by air) and took 30 prisoners. In An-
Xuyen province on 22-26 Juhe, Operation Duc Thang 21-22/42 resulted in 107
enemy killed (55 by air), 72 prisccers, and substantial captures of arms
and munitions. "Air support coordination," Major Burgin reported, Nee
outstanding. "(66)
In contrast with the 21st Division successes, the 7th Division's long
neglect of tactical air support became apparent on the afternoon of 5 July,
when the division commander aimed a heliborne assault against a Vietcong
force in Kien Hoa province, without a prestrike, fixed-wing cover or escort,
but relying on the firepower of four UH-1B gunships. The UH-lBs proved
unable to silence Communist guns dug in at the tree line adjacent to the
helicopter landing zone, and before the afternoon was over 11 helicopters
had been hit and three US Army crewmen were wounded. Responding to
emergency air support requests, a B-26 at 1365 hours, another B-26 at
1630 hours, three T-28s at 1710 hours, three T-28s at 1755 hours, and two
AD-6s at 1825 hours took the Vietcong under attack. The Communists with-
drew at nightfall but left behind the bodies of 24 men who were killed by
the air strikes.(67) After this experience the 7th Division commander
began to demand and get heavy commitments of tactical air support when he
attempted operations, and, for this and other reasons, the IV ASOC would
soon begin to experience a critical shortage of available strike aircraft.
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During the planning of the National Campaign Plan/General Offensive
Plan it was evident that tactical air capabilities to support greatly
expanded ARVN operations would be austere, and there were manifestations.
of vulnerability in the air capabilities during the spring of 1963. In
all areas of Vietnam, but especially in the Delta, the Vietcong increased
their ground fire against aircraft. At the end of his tour as Farm Gate
commander, It Colonel Doyle recommended on 6 February 1963 that more
firepower should be added to air strikes) so that with two B-26s instead
of one and with four T-28s instead of two the crews would be able to cover
each other during low-level passes. Loss to enemy ground fire of two
B-26s during February and a T-28 in June lent weight to Doyles recommenda-
tion. General Anthis concurred with the requirement for larger flights in
principle, and the JAOC and ASOCs scheduled them when airframe supply and
demand permitted, but Anthis was unable to accept the practice as policy
because VNAF and USAF had only a limited number of aircraft and could not
i-Tford to increase the size of flights at the expense of refusing too many
-'equests for air support. Anthis also stressed the importance of good
defensive flying: mutual cover where possible, suppression of hostile fire
by strafing, evasive maneuvers, and avoidance of exposure to ground fire
when not engaged in operational missions. (68) If tactical air requirements
were to be met, the VNAF would be expected to do a good job, and, at the
conclusion of his tour of duty as 2d Air Division Director of Operations in
April 1963, Col Winston P. Anderson, pointed up continuing VNAF deficiencies.
He noted that the VNAF squadron commanders and flight crews "seem to do as
they please," an observation that was apparent from slackened effort each
weekend and on holidays, minimum Vietnamese representation in the JAOC
during early afternoon siesta hours, the reluctance of aircrews to fly low
enough to accomplish effective FAC and visual reconnaissance missions, and
fhe continued Vietnamese reluctance to deploy aircrews to outlying
airfields. (69)
In his assessment to the Secretary of Defense conference on 6 May
General Anthis acknowledged weak spots but was nevertheless optimistic
that the air effort had made progress. Secretary McNamara, however, pointed
out that the relative proportion of sorties flown by VNAF was no greater
than it had been the year before and directed that VNAF must assume a greater
part of the combat effort.(70) In view of Anderson's criticisms and
McNamara's directive, Generals Anthis and Rowland attempted to "supply the
adrenalin" to get the VNAF up to a maximum performance capability by the
time of the expected beginning of the RVNAF general offensive on 1 July.
During May Colonel Hien made Vietnamese pilots available far night hamlet
defense flights, and in this month the VNAF generated a new high total of
combat sorties. Although the number of VNAF sorties declined in June, 2d
Air Division officers did not observe the beginning of a downward trend.
Colonel Harvey E. Henderson, Deputy Commander 2d Air Division, expressed good
expectations when he observed: "In my six months here, I have been amazed at
the rapidity with which the VNAF have learned and improved their operations. "(71)
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On the eve of the RVNAF general offensive, the combat statistics for
the months of January-June 1963, generally confirmed Anthisl agreement
that the air effort in Vietnam had made great progress, as demonstrated
in the following chart:
tA1-US. * m SORTIES, JAN-JUNE 1963
1 onth
Jan
Feb Mar
Apr
May
Jun
'AF
A-1H
262
241 306
284
336
277
T-28
496
654 475
504
677
579
Total
758
895 781
788
1013
856
SAF
B-26
165
291 308
317
343
288
T-28
253
Y70 391
382
291
381
1,ta1
418
561 699
699
634
669
'.ource:
Hist.
2d AD,
Jan-June 1964, Vol.
6
Doc. 31.
During the first half of 1963 the total of VNAF/USAF combat/combat advisory
sorties had not only increased markedly over the monthly totals of 1962,
but conservative estimates of Vietcong casualties inflicted by air strikes
were substantial, especially in the IV CTZ, as shown in the following
statistical accounting:
VIETCONG KILLED BY AIR STRIKES, JAN-JUNE 1963
1
May
Jun]
Jan FPI' Mar Apr
I CTZ
0 0 80 65
0
18
II CTZ
16 25 12 30
42
113
III CTZ
401 42 88 105
113
49
IV CTZ
111 397 455 929
530
651
Total
528 464 635 1129
685
831
Source:
Hist.
2d AD, Jan-June 1964, Vol. 6, Doc. 31
Although from the beginning of plans for the RVNAF general offensive
it had been evident that tactical aviation capabilities to support the
magnitude of operations contemplated would be quite marginal, the delay
in the initiation of the all-out offensive had given additional time to
develop VNAF and USAF strike capabilities and there was hope that these
combined forces would be sufficient. As has been seen the tactical air
control system had worked during the months that ARVN was on the offensive,
but -- although the fact was obscured in generally optimistic intelligence
reporting -- the military initiative in South Vietnam began to pass to the
l'ietcong in mid-1963, and the intompletely developed TAGS and declining air
strike capabilities would not be able to provide highly responsive immediate
air support to friendly troops under attack or to furnish requisite preplanned
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air support for the great number of relatively short and small actions of
the ARVN that commenced after mid-1963. The resurgence of Vietcong military
activity began in April, when the widening pressure on the Plain of Jars in.
Laos may have been designed to cover the passage of other infiltrators
through the Lao panhandle into South Vietnam before the start of the rainy
season. (72) The severe political crises which began with the first of the
Buddhist riots at Hue on 7 May clearly heartened the Vietcong. The number
of strategic hamlet and outpost attacks increased sharply in June and July.
Late in July the Vietcong were notably successful in attacking hamlets south
of Ban Me Thuot and in laying ambushes on the roads leading into the area.
Intimidated by the Canmunists, the Montagnard people in the area were less
cooperative sources of intelligence as to enemy activities.(73) Shortly
before midnight on 16 July, the Vietcong directed 20 to 30 rounds of 60-mm.
mortar fire against troop housing at Can Tho airfield. Seventeen ARVN and
US Special Forces troopers were wounded in the 10-,minute attack, and the
guerrillas escaped without casualties. (Th)
Viewed in retrospect, key indicators on the insurgency in Vietnam from
July onward indicated an unfavorable shift in the military situation. The
trend in Vietcong casualties, weapons losses, and defections went down while
the number of Vietcong armed attacks and other incidents inclined upward.
This monthly trend, however, was not immediately obvious. (7S) The focus of
high-level American attention on the Buddhist crisis obscured the fact that
RVNAF offensive operations were not developing as envisioned and that the
Vietcong were scoring military successes. General Harkins was pleased by
statistics which showed that the RVNAF was approaching 15,000 operations a
month in July and August 1963, and in a conversation with President Diem in
the latter month the COMUSMACV expressed the overall opinion that the
7ational Ca.mpaign Plan was progressing well, although he pointed out that
many operations were not based upon hard intelligence and made no contact
with the enemy, the number of night operations was too small, and one-day-
only operations were much too frequent. Be also told Diem that the South
Vietnamese were failing to patrol deeply into Vietcong areas, failing to
pursue enemy forces who broke contact, and not taking proper advantage
of aerial reconnaissance of enemy activities. (76) Beginning in September
field reports from the operating level revealed that the war was not going
well and outlined Vietcong strategy. Where hamlets were soft and vulnerable,
as in the area south of Ban Mb Thuot, they were being over-run. In the
harder hamlets of Quang Ngai province, the guerrillas infiltrated "activity
teams" of three to five men inside the walls to persuade the people to
accept the anti-government "struggle of the Buddhists." In September, ARVN
intelligence identified the beginning of large-scale, well-planned enemy
operations in the Mekong Delta, where the Vietcong could bring together sub-
stantial forces at times (nearly always in mid-afternoon) and places of
their choosing, with the obvious design of subsequently ambushing and
destroying RVNAF relief troops. (77) As will be seen, Secretary McNamara
and General Taylor verified to their satisfaction during a visit to Vietnam
in the period 24 September to 1 October that the military situation was
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progressing well, although the political situation in Saigon was highly
uneasy. (78) On 7 October, General Harkins told members of the House Foreign
Affairs Far East Subcommittee that the political situation had not seriously
affected the military effort and that the war was going well. (79)
In the same months that the heightened tempo of RVNAF operations and
vigorous Vietcong attacks posed added requirements for air support, VNAF
and USAF capabilities did not increase as projected but instead decreased,
as shown in the following chart:
VNAF-USKP COMBAT SORTIES, .fULY-OCT 1963
Month
Jill
Ang
Sep
Oct
VNAF
A-1H
:04
353
264
332
T-28
508
485
472
499
Total
812
838
736
831
USAF
B-26
29d
289
259
282
T-28
374
390
452
371
Total.
672
679
711
653
Source: Hist. 2d AD, Jan,June 19-64, Vol. 6, Doc. 31.
In view of the peak total of 1013 VNAF combat sorties flown during May,
the decline in the VNAF combat .effort in June and afterward was inconsistent
with the manning and aircraft strength of the Vietnamese air arm. General
Rowland continued to admonish Golonel Hien that VNAF should be generating
more combat sorties, but Rowland privately observed that Hien, who had been
so vigorous when he had first taken command, appeared to be losing control
over the VNAF squadron commanders, who evidently possessed extreme degrees
of latitude in determining the nuMbers of aircraft to be made available to
the AOC and felt free to ignore AOC frag orders with impunity. On the
other hand the Vietnamese air commanders may have been operating in
accordance with Hienls instructions given in late May to conserve resources
and prepare to go it alone in the future with reduced American assistance.
In any event, VNAF appeared far more interested in training than in combat.
At the end of August the strength of the VNAF fighter detachment at Da
Nang was cut in half to four T-28s, the 516th Squadron commander justifying
this action as being necessary in order to release a part of his T-28 pilots
for up-grade training to A-1H. Similarly, in September, the 514th Squadron
commander made only an average of nine of his 26 A-IHs available to the AOC
for daily strike missions and justified this as necessary because he needed
to use flying hours to support A-IH pilot up-grade training. Although the
new VNAF 518th Fighter Squadron was activated at Bien Hoe. on 15 October,
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the squadron would not receive its complement of MAP A-1Hs until early 1964
and was of no help during the emergencies of the autumn of 1963. For reasons
that were not clear to Americans, the VNAF 514th Squadron canmander generally
ignored AOC 1' rag orders requiring napalm, the type of munition frequently
requested by ARVN field canmanders operating during the rainy season in the
III and IV CTZs based on their observation that the incendiary was more
effective in the water-logged terrain than explosive munitions. On the
occasions when VNAF crews deployed away from their home bases, the Viet-
namese airmen appeared to lack motivation, initiative, and reliability. (80)
Under the rules of engagement, the USAF 34th Tactical Group's 1st
Air Commando Squadron was authorized and expected to assume combat commit-
ments not performed by VNAF, and the 1st Air Commando Squadron had been
authorized augmented personnel strength in order to permit it to generate
more combat sorties without additional airframes. Because of unanticipated
H.__L-:?:umstances, however, the 1st Air Commando Squadron was unable to generate
required additional sorties. The "can do" spirit of the Farm Gate air-
crzews had caused them to overstress their aircraft in combat on frequent
:.-)ccasions, and the Farm Gate detachment had had an authority to limit the
normal maintenance performed on aircraft in accordance with a field operating
environment. In July, when PACAF assumed ownership of the Farm Gate planes,
Colonel Harold E. Walker, 2d Air Division Director of Materiel, found that
the Farm Gate planes had been so overstressed and poorly maintained that
they were actually unsafe to fly. The operational readiness rate of the
Farm Gate aircraft was only 50-60 percent at this time, chiefly because of
a high non-operational supply (NORS) rate. In-flight mechanical losses and
enemy action further degraded air commando capabilities. On a combat mission
on 16 August, a wing separated from a B-26 in flight, killing the two
rican and one Vietnamese crewmen. In September, 23 aircraft received
battle damage; another B-26 and a T-28 were lost because of mechanical
failures; and on 23 September, three Vietcong guerrillas cut through the
perimeter fences at Nha Trang and blew up two of the air commando c-47s
with package explosives. (81)
After the crash of the B-26 on 16 August, General Anthis flew a
mission in one of the planes and thought that the B-26s could be kept in
operation if the crews would fly them cautiously, employing soft approach
and recovery tactics. To be safe, however, each B-26 would have to be
rotated through depot maintenance contracted with Air Asia on Taiwan. Even
though he thought that the planes could be kept in operation, Anthis
strongly urged on 2 September that the battle weary B-26s should be replaced
as quickly as possible either with dual-control A-1E US Navy fighters or
with "On Mark" B-26KS that were being refurbished in the United States.
In the months of August and September the let Air Commando Squadron was
down to an average of nine T-28s and 9-12 B-26Bs, yet still committed to
increase the 1962 sortie rate by 20 percent to support the National Campaign
Plan. On 11 October, Anthis described his problem to Maj Gen Sam Maddux, Jr.,
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Thirteenth Air Farce Commander, saying: Ne are really hurting for lack of
strike airplanes. Right now we are down to nine of our authorized T-280s. . ? ?
The T-28 situation, coupled with the 3-26 problem, has definitely curtailed
our operations. We did not get our requested increase in strike aircraft
for the NCP, and our present unsatisfactory posture even further aggravates
things. "(82)
After October the 2d Air Division's aircraft problem got worse in
terms of possessed planes, but at Bien Hoa the 34th Consolidated Aircraft
Maintenance Squadron implemented standard USAF maintenance procedures and
increased the operationally ready rate. With an average of 45.2 possessed
aircraft (instead of the authorized 62), the 34th CAMRON got the average
operational ready rate for all types of aircraft up to 78.3 percent for
the months of August through December. The rigid management procedures,
however, affected operational scheduling. Under old Farm Gate practices,
it had been possible to refuel, rearm, and turn around a flight of two T-28s
in 30 to 45 minutes, but PACAF Safety checklists made two-hour turnarounds
for T-28s and three-hour turnaround for B-26s the new norm at Bien Hoa. (83)
The shortage of aircraft and the reduction in flying contributed to an air-
crew morale problem in the 1st Air Commando Squadron which was overmanned
in terms of limited aircraft. Air canmando crews expressed demoralization
at sitting around, doing nothing for days at a time, awaiting their turn to
be scheduled for a strike mission. (814)
Although the shortage of strike aircraft seriously affected combat
operations, the predominant cause of unsatisfied requests for air support
missions in the months of May through August was the lack of VNAF L-19
(0-1) forward air control aircraft and crews, with 431 requests for air
support being impossible on this account.(85) In view of this, Colonel
Donald H. ROSS, 2d Air Division rector of Operations, hoped that the
arrival of the US Army 73d Aviation Campany and the activation of the USAF
19th Tactical Air Support Squadron would have a beneficial effect, even
though the total number of liaison aircraft would still be less than computed
as necessary to support the National Campaign Plan. This hope did not
materialize. As previously noted, MACV did not place the 22 0-1s of the
73d Company under the operational control of the TACS but instead allocated
them to the support of the US Argy senior division advisors, whereupon VNAF
promptly withdrew its L-19s that had previously been provided to the ARVN
divisions on the ground that they were no longer needed. The US Amy. 0-1s
took over local visual reconnaissance and convoy escort missions formerly
provided by the VNAF liaison planes, but the removal of the VNAF L-19s
left the USAF ALOs and FACs without local air transportation, unless they
could borrow aircraft from the Argy advisors. (86)
When it became fully operational on 15 September under command of Lt
Colonel John J. Wilfong, the USAF 19th TABS maintained 16 0-1s at Bien Hoa
and six 0-18 in a detachment at Can Tho. By the end of the year, the 18th
TASS flew 3,862 sorties, including 483 forward air control, 1,221 visual
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reconnaissance, and 1,518 combat support liaison. The "prompt response and
can-do attitude" of the 19th TASS led to a heavy demand for its services,
but as a matter of policy Colonel Wilfong sought to insure that the Americans
augmented rather than supplanted the efforts of the VNAF liaison airmen.
Some reduction in the VNAF liaison effort was expected to accompany the
transfer of the more experienced Vietnamese L-19 pilots to fighter training,
but it seamed to Colonel Wilfong that, when the 19th TABS began operations,
the Vietnamese reduced their liaison flying more than was reasonable.
"Instead of augmenting the VNAF capability," Wilfong noted, "it seems we
replace them in many instances. "(87)
American opinion about the performance of the individual VNAF FACs
ranged from some sympathy to strong criticism. The USAF pilots who flew
with the Vietnamese FACs understood that these men had been performing a
boring and somewhat thankless task for many years and with no end in sight.
The average VNAF FAC was said to be afraid that the law of averages was
working against him, and it was difficult to get him to work below 2,000
feet. If the FAC directed an attack against friendly people, he was subject
to criminal prosecution, and if a FAC plane was holed by enemy fire he was
criticized. The prevailing American assessment, however, was that the VNAF
FAC crews were unaggressive and performed unreliably in the field. By
October, American criticism of the VNAF FACs was running so strongly within
the 2d Air Division that General Anthis and Colonel Ross expressed concern
with the mounting criticism in the ALO/FAO reports, which to them indicated
a "trend of our people to think we must run things. "(88)
In view of the limited tactical air capabilities and the worsening
combat situation in South Vietnam, 2d Air Division officers made consistent
and continuing efforts to find feasible ways of increasing the responsiveness
and effectiveness of tactical air support. General Anthis and his operations
staff actively reviewed the monthly reports of the ALOs and the after action
operational reports of the ALOs and FACs in a search for improved procedures,
many of which could not be effected but were nonetheless carefully
evaluated. The matter of improving Army-Air Force coordination was of
particular interest both at the ASOCs and at 2d Air Division. At Da Nang,
Lt Colonel Hubert R. Mann sought the assistance of the US Army Senior Advisor
to the I CTZ in order to get someone on duty in the tactical operations
center who could approve immediate air strike requests. The US Amy Senior
Advisor did not agree that the TOG could be made a full-time and responsible
center for planning operations and approving missions, but the I CTZ
artillery commander was assigned to the TOG and given authority to approve
many of the air support mission requests that had formerly required approval
by the I CTZ cammander or his chief of staff. (89) When Lt Colonel Charles
R. Allen, Deputy Director, II ASOC, got no response to proposals that a
daily TOC-AOC planning conference should be held to permit more effective
coordination of air-ground operations, General Anthis on 7 August directed
that under his coordinating responsibility for MACV air operations the ASOCs
would chair and conduct a daily coordination conference to be attended by
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representatives of the CTZ ALO, USA/UM aviation headquarters, the TOC,
the Airlift Branch (TMC), and others as appropriate. Next day, However,
the MACV J-3 informed the four US Army senior corps advisors that Anthis'
directive was not MACV policy. Colonel Ross nevertheless instructed the
ASOCs to hold the daily planning meetings and to get the best attendance
possible, and, after making a flight in support of a heliborne operation
in Tay Nihh province and being unable to contact the helicopter forces on
an unknown radio frequency, General Atthis wrote General Harkins on 2
September that attendance of the III Corps aviation cammander at the daily
planning conference held by the III ASOC would have provided a smooth
coordination of the air effort. Once again, Anthis did not get MACV J-3
support for his recommendation, the J.3 reasoning that air was the support-
ing force and that the ASOC people should go to the supported force and
obtain the information that would be made available to them. ASOC officers
continued to seek out the information.that they needed, but the concept of
"it is here, you come and get it" appeared basically wrong, since cooperation
should have been a mutual concern. (90)
In the autumn of 1963 the 2d Air Division also continued to consider
proposals for reducing the time required to respond to requests for air
support. In the III CTZ Colonel Mellish was particularly insistent that
outlying ARVN units, Self Defense Corps forces, and Civil Guard troops
ought to be permitted to flash immediate air support requests directly to
a responsible TOC since he rationalized that the intermediate echelons were
seldom able to give any immediate assistance to these remote units when'
they were attacked. He also recommended that USAF FACs should be assigned
to province chiefs (whose forces were most heavily engaged with the enemy)
and be equipped with single sideband radios so that they could make
immediate air requests directly to the TOC and ASOC. These recommendations
continued to be essentially objectionable to ARVN commanders, who were
jealous of their authority, but in view of the emergencies prevalent during
the autumn SOW short-cuts were permitted. Most ARVN commanders, however,
still would not permit lower echelons to bypass their headquarters.(91)
In order to speed air support, Mellish also proposed a more extensive
employment of pairs of air alert aircraft, each flight to leave its base
early in the morning, loiter up to two hours the vicinity of prospective
enemy activity while awaiting a call from an ALO, and, if no call were
received, attack a previously assigned law-priority target. After this,
Mellish recommended that the flight should land at a forward airfield,
refuel and rearm, and remain there during the day on ground alert. In
reviewing Mellish's proposal, Colonel ROSS remarked that it had one
significant defect, namely that the small number of available VNAF-USAF
strike aircraft simply would not permit the dispersion of aircraft all
over Vietnam awaiting prospective employments. Despite the limited avail-
ability of aircraft, however, the AOC recognized the intrinsic value of air
alert: if an ARVN operation was planned against a Vietcong unit of company
size of larger on-station air cover was provided if it were at all possible.(92)
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In offensive employments, when strike pilots, and FACs were working
in support of preplanned ARVN operations, the crews and controllers could
normally get some pre-mission briefings which allowed them to understand
the operation plan, but as more and more missions had to be flown in
response to Vietcong initiated attacks pre-mission briefings were seldom
practicable. In response to immediate air support requests, the VNAF FACs
frequently had to fly many miles to an unfamiliar area where they established
radio communications with the grorind force unit, got instructions on the
location of friendly and enemy troops, and only then spotted targets for
strike crews who arrived at the scene with no pre-mission information.
Under the circumstances there was usually a lag in time between the arrival
of a VNAF FAL over an objective area and the time that he was prepared to
mark targets, and on two occasions in Tay Ninh province early in October the
VNAF FACs, unfamiliar with the local situation, required 25 and 35 minutes
to identify the Vietcong. In the last half of 1963, the USAF ALOs
repeatedly urged that VNAF ALOs and FACs should be attached to ARVN divisions,
where they could became intimately familiar with local situations, overcame
the language barrier between USAF ALOs and FACs and the ARVN officers, and
promote the use of tactical airpower. The 2d Air Division stated an
imperative requirement that counterpart VNAF ALOs and FACs should be assigned
to ARVN divisions, but the VNAF refused to consider such assignments,
citing scarcity of qualified personnel, failure of young officers to perform
professionally whenremoved from close supervision, and frequent lack of
harmony between VNAF and ARVN officers. (93) Seeking to get ground infor-
mation briefings for strike aircrews at a conference at MALV on 7 October,
Colonel Henderson repeated the earlier 2d Air Division requirement that
ARVN ground liaison officers should be attached to tactical air units to
:-rovide them with current order of battle information and that a ground
liaison officer communications net should be established. Once again, the
MAW response was negative, the reasoning continuing to be that ARVN
commanders did not like to give out order of battle information for security
reasons. (91j.)
The reduced availability and lack of immediacy of tactical air support
after June 1963 encouraged an already noted tendency on the part of ARVN
divisions?notably the 5th and 23d in the III CTZ and the 7th in the IV
CTZ -- to attempt to rely upon immediately available organic helicopter
firepower. In numerous small operations in the Ban Mb Thuot area during
September, for example, the 23d Division requested fixed-wing air support
for only one operation. (95) On the other hand, USAF-VNAF flare/fighter
support provided the only rapid response feasible against guerrilla attacks
against South Vietnamese hamlets and outposts, and in June, July, and August
the increasing night attacks caused the number of flare/combat air strike
sorties to rise to 70/44, 72/52, and 79/62, respectively. By August, the
number of night attacks in the III and IV CTZs exceeded the responsive
ability of the single VNAF C-47 which stood night air alert over the Saigon
area. Two incidents dramatized the problem. On the night of 16 August,
the Communists struck Pho Sixth outpost on the Ca Mau peninsula. Indecision
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on the part of the province commander as to whether to request air support
contributed to delay in summoning the air alert C-47, and in the hour and
forty-five minutes before the flare ship arrived the Canmunists overran
the outpost. A few nights later in the III CTZ, Vietcong forces scored a
major propaganda victory when, taking advantage of the removal of ARVN
special forces to participate in raids against Buddhist pagodas in Saigon,
the Reds promptly sacked the Ben Tuong strategic hamlet, which had been
established a year earlier with so much publicity in Operation Sunrise. (96)
The increasing night attacks demanded 'additional countermeasures. On
16 August a III CTZ planning conference, held to discuss rapid reinforcement
of strategic hamlets under night attack, proposed to use flare ship illumi-
nants to light the way for helicopter airlifts of company-sized forces into
hamlets under attack. This planning was dismissed as impractical: nearly
1,200 hamlets were potential targets in the III CTZ and the reaction time
of a heliborne reinforcement force flying in the dark did not seem very
attractive.(97) Analysis of the PhoSinh attack noted the delay incident
to the summoning of the air alert C-47, but it was nonetheless true that
the single VNAF flare plane held over Saigon could not reach the Ca Mau
peninsula in an acceptable time. The IV CTZ ALO, Lt Colonel K. L. Collings,
pressed for a commitment of two flare planes nightly to the IV CTZ, one to
be held on orbit over Can Tho and the other deeper down over the Ca Mau
peninsula.(98) Although the 2d Air Division acknowledged the requirement
for additional flare ships, there was a good question as to how they could
be provided. Each night alert A-1H began to load two flares in addition
to strike ordnance, the flares to be used only in the event that flare
aircraft were not available.(99) Employment of C-123 crews, carrying an
additional VNAF navigator/communicatar, offered the best prospect for
additional flare missic=7, but airflow characteristics around the C-123's
rear aircraft cargo door and limited Access to troop lump doors proved
tricky for flare drops. When hand reaeased, the Mark V and VI flares
tended to hit the sides of the plane and could sweep back into the open
rear cargo door. To meet the problems local manufacture provided a chute-
equipped flare box, constructed so that it could be strapped at the edge
of the rear cargo ramp with only the release tube chute protruding under
the almost-closed cargo door. This simple device permitted the C-123s at
Tan Son Nhut to join the VNAF C-47s in nightly flareship alerts in September,
and during this month VNAF and USAF crews flew 172 flare and 132 strike
sorties against Communist night attacks. In October, fewer Vietcong attacks
demanded only 60 flare and 94 strike sorties, but after this all-out Communist
night assaults demanded a maximum VNAF-USAF night employment. (100) Up to
three flare aircraft were kept over the IV CTZ each night, permitting one
of the planes to reach any point in the Delta within 20 to 30 minutes.
Operational records revealed that no Delta outpost or hamlet was success-
fully overrun after arrival of a flare/strike team, but it was nevertheless
true that the hamlet program in the Delta was severely overextended and
many installations lacked local defenses capable of withstanding enemy
attack even long enough to permit arrival of air assistance. (101)
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Early on in his conversations with Americans, President Diem had
predicted that the Mekong Delta would be most difficult to rid of Vietcong
and pacify, and as has been seen General Harkins recammended to Diem in .
August that the ARVN 9th Division should be moved from QUi Nhon to a new
assignment in the Delta, where the strategic hamlet program was moving
slowly, overextended, and insufficiently protected. (102) The Communists
also recognized the vulnerability of Mbkong Delta when on the night of 9/10
September they escalated the war in the Delta from simple guerrilla tactics
to well-planned and sustained field operations, following the tactics of
"wipe-out-enemy-posts-and-annihilate-enemy-reinforcements." At 0120 hours
on 10 September, the Communists initiated a five day battle -- which the
ARVN 21st Division named Due Thang 35/42 -- with an 81-mm. mortar assault
against Soc Trang airfield. Within five minutes, four USAF 1st Air Commando
Squadron pilots scrambled aboard two T-28s, radioed the AOC that the field
was under attack, requested a flare ship and additional fighters, and then
began strafing attacks against the muzzle flashes of the enemy mortar
positions, which were also placed under fire by ARVN mortars. The quick
response drove off the Vietcong mortar crews who obviously intended but
failed to neutralize the American fighters and helicopters on Soc Trang
airstrip. In view of the emergency, the T-28 crews believed that they were
morally and legally justified in making their attack. The 34th Tactical
Group commander also described the aggressive action of the pilots in
support of the base "commendable" but he nevertheless pointed out that they
had violated the rules of engagement. Since Soc Trang was an "installation,"
the T-28 pilots should have had targeting assistance fram either a FAL or a
flare plane before delivering ordnance. (103)
The Communist mortar.attack at Soc Trang was the first phase of a
coordinated effort in which the main thrust was simultaneously launched
against the district headquarters towns of Dam Doi and Cal Nuoc near the
tip of the Ca Mau peninsula. At about 0140 hours on 10 September, elements
of the Vietcong U Minh and 96th battalions attacked Dam Doi with recoilless
rifles, mortars, launch bombs, and automatic weapons. Simultaneously, another
Vietcong hard-core battalion, reinforced by local guerrillas, attacked and
overran Cal Nuoc. In addition, the enemy erected road blocks and laid
mines on the road between Bac Lieu and Ca Mau, the only surface convoy route
to the lower peninsula. Beginning at 0745 hours, T-28s from Soc Trang
escorted and provided prelanding strikes for heliborne South Vietnamese
Marines lifted to Dam Doi. Most of the landings went well, but at about
1412 hours one of the T-28s providing prelanding support for a subsequent
landing made a third pass over an enemy machine gun, was badly damaged, and
forced to crash. An armed HU-IB picked up the T-28 crew, and the plane was
subsequently destroyed to prevent its machine guns fram falling into enemy
hands. While the South Vietnamese Marines encircled Dam Doi, the 21st
Division staff secured and planned an airdrop of 498 men fram the ARVN 5th
Airborne Battalion at Cal Nuoc. Later than planned, 10 C-47s and 7 C-123s
delivered the paratroops beginning at 1733 hours. In continuing fighting
at the Dam Doi encirclement during the next several days, the Communists
lost 122 men killed (including 30 by air strikes) and a substantial quantity
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of munitions (including a 50-caliber machine gun, two tripod-mounted 7.92-mm.
machine guns, and a 75-mm. recoilless rifle). Around Cal Nuoc, the ARVN
paratroopers killed 50 Vietcong, captured 8 prisoners, and seized a number
of weapons. The air support for Dec Thang 35/42 was outstanding in quantity
and aggressiveness. Sorties flown on-10 September broke all IV ASOC records
for a single day, and the totals for 10-14 September ran to 72 air cover,
10 escort, 18 prelanding, and 22 FAO sorties. Prestrikes and close air
support, particularly in fighting south of Dam Doi, were instrumental in
the overall success of the operation. Although Duc Thang 35/42 could be
counted as a productive government victory, the Vietcong had proven able to
stand against well-trained Marines and paratroopers, they had reduced the
district towns of Dam Doi and Cal Nuoc to rubble, and they had killed and
wounded 153 civilians. (104)
The battle at Dam Doi and Ca! Nuoc focused attention on the situation
in the IV CTZ. During the fighting, the AOC was able to divert additional
tactical air support to the IV CTZ, once again demonstrating the flexibility
of centrally controlled tactical a3roower, but in his initial report as
Deputy Director of the IV ASOC on 24 September Lt Colonel Milton R. Pierce
stated that the most critical deficiency confronting his activity was that
of insufficient strike aircraft to support the bitter war in the Delta. It
was standard practice in the 21st Division area at this time of aircraft
shortages to cover heliborne operations with a single B-26, a practice
which filled the escort requirement only on paper and indicated the thinness
of tactical air resources. (105) The five USAF T-28s located at Soc Trang
were invaluable as a quick-reaction force, but the rudimentary airstrip
limited the operations of even these planes, which as time passed were
insufficiently armed to deal with hostile weapons. If they could be obtained,
heavier armed A-IHs or B-26s had to came from Bien Hoa, a thirty minute
flight to the vicinity of Can Tho or an hour flight to the deep Delta. The
Vietcong obviously understood the advantages presented in this situation
since they normally did not show their hands before mid-afternoon, making
it difficult to get aircraft into the area, into position, and to conduct
a sufficient number of strikes during remaining hours of daylight.(106)
When Secretary McNamara and General Taylor surveyed the tactical situation
in the Delta at the end of September, General Harkins stated that a tactical
air base should already have been built at Can Tho to meet urgent aviation
requirements in the IV CTZ. In other briefings on the Telta situation,
Secretary McNamara learned that the poorly-administered Ielta hamlet program
had advanced into areas which could not be defended by available ARVN and
paramilitary forces. In a meeting with President Diem, McNamara urged that
the ARVN 9th Division should be sent to the Delta as recommended by General
Harkins, and in Hawaii on 1 October he stated that no more strategic hamlets
should be built in the Delta until those that existed could be protected. (107)
Yielding to McNamara's judgement in regard to additional ground forces for
the Delta, President Diem agreed to the movement of the 9th Division to the
IV CTZ and it became operational at Sadec on 14 October. A few days later,
Diem also accepted Harkins' recommendation that the boundary between the III
and IV CTZ should be shifted to the Mekong River, thus as Harkins argued
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reducing the problem of the IV CTZ to the deep Delta and concentrating III
CTZ resources and attention on the provinces surrounding Saigon.(108) As
soon as Harkins endorsed the project, Anthis and Rowland submitted an urgent
requirement for a combat airfield in the Delta, most feasibly at Can Tho.
Prospects that the airfield would be costly and require two years to complete
continued to hold up acceptance in Hawaii, but in January 1964 CINCPAC would
approve the construction of a new austere airfield at Can Tho to be usable
in one year. (109)
Undaunted by their losses at Dam Doi and Cai Nuoc, the Communists
lost little time in contriving another major battle which was to take
place near Loc Ninh, Chuong Thien province, in the center of the Ca Mau
peninsula. Local guerrillas and NLF troops prepared well-camouflaged gun
emplacements and foxholes along the edge of the narrow strips of dry land
that would have to serve helicopter landings at Loc Ninh. Most of the fox-
holes were five to eight feet deep, with notches cut into the sides to permit
occupants to fire and then to drop to the bottom of the holes during aircraft
passes. A Chieu Hoy amnesty program defector brought information to the
ARVN 21st Division that the 1096th Vietcong Battalion was using the area near
Loc Ninh as a rest area and training camp, and the Communists confirmed the
report on 17 October by beginning attacks on the outposts around Loc Ninh.
At mid-day on 18 October, the 21st Division 0-3 planned a helicopter assault
into three landing zones, and he requested strong tactical air support which
exceeded normal IV ASOC allocations. The Air Operations Center was pressed
with aircraft shortages and could not make the additional support available,
but the IV ASOC could count on its normal daily allocation: 5 USAF T-28s,
2 A-IHs, and 1 B-26. In the maturing plan, the B-26s and A-1Hs were
committed to cover and escort, and two T-28s were scheduled for preplanding
strikes against each of the three landing zones.(110)
The ARVN 21st Division's Operation Duc Thang 43/$3021 began according
to plan on the morning of 19 October. At 0926 the first helicopter lift
proceeded to Loc Ninh as scheduled, and the two prelanding strike T-28s
encountered only light ground fire at the LZ. In mid-morning, however, the
Vietcong opened fire on the second lift, pinned down the AWN troops that
landed, and hit and damaged the B-26 and a T-28, forcing them to leave
their covering stations. The third helicopter lift overshot its assigned
LZ and Vietcong fire shot dawn one of the H-21s in this aft, injuring two
of the four Americans Aboard. After landing, the ARVN troops in the second
and third lifts were pinned down by Vietcong automatic weapons, and air
support ran out as the VNAF FAC expended all of the available air cover in
close air support strikes. At the 21st Division command post, the division
commander called on the ALO, Major Robert K. Butler, to get more air
support, intermixing his requests with statements such as "when you really
need it, you can never get it." Air strikes were renewed in the afternoon
when the planes had turned around and returned. The US Argy advisors praised
the aggressiveness of the support, especially the B-26 which continued to
attack with other ordnance after its guns malfunctioned, even though in one
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pass it was fired upon simultaneously by six to eight automatic weapons
positions. The air strikes did not quiet the deeply-dug Communist firing
positions, and the Vietcong showed no hesitation in shooting at aircraft
while the planes were attacking. The Vietcong held their positions all day,
finally withdrawing under cover of rain at nightfall. The ALOss request for
a flareship and fighters to pursue the retreating enemy was called off
because the ARVN forces were uncertain about the locations of their men.
Altogether during the day, 6 VNAF A-1H, 8 VNAF T-28, 15 USAF T-28, and 2
USAF B-26 strike sorties were flown, and .2 VNAF T-28s, 4 USAF T-28s, and
2 B-26s were hit by ground fire. Friendly losses included 41 killed, 84
(12 US) wounded, and an H-21 shot down. The enemy losses included 32
confirmed killed and 59 freshly dug graves were also found in the immediate
vicinity of the battle.(111).
The Vietcong hailed the battle at loc Ninh as an equivalent victory
to that scored earlier in the year at Ap Bac and regarded it as a justifi-
cation for continued employment of the tactics whereby they would attack
enemy posts and then ambush the ARVN reinforcements. (112) In his report of
the operation, Major Butler pointed out that either napalm incendiaries
or 500-lb. bombs would have been appropriate against the deeply dug
Communists firing positions, since low shower cloud bases prevented the
supporting aircraft from effective high-angle strafing attacks. The IV CTZ
ALO, Colonel Collings recommended four-ship aircraft flights that would be
able to keep Communist positions under continuous fire during attacks
against them, thus reducing damages to the friendly planes. And the
experience at Loc Ninh caused Colonel Pierce to remark once again on the
scarcity of air support in the IV CTZ, which had averaged less than 10
aircraft a day since the establishment of the IV ASOC.(113) The ARVN 21st
Division also learned lessons from r4oc Minh. Early on the morning of 7
November, some 200 Vietcong attacked a pagoda and then holed up in a mud-
walled fishing settlement on the coast about 20 miles southeast of Soc
Trang. Late that afternoon, an ARVN and Civil Guard troops fixed the
location of the Vietcong and determined that there were no friendlies in the
walled position. The government troops did not attempt a frontal assault,
but instead the four T-28s at Soc Trang made repeated attacks against the
enemy position. Next day, blood marks within the walled enclosure showed
that at least 40 Vietcong had been killed by air. The US Army advisor
commented that if the ARVN forces had attacked, there would have been
another "loc Ninh. "(114)
As it happened, the Communist victory at Lac Ninh occurred at almost
the same time that the ARVN general offensive was collapsing. General
Harkins would continue to believe that the offensive foundered because of
the declining political situation,(115) but other examinations of the RVUAF
"explosion" operations questioned whether the campaign had ever became
effective. An examination, of operations reports by the US Joint Chiefs of
Staff led to the conclusion that the military situation in South Vietnam was
declining from July 1963 onward,(116) and PACAF received much the same
impression from an examination of the following monthly totals of Vietcong
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killed by air strike in the months of July through October 1963:
VIETCONG KILLED BY AIR STRIKES, JULY-OCT 1963
Month
Jul Aug
Sep
Oct
I CTZ
3 1
42
0
II CTZ
31 71
3
5
III CTZ
65 53
137
20
IV CTZ
245 288
473
347
Total
344 413
473
372
Source:
Hist.
2AD, Jan-June 1964, Vol. 6, Doc.
31.
The decline in the offensive accomplishments of tactical airpower was
attributable in part to the growing scarcity of tactical air sorties, but
in the IV CTZ Colonel Pierce pointed to the remarkable accomplishments of
a very limited number of aircraft and suggested that little effort had been
made to maximize tactical air capabilities. "The role of tactical air,"
Pierce wrote, "has been discounted by most counterinsurgency experts in
recent years, but our experience here is proving them wrong. I am con-
vinced that decisive air firepower will eventually be recognized as
essential to successful prosecution of even the smallest of wars. I
believe that, given the resources, we could soon prove it beyond doubt. "(117)
S. Problems of Aerial Reconnaissance
The USAF-VNAF air reconnaissance establishment planned and in process of
development in South Vietnam early in 1963 was designed to meet broad Southeast
Asia reconnaissance requirements, aerial reconnaissance needs within South
Vietnam in support of the National Counterinsurgency Plan/General Offensive
Plan, and immediate air requirements within the four OTZs inside South
Vietnam. The 2d Air Division's reconnaissance plan envisioned a phased
reduction of USAF air capabilities as quickly as the VNAF 716th Squadron,
programmed for equipment with 3 RC447s, 4 RT-33s, and 18 RT-28s, reached a
full operational capability of 374 sorties a month -- an eventuality
expected to be attained by midsummer 1964. The VNAF reconnaissance program
encompassed the deployment of detachments of Vietnamese photo reconnaissance
aircraft and self-sufficient photo processing cells (PPOs) to each of the
four CTZs, thus providing locally competent capabilities for aerial photo-
graphy, photo processing, initial interpretation, and reporting of
intelligence. (118)
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As has been seen, the VNAF 716th Squadron was activated at Tan Son
Nhut in September 1962, but at this time the VNAF possessed only two old
C-45 photo aircraft, and the 716th was committed to interim employment as
a reduced-strength T-28 tactical fighter squadron.(119) In January 1963,
the VNAF established a nine-man PPC at Da Nang, but plans to build other
VNAF PPCs for the II, III and IV Corps at Pleiku, Bien Hoa, and Can Tho
did not come about, since MAP facility construction at Pleiku was slow and
plans for Can Tho awaited decision about the airfield to be built there. (120)
Early in 1963, as has also been seen, the Able Mable RTF at Tan Son Nhut
was increased to six RF-101s; two of the Black Watch RB-26Cs were operating
out of Tan Son Nhut while the third RE-26C was deployed to Da Nang where it
was fragged by the I ASOC; and at their arrival two Sweet Sue RB-26Ls and
two Patricia Ly-nn RB-57s would be bedded down at Tan Son Nhut.(121) In
February 1963, the 6091st ROconnaissance Squadron, located at Yokota Air
Base, Japan, replaced its Hilo Hattie C-54 with a specially-equipped Brave
Bull C-97 reconnaissance aircraft that would fly missions from Tan Son
Nhut. (122)
Requests for photo reconnaissance missions increased during the planning
and preparation phase for the National Campaign Plan/General Offensive Plan.
During the period 1 January to 31 March 1963, USAF and VNAF planes completed
230 requests for reconnaissance. Of these, 69 were for ARVN operational
planning, 23 were in support of heliborne operations, 121 were for the
location of Vietcong activities, 3 were visual inspections of anti-helicopter
defenses, 2 were terrain study, 7 were in support of civic action projects,
and 5 were for miscellaneous purposes. In support of US Army Special Forces,
the 2d Air Division instituted a continuing program to photograph and
maintain photo files in the airlift section of the JAOC of outposts and
Special Force campsites to show the best approaches and drop zones for
aerial supply. Reconnaissance requests received in January-March resulted
in 233 sorties flown by Able liable, 88 by RB-26Cs, and 19 by VNAF C-45s.
In addition, 2,111 visual and 7 hand-held camera photo sorties were logged
by VNAF L-19s.(123)
Early in 1963, General AnthiE was not satisfied with the responsiveness
of the USAF-VNAF reconnaissance establishment and identified two major
problems, one having to do with the JGS procedure for handling reconnaissance
requests and the other concerning the lack of organic courier capabilities
for delivering reconnaissance products to requestors. The Jus directive
on reconnaissance that had been issued on 7 May 1962, specified two
categories of reconnaissance requests -- immediate and preplanned -- to be
forwarded upward through ARVN G-2 channels into the TACS in the same way
as air support requests passed upward through G-3 channels. In March 1963,
Anthis asked the J15 to specify that all reconnaissance requests would be
handled as immediate requests and forwarded directly from battalions to
ASOCs, which would normally use the reconnaissance sorties available to
them to accomplish the missions. If requests received exceeded allocated
sortie capability, the ASOC would forward such requests to the OGS-JOC.
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Although all reconnaissance requests would be handled as immediate requests,
the priority assigned to the mission request would indicate its urgency.
These recommendations were included in a new JGS memorandum on 15 April
1963, which also set priorities as follows: Priority 1 -- mission must be
performed immediately, possibly by aircraft in flight at the time; Priority
2 -- request must be fulfilled as soon as possible; Priority 3 -- request
may be performed when weather permits; Priority 4 -- request may be performed
when higher priority requests have been fulfilled. (l21) The other problem
affecting timeliness of completed reconnaissance concerned the delivery of
photographs and reconnaissance products to requestors by improvised courier
services. In order to speed deliveries, General Anthis requested assignment
of a couple of U-3Bs or preferably T-37s at the Secretary of Defense Conference
on 6 May 1963. At Secretary McNamara's direction, two U-3Bs arrived from
the United States on 24 May to serve as couriers to speed the delivery of
reconnaissance products throughout South Vietnam. (125)
By exploitating USAF reconnaissance capabilities while simultaneously
building the VNAF reconnaissance squAdron and PPCs hopefully to be co-located
with CTZ command posts, PACAF visualized a professionally competent air
reconnaissance system for South Vietnam of the same characteristics that
had been demonstrated during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.(126) A
variety of circumstances in South Vietnam worked against attainment of this
professionally competent system. For one thing, the reconnaissance require-
ments of the insurgency situation in Southeast Asia proved different from
those of World War II, Korea, or Cuba. Even more immediately, however, the
reconnaissance system envisioned for South Vietnam was predicated upon the
VNAF capabilities which, for the greater part, were not going to develop.
At Da Nang, the I ASOC was able to frag the RB-26C kept deployed there and
the VNAF PPC also provided immediate support to I Corps requirements, but
the other ACs had no local air reconnaissance and could not practicably
frag the reconnaissance force at Tan Son Nhut; instead, the aas-Joic made
reconnaissance allocations, the AOC fragged reconnaissance missions, and
intelligence products had to be delivered from Tan Son Nhut. In 1963, this
was considered to be a temporary expedient that would be changed when VNAF
manned its PPCs and reconnaissance squadron. (127) In the meanwhile, how-
ever, the USAF-VNAF system had difficulty competing with the responsiveness
of the locally available US Army Mohawk detachments and PPCs under test
in II CTZ. Especially in April, May, and June, USAF ALOs in II CTZ were
concerned about slow deliveries of requested RF-101 reconnaissance photos,
which, while generally excellent, were not responsive enough to meet their
requirements. "Mohawks," noted Lt Colonel Meir, the 9th Division ALO,
"might only take a small picture, but this was here in 24 hours and a
mall picture is better than no picture at all. :1(128) There was no doubt
of the responsiveness of the Mohawks when attached to ARVN divisions, but
the locally gathered intelligence was not fed into the over-all intelligence-
reconnaissance system where it could have been used by the entire intelli-
gence community to increase, confirm, or deny information already held. (129)
As Mohawk tests were nearing completion, General Harkins announced his
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intention to keep them in Vietnam to fulfill operational requirements of
ininediate concern to ground commanders. Harkins stated that the Mohawks
were "complementary" rather than "competitive" to USAF-VNAF tactical air
reconnaissance and that coordination of the Mohawk effort with that of
other tactical air reconnaissance activities was not necessary since the
Mohawk effort was "outside of the Specialized capabilities of other photo
aircraft. "(130) Even though by the autumn of 1963, the central USAF-VNAF
air reconnaissance system had become able, almost without exception, to
deliver reconnaissance products to requesting agencies on or before requested
deadlines,(131) but ARVN divisions:had found it convenient to rely upon
locally available organic Mohawk reconnaissance. "We believe," the USAF
ALO at ARVN 5th Division reported in November, "virtually all requests for
visual and simple photographic reconnaissance are intercepted and flown by
organic aviation. "(132) Under these circumstances, the employment of the
US Army Mohawks -- aircraft that were not programmed for either ARVN or
VNAF -- served to palliate the requirement to develop VNAF tactical air
reconnaissance, this despite the announced American policy of preparing
South Vietnamese forces to fight their awn war.
Although the VNAF 716th Squadron was operational as an interim tactical
fighter unit, the conversion of the squadron to its intended reconnaissance
mission went slowly. In October, the squadron gained operational photo-
graphic capabilities with a single camera-equipped RC-47, and camera
equipment was being installed in the two other programmed RC-47s and in
six T-28Ds that had been delivered in South Vietnam. The remaining eight
RT-28s were programmed for modification in the Dated States and were
scheduled for delivery to Vietnam by January 1964.(133) In the absence of
VNAF photo reconnaissance Capabilities, USAF aircraft flew nearly all of
the USAF-VNAF air photo effort during 1963, with the peak of effort occurring
in April and May, in the climax of planning for the RVNAF general offensive,
as demonstrated in the following chart:
,------
USAF-VNAF PHOTO RECONNAISSANCE SORTIES, 1963
Month
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr May Jun
Jul
Aug
Sep Oct
Nov
Dec
RF-101
82
72
79
?47 ---113-96
98
105
99 111
115
110
RB-57
22 2
32
60
21
L7
47 19
25 22
25
0
44
3
RB-26
28
11
49 ---Bri 77 51
VNAF
3
13
6
26 9 0
41
0 17
26
38
9tI.
TM
ifl tmi9
166
24
TOTAL
3
9
13I
246 231 177
SOURCE:
Hist. 2d AD, Jan-June 1964, Vol. 6, Doc. 31
Although a PACAF survey of USAF and VNAF reconnaissance activities in
Southeast Asia made at the end of October 1963 attested that the VNAF recon-
naissance squadron was progressing satisfactorily toward operational
capability and that the delivery of reconnaissance products to requesting
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agencies was, almost without exception, being made on or before established
deadlines(134), there were other evidences that the Southeast Asia aerial
reconnaissance program was not offering maximum value under conditions
of counterinsurgency -- an environment which presented different reconnais-
sance requirements from those that had been met in World War II, Korea,
and during the Cuban missile crisis. Viewed in retrospect, the lack of a
single USAF manager for aerial reconnaissance in Southeast Asia -- or even
a 11r. Reconnaissance" in 2d Air Division -- made it difficult to meld the
separate packages of aerial reconnaissance capabilities into a complete
aerial reconnaissance program, or even to identify the unique requirements of
aerial reconnaissance in the new and strange environment.
One of the first unique problems of aerial reconnaissance met during
1962 and continued into 1963 was that of locating fugitive Vietcong radio
transmitters from the air -- a task that had initially appeared simple to
accomplish with airborne high frequency/direction finding (HF/DF) equipment.
As has been seen, this task was undertaken by HF/DF equipped US Army L-20s
and by the USAF Hilo Hattie C-54 and proved to be very difficult. By
January 1963 the communications detection activity revealed that some 224
Communist radio transmitters were active, but it was unable to fix the
exact location of the sets close enough for air strikes against them. In
the search for the Vietcong transmitters, the US Army D-20s proved more
successful than Hilo Hattie, whose HF/OF equipment and also its Reconofax
IV infrared photographic equipment performed poor1y.(135) In January 1963,
General Anthis privately questioned whether the Vietcong radio transmitters
ought to be attacked since they were the best current indicators as to the
location of Vietcong leadership and hardcore troops and it might be better
to listen to the traffic.than end it.(136) This view was not apparently
officially accepted, and since Hilo Hattie was not giving positive results
the 6091st Reconnaissance Squadron retired the plane in February 1963 and
began to stage an electronic intelligence and camera-equipped C-97, nick-
named "Brave Hull," to Tan Son Nhut for operational flights in Southeast
Asia. (137) In its turn, the Brave Bull 0-97 was unable to fix the location
of enemy transmitters, but its long focal length camera served other useful
purposes.
Under the conditions of insurgency, PACAF aerial reconnaissance
officers envisioned that airborne infrared (IR) reconnaissance systems,
capable of detecting the electromagnetic radiation emitted by small camp-
fires, vehicles, structures, trails, and streams underneath foliage and
tree cover, would be of great value in identifying Vietcong activities
that would be hidden in normal photography. Because of technical problems
the Reconofax IV IR photo equipment installed in Hilo Hattie did not work,
but on 2 March two RB-26L "Sweet Sue" aircraft, equipped with factory-
installed Reconofax sensors and cameras, arrived at Tan Son Nhut from Fort
Worth, Texas, for assignment to the Farm Gate detachment and later the 1st
Air Commando Squadron. At the end of a 90-day shakedown, the technical
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representative who accompanied the infrared equipment was unable to make
the Reconofax IV system (originally designed for installation on B-58s)
work. Spares left by Hilo Hattie turned out to be differently configured,
making it impossible to use them in Sweet Sue. Climatic conditions,
especially dust and moisture, fouled the sensors in the RB-26Ls; moreover,
photo flare cartridge ejectors were forward of the infrared system so that
heat from each ejected flare employed for night photography saturated the
infrared detector and rendered its film useless. Test equipment had to be
scrounged in the theater and locally-available airmen selected for IR
maintenance training had little electronics background. In June, the JAW
scheduled the Sweet Sue planes for IR missions; the system was flown six
times and failed each time. While the Sweet Sue infrared would never work,
the RB-26L turned out to be an excellent photo aircraft in the counterin-
surgency environment and was so employed. The glass nose of the RB-26L
accamnodated a navigator, who was very valuable for visual navigation to
pinpoint targets when map data was inaccurate. (138)
In addition to the Sweet Sue HB-26Ls, which were limited to operating
within South Vietnam, USAF proposed to outfit two RB-57E aircraft with
advanced and improved equipment, including Reconofax VI sensors and K-52
panoramic cameras, and to attach the Patricia Lynn RB-57E detachment to
the Able Mable reconnaissance taSk force for prospective employment both
within South Vietnam and throughout Southeast Asia. The two Patricia
Lynn RB-57s reached Tan San Mut on 6 May. Although PACAF had believed
that the RB-57s would arrive campletelTequipped and with 90-day spares,
integral components of the infrared sensors proved to be lacking. Once
again, the RB-57s gave good performance with their camera systems, and the
new K-52 panoramic camera' provided horizon-to-horizon photography of
very clear resolution even when the RB-57 was operated at high speed and
low altitude. The fact that both horizons appeared in the panoramic
photograph increased a photo interpreter's perspective but required
additional training on the part of interpreters, who had to learn to
compensate for distortion inherent in the wide lateral coverage. (139)
AS Colonel Henderson wrote General Moorman on 25 July, the failure of
Sweet Sue and Patricia Lynn infrared equipment was "giving the USAF a
black eye." Henderson's request for aggressive action led to the organiza-
tion of an expert Air Force Logistics Command "Big Safari" technical team
that began local assessments and rework of the Patricia Lynn infrared
equipment at Clark Air Base late in September. In initial operational
missions generated by the 2d Air Division beginning in April 1964, the
Patricia Lynn Reconofax XI sensors would provide technically competent
imagery on film of Communist habitations in Zone D and of vessels on the
coastal and inland waterways of the Delta. A 60-day evaluation completed
in June confirmed the Patricia Lynn infrared as an operational capability
for locating Communist night activity in given locations; but at this
time, photo interpreters would still have to be trained to make maximum
use of the infrared imagery and means would have to be found whereby the
resultant intelligence could be exploited. (]J40) In short, the equipment
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worked but the intelligence system did not have a plan to exploit the
information it could provide:
The political situation in Southeast Asia also presented difficult
aerial reconnaissance problems. In January 1963, the Joint Chiefs of
Staff team which visited Vietnam noted that restrictions against overflights
of Laos and North Vietnam were making victory more remote in South Vietnam
and recommended that Admiral Felt secure authority for air and ground
reconnaissance missions into Laos. On PACAF recommendation, Admiral Felt
on 18 February requested authority for four RF-101 special daylight flights
at altitudes not less than 10,000 feet to cover the Tchepone area. When
approval for these missions was not given, Felt requested in April that
the Brave Bull C-97, which outwardly appeared to be a transport aircraft,
be allowed to photograph Tchepone. Again, on 29 June, General Harkins
urgently importuned Admiral Felt for permission to photograph Communist
buildups reports in southern Laos. (141) Since Washington authorities were
unwilling to authorize reconnaissance flights over Laos, General O'Donnell
proposed to Felt on 30 April that PACAF should be authorized to make an
aerial mapping survey of Vietnam's borders, conducted with full publicity
as an assistance project beneficial to all countries concerned. This
proposal was also unacceptable. Although limited to operating over South
Vietnam, 2d Air Mivision photo aircraft, nevertheless, managed with
vertical and oblique cameras to photograph approximately 85 percent of the
Lao and Cambodian border during 1963. These border surveillance photographs
helped provide intelligence information About personnel and materiel infil-
tration routes along South Vietnam's periphery. One notable set of RF-101
photos revealed heavily fortified positions just inside Cambodia with
well-used pathways connecting across the border with known Vietcong
installations, providing substantial proof that the Communists were enjoy-
ing a sanctuary in Cambodia. (142)
At the same time that political restrictions limited aerial reconnais-
sance to South Vietnam, CTZ concepts for prosecuting the counterinsurgency
campaign within South Vietnam posed problems to a centralized air reconnais-
sance system. The development of intelligence centered within the separate
corps areas affected the operations of transport planes and strike aircraft
that flew across the arbitrary boundaries of the corps tactical zones to
accomplish missions. For example, troop carrier crews found that intelli-
gence was frequently not available in the I ASOC area to support necessary
flights fram Da Nang into the IV ASOC area. (143) In the Spring of 1963,
centrally located air cammando crews camplained that they never saw target
photographs during pre-mission briefings. After looking into the matter,
General Anthis issued instructions that each operational air base and ASOC
be provided sets of target folder photographs to be used for aircrew
briefings. This procedure worked well enough when major air attack
objectives were being targeted through the Joint General Staff, but the
impetus of the counterinsurgency campaign soon shifted to the individual
corps areas where the ASOCs often lacked pre-mission target photography.
In October 1963, the 23d Division ALO secured photo reconnaissance of his
area that was very helpful in identifying targets for airstrike, helping
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pilots recognize objectives, and initiating ground operations. In
general, however, the air strike crews continued to lack pre-mission
target photography. Bomb damage assessment photography was very difficult
to manage despite a standing AOC reconnaissance requirement that all air
strikes that could be covered immediately would be photographed for BDA.
There was usually at least a one-half hour delay before reconnaissance air-
craft could arrive over a strike area, and many small, hastily-ordered air
strikes could not be covered at all. To the AOC Reconnaissance Branch,
the lack of success with BDA dictated a requirement that COIN strike air-
craft carry camera pods and accomplish their own assessment photography.
On the other hand, B-26 crewmen who did take BDA photos of their strikes
complained that they never got their photography back from processing at
Tan Son Nhut.(1)1h)
The central operating location of Able Mable at Tan Son Nhut gave
some trouble to the conduct of RF-101 missions. With their jet speed, the
RF-101s could fly to and from Tan Son Nhut to the most distant reaches of
the I CTZ in an hour and 40 minutes and still have an effective time in
the target area of 50 minutes, but high speed -- coupled with often
inaccurate maps and objective coordinates -- at times made it difficult
for an RF-101 pilot to locate small pinpoint targets unique to guerrilla
warfare in an area that was not familiar to him. Thus, in June 1963,
RF-101 photographs of pinpoint landing zones requested by the 9th Division
ADO were as far as six kilometers off target. (145) In order to compensate
for navigation errors and map coordinate errors of pinpoint targets, the
tactical reconnaissance crews began to turn on their cameras extra early
and leave them on extra late, thus providing a request for more photography
than wanted. At the same time, US Army and ARVN requestors became prone to
ask for area coverage when actually an effective strip or pinpoint photo
would have sufficed.(146) Other environmental factors contributed to an
emphasis upon area and vertical photography. In regions of dense, unbroken
foliage, vertical photography was more effective than oblique photography,
and in areas where the jungle canopy was frequently broken, vertical
photography often proved necessary to locate spots of interest before
oblique photography could be useful. Other types of spot photography were
also affected by the environment. Camouflage detection film was of some
value, but where dense natural jungle growth was so readily available, the
enemy seldom had need for artificial cover and, if he did, he could rapidly
renew cut branches with freshly-cut vegetation. Night flash photography
not only alerted the enemy of interest in an area, but yielded poor photos
since the jungles absorbed too much light and water-covered rice paddy
land reflected too much glare for good photography. (147)
Seeking to insure that customers would understand how to request the
type of reconnaissance best suited to meet their needs, the 2d Air
Division's Targets Branch prepared and issued on 9 September 1963 a Photo
Reconnaissance Handbook explaining the various types of air reconnaissance
that could be flown in South Vietnam.(148) The majority of requests,
however, continued to be for large-scale vertical area cover photography,
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often of areas as large as 20 by 30 kilometers. For example, in
October 1963, the PACAF reconnaissance survey mentioned that requesting
agencies were submitting invalid requirements for masses of contact prints.
thereby saturating the photo system. An accounting of photo completions
from January through June 1964 would show47.7 percent vertical area
cover, 28.8 percent vertical and oblique strips, and 23.5 vertical and
oblique pinpoints. Flying such large amounts of vertical area cover,
especially when parts of any area to be photographed were usually obscured
by clouds at any given time, strained RF-101 capabilities and, of course,
contributed to built-in delays in the accomplishment of requested photo-
graphy. In the Air Operations Center, the USAF Deputy Director, Lt Colonel
Fowler, suspected that the reconnaissance officers in the ASOCs were not
helping requestors to select the type of reconnaissance that could best
meet their needs. Fowler remarked that the ASOC reconnaissance officers
were former tactical reconnaissance pilots who were prone to accept the
challenge of any request received and to pass it on for accomplishment
without first examining it for suitability, feasibility, and necessity to
a requestor, or for its effect upon the over-all reconnaissance capability.
On the other hand, in the counterinsurgency environment, vertical area
photography was proving very useful for mapping and operational planning
and it would be provided, even though this type of reconnaissance was
contrary to the concept of quick-reacting tactical reconnaissance.(149)
By October 1963, General Anthis judged that "from a pure coverage
standpoint," the 2d Air Division could accomplish "most requests for
photography," but he, nevertheless, pointed out that in the counterinsurgency
environment the air reconnaissance effort was not yielding maximum amounts
of intelligence, which was, after all, the purpose of air reconnaissance.
Small and often fleeting insurgency targets were difficult to locate and
photograph. Anthis though that professionally trained reconnaissance
crews were necessary to achieve quality results, but he offered a preliminary
suggestion that a composite strike/reconnaissance aircraft should be
developed and provided for counterinsurgency warfare and that counterin-
surgency aircrew training should cross-train crews to accomplish both
missions.(150) At this same time, other 2d Air Division officers were
beginning to emphasize the critical importance of sustained, daily visual
reconnaissance in locating insurgent activities -- this despite the 2d Air
Division's failure to get resources needed for the "cat and mouse" concept
and a general inability to persuade VNAF strike fighter pilots to undertake
low-level visual reconnaissance missions. The III Corps ALO, Lt Colonel
Mellish, was particularly insistent that ALO/FACfs and VNAF observers could
locate the Vietcong, even in heavily-wooded areas, if they got dawn low
and looked for them. (151) Air reconnaissance system requirements were
also emerging. On the Air Force side, Colonel Harvey Henderson, Deputy
Commander 2d Air Division, continued to urge that the fragmentary RB-26,
RB-57, and RF-101 capabilities be consolidated in a tactical reconnaissance
squadron and that the 13th Reconnaissance Technical Squadron be placed
under control of the lirector of Intelligence, 2d Air Division. (1S2) In
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addition to single management of USAF reconnaissance, there was a need to
insure that information obtained by all reconnaissance activities --
USAF, US Army, and VNAF -- was properly reported, screened, evaluated, and
exploited for common-user intelligence purposes. (1S3)
6. Air Transport Capabilities Exceeded Requirements.
Where strike aircraft proved inadequate in number fully to support
the National Campaign Plan/General Offensive Plan, it was evident by early
1963 that MACV requirements for air transport were exaggerated, partly
because of uncertainty as to how successfully the Vietcong would interdict
surface travel but also because Brig General Frank A. Osganski, MACV J-4/
favored US Argy concepts of aerial transport organization which visualized
arbitrary second and third destination delivery of air cargoes in forward
areas by US Army Caribou aircraft and cargo helicopters. The MACV J-4
logistics movement concept for intensified operations envisioned the
establishment of redistribution depots at Da Nang (I CTZ) by 1 May, Nha
Trang (III CTZ and Special Forces) by 1 June, Qui Nhon (II CTZ) by 1 July,
and Can Tho (IV CTZ) by 1 August. The depots at Saigon would continue to
support III and IV CTZs, ami the majority of materiel would continue to
be delivered by air and sea to Saigon, where it would be shipped by sea to
Da Nang, Qui Nhon, Nha Trang, and Can Tho. The SEA Sealift System went
into operation on 31 March 1963, and a US LST departed Saigon every seven
days and made a 12-day round trip, unloading at Da Nang, Qui Nhon, and
Nha Trang, and returning to Saigon.(154)
In December 1962, General Osganski conceived that lack of security
would make South Vietnamese rail and highway systems of limited value
during intensified operations and that locations inland from the coastal
redistribution centers would have to be supplied predominantly by air.
He thought that POL would be included in aerial cargoes. At this point,
projected airlift requirements approximated 34,000 tons per month, including
special commitments of tactical airlift. On the basis of this planning,
as has been seen, General Harkins requested a third and fourth C-123
squadron (32 aircraft) and a second CV-2B Caribou company (16 aircraft).
In context with the MACV plan, the 2d Air Division and 315th Troop Carrier
Group proposed in a formal briefing for General Harkins on 16 February
envisioning expansion and exploitation of the Southeast Asia Airlift
System as originally conceived in MACV Directive No. 42. Under guidance
from the Joint Movements Allocation Board in MACV J-4, the Airlift Branch
in the Joint Air Operations Center would manage utilization of the 64 USAF
C-123s, 32 VNAF C-47s, and 32 US Argy CV-2Bs. Transport Movement Control
sections would be established in each of the ASOCs and also at Qui Nhon
and Nha Trang. The C-123s would make the initial distribution from Tan
Son Nhut to the four other primary depots and secondary distribution from
Tan Son Nhut and the four other primary depots to 29 additional destinations.
Integral corps aircraft would make tertiary or final distribution. The
TMCfs would exercise flying control over corps aircraft -- not in order to
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control the flying assets but to maintain flight safety and to preclude
saturation of airfields and airspace. General Harkins asked for a copy
of the briefing to study and his remarks indicated that he did not believe
that the airlift requirement would be as large as Osmanski had stated
since roads were being cleared and Vietcong incidents against road and
rail traffic were decreasing and ought to decrease still more as intensi-
fied operations progressed. (155) At another meeting held on 7 March
between General Osmanski, Colonel Leon M. Tannenbaum, Commander of the
315th Troop Carrier Group, and Colonel George C. Marton, Commander of US
Army Special Forces (Provisional) Vietnam, it was agreed that the Special
Forces at Nha Trang would be guaranteed 20 tons of airlift every day, or
600 tons of airlift a month from the SEAAS.(156) On 17 April, the USAF
777th Troop Carrier Squadron arrived at DaNang with 16 C-123s, whereupon,
the 32 C-123s already in Vietnam were concentrated at Tan Son Nhut, with
3 of them further detached to Don Muang in Thailand. ($7)
Discussions and developments had also been in progress to refine airlift
requirements. While the logistical depot system was unchanged, it no longer
appeared necessary to plan initially to move large quantities of POL by
air or to transport all dry cargo to second and third destinations by air-
craft. On 18 April, the NCP monthly airlift requirements were revised
down to 14,561 tons, plus 600 tons for Special Fbrces, plus 1,500 tons of
tactical airlift, or a round total of 16,500 tons per month. Narking
around the clock, the 315th Troop Carrier Group, whose commander also
served as 2d Air Division Director of Air Transportation, adjusted the
requirement of new airlift schedules. Effective 24 MAY, the 8th Aerial
Port Squadron expanded with the activation of Detachment 6 at Qui Nhon
and Detachment 7 at Can Tho. On 5 June, PACAF alerted sourced subcommands
to begin deploying 120-day temporary duty personnel to the new TMCs and
to aerial port detachments being established to support NCP airlift
requirements. (158)
In all planning for the National Campaign Plan airlift, the 2d Air
Division and 315th Troop Carrier Group continued to assume that US Army
Caribous and VNAF C-47s would be incorporated in the Southeast Asia Air-
lift System as provided by MACV Directive No. 42. But in fact, the tonnages
specified in the April NCP airlift plan were within the capabilities of
three 0-123 squadrons and a single Caribou campany. In the projection, the
C-123s would be expected to provide more than 80 percent of the total NCP
airlift requirement. A tactical analysis of the C-123B transports in
Vietnam published on 15 April 1963, offered the major conclusion that the
C-123B had successfully performed tasked airlift missions in South Vietnam
and that a replacement aircraft with less load carrying capability would
be economically unsound, infeasible, and detrimental to counterinsurgency
airlift operations. In addition to the primary airfield system in Vietnam,
there were at least 59 assault airstrips (2,000 feet or less) and 88 non-
established or hastily prepared facilities that would accept the C-123B,
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assuming adequate weather, landing surface, and security measures were
met. At other locations, the C,123s consistently delivered paradropped
supplies very successfully with a modified "Bent Bow" rapid delivery
technique. This system utilized prefabricated roller conveyors in the
cargo compartment and ramp. At the point of a drop, the pilot pulled up
the C-123s nose and increased power; simultaneously, the loadmaster
released restraining gates, and a "pusher" helped get the load started
seaward where it was gravity-fed out of the plane. With proper timing,
8,000 pounds of cargo could be delivered in one pass into a drop zone
less than 1,000 feet long. At the same time that the C-123B operational
test was in progress, a service test of an experimental YC-123H, equipped
with jet assistance take-off pods and wide track and reduced foot print
pressure landing gear was service tested in Vietnam and demonstrated load
carrying advantages in primitive operating conditions. Thus while the
C-123B was judged to be an optimum counterinsurgency aircraft in Vietnam,
it was conceivable that, if NCP airlift requirements increased, the C-123B
force should be augmented with C-123Hs or C-130s.(159)
Through centralized direction of the utilization of airlift capacity,
the Southeast Asia Airlift System praised to secure the most economical
employment of available airlift and to avoid overcrowding of scarce air
facilities. But while the concept of central direction was stated in MACV
Directive No. 42, the AOC Airlift Branch did not in fact secure authority
commensurate with its responsibility. Although VNAF and USAF officers
jointly manned the AOC Airlift Branch and the TMCs, VNAF C-47s were not
formally reported as part of the airlift system and separate transport
frag orders were issued for Vietnamese and American transport planes. The
lack of a cammon transport frag order and activity reporting system was a
weakness to central direction, but it seemed more apparent than real. The
VNAF officers in the AOC Airlift Branch fulfilled RVNAF requirements as
far as they were able, and the USAF officers picked up requirements beyond
the capability of VNAF transport planes. The separate frag order procedure
was also applicable to the situation existing on 5 June, when Washington
authorities directed that US owned aircraft would not be used for the
purpose of transporting Vietnamese troops in connection with the Buddhist
incident in Hue. (160) Although MACV Directive No. 42 provided that the
16 Caribous of the US Army 1st Aviation Company would support the SEAAS,
divergent US Army concepts of air transport organization made it difficult
to integrate these aircraft into the common airlift system and to maximize
their use in support of NCP airlift plan requirements. As has been seen,
General Harkins followed Army wishes and committed eight of the Caribous
to the use of US Army senior corps advisors, leaving eight Caribous for
common use. In a meeting on 15 January, 315th Group representatives
received an assurance that the 1st Aviation Company would provide the
SEAAS with a weekly forecast of Caribou availability to the system. This
promised forecast would not be provided, and CV-2B Caribou commitments to
the SEAAS would vary from a daily average of 1.0 airframes in January, to
1.7 in February, to 1.7 in March, to 1.1 in April, and reached a low of
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0.8 in May.(161) On the other hand, the monthly US Army test reports on
the Caribou stated that CV-2B availability was 10.9 airframes during
February and 11.6 during March; correspondingly, under MACV directive,
daily Caribou commitments to the SEAAS should have averaged 2.9 airframes
for February and 3.6 airframes for March. (162)
Under the Southeast Asia Airlift System concept there was no reason or
wisdom in planning to break up and trans-ship air cargoes at arbitrary
first, second, and third distination airheads provided that the 0-123, with
its 12 ton carrying capacity, could operate directly into a third
destination forward airstrip. The system also envisioned maximum employ-
ment of the smaller and lighter Caribou, with its 2 1/2 ton carrying
capacity, into airstrips where the load-bearing surface could not support
the heavier C-123B. In the National Campaign Plan, only three specified
airstrips required the Caribou because of short runway length and low load-
bearing surfaces. In the final NCP airlift plan, 54 second destination
airheads were arbitrarily to be serviced by Caribous.(163) On the other
hand, the Army test team engaged in Caribou tests accepted the US Army's
new concept of airmobile land operations whereby Army transport aircraft
such as the Caribou and Chinook ought to handle most combat area airlift
to second and third destinations as a matter of routine. The monthly
Caribou test report covering March was quite critical of the lack of
responsiveness of the SEAAS to the needs of users and advocated decentralized
assignment of CV-2B aircraft to corps areas. (164) The basic doctrinal
difference between the Air Force concept of centralized control and
decentralized execution of airlift operations and the Army's concept of
decentralized assignment of aviation made it difficult to demonstrate that
predicted NCP airlift tonnage requirements were not materializing, even
though this was becoming evident in the monthly operational statistics for
the 315th Troop Carrier Group's C-123s, which were the major operating
potential of the Southeast Asia Airlift system:
315TH TROOP CARRIER GROUP C-123 OPERATIONS, JAN-JUNE 1963
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Total C-123 Sorties
1328
1285
1635
1539
2157
1996
Hours Flown
1818.8
1611
1727.4
1823.3
2690.9
2420
Personnel Airlifted
11624
9248
14012
11040
15337
12417
Personnel Airlanded
9552
8552
12110
10890
15337
12025
Personnel Airdropped
2072
696
1902
150
--
392
Cargo Airlifted (Tons)
3027.5
2270.5
2779
2290
3321.9
2815.8
Cargo Airlanded (Tons)
1917.6
2224.7
2714
2106.1
3249.5
2678.1
Cargo Airdropped (Tons)
109.9
45.8
65
192.9
72.4
137.7
Source: Hist. 315th TC 4., Assault, Jan-June 1963, Tab 4.
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Including USAF T-47 and C-123 operations and tactical as well as NCP
airlift, the Southeast Asia Airlift'System moved only 3,898 tons during
May, or 44 percent of the months forecast commitment under the MACV NOP
airlift plan. In addition, VNAF C-47s and US Amy CV-2Bs operating out-
side the system moved 2,415 tans for .a total airlift movement of 61314
tons within South Vietnam. In view of the reduction of the forecast NCP
airlift requirement to 16,500 tons and also because even the reduced NCP
airlift requirements were not developing, Colonel Tannenbaum informed
General Osmanski that SEAAS could accomplish the NOP airlift without the
second Caribou company and the fourth C-123 squadron. (165)
Late in May Colonel Thomas B. Kennedy, a veteran of the Berlin and
Korean Airlifts, arrived in South Vietnam to assume the duty as Director
of Air Transport and Commander 315th Troop Carrier Group. In a visit to
General Osmanski to introduce Colonel Kennedy as his successor, Colonel
Tannenbaum was told by Osmanski that he had not shown Tannenbaumls state-
ment of capability to accomplish the NOP airlift without additional Caribous
to either the MACV J-3 or to General Harkins. Instead, Osmanski said that
he had determined that the additional Caribou company was necessary and so
recanmended to General Harkins.(166) In the first half of June, the SEAAS
was still operating at about 44 percent of the forecast rate, but in a
discussion of 17 June General Osmanski again affirmed his belief that the
tonnage projections of the NCP were valid and insisted that, since General
Harkins intended to use one Caribou company in support of the senior corps
advisors; a second company would be required to serve with the SEAAS. (167)
As June continued, the SEAAS had no difficulty meeting NCP requirements
even though the system handled two special movements into Thailand and the
relocation of the Army Special Forces from Saigon to Nha Trang, thus using
considerable airlift outside the NCP commitments. Inside Vietnam, nine
scheduled SEALS flights were cancelled for non-generation of loads. NCP
logistical buildups were occurring at the Da Nang, Nha Trang, Qui Nhon,
and Saigon air terminals, but the prospective use of Can Tho as a primary
logistical redistribution center was increasingly doubtful since the short
runway at Can Tho was gradually sinking in the Delta mud. (168)
Although the reduced MACV NCP airlift projection did not require the
additional Caribou company, Admiral Felt had initiated action to move
the heavy equipment of the 61st Aviation Company to Vietnam by sea. Since
the movement was in progress, Felt informed Harkins on 24 June that the
planes of the second Caribou Company could proceed to Vung Tau, but he
stated his desire that both Caribou companies would be included in the
over-all airlift system and that Amy Otters should provide direct support
to the corps senior advisors. (169) Issued on 8 July, MACVIIrective No. 44
assigned both Caribou companies the mission of supporting the SEAM but
it also provided that the aviation headquarters being established in the
corps tactical zones would be allocated the types and numbers of aircraft
which the JGS/RVNAF and MACV jointly adjudged essential for continuous
support of operations within the corps. Accordingly, the Caribou aircraft
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of the newly arriving 61st Aviation Company were allocated to corps
tactical zones -- three to I CTZ, four to II CTZ, four to III CTZ, and
four to IV CTZ. Effective on 1 August, the 16 Caribous of the 1st Aviation
Company were allocated to the SEAAS for common user airlift. (170) In its'
final report of the Caribou tests, the US Army test team considered that
MACV Directive No. 44 represented a successful compromise between the Air
Force concept of centralized single manager airlift and the Army's require-
ment for flexible airlift immediately responsible to individual corps
requirements. The team report repeated the assertion that experience had
shown that on occasions the C-123B airplanes operating in the SEALS could
not react fast enough to meet tactical urgencies. (171) Colonel Kennedy,
however, pointed out that the charge that the SEAAS lacked quick respon-
siveness to local emergencies was not supported by precise statistical
data but only by the statement of an Army officer serving as deputy advisor
in II Corps.(172) Kennedy also noted that the use of the 61st Aviation
Company's 16 Caribous within the corps areas and outside cognizance of the
SEAAS led to duplication of routes and duplication of effort provided by
SEAAS. General Anthis regretted that the establishment of parallel Army
aviation was not only increasing costs but significantly reducing the
effectiveness of operations. "In actuality," he wrote, "the long standing
Air Force principle of a centrally controlled base of resources provides
greater flexibility and responsiveness than does a system of parcelled
out resources that can normally be used only in a particular corps geographic
area. This parcelling out of CV-2B's is only symptomatic of the total effort
the Army aviation organization is undertaking. "(173)
As Director of Air Transportation, 2d Air Division, Colonel Kennedy
was responsible for over-all direction of the Southeast Asia Airlift System
both in operations in Thailand and in support of the NCP in South Vietnam.
The system for handling routine logistical requirements was firmed up as
follows: Vietnamese armed forces and US forces determined their monthly
estimated requirements for airlift and forwarded them to the Combined
Movement Allocations Board, which was located in MACV J-4 but operated in
conjunction with the RVNAF JGS. The Combined Movement Allocation Board
determined the amount of routine logistical airlift to be allocated to
each requestor each month and provided the camnitments to the Transport
Movement Control Section of the Air Operations Center, an agency jointly
manned by VNAF air transport officers and the 315th Group's Combat
Operations Section. In addition to routine logistical activity, the SEAAS
responded to on-call operations of preplanned and emergency nature. In
preplanned operations the SEAAS normally sought 24 to 48 hours advance
notice of an airlift mission requirement. Emergency airlift requirements
required response on as little as 15 minutes notice, often by diversion of
aircraft in flight. The three aircraft kept on alert at Tan Son Nhut
and the single alert transport at Da Nang also responded to emergencies.(174)
Each of the three USAF C-123 squadrons committed eight aircraft each day to
the SEAAS. Early in August the 1st Aviation Company had some maintenance
difficulties that held down its in-commission rate, but by the end of the
month it was also committing eight Caribous to the SEAAS each day. The
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committed aircraft were fragged by the AOC/TMC, and a full-time liaison
officer from the 1st AVCO was assigned to. the AOC/TMC to keep the status
and .reports of the Caribous current.(175)_ The _SEAAS?also controlled the
transport operations of:the theist Air Commando Squadron's .C-47s, two of the.
644/S and :ffiFee-Sthe-i-C-=1-23-Iing stationed at Nha Trang for use in
supporting Army Special Forces.(176) The VNAF air transport activity
remained outside the SEAAS, receiving requirements from the JGS and
issuing a separate airlift frag order. Based on his awn observations,
Colonel Kennedy felt that the VNAF air transport group did not commit
enough of its 31 C-47s to daily Airlift missions and noted that it was a
rare day when more than 5 of the Vietnamese transport aircraft flew airlift.
He recognized, however, that VNAF was engaged in extensive flight training
to increase the number of its qualified transport crews.(177) Any
capability of the 61st Aviation Oompany found in excess of senior corps
advisor's requirements was in theory to be made available to the SEAAS.
This did not occur, and, in fact, only in the I Corps did the SEAAS have
some success in maintaining cognizance of the activity of the Caribous
allotted to corps support. (178)
The relatively large logistical airlift requirements specified in the
MACV National Campaign Plan airlift planning did not develop. In May
1963, air shipment from Saigon to Can Tho, Nha Trang, Qui Nhon, and Da
Nang was limited to frozen or chilled items, repair items required to
remove equipment from deadline, small light-weight expensive equipment
readily subject to pilferage or damage, items required for relief of
emergency, mail, and items to prevent work stoppage.(179) By 30 June,
only 50 percent of the airlift tonnages estimated by MACV were materializing
at the origin stations; as a result, MACV revised the airlift forecast and
where the peak of 14,561 'air logistical tonnage had been expected in
October this was slipped to December.(180) Even after the beginning of
the offensive phase of the NCP, airlift tonnages requiring shipment failed
to increase. The requirement for August was only 5,240 tons and for September
only 6,200 tons.(181) The cargo and passengers carried by the C-123s
showed little appreciable increase in the last half of 1963:
315TH TROOP CARRIER GROUP C-123 OPERATIONS, JULY-DEC 1963
otal C-123 Sorties
ours Flown
ersonnel Airlifted
ar o Airlifted (Tons)
Jul Aug Sep Oct
2,27E? 2,088 2,315 2,259
2,998 2,582 2,707 2,679
16,373 13,766 13,707 13,794
2 884 3,998 3,328 3,042
aurae: Pro ect C
Nov
Dec
2,512
2,689
2,852
3,153
14,004
16,047
3,850
4,478
Airlift 0perations 23 Feb. 1967, p. 31.
_ At
The principal deficiency in the NCP airlift plan proved to be the forecast
of airlift requirements from the second destination depots at Qui Nhon,
Nha Trang, and Can Tho. The NCP airlift estimate of 14,561 tons was
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predicated upon a large number of 30-minute sorties to be flown from the
coastal airfields. Instead, airlift requirements did not generate in
expected amounts at the coastal ports, and the average airlift sortie
continued to run to one to two hours, with a consequent reduction in
system airlift tonnages. (182)
By October the Southeast Asia Airlift System had more capacity than
seemed likely to be needed and plans were made for its reduction. In
Colonel Kennedy's view, both the C-123 and the Caribou were excellent
aircraft, though designed against different criteria. The Caribou could
operate into runways of shorter length and with less load-bearing capacity
than the C-123, although the C-123 had reversable propellers which on
wet surfaces, permitted it to land in distances that the Caribou (which
had not yet been equipped with reverse-pitch propellers) could not manage.
The C-123s operated into 95 different airfields and some 66 different drop
zones, most of which were completely uncontrolled as far as air traffic
was concerned. The Caribous worked well on short distance hauls, where
smaller air cargo was involved. The 1st Aviation Company was completely
cooperative with SEAAS management, and, in Colonel Kennedy's estimation,
showed appreciation of the fact that a centrally controlled airlift could
guarantee schedule reliability. At the same time, Colonel Kennedy and
General Anthis agreed that a follow-on counterinsurgency transport ought
to better the performance of both the C-123 and the Caribou. Kennedy
recommended an easily-loadable plane with a 20,000 pound cargo capacity,
possessing short-field landing and takeoff characteristics of approximately
1,000 feet, and with an ability to operate on soft surfaces such as packed
dirt or sod strips. Anthis also wanted an intra-theater workhorse. which
would better the C-123 characteristics. For the time being, both Kennedy
and Anthis recummended that the C-123 be kept and improved. (183) When
General Taylor and Secretary McNamara visited Vietnam in late September,
Anthis pointed out that airlift requirements had not reached MACV's fore-
cast NCP levels, and Secretary McNamara instructed General Harkins that,
if either a C-123 squadron or a Caribou Company could be released, the
Caribou squadron should be released first and returned to the United
States. (184) In its December reassessment of NCP airlift support require-
ments, MAN reduced the over-all 16,500 tons per month to 10,100 tons.
Accordingly, personnel of the 1st Aviation Company, the USAF "Dirty Thirty"
C-47 pilots that had been flying with VNAF, and half of the 8th Aerial Post
Squadron's manpower were released as a part of the 1,000-man reduction in
MACV strength. The US Army 61st Aviation Company remained in Vietnam in
support of corps senior advisors, and the Amy retained 22-25 CV-2Bs in
South Vietnam, part of these Caribous being designated as "float" aircraft
or spares which insured that each corps area would have available an
allocated number of operational aircraft. Once again, as had been the
practice prior to August, two Caribou aircraft were allocated each day to
the SEAAS by tail number. If these particular aircraft were out of
commission, the SEAAS could not schedule them. (18)
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Unlike the other large airlifts to Berlin and in Korea, the Southeast
Asia Airlift System was called upon to devote a large amount of its effort
to tactical operations. In 1963 about 30 percent of the troop carrier .
operations were tactical, including paradrop resupply, airborne paratroop
flights, and assault airlandings. AS has been seen, the SEAAS made
determined efforts -- including committed airframes at Da Nang and the
Nha Trang -- to give maximum support to the Special Forces. In airlift
emergencies of 1964 the special commitments at Da Nang and Nha Trang
would complicate efficient airlift scheduling, but in 1963 Colonel Morton,
commander US Army Special Forces, Vietnam, praised the reliability and
responsibility of C-47 and C-123 operations. Many special forces units
in remote areas were supported by air drops, these occurring at scattered
locations anywhere in relatively large areas, the precise drop place
commonly changing from day to day. Both the Mule Train C-123s and the Air
Commando C-47s received commendations for their accurate drops. In
August, the US Army test units pointed out that air drops to Special Force
A-teams were very expensive because of the cost of parachutes and rigging
and recommended that more use be made of resupply by helicopters or light
aircraft. In response to a request from MACV to justify the amount of
supplies delivered by parachute during the week of 8-15 October, however,
US Army Special Forces cited the factthat helicopter delivery of supplies
was possible only if helicopters were available and the distance fram the
supply point to the detachment was within range. Even if helicopters
were suitable for a particular mission, they were frequently not available
because of other corps commitments. If available, there were occasions
when their use was not practical. Thus on 9 October, the delivery of 13,860
pounds to a Special Force DZ at Ta Bat would have required 14 H-34 sorties,
each involving 110 minutes flying time per round trip, as campared to two
C-123 sorties actually reauired to airdrop the supplies. Based at Da Nang
and also staging C-123s to Nha Trang, the 777th (redesignated the 311th)
Troop Carrier Squadron handled much of the Special Forces support. In
addition to this, the 777th received a personal cammendation from General
Anthis for the facility with whibh it accomplished an airborne assault
lift in support of the JGS directed air movement of troops and equipment
into the Plateau Gi airstrip on 28 April. Fourteen assault missions airlifted
459 ARVN troops and 13.2 tons of arms and nmunition into the marginal
airstrip in a decidedly "know haw" manner well within the time limits
established for the mission. (l8&)
With properly detailed preplanning and pre-mission briefings, the C-123
crews were consistently able to navigate to unfamiliar areas and place their
para-bundles in pinpoint drop zones, even in the Delta where changing water
levels made it difficult to select land marks and maps did not reflect day-
to-day topography. Properly conducted airborne paratroop operations
demanded the same highly coordinated preplanning, but here the RVNAF Joint
General Staff habitually provided very little preliminary notice of an
impending airborne operation. Without exception, Colonel Kennedy's first
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knowledge of impending paratroop missions came from rumors, followed by
informal notification from various sources. At times, he went through VNAF
and queried whether the OGS might be contemplating an airborne operation.
Allegedly to preserve secrecy, all exact details about an airborne operation
were closely held until frequently it was too late for detailed operational
preplanning and crew briefings. As a rule, the VNAF 0-47 crews knew the
areas over which they were called upon much more intimately than the 0-123
crews and therefore suffered less from the generally inadequate pre-mission
preparation. Designated drop zones were usually small, and the C-123s
were frequently required to drop their troops on the chutes of the troops
dropped from VNAF C-47s. This practice presented several problems.
Positive early identification of olive-drab parachutes was extremely
difficult. Moreover, the C-123s were faster and carried twice the number
of paratroops as the C-47s, with the result that they could not drop their
stick of paratroops in the same distance as the C-47s. On a purely
mathematical basis, if the 0-123 put its first man on the first chute
dropped from a C-47, the last of the 48 men aboard the 0-123 would land
1,450 feet beyond the 22d or last man dropped from the 0-47. The 0-123
crews were usually briefed to expect detailed instructions from a VNAF FAC
over the drop zone, but this was extremely difficult when the FAC, fighters,
and troop carrier aircraft were talking on the same frequency, in two
languages, at the same time. (187)
Under these circumstances, the 0-123 crews had difficulty handling
paratroop operations. In the III CTZ operation north of Berta on 28
January 1963, C-47s and C-123s were called upon to place 1,400 paratroopers
in a jungle clearing 400 x 750 meters in dimensions, the C-123s being
instructed to have the first man in the stick brush the inside branches of
the trees, or words to that effect. In a rather remarkably successful
operation under such risky circumstances, one paratrooper was killed
because of a severed static line and 14 were injured in tree landings. (188)
In subsequent operations -- on 14 March in Long An province, on 21 March
in Vinh Long province, on 24 March in Tay Ninh province, and on 10 June
in Tay Ninh province -- the C-123s had difficulty putting all of their
paratroopers in the drop zones. Although ultimately a success, the para-
troop operation in An Xuyen province on 10 September developed significant
difficulties. Based on rumor, the 315th Group recovered and reconfigured
six C-123s at 1235 hours. The troops were not chuted at specified takeoff
time of 1540, and the C-123s did not get off until 1610, when the planes
proceeded individually trying to make up as much lost time as possible.
In the waning light, chutes that had been dropped by VNAF C-47s were not
visible, but all parachutists were nevertheless placed in the drop zone.
On 20 October in Bien Duong province, the 0-123 crews were briefed to drop
on a FAC 's smoke marker, but the transport crews were greatly confused by
other smoke dropped to mark fighter targets, and in the confusion 338 men
were dropped four kilometers from the selected drop zone. The worst tragedy,
however, would occur on 24 November in An Xuyen province. In this
operation, the 0-123 crews were assured in the pre-mission briefing that
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maps which showed the Cal Nuoc river as lying within the drop zone were
erroneous. Instructions were to begin drops on chutes from VNAF
As it happened, the C-47s dropped long and the C-123s dropped even longer,
with the result that eight men drawned.in the Cal Nuoc river, the feature
that was not supposed to be there. Most of the C-123 paratroopers landed
on the far side of the river, where they were out of action during the
fighting. (189)
Immediately following the An Xuyen mixup, General Anthis called on
Colonel Kennedy to solve the navigation problem; Maj General Tran Van Don,
Chief of the aas, directed the VNAF commander to avoid such deficiencies
in the future; and the US Army Advisor with the ARVN Airborne Brigade
reported that parachutists would likely became reluctant to jump from the
C-123s.if such errors persisted. Colonel Kennedy promptly took actions
on items under his authority, many of which had been under way for some time.
The most highly qualified personnel were designated as lead crews and given
training on peculiar navigation problems. An English-speaking VNAF
navigator was requested to assist the 0-123 leader. The C-123s were
instructed to use their tactical troop carrier channel for inter-plane
communications during airborne operations. No drop would be made,
regardless of briefed instructions, if there was any doubt in the lead
crew's mind as to the identificatibn of the drop zone. Beyond these and
other like actions, Kennedy pointed out that the fundamental requirement
was to get.more notice from the JIGS of an impending airborne operation and
a guaranteed minimum of one hour between the notification of the exact drop
zone and take-off time, this to allow the minimum essential time for
planning, crew briefing, aid manning of aircraft. (190) In turn, General
Anthis asked General Harkins to recognize that "we need to get the aas to
release information sooner than is now being done and in an orderly
fashion. "(191)
By this time, however, the airborne assault problem was becoming even
more complex. Under the "Fire Brigade" alert plan five VNAF C-47s and
three USAF C-123s had been maintained in constant readiness to drop two
companies of ARVN paratroopers, but by November 1963 increased Vietcong
strength and firepower required a response with at least a full ARVN air-
borne battalion. The number of C-47s and C-123s required to lift a battalion
could not be held on alert but would have to be marshalled from planes
committed to daily airlift. The reasonable solution would be for the JIGS
to provide adequate advance notice of impending airborne operations, but
Vietnamese officers would continue to maintain secrecy until the last
moment. Both VNAF and the Airborne Brigade would be powerless to change
the ingrained practice, and, in a continuing struggle not to be caught short,
USAF officers would be ?ampelled to run down every shred of rumor indicating
that an airborne operation might be in the offing. (192)
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7. Collapse of the Diem Government Precipitates Military Crisis
"If Diem goes," the US Joint Chiefs of Staff had advised Secretary
McNamara on 14 April 1962, "we can be sure of losing his strengths but
we cannot be sure of remedying his weaknesses. Achievement of US
objectives could be more difficult without Diem than with him."(193) In a
description of the political climate in South Vietnam in February 1963,
General Moorman noted that Diem wielded dictatorial power and that except
for an agreement to permit popular election of local functionaries in the
strategic hamlets he was not likely to move toward more liberal procedures
in the foreseeable future, especially at the higher levels of government.
Moorman's assessment showed understanding of Diem's position, pointing out
that Diem recognized that the Vietcong were willing to accept a coalition
government which they could dominate and a neutralization of South Vietnam
similar to the arrangement on laos.(194) In August and September 1963,
General Anthis believed that President Diem was "fairly well liked" by his
people, although he had not provided all the reforms that the people (and
the United States) wanted. On the other hand, Diem's brother and sister-
in-law Ngo Dinh Nhu and Madam Nhu -- were "not too popular." In September,
Anthis told Secretary McNamara and 'General Taylor that "VNAF loyalty was
unquestionable for President Diem and to country but they were ashamed of
SVN image created in eyes of world by GVN actions as controlled by the
Nhu's."(195) General Jacob E. Smart, who had assumed command of PACAF on
1 August 1963, spent 5-8 September in South Vietnam and messaged his
observations to General LeMay: "My own feeling," Smart stated, "is that
if we intend to remain committed in Viet Nam -- and I believe that it is
strongly in the national interest that we do so -- then we must support
Diem. Whether we like him' or his family is not germane. . . . My
conclusion is that we must stick with Diem and that we must quickly
demonstrate this by positivi action even though we may have to pay same
price in terms of embarrassment because of what has come to pass. We are
probably going to have to Swallow the fact that Diem will not exile his
brother out of RVN, and from my discussions I am not at all convinced that
this should be our objective. I get distinct impression from Vietnamese
that he is valuable and important to Diem, just as Diem is important to the
nation. "(196)
At the 6 May 1963 Secretary of Defense Conference in Honolulu,
Ambassador Nolting characterized US-Republic of Vietnam as being "somewhat
less good" than they had been six months earlier. Nolting described Diem's
concern that the United States was infringing on South Vietnam's sovereignty
and Nhuls demands for phasing-down American Special Forces, Rural Aid
Advisors, and Sector Advisors, or the portion of the advisory effort that
had created jealousies and conflicts in Diem's political base. Nolting also
mentioned that Diem and Nhu were suspicious of American policy: the Mansfield
report and the deterioration of the situation in Laos were interpreted as
harbingers of weakening US policy in support of South Vietnam. Although US
economic assistance was financing the major portion of the counterinsurgency
program in Vietnam, Diem objected that US controls over the Vietnamese
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contribution of counterpart piasters on the grounds that this degraded
Vietnamese internal sovereignty. Nolting described Nhu as amen who was
"efficient and continues to accumulate power." Despite these causes for
concern Nolting emphasized: "The Country Team is of the unanimous opinion"
that the current RVN leadership is the best the US can get. It is sincere,
albeit not particularly adept, but it is better than most in Southeast Asia."
In the discussion of this political report, Secretary McNamara asked about
his impression that there was a great exaggeration of Diem's dictatorial
powers as campared to Thailand. Assistant Secretary of State Roger Hilsman,
who was present at the conference, replied that Sarit was a popular and
efficient dictator, whereas the liberal wing of the US press was using
inefficiency as a weapon against the Diem government. (197)
In a celebration of Buddha's birthday in Hue on 8 May, Buddhist
demonstrators openly paraded with religious flags in violation of the
ordnance going back to Bao Dai's government in 1950 which had prohibited
flying of any other flag in public unless the national flag was beside it,
and a monk, Thich Tri Quang, delivered a sermon protesting the Diem govern-
ment's discrimination against Buddhists. Civil guard troops moved against
the Buddhists, and in the ensuing riot an explosion killed several civilians
including children. In communique to the press, the monks demanded that
government admit responsibility for the loss of life, rescind the flag
regulation, and give Buddhists equality with Catholics. (198) At the same
time the Buddhist problem was beginning to fester, articles recording an
Anti-American interview given by Ngo Dinh Nhu to an American reporter were
printed in a Washington newspaper, On 15 May, Chairman Otto Passman, whose
Subcommittee of the House Committee on Appropriations was holding hearings
on foreign appropriations .for 1964, expressed indignation to Secretary
McNamara. "Certainly," Passman said, "the Diem government ought to be made
to understand that the American people have no interest in propping up an
unpopular regime if it is more concerned with the pursuit of personal aims
than with the protection of the country fram communism." Nhuls interview
was embarrassing to President Kennedy. On 22 May he told newsmen that he
was hopeful that the military sitUation would permit the. withdrawal of
some Americans by the end of the year. If requested to withdraw troops,
the United States would do so immediately. (199)
In May President Diem received a delegation of Buddhists but offered
no redress pending investigation of the controversy (which he considered to
be political rather than religious) by a committee headed by Vice President
Nguyen Ngoc Tho, who was a Buddhist. Early in June the demonstrations
began again in BUG and spread to Quang Tri and Nha Trang. In a policy
directive on 5 June, Washington directed that US awned aircraft would not
be used to transport Vietnamese troops in connection with the Buddhist
incident, and General Harkins issued directions that members of his command
would stand aloof from the controversy, neither taking positions nor actively
aiding or abetting either protagonist. The turmoil appeared to quiet after
Diem broadcast an acknowledgment of errors committed by same government
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officials, but in Saigon on 11 June an aged Buddhist bonze burned himself
alive publicly. On 14 June a New York newspaper printed a front-page story
by a Washington correspondent stating that the United States would publicly
condemn Diem's treatment of the Buddhists if he did not settle their
grievances promptly. Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Thuan
immediately informed US Minister William Truehart, who was in charge of
the American Embassy during Ambassador Noltingfs temporary absence, that he
was "deeply distressed and angry" about the news story, which would "ruin"
negotiations with the Buddhists. Accordingly, Truehart asked for and
received authority from Washington to state publicly that there had been no
change in US policy to support the Government of Vietnam and that the
United States was gratified at the progress in negotiations with the
Buddhists. In continuing negotiations on 15-18 June, the Government yielded
to most Buddhist demands but refused to assume official responsibility for
the deaths in Hue until an investigation was campleted.(200)
Several months before the Buddhist trouble Ambassador Nolting had
requested to be relieved in Saigon for personal reasons, and on 27 June
President Kennedy announced that Henry Cabot lodge would succeed Nolting.(201)
After several weeks quiet, the Buddhists again demonstrated on 16 July
when crowds of bonzes and nuns congregated in front of Noltingls residence
in Saigon, demanding that the United States compel the Government to keep
its promises to the Buddhists. Violence erupted next day as the Saigon
police broke up continuing demonstrations. At this juncture, the US Air
Attache in Saigon, Lt Colonel Robert L. F. Tyrrell, messaged Washington
that the Buddhist situation was "causing continued animosity between the
government and the armed forces and is spreading to all segments of the
population. It is now common to hear Vietnamese discuss the possible over-
throw of the present government." Tyrrell reported that at a dinner party
on 17 July, Maj General Duong Van Minh, Diem's military advisor, stated
that "the present government cannot continue," and revealed that Lt General
Le Van Ty, RVNAF Chief of Staff, and counted to be very loyal to Diem, had
cancer and would have to go to the United States in the near future for
treatment. Tyrrell reported speculation that Minh, who had the popular
support of the military forces, or Maj General Tran Van Don, the Chief of
Staff of the Joint General Staff and considered the professionally most
qualified military officer, would head a coup. "While at this time,"
Tyrrell messaged, "we cannot determine if a coup is imminent all of the
elements are present and it appears to us to be only a matter of timing. "(202)
In Washington shortly after he was nominated to go to Vietnam, Lodge had a
long talk with a "distinguished Vietnamese" who said that "unless they left
the country no power on earth could prevent the assassination of Mr. Diem,
his brother, Mr. Nhu, and Mr. Nu's wife -- that the situation . . . had
developed to a point where their deaths were inevitable. "(203) On 17 July
President Kennedy expressed hope that same solution could be reached for the
Buddhist dispute, which, he said, "certainly began as a religious dispute."
He was also hopeful that the Vietnamese people could "reach an agreement on
the civil disturbances and also in respect to the rights of others. "(201)
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In Vietnam, Buddhist leaders strongly criticized Ambassador Nolting's
statement that he saw no signs of religious persecution and felt that the
demonstrations were impeding the war against the Vietcong. Between 4 and
16 August several more well-publicized self-immolations took place. At
Nha Trang, the VNAF base commander expressed the opinion that the purpose
of the demonstrations and immolations was to impress Ambassador Lodge with
the seriousness of the Buddhist trouble at his arrival in Saigon on 22
August. At the Presidential palace, Madame Nhu charged that the US Embassy
had threatened and blackmailed the South Vietnamese government to make her
stop talking. She said that the government should ignore the immolations. (205)
Informed persons in Saigon expected sweeping and decisive changes in
policy from Ambassador ledge, and President Diem may have decided to clear
the decks before Lodge's arrival. At approximately 2100 hours on 20 August,
the RVNAF Joint General Staff was called into an emergency meeting and Tran
Van Don took over as RVNAF Chief of Staff, replacing the ailing le Van Ty.
On Nhu's invitation, the senior generals signed a remonstrance calling on
the government to seize and silence the Buddhist leaders of the agitation.
At 2400 hours, Diem declared a state of siege to insure the security of the
rear areas. General Dinh, III CTZ;Cammander, was named Military Commander
of the Saigon-Cholon area, while General Tri was named Military Commander of
Hue and of I CTZ. Although under nominal ARVN authority, Vietnamese Special
Forces and special police stormed Buddhist pagodas in Hue and Saigon before
dawn on 21 August, detaining monks andnuns but missing Thich Tri Quang,
who took refuge in the US embassy. In a conversation with Harkins on 23
August, Don emphasized he intended to keep a buffer between the people and
the troops, to use the police to maintain order and the Army only if the
police were not able to cope with Conditions. While Don emphasized that
he took orders from Diem and not Nhu, he let Harkins know that Dinh was
receiving instructions directly rather than through him and that Special
Forces and police were receiving orders neither through himself nor Dinh.
Don wanted martial law to end as soon as possible. He urged that the United
States should continue to support Diem but force him to clean house, try to
show him how to run the government by delegating authority of ministers and
broadening his narrow outlook. Don's suggestion -- which he asked not to be
attributed to him -- was the establishment of an interim mixed military and
civilian cabinet, with Minh to be Interior Minister and responsible for
maintaining law and order, the incumbent Brig General Tran Tu Oai to retain
the Ministry of Information, and another general to be Minister of Defense,
with Minister Thuan remaining as Secretary of State to the Presidency. (206)
The raids on the pagodas strengthened the position of men in Washington
who had never completely trusted President Diem or his family. On 21
August, Undersecretary of State George Ball released an official statement
that the United States deplored repressive actions of the nature of those
instituted against the Buddhist leaders. (207) Within the State Department
there was a feeling that the United States must use the leverage of economic
and military assistance to stand up to Diem and Nhu. On 24 August, while
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President Kennedy was at his summer hame at Hyannis Port, Massachusetts,
and other senior officials were away for the weekend, Hilaman, Ball,
Harriman, and Forrestal drafted and cleared with Deputy Secretary of Defense
Gilpatric and General Taylor a message of instructions to Ambassador lodge.
The message stated that the United States could no longer tolerate the
systematic repression of the Buddhists nor the domination of the regime by
Nhu. The Vietnamese generals could be told that the United States would
find it impossible to support Diem unless an acceptable solution was found
to the Buddhist problem and a more responsive and representative government
formed. Diem should be given every chance to solve the problems, but, if he
refused, the possibility had to be faced that he could not be saved. The
United States would take no part in the action, but, if anything happened,
an interim anti-communist military regime could expect American support.(208)
On 26 August, the Voice of America beamed a broadcast in Vietnamese stating
that high American officials said that Nhu and not Vietnamese military
leaders was responsible for the attacks on the pagodas and mass arrests of
monks and students, that top Vietnamese military leadership had agreed to
martial law but were not advised of secret police plans to attack Buddhists,
and that the United States might sharply reduce its aid unless Diem got rid
of the officials who were really responsible for the attacks.(209) On 21
August an Embassy message had informed the State Department that the Vietnamese
generals appeared to have an ability to depose Diem, but as Don explained to
Harkins on 23 August the generals were actually stalemated since none of them
had a complete control of the Special Forces responsible to Nhu. In a
refutation of the VOA broadcast on 27 August, a Joint General Staff communique
stated that the responsible ARVN commanders had unanimously proposed martial
law to Diem and the measures related to it. (210)
In the week after his arrival in Saigon on 22 August, Ambassador lodge
was absolutely convinced that the Diem government was in its terminal phase
because its abuse of the police power had aroused the deep resentment of
the Vietnamese people.(211) In Washington, Secretary Rusk also told the
returning Nolting that the US Government had turned against Diem because of
the Buddhist immolations. According to Nolting, Rusk said: "We can't stand
any more burning."(212) At a National Security Council discussion of Vietnam
on 28 August, Nolting urged that a decision not to go along with Diem and
Nhu would be to renege on past commitments. Ball, on the other hand, expressed
the view that the consequences of continuing to support Diem and Nhu would
be that the war against the Vietcong could not be won and he said that he
did not agree with Nolting since Diem and Nhu had violated their commitments --
and massively. Harriman cammented that he had disagreed with Nolting's views
for many months and felt that Nolting had been profoundly wrong in his advice
to go along with Diem. Bileman agreed with Ball and Harriman.(213) According
to Nolting, Vice President Lyndon Johnson was one of the few advisors to
President Kennedy to recammend against undermining Diem. In years to acme,
Nolting would continue to blame himself for this failure to persuade President
Kennedy and the State Department that Diem's "moral integrity" was a source
of strength in Vietnam and that his deposition would be a tragedy for both
Vietnam and the United States. (211.)
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News reports of alleged persecutions of Buddhists had worldwide
repercussions. Citing border ciolations and ill-treatment of the Buddhists,
Cambodia broke diplomatic relations with South Vietnam on 27 August. On
29 August President Charles Die Gaulle offered France's good offices for the.
reestablishment of peace and harmony in Indochina. On the following day,
De Gaulle's statement was revealed to be part of a long-range French
political solution looking toward a reunification of North and South Vietnam
in "independence and neutrality."(215) At the request of Asian and African
members of the United Nations, Secretary General U Thant wrote Diem on 31
August asking him to ensure "the ekercise of fundamental human rights to all
sections of the population" of South Vietnam.(216) On 31 August, Chiang Kai
Shek talked at length about South Vietnam with General Smart, making it
specifically clear that everything the United States did there was closely
watched by all Asia and that it we's essential that the United States would
win. In Thailand, influential figures including Lefense Minister Thanom and
Dawee talked with Smart about Vietnam. As Buddhists, they were unhappy
about the religious problem, but Dawee recognized that the conflict was more
political than religious. The Thai leaders were more concerned about Communist
gains in Southeast Asia than unhappy about the religious problem. Still
mindful of US actions with respect to Laos, they did not hesitate to express
doubt as to US reliability in the event of their awn need.(217) In responding
to U Thant on 5 September, Diem also emphasized that there had been no
suppression of Buddhism and that government actions were attempting to free
the Buddhist hierarchy from political agitation and propaganda, which was
working for the benefit of foreign interests and against the interests of
the Buddhist religion and the higher interests of the state. Diem invited
U Thant to send a UN fact-finding mission to Vietnam. This investigation would
be discontinued as no longer useful after 1 November, but the Costa can
member of the mission would state that he personally found no religious
discrimination or persecution ann.that the trouble involved only a small
part of the Buddhist community and was oolitical.(218)
Unlike U Thant's investigation, DeGaulle's proposal to unify and
neutralize Vietnam profoundly affected the political situation in Saigon.
Ngo Dinh Nhu freely admitted to having contacts with National Liberation
Front leaders,(219) and during the late summer of 1963 the US Department
of State received reports that Nhu had been and continued to be in contact
with North Vietnam and the NLF, presumably for the purpose of exploring the
possibility of reaching an agreement along the lines of a Gaullist reunified,
neutral Vietnam. In conversations in Saigon, the French Ambassador reportedly
urged that Nhu should be supported because he had contacts in the north and
could work out arrangements on hostilities with the Vietcong. On 2 September,
Nhu told Lodge that he had had a conversation with the Polish member of the
International Control Commission, who had sought to elicit Nhu's reaction to
de Gaulle's proposal so that he could transmit it to North Vietnamese Foreign
Minister Pham Van Dong.(220) Newsman Joseph Alsop reported Nhuls contacts
with the north in a New York newspaper on 18 September(221), and MACV reported
that many top level ARVN officers seemed to be convinced that Nhu would make
a deal with Hanoi if he felt that this was in his best interest.(222) After
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the coup, military junta leaders would extensively question Colonel Hien as
to whether he had flown Nhu into Zone D to meet with NLF leaders to discuss
a coalition government, an allegation which Hien steadfastly denied. (223)
Unlike Ambassador Nolting who had used the country team to secure a
policy consensus, Ambassador Lodge ran the US Mission after his arrival on
22 August as "a one-man operation, conducted in total secrecy." Even General
Harkins was left in the dark on Lodge's activities and his cable traffic.
Getting nowhere with Diem and Nhu and possibly because he considered the days
of the Diem government to be numbered, Lodge stopped seeing them.(224) After
a time, on Washington's direction, lodge would restore the country team, but,
early in September, General Smart noted that: "The American team in RVN
left me with an impression of a divided house and diverapnt di-par-Finns "
Smart said that opinions about Diem ran the gamut from
view that Diem could be supported and that Nhu was useful to an
opposite conviction that the Diem government must be eliminated without
consideration as to what would replace it. (22S) An analysis of the reports
t,hat flowed to Washington from Embassy, MACV, and the Air Ittache in the
period following martial law revealed markedly differing opinions. MACV
reports were rather conservative in the information included and in their
speculations; the Embassy traffic evidenced a heightened, but constrained,
apprehension toward the evolving situation; and Air Attache messages tended
to report the more brutal and terroristic incidents, the more radical views
of intelligence sources, and speculated upon more extreme eventualities. (226)
In view of the divergent intelligence, Secretary McNamara would later direct
that the service attaches attached to the American Embassy in Saigon would be
deleted, remarking that he meant to have established a singular military
intelligence reporting system.(227) Early in September 1963, however, the
Embassy and MACV were unable to agree on a common appraisal of the attitudes
of key segments of the Vietnamese population toward Diem, Nhu, and the Buddhist
crisis.(228) Sent to Vietnam as a two-man fact-finding team, Joseph Mendenhall
of the State Department and Maj General Victor Krulak returned to Washington
with such different reports that President Kennedy, after hearing their
briefing, asked whether they were sure they had visited the same country. (229)
In an appearance on a national television program on 2 September,
President Kennedy estimated that the Government of Vietnam could not win the
war without popular support, and, in his opinion, the Government had gotten
out of touch with the people. The repressions against the Buddhists had
been very unwise. In response to a question as to whether the Government
had time to regain support of the people, Kennedy said: "I do. With changes
in policy and perhaps with personnel I think it can. If it doesn't make
those changes, I would think that the chances of winning it would not be
very good."(230) In order to bring pressure on Diem, Lodge recommended
suspension of American aid, but Rusk and McNamara were opposed, fearing that
it would hurt the war effort. In another television interview on 9 September,
Kennedy also stated that he did not think it would be helpful to reduce aid
to South Vietnam at that time. (231)
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By mid-September, President Kennedy appeared to be coming to a conclusion
that Lodge, Harriman, lineman, and Forrestal were right on the question of
increased pressure, but on 21 September he sent Secretary McNamara and General
Taylor on one more trip to South Vietnam, the purposes being to get additional
information and to attempt to encourage Diem to attend to the serious problems
in his government. In the initial conference with McNamara and Taylor on the
morning of 25 September, Ambassador lodge was pessimistic about the Diem
regime, but from other briefings and observations in Saigon and in the field,
McNamara and Taylor reached the conclusion that the military effort had not
deteriorated and still had momentum, though additional emphasis would need
to be given to pacification operations in the Delta. The McNamara party
judged that the Diem regime was continuing to consolidate its strength and
control throughout the country and had been successful in dividing the
factions opposing it. Some of the military were hostile to the Diem regime,
but the military was more hostile toward the Vietcong and likely to continue
to support Diem. McNamara's group was reluctant to take any action to cut
off any economic aid. McNamara nevertheless saw three major problems:
That, although substantial progress had been made, more effective military
action was required against the Vietcong; that political unrest in South
Vietnam was growing and was caused by the Diem regime; and that (most serious
of all) there were internal political problems in the United States
associated with the first two problems. He felt that a persuasive case must
be put to the US public and Congress in order to gain support for the
Administration's handling of the conflict in South Vietnam. In a conference
with Diem,. MnNamara emphasized that South Vietnam's leadership must conduct
Its military and political effort in a way that would win US political
support and reminded Diem that there were serious problems in the Government
that required correction. As for the US military advisory effort, McNamara
and Taylor announced their conviction that with an accelerated schedule for
victory the major part of the US military task could be completed by the
end of calendar year 1965, by which time the insurgency should be reduced to
sporAdic banditry in outlying areas. McNamara and Taylor also announced that
the 1,000-man US military advisor cut by the end of 1963 would proceed as
scheduled. (232)
On 2 October, following a National Security Council discussion of the
McNamara-Taylor report and Lodge's recommendations, President Kennedy
approved a statement of US policy. The United States would continue to work
with the people and Government of South Vietnam to deny the country to
Communism and to suppress the externally stimulated and supported Vietcong
insurgency as promptly as possible. The military program was sound in
principle and had made progress, though improvements were being sought. On
the political level, the statement noted: "The political situation in
South Viet-Nam remains deeply serious. The United States has made clear its
continuing opposition to any repressive actions in South Viet-Nam. While
such actions have not yet significantly affected the military effort, they
could do so in the future."(233) According to Presidential Assistant
Schlesinger, Secretary McNamara returned to Washington with personal doubts
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whether Diem could last even if he took corrective action and was more
inclined to agree with Lodge that there was no alternative to US pressure
on Diem. McNamara would later state that he had begun to observe that the
erosion of public confidence was effecting military operations. He feared
that Diem would continue his repressive measures and remain in power but
would lose public support and military operations would be adversely affected;
or, alternatively, Diem would continue his repressive measures and build up
so much resistance that he would be thrown out. (23).i.)
Events in Saigon early in October were not assuring to authorities in
Washington. On 4 October, Vietnamese plainclothes police physically assaulted
American newsmen, provoking a serious protest from Ambassador lodge. On the
following dgy, another Buddhist monk, in the sixth and most publicized of
all the immolations, burned himself in Saigon. On 17 October Nhu declared
to the press that he could not understand why the United States had "initiated
a process of disintegration in Vietnam" and again accused the CIA of
instigating a coup against the Diem government. (235) To Assistant Secretary
of State Hilsman, Diem had cut himself off fram his people and fram the
United States. The United States could not continue to provide aid that
was being used to repress the Buddhists and to arrest students.(236) On 16
October the Senate Foreign Relations Cammittee approved an amendment to the
foreign aid authorization bill expressing the sense of Congress that aid
should be extended to or withheld from Vietnam, as the President determined,
only "to further the objectives of victory in the war against communism and
the return to their homeland of Americans involved in that struggle. "(237)
In September, in the aftermath of the pagoda raids, the United States had
already begun to delay commercial import program assistance which among
other things, generated piasters used to pay the RVNAF, but this action
would not immediately affect the military effort since South Vietnam had
accumulated savings through the CIP that could be spent, reducing any
immediate effect of delayed US assistance. (238) On 21 September a South
Vietnamese spokesman revealed that the United States was holding up the
CIP and had also warned that it would cut -off aid to ARVN Special Forces
if they were used for political purposes. On 22 October, the US State
Department confirmed that South Vietnam had been told that US support
would no longer be provided to the elements of the Special Forces which
were not committed to field operations or engaged in related training
programs.(239) In Washington, Mlavid E. Bell, Administrator, Agency for
International Development, would explain that the United States was not
attempting to force Diem out of office but instead only to change his
policies. The US AID Administrator in Saigon, however, observed that it
was undoubtedly the realization that the United States could not be bluffed
into restoring import financing that finally set off the coup against Diem. (240)
On 21 July Admiral Felt had advised the Joint Chiefs of Staff that the
Vietnamese generals were thinking about coup action, though it was unlikely
that they were united or knew how to proceed. But as time passed, a major
plot against Diem polarized under the leadership of Generals Duong Van Minh,
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Tran Van Don, and Le Van Kim, and ultimately reflected a coalition of
older men who wanted to overthrow Diem's dedicated anti-communist govern-
ment in order to seek a neutralist solution to the war and younger officers
who still wanted to win the war and believed they could do it better. (241)
The plotters obtained promises of cooperation from Generals Do Cao Tri in
I CTZ and Nguyen Khanh in II CTZ and subsequently recruited General Ton
That Dinh, who commander the III CTZ and was also military governor of
Saigon. Troops from Dinh's 5th Division would be used in the coup, but it
would be necessary to neutralize General Huynh Van Cao, the IV CTZ commander,
who would remain loyal to Diem and whose 7th Division was at My Tho, in
close proximity south of Saigon. Ironically, Diem's agreement announced on
19 October to shift of the III CTZ boundary to the Mekong River and transfer
of the 7th Division to the III Corps, both to be affected on 1 November,
provided a necessary ingredient for the successful revolt and may have
dictated the timing of the coup. While US officials were careful in
avoiding any part in the coup, there were persistent reports in US military
circles that it was afoot. On 27 August, Admiral Felt gave orders to put
all PACAF air transport planes in readiness for emergency employment, and
in early September the US Joint Chiefs of Staff designated operational
areas for a naval task force off Vietnam where it would be ready for a
possible emergency evacuation of American civilians. Confirming earlier
oral instructions, the Joint Chiefs late on 29 October directed CINCPAC to
sail the task force to the designated areas, quietly and inconspiculously.
On this same day, Operation Candy Machine was activated, sending three USAF
F-102 jet interceptors to Tan San Nhut. When General Harkins was notified
that these actions had been directed, he was surprised since he said he did
not have information from Ambassador Lodge that the Generals, coup was
imminent.(242)
On the morning of 1 November, the ARVN coup leaders established them-
selves in the Joint General Staff compound and began moving elements into
Saigon. General Don called a meeting of top military officers for 1300
hours at the alS. The Commander of the Vietnamese Navy was summoned and
given opportunity to join the coup. When he refused, he was murdered by
his escort. The VNAF Commander, Colonel Hien, was flying on the morning of
1 November and had no inkling of the events in progress. Upon landing at
Tan Son Nhut, he was told of the 1300 meeting at the JGS, but he instructed
a member of his staff to explain that he would be late and to ask if his
deputy commander, Lt Colonel Do Khan Mai, could attend in his place. This
being agreeable, Hien went to lunch before returning to his office at
1315. Here he received a call from one of his squadron commanders saying
that Mai had directed some T-28s to take off and asking if it was all right.
He approved the takeoff but soon received another call from the AOC stating
that the 5th Division commander, Colonel Nguyen Van Thieu, would not allow
the aircraft to take off. Hien immediately called General Minh who said
he would look into the matter. Shortly afterward, Mhi returned with armed
guards, who took Hien to the Jots where he was locked up. Meanwhile, at the
1300 hour meeting at the Joint General Staff, General Don announced that
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the coup was in progress and invited all to join.
Troops with
red neckerchiefs poured into Saigon rram the north, and by 1430 hours all
of the Vietnamese Special Forces in the city had been captured and Nhu's
Special Forces commander had been taken outside the JS and shot. (214.3)
The military rebellion was conducted with precision, and the coup
forces quickly captured important installations in Saigon, simultaneously
surrounding Diem and Nhu inside the Presidential Palace. Under General
Minh's orders, Mai employed four VNAF A-1Hs and two T-28s, whose carefully
selected pilots made gun and rocket strikes against the Presidential Guard
Brigade compound in Saigon during the mid-afternoon. Minh did not permit
bomb attacks against targets in Saigon, but the threat of air strikes with
500-pound bombs undoubtedly contributed to the rapid collapse of pro-
government forces. Minh also intended to use bombs against the Palace
after the first day, had ARVN coup forces not overcame the resistance.
Control of VNAF also helped neutralize General HUynh Van Cao. Efforts
of the General Cao to bring IV CTZ forces to Saigon to assist Diem were
stymied when a new 7th Division commander brought all ferries to the north
bank of the Mekong River and threatened that Cao would be bombed by VNAF.
planes if he attempted a river crossing. Diem's last hope of relief thus
failed, and during the evening of 1 November Diem and Nhu eicaped the
palace through an underground passage and sought refuge in Cholon. On the
following day they attempted to surrender and were murdered while they were
being taken to the MS compound. (21414)
As fighting ended in Saigon on 2 November, a Military Revolutionary
Council of 24 generals and colonels, under the chairmanship of Maj General
along Van Minh and the vice-chairmanship of Maj. General Tran Van Don emerged
as the new South Vietnamese government. The MRC dissolved the National
Assembly, suspended the 26 November 1956 constitution, and decreed a
provisional constitution on 4 November, in which seven short articles
revealed that power would remain in the ERZ. A provisional government was
announced on 5 November, the function as Chief of State to be discharged
by General Minh and the premiership by the former vice-president, Nguyen
Ngoc Tho. The cabinet included four general officers and twelve civilians,
with the generals holding the key ministries of National Defense (Tran
Van Don, who also retained his post as aas Chief), Security (Ton That Dinh,
who also continued to command III CTZ), and Information (Mai Hnu Xnan).
Most of the members of the new government were Buddhists. Although many
of the civilians were subcabinet administrators in the Diem regime, none
was a seasoned political figure and most were natives of Cochinchina. Even
Premier Tho, as Diem's vice-president, had been permitted a voice only in
matters of economic policy. (2145)
The United States extended recognition to the Republic of Vietnam's
provisional government on 8 November and on the following day announced
the resumption of conmodity import assistance. (2146)
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Ambassador Lodge judged that the generals were united and determined
to step up the war effort and recommended that the United States ought not
to press too hard for political reforms and early elections. In their
initial weeks in office, however, the generals made little progress. Don
and the others asserted that the strategic hamlets (which they now preferred
to call "fortified hamlets") had been pushed too hard with what amounted to
forced labor. They agreed that the program should be continued but only
after existing hamlets were consolidated and improved. They wanted to make
major efforts to win over the Hoa Hap and Cao Dai, and to reduce the
influence of Chinese racketeers and extortionists. (21i.7) Addressing military
policy on 2 December, General Don spoke bravely of uniting all Army, Navy,
Air Force, civil agencies, and paramilitary forces for a coordinated all-
out effort to free Vietnam from the Communist threat. Under his direction
as Minister of Defense and Chief of the Joint General Staff, Don announced
his intention to reorganize and employ the Joint General Staff as a small
policy-making agency and to use the JGS Joint Operations Center, in
coordination with the corps commanders, to run the war. Don also stated
that the total Army, Air Force, Navy, and paramilitary combat power within
the corps areas would be divided between the corps co1imanders.(248)
Under the new Minh regime, major undertakings were announced, only to
remain stalled awaiting more definite instructions from the central govern-
ment while at the same time wholesale purges and transfers added uncertainty
and inactivity in military and provincial organizations. Thus in the III
CTZ, the 5th Division ALO reported that the division was not only diverted
from combat by transfer of units to "coup duty" but was also receiving many
new commanders who required orientation toward the war effort. (2L.9) In a
meeting with Minh on 20 December, Secretary McNamara pointedly informed
him that it Would be impossible for Dinh to command the III CTZ and be
Minister of Security and that he-must gi7e up me of the jcbs; shortly
afterward Brig General Tran ThienKhiem, who had been deputy chief of the
alS, was given command of III C1 and Dinh remained in Saigon. (250)
Another high-level change was apparently intended to place General Knanh,
who had put down the revolt against Diem in 1960, farther from Saigon. On
12 December, General Tri replaced-Khanh as cammander of II CTZ, and Khanh
took command of I CTZ at Da Nang vice Tri. In addition, Colonel Nguyen
Chanh Thi, who had led the 1960 coup and had returned from exile in Cambodia,
was assigned as Khanhts chief of Staff, reportedly to keep watch on Khanh.(251)
Immediately after the coup, Mai was promoted to colonel and assigned as
VNAF commander. Other VNAF officers who had supported the coup also
received promotions, this number including Nguyen Cao Ky, =mender of the
43d Transport Group, who was promoted to colonel with no immediate shift in
Assignment. Colonel Hien, remained in arrest and under close questioning
for several weeks; in late November he was released from the service and
would ultimately find employment as an Air Vietnam pilot. Early in December,
Mhi also learned that he was in trouble with the Army generals in the junta,
men wham he privately characterized as pro-French "opportunists" and
lacking a true nationalist revolutionary spirit. Other reports, however,
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attributed Mai's downfall to his lack of operational experience and
former association with Nhurs Can Lao party. On 16 December, Colonel Ky
became VNAF commander, and Mai was released to serve in the newly created .
position as Vietnamese military attache in West Germany.(252)
As the explosive situation was evolving in Saigon on 1 November, the
Joint Chiefs of Staff messaged Admiral Felt that it was possible that the
Vietcong or North Vietnamese might attempt to exploit the opportunity
presented to them. In the case of threatening moves by North Vietnam or
border crossings in significant numbers, CINCPAC was to be prepared to
implement his Operations Plan 99-64, which (though drawn up to halt
aggression against Laos) could be employed to conduct punitive and crippling
operations against North Vietnam, in an ascending order of intensity and
to a degree necessary to halt military aggression against South Vietnam. (2S3)
In the very early morning hours of 2 November, Saigon time, Secretary
McNamara also announced the movement of US military forces toward South
Vietnam as a precautionary measure should it become necessary to protect
;unerican lives. (2) In December the North Vietnamese would begin their
move to exploit the chaos in South Vietnam but the immediate response
fell to Vietcong units already in place, who received orders immediately
after Diem's death to intensify operations on all fronts, to expect a
disintegration of government authority in the countryside, and to take
maximum advantage of it. (25)
On the afternoon of 1 November, the VNAF grounded all USAF aircraft
in South Vietnam, but before nightfall the grounding order was lifted with
the request that USAF airmen would maintain and support the battle against
the Vietcong to their maximum capability while VNAF pilots were on alert
to support the coup operation.(256) The Vietcong reaction to the disorder
in Saigon was immediate and vigorous. By midnight on 1 November, eight
outposts were hit by the Vietcong, but all of these attacks broke off as
flareships appeared. In the week following the coup, the Vietcong made
a peak total of 71 hamlet and outpost attacks; and during November, 284
flare and 298 strike sorties were flown in an effort to defend the embattled
outposts and hamlets. This effort declined to 176 flare and 76 strike
sorties in December. (2S7) The defense of the hamlets and outposts was
vigorous but demoralized Civil Guard, Self Defense Corps, and hamlet
militia proved no match for the Vietcong, who demonstrated a tremendous
reserve capability by tripling their rate of operations in the first
week of November. Government losses were estimated at 2,800 men and
Vietcong losses only 2,900 in November. The Government forces lost
nearly three weapons for every one captured from the Vietcong. Altogether
in November the Vietcong captured enough weapons to arm five 300-man
battalions.(258) In the defensive emergency the 2d Air Division and VNAF
blew every escort request that was made, a total of 161 such sorties being
flown in November and 260 in DeceMber; but in the second week of November
the Vietcong nevertheless caught and successfully ambushed a train just
inland from the coastal city of Phan Thiet in Binh Thuan province. (2S9)
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The most intense Vietcong activity in November centered in the provinces
south and southwest of Saigon, but the Communist guerrillas were also
active in the central coastal reaches of Quang Ngai and Binh Dinh
provinces. (260)
In one of his last policy comments on Vietnam made on 14 November,
President Kennedy revealed that Secretary Rusk and Secretary McNamara
were going to Honolulu for a meeting on 20 November which would assess the
situation, determine how to intensify the struggle, and how to bring
Americans out of Vietnam. Mow," Kennedy continued, "that is our objective,
to bring Americans home, permit the South Vietnamese to maintain themselves
as a free and independent country, and permit democratic forces within the
country to operate -- which they can, of course, much more freely when
the assault from the inside, and which is manipulated from the north, is
ended. "(261) After hearing the political military country team briefings
on 20 November by Lodge and Harkins, Secretary McNamara summarized the
situation: "South 'Vietnam is under tremendous pressure from the VC. . . .
The Generals head a very fragile government. The United States should not
try to cut the corners too fine. We must be prepared to devote enough
resources to this job of winning the war to be certain of accomplishing
it instead of just hoping to accomplish it. "(262) Admiral Felt and General
Harkins were assigned the task of developing a new campaign plan with
priority emphasis on the areas south and southwest of Saigon. The Honolulu
conferees also resolved to adhere to the plan established before the change
in the government, calling for accelerated development of Vietnamese combat
and combat support capabilities and reduction of the number of US personnel
in Vietnam.(263) Accordingly, the much publicized withdrawal of 1,000
American military men from South Vietnam proceeded as scheduled: The first
contingent of 300 departed on 3 December and the remaining 700 on 13
December. (26L)
In November and December, General Harkins continued to express
optimism that the main force of the Vietcong effort -- which had fallen
heaviest on Civil Guard, Self -Defense Corps, and hamlet militia units --
and had not hurt ARVN too badly had peaked and that regular RVNAF forces
would recapture the initiative. (26) This optimism proved generally
unfounded. In the case of VNAF, Colonel Mai agreed in mid-November to
increase the daily allocations of aircraft to the AOC, and in November
and December the VNAF A-1H and T-28 squadrons increased their strike
sorties, though not enough to compensate for declining serviceability of
USAF B-26s and T-28s, whose ranks were additionally reduced by battle
damages:
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COMBAT/COMBAT ADVISORY STRIKE SORTIES, OCT-DEC 1963
Oct
Nov
Dec
VNAF
A-1H
332
411
390
T-28
499
619
664
Total
831
1030
1054
USAF
B-26
282
341
288
T-28
371
363
234
Total
653
704
522
TOTAL
1484
1734
1576
Source: Hist., 2AD, Jan-Jun 1964, vol 6, doc 31.
The statistical summary of strike sorties, moreover, did not reveal
continuing elements of VNAF weakness. Word-picture reports indicated
that the VNAF FAC activity continued deficient: Thus in the 5th Division
on 6 December, an L-19 FAC and two T-28s deployed to Tay Ninh airport in
response to an immediate air request calling for a strike against a Viet-
cong battalion whose position was fixed. Pleading necessity for refueling
his half-full tanks (even though the mission objective was only ten
minutes from Tay Ninh) and having lunch in the meanwhile, the VNAF FAC
delayed the mission and the target dissipated. At Nha Trang, the USAF
ALOIs report for November stated that VNAF T-28 escort for emergency
Special Farces resupply missions had deteriorated. As one example, on
18 November, a Special Forces "A" team was under attack and requested an
emergency resupply of ammunition and the ALO requested escort for the
supply aircraft. After a considerable delay, he was informed that the
VNAF refused the mission because the T-28 pilots could not expect to get
back to Nha Trang until 15 minutes after sunset.(266) These were new
evidences of a lack of firm control over the VNAF from its top command,
but, on the other hand, as will be noted, other VNAF crews valiantly in
battle emergencies of this period.
In the ground war, offensive ARVN operations of platoon size and
larger dropped immediately after the coup but went back up to 500-600 a
day by 20 November.(267) New ARVN offensive efforts, however, were
blunted by mismanagement and by defeats inflicted by the Vietcong. In
the 7th Division south of Saigon, a new commander -- Colonel Phan Van
Dong -- markedly increased operations of the long lethargic unit, but this
commander was relieved toward the end of November. Almost immediately,
during Operation Duc Thang 63/TG in Long An province between 25-27
November, two battalions were assigned clearing operations in the same
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area and neither was notified of the other's assignment. The two
battalions engaged each other, sustairing between them 2 KOA and 20 WIA.
"Ibis action," according to the Senior US Argy advisor, "proved to have
a very demoralizing effect on both units, 11(268)
During Operation Dan Chi 4-5/42 in An Mayen province between 24-27
November, the habitually aggressive ARVN 21st Division again fell victim
to a Vietcong ambush, carefully planned and executed by a Vietcong
battalion. Before dawn on 24 November the Vietcong attacked the Cha La
outpost and strategic hamlet near the tip of the Ca Mau peninsula. The
21st Division promptly initiated a plan to move four heliborne troop
lists into two landing zones, with prestrike, escort, and air cover by
fixed-wing aircraft. Under cover of darkness on the night of 23/24
November, the Vietcong dug gun pits and emplaced some five 7.9-mm machine
guns andat least one twin 50-caliber machine gun at the principal landing
zone. After a prefunctory prestrike, the heliborne assault force landed
at 1038 hours, and Communist fire immediately shot down an H-21 and
damaged 10 H-21s and UH-lBs. The ground troops made very little movement
toward the entrenched Vietcong, but USAF and VNAF B-26s, A-1Hs, and T-28s
conducted spirited and sustained attacks, in which valor at times out-
weighed discretion since some of the fighters were observed pulling up
directly over the area of heavy ground fire. As has been seen, C-47s
and C-123s attempted to drop an airborne battalion to cut off the Vietcong
escape, but this effort failed when the C-123s put most of their troops
into and on the far side of the Cad. Nuoc River. The Vietcong escaped during
the night of 24 November, but when ARVN troops moved into the vacated
enemy positions on 25 November they found three bodies and other indications
that as many as 150 Vietcong had been carried away in sampans. Brig
General Robert H. York observed the entire operation and personally
cammended the effectiveness and Atilization of tactical air, but the
operation was costly to participating aircrews, with Most of the damage
being done by 50-caliber fire. kircraft losses included a CH-21; a B-26
shot down with the loss of its crew; and two VNAF A-IHs and a T-28 which
crashed on landing because of battle damages. A total of 25 aircraft
were hit by ground fire. The 2d Air Division pointed out that in support
of a heliborne force consisting of 12 H-21s, 8 troop carrying HU-lBs,
and 5 UTT gunships, VNAF and USAF had provided 4 T-28s on prestrike, 2 B-26s
for escort, and 3 B-26s, 8 A-1Hs, and 12 T-28s for air cover, thus making
Dan Chi 4 the largest one-day close air support operation yet rendered.
In IV CTZ, however, Colonels Collings and Pierce pointed out that the
magnitude of the air support was nevertheless grossly inadequate to the
task encountered. Collings repeated his demands for flights of four
aircraft. Pierce estimated that at least 40 sorties (with 500-pound
bombs, rather than 100-pound ordnance) should have been used against the
Communist entrenchments. A special Don-Harkins evaluation concluded:
"Operation Dan Chi failed to develop any momentum or make major ground
contact with the VC. The heavy ground fire, which delayed and disrupted
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the heliborne movement of troops, allowed the VC to successfully with-
draw before they could be engaged. "(269)
Where ARVN offensives went poorly in the Delta, the Vietcong were
also active in the III CTZ and PBT Special Zone north of Saigon. In an
otherwise cheerless month, the PBT Zone ALO, Captain Richard W. Von Hake,
negotiated one small air victory against Vietcong guerrillas along the
Dong Nai River, men who habitually fired at aircraft but were not found
by a battalion sweep through the area in November. On 8 December, Von
Hake persuaded the province commander (who insisted he was wasting his
time because the battalion had just been through the area) to make an
L-19 flight with him. Over 50 people were observed and the L-19 drew
brisk ground fire (much to the disbelief of the province chief who kept
muttering about the ground sweep had proved there were no enemy in the
area). Von Hake prepared a plan for air strikes which the province chief
cleared with the PBT Zone Command. On 9 and 12 December, leaflets were
dropped into the area warning that persons who associated with the Viet-
cong were in danger. The area was bordered on the east and west by
strategic hamlets, and hamlet chiefs blocked off passage into it from
dawn to noon on 14 December. This same morning, Von Hake and a VNAF
observer flew into the Vietcong area, discretely trailed by three T-28s
and two B-26s. When the 1-19 was fired upon, the VNAF observer marked
the target and the strike planes promptly attacked. The results were 23
confirmed Vietcong KIA and probably others wounded. (270) This small
victory indicated that armed reconnaissance was applicable to the situation
in Vietnam, but it, of course, did little to diminish the Vietcong strength
in Zone D. Twice early in December, the Zone D guerrillas ambushed small
ARVN convoys that did not have air escorts. And on 23 December in Binh
Long province, ARVN decided to move a convoy even though no air cover was
available. The convoy encountered a Vietcong ambush and suffered 14
KIA, seven WIA, five MIA, seven trucks and two armored cars damaged, three
30-caliber machine guns and 16 smaller weapons lost. (271)
In November and December, VNAF and USAF aircraft flew fewer helicopter
escort sorties than earlier in the year -- 73 in November and 83 in
December. Credits for Vietcong killed by air strikes totalled 835 in
November (4 in I CTZ, 30 in II CTZ, 356 in III CTZ, and 445 in IV CTZ),
but dropped to 333 in December (6 in I CTZ, 0 in II CTZ, 285 in III CTZ,
and 42 in IV CTZ).(272) In some measure, these statistics reflected
reduced ARVN offensive operations, but it was also incontrovertible that
(despite MACV directives which required the use of VNAF aircraft to the
fullest before the employment of US planes) that US Army helicopter gun-
ships were being used increasingly in place of fixed-wing air support.
Thus on 2 November, the MACV Combat Operations Center received a request
from the III CTZ G-3 Advisor for UH-1B air support of friendly troops
engaging a Vietcong concentration near Saigon. Maj General Richard
Stilwell ruled out VNAF or USAF fixed-wing support, implying that only
helicopter gunships could provide support without endangeringfriendlies.
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Two flights of UH-lBs provided the fire support. The request was never
received at the III CTZ TOC or the III Asoc.(273)
In III CTZ the ARVN 5th Division was already noted for its preference
of helicopter gunships over .fixed-wing air support, and this contributed
to a major ARVN defeat during Operation Dai Phong 35, which commenced on
the afternoon of 31 December. At this time the 32d Ranger Battalion ran
into an estimated two-battalion VietCong force at a point approximately
10 miles west of Ben Cat and eight miles southeast of Dan Tieng. The
rangers formed a defense perimeter and fought hard and well, but they
were outnumbered and needed assistance. Since the 5th Division had
battalions at Ben Cat and Dan Tieng it appeared there was a good opportunity
to close on the Vietcong force and destroy it. Ground relief forces,
however, would not arrive until noon on 1 January, long after the rangers
disintegrated. Even more remarkably) VNAF had an L-19 FAL and at least
two A-1Hs (each armed with 12 x 100-pound bombs and 800 rounds of 20-mm
ammunition) continuously on station over the encircled rangers all
afternoon long on 31 December, and additional strike aircraft were readily-
available at Bien Hoa and Tan Son Nhut. Repeatedly during the afternoon,
the 5th Division ALO, Captain Kent C. Spears, requested the ARVN G-3, the
ARVN chief of staff, and the US Army Advisor to use the A-IHs against
clearly distinguished enemy positions. Instead, the ARVN G-3 called for
and used three flights of armed HU-llis without positive results, and the
orbiting relays of A-IHs returned to Bien Hoa without expending their
ordnance.. Ranger casualties totalled 6 KIA, 12 WU, and 31 MIA, and
an engagement that might have been a victory became another disheartening
defeat. In acting command of 2d Air Division, Colonel Henderson considered
that the failure to use available air firepower "appears to border on
being criminal" and informed General Stilwell of his concern. Ambassador
Lodge messaged the same conclusion tco Washington: "This . . just one
more example, albeit one of most striking, of Vietnamese failures to take
advantage Of superiority in firepower: which can be obtained by rapid
reaction to VC troop concentrations." Citing Dai Phong 35, Admiral Felt
bluntly suggested to Harkins that he should remember that the firepower
of the A-1H was overwhelmingly superior to that of the 1W-1B. "It
appears to me," Felt noted, "that education program on use of airpower is
unsatisfantory."(274)
"There are encouraging signs," stated Assistant Secretary of State
Roger Hileman on 13 December, "that the new government will prosecute the
war with greater energy and understanding of what must be done to achieve
success than was true under Diem. Support of the people ,both urban and
rural, is essential and the military have moved to reverse the police-
state methods current under Dien and have indicated also their intent to
improve the all-important strategic hAmilet program."(275) Other assess-
ments of the political and military situation in South Vietnam in this
same season were decidedly more pessimistic. Nominally headed by civilian
Prime Minister Tho, the new government was dominated by its military
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members, most of whom attempted to retain responsibility for the
direction of military operations while at the same time assuming additional
responsibility for the administration of the political and econamic
institutions of the country. During his visit to Vietnam on 19-20
December, Secretary McNamara observed that military security had deterio-
rated since the coup both because of inept leadership and the massive
Vietcong effort.(276) While six weeks had passed since Diem's overthrow,
the Minh government had made no plans to get on with military operations,
particularly in the Delta, where McNamara wanted an intensified campaign. (277)
On the political scene during December, the return of Vietnamese
exiles from France reintroduced a Gaullist presence in Saigon at the
same time the Minh government was shaken by rumors that the United States
might favor a negotiated neutralist solution for Vietnam. As urged by
Ambassador Lodge, the United States would vigorously scotch the rumors
about US policy, but in late December and early January, while student
demonstrations against neutralism and Gaullism were mounting, Minh's
advisory Council of Notables accused the Military Revolutionary Council of
lacking a firm policy on neutralism and recommended that relations with
France be broken off.(278) On the international level, Cambodia's break
in relations with South Vietnam and the United States and Sihanouk's
embracement of speedily provided Chinese Communist military assistance
.
presented a grave new threat to South Vietnam. (279) Where Communist
support for the Vietcong in the Delta through Cambodia had already proven
"very worrisome," the situation was rapidly worsening. On 24 December,
an ARVN probe in the Delta captured five tons of ammunition, 90 percent
of which was of Chinese Communist manufacture.(280) By the end of December
1963 itWas evident that the military and political situation in South
Vietnam had markedly deteriorated since the assassination of President Diem.
Ti would worsen in 1964 as the North Vietnamese redoubled their activities
both in Vietnam and in Laos.
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Chapter 9
MONTHS OF CRISIS IN VIETNAM AND LAOS,
NOVEMBER 1964-FEBRUARY 1965
1. Communist Escalations Affected US Policy
In assessments following the overthrow of President Ngo Dinh Diem,
the leaders of the National Liberation Front sensed victory for Communism.
With Diem's fall they considered that the Free World cause was seriously
weakened from all points of view, military, political, and administrative. (1)
In November and December 1963, shortly after the overthrow of Diem and when
it was evident that the governmental change had not produced significant
defections to the Communist cause, Hanoi probably made its decision to commit
men and then units of the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) to hasten victory in
Indochina. In Laos on 2 November 1963, the Pathet Lao captured a long-
established Meo position in an unprovoked attack, and, at the 9th Plenum
of the Third Central Committee of the Lao Dong Party in Hanoi in December,
the militant First Secretary Le Duan hailed Mao Tse-tung as the apottle
of revolutionary strategy to be pursued. At this time, the Lao Dong party
assessed the balance of forces and issued a secret directive setting forth
the guidelines to win the "special war" that was beginning. (2) Training
schedules at Hanoi's infiltration centers were suspended and the soldiers
were headed south as quickly as preparations could be made, some 4,700
Communist cadremenentering South Vietnam in January through May 1964.
During 1963 the great majority of the infiltrators had continued to be
ethnic southerners, but from the beginning of 1964 there were more and
more ethnic northerners, many of them draftees into the NVA for duty in
South Vietnam. The Vietcong had formerly relied upon old French and
American weapons, chiefly from stockpiles captured prior to 1954 in
Indochina and Korea, but in 1964 the flow of weapons from North Vietnam
overland and by sea consisted almost entirely of the latest arms acquired
fram Communist China. (3)
The full dimensions of the Communist threat in the aftermath of
President Diem's assassination were not immediately apparent to American
policymakers. As a result of Saigon country-team briefings at the special
State-Defense Conference held at President Kennedy's direction in Hawaii
on 20 November 1963, Secretary MCNanara judged that "a certain euphoria"
had set in since the coup. "The Generals," he said, "head a very fragile
government."(4) Taking office following the assassination of President
Kennedy on 22 November, President Lyndon B. Johnson on 26 November published
NSAM 273 which confirmed US objectives in South Vietnam as being to assist
the Republic of Vietnam in winning the war against the Communist conspiracy;
to assist the RVN in consolidating, holding, and developing increased public
support; to insure that US military and economic assistance did not fall
below the levels sustained during the Diem government; and to persuade the
RVN to concentrate its efforts in the critical Mekong Delta area. (5) On 2
December President Johnson wrote General Taylor a memorandum stating that
South Vietnam was the "most critical military area" confronting the United
States and cautioning that the Joint Chiefs would see to it that the very
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best available officers were assigned to General Harkins, including "blue
ribbon men" at every level. (6)
Where General Minh's government was viewed as "fragile" at the outset,
Secretary McNamara found the new regime in Saigon to be "indecisive and
drifting" when he visited Vietnam at President Johnson's direction on
19-20 December. The generals were heavily concerned with political matters
and had little time to consider a revitalization of pacification or the
declining military situation, which in the view of all US principals had
been much worse certainly at the end of October than had been thought at
the time. Unless current trends were reversed in the next two or three
months, McNamara judged that they would lead "to neutralization at best
and more likely to a Cammunist-controlled state." As a matter of policy,
Secretary McNamara recommended that the war ought to be waged by the South
Vietnamese and that increased US resources and personnel would hinder rather
than help the counterinsurgency campaign. In McNamara's assessment, the
chief military danger continued to be Vietcong insurgency in the critical
provinces surrounding Saigon -- Long An, Dinh Thong, Kien Hoa, and Binh
Doung -- and he urged Minh to assign more troops to pacify these provinces.
In order to get more information about infiltration into South Vietnam,
McNamara directed that U-2 high altitude photo planes be brought to South
Vietnam on an urgent basis.
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operations in Laos to impede the flow of Communist personnel and material arming.
50X1
At the urging of Secretary Namara, General Minh's Military Revolutionary
Committee government took steps in the latter part of December to sort out their
political and military responsibilities, So that a greater concentration on
military undertakings would be hopefully possible, but Saigon's management of
the war remained inept in January 1964. On 18 January, 115 helicopters -- the
largest airlift thus far in the war -7 carried 1,100 Vietnamese troops into
Zone DI but despite its magnitude Alla operation f4i1ed to engage am?r enemy
forces. (ii) The new regime sought a rapprochement with the Cao Dai and Hoa Hao
sectsl.long alienated by President Diem and Who controlled key areas along the
Cambodian border. At local levels, however, ARPN commanders and provincial
officials not only disagreed as to their respective authority but many worked
out "live and let live" agreements with the Vietcong. (12) At Da Nang, where
he had been sant to command the I CTZ, Maj General Nguyen Khanh conceived that
some of the mwebers of the 12-man MMC were "playboys" who were not giving
full support to the war effort and that others were plotting to arrest
General Minh and other officers including Khanh himself and declare for South
Vietnamese neutralism. Before dawn on 30 January, and without American pre-
knowledge, General,ghanh headed .1740-Ion of younger R7NAF generals whose
forces Managed a relatively blodnisa comp in Saigon. In a conversation
with General Harkins on the afternoon of 31 January, the 37-year old Khanh
explained that the coup VAS pro-American, pro-Western, and anti-neutralist and
assured that he =mad get about the jOh of stepping up the war againet the
enemy. President Johnson inmediatelr sent Khanh a personal note of support. (13)
In General Harkins' opinion, Khanh was the "otrongest military character
in the caran'and best ableto give strong direction to a Saigon govern-
ment. Nevertheless, Khanh lacked political appeal and his control of the
South Vietnamese army was itself nntertain.(14) The Communists moved very
quickly to exploit the political &Ammar, and the new regime displayed little
prowess in handling the crises. Before dawn an 6 February, a Vietcong regimental
headquarters and reinforced battaliOn defeated and drove the militia out of Ben
Cau hamlet in Tv Minh province. The Vietcong forced the people to dig firing
and shelter positions and settled in to await the AMVN relief effort. Although
precise air Strikes could have dislodged the Vietcong defenses with minimum
damage to the friendly people tripped inside the hamlet, the III CTZ commander
authorised fire attacks against the hamlet and permitted indiscriminate
artillery, air, and helicopter gunship fire throughout the day on 6 February.
The firepower did not especially hurt the Vietcong, who easily escaped after
nightfall, but the hamlet wen destroyed and civilian casualties ran to
27 killed, 29 wounded, and 670 burned in varying degrees. Despite quick
arrival of WOK civil relief euppligie, surviving civilians were described
as more grateful to the Vietcong She had made them dig shelters than to
the RVNAF relief effort. In a penetrating evaluation of the Ben Can
tragedy, the USAF counterineurgencyexpert, Mkj General Edward G. Lansdale,
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pointed out that the RVNAF had violated a cardinal rule in failing to
protect and help people who were under Vietcong attack and predicted that
such actions would help defeat the cause of freedam in Vietnam. (15) Hard
after the Ben Cau tragedy, the Khanh regime came under increased difficul-
ties with Cambodia, set off by Sihanouk's charge on 11 February that two
VNAF aircraft had attacked a Cambodian village and killed five people.
Sihanouk asserted that the United States was partly responsible because
it had "overarmed" South Vietnam and also because Washington had "torpedoed"
his plans for an international conference to establish Cambodia's neutrality.
After other border incidents Sihanouk accepted arms from China and the
Soviets, and on 19 March, when ARVN forces were operating near the border,
Cambodian T-28s shot down a USAF 0-1, resulting in the death of the VNAF
observer and the USAF pilot, Capt H. T. Scobel.(16)
After 8 February, when Marh formerly announced himself as premier
and Duong Van Minh as chief of state, AMbassador Lodge and General
Harkins stressed to Khanh the importance of intensifying the tempo and
more particularly the effectiveness of operations against the Vietcong.
Khanh was not interested in renewing the offensive until after the Tet
holidays, but on 22 February the Government of Vietnam published the
Chien Thang National Pacification plan, which MACV had been attempting
to put into effect since Diem's overthrow. The plan conceived that
local "spreading oil stain" or "spreading oil spot" military clear-and-
hold operations would begin in relatively safe areas and progressively
roll back the Vietcong. Within areas that were pacified a "new life
development program" would improve the standard of living of the civilian
population. According to the plan, Phase I roll-back pacification opera-
tions were to be completed in the I and II CTZs by 1 January 1965 and in
the III and IV CTZs by 1 January 1966, and in each case Phase II operations
to annihilate the Vietcong in their secret base areas were expected to
follow the Phase I pacification efforts. (17) Acting within the Chien Thang
oil spot pacification concept, CTZ commanders were expected to provide
separate plans for accamplishment of the overall objective. Thus in the
III CTZ, a "Hop Tao" program instituted in June was expected to push
outward fram Saigon in concentric circles until the adjacent six provinces
(Gia Dinh, Bien Hoa, Binh Luang, Hau Nghia, Long An, and Phuoc Tuy) were
firmly under government influence.(18)
The Chien Mang plan appeared soundly conceived, and General
Harkins believed that it would succeed "provided there are no more
coups and Khanh stays alive."(19) On the other hand, the success of
the local pacification operations depended upon direction guidance from
Saigon and energetic, qualified ARVN and provincial commanders. Neither
could be provided by the Khanh government, which was hard pressed to
remain in power. In a press conference on 1 March, Khanh charged that
French agents were plotting to assassinate him, overthrow his govern-
ment, and impose a neutralist settlement. The French embassy denied
the charge, but on 6 March Khanh replaced three of the incumbent CTZ
commanders and five of the nine ARVN division commanders. A wholesale
replacement of 23 province chiefs soon followed. Under Minh and Khanh,
nine provinces had three chiefs in three months, one had four, and
scores of lesser officials were replaced. The disruption of leadership
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shook the confidence of ARVN troops and the South Vietnamese populace.
Army and paramilitary desertion rates increased, and 48 Saigonts effective-
ness decreased the prestige and power of the well-disciplined Vietcong
increased. (20) The ultimate effect of the weakness in the Saigon govern-
ment and the decentralization of military command would ultimately be the
emergence Of the CTZ commanders as virtual warlords, but immediately in
March and April the bizarre command situation vastly complicated local
pacification plans and operations. Thus in Long An province the ARVN
commander charged to clear-and-hold was not .on speaking terms with the
province chief and the province chief not on_apeakinjg terms with at least
one of his dialf1aTaiiiida7--thusifiang-prigreas uncertain. fn other areas
regimental ccomanders requested air strikes against targets that province
chiefs did not want destroyed, producing a possibility that VNAF/USAF
could be used as a scapegoat for same untoward incident resulting from
disagreements between newly assigned local authorities.(21)
In the light of current US intelligence of Hanoi's aggressive prepa-
rations for expanding support to tha Vietcong, General Leay suggested:
"We are swatting flies when we ought to be going after the manure pile."
In a memo to the Joint Chiefs on 21 February, Le:May recommended positive
and bolder actions to include bombing of specific targets in North -
Vietnam.(22) In a memorandum to Secretary Rusk, Walt Ii.,Rostow also
pointed out Ho Chi Minh was vulnerable to bombing since he had an indus-
trial complex to protect and was no longer a guerrilla tighter with - -
nothing to lose. Within; the. State Department, tairnar& a4 Ilanan-
opposed the recaumendations for increased preseures.againstNorth-.
Vietnam, based upon their assessment that-the:NorthNietnamese were
using the Lao infiltration routes but only at a low level.. At any
rate, they favored anczynous countivgualTilla
rather than avert air attacks. On 21 February, President Johnson.
publicly warned that those engaged in external direction and supply
of the Vietcong were playing "a deeply dangerous game,lt and during the
month Johnson established a Vietnam :Coordinating Committee, headed by
William H. Sullivan, to examine contingencies for increasing pressure
against North Vietnam. (23) When Secretary Meliamararequested their
views on increased pressure against North Vietnsorboth as -background
for discussions with the Vietnam Coordinating: Committee and with CINCPAC
and the Vietnam country.teang-the Joint Chiefs recommsnd0 on.2 March
that overt military actions., against Northlietnamshoadprogress upward
from low level reconnaissance over Laos and North Vietnam, the expansion
of South Vietnamese activities.(inoluding-airstrikes with.VNAP/Fann Gate
planes, amphibious raids,- sabotage,andtarrasamen.totehipping), prepa-
rations for increasing the intensity of effortby'Armed reconnaissance
along, the supply routes.fromliorth-Vietnawto Lao including
of important highway. bridges,-. airfields, POLAumps; and other msjorLOC
targets). Finally,: the joint Chiefs recommended thevrequirskent-to de-
velop a plan for the-apilication-of,air Ind surralpowtermairtat, North:-
Vietnam, with the objective:of enforcinua cessation of-..externaLlaggreesieni(24)
During a session with Vla ATO.At.cAia's pA.4 Iforchl Rrosident.Jobatum salad
that each service would insure- that everything,possible.was being done to
support the Vietnamese and US people in"South Vietnam. (25)
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In meetings in Saigon on 8-10 March, Secretary McNamara and General Taylor
expressed hope that the Khanh government could rally to its responsibilities,
but they gained the overall impression that principally from a lack of govern-
mental direction the military situation in South Vietnam was unquestionably
growing worse. About 40 percent of South Vietnam's territory was under pre-
dominant influence or control of the Vietcong, this territory including the
critical provinces surrounding Saigon. Although Khanh was confident that ARVN
forces could clear the Vietcong from the countryside, he was not confident that
areas that were cleared could be held. In this connection, Khanh favored
continuation of covert activities against North Vietnam, but he stated that his
primary concern was to establish a firm base in South Vietnam and that he did
not wish to engage in avert activities against North Vietnam until "rear-area
security" had been established. No one was very optimistic that the limited
34A operations were very successful, although it was possible that the
clandestine operations could be expanded by releasing restraints on GVN and
VNAF forces or by bringing in Vietnamese-marked B-57 aircraft to be operated
by VNAF and covert USAF crews. The subject of aerial mining of North Vietnam
waters was discussed at length, and McNamara directed that training of Viet-
namese pilots for mine laying should be commenced at once, using selected
pilots and A-1H aircraft. Ambassador Lodge considered that aerial reconnaissance
of North Vietnamese LOCs into South Vietnam would he a good idea, but he was
opposed to "massive destruction" actions before attempting a "carrot and stick"
approach, whereby Hanoi could be offered advantages for callingrthe aggression
while at the sane time confronted with covert actions such as unacknowledged
air strikes. In discussion of hot pursuit across South Vietnam's borders, two
conclusions emerged. Since the United States was attempting negotiations to
keep Sihanouk from abandoning whatever neutrality he might have and from reach-
ing an accommodation with Hanoi and Peking, hot pursuit across the Cambodian
border might not be worth much militari1y and would have political repercussions.
In regard to Laos, however, General Tgylor proposed that South Vietnamese units,
aided by aerial reconnaissance and aerial resupply, should conduct hot-pursuit
border control operations, and McNamara directed that operations into Laos
larger than battalion size should be authorized only with the approval of
Souvanna Fhouma.(26)
After further discussions with CINCPAC an 12 March, Secretary McNamara
returned to Washington where he recommended 12 steps to Change the adverse
trend of the war in South Vietnam to President Johnson an 16 March. The
recommendations generally proposed to take actions within South Vietnam,
but one of them required preparations to initiate, on 72 hours notice, border
control actions against Communist activities inside Laos and Cambodia and "tit-
for-tat" retaliatory bomb strikes and commando raids by South Vietnameee forces
against North Vietnamese targets (such as communications centers, training camps,
and infiltration routes). Another action called for plans and preparations to be
in a position on 30 days notice to initiate a program of graduated overt military
pressure against North Vietnam to include VNAF and USAF air commando air attacks
against military and possibly industrial targets. The Joint Chiefs of Staff
reviewed Maanara's report on 14 March, and- accepted General LeMay's conclusion
that the 12 proposed actions would be insufficient to turn the tide against the
Vietcong in South Vietnam without positive action being taken against the Hanoi
government at an early date. Secretary MbNamara's report was not amended in
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terms of the JCS review, and President Johnson approved NSAM 288 on 17 March
with MaNamarats 12 actions, which he enjoined all agencies energetically
to support.(27) In a major address on 26 March, Secretary McNamara con-
sidered that he covered US objectives in some detail, when he explained
the four options open to President Johnson. First, the United States could
withdraw, but this option was totally rejected. Second, Vietnam could be
neutralized, but under the shadow of Communist power "neutralization" would
in reality be an interim device to permit Communist consolidation and
eventual takeover. Third, military actions could be initiated outside South
Vietnam, particularly against North Vietnam, in order to supplement the
counterinsurgency program in South Vietnam, and this option was being carefully
studied. Fourth, the United States could concentrate on helping the South
Vietnamese win the battle in their own country. The fourth option had
been approved by President Johnson since it was essential no matter what
else was done. Even if they proved necessary, actions outside South
Vietnam,s borders, McNamara believed, would be a supplement to -- not a
substitute for -- progress to be made within South Vietnam.(28)
Both in NSAM 288 and in his personal analysis, President Johnson
viewed the essential task as being to strengthen South Vietnam. Follow-
ing a SEATO Council meeting at Manila on 15 April, Secretary Rusk and
General Wheeler visited Saigon. Here General Wheeler reviewed the poten-
tial for increased pressure on North Vietnam with Ambassador Lodge, namely,
the 34A covert operations which Wheeler implied had already- achieved con-
siderable success, the possibility of covert US support for South Vietnamese
aerial mining and air strike operations, and finally the potential for
covert joint US-GVN aerial reconnaissance, naval displays and bombardments,
and air attacks. In his report to Plgesident Johnson, Sacretary Rusk had
generally encouraging impressions, but he reported that US officials
appeared to be inhibited from bold new efforts by a feeling that resources
for the support of Vietnam were closely limited, and he also wondered
whether enough Americans had been committed to assist on a crash basis
in the development of civil administrative services in areas in which
the holding process should be vigorously processed. On 28 April President
Johnson messaged Ambassador Lodge a proposal for additional civil advisors,
the additional man to be matched by withdrawal of "two or three hundred"
military personnel so that there would be no increase in total American
numbers but "merely- a shift of effort toward the art of peace."(29)
In reflecting upon the events of 1964, President Johnson would come
to believe that the Communist leaders might have misjudged American
intentions and have made the decision to drive straight to their Objective
of subjugating the independence of South Vietnam. (30) In the Lao panhandle,
the NVA 559th Transportation Group was joined by at least three "Combined
Forces" (Binh Than 3,4,5) -- units containing construction workers, signal
men, and motor truck operators, all being employed in developing Lao infil-
tration routes. In April, the 95th Regiment of the NVA 325th Division was
recalled from duty in Laos, and, back in North Vietnam, the 95th underwent
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special military and political training for operations in South Vietnam.
Hanoi also began to form new regimental-sized units for dispatch south-
ward. Thus the 32d Regiment was activated with personnel drawn from a
number of established units and filled with trainees from the San Tay and
Xuan Mai infiltration centers. (31) As Will be seen in more detail, the
Communists had been making serious probes against Lao government forces
since November 1963, and on 27 April the Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese
launched heavy attacks against Lao Neutralist forces on the Plain of Jars. (32)
In the Mekong delta of South Vietnam the Vietcong boasted that they could
take any district headquarters when they wished, and on the night of 12
April a Vietcong regiment with three battalions overran the district capital
of Kien Long on the southern end of the Ca Mau peninsula. In the air-ground
battle there, the Communists lost at least 55 men KIA including the regimental
commander, but 283 ARVN and 9 US advisors were casualties, the district
capital was destroyed, and some 200 Vietnamese civilians were killed or
wounded. In a successful terrorist activity on 2 May, a Vietcong underwater
demolition team sank the USNS aircraft carrier Card while it was berthed in
the Saigon River delivering helicopters. The Vietcong successes were sub-
stantially softening the South VieInamese population, while the activities
in Laos presaged a possibility that the Communists might cut off the Hue area,
thus presenting South Vietnam with another syMbolic "Dien Bien Phu." Where
General Khanh had earlier expected to give priority to strengthening his
government's position within South Vietnam, he told AMbassador Lodge on
L. May that he wanted to declare war on North Vietnam, have the United States
start out-country bombing, and to get 10,000 US Army Special Forces troops
"to cover the whole Cambodian-Laotian border. "(33)
In an interview on 13 April, Ho Chi Minh declared that if the United
States and South Vietnam attempted to carry the war into North Vietnam,
the North Vietnamese had "powerful friends ready to help." In the same
interview, Ho spoke favorably of President de Gaulle's proposals to neu-
tralize South Vietnam, but he added that American forces would have to be
withdrawn as a precondition to such discussions and that he would expect
France's subsequent support for a peaceful unification of Vietnam. (3b)
Later in the month, Hanoi's military undertakings in Laos appeared to be
designed to secure the reconvening of the 14-nation conference on Laos,
which if in session at a time of military reverses in South Vietnam would
be useful to the Communist cause to negotiate a neutralization of that
country. At the same time that Hanoi, with the support of Communist
China, was engaging military-political pressure, the United States also
was perfecting contingency planning. The Vietnam Coordinating Committee's
studies noted that North Vietnam's economy was principally agrarian and
included relatively few industrial targets whose destruction would have
immediate military implications, but the working group outlined a scenario
whereby gradually increasing air pressure starting with psychological
applications and if necessary progressing toward selective air attacks
could punish Hanoi and slow its support for the Vietcong.(35) As directed
by NSAM 228, CINCPAC Operations Plan 37-64 was published on 15 April, pro-
viding for US participation with South Vietnamese air forces in military
operations in Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam if and as directed by
appropriate US authorities.(36) Concern of US senior government officials
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with Communist activities in the Lao panhandle caused the Joint Chiefs
of Staff to direct the initiation of joint planni4g With the Government
of Vietnam for the airlifting of AVN intelligence teams into the area
around Tchepone,(37) but, during his vieit to,Saigen 447,
Secretary McNamara was instructed to tell General 41444 the bombing
of the north would not be a substitute ter counterinsurgenvin South
Vietnam. (38)
The collapse of Neutralist defenses on the'Vlain of Jars on 17 May
gravely threatened the survival of Souvanna Phouma's government, a pros-
pect that demanded immediate crisis actions inside Laea,and a reexamina-
tion of the prospects of waging added pressure against North Vietnam. A
National Security Council Working Group, chaired by Assistant Secretary
of State William P. Bundy, prepared a thirty-day scenario of political
actions leading up to air strikes against targets in North Vie than which
would be accompanied by a call for an international conference on Vietnam.
On an urgent basis the J-3 of the JCS Joint Staff developed a listing of
air targets in categories of ascending importance which would demonstrate
risk involved in Hanoi's continuing suppart for the Vietcong and Pathet
Lao, deter attempts of Hanoi to etcalate the oontliCt, and finally to
destroy the military and industrial base of North Vietnam. .(39) In meetings
on 24 and 25 May, the Executive COmmittee on therIMAScommended that
only selected portions of the scenario be accepted, and President Johnson
directed that his senior advisors convene in a.major, strategy conference
in Hawaii on 1 and 2 June to review plans. (ho)'
t?Nrn:41a
Early in 1964 the Soviet W.on a4igroate&PagiqtAPIIV04 the: *Move
powers who had taken part in the 1962 COatereSPLAWIAPB,440th to hanrile
the situation in Vietnam and alhatouk's.demands for avagrantee of
Cadbodia's neutrality, but with apparent Soviet 841:19grt on 27 May a
Polish diplomatic initiative envtOicned a mc-: Laos ccr_fpronco that would
not include discussions of Vietnam, thus indicating, that therSpviets did
not accept the Chinese and North Vietnamese position that the eituations
in Laos and Vietnam were ineeparable.(41) Op thadiPlamatic level,
moreover, the United Nations Security Gouncil,..acM#44Poghimance of
Sihmaouk's charges of border violations, and a Security Council mission
soon recammended that UN observers be established. alonuthe Cambodian
border to reduce tension, a proposal welcomed by the United. States and
South Vietnam but rejected by the Vietcong and by OaMhOdia,.(44 Although
the Polish diplomatic overture relieved thermaJgcr-,Ufilaar,:thst a. new Laos
conference would include diecnseiOnsof the :ate Of'.b441IiIsOakene4 South
Vietnam at a most disadvantageous. time, Gener41:11AFT,94:._&-KaY Wormed
the Joint Chiefs of Staff that the United States was. nio4ng Southeast
Asia fast" and that it was necessary for the Joint Chiefs to provide a
clear record of how to "start winning" for gaclaPPR at tt4e,Nonolulu
military conference. On 30 May the serviee,mambVP .14.4441 494.nt Chiefs
accepted LeMey's basic reogmmendationthatthe.terMina4ion:of Hanoils
support for insurgency in South VienaZAP4 4144,044441*-A4aUre4 OnlY
through destruction of the North Vietngstese ospilbi4ty to sirs:wide .suoh
support and that air attacks should heiveda- agatieuat -,P.OPP1u4st infiltra-
tion support objectives at Dien Bien plawap4,Yinh to domonetrate the
sharp change of US outlook and determinaiion.(43Y
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At the SECDEF conference in Hawaii on 1-2 June, Ambassador Lodge
predicted that a selective bombing campaign against military targets in
North Vietnam would bolster the shaky Khanh government and give the war-
weary South Vietnamese a feeling of unity. The Honolulu discussions
concentrated on the implications of air attacks against North Vietnam,
with the consensus being that major actions should await further de-
velopments.(44) As JCS chairman, General Twlor had not agreed to the
Joint Chief's recommendations on 30 May, and after the Honolulu con-
ference Secretary McNamara accepted Taylor's view. On 10 June, he
requested the Joint Chiefs to develop a three-phase air strike plan
against North Vietnam that would begin with demonstrative strikes to
show US readiness and intent to progress to an attack an all signifi-
cant military targets in North Vietnam. (1) In Hanoi on 18 June, the
Canadian member of the Vietnam International Control Commission reminded
Pham Van Dong that the United States was aware of the degree to which
Hanoi controlled the Vietcong and that in the event of escalation the
greatest devastation would fall upon North Vietnam. (!6) As requested
by Secretary McNamara the Joint Chiefs of Staff J-3 and CINCPAC planners
identified 94 air targets in North Vietnam and prepared contingency plans
for their destruction in mounting phases of air activity. (17) Although
these preparations were made, US policy continued to be that of countering
insurgency within the borders of Laos and South Vietnam.
2. Reorganization of Command Structures in South Vietnam
In 1962 the US Military Assistance Command Vietnam had been organized
primarily to provide advice and assistance to the MAP, and it had been
modified, but not substantially reorganized, during the advisory years.
Several factors argued for change in military organization during the
winter of 1563-1964. In the upheaval following President Diem's assassi-
nation, RVNAF organization was changing, and at his arrival in Saigon as
Deputy COMUSMACV on 27 January 1964 Lt General William C. Westmoreland
was strongly committed to a reorganization of the US Military Assistance
Command which he intended would eliminate duplication, facilitate coordi-
nation, econamize on personnel, and simplify advisory efforts with the
Vietnamese. Unlike the earlier pattern of sub-unified military cammand
organization represented by MACV, CINCPAC Operations Plan 37-64, approved
by the Joint Chiefs on 17 April 1964, marked a return to CINCPAC component
command integrity in its organization for air operations against North
Vietnam, which would be conducted by CINCPACAF and C/NC Pacific Fleet
under the overall direction of CINCPAC rather than oamusmAcv, who, Felt
believed, should give full attention to the counterinsurgency operations
inside South Vietnam and to adjacent problems in Laos. (148)
When the US Joint Chiefs of Staff team had visited Vietnam in
January 1963, General Wheeler had asked whether the United States
required command authority over the Republic of Vietnamese Armed Forces,
and General Harkins had responded that this would be contrary to US
national policy and in any case would hot be accepted by the Vietnamese
government.(49) Under US policy, Vietnamese forces would not be subor-
dinated to US control, and, while ETNAFallitary reorganization undertaken
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by the Minh and Khahh governments in the winter of 1963-1964 had the benefit
of VS advice, the activities of the SOuth Vietnamese military establishment were
under the Vietnamese High Command and outside US control, since the advice
given could be accepted or rejected.(50) As has been seen the UNAF Joint .
General Staff's approach to military organization, first announced by Maj General
Than Van Don in a speech on 2 DeceMber 1963, was to give the four OTZ commanders
command over all air, naval, and parandlitary forces within their corps areas.
The JOS submitted the proposal to MAC7 on 8 December and required a response
within six days. Learning of the proposed reorganization, General Jacob E.
Smart, CINCPACAF, personally protested to General Harkins an 13 Deceniber that
the meager air resources of the VNAF simply could not be fragmented between the
separate corps without a complete lass of effectiveness. At this moment,
General Harkins agreed that such, a sweeping reorganization would be unnecessarily
disruptive and asked General Don to give the matter more study. (51)
Although the prospective fragmentation of VNAF was postponed, backdoor
information in Saigon indicated that the US Ar mr Suction of the US NAAG
continued active support for an organizational concept whereby the CTZ
commanders were to be given local control over all military resources necessary
for their counterinsurgency operations.(52) The same command concept was
incorporated in the Chien Thang National Pacification Plan, which was drawn up
without inputs from the 2d Air Division or MAW. On 31 January 1964, Maj
General Joseph H. Moore, a long-time friend of Westmoreland's who had been
serving as Tactical Air Command Deputy for Operations, arrived in Saigon as
the new 2d Air Division commander, and on 6 February he was presented with
the Chien Thang plan's requirements tor VNAF reorganization, not for comment
but as an accomplished fact.(53) The plan called for the organization of VNAF
tactical wing headquarters assigned to the corps areas with locations at Da
Nang, Pleiku, Bien Hoa, and projected for Can Tho when the new airfield was
completed there. It was planned that a rifth camposite airlift and reconnais-
sance wing would continue to operate 'Inder the central direction of the Air
Operations Center. (54)
Except far the personal influence of Colonel Nguyen Cao 4-, whose
activity during the Minh coup had gained him caramond of the VNAF an 16 Decem-
ber 1963 and who increased his prestige by supporting the Khanh coup on
30 January 1964, the VNAF might well have been divided between the four
CTZs. In view of the political instability and rumors of coups by
splinter groups, Ky personally assured Generals Moore and Rowland that
he had no intention of relinquishing centralized control over VNAF,
and to this end Ky took the position that the semantics of the Chien
Thang plan required the new wings to be assigned to geographical corps
areas rather than to corps commanders. Effective an 15 March the 41st
Tactical Wing was established at Da Nang, under command of Major Pham
Long Suu, the strongest VNAF officer Ay could provide, and the 516th
Fighter Squadron was moved to Da Nang from Nha Trang. Similarly, the
62d Tactical Wing was organized at Pleiku, under command of another strong
VNAF officer, Major Minh. In April, when Mej General Trani Thien Khiem,
CINC MAP', recommended assignment of VNAF liaison and helicopter equadrons
to ARVN, Ky told Khiem that he resented the implication that Mr was not
operating satisfactorily and that if apr air units were given to the AEVNI
Khiem could get a new air commander. General Harkins also opposed the
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transfer as likely to cause confusion, and Khiem backed away from it in
the face of Ky's remonstrance. (SS) In negotiations with Ky., General Moore
attempted to preserve the integrity of the tactical air control system,
including the responsibilities of the ASOCs. Since the VNAF wing comman-
ders at Da Nang and Pleiku advised and conjoined planning with the CTZ
commanders, the I and II ASOCs were reduced in effectiveness. The sub-
ASOC at Nha Trang was closed when the 516th Squadron moved to Da Nang,
and coincident with the organization of the 41st Wing at Da Nang the
VNAF personnel and VHF radio communications were removed from the I ASOC
to the wing operations building on the flight line. General Moore
protested that the I ASOC ought to function effectively in a location
adjacent to the I CTZ tactical operations center, but icy insisted that,
in the case of a coup attempt, the I CTZ commander must not be able to
seize control of the ASOCIs communications, thereby preventing timely
use of the 41st Wing to thwart the coup attempt. (S6)
On the whole, General Moore considered that the VNAF organization
was close enough to classic tactical air organizational concepts to be
acceptable, and the Thirteenth Air Force commander, General Maddux,
made the decision not to argue about the defects of the organization. (7)
By maintaining the integrity of his command (and also defending VNAF
bases against ARVN take-overs) icy was able to employ the Vietnamese air
units as a national counter-coup force. On the other hand, the VNAF
organization reduced American influence over Vietnamese air operations.
Unknown to the US Argy and USAF advisors at Da Nang until just before
the attack took place (and then only because white phosphorous bombs were
required from US stocks), the 41st Wing and I CTZ staffs planned and laid
on a night time/distance medium-level bombing mission against a reported
Vietcong training center inland from Da Nang on 30 March. Twelve T-28s
and four A-1 Hs were used on the raid, and Colonel Ky, who rode in one of
the T-28s, described it a highly successful demonstration of a "new night
bombing capability." ARVN photo interpreters gave a glowing account
of damages to the Vietcong, but US Army photo interpreters were unable
to find the same results.(58) The employment of VNAF as a political
force had some detrimental aspects. Favored "palace guardu air units
based at Bien Hoa and Tan Son Nhut appeared to have higher priorities
for support than those farther from Saigon, and sincere young VNAF
officers were bewildered and frustrated because their seniors were so
deeply involved in political affairs. (S9)
In the Air Force view, the major command problem in Vietnam since
1962 had been the inability to get experienced air officers of properly
influential rank assigned to the MACV joint staff, not for the purpose
of service aggrandizement but to insure that the capabilities and
limitations of airpower were adequately recognized and supported in
counterinsurgency plans and operations. It was the Air Force position
that the MACV subunified command staff should be jointly manned rather
than dominated by US Army officers, and that component subunified Argy
and Navy commands should be organized under COMUSMACV, with an equivalent
stature to the 2d Air Division. Sympathetic to the requirement for a
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senior USAF representative in the mainstream of MACV current operational
,policy formulation, Admiral Felt recommended in September 1963 that the
MACV chief of staff position should be filled by an Air Force officer
when it became vacant in mid-1964, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff approved
the recommendation on 7 November. During the December visit to Saigon,
however, Secretary McNamara in discussions with General Harkins determined
that Lt General William C. Westmoreland should be assigned in a new posi-
tion as Deputy COMUSMADV, that the J-1 position (then manned by the US Navy)
should be filled by Brig General B. Sternberg of the US Army, and that the
USAF colonel serving as J-2 should be downgraded to Deputy J-2 and replaced
by Brig General C. A. Ibungdale of the US Marine Corps. Secretary McNamara
also considered the existing MACV organization to be too complex and
directed General Harkins to submit a reorganization plan that would save
personnel and simplify functional arrangements.(60) The staff changes
reduced the Air Force allocation of J-staff positions to the post of J-5
Plans held by Maj General Milton B. Adams, but in McNamara 's estimation
the Air Force was well represented in Saigon since in addition to the J-5
it had general officers present as ad Air Division commander and Chief,
Air Force Section, MAAG.(61)
In Hawaii, Admiral Felt and General Smart questioned the wisdom of
a sweeping reorganization of the US Military command and assistance
effort in South Vietnam which would take place over several months and
at the same time that the Government of Vietnam was already badly con-
fused by two coups. In Saigon, however, General Sternberg prepared a
preliminary feasibility study of the reorganization which represented
General Westmoreland's thinking that the MACV and MAG functions should
be cambined and that MACV should be more in the nature of a "specified
army command" than a "subordinate joint cammand."(62) Although General
Smart could see that the preponderant size of the US Army advisory and
assistance effort in Vietnam demanded large US Army representation in
the MAND and posed additional requirements for the organization of a US
Army component headquarters, the logic of the insistence that the US
Army should daminate the MACV staff escaped him. In conversations with
Secretary McNamara and General Taylor on 12 March, General Smart urged
that the MACV reorganization ought to place airmen in planning and
decision-making positions in order that airpower would be effectively
employed. Secretary McNamara, however, replied that he knew of no
operation that had suffered for lack of air support, and while General
Taylor interjected that he knew of same such instances he considered
that they were caused by inadequate communications and could not be
attributed to faulty organization or unsound policy. Admiral Felt
nevertheless stated that there were instances where US Army advisors
would not pass on requests for Air Force support but sought to use
Army aviation resources instead, thus furthering US Army doctrinal
concepts. (63)
After receiving and staffing the MACV reorganization study sent
forward on 12 March, Admiral Felt posed a number of specific objections
to it to the Joint Chiefs of Staff on 22 March, all adding up to a sum-
mary recommendation that the major reorganization should not be under-
taken but that COMUSMACV should eliminate duplication and unnecessary
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staff elements on his own authority. On 8 April, however, Secretary
McNamara gave an unqualified approval to the reorganization and
authorized COMUSMACV to reorganize and man his headquarters as he saw
fit, the reorganization to be effected by changes in a new MACV joint
table of distribution that provided its manpower authority.(64) At
this juncture, PICIF continued to hope that conversations between
Generals Westmoreland and Moore would result in an increase in the
number of senior kir Force personnel in the command and operations
sections of the MACV staff. (65) General Westmoreland agreed that
General Moore -- as Air Force component commander -- had not been used
properly in the past and would be consulted on MACV air plans and policy
in the future, and so informed General Wheeler on 17 April.(66) Other
than this, the kir Force fared poorly. The MACV J-3, Maj General
Richard.G. Stilwell, complained that the incumbent lir Force Deputy J-3
(who was highly regarded by the 2d Air Division) was unable to "look at
J-3 matters except through USAF tinted glasses," did not know anything
about ground operations, and was of little use in the J-3. Accordingly,
Stilwell secured a change in the deputy J-3 slot from kir Force to Army
manning.(67) General Moore urged that an Air Force officer should be
assigned as MACV chief of staff when General Weede completed his tour
in May, but instead Maj General Richard Stilwell was moved up to chief
of staff and another Army officer, Brig General W. E. DePuy, replaced
Stilwell as MACV J-3.(68)
The MACV reorganization became effective on 15 May 1964, at which
time MA41 Vietnam was disestablished. US Army HAAG functions were
absorbed into an expanded MACV staff; the US Army CTZ advisory groups
were assigned directly to MACV; the Air Force Section, MAAG, was
redesignated as the Air Force Advisory Group and, while assigned to
MACV, was further assigned to the Air Force camponent commander for
command and operational control. In the new arrangement, General Moore,
as kir Force component commander, was the senior advisor to the VNAF and
responsible for the Air Force Advisory Group and Air Base Advisory Team
activities, and General Rowland, as Chief of the Air Forae Advisory
Group, would act as Moore's deputy for the VNAF military assistance
program. (69) In General Smart's view, the MACV reorganization did
nothing to provide additional air knowledge and experience in MACV
positions having a direct relationship to the direction of operations
in Vietnam; moreover, where the reorganization had been expected to
streamline effectiveness and reduce personnel, the new MACV JTD proposed
an increased staff authorization for 283 US Amy, 24 US Navy/Marine, and
3 USAF personnel. As a minimum, Smart recommended that 38 additional USAF
officers should be assigned as certain directorate and branch chiefs in
the MACV staff. (70) In September, MACV submitted a revised JTD which
included 71 additional Air Force spaces, chiefly for field advisory work
and none for Smart's recommended changes on the MACV staff. (71)
On 20 June, General Westmoreland relieved General Harkins (who had
reached retirement age and would not be extended) as COMUSMACV, introduc-
ing the possibility that an Air Force officer could be named Deputy
COMUSMACV. Earlier in June, General Westmoreland initially stated that
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he would not need a deputy commander, but, in US Joint Chiefs of Staff
discussions of the matter, General LOW advanced the position that in
order to preserve the unified nature of MACV the Deputy COMUS should be
from another service from that of General Westmoreland and that, in view
of prospective broadening air operations in Southeast Asia, the Deputy ,
COMUS shOuld be an Air Force general. The Navy and Marine Corps agreed
with LeMay. On the other hand, General Wheeler did not consider that
Westmoreland required a deputy in the immediate future, and he suggested
that if air operations were expanded the Commander, 2d Air Division, could
be given the additional designation as Deputy COMUSMACV for Air. In his
opinion as JCS Chairman, General Taylor recommended that the deputy posi-
tion should be filled, that he should be able to provide across-the-
board assistance to Westmoreland, and that, in view of the nature of
operations in South Vietnam, it was that the deputy should
be any:thing other than a two- or three-star Army general. Taylor also
asked Westmoreland for additional thoughts, and Westmoreland recommended
a US Army general officer be assigned as his deputy. On 18 June,
Secretary McNamara approved Taylor's recommendation by a pencilled note
on the chairman's memo, and Lt General J. L. Throckmorton was subsequently
assigned as Deputy COMUSMACV. In JCS actions, General LeMay continued to
raise the issue of the need for Air Force expertise on the MACV staff
including an Air Force general officer in the command section, mid, in
September, General Westmoreland proposed that the 2d Air Division command-
er be given the additional duty as Deputy COMUSMACV for Air Operations.
Both PACAF and USAF opposed the additional designation since it did not
promise to provide the MACV staff any real additional help in air matters,
but Westmoreland submitted the proposal in a revision to the MACV joint
table of distribution, and on 12 November 1964 CINCPAC bowed to the
"political climate" and reccmmended-it to the joint Chiefs of Staff. (72)
In JCS actions in Washington early in 1965, the Air Force would
continue to insist that COMUSMACV required a joint staff fully repre-
sentative of all US services and arLAir Force officer as Deputy COMUSMACV,
but by March General Westmoreland would begin to urge that the situation
in Southeast Asia demanded implementation of the organizational actions
specified in CINCPAC Operations Plan 32, namely the establishment of
Headquarters, COMUS Southeast Asia (COM(JSSEASIA). In addition to the
increasingly unilateral US military effort against North Vietnam, Thailand
had never liked the Saigon residency of the double-hatted COMUSMACV-THAI
and now demanded that any combat employments of US forces from Thailand
should not be commanded from Saigon. In view of Thai sensitivities,
Ambasssdor Graham A. Martin had recommended in June 1964 that COMUSMACV
and COMUSMACTHAI be split, and, in the event that this were done, the
Joint Chiefs had recommended that a USAF lieutenant general be appointed
COMUSMACTHAI. Secretary McNamara postponed coordination of the split
in November 1964, and General Westmoreland opposed it, arguing among
other things that the 2d Air Division was conducting air operations
throughout Southeast Asia and control of the many and varied air opera-
tions in one theater should be under one air commander. After discus-
sions with General Moore, Westmoreland proposed on 30 March 1965 that
moves be taken toward establishment of COMUSSEASIA, with headquarters
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either in Saigon or Korat, that both MACV and MACTHAI should be under
overall command of COMUSSEASIA, and that the 2d Air Division should be
upgraded to a numbered Air Force, under command of a USAF lieutenant
general and a major general deputy commander, the former to act as
Westmorelandfs Air Force Component Commander with command over all
Air Force combat and support units in Southeast Asia, coordination
authority over other USAF activities in Southeast Asia, and further
coordination authority over US Navy air operations over land in
Southeast Asia. Since US contingency plans required establishment of
COMUSSEASIA only in the event of overt Chinese Communist intervention,
COMUSSEASIA would never be organized, but, on 31 March, CINCPAC favored
command changes that would look toward this eventuality. In the pro-
gression of organizational events, General Moore, as Commander, 2d Air
Division, would be promoted to lieutenant general on 25 June 1965 with
additional duty as Deputy COMUSMACV for Air Operations. On 8 July, the
2d Air Division would be relieved from assignment to the Thirteenth
Air Force and assigned directly to PACAF. On 8 July, COMUSMACV and
COMUSMACTHAI were officially separated. In the air command reorganiza-
tion, Commander, 2d Air Division received cumaand authority over PACAF
organizations in South Vietnam, and operational control over PACAF orga-
nizations in Thailand, the latter remaining assigned to the Thirteenth
Air Force for administration and logistic support. (73)
In the same months after mid-1964 in which over-all US command re-
lationships in Southeast Asia were in transition, the MACV reorganiza-
tion of 15 May 1964 had SOMB beneficial aspects for the 2d Air Division
but also produced some complexities. Air Force officers generally
agreed that the consolidation of USAF activity incident to the assign-
ment of the Air Force Advisory Group to the Commander, 2d Air Division,
for command and operational control was both overdue and beneficial.
The combination of USAF functions increased the unity of USAF activity
and relieved a previous situation whereby MAAG Air Base Advisory Teams
and 2d Air Division ALOs and ASOC personnel had sometires been played
at cross-purposes by the Vietnamese.(74) In recognition that the MACV
staff was not manned by adequate numbers of qualified Air Force personnel,
General Westmoreland frequently stated that the 2d Air Division must pro-
vide the MACV staff with all assistance and advice on air matters. (75')
Reflecting the harmonious associatinn of General Moore with General
Westmoreland, MACV and the 2d Air Division established better working
relationships and, as will be seen, the relationships of US Army and
US Air Force elements in Vietnam also markedly improved in the last
half of 1964.(76)
On the other hand, General Westmoreland continued in personal
command of US Army components in South Vietnam, a practice that was
in violation of the US Unified Action Armed Forces principle that
unified commanders must be divorced from service operations while
commanding unified activities and which also, in effect, subordinated
the MACV Air Component Commander to the Army Component Commander. The
lack of joint service expertise on the MACV staff made it difficult
for the staff to handle legitimately joint matters. For example, as
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will be seen, the MACV Joint Airlift Allocations Board was actually only
one badly swamped staff officer in the MACV J-4 division. (77) The MACV
Joint Research and Test Activity (JRATA), headed by Brig General John K.
Boles, Jr., was so dominated by Army officers in rank and numbers that
USAF was reluctant to undertake any testing of combined concepts or
combinations of equipment in Vietnam. (78) Although the assignment of
the USAF colonel to the MACV J-3 for liaison duty in the RVNAF Joint
General Staff had good results in getting consideration for air matters,
only eight of 45 officers in MACV J-3 were USAF officers and only the
USAF MS liaison officer was a full aolonel.(79) The scarce air exper-
tise in the MACV J-3 worked against its handling major air matters, and
these were generally entrusted to the 2d Air Division staff. The MACV
J-3 nevertheless took increasing control of day-to-day air operations,
initially through the agency of the J-3 manning of the American MAC
Staff Element (MABSTELM) in the RVNAF MS-Joint Operations Center.
Under the May 1964 MACV reorganization, an Army Air Operations Section
(AAOS) was established and manned with J-3 personnel in the JGS-JOC,
with the mission of allocating US Arly Aviation to the CTZs and main-
taining operational control over other US Army aviation resources that
were not allocated. In the expectation that increased cooperative
planning would result, General Moore got General Westmoreland to co-
locate the AAOS with the VNAF/USAF Air Operations Center, but, as a
matter of fact, any joint planning and scheduling done was conducted
in the RVNAF JGS-JOC, and the AAOS and AOC were only action agencies.
In this organizational complex, the MACV J-3 channeled operational
directions pertaining to VNAF/USAF activities to the JGS-JOC, which
passed them to the AOC for implementation. On occasions, the MACV J-3
did not use the circuit through the JGS-JOC but went directly to the
AOC, In order to provide coordinaticn to US Army and USAF infra-red
reconnaissance, the MACV Target Research and Analysis Center, as will
be seen, would be organized in December 1964 as a function of MACV J-2
and with a missim of centralized targeting, which included requirements
for reconnaissance levied upon the AAOS and the AOC. (So)
During 1964 the organizational procedures of MACV J-3 and MACV J-2
effectively by-passed the Commanders of VNAF and of the 2d Air Division
in the handling of day-to-day air operations, and, although the organi-
zational frameworl.c of.te TACS followed doctrinal lines, the initiative
of the tactical air acmpander in managing in-country tactical air warfare
tasks of air superiority, air interdiction, and air support was reduced,
this despite General Moore's title as Deputy COMUSMACV for Air Operations.
The organizational developments gradually implanted during 1964 would
in months to follow yield a Joint Air-Ground Operations System in South
Vietnam, incorporating the Army Air-Ground System (AAGS) and the Air
Force Tactical Air Control System and reflecting a stated concept that '
aerial reconnaissance, close air support, and air interdiction operations
would be immediately responsive to the requirements of ground commanders.
Under the JAGOS, the highest echelon of the LAGS would be the Tactical
Air Support Element (TASE) of the MACV Combat Operations Center, the
TASE being made up of a J-2 Air Group and a J-3 Air Group. The TASE
handled all matters related to ground requested tactical aerial reconnais-
sance, close air support, and aerial interdiction within South Vietnam,
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validated requests, and passed Air Force missions into the TACS for
execution. The MACV directive which established the JAGOS noted that
all delivery of aerial firepower in South Vietnam.-- including aerial
interdiction, which had long been considered an initiative of an air
commander -- would be ground support and would be responsive to the
initiative and requirements of ground commanders. (81)
3. Collapsing Tactical Air Capabilities in Vietnam Demanded Attention
During his conversation with Secretary McNamara in Hawaii on 12 March
1964, General Smart emphasized that the attitudes particularly of senior
personnel who often stated that South Vietnam conflict was a "ground war"
had not permitted an emphasis upon a proper role for air forces. He
pointed to the two air control systems in South Vietnam -- the TAGS and
the Army aviation system -- as producing mutual interference and as an
evidence that the Army wanted to prove a case for Army aviation and the
feasibility of using strike helicopters and strike aircraft under Army
control. Smart insisted that the war in South Vietnam could not be
classified as a "ground war" or "air war" but was a conflict that de-
manded the best effort that could be mustered by the combined strengths
of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, integrated with economic, political,
and psychological efforts of non-military agencies. (82)
Although General Smart's logic did not secure the addition of air
expertise to the MACV command echelon, the focus of attention in air
problems accompanying the organizational changes, together with mani-
festations of failing tactical air capabilities, brought evolutionary
rather than immediate improvements -- many of the improvements coming
too late to affect the declining tactical situation. As matters stood
at the beginning of 1964, there was a high-level hope that the assign-
ment of Generals Westmoreland and Moore in Saigon would result in a
clarification of air problems. When Westmoreland was preparing for his
new assignment, General Wheeler specifically instructed him that he was
expected "to get the air missions straightened out." Wheeler continued
to emphasize that he would not tolerate any fight for "hide bound doc-
trinal concepts" which interfered with the war effort. When Army doc-
trine interfered with the war effort, Wheeler said that he, as Army
Chief of Staff, could and would change doctrine with a stroke of his
pen. (83) In January 1964 Admiral Felt suggested that the unnecessary
ARVN defeat west of Ben Cat, which resulted framenploymentof armed
helicopter fire support rather than strike aircraft, denoted a lack
of adequate air advice to the ARVN, and General Harkins promised that
Westmoreland and Moore would survey the situation and provide procedures
for a fully coordinated air support effort. (8L)
"The word for the Air Force in Vietnam," General Anthis had written
in his end-of-tour report as Commander, 2d Air Division, "is austerity."
At his arrival, General Moore had Anthis' summation that air resources
in South Vietnam were not meeting requirements -- or opportunities for
air employment -, because of the war-weariness of air commando aircraft,
the limited capability of VNAF to expand, and the slowness of the
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inadequate AHVN air request net in passing requirements for air support. (8S)
In accordance with the "Accelerated HVNAF Model Plan" developed following
Secretary McNamara 's visit to Saigon in October 1963, the USAF 34th Tacti- ?
cal Group was expected to begin to phase out of Vietnam beginning with the
19th Tactical Air Support Squadron in mid-1964 and the 1st Air Commando
Squadron in mid-1965. As has been seen, Secretary McNamara was quite
insistent that the US 0-1s should phase out of South Vietnam as soon as
new VNAF liaison squadrons could be organized, and General Harkins deter-
mined that the 19th TASS, which provided FAC aircraft, should be phased
out before the US Amy 73d Aviation Company, whose 0-1s served US Army
Advisors. In the VNAF program, the new 518th Fighter Squadron was sched-
uled to receive MAP A-1H aircraft beginning in March 1964, and in this
same month the 716th Reconnaissance Squadron was programmed to have its
18 RI-28s and 3 RC-47s. In order to meet expected attrition at the 1963
rate and continue in operation during 1964, the USAF 34th Tactical Group's
1st Air Commando Squadron expected to receive 18 rebuilt "On Mark" B-26Ks,
the first two to be delivered in June 1964. As previously seen, the air
commando B-26s were very war weary, but the 2d Air Division expected that
they would survive with careful flying and that predicted attrition rates
would hold good, provided the Vietcong did not introduce large caliber
weapons with antiaircraft sighting devices. The USAF T-28s were programmed
to be replaced on a one-for-one basis with dual-piloted A-1E aircraft in
the second quarter of 1964.(86)
In the last half of 1963 the VNAF and USAF had been unable to meet
requirements for combat strike sorties in support of AHVN operations,
and in January 1964 the III CTZ ALO reported that the VNAF-USAF were not
filling half of the air support requests originating within the corps,
a condition that was obscured by the serious deficiencies in the III CTZ
air request net, which prevented many requests for air support from reach-
ing the ASOC.(87) Already behind the power curve, VNAF-USAF aircraft re-
ceived growing damages from Vietcong ground defenses, which commonly in-
cluded captured 50-ca1iber machineguns.(88) The ground fire shot down a
T-28 and B-26, and, even more ominously on 7 January a B-26 lost its tail
section on a test flight, resulting in the death of the pilot and co-pilot.
On 11 February another B-26 at Eglin AFB in the United States lost awing
in flight; and all B-26s in Vietnam were promptly grounded and were out of
combat, except for straight and level flying with minimum ordnance loads. (89)
In view of the uncertain combat worthiness of the old B-26s, PACAF had
recommended on 8 January that one squadron of the 3d Bombardment Wing's
light jet B-57 aircraft should be deployed to Bien Hoa from Japan. The
3d Wing's B-57s were being phased out of the USAF inventory, but they
were admirable planes for service in Vietnam, since their jet speed would
enable them to respond quickly to air support requests. (90) At a MACV
staff meeting on 17 February, Generals Harkins and Westmoreland expressed
great concern over the loss of the B-26 capabilities, which Westmoreland
described as the USAF "Sunday Punch capability." In the next two weeks,
both General Harkins and Admiral Felt recommended that a squadron of B-57s
be brought to Bien Hoa and operated under Farm Gate rules, with combined
USAF-VNAF crews and Vietnamese markings. On 2 March the Joint Chiefs of
Staff recommended the B-57 deployment to Secretary McNamara. (91)
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At conferences in Saigon on 8-10 March, Secretary McNamara was
most interested in discussing }VNAF clear-and-hold operations. He
questioned General Moore about VNAF requirements, but delayed discussions
about replacement aircraft for USAF since he thought this to be peripheral
to the main problem. When the matter came up, McNamara inferred that it
would be cheaper to give extra aircraft to VNAF than to bring in more USAF
aircraft. Before departing Saigon, however, McNamara decided to equip
all three of the Vietnamese fighter squadrons with A-1H aircraft, this
by providing the 514th Squadron with 25 A:.ls to replace its T-28s. He
also directed that the USAF 1st Air Commando Squadron would be provided
30 A-lEs to replace its B-26s and T-28s.(92) In Hawaii on 12 March, General
Smart pointed out to Secretary McNamara that more than 30 percent of the
enemy casualties in South Vietnam (14,944 out of 49,100 casualties in
1962-1963) had been attributed to the tactical air effort. If a small
number of obsolete aircraft could produce casualties in these quantities,
an increased number of more capable aircraft could logically be expected
to produce more. Secretary McNamara replied that he appreciated the
reasons why B-57s were desired but that there introduction was "hard."
He felt that before this "hard" task was undertaken, the United States
should exploit the easier road of introducing increased non-jet air
strengths if it could be demonstrated that doing so would materially
assist in winning the war. Although McNamara was unwilling to introduce
the B-57s for air support within South Vietnam, he was interested in
their potential employment in the 34A covert operations against North
Vietnam. General Smart did not feel that he had sufficient time to
present the case for the B-57s to McNamara and asked General LeMay to
do what he could with the Secretary. McNamara was not persuaded. His
recommendations, approved by President Johnson, included providing the
VNAF 25 A-IHs in exchange for its T-28s, and on 20 March he informed
the Joint Chiefs of Staff that B-57s would not be deployed to Vietnam
to offset the air support capability caused by the collapse of the B-26s
but that he would consider moving the B-57s to another Pacific base. As
recommended by LeMay and Felt, arrangements were completed by the month's
end to deploy 48 B-57 aircraft and accompanying personnel without
dependents from Yokota Air Base in Japan to Clark Air Base in the
Philippines. (93) At Bien Hoa, Colonel Benjamin S. Preston:, Jr., 34th
Tactical Group commander, attempted unsuccessfully to get some use from
the B-26s; he found, for example, two old Norden bomb sights and had
them lashed in the glass noses of two RB=26s for straight and level
bombing. This experiment showed little pramise; moreover, every 3-26
on hand had cracked stress plates and loose rivets throughout their
wing structures. The B-26s clearly could not be saved, and on 8 April
the last of the B-26s and RB-26s were ferried to Clark Air Base for
salvage. (9!)
As long as the T-28s had not faced significant ground fire they had
been effective counterinsurgency planes, despite their relatively slow
speed and armament loading limitations. With the growth of Vietcong
ground fire, they werequite vulnerable. On 18 February, a T-28 was hit
while flying an interdiction mission, the crew fortunately escaping
major injury in a crash landing. The following day, another T-28 was
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shot down while making a strafing pass in support of a ground operation,
and the crewmen were killed. Three VNAF A-1Hs were also lost in February
because of enemy ground fire. (95) Since the T-28s had outlived their
safe employment in Vietnam, replacement A-1 Skyraider aircraft promised
increased tactical air capabilities, and the new VNAF 518th Fighter
Squadron, with ten of twenty-five authorized A-1Hs, began to fly combat
from Bien Hoa on 18 March.(96) In MeV on 18 March, however, Colonel
George I. Ruddell, the Deputy J-3, completed a survey of the effect of
hostile ground fire on aircraft survivability which indicated that the
time had come when enemy defenses demanded a return to standard Air
Force four-aircraft fighter flights,thus permitting each echelon of two
planes to protect the other during low-level passes. These tactics
necessitated more airframes, and Colonel Ruddell recommended that the
34th Tactical Group be provided two squadrons each of 25 A-1Es, rather
than the single squadron of 30 A-1Es. General Harkins accepted the re-
quirement as did PACAF, which determined that the second USAF A-1E
squadron could be outfitted and in place by November 1964. On 1 April,
Admiral Felt recommended the two USAF A-1E squadrons to the Joint Chiefs
of Staff.(97)
In the fortnight when the requests for 34th Tactical Group augmenta-
tion were going fox-Ward, Colonel Preston, who had just been compelled to
stand dawn the combat-worn B-26s, had reason to doubt whether he could
keep the 1st Air Commando Squadron in operation at all. He had taken
action to transition 10 B-26 pilots to T-28s, but on 24 March, while on
a bomb run near Soc Trang, a T-28B, piloted by Captain Edwin G. Shank, Jr.,
lost a wing and crashed, killing Shank and the VNAF crewman. Preston
went into the jungle, examined the wreckage, and determined that the wing
bolts had sheared off under high-G stress under circumstances virtually
identical to the earlier crash loss of another T-28 the previous October.
After the accident in October, all -'228s had been closely inspected, and
in Preston's estimation aircraft maintenance in the 34th Group was excel-
lent. The loss of the T-28, following so closely after B-26 wing failures,
made pilots "leary," and on 1 April General Moore informed USAF that "the
2AD is practically flat out of business." On 9 April another T-28 crew,
making a third strafing pass over a heavily defended target, snapped off
another wing and crashed. Colonel Preston had already arranged for two
North American aircraft specialists to fly to Bien &a, and these engi-
neers ran inspections on the T-28s and also provided flying restrictions
on the planes. The T-28 simply could not take "slam-bang type flying"
since it was a trainer and not a properly stressed fighter bomber: the
T-28 lost on 9 April, for example, was judged to have been pulling at
least seven Gs. At the recommendation of the engineers, Preston retired
the five remaining "Jungle Jim" T-2135 that had been in combat since
November 1961. -Nine newer T-28s released by VNAF were borrowed, thus
providing the 1st Air Commando Squadron with 15 serviceable T-28s for
combat. Pilots were warned about G-limits, were cautioned not to land
if carrying external ordnance, and "B" model T-28s were flown with
limits on ordnance loadings on wing stations. In order to cut damages
from hostile small arms fire, Preston also obtained an order from the
2d Air Division establishing a 1,000foot minimum altitude restriction
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on 34th Group attack runs. Under these restrictions the USAF T-28s
would remain in operation until they could be replaced with A-lBs.(98)
Early in 1964 the threatened collapse of USAF air commando capa-
bilities occupied much of the attention of the 2d Air Division, but a
running survey of field operations, principally underway in the III and
IV CTZs, revealed problems in the control of strike aircraft. As far as
incomplete recordings showed, 1,546 air strike requests were received by
the A.SOCs in January-March 1964, of which 424 could not be honored, in-
cluding 230 because of lack of available aircraft. These figures did
not represent true requirements, since ARVN commanders did not like to make
requests after being turned down, and III CTZ FACs reported that they also
were discouraged at the prospect of encouraging requests for air support
that could not be honored. (99) The pattern of operations in January yielded
slight results. On 16-19 January the ARVN 21st Division's Operation Dan
Chi 7 in An Xuyen province employed the greatest number of tactical air
support sorties yet flown in the division's area of responsibilitY (44
sorties on the first day) but the heliborne operation made no significant
contact with the enemy.(100) an 17-28 January, the ARVN 7th Division
mounted Operation Phung Hoang 1 as a large search and clear heliborne and
water invasion into the Thanh Phu district of Kien Hoa province where a
prisoner of war reported and aerial photography confirmed the presence
of a Vietcong base area and training camp. Despite artillery fire and
prelanding air strikes by T-28s and B-26s against landing zones, first
waves of helicopters on 17 January met strong ground fire that shot down
a UH-1B gunship and scored multiple hits on all 32 helicopters. On 18
January the operation continued, and another armed UH-1B was hit, went
down in the water, and only the copilot and a crewman were successfully
rescued in an incident that did much to establish a requirement for a
professional air rescue force in South Vietnam. In afidition to pre-strikes,
continuous fighter cover was maintained over the Phuong Hoang 1 area on
17-18 January; by 19 January the Vietcong had lost 46 killed and 97 captured,
plus their training center, but friendly losses included 20 dead, 25 wounded,
and two UH-1B helicopters destroyed. (101) The problem had been pointed out
earlier, but air reports of Dan Chi 7 and Phung Hoang 1 emphasized that
JGS-MACV regulations did not provide any guidance as to aerial coordination
and who was in command over a heliborne landing area. The only person who
actually had authority to tell tactical air what to do was the VNAF FAC,
who lacked rank and experience to be an air commander. (102)
In the same weeks of January 1964 that large ARVN operations were
not accomplishing spectacular results, there were indications that smaller
applications of air strike forces and air support for provincial forces
could be profitable. In the ARVN 5th Division area of the III CTZ, for
example, the USAF ALO pointed out that Vietcong cooking fires were lit
freely at dusk, an indication that the enemy understood that VNAF pilots
did not like to fly at night. On 16 January, a VNAF C-47 flareship and
4 A-1Hs successfully attacked one Vietcong assemblage in Tay Ninh pro-
vince, but most night attack air requests submitted by the 5th Division
40 were not honored. In day pinpoint strikes in Tay Ninh province only
14 of 67 requested interdiction targets were struck in February. In
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addition, 27 last resort SCAT targets were hit, but in regard to these
targets VNAF 514th Fighter Squadron pilots went on record with complaints
that they were "sick and tired of expending their ordnance on nothing
but empty fields, trees, and jungles. "(103) One of the problems affecting
air interdiction strikes in Tay Ninh province was the fact that the ARVN
5th Division commander required all of them to be processed at some length
through his headquarters, with the result that any immediate sightings of
the enemy disappeared before they were targeted. On the other hand, USAF
ALOs operating with provincial forces in two separate employments in
Phuoc Tuy province and in the Binh Lam Special Zone (Binh Thuan and Lam
Dong provinces) during January and February reported good results from
SCAT strikes against enemy held areas which could not be entered by the
provincial troops. In these "remote locations" in the east coast provinces
of the III CTZ, the problems affecting air operations were complicated by
circumstances and regulations. At Baria, the Phuoc Thy FAC had good
rapport with the province chief who was authorized to approve air targets,
and reported that he knew the enemy's activities like the back of his hand,
but in order to manage an attack he had to get a usually disinterested VNAF
FAC, who had no familiarity with the areal, to f4 to Baria to mark the
target. (104) The Binh Lam Special Zane ALO had much the same report of the
unrealibility of VNAF PACs who were sent to Phan Thiet for operations, and
the problem was compounded by the fact that the popular force commanders
vastly feared any sort of close fire support, whether by artillery, armed
helicopters, or strike aircraft. The Binh Lam ALO recommended the USAF
ALO/FAC program had mainly been concerned with advising corps and division
staffs whereas it would have been more advantageous to have worked with
province chiefs and with regimental, battalion, and company cammanders.(105)
After January US Army advisors in the TIT and IV CTZ stressed the
importance of small unit operations and quick reaction helio assaults
throughout the day and desirably Into the night. in the case of larger
heliborne operations, the peak periods of air cover, escort, and pre-
strike had normally lasted only 1 to 3 hours a day, and operational
schedules could be preplanned, but the changing concept called for quick
reaction on the part of tactical fighters over a period of at least ten
hours a day.(106) In the III CTZ, the III ASOC recognized that VNAF normally
required 30 minutes to scramble aircraft in response to an air support
request, and, where feasible, attempted to keep aircraft on air alert over
the main operational areas of the III CTZ so that they might be directed
to the support of any of several small operations that might be in progress.
Even with air alert, however, an hour was required to process a request for
air support through the III CTZ ARVN air request net. (107) In order to
increase responsiveness, the III CTZ ALO, Lt Colonel Mellish, advocated
forward staging of fighter aircraft into advanced airfields, and on
17-18 March three T-28s were sent on ground alert to Phan Thiet where
Vietcong activity was expected at a time that Binh Lam Special Zone
forces were resettling several thousand Montagnards in Lam Dong province.
Since the Vietcong did not respond to the operation, the T-28s had no
employment and the 34th Tactical Group pointed out that the planes were
exposed to very marginal safety considerations, which ought not to be
done unless the importance of the Operation was great enough to warrant
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the risk.(108) In addition to the problem of responsiveness, the number of
tactical air sorties available for the support of the III CTZ on a busy
operations day was approximately 30, whereas by comparison US Army
aviation support assigned to the III CTZ included 17 utility UH-IBs,
11 HU-1B gunships, 2 Caribou transports, 4 Otter utility transports,
2 Mohawk armed reconnaissance planes, and 8 L-19 liaison aircraft -- an
aircraft complement that was said to fly an average of 275 sorties a day. (109)
In the changed concept of smaller ARVN operations in the road-
limited IV CTZ after January 1964 as many as four or five heliborne
operations -- including Eagle flight and rapid response helicopter
flights -- were not uncommonly underway each day in the 9th and 21st
Division tactical areas of responsibility. Except for the five USAF
T-28s at Soc Trang, there was a built-in delay of one and one-half hours
in getting ground alert aircraft from Bien Hoe. Under these circumstances,
the optimum tactical air support for Eagle flights would have been to
have kept the division ALO and an ARVN G-3 air officer airborne in an
0-1 aircraft during ARVN helicopter operations to serve as an air coordi-
nator and to bring in fighters from air alert stations when required.
Such a liaison aircraft capability did not exist: the VNAF 112th Squadron
kept a detachment of five 0-ls at Can Tho, but these aircraft were limited
to FAO target-marking duty. The USAF ALOs begged rides on Army liaison
planes where possible but more commonly were grounded at the division
command post with no more knowledge of the air situation over an objective
area than was provided by the US Army liaison communication relay plane,
which maintained cover over heliborne landing areas. (110) The amount of
tactical strike effort available to the IV ASOC was also very limited:
during March only 71 of 126 air support requests of the 9th Division
could be honored, and in April only 64 of 148 requests were approved.
One of the major ALO/FAC functions was reported to be that of keeping
ARVN officers from becoming discouraged with limited air support. (ill)
In view of limited availability of strike aircraft, the TV ASOC
followed a practice of providing as much cover as possible in the vicinity
of heliborne operations (generally two fighters on two-hour air alert
stations) and of responding strongly only when the Eagle flights or rapid
response forces encountered significant opposition. In the words of the
IV CTZ ALO, Lt Colonel Clarence R. Osburne, the situation virtually
conceded immediate air support to armed HU-1B helicopters, who frequently
"saved the day" whereas a flight of heavily armed tactical fighters might
have "made the day."(112) On 12 April, when the Vietcong destroyed Kien
Long district town in Chuong Thien province, VNAF turned in an outstanding
performance, including a A-1H hit on a Vietcong 105-mm howitzer before
dawn and almost continuous air support strikes throughout the daylight
hours. The TACS made it possible to muster 30-45 air strike sorties at
Kien Long, but this was all that could be provided from the Bien Hoa
resources, and it was insufficient to prevent a serious government
defeat. (113)
Following the arrival of Generals Westmoreland and Moore in Saigon,
Admiral Felt had understood that General Harkins would establish a MACV
ad hoc committee to examine the directives regarding overall coordination
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of the air effort. Instead, Harkins decided that Westmoreland and Moore would
look over the situation and make suggestions for changes.(114) One needed
change was almost immediately obvious. The US Army senior corps advisor at
the III CTZ had long been a notorious partisan of Army aviation. He did not
invite the USAF corps ALO to attend OTZ air planning conferences, and, as a
matter of fact, was not on speaking terms with him. The III CTZ Army advisors
had prepared pacification plans which included no reference to the employment
of tactical air support, and, when General Moore sent his plans chief to offer
help in rewriting the plans, the Army senior advisor refused to accept the
assistance because he said the plans were satisfactory. After Moore mentioned
this to Westmoreland, a MACV directive was issued on 16 March requiring that
province pacification plans prepared by the CTZs would include an air opera-
tions annex to be provided by USAF advisory personne1.(115) At the III CTZ
headquarters, the US Army senior advisor now carefully called the ALO to all
briefings and planning conferences. Moreover, when the incumbent US Army senior
advisor completed his tour in May, he would not be extended but would be
rotated to the United States.(116)
Early in March, Westmoreland and Moore visited each of the ARVN corps and
division headquarters, and Moore returned from the field trip with a feeling
that the significance of the two separate control systems for VNAF-USAF tactical
aircraft and the US Army aircraft had been exaggerated. In the USAF view the
existence of the separate control systems caused ARVN commanders to receive
conflicting advice about air support and also prevented fullest development
and utilization of the TACS. Moore, however, was confident that there could
be cooperation between the systems and remarked: "The Army is just as strongly
opposed to Air Force control of its aircraft as we are for the Army to control
ours."(117) On the other hand, Moore favored proposals to expand the TAGS
by the addition of a USAF-manned and operated air request communications net
similar to the US Strike Command-Tactical Air Command air request system that .
had been worked out in maneuvers in tie United States. These nets would
eliminate the long delays encountered in passing air requests up through channels
over ARVN communications. To be known as the "VNAF Air Request Net," the USAF
operated system could most feasibly be initially established in the III CTZ
and 7th Division area, since forces there were most actively engaged in combat,
and, if the initial net was accepted by the RVNAF, it could be expanded to
other CTZs.(118)
The Westmoreland-Moore field visit also brought out the circumstances
that air advisors were numerically scarce among ARVN units. The 2d Air
Division had a manpower authority for 17 lieutenant colonels as ALOs with
ARVN corps and divisions and for 32 captains/lieutenants as air-advisor
FACs with ARVN regiments. These numbers were very small when compared
with US Army advisors -- up to 500 in a CTZ, with assignments down to company
levels. The 2d Air Division had never been authorized an air liaison
officer on the top-level RVNAF Joint General Staff, and the lieutenant
colonel AIOs with the corps and divisions were out-ranked by US Army
colonel-rank advisors. In forward planning, the 2d Air Division had
kept the rank of advisory personnel as low as practicable to avoid dwarfing
relatively low-ranking VNAF counterparts, and it expected that VNAF would
begin to assign Vietnamese air officers as ALOs as soon as it had
enough officers. In January 1964, Colonel Ky understood the require-
ment for the Vietnamese ALOs and promised to assign 15 new pilots
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to the duty as soon as they completed TC-1D flight training. In view of
Admiral Felt's admonition that ARVN needed better air advice, the Thirteenth
Air Force recommended on 21 January that a senior USAF colonel should be
assigned to the aas and that the rank of USAF corps ALOs should be increased
to colonel, thus giving these officers equal prestigeto the Ugt Army senior
corps advisors. (119)
General Moore's plans for the VNAF Air Request System also provided a
means to increase USAF air advice at lower ARVN levels since a USAF pilot
FAC and two radio operators would man tactical air control parties (TACPs)
allocated for service at commind levels down to battalion. All TACPs would
process requests for air support and provide advice to ARVN commanders, and
those at battalions and regimental levels would be expected to direct close
air support strikes. In order to man the countrywide VNAF Air Request Sys-
tem the 2d Air Division's authority for FACs would have to be increased to
58 officers, but a part of these could be secured by drawing upon pilots
fram the USAF 19th Tactical Air Support Squadron, which, despite efforts
to keep it. remained slated for inactivation in mid-1964. Although VNAF
airborne FAr:s would still bp readd to mark more remote and hard-to-find
interdiction targets, Moore was persuaded that the old restriction that
VNAF FACs must mark all air targets ,ould be relaxed since he saw no
reason why with improved communications the USAF FACs, US Army liaison
pilots, and US Army and ARVN forward air guides could not be used to
designate air targets in close air support work. (120)
On 15 April General Moore presented a package plan for improving VNAF
responsiveness to General Harkins, with specific recommendations including
the establishment of the VNAF Air Request System, training and assignment
of VNAF ALO/FACs down to battalion levels as soon as possible (initially
as counterparts to and eventually to replace USAF ALO/FACs), and assign-
ment of a USAF liaison officer to tha JGS, as wel1 as expansion Of VNAF
representation in the JGS-JOC. un i5 and. 16 April, Moore met with General
Harkins and with General Wheel-ar -,7',;3 then in Saigon and ,1g-;In presented
both the plan for increasing VNAF raspcnivsne:.5"and the requiremant fc)r two
additional squadrons of USAF A-1E aircraft. After same questioning,
Wheeler agreed to support the aiditional requirement for USAF A.-1Es
upon his return to Washington, and both Wheeler and Harkins readily sup-
ported the package plan for improving VNAF responsiveness. On 17 April
Harkins requested the RVNAF to take necessary actions to put the plan
into effect. Authority was included for a USAF colonel advisor to the
Jas-Joc in the revised MACV JTD, and General Moore was authorized to use
PACAF resources to establishthe VNAF Air Request Net in the III CTZ and
7th Division area without delay. General Wheeler's trip report was con-
sidered in Washington on 28 April at a meeting of the Secretary of Defense
with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Secretary McNamara at this time directed_
that the VNAF Air Request Net would be established not only in-the III CTZ
but in all CTZs as quickly as possible, and be authorized USAF to deploy
combat-ready TACPs from the Tactical Air Command on temporary duty pending
procurement of personnel and eauiament for assignment to the 2d Air Division. (121)
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In the expansion of the air advisory force, PACAF thought it important
that the rank of the corps ALOs be increased to colonel, but, when Moore
so recommended, Westmoreland said that it would be unacceptable since the
US Army senior advisors in the CTZs would continue to be the MACV senior
advisors and would be responsible for advising corps commanders on all
military matters, including employment of airpower. The USAF corps ALO
would be expected to advise the MACV senior advisor, and Westmoreland
assured Moore that the USAF lieutenant colonel ALOs would be used to the
fullest extent. At this juncture, Ky announced that his VNAF wing com-
manders would be the chief air advisors to the CTZ commanders, and General
Moore acceded to Westmorelandls demand that the USAF corps ALO would be
subordinate to the US Army senior corps advisor. (122)
When General Moore had been preparing to go to his new assignment
in Saigon, General LeMay had instructed him to recommend improvements
in aircraft in South Vietnam as soon as he had been on the job long enough
to form an opinion. On 7 April, with planning for the improved VNAF Air
Request System nearing fruition, the retirement of the B-26s already a
fact, the T-28s in trouble, and Secretary McNamara opposed to a B-57
squadron in South Vietnam, Moore wrote LeMay that the A-1E was the most
preferable aircraft for USAF operations and that three squadrons, each
with 25 unit equipment A-lEs, would be required for assignment to the 34th
Tactical Group. This number of squadrons included the already assigned
let Air Commando Squadron whose B-26s and T-28s were to be replaced with
A-IHs, the second squadron recommended by canusmAcv and CINCPAC as
required to permit standard four-ship fighter formations in deference
to hostile ground defenses, and a third A-1H squadron not previously
recommended, which Moore justified on the basis of predictable increases
in air strike requirements that would: be generated by the more efficient
VNAF Air Request System which would be maturing early in 1965, when the
squadron could be based at the new Can Tho airfield under a)nstruction
in the Mekong Delta. (123) In conversations with General Wheeler on 15-16
April, Moore did not denigrate VNAF progress but pointed out the require-
ment for the three USAF A-1H squadrons in terms of the professional re-
quirement to respond quickly to on-call air support missions and to set
a proper example for Vietnamese airmen. As provided to the Joint Chiefs
and Secretary McNamara, Wheeler's trip report described VNAF activity and
motivation as being low and recommended the three USAF .AIH squadrons. (124)
General Moore's major problem in justifying the requirement for three
squadrons of USAF A-1Es in addition to three squadrons of VNAF A-1Hs was
the lack of hard statistics. A study prepared by the 2d Air Division
Operations Analyst, Richard T. Sandborn, nevertheless demonstrated that 50
A-lEs and 75 A-1Hs would generate a total combat sortie potential of 3038
per month, this figured on the basis that the sortie potential for the
A-1E and A-1H would be 30 and 25 sorties per aircraft per month respec-
tively and that 10 percent of the sorties generated would be required
for training. Based upon an extrapolation of the rising number of air
support requests being received as well as the requirement for larger
aircraft flights, Sandborn computed that the combat sortie requirement
would be 4476 sorties by August 1964 and would increase after this. (125)
At the Thirteenth Air Force, General Sam Maddux pointed out that demands
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for a third USAF A-1E squadron might result in the end of the retention of
the B-57s at Clark. In any event, the A-1E squadron could not be accanmodated
in South Vietnam until Cm Tho airfield was completed early in 1965, and he
saw no need to make an issue about the third squadron at such an early time.
From Washington, however, General William H. Blanchard, USAF Vice Chief of
Staff, stated that the Air Force could support the third squadron and was
making plans for it to reach full equipment at the new Can Tho airfield by
March 1964. On 27 April, PACAF recommended to Admiral Felt that the third
USAF A-1E squadron be introduced into South Vietnam. (126)
Although General Wheeler justified the USAF A-1E expansion on the grounds
that VNAF's effectiveness was law, this justification provided a reverse
implication that increased USAF capability would delay the development of
VNAF self-sufficiency, thereby undermining the principle that US advisors
were expected to prepare the RVNAF for combat rather than engage in combat
themselves. Two events in March and April revealed that the rule limiting
USAF advisors from engaging in combat was being strained if not violated.
On 8 March Colonel Thomas M. Hergert, the Deputy Chief, Air Force Station,
MAAG, was killed when the VNAF A-1H in which he was flying wing to a
Vietnamese pilot on an interdiction mission was shot down by ground fire
east of Tay Ninh. As a MAAG advisor, Colonel Hergert was within the para-
meters of training, but he became the 26th USAF.Combat death in Vietnam
since January 1962.(127) On 21 April, however, a series of letters written
home by Captain Shank before his death in combat on 24 March, became avail-
able to US Congressmen and soon were printed in the public press. The Shank
letters were critical of the serviceability of USAF aircraft in South Vietnam
and further revealed that the 1st Air Commando Squadron pilots were flying
combat accompanied by Vietnamese basic airmen (popularly known as "sandbags")
who were made available solely to meet the restriction that a Vietnamese
crewman must be a member of an air commando crew. With the appearance of
the Shank letters, General Moore recommended that the arbitrary restriction
that a Vietnamese be aboard USAF strike aircraft should be eliminated since
the non-rated airmen in no way contributed to the success of air commando
missions which were normally only flown to augment VNAF and perform tasks
which VNAF pilots were incapable of accomp1ishing.(128) PACAF further
demonstrated that VNAF was programmed for pilots on the basis of 1.5 pilots
to each VNAF cockpit, thus diversion of 50 to 75 pilots to flying with the
USAF A-lEs would seriously degrade VNAF sorties. If legitimate VNAF ob-
servers were assigned to flying with the USAF A-lEs, the VNAF liaison/FAC
program would be bankrupt. (129)
At their meeting with Secretary McNamara on 29 April, the Joint
Chiefs of Staff recommended that the USAF A-1Es in Vietnam be increased
to 50 aircraft and two squadrons in order to meet the requirement stated
by COMUSMACV and CINCPAC. The Joint Chiefs also advised Secretary
McNamara that they concurred in the recommendations of General Wheeler's
report, one of which proposed the third USAF A-1E squadron. After dis-
cussion with General Taylor on 5 May, Secretary McNamara approved the
increase of USAF strength to 50 A-1Es and two squarlrons.(130) In Hawaii
Admiral Felt's PACFOM staff was reportedly "cool" to the requirement
for a third USAF A-1E squariron on the ground that it would delay VNAF
self sufficiency, but on 8 May Felt recommended that the Joint Chiefs
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of Staff authorize USAF to form the third squadron for possible deploy-
ment to South Vietnam in 1965. In regard to the fate of the B-57s at
Clark, Felt accepted General Smart's suggestion that they held for
possible contingency employment and recommended to the Joint Chiefs that
these B-57. squadrons would be an "ace in the hole. "(131) As has been
seen, the B-57s would be retained for potential employment in CINCFAC 34A
operations, but the matter of the third USAF A-1E squadron and the whole
VNAF program was one of the principal subjects of discussion when
Secretary McNamara and General Taylor visited Saigon on 11-13 May.
At the outset of the Secretary of Defense conferences in Saigon on
11-13 May, General Harkins' forecast of the likely trend of Vietcong
activity during the remainder of the year envisioned continued incidents
but no large scale unit activity. This prediction lacked a sense of
urgency and had a bearing upon subsequent discussions of air require-
ments. In these discussions, General Taylor stated that the justifi-
cation by extrapolation of a third USAF A-1E squadron simply would not
sell in Washington, and the introduction of the subject of VNAF require-
ments branched into a considerable discussion of the Shank letters, in
the course of which Secretary McNamara reiterated that US forces were not
in South Vietnam to take part in combat. He directed General Moore to
get the VNAF trained so that it could do everything itself, and to this
end he ordered that the VNAF pilot ratio for fighter aircraft would be
increased from 1.5 to 2 per aircraft and that the VNAF 716th Reconnaissance
Squadron would be equipped with 25 11.-IHs by 1 October 1964 and converted
into a fourth Vietnamese fighter squadron, this in lieu of a commitment of
a third USAF A-1E squadron. (132)
In a planeside news interview a.Washington following his return from
Saigon, Secretary McNamara emphasized that USAF-personnel were in Vietnam
training the VNAF to fight an "anti-guerrilla war. "(133) Within OSD
Secretary McNamara let it be known that he firmly intended that USAF
Farm Gate strike operations would phase down and preferably be out of
South Vietnam in approximately 120 dAys.(134) And on 20 May, General
Taylor messaged new JCS rules of engagement to Admiral Felt, reaffirming
the policy of the US government that US military personnel would not take
part in combat. The ultimate objective was to remove USAF Farm Gate air-
'craft from combat, and continued use of the Farm Gate aircraft was autho-
rized only under the condition that "they fly bona fide operational
training missions against hostile targets to prepare the participating
VNAF personnel for eventual replacement of US pilots." The new rules
recognized that US Army helicopter operations would continue to introduce
US personnel into combat situations, but they stated: "It is emphasized
that helicopters are for use as transport and that their weapons are for
the protection of vehicles and passengers. Armed helicopters will not be
used as a substitute for close air support strikes. "(135)
At almost the same time that General Wheeler's criticism of VNAF was
being considered in Washington, General Smart happened to be at Bien Hoa
Air Base on 25 April when, under Ey's direction, 17 A-1Hs were combat loaded
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and deployed to Da Nang on an unannounced mission that proved to be the
beginning of Operation Quebec Tango 202, the name given to the air phase
of Operation Quyet Thanh 202, a II CTZ seven-battalion search-and-clear
helfborne operation against the Vietcong 5th Military Region Command
which had reestablished in the old Do-Xa area of northwestern Quang Ngai
province. In support of Quyet Thanh 202 from 27 April through 31 May,
VNAF provided 266 L-19/L-20 sorties, 429 A-1H/T-28 sorties, and 102 R-34
sorties, the helicopter sorties including psywar, aeromedical evacuation,
resupply, and aerial crop destruction spray missions. In addition to a
daily average of 10 A-1Hs available at Da Nang for the operation, the VNAF
516th Squadron kept 5 T-28s deployed at Quang Ngai airfield, where they
managed quick reactions to immediate air support requirements. The initial
secrecy with which the operation wa8 mounted evidently caught the Vietcong
by surprise, resulting in capture and destruction of the largest accumula-
tion of automatic weapons to that date in the war. The 5th Region installa-
tions were again broken up, but as the operation terminated it was not
possible to leave behind three CIO 3 strike companies as had been planned,
since enemy forces had been scattered but not destroyed. The well-coordi-
nated employment of combat aviation gave Ganeral nart confidence that
VNAF effectiveness was markedly increasing, and when the DoXa bases were
broken up General Westmoreland induced the Vietnamese to move the 25th
Division (less one of its regiments) south from Quang Ngai to Hau Nghia
province, immediately west of Saigon, where the Vietcong almost had
complete control. (136)
Although Quyet Thanh 202 increased VNAF prestige, the month-long
operation consumed almost one-half of the combat sorties generated by
the Vietnamese during May, and, in addition, VNAF and USAF aircraft
conversions were begun in this month, with a reduction of VRAF capabilities.
The USAF 1st Air Commando Squadron had already borrowed 9 of the VNAF
516th Souadron's T-28s, and the 516th sent a first increment of T-28 pilot3
to Bien Hoa, where the Pacific Fleet's Naval Air Squadron VA-152 began a
A-1 transition training course on i May. Although the 516th pilots were
experienced in flying the light T-28s, the larger A-1Hs had considerably
more torque and a tail wheel rather than the tricycle landing gear to
which the 516th pilots were accustomed. One of the A-1Hs used for transi-
tion was washed out by a Vietnamese in attempted takeoff and several others
were run off the runways in taxi accidents. During May the 516th received
10 A-1Hs from MAP deliveries; these planes sat on the ramps at Da Nang,
but the VNAF 41st Wing maintenance squadron had difficulty with the un-
familiar aircraft, with the result that the in-commission rate on the
planes averaged only 4 to 5 daily and sometimes dropped to 3.(137) At
Bien Hoa the 1st Air Commando Squadron remained operational with borrowed
T-28s, but the squadron lost another T-28 in a non-fatal takeoff accident
on 1 May, and on 20 May six of the T-28s it was operating were hurriedly
transferred to combat in Laos, leaving only eight aircraft on hand. (138)
Chiefly as a result of the declining T-28 capabilities, VNAF-USAF combat
sorties flown declined in May at the same time that the number of requests
for air support was increasing.
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In mid-May air planners in Saigon followed Secretary McNamara 's
guidance literally in developing a plan for expansion of VNAF fighter
pilot capabilities to a level of two pilotsfor each plane, the expansion
of the VNAF fighter force to four A-1H Squadrons with additional recom-
mendations as to the number of VNAF fighter squadrons that would be
required to get the USAF air commando aircraft withdrawn from combat as
early as possible. The McNamara guidance included conversion of the VNAF
tactical reconnaissance squadron into a fourth fighter squadron by October,
and authorized the use of all VietnaMese pilots -- including air transport
pilots -- to fly fighters. As the crash plan to accomplish the McNamara
program was nearing completion it was affected by the JCS rule of 20 May
that USAF strike aircraft would not be employed in combat unless they
were providing bona fide operational training to participating VNAF
personnel. This restriction portended a marked reduction of USAF combat
capabilities at a time that in-coumry air resources were already inadequate
to meet requirements and when VNAF would be building two new A-1H squadrons.
In recognition of the immediate emergency, MACV ruled that the 1st Air
Commando Squadron could continue to Operate its eight T-28s with
Vietnamese crewmen who were not necessarily pilot potential, but that
as soon as A-1Es were received in sufficieninumber the T-28s would be
withdrawn from use and A-1E combat operations would be strictly limited
to bona fide training. (139)
The VNAF fighter plan was approved and forwarded by MACV on 28 May
and represented a crash program to accomplish Secretary McNamara's di-
rectives in the shortest possible time. The plan placed primary emphasis
on manning the three existing VNAF fighter squadrons with two pilots per
plane by 1 October and the organization and manning of three additional
VNAF fighter squadrons as soon as MAP aircraft could be provided but de-
sirably by 15 February 1965. All Vietnamese pilot resources would be
drawn upon, and in the accelerated pilot training program the 34th Group
would provide an initial two-week Phase I indoctrination course, VA-152
would provide a five-week Phase II transition course, and the 34th Group
would provide a Phase III operational training course. The initial Phase
I indoctrination was justifiable because of the difficulties that VA-152
was having getting the Vietnamese pilots ready for solo flights in the
single-seat A-1Hs.(140) Admiral Felt considered that it would be essential
to keep the USAF air commando A-1Es in operation while VNAF was under ex-
pansion and accordingly validated the Phased training program,(141) but the
ultimate VNAF fighter program remained under consideration for the next
several months. During a Secretary of Defense-Joint Chiefs of Staff
meeting on 8 June, Secretary McNamara provided the additional guidance
that the first four VNAF squadrons would receive emphasis and the fifth
and sixth secondary consideration. On 17 June Admiral Felt accepted a
PACAF evaluation and reported to the Joint Chiefs that the MACV plan tried
to do too much too soon, would place too much priority on training with a
degradation of combat capabilities, and in any event could not be supported
by projected MAP A-IH deliveries. Felt recommended that the VNAF 516th
Squadron be brought to full strength in September, and that the new 520th
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Squadron be organized at this time and made operational at the new Can
Tho airfield by the end of 1964. Felt pointed out that with minor degrada-
tions sufficient VNAF personnel could be made available to man four fighter
squadrons without inactivating the two VNAF C-47 transport squadrons. On
24 July the Joint Chiefs of Staff accepted the four-squadron projection,
three of the VNAF squadrons of A-1H aircraft to be combat ready by 30
September and the fourth by December 1964, all with a two-to-one pilot-to-
cockpit ratio. In addition to this action, the Joint Chiefs would continue
studies regarding the eventual VNAF fighter squadron program.(142)
When Lt Colonel John Porter, commander of the 1st Air Commando Squadron,
led the first flight of six A-lEs to Bien Hoa from the Philippines on 30
May, Colonel Preston noted that the 34th Tactical Group "moved up into the
big league of COIN warfare circles with a first line aircraft." The full
VNAF pilot training program would not begin until July, but 12 Vietnamese
1T-28 and C-47 pilots selected for A-1 training were at Bien Hoa, and the
first strike sorties were flown by the A-lEs on 1 June. (1.43) In view of
his experiences with the Farm Gate B-265 and T-28s, CoLonel Preston admitted
that he would probably have been enthusiastic about any new aircraft, but
Colonel William E. Bethea, who assumed command of the 34th Group on 16
June, was equally impressed by the large and varied ordnance carrying
capability of the A-1E, its ability to operate off a 4,000-foot runway
with full ordnance, its extremely long range which translated into loiter-
ing capability; in short, all of these characteristics fitted for counter-
insurgency. On the other hand, the A:4E was very slow, and its normal
cruising speed of 155 knots would retard rapid response to air support
requests, especially in the far reaches of the Mekong delta. The A-1 also
had little ability to defend itself in aerial combat. By the end of June,
12 A-lEs had been received by the 1st Air Commando SquAriron, and on 30 June
the USAF T-28s flew their last combat mission5 in Scuth Vietnam and were
retired. At this time the 34th Group discontinued use of the Vietnamese
airman basic "sandbag" observers, and began to participate in the phased
transition training of VNAF pilots. (1141.)
The arrival of the USAF A-lEs and additional VNAF A-1Hs during June
did not compensate for the reduction in the number of T-28s available for
combat missions. As shown in the following chart, VNAF-USAF combat
sorties declined in May and were much lower during June:
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VNAF-USAF COMBAT SORTIES, JAN-JUNE 1964
MONTH
VNAF
A-1H
T-28
Total
USAF
B-26
T.28
A-1E
Total
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
387
333
527
696
628
584
640
574
661
615
400
66
1027
907
1188
1311
1028
650
301
175
146
371
305
419
479
441
344
152
672
470
565
479
441
496
Source: Hist. 2d AD Jan-June 1764, Vol. ? Doc. 13.
The decline in combat sorties was accompanied by a steadily rising volume
of requests for air support strike aircraft. Where the ASOCs received
1,546 requests in the quarter year of-January-March, they received 2,040
in the quarter year April-june, and in this second quarter 807 requests
could not be honored, including 668 not honored for lack of aircraft. (145)
Through the spring of 1964 the inadequacy of tactical air resources
was of overriding significance to the battle effort in South Vietnam, but
there was nevertheless hope that STRICOM air request communications and
expanded ALO/FACs at lower ANWN levels could provide a most effective
utilization of scarce strike airpower. In April, Maj General Tran Thien
Khiem, CBC RVNAF, readily agreed to the STRICOM-type system, and 4y
promised to provide Vietnamese air officers to serve as ALOs. The 2d
Air Division expanded its ALO/FACs for the initial undertaking in the
III CTZ by drawing pilots from the 19th Tactical Air Support Squadron;
it also got an unexpected windfall of B-26 pilots for this duty when the
light bombers were grounded. In April and May, 20 USAF ALO/FACs were
assigned in the III CTZ and 7th Division areas, and VNAF made eight
officers available as ALOs. PACAF rounded out the tactical air control
parties by sending radio operators to man the TACP radios, the TACPs
being Posted to the III ASOC, the division ALO posts, and at ARVN regi-
mental command posts. The system was counted operational on 15 May, and,
according to the design of the request net, a TACP accompanying an ARVN
battalion was able to flash an air support request directly to the III
ASOC, while other TACPs at intermediate command posts monitored trans-
missions. If intermediate echelons did not object to an air request
within five minutes, the request was supposed to be considered valid by the
ASOC and the Corps TOC. The forward TACPs also possessed man-pack radios
and were expected to be able to direot close air uupport strikes from the
ground, thus being prepared to supplement the often unavailable target-
marking services of VNAF L-19 airborne EACs. (146)
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In recognition of the fact that USAF communications between the
ASOCs and AOC were far better than parallel US Army communications,
General Westmoreland directed that the US Army Aviation Battalion Control
Center which had been located in the JGS-JOC would move physically within
the VNAF-USAF AOC, and this move commenced on 18 May. Under the MAOV
reorganization, the US Army aviation control center became the Army
Aviation Operations Section of J-3 MACV and although its command author-
ity was separate from the TACS, General Moore expected that the physical
co-location of the AADS and the AOC would permit an increasing degree of
planning and coordination of US Army, VNAF, and USAF air activities, an
eventuality that did not materialize, as has been seen. (147) In the
initial field deployment in the III CTZ, the single side band PRO-47 and
KWM-28 radio sets which provided the backbone communications in the VNAF
air request net met local operating problems, some produced. by the tropi-
cal environment and others probably attributable to unfamiliarity of the
operators with the equipment. (148) These point-to-point communications
problems were solvable, but the effectiveness of the VNAF Air Request
System weo limited by the unwillingneos ef ARV N comnariders eo allow it
to function according to its desian. The, RNA? JGS IA not selle
expected mandatory directive for the empA.eynent of the VNAF Air Requet,
System; ARVN unit commanders readily em4Jrized direct passing ef air
reconnaissance requests over the system, but they refused to be by-passed
where strike firepower was concerned. As a result, the VNAF Air Request
Net served information purposes, but all official requests for air support
continued to travel the time-consuming route over the old ARVN air request
net.(149)
The assignment of highly motivated USAF ALO/FACs to lower AWN command
levels incident to the establishment of the VNAF Air Request System was
very useful in providing guidance to AftIN commanders in the employment of
tactical air support, but the ground. FAils In the forward TACPs were aen-
erally unable to replace the airborne PACs in controlling close support
strikes. The RITNAF oas did not relax tho restriet.ich wereby etrike Lr
craft, were forbidden to release ordnance in proximity -be ground forees
except under control of a VNAF FAC. This rule led to a near tragedy on
23 April, when USAF T-28s were over the position where the AWN 52d
Rangers were trapped near Trung Lap. The T-28s had voice communications
with US Amy L-19 and also with wounded American'advisors on the ground,
but they were not permitted to use their ordnance. Fortunately, a platoon
of armed US Army helicopters arrived, were fired upon, and thereupon
countered the Vietcong threat, while the T-28s jettisoned their unused
ordnance and returned to base.(150) Even if VNAF strike crews had been
willing to accept targets from USAF ground FACs, there were other problems
inherent to such employment. The USAF controllers could not communicate
with Vietnamese pilots in the Vietnamese language- This might have been
solved by assignment of VNAF ALO/FAC counterpartS, but the ALO/FAC duty
was clearly unpopular among Vietnamese air officers, and Secretary
McNamara's program objective of manning VNAF fighters with a 2t1 pilot '
to aircraft ratio severely limited the number and caliber of VNAF pilot&
who could be assigned as ALO/FACs.(151) Finally, the human and natural
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environment worked against ground TACPs. The initial TACP radio equipment
was heavy and bulky, making it virtually impossible for a ground FAC to
man-pack it through the jungles with ARVN foot soldiers. (1S2) The USAF
ALO in the 7th Division additionally pointed out that it was impossible
to direct an air strike safely from the ground because of the many civilians
who milled around and could be seen only from the air. (1S3) Jungle and
mountain terrain limited ground visibility, and in the delta FACs on the
ground found it virtually impossible to determine the range to enemy firing
positions because of the absence of elevated positions in the flat terrain
and the numerous tree lines and canal ridges that obstructed the view. (154)
In mid-1964 USAF ALO/FACs generally agreed that ground TALPs could not
replace airborne control, but that effective air support demanded some-
thing better than the slow and plodding VNAF L-19s and often disinterested
observers. (15) The optimum solution would be to provide the USAF ALO/FACs
with 0-1 aircraft which would permit them to perform local liaison, recon-
naissance, and control functions. In May strong pleas were made to prevent
the inactivation of the USAF 19th TAW, but Admiral Felt said he was unable
to help in the matter and the squadron remained under orders to transfer
its aircraft to VNAF and inactivate. (156)
Like the buildup of VNAF air striking forces, the VNAF Air Request
System held promise for the future, but in July 1964 neither the Vietnamese
air capabilities nor the control procedures were appropriately prepared to
withstand the resurgent Vietcong attacks, which made this the bloodiest
thus far in the war. During July C-47 and C-123 flare support provided
outposts and rural life villages more than doubled over the earlier months
of 1964. The number of night combat fighter support sorties also increased. (l7)
On the night of 6 July, however, the VNAF A-1H pilots at Da Nang were not
qualified for night combat when the Oammunists attacked the Nam Dong
Special Forces Camp near the DMZ. The I ASOC sent a flareship which re-
mained over the camp dropping flares until dawn, and at first light two
A-1Hs and an 0-1A FAC were over the target but were not able to strike
because the FAC could not establish radio contact with the camp. The
aircraft remained in the area, and after about an hour an SDC company
was contacted and the A-1Hs were directed against the withdrawing enemy.
In this attack, the Communists partially overran the camp, killing 55
South Vietnamese, two US Special Forces soldiers, and an Australian
advisor. The delay in A-1H reaction was attributable to inability of
516th Squadron pilots to fly at night, and the operating rule that for-
bade the 0-1 FAC from marking a target in close proximity to friendly
forces without positive identification. (158)
An even greater tragedy occurred on 21 July in Chuong Thien province.
Here in a before dawn attack the Vietcong attacked the Xang Cut outpost,,
while a hard core VC battalion and two local guerrilla companies estab-
lished carefully concealed ambush positions an both sides of the road
which would be traveled by ARVN relief forces. A US Army observer flew
over the camouflaged enemy without seeing them, and when the ARVN 1st
Battalion, 31st Regiment entered the three-kilometer long ambuscade it
was taken under fire with machine guns and mortars. The damage was done
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within the hour required to get a VNAF FAC to the scene, and two VNAF
A-1Hs on ground alert at Bien Hoa did not arrive for an hour and a half
after the air support mission was requested. The ARVN battalion was
virtually disintegrated, losing 41 KIA.and 56 WTA.(159) Captured enemy
documents revealed that the Vietcong were disdainful of VNAF capabilities,
and on the morning of 28 July the Vietcong attacked two hamlets and an
SDC post immediately north of Ben Cat in Binh Duong province. A battalion
of the ARVN 8th Regiment responded, lost a lead tank to 57-mm recoilless
rifle fire, and broke apart under assault fram a two-battalion enemy
force. In an initial air support strike four USAF A-1Es accepted targets
from a US Army 0-1F pilot, but the VNAF A-1H pilots next on station
refused to act without a VNAF FAC, even though the US Army liaison pilot
was accompanied by an ARVN observer and marked enemy positions with smoke
rockets. By the time that the VNAF FAC arrived, most of the Vietcong
had faded away into the jungles. In their analysis of this battle, the
US ALOs in the III CTZ saw no reason why any qualified observer, regard-
less of nationality or branch of service, should not be authorized to mark
targets for strike aircraft. The VNAF Director of the III Af0C, Captain
Nguyen Van Truong, suggested that the RVNAF had made the regul.F,tion on
air strike control more rigid than advisable as a result of inadevertent
strikes on friendly forces and suggested that the rules be liberali7ed to
allow not only FACs but FAGs or any equivalent personnel in any branch of
the Armed Forces to mark targets for airstrikes.(160)
Within the 2d Air Division the outstanding lesson to be drawn from
the Communist victories in mid-1964 involved the fact that the desire of
many influential persons to characterize counterinsurgency as something
distinctly different fram other states of armed conflict had resulted
in the failure to develop adequate air firepower required to defeat the
determined insurgent organization. (161) In order to obviate Communist
ambushes like the one in Chuong Thien, the Deputy Director of the IV
ASOC, Lt Colonel Pierce, stated a requirement to maintain a'7:7AF 3-1
FAC and two flights of four fighters airborne over each delta province
during daylight hours and to be able to back this f--;rce up with )10 to 50
strike sorties within two hours. Although Pierce welcomed prospective
improvement of inadequate control facilities he speculated that even
with a 100 percent improvement of control facilities there would be no
more than a 5 percent improvement in operations, since any significant
improvement would have to come from increased tactical airpower.(162)
The 2d Air Division also noted that small air strikes of two planes at
occasional intervals against well-known Conmunist base areas were doing
little more than to harass the Vietcong. It recommended that the civilian
population should be notified to leave Vietcong havens and that large scale
bombing should then commence against them. An ideal method of attack would
be to utilize USAF tactical air strikes that could be flown from bases in
Thailand, Okinawa, and the Philippines. With in-flight refueling, the
USAF aircraft need not ever land in South Vietnam. (163)
In mid-1964 General Westmoreland was also "deeply concerned" with
the increasing numbers of successful Vietcong hamlet and outpost attacks
and ambushes of ARVN troop units and convoys, and his basic approach to
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the Communist challenge lay in an expansion of US forces into the
Vietnamese provinces at district level, thus catalyzing Vietnamese
para-military and lower level ARVN unite to a higher tempo of paci-
fication effort.(164) In April Westmoreland considered that the VNAF/
USAF reaction time to night hamlet and outpost attacks was too slow and
he directed US Army advisors to prepare plans to maintain US Army armed
helicopters, SOMB equipped with flares, on night alerts at provincial
headquarters, prepared to scramble in immediate support of hamlets and
outposts.(165) Both as a result of the discussions of offensive employ-
ments of Special Forces in border surveillance and also because the
Communists had begun battalion size attacks against Special Force camps,
Westmoreland requested that the US Army Special Forces Vietnam be increased
in strength and transferred an permanent change of station. He also asked
on 16 July that he be provided one helicopter oampany in direct support of
each AWN division, plus additional armed helicopter air mobile companies
and platoons. (166) In order to bring Communist ambushes under control,
Westmoreland directed US Army advisors to impress their Vietnamese counter-
parts with the necessity for detailed priorplanning for operations and
troop movements, the main thrust of the directive pointing out that once
the Vietcong elected to stage an ambush they were fixed in position where
"air and artillery can really pay off." Westmoreland also asked the JGS
to provide for fast and effective reaction to Vietcong attacks by heliborne
alert forces, this by designation of one company per division as an alert
reaction force, assignment of a helicopter unit in direct support of each
division, detailed planning to insure fast mounting of an effective hell-
borne attack with necessary air support, and provision for fast reinforce-
ment of division alert forces by corps and general reserve alert forces. (167)
Following the Chuong Thien ambush, General Westmoreland instructed
General Moore and Brig General Delk N. Oden, Commanding General, US Amy
Support Command Vietnam, to find ways and means to increase the integration
and effectiveness of the total US air capability in support of troop move-
ments, convoys, and reaction forces. On 1 August, Moore and Oden published
a formal agreement, which Westmoreland considered to be "excellent." The
agreements reached by Moore and Oden were incorporated in substance in
MACV Directive No. 95-4, Aviation/Air Operations in RVN, issued on 1
August. In organizational arrangements, the co-location of separate US
Army/US Marine Corps and NAF/USAF control agencies would be expected to
improve coordination; the Army Aviations Operations Section and the
VNAF/USAF Air Operations Center were already together, and the US Army/US
Marine Aviation Elements at the CTZ headquarters were to be similarly
co-located with the ASOCs. Both ASOCs and Aviation Elements were to be
responsive to the CTZ Tactical Operations Center, VNAF/USAF aircraft
being allocated to the ASOC by the AOC and US Army and UC aircraft
being assigned to the operational control of the US Army senior corps
advisor. Joint and combined preplanning would be conducted at least
daily. Ground reaction forces would not narmallyrmove without air support.
On many occasions, armed helicopters would engage and fix the enemy until
the arrival of more heavily armed fighters, and, in the event fighter air-
craft were not available in sufficient numbers, additional armed helicopters
would be employed. Armed helicopter targets would be identified by the
ground commander; strike aircraft would normally be directed by a FAC (either
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airborne or on the ground, and of any service provided appropriate communica-
tions were established) but in an emergency a ground commander could assume the
responsibility for designating the target to the strike aircraft by any avail-
able means.(168)
As viewed at higher Air Farce staff levels in PACAF and USAF the Moore-Oden
agreement was perhaps useful as an interim-measure necessitated by particular-
ized conditions in South Vietnam, but it nevertheless differed in many important
respects from proven tactical air doctrine that had been developed and tested
over many years. The agreement perpetuated two separate USAF and US Army
aviation control systems, and the coequal situation of the USAF ALO/ASOC and
the US Army/Marine Aviation Element under the Corps TOC resulted in a condition
whereby a corps commander could receive conflicting advice on the employment
of airpower. While the VNAF-USAF AOC retained nominally central control over
all tactical air effort and the VNAF and USAF air commanders could withdraw air
resources for special missions, routine day-to-day operational control of
tactical aircraft in the I and II CTZs were in the hands of the ASOCs. On
repeated occasions, General LeMay had insisted that there was no valid require-
ment for armed helicopters in Vietnam because fixed-wing aircraft ought to perform
the function more effectively, but the Moore-Oden agreement recognized a com-
plementary requirement for both armed helicopters and tactical support
aircraft.(169) Where the new arrangements were viewed with skepticism
in USAF, the VNAF had always been sensitive to the likelihood that it might
inadvertently attack friendly people and refused to accept the new arrange-
ment whereby persons other than professional VNAF FACs were authorized to
mark targets for fighter strikes.(170)
Although General Moore and his Deputy Commander, Colonel Allison C.
Brooks, recognized that some persons believed that the 2d Air Division
was being "hoodwinked" in the roles and mission agreements, both were
inclined to balance theory against practicality. .Since MACV and the
Vietnamese High Command were dominated by Army officers, Moore remarked
that it was "to be expected that an Army atmosphere in plans, operations
and support will generally prevail." Both Moore and Brooks noted that
US Army helicopter pilots wanted all the tactical air support they could
get, and they agreed that in the existing environment -- with no enemy
counterair and spotty ground defenses -- the armed helicopters performed
useful purposes, chiefly in that the immediacy with which an armed heli-
copter could return ground fire tended to compensate for inaccuracy and
relatively light weight of the helicopter firepower. The advantages of
helicopters would likely be reduced when the enemy introduced more 50-
caliber and 40-mm. weapons. As a knowledgeable tactical air officer,
Brooks judged that the USAF concept of centralized control of all air
resources was "fundamental and sound," but he pointed out that the rela-
tively slow A-1 aircraft available in Vietnam could not be moved rapidly
from one base to another and that it was well that they be dispersed
geographically into the areas where battles occurred. The allocation of
aircraft to ALO/ASOCs gave these air officers bargaining powers in daily
planning conferences, which had not been the case when they had not had
aircraft that they could commdt without approval of the AOC. The air
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resources were not "fragmented" as long as there was no deviation fram the
principle of centralized control and the planes could be shifted when and ?
as required. (171)
L. American Responses to Hanoi's Summer Crisis in Laos
The Communist rulers of North Vietnam regarded themselves as the
natural heirs of the French colonials in Indochina and held to the long
term objective of establishing hegnmopy over Laos. In the immediate
Communist strategic scenario in 1964, however, Laos was important because
the panhandle provided infiltration routes to South Vietnam and also out-
flanked RVNAF defenses at the DMZ. In addition, North Vietnam's General
Vo Nguyen Giap would continue to recall the politico-military victory at
Dien Bien Phu, when the key-military battle had coincided with international
negotiations in progress in Geneva, and had broken French resolve. In 1964
Giap still pursued the Dien Bien Phu syndrome: thus military attacks against
Prime Minister Souvanna Phoumais weak defenses in neutralized Laos were cal-
culated to yield a reassembled international conference on Laos, which would
be in session at the time of morale-sapping Communist victories inside South
Vietnam.
Despite creeping Communist aggression, US policy in Laos in 1962-63
sought to stabilize Lao neutrality, if possible within the framework of
the 1962 Geneva settlement. At the request of Souvanna Phouma the United
States had provided six T-28 aircraft to replace worn out T-6s, and 12
RLAF pilots had received transition training in Thailand. By:November 1963
two of the T-28s had been lost and the remaining aircraft did not permit the
RLAF to maintain sufficient pilots in combat-ready status to handle addi-
tional planes that would need to be provided in an emergency. On 2
November 1963, moreover, a long-held key Meo position in northeastern Laos
fell to an unprovoked Pathet Lao attack, and US Ambassador Leonard Unger
in Vientiane informed Secretary Rusk that other cases of creeping aggression
were likely to follow. On 9 November, Secretary Rusk established a require-
ment for air action against repeated Pathet Lao-North Vietnamese tactics
and indicated a need to train Lao forces for air-ground operations. (172)
Initial State-Defense proposals in Washington conceived that Thailand
would be prepared to provide Laos with the T-28s required to maintain com-
bat readiness, but the Royal Thai Air Force was reluctant to give up air-
craft, and the US Air Attache and US.EMbassy in Bangkok instead proposed
that a USAF 1st Air Commando Wing T-28 detachment should be stationed at
Udorn in northeastern Thailand where it would assist the RTAF, train RLAF
pilots, and be prepared to augment the Lao air force in an emergency,
either by transferring aircraft to it or by covertly participating in
combat.(173) PACAF strongly supported the deployment of the Special Air
Warfare detachment, and Admiral Felt recommended it to Washington on 7
December. (174) The Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended the deployment to
Secretary McNamara on 30 December, and Admiral Felt made interim arrange-
ments whereby Thailand provided the ALAF with two attrition T-28s on 21
February 1964 in return for an agreement that the aircraft would be shortly
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replaced by the United States.(175) From the first discussion of the
deployment of the SAW detachment to Udorn, PACAF conceived that the de-
tachments mission would be operational (with training as a cover) and
that, while the detachment would be responsive to Ambassador Unger's
requirements, it would be under the operational control of COMUSMACV-
THAI, exercised through the Canmander 2d Air Division.(176) After
Thailand provided diplomatic clearances, the Secretary of Defense on
9 March authorized deployment of the SAW detachment. The USAF Special
Air Warfare Center promptly organized Detachment 6, 1st Air Commando
Wing, with a strength of 41 personnel and four T-28s and under command
of Major Drexel B. Cochran. Nicknamed "Water Pump," Detachment 6 began
departing Hurlburt AFB on 16 March. Its T-28s were airlifted by C-124s
to Tan Son Nhut where they were reassembled and flown to Udorn. Water
Pump became operationally ready at Udorn on 1 April. (177)
While the high-level decisions were being made about Water Pump, the
Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese increased the creeping military pressure
against Royal Lao and Neutralist forces on the Plain of Jars on 23 January.
The Communists were also building up for more substantial attacks. Ambassador
Unger had earlier opposed the use of bombs on Lao aircraft and favored
keeping the conflict in Laos at "low emphasis," but on 3-4 March he queried
Washington about the feasibility of relaxing restraints on the employment
of the six Lao T-28s so that "defensive operations" would be interpreted
to include reprisal for aggressive enemy actions and also interdiction of
a build-up for attack. At this same juncture, the US Embassy in Bangkok re-
ported that Thai morale was slipping because of lack of responses to the
Communist moves in Laos. On 9 March, Admiral Felt was authorized to send
USAF F-100s stationed in Thailand on obtrusive show of force flights up to,
but not across, the Lao border. On 11 March, the Joint Chiefs of Staff
agreed that restrictions imposed on the Lao T-28s should be relaxed but
felt that the six aircraft inherently could not play a major role. They
specifically recommended that restrictions on bombs and napalm should be
removed and that the first priority for attack should be Communist convoys
in-bound into Laos. They suggested that US aerial reconnaissance could be
flown and that consideration should be given to the use of American and
third country air forces to provide air support in Laos. On 20 March the
State Department advised Unger that a limited number of bomb fuzes could
be released to the RLAF, but the other JOS proposals remained under State
Department study. (178)
In Vientiane a coalition of frustrated Rightists, headed by Generals
Siho and Kouprasith, launched a COW) against Souvanna Phouma on 19 April.
The United States, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, are France promptly pro-
tested the coup, and, on 23 April, Souvanna merged Neutralists and
Rightists in a new Lao government. While these actions were in progress,
the Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese launched heavy attacks, which by 17
May drove the Kong Le Neutralists off the Plain of Jars, some of the
troops fleeing north to MUong Kheung and Ban An in Meo territory and others
west to Muong Soui on Highway 7. On 17 May Kong Le stated that his
Neutralist troops were lost without air support. (179) Upon the request of
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Souvanna Phouma, Unger released the first batch of bomb fuzes to the Lao
air force on 17 May, and the T-28s went to work. On direction from Admiral
Felt the four Water Pump T-284 at UdOrn were painted with Lao markings
and turned over to the RLAF on 18 May, giving it a total of seven combat,.
ready aircraft. Earlier in the month Ambassador Unger did not want US
air reconnaissance over Laos, but on 18 May the Joint Chiefs of Staff
directed that Able Mable RF-101s would fly during the daylight hours of
the following day low-level photo reconnaissance over the Lao panhandle
routes leading into South Vietnam. While these flights were in progress
on 19 May, the Joint Chiefs of Staff directed an immediate movement of
10 T-28s (6 T-28s and 4 RT-28s) from South Vietnam to Udorn, and, on the
same day in Vientiane, Souvanna Phouma accepted Ungerts proposal to initiate
Iff-101 flights over the Plain of Jars, these being necessary to boost morale
and spot targets for the T-28s. Souvanna emphasized, however, that the
United States must take full responsibility for any violation of Lao heu-
trality involved in the overflights. In Washington, the US State Department
announced that the reconnaissance flights were justified by the long-standing
refusal of the Communists to allow the International Control Commission
to inspect their territory. The Joint Chiefs of Staff directed the PDJ
reconnaissance flights, and they were initiated on 21 May by Able Mable
RF-101s staging through Da Nang and by US Navy RF8As flying from the air-
craft carrier Kitty. Hawk which was standing off Da Nang. An American
observer reported that Kong Le jumped up and down with joy when the US
jets appeared over the Plain of Jars. In this show of force, however,
one law-flying Navy jet took hits from 50-caliber and 37-mm weapons which
sent it limping back to a fortunately successful recovery on the Kitty
Hawk. (180)
When the Lao air force T-28 pilots commenced attacks with 100-pound
bombs on 17 ay, the first really lucvative targets were the aauunition
and supply dumps, well stocked in anticipation of the beginning of the
rainy season, which Kong Le had left behind when he retreated off the Plain
of Jars. On 18 May, Brig General Thab Ma, RLAF Commander, arrived at Udorn
with three Lao pilots and picked up the four Water Pump T-28s. Three hours
after an intermediate landing at Vientiane, the four aircraft flew combat
missions. The 10 T-28s from South Vietnam arrived at Udorn on 20 May.
The Lao pilots with whom General Moore talked during a two-day trip to
Vientiane and Udorn on 23-24 May liked the T-28s, one referring to flying
it as being just like driving a sports car, but General Ma had only 12
pilots capable of flying the T-28s, and the Lao air force also needed
help in arming and maintaining the planes. Souvanna Phouma insisted to
Unger that all-out T-28 strikes were essential if Mhong Kheung, Ban An,
and Mhong Soui were to be held. Unger messaged Rusk to make sure that
he knew the degree to which the United States was becoming involved in
violations of the Geneva agreement, but he considered that this was
absolutely necessary to meet urgent requirements in an ugly situation.
Accordingly, both Unger and Lt Colonel Robert L. F. Tyrrell, the Air
Attache in Vientiane, recommended use of the USAF Water Pump pilots in
combat, since they could guarantee a very high order of accuracy in the
delivery of ordnance. On the other hand, Unger told Moore that it would
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be in the best interests of the United States to keep low emphasis on
the situation in Laos, and it would be practically impossible to put the
Water Pump pilots secretly into combat. Moreover, Water Pomp was needed
to train pilots and to maintain the Lao aircraft. The decision was there-
fore rather quickly made that Water Pump personnel would remain in an
instructor status.
50X1
Between 17 May and 4 June the RIAF T-28s flew approximately 175
combat sorties. The pilots enthusiastically reported successful results
on every type of target they struck, and, while these results were doubt-
less exaggerated, the morale of the Kong Le forces defending Muong Soui
greatly improved and the T-28s inhibited Communist attack. Significantly,
the enemy did not concentrate for any large-scale attack after the begin-
ning of the bombing, and Meo ground patrols operating around Communist
positions reported that they observed Communist troop casualties, that
coolie laborers deserted because of fear of air attack, and that enemy
vehicular traffic was dispersed and camouflaged by day and mved only
at night or occasionally in bad weather. By 5 June Ambassador Unger
judged that the Communists had gotten the "sial" that the United States
was deeply concerned about their blatant violations of Lao neutrality.
On this day, Sauvanna Phouma was also greatly encouraged by the combat
situation, and authorized General Kouprasith to begin preparations for
Operation Triangle, which was to be an air-supported ground offensive
against three Pathet Lao battalions holding the junction of Highways 7
and 13. Clearing this pocket would relieve Kong Lets forces to the east
at Muong Soul and restore free movement along Highway 13 from Vientiane
to Luang Prabang.(182)
Except for the firm intention of General Smart and General Maddux
that General Moore should be the single USAF operational air commander
in Southeast Asia, air command organization for support of operations
in Laos were indefinite on 17 May. In Bangkok, Maj General Ernest F.
Easterbrook, as DEPCOMUSMACTHAI was the senior US military officer in
Thailand and believed that he should control any US military activity
in the country.(183) The Udorn activity, however, was fraught with the
requirements of Ambassador Unger in Laos rather than the MAP in Thailand,
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and Unger, determined to play down emphasis on military operations, main-
tained tight control of all bathing operations, making decisions on
ordnance used (he continued to maintain physical possession of all bomb
fuzes and to release them for each mission), employment of other than Lao
pilots, and targets to be struck (which were often for political rather
than military effect). As an added complication, General Ma was not
certain how well the Lao and Thai pilots would work together and wanted
the United States to assume control over the Thai augmentation force. (i81)
In Vientiane on the morning of 24 May, General Moore discussed command
organization with Ambassador Unger. They agreed that Lt Colonel Tyrrell,
as Air Attache, would coordinate air operations in Laos for the US
Embassy. They also agreed that a 2d Air Division operations center should
be set up at Udorn, this because Vientiane airport had very few available
facilities, because Unger wanted as few Americans in Laos as possible, and
because the T-28s on loan to the RLAF would be maintained at Udorn. Before
leaving Udorn, Moore directed Major Cochran to set up an AOC in a corner of
the Air America hangar at Udorn with a direct communications line to another
rudimentary AOC at Vientiane and a communications linkup to the AOC in Saigon.
Early in June, Moore secured approval from PACAF to send a senior USAF colonel
to Udorn as a 2d Air Division deputy and to move a detachment of the 35th
Tactical Group, which was located at Don Muang Airfield, Bangkok, to Udorn
to provide base services and begin building some troop housing. (185)
Although Major Cochran 's Water Pump detachment was actually no more
than a small T-28/SAW mobile training team, it was called upon for heroic
activities. Receipt of four additional former-VNAF RT-28s (with cameras
removed) allowed Water Pump to resume training. In short order Water Pump
released the 10 Thai pilots for c!ambat, on 8 June, two of them being cross-
trained to fly three 1T-28 photo planes that would soon be provided. Under
direction of the Vientiane Air Attache, Water Pump personnel manned the
shoestring air operations center at Vientiane. In the normal operating
pattern during June, four Lao pilots were stationed at Vientiane with
four of the loaned T-28s and flew =Lesions against the Plain of Jars. The
other nine Lao T-28 pilots were kept with the six RLAF T-28s at Savannakhet
and engaged in operations over southern Laos. Each morning from Udorn, six
Thai pilots flew T-28s to Vientiane, where the planes were combat loaded
and made 12-18 strikes a day under direction of the Air Attache/Water Pump
AOC against targets on the Plain of Jars. At the end of the day, the
Thai pilots flew back to Udorn to remain over night. Once they were
exposed to combat, the Thai pilots performed well: a Water Pump member
commented that they "could fly with Any fighter pilots in the world and
serve as flight leaders for most." After the Thai pilots were released
for combat, Water Pump began training 10 Lao pilots tc operate T-28s in
combat. Many of these men required English language instruction and the
group required several months to became operationally ready. In addition
to operations and training, Water Pump, together with Air America, ope-
rated the base at Udorn and provided maintenance for all of the T-28s
committed in Laos, including the six RLAF planes at Savannakhet, which
were usually rotated back to Udorn in very sad mechanical condition.
After its establishment on 11 June, Detachment 2, 35th Tactical Group,
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took over base support and maintenance, and Water Pump received an
expanded training mission on 26 June when the Joint Chiefs of Staff
approved plans to deploy a C-47 mobile .aircrew and maintenance training
team from the USAF Special Air Warfare Center to Udorn. This 21-man
MTT jointed Water Pump in July and commenced Lao C-47 proficiency and
tactical training, the latter including night flare-drop operations. (186)
In the initial JCS order for US jet air reconnaissance operations
over Laos on 18 May, General Taylor assigned execution responsibility
to COMUSMACV, and, when the Joint Chiefs committed US Navy carrier air-
craft to the reconnaissance flights on 20 May, General Westmoreland
charged the Commander, 2d Air Division to coordinate the photo recon-
naissance. The Joint Chiefs assigned the nickname "Yankee Team" to
the joint effort, and General Moore promptly organized a joint USAF/USN
Yankee Team command post within 2d Air Division Operations, manned on
the Navy side with a Navy captain and two lieutenant commanders from
Task Force 77.4, The command post received photo targets from MACV,
allocated them between Able Mable RF-101s and the EL-Li_ Hawk's RF-84.s,
and in the first few days both General Moore and Rear Admiral Bringle,
CTF-77.4, got off as many sorties as possible since both anticipated that
the authority to overfly Laos would not last very long and it was
important to get as much intelligence as possible. (187) On 22 May Admiral
Felt recommended a continuing low-level reconnaissance program over Laos
and a one-time complete photo coverage of North Vietnam but requested a
short moratorium on flights over Laos to evaluate intelligence and lay
more effective plans. The Joint Chiefs endorsed Felt's recommendations
to the Secretary of Defense. There was no response on North Vietnam,
but the Joint Chiefs instructed Felt on 25 May to put the low-level
flights over Laos on a continuing basis, notifying them 36 hours in
advance of each flight and providing specific justification if more
than nine sorties were to be flown in a 2h-hour period. Under the
new instructions CINCPAC issued the execution orders for the Yankee
Team flights. (138)
In discussions with Moore in Vientiane on 24 May, Ambassador Unger
stressed that he did not want to "overdo" military actions in Laos,
and, on 26 May, Unger recommended that reconnaissance flights be sus-
pended until 30 May since he thought that this would have a good
psychological effect. At this time, General Westmoreland stated that
some intelligence objectives in the Lao panhandle still had not been
adequately photographed. Admiral Felt also ruled that the flights
would continue, and in a tacit division of responsibilities Able Mable
reconnaissance concentrated in the Lao panhandle and US Navy aircraft
continued reconnaissance flights over northern Laos. (189) Early in June
both the Navy RF-8A pilots and the T728 crews noted a "tremendous increase"
in the number of 37-mm antiaircraft positions in the Plain of Jars area.
The T-28s generally avoided the Communist gun-defended areas, (190) but
the US Navy reconnaissance pilots were apprehensive that repeated low-
level photo missions over the same flight lines were establishing
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predictable patterns of activity that would permit the Communists to
concentrate enough antiaircraft weapons to mousetrap a reconnaissance
jet. On 6 June an RF-8A, while photographing Route 7, was disabled
by Communist guns and the pilot parachuted a few miles south of the
Pathet Lao stronghold at Ban Ban. In Washington, President Johnson
directed that the Navy would fly two low-level reconnaissance sorties
on 7 June, with escorting fighter bombers under instructions to return
fire if the reconnaissance jets were fired upon. This mission was flown
as ordered on 7 June. It received ground fire; the escorting F-8Bs
returned the fire, and one of them was shot down, its pilot parachuting
into the jungle about 20 miles southwest of Ban Ta Viang.(191)
In March 1962 a Rescue Coordination Center manned by a few rescue
controllers had been established in the Air Operations Center at Tan Son
Nhut, but despite recommendations by Generals Arthi,s and Moore no pro-
fessional USAF search and rescue forces had bcen authorized for Southeast
Asia, the prevailing thought at MAN and CINCPAC being that helicopters
belonging to VNAF, the US Army, or the US Marine3 could be mobilized to
perform search and rescue when aircrews went down. This arrangement
had worked, but not very well. It WAS possible, for example, that the
US Army helicopters which had attempted to rescue the four swimming
survivors of the helicopter that had gone down in the sea near the
mouth of the Mekong on 18 January 1964 may have inadvertently drowned
two of the men they were attempting to rescue with their rotor wash.
Where professional SAR crews would have let down straight overhead and
used their rotor wash to smooth out the area around the swimmers, the
untrained helicopter crews approached at low level, creating waves in
front of them(l92) In any event, General Moore was at Udorn on the
morning of 6 June when Air America transport planes picked up the Mayday
message from the RF-8A Yankee Team tilot on the ground. The Air America
aircraft searched out the downed plot, also sighting two companies of
enemy troops closing on him. At mid-afternoon two Air America H-34s
attempted a pickup but both received heavy ground fire, one being so
severely hit that a crewman was hospitalized. The helicopters withdrew
to the nearest landing ground and called for fighter support. Four
Thai-piloted T-28s were launched from Vientiane but did not locate the
rescue area, whereupon General. Smart initiated a flash authority
to Moore to employ USAF piloted T-28s from Udorn and. USAF F-100s from
Takhli. During the late afternoon, seven USAF T-28 sorties and five
F-100s were in the area but weather had deteriorated and there were no
further sightings of the downed pilot, who was captured but would escape
four months later and make his way to safety. If the air rescue effort
could have been quickly managed, General Moore believed that the downed
pilot could have been successfully retrieved, but the rescue attempt was
not coordinated by a single authority. Fortunately, in the successful
rescue of the US Navy F-BA fighter pilot on 7 June, Lt Colonel Tyrrell
and Water Pump assumed responsibility for coordination and control of
the search and rescue effort. The downed pilot was located on a wooded
ridge 4,800 feet high: the first two Air America H-34s could not hover
at that altitude but a third managed a successful hoist pickup. (193)
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The uncoordinated SAR efforts broke loose a decision to deploy professional
USAF search and rescue capabilities to Southeast Asia. On the evening of
6 June, Moore messaged a request to Thirteenth Air Force for USAF H-43
rescue helicopters and for authority to escort RF-101s with F-100s, and
General Maddux in turn requested expedited CINCPAC attention to the SAR
problem. On 19 June an H-43B base rescue detachment arrived at Nakhom
Phanom from Okinawa and in the next several weeks professional SAR de-
tachments were organized at the principal South Vietnamese and Thai bases.
An HU-16 rescue plane, equipped with a full range of radios and radars to
serve as a rescue control center for an on-scene SAR commander, was de-
ployed to Da Nang but would orbit over Nakham Phanam while missions were
in progress and be prepared to control any necessary SAR efforts which
for a number of months would continue to be flown with Air America H-34s
since the H-43B helicopters were suited only for operations in the immedi-
ate vicinity of the airfields on which they were located. The SAR effort
on 6 June also produced a political confrontation of a sort with US
Ambassador Graham A. Martin in Bangkok, who was not informed of the fact
that General Smart had directed use of USAF Thai-based aircraft in the
emergency in Laos for nearly 24 hours after the event. Ambassador Martin
messaged Secretary Rusk that "this is really a hell of a way to run a
railroad," but he nevertheless asked and secured a blanket authority from
Deputy Minister of Defense Dee on 8 June whereby in air rescue emergencies
US aircraft based in Thailand would be permitted to support BAR efforts in
Laos. (19I)
On 7 June, when the Joint Chiefs of Staff authorized armed fighter
escort for Yankee Team reconnaissance aircraft, General Smart directed
the Fifth Air Force to deploy three KB-50 conventional tankers to Clark
Air Base and the Thirteenth Air Force to alert six F-100s at Clark to be
used for fighter escort and fire support. During the day the 4215t Air
Refueling Squadron deployed the tankers to Clark, and the Thirteenth Air
Force alerted the 615th Tactical Fighter Squadron, which was on rotational
duty at Clark from the Tactical Air Command. Following the shoot-down of
the Navy fighter bomber during the day on 7 June, President Johnson dir,:Dcted
a retaliation, and the Joint Chiefs assigned the mission to the USAF, direct-
ing a strike by eight F-100s with maximum conventional ordnance -- napalm
being suggested -- to be made on 9 June against Communist antiaircraft guns
inside an old Star-of-David shaped fort lying between the airstrip and the
town of Xieng Khouang. Five Strategic Air Command KC-135 jet tankers were
diverted to Clark to reftel the F-100s and the KB-50s were committed to
inflight refueling of RF-101s, which would provide immediate poststrike
photography. The eight F-100s went to Da Nang on 8 June, and the flight
commanders studied target photography at Tan Son Nhut for a planned low
level napalm drop to be followed by dive bombing attacks with 750-1b.
general purpose bombs. Shortly after midnight on 9 June, Da Nang time,
the Joint Chiefs directed that napalm would not be used, and the napalm
tanks were down-loaded and replaced with bombs. New refueling plans also
had to be hurriedly made, both in view of the changed ordnance and also
because the Joint Chiefs messaged that overflights of Thailand would not
be permitted. In a dive bombing attack, target weather conditions would
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be critical, but an hour before the takeoff an Air America Caribou ope-
rating in the general vicinity of Xiang Khouang reported seven-tenths
broken cloud coverage. Despite the Constantly changing plans, the mission
took off as scheduled and made- successful rendezvous with the KC-135s for
refueling over Laos. The tanker route and the route of the fighters had
to be changed because of towering cumulus clouds, with the result that
the F-100s had less than preplanned fuel when they reached the target area,
which also proved to be covered with cumulus that rose to 15,000 feet. The
two flights becaMe separated. The first four F-100s located and salvoed
their bombs on the star-shaped fort hear Xieng Khouang. The second four
F-100s made five orbits and were about to jettison their bombs and depart
when they located a star-shaped fort near an airstrip, which they success-
fully attacked, and which proved to be Phang Sayan. As a result of the
mixup, the primary target received only about 20 percent destruction, but
the fort near Phong Sayan -- which fortunately was in Communist hands --
was about 50 percent destroyed. SiNiof the F-100s received post-attack
aerial refueling and returned to Da Nang, but two were too short of fuel
after leaving the target and had to violate instructions and recover at.
Ubon Airfield in Thailand. Mission results were less than desired, but
the final PACAF assessment was that the 615th Squadron had done a good job
considering the many changes in very strict restrictions, the uncertain
weather, and the lack of navigational aids in Laos. (195)
Although there was no question in Souvanna Phouma's mind that the
armed violations of Lao neutrality by the Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese
justified the military responses that had been taken, he was very conscious
of the necessity for maintaining the Geneva agreements and insisted for
political reasons that the United States and Laos must avoid acknowledging
actions that would provide propaganda advantages to the Communists. He
insisted that the United States mus play the game the Communist way,
namely. to ."act but don't talk about it." Unhappy about the Washington
publicity given to the armed Yankee Team escorts, Souvanna, following the
9 June strike, asked that reconnaissance be called off. Apparently after
some time for reflection and in vi of continuing Communist troop move-
ments, Souvanna met Unger on 11 June midasked that the reconnaissance
be commenced again, though without publicity. Souvanna also wanted to
make maximum use of the T-28s to interdict supplies arriving over routes
to Xieng Khouang (No. 7) and toward Thakhek and Savannakhet (Nos. 8 and
12), and to destroy the ComMunist supplies already in place, thus crip-
pling the enemy so that Lao forces it due course would be able to retake
the Plain of Jars. Later in the month Souvanna proposed that US air
strikes could be conducted against enemy convoys moving on Route 7 in
support of a buildup hazarding Nbung Soui, but only at night when the
nationality of the aircraft would not be provable. (196)
The Yankee Team reconnaissance began again on 14 June, but under new
rules reflecting both political and Military factors. A considerable
body of reconnaissance photography had been accumulated, and Admiral Felt
recommended intermittent and random operations to meet specific require-
ments. Ambassador Unger required a daily summary of all missions and
advanced information on all missions plannedin a 24-hour period, this
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to enable him to have exact knowledge to respond to Communist propaganda
charges. Unger did not oppose retaliatory armed response to Communist
ground fire, but he opposed suppressive fire on the part of armed escort
prior to ground fire against the reconnaissance planes. Up until 9 June,
CINCPAC had had execution authority for all Yankee Team missions, but in
the renewed flights the Joint Chiefs of Staff retained execution authority
for each flight flown. By 16 June, the Joint Chiefs provided that Yankee
Team flights would normally be flown at medium altitudes (this defined as
being above the effective range of hostile ground fire); that low level
reconnaissance flights, flown when medium level would not produce desired
results, would be accompanied by armed escorts, but would normally avoid
areas of known strong antiaircraft defenses; and that low-level reconnais-
sance of areas of strong antiaircraft would be conducted only for specific
cogent reasons on a case by case approval basis and when authorized by the
Joint Chiefs of Staff. Since reconnaissance was necessary only to update
intelligence, the new schedule of Yankee Team flights was greatly reduced.
In the weeks after 9 June, USAF Yankee Team flights of two RF-I01 and four
F-100s went out only on 14 and 27 June. (197) In July available USAF re-
sources for Yankee Team were employed on only ten days. Of the missions,
two were high-priority low-level flights and the remainder were medium
level. The escorts returned fire during a law-altitude mission at the
panhandle town of Nhommareth on 31 July.
During Joint Chiefs of Staff discussion after mid-June, General Lellay
mistrusted the ad hoc responses in Laos which he insisted did not look
toward a broader effort that recognized that there could be no satisfactory
solution to the military problems in South Vietnam and Laos without military
action against North Vietham. In early July, LeMay also recommended that
US night air strikes be flown against Route 7, although day operations
would be more effective. Accepting LeMay's paper, the Joint Chiefs recom-
mended on 11 July that operational cammanders be authorized to conduct the
night air strikes for their psychological and deterrent effect. On 21
July, Secretary McNamara disapproved the recommendation for night opera-
tions, stating: "It is not desired to involve U.S. forces in Laos to
such a degree under present circumstances. "(198)
In the emergencies of June, the improvised 2d Air Division command
establishment at Udorn maintained liaison between Tan Son Nhut and
Vientiane, and the activation of Detachment 2, 35th Tactical Group provided
local base services and maintenance support. General Moore went to Udorn
at frequent intervals to give personal direction, and the COMUSMACV staff
normally kept the MACTHAI staff informed of crash activities for the benefit
of Ambassador Martin in Bangkok. Because of the increased significance of
air activities in Laos after mid-June, General Smart began to develop plans
for a full-scale 2d Air Division command and control facility at Udorn, to
include an air support operations center and a radar caMbat reporting post.
The employment of USAF jets based at Takhli to cover the SAR attempt in
Laos on 6 June without approval of Thailand had already embarrassed Ambassador
Martin, and when Martin learned of the plans for the Udorn ASOC/CRF he sent
a stinging letter to General Maddux, protesting Thirteenth Air Force/2d Air
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Division activities in Thailand, which were undertaken without his knowledge
and prior arrangements for Thai agreement. At this juncture both Ambassador
Martin and General Easterbrobk were said to be thinking hard about a command
arrangement whereby an Air Force component commander to Deputy COMUSMACTHAI
in Bangkok should be in charge of air operations over Laos. (199)
In order to clarify these matters, General Smart recommended to
CINCPAC on 2 July that command and control of air operations over Laos
should not be vested in MALTHAI, which was oriented to training and MAP,
but should be vested in PACOM air component command channels. The
CINCARPAC did not concur that command and control of an operation could
be diverted away from a responsible subunified commander, but he conceded
that COMUSMACTHAI ought not to be in the chain of command for Laos opera-
tions.(200) On 4 July, CINCPAC directed that COMUSMACV would be the coor-
dinating authority for the continuing Yankee Team missions, with authority
to delay, cancel, or reschedule missions according to local conditions.
The MACV authority was exercised through the 2d Air Division command post.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff continued to require 36-hours advance notice of
Yankee Team flights. (201) In a harmonizing meeting with Martin and
Easterbrook in Bangkok on 9 July, Moore successfully convinced them of the
requirement for the ASOC/CRP at Udorn and agreed to insure that close
liaison would be maintained between Udorn and MACTHAI. On 18 July, Colonel
Jack H. McCreery, who had been serving as the Deputy Director of the AOC
at Tan Son Nhut, led the 2d Air Division advance party to Udorn, where
McCreery was initially titled Deputy Commander for Laos Affairs and a
little later Deputy Commander, 2d Air Division in Thailand. Manned by
elements of the 5th Tactical Control Group and 1st Mobile Communications
Group, the CRP was operationally ready at Udorn on 26 July.(202)
When Souvanna Phouma proposed Operation Triangle on 5 June, there
was a great skepticism as to the success of such a Lao air-ground offen-
sive, since the Royal Lao and Neutralist troops had never been able to
sustain a successful operation. In Vientiane, however, Lt Colonel
Tyrrell nevertheless observed that T-28 successes had weakened Pathet
Lao morale and strengthened the spirit of the FAR-Neutralist troops. In
preparation for a three-column offensive designed to clear the junction of
Routes 7 and 13, Thailand made available a 300-man artillery commitment,
eight US Army advisors were brought in to follow along in the field with
the Lao regimental groups mobile, and USAF FAC/ALO teams were introduced
to accompany the three ground forces. A FAC deployed with the leading
element of each ground force and passed support requests back to the ALO
by UHF radio or courier. The ALO accompanied the ground commander and
communicated with the Air Attache by radio. The Air Attache communicated
with the AOC at Vientiane by telephone and also exercised control over
the Udorn-based T-28s, upon their daily arrival at Vientiane. The USAF
units at Udorn, in turn, provided MAXIMUM support based on requirements of.-
Lt Colonel Tyrrell, as Air Attache. The beginning of the seasonal summer
monsoon rains over northern Laos in June and July delayed airlifts of
artillery into Muong Soul, thereby holding up Operation Triangle, but pre-
liminaries were completed by 15 July. Between 20-28 July, the T-28s flew
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an average of over 30 sorties a day. The ground operation kicked off on
25 July, aided by 14 T-28 strikes called in by Kong Le against trenches
and field artillery positions blocking his advance, and after the air
strikes the positions were taken with Only three reported Neutralist
casualties. Similar strikes supported the other prongs of the offensive.
The southern prong of Operation Triangle moved northward along Route 13
and seized Milong Kassy at the end of July. Fran the Muong Soui area,
Kong Le troops moved westward along Route 7, advancing to Phou Suong.
The northwest prong moved against the junction of Routes 7 and 13, blocking
Pathet Lao reinforcements from the northwest and west and taking the junction
on 30 July. Lao morale soared as the successful two week operation liberated
important real estate and relieved Neutralist forces blockaded at Muong Soui.
The successful employment of the T-28s were a major factor in the victory,
but the onset of summer rains also helped, since North Vietnamese forces
had been pulled back to lighten supply requirements during the season of
muddy roads, leaving the area to be defended relatively ineffectively by
Pathet Lao troops. (203)
Through the summer months the military responses in Laos were keyed
to international diplamatic soundings and negotiations. President Johnson
described US objectives as being a firm adherence to the Geneva agreements
and support for Souvanna Phouma's national union governmsnt.(20)4) On 17 May
Secretary Rusk informed the Polish ambassador in Washington that if the
Cannunist attacks continued in Laos the Geneva accords would be destroyed
and asked the ambassador to have his government put pressure on Peking and
Hanoi to stop the military course of action or run the risk of war with
the United States.(205) In mid-May, the United States stoutly resisted
Communist Chinese proposals that the foreign ministers of the Geneva
conference nations meet in Cambodia to address the question of Laos first
and then confer on all Southeast Asian problems.(206) On 27 May the Polish
diplomatic initiative for a new Laos conference that would not include
discussions of Vietnam placed the Laos crisis in more favorable perspective,
and on 18 June Secretary Rusk emphasized that the United States was taking
only "necessary, limited measures" in Laos and its purpose was not to
escalate the fighting."(207) The effect of diplomacy on the responses
in Laos was rather clear throughput the summer, but was quite apparent
during Operation Triangle, when on 22 July Ambassador Unger authorized
employment of napalm in case of heavy Communist attacks against Muong
Soui or reversals to the Lao offensive, only to retract the authority
on 31 July, when Soviet Premier Khrushchev threatened to declare that the
Soviet Union could no longer bear its responsibility as Geneva power co-
chairman unless there was an immediate 14-nation conference on Laos. (208)
On 30 July the US State Department supported Souvanna Phouma's position
that he would be willing to attend a Geneva .international conference pro-
vided a ceasefire was effected under ICC supervision and the Pathet Lao
withdrew from the areas it had illegally occupied by virtue of their May
attacks. (209) Ironically, at the US State Department level, the Lao victory
in Operation Triangle posed complications to the objective of stabilizing
the situation in Laos. The Lao victory promised to provoke Communist esca-
lation, which the United States did not want. Secretary Rusk could now see
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utility in a Geneva conference limited to Laos, but, if Souvanna and the
United States continued to insist upon a Communist withdrawal from the
Plain of Jars, the Communists would inevitably insist that Souvanna yield
the Triangle gains. If Souvanna relaxed his claim to the Plain of Jars
or gave up Triangle gains it would be doubtful that he could maintain power
in Vientiane. (210) At this juncture, no decisions on Laos proved immediately
necessary, since the anticipated Communist escalation of conflict was
occurring in Vietnam, where Peking and Hanoi apparently felt that there
was a better chance to gain power through an imminent collapse of the
Saigon government than through an international conference on Southeast
Asia.
S. Tonkin Gulf Attack and Its Aftermath
During April 1964 high level USAF U-2 reconnaissance showed that Hanoi
was readying forces for the invasion of South Vietnam through Laos. The
Lao government in Vientiane was weak, Souvanna was less than satisfied
that discussion with the Pathet Lap had failed to restore a neutral govern-
ment of national union, and the Communists were preparing for renewed
military offensives at the beginning of the autumn dry season. (211) The
Khanh government in Saigon was almost completely ineffective, and Hanoi
was attempting to score a dramatic military or political success to clinch
their victory. In the words of General Maxwell Taylor, who arrived as
US Ambassador in Saigon on 7 July: "We lived dangerously in this period;
never sure from night to night when a new coup might overthrow another
feeble government or when we might lose some important town to a surprise
attack or a military base to mortar fire. "(212) From a military view the
strategic situation lent weight to General LeMay's assessment to the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, reiterated on 26 Jute, that there could not be a satis-
factory solution to the military problem in South Vietnam and Laos without
military action against North VietnaM.(213) In mid-1964 highest level US
policy recognized the Hanoi-Peking threat to Southeast Asia but emphasized
in-country responses in Laos and South Vietnam and the supremacy of civil
authority. In his letter of instructions to Ambassador Taylor on 2 July,
President Johnson stated that Taylor's responsibility included the whole
military effort in South Vietnam and authorized the degree of command and
control that Taylor considered appropriate.(214) This Presidential in-
struction impacted upon the long standing military responsibilities of
Admiral Ulysses S. Grant Sharp, who became CINCPAC on 1 July 1964, follow-
ing retirement of Admiral Felt. The policy of dealing with aggression
separately by individual countries also split the unity of the airpower
of the Pacific Air Forces, under command of General Hunter Harris after
1 August 1964, into three packages of separate operations -- in-country
South Vietnam, operations in Laos, and plans for operations against North
Vietnam. (215)
In order to provide some pressure against Hanoi with minimum risk,
President Johnson had against
North Vietnam at the beginning of January 1963', and resources for con-
ducting the missions began to be committed at the end of the month,
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C ose y manage in "as ing on ?y e S ce
Counterinsurgency and Special Activities (SACSA) of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, headed by Maj General Rollen H. Anthis,, and in Saigon by the MACV
Special Operations Group (MACSOG) and included'
operations, and in a talk with newsmen in JulY'ldr-Clodore releasea
ew ox tne
the information that South Vietnam was parachuting commandos into North
Vietnam. He also said that VNAF was training for special missions that
would include attack, support, and paradrops on a large scale outside
South Vietnam.(216) In an emotional address at a rally on 18 July marking
Vietnam's "day of shame" -- the anniversary of the 1954 division of the
country -- Khanh asserted that his government could not remain indifferent
before the firm determination of all the people who were considering the
"push northward as an appropriate means to fulfill our national history."
Next day, the Government of Vietnam issued a statement declaring: "If
Communist China and Communist Vietnam obstinately continue their war of
aggression, the government and entire people of Vietnam will step up the
war with determination until total victory liberates the whole of our
national territory. "(217) In a conference with Taylor on 23 July, Khanh
insisted that North Vietnamese draftees had been taken prisoner in South
Vietnam and that the war had entered a new phase. On 24 July, Khanh asked
Taylor whether he should resign. After these discussions, Taylor noted that
"Marching North" could -- if strongly opposed by the United States -- foment
dissatisfaction with American policy and result in detriment to the chances
for success of in-country pacification. It was also possible that "one
maverick pilot taking off for Hanoi with a load of bombs" could touch off
an unwanted extension of hostilities. Instead of voicing unqualified US
opposition to the "March North" campaign, Taylor suggested that the South
Vietnamese should be involved in contingency planning for extended actions
against North Vietnam, thus gaining time for the South Vietnamese govern-
ment to stabilize.(218) Ambassador Taylor requested and received a brief-
ing from MACV on the prospects for offensive guerrilla warfare, and after
25 July MACV initiated planning with the RVNAF JGS for cross-border offensive
guerrilla operations into the Lao panhandle, initially airdrops of
teams to be followed by an establishment of str
South Vietnamese bridgeheads into Laos to interdict North Vietnamese infil-
tration.(219) In a continuation of operations, four South Vietnamese
patrol boats left Da Nang on 30 July and shelled a North Vietnamese radar
station on Hon Me island and a communications transmitter on Hon Ngu island --
both islands off the North Vietnamese coast near Vinh and heavily involved
in Hanoi's sea infiltration activity -- on the night of 30/31 July. (220)
In keeping with normal military intelligence requirements, US naval
DeSoto patrols routinely operated in international waters off the coasts
of Asia, monitoring hostile activities by visual and electronic sightings.
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In March 1964 the latest De Soto patrol into the Tonkin Gulf had encountered
weather that had greatly reduced visual intelligence collection, and the
commander of the US Pacific Fleet was apprehensive about growing North
Vietnamese and Chinese Communist electronic orders of battle, which (together
with Red Chinese aircraft) posed a potential danger to US fleet units operat-
ing off Da Nang. (221) On 10 July a detachment of the USAF 6091st Reconnais-
sance Squadron arrived from Japan at Don MUang Air Base, and on 14 July the
detachment's C-130B aircraft began to fly airborne cammunications reconnais-
sance missions, nicknamed Queen Bee, over the Gulf of Tonkin. In addition,
a DeSoto patrol was approved to beginlon 31 July. This patrol by the
destroyer Maddox was uneventful until the late afternoon of 2 August when
the ship was met and fired upon off Han Mb island by three high-speed North
Vietnamese Swatow patrol boats. The attacks were beaten off by the Maddox
and by aircraft from the aircraft carrier Ticonderoga. Since there was no
rational enemy motive for the attack, Secretary McNamara thought it possible
that the attack on the Maddox resulted from a miscalculation or an impulsive
act of a local cammander. The Maddox, however, was 28 miles off the North
Vietnamese coast and in international waters. At the direction of President
Johnson, the United States dispatched a note of protest to Hanoi, and at the
same time the President made public his instructions to the Navy to continue
the DeSoto patrols and to add another destroyer to the patrols. On 3
August the Maddox and the C. Turner Jay entered the Gulf of Tonkin,
covered by daylight combat-Irrils from the Ticonderoga. During
the night of 3/4 August, South Vietnamese 34-A forces raided a mainland
radar station on Cape Vinh Son and a security station near Cua Ron. The
DeSoto patrols were uneventful during daylight hours on 3 and L. August,
but in bad weather on the night of 4 August the Maddox reported that the
patrol was under attack. Admiral Smart recommended authority for immediate
punitive air strikes against North Vietnam, and President Johnson -- while
emphasizing in a radio and television address that the response would "be
limited and fitting" -- directed that the Pacific Fleet would on 5 August
local time conduct Operation Pierce Arrow, a one-time maximum effort attack
against North Vietnamese Swatow boat bases and supporting POL storage at
Vinh. Sixty-four, strike aircraft were launched in two waves from the air-
craft carriers Ticonderoga and Constellation against five boat bases and
the Vinh oil storage. Eight boats were destroyed and 21 were damaged;
the oil storage was 90 percent destroyed; two Navy aircraft were lost to
antiaircraft defenses at Hon Gai. At President Johnson's request, the US
Senate and House enacted a joint resolution approved on 10 August declaring
that: "Consonant with the Constitution of the United States and the Charter
of the United Nations and in accordance with its obligations under the
Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty, the United States is . . . prepared
as the PreSident determines, to take all necessary steps, including the use
of armed force, to assist any member or protocol state of the Southeast Asia
Collective Defense Treaty requesting assistance in defense of its freedom."
In September Hanoi published a lengthy white paper which justified the 2
August attacks against the Maddox as appropriate to defense against 34-A
attacks and declared that none of ib e naval craft were present in the area
on the night of 4 August, when the DeSoto patrol vessels reported them-
selves under attack. (222)
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Concurrently with the reprisal attack order on 5 August, President
Johnson authorized and the Joint Chiefs of Staff directed positive
emergency actions under CINCPAC Operations Plan 37-64 to move additional
forces into the Pacific and particularly Southeast Asia. The rotation
of Candy Machine F-102 jet interceptors to South Vietnam was already
approved by Saigon, and, while the Tonkin reprisal strikes were in progress
on 5 August, six 509th Fighter Squadron F-102s from Clark Air Base
landed at Da Nang while six other 16th Fighter Squadron F-102s from
Naha Air Base, Okinawa, established an air defense alert at Tan Son Nhut.(223)
At noon on 5 August, General Westmoreland met General Khanh and the RVNAF
commanders to outline the purpose of the Pierce Arrow strikes and request
authority for defense alert and augmentations in South Vietnam. Westmoreland
recommended maximum alerts against expected Vietcong retaliations and
particularly suggested that VNAF mount maximum efforts against the Vietcong
to throw them off balance and disrupt their retaliatory plans. Khanh
agreed to these measures as well as the deployment of F-100s to Da Nang
and B-57s to Bien Hoa, but he stated and repeated that if either the
North Vietnamese or the Chinese Communists attacked any part of South
Vietnam the Government of Vietnam would retaliate by air attacks at targets
of its own choosing and would not "require a green light from Washington.?
Subsequent to this meeting, however, Ambassador Taylor called on Khanh,
delivered a letter from President Johnson which underlined the need for
closest bilateral consultation, and Khanh told Taylor that he fully accepted
this requirement.(224) The movement of additional USAF forces into Thailand
required coordination with the Thai government, ami, while the Thai govern-
ment coordinated the deployments, it was reluctant to agree to combat sorties
being flown out of Thailand. On the morning of 7 August, Deputy Defense
Minister Dawee called on Ambassador Martin and, after a lengthy discussion,
reluctantly agreed that US aircraft could launch combat sorties from Thai
bases if this became absolutely necessary. He hoped that other assets could
be employed from South Vietnamese bases before Thai-based assets were used
and that, in the event that Thai-baLced units were committed to combat, it
would not be necessary to reveal publicly that they were flying from
Thailand, (225)
On 6 August, General Moore established a 2d Air Division command
post at Tan Son Nhut separate from the VNAF-USAF AOC, placed his staff
on two 12-hour shift operations, and began to tie all USAF units together
through the existing TACS, utilizing the US manned side of the TACS.(226)
On 7 August, General Westmoreland proposed that COMUSMACV and the Govern-
ment of Vietnam Would appoint the Commander 2d Air Division as the combined
air commander, and that the combined air commander would, with an RVNAF
deputy, exercise operational command over USAF and VNAF forces for offensive
air strikes into North Vietnam and Laos, for air defense of South Vietnam,
and for air support of combined RVNAF-US mobile ground forces, which (under
comand of the Deputy COMUSMACV and an RVNAF deputy) would conduct opera-
tions in the northern provinces of South Vietnam to block and repel in-
cursions of aggressor forces. The counterinsurgency operations inside
South Vietnam would remain under RVNAF control, with MAN assisting the
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effort. At this time Admiral Sharp acted only upon the air organization
for activities against North Vietnam, and on 8 August he determined that
these would be managed by CINCPAC through CINCPACAF and CINCPACFLT.
According to Sharp's decision, the control of Air Force forces against
North Vietnam would be exercised through CINCPACAF to Commander, Thirteenth
Air Force to Commander, 2d Air Division. In this control, the large and
expert staffs of PACAF and PACFLT would be utilized, and, since Commander,
2d Air Division worked for both COMUSMACV and CINCPACAF, coordination
would be easily effected. Sharp also pointed out that the arrangement
would permit COMDSMACV to concentrate upon counterinsurgency in South
Vietnam and at the same time he would be able to monitor air activities
against North Vietnam through Commander, 2d Air Division. (227)
Issued on 5-6 August, the JCS directives for USAF unit deployment
into Southeast Asia and to the Pacific came on a no-notice basis and
called for immediate movements. Identification of 30 MIG-15/17 Communist
jet fighters on Phuc Yen airfield at Hanoi on 7 August, which had been ?
flown in from Communist China immediately following Pierce Arrow, lent
added urgency to the air deployments.(228) On the afternoon of 5 August,
8 F-100s of the 615th Tactical Fighter Squadron, which was still an its
rotational deployment at Clark Air Base, deployed uneventfully to Da Nang.
The same evening, 36 3-57s of the 8th and 13th Bomb Squadrons ran into diffi-
culty getting into Bien Hoa when rains lowered visibility and slicked the
("WV runway. One of the B-57s crashed in Vietcong-held territory in its approach
to Bien Hoa and two others were damaged in landing accidents. Other deploy-
ments followed. I reconnaissance task force of 6 RF-101s from Misawa and
Kadena augmented Able Mable at Tan Son Nhut, and the 405th Tactical Wing
deployed 10 F-100s from Clark to Takhli. A refueling element of 8 KB-50s
from PACAF's 421st Air Refueling Souadron moved from Yokota to operating
locations at Tan Son Nhut and Takhli. The flight of 8 F-105 jet fighters
of the 36th Tactical Fighter Squadron from Yokota to Clark to Korat was
delayed by weather, but these planes reached the Thai airfield on 9 August,
completing the immediate PACAF deployments. In the same days, the Joint
Chiefs of Staff also directed CINCSTRIKE to deploy a Tactical Air Command
(or AFSTRIKE) composite air strike force -- nicknamed One Buck -- to the
Pacific. In the One Buck movements, the 614th and 522d Tactical Fighter
Squadron's F-100s landed at Clark Air Base on 8-9 August; the 363d
Composite Reconnaissance Unit (6 RF-101s) reached Kadena on 13 August; and
48 C-130 transport planes drawn from the 314th, 463d, and 516th Troop
Carrier Wings arrived at Clark and Kadena between 9-21 August. In support
of the deployments, the Strategic Air Command provided 48 KC-135 jet
tankers, operating principally from Hickam AFB and Anderson AFB on Guam
to provide in-flight refueling. SAC also established a Yankee Team
Tanker Task Force of 8 KC-135s at Clark on 5 August.(229)
At the request of the United States, the Canadian member of the
Vietnam ICC visited Premier Pham Van Dong in Hanoi shortly after the
Pierce Arrow reprisal and told him that the United States viewed Hanoi's
role in Laos and South Vietnam as critical and warned that if Hanoi
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persisted in aggression it could expect to continue to suffer the con-
sequences. Pham Van Dong was reported to be "utterly unintimidated"
and "calmly resolved" to pursue the course already embarked upon to a
successful conclusion. Prior to Pierce Arrow, North Vietnam's aircraft
inventory was ineffective for air defense, consisting of 30 trainers,
50 transports, and 4 light helicopters. On 7 August aerial photography
of Phuc Yen airfield near Hanoi revealed 30 MIG 15/17 jet fighters which
had obviously been flown in from Communist China. The Communist Chinese
also moved larger numbers of MIG-15s and 17s to Hainan Island and South
China bases.(230) Immediately after Pierce Arrow, Admiral Sharp requested
the Joint Chiefs of Staff to secure a new rule of engagement whereby US
aircraft -4ould be authorized to pursue hostile attacking aircraft into
hostile airspace, rather than stopping at a three mile line off North
Vietnam's coast.(231) On 8 August General Harris asked Sharp to take note
that the MEGs on Phuc Yen were a direct threat to the security of PACAF
forces deployed in Southeast Asia and that destruction of these jet air-
craft would constitute a "sharn lesson" to Communist China with respect
to further deployments or additional plans for aggression. Harris
propos:Id that in three hours after receipt of a directive to strike,
the USA' F-100s on alert at Da Nang could prosecute a low-level high-
speed surprise attack against the aircraft parked at Phuc Yen with
cluster bomb CBU-2A weapons to be followed by flak suppression and
attacks against individual remaining aircraft with AGM-12B/LAU-3 rockets,
if necessary. If desired, the USAF F-105s at Karat could fly the
mission, but Harris recommended the F-100s at Da Nang because they were
on a high state of alert and nearest to the target (232)
On 9 August, Ambassador Taylor remarked that General Khanh was in
a "fairly euphoric state" as a result of the US reprisal to the Tonkin
Gulf attack, but on 10 August Taylor's estimate of the situation in
South Vietnam judged that Khanh's ineffective government had only a
50/50 chance to last out the year. Taylor stated that the US Mission
objectives were to do everything possible to bolster the Khanh govern-
ment, to improve the in-country pacification campaign against the
Vietcong, and to be prepared to implement contingency plans against
North Vietnam by 1 January 1965.(233) Reflecting Taylor's estimate,
Assistant Secretary of State William P. Bundy prepared a draft policy
memorandum on the subject "Next Courses of Action in Southeast Asia"
which was considered by the National Security Council at noon on 14
August. The memorandum projected a sequence of actions including a
short "holding phase" for the remainder of August, avoiding any actions
that would give the Communists an excuse for escalation; a phase of
"limited pressures" in September through December to maintain the
initiative and morale of the Khanh government without major risks of
50X1 escalation, including overt perations, training VNAF pilots to fly
jet aircraft, cross-border operations into the Lao panhandle, reintroduc-
tion of DeSoto patrols, and specific "tit-for-tat" reprisals; and a phase
of more serious pressures beginning on 1 January 1965, such as action
against infiltration routes and facilities progressing upward to actions
against military-related targets in North Vietnam. (23L) Following the
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NSC meeting on 14 August, the Bundy paper was cabled to CINCPAC and the
US Embassies in Saigon and Laos. On 17 August, Admiral Sharp recommended
that the Tonkin Gulf response had created a momentum with advantages that
should not be lost. He did not like the proposed two-weeks suspension
of operations, wanted continuous and effective pressure against the
Communists in Laos both on the Plain of Jars and in the panhandle, and
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thought it appropriate to resumelictions and DeSoto patrols. Sharp
also pointed out that US air units *t a Nang, Bien Hoa, and Tan Son Nhut
were vulnerable to a Vietcong attack. He suggested US ground troops for
the defense of those bases and proposed that the establishment of a major
US base most feasibly at Da Nang would indicate to the Communists that
the United States meant to remain in Southeast Asia until its objectives
were achieved. (23S) On 18 August, the US Mission response from Saigon
recommended that the United States should attempt to gain time for the
Khadh government to develop evidences of viability and not get too deeply
involved militarily with North Vietham and possibly Red China if the base
in South Vietnam was insecure, to maintain Khanh's morale by providing
assurances of readiness to increase pressure on Hanoi if he did his part,
to hold Hanoi in check and restrain infiltration from the north, and to
develop a posture of maximum readiness for escalation of pressure against
North Vietnam with 1 January 1965 as the target D-day. Given an under-
standing on Khanh!s part that he would stabilize his government and make
50X1 would be prepared to resume perations and DeSoto patrols, resume
progress with the Hop Tac p7cifiTion plan around Saigon, the US Mission
U-2 flights over North Vietnam, Initiate air and ground strikes against
infiltration routes in Laos, and consider appropriate tit-for-tat bombing
operations to compensate for Vietcong depredations in South Vietnam. (236)
In the progression of planning, the Joint Chiefs of Staff on 24 August
recommended a list of 94 selected targets in North Vietnam grouped in five
basic categories (airfields, line cf ccmmunication, military installations,
industrial installations, and armed reconnaissance routes) that were suita-
ble for air attacks with readily available forces in the event a policy
decision was made to conduct combat operations against North Vietnam. (237)
At this same time, the Joint Chiefs sent the 94 targets to CINCPAC with
directions to develop strike plans for four patterns of attack in ascending
order of severity against North Vietnam. On 26 August the Joint Chiefs
informed Secretary McNamara that, contrary to Ambassador Twlor's position,
they considered significantly stronger military pressures on North Vietnam
were required to provide the relief and psychological boost necessary for
the attainment of governmental stability and viability in Saigon. They
recommended emphasis on pacification in South Vietnam, interdiction of the
Vietcong line of communications through Laos by operations in the panhandle
and through Cambodia by strict control of waterways leading therefrom, by
denial of Vietcong sanctuaries on the Cambpdian-South Vietnam border through
the conduct of "hot pursuit" oper into Cambodia, and by increased
50X1 pressure on North Vietnam through operations and DeSoto patrols.
Believing that even more forceful m ary actions would be required, the
Joint Chiefs advocated prompt and calculated responses to Vietcong/Pathet
Lao actions in the form of air strikes against targets in North Vietnam
appropriately selected fromihe 94-target list. (238)
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While US policy was under discussion, the Saigon government wallowed
in confusion. On 16 August, the Military Revolutionary Council supported
Khath's bid for supreme power by electing him president in place of Maj
General Duong Van Minh, who Was given a new position as supreme advisor
to the MTC. This unilateral action produced large-scale student and
Buddhist demonstrations. On 25 August, Khanh resigned, but the MRC was
unable to select a successor and two days later named a triumvirate of
provisional leaders, namely Major Generals Khanh, Minh, and Than Thien Khiam,
which was designated as an interim ruling body pending transfer of authority
to a civilian government. The triumvirate was ineffective and was replaced
on 3 September with a 15-man leadership committee, which shortly after
selected Khanh as acting premier and Minh as chairman of the leadership
committee. In the US Mission assessment of the Saigon governmental con-
fusion, it was believed that Khath would probably stay in control but the
governmental leaders were exhausted and would be hard pressed to maintain
even an appearance of a valid government. (239)
The rapid decline of the 'Math government's effectiveness provided the
background to analyses of potential military actions which were discussed
preparatory to a visit of Ambassador Taylor to Washington for an in-depth
review of US policy. On 19 August, Taylor sent his deputy, U. Alexis
Johnson, to Vientiane where Johnson conferred with Ambassadors Martin and
Unger on the most effective means of eliminating the enemy infiltration
infrastructure in the Lao panhandle, specifically barracks areas, storage
warehouses, control points, and key bridges. The ambassadors were not
optimistic, reasoning that VNAF and 1st Air Commando Squadron A-li were
too heavily cammitted in Vietnam to perform the task and that additional
T-28s should not be made available to the Lao air force because of a lack
of trained Lao pilots. The only feasible means of knocking out the
enemy targets was believed to be to use Yankee Team escorts in retalia-
tion for ground fire against reconnaissance e.irr.nft, but the -am':assadors
did not recummend this because of the relatively small number of Yankee
Team escorts available at Da Nang, ,he F-100s at rakhli and the F-105s at
Karat being unavailable for the escort/strike mission into Labs because
of Thai political restrictions which limited their employment in Laos to
emergency search and rescue support. Although the ambassadors report
was not sanguine, General Westmoreland directed the 2d Air Division to
develop plans by 29 August which would reveal requirements needed to
attack the 17 fixed installations and 5 key bridges identified as being
significant to the infiltration through the panhandle. These operations
plans involved the camplete details for six options of RLAF/USAF attack and
two options of VNAF/Air Commando attack. This large task was completed as
directed and forwarded to Washington, while on 24 August Ambassador
Taylor chaired a long session of his Mission Council, which he had
organized to include General Westmoreland, in discussions of US alterna-
tives in Vietnam, one question being what would be an incident that would
appropriately warrant a reprisal. (2)40) On 31 August in Washington,
Secretary McNamara asked the joint Chiefs for answers to three questions
about the North Vietnam 94-target study. He wished to know whether enough
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ordnance and POL would remain available in the theater to execute ayhase
IV defense of Southeast Asia against Communist Chinese attack under CIITCPAC -
Op Plan 32-64 after conducting a full scale attack against the 94 targets ?
in North Vietnam. He also wanted valid estimates of the effect of each of
the four patterns of attack on the North Vietnamese economy, on Hanoi's
capability to support the Pathet Lao/Vietcong, and on North Vietnam Is
ability to escalate through the use of North Vietnamese forces against South
Vietnam and Laos. Finally, if the destruction of the 94 targets did not
destroy Hanoils will and capability to wage war, he asked what course of
action should be taken. Several months would be required to answer these
knotty questions. (214)
Early in September, discussions between Ambassador Tgylor, Secretaries
Rusk and McNamara, and General Wheeler substantially revised Bundy's
"Courses of Action for South Vietnam" and the resultant paper went to
President Johnson on 8 September. The study generally accepted Taylorls
views that the Government of Vietnam would be too weak in the next two
or three months for the United States to undertake any major deliberate
risks of escalation and that the Communists would probably avoid provoca-
tive actions against the United States. In order to assist South Vietnamese
morale and to show the Communists that the United States still meant
business (while at the same time keeping the risks low and under control),
the paper recommended immediate resumption of US naval patrols in the Gulf
of Tonkin be nd the 12-mil 1 t
and the initia on o
air strikes in the Laos panhandle. Finally, the United States should be
prepared to respond on a tit-for-tat basis in the event of an attack on
US personnel or a special enemy action against the South Vietnamese, but
it should not deliberately provoke an incident in order to retaliate. (212)
In the Joint Chiefs of Staff review of the Bundy paper on 8 September,
General LeMgy pointed out that the recommendation would not convey a clear,
positive signal to Hanoi of US resolution. The Marines also considered
that in response to the next significant Communist act -- such as a
battalion-size Vietcong attack -- the United States and South Vietnam
should commence a retaliatory program against North Vietnam in accordance
with the 94-target plan. (2L.3) Following discussions with Ambassador Taylor,
President Johnson accepted the recommendations in the Bundy paper on 10
September. The Presidential NSAM directed resumption of US naval
as soon as Ambassador Tgylor returned to Saigon, resumption of
operations after completion of the first DeSoto patrol, and the initiation
of discussions with the Government of Laos for air and ground operations
in the panhandle, it being understood that these operations would have
limited effect. The first order of business was to strengthen the fabric
of the Government of Vietnam.(244)
The American efforts to strengthen the .Saigon government with limited
actions met little success, nor were the actions apparently especially
troubling to Hanoi. One of the major concerns during the governmental
instability was that Khanh might lose control over the RVNAF and face a
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military coup. This event occurred on 13 September, when Maj General
Duong Van Due, the IV CTZ commander, led armored elements under his com-
mand to Saigon, where they occupied public buildings and disarmed the
national police in a coup effort protesting Khanh's capitulation to
Buddhist and student demands. In the emergency, Air Commodore Ky rallied
the VNAF to Khanh's support. VNAF A-1Hs from Tan Son Nhut put on a
show of force over Saigon; the US State Department announced firm support
for the Khanh government; and the coup forces withdrew on 14 September.
After the abortive coup, Khanh made sweeping changes in military cam-
menders. The appointment on 26 September of a High National Council,
with a membership of 17 civilians and charged to draft a provisional
constitution and designate a civil chief of state, outwardly appeared
to be a step toward governmental stability, but a US Special National
Intelligence Estimate on 1 October concluded that the South Vietnamese
government had continued to decay during September and would not be
greatly improved by a return to a nominally civil government. In the
governmental anarchy, pacification efforts collapsed and the military
staff in Saigon was unable to make decisions affecting needed changes in
RVNAF directives. (2I)
In accordance with ?resident Johnson's directive the US destroyers
Morton and Edwards went into the Gulf of Tonkin on another DeSoto wtrol,
and on the night of 17/18 Seotember the two ships reported and fired on
radar contacts. In a 48-hour crisis and at JCS direction, CINCFAC
issued a frag order for substantial reprisal air attacks against North
Vietnam. In the process of getting out the order, targets and weapons
were changed several times, with the result the 2d Air Division command
post was swamped with orders and counter-orders. In the end, the frag order
was not executed because the Navy was unable to find positive evidence
that the North Vietnamese attack had occurred. Following the episode, the
JCS directed CINCPAC to maintain a tactical readiness to execute immediate
air strikes against preselected targets when naval patrols were in the
Gulf of Tordciri, and C7707AC ,irg,ctod that at. such +-.imes the TfE",;et:-,
Da Nang and Bien Hoa would be alerted and programned to attack Philo Yen
airfield. After 17/18 September, Amb.assador Taylor saw no advantage in
resuming the DeSoto patrols, except for essential intelligence purpDses.
USAF RTI-47 Box Top electronic intelligence aircraft were committed to
weekly flights over the Gulf of Tonkin, and DeSoto patrols were not resumed
50X1 during 1964.(246) The operations were reactivated under tight US
controls on h October, and during the month the coastal raids consisted
of two shallow probes of the enemy defenses at Vinh, an unsuccessful
effort to capture a junk, and a bombardment of the Vinh Son radar and
Mui Dai observation post. At the appearance of the MIGs at Phuc Yen,
there was some question whether the Duck Hook C-123s could continue to
operate safely into North Vietnam, but the JCS Joint Staff believed they
could in view of the fact that the MIGs were relatively short ranged,
there was no GCI at this early date., and Communist radar warning ( hile
extensive at higher altitudes) Was not effective below 3,000 feet.
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In preparation for the Lao panhandle operations directed by President
Johnson, US Mission representatives from Bangkok and Vientiane attended
discussions at the Embassy in.Saigon on 11 September. At this time, the
options began to narrow down to the single alternative of Lao T-28
attacks with support from Yankee Team. Souvanna Phouma was reluctant to
see VNAF participation in air strikes into Laos; moreover, earlier planned
offensive South Vietnamese offensive guerrilla raids into Laos were initially
limited by Ambassador Unger to shallow penetration raids to a depth of 20
kilometers by company-sized units. When the Communists rather easily located
and destroyed several eight-man Leaping Lena reconnaissance teams dropped
into the Lao panhandle, General Westtoreland did not believe that offensive
guerrilla cross-border ground operations could be begun before 1 January
1965 at the earliest.(248) From a military viewpoint, it would be difficult
for the T-28s to handle the Panhandle interdiction targets. The T-28s had
to continue interdiction operations against the Plain of Jars and Route 7,
and in August Communist flak emplacements got 57-mm weapons in addition
to the lighter 37-mm pieces already operational. In an air rescue cover
mission over the Plain of Jars on 14 August, the 36th Tactical Fighter
Squadron made the first combat employment of USAF F-105D Thunderchief
fighters when it undertook rocket and gun attacks against Communist gun
emplacements. On this same cover mission, a 522d Squadron F-100 took a
hit from the ground that forced the pilot to eject, but he was successfully
picked up by an Air America H-34. On 18 August, a Lao T-28 was shot down
over Route 7, and the North Vietnamese claimed that the T-28 had intruded
across the border and also reported capture of the Thai pilot. At this
juncture, General Harris was privately apprehensive that the Laotians were
"getting in over their heads."(2)9) In September planning for the Lao
panhandle interdiction attacks, 2d Air Division targeting indicated that
the T.-28s could not safely be sent against a number of the more heavily
defended objectives on the 22 target corridor interdiction list, and on
30 September the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended that US jets should
participate in the corridor air strikes both because this was necessary
against the harder targets and because the combined strikes could destroy
the Communist facilities quickly before the North Vietnamese could disperse
and hide them. Ambassadors Taylor aud Unger did not believe that the Lao
government was likely to persist against the corridor infiltration targets
unless there was US participation, but Unger wanted to use the Lao T-28s
in most interdiction operations and felt a prolonged harassment was more
desirable and would be more acceptable to Souvanna Phouma. He did agree,
however, that the more difficult targets could be struck by American
jets. (250)
During September, 33 T-28s were available for combat in Laos PPH for
training at Udorn, and in order to continue operations against the Plain
of Jars and Route 7 and also pilot training while undertaking the addi-
tional corridor strikes, a JUSMAG conference in Bangkok on 1 October
established a requirement for 40 T-248s, including 4 RT-28s and 4 T-28s
for continued training. (251) In the division of effort, the Udorn-based,
Thai-piloted T-28s continued to operate northward from Vientiane, while
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General Ma's Lac-piloted T-280 were to operate from Savannakhet into
southern Laos and the Panhandle. On 6 October a US State-Defense message
authorized Ambassador Unger to urge the Lao government to begin air strikes
over a period of several weeks against 13 of the 22 interdiction targets
identified by the 2d Air Division in the Lao corridor. Unger was authorized
to inform the Lao that Yankee Team suppressive fire strikes against the
nine "difficult" targets could be anticipated later, but could not be
authorized at the beginning of the program. In Washington on 13 October
the Joint Chiefs of Staff reiterated that US jets should participate in
the corridor strikes; on this same day, a State-Defense message authorized
US combat air cover and search and rescue support for the RLAF but forbade
any US air strikes against the corridor objectives. (2S2)
At the request of the Lao government, Yankee Team jets flew uneventful
high cover during the first three days of the T-28 corridor strikes when
they began on 14 October, but there were no Communist aerial reactions
and the CAP missions were discontinued. according to Lt Colonel Tyrrell's
projections, the Savannakhet T-2s were capable of flying about 450
combat sorties a month. aLd shoe one at Vient',.ahe had heard anythih
about an plans for ground op:ras:.15 ti the ii.;a rlaiitary Region
of southern Lacs it appeared ..hat the bulk of the Savannakhet sorties
should be ayailabie to hit cc-.:ridcf interdiction targets. On October,
Tyrrell went to Savannakhet and briefed. the Third Military Region
Commander, General Bounpone, on the corridor interdiction program
plans, and to Tyrrell's surprise Bounpone issued on the following day
a very secret plan for Operation Victorious Arrow, an ambitious scheme
envisioning that Southern Region troops would campaign eastward with
T-28 air support, move along Route 9, recapture MUong Phine and ultimately
Tchepone, thus closing the corridor infiltration routes. Bounpone
expected that the ARVN 1st Division would help his operation by attack-
ing westward along Route 9, an eventuality that would prove optimistic.
Tyr,,ell was puzzled by the s&derAv FR hut C7enereJ_ Ma
told him that Bounpone was envious of The prestige gained by General
Kouprasith as a rosalt of his in Operaion -triangle and wanted
an equivalent victory. Operation .iotorious Arrow made little progress
but consumed about half of the Savannakhet T-28 sorties. During October
the Lao T-28 corridor strikes attacked 13 of the targets on the 22-
target list, plus three other similar targets located and cleared by
Vientiane. Post-strike photegraphy revealed substantial damage to a few
of the enemy installations, but most of them were lightly bombed and
would require additional effort. The reconnaissance also showed that
the North Vietnamese were rapidly dispersing. Moreover, the most signifi-
cant targets -- the troop barracks and a military area at Tchepone, another
military area at Ban may, and the key read bridge at Nape where Route 8
entered Laos through Nape pass -- were too strongly defended to permit
T-28 attack. While the Lao T-28s were operating from Savannakhet, the
Thai-piloted T-28s which staged through Vientiane generated about 350
sorties a month in support of operations in northern Laos, including
interdiction of Route 7, the short route from North Vietnam to the Plain
of Jars. The Vientiane T-28s could not safely attack the prime interdiction
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target, the road bridge near Ban Ken village, where Route 7 crossed the
Nam Mat river. In July three unsuccessful T-28 strikes were flown
against this target, and a T-28 was shot down during one of them. In
October, night-flying RF-8A Yankee Team jets got visual sightings of
heavy Communist truck traffic moving along Route 7, indicating that the
Communists were intending to renew their offensive from the Plain of
Jars. (253)
6. Continuing Counterinsurgency Preparations in South Vietnam
When Admiral Sharp ruled that air operations against North Vietnam
would be controlled through CINCPACA.F and CINCPACFLT, he emphasized
that General Westmoreland's principal responsibility as CamusmAcv would
be to concentrate his energies in assisting the RVNAF in waging a
successful counterinsurgency effort within South Vietnam. (254) Ironically,
after the trials and errors of the 7..961-1964 counterinsurgency undertakings,
the US military command in Saigon began to develop in mid-1964 concepts
and force capabilities that might have been very useful in the earlier
years, but which, in the autumn and winter of 1964, would be unable to
cope with the paralyzing weakness of the Saigon government and overt
North Vietnamese aggression, the latter manifested by heavy deliveries
of modern weapons to the Vietcong and southward infiltration of regular
North Vietnamese army units. In an important change from the earlier
emphasis upon advisory assistance to RVNAF regular military forces and at
higher unit levels, General Westmoreland's initial US force requirements
proposals of 26 June and 21 July looked toward expansion of US military
assistance to South Vietnam's politico-military provincial (sector) and
district commanders as well as to lgwer-level RVNAF units. In South
Vietnam's governmental organization, the South Vietnamese premier appointed
military officers as province chiefs, and the province chiefs named subor-
dinate district chiefs. These officers were responsible for day-to-day
governmental administration and commanded the regional and popular forces
who did much of the fighting against the Vietcong, and were usually the
principal objects of Vietcong aggression. In something of a change in
CINCPAC policy, Admiral Sharp understood the significance of the provinces
and districts to a counterinsurgency effort and agreed with Westmoreland's
promise that US advisory efforts should be expanded at the district level,
thus hopefully catalyzing the Vietnamese people to a higher tempo of
pacification operations.(255)
Although General Moore counted Westmoreland to be the "biggest booster"
for tactical air support, (256) the initial MALT' requests for additional US
aviation forces to support the expanded counterinsurgency effort during
fiscal year 1965 ran strongly to US Army aviation and US Army aviation
concepts. Citing the need to provide administrative and logistical support
for 4,200 additional US lower level field advisors, including US advisory
teams at 100 additional district headquarters, Westmoreland requested
augmented air transport to include a fourth 0-123 squadron which would
perform "wholesale" airlift under the Southeast Asia Airlift System,
a second US Army Caribou ccanpany to handle "retail" airlift within corps
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areas outside the SEAAS, two additional US Army air mobile helicopter
companies (50 UH-lBs), and two additional air mobile platoons (20 UH-lBs).
Some of the additional UH-lBs were to be used for command and control and
the others were to be armed helicopter gunships. Analysis of Westmoreland's
requirements at PAC' indicated a legitimate need for the additional C-123
squadron since the Vietcong were beginning an effective interdiction of
South Vietnam's surface transportation. In July, as will be seen in more
detail, the 0-123 capability to handle requirements was already saturated
and it was necessary to bring C-130s of the 315th Air Division into South
Vietnam to help with SEAAS airlift. PACAF supported the requirement for
the 16 C-123s but asserted that the additional Caribou company would not
be needed if the Caribou company already in Vietnam were placed under
central control of the SEAAS for efficient common use. Already concerned
about the Moore-Oden agreement which recognized a ?complementary" require-
ment for armed helicopters and tactical air support, General LeMay strongly
objected to the introduction of additional less-effective and potentially
vulnerable helicopter gunships into Vietnam and argued that, if more
aerial firepower were needed, proper arrangements should be made to increase
fixed-wing air support. In JCS discussions, LeMay and the Commandant of
the US Marine Corps asked for additional justifications of the MACV re-
quirements for Army aviation, out on 7 August Secretary McNamara irected
that Westmoreland's list of requirements would be provided to him. (27)
As will be seen, the aircraft for the additional squadron of USAF C-123s
were withdrawn from the Air Force Reserve and were flown to Tan Son Nhut
by rotating replacement crews beginning on 17 September, and the 19th Air
Commando Squadron, Troop Carrier, was organized and aseLgned to the 315th
Troop Carrier Group effective on 8 October 1964. On 10 August a Royal
Australian Air Force detachment with six Caribous arrived at Tan Son Nhut
and made its aircraft available to the SEAAS, but the additional US Army
Caribou company was not placed under operational control of the Southeast
Asia Airlift System. (258)
Even though the MACV requirements for additional aviation were met,
the Joint Chiefs of Staff Queried General Westmoreland on II August
about the prospective continued employment of armed helicpters, a matter
which was of interest at high level since the Department of ArrPj on
1 August proposed to develop an advanced aerial fire support system
helicopter. The MACV response to JCS questions made on 19 August asserted
that armed helicopters had many advantages over fixed-wing air support.
The 2d Air Division critique of the MACV response considered that many
of the alleged advantages of the armed helicopter were not valid, and
the continuing discussion consumed a great amount of intellectual staff
effort for the purpose of "getting on record" -- effort that Colonel Allison
C. Brooks thought could have better been applied to a consideration of
the increasingly desperate combat situation in South Vietnam (29) Where
the MACV response was a hearty endorsement of armed helicopters, Westmoreland
did not neglect tactical aviation. For the first time, MACV critiques
of ARVN operations began to point out frequently missed opportunities
where tactical air support could have been applied against the enemy.
Citing a battle on 19 August in Phu Yen province when three ARVN
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battalions attacked a Vietcong force of about 500 men without once calling
for air support, the MACV critique commented that "the major fault was
the lack of employment of air support."(260) Where earlier counterinsurgency
pundits has posited that air strikes were apt to be counterproductive
to pacification, Westmoreland was impressed with the informed findings
of the Research and Development (RAND) Corporation analyst, Leon Goure,
who concluded after interviews with Vietcong prisoners that the adverse
effects of air strikes on pacification were much less than originally
assumed. Goure also determined that the Vietcong greatly feared the
liaison aircraft because they were frequently spotters for strike air-
craft. (261)
One of the more fortunate aspects of the MACV's justification of a
requirement for additional helicopter firepower was to focus attention
upon the lack of tactical strike aircraft and liaison planes, a combined
shortage which General Moore in August stated was the most important
limiting factor to countering the insurgency. Although USAF A-lEs
were kept operational in July through the mandate that they could be
employed in the expedited training of VNAF pilots, the training program
was conducted at a cost of approximately one-fourth of the total strike
fighter capability that would otherwise_have been available in Vietnam.
As initiated in July, A-1 transition comprised three phases. In Phase
1 at Bien Hoa, the 1st Air Commando Squadron provided ground schools,
introduced the Vietnamese pilots to the log-1 aircraft, and allowed the
Vietnamese to fly the planes to and from Bien Hoa and combat targets.
The USAF instructor pilot in the fully instrumented left seat of the A-1E
delivered the ordnance and landed the plane, and the Vietnamese student
taxied the A-1 to the parking ramp. After 10 such indoctrination flights,
the Vietnamese pilots were transferred to Phase II transition training
conducted by the US Navy VA-152 Squadron's Detachment Z, which possessed
4 A-1Es borrowed from the 1st Air Cannando Squadron and 15 A-ills that
had arrived in Vietnam on MAP assignment to the VNAF 516th Squadron. In
this phase, VA-152 provided a traipse four rides in the dual-position
A-1Es and then attempted to solo him in a single position A-1H. After
a month's trial this schedule was changed since the Vietnamese pilots
proved unable to handle the A-ills without additional preliminary instruc-
tion. In August the 1st Air Commando Squadron took back its four A-1Es
and began a new training program. Phase I remained a two-week, 10-flight
familiarization, but a new Phase IA was added wherein the 1st Air Cannando
Squadron gave the students 24 hours of dual instruction and prepared
them for a final one-hour solo flight. Phase II training was reduced
from five to four weeks. After this, Phase III was conducted by the
34th Tactical Group for a period of eight weeks of combat operations. (262)
During the months of July through September 1964, the ASOCs received
3553 requests for air support but were Able to honor only 2403, 918 of
the requests not honored being attributable to a lack of aircraft.(263)
Because of training requirements only 8 of the 29 A-lEs possessed by
the 1st Air Commando Squadron were available for 12 combat sorties a
day, and only an average of 30 of the VNAF A-ills were available for
36-45 combat sorties. (2614) The situation was quite serious within the
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CTZs. Thus the III ASOC on an average day in September received an
allocation of 8 A-1H and 12 A-1E sorties for employment, and, in addition
to the smallness of the allocation, the A-1E sorties had to be flown
on a time schedule demanded by training and were not available for
scrambles against targets of opportunity. (265) In the II CTZ only 5
A-IHs on deployment from Da Nang to Pleiku were normally available for
strikes, and only 3-4 of these were usually operational on a given day. (266)
In addition to the scarcity of combat sorties, the Vietnamese pilots did
not like the Phase III training, which was hazardous in the combat environ-
ment. The let Air Commando Squadron had a series of eight aircraft crashes,
at least two known to have been caused by hostile ground fire, these on the
night of 23 September when two A-lEs, on a low level napalm pass in the
Delta, were silhouetted by flares and caught in barrage fire. After this,
the 34th Group discontinued use of napalm on night support missions, but
VNAF was greatly disturbed by the loss of Vietnamese pilots when flying
with Americans and wanted out of the combat training phase. (267)
Because of the lack of strike aircraft General Moore recommended in
August that VNAF be authorized a fifth and sixth A-IH squadron and that
arrangements be made to employ USAF jets that were at Bien Hoa and Da
Nang for in-country air support. On 26 August, MATT forwarded the recom-
mendation for the organization of the fifth and sixth VNAF A-1H squadrons,
which would not be practicable, however, before the last half of 1965. At
its meeting on 2 September the Joint Chiefs of Staff gave in-depth con-
sideration to lagging tactical air support in Vietnam. During the following
week, President Johnson was unwilling to authorize employment of B-57s or
F-100s in Vietnam, but Ambassador Taylor agreed that it was possible to
delete the requirement for a bona fide Vietnamese trainee pilot aboard
A-1E combat missions. As a result of these developments, the Joint
Chiefs recommended that USAF A-1Es be authorized to engage in combat
with a VNAF observer when a Vietnamese pilot was, not available.
McNamara's initial reaction was informally reported to be "entirely
negative," but on 25 September he was willing to allow USAF A-1E combat
operations with either a Vietnamese observer or student pilot aboard.
The Joint Chiefs made another effort to secure an authority whereby a
USAF crew could respond to an immediate air support request, but
Ambassador Taylor responded that this would open the door to a wide use
of American crews, and McNamara agreed. On 14 October, the Joint Chiefs
accordingly allowed the rule of engagement to revert to the status prior
to 10 May 1964, thus authorizing A-1E combat operations with either a
VNAF pilot or observer. On 15 October the Joint Chiefs also recommended
that VNAF should expand to a fifth A,.1H squadron in May 1965 and to a
sixth A-1H squadron in October 1965 and that two USAF A-1E squarirons
would be required until the sixth VNAF fighter squadron was operational. (268)
In the last quarter of 1965 both the USAF 34th Tactical Group and the
VNAF gained additional strike fighter capabilities, though not as much as
had been projected. The USAF 602d Fighter Commando Squadron was organized
under the 34th Group on 12 October and began to build personnel and air-
craft strength. The fourth VNAF fighter squadron -- the 520th was
organized at Bien Hoa in October and was slated to move to the new
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Can Tho airbase when this facility became serviceable. Because of the
political crisis in Saigon, VNAF refused to transfer C-47 pilots to
A-1 transition training, thus contributing to a shortfall in the
projected manning of Vietnamese fighter squadrons on a 2:1 pilot:
cockpit ratio. On 5 November, Colonel P. O. Suu, Commander of the VNAF
23d Tactical Wing, newly organized at Bien Hoa, assigned 26 Vietnamese
airmen to the 34th Group and at the same time informed Colonel Bethea
that Vietnamese pilots would be glad to continue to train with Americans
but would no longer "sit in the right seat in flight as before." By the
end of November, 160 Vietnamese A-1 pilots were trained and the expedited
transition program ended. Detachment Z of VA-152 departed Vietnam on 29
November, and the 34th Group became responsible for transitioning VNAF
trainees received from the United States, this program requiring 90 hours
of A-1E transition and all training missions except two to be flown by
the Vietnamese student from the left:seat. With a student pilot in control,
these A-1E sorties could not safely be used for combat purposes. Moreover,
the Vietnamese "observers" proved generally irresponsible (part of them
usually being in jail or AWOL on aw,given day), and this limited 34th
Group combat sorties. In early December, Colonel Bethea was producing
about 50 A-1 sorties a day, of which only about 17 could be made avail-
able to the AOC for combat purposes. The 34th Group found the A-is
admirable in combat but difficult to:maintain, chiefly because of in-
flight engine failures. Where the 34th Group managed to keep 80 percent
of its A-1ES operational in November 1964, the VNAF was hard hit by poor
maintenance and had only 58 percent of its A-1Hs in operation. The VNAF
516th Squadron was even more vexed by the problem of maintaining its
A-1Hs; it possessed an average of 15,aircraft in December, but its sortie
rate was only 6.18 aircraft a Tho now VNAF 520th Squadron commenced
limited operations in December, but construction was lagging at new Can
Tho (now, called Binh Thuy airfield) and the field was insecure at night.
On 20 December the 520th Squadron began daily deployments of five A-IHs
to Binh Thuy where the pilots were on call for air support missions during
the day but for safety's sake returned to Bian Hoa before nightfall.(269)
As will be seen, the VNAF used its A-1 training to good stead in
critical operations during December but it was nevertheless true that
VNAF-USAF A-1 strike capabilities increased only slowly in the last
half of 1964, as shown in the following chart:
VNAF-USAF COMBAT AIR SORTIES, JUL-DEC 19
MONTH
Jul
Aug
Sep
Oct
Nov
Dec
VNAF A-1H
887
1034
1104
659
1011
1262
USAF A-1E
276
322
263
416
445
612
TOTAL
1163
1356
107
1075
1456
1874
Source: Hist. 2AD, Jul-Dec. 19-6W-Vol. Z, Doc. 11
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In addition to other problems, the diversion of VNAF sorties to "coup
duty" reduced combat capabilities; thus in October the A-1Hs flew 659
combat and 496 combat support sorties, most of the latter comprising
show of force air patrols over Saigon. In the months of October through
December 1964 air support missions flown again lagged behind mission
requests: the ASOCs received 3,466 requests for air support, Of which
1,122 could not be honored because of a lack of available aircraft. In
addition to the requests turned-down, many air support missions flown
were limited to flights of two aircraft. Over 90 percent of the targets
attacked in the I CTZ, for example, were hit by two A-ls -- two for an
enemy battalion, two for a training center, two for a platoon. (270)
Despite 2d Air Division efforts to secure the development of new
concepts of USAF Forward Air Controller/Strike Control and Reconnaissance
(FAC/SCAR) functions as necessary to counterinsurgency, these functions
required large numbers of pilots to crew 0-1 liaison planes and had not
been approved. At mid-1964 the USAF 19th Tactical Air Support Squadron
was slated to inactivate and turn its 0-1Fs over to the VNAF 116th
Liaison Squadron which was to be activated. Anxious to retain the i9th
TASS, General Moore included a recommendation in the 2d Air Division
study concerning the expansion of VNAF approved by MACV on 28 May that
the USAF liaison squadron would be retained. When Colonel Bethea took
command of the 34th Group in mid-June he was told of the plans to
inactivate the 19th TASS, but he was instructed to drag his feet on the
matter as long as possible. Although the VNAF Direct Air Request System
was being installed, the 2d Air Division ALO/FACs in the field emphasized
that the forward air control function could not practicably be performed
by a tactical air control party on the ground. When Admiral Sharp forwarded
the VNAF expansion study, he deleted the requirement to retain the 19th
TASS and reported that it would phase out as scheduled. As a result,
USAF disassembled personnel support for the 0-1 squadron all tha way
back through the pipeline, including combat crew training for 0-1
aircraft, and effective on 8 August PACAF issued orders inactivating
the 19th TASS.(271) At this time, however, a Washington fact-finding
team both in debriefings for General Westmoreland and in its final report
stressed that the field requirements for 0-1 liaison aircraft far exceeded
availability of aircraft and asserted that USAF ALO/FACs frequently could
not perform their duties because of the scarcity of liaison aircraft. On
11 August, Westmoreland expressed surprise to Sharp that the 19th TASS
was being inactivated and asked that it be retained. He recommended that
U-17A aircraft be purchased to equip the VNAF 116th Liaison Squadron.
This recommendation was formally reported by the Joint Chiefs of Staff
and was approved by Secretary McNamara on 25 Sptember.(272)
The reversal of the high-level decision to phase-out the 19th TASS
left the squadron in limbo. Until the pipeline support for the 19th
TASS could be restored, the 34th Group had 24 0-1F aircraft and only
12 liaison pilots, three of wham would shortly complete their tours. A
detachment of 0-1Fs remained at Bien Hoa to provide operational training
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for newly graduated Vietnamese liaison pilots arriving from the training
center at Nha Trang, but 10 0-1Fs required employment, and Colonel Bethea
placed these planes on permanent deOloyment to the ASOCs to be flown by
ALO/FACs.(273) At the same time tha the 0-1s were farmed out, a combi-
nation of favorable circumstances laid the grundwork for the beginnings
of continuous visual surveillance bT TISAF FAC o in coordination with pro-
vince and district chiefs, something itat had not proven practicable
earlier. In May, Major Alan G. Nelsr)n, the ALO to the ARVN 9th Division,
had proposed an experimental positivi! visual reconnaissance plan for lanh
Binh province at the mouth of the Mekong, and, in July, 2d Air Division
operations analysts found merit in the proposition and advocated that it
be tested. (27L) On 21 September an 0-1 and a VNAF observer were assigned
to Captain Lloyd E. Lewis, the USAF FAC with the ARVN 14th Regiment at
Tra Vinh, and Captain Lewis began to fly the plane on day-long surveil-
lance missions in cooperao_aon -,7ith the Virh Einh province commander.
The test snowed that VisounR L!tivivr ar-.7eciaby decreased., offensive
ground action was more eff,ct:v% with fewer friend:1.v casualties, inter-
diction targeting and air strikts were more effective. (27)
While the Vinh Binh l,est wa.; undirway in September, the 2d Air
Division operations and intellience directorates received "Top Dog"
personnel augmentations, and a ,Selected Counterinsurgency Air Target
(SCAT) working group was formed to gd_ve some sustained thought to a
more profitable employment of aoAer. The working group soon determined
that the old SCAT program had 10,T its original utility: preplanned
SCAT targets had been generated T VI and by the time that they might
be hit the intelligence was t.;ree or, f)ur weeks old, with the result that
if the enemy had been at CTe r2perted he had probably
moved before an air attac took n1/2cy Analysis of cast operations
showed that the ins-argenc had Le ea 7eIcent small ,ctions with fleet-
ing targets (ambushes, namlet lnd ea-t attacks, road blockades) and
only 5 percent large scale onerataens, The SCAT working group recommended
a maximum exploitation of continuel:,s: Ti:ual reconnaissance, and the
establishment of active target n,:' eenters at the TOC/A.SOC level in each
CTZ headquarters, similar t, the kt centec that was in existence
at the III CTZ headquarters.(275
In the same months that the orleticoili,:y oi the employment of USAF
ALO/FACs to provide continuous isual roconnalssance and strike control
was being examined, two RAND ana'r,t, William R. Graham and Amron H.
Katz, were in Southeast Ar,la on t&ary dut,r from 26 June through
6 October gathering data for a now ceunterinF;Irgency concept which they
described as the "Single :ntegretei Attnck Tem,i' the name reflecting
Katz observation that a scldom got anywhere unless it had a
catchy description. As presented. in debriefings in Saigon, Hawaii, and
Washington during early October, end in a subsequent RAND report, the
SIAT concept proposed that effevs- counterinsurcency operations required
small and closely integrd aon-rnd strik forces. Ex,.ensive use
of 0-1 FAC/SCAR crews wa,, conceivEC as necesEAry both for continuous
airborne surveillance and etrik2 (rc- in association with ARVN special
force teams of about 80 men w'rc wuld cnstrict end holl Vt:.etcong groups
long enough for strike aircr'a he 1ayk than. lespite a general
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recognition that the SLAT concept was more applicable to insurgency than
to the field warfare that the Vietcong were beginning to wage in Vietnam,
the Graham-Katz study was well received and did much to hasten conceptual
approval for a USAF airborne FAC/SCAR function. General Westmoreland
wished to accept as much of the SIAT proposal as possible. The 19th TASS
was reactivated at Bien Hoa on 21 October, and MACV recommended to CINCPAC
that the unit equipment for the 19th TASS and the four VNAF liaison
squadrons should be increased to 30 aircraft in each squadron. (277)
At a later time, an airborne USAF Forward Air Controller (FAC) would
work in close association with friendly ground troops and an airborne USAF
Strike Control and Reconnaissance (SCAR) controller would be associated with
aerial interdiction, but at the inception in 1964 the USAF FAO/SCAR program
was intimately related to the VNAF Air Request System, which the 2d Air
Division was installing in a phased development that paralleled the buildup
of VNAF fighter forces. Following the initial installation and manning of
the VNAF Air Request Net in the III CTZ and 7th Division area, the system
was installed and manned in the IV CTZ in August. Arrival of 20 USAF FACs
on temporary duty from sTRIcor on 25 3eptember faoilitated establishment
of VNAF Air Request Nets in the I and II CTZs during October and November,
the installation of the countrywide syStem being counted as com7lete on
1 December. At this time 50 USAF ALO/FACs, 17 AL0s, and the four ASOCs
were provided radio equipment and operators to make the system work. In
addition to the USAF personnel, VNAF continued to provide eight recent
liaison pilot graduates as ALOs in the III CTZ, men who were not qualified
for the duties expected of them. (278)
Before General Moore commenced the installation and manning of the
expensive VNAF Air Request System, he had agreement from the FTNAF
Joint General Staff that a directive would be isEued making use; of the
system mandatory and that VNAF would begin to provide qualified Vietnamese
ALO/FACs to serve as counterparts to USAF personnel. Following the unsuc-
cessful September coup against him, General Khanh made sweenin chnges
in the JGS and in field commanders, and the new men were not a party tO
the initial agreement with General Moore and were unfamiliar with the Air
Request System. During October and November a USAF Air-Ground Operations
School briefing team made a countrywide circuit, explaining the time-
saving features of the Air Request System, and, on 27 October, General
Rowland requested Ky to use his influence to get acceptance for the
system. At this same time a MACV survey team visited the CTZs to get
information that might convince the RVNAF to order the system used,
and Maj General Richard Stilwell requested the RVNAF Chief of Staff
to accept the VNAF Air Request Net, to provide VNAF personnel to man
it, to disperse VNAF 0-1As to forward operating locations, and to
authorize persons other than VNAF air observers to mark targets. These
efforts were fruitless. The ARVN field commanders would not permit
themselves to be by-passed in requests for air strike support. Neither
VNAF nor ARVN were willing to assume the responsibility under the
Vietnamese civil law for mistakes that the other might make in marking
targets for strike aircraft, and VNAF strike pilots refused to accept
targets unless they were designated by a VNAF air observer. VNAF also
demurred at deploying its 0-1A planes and crews on permanent location
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at forward airstrips, citing lack of security from guerrillas, logistical dif-
ficulty in supporting deployed aircraft and crews, and loss of control over
the planes and crews at remote sites. (279)
In a progression of planning for a full development of the PAC/SCAR
function, the 2d Air Division conceived requirements for additional
TACPs who would be located with Viethamese province chiefs, thus
connecting the province-district radio nets into the VNAF Air Request
System, and for three additional USAF 0-1F squadrons to provide an
adequate number of air vehicles for a dispersed countrywide FAC/SCAR
program. Tests of hand-held cameras showed that the 0-1 crews could
secure photographs of Vietcong targets which were of value to intelligence
and to mission planning. (280) The FAC/SCAR program could not be implemented,
however, unless the RVNAF would accept it, and the Office of Secretary
of Defense was reluctant to accept additional American commitments in
South Vietnam until the political confusion cleared up. On 6 November,
Secretary McNamara approved the JCS recommendation for the expansion of
VNAF to a fifth and sixth fighter squadron. The Office of Secretary of
Defense also approved the MACV recammendation that the VNAF liaison
squadrons be expanded to a unit equiPment of 30 aircraft, this by MAP
deliveries of 68 0-1As and U-17As in March through May 1965. On
6 December the Office of Secretary of Defense also indicated that the
expansion of the 19th TASS to 30 0-1Ft would probably be approved in
the future, but a decision on the matter would be delayed until the
political situation in Saigon settled dawn.(281) As a result of the
indecision about its future, the manning of the 19th TAM was down to
seven airmen and nine pilots in Decakber, when it finally received eight
single-engine pilots who would have to be checked out in 0-1s. Because
of combat attrition the 19th TASS alto urgently needed five additional
0-1s to bring it back up to its old authorized unit equipment strength
of 22 aircraft and to provide three planes for attrition and maintenance
fleet.(282) The VNAF liaison squadrons possessed only 60 of 120 authorized
0-1As and U-17As.(283) In the critical fighting the winter of 1964-1965,
FAC aircraft were in very short supply. In the embattled II CTZ, for
example, all airstrikes were controlled with only four available 0-1
FACs. In view of the scarcity of aircraft and higher priorities which
had to be given to forward air control and convoy escort, it was
impossible to implement the sustained air surveillance concept. (28L)
In the first flush of enthusiasm for the new counterinsurgency mission
in January 1962, the Farm Gate detachment had visualized many new ideas
for inflicting maximum casualties among dispersed guerrillas in extremes
of terrain varying from flat marshy land to dense jungle. Among the new
concepts, Farm Gate envisioned the development of a lightweight, small
caliber, high-rate-of-fire gun which could be fired from C-47s and C-123s
(as well as Army helicopters and light aircraft) and the use of free-
falling "Lazy Dog" weapons for night hamlet defense. (28S) Employment
of newly developed Air Force cluster bomb units also appeared worth
tests in a counterinsurgency environment. (286) Tests of Lazy Dog and
CBUs were not pressed since experiments at Eglin Air Force Base indicated
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that they would not penetrate jungle cover very well, and in addition
Admiral Felt wished to hold these weapons in reserve for a more serious
national emergency than Vietnam.(287) Because of distractions to the
combat effort produced by service testing in Vietnam during 1963, General
LeMay also followed a policy that tests ought to be conducted in a
controlled environment in the United States. The fact that the Joint
Operational Evaluation Group Vietnam and its successor MACV Joint Research
and Test Activity (JRATA) were headed by US Army generals and dominated
by US Army Officers contributed to the Air Force reluctance to conduct
tests in Vietnam. (288) By August 1964, however, USAF Research and Develop-
ment had produced a number of new weapons which had been tested by the
USAF Special Air Warfare Center and were believed ready for operational
suitability evaluation. After a visit to Vietnam a USAF munitions survey
team recommended that modern ordnance should be programmed to complement
and eventually replace the older ordnance being employed in Vietnam. (289)
In September, moreover, Vietcong ground fire was seriously hazarding
low flying aircraft on napalm runs, and the loss of the two A-is to enemy
ground fire while making low-level napalm passes on the night of 23
September demanded a new approach to hamlet defense. In a quick change
in tactics, 2d Air Division ruled that fragmentation clusters would be
substituted for napalm on night flare-assisted missions and that fighters
would deliver this ordnance from a dive, thus minimizing the time that
they would be illuminated by flares. The frag attacks could not be
delivered too close to a defense position, and it was, evident that some
better approach to night defense was required. (290)
During September the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Admiral Sharp released
the Mark-44 Lazy Dog for use in Vietnam and the CBU-2 for prospective
out-of-country employment, and USAF requested operational suitability
tests for several munitions, including rapid-fire 7.62-mm gatling gun
pods that could be installed either on the racks of an k-1 or mounted
and fired from the side cargo doors of an orbiting C-47. The USAF 1st
Combat Application Group had devised and run tests on a three-gun, side-
firing installation in a C-47 at Eglin Air Force Base. In view of the
long interest in Lazy Dog, test drops were begun with little delay.
As will be seen, Lazy Dog (also nicknamed "ELEA") showed initial promise,
but continuing analyses revealed that the free-falling finned bullets
were relatively ineffective in vegetated terrain. Moreover, the fins
on the small projectiles easily bent out of shape when they were loaded
into the dispensers in which they were dropped, resulting in missiles
tumbling and being relatively ineffective. The variations in the size
and shape of the pattern of the falling projectiles was also unpredictable,
precluding use of Lazy Dog as the expected substitute for napalm when
enemy and friendly forces were relatively close to each other.(291) Other
new weapons also failed to demonstrate full reliability. When installed
and tested on A-ls, a new XM-70 pod for launching 40-mm grenades initially
appeared to have promise as an antipersonnel weapon, but the feed system
frequently malfunctioned and the system was thus not reliable. Moreover,
at the same time that the grenade launcher was under test, the old 2.75-
inch aerial rocket, previously minimized in use because it buried in the
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ground before exploding, was restored to operational use by a new warhead
and XM-427 super quick graze action fuze. A new Vestco" mix of napalm
incendijel proved stable in storage, andaddition of stabilizing fins to
napalm tanks allowed aircraft to deliver the munition in a dive bomb mode,
thus avoiding small arms fire and also driving the bomb through jungle
canopy. In such tactics, however, the fire pattern was small and left
a long burning incendiary puddle in the impact crater, and the optimum
napalm delivery continued to be the low level spash attack. In the effort
to maximize antipersonnel weapons effects, the 2d Air Division was unable
to get reliable results with variable-time (VT) radar proximity fuzed
general purpose bombs, and fell back on a time-worn "daisy cutter" technique
whereby nose-fuze extenders were attached to bombs to produce a waist-high
explosion. (292)
In this same season of active weapons tests, PACAF and the Tactical
Air Command were reluctant to see the minigun-equipped C-47 tested in
combat since it was an obsolete plane, which might be very vulnerable to
enemy ground fire and in any event would not be anything more than a
palliative for the lack of sufficient numbers of strike fighters. In
Washington, however, General John P. McConnell, the USAF Vice Chief
(who would succeed General LeMay as Chief of Staff on 1 February 1965)
agreed that an armed C-47 would be a highly specialized weapon that
would probably be useful only in a very permissive environment, but, on
the other hand, McConnell reasoned that a C-47 could fly long-duration
night alert missions and could quickly respond to Communist surprise
attacks. McConnell believed that the C-47 could keep high enough to
remain above the range of Communist small arms and could pin down the
enemy with its miniguns until strike aircraft could arrive. The armed
C-47 would thus help compensate for the inability of the insufficient
numbers of strike aircraft and the consequent impracticability of night
fighter airborne alerts. On 2 November, General LeMay was briefed on
the armed C-47 and directed an immediate combat evaluation. Early in
December a test team equipped two 34th Group C-47s with miniguns, and
the first combat mission was flown on 15 December. The armed C-47s
were an almost instant success in night missions against enemy troops
in the open. The C-47 pilot had an improvised gunsight, and by putting
his wing down in a maneuver like a "pylon 8" he could direct fire from
the three miniguns mounted in the left-hand cargo door very accurately.
The. guns spewed out their small caliber bullets at a rate of 18,000
rounds a minute into a field of fire about the size of a football field.
Each gun was served by an aerial gunner who could clear jams and reload
the gun pods in flight. The light miniguns were ineffective against
material and the small caliber bullets were easily deflected in wooded
terrain, but the AC-47 gunships proved outstanding for night fort and
hamlet defense. Awed by the stream of tracers, the Vietcong referred
to the new "ray gun" being employed against them.(293)
7. Developments in Air Reconnaissance and Air Transport
Notwithstanding specific accomplishments and a novel employment of
aerial reconnaissance for politico-malitary psychological purposes, an
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integrated air reconnaissance system fully responsible to users' require-
ments did not develop in Southeast Asia during 1964. In the employment
of air forces the lack of a coordinated air reconnaissance-intelligence
program aimed at development and maintenance of a target system fully
responsive to the forces committed to destroy the targets was a most
serious limitation. In General Moore's analysis, the air reconnaissance
effort was fractionalized to support both in-country and out-of-country
combat and planning efforts and did not fully meet tactical requirements
in either area. (29t) While many factors were involved, the USAF Tactical
Air Reconnaissance Center placed much of the blame for the failures of
air reconnaissance upon the absence of senior air officers, knowledgeable
in the field of air reconnaissance, in positions of appropriate influence, (29S)
At the beginning of 1964 the 2d Air Division's reconnaissance
capabilities consisted of six Able Mable RF-101s, two Patricia Lynn
RB-57s, two Sweet Sue RB-26s, and two Black Watch RB-26Cs, plus the
13th Reconnaissance Technical Squadron. In the command organization
the aircraft detachments were under operational control of Detachment
1, 33d Tactical Group at Tan Son Nhut, and the Able Mable RF-IC1
commander served as operations officer of Detachment 1. This arrange-
ment placed the experimental infrared photography activities of Sweet
Sue and Patricia Lynn and the night photo operations of Black Watch
under an RF-101 officer who was not necessarily familiar with the
operational capabilities of these aircraft. (296) The 13th RTS was in
process of developing from a mediocre photo processing center (PPC),
and it was assigned to the 33d Tactical Group, although under opera-
tional supervision of the 2d Air Division Director of Intelligence,
who prepared the effectiveness reports of the commander of the 13th RTS.
The command assignment of the 13th RTS to the 33d Tactical Group, was
awkward, and the 13th RTS commander found himself training men who
were freely transferred to other units at Tan Son Nhut by the base
commander.(297) As has been seen, Colonel Harvey Henderson, 2d Air
Division Deputy Commander during 1963, recommende,1 consolidation of the
fragmentary RF-101, RB-26, and RB-57 into a USAF tactical reconnaissance
squadron under an experienced "Mr. Reconnaissance," but this proposal
would have caused USAF to exceed its authorized unit force levels. Under
2d Air Division plans to phase out of South Vietnam, moreover, the USAF
reconnaissance activities were programmed to reduce rather rapidly as
the VNAF 716th Composite Reconnaissance Squadron became combat opera-
tional with three RC-47s and 18 RT-28s, plus locally responsive PPCs in
the four CTZs. The three VNAF Re-47s began to fly daily photo missions
in November, and by 10 January the 716th Squadron appeared to be making
substantial progress since it possessed 10 photographic configured T-28s
and would receive the other eight RT-28s later in the month. The pro-
grammed operational ready date was I March 1964 although it was probable
that difficulties with the camera installations would extend this date
to about 1 July. The 2d Air Division planned that 716th Squadron air-
craft would be deployed to the CTZs where they would work with the local
PPCs. As the 716th Squadron reached its planned capability of 374
sorties a month, Able Mable RF-101s would be phased out, and the 2d Air
Division also conceived that the local deployments of VNAF photo recon-
naissance would eliminate any need for retention of the six US Army
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Mohawk armed photo reconnaissance planes in Vietnam, one of which was
shot down and destroyed during a low-level reconnoiter on the Ca Mau
peninsula on 10 January. (298)
During the spring of 1964, the 2d Air Division reconnaissance projec-
tions were buffeted by unforeseen events. In his meetings in Saigon
and Hawaii late in 1963, Secretary McNamara directed a major aerial
reconnaissance effort of South Vietnams borders, and, without prior
knowledge of CINCPACAF, Strategic Air Command Lucky Dragon U-2 aircraft
arrived at Bien Hoa to provide very high altitude photo flights over
Southeast Asia. Although the 13th RTS occupied new facilities that had
been under construction for it at Tan Son Nhut, the large amount of photo-
graphy generated by Lucky Dragon and Able Mable in the expanded recon-
naissance effort could not be handled by the still-developing 13th RTS
and a large part of it had to be processed by PACAF, SAC, and US Navy
facilities located in the PhilippineTslands and Japan. The U-2
photography was of vital importance to national strategic planning, but
the very small scale photographs had limited value for tactical uses. (299)
The second-phase analysis and the film library of Trojan Horse photography
would continue to be at the US Navy facility at Cubi Point making it
impractical to use the 13-2 photos for comparative purposes with other
reconnaissance photography available in Saigon. (220) The collapse of B-26
serviceability led to the removal of the RB-26s from Vietnam at the end
of March, reducing 2d Air Division night photographic capabilities. In
addition to this unforeseen development, the VNAF reconnaissance program
met unexpected difficulties. As has been seen, 47 armed some of the
RT-28s with rocket rails for use as a counter-coup force. Based at Tan
Son Nhut, the RC-47s and RT-28s were usable, in any event, only to cover
targets only in the III and IV CTZs and in the southern part of II CTZ.
When the RT-28s were ready for deployment to the ASOCs, VNAF protested
that the relocation of the families of the crews and the lack of support
for the aircraft at CTZ stations made the move uneconomical. Although
a PPC was opened at Da Nang and was used for a short time by a locally
deployed RB-26, it fell into disuse when the RB-26s were withdrawn and
VNAF failed to deploy to Da Nang. (300) As a result of expedited Air Force
Logistics Cammand technical assistance, the Patricia Lynn RB-57 infrared
photographic systems were operational in April, but the ability of the
infrared equipment to locate Cammunist night activity by heat-source
imagery was not being utilized by MACV intelligence because procedures
had not been worked out to exploit the infrared photography. (301)
The US national decision in May to institute air reconnaissance
flights over Laos for politico-military reasons, together with Secretary
McNamarals direction that VNAF RT-28 pilots would be retrained to man a
fourth VNAF A-1H squadron, suddenly and substantially changed to whole
Southeast Asia reconnaissance program. The existing six Able Mable
RF-101s were augmented with six additional RF-101s to handle Yankee Team
flights. The photography resulting from the RF-101 Yankee Team missions
was processed and duplicated through the joint efforts of the 13th RTS
and the SIC Lucky Dragon photo processing team at Tan Son Nhut and
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annotated prints were immediately flown to Clark for delivery to the
Armed Forces Courier Service, which had them in Washington in an average
elapsed time of 34 hours. Other copies of Yankee Team photography were
delivered to Udorn for the US Air Attache in Vientiane within 24 hours.
In order to facilitate the rapid delivery of the film, two B-57 aircraft
were assigned to the 2d Air Division in July to serve as photo couriers. (302)
During May all of the RT-28s were removed from the VNAF 716th Squadron,
and three of these RT-28s were flown to Udorn where Thai pilots used
them to provide pre- and post-strike photo reconnaissance for T-28 strikes
in Laos. Since the US Air Attache in Vientiane wanted delivery of this
local RT-28 photography within 12 hours, a PACAF manned PPC was established
at Udorn to provide initial product exploitation.(303) When the RT-28s
were transferred out of the 716th Squadron, the three Vietnamese RC-47s
were assigned to the VNAF 43d Transport Group, where after same imitial
diversions to transport missions, they were restored to photo duty in
the III and IV CTZ areas of operation. (3014)
The record of USAF-VNAF photographic reconnaissance missions flown in
South Vietnam and Laos in the months of January through June was as follows:
USAF-VNAF PHOTO RECON MISSIONS
Jan-Jun 1964
Jan Feb
Mar
.tr
Ma
Jun
USAF RF-101
123 12:
120
19:
USAF RB-57
49 34
55
49
70
67
USAF RB-26
5 5
25
-
-
-
VNAF RT-28
8 28
105
117
65
-
VNAF RC-47
42 34 47
38
34
34
Source: Hist.
2d AD, Jan-Jun 196T,1-775?..b7=.
11-13
During the first half of 1964, the AOC Reconnaissance Section continued
to note a very high proportion of requests received for more expensive
vertical area cover when it believed that a strip or pinpoint photo would
have sufficed, the percentages photo completions by type in the period
being: vertical area cover, 47.7 percent; vertical and oblique strips,
28.8 percent; and vertical and oblique pinpoints, 23.5 percent. The
AOC-R was also vexed by the high priorities assigned to photo requests
by almost all requesting agencies, obviously to get faster action on
their targets. The short delivery times specified resulted in failures
to cover a part of the requested targets each month, and the AOC-R
frequently noted that requestors extended their required delivery time
on targets not completed when desired.(305) Although the 13th RTS rapidly
developed into an extremely effective reconnaissance technical squadron,
it experienced a very heavy workload as a result of the addition of
Lucky Dragon and Yankee Team to Able Mable processing and exploitation
requirements. In view of Defense Intelligence Agency interest in Laos,
highest priority was given to processing and exploitation of Yankee
Team photography and lower priorities to Able Mable. (306)
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Although Yankee Team photo flights over Laos were promptly begun
by RF-101s flying from Tan Son Nhut, the air reconnaissance program
introduced some new operating problems. The JCS directive for continuing
Laos reconnaissance issued on 25 May authorized occasional night
photography and infrared reconnaissance in addition to daylight flights.
At this time, the 2d Air Division possessed the two Patricia Lynn RB-57s
that were equipped for night photography and infrared, but these two
RB-57s were not equipped with self-contained navigation systems ---
particularly terrain clearance radar -- and General Moore could not
agree to send them on night flights over Laos in view of the uncertain
weather likely to be encountered and Mountainous terrain in which they
would be called to operate. Recognizing the problem, USAF scheduled
the delivery of two additional RB-57s to the 2d Air Division which
would be equipped with doppler navigation and also in-flight read-out
infrared sensors but these two new Patricia Lynn RB-57s could not be
modified and delivered until December 1964, at which time the old
Patricia Lynn planes would be withdrawn one at a time and also modified
with the new equipment. In view of these circumstances, PACAF requested
that USAF provide a package of four RE-66Bs for night photo and two
RB-66Cs for electronic intelligence (ELINT) operations over Laos. At
this time USAF did not believe it advisable to remove the RB-66s from
assignment in Europe, and the 2d Air Division accordingly did not fly
any night reconnaissance over Laos in: the initial months of Yankee
Team. (307)
As noted in the statistical chart of USAF Yankee Team sorties, the
RF-101 reconnaissance effort over Laos drew heavily on 2d Air Division
resources from its beginning and the effort was further complicated in
August 1964 when monsoon clouds obscured photo targets and the RF-101s
were generally limited to medium altitudes that prevented them from
flying below cloud cover. Under the circumstances, the 2d Air Division
employed unescorted RF-101s for advance weather reconnaissance rather
than commit photo RF-101s with fighter escorts on missions that would
find targets weathered out and would have to abort. Although PACAF conceded
that the reconnaissance crews could best perform the weather scout mission
for the photo reconnaissance effort, it was nevertheless concerned about
the diversion of RF-101 photo capabilities and requested suggestions
for alternate solutions. On 20 August, Colonel H. L. Price, 2d Air
Division Director of Operations had already requested General Moore to
consider that Yankee Team RF-101 flights from Tan Son Nhut and Da Nang
were expensive and had became stereotyped. Price recommended that a
detachment of four Yankee Team RF-101s should be deployed to Don Muang,
provided Thailand would provide diplomatic clearance for such operations.
In early September, Admiral Sharp and General Westmoreland agreed that
Yankee Team photo coverage of the far northern reaches of Laos ought to
be undertaken, and in context with this objective, as well as to conserve
resources, General Harris proposed that an RF-101 detachment should be
established at Ulorn, from which it could conduct unrefUeled reconnaissance
flights of longer duration over all needed areas of Laos.(308) At this
time, Ambassador Unger was opposed to extension of US reconnaissance
flights beyond 20 degrees north latitude as an unnecessary provocation
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USAF YANKEE TEAM SORTIES, MAY-DEC 1964
May Jun Jul Aug
Se;
Oct
Nov
Dec
RF-101 Recon
RF-101 WX
ESCORT
42 27 21 10
_ _ - 21
_ 8 42 18
22
21
32
46
24
48
22
14
42
30
27
36
SOURCES:
Hist. PACAF, Jan-Jun 1967 I, pt.
and 2AD MONEVAL Rnts....LOct-Dec 1964.
2, Yankee Team Chronology
and if intelligence was required in this area he proposed to employ Water
Pump RT-28s. In order to operate RF-101s on a sustained basis from Udorn,
moreover, it would be necessary to extend the length of the runway and
provide an additional water supply for the PPC, which was depending on
water brought by trucks to its storage tank. The program to develop
Udorn to receive a reconnaissance task force was undertaken, but the
RF-101 task force -- nicknamed 'Green Python" -- 4ould not begin olDra-
tions at Udorn until 1 April 1965.(309)
In the autumn of 1964 the combination of Lucky Dragon and Yankee Team
medium altitude photography met national strategic intelligence needs, and
the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency commended the RF-101
missions flown on 9 and 11 September for providing outstanding photography.
As will be noted, the Yankee Team restrictions made it difficult to fly
immediate pre-strike photography required for strike operations, and the
imposition of a 10,000-foot altitude on Yankee Team medium altitude
missions would result in significantly less effective reconnaissance for
military purposes since it would rule out routine oblique photography that
was needed to uncover targets that did not appear in vertical coverage, (310)
In Vientiane, however, Lt Colonel Tyrrell did not support PACAF's proposed
reolama to the operating restriction since with improving weather he thought
that medium level photography should meet requirements and was conflaent
that Ambassador Sullivan would act very quickly on proposed special low-
level missions.(311) One source for determining requirements for areas
of enemy activity that needed especial requests for low-level coverage
appeared to be available in high-altitude U-2 photo cover, but during
December, studies in Saigon and Hawaii identified the fact that it would
be very difficult with the limited available field resources to exploit
the very large take of U-2 photography as a basis for getting indications
of military activity for subsequent Yankee Team confirmation. The second
phase analysis for Trojan Horse, moreover, was being done at Cubi Point,
which made it difficult to exploit the U-2 take in Saigon. On the basis
of Yankee Team experience through December 1964, however, MACV analyses
suggested that reconnaissance missions could be accomplished safely with
relative immunity to ground fire if conducted at very low altitude (below
1,000 feet) and high speed, making single passes on each target. (312)
Although General Harris continued to press for low altitude reconnaissance
flights, and Admiral Sharp fully concurred that they were more effective
and efficient for obtaining detailed coverage required to support tactical
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Although it was obvious earlier, the fact that RF-101 day photo
reconnaissance failed to capture many of the intelligence manifestations
of fleeting guerrilla activities gained acceptance in MACV in the last
half of 1964, initially through a consideration of infrared sensors and
how they could be employed to pinpoint the enemy's locations. As has
been seen, the two USAF Patricia Lynn RB-57s were ready for tactical
employment but had no mission in mid-1964, when MACV requested two US
Army infrared-equipped OV-1C Mohawk aircraft to augment visual and photo-
graphic capabilities for night surveillance. When General Moore asked
Generals Stilwell and Du Puy why the Mohawks were required when the RB-57s
were not being exploited by MACV, Stilwell and Du Puy appeared surprised
to hear that 2d Air Division already had an infrared capability.(315) MACV
nevertheless successfully justified a requirement for four US Army Mohawks,
to be equipped with infrared sensors which could be "read-out" in flight
and also with side-looking aircraft radar (SLAR) sensor systems. The two
Patricia Lynn RB-57s were equipped with older infrared sets, whose photography
had to be developed and interpreted on the ground after the plane returned
from a flight, and USAF undertook to provide two additional Patricia Lynn
RB-57s with in-flight infrared read-out by December, at which the older
RB-57s would be singled out of operation, retrofitted with newer equipment,
and returned to service. When the US Army infrared Mohawks were authorized
to MACV, General LeMay insisted that they should be under the operational
control of Commander, 2d Air Division, for employment in a joint counter-
insurgency reconnaissance task force. At this time, General Moore believed
that the best he could expect would be to get an authority to coordinate
all infrared missions for MACV as was done for Yankee Team. (316) As events
progressed, MACV preferred a control arrangement quite different from either
of these concepts.
In mid-1964, USAF ALO/FACs emphasized that they had no difficulty
observing enemy activities as they flew over Communist-held areas in
liaison aircraft either in daylight or even more easily at night, when the
Vietcong customarily lighted fires and cooked their food. As will be seen,
the daylight air reconnaissance would become the mission of a Forward kir
Controller/Strike Control and Reconnaissance (FAC/SCAR) program, but the
collection of hostile heat-radiating intelligence manifestations was to
be the mission of the infrared sensor aircraft. Experimental night flights
of the RB-57s produced valuable information in the form of "hot-spots" on
infrared photographs, which, when correlated with other ground intelligence,
confirmed the locations of Vietcong camps in Zones C and D. In order to
handle the earlier SCAT program, the III CTZ maintained a target section
in the III CTOC, and in October 1964 the infrared section of the 13th
Reconnaissance Technical Squadron began to telephone the III CTOC immedi-
ately after processing the results of a night's infrared mission. These
results were usually the coordinate locations of cooking fires, and the
III CTOC, based on ground intelligence, determined whether they were
friendly or unfriendly. The exploitation of all the intelligence needed
to exploit infrared required concentrated and timely efforts to collect,
collate, and explbit all available intelligence for artillery or tactical
air strikes. In order to handle the broadening concept, an expanded target
center was established under the III Corps G-2 for the III Corps area.
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air operations, Admiral Sharp had no hope for carte blanche ,low-level
authority until Washington was convinced that such missions were
advantageous. Meanwhile, authorization for low-level reconnaissance
required for planning tactical air strikes would have to be requested
and justified on a case-by-case basis.. (313)
At the same time that Yankee Ten almostdoubled the RF-101 workload
in Southeast Asia, requirements for Able Mable RF-101 photography increased
within South Vietnam. The augmentation of the RF-101 force at Tan Son
Nhut by six additional PACAF RF-101s obviated any reduction
in photo reconnaissance capabilities. Incident to the Tonkin Gulf crisis
in August, PACAF photo reconnaissance:capabilities were further increased
by the CASF deployment of 6 RF-101s from the 363d Tactical Reconnaissance
Wing to Kadena Air Base, since these aircraft and crews were employed at
Tan Son Nhut on a limited basis. The VNAF C-47s also continued in opera-
tion over the III and IV CTZs, and two Vietnamese aircrews were permanently
assigned to accomplish reconnaissance. The use of the VNAF Air Request
System to forward requests for photography directly to ASOCs contributed to
marked increases in requests for photography which rose to 430 in November
and 549 in December. Photo reconnaissance sorties flown in South Vietnam
were as follows:
USAF-VNAF PHOTO RECON MISSIONS?SOUTH VIETNAM, JUL-DEC 1964
Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
USAF RF-101 155
Data Unavailable
VNAF RC-47 55
SOURCE: 2 AOC, APEX Monthly Summary of Aviation Activities, 10 Jan 1965.
Although ALO/FACs used their influence to some extent to persuade requestors
to accept more economical pinpoint and strip photography, the predominant
requests continued to be for expensive area cover photography, and this re-
quirement increased the burden of photo reconnaissance, especially in
November 1964 when the photo crews commonly found a part of the area they
were expected to cover blanketed with rain clouds. In November, 500 of
the targets flown were incomplete but, with improving weather, only 291
were not complete in December. The requestors of Able Mable in-country
photography by percentages were: AWN 27, MACV 25, USAF 22, JCS 17,
VNAF 7, and Other 2. MACV continued to lead all requestors in Priority I
requests, 39 of 64 MACV requests being first priority in December. The
average length of time for the completion of Quick Reaction photography
in November was 5 hours 10 minutes this including 40 minute reaction
and flight planning, two hours mission flight time, and 2 hours 30 minutes
processing, printing 12 sets of prints, and immediate photo interpretation
reporting (IPIR). Saigon area requestors received photography one hour
after it was packaged. (31b) 4 1 9
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Although it was obvious earlier, the fact that RF-101 day photo
reconnaissance failed to capture many of the intelligence manifestations
of fleeting guerrilla activities gained acceptance in MACV in the last
half of 1964, initially through a consideration of infrared sensors and
how they could be employed to pinpoint the enemy's locations. As has
been seen, the two USAF Patricia Lynn RB-57s were ready for tactical
employment but had no mission in mid-1964, when MACV requested two US
Army infrared-equipped OV-1C Mohawk aircraft to augment visual and photo-
graphic capabilities for night surveillance. When General Moore asked
Generals Stilwell and Du Puy why the Mohawks were required when the RE-57s
were not being exploited by MACV, Stilwell and Du Puy appeared surprised
to hear that 2d Air Division already had an infrared capability.(315) MACV
nevertheless successfully justified a requirement for four US Army Mohawks,
to be equipped with infrared sensors which could be "read-out" in flight
and also with side-looking aircraft radar (SLAR) sensor systems. The two
Patricia Lynn RE-57s were equipped with older infrared sets, whose photography
had to be developed and interpreted on the ground after the plane returned
from a flight, and USAF undertook to provide two additional Patricia Lynn
RB-57s with in-flight infrared read-out by December, at which the older
RE-57s would be singled out of operation, retrofitted with newer equipment,
and returned to service. When the US Army infrared Mohawks were authorized
to MACV, General LeMay insisted that they should be under the operational
control of Commander, 2d Air Division, for employment in a joint counter-
insurgency reconnaissance task force. At this time, General Moore believed
that the best he could expect would be to get an authority to coordinate
all infrared missions for MACV as was done for Yankee Team.(316) As events
progressed, MACV preferred a control arrangement quite different from either
of these concepts.
In mid-1964, USAF ALO/FACs emphasized that they had no difficulty
observing enemy activities as they flew over Communist-held areas in
liaison aircraft either in daylight or even more easily at night, when the
Vietcong customarily lighted fires and cooked their food. As will be seen,
the daylight air reconnaissance would become the mission of a Forward
Controller/Strike Control and Reconnaissance (FAL/SCAR) program, but the
collection of hostile heat-radiating intelligence manifestations was to
be the mission of the infrared sensor aircraft. Experimental night flights
of the RB-57s produced valuable information in the form of "hot-spots" on
infrared photographs, which, when correlated with other ground intelligence,
confirmed the locations of Vietcong camps in Zones C and D. In order to
handle the earlier SCAT program, the III CTZ maintained a target section
in the III CTOC, and in October 1964 the infrared section of the 13th
Reconnaissance Technical Squadron began to telephone the III CTOC immedi-
ately after processing the results of a night's infrared mission. These
results were usually the coordinate locations of cooking fires, and the
III CTOC, based on ground intelligence, determined whether they were
friendly or unfriendly. The exploitation of all the intelligence needed
to exploit infrared required concentrated and timely efforts to collect,
collate, and explbit all available intelligence for artillery or tactical
air strikes. In order to handle the broadening concept, an expanded target
center was established under the III Corps G-2 for the III Corps area.
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USAF and US Army officers were the crime movers in the development, and
VNAF was reluctant for that reason to accept many of the targets nominated
by Americans. (317) While the RB-571 were in test during July, only 29
infrared targets were requested and only 21 completed, but, with an addi-
tional RB-57 in use in December, there were 261 requests for infrared and
228 completions. Most IR targets were in the III CTZ, since only this corps
had a working target section that could handle the intelligence. In order
to exploit both visual and IR sightifigs a 2d Air Division intelligence SCAT
study group recommended that active corps target centers should be estab-
lished at the CTOC-ASOC level in each of the CTZs.(318)
In recommending the corps target :centers, the 2d Air Division envisioned
that they would provide information and requirements that would flaw quickly
to the Air Operations Center, which Would possess operational control or
coordination authority over air oneratinc. assets. On 20 December 1964,
however, MAN organized a Centrl 2aalysis and Research Center (TRAC)
at Tan Son Nhut as an integer of MAW J-2 and as a companion group to the
J-3 Air Group in the Tactical Air aibnort Flement (TASE) of the MACV Combat
Operations Center (COC). Work was also begun in organizing Corps TRACs,
collocated with CTZ headquarters but .a part of MACV J-2. The basic source
of information available initially bb the MACV TRAC was IR and SLAR reports
obtained nightly by the RB-57s and Mohawks, the results of which were for-
warded to the CTZs immediately. Subsequently, thorough interpretation was
made and target folders were prepared when necessary, the most lucrative
targets being spotted on mosaic photography. By assigning Priority I
missions, the MACV TRAC absorbed all of the infrared capability of the
RB-57s and Mohawks during January. 19b5, except for a single RB-57 Barrel
Roll night bomb damage assessment flight made in Laos by oneof the new
Patricia Lynn aircraft, which had 1,3Lf ctmtained navigation radar. In
February,. the MACV TRAC generated s many Priority I requests for RF-101
area cover that at one time thE. 1.2t RTS :as five days behind in process-
ing any request for photography that: was not Priority I. Chiefly through
correlation of infrared sensor indiations with other intelligence, the
TRAC identified 250 possible enery kl.isgets in its first two months of
operations, including Vietcong battali)n camps in Phuoc Thy province which,
as will be seen, would be struck by US:.F 3-57 jet bombers. (319)
Although USAF supported the TRAC program as a move to increase the
capability to develop in-country intelligence in South Vietnam, the estab-
lishment of the central MACV TRAC effectively resulted in the removal of
control of infrared reconnaissance iorties and much of the RF-101 effort
from the Joint Operations Center.(320) The TRAC enjoyed some intelligence
sources which by law could not be dleclosed to Vietnamese agencies, with
the result that the Vietnamese delayed and in some instances refused to
permit strikes against targets generated by US irtelligence and recon-
naissance.(321) Cooperation between. corps TRACs and ARVN Corps G-2s was
reported somewhat less close than desirable; moreover, the centralized
aspects of the TRAC system workd at: cross purposes with the 2d Air
Division's desires to develop a cloe relationenip between the FAC/SLAR-
Province Chief for intellic:ence Lnd cluk air tar.,:eting.(322) Where
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PACAF and USAF rationalized that the majority of the personnel to be
assigned to the TRAC would be USAF targeting, interpretation, and re-
connaissance officers, this in view of the fact that the product would
be used primarily by USAF and VNAF for air strikes, the initial MACV JTD
request for officers for TRAC was for 10 US Army, 9 USAF, and 3 USMC
spaces. (323) As the TRAC system developed, moreover, General Westmoreland
preferred to regard all air operations in South Vietnam -- even interdic-
tion, which in conventional war was an Air Force responsibility -- as
being in support of ground operations and thus necessarily to be directly
responsive to ground commanders' requirements. Thus, through the MIN
TRAC assignment of priorities, the MACV J-2 had primary staff responsi-
bility for insuring maximum effective utilization of air reconnaissance
and surveillance resources within South Vietnam. This arrangement left
the 2d Air Division commander, operating through tha Air Operations
Center, only nominal operational control over air reconnaissance forces,
and these forces (like aircraft employed in close air support and inter-
diction within South Vietnam) became primarily responsive to ground re-
quirements.(324)
Under command arrangements perfected during 19c3, toe Southeast Acie
Airlift System (SEAAS) at the outset of 1.964 was oberated by the 315th
Troop Carrier Group, with headquarters and transport movement contrei
center (TMC) at Tan Son Nhut, toe TMC located in the Air Operations
Center and exercising control of cormion-use airlift resources in South
Vietnam and Thailand. The 315th Group was assigned to the 315th Air
Division at Tachikawa Air Base, Japan, but was under operational conk,rol
of COMUSMACV exercised by Commander, 2d Air Division. According to MACV
directive, US and RVNAF forces determined their monthly projected require-
ments for airlift and transmitted them to the Joint Airlift Allocation
Board in MACV J-4, which in conjunction with the RUAF levied the re-
quirements on the SEAAS in the form of allocations, these being provided
in monthly increments. As a matter of fact, heweVee, the Joint Airlift
Allocation Board by 1964 had become one officer in the MACV J-4 Movements
Branch who was saddled with the large task of screening and processine,
requests for airlift and establishing priorities. Under projections in
1963 the monthly preplanned requirements for air transport normally :mounted
to about one-third of SEAAS airlift capacity. The remainder of SEAA3 capa-
city was available for on-call operations, the top priority being given to
emergency requests and preplanned tactical operations. To satisfy airlift
requirements, the 315th Group commander, as SEAAS Director of Air Transpor-
tation, could call upon the 48 authorized USAF C-123s of his three squadrons,
three C-47s of the 1st Air Commando Squadron, two US Army CV-2B Caribou
transports, and two Royallrew Zealand Air Force Bristol transports which
operated in Thailand. Because of the special support requirements of US
Army Special Force teams in remote outposts, three C-123s and two of the
Air Commando C-47s were kept on station at Nha Trang and committed to the
support of US Army Special Forces, Vietnam. The 315th Group also maintained
a "Fire Brigade" alert capability of three C-123s at Tan Son Nhut and one
0-123 at Da Nang, prepared on 15-minute notice to respond to immediate
requirements for an ARVN paratroop employment or equivalent emergencies.
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Two C-123s were also normally allocated to Deputy COMUSMACTHAI for service
in Thailand. As has been seen, VNAF C-47 air transport capabilities were
computed and allocated under the SSAAS framework, but the Vietnamese air-
craft were fragged in a separate order, issued by VNAF air transport officers
in the AOC. Only two of the 16 Caribous assigned to the US Angy's 61st
Aviation Company were allocated to the SEAAS for cammon use; four were
assigned to the 14.5th Aviation Battalion in III CTZ, three to the I CTZ
Aviation Detachment, three to the 52d Aviation Battalion in the II CTZ,
three to the Delta Aviation Battalion in IV CTZ, and one to the JUSMAG
Thailand at Bangkok. (32)
During 1963 the Southeast Asia airlift had differed from earlier Air
Force airlift efforts in the large proportion of tactical activity per-
formed, including paratroop employments and airlanded and airdropped
supply of remote installations. As a matter of policy, General 1,eMay
wanted the USAF C-123 assault transports used in tactical employments
rather than as logistics carriers, and, on 20 February 1964, Admiral Felt
directed General Harkins to give maximum attention to plans for increased
use of South Vietnam's rail transport and reductions of airlift. The CINCPAC
admonition reflected comments by senior commanders that ARVN would not
travel on the ground and keep roads and rails open because USAF moved
everything for them by air. (326) Although Admiral Felt conceived that
additional amounts of air escort for trains would yield a decrease in
Vietcong incidents, increased use of rail communications, and decreased
requirements for airlift, this concept did not materialize. In late 1963,
the Vietcong pressed increasingly bitter attacks against South Vietnam's
main north-south railway, about 60 percent of all rail interdiction efforts
occurring in the coastal reaches of Binh Dinh, Phu Yen, and Binh Thuan
provinces. (327) The reductions in surface transport security generated
increased requirements for air-transported supply. In the months of
January-June 1964, Air Commando C-47s, while chiefly committed to air-
dropped resupply missions, flew 1,338 airlanded resupply sorties, with
2,010 passengers and 1,246 tons of cargo. The two US Army Caribou air-
craft were made available by tail number to the SEAAS each day, with the
result that if one of the plans was not operational it could not be flown.
The Caribous were nevertheless generally employed on short hauls and in ope-
rations under the SEAAS in January-June flew 7,939 airlanded sorties, with
47,731 passengers and 3,322.8 tons of cargo.(328) The C-123 force was
the principal airlift capability o' :t SEAAS, as shown in the following
chart:
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315th TROOP CARRIER GROUP C-123 OPERATIONS, JAN-JUN 1964
JAN
FEB
MAR
APR
MAY
JUN
ACFT POSSESSED
45
46
49
Si
50
51
ACFT 0/R
36
38
39
42
39
41
HOURS FLOWN
2,793
2,845
3,290
3,391
3,327
3,215
SORTIES FLOWN
2,478
2,333
2,868
3,133
2,852
2,882
PERSONNEL AIRLIFTED
15,302
15,463
17,487
20,085
17,755
18,119
CARGO AIRLIFTED
3,949
3,675
4,545
5,043
4,565
4,703
(TONS)
SOURCE: Project CHECO, Assault Airlift Operations, 23 Feb.
1967, p.
3 .
In addition to airlanded sorties, the Air Commando C-47s delivered 405 tons
of airborne supplies and the C-123s airdropped 1,270.6 tons of supplies in
the first half of 1964. The C-123s transported 1,252 paratroopers and 115.3
tons of supply in airborne assault missions and they flew 239 airborne flare
alert night missions, dropping flares on 119 of these missions flown in the
period January-June 1964.(329)
As established in Vietnam, the "Fire Brigade" airborne alert concept
encampassed the maintenance of five VNAF C-47s and three USAF C-123s at
Tan Son Nhut on the alert to air drop two companies of ARVN Airborne Brigade
paratroopers on orders from the RVNAF aas. This concept was superseded by
events during the winter of 1963-1964. On the one hand, the organization
of a helicopter transportable Eagle Flight force within the Airborne Brigade
promised quick deployment of ARVN paratroopers without casualties normally
sustained in paratroop drops. On the other hand, increasing Vietcong strength
demanded that an airlift capability of a full ARVN airborne battalion was
requisite, and this size C-47 and C-123 alert force was prohibited by avail-
able air transport resources. In the Airborne Brigade Eagle Flight operations
the alert C-47s and 0-123s were prepared to reinforce or resupply helicopter-
transported paratroopers, and in January 1964 the C-123s made supply drops in
support of the large and relatively unsuccessful foray into War Zone D but
did not drop paratroopers. Given adequate preplanning notice, the SEAS
could marshal transport aircraft at Tan Son Nhut to drop battalion-strength
paratroop forces, but it remained next to impossible to secure any definite
notice fram the oas and marshalling of the transports cut into logistical
airlift schedules. In three instances in February and March, the JGS did
call for alert preparations to employ a paratroop battalion, but in each
case the JOS did not commit the battalion and 17 assorted transport aircraft
were kept tied up at Tan Son Nhut during the operations. In preparation for
an ARVN 1st Division Lam Son 115 operation into the Ashau/Aloui valley at
the Laotian border in the I CTZ early in April, two 311th Troop Carrier
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Squadron C-123s made daily airlifts of troops and supplies into the Aloui
and Ashau airstrips, where UC H-314 helicopters and US Army Caribou air-
craft picked them up and took them farther into the valleys where they be-
gan a sweep that failed to contact the Vietcong 502d Battalion which was
reported to own the area. In another employment on the afternoon of 12
April, the JGS committed the 7th Airborne Battalion in the relief effort
of the Kien Long district headquarters in Chuong Thien province, and the
C-123s successfully deployed it in the first sizable paradrop since November
1963.(330)
Although C-123 air assault operations were reducing, the three USAF
C-123s and the three Air Cammando C-47s kept at Nha Trang were the prime
air cargo carriers for the US Army Special Forces in Vietnam. In view of
the remote locations of CG camps practically all supplies had to be air-
lifted to them from the Logistical Operations Center at Nha Trang. The
Special Forces cargo requirements during 1964 amounted to about 1,500 tons
a month, desirably delivered to the scattered fortified camps in increments
small enough and regularly enough to prevent a substantial accumulation of
stockpiles that might tempt a Vietcong assault. Cargo loads varied from
neatly packed bundles to bulky and unwieldy rolls of concertina wire, sand
bags, and steel stakes -- frequently a mixture of all. Landing strips at the
forward locations were mostly rudimentary and dropzones were frequently
hard to find, especially in marginal weather. Enemy ground fire hazarded
low altitude transport operations, and during 1964 more C -123s were hit by
(*Mei ground fire than any other type of fixed wing aircraft. The USAF ALO at
Nha Trang, Lt Colonel Victor N. Curtis, described the C-47 and 0-123 air-
crews as "same of the most professional and dedicated people" he had ever
known, and he also noted that the Army Special Forces both appreciated the
.air supply and did all possible tJ faciliate the airlift effort. "If
an item or service, is desired by the' USAF people," Curtis stated, "the
Special Forces will provide it if at all nossible." During 1964 the
C-47s and C-123s had not been equipped with ARC-44 radio sets that could
contact the A1/PRC-10 battery-operated radios at the Special Forces camps;
with help from the Special Forces AN/PRC-1)s were rigged aboard the transports
but these communications were marginal, and the aircraft commanders usually
relied upon smoke signals to direct landings or dropping: green smoke to
land or drop, red to abort, and pilot's discretion in case no smoke showed.
Since a Special Forces camp seldom wanted a full-load C-123 cargo drop
possible with "Bent Bow" rapid delivery techniques, tests were made early
in 1964 to determine whether a 0-123 could use a Parachute Low Altitude
Delivery (PLAD) system. The system had excellent potential for accuracy,
but paradrop bundles were limited to 1,500 pounds in weight and six minutes
were required to re-rig between releases. The C-1238 could not afford to
remain in the air at low altitude over enemy hazarded drop zones long
enough to expend their, cargoes with the PLAD system, and it was not accepted
for operational use. Instead, the Cd-123 crews manhandled their air drop
cargo in a manner reminiscent of World War II. (331)
In operations in South Vietnam during 1963, t;:le SEAAS had proven able
to generate more airlift than was recuired, but situation changed
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during the first half of 1964. After 1 January 1964, the C-123 squadrons
consistently were required to over-fly their programmed 60-hours of flying
time per aircraft per month. Rough field landings and takeoffs stressed
aircraft; on 4 May skin wrinkles were discovered on the top sides of two
C-123s, and on further inspection all 37 of the C-123s at Tan Son Nhut,
which had been in Vietnam for almost three years, showed visible damage.
The C-123B aircraft at Da Nang had been in the theater only a year and
visual inspection revealed only minor damages, but as many as 11 of the
Tan Son Nhut C-123s required extensive inspection and necessary repair.
Although the three C-123s at Nha Trang were well utilized, these dedi-
cated plans were unavailable for common use, and in May three more C-123s
had to be diverted to Thailand in addition to the two normally serving
there. The prospective introduction of six Royal Australian Air Force
CV-2B Caribou aircraft for service under the SEAAS beginning in August
would provide about 600 tons of additional airlift a month, but two US
Army Caribous were lost in crashes on 5 and 7 May. In June the SEAAS
received only 42 CV-2 sorties, which lifted 206 passengers and 52.3 tons
of cargo, and in July MACV would release the two US _Army Caribous from
the SEALS. In earlier planning, the SEAA3 had counted upon overflying
the C-123s to provide a surge capability in the event that the enemy inter-
dicted the movement of POL by road and a substantial increase in airlift
was required, but most of this surge capacity had been lost by the :-,verflying
of the aircraft in the first months of 1964. In addition to all these airlift
problems, General Westmoreland was preparing to request Washington approval
for 4,200 new field advisors who would require an experienced average of
1,200 tons of airlift support each month. (332)
The assignment of Colonel David T. Fleming on 30 May 1964 as 315th
Troop Carrier Group and Director of SEAAS occurred at the time that SEAAS
was saturated with requirements and the system itself was a hodgepodge
of elements imperfectly tacked together. The one-man Joint Airlift
Allocation Board in MAT/ J-4 could not adequately screen requestE for
validity. Some cargo that should have been transported by surface was
being airlifted, and cargo for airlift was frequently late or did not
arrive at the air terminals, with consequent delays in airlift operations.
In order to fly missions in these cases, the air carriers had first to track
down the cargo. Another serious system deficiency was the lack of effective
communications for transport flight following. The Airlift Control Center
(ALCC) at Tan Son Nhut shared the TACS net, but this net reached only the
airfields where Transport Movement Control (TMC) detachments and aerial
ports were located. The Airlift Control Center and the TMCs also needed
effective communications with aircraft in flight, but efforts that had been
made since early 1962 to improvise a high frequency radio net had never met
the need for flight following. Under these circumstances, transport aircraft
frequently left enroute bases empty or partially loaded because the crew
duty time limits or the flight schedule did not allow excessive ground time
to await a load that was not ready because the base aerial ports and the TMCs
were unable to communicate. (333) The required system improvements in the
SEAAS, which would have increased the efficiency of the system, would not
materialize for several years. In order to handle the airlift crisis of
mid-1964, Colonel Fleming requested the assignment of an additional fourth
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squadron of C-123s, and, as has been seen, General Westmoreland put
through the requirement for the 0-123 squadron and also a second US
Army Caribou company on 16-17 July 1964., and Secretary McNamara directed
that the requirements would be met on 7 August. (33L) Since airlift
capabilities were already saturated, PACAF committed eleven 315th Air
Division C-130 transport aircraft to augment the airlift in South
Vietnam during July, the initial thought being that these larger air trans-
ports would be staged into Vietnam from Clark Air Base to carry loads until
the additional 0-123 squadron could be provided.(335) The C-130 flights
were fragged by the Tan Son Nhut ALCC, and they began to work off the back-
log of air cargo at the major air terminals. In early August, however,
the Gulf of Tonkin crisis precipitated a hurried deployment of USAF air
units into South Vietnam and Thailand. The 315th Air Division handled
these intra-theater movements, with Detachment 3, 315th Air Division, at
Clark Air Base functioning as the Movement Control Center. The division
airlift was augmented by three CASF 0-130 squAdrons of the Tactical Air
Command, two of which remained at Clark and Naha Air Bases to meet continu-
ing airlift requirements. These developments not only increased airlift
requirements in Southeast Asia but also resulted in the introduction of
the intra-theater 315th Air Division airlift system into the area in
addition to the SEAAS.(336)
Although Colonel Fleming recommended the organization of all air
transport resources into a single assault airlift task force under the
direct control of the Commander, 2d Air Division, (337) several years
would pass before the two airlift systems (and the Army Caribou resources)
would be consolidated, and the immediate task in the last half of 1964
concerned the augmentation of the SEAAS. The flight of six RAAF Caribou
aircraft arrived at Tan Son Nhut beginning on 10 August and very shortly
provided four airframes daily to the SEAAS. The excellent short-range
carrying capabilities of the Australian CV-2Bs were effectively woven into
the MAAS in an atmosphere of complete accord, providing a demonstration
that the Caribou could be effectively scheduled and utilized in a centralized
system. Despite the loss of one of the RAAF planes at a remote strip
landing in December, the Australian crews did not reduce their effort,
which generated 387 airlift hours and 564 sorties plus 30 night flare-
drop sorties during the month. (338) Preparatory to the activation of the
19th Air Commander SquRdron, Troop Carrier, at Tan Son Nhut on 8 October,
plans were made to reposition the 310th Troop Carrier Squadron to Nha Trang,
where its C-123s were to have a primary mission in support of the expanding
US Army Special Forces throughout Vietnam. These plans were delayed by
several causes. Beginning in October, replacement crews from Hurlburt Air
Force Base flew the C-123s for the 19th Squadron to South Vietnam but the
CCTS output at Hurlburt could not support an immediate manning of the 315th
Group with flight crews. New facilities were also needed at Nha Trang to
accommodate the 310th ,iguadron and work by civil contract went very slowly.
As a result, during the autumn of 1964 the detachment of C-123s and C-47s
continued to support the Special Forces and were met with increased hazards.
In an effort to resupply Special Forces outpost in western Quang Due province
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on 24 October, a 0-123 could not make radio contact and wandered over the
Cambodian border, where it was shot down with the loss of all eight crew-
men. The loss probably could have been averted if the aircraft had been
equipped with an ARC-44 set that would have permitted air-ground communica-
tions. In December construction at Nha Trang permitted movement of half
of the 310th Squadron and seven of its C-123s to this base. The C-47s
were withdrawn, and the seven C-123s, an Australian CV-2, and three US
Army CV-2s supported the Special Forces. The Army Caribous operated out-
side the SEAAS, but their crews were reported to be delighted with the
VNAF fighter escort that was provided for them and also for the USAF
transports. (339)
In July and August, the 315th Air Division C-130s transiting South
Vietnam materially assisted in the SEAAS airlift, but the C-123s con-
tinued to carry 87 percent of the total airlift effort. (340) Except
for support for the Special Forces and night flare drops, the 315th
Troop Carrier Group was held principally to a flat all-out logistics
airlift mission, which increased in volume with the beginning cf the
arrival of additional C-123s in October, as shown in the following
chart of 0-123 operations:
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315th TROOP CARRIER GROUP C-123 OPERATIONS, JULY-DEC 1964.
JUL
AUG
SEP
OCT
NOV
DEC
ACFT,POSSESSED
149
51
51
57
. 71
67
ACFT 0/R
148
48
0
48
64.
64.
HOURS FLOWN
3,/412
3,14.8
3,034.
3,198
3,547
3,786
SORTIES FLOWN
2,90
2,658
2,477
2,791
2,968
3,4147
PERSONNEL AIRLIFTED
19,309
15,875
18,1424
22,3140
14,472
23,514
CARGO AIRLIFTED (TONS)
3,327
. 2,733
5,761
6,300
3,716
6,037
SOURCE: Project GRECO, Assault Airlift Operations, 23 Feb. 1967, p. 38
During floods in central South Vietnam in November, the 315th Group lifted
over 1,500 tons of supplies and rescue equipment and over 2,300 civil flood
refugees, and C-1214s and C-130s of the 315th Air Division added additional
humanitarian airlift. Prior to the floods, about 70 percent of all RVNAF
and US logistics movements were by road, the balance by sea (20 percent),
by rail (5 percent), and by air (5 percent). During and immediately after
the floods only 20 percent was moved by road and the remainder by sea and
air. In this period, some US advisory detachments ran out of food for lack
of air delivery. Altogether the SEAS transported 16,727 tons in December,
but there was a backlog of cargo at the year's end.(341)
As a result of tests made by the Ranch Hand C-123 aerial spray herbicidal
flight, the Joint Chiefs of Staff had concluded in April 1963 that spray
operations provided military advantages as a means to defoliate vegetation
providing concealment to guerrillas and to destroy crops grown by the
insurgents. As has been seen, authority to order US defoliation missions
was granted to the US Ambassador/COMUSMACV. Several VNAF helicoptors were
equipped with spray equipment and could be employed in crop destruction,
but US crews and aircraft were not cleared for spray missions against
Vietcong food sources. In the dry season of 1963 (January-May) no Ranch
Hand defoliation flights were flown, since defoliant chemicals had proved
to be most effective in the wet season, when vegetation was growing.
Beginning in June 1963, the spray C-123s were engaged in a number of flights
to clear vegetation away from the Saigon-Dalat powerline, the Saigon-Phan
Thiet rail line, and a key canal on the Ca Mau peninsula. This defoliation
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activity improved visibility and reduced vegetation cover which sheltered
hostile sabotage and ambush activities. In 1962 aerial spraying defoliated 20.1
square kilometers and destroyed 750 acres of hostile food; in 1963, 87.3 square
kilometers were defoliated and 197.5 acres of food crops were destroyed by
chemical spray. (3L42)
After an analysis of defoliation and crop destruction activities,
Ambassador Lodge and General Harkins recommended on 9 October 1963
that the country team should be authorized to approve chemical crop
destruction on the basis of military need, and in January 1964, US Army
senior division advisors were authorized to make a wider use of aerial
spray defoliation for clearing foliage from around depots, airfields,
and outposts and to approve hand-spray operations against enemy crops.
In view of the requirement that warnings to the civil population should
be made prior to spray operations, the Ranch Hand C-123 spray flights,
operating from an altitude of 150 feet, had been harzarded by enemy
ground fire during 1962 and 1963, the average number of hits on each
spray aircraft in each mission running to about four small arms bullets
The danger became much more severe in 1964 when spray flights were sent
against are dominated by the Vietcong. On 30 April, one of the Ranch
Hand planes ran into 50-caliber fire, which wounded the co-pilot and
put 40 holes in the plane. The spray missions were routinely accompanied
by fighters, but the fighters were not permitted to fire until the Ranch
Hand plane had been fired upon, thus limiting the effectiveness of the
fire support. In May and June 1964, the Ranch Hand planes staged to.
Da Nang and hurriedly sprayed elephant grass and marsh scrub which
sheltered enemy activities along the roads in the Ashau/Aloui valley.
These flights into the enemy-dominated area were accomplished quickly,
before the Vietcong apparently could react in strength, and only four
hits were sustained during 26 sorties out of Da Nang. On five spray
missions in III CTZ during May 1964, however, the Ranch Hand planes
sustained 15 ground fire hits, and on two occasions MACV suspended
operations against targets where persistent resistance was encountered.(343)
Although attached to the 315th Troup Carrier Group, Ranch Hand
functioned in a temporary duty assignment supported by the Tactical
Air Command until July 1964, when the three spray C-123s and the
volunteer crew who flew them became Detachment 1, 315th Troup Carrier
Group. Another change in the Ranch Hand activity occurred on 29 July
when Washington granted authority to the US Ambassador/COMUSMACV to
employ the C-123s in crop destruction, provided the planes displayed
VNAF insignia and had Vietnamese crew members aboard. This decision
reflected COMUSMACV recommendations that the Vietnamese spray-equipped
helicopters could not safely work many of the enemy-held target areas.
In order to reduce C-123 exposure to ground fire, the three Ranch Hand
aircraft received modified spray systems in August that enabled them
to dispense herbicides at the rate of three gallons per acre (double
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the previous rate of 1.5 gallons per acre) thus enabling them to complete
a mission in a single pass. The first USAF crop destruction missions
were flown against approximately 5,000 hectares of rice, corn, manioc,
bananas, and pineapples growing in scattered patches in a 20 x 24 kilometer
area of Phuoc Long province. Nicknamed "Big Patches," the project was begun
on 3 October and concluded ten days later when 19 spray sorties had been
flown. Fighter escort was provided for all flights, but the C-123s received
40 ground fire hits, with a marked increase in Vietcong opposition noted on
the last two days of the operation. In late November, the C-123s sprayed
approximately 5,000 acres of Vietcong rice growing in War Zone D. An
intelligence source quoted the Vietcong Phuoc Thanh Provincial Committee as
reporting that the rice destroyed would have fed the enemy troops in the
area for two years, but in the course of these spray flights ground fire shot
out an engine on one of the C-123s, which barely managed to recover at Bien Hoa.
A fourth 0-123 was added to Ranch Rand during December, and as the year's
activity ended the detachment had flown 72 survey flights and 363 spray sorties,
had defoliated 257.7 square kilometers of vegetation, and had destroyed
15,215 acres of Vietcong crops.(344)
8. Communist Field Attack Ends the US Advisory Era
During the late summer of 1964, American actions were seeking to bulwark
the morale of the civil government .which was restored in Saigon beginning on
26 October, to increase counterinsurgency capabilities inside Laos, and to
deter Hanoi from all-out aggression. In these same months, however, the
North Vietnamese moved in for the kill. Interrogations and captured documents
would show that the North Vietnamese Army's 95th Regiment (325th Division) left
North Vietnam in October, and it would arrive in South Vietnam in December.
This regiment was closely followed by the other two 325th Division regiments,
the 32d which would be in South Vietnam by March 1965 and the 101st which would
be in Kontum province by early July 1965. The relatively slow trip through
Laos may have been attributable to the limitations of the panhandle roads;
more likely, however, Hanoi believed that Vietcong field offensives would
be enough to collapse the feeble Saigon government headed by the venerable
Phan Khac Suu as Chief of state and Saigon's former mayor, Tran Van Huong,
as prime minister. During the autumn months, the US intelligence community
noted the increase in Infiltration but did not agree upon its significance.
In the same season, South Vietnam's ineffective coastal force patrols did not
disclose the very large seaborne movements of Communist weapons, mostly of
Soviet design and manufactured in China, across South Vietnam's beaches. The
weapons included AK-147 automatic assault rifles, 7.62-mm machine guns, 82-mm
mortars,and 57- and 75-mm recoilless rifles. The automatic weapons outclassed
ARUN firepower and were merciless against older weapons possessed by regional
and popular forces. The mortars provided the Vietcong a stand-off attack
weapon against defended objectives. Captured COSVN directives called for large-
scale attacks to overrun forts and hamlets, to cut lines of communications,
and to ambush search and clear forces. In order to reduce the effectiveness of
air support strikes, the Vietcong were enjoined to "cling" to government forces
once combat was joined.(345) In the last half of 1961.1 night outpost and hamlet
attacks doubled in intensity and were especially severe in the III and IV CTZs.
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Beginning in October the Vietcong scored marked successes in the II CTZ
which had been believed to be nearly pacified a few months earlier. The
last train from Saigon arrived at Qui Nhon after a 26-day trip late in
October, and after this resupply in the II CTZ would depend upon air and
sea deliveries. (3L6)
In the aftermath of the USAF developments to Da Nang and Bien Hoa,
General Moore considered it only a matter of time until the Vietcong
would attempt a psychologically damaging surprise raid or a mortar
bombardment against one of the major air bases. Internal security and
periphery defense at the bases was a Vietnamese responsibility, but
the 2d. Air Division used its law enforcement force (one officer and
280 airmen) as added guards, especially at times of increased alert.
Passive defense was the order of the day, but effective dispersal of
aircraft was virtually impossible at the overloaded airfields. On
26 August, PACAF unsuccessfully requested CINCPAC to allow one of the
B-57 squadrons to move from Bien Hoa to Takhli in order to relieve the
vulnerability to sabotage or attack. On 7 November, General Moore asked
General Harris personally to intercede with Admiral Sharp and get some authority
to reduce the number of B-57s at Bien Hoa without voiding the authority to
have them there in an emergency. Harris secured acceptance of a plan whereby
half of each of the two squadrons would be sent back to Clark Air Base for
continuation training, and effective on 22 October the alert commiLment of
the B-57s at Bien Hoa was reduced to 18 aircraft. Bien Hoa still remained
overcrowded and poorly defended, and, on the night of 1 November, a Vietcong
mortar squad got inside the ARVN perimeter and launched a 20-minute barrage
against American aircraft and barracks areas, killing four Americans and
wounding 72, destroying four B-57s and damaging 15 others. Three VNAF A-1Hs
and four USAF H-43 helicopters also received lesser damages. The ARVN
perimeter guards attempted pursuit but had no success.(3/47)
During the late summer and early autumn the Joint Chiefs of Staff were
agreed that action should be taken against North Vietnam, but they did not
agree upon the severity of the action or when it should be taken. In
response to Secretary McNamarats questions of 31 August, the Joint Chiefs
accepted the USAF assurance that the 9/4 targets could be attacked without
unacceptably depleting fuel and ordnance that might be required against a
Chinese Communist intervention, and the CINCPAC staffs had prepared a plan
to hit all 9I4 targets in 20 days. The Bien Hoa attack catalyzed the Joint
Chiefs in favor of a very strong reprisal. On 1 November they verbally
recommended to Secretary McNamara that immediate US air strikes should be
launched against the "hard" infiltration targets in the Lao Panhandle, that
US Army and Marine defense forces should be airlifted to Da Nang, to
Saigon-Tan Son Nhut, and to the Bien Hoa area and the forces should be
assembled within 60-72 hours to commence an air campaign against North
Vietnam, this to include an initial B-52 night strike against Phuc Yen
airfield +o be flown from Guam, first-light PACOM strikes against other
airfields and the Hanoi-Haiphnng oil storage areas, and then progressive
SAC and PACOM strikes against the other 94 targets. Ambassador Taylor
recommended a more restrained response consisting of some retaliations
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against selected North Vietnamese targets by US and VNAF aircraft,
coupled with a policy statement that similar responses would be
forthcoming under like circumstances in the future. On 1 November,
President Johnson appointed a NSC working group, chaired by William
Bundy, and directed it to outline political and military options for
direct action against North Vietnam. On 18 November the Joint Chiefs
recommended a hard-hitting, fast, "full squeeze" air campaign against
North Vietnam to be completed in 20 days. But since the NSC working
group was favoring lesser actions, the Joint Chiefs also prepared a
fall-back position with another program for controlled, systematically
increasing air pressure which could be accomplished in a two-month air
campaign. (314.8)
Other than for an order from President Johnson that the destroyed
and seriously damaged B-57s would be promptly replaced at Bien Hoa,
the United States did not respond to the Bien Hoa attack. On the night
of 6/7 November, .however, Air Vice Marshal Ky led 32 VNAF A-1Hs against
a Vietcong camp in Zone D as an announced retaliation for the Bien Hoa
attack. South Vietnamese intelligence reports stated that this air
attack produced 500 enemy casualties, but the Communist troops forayed
out of Zone D on 16 November and engaged government forces in a very
damaging six-hour, give-and-take battle near Ben Cat. In response on
18 November, General Khanh personally directed a massive operation in
which 115 US Army and VNAF helicopters lifted 12 battalions of ARVN
troops to the fringes of Zone D near Ben Suc. This operation claimed
163 enemy killed (83 by supporting air) and 68 captured.(3)4.9) In these
same weeks that major ARVN efforts had no real effect on the enemy who
surrounded Saigon, a combination of sel;ere floods produced by typhoons
Iris and Joan which swept in in the twelve days beginning on 11 November,
together with resurgent Communist activity, virtually collapsed govern-
ment authority in the ten central provinces of South Vietnam. As the
floods receded, the Vietcong almost completely controlled the country-
side in populous Quang Ngai and Binh Dinh provinces, and government
presence was limited to district towns and provincial capital cities.
The ARVN could open a road momentarily by committing four to six battalions,
but as soon as the force withdrew the Vietcong promptly closed the
reopened roads. The Vietcong not only kept ARVN units off balance,
rushing back and forth to put down local attacks, but the enemy's
actions were also costing the ARVN units heavily in losses of men,
equipment, and morale. Such Vietcong as were captured were highly
motivated and quite confident of victory. The Vietcong had no difficulty
recruiting replacements for any losses they sustained, and the National
Liberation Front was organizing local shadow governments which would be
available to take power when the Saigon regime collapsed.(350)
The military situation in Laos was also declining. In late October
and early November, night flying US Navy RF-8A Yankee Team crews visually
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observed a heavy flow of vehicles from North Vietnam along Route 7
toward the Plain of Jars, and it was evident by early November
that the Lao T-28s were not powerful enough to do more than haress
the Communist infiltration targets in the Lao panhandle. Under his letter
of authority from President Johnson, Ambassador Taylor had announced
plans on 11 September to organize the US Ambassadors in Southeast Asia
as the Southeast Asia Coordinating Committee (SEACOORD) with a Military
Subcommittee (SEAL), the organizational structure resembling the SEATO
Council and SEATO Military Advisors. Admiral Sharp had protested SEAMIL
as an infringement on his authority as CINCPAC, but he sent General Harris
and the PACOM J-5 to attend the SEACOORD/SEAMIL meeting in Bangkok on
6 November which was assembled to consider an agenda of military questions
related to Laos, including one novel proposal to develop Route 9 across
northern South Vietnam and through the Lao panhandle--from Dong Ha to
Savannakhet--into a modern two or four lane highway and to garrison it
with infantry divisions, thus halting North Vietnamese infiltration.
Upon discussion it appeared that a two-lane Dong Ha-Savannakhet highway
could be built in three years but five infantry divisions would be required
as security forces, and if the highway were built and not heavily garrisoned
it would probably assist the Communists more than it would help the defense
of South Vietnam. As a procedural matter, SEACOORD decided that SEAMIL was
not necessary as a formal organization though CINCPAC representatives would
be invited and attend future meetings. In its substantive recommendations,
SEACOORD desired approval of air strikes against the heavily defended Mu Gia
pass, and it also pointed out that stronger action was needed outside South
Vietnam to produce a desirable psychological and military impact on the
Communists. (3l)
Under direction from Washington a Yankee Team RF-101 with F-100 escorts
was authorized to make a low-level flight on 18 November over the Lao roads
leading from Mu Gia pass. The RF-101 received antiaircraft fire near the town
of Ban Sa Ang and in the course of returning fire an F-100 was shot down, and
its pilot was fatally injured. Another RF-101 was promptly scheduled for a
medium level coverage of the same area on 21 November, and while flying at
a 3,000-foot altitude the RF-101 was hit by enemy barrage fire and went down,
the pilot surviving and being rescued by Air America. Under Yankee Team rules
"medium altitude" was an altitude safe from enemy automatic weapons, and the
JCS now issued more positive instructions defining medium level as being at
least 10,000 feet above the terrain. As a reprisal to the enemy action,
Admiral Sharp recommended a one-time special armed reconnaissance mission
into the area, and General LeMay urged that US reprisal strikes should be
launched against the infiltration objectives in Laos that were too strongly
defended to be attacked by Lao T-28s. The Joint Chiefs did not accept LeMay's
basic proposition, but on 24 November they requested Secretary McNamara to
authorize flak suppression missions along the roads in Laos leading southward
from MU Gia pass.(352)
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During a press interview in Saigon on 21 November, Ambassador Taylor
described the principal difficulties in Vietnam as the lack of an effective
national government and the inability to restrain continuing reinforcement
of the Vietcong. Taylor regarded the restoration of a viable society within
South Vietnam as being primary and observed that air strikes against Lao
infiltration routes and North Vietnamese infiltration training areas would
contribute to the solution of the main problem.(353) Taylor's assessment
differed from the Air Force position--increasingly accepted by the Joint
Chiefs--that stopping Hanoi's support of the insurgency was prerequisite
to a stable government in Saigon.(?) As completed on 21 November, the
NSC working group's paper on Vietnam outlined three possible courses of
actions: Option A, US reprisal attacks, intensification of 34A operations,
resumption of DeSoto patrols, and step-up of Lao T-28 attacks; Option B,
the "fast/full squeeze" bombing of North Vietnam primarily favored by the
Joint Chiefs and characterized by Villiam Bundy as "almost reckless" and
an invitation to Chinese Communi3t intervention; and Option C, a "slow
squeeze" of air attacks against Infiltration targets in North Vietnam--
all intended to produce an impression cf a steady and deliberate approach
and permitting the United States a continuing option to proceed or not.
Option C was favored by William Bundy and by Depnty Secretary of Defense
John T. McNaughton, who was a member of the working group and who had
coined the "squeeze" termino1ogy.(355)
Admiral Taylor arrived in Washington to join the strategy conferences
on 26 November and presented hi :7; estimate of the situation on the following
day. Taylor recommended US actions looking toward establishment of an
adequate government in 3aigon, riprovement in the counterinsurgency campaign,
and measures to persuade or compel Hanoi to stop its aid to the Vietcong.
He envisioned a ladder of escalation beginning with intensified covert
operations, anti-infiltration a.tack:, in Laos, and reprisal bombings--all
to stiffen South Vietnamese morale; progressing upward to air attacks against
infiltration objectives in North Vietnam; and ultimately extending to
destruction of all important fixd targets in North Vietnam. Taylor was
in favor of undertaking the first step on the escalation ladder. The
final draft of the NSC working group paper completed on 29 November
recommended a 30-day first phase of military activity similar to Taylor's
first step. After the 30 days, thafirst phase actions could be continued,
or additional measures could be implemented generally in accordance with
a "Middle C Option," an alternative drafted by McNaughton to be between
the original long-drawn-out Option C and the two-months' air campaign that
the Joint Chiefs had prepared when they perceived that Option B would not
be accepted. President Johnson was briefed on the NSC working group findings
on 1 December, and he accepted Taylor's premise that a stable South Vietnamese
government was the main essential to ending the Insurgency. Verbally,
on 2 December, Johnson accepted the first-phase military actions and indicated
that subsequent actions would follow an air bombardment scenario generally
similar to the Middle C Option but 77-ogressing geographically rather than by
functional target systems. These air attacks against North Vietnam would
begin against infiltration clojectives immediately beyond the DMZ, progress
northward to the 19th parallel, and then ultimately encompass strikes
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against the Hanoi infields, POL storage, mining of Vietnam's ports,
and naval blockade. The precise nature of the President's decision
was not exactly established since a draft NSAM 319, subsequently modified
by the National Security Council, was not formally published. (3S6)
Upon returning to Saigon Ambassador Taylor met with Premier Than
Van Huong on 7 December and emphasized that Washington wanted serious
attempts made to achieve political stability. At a dinner given by
General Westmoreland for high-ranking RVNAF officers on the following
evening, Taylor explained the strong feeling of the US Government that
the political situation in South Vietnam must be stabilized and future
coups avoided if further assistance were to be extended for the purpose
of more effectively prosecuting the war.(357) In Taylor's view it was
important that US forces participate in air operations in Laos in order
to demonstrate to South Vietnam that the United States would be willing
to share in the risks of air actions against North Vietnam. The draft
NSAM 319 stated that US armed reconnaissance strikes against infiltration
routes both in the Lao panhandle and in central Laos would signal deeper
US involvement in the conflict and determination to support the govern-
ments of South Vietnam and Laos. A joint State-Defense message on
8 December instructed William H. Sullivan, who had just arrived in
Vientiane as US Ambassador, to request Souvanna Phouma's approval for US
air strikes against hostile communications routes, and, following Souvanna's
approval on 10 December, Secretary McNamara established the level of the
activity --nicknamed Barrel roll--at two missions of four strike aircraft
apiece each week. A committee of NSC Principals approved weekly designations
of two LOC segments for armed reconnaissance, each with a fixed target
for attack with ordnance remaining unexpended at the end of the route sweep.
Both PACAF and US Navy aircraft were to be committed, and inasmuch as Yankee
Team coordinating procedures had been used for seven months and were under-
stood, Admiral Sharp ruled that the Yankee Team procedures would be used for
Barrel Roll, with COMUSMACV serving as the local coordinating authority for
the Lao air strikes. Souvanna Phouma wanted no publicity for Barrel Roll
and emphasized that there must be no attacks against non-hostile Lao
people. The Barrel Roll rules accordingly provided that targets of
opportunity would be "unmistakably military activity of a transient or
mobile nature" and provided that fixed installations would be struck
only in connection with attacks on clearly identified military convoys
and military personnel or when prebriefed as secondary targets. The
Barrel Roll missions could not be launched from Thai bases and could not
be armed with napalm. The Barrel Roll operations orders ran to 15 or
more pages and allowed combat commanders very little judgment on tactics,
ordnance, routing, or other such details. (358)
During September a PACAF assistance team had highlighted the facts
that the USAF squadrons which were deployed to Southeast Asia were
generally unfamiliar with the CBUs and AGM-12B weapons they would be
expected to employ and that few of the tactical jet aircrews knew how
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to deliver weapons on a target without setting up a standard peacetime
gunnery school pattern. (39) In crder to gain familiarity with the new
weapons without furnishing information aboutthem prematurely to the
enemy, the Yankee Team escorts had been allowed to load CBU-2As and
AGM-12B Bullpup air-ground missiles on every third or fourth mission,
but the pilots were instructed to ase such armament only as a last
resort.(360) Recognizing the high-aevel national interest in Barrel
Roll, General Moore assigned the initial mission to the PACAF 80th
Tactical Fighter Squardron which had F-105 Thunderchief aircraft at
Korat, and, in addition, Moore personally briefed the leader and
pilots on the mission, which was to be an armed reconnaissance sweep
along Route 8 and an expenditure of remaining ordnance against the
Nape road bridge, just south of the Nape pass. The mission force
included three RF-101s for pathfind 7?-ri damase assessment, eight
F-100s as CAP, and four F-105 stria u: raft, ihese loaded heavily
with 750-pound bombs, 2.75-Inch roosts, and 20-mm ammunition. The
force was a day late getting oositiOned Da Nang, and its results
were poor when the mission was flown on 14 December. As a result of the
heavy ordnance load and miscalculation of time/distance of the road
reconnaissance, the 80th Squardron F-105s arrived at the Nape bridge
short of fuel and managed only a hurried attack that missed the bridge.
The US Navy flew Barrel Roll 2 on 17 December, sending four conventional
A-1H strike aircraft escorted by eight F-.413 fighters on an armed recce
of Routes 121 and 12 south of MU Gia pass, with the Ban Boung Boa road
bridge as the fixed alternate. This force did not damage the bridge
but destroyed eight buildings 07, its f'astern end. Once again General
Moore personally briefed the lade-:-F rrica crews of Barrel Roll 3 which
committed four F-100 strike aircra t cf the TAC rotational )428th Tactical
Fighter Squardron to an armed rer..(1 o" Rnte 8 on 21 December. This
strike force was lightly armed CLU-,?As and 2.75-inch rockets, but it
became disoriented after striking a'flak position, ran low on fuel, and
did not find a secondary target. filter an analysis of the first two USAF
Barrel Roll missions, General LeMay sent ,lord to General Moore that he
expected higher professionalism, ern tholgh the restrictions affecting
the missions were very complex. Aldbassador Sullivan was also critical
of the destruction of buildings at Ban Boung Boa by the Navy pilots of
during Barrel Roll 2; although the buildings were part of a supply area
targeted for T-28 attack, Sullivan pointed out that they were hit by
mistake, could have been friendly civilian dwellings, and demanded that
fixed installations should be struck only in connection with attacks on
clearly identified military personnel or When prebriefed as secondary
targets. In preparation for Barrel Roll 14, the PACAF 14)4th Squardron
deployed six F-105s from Okinawa to Da Nang and sent four of them on a
Christmas Day armed reconnaissance of Route 23 and a strike against the
military barracks'at Tchepone. This mission went well, though the dive
bombing attack at Tchepone was considered generally inaccurate. On
30 December, four US Navy A-ills were the strike nircraft on a reconnaissance
of Route 9 and successfully manageo an attack against the Communist military
camp designated as the secondary otjecti (361)
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In each of the weekly submissions of Barrel Roll recommendations to
the Secretary of Defense for consideration by the NSC Principals during
December, the Joint Chiefs of Staff accepted and included General LeMay's
urging that CINCPAC should be authorized to select the reconnaissance
routes and alternate targets for all missions in coordination with Ambassador
Sullivan, that a minimum of two day and two night armed reconnaissance
missions (each with a minimum of four strike sorties) should be scheduled
each week, that the missions ought to be launched from Thai bases, and
that Barrel Roll operations should be approved on a two-week or longer
basis rather than on weekly schedules.(362) For the week of 4.-10 January
1965 a USAF night armed reconnaissance was authorized along Route 7, and
General Moore made preparations to lay on the mission employing a C-130
flare dropping aircraft and F-100 Night Owl strike aircraft, the F-100s
being selected because the B-57 crews who were being trained for night
operations at Clark Air Base were not yet qualified. General Maddux,
however, objected that such a mission was premature, and Barrel Roll 7
was postponed until the C-130/F-100 combination could make several
practice missions.(363) As a result of the postponement, the 2d Air Division
did not fly a Barrel Roll mission on the week of 4.-10 January. For the
week 12-17 January, the NSC Principals authorized a larger day effort for
USAF and a night mission for the US Navy. The USAF mission authorized
up to 15 strike aircraft and 8 aircraft for flak suppression against the
Ban Ken highway bridge on Route 7, and the US Navy mission was to be a
night armed reconnaissance along Route 23, with the Tchepono southeast
military area designated as the secondary.target. The US Embassies in
Saigon and Vientiane promptly protested that secondary targets should not
be designated for night attack because of the danger of mistaken identifica-
tion; Admiral Sharp was unwilling to accept this as a general rule but
he agreed to cancel the Tchepone military area because it was too close
to civilian houses. (36)..)
The American intelligence community in Vientiane had long considered
the Ban Ken bridge to be the most significant potential choke-point on
Route 7, and the Communists obviously agreed with the assessment since
photography showed that the bridge was defended by 34. antiaircraft weapons
(37/57-mm), with up to 70 additional firing positions Which had been built
but were not occupied. Because of the flak, Yankee Team and earlier Barrel
Roll missions had been directed to avoid the Ban Ken area, and 2d Air Division
mission planning for Barrel Roll 9 gave proper deference to the target defenses.
The 2d Air Division scheduled an RF-101 as pathfinder and another RF-101 for
BDA, eight F-100s loaded with CBU-2As for flak suppression, and 16 F-105s of
the 44th and 67th Tactical Fighter Squardrons as strike aircraft, the plan
being that the two flights of F-100s would fly low-level and line abreast across
the flak positions and knock them out with cluster bombs and immediately after
this the F-105s would attack the bridge. The first eight F-105s were each
loaded with eight 750-pound bombs, but since weaponeering predicted only a
two-thirds probability that the bridge could be destroyed with iron bombs
the second eight F-105s were each loaded with six bombs and two AGM-12B
Bullpup air-ground missiles, the concept being that the guided missiles would
increase the probability of target destruction. An Air America C-123 was
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assigned to serve as the airborne rescue control aircraft for rescue
helicopters. The concentration of mission aircraft at Da Nang probably
advertised the impending strike to the 'Communists, and the mission was
weathered out on 12 January, giving the North Vietnamese an additional
time to make preparations. Under Yankee Team constraints, Washington
had to be given 36-hours notice of a reconnaissance mission, making it
next to impossible to get immediate pre-strike photography for the
delayed Ban Ken mission, and in the interval between the most recent
Yankee Team photos and the strike time the North Vietnamese shuffled a
part of their weapons to other prepared positions outside the areas to
be covered by the F-100s. As a result when the strike began on 13 January,
the F-100s hit the prebriefed flak positions very well but other weapons
continued to fire. The first wave of F-105s and the F-100s continued to
make multiple passes on the flak eMplacements. One F-100 was shot down
on a fifth pass, and in view of their mixed ordnance each of the second-
wave F-105s had to make three passes to expend their weapons. The F-1058
also had to go down into the range of the flak gums to control their
AGM-12As to targets, and one of the F-105s was shot down. Both downed
pilots were picked up by Air America helicopters ,but the strike cost
two aircraft and damages to four others. In his critique, General Moore
stated that the strike aircraft should have withdrawn promptly when the
bridge was destroyed, thus escaping the losses.(365) Although Vientiane
had predicted that the Ban Ken bridge would be almost impossible to by-
pass, the Communists had no such difficulty; within three days they
pressed the top of a dam immediately up-river from the bridge into use
as a by-pass and traffic along Route 7 continued(366) The loss of the
two aircraft was revealed in a press report and proved embarrassing in
Washington where Senator Wayne Morse Charged that Lao air strikes were
in violation of the 1962 Geneva Agreement.(367)
In a continuation of day Barrel Roll armed reconnaissance missions
the Seventh Fleet ran successful road sweeps on 2 and 10 January without
finding enemy vehicles, but Barrel Roll 10 on the 15/16 January committed
six A-1Hs, for a night armed reconnaissance along Route 23. In the course
of this mission, the flight leader of the first section became separated
from the flare plane and, in looking for him, wandered west of Route 23
and over friendly territory. The flight leader sighted moving trucks
and attacked them and adjacent buildings in what turned out to be the
friendly village of Ban Tang Val. Ambassador Sullivan promptly visited
General Ma to express regret and promise restitution to the six persons
wounded in the mistaken attack. Ma received the regrets politely but
insisted that the mistake seriously weakened the good will of the villagers,
who had first believed that the strike had been made by the Communists in
retaliation for their cooperation with the Lao government. As a result
of the incident, Ma made good his deMands that Barrel Roll missions south of
Route 9 should be confined to the area east of Route 23, thus making the
southern end of Route 23 the exclusive preserve of the RLAF. Ma also
insisted that "targets of opportunity" should be limited to vehicle and
troop movements on or very near the roads, since activities off the roads were
not apt to be hostile.(368) The incident also confirmed Ambassador Sullivan's
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judgment that secondary targets should not be assigned for night armed
reconnaissance missions. As a result the previously assigned secondary
target was cancelled when the 2d Air Division accomplished the delayed
Barrel Roll 7 night mission over Route 7 on 23 January. This mission
demonstrated the feasibility of the use of a C-130 to drop flares to
illuminate the route for four F-100s, but the mission did not sight
any hostile vehicles and did not expend any ordnance.(369)
By 21 January, Admiral Sharp conceived that the miniscule.Barrel Roll
effort, conducted on a minimum risk basis under tight direction from
Washington, had demonstrated that an air interdiction program could be
run in Laos, if anyone wanted such a program. Sharp insisted that a
militarily effective interdiction had to be responsive to the tactical
situation and be continuous and comprehensive.(370) General Harris
agreed that Barrel Roll had left much to be desired militarily, and, in
addition, he saw no evidence that it was having anything more than a
relatively minor psychological impact on Ranoi.(371) In a political
analysis, Ambassador Sullivan felt that the early Barrel Roll operations
did not convey a meaningful, steady signal to Hanoi because they jumped
around without an understandable pattern.(372) The Joint Chiefs of Staff
suggested that the Barrel Roll missions could be militarily more effective
if planning and coordination originated in Vientiane, thus permitting use
of fastbreaking local target intelligence. This view was reinforced by the
loss of nine T-28s parked at Vientians in an accidental explosion on
21.1 January, since it was possible that US aircraft would be called upon to
perform some of the missions which were being flown by the Lao T-28s.(373)
This emergency did not immediately materialize, however, since CINCPAC
arranged an immediate transfer of ten replacement T-28s so that there was
no substantial break in Lao T-28 capabilities. Even though the initial
Barrel Roll effort was militarily ineffective, US air missions--in context
with other US support--may have provided political strength to Souvanna
Phouma at a critical juncture on 31 January-3 February, when the Lao
government withstood an armed coup led by General Phoumi Nosavan, who was
defeated and exiled to Rangoon, thus removing a troubling influence. from the
scene. As this crisis was resolved, a joint US State-Defense directive on
3 February informed all parties concerned that Washington would continue to
exercise final control over Barrel Roll missions but would receive suggested
objectives from Vientiane through CCMUSMACV. Rapid air responses against
targets developed by immediate intelligence in Laos would continue to be
handled by Lao T-28s.(374)
In the same weeks of December 19614 that the limited US air action in
Laos failed to influence Hanoi's political decision or military capabilities
for escalation of the Southeast Asian war, the effectiveness of the Saigon
govelliwent continued to dwindle, and, in the words of General Vo Nguyen Giap,
the Vietcong triumphantly turned from guerrilla warfare to mobile warfare.
Ambassador Taylor's warnings that Washington wanted the political situation
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in South Vietnam stabilized were apparently not taken seriously by
General Khanh and the "Young Turk" generals allied with him, these
including Ky; the commander of the Vietnamese navy, Chung Tan Cang;
Nguyen Chanh Thi, the I CTZ commander, and Brig General Nguyen Van
Thieu. Allegedly to advise him as CINCRVNAF, Khanh established the
Armed Forces Council on 18 December, and on 20 December, led by Ky
and Thi, the Armed Forces Council staged a partial coup against the
provisional civil government of Vietnam. The High National Council,
which had been serving as a provisional civil assembly, was dissolved,
and some of its members were arrested. All legislative powers were
vested in the figure-head Chief of State Suu, and Premier Huong was
instructed to convene a national constitutional convention within
three months. In a meeting with Nk, Cang, Thi, and Thieu on 20 December,
Ambassador Taylor strongly protested the coup, and after this the
relations between Khanh and Taylor were very strained. Rumors were
spread that Taylor had demanded that Khanh resign and leave the country,
that Khanh would be replaced with General Duong Van Minh, and that the
US advisors were going to take command of the RVNAF forces. At this
point there was a likely prospect that the feeble Saigon government
might yield to elements who would negotiate a cease-fire, form a coalition
with the NLF, and invite the US military advisors to leave. (375)
In the course of events up until December 196h the widespread
illusion that the conflict in Vietnam was a ground war in which
aviation could be expected to make only secondary supporting
contributions had worked against any maximization of the intrinsic
capabilities of tactical airpower.(376) Viewed in retrospect, it
was evident that a proper development and employment of tactical
airpower could have been the most important means of preventing the
guerrilla war in Vietnam from developing into a war of movement. (377)
As it was, however, the relatively small VNAF and USAF capabilities
were a major factor in preventing the ARVN from being defeated piecemeal
in ground battles that mounted in intensity throughout South Vietnam
during December. In battles early in the month the Vietcong tactics
included the usual initial attack on a government position, ambush of
relief forces, plus a new determination to stay and fight set-piece
engagements. The latter undertaking made the enemy troops vulnerable to
air attacks when they could be managed properly with limited forces.
On 7 December some two battalions of Vietcong attacked the An Lao district
headquarters in Binh Dinh province and subsequently ambushed government
relief forces. In three-day battle friendly losses included 28 killed, 50
wounded, and 22 missing. VNAF 516th Squadron A-1Hs were called into
action on 9 December and left 33 enemy dead, a substantial portion of the
100 enemy casualties estimated as taken in the fighting. On this same day
near Tam Ky in Quang Tin province, a Vietcong battalion attacked and overran
a battalion command post and 105-mm howitzer platoon. The enemy troops
attempted to regain the hill outpost position, where they were engaged by a
government reaction force. During the day, the VNAF 516th Squardron made
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18 A-1H strikes with napalm, rockets, bombs, and cannon in an excellent
display of tactical air support under the direction of an 0-1A pilot and
observer who were in the air for a total of ten hours. The last flight
of four A-1Hs landed at Da Nang after sunset When the ceiling was less
than 500 feet and visibility was less than a mile. The position was retaken
and 162 Vietcong were confirmed killed (including 85 by air) while friendly
losses were 26 killed and 44 wounded.(378) On the night of 10 December, two
Vietcong battalions attacked outposts at Long My in Chung Thien province and
on the following two days ambushed relief forces. The first ambush was broken
up when an Army L-19 and Air Force 0-1F located it and put four covering
A-1Es on the enemy's camouflaged foxholes, but other ambushes were successful.
In the roiling fights, US Army helicopters from Soc Trang held off the enemy
until VNAF A-1H flights could arrive and deliver ordnance in the face of intense
ground fire that shot down an A-1H and damaged three fighters and five helicop-
ters. Except for the close cooperation between the A-1Hs and the armed
helicopters an ARVN battalion and regional force company could well have been
overwhelmed, but instead the closely cooperating A-is and armed helicopters
were credited with killing some 400 of the 1,500 Vietcong engaged on 11 and
12 December. (379) The day-time Vietcong attacks were accompanied by a rising
tempo of night attacks against hamlets and outposts, which soared to a new
intensity following 20 December, when the Vietcong celebrated the anniversary
of the creation of the National Liberation Front. During the month 96 outposts
and hamlets were supported by flare and strike aircraft, and 94. of the attacks
were broken off. Although still under test, the AC-47 gunships joined the air
'alerts against night attack and performed excellently in hamlet defense. On the
night of 24. December, for example, an AC-47 used its miniguns to blast
guerrillas off the wall of a fort which the Vietcong were attempting to
storm. (380)
On Christmas Eve, Vietcong terrorists detonated a 300-pound explosive
charge in the Brink Hotel bachelor officers quarters for US advisors in down-
town Saigon, killing two Americans and wounding over 100. This provocation was
deliberately aimed at the United States, but an even more serious crisis was
shaping up in Phuoc Tuy province, about 40 miles southeast of Saigon. In
preparation for mobile warefare, the Vietcong had formed the 9th Division in War
Zones C and D during the autumn and had shifted the division's regiments to Xuyen
Moc in eastern Phuoc Tuy where they rendezvoused with seaborne deliveries of new
automatic weapons and prepared for field service. During the night of 27/28
December, two 9th Division regiments attacked and overran the new life hamlet
of Binh Gia. On the morning of 28 December, a reinforced ARVN Ranger battalion,
supported by three armed helicopters, attempted to relieve the hamlet but made
no progress. During the night of 28/29 December three of the Ranger companies
were attacked by the Vietcong at the town of Ngai Clap, and the AOC received the
first request for air support at 1950 hours. The AOC committed a VNAF C-47 flare
ship and one of the AC-47 gunships, the latter providing minigun fire support
for an hour and twenty-one minutes, after which the Rangers reported the
attack had been broken off. (381) On the morning of 29 December the Ranger
companies moved out of Ngai Giao toward Binh Gia while 24 US Army
CH-lBs, supported by 15 armed UH-lBs airlifted two companies of the 33d
Battalion to a landing area near Binh Gia, where three of the helicopters
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were Shot down by intense snail arms and machine gun fire. One of the
Ranger companies fought its way to safety but the other was over-run.
There was no pre-planning coordination of tactical air support for the
heliborne operation, and fighters were not requested until 1430 hours,
after the three helicopters had been shot down. These eight A-1E sorties
provided cover for the downed UH-IBs and expended their ordnance around
the crash site. During the day, four VNAF H-34s lifted ammunition into the
area and evacuated wounded. A C-47 flareship kept the area illuminated
on the night of 29/30 December. On 30 December the 2d and lith Marine
Battalions were lifted into the area by 26 UH-Bs, once again covered by
15 armed UH-IBs. Eight of the helicopters were hit by intense fire and one
exploded, killing the crew. On the afternoon of 30 December, four A-lEs
and five A-1Hs responded to requests and struck two locations in the rubber
forests surrounding Binh Gia which reportedly sheltered two Vietcong
battalions. During the day, eight VNAF H-34s airlifted 34 killed and 49
wounded men. On the night of 30/31 December, one C-47 and four A-lEs and
one of the AC-47s provided illumination and fire support. (382)
On 31 December the 4th Marine Battalion fought its way into the rubber
forest Where the UH-1B had been shot down the day before, and the battalion
was shortly surrounded by an enemy force which for the first time was
identified from captured documents as the 58th Main Force Vietcong Regiment.
The Marine commander relayed requests for air support through the USAF FAC
overhead. The friendly positions were marked with smoke and surrounding
targets were hit with napalm and general purpose bombs by four A-lEs. In
mid-afternoon the Marine commander requested the airborne FAC to get eight
more AlEs to attack enemy troops that were digging in around him. The
eight A-lEs were scrambled and dispatched to the battle area, where the
overall ARVN commander ordered them returned to Bien Hoa, statiDg that the
strikes were not necessary and that if air support were to be provided it
must be requested through ARVN channels. In the late afternoon, armed
helicopters attempted to strike the Vietcong, but US Marine Corps advisors
with the embattled battalion reported that the thick branches of the rubber
trees absorbed the rockets and machine gun fire of the helicopters. The
Vietcong attacked at dusk, using massed automatic weapons, and overwhelmed
the 4th Marine Battalion. During the night of 31 December/1 January, 3
C-47s, 2 C-123s, 1 AC-47, and 4 A-ilBs provided flare/fire support, but only
232 of the 532 men of the 4th Marine Battalion managed to struggle back to
Binh Gia. (383)
On 1 January 1965, following the identification of the 58th Vietcong
Regiment and. the virtual destruction of the 33d Ranger and 4th Marine
Battalions, General Khanh took personal charge of a very large operation
set aftot in Phuoc Tuy province. The 1st and 3d Airborne Battalions were
flown from Tam Son Nhut to Vung Tau by C-123s and lifted into the battle
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area by helicopters, and on 2 January the 7th Airborne Battalion was
lifted directly from Bien Hoa by helicopters. These continuing operations.
were strongly supported by tactical fighters, which flew cover and escort,
landing zone preparations, and strikes against reported enemy positions.
On the afternoon of 5 January, eight A-].Es, each loaded with one Lazy Dog
( or Elda) XM-1.14 oannister as well as normal high explosive ordnance, first
employed the Lazy Dog missiles in combat drops against Vietcong troops who
were firing at US Army heliborne observers. The ARVN troops did not attempt
to enter the areas where the Lazy Dogs were dropped, but the US Army air
observers reported that after the drops they observed no personnel moving
and received no more ground fire. An intelligence report received on
8 January stated that 15 oxcart loads of dead and wounded Vietcong were
seen being carried away from the strike areas.(384) At General Khanhis
insistence the ARVN battalions continued to sweep through the safer areas
of Phuoc Thy province, with tanks and armored vehicles, and from 10 January
through 15 February a stib-ASOC of the III ASCC was manned at Vung Tau to
manage continuing air support for the massive sweeps, which accomplished
next to nothing since the Vietcong evaded ground contact. (385)
Immediately after the bombing of the Brink Hotel, Ambassador Taylor,
Admiral Sharp, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended a US reprisal,
but President Johnson ruled against it on 29 December. The battle at
Binh Gia provided a "highly visible" defeat of serious proportions, and,
on 31 December, Ambassador Taylor, Deputy Ambassador Johnson, and General
Westmoreland sent a joint message to Washington expressing their assessment
that the United States should go ahead with air actions against North Vietnam,
despite weaknesses in the Saigon government. In the next several weeks, US
policy was under survey and was being affected by somewhat varying estimates
of the situation in Vietnam. (386)
Analysis of the Binh Gia defeat immediately following the event revealed
the defects in coordination of planning for tactical air support of heliborne
operations and failure properly to utilize available fixed-wing air support.
The 2d Air Division rationalized that the inability of the armed helicopter
to provide effective firepower was adequately demonstrated, and the immediate
MACV J-3 report of the Binh Gia battle stated that "the armed UH-1B did not
possess heavy enough ordnance to destroy the VC's in prepared positions or
deter their assault, since they were concealed under a complete canopy of
trees.?(387) The defeat at Binh Gia also served to focus attention on
available air strike resources. In the first days of 1965, available strike
aircraft in South Vietnam numbered 4.8 USAF A-1Es and 92 A-1Hs, the combined
force being capable of about 60 combat and 30 training sorties a day. As
has been seen, USAF A-1E combat capabilities were reduced by the necessity
to carry a Vietnamese national, and VNAF combat capabilities were less than
maximum because of several factors, one of the more important being Air Vice
Marshal Kyte concenawith politics and neglect of operational matters. The
elite "Palace Guard" alert force of at least five VNAF A-1Hs kept constantly
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ready at Tan Son Nhut, reduced VNAF strike potential. Although individual
VNAF strike areas had performed valiently in December crises, commanders of
VNAF air units in the I and CTZs displayed growing independence. Thus the
VNAF 62d Wing had been established at Pleiku to support the II CTZ, but the
Vietnamese airmen had never liked this remote station in the central high-
lands. In the first week of January the 62d Wing took advantage of the fact
that work on a new runway would begin during February and elected to move
immediately to Nha Trang. The detachment of 516th Squadron A-1Hs accompanied
the move, and with their relocation to Nha Trang the A-is were too far distant
to provide effective support in the critically important highland provinces,
including Pleiku and Kontum.(388)
In the immediate aftermath to Binh Gia, Ambassador Taylor was in favor
of employing the USAF B-57s that were at Bien Hoa for added air support and
indefinitely postponing organization of the fifth and sixth VNAF fighter
squadrons, thus allowing VNAF to concentrate on operations in a very
critical period. (389) In a more far-reaching proposal on 12 January, PACAF
published a broadly conceived study of VNAF/USAF tactical strike aircraft
requirements, posing the need for 13 tactical strike squadrons in Vietnam
(including seven USAF jet squadrons), for additional USAF ALOs and TACPs in
order to extend direct air support nets to province (sector) chief levels,
and for a total of 175 USAF and VNAF 0-1s, with more to be required if
continuous visual air reconnaissance were authorized.(390) General Westmoreland
considered that the helicopter gunships "performed magnificently" in the battle
of Binh Gia but that additional firepower was urgently needed to cope with
the heavily armed enemy regiments. Westmoreland was also intensely interested
in getting saturation bombing attecks against enemy strongholds. Early in
January, the MACV J-3 division--working without advice from the 2d Air
Division--drew up an air requirements study which visualized the employment
of US Navy carrier-based aircraft And USAF Strategic Air Command B-52s in
support of operations within South Vietnam. This study justified the
employment of aircraft from out-of.country because of the
scarcity of airfields in South Vietnam, the inability of ARVN forces
to provide security against Vietcong attack at the existing airfields,
and the logistical difficulties of moving air ordnance and aviation
fuel to the airfields in South Vietnam. (391)
In recognition of the vulnerability of the South Vietnamese airfields
to Vietcong attack, the USAF had proposed on 9 December that US ground
combat forces should be introduced into South Vietnam for airfield protection
if Admiral Sharp determined it were necessary. The other US service
representatives disagreed, the Navy and Marines because it was contrary to
policy and the Army because up to four divisions would be required to provide
static defense of 18 operating locations.(392) As soon as General Moore
learned of the MACV J-3 air requirements study, he prntested that it was a
violation of General Westmoreland's often voiced statement of policy that
the 2d Air Division would provide the MACV staff with assistance and advice
on air matters, this in view of the fact the MACV staff was not adequately
manned with Air Force expertise. At a briefing for General Westmoreland on
2/4 January, the 2d Air Division presented a requirements concept following
the lines outlined by PACAF.(393)
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While the air requirements were under study, the MACV military
evaluation of effectiveness took heart .from the observation that the
Vietcong appeared after Binh Gia to have been unready to continue
to wage conventional war. With political stability and durability,
the RVNAF appeared capable of initiative and of significant advances
in accomplishing the military tasks of counterinsurgency. (39L) A
MACV immediate press release issued in January on the increased use of
air power in Vietnam estimated that 2,500 Vietcong were killed by air
in November and December 1964.(395) This press release raised the
question as to whether more strike planes were required. During
January, VNAF/USAF A-is flew 2,339 combat operational sorties, and
every request for close air support was filled. On the other hand,
approximately 50 percent of the total requests for all categories of
air activity were not filled, but here it was estimated that if the
total sortie capability of VNAF/USAF (4,550 strike sorties) had not
been reduced by operational restrictions all tactical air requirements
could have been met.(396)
In a test of saturation bombing during the three days starting on
19 January, VNAF and USAF A-is dropped 800 tons of high explosives on
pre-planned targets in the Boi Loi woods of Zone D, and following the
bombing Ranch Hand aerial spray-equipped C-123s began a massive defoliation
program against the 4.8-square miles of dense forest at Bol Loi that was
considered the cover for a major Vietcong base. This consumed a large
proportion of VNAF-USAF strike capabilities. In Operation Tien Giang 3/65
conducted on 26 January near Ap Bac, two ARVN battalions surrounded an
nemy battalion, an, in combined helicopter gunship and A-1 strikes,
tactical air accounted for half of the estimated 00 enemy killed in the one-day
action.(397) Late in January, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff found some
optimism as they examined the use of US aircraft, and on 27 January they
obtained approval only for a restrictive arrangement whereby US jet aircraft
could be employed in a strike role within South Vietnam provided Ambassador
Taylor concurred prior to each action and also provided such strikes were
beyond the capability of VNAF A-is. Under this formula, Ambassador Taylor
was willing to approve jet air strikes only when US lives were at stake or
in order to spoil attacks launched by masses of Vietcong, as had been the
case at Binh Gia. Under these arrangements, US jets could be employed
provided an ASOC certified that conventional aircraft were not available
and with successive approvals by a CTZ commander, the Vietnamese JGS,
COMUSMACV, and the US Ambassador.(398)
During January, President Johnson did not appear to wish to undertake
air actions against North Vietnam, even though the continued decline in
effectiveness of the Saigon government strongly indicated in Washington
that something had to be done to raise South Vietnamese morale.(399)
On 9 January, General Khanh promised military support for the Huong
government, but militant Buddhist opposition to Prime Minister Huong
sealed his fate, and, on 27 January, Khanh and the Armed Forces Council
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took over the Government of Vietnam and shortly afterward installed an
old nationalist, Dr. Phan Huy Quat, as premier. (1400) On 23 January,
William Bundy spoke of a negotiation in terms of the 1954. Geneva Accords
as being "the answer" for an independent and secure South Vietnam, and
on 4. February a Presidential fact-finding mission headed by McGeorge
Bundy, Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, arrived in
Saigon with instructions to take a fresh look at the situation from
which President Johnson expected recommendations either to move ahead
in more vigorous ways or else begin a process of American disengagement.
The Soviets also appeared to make a gesture looking toward negotiations.
In a redirection of Soviet policy following Khrushchevis overthrow in
October 196/4, Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin had been attempting to
restore Russian ties with Hanoi. On 6 February, Kosygin arrived in
Hanoi, where--according to the Red Chinese--he hoped to persuade Hanoi
to halt military aid to the Vietcong as a precondition to peace talks
with the United States.(L401)
At the critical juncture when it appeared possible that new Geneva-
type international negotiations might be in the offing, the Vietcong--
acting, according to intelligence available to Secretary McNamara, on
directions from Hanoi--orchestrated a series of attacks specifically
designed to inflict casualties on Americans. At 0200 hours on Sunday
morning, 7 February, Vietcong mortar squads and demolition teams
simultaneously attacked the II CTZ headquarters compound and Camp Holloway
at Pleiku, killing eight Americans and wounding 126 others. On the
afternoon of 7 February US Navy aircraft and on 8 February VNAF-USAF
aircraft flew Flaming Dart I reprisals against barracks and staging areas
in the southern reaches of North Vietnam. On 10 February, the Vietcong
blew up an American barracks at Qui Nhon, killing 23 Americans and
wounding 21 others. Executed on 11 February, Flaming Dart II sent US
Navy, VNAF, and USAF aircraft against other troop barracks in the North
Vietnamese panhandle. Coincident with Flaming Dart I, PACAF air
transports lifted USMC light antiaircraft missile units from Okinawa to
Da Nang and commenced withdrawal of US dependents from South Vietnam. (i02)
In addition to the intensive attacks against Americans on 7-10
February, ARVN control quickly deteriorated in all of the CTZs. A
major Communist offensive forged across Route 19 between Pleiku and
Qui Nhon enveloping ARVN defense troops, and on 8 February the enemy
decimated two battalions of the ARVN 40th Regiment and a troop of
M-115 armored personnel carries in Vinh Binh province. On 8 February,
four A-lEs dropped Lazy Dogs against enemy concentrations surrounding
an ARVN battalion on Route 19, and US Army advisors estimated that 100
enemy troops were killed by the small free-falling winged bullets. In
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this same area on the night of 8/9 February, an AC-47 gunship fired
20,500 rounds of 7.62 mm ammunition. An ARVN sergeant, who escaped
from the Vietcong after the minigun strike, had seen 80 to 90 bodies
and estimated as many as 250 of the enemy were killed by the AC-47
attack. In a move to shore up II CTZ defenses, General Moore ordered
a detachment of eight A-lEs to Qui Nhon on 13 February. Colonel Bethea
considered operating conditions at Qui Nhon to be "unsafe in every
respect," but, operating at close range to the scene of action, the
A-1E pilots each flew at least three strike sorties a day, and the
small detachment may have been the major factor in the blunting of
the enemy offensive.(403)
Although the major Communist offensive was taking place on the
Pleiku-Qui Nhon axis across central South Vietnam, Saigon was endangered
by the Vietcong 9th Division, which had at least two well-armed regiments
under forest cover in Phuoc Thy province. The full dimensions of this
threat were apparent on 16 February, when a US Army helicopter pilot
discovered and VNAF A-1Hs sank a steel-hulled vessel at Vung Ro bay,
leading to discovery of 100 tons of weapons and ammunition in a nearby
cove at Cap Varella. This incident solved the mystery of haw the Vietcong
were getting modern weapons, and would lead to the US Seventh Fleet's
"Market Time" naval patrols off South Vietnam. Meanwhile, on 17 February
General Westmoreland secured emergency authority to begin USAF B-57
light bomber attacks against Vietcong 9th Division base camps in Phuoc Yen
which were pinpointed under forest cover by infrared air reconnaissance.
This authority to use USAF jets was quite important two days later when
Saigon's defenses were gravely reduced by a dissident ARVN revolt against
General Khanh and Prime Minister Quat. The coup battalions seized Saigon
and captured a part of Tan Son Nhut in an effort to ground Ky's anti-coup
force. Once again, icy used VNAF A-1Hs as a force for stability, and VNAF
C-47s brought loyal troops under General Thi from the I CTZ to clear
Saigon of the rebels on 20 February. Previously Ky and Thi had kept
Khanh in power, but now the Armed Forces Council removed Khanh as CINCRVNAF
and sent him out of the country. At the same moment that the coup crisis
was at its height on the afternoon of 19 February, 24B-57s of the 8th and
13th Bomb Squadrons flew the first USAF in-country mission and bombed
Vietcong base camps in Phuoc Tuy. The B-57s continued to attack in Phuoc
Thy on 21-24 February, while Ky held most of the VNAF A-1Hs out of combat
operations in an extensive countercoup alert.(40)3)
On 13 February, President Johnson authorized the beginning of sustained
Rolling Thunder air attacks against North Vietnam. The beginning of these
operations was delayed by the attempted coup in Saigon, but, by 21 February,
General Westmoreland judged that the United States was "fully committed to
winning the war in Vietnam" and indicated that he was ready to make more and
more use of USAF jet aircraft within South Vietnam, to restore US markings
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on the USAF A-lEs, and eliminate the requirement for Vietnamese observers
in the A-lEs. The requirement for US. jet air support materialized on
2).; February, when an elite Communist battalion, apparently newly arrived in
the central highlands, surrounded an ARVN Ranger company and a CI DG company
on Route 19 in the An Khe valley near the Mang Yang pass through the central
mountains, approximately the same site where the Vietminh had destroyed a
French mobile group in 19514. Westmoreland used his emergency authority and
authorized an all-American relief effort in which US Army UH-lBs would extract
the surrounded men with cover and support by F-100s, B-57s, and A-lEs. The
covering attacks by 613th Tactical Fighter Squadron F-100s, 405th Tactical
Wing B-57s, and 602d Air Commando Squadron A-lEs cost the enemy 150 men
killed and permitted the UH-lBs to make three lifts into the objective
area and to extract the 220 officers and men who--in the assessment of
Colonel Theo C. Ataxis, US Army II CTZ advisor--otherwise would have been
lost, all without a single friendly casualty.(L05)
The employment of the USAF B-57s and F-100s marked the beginning of
the end of the long "US combat advisory" phase of the Indochina war.
Effective on 1 March, the new CINCRVNAF, Major General Tran Van Minh,
issued the long awaited RVNAF High Command directive officially
establishing the VNAF air request net as the primary means to obtain
immediate air support for all regular and paramilitary requirements,
and VNAF agreed to drop the mandatory restriction that only a VNAF FAC
could mark targets for air strikes.(406) At General Moorets request,
General Westmoreland recommended removal of restrictions on the operations
of USAF air commando A-lEs. After approval by higher authority, the Joint
Chiefs of Staff on 9 March issued instructions that PACOM aircraft could
be used for operations in South Vietnam, provided that strikes into South
Vietnam were not launched from Thai airfields and that US aircraft should
not be used for strikes that could be executed by VNAF on a timely basis.
Air commando aircraft were now to be permanently marked with US insignia
and combat operations no longer required Vietnamese personnel aboard the
US aircraft.(407) On 12 March, PACAF completed a new tactical air require-
ments study which include a requirement for three additional USAF squadrons
of 0-1s to be employed for expanded forward air control and saturation
surveillance purposes as well as a need for additional jet fighter squadrons
to be based in South Vietnam. In a military survey of the Vietnam situation
for the Joint Chiefs early in March, the US Army Chief of Staff, General
Harold K. Johnson, recommended that requirements for additional jet fighters be
given further study but recommended the three additional USAF 0-1 squadrons
for maximum air surveillance. This recommendation was approved by President
Johnson on 15 March.(408) These decisions to terminate the combat advisory
phase of American support and to permit US air operations within South
Vietnam were not lightly taken, since they involved an Americanization of
South Vietnam's war. In the spring of 1965, however, there appeared to be
509
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little other choice. North Vietnamese regular forces had entered the war
and the military problem included both insurgency and clearcut
aggression from North Vietnam.
510
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FOOTNOTES
Chapter 1
1. The Public Pa ers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt:
Victory an t e hreshold o eace'sew or : Harper & Brothers, 1950),
pp. 562-563.
2. Cordell Hull, The Memoirs of Cordell Hull (New York: The
MacMillan Co., 1948), v;17-7-557-177:977--------
3. Ibid., pp. 1600-01; Maj Gen Muir S. Fairchild's reference
file for San Francisco UN Conference, Tab: Dependent Territories.
4. Memoirs of Cordell Hull, vol. 2, p. 1598.
S. US Department of State, The Conferences at Malta and Yalta 1945
(Washington: GPO, 1955), p. 770.
6. 82d Cong. 1st Sess., Military Situation In the Far East,
Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on
Poreign Relations, U. S. Senate-TWashington: GPO, 1951), pt. 4,
pp. 2890-92.
7. Charter of the United Nations Re.ort to the President on the
Results o e an rancisco o arence ?y t e hairman of the ite
States Delegation, The Secretary of State (Washington: Department of
State Publication 2349, Conference Series 71, June 26, 1945), pp. 125-136.
8. 82d Cong. 1st Sess., Military Situation in the Far East,
pp. 2892-93.
9. Terminal Conference Papers and Minutes of Meetings, July 1945,
pp. 217-226, 252-253, 306; Marcel Vigneras, Rearming the French, United
States Army in World War II (Washington: Office of Chief of Military
History, 1957), pp. 396-399.
10, Supreme Allied Commander Southeast Asia, Dispatch, pt. IV-A,
pp. 520-538.
11. Charles de Gaulle, The War Memoirs of Charles de Gaulle, vol. 3,
Salvation, 1944-1946 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960), pp. 242-243
12. William C. Bullitt, "The Saddest War," Life, 29 Dec. 1947, pp. 64-69;
Allan B. Cole, ed., Conflict in Indo-China & Int;Mtional Repercussions, A
Documentary History,777195571Thrar?Cornell University Press, 1956),
pp. 83-84.
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13. Military Assistance Command (MACV) Hist. Monograph: Military
Assistance to the Republic of South Vietnam, 1960-1963, p. 2.
14. US Department of State, American Foreign Policy, 1950-1955
(Washington: GPO, 1957), pp. 2364-2365.
15. Ibid., p. 2365.
16. Public Papers of the Presidents: Harry S. Truman, 1950
(Washington: GPO, 1965), P. 492; Public Papers of the Presidents:
Harry S. Truman, 1951 (Washington: GPO, 1965), pp. 74, 224-225.
17. Harry S. Truman, Memoirs, Years of Trial and Hope (Garden City,
Doubledak & Co., 1956), P. 353.
18. Unless otherwise Indicated this background description is drawn
from Project CORONA HARVEST, Physical and Cultural Environment of Southeast
Asia, 1 Nov. 1968 and Joint Army-Navy Intelligence Study #70: Indochina,
Oct. 1945.
19. The information regarding Thai air facilities is drawn from
Hqs. Army Air Forces Air Intelligence Report No. 100-85-55, An Air Study
of Siam, 13 Sept. 1946; Assistant Chief of Air Staff, Intelligence, Fifth
Air Force, Southeast Asian Brochure, 1955.
20. Harry S. Truman, Memoirs: Years of Trial and Hope (Garden
City: Doubleday & Co., 1956), PP. 93-109; Hist. Joint Military Mission
for Aid to Turkey, 1947 - 30 June 1950, Pp. 5-12; Concepts Division,
Aerospace Studies Institute, Air University, The Emz.loyment of Airpower
in the Greek Guerrilla Wer 1947-1949 (Maxwell AFB: Aerospace Studies
Institute, 1964), PP. 63-6
21. 81st Cong. 1st Sess., Mutual Defense Assistance Act of 1949,
Hearix?Igs before the Committee on Foreigh Affairs, House of Representatives
(-Washington: GPO, 1949), PP. 146-147; -oncepts Division ASI, Employment
of Airpower in the Greek Guerrilla Wer, pp. 63-64.
22. Misc. Correspondence File, U. S. Air Force Group, Turkey,
1947-1949; Hist. Joint Military Mission for Aid to Turkey. 1947 -
30 June 1950, p. 13.
23. 85th Cong. 1st Sess., Mutual Defense Assistance Act of 1949,
House of Representatives, p. 12.
24. 88th Cong. 1st Sess., Senate Document No. 36, The Ambassador
and the Problem of Coordination, A Study submitted by the Subcommittee on
National Security Staffing and Operations (Washington: GPO, 1963),
pp. 12, 53-58,
512
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25. Hist. of the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force,
Jul-Dec. 1951, pp. 148-174.
26. 88th Cong. 1st Sess., Senate Document No. 36, pp. 14-15.
27. 82d Cong. 1st Sess., Mutual Security Act of 1951, Hearings
before the Committee on Foreign Relations and the Committee on Armed
Services, U. S. Senate (Washington: GPO, 1951), pp. 530-568; Edgar
OtBallance, The Indo-China War 1945-1954 A Stu in Guerrilla Warfare
(London: Faber and aber, 1 p. 11 ? History 1020th US Special
Activities Wing, Apr.-June 1952.
28. US Dept of State, U. S. Treaties and Other International
Agreements, vol. 3 (4952), pt. 1, pp. 2756-2799.
29. Hqs. USAF, Air Order of Battle, 1 Apr. 1950; "Indochina:
Viet vs Viet," USAF Air Intelligence Digest, Apr. 1952, p. L.
30. Maurer Maurer, History of USAF Activities in Support of the
Mutual Defense Assistance Program (Wright-Patterson AFB: AMC Historical
Office, 195$, pp. 52-53.
31. Maurer. Maurer, History of USAF Activities in Support of the
Mutual Defense Assistance Program, Part II--1 July to 31 Dec. 1950
(Wright-Patterson AFB: AMC Historical Office, 1951), pp. 64-65, 80-81.
32. Maurer Maurer, History of USAF Activities in Support of the
Mutual Defense Assistance Program, Part III--1 Jan.-30 June 1951
(Wright-Patterson AFB: AMC Historical Office, 1952), pp. 138-139;
USAF Air Intelligence Digest, Apr. 1952, pp. 6-7.
33. Maurer Maurer, History of USAF Activities in Support of the
Mutual Defense Assistance Program, Part III, p. 261; 82d Cong. 1st
Sess., Mutual Security Act of 1951, U. S. Senate, pp. 530-568.
34. Public Papers of the Presidents, Harry S. Truman, 1951
(Washington: GPO, 1965), pp. 129-130; Truman, Years of Trial and Hope,
pp. 437-438.
35. Public Papers of the Presidents, Harry S. Truman, 1951, p. 267.
36. 82d Cong. 1st Sess., Mutual Security Act of 1951, U. S. Senate,
pp. 37, 530-568; Dwight D. Eisenhower, The White House Years: Mandate
for Change, 1953-1956 (Garden City: Doubleday & Co., 1963), PP. 336-337;.
US Dept of State, American Foreign Policy, 1950-1955 (Washington: GPO,
1957), pp. 2366-2367; Hist. Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Oprs., USAF,
July-Dec. 1951, p. 145.
5 3
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37. "Fledgling Air Force," USAF Air Intelligence Digest, June 1954,
pp. 14-17; Presentation of Lt. Col. R. E. Edwards, Chief, Materiel Branch,
MAAG Vietnam, in Rpt. Asian-MAP Logistic Conference, Dec 1958, pp. 154-160;
Capt. Mack D. Secord, "The Viet Nam Air Force," Air University Review,
Nov.-Dec. 1963, pp. 60-61; Maj. Oakah L. Jones, Jr., Organization, Mission
and Growth of the Vietnamese Air Force, 1949-1968. (Project CHECO Report,
8 Oct. 1965), pp. 1-3.
38. US State Dept msg. 36553, 18 Sep. 1951, quoted in FEC Intelli-
gence Summary No. 3298, 20 Sep. 1951, p. SEA-2; Dept of the Army, Asst
CofS G-2, Order of Battle Summary, Foreign Ground Forces, Jan. 1952, p. 115.
39. 82d Cong. 2d Sess., Mutual Security Act of 1952, Hearings before
the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate (Washington: GPO, 1952),
PP. 24, 93.
40. Ibid., pp. 790, 796.
41. US Dept of State, American Foreign Policy, 1950-1955 (Washington:
GPO, 1957), pp. 2367-2368.
42. Marcus G. Raskin and Bernard B. Fall, eds., The Viet-Nam Reader
(New York: Random House, 1965),p. 378.
43. "Air Attache Report: Indochina: Land of Destiny," USAF Air
Intelligence Digest, Mar. 1954, pp. 8-9; 85th Cong. 1st Sess., Senate
Document 52, Foreign Aid Program, Compilation of Studies and Surveys
Prepared under the Direction of the Special Committee to Study the
Foreign Aid Program, U.S. Senate (Washington: GPO, 1957), p. 907.
44. Dept of the Army, Asst CofS G-2, Order of Battle Summary,
Foreign Ground Forces, Oct. 1952, p. 69.
45. USAF Statistical Digest, FY-1953, p. 311.
46. GHQ United Nations and Far East Command, Intelligence
Summaries, 23 Oct. 1952, 25 Oct. 1952, 29 Oct. 1952, 8 Dec. 1952.
47. Hists. 24th Air Depot Wg., Sept-Dec. 1952, p. 50, and
Jan-June 1953, Appendix 7: History of Project Sea Dog.
48. GHQ United Nations and Far East Command, Intelligence Summary,
14 Nov. 1952.
49. Public Papers of the Presidents, Harry S. Truman, 1951,
(Washington: GPO, 1965), p. 269.
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50. 82d Cong. 1st Sess., Mutual Security Act of 1951, U. S. Senate,
pp. 530-568.
51. Hist. Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Opns, USAF, July-Dec. 1952,
pp. 89-90.
52. 82d Cong. 1st Sess., Mutual Security Act of 1951, U. S. Senate,
pp. 530-568.
53. Hist. Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Opns, USAF, Jan-June 1952,
pp. 139-140.
54. -Anthony Eden, The Memoirs of Anthony Eden: Full Circle
(Boston: Haughton Mifflin no, 1960), p. 92.
55. Truman, Years of Trial and Hope, p. 519.
56. Dwight D. Eisenhower, The White House Years: Mandate for Change,
1953-1956 (Garden City: Doubleday & Co., 1963)2 PP. 337-338, US Dept of
State, American Foreign Policy, 1950-1955, p. 2386.
57. 83d Cong. 1st Sess., Indochina: Report of Senator Mike Mansfield
on a Study Mission to the Associated States of Indochina, October 27, 1953
(Washington: GPO, 1953), p.7.-
58. "Laos and the Golden Buddha," USAF Air Intelligence Digest,
June 1953, pp. 30-34.
59. US Dept of State, American Foreign Polig, 1950-1955, pp. 2369-
2370; Hist. 24th Air Depot Wg., Jan.-June 19532 PP. 56-57 and appendix 8:
History of Project Swivel Chair.
60. US Dept of State, American Foreign Policy, 1950-1955, p. 2370.
61. Hist. Direc. of Plans, Dep CofS Opns., USAF, Jul.-Dec. 1953,
pp. 117-119; Hist. 315th Air Div. (Combat Cargo), Jan-June 1954, pp. 6-7.
62. Henri Navarre, Agonie de L'Indochine (1953-19;4 (Paris:
Librairie Plon, 1956), pp. 62-b6; Eisenhower, Mandate or Change, p. 338.
63. Bernard B. Fall, The Two Viet-Nams, A Political and Military
Analysis (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 2d ed., 1963)2 p. 122.
64. 83d Cong. 2d Sess., The Mutual Security Act of 1954, Hearings
before the Committee on Foreign ifairs House o Representatives
(Washington: GPO, 1954), PP. 6-7; see also se ower, Mandate for
Change, p. 338.
515
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65. US Dept of State, American Foreign Policy, 1950-1955, pp. 2371-
2372; 84th Cong. 2d Sess., Mutual Security Appropriations for 1957,
Hearings before the Committee on Appropriations, U. S. Senate (Washington:
GPO, 1956),p. 67.
66. Congressional Record, vol. 99, pt. 6, pp. 7622-7625.
67. Direc. of Hist. Services, FEAF, Far East Air Forces Support
of French Indo-China Operations, 1 July 1952-30 Sept. 1954, p. 35.
68. Hists., Asst for Mutual Security, Dep. CofS Materiel, USAF,
July-Dec. 1953, p. 158 and Jan.-June 1954, pp. 149-150, 173; rpt. Brig.
Gen. Albert G. Hewitt, Vice Commander Far East Air Logistics Force, to
Sec Def thru CofS USAF, subj: Report of Fact Finding Trip, 6 Apr. 1954.
69. Hist. Asst for Mutual Security, Dep. CofS Materiel, USAF,
Jan.-June 1954, pp. 174-175.
70. Rpt., Hewitt to Sec Def, 6 Apr. 1954.
71. Ibid.
72. Msg. MG-747-D2, C/MAAG Saigon to Hq USAF, 25 Mar. 1954; USAF
Summary of MDAP and Progress, vol. IV, no. 24, July 1954, p. 118; see also
FEAF Support of French Indo-China Operations, pp. 424,-'47. Unless otherwise
cited, the information in the remainder of this section is drawn from the
latter source, which is a detailed and comprehensive historical study.
73. Hist. Asst for Mutual Security, Dep. CofS Materiel, USAF,
July-Dec. 1953, pp. 45-46.
74. USAF Statistical Summary, Fiscal Year 1954, p. 187.
75. 315th Air Division, French Indo-China Participation, 1953-1954;
Hist. Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Opns., USAF, Jan.-June 19543 PP- 93-96.
76. Hists. Asst for Mutual Security, Dep. CofS, Materiel, USAF,
July-Dec. 1953, pp. 106-107 and Jan.-June 19543 PP- 25-263 142-143,
145-146; Hist. Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Opns., USAF, Jan.-June 1954,
pp. 93-96; ltr., FEAF to Comdr. Fifth AF, subj.:Implementation of Indo-
China MDA Programs to Assist in Achieving Success of the Navarre Plan,
10 Apr. 1954; FEAF Staff Section Monthly Historical Reports, Dep. for
Opns. Feb. 1954; ltr., Col. Robert L. Liles, Dep. for Opns, Far East Air
Logistics Force to Hist. Off. FEALOGFOR, subj: Narrative on FEAF
Participation in French Indochina, 15 July 1954.
516
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77. Hist. Asst for Mutual Security, Dep CofS Materiel, Jan.-June
1954, pp. 142-143: 146; ltr., Liles for Historian FEALOGFOR, 15 July 1954.
78. Rpt., Hewitt to Sec Def, 6 Apr. 1954.
79. Hist. Direc. of Plans, Dep CofS Opns, USAF, Jan-June 1954,
pp. 93-96; rpt., Hewitt to Sec Def, 6 Apr. 1954.
80. Hist. Asst for Mutual Security, Dep CofS Materiel, USAF,
Jan.-June 1954, P. 145; ltr., Liles to Hist. Off. FEALOGFOR, 15 July 1954;
Hq. 6424th Air Depot Wing Support to the French Air Force in French
Indo-China, 2 Feb. to 17 July 1954; Public Papers of the Presidents,
Dwight.D. Eisenhower, 1954 (Washington: GPO, 1960), p. 247.
81. Rpt., Hewitt to Sec Def, 6 Apr 1954.
82. US Dept of State, American Foreign Policy, 1950-1955,
pp. 2370-2371.
83. Ibid., pp. 80-85.
84. Richard Gould-Adams, The Time of Powert A Reappraisal of John
Foster Dulles (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 196), pp. 116-120;
ltr., Comdr FEAF to Comdr Fifth IF, Subj: Implementation of Indo-China
MDA Programs to Assist in Achieving Success of the Navarre Plan,
10 Apr, 1954,
85. 83d Cong. 1st Sess., Indochina, Report of Senator Mike Mansfield,
Oct. 27, 1953, p. 7.
86. Bernard B. Fall, The Two Viet-Namsp. 459-n.
87. John Robinson Beal, John Foster Dulles, 1888-1959 (New York:
Harper & Brothers, 1959), pp. fb-206; US Dept of State, American Foreign
Policy, 1950-1955, pp. 2372-2373.
88. "Indochina: 1945 to Dien Bien Phu," FEAF Intelligence Roundup,
Apr-May 1954, pp. 12-24.
89. Navarre, Agonie de L,Indochine, pp. 188-200.
90. FEAF Intelligence Roundup, Apr.-May, 1954, pp. 21-22.
91. Rpt. Captains Robert W. Hickey and Robert M. Lloyd to Dep. for
Intelligence FEAF, Subj: Report of Visit to Saigon, Indochina, 9 Mar.
1954, in FEAF Support of Indo-China Operations, II, doc. 47.
5i?
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92. FEAF Intelligence Roundup, Feb. 1954, p. 10.
93. FEAF Support of Indo-China Operations, I, pp. 73-75.
94. "Interview with Gen. Otto P. Weyland . . . Can Air Power Win
'Little Wars'?" U. S. News & World Report, 23 July 1954, pp. 54-61;
Flight interview with Weyland by Ken Leish, June 1960.
95. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, p. 339.
96. Navarre, Agonie de L'Indochine, pp. 214, 216.
97. Ibid., p. 217.
98. USAF Air Intelligence Digest, Mar. 1954, p. 11.
99. qndochina: France's Dilemma," USAF Air Intelligence Digest,
Apr. 1954, p. 29.
100. Navarre, Agonie de L'Indochine, p. 218; Dep. for Intel.
Thirteenth Ai'', IR-29-54, 19 July 1954; Air Attache Saigon, IR-142-54,
9 July 1954; 82d Cong. 2d Sess., The Mutual Security Act of 1954,
Hearings before the Committee on Poreign Affairs, House of Representatives
(Washington: GPO, 1954), pp. 9, 15, 18, 20.
101. FEAF Intelligence Roundup, June 1954, p. 40.
102. Hist. 483d Troop Carrier Wing, Jan-June 1954, P. 36.
103. Air Attache Saigon, IR-56-54, 23 Mar. 1954; Bernard B. Fall,
Street Without Joy, Insurgency in Indochina, 1946-1963 (Harrisburg:
The Stackpole Co., 3d Rev. ed., 1963), 1714, 317.
104. Hist. 315th Air Division (Combat Cargo), Jan-June 1954, pp. 26-27.
105. Dep. for Intel. Thirteenth AF, IR-29-54,- 19 July 1954.
106. Air Attache Saigon, IR-142-54, 9 July 1954.
107. Rpt., Lt. Col. William B. Sanders, Combt. Opns. Div., FEAF,
to Dep. for Opns., FEAF, Report of Observer Team Visit to French
Indo-China, 14 June 1954.
108. Jules Roy, The Battle of Dienbienohu (New York: Harper & Row,
1965), p. 155; Hist. Direc. of Plans, Dep. 'ofS Opns, USAF, Jan-June 1954,
pp. 90-92; Gen Matthew B. Ridgway, Soldier (New York: Harper & Brothers,
1956), p. 276; Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, p. 341.
518
?
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109. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, p. 341.
110. Roy, The Battle of Dienbienphu, pp. 194-195, 198; Victor Bates,
Vietnam, A Diplomatic Tragedy; The Origins of the United States Involvement
(Dobbs Ferry: Oceana Publications, 1965), pp. 30-35; Eisenhower, Mandate
for Change, p. 345. Royfs insistence that the 60 B-29's would hav7777-
armed with nuclear weapons is of course fantastic.
111. FEAF Intelligence Roundup, Apr.-May 1954, pp. 22, 24.
112. Roy, The Battle of Dienbienphu, pp. 214-215; Navarre, Agonie
de LtIndochine, p. 244.
113. Bernard B. Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of
Dien Bien Phu (Philadelphia: J. 3. Lippincott Co., 1967), p. 299.
114. Msg RL-1172, Air Deputy SHAPE to CINCUSAFE, 3 Apr. 1954; msg.
ECINC-1616-C, CINCUSAFE to Comdr. AF 17 et al., 3 Apr. 1954,
115. Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, p. 302; Roy, The Battle of
Dienbienphu, pp. 221-222.
116. Hist. Direc. of Opns., Dep. CofS Opns., USAF, Jan.-June 1954,
pp. 44-45.
117. Vital Speeches of the D?z, 15 Apr. 154, p. 387.
118. Eden, Full Circle, pp. 102-103.
119. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, p. 347; Beall, John Foster
Dulles, pp. 206-208.
120. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, p. 347.
121. 83d Cong. 2d Sess., The Mutual Security Act of 1954, pp. 9,
15, 18, 20.
122. Roy, The Battle of Dienbienphu, p. 224.
123. Hist. Direc. of Opns., Dep. CofS Opns, USAF, Jan-June 1954,
pp. 44-45.
124. Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, pp. 303-304.
519
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125. Hq. FEAF, Staff Study on Indo-China, subj: To Recommend a
Feasible Military Course of Action to Achieve U.S. Objectives in
Indochina, 13 Apr. 1954.
126. Msg. MG-650-D-1, Chief MAAG Saigon to Cmdr. FEAF, 18 Mar. 1954;
msg. Cmdr. FEAF to Chief MAAG, Saigon, n.d.
127. 315th Air Division (CC), French Indo-China Participation,
pp. 17-18.
128. Hist Sum., Armament Division, Dep. for Materiel, FEAF, Apr. 1954.
129. Hist. Direc. of Rqmts., Dep. for Qpns., FEAF, Apr. 1954, TAB C:
Standard Operational Procedures for use of Lazy Dog.
130. Msg. ADO-RQMTS-3551, FEAF to Chief MAAG SAIGON, 7 Apr. 1954;
msg. MG-969A, CH MAAG SAIGON to Comdr. FEAF, 9 Apr. 1954; msg. ADO-CO&T
3768, FEAF to CH MAAG Saigon, 15 Apr. 1954.
131. Rpt.,Sanders to Dep. for Qpns. FEAF, 14 June 1954.
132. Dep. for Intel. Thirteenth AF, IR-29-54, 19 July 1954.
133. Ltr., Gen. E. E. Partridge, Comdr FEAF to Gen. Henri Navarre,
CINC French Forces in Indo-China, Saigon, 19 Apr. 1954; Memo for Record
by Maj. Gen. Joseph D. Caldera (USAF-Ret.), subj: FEAF Bomber Command
Participation in the Battle for Dien Bien Phu--Middle Spring 1954, 8
Mar. 1966; ltr., Brig. Gen. Joseph D. Caldera, CG FEAF Bomber Command
(P), to Gen. Curtis E. LeMay, Hqs. Strategic Air Command, 30 Apr. 1954.
134. Memo for Record by Caldera, 8 Mar. 1966; Navarre, Agonie de
L'Indochine, p. 244.
135. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, pp. 349-350; Eden, Full Circle,
p. 116.
136. Memo for Record by Caldera, 8 Mar. 1966; ltr., Caldera to
LeMay, 30 Apr. 1954.
137. Ltr., Caldera to Maj. Gen. E. B. LeBailly, Dir of Information,
Off. of Secretary of AF, 8 Mar. 1966.
138. Hist. USAFE, Jan.-June 1954, III, Appendix VII B: Bali Hai
Data; Hist. 62d Troop Carrier wg., Jan.-June 1954; Hist. Asst. for
Mutual Security, Dep. CofS Materiel, USAF, Jan.-June 1954, p. 148.?
5 0
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139. Eisenhower, Mandate for Chan, p. 351.
140. Fall, Hell in a Very Sxal1 Place, p. 339.
141. Ltr., Sanders to Dep. for Opns. FEAF, 14 June 1954.
142. Rpt., Hewitt to Sec Def, 6 Apr. 1954.
143. Ibid., FEAF Intelligence Roundup, Aug. 1954, p. 8; L. S.
Waddell, "VETEg out for Charlie-One-One-Nine," Pegasus, Oct. 1955, p. L.
144. Ltr., Maj Edward S. Ash, et al., to Comdr, 315th Air Div.,
sUbji High Altitude Delayed Parabundle-trops, n.d., in 315th Air Div.,
French Indo-China Participation, doe. C-10.
145. Waddell, "Phase-Out for Charlie One-One-Nine," p. 4; Fall,
Hell in a Very Small Place, p. 340.
146. Ltr., Sanders to Dep. for Opns. FEAF, 14 June 1954.
147. Hist. 483d Troop Carrier Wg., Jan-June 1954, pp. 41, 54-55.
148. Ibid., p. 55: Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, p. 328.
149. Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, DD. 336-337.
150. Ibid., pp. 373-374; Hist. 483d Troop Carrier Wg., Jan.-June
1954, PP. 4377; Corey Ford, "The Flying Tigers Carry On," Saturday
Evening Post, 5 Feb. 1955, P.
24ff and 12 Feb. 195;p. 30 if.
151. Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, pp. 374-411, 431-432, 487.
152. Hist. Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Opns., USAF, Jan.-June 1954,
pp. 90-92.
153. Gen. Matthew B. Ridgway, Soldier (New York: Harper &
Brother, pp. 276-277; 89th Cong. 2d Sess., Supplemental Foreign
Assistance Fiscal Year 1966 -- Vietnam, Hearings before the Committee
on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate fWashington: GPO, 1966), pt. 1,
pp. 226, 234-235.
154. Gen. L. S. Kuter, Comdr. FEAF, Command and Control in
Asia-Pacific Area, Lecture to Air War College, 6 Mar. 1956, Hist.
Pacific Air Force, July-Dec. 1954, pp. 1-2.
155. Hist. Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Opns., USAF, Jan.-June 1954,
p. 13; Hist. Pacific Air Force, July-Dec. 1954, Pp. 1-9.
521
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156. Msg. CINCPAC to COMSEADVCOM, 28 Apr. 1954; CINCPAC
Operations Plan 56-54, 29 Apr. 1954.
157. Hist. Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Opns., USAF, July-Dec. 1953,
32-22.
PP?
158. Msg. VC-0212, COMFEAF to CofS USAF, 4 May 1954.
159. Msg. VC-0253, COMFEAF to CofS USAF, 20 May 1954.
160. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, p. 361.
161. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, pp. 361-362; msg. TS-9116,
Hq. USAF to COM FEAF, 22 May 1954.
162. Hist. Direc. of Plans and Policy, FEAF, 1-31 May 1954,
Msg. VC-0282, COMFEAF to CofS USAF, 7 June 1954.
163. Msg., VC-0282, COMFEAF to CofS USAF, 7 June 1954.
164. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, D. 347; Public Papers of the
Presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1954 (Washington: GPO, 1960), pp.
382-383.
165. Eden, Full Circle, pp. 118, 119-121, 133-134.
166. Msg. V-D0-0238, Com FEAF to Comdr FEALOGFOR et al., ca.
13 May 1954, quoting msg. C-81 from USAIRA Saigon, 13 May 1954.-
167. Navarre, Agonie de L'Indochine, pp. 268-269; Jean Lacouture
and Philippe Devillers, La Fin D'Une Guerre, Indochine 1954 (Paris:
Editions du Seull, 1960), pp. 162-163.
168. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, p. 368; Eden, Full Circle,
p. 149.
169. Public Papers of the President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1954,
PP. 599-600.
170. Lacouture and Devillers, La Fin DIUne Guerre, pp. 252-268;
Airy Vandenbosch and Richard A. Butwell, Southeast Asia Among the World
Powers (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1957), PP. 295-297;
89th Cong. 2d Sess., United States Policy Toward Asia, Hearings before
the Subcommittee on the Far East and the Pacific of the Committee on
Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives (Washington: GPO, 1966) pt. 2,
PP. 3946-399.
'4!'2
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171. Peter V. Curl, ed., Documents on American Foreigp. Relations,
1954 (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1955), pp. 283-310;
1777uture and Devillers, La Fin D'Une Guerre, pp. 276-282.
172. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, pp. 370-371; Documents on
American Foreign Relations, 1954, pp. 315-317.
173. Allen B. Cole, ed., Conflict in Indo-China & International
Repercussions, p. 191.
174. Msg. V-D00-2381 COMFEAF to Comdr. FEALOGFOR et al., ca.
13 May 1954.
175. FEAF Support of French Indo-China Operations, pp. 162-171,
294-302.
176. Ibid., pp. 239-248.
177. Ibid., pp. 248-251, 270-274; memo for McNaughton from Smart,
subj: Confusion in FIC re Evacuation, 31 July 1954; U.S. Dept of
State, American Foreign Policy 1950-1955, p. 2399.
178. Hist. Asst. for Mutual Security, Dep. CofS Materiel, USAF,
July-Dec. 1954, pp. 23-24.
179. FEAF, Support of French Indo-China Operations, pp. 117-119.
180. FEU' Staff Section Monthly Hist. Rpts., Dep. for Qpns,
July-Dec. 1954, Hists. of Current Opns. Div., Aug and Sept. 1954;
Hist. 315th Air Div., July-Dec. 1954, pp. 32-47.
523
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1. Public Pa
p. 168; Eisenhower,
FOOTNOTES
Chapter 2
ers of the Presidents Dwi ht D. Eisenhower 1954,
I-
e or ange, pp.
2. US Dept of State Bulletin, vol. 31, pp. 163-164.
3. Public Pipers of the Presidents} Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1954,
pp. 168, 731, US Dept of State Bulletin, vol. 31, pp. 163-164.
L. Peter V. Curl, ed., Documents on American Foreign Relations, 1954
(New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1955), pp. 319-323.
5. 'Thailand," FEAF Intelligence Roundup, Jan. 1955, pp. 12-13;
Hists., Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Opns., USAF, July-Dec. 1954, pp. 57-59
and July-Dec. 1956, pp. 138-139
6. Lt. Col. James H. Gunn, Asst. AIRA Thailand, "Estimate of the
Situation in Thailand," FEAF Intelligence Roundup, Apr. 1955, p. 25;
US Dept of State, American Foreign Policy, 1950-1955, p. 2336; Dep. for
Opns. Pacific AF, A Pacific Air Force Staff Study on MDAP Air Force
objectives for Title III Countries in the Pacific Command, Sep. 1955,
in Hist. PACAF, July-Dec. 1955, pt. II, doc. 21.
7. Public Papers of the Presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1954,
pp. 948-949.
8. US Dept of State, American Foreign Policy, 1950-1955, p. 2403.
9. fasts., FEAF Deputy for Intelligence, Jan. 1955, w/incl: Staff
Study, subj: To define the role and airpower in Thailand and recommend
an effective air intelligence system for the RTAF, Jan. 1955, and
Feb. 1955, w/incl: Staff Study, subj: To present an estimate of the
situation in Southeast Asia for the purpose of guiding U.S. MDAP
planning in that area, Feb. 1955.
10. Flight interview with Weyland, June 1960; Hist. Tactical
Air Command, Jan.-June 1957, p. 357.
11. Dep. for Opns. PACAF, A Pacific Air Force Staff Study on
}DAP Air Force Objectives for Title III Countries in the Pacific Command,
Sept. 1955.
12. Ibid.
54
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(NW
Nur'
13. Ibid., Annex B: Operational Concepts.
14. Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1956, vol. III, pp. 522-527.
15. Ltr., Maj. Gen. Sory Smith, Comdr. PACAF/FEAF (Rear) to CINCPAC,
subj: Report of Field Trip to Southeast Asia, 27 Nov. 1956, in Hist.
PACAF/FEAF (Rear), July-Dec. 1956, vol. II, doc. 56.
16. Ibid.
17. "Thailand Today," USAF Air Intelligence Digest, Nov. 1951,
pp. 20-21.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid., p. 19.
20. "Royal Thai Air Force," in Rpt., SEATO Exercise Air Boon Choo,
Apr. 1964, pp. 275-278.
21. Hq. USAF, Air Order of Battle, 1 Apr. 1950, pp. 78-83.
22. Air Intelligence Digest, Nov. 1951, p. 19.
23. Ibid., p. 22; USAF Statistical Digest, FY-1951, p. 395.
24, Air Intelligence Digest, Nov. 1951, pp. 18-19; PACAF
Intelligence, Annex B to PACAF AlE No. 1, Situation in Non-Communist
States, Far East, Tab H: Thailand, July 1958.
25, 84th Cong. 2d Sess., Mutual Security Appropriations for 1957,
Hearings before the Committee an Appropriations, U.S. Senate (Washington:
GPO, 1956), p. 122; USAF Statistical Digests, FY 1952, p. 327, FY 1953,
p. 311; FY 1954, p. 187; FEAF intelligence Roundup, June 1955, pp. 15-23;
ltr., Air Chief Marshall Fuen R. Riddhagni, CINC RTAF to Gen. E. E.
Partridge, CG FEAF, ca. 10 Sept. 1954.
26. US Dept of State, American Foreign Policy, 1950-1955, pp.
2369-2370.
27. Hists., Asst. for Mutual Security, Dep CofS Materiel, USAF,
July-Dec. 1953, pp. 106-107, and Jan.-June 1954, P. 154; USAF Statistical
Digest, FY 1954, p. 187.
28. Hist., Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Qpns., USAF, July-Dec. 1953,
pp. 117-119.
5"
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29. 90th Cong. 1st Sess., Submission of the Vietnam Conflict to the
United Nations, Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Relations U. S.
Senate (Washington: GPO, 1967), P. 193.
30. 89th Cong. 2d Sess., Supplemental Foreign Assistance Fiscal
Year 1966--Vietnam, U.S. Senate, pt. 1, pp. 226, 234-235.
31. Hist., Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Opns., USAF, July-Dec. 1954$
PP. 57-59.
32. Ibid.
33. Ibid., US Dept of State, American Foreign Policy, 1950-1955,
p. 2396.
34. Hist., Asst. for Mutual Security, Dep. CofS Materiel, USAF,
July-Dec. 1954, P. 99.
35. Ibid., Jan.-June 1955, pp. 107-108; and July-Dec. 1955, p. 96.
36. Hist., Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Opns., USAF, July-Dec. 1955,
pp. 80-81.
37. Ltr., Riddhagni to Partridge, ca. 10 Sept, 1954.
38. Hist., Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Opns., USAF, July-Dec. 1954,
PP. 57-59; Hist. Asst. for Mhtual Security, Dep. CofS Materiel, USAF,
July-Dec. 1954$ PP. 38-41, 158-159.
39. Hist., Asst. for Mutual Security, Dep. CofS Materiel, USAF,
July-Dec. 1954s pp. 158-159.
40, Ltr., Riddhagni to Partridge, 27 May 1955; Lt. Col. H. W. Larsen,
JUSMAG Thailand Presentation, in Hq. Air Materiel Force, Pacific Area,
Title III MDAP Logistic Conference, 7-10 May 1956, p. 180.
41. FEAF Intelligence Roundup, Apr. 1955, pp. 30-31; Rpt. of Dep.
for Opns - P&P.. team, Hq. PACAF, to Comdr. PACAF, as a result of survey
of SEA MAAGS in the period, 19 Nov.-16 Dec. 1955, 3 Jan. 1956, in Hist.
PACAF, July-Dec. 1956, vol. U.
42. FEAF Intelligence Roundup, Apr. 1955, p. 31.
43. 84th Cong. 2d Sess., Mutual Security Act for 1956, Hearings
before the Committee on Foreie Relations, U.S. Senate (Washington:
GPO, 1956Y$ PP. 813-815, 819; 84th Cong. 2d Sess., Mutual Security
ro riatione for 1957 Hearin :s before the Committee on ...ro riations,
? ?
U.S. Senate Washington: GPO, 19 ? , pp. 3 -3 9 3 0.
526
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44. Hists., Asst. for Mutual Security, Dep. CofS Materiel, USAF,
July-Dec. 1954, P. 99 and July-Dec. 1955, p. 96.
45. Rpt. of Dep. for Opns. PLR Team to Comdr. PACAF, 3 Jan. 1956.
46. PACAF/FEAF (Rear), Operation "Firm Link" Basic Data, Feb. 1957,
. 85.
47. FEAF Intelligence Roundup, Apr. 1955, P. 29; Hq. PACAF, Final
Report, Air Attache-MAAG Conference, Nov. 4-8, 1957, p. IV -d
48. Ltr., Smith to CINCPAC, 27 Nov. 1956.
49. Ibid.
50. Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1956, vol. III, pp. 522-527, citing
msgs. PFCCR-0228, PACAF to CINCPAC, 2 Mar. 1956 and PFODP-0284, COMPACAF
to CINCPAC, 14 Mar 1956.
51. Hist., Asst. for Mutual Security, Dep CofS Materiel, USAF, July-
Dec. 1957, n.p.
52. Ltr., Smith to CINCPAC, 27 Nov. 1956.
53. PACAF Digest, Oct. 1967, p. 107.
54. USAF Statistical Digest's, FY-1957, p. 231 and FY-1958, p. 230;
ltr., Riddhagni to Partridge, 12 Sept. 1955.
55. USAF Statistical Digest, FY-1959, p. 226 and FY-1960, p. 189;
85th Cong. 2d Sess., Foreign Aid Construction Projects, Hearings before
a Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations (Washington:
GPO, 1958) pp. 987-1001.
56. Hist., Thirteenth Air Force, July-Dec. 1957, pp. 83-84; Hq.
PACAF, Final Rpt., Air Attache-MAAG Conference, Nov 4-8, 1957, pp.
IV-d-1 and IV-d-2; PACAF Intelligence, Annex B to PACAF AlE No. 1,
Situation in Non-Communist States, Far East, July 1958, Annex H.
57. Hq PACAF, Final Rpt., Air Attache-MAAG Conference, p. IV-d-2;
Situation in Non-Communist States, Far East, Jul 1958, Annex H; 85th
Cong, 2d Sess., Foreign Aid Consti-uction Projects, pp. 987-1001.
58. Hist., Asst for Mutual Security, Dep. CofS Materiel, USAF,
July-Dec. 1957.
59. US Dept of State Bulletin, vol. 58, p. 410.
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60. 84th Cong. 2d Sess., Mutual Security Appropriations for 1957,
Hearings before the Committee on Appropriations, US Senate (Washington:
GPO, 1956), p. 6; US Dept of State, American Foreign Policy, Current
Documents, 1956 (Washington: GPO, 1959), pp. 754-755; 85th Cong. 1st
Sess., Mutual Security Appropriations for 1958, Hearings before the
Subcommittee of the Committee on Appr2priations, House of Re_presentatives
(Washington: GPO, 1957), pp. 585, 642; "Why the US is Losing in
Vietnam--An Inside Story," Interview with Former Chief US Military
Advisor, Lt Gen Samuel T. Williams (Ret.), U.S. News & World Report,
9 Nov. 1964, P. 63; Statement by Lt Col H. C. MCNeese, Air Attache,
Saigon in Hq PACAF Final Report, Air Attache--MAAG Conference, 4-8 Nov. 1957.
61. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, p. 372.
62. Lacouture and Devillers, La Fin D'Une Guerre, pp. 298-299; Maj.
Robert E. Cassady, "Time is Short in Indochina," Air Intelligence Digest,
Feb. 1955, PP. 36-37; David Halberstam, The Making of a Quagmire (New
York: Random House, 1965), pp. 38-39.
63. MACV Historical Monograph: Military Assistance to the Republic
of South Vietnam, 1960-1963, pp. 9-11.
64. "Politico-Religious Sects,"Air Intelligence Digest, Feb. 1955,
P. 39.
65. Dep. for Intelligence FEAF, subj. Estimate- -Future Developments
in the Far East, Aug. 1954, p. 3-13.
66. MACV, Military Assistance to the Republic of South Vietnam,
pp. 2-5; memo by Col. Edward G. Lansdale for SEA Subcommittee of the
Draper Committee, subj: Civil Activities of the Military Southeast
Asia, 13 Mar. 19591 86th Cong. 1st Sess., Situation in Vietnam, Hearings
before the Subcommittee on State Department Orffanization and Public Affairs
of the Committee on Foreign Relations, US Senate (Washington: GPO 1959),
pt. 1, p. 49; Robert Scigliano, South Vietnam: Nation Under Stress
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1964), Pp. 162-167.
67. MACV, Military Assistance to the Republic of Vietnam, pp. 2-5;
Hist. Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Opns., USAF, July-Dec. 1954, PP-
62-65.
68. Memo by Lansdale for SEA Subcommittee of Draper Committee,
13 Mar. 1959.
69. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, p. 371.
70. Curl, ed., Documents on American Foreign Relations, 1954,
pp. 364-365
528
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Nal
71. Public Papers of the Presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1954,
pp. 948-949.
72. Hist., Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Opns, USAF, July-Dec. 1954,
pp. 62-65.
73. Curl, ed., Documents on American Foreign Relations, 1954, pp. 237-
238; "Interview with Gen. J. Lawton Collins: What Wetre Doing in Indo-
China," U. S. News & World Report, 4 Mar. 1955, PP- 82-88-
74. Air Intelligence Digest, Feb. 1955, p. 38.
75. Allen B. Cole, ed., Conflict in Indo-China, pp. 228-229;
IR-149-55, AIRA Saigon, subj: Vietnamese Air Order of Battle, 15 Sept.
1955; PACAF Intelligence, Situation in Non-Communist States Far East,
Annex E, p. 14.
76. Hist., Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Opns, USAF, July-Dec. 1954,
pp. 62-65; Intelligence Staff Briefing, Far East Air Logistics Force,
5 Jan. 1955, in Hist. FEALOGFOR, Jan.-June 1955, Appendix, p. 39.
77. Hist., Asst. for Mutual Security, Dep. CofS Materiel, USAF,
Jan.-June 1955, pp. 146-150; MACV, Military Assistance to the Republic
of South Vietnam, pp. 2-5; U.S. Dept of State, American Foreign Policy,
1950-1955, P. 2403; U. S. News & World Report, 9 Nov. 1964, p. 62.
78. Public Papers of the President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1955
(Washington: GPO, 1959), pp. 315-316.
79. Col. William L. Tudor, AIRA Saigon, "Estimate of the Situation
in Vietnam," FEAF Intelligence Roundup, Apr. 1955, pp. 21-24.
80. 84th Cong. 1st Sess., Mutual Security Act of 1955 Hearings
before the Committee on ForeigpAffairs_, House of Representatives
(Washington: GPO, 1955, pp. 190 -191; U. S. News and World Report,
pp. 82-88; Allen B. Cole, ed., Conflict in Indo-China, pp. 228-229.
81. Memo by Lansdale for SEA Subcommittee of the Draper Committee,
13 Mar. 1959.
82. Library of Congress Legislative Reference Service, Background
Information Relating to Southeast Asia and Vietnam (revised edition),
Prepared for the Committee on Foreign Relations, U. S. Senate; IR-163-55,
AIRA Saigon, subj: Operations of VAF during recent FAVN campaign
against Binh Xuyen in the Rung Sat area, 21 Oct. 1955.
83. Hist., Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Opns., USAF, July-Dec. 1955,
p. 8)4; FEAF Intelligence Roundup, Apr. 1955, P. 23; 84th Cong. 2d Sess.,
Mutual Security Appropriations for 1957, Hearings before the Committee
on Appropriations, U. S. Senate (gashington: GPO, 1956), p. 67; AMFPA,
Title III MDAP Logistic Conference, 7-10 May 1956, p. 303.
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84. US Dept of State, American Foreign Policy, Current Documents,
1956 (Washington: GPO, 1959), PP. 859-863; 84th Cong. 1st Sess., Mutual
Security Act of 1955, Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Affairs,
House of Representatives (ashington: GPO, 1955), pp. 190-191.
85. US Dept of State, American Foreign Policy, 1950-1955, p. 2404.
86. Allen B. Cole, ed., Conflict in Indo-China, pp. 226-227.
87. Ibid., pp. 227-228.
88. US Dept of State, American Foreign Policy, 1950-1955, p. 2404.
89. US Dept of State, Ar_j_LericFo_anurrentDocuments,
1956, pp. 859-863.
90. Hist., Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Opns, USAF, July-Dec. 1955,
pp. 81-84.
91. Hist., Asst. for Mutual Security, Dep. CofS Materiel, USAF,
Jan.-June 1955, Pp. 146-150; Hist., Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Opns,
USAF, July-Dec. 1955, PP ? 81-84; MACV, Military Assistance to the
Republic of South Vietnam, pp. 2-5; Scigliano, South Vietnam: Nation
Under Stress, pp. 163-164.
92. U. S. News & World Report, 9 Nov. 1964, pp. 62-63; 85th Cong.
2d Sess., Foreign Aid Construction Projects, Hearings before a Subcommittee
of the Committee on Government Operations, House of Representatives
(Washington: GPO, 1958), pp. 872-673.
93. U. S. News & World Report, 9 Nov. 1964, 101)-
63-64.
94. USAF Summary of MDAP, vol. VIII, no. 46, I May 1956, p. 113;
86th Cong. 1st Sess., Situation in Vietnam, Hearings before the Subcommittee
on State Department Orvnization and Public Affairs of the Committee on
Foreign Relations, U. S. Senate Washington: GPO, 1959), pt. 1, pp. 119-120.
95. U. S. News & World Report, 9 Nov. 1964, p. 63; OASD-ISA, Military
Assistance Plan, FY 1962-1966, Vietnam Country Plan, 1 Sept. 1960.
96. Public Papers of the Presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1957
Washington: GPO, 195o), p. 3oo; Ibid., 195O (Washington: GPO, 1959),
pp. 180-181.
97. 85th Cong. let Sess., Senate Doc. No. 52, Foreign Aid Program,
Compilation of Studies and Surveys, Prepared under the Direction of
the Special Committee to Study the Foreign Aid Program, U.S. Senate
(Washington: GPO, 1957), pp. 1437-1435.
530
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98. 86th Cong. 1st Sess., Situation in Vietnam, pt. 1, pp. 173-174,
pt. 2, p. 248; 85th Cong. 2d Sess Foreign Aid Constriction Projects,
Hearin s before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Government 0 erations,
House of Representatives Washington: GPO, 19
, pp. 3-2.
99. OASD-ISA, Military Assistance Plan, FY 1962-1966, Vietnam
Country Plan, 1 Sept. 1960.
100. Warner, The Last Confucian, p. 105; Scigliano, South Vietnam:
Nation Under Stress, pp. 167134; Hq. CINCPAC, Record, Second SECDEF -
Conference, 15 Jan. 1962, Item 5.
101. Scigliano, South Vietnam: Nation Under Stress, p. 164; Hq.
CINCPAC, Record, Second SECDEF Conference, 15 Jan. 1962, Item 5.
102. U. S. News & World RkTort, 9 Nov. 1964, pp. 68-70; Warner,
The Last Confucian, p. 109.
103. MACV, Military Assistance to the Republic of South Vietnam,
pp. 19-20; Library of Congress, Background Information Relating to
Southeast Asia and Vietnam (Revised Edition).
104. FEAF Intelligence Roundup, Aug. 1954, PP. 12-15.
105. Hist., Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Opns., USAF, Jan.-June 1954,
pp. 93-96.
106. U. S. News & World Relort, 4 Mar. 1955, pp. 82-88.
107. Hist., Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Opns, USAF, July-Dec. 1955,
p. 84.
108. Hist., Asst. for Mutual Security, Dep. CofS Materiel, USAF,
July-Dec. 1955, pp. 33-34.
109. AFMPA Title III ?AP Logistic Conference, 7-10 May 1956,
p. 303, Hist. Pacific Air Force, Jan.-June 1956, vol. III, p. 527;
Hist., Asst. for Mutual Security, Dep. CofS Materiel, USAF, Jan.-June
1958, n.p.
110. Hist., Asst. for Mutual Security, Dep. CofS Materiel, USAF,
Jan.-June 1955, p. 146.
111. Rpt. of Dep. for Opns. - P&R Team to Comdr. PACAF, 3 Jan. 1956.
112. USAF Summary of MDAP and Progress, vol. VI, no. 33, Feb. 1955,
pp. 126-127.
531
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113. Hq. AMFPA, Title III MDAP Logistic Conference, p. 301.
114. Hist., Asst. for Mutual Security, Dep. CofS Materiel, USAF,
July-Dec. 1955, P. 56; Rpt. of Dep. for Opns.-P&R Team to Comdr. PACAF,
3 Jan. 1956; Hq. AMFPA, Title III MDAP Logistics Conference, 7-10 May
1956, pp. 300-303.
115. Hq. AMFPA, Area III MAP Logistic Conference, 14-19 Nov. 1956,
p. 312.
116. Rpt. of Asian-MAP Logistic Conference, Tachikawa Air Base,
Japan, Dec. 1958, p. 154.
117. Ltr., Smith to CINCPAC, 27 Nov. 1956.
118. Hist. PACAF/FEAF (Rear), Jan.-June 1957, vol.
Summary, Dep. for Opns, Direc. of Plans and Policy, Apr.
of Asst. for Mutual Security, Dep. CofS Materiel, USAF,
Appendix; USAF Journals of Mutual Security, vol. X, no.
p. 106 and no. 59, 1 Aug. 1957, p. 131.
II, Hist.
1957; Hist
Jan.-June 1957,
85, 1 July 1957,
119. 1R-149-55, AIRA Saigon, subj: Vietnamese Air Order of Battle,
15 Sept. 1955.
120. Hq. VNAF, "Welcome to Viet-Nam," 1962, pp. 6-7; Secord,
"The Viet-Nam Air Force," pp. 60-61; FEAF Intelligence Roundup, Apr.
1955, PP. 21-24.
121. Hq. VNAF, "Welcome to Viet-Nam," pp. 5, 7-8; APA, Area
II MAP Logistic Conference, 14-19 Nov. 1956, p. 314.
122. Rpt. of Dep. for Opns. P&R Team to Comdr. PACAF, 3 Jan. 1956;
Hq. VNAF, "Welcome to Viet-Nam," p. 7.
123. AMFPA, Title III MDAP Logistic Conference, 7-10 May 1956, p. 303.
124. Hq. VNAF, "Welcome to Viet-Nam," p. 8, Hist. Asst. for
Mutpp1 Security, Dep. CofS Materiel, USAF, Jan.-June 1958, n.p.
125. AMFPA, Weekly Intelligence Staff Briefing, 19 Oct. 1955 in
Hist., APA, July-Dec. 1955, Appendix 23; USAF Journals of Mutual
Security, vol. IX, no. 51, 1 Dec. 1956, pp. 104, 126 and vol. VIII,
no. 48, 1 Sept. 1956, P. 137; Rpt of Dep. for Opns. - P&R Team to Comdr.
PACAF, 3 Jan. 1956; PACAF Base Development Plan, 15 July 1964, Appendix
2: South Vietnam.
532
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126. USAF Summary of MDAP and Progress, no. 42, 31 Dec. 1955,
p. 99; Hq. VNAF, "Welcome to Viet-Nam," pp. 5-6; PACAF Base Development
Plan, 15 July 1954, Appendix 2, Tab G.
127. USAF Journal of Mutual Security, vol. XI, 1 Nov. 1957, p. 131;
Asian-MAP Logistical Conference, Dec. 1958, pp. 154-16o.
128. Asian-MAP Logistic Conference, Dec. 1958, pp. 156-159; Hist.,
Asst. for Mutual Security, Dep. CofS Materiel, USAF, July-Dec. 1958,
n.p.; PACAF, Current Intelligence Summary, 23 Oct. 1959, P. 9.
129. PACAF Intelligence, Situation in Non-Communist States Far
East, Appendix E, p. 11.
130. PACAF Background Book for January (1962) SECDEF Conference,
16 Dec. 1961, Tab 15F: Country Force Imbalance.
131. Asian-MAP Logistic Conference, Dec. 1958, pp. 154-160.
132. IR-233-54, AIRA Saigon, subj: Vietnamese Air Force Air
Order of Battle, 15 Dec 1954.
133. IR-149-55, AA Saigon, subj: Vietnamese Air Order of Battle,
15 Sept. 1955; USAF Summary of MDAP, vol. VIII, no. 48, 1 Sept. 1956,
p. 137; Background Paper on Vietnam, prepared by Maj. William L.
Nicholson, III, Hqs. PACAF, ca. Jan. 1962.
134. USAF Journals of Mutual Security, vo1 X, no. 58, 1 July 1957,
p. 128 and vol XI, 1 Nov. 1957, P- 117.
135. PACAF Intelligence, Situation in Non-Communist States Far
East, Appendix E, p. 2.
136. Hq. PACAF Final Rpt. (Air Attache Division), Air Attache--MAAG
Conference, 4-8 Nov. 1957, pp. I-c-17 and IV-c-1.
137. 85th Cong. 2d Sess., Mutual Security Appropriations for 1959,
Hearings before the Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations,
House of Representatives (Washington: GPO, 1958), pp. 1018-1019,
1055-1056, 1061, 1072-1073.
138. PACAF Intelligence, Situation in Non-Communist States Far
East, July 1958, Appendix E, pp. 2, 9-10; msg., CINCPAC to DIA,
132258Z Mar. 1963; 85th Cong. 1st Sess., Senate Doc. 52, Foreign Aid
Program Compilation of Studies and Surveys. . ., pp. 1441-1442.
139. USAF Journal of Mutual Security, vol. X, no. 58, p. 128.
533
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140. PACAF Intelligence, Situation in Non-Communist States Far
East, Appendix E, pp. 2-3; Ambassador Elbridge Durbrow, "Hanoi's
Intensified Aggression-1959," Air War College Supplement, Nov. 1967,
PP. 7-8.
141. 85th Cong. 2d Sess., Mutual Security Act of 1958, Hearings
before the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate (Washington:
GPO, 1950, pp. 103, 110-111, 120, 1.2.
142. PACAF Intelligence, Situation in Non-Communist States Far
East, Appendix E, pp. 4-11.
143. 85th Cong. 2d Sess., Foreign Aid Construction Projects,
Hearing's before a Subcommittee of the Committee on GovernmenE Operations,
House of Representatives (Washington: GPO, 1958), pp. 863-862.
lhh. MACV, Military Assistance to the Republic of South Vietnam,
pp. 9-10; 85th Cong. 2d Sess., Mutual Security Appropriations for 1959,
House of Representatives, p. 1061.
145. USAF Journal of Mutual Security, vol, XII, no. 67, Nov. 1968,
p. 131.
146. U. S. News & World Report, 9 Nov. 1964, P. 69.
147. MACV, Military Assistance to the Republic of South Vietnam,
p. 10.
148. Warner, The Last Confucian, p. 109.
149. 86th Cong. 1st Sess., Situation in Vietnam, pt. 1, p. 103.
150. 85th Cong., 2d. Sess., Mutual Security Appropriation for
1959, House of Representatives, pp. 940-997.
151. AMFPA, Area III MAP Logistic Conference, 14-19 Nov. 1956,
p. 337.
152. Public Papers of the Presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1954,
PP. 499-50o.
153. Curl, ed., Documents on American Foreign Relationsi 1954,
pp. 283-310; Lacouture and Devillers, La Fin D'Une Guerre, pp. 280-281.
154. Curl, ed., Documents on American Foreign Relations, 1954,
pp. 364-365.
534
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155. Hists., Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Opns., USAF, Jan.-June
1955, pp. 66-68 and July-Dec. 1955, P. 84; PACAF Intelligence, Situation
in Non-Communist States Far East, Appendix F., p. 11 and Appendix G, p. 12.
156. Hists., Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Opns., USAF, July-Dec. 1954,
pp. 62-65, Jan.-June 1955, pp. 66-68, July-Dec. 1955, p. 84, and Jan.-June
1956, p. 134; 85th Cong. 2d Sess., Mutual Security Program in Laos, Hearings
before the Subcommittee on the Far East and the Pacific of the Committee on
lar210._51Ta.i2T.2.1.122.Ereseritatives (Washington: GPO, 1958), pp. 38-45.
157. Hist., Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Opns., USAF, July-Dec. 1955,
p. 84.
158. U.S. Treaties and Other International Agreements, vol. 6, pt. 1,
pp. 995-1006; Hist., Asst. for Mutual Security, Dep. CofS Materiel,
USAF, Jan.-June 1955, p. 161; Zinner, ed., Documents on American Foreign
Relations, 1956, pp. 414-415; 85th Cong. 2d Sess., Foreign Aid Construction
Projects, Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Government
Operations,House of Representatives (Washington: GPO, 1958), pp. 917-94o.
159. Hist., Asst. for MUtual Security, Dep. CofS Materiel, USAF,
July-Dec. 1956, p. 157; USAF Journal of Mutual Security, vol. IX, no. 49,
1 Oct. 1956, p. 101.
160. Presentation of T.L. Morris, PEO-Laos, at APA, Area III
MAP Logistic Conference, 14-19 Nov. 1956, pp. 319-336; 85th Cong. 2d Sess.,
Mutual Security Appropriations for 1959, Hearings before the Subcommittee
on Appr.2priations, House of Renresentatives (Washington: GPO, 1958),
pp. 519-555.
161. IR-190-55, AIRA Saigon, subj: Cambodian Air Order of Battle,
28 Nov. 1955; Dep. for Intel. FEAF, Air Intelligence Briefs of Selected
Foreign Air Forces, 15 Apr. 1956, p. 14; USAF Journal of Mutual Security,
vol. IX, no. 54, 1 Mar. 19571 P. 113.
162. IR-185-55, AIRA Saigon, subj: Air Order of Battle of the
Laotian Air Force, 1 Nov. 1955.
163. AMFPA, Area III MAP Logistic Conference, 14-19 Nov. 1956,
p. 324.
164. Ibid., pp. 322-323; PACAF Intelligence, Situation in Non-
Communist States Far East, Appen. F, pp. 9-10; PACAF Current Intelligence
Summary, 23 Oct. 1959,. Supplement.
165. PACAF Intelligence, Situation in Non-Communist States Far
East, Appen. G, pp. 10-11.
535
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?
166. Ibid., p. 102; USAF Journal of Mutual Security, vol. XII,
no. 67, pp.-174-115.
167. Hist., Pacific Air Force, Jan.-June 1956, III, 527.
168. AMFPA, Area III MAP Logistic Conference, 14-19 Nov. 1956,
322,338; Hist., Pacific Air Force, Jan.-June 1956, I, doc. 16.
169. Hist., Asst. for Mutual Security, Dep.. CofS Materiel, USAF,
July-Dec. 1956, p. 32; PACAF Digest, Oct. 1957, pp. 110-111.
170. George F. Lemmer, The Laos Crisis of 1959 (USAF Historical
Liaison Office, May 1961), p. 6.
171. National Intelligence Survey, Laos; Subversion and Insurgency,
Dec. 1966, pp. 6-7.
172. Lemmer, The Laos Crisis of 1959, p. 10.
173. Ibid., p. 11; AMFPA Area III MAP Logistic Conference, 14-19
Nov. 1956, 177-521.
174. APA Area III MAP Logistic Conference, 14-19 Nov. 1956,
p. 321; USAF Journal of Mutual Security, vol. IX, no. 52, 2 Jan. 1957,
p. 117.
175. 85th Cong. 1st Sess., Senate Document No. 52, Foreign Aid
Programs, p. 1455; 85th Cong. 2d Sess., Mutual Security Appropriations
for 199, Hearings before the Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropria-
tions, House of Representatives (Washington: GPO, 195b), pp. 940-997;
85th Cong. 2d Sess., Mutual Security Appropriations for 1959, Hearings
before the Committee on Appropriations, U.S. Senate (Washington: GPO,
17-57, pp. 122-123, 297-301.
176. Lemmer, The Laos Crisis of 1959, pp. 11-12; PACAF Intelligence
Situation in Non-Communist States Far East, Appen. F, p. 2; US Dept of
State, American Foreign Policy, Current Documents, 1957 (Washington: GPO,
1961), p. 1211.
Pp.
177. PACAF Intelligence, Situation in Non-Communist States Far
East, Appen. F, pp. 2-3; Lemmer, The Laos Crisis of 1959, pp. 11-12;
Hq. PACAF, Final Report (Air Attache Division) Air Attache-MAAG
Conference, 4-8 Nov. 1957, p. I-c-11.
178. US Dept of State, American Foreign Policy, Current Documents,
1958 (Washington: GPO, 1962, pp. 1242-1243; 85th Cong. 2d Sess., Mutual
Security Appropriations for 1959, Hearings before the Committee on
Appropriations, U.S. Senate (Washington: GPO, 1958), pp. 301, 318-319.
536
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,Ner,
179. 85th Cong. 2d Sess., Mntual Security Program in Laos,
Hearings before the Subcommittee on the Far East and the Pacific of
the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives (Washington:
GPO, 1958), pp. 33-34.
180. Arthur J. Dommen, Conflict in Laos, The Politics of
Neutralization (New York: Praeger, 19614, PP. 108-109; Hugh Toye,
Laos, Buffer State or Battleground (London: Oxford University Press,
1968), p. 114.
181. Rpt. Operation Booster Shot, by Lt. Col. Harry V. Bankard,
TF Comdr., n.d., in Hist. 483d Troop Carrier Wing, Jan.-June 1958,
vol. 2; Hist. 315th Air Div (CC), Jan.-June, 1958, Annex A.
182. Dommen, Conflict in Laos, p. 109; Toye, Laos, p. 114;
86th Cong. 1st Sess., House Rpt.1775. 546, U.S. Air Operations in Laos,
Seventh Report by the Committee an Government _Operations, 15 June 1959
(Washington: GPO, 1959), p. 46.
183. Dommen, Conflict in Laos, pp. 109-110; Toye, Laos, pp. 114-118;
Sisouk Na Champassa7,-777F757.?nos, A Contemporary History (New York:
Praeger, 1961), pp. 61-63; 86th Cong. 1st Sess., MUtual Security Act of
1959, Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senatel,
(Washington: GPO, 1959, pt. 1, pp. 393-394.
184. Dommen, Conflict in Laos, pp. 110-111; Champassak, Storm
Over Laos, pp. 64-66; 86th Cong. 1st Sess., Miltual Security
Appropriations for 1960 (And Related Agencies),Hearings before the
Subcommittee of the Committee on ApproTriations, House of Representatives
(Washington: GPO, 1959), pp. l9,71-715, 725, 1039; 86th Cong.
1st Sess., Mutual Security Act of 195, Hearius before the Committee on
Foreign Relations, U.S. Senje?(gashington: GPO, 1959), Pt- 1, PP.
393-394.
185. 86th Cong. 1st Sess., Mutual Security Appropriations for
1960 (and Related Agencies), House of Representatives, pp. 714-715, 726.
186. nommen, Conflict in Laos, pp. 112-113; PACAF Current Intelli-
gence Summary, 13 Feb. 1959, pp.-3=.9.
187. USAF Journal of Mutual Security, vol. X, no. 55, 1 Apr. 1957,
p. 114; Hist., Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Opns., USAF, Jan.-June 1957,
p. 198.
188. USAF Journals of Mutual Security, vol. XI, 1 Nov. 1957,
p. 118 and vol. XI, no. 62, Jan. 1958, p. 114.
537
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189. Ibid., vol. XII, no. 68, Mar. 1959, pp. 132-133.
190. Lemmer, The Laos Crisis of 1959, pp. 28-29; 87th Cong. 2d Sess.,
Military Cold War Education and Speech Review Policies,. Hearings before
the Special Preparedness Subcommittee of the Committee on Armed Services,
U.S. Senate Washington: GPO, 1962), pt. 5, p. 2371.
191. AMFPA Area III MAP Logistic Conference, 14-19 Nov. 1956,
p. 324; USAF Journal of Mutual Security, vol. X, no. 56, 1 May 1957,
p. 141; Hist., Asst. for Mutual Security, USAF, July-Dec. 1957, n.p.;
PACAF Current Intelligence Summary, 23 Oct. 1959, Supplement on Laotian
Air Force.
192. Lemmer, The Laos Crisis of 1959, pp. 29-30.
193. Dommen, Conflict in Laos, p. 114-115; Congressional Record,
9 May 1968, p. 12617.
194. Champassak, Storm Over Laos, pp. 68-70; Dommen, Conflict in
Laos, pp. 115-116; Toye, Laos, pp. 121-123.
195. PACAF Current Intelligence Summary, 20 Fob. 1959, pp. 10-11;
Lemmer, The Laos Crisis of 1959, pp. 27-28; USAF Journals of Mutual
Security, vol. XII, no. 70, July 1959, pp. 108-109 and vol. XIII, no. 74,
June 1960, p. 136; Dommen, Conflict in Laos, 121.
196. Lemmer, The Laos Crisis of 1959, PP. 29-30; Hist., Asst. for
Mutual Security, Dep. CofS Materiel, USAF, Jan.-June 1959, n.p.;
Northern Air Materiel Area Pacific, Rpt. of 5th Asian-MAP Logistics
Conference, Nov. 1959, PP. 350-351.
197. PACAF Current Intelligence Summary, 26 June 1959, p. 11.
198. Champassak, Storm Over Laos, pp. 77-90; Dommen, Conflict in Laos,
pp. 117-122.
199. Zinner, ed., Documents on American Foreign Relations, 1959
(New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1960), pp. 450-451.
200. Ibid., pp. 456-457; us Dept of State, American Foreign Policy,
Current Documents, 1959 (Washington: GPO, 1963), p. 1225.
201. CQ Background, China and U.S. Far East Policy, 1945-1967
(Washington: Congressional Oluarterly Service, 1967), P. 93.
202. Air War College Supplement, Nov. 1967, pp. 9, 11.
203. Dommen, Conflict in Laos, pp. 128-129.
taw,
538
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204. W. J. Lederer, A Nation of Sheep, (New York: W. W. Norton
& Co., 1961), pp. 21-29; 86th Cong. 1st Sess., House Rpt. No. 546,
U.S. Aid Operations in Laos, Seventh Report by the Committee on
Government Operations, 15 June1959 OWashington: GPO, 1959), pp. 1-6.
205. Lemmer, The Laos Crisis of 1959, p. 38.
206. Champassak, Storm Over Laos, pp. 90-91; NAMAP, 5th Asian-MAP
Logistics Conference, Nov. 159, pp. 288-290; PACAF Current Intelligence
Summary, 23 Oct. 1959, supplement.
207. USAF Journal of Mutual Security, vol. XIII, no. 74, June 1960,
p. 137; Lemmer, The Laos Crisis of 1959, pp. 28, 31-32.
208. Lemmer, The Laos Crisis of 1959, P- 30; Hist., Asst. for
Mutual Security, Dep. CofS Mai,eriel, USAF, July-Dec. 1959, n.p.; Hist.,
AFMPA, 1 July 1959-31 Mar. 1960, p. 8.
209. Eisenhower, The Wnite House Years: Waging Peace, 1956-61
(Garden City: Doubleday & Cp.., 1965), P. 421; US Dept of State, American
Foreign Policy, Current Documents, 1959, pp. 1228, 1245; Zinner, ed.,
Documents on American Foreign Relations, pp. 454-456; Champassak, Storm
Over Laos, pp. 95-127.
210. Lemmer, The Laos Crisis of 1959, pp. 28, 31-32, 40.
211. 87th Cong. 2d Sess., Military Cold War Education and Speech
Review Policies, pt. 5, pp. 2385-2387.
212. USAF Journal of Mutual Security, vol. XIII, no. 74, June
1960, p. 137.
213. NAMAP, 5th Asian-MAP Logistics Conference, Nov. 1959, PP.
288-290; PACAF Current Intelligence Summary, 23 Oct. 1959, supplement;
OASD-ISA, Military Assistance Plan, FY 1962-1966, Military Assistance
Plan, Laos, 1 Aug. 1960; Hist. AMFPA, 1 July 1959-31 Mar. 1960, p. 8;
USAF Journal of Mutual Security, vol. XIII, no. 74, June 1960, p. 137.
214. PACAF Current Intelligence Summary, 23 Oct. 1959, supplement
215. PACAF Intelligence, Situation in Non-Communist States Far
East, Appen. G.
216. Ibid.; Legislative Reference Service, Library of Congress,
Background Information Relating to Southeast Asia and Vietnam (Revised
Edition).
539
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217. 86th Cong. 1st Sess., Mutual Security Auropriations for
1960 (And Related Agencies), House of Representative., p. 975.
218. OASD-ISA, Military Assistance Plan, FY 1962-1966, Cambodia
MAP, 1 Aug. 1960.
219. NAP, 5th Asian-MAP Logistics Conference, pp. 283-285.
220. Hist., PACAF, Jan.-June 1958, vol. I, pt. 2, P. 138.
221. Hists., Asst. for Mutual Security, Dep. CofS Materiel, USAF,
Jan.-June 1960, n.p. and July-Dec. 1960, n.p.; Hist., Direc. of Plans,
Dep. CofS Plans and Prgms., USAF, Jan.-June 1961, pp. 141-142; Hists.,
Asst. for Mutual Security, Dep. CofS Systems & Logistics, USAF, Jan.-
June 1961, n.p. and July-Dec. 1961, p. 45.
222. Kuter, Command and Control in Asia-Pacific Area, 6 Mar. 1956.
223. Hist. PACAF/FEAF Rear July-Dec. 1956, II, 96-98.
224. Hist., Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Opns., USAF, Jan.-June
1955, PP. 34-35.
225. Kuter, Command and Control in Asia-Pacific Area, 6 Mar. 1956.
226. Hist., Air Materiel Comd., July-Dec. 1955, 1, chap. 1: Hist.,
AMFPA, 1 Oct. 1956 - 30 June 1957, pp. 13-28.
227. Ltr., Col. Davison Dalziel, Dep. for Opns. PACAF, to Comdr.
FEAF, Subj: SOFPAC Advisory Group, 12 Jan. 1955 in Hist. PACAF,
Jan.-June 1955, doe. 9.
228. Hist., Fifth Air Force in Formosa, 25 Jan.-1 June 1955;
Hist. Summary, fl/Plans & Policy, PACAF, May-July 1955, in Hist. PACAF,
Jan.-June 1955, doe. 25.
229. Hist., Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Opns., USAF, Jan.-June 1955,
pp. 32-33.
230. Hist. Summary, Direc. of Plans & Policy, PACAF, Mar.-July
1955; General Order 67, Hq. FEAF, 2 June 1955; PACAF Opns. Plans 51-55,
23 Sept., 1955, in Hist. PACAF, July-Dec. 1955, Pt II, doc. 9; Hist.
PACAF, Jan.-June 1956, I, 28-31.
231. Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1956, I, 31.
232. Hist., Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Opns., USAF, Jan-June 1956,
pp. 20-21; Kuter, Command and Control in Asia-Pacific Area, 6 Mar. 1956.
540
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233. Hists., Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Opns., USAF, July-Dec. 1956,
pp. 90-91, 141-142, and Jan.-June 1957, p. 110; Hist. PACAF/FEAF Rear,
July-Dec. 1956, II, 106-107.
234. Kuter, Command and Control in Asia-Pacific Area, 6 Mar. 1956;
ltr, Kuter to CINCFE, subj: Simplification, Reduction, and Consolidation
of Subordinate Commands and Supporting Activities, 11 July 1955, in Hist.
FEAF, Jan.-June 1955, I, pt. II, chap. 3, docs. 3 and 4.
235. Hist., Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Opns., USAF, Jan.-June 1956,
pp. 54, 46; Study, FEAF Recommendations on Unified Command Plan
Reorganization (recd. 5 Aug. 1956) in PAC file, Theater Reorganization,
Component Commanders' Recommendations.
236. Ltr, Smith to CINCPAC, subj: Representation at SEATO
Intelligence Conferences, 6 Aug. 1956, in Hist. PACAF/FEAF Rear, July-Dec.
1956, vol III, doc. 26.
237. Ltr., Vice Adm. G. W. Anderson, Jr., CofS PACOM to Comdr.
PACAF/FEAF (Rear), 22 Aug. 1956; Hist. Rpt., Dep. for Intelligence,
PACAF/FEAF (Rear), Aug. 1956.
238. Hist. PACAF/FEAF Rear, July-Dec. 1956, II, 102-103.
239. Hq. PACAF Final Rpt. (Air Attache Division) Air-Attache--MAAG
Conference, 4-8 Nov. 1957, pp. I-O-5 and I-C-6; Hist., Direc.
of Plans, Dep. CofS Opns., USAF, July-Dec. 1956, pp. 87-89.
240. Numbered PACAF/FEAF (Rear) policy statements, dated 10 Sept.
1956, inclosed w/ltr., Brig. Gen., Ralph E. Kern, Vice Commander, PACAF/
FEAF (Rear), to Distribution, 27 Nov. 1956.
241. Hist., Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Opns., USAF, July-Dec. 1956,
pp. 87-89.
242. Hist. PACAF/FEAF (Rear), Jan.-June 1957, I, 1.
243. Hq. CINCPAC, CINCPAC Instruction 03020.2, 20 June 1957; Hq.
PACAF Final Rpt. (Air Attache Division), Air Attache-MAAG Conference,
4-8 Nov. 1957, pp. I-C-6 and III-B-1; Command Relations Concepts of
CINCPACAF, approved by Gen. L. S. Kuter, 21 Aug. 1957, in Hist. PACAF,
July-Dec. 1957, II; Hist., Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Plans & Prgms.,
USAF, Jan-June 1958, p. 100.
244. Gen. L. S. Kuter, CINCPACAF, "The Pacific Air Forces,"
Air Force, Oct. 1957, p. 63.
541
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245. Jacob Van Staaveren, Air Operations in the Taiwan Crisis of 1958
(USAF Historical Division Liaison Office, November 1962), pp. 11-12;
Hists., ATF-13 (P), Jan.-June 1958, pp. 3-14 and July-Dec. 1958, P. 17;
Hist. Thirteenth AF, July-Dec. 1958, pp. 55-56.
246. Hist., Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Plans & Prgms., USAF,
Jan.-June 1958, p. 100.
247.
248.
House of
US Dept of State Bulletin, vol. 37, pp. 91-95.
85th Cong. 2d Sess., Mutual Security Appropriations for 1959,
Representatives, pp. 1072-1073.
249. Richard D. Burns, USAF Assistance to Japan's Air Force,
1955-1956 (Fifth AF Hist. Division, 1956), Passim.
250. Ltr.,Kuter to CINCFE, 11 July 1955.
251. 86th Cong. 1st Sess., House Rpt. No. 546, U. S. Aid Operations
in Laos, pp. 7-9.
252. Hq. PACAF Final Rpt (Air Attache Division) Air Attache--MAAG
Conference, 4-8 Nov. 1957, P. 1-C-14.
253. AMFPA, Area III MAP Logistic Conference, 14-19 Nov. 1956,
PP. 44-48.
254. Hist. FEAF, Jan.-June 1955, III, Hist. Rpt. Direc. of
and Policy, Feb. 1955.
Plans
255. Ltr., Kuter to CINCFE, 11 July 1955.
256. msg. 0956, COMPACAF to COMFEAF, 30 Nov. 1955, in Hist. PACAF,
July-Dec. 1955, pt. 1, doe. 10.
257. Hist. Summary, D/Plans & Policy PACAF, Mar.-June 1955, in
Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1955, doe. 25.
258. Hist. FEAF, July-Dec. 1955, vol. I, pt. 1, pp. 285-295
259. Msg. 0956, COMPACAF to COMFEAF, 30 Nov. 1955.
260. Hist. PACAF, July-Dec. 1956, II, 72-99!
261. Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1956, vol. I, doe. 25: Hist.
Rpt. Direc. of Intelligence PACAF, and doe. 6: ltr., Brig Gen Thomas
J. Gent, Jr., Vice Comdr, PACAF to Comdr., Thirteenth AF, subj;
Participation in Mutual Defense Assistance Program, 17 Feb. 1956.
542
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262. Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1956, III, 522-527.
263. Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1956, I, 35; Hist. PACAF/FEAF
Rear, July-Dec. 1956, III, doc. 10.
264. PACAF/FEAF (Rear), Policy #9, Philippines and Southeast
Asia, 10 Sept. 1956.
265. Hist. PACAF/FEAF (Rear), Jan.-June 1957, II, Wkly. Hist.
Sum., D/Communications & Electronics, 28 Jan.-1 Feb. 1957.
266. Memo by Lt. Col. D. A. Clark, C/Defensive Plans & Rqmts.,
Hq. Fifth AF, subj: Report of Staff Visit, 6 Dec. 1957, in Hist.
Fifth AF, Jan.-June 1958, III, append. 99; Hist. 315th Air Div. (CC),
Jan.-June 1957; NANAP, Asian-NAP Logistic Conference, Dec. 1958, p. 455.
267. Hq. PACAF Final Rpt: (Air Attache Division) Air Attache--
NAAG Conference, 4-8 Nov. 1957.
268. Hist. PACAF/FEAF (Rear), Jan.-June 1957, vol. II, Hist.
Summary, ID/Plans & Policy, Apr. 1957.
269. CINCPAC Instruction 03020.2, 20 June 1957.
270. Hq. PACAF Final Rpt. (Air Attache Division) Air Attache--MAAG
Conference, 4-8 Nov. 1957.
271. PACAF Ltr. 55-1, subj: PACAF Mobile Strike Force,' 25 July 1958.
272. Hist. Fifth AF, Jan.-June 1958, I., 90-100; Remarks by Lt.
Gen. Frederic H. Smith, Jr., before 5th Air Force Staff, 29 May 1958,
in ibid., IV, Appendix 101A.
273. Hist. Fifth AF, July-Dec. 1958, I, 146-151; Fifth AF,
Atomic Weapons in Limited Wars in Southeast Asia, 22 July 1958; General
Frederic H. Smith, Jr., "Nuclear Weapons and Limited War," Air University
Quarterly Review, Vol. XII, No. 1 (Spring 1960), pp. 3-27.
274. 86th Cong. 2d Sess., Mutual Security Appropriations for 1961
(and Related Agencies), Hearings before the Subcommittee of the Committee
on Appropriations, House of Representatives (Washington: GPO, 1960),
pt. 2, p. 2486.
275. Jacob Van Staaveren, Air Operations in the Taiwan Crisis of 1958
(USAF Hist. Div. Ln. Off., Nov. , assim; NAMAP, Asian - MAP
Logistic Conference, Dec. 1958, pp. 452
543
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276. Ltr. Gen. Curtis E. LeMay, Vice C of S USAF, to CINCPACAF,
subj: Atomic apons in Limited War in Southeast Asia, 15 Dec. 19585
in Hist. Fifth AF, July-Dec. 1958, II, Appen. 52.
277. Hist. PACAF, July-Dec, 1959, III, Hist. Rpts. of PFDCO and
A-5, Aug. 1959.
278. Dept. of Defense, Annual Report of the Secretary of Defense
July 1, 1958 to June 30, 1959 (Washington: GPO, 1960), pp. 35-46.)
279. Hist. PACAF, July-Dec. 1958, vol. I, pt. 1, pp. 172-175.
280. 86th Cong., 1st Sess., Mutual Security Act of 1959, Hearings
before the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate (Washington: GPO,
1959), pt. 1, pp. 5, 10-11, 19-20; AMFPA, 5th Asian-MAP Logistics
Conference, Nov. 19595 PP. 67-71.
281. NAMAP, Asian-MAP Logistic Conference, Dec. 1958, pp. 451-453.
282. NAMAP, Asian-MAP Logistic Conference, Dec 19585 PP. 456-458.
283. AMFPA, 5th Asian-MAP Logistics Conference, Nov. 1959,
pp. 69-71, 290-291.
284. Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1960, III, PFHLP Hist. Rpt. May 1960,
w/atch: Implementation, Execution and Administration of Approved Grant
Aid MAP (Materiel).
285. AMFPA, 5th Asian-MAP Logistics Conference, Nov. 1959, pp. 53-38,
61-62.
286. Hist. PACAF, July-Dec. 1959, III, A-3 Section, Memo for record,
subj: ACS/Materiel Staff Meeting, 30 Nov. 1959.
287. Rpt., Air Vice Marshal Kamol Thejatunga, Asst. C/Air Staff
Opns., RTAF, Exercise Director, and Maj. Gen. Thomas S. Moorman,
Comdr. Thirteenth AF, Deputy Exercise Director, to C/SEATO Military
Planning Office, subj: Final Report Exercise "Air Prograss," 23 Mar.
1959, p. 2.
288. Hist., Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Opns., USAF, Jan.-June
1957, p. 122.
289. Lemmer, The Laos Crisis of 1959, pp. 39-49.
290. NAMAP, 5th Asian-MAP Logistic Conference, Nov. 1959, p. 353.
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NNW'
291. Hist., Asst. for Miltual Security, Dep. CofS Materiel, USAF,
Jan.-June 1960, n.p.; Hist., Asst. for Mutual Security, Dep. CofS
Systems & Logistics, USAF, Jan.-June 1962, pp. 35-36.
292. Hist. AMFPA, 1 July 1959-31 Mar. 1960, vol II, appen. 18:
Memo for record by Maj. Gen. H. C. Porter, Comdr. AMFPA, and Brig. Gen.
C. A. Piddock, Dep. CofS Materiel PACAF, Subj: Transfer to PACAF of the
Responsibility for Administering the Contract Technical Services for
the Military Assistance Program, 9 Dec. 1959; Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June
1960, vol. III, PFMLP Hists., Apr. 1960, w/atch: Manpower Requirement
to Accomplish MAP workload, 17 Apr. 1960, and May 1960, w/atch:
Implementation Execution and Administration of the approved Grant Aid MAP
(Materiel); Lt. Col. William G. Beno, "How to Improve the USAF Portion
of the Military Assistance Program in Southeast Asia," Air War College
thesis, Apr. 1960.
293. PACAF Secretary of Defense Background Book for January
1962 Meeting, 16 Dec. 1961, Tab. 15F: Country Force Imbalance.
294. NANAP, 5th Asian-NAP Logistic Conference, Nov. 1959, p. 290.
545
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FOOTNOTES
Chapter 3
1. 85th Cong. 2d Sess., Mutual Security Appropriations for 1959,
Hearings before the Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations,
House of Representatives (Washington: GPO, 1958, pp. 307-308.
2. Chester L. Cooper, The Lost Crusade, America in Vietnam (New
York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1970), pp. 90-91.
3. Ibid., pp. 98-99.
4. Maj. Gen. Edward G. Lansdale, "Viet Nam: Do We Understand
Revolution?" Foreign Affairs, Oct. 1964, pp. 80-81.
5. "Working Paper on the North Vietnamese Role in the War in South
Vietnam," Congressional Record, 9 May 1968, p. 12615.
6. Ho Chi Minh, Selected Articles and Speeches (Moscow: State
Publishing House, Political Literature, 1959), pp. 489-492.
7. Congressional Record, 9 May 1968, p. 12616.
8. 86th Cong. 1st Sess., Mutual Security Act of 1959, Hearings
before the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate (Washington:
GPO, 1959), Pt. 1, PP. 355-357-
9. US Dept of State, American ForeiEn Poligi Current Documents, 1958
(Washington: GPO, 1962), pp. 120-121.
10. Congressional Record, 9 May 1968, p. 12617.
11. Richard P. Stebbins, ed., Documents on American Foreign Relations,
1961 (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1962), pp. 318-319;
Champassak, Storm Over Laos, pp. 83-84; Lemmer, The Laos Crisis of 1959,
PP. 34-35.
12. Champassak, Storm Over Laos, p. 86.
13. James C. Thompson, Jr., "How Could Vietnam Happen? An Autopsy,"
Atlantic, Apr. 1968, PP. 47-49.
14. Lemmer, The Laos Crisis of 1959, p. L.O.
546
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is. 86th Cong. 1st Sess., Mutual Security Appropriations for 1960
(And Related Agencies), Hearings before fEe Committee on Appropriations,
U.S. Senate (Washington: GPO, 1959), p. 511.
16. 86th Cong. 2d Sess., Mutual Security Appropriations for 1961,
Hearings before the Committee on Appropriations, U.S. Senate (Washington:
GPO, 1960), p. 201.
17. Stebbins, ed., Documents on American Foreign Relations, 1960,
p. 455.
18. Dommen, Conflict in Laos, pp. 127-128; Champassak, Storm Over
Laos, pp. 128-138.
19. nommen, Conflict in Laos, pp. 129-133; Champassak, Storm Over
Laos, pp. 139-149.
20. Hist. 315th Air Div. (Combat Cargo), Jan.-June 1960, pp. 64-65,
Hist. PACAF, July-Dec. 1960, III, Wkly. Activity Rpt. for Dir. of
Transportation, 15 Aug. 1960.
21. Champassak, Storm Over Laos, pp. 144-153.
22. nommen, Conflict in Laos, pp. 142-150; 87th Cong. 2d Sess.,
Military Cold War Education and Speech Review Policies, pt. 5, p. 2409;
Fifth AF, Weekly Intelligence Briefs, 12 Aug. and 18 Aug. 1960.
23. Public Papers of the Presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1960-61
(Washington: GPO, 1961), PP. 626, 641.
24. 86th Cong. 2d Sess., Mutual Security Appropriations for 1961,
Hearin:s before the Committee on A.4.ro riations, U.S. Senate (Washington:
GPO, 19.0 p. 797; Stebbins, ed., Documents on American oreign Relations,
1960, p. 455; Damen, Conflict in Laos, p. 150; Fifth AF Weekly Intelligence
Brief, 15 Sep. 1960.
25. Fifth AF, Weekly Intelligence Brief, 15 Sep. 1960.
26. Fifth AF, Weekly Intelligence Briefs, 26 Aug., 8 Sep., and
29 Sep. 1960.
27. Hists. Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Plans & Prgms., USAF, July-
Dec. 1960, pp. 144-145 and July-Dec. 1961, pp. 184-188.
28. Eisenhower, Waging Peace, p. 608; nommen, Conflict in Laos,
pp. 159-160; Fifth AF, 'Weekly -tntelligence Brief, 6 Oct. 1960.
547
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29. "Declaration on Granting Independence to Colonial Countries
and Peoples," in Khrushchev in New York (New York: Crosscurrents Press,
1960), p. 90; 87th Cong. 1st Sess., Analysis of the Khrushchev Speech of
January 6, 1961, Hearing before the Subcommittee to Investigate the
Administration of the -Internal Security Act and Internal Security Laws
of the Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate (Washington: GPO, 1961),
PP. 64-65, 77-7-8:
30. Domnen, Conflict in Laos, pp. 160-167; Fifth AF, Weekly
Intelligence Briefs, 23 Nov. and 13 Dec. 1960.
31. 87th Cong. 2d Sess., Military Cold War Education and Speech
Review Policies, pt. 5, p. 2408; Fifth AF, Weekly Intelligence Brief,
27 Dec. 1950; Damen, Conflict in Laos, p. 167.
32. Fifth AF, Weekly Intelligence Brief, 27 Dec. 1960; nommen,
Conflict in Laos, pp. 177-179.
33. Eisenhower, Waging Peace, pp. 608-609.
34. Hist. PACAF, July-Dec. 1961, vol I, pt. 2, pp. 13-18; Fifth
IS, Weekly Intelligence Brief, 4 Jan. 1961; Hist. PACAF, July-Dec. 1960,
III, Hist. Rpt., D/Collection A-2, Dec. 1960.
35. CINCPAC Command Hist., 1961, pt. 2, pp. 55-59.
36. Eisenhower, Wagin; Peace, pp. 609-610, 717; Stebbins, ed.,
Documents on American Foreign Relations, 1960, p. 459.
37. CINCPAC Command Hist., 1961, pt. 2, p. 59.
33. Hist. PACAF, July-Dec. 1961, vol. I, pt. 2, pp. 13-18, Fifth
AF, Weekly Intelligence Brief, 4 Jan. 1961.
39. Eisenhower, Waging Peace, pp. 608-611; Fifth IS, Weekly
Intelligence Brief, 11 Jan. 1961; Hist. PACAF, July-Dec. 1960, III,
Hist. Rpt. PLI1IC0, Dec. 1960; Hist. 315th Air Division (Com Car),
July-Dec. 1960, pp. 67-69.
40. Dommen, Conflict in Laos, p. 175; Fifth IS, Weekly
Intelligence Brief, 11 Jan. 1961.
41. Eisenhower, Waging Peace, p. 611.
42. Hist. 315th Air Div. (Com Car), Jan.-June 1961, P. 52;
Stebbins, ed., Documents on American Foreign Relations, 1961 (New York:
Council on Foreign Relations, 1962), pp. 299-303.
548
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43. Eisenhower, Waging Peace, p. 612; Arthur F. Schlesinger, Jr.,
A Thousand Days, John F. Kennedy in the White House (Boston: Houghton-
Mifflin Co., 1965), pp. 163-11577
44. Fifth AF, Weekly Inielligence Brief, 27 Dec. 1960; 87th Cong.
1st Sess., The International Development and Security Act, Hearings before
the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives (Washington: GPO,
1961), pt. 1, pp. 335-359; Hist. Asst. for Mutual Security, Dep CofS
Materiel, USAF, July-Dec. 1960, n.p.
45. Fifth AF, Weekly Intelligence Brief, 4 Jan. 1961, Dommen,
Conflict in Laos, p. 179.
46. CINCPAC Command Hist., 1961, pt. 2, pp. 69-70; Hist., PACAF,
July-Dec. 1961, I, pt. 2, pp. 13-18.
47. CINCPAC Command Hist., 1961, pt. 2, p. 67; Fifth AF, Weekly
Intelligence Brief, 11 Jan. 1961.
48. CINCPAC Command Hist., 1961, pt. 2, pp. 65, 67-68.
49. CIYCPAC Command His ., 1961, pt. 2, pp. 65, 68-69.
50. Fifth AF, Weekly Intelligence Brief, 7 Mar. 1961; Msg.,
CINCPAC to JCS, 012300Z Mar. 196:.
Si. Msg., AMEND, Vientiane to State, No. 1593, 27 Feb 1961.
52. Msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 012300Z Mar 1961.
53. Fifth AF, Weekly Intelligence Brief, 15 Mar. 1961; Dommen,
Conflict in Laos, pp. 187-188.
54. Fifth AF, Weekly Intelligence Brief, 22 Mar. 1961; Dommen,
Conflict in Laos, pp. 186-187.
55. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, pp. 329-331; CINCPAC Command
Hist., 1961, pp. 77-78.
56. Public Papers of the Presidents, John F. Kennedy, 1961
(Washington: GPO, 1962), p. 154.
57. CINCPAC Command Hist., 1961, pp. 68, 84.
58. Dommen, Conflict in Laos, p. 188; Hist. PACAF, July-Dec. 1961,
vol I, pt. 2, pp. 13-18; Hist. Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Plans and
Prgms., USAF, July-Dec. 1961, pp. 184-188; Fifth AF, Intelligence Brief,
5 Apr. 1961.
549
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59. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, pp. 331-334; Roger Hilsman, To
Move A Nation, The Politics of Foreign Policy in the Administration of
John F. Kennedy (Garden City: Doubleday & Co., 1967J, p. 131; 89th Cong.
2d Sess., United States. Policy Toward Asia) Hearings before the
Subcommittee on the Far East and the Pacific of the Committee on Foreign
Affairs, House of Representatives(Washington: GPO, 1955), pt. 1, p. 148;
Hist. 315th Air Div (Com Car), Jan.-June 1961,-11, docs. I and N; USAF
Journal of Mutual Security, vol XIV, no. 77, Mar. 1961, p. 169; Hist.
PACAF, July-Dec. 1962, vol I, pt. 2, Ch. 2: Appendix: PACAF/USAF
Chronology.
60. Public Papers of the Presidents, John F. Kennedy, 1961, pp. 213-220.
61. CINCPAC Command Hist., 1961, pt. 2, pp. 85-86; Hist. Fifth AF,
Jan.-June 1961, I, 80.
62. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, p. 334; Stebbins, ed., Documents
on American Foreign Relations, 1961, p. 297; CINCPAC, Command Hist., 1961,
pt. 2, pp. 87-88.
63. CINCPAC, Command Hist., 1961, pt. 2, pp. 78-79.
64. Ibid., p. 80.
65. Ibid.
66. Fifth AS Intelligence Briefs, 5, 11, 13, 18, 20, 25, 27 Apr.
1961; CINCPAC Command Hist., 1961, pt. 2, p. 91.
67. CINCPAC Command Hist., 1961, pt. 2, pp. 88-89; Hist. 5th
Communications & Control Gp., Jan.-June 1961, p. 7; Hist. 405th Tac.
Ftr. Wg., Jan.-June 1961, p. 18; Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1961, III,
Hist. PFOCO, June 1961.
68. Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1961, III, Hist. Rpt. A-2, Apr. 1961;
Hist 315th Air Div (Com Car), Jan.-June 1961, Appendix O.
69. CINCPAC Command Hist., 1961, pt. 2, pp. 89-90; Schlesinger,
A Thousand Days, p. 336.
70. 87th Cong. 1st Sess., The International Development and
Security Act, pp. 358-359.
71. Fifth AS, Intelligence Brief, 5 Apr. 1961; Hist. PACAF,
Jan-June 1961, III: Wkly. Briefing Items PFMSS, 1 May 1961.
72. CINCPAC Command Hist., 1961, pt. 2, p. 91.
550
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73. Megs., JCS to CINCPAC, 23 2318Z Apr. 1961, State to Vientiane,
No. 1153, 23 Apr. 1961.
74. Hist. PACAF, July-Dec. 1961, vol. I, pt. 2, pp. 13-18.
75. Msgs., CHMAAG Laos to CINCPAC, 260500Z Apr. 1961, AMENB
Vientiane to State, No. 1938, 27 Apr. 1961, CINCPAC to JCS, 272037Z
AP'. 1961, CHMAAG Laos to CINCPAC, 301645Z Apr. 1961; CINCPAC Command
Hist., 1961, pt. 2, pp. 83, 91-92.
76. Richard M. Nixon, "Cuba, Castro and John F. Kennedy," Reader's
Digest, Nov. 1964, pp. 290-292.
7. Schlesinger, A Thousand pays, pp. 337-339; Hist. Direc. of
Plans, Dep. CofS Plans and Prgms., USAF, Jan.-June 1961, pp. 78-81.
78. CINCPAC Command Hist., 1961, pt. 2, p. 93.
79. Hilsman, To Move a Nation, pp. 128-130.
80. Ltr., O'Donnell to LeMay, 22 May 1961, in Hist. PACAF, Jan.-
June 1961, vol I, pt. 2, pp. 13-15.
81. 87th Cong. 2d Sess., Department of Defense Appropriations for
1963 Hearin :s before a Subcommittee of the Committee an A..ro riations,
House o Represen atives Washington: G
?1
l'.2
pt. 2
PP- -3
82. Hist. Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Plans and Prgms., USAF,
Jan.-June 1961, pp. 90-91.
83. Theodore C. Sorenson, Kennedy (New York: Harper & Row, 1965),
pp. 644-645; Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, pp. 337-339.
84. Fifth AF, Intelligence Briefs, 4 May, 16 May, 25 May 1961.
85. Dommen, Conflict in Laos, pp. 197-199.
86. US Federal Register, 10 Nov. 1960, pp. 10731-10733.
87. US Dept of State Bulletin, vol. 45, PP. 993-994.
88. Schlesinger, A Thousand Raiz, pp. 426-428.
89. 88th Cong. 1st Sess., Senate Document No. 36, pp. 157-159.
90. 87th Cong. 2d Sess., Military Cold War Education and Speech
Review Policies, pt. 5, pp. 2376-2377.
551
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91. William P. Bundy, "The Path to Viet-Nam: A Lesson in Involvement
US Dept of State Bulletin, vol. 57, pp. 280-281; George W. Ball, The
Discipline of Power, Essentials of a Modern World Structure (Boston:
Little, Brown and Co., 1968), p. 151.
92. US Dept of State Bulletin, vol. 57, pp. 280-281.
93. Stewart Alsop, "Kennedy's Grand Strategy," The Saturday Evening
Post, 31 Mar. 1962, p. 12.
94. Address by President John F. Kennedy to the Congress of the
United States, 28 Mar. 1961, in Air Force Information Po1ic7 Letter
Supplement for Commanders, no. 90, May 1961, pp. 1-4.
95. nommen, Conflict in Laos, pp. 192-195.
96. Fifth AF, Intelligence Brief, 20 Apr. 1961.
97. Stebbins, ed., Documents on American Foreign Relations, 1961,
PP. 306-307, 308-310; Dommen, Conflict in Laos, pp. 192-195.
98. Public Papers of the Presidents" John F. Kennedy, 1961
(Washington: GPO, 1962), pp. 435, -1.1.44; roreign Assistance and Related
Agencies Appropriations for 1962, Hearings before the Committee on
Appropriations, U.S. Senate (Washington: GPO, 1961), pp. 112-113,
135-137; Henry F. Graff, "Teach-In on_Vietnam By ... The President, the
Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense and the Under Secretary
of State," New York Times Magazine, 20 Mar. 1966.
99. Fifth AF, Intelligence Brief, 20 June 1961.
100. Robert S. McNamara, "The Communist Design for World Conquest,
Some Shift in Our Military Thinking Required," Vital Speeches of the Day,
1 Mar. 1962, pp. 296-299; 88th Cong. 2d Sess., Hearings on Military
Posture and H.R. 9637, Before the Committee on Armed Services, House of
Representatives (Washington: GPO, 1964), p. 7001.
101. AMFPA, Area III MAP Logistic Conference, 14-19 Nov. 1956,
p. 321; 89th Cong. 2d Sess., Supplemental Foreiqn Assistance Fiscal Year
1966 -- Vietnam Hearin :s before the Committee on Forei n Relations,
U.S. Senate on S. 2793 Washington: GPO, 19.. pt. 1, pp. 22.-227.
102. Joel M. Halpern, Government, Politics; and Social Structure
in Laos, A Study of Tradition and Innovation (Yale University Southeast
Asia Studies No. 4, 1964), PP. 133-136.
103. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, p. 335; Dommen, Conflict in
Laos, p. 204.
552
If
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104. 89th Cong. 2d Sess., Supplemental Foreign Assistance Fiscal
Year 1966 -- Vietnam, pt. 1, pp. 226-227.
105. 87th Cong. 1st Sess., Foreign Assistance and Related Agencies
Appropriations for 19620 U.S. Senate, p. 364.
106. Hist. Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Plans and Prgms., USAF,
Jan.-June 1961, pp. 78-81.
107. 87th Cong. 1st Sess., International Development and Security,
Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate (Washington:
GPO, 1961), pt. 2, p. 628.
108. Fifth AF, Intelligence 3rief, 16 May 1961.
109. Ibid., 23 May 1961.
110. 87th Cong. 1st Sess., International Development and Security,
U. S. Senate, pt. 2, p. 649.
111. Public Papers of the Presidents, LEIdon B. Johnson, 1965
(Washington: GPO, 1966) v. 1, p. 464.
112. CZ Background, China and U.S. Far East Policy, 1945-1967,
p. 104; Stebbins, ed., Documents on American Foreign Relations, 1961,
pp. 311-318.
113. Public Papers of the Presidents, John F. Kennedy, 1961, ID. 444.
114. CZ Background, China and U.S. Far East Policy, 1945-1967, p. 105.
115. Toye, Laos, p. 175.
116. Hist. Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Plans and Prgms., USAF,
Jan.-June 1961, pp. 78-81; Fifth AF, Intelligence Brief, 1 June 1961.
117. 87th Cong. 1st Sess., The International Development and
Security Act, Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House
of Representatives (Washington: GPO, 1961), pt. 1, pp. 112-114; 87th
Cong. 1st Sess., International Development and Security, U.S. Senate,
PP. 459-551.
118. Dommen, Conflict in Laos, p. 212.
119. Hist. Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Plans and Prgms., USAF,
Jan.-June 1961, pp. 78-81.
553
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120. Hist. Direc. of Plans, Dep.
July-Dec. 1961, pp. 46-47.
121. Hist. PACAF, July-Dec. 1961,
July 1961, A-2 Monthly Hist. Rpt., Oct.
CofS Plans and Prgms., USAF
III, Hist. Rpt. A-2 (PFICO),
1961.
122. Hist. PACAF, July-Dec. 1961, I, pt. 2, pp. 18-32; Ibid., III,
A-2 Monthly Hist. Rpt., Oct. 1961; msg., CINCPAC to JCS 1100072-17v.
1961; Rpt. on Able Mable, ca. 1 Feb. 1962, in Hist. 2d Advon, 15 Nov.
1961-8 Oct. 1962, doc. 72.-
123. Memo by PFLPO, subj: Altitude Restrictions on Reconnaissance
Flights Over Laos, in Col. Yudkin's Trip Book, 5 Jan. 1962 w/msgs.,
CINCPAC to Ch. MAAG Laos, 100120 Nov. 1961 and PACAF to 13AF, PFCVC-556,
30 Nov. 1961.
124. Intelligence Estimate, South Vietnam, ca. Oct. 1961, in
Hist. 2d Advon, Nov. 1961-Oct. 1962, I, doc. 15; PACAF Secretary of
Defense Book for December (1961) Meeting, Action Tab B: Reconnaissance
Southeast Asia.
125. 87th Cong. 1st Sess., The International Development and
Security Act, House of Representatives, pt. 1, pp. 112-114.
126. Hist. Asst. for Mutual Security, Dep. CofS Systems &
Logistics, USAF, Jan.-June 1961, n.p.
127. USAF Journal of Mutual Security, vol. XIV, no. 79, Sept.
1961, p. 144; Hist. PACAF July-Dec. 1961, III, Wkly Activity Rpts.,
PFMLP, 11-15 Sept. 1961 and 2-6 Oct. 1961.
128. Ltr., Gen. Emmett O'Donnell, Jr., CINCPACAF, to CINCPAC,
subj: Visit to Southeast Asia, 12 Dec. 1961; USAF Journal of Military
Assistance, vol. XV, no. 81, Mar. 1962, pp. 160-161. The RLAF finally
took over the air base at Seno from the French in June 1963. Msg.
CX-127, USAIRA Vientiane to USAF, 26 June 1963.
129. Hq. CINCPAC, Record of Fourth Secretary of Defense
Conference, 21 Mar. 1962, Special Agenda Item: Current Situation in
Laos and Possible Future Courses of Action; USAF Journal of Military
Assistance, vol. XIV, no. 80, Dec. 1961, p. 136.
130. US Dept of State, American Foreizn Policy, Current Documents,
1962 (Washington: GPO, 1966), pp. 1066-1067.
131. 87th Cong. 2d Sess., ForeiFn Assistance Act of 1962, Hearings
before the Committee on Forei Relations U.S. Senate (Washington: GPO,
19 2 , p. O.
3 9-3
554
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132. Msg. GR-845, Amb Vientiane to State, 011927Z Jan. 1962.
133. 87th Cong. 2d Sess., Foreign Assistance Act of 1962, Hearings
before the Committee on Foreign Relations U.S. Seante (Washington: GPO,
19 2), P. 369.
134. Toye, Laos, pp. 180-181; Commen, Conflict in Laos, pp. 219-228;
Public Papers of the Presidents, John F. Kennedy, 1962 (Washington: GPO,
1963), p. 93; USAF Journalof Mutual Security, vol. XV, no. 81, Mar. 1962,
p. 160.
135. Ltr., O'Donnell to CINCPAC, 12 Dec. 1961.
136. Stebbins, ed., Documents on American Foreign Relations, 1962,
Pp. 277-278.
137. Hq. CINCPAC, Record of Fourth Secretary of Defense Conference,
21 Mar. 1962, Special Agenda Item: Current Situation in Laos and
Future Courses of Action.
138. nommen, Conflict in Laos, pp. 215-216; Toye, Laos, pp. 181-182,
196; Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, p. 451.
139. 87th Cong. 2d Sess., Foreign Assistance Act of 19621_ Hearin.gs
before the Committee on Foreign Relations U.S. Senate (Washineon: GPO,
1962), pp- 349-350, 370.
555
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FOOTNOTES
Chapter 4
1. US Dept of State, A Threat to the Peace (Washington: GPO,
1961), pt. II, p. 3.
2. Congressional Record, 9 May 1968, p. 12616; Halberstam, The
Making of a Quagmire, pp. 63-64.
3. Congressional Record, 9 May 1968, pp. 12617, 12619.
4.
p. 21.
Hqs. COMUSMACV, Summary of Highlights, 8 Feb. 1962-7' Feb. 1963,
5. Memo by Lansdale for Draper Committee, 13 Mar. 1959;
Scigliano, South Vietnam: Nation Under Stress, p. 179; Williams
interview in U.S. News & World Report, 9 Nov. 1964, p. 71; CINCPAC,
Record, Second SECDEF Conference, 15 Jan. 1962, Item 5A: General
McGarr's report on talks with President Diem and Secretary Thuan.
6. MACV Hist. Monograph, Military Assistance to the Republic of
South Vietnam, pp. 6-7, 9-11; MACV, Summary of Highlights, 8 Feb. 1962-
7 Feb. 1963, pp. 46-49.
7. Msg., CINCPAC to DIA, 132258Z Mar. 1963;
Hist., 1961, pp. 169-170; PACAF Reference Book for
Conference, Tab. 6A: GVN Counter-Insurgency Plan;
Plans, Dep. CofS Plans and Prgms., USAF, July-Dec.
CINCPAC Command
January 1962 SECDEF
Hist., Direc. of
1960, p. 180.
8. PACAF Reference Book for January 1962 SECDEF Conference,
Tab. 6A; CINCPAC Command Hist., 1961, pp. 172, 174-175; Scigliano,
South Vietnam: Nation Under Stress, pp. 164-165; USAF Journal of Mutual
Security, vol. XIII, no. 76 (Dec. 1960), p. 149.
9. Maj. Gen. Theodore R. Milton, "Air Power: Equalizer in South-
east Asia," Air University Review, Nov.-Dec. 1963, p. 4.
10. USAF Journal of Mutual Security, vol. XII, no. 71 (Sept. 1959),
pp. 164-165.
11. PACAF Current Intelligence Summary, 23 Oct. 1959, pp. 9-10;
Hist., Asst. for Mutual Security, Dep. CofS Materiel, USAF, Jan.-June
1960, n.p.; Hist. PACAF, July-Dec. 1960, III, Wkly. Activities Rpts.,
PFMLP, 22-26 May and 10-14 Oct. 1960; msg., CINCPAC to DIA, 132258Z Mar.
1963; PACAF Reference Book for 8 Oct. 1962 SECDEF Conference, Vietnam
Sect., Tab. 4.
556
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12. Hist., Asst. for Mutual Security, Dep. CofS Materiel, USAF,
July-Dec. 1960, n.p.; Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1961, III, Wkly. Activities
Rpt., PFMLP, 27 Feb.-3 Mar. 1961.
13. Rpt. of USAF Asian MAP Logistics Conference, 1-3 Nov. 1960,
PP. 254-255; Hist. PACAF, July-Dec. 1961, III, Wkly. Activities Rpts.,
PFMLP, 24-28 July and 18-22 Sept. 1961; Rpt., Col. Edwin A. Schneider,
Asst. for MAP, Asst. CofS Opns., PACAF, to CINCPACAF, subj: Report of
Operational Assistance Visit to the Vietnamese Air Force, 25 Oct. 1961.
14. Schneider Rpt., 25 Oct. 1961.
15. Congressional Record, 9 May 1968, p. 12617; MACV Hist.
Monograph, Military Assistance to the Republic of South Vietnam, pp.
9-11; Douglas Pike, Viet Cong (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1966), p. 79.
16. USAF Journal of Mutual Assistance, vol. XIII, no. 76 (Dec.
1960), p. 149; Joseph Buttinger, Vietnam: A Dragon Embattled (New
York: Praeger, 1967), II, 990.
17. Schlesinger, A Thousand ata, p. 450; Robert Shaplen, The
Lost Revolution (New York: Harper & Row, 1965)5 p. 149; Maj. William
L. Nicholson, III, Background Paper on Vietnam, ca. Jan. 1962; Hist.
Thirteenth AF, July-Dec. 1961, I, 107-109; Intelligence Estimate, SVN,
ca. 1 Oct. 1961, in Hist. 2d ADVON, Nov. 1961-Oct. 1962, vol. I, doc. 15.
18. Congressional Record, 9 Nay 1968, pp. 12617-12618;
Viet Cong, passim; Douglas Pike, War Peace, and the Viet Cong (Cambridge:
The MIT Press, 1969), pp. 1-18.
19. Jacob Van Staaveren, USAF Plans and Policies in South Vietnam,
1961-1963 (USAF Hist. Div. Ln. Off., June 1965), p. 6; CINCPAC Command
Hist., 1961, pp. 174-175.
20. Presentation to the USAF Scientific Advisory Board on the
Subject of Counterinsurgency by Brig. Gen. Adriel N. Williams,
D/Director of Plans for Policy, USAF, 24 Apr. 1962;, US Dept of State
Bulletin, vol. 57, pp. 280-281.
21. MACV Hist. Monograph, Military Assistance to the Republic
of South Vietnam, pp. 9-11; Fifth AF Weekly Intelligence Brief,
22 Mar. 1961; Public Papers of the President, John F. Kennedy, 1961,
pp. 311, 340.
22. CINCPAC Comd. Hist., 1961, pp. 169-170; SAF Wkly. Intel.
Brief, 11 May 1961, PACAF Reference Book for December 1961 SECDEF
Conference, Tab. B-7-B, Changes Agreed to by Diem Affecting RVNAF.
557
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?
23. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, p. 541; CINCPAC, Comd. Hist.,
1961, p. 175; Hist. Asst. for Mutual Security, Dep. CofS Systems &
Logistics, USAF, Jan.-June 1961, n.p.; .Van Staaveren, USAF Plans and
Policies in South Vietnam, 1961-1963, p. 7.
24. Scigliano, South Vietnam: Nation Under Stress, p. 150;
Public Papers of the Presidente, John F. Kenner, 1961, p. 356;
AFXOPJ, Book of Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item IV-A;
CINCPAC Comd. Hist., 1961, pp. 184-185; ltr., O'Donnell to Felt,
17 Nay 1961.
25. Van Staaveren, USAF Plans and Policies in South Vietnam, 1961-1963,
p. 8; US Dept of State Bulletin, vol. 45, PP. 956-957; Schlesinger, A
Thousand Days, p. 543; Public Papers of the Presidents, Lyndon B. Johnson,
1965 (Washington: GPO, 1966), vol 1, p. 404.
26. CINCPAC Comd. Hist., 1961, pp. 172-174.
27. Graff, "Teach-In on Vietnam. . .," New York Times Magazine,
20 Mar. 1966.
28. Hist. Direc. of Flans, Deo. CofS Plans and Prgms., USAF,
Jan.-June 1961, pp. 44, 169-170.
29. Van Staaveren, USAF Plans and Policies in South Vietnam, 1961-
1963, pp. 8-9; msg. CINCPAC to DIA, 132253Z Mar. 1963.
30. Hist. Asst. for Mutual Security, Dep. CofS Systems and
Logistics, USAF, Jan.-June 1961, n.p.
31. Ibid., July-Dec. 1961, pp. 28-29.
32. Hist. Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Plans and Programs, USAF,
July-Dec. 1961, p. 262; AFXOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia,
1961-1964, Item VII-A; CINCPAC Comd. Hist., 1961, p. 186.
33. Hist. Asst. for Mutual Security, Dep. CofS Systems and
Logistics, July-Dec. 1961, n.p.; Hist. PACAF, July-Dec. 1961 III,
Wkly. Activities Rpt., PFM1P, 11-15 Dec. 1961.
34. Brochure, 3d Ln. Sz.. VNAF, ca. Sept. 1962; Schneider Rpt.,
25 Oct. 1961.
35. Msg., USA1RA to CofS USAF, C-264, 28 Nov. 1961; ltr.,
O'Donnell to CINCPAC, subj: Visit to Southeast Asia, 12 Dec. 1961.
558
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36. CINCPAC Comd. Hist., 1961, pp. 182-183; Hq. USMACV, Summary
of Highlights, 8 Feb. 1962-7 Feb. 1963, p. 41; AFXOPJ, Book on Actions
in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item IV-C: Concept of Use of SEATO Forces
in SVN; Hist. Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Plans and Prgms., USAF, July-Dec.
1961, PP. 44-45.
37. CINCPAC Comd. Hist., 1961, pp. 182-183; Hq. USMACV, Summary of
Highlights, 8 Feb. 1962-7 Feb. 1963, P. 41; Hq. CINCPAC, Record of Second
SECDEF Conference, 15 Jan. 1962, Item 13: Estimate of the Extent to
which GVN Agreeing to U.S. suggestions.
38. SVN Radar Environment Survey, July 1961, in Hist. 5th Tactical
Control Gp., July-Dec. 1961, Appendix XXV.
39. CINCPAC Comd. Hist., 1961, pp. 33-34; Hist., PACAF, July-Dec.
1961, III, Hist. Rpt. of C-E Opns., Elec. Systems Div., Aug. 1961 and
Hist. PFOCO, Dec. 1961; ltr., Brig. Gen. R. H. Anthis, Comdr. 2AD,
to 13AF, subj.: Recommendation for the Air Force Outstanding Unit Award;
Schneider rpt., 25 Oct. 1961.
40. CINCPAC Comd. Hist., 1961, p. 183; Hist. Asst. for Mutual
Security, Dep. CofS Systems and Logistics, USAF, Jan.-June 1961, n.p.;
Rpt of USAF CofS Visit to SVN, Apr. 1962, Tab: Requirements and Project
"Agile."
41.
pp. 1-10;
Interview
Grainger,
42.
43.
44.
Hist. USAF Special Warfare Center (SAWC), 27 Apr.-31 Dec. 1962,
AFXOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item II;
with Lt. Col. Charles E. Trumbo, Jr., D/Plans 2AD by J.W.
13 July 1963.
AFXOPJ, Book of Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item IV-B.
AFXOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item III-B.
CINCPAC Command Hist., 1961, p. 187.
45. Fifth AT Weekly Intelligence Brief, 29 June 1961.
46. Hist. Fifth AT, July-Dec. 1961, I, 107-109; PACAF Reference
Book for December 1961 SECDEF Conference, Tab. B-2: RVNAF Operations.
47.
Appraise
48.
22pers of
PACAF Reference Book for July 1962 SECDEF Conference, Tab. 8:
the political and economic progress in South Vietnam.
Raskin and Fall, eds., The Viet-Nam Reader, p. 385; Public
the Presidents John F. Kennedy, 1961, pp. 680-681.
559
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49. AFXOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, Item III-B; Van
Staaveren, USAF Plans and Policies in South Vietnam, 1961-1963, P. 9;
Public Papers of the Presidents, John F. Kennedy, 1961, pp. 656, 660;
"The Lowdown from the Top U.S. Command in Saigon," Life 27 Nov. 1964,
P- 46.
50. CQ Background, China and U.S. Far East Policy, 1945-1967, p. 108.
51. Cooper, The Lost Crusade, pp. 193-194.
52. MACV Hist. Monograph, Military Assistance to the Republic of
South Vietnam, 1960-1963, p. 11; ltr., Diem to Kennedy, n.d., in Public
Papers of the Presidents, John F. Kennedy, 1961, pp. 801-802.
53. PACAF Reference Book for December 1961 SECDEF Conference,
Tab. B-1: Viet Cong Operations.
54. Hist. 18th TFW, July-Dec. 1961, p. 62; Hist. PACAF, July-Dec.
1961, III, A-2 Monthly Hist. Rpt., Oct. 1961; Hist. PACAF, 1 July-Dec.
1961, I, pt. 2, pp. 20-21; Daily Hist., Log, Pipe Stem Detachment,
18-21 Oct. 1961.
55. CINCPAC Comd. Hist., 1961, 187-191.
56. Project CHECO, Southeast Asia Report, pt. III, Political/
Policy Influence, Oct. 61-Dec. 63, PP. 14-16; msg., ADMINO CINCPAC
to CofS USAF, 280335Z Oct. 1961.
57. Hist., Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Plans and Prgms., USAF,
July-Dec. 1961, pp. 176-178.
58. Van Staaveren, USAF Plans and Policies in South Vietnam, 1961-
1963, pp. 10-11; Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, pp. 546-547; Hilsman,
To Move a Nation, pp. 422-423; Ball, The Discipline of Power, p. 334;
US Dept of State Bulletin, vol. 56, p. 514.
59. Van Staaveren,
1963, p. 11.
USAF Plans and Policies in South Vietnam, 1961-
Thousand Days, pp. 546-457;
60. Schlesinger, A
Dec. 1961, III: Monthly
61. Msgs., CINCPAC
Hist. Rpt. A-2, Nov. 1961.
Hist. PACAF, July-
to JCS, 20040Z Oct. 1961 and 152015Z Nov. 1961.
62. Hist., Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Plans and Prgms., USAF,
July-Dec. 1961, pp. 45-46; Van Staaveren, USAF Plans and Policies in
South Vietnam, 1961-1963, p. 12.
560
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63. Hist., Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Plans and Prgms., USAF,
July-Dec. 1961, pp. 176-177.
64. Van Staaveren, USAF Plans and Policies in South Vietnam,
1960-1963, p. 12; msg., CSAF to PACAF, AFXPD:137233, 23 Mar. 19657
65. PACAF Reference Book for December 1961 SECDEF Conference,
Tab. B-4: COMUS Vietnam.
66. AFXOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item
IIIA-L; msg., CINCPAC to PACAF and CHMAAGVN, 020145Z Nov. 1961.
67. Progress Rpt., 6009th TSG, ca. 5 Dec. 1961, in Hist. 2d Advon,
Nov. 1961-Oct. 1962, doe. 6.
68. Hist. 2d Advon, pp. 8-9; h400th CCTG (TAC), Intel. Rpt., subj:
Debriefing of the Commander and Intelligence Officer, Det. #2, 4400th
CCTG, Nov. 61-Feb. 62, 1 Apr. 1962; msg. USAF to CINCPAC, AFOOP-TA-PC
77338, 9 Nov. 1961; msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 152015Z Nov. 1961; Hq. CINCPAC,
Record, SECDEF Conference, 16 Dec. 1961, Item 8A.
69. Msg. CINCPACAF to CofS USAF, PFCNC-504, 11 Nov. 1961.
70. Special Order G-85, Hq. PACAF, 15 Nov. 1963; msg. PACAF to
13AF and 2d Advon, PFCVC-082, 20 Feb. 1962; Hist. SAF, July-Dec. 1961, I,
53-56; msg. PACAF to 2AD, PFCVC-4-8-18, 4 Aug. 1962; msg. PACAF to 13AF,
PFPND-M-3636, 17 Nov. 1961.
71. Msg. PACAF to 13AF, PFPNO-M-3636, 17 Nov. 1961.
72. Interview with Anthis by Gausche and Ora4gr, 30 Aug. 1963; msg.
USAIRA Saigon to CofS USAF, C-264, 28 Nov. 1961; msg. AMEMB Saigon to
State, #704, 25 Nov. 1961; msgs. CINCPAC to CHMAAG VN, 252015Z Nov. 1961
and 290113Z Nov. 1961; ltr., O'Donnell to CINCPAC, 12 Dec. 1961.
73. Msg. PACAF to USAF, PFOCC-S-61-197, 17 Dec. 1961.
74. PACAF Reference Book for December 1961 SECDEF Conference,
Tab. B-4: COMUS Vietnam.
75. Msgs., JCS-2347 to CINCPAC, 23 Nov. 1961 and JCS-2393 to
CINCPAC, 28 Nov. 1961.
76. Van Staaveren, USAF Plans and Policies in South Vietnam,
1961-1963, p. 14.
77. Msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 290301Z Nov. 1961.
5 61' 1
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78. PACAF Reference Book for December 1961 SECDEF Conference,
Tab. B-4.
79. Van Staaveren, USAF Plans and Policies in South Vietnam,
1961-1963, p. 15.
80. Msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 290301Z Nov. 1961.
81. AFXOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item IV-D.
82. CINCPAC Command Hist., 1961, p. 171; msg., CINCPAC to CHMAAGVN,
060247Z Dec. 1961; CINCPAC, Record, SECDEF Conference, 16 Dec. 1961,
Item 4.
83. 89th Cong. 2d Sess., Foreign Assistance, 19662 Hearings before
the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, on S. 2b59 and S. 2661
(Washington: GPO, 1966), pp. 243-244, 263.
84. Van Staaveren, USAF Plans and Policies in South Vietnam,
1961-1963, p. 14.
85. Mst., USAIRA Saigon to CofS USAF, C-264, 28 Nov. 1961.
66. PACAF Reference Book for January 1962 SECDEF Conference,
Tab. 13.
87. CINCPAC, Record, Second SECDEF Conference, 15 Jan. 1962, Item
13: Estimate of the extent to which GVN Agreeing to U.S. suggestions.
88. CINCPAC, Record, SECDEF Conference, 16 Dec. 1961, Item 2: SVN
Military Operations Against Viet Cong Since 1 Oct. 1961.
89. CINCPAC, Record, Second SECDEF Conference, 15 Jan. 1962, Item
5A: General McGarr's report on talks with President Diem and Secretary
Thuan; Hq. USMACV, Summary of Highlights, 8 Feb. 1962-7 Feb. 1963, p. 97.
90. AFXOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item III-C.
91. CINCPAC Command Hist., 1961, p. 189; msg., USAIRA Saigon to
CofS USAF, C-264, 28 Nov. 1961; CINCPAC, Record, SECDEF Conference,
19 Dec. 1961, Item 7; Project CHECO, Southeast Asia Report, pt. IV:
Command Structure/Relationships, Oct. 61-Dec. 63, pp. 31-34.
92. Msg., CINCPACAF to 13AF, PFDOP-61-9738-M, 9 Dec. 1961; msg.,
PACAF to 13AF, PFDOP-61-9742M, 13 Dec. 1961; PACAF Reference Book for
December 1961 SECDEF Conference, Tab. A-5 and Action Tab. A.
562
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93. CINCPAC Command Hist., 1961, pp. 190-191; CINCPAC, Record,
SECDEF Conference, 16 Dec. 1961, Item 4; PACAF Reference Book for
January 1962 SECDEF Conference, Tab. 16A.
94. Msg., CINCPAC to CHMAAGVN, 162040Z Nov. 1961; CINCPAC Command
Hist., 1961, pp. 187-188.
95. Ltr.? O'Donnell to CINCPAC, 12 Dec. 1961; msg., USAIRA Saigon
to CofS USAF, C-264, 28 Nov. 1961; PACAF Reference Book for December
1961 SECDEF Conference, Tab. B-1, Viet Cong Operations.
96. CINCPAC Command Hist., 1961, pp. 190-191; AFXOPJ, Book of
Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1954, Item VII-B; msg., JCS-2488 to
CINCPAC, 6 Dec. 1961.
97. Msg., PACAF to CINCPAC, PnVC-61-12-6, 6 Dec. 1961; PACAF
Reference Book for December 1961 SECDEF Conference, Action Tab. H:
Talking Paper, Utilization of Jungle Jim (Farm Gate).
98. CINCPAC Command Hist., 1961, p. 171; msg., CINCPAC to CHMAAGVN,
060247Z Dec. 1961; CINCPAC, Record, SECDEF Conference, 16 Dec. 1961,
Item L.
99. Meg-, PACAF to CINCPAC, PFCVC-61-12-171 8 Dec. 1961; AFXOPJ,
Book of Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item III-C; CINCPAC,
Command Hist., 1961, p. 188.
100. Henry F. Graff, The Tuesday Cabinet, Deliberation and Decision
on Peace and War under Lyndon B. Johnson (Ehglewood Cliffs: Prentice-
Hall, 1970), p. 35.
101. CINCPAC Command Hist., 1961, p. 193; CINCPAC, Record, SECDEF
Conference, 16 Dec. 1961, Items 2, 4, and 8M.
102. CINCPAC, Record, SECDEF Conference, 16 Dec. 1961, Items 7,
8A, and 8G; msg. PACAF to USAF, PFOCC-S-61-197, 17 Dec. 1961.
103. Msg. PACAF to USAF, PFOCC-S-61-197, 17 Dec. 1961; CINCPAC,
Record, SECDEF Conference, 16 Dec. 1961, Item 8-1.
104. Msg. PACAF to USAF, PFOCC-S-61-197, 17 Dec. 1961.
105. Msg. CINCPAC to CHMAAG VN and PACAF, 232000Z Dec. 1961.
106. Interview with Anthis by Gauscle., and Grainge7,30 Aug. 1963.
107. Msg. JCS-2706 to CINCPAC and CHMAAG VN, 26 Dec. 1961.
5ti3
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108. Hist. 464th TC Wg. (A) July-Dec. 1961, pp..49-50; Hist.
13AF, July-Dec. 1961, I, 86-87; PACAF Reference Book for January 1962
SECDEF Conference Tab 3, TP-1, Discussion of U.S. Operations in Vietnam;
msgs. CINCPAC to CHMAAG VN, 23 Dec. 1961; CINCPAC to CHMAAG VN, 282145Z
Dec. 1961; 13AF to PACAF, 130DC/62/TS-0162, ca. 12 Jan. 1961.
109. CHAFSEC MAAG VN, Agenda Book for February 1962 SECDEF Conference,
Item 3(3); CINCPAC, Record, Second SECDEF Conference, 15 Jan. 1962,
Item 3; CINCPAC Comd. Hist., 1961, p. 194.
110. Hist. 464th TC Wg. (A), July-Dec. 1961, p. 50; PACAF
Reference Book for December 1961 SECDEF Conference, Tab. A-5; Hists.
13AF, July-Dec. 1961, I, 86-87 and 1962, I, 69-72; AFXOPJ, Book on Actions
in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item III-D; Hq. USMACV, Summary of Highlights,
8 Feb. 1962-7 Feb. 1963, p. 69.
111. Hq. USMACV, Summary of Highlights, 8 Feb. 1962-7 Feb. 1963,
p. 69; ltr., Lt Col. Floyd K. Shafner, Comdr., Mule Train, to Anthis,
subj: Mule Train Problem Areas, 12 May 1962.
112. Msg., CHMAAGVN to PACAF, MAGAF-CH-4485, 16 Dec. 1961; CINCPAC,
Record, Second SECDEF Conference, 15 Jan. 1962, Item 3; Chief, AFSEC
MAAGVN, Agenda Book for February 1962 SECDEF Conference, Item 5A:
Status--Air Force on Joint General Staff.
113. Hists. 13AF, July-Dec. 1961, I, 73-74 and 1962, I, 72-74; 13
AF Op Plan 226-61, 30 Dec. 1961; Hist. PACAF, July-Dec. 1961, vol. III,
Hist. Rpt. Direc. of C-E Plans and Opns., Dec. 1961.
114. AFXOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item
III-C; Hist. 315th AD, Jan.-June 1962, pp. 44-45; CINCPAC, Record,
Second SECDEF Conference, Item 3.
115. Hist. 2d Advon, pp. ?:VII-XX; CHAFSEC MAAGVN, Agenda Book for
February 1962 SECDEF Conference, Item 3(1)A; Rpt., Brig. Gen. Travis M.
Hetherington, DepiCofS Plans and Opns. PACAF, Subj: Report of Staff
Visit, 25 Apr. 1962; Rpt., Lt. Col. Charles D. Easley, 2J0C, 2 20DC,
subj: End of Tour Report, ca. 5 Aug. 1962; ltr., Easley to 20DC, subj:
Deficiencies in the Tactical Air Control System, ca. 1 July 1962.
116. Hist. 2d Advon, pp. SVIII-XX; PACAF Reference Book for
January 1962 SECDEF Conference, Tab. 3, TP-1; CHAFSEC MAAGVN, Agenda
Book for February 1962 SECDEF Conference; Hq. USMACV, Summary of
Highlights, 8 Feb. 1962-7 Feb. 1963, p. 135; msg., USAIRA Saigon to
CofS USAF, C-38, 21 Mar. 1962.
117. PACAF Reference Book for December 1961 SECDEF Conference,
Action Tab. 1; CINCPAC, Record, SECDEF Conference, 16 Dec. 1961, Item
8-1; PACAF Reference Book for January 1962 SECDEF Conference, Tab. 9;
PACAF Reference Book for February 1962 SECDEF Conference, Item 9.
564
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118. Rpt. of USAF Chief of Staff's Visit to South Vietnam, Item
11: Communications; Hetherington Rpt., 25 Apr. 1962, Item on Communica-
tions and Electronics; Easley End of Tour Rpt., ca. 5 Aug 1962.
119. Msg., COMUSMACV to CL;CPAC, M,LC-JOk1),2711, 17 Sept. 1962.
120. CINCPAC Command Hists., 19615 p. 175 and 1962, P. 155;
Hist. PACAF, July-Dec. 1961, III, PFMLP Wkly. Activities Rpt., 22-29
Dec. 1961; PACAF Reference Book for December 1961 SECDEF Conference,
Action Tab. F.
121. Van Staaveren, USAF Plans and Policies in South Vietnam,
1961-1963, p. 15.
122. Msg., Admino CINCPAC to DE-' IWUSARTAC, 081600Z Feb. 1962.
123. Msg., JCS-3110 to CINCPA.'_;. 1 Jan. J962.
124. Project CHECO, Southeast Asia Report, pt. IV: Command
Structure/Relationships, Oct. 61-Baa. 61, pt. 1;8-39; Van Staaveren,
USAF Plans and Po1icie3 in Sc.,1-1 VLatna,, 1-6L-1963, pp. 16-17; msgs.,
JCS-3110 to CINCPAC, 31 Jan. 19-6,', -dos. USA,- to PACAF, #63603, 21 Feb. 1962,
and JCS-3490 to CINCPAC, 2 Mar. 1962.
125. Msg., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MAC-J00-2711, 17 Sept. 1962; ltr.,
Anthis to Eugene C. Zuckert, Secretary of Air Force, 9 Jan. 1963; Brig.
Gen. Frank A. Osmanski, J-4 MACV, Report on Vietnam, 26 Sept. 1963,
pp. 10-11.
126. Msgs., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC,
to PACAF, 2CCR-62-174E, 7 May 1962; msg
May 1962; msg., 2ADVON to 13AF, 2CaR-62-
to CHMAAG, AFPDC-C-99964, 21 June 1)62;
310047Z Oct. 1962; DAF Special Orde,77 AA
to Zuckert, 9 Jan. 1963.
MACV-18, 1 Mar. 1962; msg., 2ADVON
CINCPAC to COMUSMACV, 127330Z
-187E, 16 May 1962; msg., USAF
msg., CINCPAC to CofS USAF,
-1164, c Nov. 1962; ltr., Anthis
127. Msg., PACAF to 13AF and 2A7,1P11, PFCVC-082, 20 Feb. 1962.
128. Msgs., CINCPAC to COMUSMACV, 250016Z Feb. 1962; COMUSMACV to
CINCPAC, MACV-18, 1 Mar. 1962; COMUSEACV to CINCPAC, MACV-276, 6 Apr.
1962; COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MACV-293. 7 Apr. 1962; PACAF to 13AF and
2ADVON, PFLDC-3110-62, 27 Apr. 1962; COMTSMACV to CINCPAC, MAC-J01-573,
5 May 1962; 2SDVON to PACAF, 2CCR-62-1"LE, 5 May 1962; PACAF to CofS
USAF, PFCVC-62-5-3, 12 May 1962; CINCP4J; to COMUSMACTHAI and COMUSMACV,
3021352 Sept. 1963.
129. Osmanski Rpt., pp. 10-11: ltr., Anthis to Zuckert, 9 Jan. 1963;
Msg., CNO/DA/USAF to CINPACFLT et al.. '21613Z May 1962.
565
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130. Msg., PACAF to 13AF and 2ADVON, PFCVC-082, 20 Feb. 1962.
131. Project CHECO, Southeast Asia Report, pt. III, pp. 17-18;
Public Papers of the Presidents, John F. Kenneqy, 1962, P. 137.
132. Msg., PACAF to 13AF and 2d ADVON, PFCVC-082, 20 Feb. 1962;
msg., CINCPAC to COMUBMACV, 250016Z Feb. 1962; msg., COMUSMACV to
CINCPAC, MACV-18, 1 Mar. 1962; msg., 2d ADVON to 13AF, 2CCR-62-056C, 9
Mar. 1962.
133. Hetherington Rpt., 25 Apr. 1962; msg., PACAF to 13AF,
PFCVC-297, 24 May 1962.
134. US Dept of State, American Foreign Policy, Current Documents,
1962 (Washington: GPO, 1966), pp. 1103-1106.
135. Msg., PACAF to 13AF, PFCVC-297, 24 May 1962; Hist. 2AD, pp.
21-31.
136. Msgs., CINCPAC to COMDSMACV, 070414Z July 1962; MAC to
CINCPAC, J01-1369, 19 July 1962; CINCPAC to COMUSMACV, 282339Z July
1962; PACAF Special Order G-871 24 Sept. 1962.
137. Msgs., 2ADVON to 13AF, 2CCR-62-1395, 21 Apr. 1962; 2ADVON to
PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-25-04-107, 25 Apr. 1962; Van Staaveren, USAF Plans
and Policies in South Vietnam, 1961-1963, pp. 46-47.
138. Ltr., Anthis to Zuckert, 9 Jan. 1963.
139. Van Staaveren, USAF Plans and Policies in South Vietnam, 1961-
1963, p. 47.
140. Memo for Anthis from Col. Winston P. Anderson, D/Opns. 2AD,
subj: Requirement for USAF Representation on MCV Command Section,
23 Feb. 1963; msg., 2AD to PACAF, 2CCR-63-0046A, 27 Jan. 1963; msg.,
2AD to PACAF, 2CCR-29-09-41, 29 Sept. 1963.
566
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FOOTNOTES
Ilapter 5
1. Wilfred G. Burchett, Vietnam, Inside Story of the Guerrilla
War (New York: International Publishers, 1965), pp. 88-89.
2. PACAF Reference Book for 22-24 July 1962 SECDEF Conference,
Item B; MACV Hist. Monograph, Military Assistance to the Republic of
South Vietnam, 1960-1963, pp. 11-12.
3.
2 and L.
4.
CINCPAC, Record, Third SECDEF Conference, 19 Feb. 1962, Items
Msg., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MAC-J5-364, 14 Apr. 1962.
S. CINCPAC, Record, SECDEF Conference, 16 Dec. 1961, Item 2.
6. CINCPAC, Record, Third SECDEF Conference, 19 Feb. 1962,
Items 3 and 5; memo for PFDAL and PFDOP from Moorman, subj: Notes on
Secretary of Defense Meeting, 23 Feb. 1962; Hilsman, To noire a Nation,
pp. 441-444.
7. CHAFSEC MAAGVN, Agenda Book for May 1962 SECDEF Conference,
May 1962, Item 3: msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 020143Z, 2 Apr. 1962.
8. CINCPAC, Record, Second SECDEF Conference, 15 Jan. 1962,
Item 16; CINCPAC, Record, Third SECDEF Conference, Items 2 and 4;
Moorman memo, 23 Feb. 1962.
9. CINCPAC, Record, Second SECDEF Conference, 15 Jan. 1962,
Items 5, 5A, and 14; CINCPAC, Record, Third SECDEF Conference, 19 Feb.
1962, Item 4; Sir Robert Thompson, Defeating Communist Insurgency,
The Lessons of Malaya and Vietnam (New York: Praeger, 1966), pp. 129-139.
10. CINCPAC, Record, Third SECDEF Conference, Items 2 and 4;
Moorman memo, 23 Feb. 1962.
11. Hq. USMACV, Summary of Highlights, 8 Feb. 1962-7 Feb. 1963,
pp. 97, 99-100; msg., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MAC-J5 -364, 14 Apr. 1962;
PACAF Reference Book for July 1962 SECDEF Conference, Item B, Tab. A;
CINCPAC, Record, Sixth SECDEF Conference, 23 July 1962, Item 1.
12. Warner, The Last Confucian, pp. 179-180; CINCPAC, Record,
Sixth SECDEF Conference, 23 July 1;b2, Item 1; msg., CINCPAC to
CINCUSARPAC, 082346Z Sept. 1962.
567
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13. Msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 221650Z Oct. 1962; Ltr., Anthis to
Maj. Gen. Glen W. Martin, Dep. CofS Plans and Opns. PACAF, 9 Oct. 1963.
14. Msg., CINCPAC to DIA, 132258Z Mar. 1963; New York Times,
20 Feb. 1962, p. 3.
15. PACAF Reference Book for March 1962 SECDEF Conference, Item 5.
16. Msg., Det. 9, 2d ADVON to PACAF, DET9-CCR-61-600, 21 Nov. 1961;
DAF-IR-1521904, subj: Debriefing of the Commander and Intelligence
Officer, Det. 2, 4400th CCTS, 1 Apr. 1962; Briefing by Capt. M.K. Palmer,
16 Jan. 1962, in Hist. Fifth AF, Jan.-June 1962, II, doc. 144.
17. PACAF Back-up Book for December 1961 SECDEF Mtg., Action Tab A;
Paper by Lt. Col. Robert L. Gleason, Comdr. Det. 2A, ca. 1 Mar. 1962,
in Hist. 2d Advon, II, doc. 60.
18. Interview with Anthis by Gausche and Grainger,30 Aug. 1963; msg.
JCS-2706 to CINCPAC and CHMAAG VN, 26 Dec. 1961; Hist.'SAIC, 27 Apr.-31
Dec. 1962, II, doc. 11.
19. Gleason paper, ca. 1 Mar. 1962.
20. PACAF Back-up Book fcr January 1962 SECDEF Mtg., Tab 3B;
PACAF Back-up Book for March 1962 SECDEF Mtg., Item 5.
21. DAF-IR-T7TM4T'msg. 2d Advon to PACAF, 20DC-62-TS0322,
30 Jan. 1962; PACAF Reference Book for February 1962 SECDEF Conference,
Tab. 3C, TP-1; msg. 2d Advon to PACAF, 20DC-62-0411B, 24 Feb. 1962;
Gleason paper, ca. 1 Mar. 1962; CINCPAC, Record, Third SECDEF Conference,
19 Feb. 1963, Item 3.
22. PACAF Reference Book for January 1961 SECDEF Conference, Tab. 3,
TP-1; DAF-IR-1521904; Hist. 2d AD, I, xiv; CINCPAC, Record, Third SECD.E.14
Conference, 19 Feb. 1962, Item 3; Gleason paper, ca. 1 Mar. 1962.
23. Rpt.of USAF Chief of Staff's Visit to South Vietnam, Apr. 1962,
Plans Section, Item 4: Quick Reaction Force Concept; msg., ADMINO CINCPAC
to JCS, 081848Z May 1962.
24. PACAF Reference Book for January 1962 SECDEF Conference, Tabs.
2 and 3; Palmer briefing in Hist. 5AF, Jan.-June 1962, vol. 2, doc. 144.
25. CINCPAC, Record, Third SECDEF Conference, 19 Feb. 1962, item 2.
26. Hist. PACAF, July-Dec. 1961, I, 28-29; PACAF Reference Book
for January 1962 SECDEF Conference, Tab. 3, TP-1; CHAFSEC MAAGVN, Agenda
568
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Book for February 1962 SECDEF Conference, Item 3(1); CINCPAC, Record,
Third SECDEF Conference, 19 Feb. 1962, Item 3; msg., PACAF to USAF,'
PFLDC-62-1140B, 20 Feb. 1962; Moorman memo, 23 Feb. 1962; PACAF
Reference Book for March 1962 SECDEF Conference, Item 4.
27. Msg., 2ADVON JOC to I ASOC and II ASOC, JOC-62-2049, 4 June 1962.
28. Anthis briefing on "Target Selection and Identification"
presented to March 1962 SECDEF Conference, in Hist. 2AD, II, doc. 205;
msgs., PACAF to 13AF, PFODC-0C0-352-62, 15 Mar. 1962 and PACAF to
CofS USAF, PFDOP-3038, 17 Mar. 1962; Rpt. of USAF Chief of Staff's
Visit to South Vietnam, Apr. 1962, pt. 2: Discipline in Air Operations
29. CINCPAC, Record, Third SECDEF Conference, 19 Feb. 1962,
Item 3; msg., PACAF to USAF, PFLDC-62-1140B, 20 Feb. 1962; ltr.,
Moorman to Anthis, ca. 28 Feb. 1962.
30. Msg., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MACV-13, 27 Feb. 1962; msg.,
2ADVON to PACAF, 2DAS-62-0336S, 17 Mar. 1962; Project CHECO, Southeast
Asia Report, pt. III, pp. 60-63.
31. Msg., PACAF to 13AF, PFODC-0C0-352-62, 15 Mar. 1962; msg.,
PACAF to CofS USAF, PFDOP-3038, 17 Mar. 1962.
32. MACV Hist. Monograph, Military Assistance to the Republic of
South Vietnam, 1960-1963, p. 11.
33. Msg., 2ADVON to PACAF, JOC-892, 21 Mar. 1962; msg., USAIRA
Saigon to CofS USAF, C-38, 21 Mar. 1962.
34. Msgs.? AMENB Saigon to SECSTATE, #1144, 28 Mar. 1962; PACAF
to 13AF, PFDOP-3042, 22 Mar. 1962; PACAF to 13AF, PFODC-0C0-62-1251-C,
22 Mar. 1962; JCS-3796 to CINCPAC, 27 Mar. 1962; Hist. Thirteenth AF,
1962, I, 81-83.
35. CINCPAC, Record, Fourth SECDEF Conference, 21 Mar. 1962,
Item 141; Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1962, III, Hist. Rpt. PFOCO, Mar. 1962;
msg., PACAF to CHJUSMAG THAI and 13AF, PFOCC-S-62-123, 25 Mar. 1962.
36. Rpt. of USAF Chief of Staff's Visit to South Vietnam, Apr.
1962, Item 6.
37. Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1962, III, Monthly Hist. Rpts. PFOCO,
March and May 1962; Hist. PACAF, July-Dec. 1962, II, Hist. PFODC,
July 1962; Hist. Thirteenth AF, 1962, I, 81-83; Hist. 509th Ftr.-Intr.
Sq., Jan.-June 1962, pp. 166-67.
38. Hist. Thirteenth AF, 1962, I, 88-89.
569
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39. Ltr., Col Charles J. Long, III, Inspector General, Thirteenth
AF, to PACAF (PFCIN)_, subj: Chief of Staff's Trip Report, 18 Oct. 1962.
40. Msg., COMUSMACV to AMEMB Laos et al., MAC-J3-1810, 22 Aug. 1962.
41. Ltrs., Harkins to O'Donnell and Felt, 22 Mar. 1963.
42. Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1962, III, Hist. PFOCO, Mar. 1962;
msg., 2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-62-339J, 22 Oct. 1962.
43. Presentation by Anthis at March 1962 SECDEF Conference, in
Hist. 2AD, II, docs. 200, 203, 205.
44. CINCPAC, Record, SECDEF Conference, 16 Dec. 1961, Item 2.
45. CHAFSEC MAAGVN, Agenda Book for February 1962 SECDEF Conference.
46. Presentation by Moorman before Congressional Committee, ca.
Feb. 1963, I, 1-11; Hq. USMACV, Summary of Highlights, 8 Feb. 1962-7
Feb. 1963, PP. 14, 27-30; PACAF Reference Book for December 1961
SECDEF Conference, Action Tab. F.
47. PACAF Reference Book for July 1962 SECDEF Conference, Tab. 1A;
msg., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MACV-521, 1 May 1962; ltrs., Anthis to
Brig. Gen. H. D. Aynesworth, Comdr. Tactical Air Reconnaissance Center,
28 Oct. 1963 and to Gen. Jacob E. Smart, CINCPACAF, 25 Nov. 1963.
48. Rpt. of USAF Chief of Staff's Visit to South Vietnam, Apr. 1962,
Intelligence Section; COMUSMAGV, Record, Fifth SECDEF Conference, 11
May 1962, Item 8.
49. CINCPAC, Record, Fourth SECDEF Conference, 21 Mar. 1962, Item 1.
50. CHAFSEC MAAGVN, Agenda Book for February 1962 SECDEF Conference
Item 5; PACAF Reference Book for February 1962 SECDEF Conference, Tab. 5,
TP-1; CINCPAC, Record, Third SECDEF Conference, 19 Feb. 1962, Item S.
51. PACAF Reference Book for February 1962 SECDEF Conference,
Pt. I-B and Tab. 5; CINCPAC, Record, Third SECDEF Conference, 19 Feb.
1962, Item 5; msgs., AMEMB Phnom Penh to OSD, #273, 22 Jan. 1962;
SECSTATE to AMEMB Saigon, #917, 24 Jan. 1962; SECSTATE to AMEMB Saigon,
#920, 24 Jan. 1962; AMEMB Saigon to CINCPAC, #9681 26 Jan. 1962.
52. CINCPAC, Record, Third SECDEF Conference, 19 Feb. 1962, Item 3;
msg., USAIRA Bangkok to PACAF, C-007, 31 Jan. 1962; PACAF Reference Book
for February 1962 SECDEF Conference, Tab. 5, TP-1; CHAFSEC MAAGVN, Agenda
Book for February 1962 SECDEF Conference, Item 5.
5i0
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Nome
53. Msg., CINCPAC to CHMAAGVN, 040529Z Feb. 1962.
54. Memo for Record by Col. John B. Kidd, Dep. Asst. CofS Plans,
PACAF, subj: Air Operations in Vietnam, 15 Feb. 1962.
55. CINCPAC, Record, Third SECDEF Conference, 19 Feb. 1962, Items
2, 3, 4, 5; Moorman memo, 23 Feb. 1962; ltr., Maj. Gen. Richard G.
Weede, CofS USMACV to Distribution, subj: Participation of US Personnel
in Military Operations, 27 Feb. 1962.
56. PACAF Reference Book for March 1962 SECDEF Conference, Item 5;
msg. JCS-3559 to CINCPAC, 12 Mar. 1962.
57. Msg., PACAF to USAF, PFLDC-62-1140B, 20 Feb. 1962.
58. PACAF Reference Book for March 1962 SECDEF Conference, Item 3.
59. Msg., 13AF to PACAF, 13c0C-03-018, 4 Mar. 1962; PACAF Reference
Book for March 1962 SECDEF Conference, Item 7.
60. Anthis briefing on "Target Selection and Identification"
presented to March 1962 SECDEF Conference, in Hist. 2AD, II, doc. 205.
61. PACAF Reference Book for March 1962 SECDEF Conference, Item 7;
CINCPAC, Record, Fourth $ECDEF Conference, 21 Mar. 1962, Item 5;
Hilsman, To Move a Nation, pp. 441-hhh.
62. PACAF Reference Book for January 1962 SECDEF Conference, Tab.
15A; Rpt., Col. Charles J. Long, III, Inspector General 13AF, to
PACAF (PFCIN), subj: Chief of Staff's Trip Report, 18 Oct. 1962.
63. CINCPAC, Record, Fourth SECDEF Conference, 21 Mar. 1962,
Item 1; COMUSMACV, Record, Fifth SEODEF Conference, 11 May 1962, Item 8;
PACAF Reference Book for July 1962 SECDEF Conference, Tab. 5.
64. Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1962, III, Monthly Hist. Rpts. PFIDC,
Feb. and Mar. 1962; Rpt. of USAF Chief of Staff's Visit to South
Vietnam, Apr. 1962, Intelligence Section; memo for PFDOP et al. from
David L. Crist, Actg. Asst. CofS Intel. PACAF, subj: Review of
Intelligence Activities in Southeast Asia, 10 July 1962; msg., PACAF
to 2ADVON, PFDOP-13-7-31, 13 July 1962; PACAF Reference Book for July
1962 SECDEF Conference, Tab. 5.
65. Easley End of Tour Rpt., ca. 5 Aug. 1962.
66. Ltr., Anthis to Pritchard, 20 Dec. 1962.
511
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67. PACAF Reference Books for January, February, and March 1962
SECDEF Conferences; CINCPAC, Record, Fourth SECDEF Conference, 21 Mar.
1962, Item 4A; Hist. 6091st Rcn. Sq., Jan.-June 1963, p. 1; PACAF
Reference Book for July 1962 SECDEF Conference, Tab. 6, TP-1; Long
Rpt., 18 Oct. 1962.
68. Hist. 2d AD, I, 157; msg., COMUSMACV to PACAF, MAC-J2-213,
28 May 1963; PACAF Reference Book for May 1963 SECDEF Conference, Agenda
Item 3, Tab. Ei CINCPAC, Record, Eighth SECDEF Conference, 6 May 1963,
Item 3; 20CR, Air Interdiction and Ground Support, ca. 25 Apr. 1963,
in Project CHECO, Southeast Asia Report, pt. V, Air Operations, Oct.
61-Dec. 63., Tab. A, p. 97.
69. PACAF Reference Book for May 1963 SECDEF Conference, Agenda
Item 3, Tab. E.
70. Bernard B. Fall, The Two Viet-Nams, A Political and Military
Analysis (New York: Praeger, 1963), PP. 355-356.
71. Rpt. of USAF Chief of Stains Visit to South Vietnam, Apr. 1962,
Intelligence Section; COMUSMACV, Record, Fifth SECDEF Conference,
11 May 1962, Item 8.
72. 2d Advon Agenda Book for May 1962 SECDEF Conference, Item 1A;
COMUSMACV, Record Fifth SECDEF Conference, 11 May 1962, Item 1.
73. Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1962, vol. 1, pt. 2, ch. 3, citing
PACOMWeekly Intelligence Digest, 18 May 1962; msg., CINCPAC to JCS,
221650Z Oct. 1962.
74. CINCPAC, Record, Sixth SECDEF Conference, 23 July 1962, Item
5; msg., CINCPAC to COMUSMACV? 121857Z Sept. 1962.
75. Msg., COMUSMACV to PACAF, MAC-1548, 11 June 1962.
76. Msg., CINCPAC to COMUSMACV, 092345Z July 1962; msg., CINCPAC
to COMUSMACV, 121857Z Sept. 1962.
77. Msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 130407Z July 1962.
78. Ltr., Anthis to Thuan, 11 Aug. 1962; msg., CINCPAC ADMINO to
AIG-929, 292312Z Nov. 1962.
79. Ltr., Moorman to Harkins, 3 Sept. 1962; msg., 2AD to PACAF,
20DC-62-2690L, 20 Dec. 1962.
80. Ltr., Moorman to Harkins, 3 Sept. 1962.
81. Msg., CINCPAC to COMUSMACV, 121857Z Sept. 1962.
572
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82. Ltr., Harkins to Moorman, 1 Oct. 1962.
83. Rpt., Maj. Andrew J. Chapman, ALO 5th Div. to Dep. Director
III ASOC, 16 Nov. 1962; msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 22160Z Oct. 1962.
84. Msg., CINCPAC ADMINO to AIG-929, 292312Z Nov. 1962.
85. Msg., 2AD to PACAF, 20DC-62-2690L, 20 Dec. 1962.
86. End of tour report, Maj. James F. Yealy, ALO/PBT, ca., Nov. 1962;
Interview with MacKellar by Grainger, 29 Aug. 1963.
87. US Dept of State, American Foreign Policy, Current Documents,
1962 (Washington: GPO, 1966), pp. 1002-1004; msg., AMEMB Saigon to
SECSTATE, #537, 21 Nov. 1962; PACAF Reference Book for 8 Oct. 1962 SECDEF
Conference, Vietnam Sect., Tab J.
88. Report of Visit by JCS Team to South Vietnam, Jan. 1963, pt. IV,
par. 8; msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 221650Z Oct. 1962.
89. Msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 221605Z Oct. 1962; msg., AMEND Saigon
to SECSTATE, #537, 21 Nov. 1962.
90. Hq. USMACV, Summary of Highlights, 8 Feb. 1962-7 Feb. 1963, p. 40;
memo, Lt Gen le Van Ty, Chief JIS, subj: Limitation of Air and Artillery
Supports Along Vietnam Republic Border Corridor, 15 Nov. 1962.
91. Memo for record by Col. E. H. Nigro, subj: Meeting of Admiral
Felt and President Diem, 9 Jan. 1963; PACAF Reference Book for May 1963
SECDEF Conference, Agenda Item; rpt., Maj Hal G. Bowers, ALO III Corps
to Dep Dir JOC, subj: Monthly Activity Report, 9 Jan. 1963.
92. Msg., SECSTATE to AMEMB Saigon, #589, 8 Dec. 1962; msg., CINCPAC
to AIG-929, 160619Z Dec. 1962.
93. Msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 110519Z Nov. 1962; msg., SECSTATE TO AMEMB
Saigon and CINCPAC/POLAD, #588, 8 Dec. 1962; msg., AMEMB Saigon to SECSTATE,
15 Dec. 1962; ltr., Anthis to Pritchard, 20 Dec. 1962.
94. Ltr., Moorman to Anthis, ca. 28 Feb. 1962.
95. PACAF Reference Book for March 1962 SECDEF Conference, Item 3;
Anthis briefing on "Air Operations" at March 1962 SECDEF Conference, in
Hist. 2AD, doc. 203; Easley End of Tour Report, ca. 5 Aug. 1962; Hq.
Thirteenth AF, Final Report Analysis Directive Program No. 63-3, Tactical
Analysis of T-28B Aircraft, 30 Apr. 1963, pp. 39-43; msg., Thirteenth
AF to PACAF, 130DO-W-2-1212A, 8 Mar. 1962.
513
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96. Hetherington Rpt., 25 Apr. 1962; ltr., Easley to 20DC, ca.
1 July 1962.
97. Rpt., Capt. Thomas N. Cairney and Capt. Douglas K. Evans, 2d
Advon FAC's, to Dep. Director JOC, subj: Problems in Tacticel Air
Operations in SVN with Some Recommendations for Corrective Actions (FAC),
4 May 1962; Ltr., Easley to 20DC, ca. 1 July 1962; Easley End of Tour
Rpt., ca. 5 Aug. 1962.
98. Msg., 13AF to PACAF, 130D0-2-2-1212A, 8 Mar. 1962; PACAF
Reference Book for March 1962 SECDEF Conference, Item 3; msg., COMUSMACV
to CH MAAG VN et al., #326, 12 Apr. 1962; msg., 2ADVON to 13AF,
2CCR-62-1395, 21 Apr. 1962; msg., 2ADVON to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-25-04-107,
25 Apr. 1962.
99. Msg., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MACV-030, 16 May 1962; msg.,
2ADVON to 13AF, 2CCR-62-056C, 9 Mar. 1962; ltr., Easley to 20DC, ca.
1 July 1962.
100. Rpt., Cairney and Evans to Dep. Director JOC, 4 May 1962;
msg., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MACV-030, 16 May 1962; msg., 2ADVON JOC to
I ASOC and II ASOC, JOC-62-2049, 4 June 1962.
101. Rpt., Cairney and Evans to Dep. Director JOC, 4 May 1962;
msgs., PACAF to CofS USAF, PFODC-0C0-1124-62, 17 July 1962; 2ADVON to
13AF, 2 ODC-62-1512G, 18 July 1962; 2AD to PACAF, 2CCR-2034K, 7 Nov. 1962.
102. Msg., CINCPAC to COMUSMACV, 030240Z Aug. 1962.
103. PACAF Summary of Actions (General Wheeler's Party), pt. II,
Tab. 14; Project CHECO Southeast Asia Report, Oct. 61-Dec. 63, pt. IV,
p. 46; memo for nthis from Anderson, subj: Requirement for USAF
Representation on MACV Command Section, 23 Feb. 1963.
104. PACAF Summary of Actions (General Wheeler's Party), pt. II,
Sect. II, Tab. F.
105. Hq. USMACV, Summary of Highlights, 8 Feb. 1962-7 Feb. 1963,
pp. 133-134; Rpt., Cairney and Evans to Dep. Director JOC, 4 May 1962.
106. Rpt., Cairney and Evans to Dep. Director JOC, 4 May 1962;
ltr., Lt. Col. William H. Lewis, Dep. Director JOC to 20CR, subj:
Target Marking by Forward Air Controller (L-19), 5 Mar. 1962; Gleason
paper, ca. 1 Mar. 1962.
107. Hist. 2AD, I, 110; ltr., Anthis to Maj. Carl G. Schneider,
ALO/FAC Sect. JOC, 26 Sept. 1962.
514
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108. Rpt., Cairney and Evans, 14 Feb. 1962; Gleason paper, ca.
1 Mar. 1962, msg., 2ADVON to PACAF, 200R-62-2356, 17 July 1962.
109. Hq. MAN, Summary of Highlights, 8 'Feb. 1962-7 Feb. 1963,
pp. 133-134; ltr., Col. John C. Haygood, Dep. Comdr. 2AD to CofS 13AF,
subj: Items Relating to Activities in 2nd Advon Area, 10 June 1962.
110. Meg., 2ADVON JOC to 13AF, JOC-62-703, 10 Mar. 1962; msg.,
13AF to PACAF, 130DD-2-2-1222A, 12 Mar. 1962; msg., PACAF to TAC,
PFODC-62-1238-C, 13 Mar. 1962; 2ADVON, SECDEF Conference Agenda Book,
May 1962, Item 1A; rpt., Lt. Col. Donald K. Reamy, ALO IV Corps to
D/Director JACC, subj: Monthly Report, 8 Feb. 1962; ltr., Lt. Col.
Charles J. Bowers, D/Director 2JA0C to 20DC, subj: FAG Program, 27 May
1963; Interview with Capt. Donald V. MacKellar, ALO/FAC Sect. AOC by
J. W. Grainger, 29 Aug. 1963.
111. PACAF Reference Book for March 1962 SECDEF Conference, Tab. 8;
msg., 2ADVON to PACAF, CCR-62-047B, 28 Feb. 1962; Gleason paper, ca. 1 Mar.
1962; msg., PACAF to CofS USAF, D0P-3065, 9 May 1962; ltr., Lt. Col. Miles
M. Doyle, Comdr. Det 2A, 1st Air Commando Gp., to 20CR, subj: Monthly
Report on Development of Tactics and Techniques, 11 Oct. 1962; msg., 2AD
to PACAF, 20DC-62-2070-K, 12 Nov. 1962.
112. PFLPL-C, Counterinsurgency Lessons Learned, 12 Sept. 1963;
Rpt., Col. Winston F. Anderson, Dir. of Opns. 2AD to PACAF and 13AF,
subj: Development of New Tactics and Techniques (Bi-Monthly Report),
14 Jan. 1963; ltr., Anthis to Moorman, ca. 16 Apr. 1963; Hq. 13AF,
Final Ikport. . . Tactical Analysis of T-28A Aircraft in Republic of
Vietnam, 30 Apr. 1963, pp. 22-23.
113. Rpt., Cairney and Evans to 20CR, subj: Summary of 2nd Advon
Forward Air Controller Activities in South Viet Nam, 17 May 1962; Rpt.
of USAF Chief of Staffte Visit to South Vietnam, Apr. 1962, Plans
Section; Rpt., Maj. Theodore E. Mo*, Prgms. Off. 5AFOPR-P, subj: TDY
to South Vietnam, 12 June 1962, in Hist. 5AF, Jan.-June 1962, II, doc. 142B;
msg., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MACV-030, 16 May 1962; msg., CINCPAC to JCS,
110849Z Aug. 1962; ltr., Anderson to 2CCR, subj: Assignments of Air
Liaison Officers and Forward Air Controllers, 29 Sept. 1962.
114. Mock rpt., 12 June 1962; ltr., Lt. Col. Charles J. Bowers,
Dep. Director I ASOC, subj: Special Instructions for ALO's, ca. June
1962; 2ADVON/AFSEC MAAGVN, MAAG Symposium, 9 Aug. 1962.
115. Long rpt., 18 Oct. 1962.
116. End of Tour Rpt. by Lt. G. M. Ormon, ca. Dec. 1962; rpt.,
Lt. Cowan G. Nix to ALO/FAC Sect. aAdvon, subj: Summary of Activities with
3d Liaison Sq., ca. 16 Oct. 1962; 1tr., Lt. Col. James O. Cowee, Dep.
Director II ASOC to 2AD JOC/ALO Sect., subj: Evaluation Report, 15 Nov.
1962; rpt., Capt. R. E. Lawyer, FAC 23d Div. to ALO 23d Div., subj:
Final Rpt., 16 Nov. 1962.
575
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117. Ltr., Anthis to Schneider, 26 Sept. 1962; ltr., Bowers to
20DC, subj: Authorization for Increased Grade Structure for Air Liaison
Officers, 31 Dec. 1962; ltr., It. Col. A. F. Riha, Dep. CofS Opns. 13AF,
to Anderson, 16 Nov. 1962; rpt., Maj. Magnus P. Johnson, ALO 25th Div.
to ALO I Corps, subj: ALO Report for November 1962, 3 Dec. 1962, and
1st Ind., Lt. Col. Byron R. Kahn, ALO I Corps, to I ASOC, 24 Dec. 1962.
118. Ltr., Riha to Anderson, 16 Nov. 1962; rpt. of Visit by Brig.
Gen. Gilbert L. Pritchard, Comdr. SAWC, 9 July-27 July 1962, 3 Aug. 1962;
2d ADVON/AFSEC MAAG, MAAG Symposium, 9 Aug. 1962; rpt., Maj Hal. G. Bowers,
ALO III Corps, to Dep. Director JOC, Subj: Monthly Activity Report, 9
Jan. 1963; rpt., Capt. Bryant C. Ruhman, FAC 1st Ln. Sq., subj: Lam
Son II FAC Observations, 4 Sept. 1962; ltr., Moorman to Henderson, 3 July
1963, w/incl: Memo for Moorman from Capt. Thomas J. Magner, 2 July 1963.
119. Rpt., Cairney and Evans to 2CCR, 17 May 1962; msg., 2ADVON
to 13AF, 2 ODC-62-1432, 29 June 1962; msg., PACAF to TAC and CofS USAF,
PFOCO-S-62-961, 1 July 1962; rpt., Capt. Charles H. Tardiff, ALO, 2d
Division, to Senior ALO, JOG, subj: Activities Report Period Ending
3 Aug. 1962, 4 Aug. 1962; msg., 2ADVON to PACAF, 2 CVC-62-304I, 7 Sept.
1962; ltr., Anthis to Pritchard, 20 Oct. 1962.
120. Msg., COMUSMACV to JCS, MACV-19, 1 Mar. 1962; CINCPAC, Record,
Fourth SECDEF Conference, 21 Mar. 1962, Item 2; PACAF Reference Book
for March 1962 SECDEF Conference, Tab. 2; Hq. US Army Section MAAG-V,
Lessons Learned No. 6, 11 Apr. 1962; msg., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MACV-294,
7 Apr. 1962; Warner, The Last Confucian, pp. 16-17; msg., CINCPAC to JCS,
2 Apr. 1962; Thompson, Defeating Communist Insurgency, pp. 129-139.
121. Report of Visit by Joint Chiefs of Staff Team to South Vietnam,
Jan. 1963, Sect. II; PACAF Summary of Actions, Gen. Wheeler's Party,
Sect. I, Tab G.
122. US Army Section MAAG-Vietnam, Lessons Learned, Nos. 1 and 6,
30 Mar. and 11 Apr. 1962; msgs., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MAG-J3-28, 1 June
1962 and CINCPAC to JCS, 092345Z July 1962; Major John J. Cahill and
Jack Shumlinson, Draft History of US Marine Corps Operations in Vietnam,
Jan.-June 1965, pp. 14-16, 76-81; msg., 2AD to 13AF and PACAF, 2CCR-62-
3871L, 21 Dec. 1962; msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 110849Z Aug. 1962.
123. Burchett, Vietnam, Inside Story of the Guerrilla War, pp. 193-194.
124. Rpt., Capt. Joseph Reynes, ALO 47th Regt. to 2AD (JOC), subj:
VC Anti-Heliborne Tactics in Phu Yen Province, ca. Sept. 1962.
125. Ltr., Col. Wilbur Wilson, Senior Advisor III Corps to Chief
MAAG-V, subj: Information for Army Chief of Staff, 23 Jan. 1963; msg.,
Col. Daniel B. Porter, Senior Advisor IV Corps, to MAAG, ca. 23 Jan. 1963;
msg., 2A1) to PACAF, 20DC-62-2070K, 12 Nov. 1962.
516
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126. CINCPAC, Record, Fourth SECDEF Conference, 21 Mar. 1962, Item
1; 1.1g., CINCPAC to COMUSMACV, 31 May 1962.
127. PACAF Reference Book for July 1962 SECDEF Conference, Tab. 1;
msg., PACAF to CofS USAF, PF0DC-DC0-1124-62, 17 July 1962; msg., 2ADVON
to 13AF, T/20DC-62-1512G, 18 July 1962; msg., Hq USAF to PACAF and TAC,
AFCIN-282-683031 21 July 1962.
128. Msg., COMUSMACV to OSD and CINCPAC, MAC R&D-484, 9 July 1962.
129. Msg., USAF to PACAF and TAC, AFCIN-2B2-68303, 21 July 1962.
130. Msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 110849Z Aug. 1962,
131. Rpt., Lt. Col. E. H. Mueller, Jr., Comdr. Det. 2A, 1st Air
Commando Gp., to Comdr. 2d Advor, subj: Monthly Report on Development
of Tactics and Techniques, 4 Aug. 1962.
132. Msg., COMUSMACV to OSD and CINCPAC, MAC R&D-484, 9 July 1962.
133. Msg., PACAF to 13AF, PFODC-0C0-1186-62, 30 July 1962; CINCPAC,
Record, Sixth SECDEF Conference, 23 July 1962, Item 1; msg., JCS-5464 to
CINCPAC and CofS Army, 27 July 1962; msg., JCS-5992 to CINCPAC, 6 Sept. 1962.
134. Msg., CINCPAC to COMUSMACV, 282316Z July 1962; msg., CINCPAC
to COMUSMACV, 030240Z Aug. 1962.
135. Msg., 2ADVON to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-07-09-27, 15 Sept. 1962.
136. Memo for Record by Col. S. H. Nigro, subj: Visits by Adm.
Felt with General Ty, 9 Jan. 1963.
137. 2ADVON, Operations Analysis Paper No. 3, Security of Military
Traffic in South Vietnam, 15 Oct. 1962.
138. Hist. 2d AD, 149-150; Project CHECO, Southeast Asia Report,
pt. V, 52-53; Fall, The Two Viet-Nams, pp. 378-379; msg., CINCPAC to
COMUSMACV, 121857Z Sept. 1962. ---
139. Msg., CINCPAC to COMUSMACV, 092345Z July 1962; msg., CINCPAC
to COMUSMACV, 121857Z Sept. 1962.
140. PACAF Reference Book for July 1962 SECDEF Conference, Tab. 1.
141. 2ADVON, Operations Analysis Paper No. 3, 15 Oct. 1962; msg.,
COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MAC-J00-1578, 31 July 1962; msg., COMUSNACV to
CINCPAC, MAC -J01 -2206, 27 Aug. 1962; msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 282013Z Aug.
1962; PACAF Reference Book for July 1962 SECDEF Conference, Tab. 1.
577
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142. Msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 110849Z Aug. 1962; rpt., Maj. Eugene
R. McCutchan, ALO Airborne Bde., to 2ADVON ALO/FAC Division, subj: Report
of ALO Activities for Period ending 24 August 1962, n.d.
143. Ltr., Harkins to Moorman, 1 Oct. 1962; Hist. 2d AD, I, 150;
Project CHECO Southeast Asia Report, pt. V, p. 54; End of Tour Report,
Capt Edwin J. Rhein, Jr., FAC 112 Sq., 28 Dec. 1962; msg., 2AD to PACAF,
2)N-63-0017A, 6 Jan. 1963; 2AD Operations Analysis Paper No. 3, p. 17.
144. Memo for Record by Nigro,9 Jan. 1963.
145. Report of Visit by JCS Team to South Vietnam, Jan. 1962, Sect.
II; PACAF Summary of Actions, Gen. Wheeler's Party, Sect. I, Tab. C.
146. Msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 250436Z Aug. 1962; memo for MAGAF-ABAT-3
from Col. Thomas M. Hergert, D/Opns. MAGAF-DOC, subj: Report of Soc
Trang Operation, 7 Sept. 1962.
147. Rpt., Lt. Col. Byron R. Kahn, ALO I Corps, to C/AFSEC MAG.,
subj: Operation Lam Son II, 4 Sept. 1962; Capt. Bryant C. Ruhman, FAC
1st Ln. Sq., FAC Observations Lam Son II, 4 Sept. 1962; msg., 2ADVON
to PACAF, 20DC-62-1831, 22 Sept,. 1962; msg., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC,
MAC-J3-2645, 14 Sept. 1962.
148. Ruhman, Lam Son II FAC Observations; Capt. Kenneth H. Wells,
I ASOC, Narrative of Lam Son II Operation as Observed from Airborne
C.P., 14 Sept. 1962; msg., CINCPAC to COMUSMACV, 050053Z Sept. 1962;
msg., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MAC-J3-2645, 14 Sept. 1962.
149. Rpt., Maj. William J. Kuntz, II, ALO, 2d Div., to Senior ALO,
JOC, subj: Ngo Quyen 20 Operation, 30 Sept. 1962; msg., 2AD to 13AF
and PACAF, 2CCR-62-3871L, 21 Dec. 1962.
150. Hist. SAWC, 27 Apr.-31 Dec. 1962, pp. 188, 197.
151. Hq. USMACV, Summary of Highlights, 8 Feb. 1962-7 Feb. 1963,
p. 214; msg., 2AD to USAF, 20DC-62-2189K, 30 Nov. 1962; msg., CINCPAC to
JCS, 2216502 Oct. 1962; memo for record by Col. E. H. Nigro, subj:
Meeting of Admiral Felt and President Diem, 9 Jan. 1963.
152. Memo for Record by Anthis, 19 Oct. 1962; ltr., O'Donnell to
Harkins, 8 Mar. 1963.
153. Meg., 2AD to PACAF, 2CCR-62-1995J, 31 Oct. 1962; msg.,2AD
to USAF, 20DC-62-266B, 15 Dec. 1962; rpt., Maj. William I. Burgin, ALO,
21st Div., to Senior Advisor, III Corps, subj: After Action Report,
29 Oct. 1962.
518
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154. Msg., 2AD to PACAF, 2 CCR-62-1995J, 31 Oct. 1962; msg., 2AD
to USAF, 20DC-62-266B, 15 Dec. 1962; rpt., Burgin to Senior Advisor,
21st Div., subj: Report on Operation Dai Bang (Eagle), 16 Nov. 1962;
Anderson, D/Opns. 2AD, to PACAF and 13AF, subj: Development of New
Tactics and Techniques, 14 Jan. 1963.
155. PACAF Reference Book for March 1962 SECDEF Conference, Item
3; CINCPAC, Record, Fourth SECDEF Conference, 21 Mar. 1962, Item 1;
Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1962, III, Monthly Hist. Rpt., PFOCO, Apr. 1962.
156. 2ADVON, Agenda Book for SECDEF May 1962 Conference, Item 12;
msg., COMUSMACV to OSC, MACv-503, 1 May 1962; COMUSMACV, Record, Fifth
SECDEF Conference, 11 May 1962, Item 12; Rpt. of USAF Chief of Staff's
Visit to South Vietnam, Apr. 1962, Item 8.
157. COMUSMACV, Record, Fifth SECDEF Conference, 11 May 1962, Item 12.
158. Msg., PACAF to CofS USAF, PFCVC-62-5-3, 12 May 1962; Hist.
PACAF, July-Dec. 1962, II, Hist. PFOCO, Aug. 1962; Hq. USMACV, Summary
of Highlights, 8 Feb. 1962-7 Feb. 1963, pp. 56-58, 209; Presentation by
Gen. Moorman before Congressional Committee, ca. Feb. 1962, I, Background
Data, p. 16.
159. CINCPAC, Record, Sixth SECDEF Conference, 23 July 1962, Item 1.
160. Memo for Harkins from Col. William P. Brooks, Jr., Chief
ARPA R&D Field Unit, subj: Discussion with the Political Counsellor
to the Presidency, Ngo Dinh Nhu, 2 Aug. 1962.
161. Hq. USMACV, Summary of Highlights, 8 Feb. 1962-7 Feb. 1963,
pp. 59-61; msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 212321Z Aug. 1962; msg., AMENB Saigon
to SECSTATE, #352, 26 Sept. 1962.
162. CINCPAC Summary of Actions Taken at Seventh SECDEF Conference,
8 Oct. 1962, pars. 8 and 9; Hq. USMACV, Summary of Highlights, 8 Feb.
1962-7 Feb. 1963, pp. 59-61, 210; mg. AMENB Saigon to SECSTATE, #668,
9 Oct. 1963.
163. Hist., Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Plans and Opns., USAF,
Jan.-June 1963, pp. 237-238; msg., AMENB Saigon to SECSTATE, #668,
9 Oct. 1963; Hilsman, To Move a Nation, pp. 441-444.
164. PACAF Reference Book for quly 1962 SECDEF Conference, Tabs.
1A, 1C, and 5; ltr., Col. Harry O. Patterson, J-2 CINCPAC, to CINCPAC,
subj: Review of Intelligence Activities in SE Asia, June 1962; rpt.,
Capt. Charles H. Tardiff, ALO, 2d Div., to Senior ALO, JOC, subj:
Activities Report, L. Aug. 1962.
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165. PACAF Reference Books for January, February, and March 1962
SECDEF Conferences; msg., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MACV-521, 1 May 1962.
166. PACAF Reference Book for July 1962 SECDEF Conference, Tabs.
1A, 1C, and 5; ltr., Patterson to CINCPAC, June 1962.
167. Msg., 2ADVON to PACAF, 2CCR-62-235C, 17 July 1962.
168. Msg., COMUSMACV to OSD, MACRO-906, 26 June 1962.
169. Msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 290108Z June 1962.
170. Ltr., Felt to COMUSMACV, subj: Army Tests to be Conducted in
South Viethan, 1 Sept. 1962.
171. Msg., CINCPAC to COMUSMACV, 132226Z July 1962; CINCPAC,
Record, Sixth SECDEF Conference, 23 July 1962, Item 1.
172. CINCPAC, Record, Sixth SECDEF Conference, 23 July 1962, Item 1;
msg., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MAC-J3-1737, 8 Aug. 1962; msg., CINCPAC to
JCS, 080303Z Aug. 1962; PACAF Reference Book for October 1962 SECDEF
Conference, Vietnam Sect., Tab. H.
173. Msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 080433Z Sept. 1962; rpt., Col. J. L.
Asbury, Jr., Chief PFOCO-R, PACAF, to PFODC et al., subj: Report of
Reconnaissance Survey--Southeast Asia, 22 Nov. 1963; Hist., 20DC, Jan.-
June 1964, in Hist. 21W, Jan.-June 1964, vol. IX, doc. 9; Project
CHECO, Organization, Mission and Growth of the Vietnamese Air Force,
1949-1968, p. 50.
174. Hist. PACAF, July-Dec. 1962, II, Hist. PFIDC-S, Sept. 1962;
Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1963, II, Hist. Rpt., PFIDC, Apr. 1963; Hist.
13AF, Jan.-June 1963, I, xiv.
175. Msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 080433Z Sept. 1962; msg., 2AD to PACAF
and 13AF, 2CCR-62-307, 14 Sept. 1962; ltr., Harkins to Moorman, 1 Oct.
1962; msg., 21W to PACAF, 2CCR-62-2092, 14 Nov. 1962; msg., 21W to 13AF,
2CCR-62-2174, 28 Nov. 1962; PACAF Summary of Actions, Gen. Wheeler's
Party, Sect. II, Tab. B.
176. Msg., 21W to PACAF, 2CCR-62-2092, 14 Nov. 1962; msg., 21W to
PACAF, AFTU-V-I0-63G-12, 10 July 1963; PFLPL-C, Counterinsurgency
Lessons Learned, 12 Sept. 1963.
177. Hq. USMACV, Summary of Highlights, 8 Feb. 1962-7 Feb. 1963,
p. 189; msg., 21W to 13AF, 20DC-63-0353C, 19 Mar. 1963; memo for Anthis
from Col. Winston P. Anderson, D/Opns. 2AD, 5 Apr. 1963.
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178. Ltr., Felt to COMUSMACV, 1 Sept. 1962, Wind: CofS Army
ltr., subj: Army Tests to be Conducted in SVN, 23 Aug. 1962; Hq. USMACV,
Summary of Highlights, 8 Feb. 1962-7 Feb. 1963, pp. 189, 213; msg., 2AD
to USAF, 20DC-62-2189K, 30 Nov. 1962; memo for Anthis from Anderson,
subj: Requirement for USAF Representation on MACV Command Section, 23
Feb. 1963; msg., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MAC-J3-2524, 29 Apr. 1963.
179. Msg., 2AD to PACAF, 200R-63-191F, 26 June 1963; msg., 2AD to
PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-07-09-27, 15 Sept. 1962.
180. Ltr., Anthis to Pritchard, L. Aug. 1962; ltr., Anthis to Milton,
9 Aug. 1962; msg., 2ADVON to 13 AF, 2CCR-26-09-136, 26 Sept. 1962.
181. Msg., 2AD to USAF, 20DC-62-266B, 15 Dec. 1962.
182. Rpt., Capt. R. E. Lawyer, FAC 23d Div., to ALO 23d Div.,
subj: Final Report, 16 Nov. 1962; msg., 2AD to 13AF, 2CCR-62-2174,
28 Nov. 1962.
183. PACAF Summary of Actions, Gen. Wheeler's Party, Pt. II, Tab.
11; memo for Rowland from Col. Harvey N. Brown, Deputy CHMAGAF, subj:
Senior Advisor's Conference MAAG, 19 Apr. 1963, 22 Apr. 1963.
184. PACAF Reference Book for May 1963 SECDEF Conference, Agenda
Item 4.
185. PACAF Summary of Actions, Gen. Wheeler's Party, Sect. I, Pt.
III, Tab. A.
186. Msg. 2AD to PACAF, 20DC 62-2700L, 23 Dec. 1962; msg.,
COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MAC-J3-2524, 29 Apr. 1963.
187. Hist., 315th TC Gp., Assault, 1962, p. 16; Interview with
Lt. Col. E. W. Strong, Comdr. Mule Train, by Grainger, 7 Nov. 1962.
188. Msg. MACV to CINCPAC, NAGCH-CH-72, 12 Mar. 1962.
189. Hq. USMACV, Summary of Highlights, 8 Feb. 1962-7 Feb. 1963,
p. 69; ltr., Lt. Col. Floyd K. Shafner, Comdr. Mule Train to Anthis,
subj.: Mule Train Problem Areas, 12 May 1962.
190. Presentation by Moorman before Congressional Committee, ca.
Feb. 1963, I, Background Data, p. 38; ltr., Anthis to Maj. Gen. Glen
W. Martin, Dep. CofS Plans and Opns. PACAF, 2 Sept. 1963.
191. Msg., 13AF COC to 2ADVON, 130DC-00C-03-086, 18 Mar. 1962; ltr.,
Moorman to Anthis, ca. 28 Feb. 1962.
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192. Rpt. of USAF Chief of Staff's Visit to South Vietnam, Apr.
1962, Opns. Sect.
193. Msg. 2ADVON to 13AF, 2CCR-62-056C, 9 Mar. 1962; msg. MACV to
CINCPAC, MAGCH-CH-72, 12 Mar. 1962; msg. COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MACV-129,
19 Mar. 1962.
194. Msg., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MACV-129, 19 Mar. 1962.
195. Anthis presentation at May 1962 SECDEF Conference; msg., 2ADVON
to 13AF, 20DC-P-62-0713C, 27 Mar. 1962; msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 300226Z
Mar. 1962.
196. Msg., 2AD to 13AF, 20DC-62-2131K, 20 Nov. 1962.
197. Msg., PFCVC-62-5-3, PACAF to CofS USAF, 12 May 1962.
198. Hist. 315th TC Op., Assault, 1962, p. 27; Rpt., Lt. Col.
Howard R. Reaves, Comdr. Tactical Air Transport Squadron (P), subj:
End of Tour Report, 2 Aug. 1962.
199. 2Advon, Agenda and Information Book for March 1962 SEGDEF
Conference, Iten 17; Hist. 13AF, 1962, I, 103-105.
200. Msg., 2ADVON to 13AF, 20DC-P-62-0713C, 27 Mar. 1962; msg.,
COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MACV-129, 9 Apr. 1962.
201. Hetherington rpt., 25 Apr. 1962.
202. Msg. 2ADVON to 13AF, 20DC-P-0713C, 27 Mar. 1962; msg., PACAF
to CS', PFCVC-62-5-2, 12 May 1962; msg., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MAC-J4-092,
22 May 1962; msg. CINCPAC to COMUSMACV, 1300342 Aug. 1962.
203. Rpt. of USAF Chief of Staff's Visit to VN, Apr. 1952, Plans
and Operations Sections; Hetherington rpt., 25 Apr. 1962; PACAF Status
Rpt., South Vietnam, subj: Airlift and Aerial Port Facilities, Actions
2 May to 9 May, n.d.;msg. ADMINO CINCPAC to JCS, 081848Z May 1962.
204. Hist. 315th Air Div. (Com Car), Jan.-June 1962, pp. 48-49;
ltr., Moorman to CINCPAC, subj: Proposed Establishment of Combat Cargo
Group (Troop Carrier) in Southeast Asia, 6 July 1962.
205. Msg. COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MAC-J4-092, 22 May 1962.
206. Msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 250020Z May 1962; msg., CINCPAC to
COMUSMACV, 250348Z May 1962.
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207. Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1962, III, Monthly Hist. Rpts., PFOCO,
May and June 1962; Hist. 315th TC ft., Assault, 1962, pp. 27-28; Reaves
end of tour rpt., 2 Aug. 1962.
208. JTF-116, After Action Rpt., 8 Dec. 1962.
209. Msg. 2AD to 13AF, #28-7-53, 28 July 1962; msg. 2AD to 13AF and
PACAF, 20DC-62-2160K, 26 Nov. 1962; PACAF, Summary of Actions, Gen. Wheeler's
Party, Jan. 1963.
210. Ltr., Moorman to Anthis, 25 Sept. 1962.
211. Msg., 13AF to PACAF, 13CCR-72-A, 26 May 1962; msg., PACAF to
13AF, PFCVC-314, 29 May 1962; msg., AFCC JTF-116 to PACAF, AFCC-JTF
116/CCR/A/098, 29 May 1962.
212. Ltr., Moorman to CINCPAC, subj: Proposed Establishment of
Combat Cargo Group (Troop Carrier) in Southeast Asia, 6 July 1962; msg.,
CINCPAC to COMUSMACV, 180417Z July 1962; msg., COMDBMACV to CINCPAC,
MAC -J4-2115, 23 Aug. 1962.
213. Hist. PACAF, July-Dec. 1962, II, Monthly,- Hist. Rpt., PFPMA,
Sept. 1962.
214. Msg. CINCPAC to PACAF, 172108Z Sept. 1962; ltr., Moorman to
Anthis, 25 Sept. 1962, PACAF Special Orders, G-85 and G-921 19 Sept. and
19 Nov. 1962.
215. Project CHECO Southeast Asia Rpt., pt. VI, p. 12.
216. Hq. USMACV Directive No. 42, subj: U.S. Military Airlift
System within Southeast Asia, 11 Oct. 1962, w/change 1, 8 Nov. 1962; msg.
2AD to PACAF, 2CCR-62-335J, 18 Oct. 1962; ltr., Anthis to Moorman,
12 Nov. 1962.
217. PACAF Summary of Actions, Gen. Wheeler's Party, Sect. II, TAB C:
Airlift Within SEA; ltr., Anthis to Moorman, ca 16 Apr. 1963.
218. Ltr., Anthis to Moorman, 12 Nov. 1962; ltr., Bowers to Mann, ca.
June 1962; Reeves end of tour rpt., 2 Aug. 1962; ltr., Bowers to Mann,
25 July 1962; JGS RVN/2ADVON, Joint Operations Plan 62-2, 17 Oct. 1962;
Moorman presentation to Congressional Committee, ca. Feb. 1963, I p. 38;
msg., 2AD to PACAF, 2CCR-1771-D, 5 Apr. 1963. ?
219. PACAF Summary of Actions, Gen. Wheeler's Party, Sect. II,
Tab C.
220. Schlesinger, A Thousand Day!, pp. 546-547; Public Papers of the
Presidents, John F. KennedyL2.2161, p. 37.
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221. Public Papers of the Presidents, John F. Kennedy, 1962, pp. 12-13.
222. Msg., USAF to PACAF, TAC, SAW, AFOOP-CO -88728, 6 Oct. 1962.
223. CINCPAC, Record, Second SECDEF Conference, 15 Jan. 1962, Item 15.
224. Msg., 2ADVON to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR -62-307, 14 Sept. 1962.
225. Msg., CINCPAC to CHMAAGVN, 162040Z Nov. 1961.
226. Msg., JCS-2488 to CINCPAC, 6 Dec. 1961.
227. CINCPAC, Record, SECDEF Conference, 16 Dec. 1961, Item 8A;
msg., PACAF to USAF, PFOCC-S-61-197, 17 Dec. 1961.
228. Msg., JCS-2706 to CINCPAC, 26 Dec. 1961.
229. CHAFSEC-MAAGVN, Agenda Book for February 1962 SECDEF Conference,
Item 5C; Gleason Paper, ca. 1 Mar. 1962; CINCPAC, Record, Fourth SECDEF
Conference, Item 5.
230. Gleason paper, ca. 1 Mar. 1962.
231. Ibid., ltr., Col. Chester A. Jack, Comdr. Det. 2A, to 2CCR?
subj: Future of Detachment 2A, 29 Mar. 1962.
232. Msg., AMEMB Saigon to SECSTATE, #1046, 3 Mar. 1962; msg.,
2ADVON to COMUSMACV, 2IDC-62-0657H, 22 Aug. 1962; Presentation by Gen.
Moorman before Congressional Committee, ca. Feb. 1962, pt. I, p. 30.
233. Msg., 13AF to PACAF, 130DC-2-078? 10 Mar. 1962; msg.,
COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MACV-184, 24 Mar. 1962; CINCPAC, Record, Fourth
SECDEF Conference, 21 Mar. 1962, Item 5; msg., 2ADVON to 13AF, 20DC-62-
0854D, 12 Apr. 1962.
234. Msg., 2ADVON to 13AF, 2CCR-62-1395, 21 Apr. 1962; Report of
USAF Chief of Staff's Visit to South Vietnam, Apr. 1962, pars. 4 and 7;
2ADVON, Agenda Book for May 1962 SECDEF Conference, Item 1A; in sg.,
PACAF to CINCPAC, PFDOP-3064, 8 May 1962; rpt., Mueller to 2CCR, subj:
Monthly. Report of Tactics and Techniques, 5 June 1962.
235. Msg., 2ADVON to PACAF, 2 OCR-62-235C, 17 July 1962.
236. Ltr., Anthis to Pritchard, 20 Oct. 1962.
237. PACAF Reference Book for July 1962 SECDEF Conference, Tab. 1.
238. PACAF Reference Book for July 1962 SECDEF Conference, Tab. 1.
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239. CINCPAC, Record, Sixth SECDEF Conference, 23 July 1962, Item 2.
240. Ltr., Anderson to Bowers, subj: Airborne Night Flare Aircraft,
19 July 1962; ltr., Anthis to Col. Nguyen Xuan Vinh, Comdr. VNAF, 8 Aug.
1962; ltr., Anthis to Nguyen Dinh Thuan, Sec. of State for National Defense,
11 Aug. 1962.
241. Msg., 13AF to PACAF, 1300T-W-2-1771A, 6 Au 1962.
242. Msg., CofS USAF to CINCPAC, AFSES-0T-75332, 16 Aug. 1962;
msg., CINCPAC to OASD/ISA, 210413Z Aug. 1962.
243. Ltr., Anthis to Thuan, 11 Aug. 1962.
244. Msg., 2ADVON to COMUSMAGV, 2IDC-62-0567H, 22 Aug. 1962.
245. Ltr., Harkins to Moorman, 1 Oct. 1962.
246. Msg., CHNAAG VN to CINCPAC, MAGAF-CC-3395, 19 Sept. 1962.
247. Msg., DEPTAR to CINCUSARRAC, GAGG-18135, 16 Aug. 1962.
248. Hist., Asst. for Mutual Security, Dep. CofS Systems & Logistics,
USAF, Jan.-June 1962, p. 57; CHAFSEC MAAGVN, Agenda Book for February
1962 SECDEF Conference, Item 5C; PACAF Summary of Actions, Gen. Wheeler's
Party, Sec. I, Tab. A; PACAF Reference Book for 8 October 1962 SECDEF
Conference, Vietnam Sect., Tab. A3; ltr., Harkins to Moorman, 1 Oct. 1962;
CINCPAC, Summary of Decisions Taken at Seventh SECDEF Conference, 8 Oct.
1962, Item 6; msg., PACAF to TAC, PFDOP-3150, 13 Oct. 1962; Long rpt.,
18 Oct. 1962.
249. Msg., 13AF to PACAF, 1300T-W-2-1771A, 6 Aug. 1962; Hist.
PACAF, July-Dec. 1962, II, Wkly. Briefing Items, PFMSS, 13 Aug. 1962.
250. Msg., 13AF to PACAF, 1300T-W-2-1771A, 6 Aug. 1962; msg.,
2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-62-307, 14 Sept. 1962; msg., PACAF to CSAF,
PFDOP-62-1953J, 29 Sept. 1962.
251. Msg., PACAF to CSAF, PFDOP-62-1953J, 29 Sept. 1962; ltr.,
Pritchard to Anthis, 1 Oct. 1962; meg., USAF to PACAF, TAC, SAWC, AFOOP-00-
88728, 6 Oct. 1962; msg., PACAF to CINCPAC, PFDOP-3137, 7 Oct. 1962;
CINCPAC, Summary of Decisions Taken at Seventh SECDEF Conference,
8 Oct. 1962, Item 6.
252. Msgs., PACAF to TAC, PFDOP-3148, 12 Oct. 1962 and PFDOP-3150,
13 Oct. 1962; ltr., Anthis to Pritchard, 20 Oct. 1962; ltr., Moorman
to Anthis, 23 Oct. 1962.
t
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253. Msg., 21D to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-62-339J, 22 Oct. 1962.
254. Hist., Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS? Plans and Prgms., USAF,
July-Dec. 1962, pp. 271-272; memo for Anthis from Anderson, subj:
Requirement for USAF Representation on MACV Command Section, 23 Feb.
1963; msg., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, J3444E, 25 Oct. 1962.
255. Msg., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MAC -J5-4682, 7 Nov. 1962; msg.,
CINCPAC to JCS, 090425Z Nov. 1962.
256. Msg., PACAF to TAC, PED0P-3150, 13 Oct. 1962.
257. Presentation by Gen. Moorman before Congressional Committee,
ca. Feb. 1963, I, Question 11; PACAF Summary of Actions Gen. Wheeler's
Party, Sect. I, Tab. C.
258. Hilsman, To Move a Nation, pp. 453-467.
259. Msg., 21W to 13AF and PACAF, 2CCR-63A-63001A, 10 Jan. 1963.
260. AFXOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item
lin; msg., CSAF to PACAF, AFOOP-CO-61553, 12 Dec. 1963.
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FOOTNOTES
Chapter 6
1. Msg., AMEMB Vientiane to STATE, GR-845, 2 Jan. 1962.
2. 87th Cong. 2d Sess., Foreign Assistance Act of 1962, U.S.
Senate, p. 73.
3. 13AF, Intelligence Brief, 16 May 1962, in Hist. 13AF, 1962,
II, doc. 2; Dommen, Conflict in Laos, pp. 217-219.
4. CQ Background, China and U. S. Far East Policy, 1945-1947,
pp. 111-112.
5. Hilsman, To Move A Nation, pp. 142-145.
6. Ibid.; Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, p. 516.
7. 13AF, Intelligence Brief, 16 May 1962.
8. US Dept of State, American Foreign Policy., Current Documents,
1962, p. 1093.
9. 13AF, Intelligence Brief, 16 May 1962.
10. Public Papers of the Presidents, John F. Kennedy, 1962, pp. 396,
402-403, 408.
11. Stebbins, ed., Documents on American Foreign Relations, 1962,
p.282.
12. 89th Cong. 2d Sess., United States Policy Toward Asia, pt. 1,
p. 148.
13. Presentation Book for Lt. Gen. T. S. Moorman, Vice CINCPACAF,
II, ca. Feb. 1963, pt. V: Plans for Various Contingencies in SE Asia;
Hist:?PACAF, July-Dec. 1960, II, pt. 2, PP. 45-47.
14. Msg. JCS-4528 to CINCPAC, 13 May 1962.
15. Msg. PFDOP-6030-62, PAaAF to 13AF, 13 May 1962.
16. Hist. 315th Air Div. (Com Car), Jan.-June 1962, pp. 53-54.
17. Msg., CINCPAC to DEPCINCUSARPAC, 151305Z May 1962.
18. JTF-116, After Action Rpt., 8 Dec. 1962; Hist. 315 Air Div.
(Com Car), Jan.-June 1962, pp. 53-54.
507
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19. Hist. Air Force Component Command JTF-116, 25 Nov. 1962; Hist.
PACAF, Jan.-June 1962, III, Monthly Hist. Rpt. PFOCO, June 1962; Hist.
315th Troop Carrier Gp, Assault, 31 Dec. 1962, pp. 27-28; Hist. Tactical
Air Command, Jan.-June 1962, I, 651-652, 659-661.
20. Hist. Thirteenth AF, 1962, I, 13.
21. JTF-116, After Action Rpt., 8 Dec. 1962.
22. Ibid.; ltr., Brig. Gen. Stephen D. McElroy, Comdr. AFCC JTF-
116 to Comdr. Thirteenth AF, Subj: Operational and Support Concept for
AFCC/JTF-116, n.d.; msg., AFCC JTF-116 to 13AF, ODC-250, 11 June 1962;
430th TFS, TAMP Final Rpt.--SAWBUCK II, 4 Jan 1963; Hist. Air Force
Component Command, Joint Task Force 116, 25 Nov. 1962.
23. Hist. 13AF, 1962, I, 62-64; Special Order G-85, Hq. PACAF,
15 Nov. 1961; rpt. Col. William J. Jones, Comdr. 6010th Tactical Gp. to
Comdr. 2d Air Div., subj: End of Tour Report, 9 Feb. 1963.
24. Msg., PFCVC-297, PACAF to 13AF, 24 May 1962.
25. Msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 302332Z May 1962.
26. Memo for record by Col. R. A. Yudkin, Asst. CofS Plans PACAF,
Subj: Command Arrangements--Southeast Asia, 7 June 1962.
27. Msg., PFCVC-358, PACAF to 13AF, 20 June 1962.
28. Hist. 2d Advon, 16 Nov. 1961-8 Oct. 1962, p. 34; Col. W. J.
Jones End of Tour Rpt., 9 Feb. 1963.
29. Msg., PFCVC-358, PACAF to 13AF, 20 June 1962; PACAF Special
Order G-69, 10 July 1962; 13AF Regulation 23-5, subj: Mission: 6010th
Tactical Group, 15 Sept. 1962.
30. Hist., Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Plans and Programs, USAF,
July-Dec. 1962, p. 181; JTF-116 After Action Rpt., 8 Dec. 1962.
31. CINCPAC, Record of Sixth Secretary of Defense Conference, 23
July 1962, Item #7, Review Activities of U.S. Forces, Thailand.
32. Hist., Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Plans and Programs, USAF,
July-Dec. 1962, pp. 181-185; JTF-116, After Action Rpt., 8 Dec. 1962;
Hist. 474th TFW, July-Dec. 1962.
33. Hist. PACAF, July-Dec. 1962, II: Monthly Hist. Rpt. Direc. of
Plans, July 1962; PACAF Reference Book for 8 Oct. 1962 SECDEF Conference,
Laos Section: Tab A: Plans in Event of Failure of Coalition Government
in Laos.
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34. CINCPAC, Record of Sixth Secretary of Defense Conference, 23
July 1962, Item #8: Status of Special Logistics Actions Thailand ("SLAT");
msg., MAC-J00-2711, COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, 17 Sept. 1962; msg., MAC-J01-
1936, COMUSMACTHAI to CINCPAC, 16 Aug. 1962.
35. USAF Journal of Military Assistance, vol. XV, No. 83, Sept.
1962, p. 150.
36. Msg. #613, AmEmb Bangkok to Sec State, 30 Sept. 1962; Hist. PACAF,
July-Dec. 1963, I, pt. 2, Hist. Rpt. Dir. of Policy, Aug. 1963.
37. Msg., 13-IDC-18-9-35, AFCC JTF-116 to PACAF, 18 Sept. 1962.
38. Hist. PACAF, July-Dec. 1962, II, Hist. PFCE0 Aug. 1962; msg.
CINCPAC to COMUSMACTHAI, 070330Z Aug. 1962; PACAF Reference Book for
8 Oct. 1962 SECDEF Conference, Thailand Section, Tab. D: Re-examination
of the Airfield Portion of the Logistics Program to Consider Whether
Some Other Site Should Be Preferred.
39. CINCPAC, Summary of Decisions Taken at Seventh SECDEF Confer-
ence, 8 Oct. 1962, 28 Oct. 1962, Laos Section.
40. JIT'-116, After Action Rpt., 8 Dec. 1962.
41. USAF Journal of Military Assistance, vol. XVI, no. 85, Mar. 1963,
p. 174; Hist., Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Plans and Opns., USAF, Jan.-
June 1963, p. 177.
42. Ltr., Brig. Gen. Gilbert L. Pritchard, Comdr. USAF Special Air
Warfare Center (SAW), to Anthis, 21 Aug. 1962; msg. JCS-5796 to CINCPAC,
22 Aug. 1962; PACAF Reference Book for July 1962 SECDEF Conference,
Tab. 4: Command Arrangements--SE Asia.
43. Hist., Direct. of Plans, Dep. CofS Plans and Programs, USAF,
July-Dec. 1962, pp. 188-189.
44. Msg., CINCPAC to COMUSMACTHAI, 150452Z_Sept. 1962.
45. Msg., MAC-J00 -2711, COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, 170705Z Sept. 1962;
msg., 13-IDC-18-9-35, 13AF to PACAF, 18 Sept. 1962.
46. Msg., MAC-J00-2711, COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, 17 Sept. 1962; msg.,
MAC-J5-2930, COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, 25 Sept. 1962, in CINCPAC Command
History, 1962, p. 7.
47. Msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 192050Z Sept. 1962.
48. Msg., CINCPAC (from Taylor) to State, DOD, White House, 012350Z
Oct. 1962.
5d9
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49. Msg., CINCPAC to COMUSMACTHAI and COMUSMACV, 302135a Sept. 1963. 0%
50. Msg., PFCNC-593, CINCPACAF to CINCPAC, 4 Oct. 1962; PACAF Refer-
ence Book for 8 Oct. 1962 SECDEF Conference, General, Tab. A: Command
Arrangements--SE Asia.
51. Msg., CINCPAC (from Taylor) to JCS, 090032Z Oct. 1962.
52. Msg., CINCPAC to COMUSMACTHAI and COMUSMACV, 302135Z Sept. 1963.
53. Msg., CINCPAC to COMUSMACTHAI, 14085Z (Sic.) Oct. 1962.
54. Hist. 13AF, 162, I, 8; CINCPAC Comd. Hist., 1962, II, 652.
55. Msg., CINCPAC to COMUSMACTHAI?14085Z (sic) Oct. 1962.
56. Msgs, CINCPAC to JCS, 190320Z Oct. 1962 and CINCPAC to CHJUSMAG
Thai, 300221Z Oct. 1962.
57. PACAF Special Order G-87, 24 Sept. 1962.
58. Msg., JCS-7332 to CINCPAC, 10 Nov. 1962.
59. JTF-116, After-Action Report, 8 Dec. 1962.
60. Msg., MAC-J00-4919, COMUSMACV to CJTF-116, 20 Nov. 1961; Col.
W. J. Jones End of Tour Rpt., 9 Feb. 1963.
61. Memo by Brig. Gen. John B. Henry, Jr., Asst. CofS Opns PACAF,
subj: "Toy Tiger" Modification, ca. May 1962, in PACAF Trip Brook for
General O'Donnell; Msg., 6010th Tac. Gp. to PACAF, 6010Int/08/002, 1 Aug.
1962; PACAF Briefing Book for General Taylor's Visit on Return from
Visit to Southeast Asia, Tab. 14: Talking Paper: RF-101 Camera Con-
figurations and Photo Capabilities; Hist. 18th Tac. Ftr. Wg., July-Dec.
1962, pp. 71-72; Hist. PACAF, July-Dec. 1962, II, PFMSS Wkly. Briefing
Items, 13 Nov. 1962.
62. Msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 230253Z Aug. 1962; msg., 13AF to PACAF,
130DC12/312A, 15 Aug. 1962.
63. Msg., 13AF to PACAF, 130DC/2/312A, 15 Aug. 1962.
64. Msg., CINCPAC to PACAF, 151858Z Aug. 1962; msg., CINCPAC to
JCS, 230253Z Aug. 1962.
5J0
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65. Msg., 13AF to 6010 TacGp., 13AF6/2/1762A, 6 Sept. 1962; msg.,
AFCC JTF-116 to PACAF, 13 IDC-18-35, 18 Sept. 1962; PACAF Briefing Book
for General Taylor's Visit on Return from Visit to Southeast Asia,
Tab 13; Talking Paper, Need for Continuation of Able Mable Recce over
Laos, 18 Sept. 1962, by PFIDC/PFODC.
66. Msg., AFCC JTF-116 to 13AF, 6010th-CCR-553, 26 Sept. 1962.
67. Msg., ADMINO CINCPAC to PACAF, 292110Z Sept. 1962.
68. Msg., 2AD to PACAF, 2COR 62-339J, 22 Oct. 1962; msg., JCS-7243
to CINCPAC, 6 Nov. 1962; msg., CINCPAC to PACAF, 072150Z Nov. 1962; msg.,
13AF to PACAF, 130DC/2-395A, 8 Nov. 1962; msg., 2AD to PACAF, 2CCR-62-
2092, 14 Nov. 1962; msg., 13AF to 6010 Tac.Gp., 13CCR/2/2010A, 8 Dec.
1962; Hist. PACAF, July-Dec. 1962, vol. 1, pt. 2, ch. 2.
69. Hist. Tactical Air Command, July-Dec. 1962, I, 535-539; Hist.,
Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Plans and Programs, USAF, July-Dec. 1962,
pp. 181-185.
70. Hist., Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Plans and Opns.; USAF, Jan,.-
June 1963, I, 599-601; Hist., hYlOth Aircraft Delivery Gp. (TAC), Jan.-
June 1963, p. 110; 522d TFS, TACO? Final Rpt. SAWBUCK IX, 8 June 1964.
71. Hists., 405th TFW, Jan.-June 1963, p. 73, and July-Dec. 1963,
p.71.
72. Dommen, Conflict in Laos, p. 220.
73. Stebbins, ed., Documents on American Foreign Relations, 1962,
p. 283; Public Pa ers of the Presidents, John F. Kennedy, 1962, pp. 479-
14.80.
74. US Dept of State, American Foreign Policy, Current Documents,
1962, pp. 1108-1109, 1074.
75. Stebbins, ed.,Documents on American Foreign Relations, 1962,
PP. 284-294.
76. US Dept of State Bulletin, vol. 56, p. 777.
77. Public Papers of the Presidents, John F. Kennedy, 1962, pp.
568, 587-588.
78. 87th Cong. 2d Sess., Foreign Operations Appropriations for 1963,
Hearings before a Subcommittee on Appropriations, House of Representatives
Washington: GPO, 1962), pt. 3, pp. 536-537, 566; 89th Cong. 1st Sess.,
Department of Defense Appropriations for 1966, Hearings before a Subcom-
mittee of the Committee on Appropriations, House of Representatives
(Washington: GPO, 1965), pt. 3, PP. 100-102; 87th Cong. 2d Sess.,
Foreign Assistance and Related Agencies Appropriations for 1963, Hearings
before the Committee on Appropriations U.S. Senate (Washington: GPO,
? 1962), pp. 708-718.
5141
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79. US Dept of State, American Foreizn Policy, Current Documents,
1962, pp. 1109-1117; Hilsman, To Move A Nation, PP. 149-154.
80. 87th Cong. 2d Sess., Foreign Assistance and Related Agencies
Appropriations for 1963, U. S. Senate. pp. 708-718.
81. 87th Cong. 2d Sess., Foreign Assistance Act of 1962, U.S.
Senate, p. 370.
82. CINCPAC Comd Hist., 1962, pp. 219-221; msg., CINCPAC to JCS,
142326Z June 1963.
83. CINCPAC Comd. Hist., 1962, pp. 211-212; msg., CINCPAC to USAF,
1404272Z Aug. 1962.
84. 87th Cong. 2d Sess., Foreign Assistance and Related Agencies
Appropriations for 1963, U. S. Senate, pp. 708-718; 88th Cong. 1st Sess.,
Vietnam and Southeast Asia, Report of Senator Mike Mansfield . . . to
the Committee on Foreign Relations, U. S. Senate (Washington: GPO,
1963), pp. 1-21.
85. Dommen, Conflict in Laos, p. 229.
86. Msg., CINCPAC to OASD/ISA, 180255Z Aug. 1962; msg., CINCPAC
to CHMAAG Laos, 312325Z Aug. 1962.
87. Msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 010331Z Sept. 1962.
88. Msg., CINCPAC to CHMAAG Laos, 4 Aug. 1962.
89. Msg., CINCPAC to CHKAAG Laos, 120)016Z Sept. 1962.
90. CINCPAC Comd. Hist., 1962, p. 218; Hist 13AF, 1962,
91. Msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 062322 Nov. 1962.
92. US Dept of State, American Foreign Policy, Current Documents,
1963 (Washington: GPO, 1967), pp. 806-809.
93. US Dept of State Bulletin, vol. 57, PP. 92-93.
94. Dommen, Conflict in Laos, p. 240; CINCPAC, Record of Sixth
Secretary of Defense Conference, 23 July 1962, Item 5: Vietnam--
Intelligence Status; msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 130740Z Jan. 1963.
95. Dommen, Conflict in Laos, pp. 240-241; msg., Sec State to AmEmb
Vientiane, #1042, 3 May 1963; Hist. Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Plans
and Prgms., USAF, July-Dec. 1962, pp. 188-190.
p. 9.
532
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,96. Hist. PAW, Jan.-June 1962, vol. I, pt. 2, pp. 10-19.
97. Dommen, Conflict in Laos, p. 230; msg., CHJUSMAG Bangkok to
CINCPAC, #25978, 23 Apr. 1963.
98. PACAF Reference Book for 8 October 1962, Secretary of Defense
Conference, Vietnam Sect., Tab G: Vietnam--Border Problems.
99. Msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 130740Z Jan. 1963.
100. Dommen, Conflict in Laos, p. 234.
101. Ibid., p. 235; msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 062322Z Nov. 1962.
102. Dommen, Conflict in Laos, p. 234; Toye, Laos, p. 197; 88th
Cong. 2d Sess., Department of Defense Appropriations, House of Represent-
atives (Washington: GPO, 1964), Pt. 4, pp. 83-84.
103. Public Papers of the Presidents John F. Kennedy, 1963 (Washing-
ton: GPO, 1964), p. 344.
104. Dolmen, Conflict in Laos, p. 244.
105. Msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 282328Z Nov. 1962.
106. Msgs. ADMIN.() CINCPAC to COMUS Korea for Felt, 222028Z Jan. 1963;
CHJUSMAG Bangkok to CINCPAC, A-25561, 20 Mar. 1963; Am Emb Vientiane to
State, #1603, 2 May; Am Emb Vientiane to State, #1645, 8 May 1963; US
Dept of State, American Foreign Policy, Current Documents 1963, pp. 806-
809; CINCPAC Comd. Hist., 1963, pp. 182-184.
107. Msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 130740Z Jan 1963.
108. Msg., ADMIN.() CINCPAC to COMUS Korea for Felt, 222028Z Jan. 1963;
CINCPAC Cord. Hist., 1963, pp. 165-167.
109. Dommen, Conflict in Laos, p. 245; CINCPAC Comd. Hist., 1963,
p. 168.
110. CINCPAC Comd. Hist., 1963, pp. 167-168.
111. Dommen, Conflict in Laos, p. 246; CQ Background, China and U. S.
Far East Policy, 175-579677-F7 121.
112. Dommen, Conflict in Laos, pp. 249-250, msgs., USARMA Vientiane
to DEPTAR, CX-67, 19 Apr. 175; AmEmb Vientiane to Sec State, #1544,
24 Apr. 1963; Sec State to Am Emb Vientiane, #1000, 23 Apr. 1963; USAIRA
Vientiane to CofS USAF, CX-66 24 Apr. 1963; USAIRA Vientiane to CofS
USAF, CX-67, 24 Apr. 1963.
593
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113. Stebbins, ed., Documents on American Foreign Policy, 1963,
pp. 285-286; US Dept of State, American Foreign Policy, Current Docu-
ments, 1963, pp. 729-730; Library of Congress, Background Information
Relating to Southeast Asia and Vietnam (Rev. Ed.).
114. CQ Background, China and U.S. Far East Policy-, 1945-1967,
p. 121; Doifurien? Conflict in Laos, p. 249; Schlesinger, A Thousand Days,
p. 517.
115. 88th Cong. 1st Sess., Foreign Assistance Oct of 1963, Hearings
before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives
(Washington: GPO, 1963, pp. 7)47-748.
116. Msg., JCS 1272 to CINCPAC, 19 June 1963.
117. CINCPAC Cond. Hist., 1963, pp. 168-173.
118. Msgs., AmEmb Bangkok to Sec State, #1639 and #1653, 27 Apr.
and 1 May 1963.
119. Msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 130740Z Jan. 1963.
120. CINCPAC Comd. Hist., 1963, pp. 196-197.
121. Msgs., AmEmb Vientiane to Sec State, #1566, 26 Apr. 1963;
AmEmb Bangkok to Sec State, #1653, 1 May 1963; AmEmb Saigon to Sec
State, #1014, 11 May 1963.
122. Msg., Sec State to AmEmb Vientiane #1042, 3 May 1963.
123. Msgs., Sec State to AmEmb Vientiane, #1000 and #1021, 23 and
27 April 1963.
124. Msgs., AmEmb Vientiane to Sec State #1626, 6 May and #1664,
12 May 1963.
125. Msg., ARMA Vientiane to DEPTAR, OK-169, 15 July 1963.
126. Msg., AmEmb Vientiane to Sec State, #1908, 12 June 1963.
127. Msg., ADMIN.() CINCPAC to CINCPAC, 251930Z Apr. 1963.
128. Msg., AmEmb Vientiane to Sec State, #1628, 6 May 1963.-
129. Msgs., USAIRA Vientiane to CofS USAF, CX-113, 6 June 1963;
CINCPAC to CHJUSMAG Thailand, 071957Z June 1963; AmEmb Bangkok to Sec
State, #1870, 12 June 1963.
5.J4 .
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130. Msgs., CINCPAC to CHJUSMAG Thailand, 110344Z June 1963; CINCPAC
to JCS, 142326Z 1963.
131. Meg.., AmEmb Vientiane to Sec State, #1905, 12 June 1963.
132. Msg., AmEMb Vientiane to Sec State, #1906, 12 June 1963.
133. Msg., AIRA Vientiane to CINCPAC, CX-142, 11 July 1963.
134. Msgs., AmEmb Vientiane to Sec State, #1566, 26 Apr. 1963; USAIRA
Vientiane to CofS USAF, CX-90, 15 May 1963.
135. Msg., CINCPAC to CHJUSMAGTHAI and OSD/ISA, 182303Z May 1963.
136. Mhgs., USAIRA Vientiane to CofS USAF, CX-121, 13 June 1963;
AmEmb Vientiane to CINCPAC, #1246, 26 June 1963; Sec State to AmEmb
Vientiane to Sec State, #17, 2 July 1963.
137. Msg., AIRA Vientiane to CofS USAF, cx-124, 4 July 1963.
138. Msg., JCS-1272 to CINCPAC, 19 June 1963.
139. CINCPAC Comd. Hist.. 1963, pp. 197-198.
140. Msg., Sec State to AmEmbVientiane, #120, 3 July 1963; CINCPAC
Cond. Hist., 1963, pp. 198-200; msg. JCS 1353 to CI1'CPAC1 22 June 1963.
141. Msg., Sec State to AmEmb Vientiane, #23, 3 July 1963.
142. Msg., Sec State to AmEmb Vientiane #26, 3 July 1963.
143. Msg., ADMINO CINCPAC to OSD/ISA, 110515Z July 1963.
144. Msg., Sec State to AmEmb Laos, #55, 10 July 1963.
145. Msgs., AmEmb Vientiane to Sec State, #131, 18 July 1963; AmEmb
Vientiane to Sec State, #148, 20 July 1963.
146. Msg., AmEmb London to Sec State, #384, 20 July 1963.
147. Msg., Sec State to AmEmb Vientiane, #162, 26 July 1963.
148. Msg., AmEmb Vientiane to Sec State,#1905, 12 June 1963.
149. Msg., Sec State to AmEmb Vientiane, #36, 6 July 1963.
150. Msg., ARMA Vientiane to DEPTAR, 0I-169, 15 July 1963.
151. Msg., AmEmb Vientiane to Sec State, #131, 18 July 1963.
595
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152. Msg., AmEmb Vientiane to Sec State, #147, 20 July 1963.
153. Msgs., AmEmb Vientiane to Sec State, #1311 18 July 1963; AIRA
Vientiane to CofS USAF, CX-150, 18 July 1963.
154. Msg., AmEmb Vientiane to Sec State, #146, 20 July 1963.
155. Msg., Sec State to AmEmb Vientiane, #95, 20 July 1963.
156. Msgs., AmEmb Vientiane to Sec State #176, 27 July 1963 and #131,
12 Aug 1963.
157. Msg., AmEmb Vientiane to Sec State #188, 30 July 1963.
158. Msg., CHJUSMAG Bangkok to CINCPAC, DEPCH-I-25978, 23 Apr. 1963.
159. Msgs., AmEmb Vientiane to Sec State, #1603, 2 May and #1645,
8 May 1963.
160. Msgs., Sec State to AmEMb Vientiane, #1247, 28 June 1963 and
AmEmb Vientiane to Sec State, #195, 1 Aug 1963.
161. Msg., AmEmb Vientiane to Sec State, #1951 1 Aug. 1963.
162. CINCPAC Cond. Hist., 1963, pp. 179-181; Hist. Direc. of Plans,
Dep. CofS Plans and Operations, USAF, July-Dec. 1963, pp. 229231; msg.,
CINCPAC to JCS, 142326Z June 1963; msg., CINCPAC to COMUSMACV, 312358Z
July 1963.
163. Msg., AmEmb Vientiane to Sec State, #190, 30 July 1963.
164. Msg., Sec State to AmEmb Vientiane, #139, 9 Aug. 1963.
165. Msg., Sec State to AmEmb Bangkok, #232, 13 Aug. 1963.
166. US Dept of State, American Foreign Policy, Current Documents,
1963, pp. 816-817.
167. Hist. Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Plans and Operations, USAF,
July-Dec. 1963, p. 62.
168. Msg., USARMA Vientiane to DEPTAR, CX-212? 14 Aug. 1963.
169. Msg., AmEmb Vientiane to Sec State, #329, 5 Sept. 1963.
170. Hist. Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Plans and Opns., USAF, July-
Dec. 1963, pp. 229-231.
51)6
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171. Msg., 2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-63-3)14L, 18 Dec. 1963.
172. Public Papers of the Presidents, John F. Kennedy, 1963, P. 693.
173. CINCPAC Comd. Hist., 1963, p. 202.
174. USAF Journal of Military Assistance, vol. VI, No. 88, Dec.
1963, p. 167; 88th Cong. 2d Sess., Foreign Assistance and Related
Agencies Appropriations for 1965, Hearings before the Committee on
Appropriations, U. S. Senate (Washington: GPO, 1964), P. 295; 88th Cong.
2d Sess., Loi...ebio.r.2.alppropriations for 1965, Hearings before
a Subcommittee on Appropriations House of Re resentatives (Washington:
7767-137), pt. 2, pp. 171-173.
175. Msg., 2AD to PACAF, 13AF, and ATF13(P), 2CCR-63-344L, 18 Dec. 1963.
176. CINCPAC Cond. Hist., 1963, p. 198.
177. Ltr., Maj. Gen. Glen W. Martin, Dep. CofS Plans and Opns.
PACAF, to Anthis, 7 Aug. 1963.
178. Ltr., Anthis to Martin, 2 Sept. 1963.
179. CINCPAC Cond. Hist., 1963, Pp. 242-243; mem for record by
Col. Lyle C. Maritzen, D/Policy PACAF, subj: PACOM MAAG Chiefs Con-
ference, 27 May 1963.
180. Msg., 2AD to PACAF, 13AF, and ATF13(P), 2CCR-63-344L, 18 Dec. 1963.
181. Hilsman, To Move a Nation, pp. 453-467.
182. Memo for record by Maritzen, 27 May 1963.
183. Msg., 2AD to PACAF, 13AF, and ATF13(P), 2CCR-63-344L, 18 Dec. 1963.
184. CINCPAC Comd. Hist., 1963, pp. 194, 201-202.
185. Msg. AmEmb Laos to State Dept., 240956Z May 1964; msg.
13AF, 2CCR-64-249E, 25 May 1964.
.397
2AD to
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FOOTNOTES
Chapter 7
1. Burchett, Vietnam, pp. 188-190; msg., CINCPAC to DIA, 132258Z
Mar. 1963.
2. Msg., CINCPAC to ADMINO CINCPAC, 221415Z Oct. 1962; CINCPAC,
Record, Sixth SECDEF Conference, 23 July 1962, Item 5.
3. Msg., CINCPAC to DIA, 132258Z Mar. 1963; PACAF Reference Book
for 8 Oct. 1962 SECDEF Conference, Tab. K-1; PACAF Reference Book for
May 1963 SECDEF Conference, Agenda Item 3, Tab. E; Bernard Fall, "Talk
With Ho Chi Minh," The New Republic, 12 Oct. 1963, in Bernard Fall, Ho
Chi Minh on Revolution (New York: Praeger, 1967), pp. 320-324.
L. Msg., CINCPAC to DIA, 132258Z Mar. 1963.
5. AFXOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item
IV-F-1; ltr., Maj. Gen. David A. Burchinal, Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS
Plans and Prgms., USAF, to O'Donnell, subj: Summary of JCS Actions,
30 Apr. 1962.
6. Msgs., CINCPAC to ADMINO CINCPAC, 221415Z Oct. 1962 and CINCPAC
to JCS, 221650Z Oct. 1962; CINCPAC, Record, Eighth SECDEF Conference,
6 May 1963, Item 1B.
7. PACAF Reference Book for May 1963 SECDEF Conference, Item 1;
Hq. USMACV, Summary of Highlights, 8 Feb. 1962-7 Feb. 1963, p. 95.
8. PACAF Reference Book for May 1963 SECDEF Conference, Item 1;
Rpt. of Visit by JCS Team to South Vietnam, Jan. 1963, Sect. III; memo
for record by Col. E. H. Nigro, subj: Meeting of Admiral Felt and
President Diem, 9 Jan. 1963; Interview with Lt. Col. Charles E. Trumbo,
Jr., Direc. of Plans 2AD by Grainger, 13 July 1963.
9. CHECO, Southeast Asia Rpt., pt. IV: Command Structure/Relation-
ships, Oct. 61-Dec. 63, p. 45; ltr., O'Donnell to LeMay, 12 Sept. 1963;
ltr., Felt to Harkins, 20 May 1963.
10. Project CHECO, Southeast Asia Rpt., pt. IV, p. 45; ltr., Harkins
to Moorman, 1 Oct. 1962; Hq. USMACV, Summary of Highlights, 8 Feb. 1962,
7 Oct. 1963, p. 95; msg., USARMA to DEPTAR, G1-637, 26 Nov. 1962; msg.,
2AD to 13AF, 20N-63-0304D, 8 Mar. 1963; ltr., Harkins to Felt, 22 Mar. 1963.
598
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11. US Army Tactical Mobility Requirements Board, Final Report,
20 Aug. 1963; 88th Cong. 1st Sess., Department of Defense Appropriations
for 1964, House of Representatives (Washington: GPO, 1963), Pt. 1, PP.
132-133, 415, 472-473, pt. 2, pp. 123-124.
12. Msg., DEPTAR to CINCUSARPAC, DSCA-OPNS-18135, 16 Aug. 1962.
13. Msg., USARMA to DEPTAR, CI-637, 26 Nov. 1962; msg., 2AD to
PACAF, 2CCR-62-335J, 18 Oct. 1962; ltr., Col, Winston P. Anderson,
Dir. of Opns. 2AD, to 2MDC et al., subj: National Campaign Plan, 15 Jan.
1963, w/incl: Air Operations Annex.
14. 11g., 2AD to PACAF and 131F, 2CCR-63-0059B, 6 Feb. 1963; Hq.
USMACV, Summary of Highlights, 8 Feb. 1962-7 Feb. 1963, pp. 114-115.
15. Msg., 2AD to 13AF, 20DC-63-0304D, 8 Mar. 1963.
16. Ltr., Anderson to 2MDC et al., 15 Jan. 1963; PACAF Reference
Book for May 1963 SECDEF Conference, Agenda Item 1.
17. Rpts., Bowers to D/Dir. JOC, subj: Monthly Activity Report,
ALO III Corps, 9 Jan. and 1 Feb. 1963; rpt., Lt. Col. Donald K. Reamy,
ALO IV Corps to D/Dir. JOC, subj: Monthly Report, 16-31 Jan. 1963,
8 Feb. 1963.
18. Ltr., O'Donnell to LeMay, subj: The Role of the Air Component
Commander, 12 Sept. 1962; ltr., Moorman to Lt. Gen. David A. Burchinal,
Dep. CofS Plans and Opns. USAF, 11 June 1963; msg., 13AF to PACAF,
130DC-63-0121, 5 Feb. 1963; End of Tour Rpt., Col. Winston P. Anderson,
Dir. of Opns. 2AD, 5 Apr. 1963; ltr., Anderson to Anthis, 12 Apr. 1963.
19. Msg., 2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 20DC-63-0060B, 6 Feb. 1963;
memo for Anthis from Anderson, 23 Feb. 1963; ltr., Maj. James C. Dunn,
Dir. Mgc0 2A1) to 13AF ONO,. subj: National Campaign Plan, 21 Jan. 1963.
20. Ltr., Moorman to Harkins, 3 Sept. 1962; msg., 2AD to PACAF and
13AF, 2CCR-62-339J, 22 Oct. 1962; msg., 2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-63-003A,
3 Jan. 1963; ltr., Rowland to Maj. Gen. Glen W. Martin, Dep. CofS Plans &
Opns. PACAF, 14 Mar. 1963.
21. Msg., 2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-62-339J, 22 Oct. 1962; msg.,
2AD to 13AF and PACAF, 2CCR-63A-630010A, 10 Jan. 1963; Hist. 13AF, 1962,
I, 107-108; msg., PACAF to 13AF, PFCVC-725, 8 Dec. 1962; msg., 2AD to
13AF, 2CCR-62-2243L, 10 Dec. 1962.
22. Memo for Anthis from Anderson, 23 Feb. 1963; msg., 2AD to PACAF,
2CCR-63-08-01-25A, 8 Jan. 1963; msg., 2AD to 13AF, 2CCR-62-2243L, 10 Dec.
1962; msg., 2AD to 13AF and PACAF, 2CCR-63A-630010A, 10 Jan. 1963.
599
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23. Msg., 2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-62-339J, 22 Oct. 1962; msg.,
COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, J4-0016, 2 Dec. 1962; Hq. USMACV, Summary of High-
lights, 8 Feb. 1962-7 Feb. 1963, p. 66;. PACAF Summary of Actions, Gen.
Wheeler's Party, pt. II, Tab. D; msg., 2AD to PACAF, 200R-63-0046A, 27
Jan. 1963; USAF, Air Staff Observations, South Vietnam, 16-30 Jan. 1963,
pp. 9-4.
24. Ltrs., Anthis to Pritchard, 4 Aug. 1962; Pritchard to Anthis,
21 Aug. 1962 and 1 Oct. 1962; Anthis to Pritchard, 20 Oct. 1962; msg.,
2AD to 13AF and PACAF, 2CCR-62-307, 14 Sept. 1962; msg., 2AD to PACAF,
2 CCR-62-345J, 30 Oct. 1962.
25. Msg., 2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-62-307, 14 Sept. 1962; msg.,
COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, J344E, 25 Oct. 1962; msg., 2AD to PACAF, 2CCR-62-
345J, 30 Oct. 1962; msg., 2AD to PACAF, 20DC-62-1888J, 31 Oct. 1962.
26. Msg., PACAF to USAF, PFCVC-657, 1 Nov. 1962; PACAF Summary of
Actions, Gen. Wheeler's Party, Sec. II, Tabs. A and 10; msgs., COMUSMACV
to CINCPAC, MAC-J3-4866, 17 Nov. 1962 and CINCPAC to COMUSMACV, 192121Z
Nov. 1962.
27. Msg., 2AD to PACAF, 20DC-62-2700L, 23 Dec. 1962.
28. Msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 221650Z Oct. 1962.
29. Nigro memorandum of Felt visit with Diem, 9 Jan. 1963.
30. Ltr., Bowers to Dep. Dir., JOC, subj: Visit to Phuoc-Binh-Thanh
Special Tactical Zone by III Corps ALO, 11 Dec. 1962; msg., 2AD to 13AF
and PACAF, 2CCR-62-2138K, 22 Nov. 1962.
31. Rpt., Capt. Lester G. Frazier, ALO/FAC PBT Zone to III Corps ALO,
subj: After Action Report on Operation Holiday, n.d.; Nigro memo of Felt
Visit with Diem, 9 Jan. 1963.
32. Rpt., Bowers to Dep. Dir. III ASOC, subj: After Action Report
"Autumn Breeze Phase IV," 28 Dec. 1962; rpt., Bowers to Dep. Dir. JOC,
subj: After Action Report "Burning Arrow," 10 Jan. 1963; rpt., Maj.
Eugene R. McCutchan, ALO Airborne Bde. to JOC ALO/FAC Sect., subj: Report
of Operation, 15 Jan. 1963; Nigro memo of Felt visit with Diem, 9 Jan. 1963.
33. Bowers rpt., 10 Jan. 1963; McCutchan rpt., 15 Jan. 1963;
Nigro memo of Felt visit with Diem, 9 Jan. 1963; msg., 2AD to PACAF,
20DC-05-03-01, 5 Mar. 1963.
34. Rpt., Bowers to Dep. Dir. JAOC, subj: Monthly Activity Report,
10 Feb. 1963.
600
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35. Rpt., Maj. Herbert L. Prevost, ALO, ARVN 7th Div., subj: Air
Support Operation Duc Thang, 15 Jan. 1963; Rpt. of Summary Briefing Given
by Lt. Col. John P. Vann, US Army Senior Advisor, ARVN 7th Div., 6 Jan.
1963; David Halberstam, The Makin E of a Qua re (New York: Random House,
1965), p. 146; Burchett, Vietnam, pp. 193-19L.
36. Vann briefing, 6 Jan. 1963; Prevost rpt., 15 Jan. 1963; msg.,
2AD to PACAF, 2CCR-63-0005, 7 Jan. 1963.
37. Prevost rpt., 15 Jan. 1963; Vann briefing, 6 Jan. 1963; JOG
Briefing Summary, 3 Jan. 1963; msg., 2AD to PACAF, 2CCR-63-0010A, 3 Jan.
1963; msg., 2AD to 13AF and PACAF, 2CCR-63-0016A, 4 Jan. 1963; msg.,
2AD to PACAF, 200R-1771D, 5 Apr. 1963.
38. Burchett, Vietnam, pp. b5-89.
39. Memo for record by Col. E. H. Nigro, subj: Visit by Admiral
Felt with Secretary Thuan, 9 Jan. 1963; Public Papers of the Presidents,
John F. Kennedy, 1963 (Washington: GPO, 1964), p. 11; Report of Visit by
Joint Chiefs of Staff Team to South Vietnam, Sec. IV, par. 7.
40. Nigro memo of Felt visit with Ty, 9 Jan. 1963.
41. Msgs., 2AD to 13AF and PACAF, 2CCR-63-0010A, 10 Jan. 1963 and
2AD to 13AF and PACAF, 2CCR-63-0012A, 11 Jan. 1963.
42. Ltr. Anthis to COMUSMACV, subj: Duc Thang Heliborne Operation,
16 Jan. 1963.
43. Msg., 2AD to PACAF, 2CCR 63-0046A, 27 Jan. 1963.
44. Rpt. of Visit by Joint Chiefs of Staff Team to South Vietnam,
Jan. 1963, Sec. IV; memo for PFDOP from Asst. CofS Plans, PACAF, subj:
Report of JCS Visit to RVN (Wheeler Report), n.d.; msg., JCS-8678 to
CINCPAC, 17 Feb. 1963; msg., CINCPAC to COMUSMACV, 170607Z Feb. 1963;
ltr., Moorman to Anthis, 11 Feb. 1963.
45. Msgs., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MAC-J-3-4866, 17 Nov. 1962; CINCPAC
to COMUSMACV, 192121Z Nov. 1962; PACAF to USAF, PF0D0-4-17-487, 16 Apr. 1963.
46. Rpt. of Visit by Joint Chiefs of Staff Team to South Vietnam,
Jan. 1963, pt. III.
47. Ililsman, To Move a Nation, pp. 453-467.
48. Msg., CofS USAF to PACAF, AFXPD-87233, 23 Mar. 1963; msg., JCS-
9203 to CINCPAC, 222300Z Mar. 1963; Hist. Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Plans
and Opns. USAF, Jan.-June 1963, p. 249; ltr., Harkins to Nolting, 25 Apr. 1963.
601
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49. Msg., 2AD to 13AF and PACAF, 200R-63A-630010A, 10 Jan. 1963.
O. Msg., 2AD to PACAF, 2CCR-63-0046A, 27 Jan. 1963; msg., 2AD to
PACAF, 2CCR-63-0039A, 24 Jan. 1963; Rpt. of Visit by Joint Chiefs of
Staff Team to South Vietnam, Jan. 1963, pt. IV.
51. Msg., PACAF tosCofS USAF, PFDOP-3005, 14 Feb. 1963; msg.,
SECSTATE to AMEMB Saigon, #749, 15 Feb. 1963.
52. Msg., CINCPAC to COMUSMACV, 022256Z Mar. 1963; msg., PACAF to
2AD, PFC0I-1P-056, 2 Mar. 1963.
53. Ltr., Anthis to Gen. Jacob E. Smart, CINCPACAF, 25 Nov. 1963.
54. Msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 162147Z Feb. 1963.
55. Ltr., O'Donnell to Harkins, 8 Mar. 1963.
56. Msg., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MAC-J3-5075, 29 Nov. 1962.
57. Msg., USAF to USAFE, TAC, PACAF, AFOOP-TA-PC-66979, 9 Jan. 1963.
58. Ltr., Anthis to JGS, subj: Recommendations for Improving Air
Support, n.d.; Anthis notes on matters to be taken up with General LeMay,
ca. Mar. 1963.
59. Ltrs., Harkins to O'Donnell and Felt, 22 Mar. 1963.
60. Ltr., Harkins to Felt, 22 Mar. 1963; Anthis notes on matters to
be taken up with General LeMay, ca. Mar. 1963; CHECO interview with Col.
Harvey E. Henderson, Deputy Comdr. 2AD, 20 Dec. 1963.
61. Ltrs., Felt to Harkins, 20 May 1963, and to O'Donnell, 24 May
1963.
62. Ltr., Harkins to Felt, 21 June 1963; ltr., Anthis to Martin,
2 Sept. 1963; USMACV Directive No. 44, Task Organization and Management
USMD/USA Aviation Resources in RVN, 8 July 1963; Interview with Henderson
by CHECO, 20 Dec. 1963; msg., 2AD to 13AF, 20D0-0640-64, 6 Feb. 1964.
63. PACAF Summary of Actions, Gen. Wheeler's Party, pt. II, Tab. D;
msg., 2AD to PACAF, 2CCR-63-0046A, 27 Jan. 1963; USAF, Air Staff Observations,
South Vietnam, 16-30 Jan. 1963, pp. 11-12; Rpt. of Visit by JCS Team to
South Vietnam, Jan. 1963, Sec. IV; ltr., Moorman to Anthis, 11 Feb. 1963.
64. Msg., CINCPAC to CINCUSARPAC, 012341Z May 1963; ltr., Moorman
to Anthis, 11 Feb. 1963; Interview with Col. Thomas B. Kennedy, Comdr.
315th TO Gp., by Major Dean S. Gausche, CHECO, 4 Feb. 1964.
602
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65. Msg., COMUSMACV to CofS Army, MAC-J4-0661, 1 Feb. 1963.
66. PACAF Reference Book for May 1963 SECDEF Conference, Agenda Item 1;
msg., =PAC to COMUSMACV, 240409Z June 1963.
67. Msg., CINCUSARPAC to CINCPAC, RJ-81363, 19 Apr. 1963; msg.,
CINCPAC to CINCUSARPAC, 012341Z May 1963; msg., CINCPAC to COMUSMACV,
240409Z June 1963; msg., 2AD to 13AF and PACAF, 2CCR-63-203G, 9 July 1963;
msg., CINCPAC to COMUSMACV, 212211Z July 1963; ltr., Anthis to Martin,
2 Sept. 1963; Interview with Kennedy by Gausche, 4 Feb. 1964.
68. Ltr., Anthis to Pritchard, 20 Dec. 1962; Pre-Conference ASOC/ALO
Briefing by Lt. Col. Charles J. Bowers, Dep. Director JAM, 27 Feb. 1963;
ltr., Lt. Col. Charles V. Breakfield, Dep. Director III ASOC to Dep.
Director AOC, subj: Disbanding of Sub ASOC IIIA, 12 July 1963.
69. Msg., CofS USAF to AF Member Wheeler Party, AFXPD-22-1-520,
23 Jan. 1963; msg., 2AD to PACAF, 2CCR-63-0039A, 24 Jan. 1963.
70. Msg., 2AD to PACAF, 2CCR-63-0046A, 27 Jan. 1963.
71. Bowers Pre-Conference ASOC/ALO Briefing, 27 Feb. 1963; rpt., Lt.
Col. Garry Oskamp, ALO US Army Special Forces, Vietnam, to 2AD JAN, subj:
Monthly ALO Report, 1 Apr. 1963.
72. Interview with Capt. Donald V. MacKellar, ALO/FAC Sect. AOC, by
J. W. Grainger, 29 Aug. 1963; ltr., Anthis to Milton, 18 Apr. 1963.
73. Ltrs., Oskamp to Dep. D:Lr. AOC, subj: Monthly ALO Reports, 1
July 1963, 5 Sept. 1963, and 1 Oct. 1963; msg., 2AD to 13AF, 2CCR-63-209G,
17 July 1963; ltr., Maj. Gen. Richard G. Stilwell, Asst. CofS J-3 MACV, to
Comdr., 2AD, subj: Air Support Request, Special Forces, 9 Sept. 1963;
Hq. 2AD, Final Report, Operational Test & Evaluation, TACS, 25 Feb. 1964,
pp. 41-43.
74. ACTIV, Final Report, Employment of CV-2B (Caribou) Airplane in
Support of Counter Insurgency Operations, Report on Operations, 1 February-
31 July 1963, 30 Aug. 1963; ltr., Capt. Louis W. Gaylor, Asst. S-4 LOC
USASF(P)V, toComdg. Off., USASF(P)V, tb Comdg. Off., USASF(P)V, subj:
Semi-Annual Progress Report (Switchback), 16 June 1963.
75. Ltr., Gaylor to Comdg. Off., USASF(P)V, 16 June 1963; 2AD,
Final Report Operational Test & ETaluation, TACS, p. 43; rpt., Oskamp
to 2AD ALO/FAC Sect., subj: Monthly ALO Report, 1 July 1963; ltr.,
Anthis to Martin, 2 Sept. 1963.
76. Msg., 2AD to 13AF, 2CCR-62-2243L, 10 Dec. 1962.
603
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77. Msg., 2AD to 13AF and PACAF, 2CCR-63A-630010A, 10 Jan. 1963;
AFXOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item III H.
78. Msg., 2ADVON to PACAF, 2CCR-62-235C, 17 July 1962; rpt., Kidd
to PFCVC, 5 Dec. 1962.
79. Hist., Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Plans and Opns., USAF,
Jan.-June 1963, p. 191; AFXOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-
1964, Item III H.
80. AFXOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item III
H; msg., PACAF to 2AD and 13AF, PFCVC-176, 16 Mar. 1963.
81. CINCPAC-MACV telecon, 212320Z Mar. 1963; msg., 2AD to PACAF
and 13AF, 2CCR-63-104C, 22 Mar. 1963.
82. AFXOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item
III H; msg., CINCPAC to CINCPACAF, 292345Z Mar. 1963.
83. Msgs., 2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-63-104C, 22 Mar. 1963;
2AD to PACAF, 2CCR-29-09-39, 29 Sept. 1963; COMDSMACV to CINCPAC,
MAC-J01-7799, 3 Oct. 1963; 2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-63-283J, 5 Oct.
1963; PACAF to 2AD and 13AF, PFLPL-2677-63, 30 Oct. 1963; 88th Cong.
2d Sess., Foreign Assistance and Related Agencies Appropriations for
1965, Hearings before the Committee on Appropriations, U.S. Senate
(Washington: GPO, 1964), pp. 160-1614
84. Hist. PACAF, July-Dec. 1962, II, Hist. Rpt. PFPTR, Dec. 1962;
Hist. 13AF, 1962, I, 107-108; msg., AFSEC MAAG-V to PACAF, MAGAF-CCH-
232H, 12 Aug. 1963; PACAF PFLPL-C, Counterinsurgency Lessons Learned,
12 Sept. 1963.
85. Msg., CINCPAC to USAF, 151954 Mar. 1963; msg., CINCPAC to
USAF, 110008Z May 1963; Hist. 13AF, July-Dec. 1963, I, 116; Hist. Asst.
for Mutual Security, Dep. CofS Systems and Logistics, USAF, July-Dec.
1963, pp. 53-54.
86. Msg., PACAF to TAC, PFDOP-3148, 12 Oct. 1962; msg., 2AD to PACAF,
2CCR-63-0046A, 27 Jan. 1963; AFXOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia,
1961-1964, Item III J.
87. Msg., 2AD to 13AF and PACAF, 2CCR-63A-630010A, 10 Jan. 1963.
88. Msg., 2AD to 6220th AB Sq. et al., 2MDC-63-0049A, 30 Jan. 1963.
89. Van Staaveren, U6AF Plans and Policies in South Vietnam, 1961-
1963, p. 32; Hist. PACAF, Jan-June 1963, II, Hist. of Direc. of Prgms.,
Mar. 1963.
604
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',Nov
90. Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1963, II, Hist. PFOCO, Jan. 1963; Van
Staaveren, USAF Plans and Policies in South Vietnam, 1961-1963, p. 33;
msg., PACAF to 13AF, PFODC-63-1191C, 1 Mar. 1963; Hist. 5AF, 1963, I, 59.
91. PACAF Summary of Actions, Gen. Wheeler's Party, Sec. I, Tab. F;
Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1963, II, Wkly Activities Rpt. PFMLP, 24 Feb.-2 Mar.
1963; msg., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MAC-J2-1462, 15 Mar. 1963; msg., SAF
to 41AD, 5FPPL-194-3C, 27 Mar. 1963.
92. CINCPAC, Record, Eighth SECDEF Conference, 6 May 1963, Item 2;
USAF Journal of Military Assistance, XVI, Sept. 1963, p. 189.
93. End of Tour Report, Col. John C. Haygood, Dep. Comdr. 2AD,
19 Feb. 1963; ltrs., Moorman to Anthis, 11 Feb. 1963, Anthis to Moorman,
28 Mar. 1963, and Moorman to Anthis, 15 Apr. 1963.
94. Hist. USAF Special Air Warfare Center, July-Dec. 1963, pp. 6-8;
msg., USAF to PACAF, AFDAPDB-65859, 29 May 1963; PACAF Order G-40,
13 June 1963; Hists., 315th TC Go., Assault, Jan.-June 1965, doc. Q and
July-Dec. 1963, p. 1; Hist. PACAF, July-Dec. 1963, III, Wkly. Activity
Rpt. PFMME, 1-5 July 1963.
95. Ltr., Anderson to Anthis, 12 Apr. 1963; msg., 313AD to PACAF,
27-04-47, 27 Apr. 1963; msg., 13AF to PACAF, 13CMD-3-4120A, 27 Apr. 1963.
96. Hist. 13AF, July-Dec. 1963, I, 10-11.
97. Manpower Review and Analysis of 13AF Activities, RVN, 28 June
1963; Henderson End of Tour Repert, 5 Feb. 1964.
98. Manpower Review and Analysis of 13AF Activities, RVN, 28 June
1963; Interview with Kennedy by Glausche, 4 Feb. 1964; Hist. PACAF,
Jan.-June 1963, II, Hist. Rpt. IFPPL, June 1963.
99. Msg., USAF to PACAF, AFOMOBB-69452, 12 June 1963; Manpower
Review and Analysis of 13AF Activities, RVN, 28 June 1963; ltr., Col.
Harvey E. Henderson, Actg. Comdr. 2AD to Moorman, 25 July 1963; rpt., J. L.
Asbury, Jr., Chief PFOCO-R to PFODC et al., subj: Report of Reconnaissance
Survey--Southeast Asia, 22 Nov. 1963; Henderson End of Tour Report,
5 Feb. 1964.
100. Msg., 2AD to PACAF, AFTU-V-0-63A-1, 10 Jan. 1964; Anderson
End of Tour Report, 5 Apr. 1963.
101. Report of Visit by JCS Team to South Vietnam, Jan. 1963,
Sec. II, par. 2 and Sec. V, par. la; msg., COMDSMACV to DIA, MACV-J3-
1409, 12 Mar. 1963; 88th Cong. 1st Sess., Military Procurement Authorization,
Fiscal Year 1964, Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services, U.S.
Senate (Washington: GPO, 1577), pp. 549-553.
605
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102-. Report of Visit of JCS Team to South Vietnam, Jan. 1963,
Sec. II, par. 2a.
103. Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1963, II, Monthly Hist. Rpt., Direc. of
Manpower and Organization, June 1963.
104. Msg., COMMMACV to JCS, MAC-J00-4927, 13 June 1964.
105. Nigro memo of Felt meeting with Diem, 9 Jan. 1963.
106. Project CHECO, Southeast Asia Report, pt. II: The Threat,
Oct. 61-Dec. 63, pp. 8-10.
107. Interview with Lt. Col. Charles E. Trumbo, Jr., Dir. of Plans
2AD, by Grainger, 13 July 1963; msg., CINCPAC to DIA, 132258Z Mar. 1963;
PACAF Reference Book for May 1963 SECDEF Conference, Agenda Item 1.
108. Msg., CINCPAC to COMUSMACV, 090210Z Nov. 1962.
109. 88th Cong. 1st Sess., Viet Nam and Southeast Asia (Washington:
GPO, 1963), p. 8; CINCPAC, Record, Eighth SECDEF Conference, 6 May 1963,
Item lb.
110. Ltr., O'Donnell to Harkins, 8 Mar. 1963.
111. Msg., CINCPAC to COMUSMACV, 090210Z Nov. 1962; CINCPAC, Record,
Eighth SECDEF Conference, 6 May 1963, Item lb.
112. PACAF Reference Book for May 1963 SECDEF Conference Agenda
Item 4.
113. PACAF Reference Book for May 1963 SECDEF Conference, Agenda
Item 4; CINCPAC, Record, Eighth SECDEF Conference, 6 May 1963, Item L.
114. CINCPAC, Record, Eighth SECDEF Conference, 6 May 1963, Item 4.
115. PACAF Reference Book for May 1963 SECDEF Conference, Agenda
Item 4; msg., SECSTATE to AMEMB Saigon, #1084, 13 May 1963; 88th Cong.
1st Sess., Foreign Operations Appropriations for 1964, Hearings before a
Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, House of Representatives
(Washington: GPO, 1963), pt. 2, pp. 89-91.
116. CINCPAC, Record, Eighth SECDEF Conference,6 May 1963, Item 4;
msg., USAF to PACAF, AFXPD-97800, 30 Apr. 1963; msg., USAF to TAC et al.,
AFXPDO-63640, 20 May 1963.
117. CINCPAC, Record, Eighth SECDEF Conference, 6 May 1963, Item 2.
606
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118. Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1963, II, Hist. Rpt. PFPPL, June 1963.
119. CINCPAC, Record, Eighth SECDEF Conference, 6 May 1963, Item lb.
120. PACAF Reference Book for May 1963 SECDEF Conference, Agenda
Item 1.
121. 88th Cong. 1st Sess., Foreigh Operations Appropriations for 1964,
House of Representatives, pt. 2, pp. 94-95; CINGPAC, Record, Eighth
SECDEF Conference, 6 May 1963, Item 1; PACAF Reference Book for May 1963
SECDEF Conference, Agenda Item 2-
122. PACAF Reference Book for May 1963 SECDEF Conference, Agenda
Item 1; Interview with Trumbo by Grainger, 13 July 1963; PACAF Reference
Book for November 1963 SECDEF Conference, Tab. 4C.
123. Msg., COMUSMACV to JCS, MAC-J00-4927, 13 June 1964.
607
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FOOTNOTES
Chapter 8
1. Msg., PACAF to CofS USAF, PFD0P-3005, 14 Feb. 1963; Presentation
by General Moorman before Congressional Committee, ca. Feb. 1963,
Background Data, pp. 21-22.
2. Ltrs., Harkins to O'Donnell and Felt, 22 Mar. 1963.
3. Ltr., Anderson to 2MDC et al., subj: National Campaign Plan,
15 Jan. 1963; Interview with Trumbo by Grainger, 13 July 1963; PACAF
Reference Book for May 1963 SECDEF Conference, Agenda Item 1.
4. Rpt., Lt. Col. Donald K. Reamy, ALO IV Corps, to Dep. Dir.
JACO, subj: Monthly Report, 8 Mar. 1963.
5. Ltr., Capt. B. L. Ruhman to Chief ALO/FAC Sect. 2AD, subj:
Problem Areas Noted During I Corps Orientation Visit, 2 July 1963;
rpt., Maj. William J. Kuntz, II, ALO, 2d Inf. Div. to ALO I Corps,
subj: Monthly Activity Report, 10 Feb. 1963.
6. Rpts., Lt. Col. Bill A. Montgomery, ALO I Corps to 2AD (AOC),
subj: ALO Report for 1 thru 31 Aug. 1963; Montgomery to 2AD (AOC), subj:
ALO Report, 11 Oct. 1963; 1st Ind., (Rpt., Montgomery to 2AD (AOC), subj:
ALO Report, 12 Nov. 1963), Lt. Col. Charles J. Chennault, Dep. Dir. I A:30C,
to 2AD (AOC), 13 Nov. 1963; End of Tour Report, Col. Benjamin S. Preston,
Comdr., 34th Tac. Gp., July 1964.
7. Rpt., Brig. Gen. Virgil L. Zoller, C/Air Force Group, to CofS
USAF, subj: Third Indoctrination/Orientation Visit in Selected Countries
of Southeast Asia, 5 July 1962.
8. Nigro memo of meeting of Admiral Felt and President Diem,
9 Jan. 1963.
9. PACAF Reference Book for 13 May 1964 SECDE14 Conference,
Operations Fact Sheet No. 6; Hq. USMACV, Summary of Highlights, 8 Feb.
1962-7 Feb. 1963, p. 135.
10. Msg., 2AD to PACAF, AFTU-V-10-63G-12, 10 July 1963.
11. PACAF Summary of Actions Gen. Wheeler's Party, pt. 2, Tab. 20;
Doyle End of Tour Report, 6 Feb. 1963; Interview with Maj. William C.
Johnson and Capt. Ernest C. Cutler, Jr., by Grainger, 7 Feb. 1963; Anthis
file of items to be taken up with General LeMay, ca. Mar. 1963; msg.,
13AF to PACAF, 13EF1-S-09-H-02C, 9 Aug. 1963. ?
6th3
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12. Ltr., Anderson to Anthis, 12 Apr. 1963; Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June
1963, II, Hist. Rpt. PFOCO, May 1963; ltrs., Anthis to Brig. Gen. Joseph
W. Stilwell, CO US Army Support Op., and to Moorman, 28 May 1963; msg., 2AD
to PACAF, 2AFTU-V-10-63A-1, 10 Jan. 1964.
13. Report of Visit by JCS Team to South Vietnam, Jan.
8; Hq. USMACV, Summary of Highlights, 8 Feb. 1962-7
IV, par.
14. Report of Visit by JCS Team to South Vietnam, Jan.
par. 8.
15. Nigro memo of Felt-Diem Meeting, 9 Jan. 1963.
16. Interview with MacKellar by Grainger, 29 Aug. 1963; ltr., Anthis
to Milton, 18 Apr. 1963; rpt., Capt. John Sercel, FAC 33d Rgt., to ALO
21st Div., subj: Activities Report, ca. 8 Apr. 1963; ltr., Stilwell to
Comdr. 2AD, subj: Air Support Request, Special Forces, 9 Sept. 1963.
1963, Sec.
Feb. 1963, p. 41.
1963, Sec. IV,
17. Msg., AMEMB Saigon to SECSTATE, #896, 10 Apr. 1963.
18. Msg., SECSTATE to AMEMB Saigon, #948, 12 Apr. 1963; msg., AMEMB
Saigon to SECSTATE, #971, 30 Apr. 1963; msg., AMEMB Saigon to SECSTATE,
#3956, 25 Apr. 1963; PACAF Reference Book for May 1963 SECDEF Conference,
Agenda Item 1; CINCPAC, Record, Eighth SECDEF Conference, 6 May 1963,
Item 6.
19. CINCPAC, Record, Eighth SECDEF Conference, 6 May 1963, Item 1;
AFXOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Items VI-E, F, G.
20. 88th Cong. 1st Sess., Foreign Assistance Act of 1963, Hearings
before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives
(Washington: GPO, 1963), pp. 7T745.
21. Msg., CINCPAC to ADMINO CINCPAC, 270436Z Mar. 1963. The assessment
quoted by Felt in this message had appeared in the PACOM Weekly Intelligence
Digest on 20 July 1962.
22. CINCPAC, Record, Eighth SECDEF Conference, 6 May 1963, Item 3.
23. Rpts., Capt. Lester G. Frazier, ALO/FAC PBT Special Zone, to
ALO III Corps, subj: After Action Report on Interdiction Targets, 11
Jan. 1963; subj: After Action Report Hard Times I, 20 Feb. 1963; and
subj: After Action Report Hard Times II, 15 Mar. 1963.
24. Rpt., Maj. James F. Yealey, ALO/PBT Tactical Zone to ALO III
Corps, subj: Monthly Activities Report (March), 2 Apr. 1963; rpt., Capt.
Edward M. Robinson, ALO/PBT to ALO III Corps, subj: ALO/PBT Tactical Zone
Monthly Activities Report (May), n.d.; PACAF Reference Book for May 1963
SECDEF Conference, Agenda Item 1.
609
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25. Rpt., Lt. Col. Charles S. Allen, Dep. Dir. II ASOC, to 2AD
JAOC, subj: After Action Report, 4 June 1963; rpt., Capt. Louis A.
Klenkel, II ASOC-C, to Dep. Dir. II ASOC, subj: USAF Activities at
Plateau Gi, 30 Apr.-8 May 1963, 3 June 1963.
26. CINCPAG, Record of Special SECDEF-SECSTATE Conference, 20 Nov-
1963, Item A4; End of Tour Report, Maj. Walter S. Bruce, ALO 25th Division,
ca. June 1964.
27. Hist. 2AD, Jan.-June 1964, vol. 4, pp. 13-14, citing 2AD
Regulation 55-5, Combat and Combat Support Preparations, 22 Jna. 1963.
28. Msg., PACAF to USAF Pi0co-4-17-487, 16 Apr. 1963; ltr., Harkins
to Comdr. 2AD, subj: Report of Mohawks Firing on Fishing Boats in Quang
Ngai Province, 13 May 1963; ltr., Lt. Col. Charles S. Allen, Dep. Dir.
II ASOC, to 2AD (JACO), subj: Mohawk Operation, 15 May 1963.
29. Rpt., Capt. Richard W. Von Hake, ALO/PBT Zone to ALO III Corps,
subj: Monthly Activities Report (July), 5 Aug. 1963; rpt., Lt. Col.
Henry C. Meier, ALO II Corps, to 2AD (AOC), subj: ALO Report for July
1963, 14 Aug. 1963.
30. 2AD Regulation No. 55-4: subj: Operations: Combat and Combat
Support Instructions, 2 Aug. 1963.
31. Interview with MacKellar by Grainger, 29 Aug. 1963.
32. Rpt., Lt. Col. David S. Mellish, ALO III Corps, to 2AD(A0C),
subj: III Corps ALO Reports for September 1963, 16 Oct. 1963; msg., 2AD to
PACAF, 2AFTU-V-0-10-63A-1, 10 Jan. 1964.
33. Rpt., Mellish to Dep. Dir. III ASOC, subj: III Corps ALO Report
for October 1963, 6 Nov. 1963; msg., III ASOC to 21D, III AS0C-64-147B,
5 Feb. 1964; rpt., Mellish to Dep Dir. III ASOC, subj: III Corps
ALO Report for November 1963, 9 Dec. 1963.
34. Marginal comments by Col. Donald H. Ross, 2AD Director of
Operations, on rpt., Mellish to Dep. Dir. III ASOC, subj: III Corps ALO
Report for November 1963, 9 Dec. 1963.
35. PACAF Reference Book for May 1963 SECDEF Conference, Agenda
Item 3.
36. Ibid., Agenda Item 1.
37. PFLPL-C, PACAF Counterinsurgency Lessons Learned, 12 Sept. 1963;
Hist. 2AD, Jan.-June 1964, vol. 6, doc. 31; msg., 21W to 13AF, ODC-63-8912,
15 Nov. 1963; US Army Section MAAG VN, lessons Learned No. 37: Vehicle
Convoy Organization and Control, 10 Feb. 1964.
610
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38. Project CHECO, Southeast Asia Report, pt. V, pp. 67-69; msg.,
2AD to PACAF, AFTU-V-10-63G-12, 10 July 1963; Final Report, Operational
Test and Evaluation, TACS in Republic of Vietnam, Appendix M, p. 11; ltr.,
Col. Thomas M. Hergert, DEPCHAFSEC MAAG, to Hien, subj: VNAF Combat
Capability, 8 May 1963; ltr., Hien to Rowland, subj: Night Operational
Stand-by, 9 May 1963; PACAF Reference Book for November 1963 SECDEF
Conference, Tab. 23.
39. Ltr., Capt. B. L. Ruhman to Chief ALO/FAC 2AD, subj: Problem
Areas Noted During I Corps Orientation Visit, 2 July 1963, and 1st Ind.,
Capt. Fred W. Maberry, Chief ALO/FAC Section to Dep. Dir. AOC, n.d.;
ltr., Capt. Donald V. MacKellar, AGOS Team, to Chief ALO/FAC Section,
subj: I Corps Trip, ca. July 1963; ltr., Capt. Ronald A. Johnson, ALO/FAC
Section 2 AD, subj: ALO/FAC Orientation Visit to I ASOC and III Sub-ASOC,
22-25 June 1963, 2 July 1963.
40. Ltr., Col. Hal D. McCown, Senior Advisor II Corps to Chief
MAAG VN, subj: Signs of Progress in the VN Effort to Bring the Viet
Cong Under Control, 22 Jan. 1963; End of Tour Report, Maj. Walter S.
Bruce, ALO 25th Div., ca. June 1964.
41. Ltr., Anderson to Anthis, 12 Apr. 1963; rpt., Lt. Col. Henry
C. Meir, 9th Div. ALO, to II ASOC, subj: Activity Report-December 1962,
15 Jan. 1963, and 1st Ind., Lt. Col. James O. Cowee, Dep. Dir. II ASOC
to 2AD JOC, n.d.
42. Rpt., Maj. Magnus P. Johnson, ALO 25th Div., to ALO II Corps,
subj: ALO Report for January 1963, L. Feb. 1963, and 1st Ind., Lt. Col.
Charles S. Allen, Dep. Dir. II ASOC, to 2AD JACO, 11 Feb. 1963; ltr.,
MacKellar to Chief ALO/FAC Section, subj: I Corps Trip, ca. July 1963.
43. Rpt., Meier to II ASOC,15 Jan. 1963, and 1st Ind., Cowee to 2AD
JOC, n.d.; rpt., Johnson to ALO II Corps, 4 Feb. 1963, and 1st Ind.,
Allen to 2AD JAOC, 11 Feb. 1963; rpt., Meir to II ASOC, subj: Dan Thang
(People's Victory), 22 Mar. 1963; rpt., Lt. Col. Charles S. Allen, ALO
II Corps, to 2AD JAOC, subj: ALO Report for February 1963, 15 Mar. 1963;
rpt., Allen to 2AD JAOC, subj: ALO Report for April 1963, 17 May 1963.
44. Rpt., Maj. John G. Schmitt, ALO 9th Div., to Dep. Dir. II ASOC,
subj: Dan Thang 888 (Phase I), 13 June 1963; rpt., Meier to Dep. Dir.
II ASOC, subj: Dan Thang 888 (Phase II), 20 June 1963.
45. let Ind. (rpt., Schmitt to Dep. Dir. II ASOC, subj: Dan Thang
888 (Phase I), 13 June 1963), Allen to 2AD JAOC, 14 June 1963.
46. Bruce End of Tour Report, ca. June 1964; 88th Cong. 1st Sess.,
Foreign Operations Appropriations for 1964, Hearings before a Subcommittee
of the Committee on Appropriations, House of Representatives (Washington:
GPO, 1963), pt. 3, p. 230; msg., 2AD to 13AF, 2IDC-63-359H, 21 Aug. 1963.
611
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47. Rpt., Mellish to 2AD AOC, subj: III Corps ALO Monthly Activity
Report for July 1963, ca. 21 Aug. 1963; Final Report, Operational Test and
Evaluation TAGS in Republic of Vietnam, .Appendix M, p. 1.
48. Rpt., Capt Jack V. Cebe-Habersky, ALO 2d Abn. Bde., to III Corps
ALO, subj: After Action Report, 24 June to 2 July 1963, n.d.; ltr.,
Breakfield to Dep. Dir. AOC, subj: Disbanding of Sub-ASOC IIIA, 12 July 1963.
49. Rpt., Mellish to Dep. Dir. III ASOC, subj: III Corps ALO
Report for September 1963, 16 Oct. 1963.
50. CINCPAC, record of Special SECDEF-SECSTATE Conference on RVN,
20 Nov. 1963, Item ALL.; rpt., Maj. William I. Burgin, ALO 21st Div., to
ALO Section JOC, subj: Monthly Activities Report (December 1962), 10 Jan.
1963; End of Tour Report, Maj. Robert K. Butler, ALO 21st Div., 8 June
1964; PACAF Reference Book for May 1963 SECDEF Conference, Agenda Item 1.
51. Rpt., Burgin to ALO IV Corps, subj: Monthly Activities Report,
15 Feb. 1963, and 2d Ind., Lt. Col. James O. Cowee, Dep. Dir., IV ASOC,
to 2AD JACO, 16 Feb. 1963.
52. End of Tour Report, Lt. Col. Miles M. Doyle, Comdr. Det. 2A, 1st
Air Commando Gp., 6 Feb. 1963; msg., 2AD to PACAF, 20DC-63-0224B, 15 Feb.
1963; Hist. PACAF, July-Dec. 1963, I, pt. 2, Hist. Rpt. Direc. of Policy,
Nov. 1963; Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1964, I, pt. 2, Hist. Rpt., Direc. of
Policy, Jan. 1964.
53. Rpt., Maj. Clarence M. Van Meter, ALO 7th Division, to Dep. Dir.
IV ASOC, subj: Monthly Activities Report, 3 July 1963.
54. Rpt., Lt. Col. Donald K. Reamy, ALO IV Corps, to Dep. Dir. IV
ASOC, subj: Monthly Report 1 to 28 Feb. 1963, 8 Mar. 1963, and 1st Ind.,
Lt. Col. James O. Cowee, Dep. Dir. IV ASOC, to 2AD JAOC, n.d.
55. Ibid.
56. Rpt.", Capt. Bob W. Quinn, FAC 31st Rgt., to Dep. Dir. IV ASOC,
subj: After Action Report for Operation Duc Thang 8/42 from 26-29 Mar.
1963, n.d., and 1st Ind., Cowee to 2AD JAOC, 8 Apr. 1963; memo for record by
Maj. Stephen J. Carrig, Spec. Asst. to CHUSASEC MAAG VN, subj: CHUSASEC's
Visit to Senior Advisor, 21st Infantry Division, 28 Mar. 1963, 1 Apr. 1963;
rpt., Burgin to Dep. Dir. IV ASOC, subj: Activities Report, March 1963,
1 Apr. 1963, and 1st Ind., Cowee to 2AD JAOC, 8 Apr. 1963.
57. Memo for record by Carrig, subj: CHUSASEC's Visit to Senior
Advisor, 21st Infantry Division, 28 March 1963, 1 Apr. 1963.
9
612
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58. Interview with Ingalls by Gausche, 21 Aug. 1963; rpt., Burgin
to Dep. Dir. IV ASOC, subj: Report of Duc Thang 9/42, ca. 16 Apr. 1963.
59. Rpt., Burgin to Dep. Dir. IV ASOC, subj: Report on
9/42, ca. 16 Apr. 1963.
60. Rpt., Burgin to Dep. Dir. IV ASOC, subj: Report on
10/42, 22 Apr. 1963; 1st Ind., Cowee to Dep. Dir. JACO, n.d.;
Reference Book for May 1963 SECDEF Conference, Agenda Item 1.
61.
Due Thang
Due Thang
Duc Thang
PACAF
1st Ind. (rpt., Burgin to Dep. Dir. IV ASOC, subj: Report on
10/42, 22 Apr. 1963), Cowee to Dep. Dir. JAOC, n.d.
62. Ltr., Pritchard to Anthis, 30 Apr. 1963.
63. Ltr., Anthis to Pritchard, 14 May 1963; ltr., Lt. Col. Charles
J. Bowers, Dep. Dir. JAOC, to ALO 21st Div., subj: Monthly Activities, 20
May 1963.
64. Rpt., Burgin to Dep. Dir. IV ASOC, subj: Monthly Activities
Report, 6 June 1963.
65. Ibid.; rpt. Lt. Thomas G. McInerney, FAC 21st Div., to ALO IV
Corps, subj: Operation Duc Thang 19/42 and 20/42, 22 June 1963.
66. 1st Ind. (rpt., Burgin to Dep. Dir. IV ASOC, subj: Report of
Duc Thang 10/42, 25 Apr. 1963), Cowee to Dep. Dir. JAOC, n.d.; rpt.,
McInerney to ALO IV Corps, subj: Operation Duc Thang 19/42 and 20/42,
22 June 1963; 1st Ind., Cowee to Dep. Dir. JAOC, n.d.; rpt., Burgin to
Dep. Dir. IV ASOC, subj: Operation Duc Thang 21-22/42, 1 July 1963.
67. Project CHECO, Southeast Asia Report, pt. V, pp. 96-97; rpt.,
Capt. Fred W. Mhberry, subj: Sequence of Events--After Action Report
Within 41 TAC Zone, Kien Hoa Province, 5-6 July 1963.
68. Doyle End of Tour Report, 6 Feb. 1963; Hist. 13AF, July-Dec.
1963, III, doc. 79: Summary of Aircraft Lost and Damaged, 1963; msg., 2AD
to PACAF and 13AF, 20OR-63-199G, 5 July 1963; msg., 2AD to PACAF, AFTU-V-
630-12, 10 July 1963; ltrs., Martin to Anthis, 17 Sept. 1963, and Anthis
to Martin, 9 Oct. 1963.
69. Anderson End of Tour Report, 5 Apr. 1963.
70. CINCPAC, Record, Eighth SECDEF Conference, 6 May 1963, Item 3.
71. Hist. 2AD, Jan.-June 1964, vol. 6, doe. 31: VNAF Combat Sorties;
PACAF Reference Book for November 1963 SECDEF Conference, Tab. 28; ltr.,
Henderson to Moorman, 1 Aug. 1963.
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72. Msg., AIME Vientiane to SECSTATE, #1566, 26 Apr. 1963.
73. PACAF Reference Book for November 1963 SECDEF Conference, Tab. 2B;
rpt., Mellish to 2AD AOC, subj: III Corps ALO Monthly Report for July 1963,
ca. 21 Aug. 1963.
74. Msg., USAIRA Saigon to DIA, C-51, 18 July 1963.
75. Msg., JCS-3325 to CINCPAC, 1 Nov. 1963.
76. Msg., COMUSMACV to JCS, MAC-J00-4927, 13 June 1964; msg., 2AD
to 13 AF, 2IDC-63-3594, 21 Aug. 1963.
77. Bruce End of Tour Report, ca. June 1964; CINCPAC1 Record of
Special SECDEF-SECSTATE Meeting on RVN, 20 Nov. 1963, Item A4; rpt.,
Maj. Robert K. Butler, ALO 21st Div., to ALO IV Corps, subj: After Action
Report, 3 Oct. 1963; Butler End of Tour Report, 8 June 1964; Burchett,
Vietnam, p. 89.
78. 88th Cong. 1st Sess., Foreign Assistance and Related Agencies
Appropriations for 1964, Hearings before the Committee on Appropriations,
U.S. Senate (Washington: GPO, 1963), p. 374.
79. Memo for record by Ross, subj: Briefing of House Foreign
Affairs Far East Committee at MACV Headquarters, 7 Oct. 1963.
80. PACAF Reference Book for November 1963 SECDEF Conference, Tab. 28;
rpt., Capt. Donald V. MacKellar, ALO Tay Ninh to ALO 5th Div., subj: After
Action Report, 9 Oct. 1963; memo for record by Henderson, 7 Oct. 1963; rpt.,
Maj. John G. Schmitt, Jr., ALO 9th Div., to AID II Corps, subj: After
Action Report, 17 Sept. 1963; rpt., Lt. Col. Bill A. Montgomery, ALO I
Corps, to 2AD (AOC), subj: ALO Report for August 1963, n.d.
81. Col. Harold E. Walker, Dir. of Materiel 2AD, End of Tour Report,
21 Aug. 1964; Debriefing of Walker in Special Warfare Division, Dep. Dir.
of Plans for Policy, USAF, 15 Sept. 1964; Hist. 13AF, July-Dec. 1963, III,
doc. 79; rpt., Lt. Col. Garry Oskamp, ALO US Army Special Forces (P)
Vietnam, to Dep. Dir. AOC, subj: ALO Report for September 1963, 1 Oct. 1963.
82. Msg., 2AD to 13AF, 2 ODC-63-30581, 2 Sept. 1963; ltr., Anthis to
Maj. Gen. Sam Maddux, Jr., Comdr. 13AF, 11 Oct. 1963; msg., PACAF to CofS
USAF, PFDOP-63-311, 9 Oct. 1963.
83. Hist., 34th CAMRON, 8 July-31 Dec. 1963, n.p.; Henderson End of
Tour Report, 5 Feb. 1964; Capt. Glenn E. Frick, 1st ACS, End of Tour
Report, 20 July 1963; rpt., Mellish to D/Dir. III ASOC, subj: III Corps
ALO Report for December 1963, 15 Jan. 1964.
614
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84. End of Tour Rpts., Capt. Roy H. Lynn, Jr., Capt. Thomas G. Cain,
and Lt. Wells T. Jackson, 1st ACS, in Hist. SAWC, July-Dec. 1963, II, doc. 35.
85. Hq. 2AD, Final Report, Operational Test & Evaluation, TAOS in
Republic of Vietnam, 25 Feb. 1964, ppen. J, p. 1.
86. Project CHECO, Southeast Asia Rpt., pt. IV, pp. 62-64; Maj.
William I. Burgin, ALO, 21st Div., End of Tour Report, 11 July 1963;
rpt., McInerney to IV Corps ALO, subj: Duc Thang 26/42, 22 July 1963;
rpt., Mellish to 2AD AOC, subj: III Corps ALO Monthly Activity Report for
July 1963, ca. 21 Aug. 1963; MacKellar interview by Grainger, 29 Aug. 1963;
rpt., Lt. Col. K. L. Collings, ALO IV Corps, to D/Dir. IV ASOC, subj:
ALO Report for August 1963, 15 Sept. 1963.
87. Combat Operations, 19th TASS, 31 Dec. 1962, in Hist. 13AF,
July-Dec. 1963, III, doc. 80; rpt., Mellish to Dep. Dir. III ASOC, subj:
III Corps ALO Report for September 1963, 16 Oct. 1963; msg., 2AD to PACAF
and 13AF, 2CCR-63-283J, 5 Oct. 1963; Lt. Col. John J. Wilfong, 34th Tac.
Gp., End of Tour Report, 30 June 1964.
88. Rpt., Mellish to Dep. Dir. III ASOC, subj: III Corps ALO Report
for December 1963, 15 Jan. 1964; rpt., MAJ. John G. Schtlitt, Jr., ALO
9th Div., to ALO II Corps, subj: After Action Report, 2 Sept. 1963,
1st Ind., Allen to 2AD AOC, 12 Sept. 1963, and Memo for Anthis from Ross,
10 Oct. 1963 with Anthis' notation of agreement.
89. 1st Ind. (ltr., MPGVN-1C (2 July 1963), subj: ASOC/TOC Function,
First Tactical Corps Zone), Col. William P. Keleher, Senior Advisor, I
Corps, to Lt. Col. Herbert R. Mann, Dep. Dir., I ASOC, 7 Aug. 1963.
90. Ltr., Lt Col. Charles S. Allen, Dep. Dir. III ASOC, to AOC 2AD,
subj: Daily Planning Conference, 10 Aug. 1963; Project CHECO, Southeast
Asia Rpt., pt. V, pp. 102-105; Ross comments on Allen letter of 10 August;
ltr., Anthis to Harkins, 2 Sept. 1963; msg., 2AD to 13AF, 2CCR-64-052B,
15 Feb. 1964.
91. Rpt., Mellish to Dep. Dir. III ASOC, subj: III Corps ALO
Report for September 1963, 16 Oct. 1963; msg., PACAF to TAC, PF000-63-1328,
10 Oct. 1963.
92. Ltr., Mellish to Dep. Dir. AOC, subj: Discussion of the Tactical
Air Control System as Applied in Vietnam, ca. 17 Sept. 1963; memo for
Anthis from Ross, 1 Oct. 1963; ltr., MacKellar, ALO Tay Ninh Sector, to
Comdr. 9th Regt., subj: Discussion of Air Ground Tactics, 29 Sept. 1963.
615
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93. Rpt., Van Meter to Dep. Dir. IV ASOC, subj: Activity Report for
June 1963, 18 July 1963; 1st Ind., Cowee to 2A0C, n.d.; rpt., Maj. Harold
L. Johnson, ALO 22d Div., to Dep. Dir., II ASOC, subj: After Action Report--
Kontum 14, 6 Sept. 1963; 1st Ind., Allen to 2AD AOC, 17 Sept. 1963; rpt.,
Schmitt to ALO II Corps, subj: After Action Report, 18 Sept. 1963; 1st
Ind., Allen to 2AD AOC, 28 Sept. 1963; rpt., Mellish to AOC, subj: ALO
Report for August 1963, ca. 18 Sept. 1963.
94. Memo for record by Henderson, 7 Oct. 1963; Interview with
Henderson by CHECO, 20 Dec. 1963.
95. Ltr., Cowee to 7th Div. ALO, subj: Air Support Requests,
8 July 1963; rpt., Mellish to Dep. Dir., In ASOC, subj: III Corps ALO
Report for September 1963, 16 Oct. 1963.
96. Msg., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MAC-J4-2961, 18 May 1963; PACAF
Reference Book for November 1963 SECDEF Conference, Tab. 2B; Hist. 2AD,
Jan.-June 1964, vol. 6, doc. 31; rpt., Quane to ALO IV Corps, subj: After
Action Report, 19 Oct. 1963.
97. Ltr., Mellish to Dep. Dir. III ASOC, subj: Conference Report,
20 Aug. 1963.
98. 1st Ind. (Quane to ALO IV, subj: After Action Report, 19 Oct.
1963), Lt. 001. K. L. Collins, ALO IV Corps, Dir. IV ASOC, n.d.;
Rpt., Collings to Dep. Dir. IV ASOC, subj: Report for October 1963,
19 Nov. 1963.
99. Msg., 13AF to PACAF, IDC-08-10-18, 12 Aug. 1963; PACAF Reference
Book for May 1964 SECDEF Conference, vol. II, Opns. Fact Sheet No. 6.
loo. Project CHECO, Night Close Air Support in RVN (1961-1966),
pp. 5, 32; PACAF Reference Book for November 1963 SECDEF Conference, Tab.
2B; msg., 2AD to PACAF, 2AFTU-V-0-10-63A-1, 10 Jan. 1964; Interview with
Kennedy by Gausche, 4 Feb. 1964; Hist. 2A1J, Jan.-June 1964, vol. 6,
doc. 31.
101. Msg., 2AD to PACAF, Aoc-DDIR-63-8929, 16 Nov. 1963; msg., PACAF
to 5AF, 13AF, 2AD, mooP-5130-63, 9 Oct. 1963.
102. Msg., 2AD to 13AF, 2IDC-63-359H, 21Aug. 1963.
103. Rpt., Butler to IV Corps ALO, subj: After Action Report, 3 Oct.
1963; msg., 34 Tac. Gp. to All Comdrs. 2AD, 34CCR-63-S-J-219, 13 Sept. 1963;
Capt Thomas G. Cain, 1st ACS, End of Tour Report, n.d., in Hist. SAWC,
July-Dec. 1963, II, doc. 35.
616
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104. Rpt., Butler to IV Corps ALO, subj: After Action Report,
3 Oct. 1963; 2d Ind., Pierce to Dep. Dir. AOC, 22 Oct. 1963.
105. 1st Ind. (rpt.,
Report for August 1963, 15
Dir. IV ASOC, to Dep. Dir.
FAC 31st Rgt., to IV Corps
Collings to Dep. Dir. IV ASOC, subj: ALO
Sept. 1963), Lt. Col. Milton R. Pierce, Dep.
AOC, 24 Sept. 1963; rpt., Capt. Don O. Quane,
ALO, subj: After Action Report, 23 Oct. 1963.
106. Butler End of Tour Report, 8 June 1964.
107. Msg., 2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-02-10-02, 2 Oct. 1963; msg.,
PACAF to SAF, 13AF, 2AD, PFDOP-5130-63,,9 Oct. 1963; 88th Cong. 2d Sess.,
apartment of Defense AmE22Elit421s, 1965, Hearings before the Subcorr0-ttee
on Department of Defense of the Committee on Appropriations and the Committee
on Armed Services, U.S. Senate (Washington: GP(J, 1964), Pt. 1, pp. 85-86.
108. Msg., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MAC-J3-8210, 19 Oct. 1963; rpt.,
Collings to Dep. Dir. IV ASOC, subj: ALO Report for October 1963,
19 Nov. 1963.
109. Msg., PACAF to 2AD, PFDOP-5148-63, 19 Nov. 1963; msg., PACAF
to CINCPAC, PFDOP-5154-63, 1 Dec. 1963; msg., COMDSMACV to CINCPAC,
MAC-J4-9713, 24 Dec. 1963; Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1964, III, Hist.
Rpt., PFCEO, Jan. 196).i..
110. Rpt., Butler to ALO IV Corps, subj: After Action Report, 26
Nov. 1963; Burchett, Vietnam, p. 89.
111. Rpt., Butler to IV Corps ALO, subj: After Action Report, 26
Nov. 1963; ltr., Pierce to Dep. Dir. AOC, subj: Summary of IV ASOC
Activities in Support of 21st Division Operation in Chuong Thien, 19
October 1963, 21 Oct. 1963; Quane, Notes on Dug Thang 4.3/SD 21, 19-21
Oct. 1963.
112. Burchett, Vietnam, p. 90.
113. Rpt., Butler to IV Corps ALO, subj: After Action Report,
26 Nov. 1963; 1st Ind., Collings to Dep. Dir. IV ASOC, 26 Nov. 1963; 1st
Ind. (rpt., Collings to Dep. Dir. IV ASOC, subj: IV Corps ALO Report for
October 1963, 19 Nov. 1963), Pierce to Dep. Dir. AOC, 20 Nov. 1963.
114. Rpt., McInerney to IV Corps ALO, subj: After Action Report,
27 Nov. 1963.
115. Msg., COMUSMACV to JCS, MAC -J00 -4927, 13 June 1964.
116. Msg., JCS-3325 to CINCPAC, 1 Nov. 1963.
617
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117. Pierce End of Tour Report, 24 July 1964.
118. Ltr., Ross to MACV J-5, subj: Phase-Out of U. S. Forces,
23 Oct. 1963; Rpt., J. L. Asbury, Jr., Chief PFOCO-R to PFOCD, et al.,
subj: Report of Reconnaissance Survey--Southeast Asia, 22 Nov. 19677
119. Asbury rpt., 22 Nov. 1963; USAF Journal of Mutual Assistance,
XVI, Sept. 1963, p. 189.
120. PACAF Summary of Actions, Gen. Wheeler's Party, pt. II, Tab.
15; Asbury rpt., 22 Nov. 1963.
121. Asbury rpt., 22 Nov. 1963; ltr., MacKellar to Chief ALO/FAC
Sect. 2AD, subj: I Corps Trip, ca. June 1963.
122. Hist. 6091st Reconnaissance Sq., Jan.-June 1963, pp. 1-2.
123. Msg., 2AD to PACAF, 2CVC-63-133D, 15 Apr. 1963; Hist.
2AD, Jan.-June 1964, vol. 6, doc. 31.
124. Hq. USMACV, Summary of Highlights, 8 Feb. 1962-7 Feb. 19633
pp. 27-30; memo for record by Ross, subj: Meeting with Gen. LeMay,
0900-1100, 10 Apr. 63, Baguio, Philippines, 11 Apr. 1963; ltr.,
Anthis to JGS, subj: Recommendations for Improving Air Support, ca.
Mar. 1963; rpt., Ruhman to Chief ALO/FAC 2AD, subj: Problem Areas
Noted During I Corps Orientation Visit, 2 July 1963.
125. CINCPAC, Record Eighth SECDEF Conference, 6 May 1963, Item
3; ltr., Ross to MACV J-5, subj: Phase-Out of U.S. Forces, 23 Oct. 1963.
126. Msg., PACAF to 13AF, PFODO-63-1191C, 1 Mar. 1963.
127. Asbury rpt., 22 Nov. 1963.
128. Rpt., Allen to 2AD (JAOC), subj: ALO Report for April 1963;
17 May 1963; rpt., Schmitt to Dep. Director II ASOC, Subj: Dan Thang
888 (Phase I), 13 June 1963; rpt., Meier to Dep. Director II ASOC,
subj: Dan Thang 888 (Phase II), 20 June 1963.
129. PACAF Reference Book for May 1963 SECDEF Conference, Agenda
Item 4.
130. Msg., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MAC-J3-2524, 29 Apr. 1963.
131. Asbury rpt., 22 Nov. 1963.
618
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132. Rpt., Mellish to Dep. Director III AMC, subj: III Corps
ALO Report for November 1963, 9 Dec. 1963.
133. Asbury rpt., 22 Nov. 1963.
134. Ibid. Asbury Rpt1/9v22 Nb. 1963.
135. Hist. PACAF, July-Dec. 1962, II, Monthly Hist. PFIDC-S,
Nov. 1962; Report of Visit by Joint Chiefs of Staff Team to South Vietnam,
Jan. 1963, Sect. II, par. 2c(5)(b).
136. Ltr., Anthis to Milton, 11 Jan. 1963.
137. Hist. 6091st Recon. Sq., Jan.-June 1963, pp. 1-2.
138. Meg., Det. 2A, 1st Air Commando Gp., to AFLC Ln. Off., Fort
Worth, Texas, 0PS-7-003, 1 July 1963; Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1963, III,
Wkly. Activity Rpt. PFMME, 3-7 June 1963; Hist. PACAF, July-Dec. 1963,
III, Wkly. Activity Rpt. PFMME, 8-12 July 1963; msg., Det. 2A to AFLC
Ln. Off., Ft. Worth, Texas, 0PS-63-7-003, 1 July 1963; ltr., Henderson
to Moorman, 25 July 1963; msg., PACAF to 2AD, AFXDPR-13-9-181, 13 Sept.
1963; msg., 2AD to PACAF, 2CVC-63-2561, 21 Sept. 1963; End of Tour rpt.,
Capt. Harry G. Rudolph, ca. Oct. 1963; End of Tour Rpt., Capt. Joseph E.
Simanonok, 15 Oct. 1963.--
139. Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1963, II, Wkly. Activity Rpt., PFMLP,
24 Feb.-2 Mar. 1963; msg., COMDSMACV to CINCPAC, MAC-J-2-1462, 15 Mar. 1963;
msg., SAF to 41AD et al., 5FPPL-194-301 27 Mar. 1963; msg., 13AF to PACAF,
130DC-3-098A, 12 Apr. 1963; msg., :3AF to 2AD, 13AFCC-05-015, 6 May 1963;
Hist. 6091st Reconnaissance Sq., July-Dec. 1963, pp. 11-15; msg., 2AD to
PACAF, ADC-63-691, 25 Aug. 1963; msg., 2AD to 13AF, 20DC-63-0905F, 27 June
1963; PFLPL-C, Counterinsurgency Lessons Learned, 12 Sept. 1963.
140. Ltr., Henderson to Moorman, 25 July 1963; msg., PACAF to 2AD,
AFXOPR-13-9-181, 13 Sept. 1963; msg., 2AD to PACAF, 2CVC-63-256I, 21 Sept.
1963; Hist. Plans and Programs Div. 2AD, Jan.-June 1964, in Hist. 2AD,
Jan.-June 1964, Vol. IX, doc 9; msg., 2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-64-268F,
1 June 1964; Opns. Anal. Off. 2AD, Counterinsurgency Lessons Learned,
Jan.-June 1964, Intelligence: Use of Infrared Photography in Counter-
insurgency.
141. Report of Visit by Joint Chiefs of Staff Team to South Vietnam,
Jan. 1963, Sec. VI; msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 182314Z Feb. 1963; msg., 13AF to
2AD, 131DC-24-04-87 Apr. 1963; msg., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MAC-J23-5649,
29 June 1963.
619
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142. Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1963, II, Hist. Rpt. PFOOP, May 1963;
msg., 2AD to PACAF, 2CCR-64-014A, 10 Jan. 1964; msg., 2AD to PACAF, USAF,
13AF, 2CCR-64-084B, 10 Mar. 1964.
143. Interview with Kennedy by Gausche, 4 Feb. 1964.
144. Ltr., Anthis to Moorman, ca. 16 Apr. 1963; End of Tour Rpt.,
Maj. William W. McDaniel, 1st Air Commando Sq., ca. July 1963; End of Tour
Rpt., Capt. Glenn E. Frick, 1st. Air Commando Sq., 20 July 1963; Rpt.,
Mellish to AOC, subj: III Corps ALO Report for October 1963, 6 Nov. 1963;
End of Tour Rpt., Lt. Wells T. Jackson, 1st Air Commando Sq., n.d., in
Hist. SAWC, July-Dec. 1963, II, doc. 35; Hist. ALO/FAC 2AD, in Hist. 2AD,
Jan.-June 1964, vol. 9, doc. 9.
145. Hist. ALO/FAC 2AD in Hist. 2AD, Jan.-June 1964, vol. 9,
doc. 9; Opns, Anal. Off. 2AD, Counterinsurgency Lessons Learned, July-Dec.
1964, Sec. 1-7; rpt., Schmitt to Dep. Director II ASOC, subj: Dan Thang 888
(Phase I), 13 June 1963.
146. Hist. ALO/FAC 2AD in Hist. 2AD, Jan.-June 1964, vol. 9, doc.
9; ltr., Fowler to Ross, subj: Reaction to Immediate and Increased
Effectiveness of II Corps Air Strikes, ca. Mar. 1964, in Hist. 2AD, Jan.-
June 1964, vol. 8, doc. 20.
147. Msg., 2AD to PACAF, AFTU-V-10-63G-12, 10 July 1963; PFLPL-C,
Counterinsurgency Lessons Learned, 12 Sept. 1963; msg., 2AD to PACAF,
2 AFTU-V-0-63A-1, 10 Jan. 1964.
148. 2AD, Photo Reconnaissance Handbook, 9 Sept. 1963.
149. Asbury rpt., 22 Nov. 1963; Opns. Anal. Off. 2AD, Counterinsurgency
Lessons Learned, Jan.-June 1964, 4 July 1964; ltr., Fowler to Ross, subj:
Reaction to Immediates and Increased Effectiveness of II Corps Air Strikes,
ca. Mar. 1964.
150. Ltr., Anthis to Brig. Gen. H. D. Aynesworth, Comdr., TARC,
28 Oct. 1963; ltr., Anthis to Smart, 25 Nov. 1963.
151. Rpts., Mellish to Dep. Director III ASOC, subj: III Corps ALO
Report for November 1963, 9 Dec. 1963; Mellish to Dep. Director III ASOC,
subj: III Corps ALO Report for December 1963, 15 Jan. 1964.
152. Henderson End of Tour Rpt., 5 Feb. 1964.
153. PACAF Reference Book for May 1963 SECDEF Conference, Agenda
Item 4; Opns. Anal. Off., 2AD, Counterinsurgency Lessons Learned, Jan.-
June 1964, 4 July 1964.
6
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,Nar`
154. Msg., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, J4-0016, 2 Dec. 1962; ACTIV,
Final Report, Employment of CV-2B (Caribou) Airplane in Support of
Counterinsurgency Operations, Report on Operations, 1 February-31 July
1963, 30 Aug. 1963, Annex A; Hist. 315th TO Gp., Jan.-June 1963, p. 20.
155. Msg., 2AD to 13AF, 2CCR-63-0078 B, 25 Feb. 1963; msg., 315AD
to PACAF, 25 Feb. 1963.
i56. Ltr., Lt Col Garry Oskamp, ALO US Army Special Forces, Vietnam
to 2AD JAOC, subj: Monthly ALO Report, 1 Apr. 1963.
157. Hist. 315th TO Gp., Jan.-June 1963, p. 15.
158. Hist. 315th TC Gp., Jan.-June 1963, pp. 19, 35; ltr., Maj.
Gen. R. G. Weede, CofS MACV to Comdr, 2AD, subj: Implementation of Airlift
System, 18 Apr. 1963; Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1963, vol. II, Hist. Rpt.,
PFPPL, June 1963.
159. Hq. 13AF, Final Report Tactical Analysis of C-123B Aircraft in
Republic of Vietnam, 15 Apr. 1963; msg., 2AD to PACAF, AFTU-V-10-63G-12,
10 July 1963, Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1963, II, Hist. PFOQR, June
1962.
160. Ltr., Anthis to Martin, 2 Sept. 1963; msg., ADMINO CINCPAC to
COMUSMACV, et al., 051553Z June 1963.
161. Memo for record by Maj. John R. Goodlett, Chief Combat Opns.
JAOC/TMC, subj: Caribou Aircraft Allocated to SEAAS, 26 June 1963.
162. Ltr., Col. Thomas B. Kennedy, Director of Air Transport 2AD,
to 2CCR, subj: Analysis of Army Ccncept Team's Report on CV-2B Aircraft,
ca. June 1963.
163. ACTIV, Final Report, Employment of CV-2B (Caribou) Airplane in
Support of Counter Insurgency Operations, 30 Aug. 1963; msg., 2AD to PACAF
and 13AF, 200R-180F, 20 June 1963; PACAF Reference Book for May 1963 SECDEF
Conference, Agenda Item 1.
164. Ltr., Kennedy to 2 CCR, subj.: Analysis of Army Concept Team's
Report on CV-2B Aircraft, ca. June 1963; ACTIV, Final Report, Employment of
CV-2B (Caribou) Airplane in Support of Counterinsurgency Operations,
30 Aug. 1963.
165. Msg., 2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-180F, 20 June 1963; memo for
20CR from Col. Leon M. Tannenbaum, Director of Air Transport 2AD, 4 June 1963.
166. Memo for 2CCR from Tannenbaum, L. June 1963.
6 ' 1
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167.
168.
Gp., Jan.
169.
Msg., 2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-180F, 20 June 1963.
Msg., 2AD to PACAF,.2ATR-63G71003, 2 July 1963; Hist. 315th TO
-June 1963, p. 22.
Msg., CINCPAC to COMUSMACV, 24 June 1963.
170. MACV Directive No. 44, Task Organization and Management USMC/USA
Aviation Resources in RVN, 8 July 1963; ACTIV, Final Report, Employment of
CV-2B Caribou Airplane in Support of Counterinsurgency Operations, 30 Aug.
1963.
171. ACTIV, Final Report, Employment of CV-2B (Caribou) Airplane in
Support of Counterinsurgency Operations, 30 Aug. 1963, p. 45.
172. Ltr., Kennedy to 2 CCR, subj: Analysis of Army Concept Team's
Report on CV-2B Aircraft, ca. June 1963.
173.
174.
175.
176.
July-Dec.
177.
Ltr., Anthis to Smart, 25 Nov. 1963.
Interview with Kennedy by Gausche, L. Feb. 1964.
Ibid.; ltr., Anthis to Martin, 2 Sept. 1963.
Hist. 1st Air Commando Sq., July-Dec. 1963; Hist., 315th TO Gp.,
1963, p. 2.
Interview with Kennedy by Gausche, 4 Feb. 1964.
178. Ltr., Anthis to Martin,2 Sept. 1963.
179. ACTIV, Final Report, Employment of CV-2B (Caribou) Airplane in
Support of Counterinsurgency Operations, Annex A.
180. Hist. 315th TO Gp., Jan.-June 1963, p. 20.
181. Ltr., Anthis to Martin, 2 Sept. 1963; Hist. PACAF, July-Dec. 1963,
II, Wkly. Activities Rpt. PFMLP, 29 Sept.-5 Oct. 1953.
182. End of tour rpt., Lt. Col. James C. Dunn, Dir. M&O 2AD, 22 July
1963; Interview with Kennedy by Gauschel 4 Feb. 1964.-
183. Interview with Kennedy by Gausche, L. Feb. 1964; ltr., Anthis to
Smart, 25 Nov. 1963.
184. Msg., 2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 200R-02-10-02, 2 Oct. 1963; msg.,
COMMACV to CINCPAC, MAD-501-7799, 3 Oct. 1963.
622
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185. Hist. 13AF, July-Dec. 1963, I, 17; interview with Kennedy
by Gausche, 4 Feb. 1964.
186. Interview with Kennedy by Gausche, L. Feb. 1964; Hist. 315th TO Gp.,
Jan.-June 1963, p. 24; ltr., Capt. Louis W. Gaylor, Asst. S-4 LOC USAFS(P)V
to Comdg. Off., USAFS(P)V, subj.: Semi-Annual Progress Report (Switchback),
16 June 1963; ACTIV, Final Report, Employment of CV-2B (Caribou) Airplane
in Support of Counterinsurgency Operations, p. 9; ltr., Anthis to Martin,
2 Sept. 1963; Project CHECO, Southeast Asia Report, pt. V, pp. 59-60; ltr.
Anthis to 315th Gp., subj: Letter of Recognition, 11 May 1963.
187. Ltr., Kennedy to 2AD (20CR), subj: Joint Airborne Operations,
4 Dec. 1963.
188. Rpt., Bowers to Dep. Director JAOC, Subj: After Action Report,
Operation "Loi Phong," 28-31 January 1963, 3 Feb. 1963, 3 Feb. 1963; rpt.,
Maj. Eugene R. McCutchan, ALO Airborne Bde. to Dep. Director JAOC, subj:
Report of Operation, 10 Mar. 1963.
189. Ltr., Col. Joe S. Lamb, U.S. Army Advisor Airborne Brigade, to
MACV J-3, subj: Parachute Operations, 4 Dec. 1963; ltr., Kennedy to 2AD
(20CR), L. Dec. 1963.
190. Ltr., Kennedy to 2AD (20CR), subj: Joint Airborne Operations,
L. Dec. 1963.
191. Ltr., Anthis to Harkins, 5 Dec. 1963.
192. Rpt., Lt. Col. James F. Martin, ALO Airborne Brigade, to AOC,
subj: After Action Report, 24 Feb. 1964; rpt., Martin to AOC, subj.: ALO
Report for February-11964, 10 Mar. 1964.
193. AXOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Section
IV-F-1.
194. Presentation by Gen. Moorman before Congressional Committee, ca.
Feb. 1963, II, Tab 1A.
195. Interview with Anthis by Gausche and Grainger, 30 Aug. 1963; msg.,
2AD to PACAF, 200R-29-09-39, 29 Sept. 1963.
196. Msg., PACAF to USAF, PFCNC-63-9-1, 8 Sept. 1963.
197. CINCPAC, Record, Eighth SECDEF Conference, 6 May 1963, Item lb.
198. MECO, Southeast Asia Report, pt. III, p. 64; Dennis J.
Duncanson, Government and Revolution in Vietnam (New York: Oxford University
623
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Press, 1968), PP- 327-333; 88th Cong. 1st Sess., Foreign Operations
Anpropriations for 1964, Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee
on Appropriations, House of Representatives (Washington: GPO, 1963, pt.
3, pp. 27)4-275.
199. Nag., SECSTATE to AMEMB Saigon, #1084, 13 May. 1963; 88th Cong.
1st Sess., Foreign Operations Appropriations for 1964, House of Representa-
tives, pt. 2, pp. 14, 17-, 89-91, Public Papers of the Presidents, John F.
Kennedy, 1963 (Washington: GPO, 196)4), p. 421.
200. CHECO, Southeast Asia Report, pt. III, pp. 65-70; msg., ADMINO
CINCPAC to COMDSMACV et al., 051553Z June 1963.
201. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, p. 988.
202. Msg., USAIRA Saigon to DIA, C-51, 18 July 1963.
203. US Dept. of State Bulletin, Vol. 56, p. 799.
204. Public Papers of the Presidents, John F. Kennedy, 1963, p. 569.
205. CHECO, Southeast Asia Report, pt. III, pp. 73-75; CQ Background,
China and US Far East Policy, 1945-1967, p. 125.
206. Msg., 2AD to CINCPAC, 2IDC-63-354H, 21 Aug. 1963; msg., CINCPAC
to JCS, 210534Z Aug. 1963; msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 251959Z Aug. 1963.
207. US Dept of State, American Foreiqn Policy) Current Documents, 1963
(Washington: GPO, 1967), pp. 862-866; msg., SgCSTATE to AMEMB Saigon et al,
211440Z Aug. 1963.
208. James C. Thampson, Jr., "How Could Vietnam Happen? An Autopsy,ll
Atlantic, Apr. 1968, pp. 50-51; Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, p. 991;
Hilsman, To Move a Nation, pp. 487-488.
209. John Mecklin, Mission in Torment, An Intimate Account of the US
Role in Vietnam (Garden City: Doubleday & Company, 1965), PP. 193-195.
210. CHECO, Southeast Asia Report, pt. III, p. 83; msg., CINCPAC to
JCS, 251959Z Aug. 1963; US Dept of State, American Foreign Policy, Current
Documents, 1963, pp. 862-866.
211. US Dept. of State Bulletin, Vol. 56, p. 799.
212. Baltimore Sun, 4 Apr. 1968, p. 4.
213. Hilsman, To Move a Nation, p. 492.
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%se
214. Baltimore Sun, 4 Apr. 1968, p. 4.
215. US Dept of State, American Foreign Policy, Current Documents,
1963, p. 869.
216. Ibid., pp. 869-870.
217. Msg. PACAF to USAF, PFCNO-63-9-1, 8 Sept. 1961.
218. US Dept of State, American Foreign Policy, Current Documents, 1963,
pp. 871-872, 882-883; Anthony Trawick Bouscaren, The Last of the Mandarins:
Diem of Vietnam (Pittsburg: Duquesne University Press, 1965), p. 109.
219. Msg., CINCPAC to ADMINO CINCPAC, 221415Z Oct. 1962.
220. CHECO, Southeast Asia Report, pt. III, 127-128.
221. Joseph Buttinger, Vietnam: A Dragon embattled (New York:
Praeger, 1967), II, 186 (n.
222. CHECO, Southeast Asia Report, pt. III, p. 102.
223. Msg., 2AD to PACAF, 2IDC-63-28M, 2 Dec. 1963.
224. Mecklin, Mission in Torment, pp. 222-223; Schlesinger, A Thousand
Days, p. 995; Department of State Dilletin, vol. 56, p. 799.
225. Msg., PACAF to USAF, PFCNC-63-9-1, 8 Sept. 1963.
226. CHECO, Southeast Asia Report, pt. III, pp. 80-81.
227. Msg., 2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 2 00R-64-0890, 12 Mar. 1964.
228. CHECO, Southeast Asia Report, pt. III, pp. 99-104.
229. Halberstam, The Making of a Quagmire, pp. 252-253.
230. Public Papers of the Presidents, John F. Kennedy, 1963, pp.
231. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, p. 995; Public Papers of the
Presidents, John F. Kennedy, 1963, p. 659.
232. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, pp. 995-996; msg., 2AD to PACAF,
20CR-29-09-39, 29 Sept. 1963; msg., 2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-63-277I,
30 Sept. 1963; msg., 2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-02-10-02, 2 Oct. 1963;
msg., PACAF to 5AF, 2AD, PFDOP-5130-63, 9 Oct. 1963.
233. Public Papers of the Presidents, John F. Kennedy, 1963, pp. 759-760.
651-652.
625
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234. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, p. 996; 88th Cong. 1st Sess.,
Foreign Assistance and related Alencies Appropriations for 1964, U.S.
Senate, p. 374; 88th Cong. 2d Sess., Hearings on Military Posture . . .
before the Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives
(Washington: 196)4), PP. 6971-6972.
235. CINCPAC Comd. Hist., 1963, p. 280; US Dept of State, American
Foreign Policy, Current Documents, 1963, p. 875.
236. 89th Cong. 2d Sess., United States Policy toward Asia, Hearings
before the Subcommittee on the Far East and the Pacific of the Committee
on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives (Washington: GPO, 1966), pt.
1, pp. 154-155, 157.
237. CQ Background, China and US Far East Policy, 1945-1967, p. 129.
238. Duncanson, Government and Revolution in Vietnam, p. 286.
239. Ibid., p. 338; US Dept of State, Ameriaan Foreign Policy,
Current Documents, 1963, p. 877.
240. 88th Cong. 1st Sess., Foreign Assistance and Related Agencies
Appropriations for 1964, Hearings before the Committee on Auropriations,
U.S. Senate (Washington: GPO, 1963), pp. 299-301; CINCPAC, Record of
Special SECDEF-SECSTATE Meeting on RVN, 20 Nov. 1963, Item A3.
241. CHECO, Southeast Asia Report, pt. III, pp. 106-107; Thompson,
Defeating Communist Insurgency, p. 42.
242. CHECO, Southeast Asia Report, pt. III, pp. 109-110; Mecklin,
Mission in Torment, pp. 277-278; Hist. 13AF, July-Dec. 1963, I, 75; msg.,
PACAF to 5AF et al., PFCNC-487, 27 Aug. 1963; msg., JCS-3301 to CINCPAC,
292331Z Oct. 1963. Details of the plot are discussed in Robert Shaplen,
The Lost Revolution (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), pp. 188-212 and
Halberstam, The Making of a Quagmire, pp. 277-299.
243. Halberstam, The Making of a Quagmire, pp. 288-291; msg., 2AD
to PACAF, 2IDC-63-28M, 2 Dec. 1963; CHECO, Southeast Asia Report, pt. III,
pp. 110-111.
244. Halberstam, The Making of a Quagmire, pp. 292-299; msg., 2AD to
PACAF, CCR-63-314K, 28 Nov. 1963; CHECO Southeast Asia Report, pt. III,
pp. 111-118.
245. PACAF Reference Book for November 1963 SECDEF Conference, Tab 1A,
Hist. Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Plans and Opns., USAF, July-Dec. 1963,
p. 233.
626
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246. US Dept of State, American Foreign Policy, Current Documents, 1963,
pp. 879-880.
247. CINCPAC, Record of Special SECDEF-SECSTATE
1963, Item 1A; PACAF Reference Book for November 1963
Tab. L.A.
248. Msg., 2AD to PACAF, 2CVC-326L-63, 3 Dec. 1963.
249. Rpt., Mellish to Dep. Director III ASOC, subj: III Corps
ALO Report for November 1963, 9 Dec. 1963.
250, Meg., 2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-63-353L, 21 Dec. 1963.
251. Meg., IASOC to 2AD ADC, IASOC-63-710, 12 Dec. 1963; Shaplen,
The Lost Revolution, p. 231.
252. Meg., USAIRA Saigon to DIA, C-123, 4 Nov. 1963; msg., 2AD to
PACAF, 21DC-63-28M, 2 Dec. 1963; msg., USAIRA Saigon to DIA, C-148,
9 Dec. 1963; msg., USA1RA Saigon to 1127FAG, C-151, 16 Dec. 1963;
Project CHECO, Southeast Asia Report, pt. III, pp. 119-121.
253. Project CHECO, Southeast Asia Report, pt. III, p. 114.
254. Ibid., p. 113.
255. Marguerite Higgins, Our Vietnam Nightmare (New York: Harper &
Row, 1965), P. 153.
256. Project CHECO, Southeast Asia Report, pt. III, p. 118.
257. CINCPACAF Background Book for 13 May 1964 SECDEF?Meeting, II,
Opns. Fact Sheet No. 6; Hist. 2AD. Jan.-June 1964, vol. 6, doc. 31.
258. CINCPAC, Record of Special SECDEF-SECSTATE Meeting on RVN,
20 Nov. 1963, Items A2 and B3.
259. Meg., 2AD to 13AF, AOC-63-8912, 15 Nov. 1963.
260. CINCPAC, Record of Special SECDEF-SECSTATE Meeting on RVN,
20 Nov. 1963, Item A2.
261. Public Papers of the Presidents, John F. Kennedy, 1963, p. 846.
262. CINCPAC, Record of Special SECDEF-SECSTATE Meeting on RVN,
20 Nov. 1963, Item B3.
Meeting, 20 Nov.
SECDEF Conference,
627
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263. Ibid., Item B4; 88th Cong. 1st Sess., Foreign Assistance and
Related Agencies Appropriations for 1964, Hearings before the Committee
on Appropriations, US Senate (Washington: GPO, 1963), p. 3103.
264. Hist. 13AF, July-Dec. 1963, I, 16, 66.
265. CINCPAC, Record of Special SECDEF-SECSTATE Meeting on RVN,
20 Nov. 1963, Item A2; msg., 2AD to PACAF, 2CCR-63-351L, 20 Dec. 1963.
266. Memo for record by Henderson, 22 November 1963; report,
Mellish to Deputy Director III ASOC, subj: III Corps ALO Support for
December 1963, 15 Jan. 1963; report, Oskamp to Dep. Director AOC, subj:
ALO Report for November 1963, 2 Dec. 1963.
267. CINCPAC, Record of Special SECDEF-SECSTATE Meeting on RVN,
20 Nov. 1963, Item 2A.
268. Rpt., Mellish to Dep. Director III ASOC, subj: III Corps ALO
Report for November 1963, 9 Dec. 1963; rpt., Col Lawrence W. Brady,
Senior Advisor, 7th Div., to USMACV (J-3), subj: After Action Report,
3 Dec. 1963; Hagerstrom, The Making of a Quagmire, p. 307.
269. Rpt., McInerney to IV Corps ALO, subj: After Action Report,
11 Dec. 1963; 1st Ind., Butler to IV Corps ALO, 12 Dec. 1963; 2d Ind.,
Collings to Dep. Director IV ASOC, n.d.; 3d Ind., Pierce to Dep. Director
AOC, 22 Dec. 1963; msg.,. 2AD to USAF (AFXOPI), 2 CVC-63-196L, 1 Dec. 1963;
2AF Opns. Analysis Paper No. 4, An Evaluation of the Effectiveness of the
MK-44 (Lazy Dog) in Certain Environments, 11 Feb. 1964.
270. Rpt., Capt. Richard W. Von Hake, ALO PBTSZ to ALO III Corps,
Subj: Strike Report, 17 Dec. 1963.
271. Rpt., Mellish to Dep. Director III ASOC, subj: III Corps
ALO Report for December 1963, 15 Jan. 1964.
272. History, 2AD, Jan.-Jane 1963, vol. 6, Doc. 31.
273. CINCPACAF Reference Book for November 1963 SECDEF Conference,
Talking Paper, TAB 2B.
274. Rpt., Capt. Kent C. Spears, 5th Div. ALO, to III Corps ALO,
subj: After Action Report (Dai Phong 35), 8 Jan. 1964; msg., 2AD to PACAF,
2CCR-64-006A, 4 Jan. 1964; msg., CINCPAC to COMUSMACV, 180715Z Jan. 1964;
Project CHECO, Southeast Asia Report, Pt. V, pp. 99-102.
275. 88th Cong. 1st Sess., Foreign Assistance and Related Agencies
Appropriations for 1964, US Senate, p. 607.
628
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276. 89th Congress, 2d Session, Supplemental Defense Appropriations
for 1966, Hearings before Subcommittees of the Committee on Appropriations, .
House of Representatives (Washington: GPO, 1966), p. 62; msg., 2AD to PACAF,
2CCR-63-351L, 20 Dec. 1963.
277. Msg., 2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-63-353L, 21 Dec. 1963.
278. Msg., 2AD to PACAF, 2CCR-63-351L, 20 Dec. 1963; Shaplen, The
Lost Revolution, p. 232.
279. CINCPAC, Record of Special SECDEF-SECSTATE Meeting on RVN,
Item 33.
280. 88th Congress 2d Session, Foreign Operations, Appropriations
for 1965, Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations,
House of Representatives (Washington: GPO, 1964), pt. 1, p. 363.
62'3
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FOOTNOTES
Chapter 9
1. Burchett, Vietnam, pp. 216-219.
2. Congressional Record, 9 May 1968, pp. 12618; Le Duan, Some
Questions Concerning the International Tasks of Our Part z (Peking:
Foreign Languages Press, 1964).
3. Higgins, Our Vietnam Nightmare, pp. 153-154; Defense Intelli-
gence Agency, Cold War (Counterinsurgency) Analysis, Republic of
Vietnam, 1 December 1964, Section D, pp. 10-11. 89th Cong. 1st Sess.,
Department of Defense Appropriations for 1966, Hearings before the
Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, US Senate (Washington:
GPO, 1965), pt. 2, p. 765.
4. Record of Special SECDEF-SECSTATE Meeting on RVN Held at Hq
CINCPAC, 20 November 1963, Item 3B.
5. PACAF Reference Book of 13 May 1964 SECDEF Conference, vol.
II, Fact Sheet 4; Hist. Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Plans and Opns.,
USAF, July-Dec. 1963, p. 65.
6. Msg., JCS-3877 to CINCPAC, 6 Dec. 1963.
7. Msgs., 2AD to PACAF, 2CCR -63 -3,51L and 2 CVC-63-352L, 20 Dec.
1963 and 2 CCR -63 -353L, 21 Dec. 1963; memo for President Johnson from
McNamara, subj: Vietnam Situation, 21 Dec. 1963.
8. Public Pa rs of the Presidents L don B. Johnson 1963-64,
(Washington: GPO, 19 , vol. 1, p. 10
I-
9. PACAF Reference Book for March 1964 SECDEF Conference, Tab. 8;
msg., ZAD to PACAF, USAF, and 13AF, 2CCR-64-08)48, 10 Mar. 1964; PACAF
Reference Book for 13 May 1964 SECDEF Conference, pt. II, Tab. G;
Congressional Record, 9 May 1968, p. 12618.
10. AFKOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item
IV-H.
11. Adm. U.S.G. Sharp, CINCPAC, and Gen. W. C. Westmoreland,
COMUSMACV, Report on the War in Vietnam (As of 30 June 1968), (Washing-
ton: GPO, 1969), p. 92.
12. Rpts., Mellish to Dep. Director III ASOC? subj: III Corps
ALO Report for January 1964, 15 Feb. 1964 and Montgomery to ZAD (AOC),
subj: ALO Report for 1-31 January 1964, 12 Feb. 1964.
630
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NitioW
13. Msg., AMEMB Saigon to CINCPAC et al., #1445, 30 Jan. 1964;
msg., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, 31 Jan. 196E1 Sah Cong. 2d Sess., Hearings
on Military Posture . . . before the Committee on Armed Services, House
of Representatives (Washington: GPO, 1964), PP. 7120-7121, 7154-7156;
Public Papers of the Presidents, Lyndon B. Johnson, 1963-64, pp. 256-260.
14. Msg., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, 31 Jan. 1964.
15. Rpt., Capt. Donald V. MacKellar, ALO, Tay Ninh, to III Corps
ALO, subj: Ben Cau Attack, 10 Feb. 1964; Maj. Gen. Edward G. Lansdale,
"Viet Nam: Do We Understand Revolution?" Foreign Affairs, Oct. 1964,
pp. 84-85.
16. CQ Background, China and US Far East Policy, 1945-1967 (Wash-
ington: Congressional Quarterly Service, 1967), pp. 134, 136; 2AD,
Chronology, Jan-Dec. 1964.
17. Msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 081046Z Feb. 1964; PACAF Reference Book
for 13 May 1964 SECDEF Conference, pt. 1, Tab F; Msg., COMUSMACV to JCS,
MAC-J00-4927, 13 June 1964.
18. Sharp-Westmoreland Report, pp. 89-90.
19. Msg., 2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 2cCR-64-077C, 8 March 1964.
20. 2d AD Chronology, Jan-June 1964; Sharp-Westmoreland Report,
p. 92; 89th Cong. 2d Sess., Supplemental Defense Appropriations for
1966, Hearings before Subcommittees of the Committee on Appropriations,
House of Representatives (Washington: GPO, 1966), pp. 64-65; msg., 2AD
to USAF, 2CCR-64-218E, 12 May 1964.
21. Msg., 2AD to 13AF, 2CCR-64-073C, 3 March 1964; msg., PACAF to
2AD, 130414Z March 1964; rpt., Mellish to 2AD (AOC), subj: III Corps
ALO Report for March, 15 April 1964.
22. 88th Cong., 2d Sess., Foreign Operations Appropriations for
1965, Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations,
House of Representatives (Washington: GPO, 1964), pt. 1, p. 369; AFIOPJ,
Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item IV-H.
23. Hilsman, To Move A Nation, pp. 527-534; Public Papers of the
Presidents, Lyndon B. Johnson 773-1964, vol. 1, p. 304.
24. AFIOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item IV-K.
25. Msg., PACAF to 13AF and 2AD, PFDOP-5014-64, 6 Mar. 1964.
26. Msgs., 2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-64-077C, 8 Mar. 1964 and
2AD to PACAF, USAF, and 13AF, 2CCR-64-084B, 10 Mar. 1964; PACAF Refer-
ence Book for 12 March 1964 SEGDEF Conference, Tab 2; Memo for Presi-
dent Johnson from McNamara, subj; South Vietnam, 16 Mar. 1964.
631
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27. AFXOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item
IV-L; PACAF Reference Book for 13 May 1964 SECDEF Conference, pt. 1;
Public Papers of the Presidents, Lyndon B. Johnson 1963-64, vol. 1,
PP. 387-38B.
28. 88th Cong. 2d Sess., Foreign Assistance 1964, Hearings before
the Committee on Foreign Relations, US Senate (Washington: GPO, 1964)
17177-551774.
29. Msg., 2AD to USAF, 2CCR-64-166D, 17 Apr. 1964. PACAF Refer-
ence Book for 13 May 1964 SECDEF Conference, Plans Fact Sheet No. 12;
AF1OPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item IV-M; Msg.,
US DEPSTATE to AMEMB Saigon, #1791, 28 Apr. 1964.
30. Public Papers ofthetTresidents, Lyndon B. Johnson, 1966
(Washington: GPO, 1967, Vol 2, pp. 760-763.
31. Congressional Record, 9 May 1968, p. 12618.
32. Hist. PACAF, Jen-June 1965, vol. I, pt. 2, pp. 66-67.
33. PACAF Reference Book for 13 May 1964 SECDEF Conference, pt. I,
Tab:. C; rpt., Butler to ALO IV Corps, subj: After Action Report, 27
May 196)-i.; Sharp-Westmoreland Report, p. 93; msgs., 2AD to USAF, 20CR-
64-218E, 12 May and 2CCR-64-223E, 13 May 1964; The Pentagon Papers as
Published by the New York Times (New York: Bantam Books, Inc., 1971)
p. 246.
34. CQ Background, China and US. Far East Policy, 1945-1967, p. 139.
35. Joseph C. Goulden, Truth is the First Casualty, The Gulf of
Tonkin Affair--Illusion and Reality (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1969), pp.
87-91.
36. Hist. PACAF, Jan-June 1964, vol I, pt. 2, Hist. Direc. of
Plans, Apr. 1964.
37. PACAF Reference Book for 13 May 1964 SECDEF Conference, Pt. II,
Tab. G.
38. Pentagon Papers, p. 246.
39. Ibid., pp. 245-249; msg., JCS to CINCPAC, 21 May 1964.
40. Pentagon Papers, pp. 249-250
41. Ibid., p. 250.
632
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42. Jules Davids, ed., Documents on American Foreign Relations,
1964 (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1964), Pp. 232-239.
43. AFXOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item IV-0.
44. Pentagon Papers, pp. 250-251.
L. AFXOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item IV-0.
46. Pentagon Papers, n. 256.
47. Msg., JCS-7224 to CINCPAC, 2 July 1964; msg., JCS-7298 to
CINCPAC, 9 July 1964; Hist. PACAF, July 1964-June 1965, III, Hist. Rpt.
DOPL, Nov. 1964.
48. Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1964, 1, Pt. 2, pp. 171-172; Pentagon
Papers, p. 247.
49. Msg., 2AD to PACAF, 2CCR-63-0046A, 27 Jan. 1963.
O. Sharp-Westmoreland Eaort? p. 104.
51. Hist. PACAF, July-Dec. 1963, I, pt. 2, Hist. Rpt., Direc. of
Policy, Dec. 1963; msg., 2AD to PACAF, 2CVC-326L-631 3 Dec. 1963; ltr.,
Brig. Gen. Milton B. Adams, Asst. CofS J-5 MACV, to Chief USMAAGV,
subj: RVNAF Reorganization, ca, 8 Dec. 1963; msg., 20 to PACAF and
13AF, 2CCR-63-331L, 9 Dec. 19; msg., CINCPAGAF to COMUSMACV, 5AF-DA3-
0457, 13 Dec. 1963.
52. Meg., PACAF to 13AF and 2AD, PFCNC-700, 11 Dec. 1963.
53. Msg., 2AD to PACAF, 2CCR-64-197E, 4 May 1964.
54. Msg., PACAF to 13AF and 20, PFCVC-310, 18 Apr. 1964.
55. Msgs., 2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-640170D, 20 Apr. 1964; 2AD
to PACAF, 2CCR-64-197E, A.; May 1964; PACAF to USAF, 3 June 1964.
56. Rpt., Lt Col Bill A. Montgomery, ALO I Corps, to 2AD (AOC),
subj: ALO Report for 1-29 February 1964, 12 Mar. 1964; ltr., Maj. Gen.
J. H. Moore, Comdr. 2AD to Ky, subj: Organizational and Operational
Structure of VNAF, 3 Apr. 1964; msg., PACAF to USAF, 3 June 1964.
57. Msg., 2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-64-170D, 20 Apr. 1964; msg.,
2AD to PACAF, 2CCR-64-192E, 2 May 1964.
33
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58. Rpt., Montgomery to 2AD (AOC), subj: AIO Report for 1-31
March 1964, 16 Apr. 1964.
59. Ltr., Vincent H. Everding, Chief Opns. Anal., 2AD, to Dr.
Robert E. Hiller, Asst. for Opns. Anal., PACAF, 8 Jan. 1965; Address of
General Moore at PACAF Commanders Conference, 22-25 Feb. 1964.
60. Hist. PACAF, July 1964-June 1965, I, pt. 2, ch. II, pp. 46-55;
Hist. Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Plans and Opns., USAF, July-Dec. 1963,
p. 233.
61. Ltr., Gen. Jacob E. Smart, CINCPACAF, to Taylor, 8 Apr. 1964.
62. Msg., PACAF to USAF, PFLP0-3131-64, 21 Mar. 1964; msg., CINCPAC
to JCS, 220910Z March 1964.
63. Ltr., Smart to Taylor, 8 Apr. 1964; ltr., Taylor to Smart, n.d.
64. Msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 220910Z Mar. 1964; Hist. PACAF, Jan-June
1964, I, pt. 2, Hist. Direc of Policy, Apr. 1964.
65. Msg., PACAF to 13AF and 2AD, PFCVC-310, 18 Apr. 1964.
66. Msg., 2AD to USAF, 2CCR-64-164D, 17 Apr. 1964.
67. Msg., 2AD to 13AF and PACAF, 2CCR-64-107C, 24 Mar. 1964; msg.,
2AD to 5AF, 2CCR-64-1870, 29 Apr. 1964.
68. Msg., 2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-64-177D, 23 Apr. 1964; msg.,
2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-64-170D, 20 Apr. 1964.
69. Msg., 2AD to PACAF, 2CCR-64-205E, 7 May 1964; PACAF Reference
Book for 13 May 1964 SECDEF Conference, Plans Fact Sheet No. 8; Hist.
PAW, Jan.-June 1964, I, pt. 2, Hist. Direc. of Programs, May 1964.
70. PACAF Reference Book for 13 May 1964 SECDEF Conference, Talking
Paper No. 4; Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1964, I, pt. 2, Hist. Direc. of
Policy, May 1964.
71. Hist. PACAF, July 1964-June 1964, I, pt. 2, ch. II, PP. )46-55.
72. AFXGPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, Item VII-C; msg.,
USAF to PACAF, AFXPD-17-6-326, 17 June 1964; msg., MACV to JCS, MAC-
S01-5082, 19 June 1964; msg., USAF to PACAF, AF1PD-19-6-375, 19 June
1964; Hist. PACAF, July 1964-June 1965, I, pt. 2, pp. 46-55.
634
111.100104 t
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73. Hist. PACAF, July 1964-June 1965, 1, Pt. 2, PP. 46-55; AFXOPJ,
Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item VII-I; msg., USAF to
PAW, APD-9202l, 6 Mar. 1965; Telecon #0021 MACV to CINCPAC, 210612Z
Mar 1965; msg., PACAF to USAF, DPL-51066, 25 Mar. 1965; msg., COMUSMACV
to CINCPAC, MAC-J5-10021, 30 Mar. 1965; msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 312300Z
Mar. 1965; msg., PACAF to 13AF et al., DPL-51204, 25 June 1965; Hist.
PACAF, July 1964-June 1965, 1, Pt. 2/ PP. 59-62; Hq. PACAF Special
Order G-90, 6 July 1965.
74. Montgomery End of Tour Report, 27 June 1964; Col. Robert J.
Laughry, Comdr. 23d Air Base Op., End of Tour Report, 22 July 1964.;
Pierce End of Tour Report, 24 July 1964; Walker End of Tour Report,
21 Aug. 1964.
75. Msg., 2AD to PACAF, 2cCR-65-45-0601, 28 Jan. 1965.
76. Ltr., Moore to Baron, 18 Jan. 1965.
77. AFXPD, Debriefing Report of Colonel David T. Fleming, 9 Aug.
1965.
78. Ltr., Col. W. D. Ritchie, IG PACAF, to 2AD (CCR), subj: Special
Assistance Inspection of Southeast Asia, 2 Oct. 1964.
?
79. Msg., PACAF to 13AF and 2AD, DOP-50029, 23 Jan. 1965.
80. Hq. 2AD, Operations Analysis Division, Technical Memo No. 4,
Planning and Control of Air-Ground Operations in South Vietnam, 1 JUMB 1965.
81. Hq. USMACV Directive No. 95-11, subj: Aviation: Joint Air-
Ground Operations System (JAGOS), 21 June 1966.
82. Ltr., Smart to Taylor, 8 Apr. 1964.
83. 88th Cong. 2d Sess., Foreign Assistance and Related Agencies
Appropriations for 1965, Hearinp before the Committee on Appropriations,
US Senate (Washington: GPO, 190L), pp. 206-207; msg., 2AD to USAF, 2CCR-
64-164D, 17 Apr. 1964.
84. Msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 162040Z Mar. 1964; msg., 2AD to PACAF
and 131F, 2 CCR-64-160D, 15 Apr. 1964.
85. Ltr., Anthis to Smart, 25 Nov. 1963; PACAF Reference Book
for November 1963 SECDEF Conference, Tab. 2A.
635
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86. Ltr., Ross to MACV J-5, subj: Phase-Out of US Forces, 23
Oct. 1963; PACAF Reference Book for November 1963 SECDEF Conference,
Tab 2A; msg., PACAF to USAF, PFDOP-63-3111, 9 Nov. 1963; Hist. PACAF,
Jan.-June 1964, I, pt. 2, ?Hist. Direc. of Policy, Jan. 1964.
87. Rpt., Mellish to Dep. Director III ASOC, Subj: III Corps
ALO Report for January 1965, 15 Feb. 1964.
88. Msg., 2AD to PAW, 2AFT4-V-0-10-63A-1, 10 Jan. 1964; 2AD Opns.
Analysis Paper No. 4, 11 Feb. 1964.
89. Hist. 2AD, Jan.-June 1964, vol. 2, p. 28; msg., 2AD to PACAF,
2CCR-64-61B, 21 Feb. 1964.
90. Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1964, I, pt. 2, Hist. Direc. of Policy,
Jan. 1964; msg., 2AD to 13AF, 2CCR-64-041A, 23 Jan. 1964.
91. Msg., 2AD to PACAF, 2CCR-64-055B? 18 Feb. 1964; msg., CINCPAC
to JCS, 210550Z Feb. 1964; msg., COMUSMACV to JCS, MAC-J3-1357, 22 Feb.
1964; AFXOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item III K.
92. Msgs., 2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-64-077C, 8 Mar. 1964; msg.,
2AD to PACAF, USAF, and 13AF, 2CCR-64-084B, 10 Mar. 1964; Hist. PACAF,
Jan.-June 1964, III, Hist. PFPPL, Mar. 1964.
93. Ltr., Smart to Taylor, 8 Apr. 1964; PACAF Reference Book for
12 March 1964 SECDEF Conference, Tab. 13; AFXOPJ, Book on Actions in
Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item III K.
94. Msg., 2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-64-08C, 1 Mar. 1964; Col.
Benjamin S. Preston, Jr., Comdr. 34th Tac. Gp., End-of-Tour Report,
July 1964; Hist. 2AD, Jan.-June 1964, vol 9, doe. 12.
95. Hist. 2AD, Jan.-June 1964, vol. 2, p. 31; msg., PACAF to CINCPAG,
PFDOP-3052, 28 Mar. 1964.
96. ZAD Chronology, Jan.-Dec. 1964; Hist. 2AD, Jan.-June 1964, vol.
6, doc. 21.
97. Msg., 2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-64-097C, 18 Mar. 1964; msg.,
PACAF to CINCPAC, PFD0P-3052, 28 Mar. 1964; msg., CINCPAC to JCS,
010428Z Apr. 1964.
98. Preston End-of-Tour Report, July 1964; msg., 2AD to USAF,
2CCR-64-114C, 25 Mar. 1964; msg., 2AD to USAF, 2CCR-64-130D, 1 Apr.
1964; Trip Report, Justing MacDonald and Howard Anderson, McClellan
AFB, Calif., 10 Apr. 1964; ltr., Moore to LeMay, 7 Apr. 1964; Hist. PACAF,
Jan.-June 1964, III, Hist. PFOCO, Apr. 1964; msg., 2AD to 13AF and PACAF,
2CCR-64-180D, 24 Apr. 1964.
636
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',Nov
99. Msg., 2AD to PACAF, 2CCR-64-148D, 12 Apr. 1964; rpt., Mellish
to Dep. Director III ASOC, subj: III Corps ALO Report for December
1963, 15 Jan. 1964, ltr., Moore to MACV (J-3), subj: Quarterly Review
and Evaluation -- July-September 1964, 22 Oct. 1964.
100. Rpt., Capt. Don O. Quane, 21st Div. AW/FAC, to IV Corps A10,
subj: After Action Report, 29 Jan. 1964.
101. Rpt., Lt. Olin B. Cundiff, ALO/FAC 7th Div., to III Corps ALO,
subj: After Action Report (7th Division Operation Phung Hoang I), ca.
28 Jan. 1964.
102. 1st Ind. (Rpt., Cundiff to III Corps A1,01 ca. 28 Jan. 196)4),
Mellish to ALO/FAC Sect. AOC, 8 Feb. 1964; rpt, Butler to IV ASOC, subj:
After Action Report, 16 Jan. 1964.
103. Rpt., Mellish to Dep. Director III ASOC, subj: III Corps ALO,
Report for December 1963, 15 Jan. 1964; 2AD Chronology, Jan.-Dec. 1964,
16 Jan. 1964; rpt., Mellish to 2AD (AOC), subj: III Corps AIO Report
for February, 15 Mar. 1964; rpt., Lt. Anthony J. Zilinsky, Jr., Intel.
Off. 111 ASOC to Dep. Director AOC, subj: Report of Staff Visit, 10
Mar. 1963.
104. Rpt., Mellish to Dep. Director III ASOC, subj: III Corps ALO
Report for January 1964, 15 Feb. 1964.
105. Rpt., Mellish to 2AD (AOC), subj: III Corps ALO Report for
March, 15 Apr. 1964.
106. Rpt., Capt. Don O. QIIRre, 21st Div. FAC, to Dep. Director, IV
ASOC, subj: After Action Report, 30 Jan. 1964.
107. Rpt., Maj. Earl D. Jameson, ALO 5th Div., to ALL) III Corps,
subj: After Action Report (Chinh Nghia 2), 10 Mar. 1964; 1st Ind., Mellish
to Dep. Director III ASOC, 13 Mar. 1964; 2d Ind., Lt. Col. Albert H. Holman,
Dep. Director III ASOC, to AOC, 19 Mar. 1964; rpt., Mellish to 2AD (AOC),
subj: III Corps AIL Report for March, 15 Apr. 1964.
108. Ltr., Mellish to all AIO/FACs, subj: Information for III Corps
ALO/FACs, 18 Mar. 1964; 1st Ind. (Rpt., Capt. William H. Leimkuehler,
FAC Than Thiet to Corps ALO, subj: After Action Report Binh Lam Special
Zone Operation #2, 27 Mar. 196)4), to Director III ASOC, 1 Apr. 1964;
Atchd memo for 2CCR from AOC, n.d.
109. Rpt., Mellish to 2AD (AOC), subj: III Corps ALO Report for
March, 15 Apr. 1964.
110. Butler End-of-Tour Report, 8 June 1964.
637
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111. Rpt., Maj. Alan G. Nelson, 9th Inf. Div., to IV Corps ALO,
subj: Informal Report on USAF/VNAF Air Operations in Support of the
41st Tactical zone, 4 may 1964.
112. Rpt., Quane to IV Corps ALO, subj: After Action Report
(Operation Dan Chi 626), 14 Apr. 1964; 2d Ind., Lt Colonel Clarence R.
Osburne, Jr., ALO IV Corps, to Dep. Director IV ASOC, 22 Apr. 1964.
113. Rpt. Butler to ALO IV Corps, subj: After Action Report
Dam Chi 33, 27 May 1964; 2d Ind., Lt. Col. Milton R. Pierce, Dep. Direc-
tor IV ASOC, to Dep. Director AOC, 20 May 1964.
114. Msg., PACAF to 2AD, PFCVC-298, 14 Apr. 1964; msg., 2AD to
PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-64-160D, 15 Apr. 1964.
115. Msg., 2AD to 13AF, 2CCR-64-073C, 3 Mar. 1964; msg., 2AD to
ASOCs, 2A0C-64-1325, 21 Mar. 1964.
116. Msg., 2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-64-170D, 20 Apr. 1964;
msg., 2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-64-231E, 18 May 1964.
117. Msg., 2AD to 13AF, 20DC-0640-64, 6 Feb. 1964; msg., 2AD to
PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-64-170D, 20 Apr. 1964.
118. Msg., 2AD to PACAF, 2CCR-64-148D, 12 Apr. 1964.
119. Msg., 2AD to 13AF, 2CCR-64-035A, 21 Jan. 1964; msg., 2AD to
13AF, 2opc-o640-64, 6 Feb. 1964.
120. Msg., 2AD to 13AF andPACAF, 2CCR-64-069C, 2 Mar. 1964; msg.,
2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-64-160D, 15 Apr. 1964; msg., 2AD to PACAF
and 13 AF, 2CCR-64-170D, 20 Apr. 1964; msg., PACAF to 13AF, PAF0P-PFLMO-
R-6413-62, 8 may 1964.
121. Msg., 2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-64-160D, 15 Apr. 1964;
msg., 2AD to USAF, 2CCR-64-164D, 17 Apr. 1964; ltr., Harkins to Maj.
Gen. Tran Thien Khiem, CINC RVNAF, subj: Ways to Improve VNAF Respon-
siveness, 17 Apr. 1964; PACAF Reference Book for 13 May 1964 SECDBF Con-
ference, Plans Fact Sheet No. 3; AFIOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast
Asia, 1961-1964, Item III-N.
122. Msg., 2AD to 13AF, 2CCR-64-224E, 15 May 1964.
123. Ltr., Moore to LeMay, 7 Apr. 1964; msg., 2AD to USAF and
PACAF, 2CCR-64-148D, 12 Apr. 1964.
124. Msg., PACAF to 2AD, PFLDC-2252-64, 6 May 1964; msg., USAF
to PACAF, AFXDC-74475, 30 Apr. 1964.
125. Memo for Moore from Richard T. Sandborn, Chief Opns. Analysis
2AD, 7 May 1964.
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126. Msg., PACAF to CINGPAC, PFDOP-64-64-315, 27 Apr. 1964; msg.,
USAF to PACAF, AFXDC-74475, 30 Apr. 1964; msg., 13AF to PACAF and 2AD,
13CCR-08-05-16? 8 May 1964; msg., 2AD to PACAF, 2CCR-64-209E, 8 May 1964.
127. PACAF Reference Book for 12 March 1964 SECDEF Conference,
Tab. 9.
128. Msg., 2AD to 13AF and PACAF, 2CCR-64-180D? 24 Apr. 1964.
129. Msg., PACAF to USAF, m0P-5-5-27, 5 may 1964.
130. AFIOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item
III .111; msg., USAF to PACAF, AFXDC-74475, 30 Apr. 1964.
131. Msg., PACAF to 2AD, PFLDC-2252-64, 6 May 1964; msg., PACAF
to CINCFAC, 10,Foc-64-5-2, 4 May 1964; msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 080218Z May
1964.
132. Msg., 2AD to PACAF and 131F, 2CCR-64-214E, 11 May 1964; msg.,
2AD to USAF, 2CCR-64-223E, 13 May 1964.
133. 88th Cong. 2d Sess., Foreign Assistance and Related Agencies
Appropriations for 1965, Hearings before the Committee on Appropriations,
U.S. Senate (Washington: GPO, 1964), p. 181.
134. Msg., USAF to PACAF, AF1PD0-16-5-273, 16 May 1964.
135. Msg., JCS-6399 to CINCPAC, 20 May 1964.
136. Hist. 2AD, Jan.-June 1964, vol. 1, PP. 48-52; PACAF Reference
Book for 13 May 1964 SECDEF Conference, Talking Paper 6A; Maj. Walter S.
Bruce, ALO 25th Div., End-of-Tour Report, ca. June 1964; Sharp-Westmoreland
Report, p. 90.
137. Rpt., Montgomery to 2AD (AOC), subj: ALO Report for 1-31
May 1964, 8 June 1964; msg., 210 to PACAF, 2CCR-64-271F, 1 June 1964.
138. Hist. 210, Jan.-June 1964, vol. II, doc. 12; ltr., Moore to
COMUSMACV (MACV J-3), subj: MONEVAL, 2 June 1964.
139. Msg., 20 to PACAF, 2CCR-64-271F, 1 June 1964; msg., 2AD to
PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-280E-64, 4 June 1964.
140. Msg., 2AD to PACAF, 2CCR-64-271F, 1 June 1964; msg., GINCPAC
to CINCFACFLT, 032109Z June 1964; msg., 2AD to PACAF, 2CCR-64-288F,
7 June 1964.
141. Msg., CINCFAC tc COMUSMACV, 0400181 June 1964.
142. Msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 172140Z June 1964; AFIOPJ, Book on
Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item VII G.
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143. Preston End-of-Tour Report, July 1964; msg., 2AD to PACAF
and 13AF, 2CCR-280E-64, 4 June 1964; ltr., Moore to COMUSMACV (MACV J-3),
subj: MONEVAL, 2 June 1964.
100i. Interview with Colonel William E. Bethea, Comdr., 34th Tac.
Gp., Jan. 1965, in Hist. 2AD, July-Dec. 1965, vol. 5, doe. 5; Hist.
PACAF, Jan.-June 1964, III, PFMSS Wkly. Activity Report, 27 June-3
July 1964; rpt., Moore to COMUSMACV (MACV J-3), subj: MONEVAL, 3 Aug. 1964.
145. Ltr., Moore to MACV (J-3), subj: Quarterly Review and Evalua-
tion--July-September 1964, 22 Oct. 1964.
146. Msg., 2AD to USAF, 2CVC-64-225E, 15 May 1964; Opns Analysis
Officer 2AD, Counterinsurgency Lessons Learned, 4 July 1964; msg., PACAF
to USAF, PAFOP/PFLMD-R-6413-62, 8 May 1964; Hist. ALO/FAC in Hist. 2AD,
Jan.-June 1964, vol. 9, doe. 9.
147. Msgs., 2AD to USAF, 2CCR-64-164D, 17 Apr. 1964; 2AD to PACAF
and 13AF, 2CCR-64-170D, 20 Apr. 1964; 2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-64-231E,
18 May 1964.
148. Opns. Analysis Office 2AD, Counterinsurgency Lessons Learned,
4 July 1964; rpt., Lt. Col. Albert H. Holman, AIA) III Corps, to 2AD (ADC),
subj: Operational Problems of VNAF Air Request Net, 8 June 1964; ltr.,
MSgt Clarence M. Hall, NCOIC AOC-TACOM, to Dep. Director AOC, subj:
Communications Equipment and Operating Problems in the Air Request Net,
ca. 1 July 1964.
149. Hist. Data 2A0C, July-Dec. 1964, in Hist. 2AD, July-Dec. 1964,
vol. 5, doe. 11; ltr., Moore to Col. Oakley W. Baron, 18 Jan. 1964.
150. Rpt., Mellish to 2AD, subj: III Corps ALO Report for April
1964, 15 May 1964.
151. Ibid., ltr, Rowland to Ky, subj: VNAF Air Liaison Officers,
26 Oct. 1967--
152. Ltr., Hall to Dep. Director AOC, subj: Communications Equip-
ment and Operating Problems in the Air Request Net, ca. 11 July 1964.
153. Rpt., Maj. Carlos O. Beasley, ALO 7th Div., to 2AD (AOC), subj:
AIA) Report for April 1964, 5 May 1964.
154. Rpt., Butler to AIA) IV Corps, subj: After Action Report,
4 ane 1964.
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NOV
155. Rpt., Mellish to 2.01 (AOC), subj: III Corps ALO Report for
April 1964, 15 May 1964; Lt. Col. Bill A. Montgomery, ALO I Corps, End-
of-Tour Report, 27 June 1964; Pierce End-of-Tour Report, 24 July 1964.
156. Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1964, I, pt. 2, Hist. Rpt., Director
of Policy, June 1964.
157. Rpt., Moore to COMUSMACV (MAC J-3), subj: MONEVAL, 3 Aug. 1964.
158. Ltr., Moore to Brig. Gen. W. E. DePuy, Asst. CofS J-3 MACV,
subj: Air Support at Nam Dong, 17 July 1964; Sharp-Westmoreland Report,
p. 93.
159. Pierce End-of-Tour Report, 24 July 1964; Hist. 2AD, July-
Dec. 1964, vol. 2, pp. 58-60.
160. Rpt., Capt. Franklin D. Peschel, ALO 8th Rgt., to ALO, III
Corps, subj: Interim Report, 29 July 1964; 1st Ind., Maj. Earl D. Jame-
son, ALO 5th Div., to ALO III Corps, 1 Aug. 1964; Hist. 2AD, July-Dec.
1964, vol. 2, pp. 61-64; ltr., Lt. Col. John P. O'Regan, Dep. Director
III ASOC to 2.0 AOC, Subj: Procedures for FAC and FAG, 21 Aug. 1964.
161. Opns. Analysis Office 2AD, Counterinsurgency Lessons Learned,
4 July 1964.
162. Pierce End-of-Tour Report, 24 July 1964.
163. Opns. Analysis Office 2AD, Counterinsurgency Lessons Learned,
4 July 1964.
164. Msg., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MAC -J3-6180, 16 July 1964; msg.,
CINCPAC to JCS, 20 July 1964; msg., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MAC-J3-7012,
28 July 1964.
165. Rpt., Maj. Alan G. Nelson, 9th Div. A10, to IV Corps ALO, subj:
Informal Report on USAF/VNAF Air Operations in Support of the 41st
Tactical Zone for the Period 1 March-30 April 1964, 4 May 1964.
166. Msg., COMUSMACV to CINCFAC, MAC-J3-6180, 16 July 1964.
167. Msg., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MAC-J3-7012, 28 July 1964.
168. Msg., COMUSMACV to OASD/PA, MAC01-8436, 20 Aug. 1964; Hq. 2.0/
USASCV Operating Instructions No. 1, 1 Aug. 1964; ltr., Col. W. D. Ritchie,
IG PAW, to 2AD (2CCR), subj: Special Assistance Inspection of Southeast
Asia, 2 Oct. 1964.
?
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169. Rpt., Ritchie to ZAD (2CCR), subj: Special Assistance In-
spection of Southeast Asia, 2 Oct. 1964; Hist. Tactical Air Command,
1964, I, 294; msg., PACAF to CINCPAC, PFCVC -744, 5 Sept. 1964; msg., USAF
to PACAF, AFXPD -70379, 7 Sept. 1964; Opns. Analysis Division 21DI Tech-
nical Memo No. 4, 1 June 1965.
170. Col. Allison C. Brooks, Dep. Comdr. 21W, End-of-Tour Report,
9 Jan. 1965; ltr., Moore to Baron, 18 Jan. 1965.
171. Msg., ZAD to USAF, 20DC-1259-64, 21 Sept. 1964, ltr., Moore
to Baron, 18 Jan. 1964; Brooks End-of-Tour Report, 9 Jan. 1964.
172. Msg., PAW to CINCPAC and USAF, PFDOP-5153-63, 27 Nov. 1964.
173. Ibid.
174. Msg., CINCPAC to OSD/ISA, 6 Dec. 1963.
175. Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1964, I, Pt. 2, p. 147; msg., CINCPAC
to OSD/ISA, 6 Dec. 1963; AFIOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-
1964, Item
176. Msg., PACAF to CINCPAC, PFCVC-0441 13 Jan. 1964; msg., PACAF
to CINCPAC, PFDOP-5010 -64, 25 Feb. 1964.
177. AFIOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item
III-H; Hist. SAWC, Jan.-June 1964, I, 44-48, 61-65; Hist. PACAF, Jan.-
June 1964, 1, Pt. 2, p. 148.
178. Msg., JCS-5234 to CINCPAC, 9 Mar. 1964; msg., PACAF to ZAD,
27 Mar. 1964; Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1964, 1, pt. 2, Hist. Direc. of
Policy, Mar. 1964.
179. Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1964, 1, Pt. 2, p. 148; Hist. PACAF,
Jan.-June 1965, I, pt. 2, Yankee Team Chronology, pp. 66-67; msg., AMEMB
Vientiane to SECSTATE, #1669, 17 May 1964.
180. Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1964, 1, Pt. 2, p. 150; Hist. PACAF,
Jan.-June 1964, I, pt. 2, Yankee Team Chronology, pp. 67-82; msg., JCS-
2215 to CINCPAC, 18 May 1964; msg., JCS-2274 to CINCPAC and COMUSMACV,
20 May 1964.
181. Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1964, I, pt. 2, p. 151; Ibid., Yankee
Team Chronology, pp. 76-77; msg., 2AD to 13AF, 2CCR-64 -249E, 25 May 1964;
msg., AMEMB Vientiane to SECSTATE, #14421 27 May 1964; Capt. Thomas R.
Knox, ffWaterpump, 1964-1965," Aerospace Commentary, vol. II, no. 2
(Spring 1970), pp. 51-52.
642
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182. Knox, "Waterpump, 1964-1965," p. 57; Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June
1964, I, pt. 2, pp. 151-152; msg., USAIRA Vientiane to DIA, 01-332,
27 June 1964; Project CHECO, USAF Operations from Thailand, 1964-1965,
p. 18.
183. Msg., 13AF to PACAF, 13 CCR-6-003, 1 May 1964.
184. Project CHECO, USAF Operations from Thailand, 1964-1965,
p. 30; msg., 2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-64-252E, 26 May 1964.
185. Msg., 2AD to 13AF, 2CCR-64-249E, 25 May 1964; msg., ZAD to
PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-64-252E, 26 May 1964; msg., 2AD to 13AF and PACAF,
2CCR-64-001F? 1 June 1964; msg. 2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-64-283F?
5 June 1964; msg., PACAF to 13AF and 2AD, PFODC-1099-64, 7 June 1964.
186. Msg., USAIRA Vientiane to DIA, CX-332, 27 June 1964; msg.,
2AD to 13AF, 2CCR-64-482-J, 10 Sept. 1964; AFXOPJ, Book on Actions in
Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item III H; Knox, Naterpump, 1964-1965."
PP. 54-57.
187. Msg., 2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-64-244E, 22 May 1964; msg.,
2AD to 13AF, 2CCR-64-249E, 25 May 1964.
188. Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1964, I, pt. 2, Yankee Team Chronology,
pp. 67-82; AFXOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item
V-B; msg., JCS-6470 to CINCPAC at al., 25 May 1964.
189. Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1964, I, pt. 2, Yankee Team Chronology,
PP. 67-82; msg., AMEMB Vientiane to SECSTATE, #1441, 27 May 1964.
190. Msg., USAIRA Vientiane to DIA, al-332, 27 June 1964.
191. Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1964, I, pt. 2, Yankee Team Chronology,
pp. 82-109; Project CHECO, USAF Search and Rescue in Southeast Asia,
1961-1966, p. 31; Project MECO, USAF Operations from Thailand, 1964-
1965, p. 116.
192. Interview with Maj. Alan W. Saunders, Det 3, Pacific Air Res-
cue Center, by CHECO, 1 July 1964.
193. Msg., 2AD to CIG 77.4, 2CCR-64-286F, 7 June 1964; msg., 13AF
to 2AD, 060743A June 1964; msg., AMEMB Vientiane to SECSTATE, #1532, 6
June 1964; Project CHECO, USAF Operations from Thailand, 1964-1965,
pp. 116-118.
194. Project CHECO, USAF Search and Rescue in Southeast Asia,
1961-1966, pp. 18-19; Project MECO, USAF Operations from Thailand, 1964-
1965, pp. 118-121; Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1964, I, pt. 2, Yankee Team
Chronology, pp. 82-109.
643
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195. Msg., 2AD to 13AF, 13 June 1964; msg., PACAF to TAC, PFCVC-
64-6-14, 17 June 1964; Hist. PACAF, Jan.-Jure 1964, I, pt. 2, Yankee
Team Chronology, pp. 82-109.
196. Msg., AMEMB Vientiane to PACAF, #1587, 11 June 1964; msg.,
PACAF to 13AF and 2AD, 12 June 1964; AFXOPJ, Book on Actions in South-
east Asia, 1961-1964, Item V-D.
197. Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1964, I, pt. 2, Yankee Team Chronology,
pp. 82-123.
198. AFXOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item
IV-Q and Item V-D.
199. Msg., 2AD to CHJUSMAGTHAI, 2CCR-64-323G, 2 July 1964; msg.,
13AF to 2AD, 130VC-07-066, 6 July 1964.
200. Msg., PACAF to CINCPAC, PFCNC-64-6-24, 2 July 1964; msg.,
ARFAC to CINCPAC, ARP-9989, 3 July 1964.
201. Msg., CINCPAC to MACV, 4 July 1964; Hist. Data, 21W (201)0-
CP), July-Dec. 1964, in Hist. 2AD, July-Dec. 1964, vol. 5, doc. 11.
202. Memo for record by Moore, subj: Visit with Ambassador Martin
and Major General Easterbrook, 9 July 1964; Project CHECO, USAF Operations
from Thailand, 1964-1965, pp. 9-13.
203. Knox, "Waterpump, 1964-1965," pp. 57-59; 91st Cong 1st Sess.,
United States Security Agreements and Commitments Abroad, Hearings before
the Subcommittee on United States Security Agreements and Commitments
Abroad of the Committee on Foreign Relations & U.S. Senate (-Washington:
GPO, 1970), pt. 2, Kingdom of Laos, pp. 457, 475-476, 476-479.
204. Public Papers of the Presidents, Lyndon B. Johnson, 1963-1964,
(Washington: GPO, 1965), Vol. 1, pp. 663-666.
205. Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1964, I, pt. 2, Yankee Team Chronology,
pp. 66-67.
206. 6Q Background, China and U.S. Far East Policy, 1945-1947, p. 139.
207. 88th Cong. 2d Sess., Foreign Assistance 1964, Hearings before
the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate (Washington: GPO, 196)4,
pp. 292, 295.
644
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208. Msg., AMEMB Vientiane to SECSTATE, #1381 22 July 1964;
88th Cong. 2d Sess., Foreign Assistance and Related Agencies Appro-
priations for 1965, Hearingz_hefore the Comnittee on Appropriations,
U.S. Senate(Washington: GPO, 1964), PP. 493, 515-519; Hist. PACAF,
Jan.-June 1964, I, pt. 2, Yankee Team Chronology, pp. 109-123.
209. Jules Davids, ed., Documents on American Foreign Relations,
1964 (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1965), Pp. 230-232.
210. Msg. SECSTATE to AMEMB Vientiane, 7 Aug. 1964, in Pentagon
Papers, pp. 345-346.
211. Msg., 13AF to ATF 13(P), 13CVC-10-10-31, 10 Oct. 1964,
citing PFIDC-54-64, 9 Oct. 1964.
212. Maxwell Taylor, "The Case for Continued Bombing of the North,"
Washington Star, 22 Oct. 1967.
IV-Q.
213. AFXOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item
214. Msg., JCS to CINCPAC, 2 July 1964.
215. Msg., 2AD to PACAF and 13AF, Telecon #684, 23 Mar. 1964.
216. Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1964, I, pt. 2, Hist. Rpts. Dirac. of
Plans, Jan.-Mar. 1964; Joseph C. Goulden, Truth is the First Casualty,
The Gulf of Tonkin Affair?Illusion and Reality (Chicago: Rand McNally
& Co., 1969), PP. 33, 92-95.
217. Goulden, Truth is the First Casualty, p. 32; CQ Background,
China and U.S. Far East Policy, 1945-1967, p. 142.
218. Pentagon Papers, pp. 258, 288-289.
219. Msgs., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MAO-J32-6215, 17 July 1964; COMUSMACV
to CINCPAC, MAC-J34-8213, 16 Aug. 1964.
220. Goulden, Truth is the First Casualty, pp. 86, 127-128.
221. Ibid., pp. 124-125; msg., CINCPACFLT to CINCFAC, 240337Z July
1964; Hist.7-Erst Air Div., July-Dec. 1964, Pp. 66-70.
222. Sharp-Westmoreland Report, pp. 11r13; 90th Cong. 2d Sess.,
The Gulf of Tonkin, The 1964 Incidents, Hearing before the Committee on
Forei Relations, U.S. Senate . . . on February 20, 1968 (Washington:
GPO, 19 , assim; Goulden, Truth is the First Casualty, pp. 79-81,
122-157; Davids, ed., Documents on American Foreign Relations, 1964,
pp. 216-217.
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223. Hist. 405th Ftr. Wg., July-Dec. 1964, vol. 2, doe. 2; msg.,
JCS-7729 to CINCPAC, 5 Aug. 1964.
224. Msg., COMUSMACV and AMEMB to CINCPAC, JCS, STATE, WHITE
HOUSE, MAC-J0071425, 5 Aug. 1964.
225. Msg., DEPCOMUSMACTHAI to CINCPAC, 071402Z Aug. 1964.
226. Telecon No. 1, 2AD to 13AF, 7 Aug. 1964.
227. Msg., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MAC-J00-7550, 7 Aug. 1964; msg.,
CINCPAC to COMUSMACV, et al., 080300Z Aug. 1964.
228. Msg., CDTCPACAF to CINCPAC, PF0C0-S-64-1388, 8 Aug. 1964.
229. AF1OPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item
III P; msg., JCS-7729 to CINCPAC, 5 Aug. 1964; Hist. Data, Plans and
Rqmts. Div., 2AD, July-Dec. 1964; Hist. TAC, July-Dec. 1964, Vol. 4,
Doc.4; Hist. 405th Ftr. Wt., July-Dec. 1964, vol. 2, does. 3 and 4;
Hist. 41st Air Div., July-Dec. 1964, pp. 55-58; Hist. 401st Tac. Ftr.
Wt., July-Dec. 1964, pp. 33-34; Hist. 27th Tac. Ftr. Wg., July-Dec.
1964, Appendix I; Hist. 313th Air Div., July 1964-June 1965, p. 302;
Hist. SAC, July-Dec. 1964, p. 131.
230. Pentagon Papers, pp. 268-269; msg., CINCPACAF to CINCPAC,
PFOCO-S-64-1388, 8 Aug. 1964; Sharp-Westmoreland Retort, p. 13; msg.,
2AD to Multiple Addressees, 2IDC/lEA-65, 7 Apr. 196'5.
231. Msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 050920Z Aug. 1964.
232. Msg., CINCPACAF to CINCPAC, PFOCO-S-64-1388, 8 Aug. 1964.
233. Msg., AMEMB Saigon to SECSTATE, 9 Aug. 1964, in Pentagon
Papers, pp. 346-348; Excerpts from Summary of Ambassador Taylor's
Mission Report from Saigon, 10 Aug. 1964, in Pentagon Papers, pp. 291-294.
234. Bundy Memo on Actions Available to the United States After
Tonkin, Pentagon Papers, pp. 294-298; AFrOPJ, Book on Actions in South-
east Asia, 1961-1964, Item IV-T.
235. Msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 17 Aug. 1964, in Pentagon Papers, pp.
298-300.
236. Msg., US Mission Saigon to State Dept., 18 Aug. 1964, in
Pentagon Papers, pp. 349-352.
646
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237. AFXOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964,
Item IV-X.
238. JCS Memo for SECDEF. 26 Aug. 1964, in Pentagon Papers,
pp. 354-355.
239. DIA, Cold War (Counterinsurgency) Analysis, RVN, 1 Dec.
1964; Sharp-Westmoreland Report., p. 94; 2AD Chronology, Jan.-Dec. 1964.
240. Hist. Data, Plans & Rqmts. Div. 2AD, July-Dec. 1964; msg.,
2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-64-447H, 25 Aug. 1964; msg., 2AD to 13AF
2CCR-005411 28 Oct. 1964.
241. AFXOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964,
Item rv-I.
242. Memo for Johnson from Bundy, subj: Courses of Action for
South Vietnam, 8 Sept. 1964 in Pentagon Papers, pp. 357-359.
243. AFIOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964,
Item IV-T.
?
?
244. NSAM of 10 Sept. 1964 in Pentagon Papers, pp. 359-360.
245. DIA, Cold War (Counterinsurgency) Analysis, RVN, 1 Dec. 1964;
Sharp-Westmoreland Report, pp. 90, 94-95; 2AD Chronology, Jan.-Dec. 1964;
AFXOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item IV-V.
246. CINCPAC Command History, 1967, II, 962; Goulden, Truth is the ?11
First Casualty, pp. 159-160; Briefing by Chief PACAF Assistance Team,
Sept. 1964, in Hist. 2AD, Jan.-June 1964, vol. 6, doe. 3; Hist. Data,
Plans & Rqmts. Div., 2AD, July-Dec. 1964; ltr., 20PR to PACAF (DPLPL-C),
subj: Review of JCS Document: Development Status of Military Counter-
insurgency Programs, 1 Jan. 1965.
247. Msg., JCS-7818 to COMUSMACV and CINCPAC, 9 Aug. 1964; pentagon
Papers, pp. 303-304, 316.
248. Pentagon Papers, p. 306, 360-362.
249. Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1964, I, pt. 2, Yankee Team Chronology,
pp. 123-132; Hist. 41AD, July-Dec. 1964, PP. 55-58; Pentagon Papers, p.
306; msg., PACAF to 2AD, PFCNC-678, 20 Aug. 1964; rpt., Lt Col. David
O. Williams, Jr., Comdr. 522d TFS, to Hq. TAC (C), subj: TACOP Final
Report--One Buck I, 12 Feb. 1965.
647
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250. AFXOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item
V-G; Pentagon Papers, p. 319; Project CHECO, USAF Operations from Thai-
land, 1964-1965, pp. 55-56.
251. Project CHECO, USAF Operations from Thailand, 1964-1965, P. 35.
252. AFXOFJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item
IV-4; Pentagon Papers, pp. 362-363.
253. AFIOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item
V-G; msg., USAIRA Vientiane to 21D, SIRP-7-64, 22 Oct. 1964; Hist. Data,
Plans & Rqmts. Div. 2AD, July-Dec. 1964; msg., AMEMB Vientiane to SECSTATE,
#704, 3 Nov. 1964; msg., 1965th Com Sq Don Muang to PACAF, TC-25124, 6
Nov. 1964; Pentagon Papers, pp. 305-307; Project CHECO, USAF Operations
from Thailand, 1964-1965, p. 61; AMP, Analysis of Air Operations, South-
east Asia, Vol. I, Tab. IF.
254. Msg., CINCFAC to COMUSMACV et al, 080300Z Aug. 1964.
255. Msg., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MAC-J31-6180, 16 July 1964; msg.,
OINCPAC to JCS, 200036Z July 1964.
256. Ltr., Moore to Ferguson, 16 Mar. 1965.
257. AFXOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, Item III-0.
258. Hist. Data, 2AD Opns. Services Div., July-Dec. 1964; Hist.
PACAF, July 1964-June 1965, III, Hist. Rpt. DPO, July-Dec. 1964; Hist.
TAC, 1965, p. 627.
259. Msg., JCS-7841 to CINCPAC, 11 Aug. 1964; msg., MACV to CINCPAC,
MAC-J3-8338, 19 Aug. 1964; msg., PACAF to CINCFAC, PFCVC-T44, 5 Sept.
1964; msg., CSAF to PACAF, AFXPD-70739, 7 Sept. 1964; msg., 2AD to CSAF,
2 ODC-1259-64, 21 Sept. 1964; Brooks End of Tour Reports, 9 Jan. 1965.
260. Hist. 2.0, July-Dec. 1964, vol. 2, p. 5.
261. Msg., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MAC-J3-5479, 21 Feb. 1965; msg.,
PACAF to SAF, et al, DOCOS-34376, 12 Apr. 1965.
262. CHECO Interview with Lt. ;Col. Garth Reynolds, Dep. for Opns.,
34th Tac. Gp., Jan. 1965; rpt., 2CCR to COMUSMACV (MACV J-3), subj:
MONEVAL, 2 Sept. 1964.
263. Ltr., Moore to MACV (J-3), subj: Quarterly Review and Evaluation--
July-September 1964, 22 Oct. 1964.
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264. Ltr., Lt. Col. Clarence R. Osbourne, Jr., Chief ALO/FAC Sect.
2A0C, to I CAW, subj: AIO/FAC News Letter, 3 Sept. 1964.
265. Ltr., Lt. Col. John F. O'Regan, Dep. Dir. III ASOC, to ALO/
FAC Tay Ninh, subj: Immediate Targets for Fighter Bomber Aircraft,
26 Sept. 1964.
266. Ltr., Lt. Col. William L.
subj: II Corps Area, 29 Oct. 1964.
267. Reynolds interview, can.
Support in RVN, 1961-1965, p. 34.
268. Rpt., 20CR to COMUSMAGV (MACV-3), subj: MONEVAL, 2Sept. 1964;
msg., PACAF to USAF, PFLDC-2430-64, 4 Sept. 1964; msg., CINCPACAF to
CINCPAC, PFCVC=744, 5 Sept. 1964; msg., USAF to PACAF, AFX1100.q0340,
6 Sept. 1964; msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 250150Z Sept. 1964; msg. USAF to
PACAF, AFXYDRA-77594, 1 Oct. 1964; msg., USAF to PACAF, AFXPLO-82289,
17 Oct. 1964; AFIOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964,
Item VIII-G.
Jannsen, Dep. Dir. II ASOC, to AOC,
1965; Project CHECO, Night Close Air
269. Rpt., 2CCR to MACV (J*3), subj: MONEVAL, 3 Nov. 1964; Reynolds
interview, Jan. 1965; msg., 34 Tao Cp. to 2AD, 34DC0-117431 11 Nov. 1964;
rpt., 2CCR to MACV J-3, subj: MONEVAL, 4 Jan. 1965; memo for Harris from
Moorman, 30 Nov. 1964; Bethea interview, Jan. 1965; rpt., 20CR to MAT/
J-3, subj: MONEVAL, 2 Dec. 1964; Hq. USMAGV, Monthly Evaluation Report,
Dec. 1964, Annex B, p. 22; Bailey End of Tour Report, 10 Mar. 1965;
Lt. Col. William R. Eichelberger, End of Tour Report, ca. 9 May 1965;
Hist. 2AD, July-Dec. 1964, II, 44-45.
270. Ltr., Col. H. L. Price, Dir. of Opns. 21D, to MACV (J-3),
subj: Quarterly Review and Evaluation, Oct.-Dec. 1964, n.d.; Bailey
End of Tour Report, 10 Mar. 1965.
271. Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1964, I, pt. 2, Hist. Rpt. Direc. of
Policy, June 1964; Bethea interview, Jan. 1965; msg., PACAF to 2AD and
USAF, PFLDE-3253 -64, 10 June 1964; Wilfong End of Tour Report, 30 June
1964; Hist. PACAF, July 1964-June 1965, III, Hist. Rpt. Direc. of Policy,
July 1964.
272. Msg., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, 11 Aug. 1964; msg., USAF to PACAF,
CON-16, 29 Aug. 1964; AFIOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-
1964, Item III-R.
273. Bethea interview, Jan.. 1965; ltr., Osburne to I CALO, subj:
ALO/FAC News Letter, 3 Sept. 1964; Miller End of Tour Report, 7 Feb.
1965; ltr., Janssen to Woodyard, subj: II Corps Area, 29 Oct. 1964.
649
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274. Rpt., Nelson to IV CALO, subj: Informal Report on USAF/
VNAF Air Operations in Support of the 41st Tactical Zone for the Period
1 March-30 April 1964, 4 May 1964; ltr., Nelson to Dep. Dir. AOC, subj:
VNAF/USAF Air Support Rendered the 9th Division Tactical Area for the
Period February-July 1964, 31 July 1964; 2AD Opns. Anal. Off., Counter-
insurgency Lessons Learned. 4 July 1964.
275. Lt. Clare C. Eaton, ALO/FAC Operations in Vinh Binh Province, n.d.
276. Hist. Data, Direc. of Intelligence, 2AD, July-Dec. 1964; Hist.
Data, 2A0C, July-Dec. 1964; msg., 2AD to 13AF, 200T00679) 3 Dec. 1964.
277. William B. Graham and Amron H. Katz, SIAT: Single Integrated
Attack Team, A Concept for Offensive Military Operations in South Vietnam
Tganta Monica: The RAND Corporation, 17 Nov. 1964); ltr., Col. William
Burke, Asst. CofS Plans PACAF, to 2AD (CCR), subj: Letter of Transmittal,
29 Oct. 1964; msg. USAF to 13AF and 2AD, AFXPD-91765, 20 Nov. 1964; msg.,
2AD to 13AF, 200T00679, 3 Dec. 1964; msg., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MAC-J3-
5479, 21 Feb. 1965; Hist. PACAF, July 1964-June 1965, III, Hist. Direc.
of Policy, Oct. 1964.
278. Msg., 21W to PACAF, 2CCR -297F-64, 6 June 1964; ltr., Moore to
Ferguson, 16 Mar. 1965; ltr., Rowland to Ky, subj: VNAF Air Liaison
Officers, 26 Nov. 1964; rpt., 2CCR to MACV (J-3), subj: MONEVAL, 3 Nov.
1964; Hist. Data 2A0C, July-Dec. 1964.
279. Ltr., Moore to Baron, 18 Jan. 1965; Hist. Data 2A0C, July-Dec.
1964; ltr., Rowland to icy, subj: Implementation of Air Request Net,
27 Oct. 1964; memo for CofS RVNAF from Stilwell, h.d.; ltr., Moore to
Pritchard, 27 Apr. 1965.
280. Hist. PACAF, July 1964-June 1965, III, Hist. Rpts., Policy
and Prgms. Division, Jan. 1965; Opns. Anal. Off. ZADI Counterinsurgency
Lessons Learned, 18 Jan. 1965.
281. AFXOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item
VIII-G; msg., USAF to PACAF, AFXBDO-8490, 10 Feb. 1965.
282. Bethea interview, Jan. 1965; Hist. PACAF, July 1964-June 1965)
III, Hist. Rpt., Policy Div., Feb. 1965.
283. Rpt.,2CCR to MACF J-3, subj: MONEVAL, 5 Feb. 1965.
284. Guthrie End of Tour Report, ca. Aug. 1965; Bailey End of Tour
Report, 10 Mar. 1965; Eichelberger End of Tour Report, ca. 9 May 1965;
Hq. 2AD Opns. Anal. Div., Technical Memo No. 4, Planning and Control of
Air-Ground Operations in South Vietnam, 1 June 1965.
650
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285. Msg., 2ADVON to PACAF, 20DC-62-0322, 30 Jan. 1962.
286. Msg., COMUSMACV to USAF, MACV-233, 31 Mar. 1962.
287. Howard M. Jenkins, Opns. Analyst 2ADVON, End of Tour Report,
12 Aug. 1962; msg., USAF to PACAF, AFORQ-82023, 13 Sept. 1962; 2AD Opns.
Anal. Paper No. 4, An Evaluation of the Effectiveness of the MK44 (Lazy
Dog) in Certain Environments, 11 Feb. 1964.
288. Ltr., Ferguson to Moore, 12 Nov. 1964; PACAF Assistance Team
Briefing, Sept. 1964; Hist. PACAF, July 1964-June 1965, III, Hist. PFORG,
Nov. 1964.
289. Hist. Data, 2AD Opns. Services Div., July-Dec. 1964; ltr.,
Maj. Gen. A. J. Kinney, Asst. Dep. C of S R&D USAF to Moore, 2 Sept. 1964.
290. Project CHECO, Night Close Air Support in RVN, 1961-1966, p.
34; Opns. Anal. Off. 2AD, Counterinsurgency Lessons Learned, 18 Jan. 1964;
PACAF Assistance Team Briefing, Sept. 1964.
291. Ltr.? Kinney to Moore, 2 Sept. 1964; Hist. Data 2AD Opns.
Services Div., July-Dec. 1964; Capt. Joseph Yarrish, 2AD Avionics Officer,
End of Tour Report, 1 Mar. 1965.
292. Yarrish End of Tour Report, 1 Mar. 1965; address of General
Moore at PACAF Commanders Conference, 22-25 Feb. 1965.
293. Project CHECO, First Test and Combat Use of AC-47; ltr.,
Ferguson to Moore, 12 Nov. 1964; msg., COMUSMACV to USAF, MAC-JR4.TA-18669,
29 Dec. 1964; 89th Cong. 2d Sess., Fiscal Year 1966 Supplemental Authori-
zation for Vietnam, Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services,
House of Representatives Washington: GPO, 1966, pp. 5125, 5160.
294. Msg., 2AD to USAF, 2CVC-65-3320, 15 Mar. 1965.
295. Hist. TAC, 1965, I, 298-299.
296. Rpt., Asbury to PFODC, subj: Report of Reconnaissance Survey--
Southeast Asia, 22 Nov. 1963.
297. Lt. Col. Paul W. Rainowskil Comdr. 13th RTS, End-of-Tour
Report, 23 Sep. 1964.
298. Ltr.? Ross to MACV J-5, subj: Phase-Out of U.S. Forces,
23 Oct. 1963; msg., 2AD ;to PACAF, 2CCR-64-014A, 10 Jan. 1964; rpt.,
Quane to Dep. Director IV ASOC, subj: After Action Report, 30 Jan. 1964.
651
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299. PACAF Reference Book for 12 March 1964 SECDEF Conference,
Tab. 8; Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1964, III, Monthly Hist. Rpt. PFIDC,
Mar. 1964; msg., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MAC-J24-02071 L. Jan. 1965.
300. Hist. 20DC, Jan.-June 1964.
301. Msg., 2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-64-268F, 1 June 1964.
302. Msg., 2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-64-2)tJI1., 22 May 1964; Hist.
Data 20DC-CP, July-Dec. 1964; Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1964, III, Monthly
Hist. PFIDC, May 1964; Ltr., Col. Allison C. Brooks, Dep. Comdr. 2AD,
to MACV-J2, subj: Priorities in Photographic Processing, 25 July 1964.
303.
304.
namese Air
305.
insurgency
Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1964, 1, Pt. 2, pp. 186-187.
Hist. 20DC, Jan.-June 1964; AF Advisory Group, South Viet-
Force, Jan. 1965.
Hist. 20DC, Jan.-June 1964; Opns. Anal. Off. 21D, Counter-
Lessons Learned, 4 July 1964.
306. Msg., 13AF to 2AD, 072332 July 1964; ltr., Col. Allison C.
Brooks, Dep. Comdr. 2AD to MACV J-2, subj: Priorities in Photographic
Processing, 25 July 1964; Rainowski End-of-Tour Report, 23 Sep 1964;
msg., ADMIN.() CINCPAC to CINPACFLT, CINCPACAF et al., 040451Z Oct. 1964.
307. Msg., JCS-6470 to CINCPAC et al., 25 May 1964; msg., 2AD to
PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-64-287F, 7 June 1967 msg., PACAF to 13AF, PFDOP-
3114, 29 Aug. 1964; msg., PACAF to USAF, PFCVC-00856, 11 Oct. 1964.
308. Msg., CINCPACAF to 13AF, PFDOP-3114, 29 Aug. 1964; memo for
Moore from Col. H. L. Price, subj: New Yankee Team Concept, 20 Aug.
1964; Hist. PACAF, Jan.-June 1964, I, pt. 2, Yankee Team Chronology,
12-20 Sep 1964.
309. Msg., 13AF to PACAF, 130DX-22955, 17 Dec. 1964; Hist. PACAF,
Jul 1964-Jun1965, III, Hist. Rpt., Rcn. Div., Apr 1965; Hist. 313th AD,
Jul 1964-Jun 1965, p. 310.
310. Msg., 2AD to SAF, 2CCR-00530, 21 Oct. 1964.
311. Msg., USAIRA Vientiane to 2AD, CX-1040, 27 Nov. 1964.
312. Msg., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MAC-J24-0207, 4 Jan. 1965.
313. Msg., CINCPAC to CINCPACAF, 1622592 Mar. 1965.
652
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'Nor 314. Ltr., 20PR to PACAF (DPLPL-C), subj: Review of JCS Document:
Development Status of Military Counterinsurgency Programs, 1 Jan. 1965;
msg., 2AD to USAF, 2 CVC-005761 13 Nov. 1964; rpt., 2 CCR to MACV J-3,
subj: MONEVAL, 4 Jan. 1965.
315. Msg., 2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 200R-64-268F, 1 June 1964.
316. Msg., 2AD to USAF, 2 00B..64-481J, 10 Sept. 1964; msg., USAF
to 2AD, AFX0P-71979? n.d.; msg., PACAF to USAF, PFCVC-00856, 11 Oct.
1964.
317. Hist., 2ADC, July-Dec. 1964; rpt., 2CCR to MACV (J-3), subj:
MONEVAL, 3 Nov. 1964.
318. Hist., 2ADC, July-Dec. 1964; rpt., 20CR to MACV J-3, subj:
MONEVAL, 4 Jan. 1964; Hist., Direc. of Intel. 2AD, July-Dec. 1964.
319. Opns. Anal. Off. 2AD, Counterinsurgency Lessons Learned, 18
Jan. 1965; Opns. Anal. TAC, Draft?Planning and Control of the Air-Ground
Operations in South Vietnam, by Thomas Wasileweky, Apr. 1965; ltr., Col.
Lauren L. Shaw, Jr., Actg. Dep. for Intel. 2AD, to 2AD DO and DM, subj:
Memo of Understanding CTC, L. Sept. 1965; Hq. USMAGV, Monthly Evaluation
Report, Jan. 1965, Annex B, Air Force, p. 19; Hq. USMACV, Monthly Evalua-
tion Report, Feb. 1965, Annex B, Air Force, pp. 21-22; msg., MACV to 2AD,
MAC-1145, 041605Z Mar. 1965.
320. Msg., USAF to PACAF, AF1OP -95788, 19 Mar. 1965; ltr., Col.
Edwin J. Witzenburger, Dep. Comdr. 2AD to MACV J-3, subj: MONEVAL for
January 1965, 8 Feb. 1965.
? 321. Msg., MACV to 2AD, MAC-1145, L. Mar. 1965.
322. Hq. 2AD Opns. Anal. Div., Technical memo No. 4, Planning and
Control of Air Ground Operations in South Vietnam, 1 June 1965; ltr.,
Col. James P. Hagerstrom, Dep. Dir. TACO 2AD to 2AD DITIC, subj: Memo
of Understanding?CTC, 26 Sept. 1965.
323. Msg., USAF to PACAF, AFXOP -95788, 19 Mar. 1965; msg., MACV
to 2AD, MAC-1145, 4 Mar. 1965.
324. Hq. USMAGV, Directive 95-11, subj: Aviation, Joint Air Ground
Operations System (JAGOS), 21 June 1966.
325. Hist. 21D, Jan.-June 1964, 1, PP. 97?-98, 104.
326. Hist. 2AD, Jan.-June 1964, I, pp. 102-103; Montgomery End of
Tour Report, 27 June 1964.
C 3
3
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327. Hist. 2AD, Jan.-June 1964, I, p. 102.
328. 2AD Statistical Report of Combat Support Missions, Jan.-June
1964, in Hist. 2AD, Jan.-June 1964, vol. 6, docs. 11-13.
329. 2AD Statistical Report of Combat Support Missions, Jan.-June 1964.
330. Ltr., Col. Thomas B. Kennedy, Director of Air Transport 2AD, to
2CCR, subj: Joint Airborne Operations, 4 Dec. 1963; rpt., Lt. Col. James
F. Martin, ALO Airborne Bde., to AOC, subj: After Action Report, 24 Feb.
1964; rpt., Martin to 2A0C, subj: ALO Report for February 1964, 10 Mar.
1964; rpt., Martin to AOC, subj: After Action Report, 11 Mar. 1964; rpt.,
Montgomery to 2AD (AOC), subj: ALO Report for 1-30 April 1964, 15 May
1964; rpt., Butler to ALO IV Corps, subj: After Action Report, 27 May 1964;
Hist. 2AD, Jan.-June 1964, Vol. 2, p. 45.
331. Interview with Kennedy by Gauche, 4 Feb. 1964; Opns. Anal. Off.
2AD, Counterinsurgency Lessons Learned, 4 July 1964; Lt. Col. Victor N.
Curtis, ALO US Army Special Forces, End of Tour Report, ca. Jan. 1965;
Maj. Leonard G. Hillebrandt, 311th Air Commando Sq., End of Tour Report,
31 Mar. 1965.
332. Hist. Direc. of Materiel 2AD, Jan.-June 1964; msg., COMUSMACV
to CINCPAC, MAC-J4-6227, 17 July 1964; Hist. 2AD, Jan.-June 1964, Vol. 1,
pp. 104-105 and Vol. 2, p. 51.
333. AFIPD, Debriefing Report of Colonel David T. Fleming, 9 Aug. 196
2AD, Debriefing Report of Colonel Robert J. Jones, Comdr. 14th ACW, ca.
10 Apr. 1966; Opns. Anal. Off. 2AD, Counterinsurgency Lessons Learned,
18 Jan. 1965.
334. Msg., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MAC-J31-6180, 16 July 1964;
COMUS-MACV to CINCPAC, MAC-J4-6227, 17 July 1964; AFIOPJ, Book on Actions
in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item III-0.
335. Hist. PACAF, July 1964-June 1965, III, Hist. Rpt. Direc. of
Plans, July 1964; Rpt., Moore to COMUSMACV (10 J-3), subj: MONEVAL,
3 Aug. 1964.
336. Project CHECO, Assault Airlift Operations, pp. 32, 40.
337. Fleming Debriefing Report, 9 Aug. 1965.
338. Ibid.; Rpe., 20CR to COMUSMACV (MACV-3), subj: MONEVAL, 2 Sept.
1964; rpt., 20CR to MACV J-3, subj: MONEVAL, 4 Jan. 1965; 2AD, APEX
Monthly Summary of Aviation Activities, 10 Jan. 1965.
6.34
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339. Fleming Debriefing Report, 9 Aug. 1965; Hist. 315th TO Gp.,
Assault, July-Dec. 1964; Hist. Data 2AD Opns. Services Div., July-Dec.
1964; rpt., 20CR to MACV (J-3), subj: MONEVAL, 3 Nov. 1964; Curtis
End of Tour Report, ca., 25 Jan. 1965.
340. Rpt., 20CR to COMUSMACV MACV-3, subj: MONEVAL, 2 Sept. 1964.
341. Fleming Debriefing Report, 9 Aug. 1965; Project CHECO, Assault
Airlift Operations, 23 Feb. 1967, AP. 36-37.
342. Hist. Direc. of Plans, Dep. CofS Plans & Opns. USAF, Jan.-June
1963, pp. 237-238; msg., AMEMB Saigon to SECSTATE, #668, 9 Oct. 1963;
Project CHECO, Herbicide Operations in Southeast Asia, July 1961-June
1967, pp. 1-7, 70.
343. Msg., AMEMB Saigon to SECSTATE, #668, 9 Oct. 1963; rpt., Moore
to COMUSMACV (MACV J-3), subj: MONEVAL, 2 June 1964; Rpt., Montgomery
to 2AD (AOC), subj: ALO Report for 1-31 May 1964, 8 June 1964; msg.,
2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-64-305F, 15 June 1964; Project CHECO,
Herbicide Operations in Southeast Asia, pp. 7-9.
344. Hist. Data, 2AD Opns. Services Division, July-Dec. 1964; rpt.,
Moore to MACV (J-3), subj: Quarterly Review and Evaluation--July-
September 1964, 22 Oct. 1964; rpt., 20CR to MACV (J-3), subj: MONEVAL,
3 Nov. 1964; rpt., 20CR to MACV J-3, subj: MONEVAL, 2 Dec. 1964; rpt.,
2CCR to MACV J-3, subj: MONEVAL, 4 Jan. 1965; Project CHECO, Herbicide
Operations in Southeast Asia, pp. 9-15.
345. Congressional Record, 9 May 1968, p. 12,618; Sharp-Westmoreland
Report, pp. 87-88; 89th Cong, 1st Sess., Department of Defense Appropria-
tions 1966 Hearin :s before the Subcommittee on De.-rtment of Defense
of the Subcommittee on Appropriations and the Committee on Armed Services,
US Senate Washington: APO, 1965), Pt. 1, PP. 344-345; Hist. 2AD, Jan.-
June 1964, II, 7-10; ltr., Moore to Baron, 18 Jan. 1965.
346. Msg., 13AF to COMUSMACV, 13AFCC -10-049, 7 Oct. 1964; 1tr.,
Moore to Baron, 18 Jan. 1965; Guthrie End of Tour Report, ca. Aug. 1965.
347. Hist. PACAF, July 1964-June 1965, II, pt. 2; Hist. Rpt., PFOOP,
Aug. 1964; Moore address at PAGAF Commanders' Conference, 22-25 Feb.
1965; Kenneth Sams, Historical Background to Vietcong Mortar Attack on
Bien Hoa, 9 Nov. 1964.
348. Hist. PACAF, July 1964-June 1965, II, pt. 2, Hist. Rpt. PFOOP,
Aug. 1964, and III, Hist. Rpt. PFOOP, Sept. 1964; AFIOPS, Book on Actions
in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Items IV-X, IV-V, and IV-Y; Pentagon Papers,
pp. 320-322.
349. Hist. 2AD, July-Dec. 1964, II, 94.
6 5 5
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350. Sharp-Westmoreland Report, p. 95; rpt., Edwards to 2AD Hist.
Off., subj: Historical Report for Six Months Period Ending in December
1964, ca. Jan. 1965; Guthrie End of Tour Report, ca. Aug. 1965.
351. Msg., 2AD to 13AF, 2CCR -64-499J, 25 Sep. 1964; Hist. PACAF,
July 1964-June 1965, III, Hist. Rpts., Direc. of Policy, Sept. and Nov.,
1964; msg., 1965th Com. Sq. Don Muang to PACAF, TC-25129, 6 Nov. 1964;
msg., CINCPAC to COMUSMACV et al, 020153Z Nov. 1964; Van Staveren,
USAF Plans and Policies in South Vietnam and Laos, 1964, p. 78.
352. Rpt., 2CCR to MACV J-3, subj: MONEVAL, 2 Dec. 1964; AFIOPJ,
Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, Item IV-H.
353. "The Lowdown from the Top U.S. Command in Saigon," Life,
27 Nov. 1964, pp. 46, 51-53.
354. AFXOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item IV-Y.
355. Ibid.; Pentagon Papers, pp. 324-325.
356. AFIOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Items
IV-Y and IV-Z.
357. Msg., COMUSMACV to 2AD et al MAC-J03-18567, 28 Dec. 1964;
Pentagon Papers, p. 335.
358. AFXOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item
IV-2; Pentagon Papers, pp. 335-336, msg., JCS-3081 to CINCPAC, 19 Dec.
196h; msg., CINCPAC to COMUSMACV, 090156Z Jan. 1965; Brooks "Snd of
Report, 9 Jan. 1965.
359. Briefing by PACAF Assistance Team, Sept. 1962.
360. Msg., 13AF to 2AD, 13CCR-18703, 21 Oct. 1963.
361. Msg., 2AD to 23AB Gp., 2CCR-00648, 24 Dec. 1964; msg., 2AD
to 80TFS, 2CCR-00651, 25 Dec. 1964; msg., USAF to PACAF, AFXOP-60097,
24 Dec. 1964; Hists. 19th TW, July-Dec. 1964, p. 40 and Jan.-June 1965,
p. 3; Project CHECO, USAF Operations from Thailand, 1964-1965, pp. 81-
82; AFXOPLC, Analysis of Air Operations, Southeast Asia, Vol. I, sect.
2.
362. AFIOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item IV-Z.
656
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363. Msg., JCS-3441 to CINCPAC, 4 Jan. 1965; msg., 13AF to PACAF,
13AFCC-00T-W-65-33, 5 Jan. 1965; msg., PACAF to 13AF and 2AD, Telecon
24, 6 Jan. 1965; msg., PACAF to CINCPAC, DOP-50006, 7 Jan. 1965; msg.,
2AD to 13AF, 200T-0S-0349, 16 Jan. 1965.
364. Msg., JCS-3028 to CINCPAC, 9 Jan. 1965; msg., CINCPAC to JCS,
129217Z Jan. 1965.
365. Msg., Det. 2, 18th TFW, Da Nang, to 2AD, #32, 17 Jan. 1965;
msg., 2AD to PACAF, 2CCR-65-0374, 17 Jan. 1965; msg., 13AF to PACAF, 13 DC-
65-0446, 27 Jan. 1965; msg., 21D to USAF, 20DC-CP-65-3256, 15 Mar. 1965;
Project CHECO, USAF Operations from Thailand, 1964-1965, pp. 61-65, 123.
366. Project CHECO, USAF Operations from Thailand, 1964-1965, p. 91.
367. Public Pa ers of the Presidents L don B. Johnson 1965
(Washington: GPO, 19 vol. 1, p. entagon Papers, p. 339.
??
368. Msg., CINCPACFLT to CINCPAC, 272223Z Feb. 1965; msg., AMEMB
Vientiane to SECSTATE, #1081, 18 Jan. 1965; msg., AMEMB Vientiane to
CINCPAC, #1109, 1 Mar. 1965.
369. Msg., 13AF to CINCPAC, 1300T-W-65-0475, 30 Jan. 1965; AFXOPLC,
Analysis of Air Operations, Southeast Asia, vol. I, sect. 2.
370. Msg., CINCPAC to JCS, 211959Z Jan. 1965.
371. Msg., CINCTACAF to 13AF, DPL-65-141, 23 Jan. 1965.
372. Msg., AMEMB Vientiane to SECSTATE, #1416, 6 Mar. 1965.
373. Msg., USAIRA Vientiane to USAF et al, GT-01118, 24 Jan. 1965;
msg., JCS-4154 to CINCPAC, 26 Jan. 196)4.
374. Msg., AMEMB Vientiane to CINCPAC, #911, 27 Jan. 1965; AFXOPLC,
Analysis of Southeast Asia Air Operations, vol. I, sect. 2, pp. 8-9;
Project CHECO, USAF Operations from Thailand, 1964-1965, pp. 19, 71, 84;
msg., OASD/ISA to AMEMB Vientiane et al, #004489, 3 Feb. 1965; msg.,
13AF to PACAF, 13AFCC-65-0682, 6 F. 1965.
375. Msg., COMUSMACV to 2AD, et al, MAC-J03-18567, 28 Dec. 1964;
Pentagon Papers, pp. 336-337, 379-3M-Thompson, Defeating Communist
Insurgency, pp. 43, 166-167; James C. Thompson, Jr., "How Could Vietnam
Happen? An Autopsy," Atlantic, Apr. 1968, p. 51.
376. Sandborn End of Tour Report, 8 Dec. 1964.
377. Thompson, Defeating Communist Insurgency, pp. 106-108.
657
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378. Hist. 2AD, July-Dec. 1964, II, 99; ltr., Moore to Ky, subj:
Report of Commendable Action, 29 Dec. 1964.
379. Hist., 2AD, July-Dec. 1964, II, pp. 109-112; rpt., Capt. Stanton
R. Musser, ALO "A" Brigade, 21st Div., to ALO, 21st Div., subj: After
Action Report, 14 Dec. 1964.
380. Ltr., Moore to Baron, 18 Jan. 1965; rpt., 2CCR to MACV J-3,
subj: MONEVAL, L. Jan. 1965; Project CHECO, First Test and Combat Use
of AC-47, P. 5.
381. Sharp-Westmoreland Report, pp. 88, 95; Project CHECO, The
Battle of Binh Gia, p. 1; Col. Jean K. Woodyard, Dep. Director AOC, Phuoc
Bien 13-Huong Vuong 2 Operations, 28 Dec.-6 Jan. 1965; memo for record
by Brig. Gen. John K. Boles, Jr., Director JRATA, subj: Night Mission
in Side-Firing FC-47, 29 Dec. 1964.
382. Woodyard rpt.; Project CHECO, The Battle of Binh Gia, p. 2.
383. Project CHECO, The Battle of Binh Gia, pp. 2-6.
384. Woodyard rpt.; Hist. 2AD, Jan.-June 1965, II, pp. 12, 15.
385. Hist. 2AD, Jan.-June 1965, II, p. 15.
386. Pentagon Papers, pp. 337, 338, 339-340.
387. Project CHECO, The Battle of Binh Gia, pp. 6-8.
388. Hist. 2AD, Jan.-June 1965, II, pp. 8, 11; ltr., Everding to
Hiller, 8 Jan. 1965.
389. Msg., PACAF to USAF, 2CAS-1837L, 6 Jan. 1965.
390. Hist. PACAF, July 1964-June 1965, III, Hist. Rpts., Policy
and Programs Divisions, Jan. 1965; msg., PACAF to 13AF and 2AD, DOP-50029,
23 Jan. 1965; msg., PACAF to SAF et al, DOCOS-34376, 12 Apr. 1965.
391. Sharp-Westmoreland Report, p. 107; msg., PACAF to 13AF and 2AD,
23 Jan. 1965; msg., 2AD to PACAF and 13AF, 2CCR-65-45-0601, 28 Jan. 1965.
392. AFXOPJ, Book on Actions in Southeast Asia, 1961-1964, Item V-I.
393. Msg., 2AD to PACAF, 2CCR-65-45-0601, 28 Jan. 1965.
394. Hq. USMACV, Monthly Evaluation Report, Jan. 1964.
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395. Hq. USMACV, Immediate Release, subj: Increased War and Air
Power in Vietnam, Jan. 1965.
396. Hq. USMACV, Monthly Evaluation Report, Jan. 1965, Annex B,
Air. Force, p. 19.
397. Hist. 2AD, Jan.-June 1_965, II, pp. 16-17, 22.
398. Msg., JCS-4213 to CINCPAC, 27 Jan. 1965; msg., JCS-6347 to
CINCPAC, 4 Feb. 1965; Hist. 21D, Jan.-June 1965, II, p. 29; Robinson
End of Tour Report, 10 Apr. 1965; memo for record by Woodyard, subj:
Use of Jet Aircraft, 1 Mar. 1965.
399. Pentagon Papers, p. 337; George W. Ball, The Discipline of
Power, Essentials of a Modern World Structure (Boston: Little, Brown
and Co., 1968), pp. 317-318; Taylor, "The Case for Continued Bombing
of the North," Washington Star, 22 Oct. 1967.
400. Sharp-Westmoreland Report, p. 107; Hist. 2AD, Jan.-June 1965,
II, p. 8.
401. Richard P. Stebbins, ed., Documents on American Foreign Rela-
tions 1966 (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1966), pp. 120-
129; Chester L. Cooper, The Lost Crusade, America in Vietnam (New York:
Dodd, Mead and Co., 1970), pp. 255-262; Donald S. Zagoria, Vietnam
Triangle (New York: Pegasus, 1967), p. 151.
402. Sharp-Westmoreland Report, pp. 14-15; Hist. 2AD, Jan.-June
1965, pp. 22-26.
403. Hist. 2AD, Jan.-June 1965, II, pp. 26-28; Bethea interview,
6 Jure 1965; Guthrie End of Tour Report, ca. Aug. 1965.
404. Hist. 2AD, Jan.-June 1965, II, pp. 31-33.
405. Sharp-Westmoreland Report, pp. 107-108; Hist. 2AD, Jan.-June
1965, II, pp. 34-35; ltr., Col. Theo C. Ataxis, Senior Advisor II CTZ,
to Comdr. 2AD, subj: Outstanding Air Support in the An Khe Valley Opera-
tion, 28 Feb. 1965; msg., COMUSMACV to CINCPAC, MAC-J3-5479, 21 Feb. 1965.
406. Hq. USMACV, Monthly Evaluation Report, Mar. 1965, Annex B, p. 23.
407. Msg., PAGAF to 2AD, VC-52071, 2 Mar. 1965; msg., USAF to PACAF,
AMM0-92020, 6 Mar. 1965; msg., JCS-6692 to CINCPAC, 9 Mar. 1965; msg.,
ADMINO CINCPAC to COMUSMACV et al, 100321Z Mar. 1965.
408. Hist. PAGAF, July 1964-June 1965, III, Hist. Rpts., DOQR and
Prgms. Division, Mar. 1965; msg., JCS-7487 to CINCPAC, 20 Mar. 1965.
6
659
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11. S T
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