1 ) UNCLASSIFIED UNCLASSIFIED

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1 1 ) 193 and we wouldn't know anything about it. We wee just hoping that this wouldn't be one of those times that they wee moved. Thee's only one way you'e goiog to know that and that's to make the tip. You'e like the geologist dilling an oil well. You can get all the evidence you need [but] thee's only one way you'e eve going to know: put it down. was mentioning [while the tape was being changed] the [command] stuctue. Bud Sydno was the gound foce commande. f anything had happened to ' Bull" Simons then Bud Sydno would have become the vice commande, the deputy commande of the Joint Contingency Task Goup. He would have taken "Bull" Simons' place and would have taken FULLER: Let's get this staight. "Bull" was the vice GRMES: The commande was Mano. "Bull" was the vice and Sydno was gound foces commande. Wane Bitton was the ai foces commande. FULLER: Okay. GRMES: And if anything had happened to "Bull," Sydno Would have moved up into his place and if anything had happened to Sydno still would have moved into Sydno's place. Rollup FULLER: So Sydno gave the wod to oll it up. GRMES: Yes. Cool head. He's a good man. t olled up in an extemely efficient, odely manne, just as eheased. t was: pull back and hold, let anothe team pass though and hold-- in a continuously shinking peimete. As soon as ou two A-ls, Peach One and Two got down to half thei odnance they went off station and [A-ls Peach] Thee and Fou [came] on. We didn't want to get anybody down to zeo odnance when othes still had faily good leads so that we'd have all of ou aicaft woking. Now [A-l] Peach Five stayed west of the Black Rive. He was the guy that wouldn't expend any odnance at all and if we eally got in touble then he was the one, all by his lonesome, that would be hanging on tying to hold off the night. All of ou aicaft had Ps [nstucto Pilot] in both left and ight seat. The left seat aimed it. The ight seat looked fo eg~ess. He was the eyes and tapped [infomed] him on the altitude and of couse would instantly take ove if the pilot was hit. So Peach Thee and Fou stayed On. Then as we got eady to pullout, when the ollup wod came--we didn't need to blow this bidge acoss the Song Con Rive. FULLER: don't undestand that. f you had the chages [on it] why not blow the bidge anyway? GRMES: Because we went thee fo One eason, John. We didn't go up thee to ceate a lot of damage. OU guidance fom the Pesident of the United States was that you guys ae going up to bing Ou men back,n and he said, you can use whateve foce is necessay to potect youselves and those men,r but, he said, Ruse only what's necessay.r He said, Rt's you judgment, but you'e not going up thee to kill as many Noth Vietnamese toops as you can. f you have to, do it. You'e not going up thee to blow up bidges and blow up towns." Pesident Nixon was given a vey thoough foty-five minute standup biefing. He was intimately

2 194 familia with the pemit us to pull his guidance. We plan. a aid didn't We felt this man had gone way out on a limb to like this and, by golly, we ween't going to abuse blow it. We left the chages up thee. FULLER: Well, it just seems funny in a sense, because of the fact that that paticula bidge gave you access to the main highway and if thee was no one thee, no one would physically be hut. t would just be a bidge blown down and would be one moe -- GRMES: One moe taget. FULLER: One moe potection, eally, fo -- GRMES: Well, you see, ou bidge team took upa position hee [indicating]. They wee also a FAG team. As soon as they put the chages On the bidge then they moved down off the side and waited to contol ai stikes and to povide futhe peimete secuity. They had LAWs, light antitank weapons. They could stop tanks o they could have stopped amoed cas, in small numbes. They could have stopped a good sized enemy unit. Each one of those guys had 250 ounds of small ams ammunition also. But any eal big theat, they [would have] had to use [the] A-ls. But they had an electical chage, and all they needed to do was push it and the bidge was gone. FULLER: Okay. But think it is inteesting that that paticula bidge wasn't blown. GRMES: So the ollup was vey odely. The aicaft cane in exactly in sequence. The plan always was that the aicaft would deploy individually. They would not deploy in goups. We didn't want any fomation flying in case someone -- FULLER: f they got one they'd get 'em all. GRMES: Yeah. While all this was going On the loss did a geat job of keeping the SAMs busy. Two of the loss got hit. The SAM apped one. [He] was buning. So he came ight on the deck and passed--he didn't know, 'm sue, pecisely that he was passing ight ovehead Son Tay. But he went ovehead at about 500 feet to ty to get these SAMs off his tail and beak out whee the ada wasn't locked on him. We thought it was a blooming MiG. "Oh gad, we said, -thee's a MiG." He climbed back up, got his fie put out and stayed fo the duation of the opeation. The othe 105 that got hit--the SAM blew in poximity to his aicaft and blew a bunch of big holes in the fuel tank. He said, "'ve got to pull out. 'm losing fuel like mad." He stated back on south and made it to the PDJ [Plaine des Jaes]. The tanke was in sight. He was tying to line up on the tanke and flamed out. FULLER: Did he punch out? GRMES: He and his navigato punched out nea Long Tieng about ten miles fom Xiangkhoang. They ended up about 2,000 feet diffeence in elevation between the two of them. We head the adio convesation [and] we wee awae of his depatue. Of couse we couldn't concen ouselves too much with that at the paticula time. We wee hoping he'd make it back to the tanke. The SAM fiing was miseable, just obviously panic fiing. late able to see [deleted] that the Noth Vietnamese wee just [in] andom panic. [Deleted]. We wee fiing 195 So the helicoptes got off, individually. Of couse they wee vey concened about the SAMS and wee liteally dodging the SAMs as they wee tying to climb out and get ove the mountains. They just cept up ove the mountains, ove the passes. Once they got ove the idge they felt quite secue. They wee physically dodging SAMS. Appaently thee wee SAMs that wee coming ight afte the helicoptes. They had to get up enough to get ove those mountains whee the SAMs could in fact lock on to them. The special foces guys ween't eally quite awae of, what wa~ going on. captain Walthe of southen school fam~ was lay1ng on h1s stomach in the tail gate, kind of leisuely watch1ng these yellow balls dift and eve so slowly get lage. He wondeed why th~ PJ on the back amp was so excited about it. He was jumping aound ty1ng to talk to the pilot. He'd say something and then all of a sudden the ~1caft would go, "yeowww," like that. And he [Walthe] t~gge~ on h1s leg and said, "What's all that stuff?" And he [the PJ] sa1d, Those ae SAM missiles!" FULLER: Wee they getting any waning fom the Wild Weasels? GRMES: Well, they'e easy to see at nighttime, John. FULLER: undestand that. GRMES: The Weasels ae just tying to keep them subdued. Thee was just continuous waning. mean [a] fiing and [then] somebody was sceaming, "SAM! SAM! SAM!" FULLER: So the helicoptes had to take evasive action. GRMES: This thing was vey, vey exciting. FULLER: But with all this SAM fiing nobody took a hit? GRMES: No, except the two guys in the loss. But thee was much concen until you got ove that idge. FULLER: Was the Tiple "A" [Antiaicaft Atilley] fiing all the time? GRMES: No. FULLER: No Tiple-"A?" GRMES: Bitton's plane got hit by a small.ams fie. He doesn't to. this day have any idea who, when! o wh~e ~t came fo~ [o,whethe}.~t was on his fist sotie of the n1ght, h1s second, o h1s th1d. He Just doesn't know. FULLER: And no MiGs? GRMES: No MiGs. We thought fo a while the MiGs got up but they didn't. FULLER: Out of Phuc Yen? GRMES: out of Phuc Yen o Hoa Lac. But nothing eve cane up. Those guys wee elaxing. t was a weekend. They'd had thei big execise and they ust w~en't eady fo it. t had been a yea and a half, you know, since lpesident Lyndon B.] Johnson had stopped the bombing. Guys get sloppy 1n that time, John.

3 196 FULLER: They wee at the club at "Happy Hou." GRMES: That's ight. ~d guys get sloppy. that f1st 1dge the emot10nal impact of not FULLER: Began to sink in. GRu~S. Yeah. B c s 't w 't t' f. Afte eveybody got ove binging those men home -- ~~ e au e. asn a ques 10n 0 woy1ng evey second fo you life. FULLER: They (now) had time to think of othe things. GRMES: ;hat's ight. Then.it sank in, and the teas stated coming. guess 11 neve foget th1s. Eveybody landed in petty close poxim- 1ty of t1me, except fo Royal Bown and Ken Muphy who held back. These wee the guys ove in the lake. FULLER: Eveyone had ecoveed at Takhli? (D) GRMES: No, Udon. But Royal Bown and Ken Muphy held back to make the p1ckup of the downed pilot and navigato fom the 105. They still had some of that low cloudin 7 ss han~ing ove Laos, ove the mountains. They stayed: They hunted unt11 day11ght and they made the pickups. One of them p1cked up one guy and one of them picked up the othe. So eveybody else bes1des those two had landed. We all closed up at the same time. The A-ls held back. They wee the last ones out. Dick Skeels was the A-l by.1tself ove the Black Rive. He had odes not to leave until the l~st a1caft was acoss the Black Rive. They gave the codewod and then D1ck (came) back. ~ohn, these ae the toughest, most dedicated, meanest, vilest, one1est, geatest fighting men you've eve seen in you life. When (they) got down on the gound the camouflage steaked because the teas wee unni~g down thei fa~es: The A-l jocks would come off the wing of that b1g a1plane and they d Just cumple up in heaps. ~d (on) some of the toops the teas wee just steaming. They didn't say anything. Othes wee just weeping, weeping like babes. We all assembled in a oom. Geneal Mano and walked in. We got in just thee o fou minutes befoe "Bull" Simons did. FULLER: This is fo the debief? Debief GRMES: Yes. We ae in the command post at Udon now. Quite a collection of Udon's top offices wee thee. They had been called out in the middle of the night and told to set the opeation up that thee would be an impotant debief take place. Of couse none of the geneal offices no the colonels at Udon wee awae of what was involved a When the aides stated making thei appeaance in the command post it was petty obvious to all concened that something of significant Consequence had taken place. With camouflaged faces, the weapons they the Lieutenant Colonel Royal C. Bown and Majo Kenneth D. Muphy, USAF, HH-53 pilots of "Apple" Fou and Five, espectively. Majo Richad S. Skeels, USAF, the pilot of the A-l Peach Five." ( 197 wee caying, the stain and emotions clealy appaent on eveyone's face, even though the camouflage when facial expessions aen't the easiest thing in the wold to see, you could see that these men had gone though some significant lage scale odeal in combat. The looks wee puzzlinga Geneal Mano said, "'Bull,' what do you think?" "Bull" said, Well, Geneal, it was one hell of a good taining execise. The men did well. They did eveything. They did eveything that a soldie could be asked to do." What 1'm saying now is just my filling in, not a quote. They had known in advance what they wee going into. They knew the isks. They knew the danges. They went in with eyes wide open and with all the skills that a soldie could eve bing to his pofession, (with) all the couage you could eve ask. t was pemeditated couage. Thee ae a lot of men in combat who show couage when they find themselves in a difficult situation. These men knew well in advance that they wee going to be in an unusually difficult, unusually hazadous opeation and that they had to plan thei couage in advance. They had to have it all woking. U) SO Geneal Mano spoke a few wods to a geneal office who was neaby. don't know what he said, think it was something on the ode of ae the biefing facilities set up? Whee ae they? We'd like to get it undeway. Because vey shotly theeafte he led us to the biefing location. n the debief the pilot, copilot, and navigato fom each aicaft-- of those aicaft that had navigatos--paticipated in the debief. All the Amy offices and the key NCOs, the key team leades, paticipated. The fist thing we had to do was just walk ight though the poblem fom the time we launched. t was a complete blow-by-blow debief. Colonel Lay Ropka was witing and taking notes. t appeas that the launch sequence went petty much as planned. The weathe was petty much as anticipated, cetainly vey favoable to us. The fist thing we had to unsnal was what happened. Why the landing at the school? Well, we talked about this, how this took place. Geneal Mano eadily undestood because he had studied the photos and ealized the stuctue of the simila collection of buildings, 350 yads south. He undestood this quite well. Colonel Bitton felt vey bad. He had gone ahead and landed, although once his helicopte moved past the helicopte that was supposed to be landing his concentated effot simply was not paying any attention at all to the helicopte landing inside the compound. t [Bitton's mission then] was to take unde fie and select his landing spot so that he could get his toops on the gound on time. Nevetheless, he felt vey, vey bad about this. And, as mentioned, it was eally fotuitous that he in fact did land thee. This was an elite oganization that undoubtedly would have given us some vey lage poblems if they had been left unmolested. Even as it was, they wee able to launch a econnaissance pobe against ou unit. Had they come in significant stength, which they cetainly could have, and had they come at a moment when the helicoptes wee on the gound and vey vulneable, they could have been a disasteous opeation. So it eally was almost divine fotune that he had landed down south. As the debief unfolded each team leade ight on down to you two-man teams was paticipating. As we came to each element in the opeation the team leade would be queied as to what happened As we went along thee was an attempt to detemine how many Noth Vietnamese had been killed at both the main pison and the compound to the south. We wee not tying to un up any count. But we knew fo sue the Pesident would ask: What was the cost? How much damage did you have to do in ode to potect youself? Because his fim guidance was that we wee going thee to bing pisones back. Consequently, we wee quite

4 198 consev~tive. The only Noth Vietnamese that we claimed killed wee Noth V~etnamese toops, o,the elite toops that had actually been phys~cally obseved to be h~t and fall. Fo example, in the compound to the south, the headquates building whee so much fie was being etuned, although thee was a genade put in each window, thee wee no claims of any toops killed. The count actually an to foty-thee at both compounds. Cetainly it must have been consideably highe than this, But we simply don't know. That's vey much the minimum Thee's vey little chance that any of the Noth Vietnamese hit su~ived because aely was one ound put into a Noth Vietnamese toop. t was ' a shot bust of semi-automatic fie. And the M-16 leaves a petty good path of destuction when it passes though anyone of any size and especially a Noth Vietnamese. ' As the biefing cystallized with each passing minute, moe and moe, one fact [became] vey clea: the toops did a supeb job. n fact as Bu~l Simons had said, they did eveything that you could possibly ask' a sold~e to do. They had willingly isked thei lives in cetainly the most daing aid of that wa, and maybe of most was that we've been involved in, in this centuy. Cetainly it has to be one of the most daing that any militay men have been involved in in the unifom of the United States. The teas, and thee wee plenty of them, didn't stop. Even as guys would talk thee was the constant feeling of being choked up. But moe and moe thee was a sense of temendous pide; that we had tied" that we ha~ tied ou vey best, tha~ by the discipline and taining of that ogan~zat~on, of [the] leadesh~p and the shee quality of the toops ~nvolved, we.wee ab~e to g~ igh~ into the heat of the enemy teitoy, ~n the outsk~ts of ~ts cap~tal c~ty, and pull off a pecision aid. That 1n 1tself, though we didn't bing the pisones back, which was heatbeaking, demonstated to these men, and to the Noth Vietnamese most of all, that we had the capacity fo the bold stoke, the daing. And we knew that this wod would get back in one fom o anothe to ou POWs. Thee was a vitually spontaneous eaction that took place among most of the toops,because the question came back: "00 we know whee these men might have been moved? Let's ty tonight." Thee must have been a dozen o mo~ toops, some Ai Foce, some Amy, office and NCO, that came up and sa~d, "00 you think that thee's any chance that we'd get appoval, if we can find out whee they ae, to pull off anothe aid tonight? We'e eady to go. We'll do it. Wheeve they ae, we'll go." FULLER: The same night? GRMES: The same night. And, you know, you get men like this, John, and just the pide of association [is ovewhelming]. And they would have gone! Unde cicumstances such as this, having just made the tip, these ae not idle jests--the wandeings of the man who would like to make believe he has couage, but knows he can always say these things because he's neve called to task. These men had just made the tip and they wee eady to go again that night. Maybe anothe time, anothe ea you might have been able to do something like that, but the isks wee high enough on the fist attempt.' You can imagine by nightfall the following night the kind of peak the Noth Vietnamese had pobably geneated thei foces to, just in anticipation of something like that. 1 think that it's unfotunate we didn't have the hadwae capacity any moe to launch two aids like that simultaneously. Thee wee two HH-3s left in the theate. Thee wee not that many HH-53& left in the theate. Thee wee not that many A-ls. And [at] a futue time 1 don't 199 know if we can eve launch this type of aid. Maybe the A-10 can take the ole of ' the A-l. That's a long-ange gound suppot aicaft. But we don:t th~nk ~n tems of aids. We think in tems of set pieces. We don t th~nk ~n tems of the enomous psychological impact that exists because of a aid. Well, the debief ended up being--and if this isn't the exact numbe?f pages, it': ~ey c~ose to it--a twenty-thee page message fo the,cha~man of the Jo~n~ ch~efs. Lay was witing it vey fast. As we f~n~shed the deb~ef, wh~ch lasted about thee hous, Lay simultaneously f~n~shed h~s message. t wasn't highly edited. Lay ead [it] back to us ~nd the concen was not with smooth flowing coect gamma. He was ty~ng to convey to the chaiman, who was waiting to bief Defense Secetay Laid, pecisely what happened. The sun was up by the time we finished the debief. We wee still in the pocess [when] we got wod that Lieutenant Colonel Royal Bown and MaJo Ken Muphy each picked up one of the F-105 Wild Weasel cew membes. They waited until the fist light so they could enhance the chance ~nd had anothe aeial efueling. So fo Royal Bown and Ken Muphy and the~ cew, ~t was a vey long night. t was between 6:30 and seven o'clock when they finally landed at Udon. T~e debief, of couse, showed a numbe of athe unusual things, s?me of wh~ch wee flatly hun?ous: the debaking toops in the Noth V~etnamese t:oop con~oy stand~ng among the tees peeing out into the dakness ty~ng to f~gue out what was going on; having ou men with thei night vision devices lo?king at ~hem, hoping that nobody would fie a shot; the PJ on one of the p~may hel~coptes, the one guy that was picked up ~n the theate, that got so nevous he squeezed off a bust with the mini gun [and] ceated consideable sti fo just a few moments until they found out what had gone on; the fact that the MACO-- think it's the Mashalling Aea Contol Of~ice, that's what MACO stands fo in the Amy- a f~ne young capta~n, had m~scounted one man and thee was a apid ecount among the helicoptes as the last helicopte left, tying to figue out whee that one man was. Because we bad done it so many times and because he knew the pecise sequence in which the ollup would occu, 'the MACO was able to identify by silhouette in the dakness and the voice, the men who would un by. Of couse, they would also give him thei name. But the figues didn't tabulate. don't know that anyone eve figued out whethe he olled in out of sequence, o whethe he fogot to give his name. Of couse by the time they wee olling up, the SAMS wee fiing. The helicopte ~s down. Thee's a geat deal of noise. Fo a few moments, Bud Sydno felt that we wee going to have to land again and find out who hadn't climbed aboad. But by unning a quick head count they wee able to detemine that eveybody was pesent and accounted fo. t was not the kind o~ t~ing that you'd want to etun fo. f somebody was missinq, why was be m~ss~ng? Whee was he? And sp as each small team element collected thei people, they wee all thee. The debiefing ceated geat concen among ou people about What's going to happen to the POWs now. We came back empty-handed. Evey cell was boken into with one exception. That was the tige-cage type [isolation] cell below the east guad. Appaently the senio anking office in the compound was kept thee, totally sepaate, not even in the same building. That cell was looked into with flashlights. NobOdy was thee. The othes wee boken op~n. /1

5 200 The SAM defenses as well as the othe ai defenses of the Noth Vietnamese wee clealy vey disoganized. We had been able to conclude that this was a total supise fo the Noth Vietnamese. We felt cetain that until we fied the fist shots at the guad towes with the fist HH-53 that thee was no awaeness at all on the pat of any official militay oganization in Noth Vietnam that we wee in the county. We had done it. We had sneaked in. We had achieved full supise. Now the question came up in the debief: "Why wee we so effective in the tactical potions of this aid and the Noth Vietnamese so ineffective?" Well, of couse, that was one we had answeed in the planning of ou tactics long befoe. Thee is nobody that can defend against well oganized, well eheased, eal tactical supise. Unfotunately, we simply don't have a gasp in the militay fo tactical supise. To us tactical supise is doing the conventional and instead of hitting in the fist light, hitting them at fifteen minutes befoe fist light. You know? Doing exactly the same things. We think in tems of conventional opeations. FULLER: By "we" ae you {U)GRMES: The Ai Foce a FULLER: Not necessaily the Amy? GRMES: Oh, the Amy thinks conventionally alsoa FULLER: But not the special foces? {U)GRMES: No. The special foces do not think conventionally. Thee was a geat deal of talk befoe we sepaated--because we wee all stuck with the tactical shock effect of this aid, having leaned and developed the skills that we had--that we should not let this be dissipated, that we ought to conside a aiding focel that we could dive the Noth Vietnamese ight up the wall if we could ceate a pemanent aiding foce and just aid at andom aound Noth Vietnam, (in] small unit opeations. You cannot defend eveything. By making the Noth Vietnamese attempt to defend eveything, of couse they would be able to defend nothing. FULLER: But this would be in violation of established ules of engagement. GRMES: Who established the ules of engagement? {U)FULLER: The vey highest authoity, as 1 undestand it. {U)GRMES: Let me tell you something that is vey inteesting. Late on 1 was with Sven Kaeme, Who's one of D. Kissinge's thee Southeast Asia advisos; 001 M. Doge, Sven Kaeme, and think Bewste was the othe adviso. Sven Kaeme, afte biefed him moe than a yea afte the Son Tay aid, said, -Why didn't somebody in the militay come foth and popose [such a plan]?" Now this is a membe of the NSC [National Secuity Council], of Kissinge's pesonal staff. He said, -Why doesn't somebody in the militay popose a aiding foce like this. We could have diven the Noth Vietnamese out of thei mind. The militay is so afaid they ae going to get disappoved that if it's something that is diffeent, and something that is oiginal, they don't suggest it." He said, " hate to admit it. And Admial Zumwalt* told us at the Amy Wa College [that] it was not even a man in unifom that suggested the mining of Haiphong Habo when we finally did it. He said, We ecognized that Robet Admial Elmo R. Zumwalt, J, Chief of Naval Opeations. 201 McNamaa beat so many guys ove the head fo so long fo saying, 'mine the blooming habo,' that even though it was obvious militay stategy, when [it was suggested) it was not a man in unifom, it was a civilian advisoa FULLER: Well, 1 think it can be said that by this time, in the ealy 1970s, in the case of Southeast Asia, the militay had become gunshy. 1 don't think -- GRMES: That's ight. {U)FULLER: Fo example, you alluding to aiding paties in Noth Vietnam, 1 don't think -- GRMES: t neve would have gotten though the Ai Staff o the Amy Staff. FULLER: But 1 don't think it would be safe to assume that the idea had neve been boached to the civilian authoities a think that you might find that in ealy 1965 o 1966, afte the Gulf of Tonkin, Pesident Johnson and Secetay McNamaa would shoot--if they hadn't aleady shot- such poposals down. GRlMES: But it was a long time, John, since McNamaa and Lyndon Johnson, and we had become so calcified -- {U)FULLER: Gunshy. {U)GRMES: That's ight--in ou thinking that we just simply ween't about to bing it up. When he got back fom Son Tay, Geneal Mano shotly theeafte moved up to take ove as SACSA (Special Assistant fo Counteinsugency and Special Activities) on the Joint Staff. He tied to popose the ceation of a pemanent aiding foce that would tain, paticipate in a few aids, [and] tain othe people. t's not the kind of thing you want to keep a guy in fo a long time, not as an active aide, because the odds will un out on him too soon. But the whole histoy of aiding foces is such that the small unit, with highly selected people, has been able histoically to paalyze many times thei numbea And it's a vey consevative statement to say that one man becomes ten, in a wellplanned supise aida He's pobably mee like twenty-five o thity, o maybe even fifty. We have abundant infomation to indicate, though the histoy of aiding foces, the paalysis that can set in. The Bitish Commandos by a couple aids--well, thee aids eally, Spitsbegen, the Lofoten sland aids, Vaksdal, Noway--with something like a battalion size opeation, fo the most pat, on the aveage, [an] unde-stength battalion, in commando aiding style, [with] a few old aiplanes to cay off cetain specific tasks and some old ships to tanspot them and to ceate divesions and to give a little fie powe, wee able to tie up evey battleship in the Geman Navy because they convinced [Adolf] Hitle that Noway was the zone of destiny. A handful of men. And on D-day, when Gemany was seveely shot of good infanty, the Gemans had ove 300,000 well equipped infantymen in Noway. Noway was simply by-passed. t tied up a geat numbe of Hitle's esouces a They had some fist ate amoed divisions in Noway. Anothe appoach'to small unit unconventional bizae opeation is that often times a handful of men can do what a division o a cops cannot do. Skozeny [and] the bidge at Nymegen [is an example]. OVe a dozen division size and lage Geman attacks~id not take the bidge outa Ove

6 soties by the Luftwaffe did not take the bidge out. Skozeny did it with fouteen men and lost seven. He took the bloomin'bidgel And that slowed down the wa by seveal weeks. t just bought it to a halt. Skozeny walked in with a tiny cluste of men unde the full light of day and kidnapped a Hungaian egent afte the egent and his son had been in secet contact with the Allies to suende the Hungaian foces. The Hungaian foces didn't know that. Geman intelligence did. And the Hungaians fought liteally to the last day of the wa. They fought against the Soviet Union because this guy had been able to do [the impossible) with a handful.of guys.,and Mussolipi's captue,at Gan Sasso. ~ou can qo into David Sti*~'s ~peciallai 5~vice, the ~ng Range (ce~et,goup. [Geneal Ewin) Rommel admitted, when he finally captued Stiling, that no one man had given as much touble in that wa in Noth Afica has Steling had.~ And yet these people who ty to do the unconventional--if you fall outside the standad and outinized wisdom--ae accused of being bigands and chalatans and [of) gatheing a collection of misfits. And yet all you've got to do is figue out what an enemy thinks is impossible and then take it upon youself to do it. Hit him and un. Hit and un. Hit and un. This is the only way that Rome eve dove Hannibal out of the talian peninsula. Quintus Fabius knew he could not lick Hannibal in a set piece battle. The only hope was to bleed him dy. And Hannibal was tying to win the talian states away fom Rome. He would move though with his fine looking amy. He uttely cushed the Roman amies but he couldn't potect the citizens. And he couldn't potect his own foaging paties fom these blasted guys, these small Roman units that would hide in the mountains and ush down. Fabius saved Rome. Hannibal was still in the countyside, though bleeding all the time. The Roman Senate said, "You've got to do it faste. We elieve you of you command. We'e going to ecuit an amy." They ecuited thei legions. They went out, which, of couse was exactly what Hannibal wanted, [and) got waxed again. This was afte Hannibal had been on the peninsula fo seveal yeas. Then they said, "Heyl Fabiusl Can you give us a hand again?" And once again he saved them. You can make an enemy's position untenable. You have not defeated his foces in the field. You simply got to his psyche. Well, what did we do then as a esult of Son Tay? We didn't bing back any pisones, but we aided the most tende, sacosanct pat of thei county. Late on pisones wee captued in the south who wee at Son Tay. One had been a cook at Son Tay Pison. Anothe was on leave pepaing to go down south. He was visiting in Son Tay City. The Noth Vietnamese neve published, publicized, o acknowledged to thei people, to my knowledge, o anyone else's that 've been able to talk to, that this aid took place. They neve publicly acknowledged it. Yet it was known thoughout. You have an enemy opeation ight thee outside the capital. lmagine~ if you could,noth Vietnamese toops flown in on helicoptes to a pison in Mayland, aid [-ing) the pison, and flown out again, unscathed. Do you think that thee would be the likelihood of a national puge and investigation? nteestingly, even the accidental o unplanned landing at the southen compound led the Noth Vietnamese to believe that thee wee wholesale leaks in thei secuity system, because of the multiple landings of the helicoptes aound the aea. And by the time that all of the infomation had been gatheed, it appeaed to the Noth Vietnamese that thee wee many moe helicopte landings than thee wee in fact. Because of these multiple landings, and because of the fie-fight simulatos, the Noth Vietnamese concluded that we deposited many agents. The equivalent of ove a division spent vitually all of the next thee o fou months " Skozeny's foqmen blew the bidge at Nymegen, as Keith mentioned, but wee unsuccessful against the heavily-defended bidge at Remagen (see 203 looking fo those agents. And what eally upset them was they didn't find any. This intelligence infomation came back to us ove the following months. Thee wee a numbe of Noth Vietnamese executed who could not account fo thei wheeabouts o could not convince somebody that thei wheeabouts wee valid fo the peiod immediately peceding and duing the aid. The Noth Vietnamese had a big shake-up in thei whole secuity system; lots of fiings and appaently some executions. The ai defense battalion commandes wee just wholesale fied [and thee was] a massive shake-up within the ai defense system. The politicians had listened to thei ai defense expets tell them that they had the most vaunted, the most effective aeial defenses eve in the histoy of wafae--which they dol You and can undestand it. t would be difficult, pobably, fo us to convince a politician [how), if we had the most vaunted ai defense in the histoy of wafae, a bunch of lso-mile-pehou helicoptes and popelle aiplanes could just walk in completely undetected and pefom a gound opeation with the militay units of some thousand Noth Vietnamese, eithe full time o pat time, within 800 yads, and the whole Son Tay Militay School just south, outnumbeing ou guys a hunded to one.. Once moe it was difficult to convince the politicians that you could not espond and peg it down, although these vaious divesionay tactics wee taking place. We can undestand it as militay men, but the politician would not accept this. The Noth Vietnamese wee convinced that this in itself was a divesionay tactic to get thei attention away fom an invasion of Noth Vietnam. They tuly believed this. By sunise the next moning eveything that was going ove into Laos and heading down the [Ho Chi Minh) Tail was tuned aound and moving to the coast. Eveything was moving to the coast. [Thee wee] long convoys. The oads wee clutteed and clogged. And of couse Pesident Nixon gave appoval that missions could be flown at fist light in the Panhandle against tagets of oppotunity. They had to cease by sunset. The best single day [of) hunting eve on the oads in Noth Vietnam took place that day. Thee was neve anything to equal it befoe o afte. FULLER: Fea of an invasion by the United States? GRMES: That's ight. Noth Vietnam was convinced that thee was going to be an invasion. They moved eveything to the coast. They sat fo almost thee weeks. This aid, by fifty-six guys on the gound and about fifty in the ai stopped the wa fo thee weeks. They sat, and sat, and they waited and waited, until finally it dawned upon them: "Hey, you know, we've been had!" But befoe sunup the next moning thee aiplanes took off fom an aifield nea Hanoi with the entie cental committee of the Lao Dong paty. One of the thee cashed on take-off, killing all aboad. They wee being evacuated. They wee going to China to avoid the onslaught of the invasion [and) to find secuity and safety fo themselves. FULLER: They wee implementing the contingency plan to get thei leades out of the county. GRMES: That's ight. So these things wee the impacts on the Noth Vietnamese. Now, this doesn't eally delve into the psychological impact of saying, "Hee ae these Ameicans. We call them 'pape tiges.'" Yet they come in the night and they aid ou pison. They come pactically into the capital and they leave. And all we've got ae pieces of a blownup helicopte." This bas an enomous impact. The thought that any night, at any time, we have the capacity and the boldness to land and pull off a militay opeation and leave again, is petty doggone upsetting. What would have happened in this county in Wold Wa, if the Japanese had done this a few times? " (Cont) p. 140 above). Fo a good account of Skozeny's exploits, as well as Stiling's, see Chales Foley, Commando Eztaodinay (New Yok: Ballantine Books, nc., 1954).

7 204 FULLER: Well, we know that it had to have some effect on the Noth Vietnamese fom the debiefing of the POWs afte the wa. GRMES: Yes. The pisones at Son Tay wee moved about seven miles away to Chaity, believe it was, to pefom ehab wok. Thee wee windows they could look out on the side facing Son Tay pison. And though they couldn't see the small ams fie they could hea the weapons. They ecognized the sounds of the A-ls and the F-4s and the helicoptes and the loss. They knew thee was something going on on the gound. And because they'e petty astute guys they get positions and elationships. They had aleady concluded in the fist few hous afte the aid that thee had been a aid attempted on Son Tay pison. This was of couse late confimed though othe witten souces and though othe pisones that wee captued. n the POW update execise had a chance to speak to all of the Ai Foce POWs, some of the Amy pows, and some of the Navy POWs. Without exception, those who wee pisones at [the) time of that aid, and thee wee no exceptions to this, said that aid was the geatest single thing that happened in all those yeas fo thei moale. Some of them had concluded that they wee fogotten. Some of them had been told the wa was ove. The United States had just witten it off. They all said that afte that they wee cetain they'd be going home some day. They wee cetain that we would get--and fom the Noth Vietnamese esponse we got--a vey clea message acoss. The Noth Vietnamese put a battalion at each pison afte that to potect it. But in watching the events unfold it was clea that the Noth Vietnamese got the message because thei teatment [of the POWs) until that time had been vey bad. We told the Noth Vietnamese by this aid that we wee dead seious; we would go to geat lengths and geat isks to get these men back; that we hadn't fogotten about them; and that we held the Noth Vietnamese accountable fo them. Within the fist few hous afte the aid [thee) was pandemonium at the pisons among the guads. Some [POWs) the following night wee moved to Hanoi; othes anothe night late. t took a while fo the Noth Vietnamese to figue out what to do. Chalie Stackhouse, a Navy lieutenant commande who was at Son Tay, said thee was an inteogato they called "Rommel." A Noth Vietnamese, he spoke quite good English--with an aogance, an insuffeable aogance about him--and [gave) them lots of touble. "Rommel" diected a lot of beatings and totue of the pisones. "Rommel" came in totally incoheent. can't ecall whethe it was the following night o two nights late. But he [Stackhouse) said it was an oppotunity that an Ai Foce majo seized upon to wipe out and totally foce "Rommel" to lose face. He was babbling. Nobody could undestand him. He gouped the POWs togethe. The majo, who was a petty astute guy, stepped foth and said, "Stop! Get contol of youself. Tell us what it is you want us to do and if we can, we will do it. Speak slowly and get contol of youself." He stated speaking English, vey slowly, instead of his combination of English and Vietnamese that he was babbling foth moments ea11e. [He) told them to gathe the1 blanket. Each one had a blanket. They would be moving immediately. They wee to boad a tuck. He was so ill-pepaed to handle this situation that he put them on the tuck and did not as One of thee pisons in Noth Vietnam efeed to in some quates "Faith, "Hope, and "Chaity." 205 even blindfold them. They went fom Chaity to the "Hanoi Hilton" though the steets of Hanoi. They saw "Rommel" only a few times afte that and then neve saw him again. He had lost face. He could no longe face these men with his aogant pomp he once had. The POWs began to use this as leveage. t was appaent to vitually all the POWs that wod got back to [othe) pison guads that the guads did not fae well at Son Tay Pison. Now 've mentioned befoe, John, that some of them left, cut out. Appaently the govenment took cae of those. Those that didn't leave, of couse, did not fae well eithe. They wee just wiped out. So it was one of those no-win Situations, if you'e a guad. This.was the impession the.pisone~s had. The guads felt that if the Ane1cans came they wee g01ng to d1e. f they cut out they wee going to die at the hands of the Noth Vietnamese fo cowadice. So the POWs began to expeiment and use this leveage. [They] told some of the guads, "f you don't teat me ight my ai foce is going to find out about you and some night they'e going to come and kill you." And fom the visual impession of seeing these same men fo yeas [the POWs believed) they got thei message acoss. They put fea and doubt and a stong element of panic into thei guads. They said thei guads would back off and not give them the hash teatment they had peviously. FULLER: So, contay to some editoials in the pess that this might esult in even wose teatment fo the pows, in effect, it esulted in bette teatment. GRMES: That's ight, unifomly. Maybe thee ae some exceptions. But evey POW talked to that had been a long-duation pisone said thee. was damatic and instantaneous impovement. When we commented to Chal1e Stackhouse, "gee, Chalie, you look thin, but you don't look bad," Chal~e said, "Keith, you should have seen me in the ealy fall of 1970." Chal'e was a pisone fo six yeas. He said things changed afte [the a1d]. saw Chalie about ten days afte he was eleased fom p1s9n. He sa1d, "You wouldn't have known us. We wee the living dead." And he said, "it all changed. FULLER: Wee thee any othe side benefits fom the aid? GRMES: Well, the hope, as fa as am concened, was the pimay benefit. The POWs said, We knew, afte that aid, that we'd be fee." They began to live fo that. Until that time they said, "A lot of us had sot of concluded that we'd been hee five yeas, six yeas, [so] why not anothe f1ve o six o ten o twenty_ And we head tales of some Ai Ameica guys captued at the time of Dien Bien Phu." This came though Ton Cutis who was thown in with an Ai Ameica guy captued in 1954 [and) still held. No one [was] knowledgeable that he was alive at all. So you get this kind of tue stoy elated to you and afte five, six, [o] seven yeas, you begin to think, " guess 'm going to be one of those guys." FULLER: So we estoed hope to the pisones and -- GRMES: Anothe thing_ Thee wee two pimay pisons afte this. Eithe the pows wee kept at Hanoi o they we~e kep~ at a pison n7 a the Chinese bode in a steep valley. Fo the f1st t1me now, the p1sones wee eadily communicating with each othe, because thee wee not the facilities to handle [them) all. Clusteed up togethe like they wee they had [a) vey fee exchange compaed to the extemely limited exchange

8 " 206 in the past ~eas [with) thei tap codes. Nea the Chinese bode--they [the Noth V1etnamese) selected a vey, vey small, vey tight steep little valley and put them [the POWs) thee. Yet these men actively planned thei pogam fo the time when the escue attempt would cone fo them. talked to seveal guys that wee in [that) camp. They said "We had it all figued out. We thought you'd have to let at least a cou~le of yeas pass, to let things cool down, to let the Noth Vietnamese get slack." So they thought maybe two to fou yeas late would be the ight t1me. What a monumental expession of the human spiit. These guys otted fo all those yeas. Yet they wee saying, we'll figue maybe two to fou yeas fom now and then they'll cone and get us. And they wee going to be eady. They debated the best thing to do. Should we have a plan, an intenal plan wheeby we would assist the aiding team to ovetake the gaison? They debated this athe widely. They concluded that any aid would be so pecision eheased in movement and tactical plan, that anything we would do would simply intefee. They would bing the people, the skills, and the pecision taining. The best thing to do is stay stong. Do you push-ups. Do you sit-ups. Stay as healthy as we can. Do eveything they tell us and have a physical capacity to hang in thee. f welve got to walk a half a mile o a mile, o if we have to help them just by esponding. What can we do to help? We'll have to know the layout of the pison. Any questions that anyone will ask we've got to be able to answe. So they would ty to anticipate evey possible question that might come up. "Do you know so and so?" "Ae thee any cells [at] such and such a place?" "How many guads ae hee?" "Whee ae they?" "What kind of weapons do they have?" They wee eady. They occupied a geat deal of thei time planning to espond. Well, thee wee othe benefits. These wee cetainly the majo ones. t was immediately afte this aid that the Chinese sent the pingpong team [to the United States). Thee was a lot of citicism in the pess that this would deteioate ou almost non-existent elations with the Chinese and the Soviets--this act of aogant aggession, which of couse it wasn't. t was an attempt to bing ou men back, because the Noth Vietnamese bad simply neve Obseved the Geneva conventions. And this is what supised me so much in the pess, John. Thee ae specific ules associated with pisones of wa. The Noth Vietnamese ae one of 120-some-odd nations that have ageed to conduct themselves in accod with the Geneva conventions. And the Geneva conventions do not apply only to declaed was. They apply to acts of wafae and belligeant acts. You do not have to be in a declaed wa to be a pisone of wa. This the pess just somehow manages to ovelook in this county. The equiement, fo example, that, within a cetain numbe of days, believe it is seven days, afte captue of any enemy, you submit his name, ank, seial numbe and essential infomation to an intenational oganization, usually the Red Coss--and this infomation is povided his family. Well, the Noth Vietnamese had guys fo yeas befoe they submitted thei names. Some guys they have neve acknowledged having that wee known to be alive. The Geneva and Hague conventions of 1905 and 1909 specify that totue is expessly pohibited, that these ae men fo whom the wa is ove. They ae to be teated with dignity. They will be fed at least as well, fo example, as the citizens of any othe nation is fed. They can be detained but at the fist possible moment, must be epatiated. Thee was not one of these things that the Noth Vietnamese abided by. FULLER, But thee was ample pecedence fo violation of the Geneva conventions by seveal nations in the inteval between the conventions and Southeast ASia. '! J 207 GRMES, Oh sue. The Japanese violated them. FULLER, The violations wee legion thoughout Wold Wa, and Wold Wa, also. GRMES, That's ight. The Gemans by and lage duing Wold Wa abided by the Geneva conventions, except in a few individual cases. But as a ule the Gemans did abide by them. The United States has followed vey closely the aticles of the Geneva and Hague pisone conventions. But something that used to make me bun. John, [was) when would hea [Senato Edwad M.) "Ted" Kennedy o Fulbight say that the way to get the pisones back was to end the wa. The Geneva and Hague conventions specifically fobid teatment o epatiation o any elements associated with the welfae of pisones to be negotiable as pat of anything else. Anytime you make pisone teatment and conditional elease contingent upon any othe consideation, you ae in diect violation of these conventions that wee ceated solely fo the humane teatment of pisones. Somehow ou pess neve quite saw fit to eve bing these little things up at all in all the yeas that those men wee pisones. Epilogue GRMES, When we got back--geneal Mano and "Bull" Simons left Takhli about fou o'clock that aftenoon. The aid has been ove about twelve hous. Geneal Mano and "Bull" flew to Hawaii [and) biefed Admial McCain. "Bull" and Geneal Mano [then) went ight [to Washington) to bief Admial Mooe and Secetay Laid. So it was Monday evening, U. S. time that "Bull! Simons, Geneal Mano, and Secetay Laid had a television pess confeence. We spent the following night at Takhli. We had to gathe up ou gea and all of the equipment, some of which [was) classified, that had to be accounted fo. So we left Monday. We came back by Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Anchoage and landed about two o'clock Tuesday moning at Eglin. Of couse as soon as we could get to a telephone we all called ou wives. don't think mentioned this, but Pat and planned on getting maied oiginally, that June. was involved in Son Tay. Well, June went, July went, and August went, Septembe went, and Octobe was going. was a bit concened that could go off on something like this. Patsy and had a special thing going. just didn't want to not have the pivilege of being maied to he. So explained to "Bull" Simons that had been wanting to get maied fo quite a few months and because of Son Tay had been unable to. By then "Bull" and had woked togethe so long [that) he did not egad this as some flippant little equest. asked him if could have Satuday and Sunday off in mid-octobe. He said, sue, and so called Pat and met he. t was a petty shot tip. She met me about two o'clock in the aftenoon and we got the maiage license. said, "Well, 've got to be going back. Why don't you go and stay with ou fiends, the Gochnaues"--Bob was one of the A- pilots. of couse, it seems vey stange, guess, to someone who was supposed to get maied in June, that you just can't quite get aound to it, and it's now octobe and when you go down to get you maiage license; that you don't have time to spend with he [and) that you've got to go. But she was geat about it. So said, "'ve got the chapel eseved fo two O'clock Satuday aftenoon, a week fom tomoow." And said,

9 208 (0) " may [not] be able to meet you Fiday night. But you come down. 'll ~seve a oom at the Holiday nn. f see you, see you. f not, 11 b 7 thee by two o'clock Satuday in the chapel." So she went down. The F1day n1ght befoe we got maied, the sixteenth of OCtobe we had a full dess [aid] eheasal. ' n the inteim had said [to "Bull] that eally would appeciate it if [he] and Bud Sydno and Dick Meadows could attend the wedding. These wee th7 thee Amy ~u~s that.had eally gotten close to. Evey Satuday mon1ng we had a J01nt plann1ng meeting between the Amy and the A1 Foce [to] plan the next week's activities. t was the only one of those meetings didn't attend. Wane Bitton and Jack Allison [wee] at the planning meeting. They wondeed why wasn't thee and "Bull" said, Well, he's got something else to take cae of." Th~y noticed that "Bull" was getting vey antsy [and] kept looking at his watch. These meetings would usually last seveal hous. We'd thesh ove evey minute poblem and ty to have a solution woked out in the taining and technique development. Bit said, " just couldn't undestand why he was so antsy." He said, "'ve got to be out of hee by onethity." So they had bought suits. don't know whee they got them. They changed and wee at the chapel, [and] wee the only thee guests at the wedding. Geneal Mano was having a paty fo some of his SAW [Special Ai Wafae] people at the club. met Lay Repka at the club. Lay was sot of ou font man and was able to live a moe civilized life. He had a bunch of dinks in his hand and he said, "Hi, Keith! What ae you doing hee?" Of couse he knew was pat of the opeation. said, "Well, thought we ought to come and celebate getting maied." He said, "Hee ae the dinks. 'll be back." He went and gabbed Geneal Mano and said, "Keith G~es and Pat just got maied." So Patsy met Geneal Mano the night we wee maied. So, when called Patsy at two o'clock that Tuesday moning [afte etuning fom Takhli] she said, "Hey, Keith! saw two of you buddies on television with Secetay Laid ealie this evening. think 've got a petty good idea of what you've been doing lately." FULLER: So she knew fom the news confeence that he husband of a little ove a month had been involved intimately in the aid. GRMES: That's ight. So we wee cuious then. Headlines in all the papes wee: "U. S. Raids Noth Vietnamese Pison." 've got some copies. Ted Kennedy made a scalding denunciation of the aid. He called it idiculous and isking the wath of the Noth Vietnamese. Of couse, wasn't unde the impession that we had any affection going anyway. He was just highly citical of the aid. But that was the only day that Ted Kennedy made any citical statements. Senato Fulbight was just incensed. He called us demented, and said that any man who would voluntee fo an opeation like this has 20~ to be sick. We watched this because he convened the heaing that moning [Wednesday, 25 Novembe] of the Senate Foeign Relations Committee to demand that Secetay Laid show him why he was not consulted on this foeign intevention. Tech Segeant Addely was one of my FAGs and was pesonally decoated by Pesident Nixon with the Distinguished Sevice Coss. Addely was One of my two stong guys that would mash a full bee can with his hand. We wee watching this and when Fulbight called us sick and demented thought Addely was just going to flip his bloomin' lid. And one of the toops said, "Heyl Why don't we build a model of Senato Fulbight's house?" FULLER: Afte Son Tay you came back to Ai Univesity. Did you have an assignment to the Amy Wa College at the time? GRMES: My assignment to the Amy Wa College came shotly afte got back fom Son Tay. We kept the Joint [Contingency] Task Goup in existence until the eighteenth of Decembe because we had to compile the massive epot. was in chage of one of the thee segments of the epot. FULLER: Weathe Weathe At this time wee you involved in any way with anyone fom Ai Sevice egading the aid? Did you bief anyone fom Ai Sevice on it? Wee you asked about it? Was anyone awae? GRMES: No. No one asked me and don't think anyone was awae. FULLER: think that the Son Tay aid, as fa as Ai Weathe Sevice g~es, would have slipped into obscuity had it not been--with one except10n--fo Geneal Mano's aticle on the aid which appeaed late. think it's well to put it into the ecod hee. The one exception was that ealy the next month, Decembe of 1970, Geneal Catton was in the theate and of couse talked with Geneal Clay. Although we don't know p 7 cisely what Geneal Clay said to Geneal Catton egading the Son Tay a~d, we do know one th~ng that came up was weathe econnaissance on Typhoon Patsy. We do have anothe statement by Colonel [Hubet E.] Havey late who said that Clay told Catton that "we [AWS] did athe atocious in weathe suppot to Son Tay. Now, Colonel Havey didn't elaboate. But in view of what you've said hee, think pehaps it might be safe to assume that Geneal Clay did say something to Catton about the poblems he had with Colonel Zapinski. * Accoding to Schemme (The Raid, 63), Repka was the most intelligent of the aid's planning goup, an office who was poised, confident, inspiing, and who enjoyed eveyone's espect. Many of the changes that evolved in the oiginal concept and some of the most impotant opeational details wee Repka's ideas. "He geneated complete confidence in whateve he told you, Geneal Blackbun said, accoding to Schemme, because "he had gone though the staff pocedues mentally, he commanded espect by the composition of his thoughts and thei pesentation, and you didn't have to look ove his shoulde."

10 210 We do know fo a fact that Geneal Clay told Geneal Catton that he was dissatisfied with the foecasting on Typhoon Patsy, paticulaly as it appoached the Vietnamese coast. As a esult, when Geneal Catton got back to Scott he asked [Bigadie] Geneal [William H., J] Best [the] commande of AWS] to give him a biefing on this Son Tay thing in connection with a couple of othe cuent incidents--all of which had something to do with weathe econnaissance. When Geneal Best biefed Geneal Catton the essence of his pitch was that the foecasting on Patsy could have been bette had they had econ on the thing just pio to landfall. One of the poblems was the idea of the 1st Weathe Goup being able to equest weathe econnaissance diectly fom the 54th [Weathe Reconnaissance Squadon, Andesen AFB, Guam] instead of going though the system to get it. Geneal Catton seemed to buy this ecommendation and thee wee some pocedual changes made. The next month, howeve, Geneal Best biefed [Lieutenant] Geneal [James C.] Sheill, the vice commande of MAC. Geneal Sheill had othe ideas as fa as what happened with the 1st Weathe Goup and Son Tay, to the point whee he implied that pehaps pat of the poblem was that the 1st Weathe Goup commande had not been--to use a favoite tem of Geneal Best--"in bed" with Geneal Clay. Had he been, he would have taken steps to povide the needed and necessay suppot. Geneal Best was able to vey tactfully side-step this infeence that one of his senio offices had pehaps not done all he could to suppot the aid. Then in the fall of 1971 Geneal Mano's aticle came out in Aeospace Commentay. t was in connection with this that Weathe Sevice got einvolved in Son Tay. And it was the fist indication that most of us had of Keith Gimes' involvement in Son Tay. Colonel Zapinski, at that time in plans, had the headquates' copy of Aeospace Commentay. On it he penned quite a few emaks, the gist of which wee that Geneal Mano wasn't giving due acknowledgement to the ole the 1st Weathe Goup played in the aid. As a esult, when Geneal Best ead the aticle and saw Colonel Zapinski's comments--and, 11m sue, having been biefed by Colonel Zapinski--he diected Colonel Zapinski to daft a lette fo his signatue to Geneal Mano laying out the specifics of [Zapinski's] chage. Geneal Best signed the lette. At the Headquates Ai Weathe Sevice staff meeting of 8 Novembe 1971, the geneal was inteupted by a phone call. t was Geneal Mano. When Geneal Best came back he told the staff that Geneal Mano was fully apologetic fo any slight Weathe Sevice believed existed in his aticle. He told Geneal Best he was vey much satisfied with the wok that had been done by the 1st Weathe Goup and of couse in paticula by Segeants Ralston and Van Houdt. 213 FULLER: Let me ask you one final question in connect10n with Son Tay. Did you eceive any awads o decoations specifically because of you ole in Son Tay? GRMES: The Legion of Meit. FULLER: Befoe we leave the subject, is thee anything else you'd like to say about Son Tay, anything you feel that should be a pat of the ecod, one way o anothe? GRMES: Well, it looks like my willingness to paticipate in Son Tay obviously iitated Ai weathe Sevice. t o~viousy iit~ted.my boss back at the Ai Command and Staff College. t s funny. V1ew 1t as the most wothwhile achievement that engaged in in my whole militay caee. view this as cetainly the high-wate mak in my caee of specifically tailoing weathe suppot to meet the needs of the flying, fighting Ai Foce and Amy. But it has been the one thing, guess, that has cost me because of its contovesial natue. t has been the thing, because of the attitude that was taken by people hee and at Ai Univesity, that has insued that will not eve eceive full colonel. *Not withstanding his combat ecod descibed heein, and despite the fact that he was the second-youngest office gaduated with the 1972 Amy Wa College class, Gimes was passed ~ve fo pomotion to colo~el b the Ai Foce in both the seconday zone 1n 1973 at age 37, and du~ng h~s initial eligibility in the pimay zone this yea just pio to the 1nteview. A Regula office, Gimes had been pomoted below the zone--sec~nday zone--to both the ank of majo and lieutenant colonel. He was th1tyfou when selected fo lieutenant colonel with twelve yeas and one month active duty time. [Deletion. See MAC Histoian's Note. p. vi.] Next page is 213. j

11 214 FULLER: Well, it's unfotunate because, as an obseve on the scene faily knowledgeable about Son Tay fom this aspect, think it boils down stictly to a clash of pesonalities. GRMES: That's ight. Well, guess 'm not so govelling in my aspiations fo a pomotion that eally eget having made the effot, having made the tip. 'm soy that the need and dedication that felt and all the othe guys felt is not appeciated. eally don't see how it could be on a wide ange. But the guys who matteed, the pisones, appeciated it. We bought to them, next to binging them back ouselves, the best thing that we could have gotten them: we gave them hope. 've said to you befoe, John, that the thing that have to offe [is that) can lead. know this. can manage well enough. But that's not what makes men take that exta measue of couage o git thei teeth a little moe o, when the going is tough, makes them hang in thee. t's believing in what you'e doing, and leadeship. don't think we've got the capacity in Ai Weathe Sevice to identify ou weak leades fom ou stong leades--and this is widely acknowledged among the captains, majos, and lieutenant colonels. We mavel at the assignments that Weathe Sevice makes because some of the men who clealy come acoss to the toops as vey weak, inept leades ae the ones that ae given positions of high esponsibility. This is cetainly not unifom. We've got some guys that ae outstanding leades. But thee seems to be no coheent patten. Ai Weathe Sevice doesn't want militay meteoologists. They make believe they do, but they eally don't. FULLER: One thing that comes to mind was that afte the elease of the POWs you wee asked to give them a biefing at Ai Univesity on the Son Tay aid. What was the esponse of the POWs othe than what you've aleady coveed? GRMES: t was temendous. FULLER: Who was it that selected you to give the biefing? GRMES: was one of a two-man biefing team. Royal Bown fom Ai Rescue Sevice was the othe man. We wee asked [by) Ai Univesity [who) had ceated a pogam fo updating these POWs of long standing- binging them up to date on what had happened in the wold, in the militay, in this county, [and) in the U. s. Ai Foce while they had been pisones. And the one event of geatest single inteest to the pisones was the Son Tay aid. When this pogam was being put togethe was asked specifically to pesent the stoy of the Son Tay opeation as one of the two men, Oiginally Colonel Wane Bitton had been asked to pesent it. But [Bigadie) Geneal Sullivan [Glenn R., the ARRS commande) wanted Royal Bown to tell the stoy fom the Ai Rescue Sevice flying opeations standpoint. You know, think it's inteesting that, in almost the two yeas that have been at Headquates Ai Weathe Sevice, as much inteest as this aid had, no one asked that the stoy be told to Ai Weathe Sevice. 215 FULLER: No one at Ai Weathe Sevice has asked to be biefed by you on the Son Tay -- GRMES: Not in an official capacity. No one. FULLER: You wee neve asked, fo example, by Geneal Best to explain you side of the Son Tay aid as you paticipated in it? GRMES: Neve. FULLER: No by Colonel Collens no by Geneal Aldich? GRMES: That's ight. Geneal Aldich did say he wanted me to sit down with him sometime and go into it, but this was just a couple of months befoe he left as commande of Ai Weathe Sevice. He was the only One that mentioned that he would like to know. FULLER: Do you feel this is indicative of the Ai Weathe Sevice sentiments on Son Tay? GRMES: think it is indicative of a lot of things, John. FULLER: n elation to Ai Weathe Sevice and Keith Gimes. GRMES: And to the Ai Weathe Sevice in geneal, the attitude that Ai Weathe Sevice has got. Slide Biefing FULLER: Okay. Well, think we've kind of wung out Son Tay, except fo some slides you've bought along. Go ahead. GRMES: This is a pictue -- FULLER: Of a classical Rescue Sevice fomation -- GRMES: Except fo that one helicopte that is extemely close to the wingtip of the C-130. This paticula slide happens to show the Huey. mentioned to you befoe [that) we woked on altenate nights with the Huey and with the HH-3. The decision was not made until just liteally a few days befoe deployment as to which aicaft would fly the mission. The HH-3 [was) pefeed by the Amy toops because it gave them moe oom [and) it gave them the capability to efuel in the ai. t took about seven-tenths of a second longe to settle down in the compound ove the wall than the Huey because it was lage. t also gave them a machine-gun capability out the doo that was not cumbesome. We igged a fifty-calibe machine gun fom a sling that we woked with in the left and ight doos of the HH-53. The Huey was smalle. By stipping out the amo plate and all the unnecessay instumentation we wee able to take 900 pounds off the aicaft, put in fuel bladdes, and have enough ange so the Huey could fly fom its launch bases in Thailand to Son Tay. But of couse it could not tun aound. f the tun-aound was given at the last moments the Huey would have had to land and tansfe the toops to anothe. helicopte on the gound in Noth Vietnam. Plus the toops wee so close togethe that they couldn't move well fo the fist couple of minutes afte they leaped out of the Huey. Anothe thing that botheed a couple was the fact that they could only get thiteen people on the Huey. Thee wee some just supestitious enough

12 216 f 217 f to say, ft don't want to go with thiteen guys." And those things make a diffeence. [n] that last pictue, John, you saw the way the Huey was dafting- in daft position not close than eight feet no moe than thiteen feet fom the wingtip--and that takes skillful flying. FULLER: That's what is known in the game as tight fomation flying. GRMES: That's ight. And ecall that the black 130 is only thee knots above stall in [the] fomation. You do not want tubulence unde such cicumstances. You can imagine what a little tubulence could have done. The A-s flew fomation with the othe black 130 and did not have, of couse, the equiement to fly such a tight fomation as the helicopte did. The A-s had two Ps: one left seat, one ight seat. FULLER: Ae the A-ls in this shot at Eglin? GRMES: Yes. FULLER: Wee these paticula A-ls deployed specifically to the theate? GRMES: No. Not these. We picked up A-s in the theate. Pat of Lay Repka's and Ben Kaljev's task in those days just befoe the aid was to sit down with the commande at NKP (Nakhon Phanom] and say, -Listen. We've got a lette hee fom the chief of staff, u. s. Ai Foce, that says, 'don't ask any questions, and give us any help we need.' What we need ae five A-s that you pull out - L ':"..!. - ~ ~f':!1:... ' ~~- ~. ~... -:-.':"~ "'!... j'~='~!.,: Y.. f:"'l'~ (q: :!.2. _-~5- / ;': ":,h -.,g.o-:': - t:._... 4~~{..,: i_ ~~ :~.:._;:-... ~~.. ~ fo the next seveal days and install these VHF (Vey High Fequency] jammes in. Don't let anybody touch them. Keep them loaded. You'll have some pilots come ove sometime at thei convenience. They'll check in with you. They'll fly these aiplanes, check them out, top off the tanks, and then walk away. Sometime in the futue they'll come back again. - FULLER: What about the HC-130s? Did they do the same thing? GRMES: No. We took ou 130s ove. These wee the same 130s (that] we flew with thoughout the taining pogam, and they flew ove unde independent andom-appeaing missions. FULLER: Well, let's cay it one step futhe with the helicoptes. [ GRMES: The Huey was the only helicopte we took with us. We in a C-141 and took it intact--stipped down, blades tuned. up the HH-3 and the 53 in theate. loaded it We picked That's just a (pictue of a] standad efueling; nothing spectacula about that except we wee doing it at night, appoaching the uppe altitude limits of the helicopte fo efueling, and we wee doing it blacked out with no adio communication. And when you take all of those things, a faily outine daytime opeation, whee you can see and communicate, becomes a vey skillful at at night. Also, the helicoptes took off and flew on thei own and wee located by the C-130. This was the HC-130. As soon as they off-loaded,the black C-130 slid undeneath the helicopte (and] took the daft position. The othes got in loose fomation and away they went. ncidentally, the helicopte pilots flew with these night vision goggles. FULLER: Did they? GRMES: That's ight. Thee was no moon. They wee flying this tight, tight dafting fomation with no moon until efueling. We had a efueling plan so that at about five-to-ten minutes afte the moon boke the hoizon we'd efuel. To daft unde a black sky was even moe atful. This is a FAG photo. We had this gid acoss the top. We had ou close-in and ou way-out photos. The way-out photo was used by the A-l to spot danges and wan the guys on the gound ove the FAG net. Let me oient you. Hee s the Red Rive. Hee is Son Tay, a city of 17,000. Thee's the old eath citadel. Hee'. Son Tay Pison. Hee's the school to the south. Theeand-one-half oad miles down hee is the Son Tay Militay School. These ae 300 mete gids. Now Son Tay Militay School had an antiaicaft taining facility with guns which fotunately wee fixed and could only fie west ove this swamp aea. The SAMs mounted hee wee mounted south of the hanga and could not get any nothen elevation at all; only go fom vetical down to the south, because this is a taining aea. This is the aea whee all the tuck dives wee tained. They odinaily had 400 to 500 tucks in the inventoy hee. These ae all small faming Son Tay Pison is in squae 3; Son Tay Citad.t is in squaes K4# J4# and JS; and the main oad fom Hanoi and the Red Rive ae at the uppe ight.

13 218 vil~ages. t isn't pos~ible to, get. moe than about 600 yads away fom a v~llage. The populat1on dens1ty 1n the Red Rive Valley, as we have mentioned ~efoe, ~ohn, is 2,600 people pe squae mile in the faming aeas. Th1S aea 1S whee we put ou helicoptes down, engines unning, blacked out, and not appeaing to theaten anyone. This is the main noth-south oad that goes fom Hanoi up the Red Rive to the Chinese bode. The. Song.Con, Rive comes ~gh~ aound like this. The bidge acoss the 1ve 15 1ght hee. Th1S 15 a heavily taveled militay tanspotation atey_ FULLER: Whee did you get the pictue? GRMES: This is an SR-7l, eal good quality photo. "scafed" this pictue up, took it ove to Eglin photo lab and had them supeimpose some gids. gidded it to the dimensions wanted. n fact the photo was only about two-thids of the dimensions you see. Each A- ight-seate had the gid. He would watch and would give indications to the FAG who also had this exact photo. FULLER: Well, fo the sake of the scipt the noth-south gids ae fom "A" though "K," left to ight on the map, and the east-west gids ae one though eleven, noth to south. GRMES: Yes. 219 FULLER: And is this an SR-7l shot? GRMES: No, this is the model. FULLER: t is? GRMES: sn't that geat! t was built by the CA." t is an absolutely splendid piece of wokmanship. The CA had a little optical device. We took one of the pisones who had been eleased, one of the nine Ai Foce pisones, and we said, "we want you to look though this device." He didn't know the pupose. t [the optical device] gave him the same pespectlve as 1f he wee a f1ve foot ten [inch] man, standing at the point whe~ you set. [the] device. He put.it down and didn't say anything fo a wh~le. He Just looked. He ~mmed~ately stated beaking out in a heavy sweat. And he said, "My God, it's just like 'm thee." GRMES: tied alphabets east-west and numbes noth-south. The system woked out eal well. 'll acquaint you with some of the ealities of the pison itself. FULLER: This is a shot of Son Tay Pison itself? Legend A. Guad Towes B. Latines c. POW Cells o. POW Hess/ndoctination E. Admin, Conn F. Guad Qts G. Suppot Bldgs H. Pobable Wate Stoage 1. Pobable Laundy J. Wells K. Kitchen L. Food Stoage/Guad Mess M. Helicopte Landing N. Guad Family Housing o. AutoDatic Weapons Positions P. Fish Pond The CA model Of Son Tay Pi8on~ efeed to affectionately by the aides as "Babaa. " FULLER: This is one who actually had been intened at Son Tay? GRMES: Well, this one hadn't been in Son Tay. He had been in anothe pison somewhat simila. We wanted to see if this model was accuate enough-~if the colos and textues wee ight, and the window heights- that th1s adequately epesented the Noth Vietnamese pisons. He said " can't believe it." He was just astonished. t was a beautiful Piec~ of w~k. This model, incidentally, is now pemanently located in the Spec1al Foces Museum, on Smokey Mountain Hill at Fot Bagg [Noth Caolina]. 'll give you a size pespective: 188 feet fom the southwest guad towe to the nothwest.guad towe. The Son Tay Pison had been expanded a couple of yeas eal~e. Fomely the wall had gone ight along hee. This wa~ a new aea included in the pison. Thee was a lowe guad towe ~ght at the east gate. t didn't stick up as high. The walls an ~en-to~twelve feet ~igh on the inside, eight-to-ten feet high on the outs~de, w~th double-th~ckness [of] vey lage concete cinde blocks. The building hee was long with a cente hall, no extenal windows at all. The same thing in this building, although we didn't undestand why this was so tall. t had a much steepe pitched oof and much highe gables than the othe building. FULLER: The building in the middle of the compound was a Single stoy building? GRMES: Yes. FULLER: And the tall building, was it single stoy? GRMES: We didn't know but it.was tall enough to have been a two-stoy bu1ld1ng. t's had to tell w1th no w1ndows on the outside why it was that tall. We didn't undestand it. The building hee we pesumed could be anothe small containment aea. We felt that this building was because of its poximity, only six feet fom the end of this guad t~we- pobably a maximum secuity building whee some of the pisones wee " Accoding to Mano's Son Tay Repot to JCS, (Pt., p. c-5), the scale model was built by the National Photogaphic ntepetation Cente as a esult of a JCTG equest channeled though the CA.

14 kept that they wanted to keep the closest watch ove. Thi~~as the inteogation building--whee classes in the ight mode of thought wee occasionally conducted fo individual pisones. The latine and washoom was hee. Thee was a well in the cente of the compound. can imagine how "yummy" it tasted, being immediately adjacent to the latine, which 'm sue was delibeate--just anothe attempt to keep you body continually laboing unde diahea which was an occupational diseaa. fo pisones.. This was the main pison gaison baacks fo the enlisted toops. This was NCO quates. This long sot of doubleconnected building was the chow hall and kitchen fo the toops. The latine and wash aea fo the Noth Vietnamese toops [wasj outside. The camp commandant'. headquates and administation wee in this building hee. Hee wee the powe geneatos and fuel stoage aeas. You can see wies unning to the othe buildings fom the powe geneation facilities. The only buildings that we thought [weej something [elsej wee these two within the compound. The othe buildings wee used fo exactly what we anticipated. Only the buildings inside the pison compound [weej without windows. The cop aeas, o the fields, came ight up to the pison. On the edge of this pictue wee zig-zag ai aid shelte tenches that wee not as cleanly cut as they had been a couple of yeas befoe when the bombing was going on, because the Noth Vietnamese allowed them to patially fill with dit. Hee you can see the Song Con Rive [and) hee [wasj a ive that was pobably between ten and sixteen feet deep, with dikes and small levees along it. This photo, John, is the close-in, 100 mete gid. You get a much bette view of the immediate suoundings. This is a canal unning east-west fom the Song Con Rive, with a pump-house located ight at the junction whee the ive fed into the canal. The iigation canal that played out appoximately hee had a mound of dit bodeing [it) two-to-thee feet high. The step-down tansfome was located ight hee, a small stuctue. Thee was a steel-einfoced concete post [fo anj old powe tansmission line put in by the Fench that was not used ss a tansmission line any mee, that had to be blown. As they dispesed fom the helicopte, the pathfindes that wee contolling the peimete aea fist set up two landing zones fo the helicoptes to etun to, with thee lights on each zone. [TheyJ put a demolition pack on the pole [and) then cleaed the pump-house. Then that two-man pathfinde team took up a position ight hee so they could watch the oad as it cuved [fo) any theat that would come fom the Son Tay Militay School. The thee-man team moved down to the intesection of the oad and the canal, blew the step-down tansfome, dopping all the lights fo the whole nothen half of Son Tay, and then took up thei position hee. This was the team that late stopped the patol, moved down to the school, stopped a vehicle convoy that made the tun, and then disabled the lead vehicle--good accuate fiing with the light anti-tank weapon, the last of the two that they had. (U ) This aea hee was double-copped. They had ecently iigated the ice paddies--not so ecently that they wee still flooded, but ecently enough that the fist few yads the toops had to tavel befoe they hit some dy gound was though some faily slippey, but not boggy mud. They wee dy hee on thei landings and takeoffs. Until we got the ten o'clock SR-7l flight back the moning of the launch, we didn't know whethe o not that paddy would be dy. Even then it could have been flooded that aftenoon. We watched that with the geatest concen. We had a possibility whee ou helicoptes would have to land the toops in a flooded ice paddy as deep as fou feet in wate. Because of this we made some stainless steel spikes that we lash~d ou hooded making lights onto and would dive into the wet gound. But we didn't need the spikes because the gound, though wet, was not flooded. They just laid the making lights down with the spikes oiented in the diection they should be. Now hee's an intemediate photogaph of the aea. This is the same scale as you saw befoe. This is actually the photo the FAGs used. What you saw befoe, John, was nothing but a blowup. This was the close-in photo the FAGs used with the 100 mete gids. We took it out fa enough so that any theat aea that we could easonably expect a poblem fom would be included in this photo. Now you can see the footbidge that cosses the Song Can Rive. And you can see the cone of the south and west wall of the old eath citadel in Son Tay City. nside the citadel you ecall, wee two companies of Noth Vietnamese home-guad-type toops. can't tell you how many hou. looked at evey little featue and evey little squae of these photos,.s did all the est of the guys. They looked at these photos until thei eyes wee soe, until they had memoized eveything. Just noth of the compound you can Bee the bidge, John, and you can see how geatly concened we wee, knowing that lage scale motoized toop movements took place along that oad. You can see also, that the city of Son Tay extends ight on out. t's off to the east 300 yads and it's ight thee 100 yads noth of us. The guys that went up to the bidge wee looking acoss a fifty foot ive at hundeds of Noth Vietnamese homes. FULLER: That'. the bidge you did not blow? GRMES: That's the bidge we did not blow. Now the othe footbidge Bud Sydno felt had to be taken out. Those guys could have given us a lot of touble. But as fate had it they wee so concened with that flae that landed on one of the buildings inside thei compound that they didn't have a chance to get oganized befoe we hit the bidge. The bidge was hit within the fist few minutes afte the A-s aived. FULLER: Was thee only one model made by the CA? GRMES: Only one. FULLER: And this is it.

15 GRMES : FULLER: GRMES: photos. in95 in befoe. This is it. Vey ealistic. 222 Fantastically ealistic. t looked moe eal than the actual Thee wee even exact scale motocycles leaning against buildthe compound. had neve seen a piece of wok that well done FULLER: Let's hea one fo the CA! GRMES: That's ight. That took high quality photo-intepetation. And then we scaled up cadboad helicopte models and toop models. We even had small scaling laddes to see the vaious points that might be vulneable. We scaled off and scaled up some jeeps and vehicles on the oad to use fo pespective. This is a DAPP photo taken just afte the aid. TYphoon Patsy aleady coveed South Vietnam with clouds. Howeve, you can see [that) Noth Vietnam--except fo the panhandle aea, whee Patsy has stated biting in--is quite clea. Noth Vietnam is getting a flow of dy wind off the continent. You can see clealy the Red Rive as it goes nothwest out of Son Tay. You can see thee's a little bit of cloudiness hanging ight along the cest of that mountain ange that paallels the Red Rive [and) that Laos has just a few puffs of cu and not too much moe than that in Thailand. John, these ae two tacks that you see out of Thailand- the ed is the helicopte tack and the geen is the A- tack. The helicoptes and the 130s that guided them did not launch fom the same location; no did the A-s, and the l30s that guided the A-s, launch fom aound the west edge of the Plaine des..,; (USAF DAFP Photo) the same location. The tacks went Jaes fo fea of the antiaicaft. l 223 Once we got into the Mekong plains, and [as] Colonel Fank Ross had indicated, it was clea to us that we would have some cloudiness. We wee counting on the subsidence to spead the cloudiness fom scatteed cu [-mulus] -into maybe come boken statocu [-mulus) to give us the best possible advantage in not being seen. Then the A-s and the helicoptes would fly thei sepaate but somewhat simila tacks afte they ounded the west edge of the Plaine des Jaes. Off the coast you can see thee distinct tacks: Navy divesions. One Navy divesion appeaing to be an attack at Haiphong, anothe appeaing to go into some of the ai bases noth of Hanoi, and the last appeaing to be a m1n1ng with actual inet shapes being dopped in Haiphong Habo. The Noth Vietnamese wee a little bit caeful about whee they put thei ships the next few days. The sea conditions at the time of the Navy launch was light, bodeing on modeate. Because the Navy was futhe south in the Gulf of Tonkin launching fom two caies, Patsy was beginning to be felt at the time of the aid. The fist Navy divesion ove the un-in point was due to make thei tun inland thity minutes pio to ou aival at Son Tay. And it woked beautifully. The Noth Vietnamese simply ae not ten feet tall. They get scewed up and satuated and ovewhelmed like anybody else does. Just a close-up showing whee the Black Rive takes that slight bend to the west. This was ou P. You can also see the poximity of Hoa Lac Ai Base. t's vey, vey close. And we did not want the MiGs. f the MiGs had been paked fo a takeoff to the left you can see they'd make a ight tun on clinbout immediately afte takeoff ight ove Son Tay. [t was] twenty-thee miles fom the pison to the cente of downtown Hanoi ; eighteen miles to the outskit aeas. You can see Phuc Yen is about sixteen miles away; Hoa Lac about six miles. On this slide thee's a small lake hee [and) this was the P. We enteed the Red Rive Valley quite some distance up. Evey aicaft went ight down the face of the mountains and then moved to the P. Now, a vey inteesting thing happened at the P. [Fo) one thing, the helicoptes wee to aive two minutes befoe the A-s. That was felt to be citical. The helicoptes moved out, still in fomation, once they cossed the P. By staying just noth of Mount Ba Vi the helicoptes wee ove vitually completely flat teain with no elief featues. Staying noth of this oad hee, and once to this lake, thee wee no featues

16 224 that ose moe than fifteen feet above any suounding teain. The entie helicopte foce was flying appoximately 200 feet above teain down the Red Rive Valley and then gadually descending once they coss the Black Rive. Remembe they ae picking up these check points stictly by the eflection fom the moonlight. The moon is now about eighteen degees above the hoizon and giving good eflections with enough lead time befoe you pass ove a point. As the toops flew down this oad about 100 feet above gound level they passed a moving militay convoy. At this point, it was just opposite the cente of the south edge of this lake. Hee we had one of ou helicoptes peel off to land. These wee the two backup helicoptes. The othe backup helicopte stayed back and assumed a position at the ea of the fomation and would follow the C-130. Six miles out fom the pison seveal changes took place. The C-130 stated his climb up to 1500 feet; the othe backup helicopte stated his climb behind him because he would be the backup flae if the C-130 wee hit o his flaes didn't go; and Maty Donohue's lead gunship assumed the lead position of the helicoptes because he would pass ove with his fiing pass just befoe Heb Kalen and Heb Zehnde would land inside the pison walls. So now Maty was in the lead. They split off. The C-130 upped his powe settings. His sound is beginning to oveide that of the helicoptes if you'e moe than about half a mile away fom the helicoptes. The whole helicopte fomation is getting into position fo the final un. They dopped to fifty feet. Thei main concen [was] antennas of any sot, powe lines, o windnills--but still pessing on. The C-130 flae was put out diectly ove the taget. A fiefight simulato was put out afte this. As soon as ou backup helicopte that followed [the] flae [C-130] identified one good flae--and one was all they wee tossing out at a time because we didn't want moe--[he] peeled off [and] went back and landed by [his] "compade" on the island. The C-130 made a ight tun tight enough so that he could coss the bidge on the main noth-south highway on the othe side of Son Tay and dump a fiefight simulato. He dumped anothe fiefight simulato on anothe bidge about a mile and a half east of the Son Tay Militay School. The 130 dopped down, put his napalm paachute on the ammo dump at the Son Tay Militay School, [and] put anothe fie fight simulato out appoximately the same distance west of the Son Tay Militay School [as] the simulato east of the school. Anothe fiefight simulato [was dopped] nea a militay compound about thee miles futhe to the west. They put out two, foty-five minute buning log flaes on the slopes of Mount Ba Vi [as] a efeence point in case anybody got disoiented. Two minutes afte this goup aived hee, the A-ls aived. TheA-l immediately peeled off fom the fomation and stated obiting. The othe two A-ls stated an obit in the vicinity of the lake. You pimaies, Peach One and Two, flew diectly to the compound, checked in with the FAGs, and began a tight obit, fo 300 feet. They would fly just noth of the compound, scan the ive, scan the highway, [and) come down and watch any activity that might be depating the Son Tay Militay School fo the pison. Afte ou 130 handled all his flae missions he tucked himself off west of the ive, just ove the fist idge of mountains. [He] act (-ed] as a escue contol aicaft in the event one of ou aicaft went down o in the event that something happened so that othe aicaft would have to move in and attempt to escue us. Those petty well un down the infomation on these slides. f 225 J Son Tay aides in taining..

17 226 f l ( 227 SWOS to the National Command Authoities (U ) FULLER: 'd like now to change to anothe subject, which fo lack of a bette title, we'll call staff weathe office suppot to the national command authoities. Pemit me, if you will, to 9i ve a i ttle backgound. One of the concens expessed by the Ai Weathe Sevice leadeship in geneal, and in paticula by Geneal Best, was that in Southeast Asia the leades--fo example, the commande of the Seventh Ai Foce, CNCPAC, and pehaps MACV--wee not taking into consideation the weathe facto pio to authoizing individual aids o seies of aids ove Noth Vietnam, t was the belief of Geneal Best that something should be done to impess upon the leadeship this need fo the weathe facto being included o consideed in plans. n fact, when he was in Southeast Asia in Septembe 1971 on a staff visit to the Ai Weathe Sevice units thee, he talked with Geneal John O. Lavelle, who was then commande of the Seventh Ai Foce. When he came back, he told his staff seveal times that fo the fist time in his tips to Southeast Asia, eithe as commande o as the DO fo Weathe Sevice, that Geneal Lavalle was fully cognizant of what weathe and Weathe Sevice could do fo him. n Geneal Best's opinion this had been lacking in pio Seventh Ai Foce commandes, ~:-. /.... ;. 1 ". ~,,. /. " Peiodically theeafte, he sufaced this idea of a staff weathe office to the vey highest authoity. By that he meant a staff weathe office o some individual who could get to and bief the so-called national command authoity, namely, Pesident Nixon. But if it had to be though the vehicle of M. Kissinge, o Secetay Laid, fine. He became even moe convinced that this was tue afte the Poud Deep Alpha aids of Decembe 1970 ove Hanoi and Noth Vietnam, which poved to be, in one sense, a disaste because of the effects that weathe had on the effectiveness of the aids. And again, he voiced his opinion seveal times that thee was need to get the wod to the people who make the decisions such as Poud Deep Alpha--aunching at a time when it was known that weathe ove Noth Vietnam was not paticulaly favoable. think Geneal Best's position on this issue of staff weathe offices to the national command authoities was best expessed by himself in his end-of-tou epot lette, so to speak, to Geneal Calton [Paul K., commande of MAC), which is dated the twenty-seventh of July 'd like to ead some of it into the ecod. 'm quoting: One of the geatest challenges to AWS is the need to impove envionmental sevice to the national command authoity.... But am concened... with the.. poblem of insuing that envionmental infomation and advice ae povided to decision-makes who have to make geo-political judgments whee weathe is a facto. All you need to do to ecognize this lack is eview the diection of the SEA conflict fom the White House in the mid-60s, in the nealy complete absence of weathe infomation to them, How did the idea get going to bomb Hanoi visually in Decembe 1971, when it is commonly known that the winte monsoon socks in notheast

18 22B 229 Vietnam?... Of couse we suppot the White House. We foecast fo Ticia's outdoo wedding and we ide hed on the weathe at San Clemente and Key Biscayne. This is kid stuff. What we need is a mechanism to contibute meteoological advice to the geopolitical decision-makes. The AWS is the only oganization in the U. S. that has the capability, the expetise and the oganizational stuctue to do this. ou... contibution to national secuity, thu such a decision-assistance mechanism could be enomous. This was an opinion that he had expessed to the pevious commande of MAC, Geneal Catton, who suggested that Geneal Best daft a lette fo him to the Joint Chiefs of Staff--in paticula to J-3, Opeations- saying that it wasn't using weathe advice. We know that the daft of the lette was shown to Bigadie Geneal John [W.) Pauly, who was then J-3 [as the deputy diecto). He ecommended against the idea of the lette saying that it just wasn't koshe fo a fou-sta Ai Foce commande to wite diectly to the Joint Chiefs. n essence you would be end unning the Ai Staff. So the lette was neve sent. t was at this point, incidentally, that you became involved with this poblem. But befoe we get into how you got involved, have done consideable eseach in this aea ove the past seveal months and think it can be safely said that the national leades fom the Pesident on down wee vey awae of the weathe facto in the wa in Southeast Asia. Thee is evidence that one of Pesident Johnson's advisos, M. Walt [w.] Rostow, following the aid on the baacks at Pleiku [Ai Base, Republic of Vietnam] in Febuay of 1965, in essence, said, when the etaliatoy aids against Noth Vietnam wee authoized, -Be sue to take into consideation the weathe befoe 'you go." n Congessional testimony at budget heaings, in these ealy yeas of the ai wa ove the noth, M. McNamaa, Ai Foce Secetay Bown, and Ai Foce Chief of Staff McConnell, all, at one time o anothe, expessed thei concen with the weathe and the effects it was having on the ai stikes ove the noth. Secetay Laid in 1970, following the Cambodian "intusion, said that Pesident Nixon had authoized it at that paticula time fo political easons, but that he also wanted to take advantage of the good weathe at that time of the yea. think the final bit of poof was testimony by Admial Mooe on the twentieth of Apil 1972 following the Noth Vietnamese invasion of Quang Ti Povince. He was called befoe a House subcommittee of the Committee on Appopiations to explain how the militay was doing in Southeast ASia. Admial Mooe pefaced his entie biefing with what would conside a vey detailed synopsis of the weathe and the effects it had on the invasion and the effects it was having at that paticula time on ai powe, and in paticula tacai [tactical ai powe), and its inability to suppot the South Vietnamese in epelling this invasion by the Noth. n Septembe 1972 you wee dispatched to Washington on a mission to vitually ty to open doos to M. Kissinge. Will you take it fom thee, please. (u) GRMES: Well, shotly afte aived at Scott thee was some convesation about this inability to have diect access to national command authoity fo cetain pieces'of weathe infomation. Of couse, eveyone was awae thee was a wet season and a dy season in Southeast Asia, monsoons, [and] the wintetime status poblem in the noth because we had lived with it so long. think the lage scale [weathe) featues fo planning opeations months in advance wee geneally consideed but the local shot tem eccenticities ween't, in some cases. ' think also thee wee a lot of othe elements of concen to Geneal Best maybe not known to the national command authoities. Fo example, thee ae sea conditions--although we didn't want to get into that too. much because that's the Navy povince--beyond which a [deleted) cannot f~e effect~vely. The [deleted) will dump. Thee ae the effects of eosion on [deleted] that was not widely known among the National Secuity Council at this paticula time. t was not known at all in some elements of the National Secuity Council by people who should have been awae of it. The impact [also] of vey heavy snow accumulations on the.missile ~il?s. Thee'S such an aay. The poblem of lightning st~kes on m~ss~les. f you had seveal fiing out of the missile complex nea Minot [Noth Dakota) and you had a lage band of thundestoms oganized you could disable a significant numbe of these missiles. Some.of the uppe atmosphexe effects that could be caused by nuclea detonat10n wee not undestood; and the inability of aicaft to launch fom cetain locales afte a massive ice stom. These things eally wee not consideed. 'm talking in the nuclea exchange aea. Thee was no system in existence to say okay, because of the fact that we have accumulated twenty-two inches of snowfall in the last twentyfou hous we do not have the capacity to fie missiles fom this aea of Montana, so we've lost this nuclea stike capacity. [Take) the decision to launch in cetain contingencies. f you had the impession that most people have that the weathe is always good in the Middle East, that is an awaeness of weathe. But that is not tue. n the winte you can get majo stom systems that can do a lot to ceate opeational poblems in the easten Mediteanean whee you may have to make a decision to deploy A-s instead of F-4s in cetain contingencies. The poblem say, of having snow absob a geat deal of ada eflectivity. f you've got massive snowfalls you [deleted] just doesn't wok as well as it does othewise. f you'e going to cay out a cetain opeation [and) if you'e going to have to ely on [deleted) you'd bette wait until you've got [bette] weathe, [because] if you've got low ceilings and fesh snow you ada [enegy) will be absobed. t won't come back to you. t'll just be like thee's nothing thee. FULLER: So what you'e saying is that Geneal Best wasn't meely concened with weathe in Southeast Asia, but with weathe and the decision making pocess at the vey highest level. GRMES: That's ight. Thee ae just many, many be consideed. f you'e going to espond to [a) thee ae cetain types of hadwae that you would cetain types of weathe conditions. things that have got to middle east emegency not espond with unde FULLER: Aen't thee mechanisms established to insue that this fact is bought to the attention of the Joint Chiefs, fo example? GRMES: Well, the Joint Chiefs ae not always in the decision pocess, John. Cetain decisions ae simply made between Kissinge and the Pesident and then the edicts ae pesented to the militay to cay out. You've got some choices that ae often made on the basis of the political amifications but which could be slipped a week this way o that, o delayed a few days, so that thei impact would be geatest. Now, if we'e

19 consideing pofi as low as we c~n but still adequate to get the job done, then we've s~mply got to cons~de the enomous impact on cetain contingencies that weathe's going to have. f you don't conside the weathe, you'e going to need thee times the foces that you've got othewis 7 _ And all of a s~dden, what could have been a mino event, if you put ~n thee-to-fou t~mes the numbe of aiplanes and people that ae necessay, becomes a majo consideation on the wold scene. So mentioned to Colonel Collens that had a couple of fiends that woked fo D. Kissinge on the National Secuity Council, paticulaly Dolf Doge. Dolf M. Doge is a emakable guy, phenomenal indivivual, and cetainly the most knowledgeable living Ameican, o pobably eve, on the vaious and sundy facets of the Vietnamese, both noth and south. He's an enomously capable guy. Dolf and woked on a numbe of pojects togethe ove the yeas. have geat espect fo him. He'd been a guest in my home on a numbe of occasions, and always made himself, without exception, instantly accessible wheneve was in Washington and wanted to talk things ove with him. felt had access. did, and still do. Colonel Collens undestood this. - When mentioned it to Colonel Zapinski don't know whethe it was a combination of disbelief o iitation, o maybe seveal othe things, but he was vey cynical and said, " don't think we ought to bothe the command section with this. t sounds like you'd be going off on a wild goose chase." So, he was unenthusiastic about it. But in the couse of events had been called downstais to bief Colonel Collens on something else and this topic came up. don't think Colonel Zapinski had passed any infomation at all to Colonel Collens, but at the time said, "Well, if thee ae things you want said to the NSC, let me know, and can say them." Hee again, Colonel Collens believed this. Thee wasn't this aua of disbelief that pevades Ai Weathe Sevice. We think on such a small scale hee. OU people have had such extemely limited backgounds that if you say, "Yes, can go tomoow, if want to, o this aftenoon, if have to, and can talk to cetain membes of the National Secuity Council," you ae immediately egaded as a bullshitte. That's not the case. can. can go talk tomoow to the Assistant Secetay of State fo East Asia, if need be, o to ou Deputy Ambassado to the U. N. f you dae say something like this in Headquates Ai Weathe Sevice you ae immediately banded as some sot of enegade, toublemake, tying to blow you own hon. We have lived a blasted naow existence in this command. We just don't ealize that people in these positions of esponsibility ae accessible. They want to be uccessible. They want to lean. And they will listen. But if you sit back and convince youself all you life that these things can't be done, whethe it's establish a weathe net in Laos, o go talk to the National Secuity Council, you simply will neve attempt to do it. Ou ability to achieve, like an individual's ability to achieve, is dependent upon what you vision is of the possible. f you vision of the possible is amall, then you achievement will be. So Colonel Collens and Colonel Zapinski talked, and then colonel Collens said he wanted me to talk to Geneal Best. can undestand as a esult of some of you comments that Geneal Best viewed this access to the NSC with some degee of cynicism. He didn't undestand how could have access to the Secuity Council when nobody else had in Weathe Sevice histoy. Nevetheless, he felt it was impotant enough that he wanted me to go talk to the people. 231 Geneal Aldi ch Geneal Collens Mission to the NSC (U ) spent a week in Washington. spoke to the Southeast Asia people that had known [and] Dolf Doge. FULLER: Give me some backgound on Dolt Doge. GRMES: Dolf Doge stated off as a jounalist woking fo one of the majo newspapes in Southeast Asia in the late fifties and enjoyed his wok so much he quit his job with the pape and got a job with the Agency fo ntenational Development and spent seveal moe yeas woking thee. He came back to Washington with USAD and vey quickly moved up to handling the Southeast Asia desk -- FULLER: n the Depatment of State? Geneal Best GRMES: n the United States Agency fo ntenational Development unde the Depatment of State. Dolf then was bought ove to the White House Executive Office to advise on Southeast Asia unde the Johnson administation. FULLER: Who specifically bought him ove thee?

20 232 GRMES: don't know. should know, but don't. t was in 1967 that met Dolf. Dolf was a mino adviso, woking vey had, but didn't have much visibility in the White House executive office. [He] did a lot of geat wok and his inputs and infomation povided the basis fo a lot of majo decisions. When stayed ove on the faculty at Command and Staff, had Dolf speak to the students in my potion of the cuiculum-- was esponsible fo the special opeations. Dolt spoke to my class when was a student. Knowing that was going to be coming on the faculty, spent a lot of time talking with Dolf, and made a couple of tips up to Washington. FULLER: That was you initial encounte with him? GRMES: That's ight. spent a lot of time talking to him. Then when was putting togethe the elective that would be teaching the following fall wanted to get his insights. So spent quite a bit of time with him in the sping of spent a geat deal of time with him that autumn in Washington talking and exchanging ideas and bought him down to wok ealy in the fall to addess the allies. We had appoximately fifty allied offices, a fai numbe of whom wee fom Southeast Asia. Held neve spoken in any oganized foum to non-ameicans. These offices wee fom some thity o thity-one diffeent counties and they wee ovewhelmed with him, just ovewhelmed. The Vietnamese offices in the class said, "This man knows moe about Vietnam than any othe Ameican that we've eve seen." wote a lette back fo Geneal Black's signatue diect to D. Kissinge and said, "This man has a phenomenal knowledge of Asia and not only the knowledge, but the fantastic gift and talent of conveying undestanding out of all the confusion that exists." said, "You should take it upon youself to have this man speak and define. policy in as many places as possible. ft FULLER: By this time Kissinge is the pesidential assistant fo national secuity affais? GRMES: Yes. This was just afte the inauguation. So we got a lette back saying, "We eally appeciate you views, and since you lette we have talked with M. Doge about the possibility of doing this and think thee is no bette spokesman fo a clea intepetation of national policy in Southeast Asia." So he stated eally doing a lot of tavelling and a lot of speaking. We kept in petty close contact; fequent telephone calls and visits to Washington. When Dolf would be speaking in some poximity he'd give me a call and say he wanted to get togethe. 'd go ove and we'd spend an evening togethe. Well, Dolf got to going to hostile anti-wa goups and on any numbe of occasions completely tuned the goup aound. He was a ball~die, a guitaist. He ceated songs about Ho Chi Minh, about ou POWs. Patsy tanscibed fom a tape ecoding he made a song about the POWs entitled, "Don't Foget the Eagles." He's just an enomously talented man. He hit a lot of college campuses. He hit a lot of majo local foeign policy association and semina goups and eally made a geat contibution. FULLER: So you became pesonal fiends. GRMES: Yes. And Dolf was ead in, in an unofficial capacity, on Son. Tay because we had to know how we should handle the publicity. f it! 233 was a success, what should be done? This had to be pat of the planning, and if it was a failue, depending On the degee of the failue, what infomation that should be eleased immediately to the pess? So we woked on this long hous; we had vey detailed intimate talks. Afte Son Tay, 001 was a guest at my house seveal times. We had a national secuity stategy semina at the Amy Wa College at Calisle Baacks and he was my ecommendation to attend. We had a hunded leading citizens. was, of couse, his escot and host office thee, and he again was a house guest. Dolf was dazzli~9. He,then spoke to subsequent classes because he left such an enomous 1mpess10n on the Amy Wa College that they said, "We don't want you hee fo a semina and to paticipate with one committee, we want you to paticipate with ou whole class." n fact, Geneal Fanklin Davis, the commandant of the Amy Wa College said, "Keith, 've head so much about this Dolf Doge, in these thee days--he couldn't spend the whole week with us- tell me about him because we've got to get him back to talk to the whole class. So Dolf and have a vey high egad fo each othe. He's a geat guy. He's an absolutely stunning pesonality. He's billiant. When gaduated fom the Amy Wa College he asked D. KiSSinge to put me on to the NSC staff and -- FULLER: He had inteceded with D. Kissinge to put you on the National Secuity Council staff? GRMES:. Yes. And Kissinge said, "Well, we don't have any oom. We ty to keep the staff as small as we can, and we have all the militay membeship ight now that think we can handle." So Dolf pesonally inteceded. The majo things have to contibute ae wasted hee. FULLER: So Dolt was one of those you contacted in Washington in Septembe GRMES: Yes. FULLER: Who else did you contact? GRMES: Sven Kaeme, who woks in the Southeast Asia section. FULLER: Again, this is State Depatment? GRMES: National Secuity Council. talked to Dolf's boss, the one man between Oolf and D. Kissinge. can't ecall his name ight now. talked also to D. Vincent (V.] McRae, the scientific adviso to the National Secuity Council. He wasn't awae of the bulk of these impacts that wee bought up. FULLER: He wasn't awae of the fact that sea suface conditions affect the [deleted] launches, o that the atmosphee can degade the [deleted]? schemme (The Raid, 67) descibed Doge as tall and caggy-faced, a man who seved thee tous in Vietnam and Laos with USAD. He spoke Vietnamese fluently and was an expet on the people and thei cultue. Accoding to Schemme, Doge was asked what the Noth Vietnamese would [U) (Cont) do to othe pisones if one of the camps wee aided and some POWs escued. Without hesitation, Doge eplied that it would be the geatest thing the United States could do fo all the pisones, and that the teatment of those that emained would impove damatically and instantly.

21 GRMES: That's ight, o of absoption of ada by snow cqve--this type of thing. FULLER: GRMES: That's extemely difficult to believe. t was difficult fo me to believe too. FULLER: What do you offe as an explanation? Because, what you'e saying, if intepet ight, is that the National Secuity coun?il, the highest defense policy making body in the govenment, an adv1soy body to the Pesident, was unawae until that time of these potential GRMES: As fa as the eosion was concened, thee was an awaeness that that might be a poblem. Of the things mentioned ealie that was the only specific element that they wee awae of. We talked about some of the moe mundane aspects of the weathe impact upon t~e... [deleted] system and the fequency of low ceilings and poo v1s1b111t1es, say in Euope, that could impede that. We talked about the absopt10n of lase. Cetain of these things wee known to D. McRae, but he neve eally put it togethe in a meteoological sense. He knows thee is lase attenuation by wate vapo. But he hadn't put some of these togethe as limitations in cetain types of combat opeations. FULLER: Essentially, what wee you instuctions fom Geneal Best? GRMES: My instuctions wee to ty and bi~g an awae~ess to the National Secuity Council of some of the e~v~onmental 1mpacts; ~y and set up a mechanism wheeby thee would be an awaeness o~ these ~mpacts. n the case of [NSC] planning [ was to] set up a mechan1sm so that NSC could go to ETAC and talk with the po and slice out the infom~tion they needed; and in an opeational situation so they could go 1ght to the weathe -- FULLER: Why not use the JCS membe of the National Secuity Council fo conveying the fact that this type of infomation was available within the militay? GRMES: Well, Geneal Best wanted to go diect. think we'e seeing some sevice popietay emotions come up. knew he sinceely felt Ai Weathe Sevice would be best equipped with the exception of sea conditions FULLER: But the mechanism was aleady thee. Fo example, thee was DDO (ES)*-- GRMES: But he was convinced the mechanism had not been used. Of couse this was one of my tasks to find out how much the Nati?nal Secuity ~ouncil knew. They didn't know anything. think, John, 1t has to do w1th the oveall timidity that we think that they don't want to be botheed with cetain stuff, so theefoe we don't boach the topic. FULLER: GRMES: botheed We" being the militay?!~~h We think eithe they know it, o they don't want to be it. f they know it then they don't want to be botheed. So we don't bing it up and say, "Ae you awae that weathe can imppct that opeation this way, and this way, and this way?" The comment came up: "Why can't we go though the Ai Staff and popose this to the Joint Chiefs, the Joint Staff, though the Ai Staff?" They said, "t'll neve happen. You'll neve get this though the Ai Staff." They'll say, "These guys On the National Secuity Council don't want to be botheed by something [so] insignificant." We talked this ove. He [Geneal Best] said, "Thee ae a lot of things we simply can't do. want you to tell those people that you have access to what we can't do. Thei lage field decisions have got to take into consideation that we don't have an 'all-weathe' Ai Foce, that when we have this type weathe, thee ae cetain capabilities that we don't have." FULLER: Was Geneal Best willing to take the chance of, at the vey least, censue fom the Ai Staff? GRMES: " think a little thing is that ae FULLER: Yes. He said, "'m going to be etied soon," and he said, this is impotant enough [that] all they can do is etie me bit soone and thow me out." And he said, "The impotant that thee ae people thee on the National Secuity Council awae of this." Was Geneal Calton awae of Best's position? GRMES: don't know, don't think so. know that Geneal Catton was awae, because befoe Catton depated Geneal Best biefed him on this. FULLER: Biefed him on you tip to Washington, and what you wee thee to ty to do? GRMES: That's ight. And Catton said, "Go ahead." FULLER: ty. GRMES: FULLER: Catton felt stongly enough at that time to say "go ahead" and That's ight. Fully awae of the consequences that may befall even him? GRMES: That's ight. t is an end un. t's just like my ole meteoologically in Son Tay. t was an end un. We neve could have pulled this opeation off with the degee of secuity necessay if we had gone though the nomal Ai Weathe Sevice channels. FULLER: What success did you have in Washington? GRMES: Good success. was able to bief all the echelons that wanted to below D. Kissinge. D. Kissinge was not in town the week FULLER: He was in Pais at the peace talks, wasn't he? *Office of the Deputy Diecto fo Opeations (Envionmental Sevices), J-3, Joint Chiefs of Staff. GRMES: And on two occasions was called back fo futhe infomation. t was a vey infomal biefing usually attended by the one wanted to bief, with one o two of his staff people. A lot of questions followed. n all cases they stated that, "My Gosh! We eally appeciate you sitting down and talking.". Time and time again they cane up and said, " didn't know," o, "'d neve had it put togethe this way fo me.

22 236 FULLER: t was duing this peiod that you called back to Headquates Ai Weathe Sevice and asked fo a,ta?-scipt of t~e Weathe-Sevice-Stoy" biefing and wee den~ed ~t. Who den~ed ~t and why? "~i GRMES: 'm petty sue Colonel Zapinski did. He denied it on the basis of secuity_... So didn't have it. lihat wanted to do was wite and leave a lengthy memo of the topics discussed. just thought it would save me a lot of witing if could have some of this infomation. had equested some specifics on Poud Deep Alpha, fo example. Come to think of it, it was Zapinski because he told me when got back that he was the one that made the decision that couldn't have the data. FULLER: So the people that you talked to and biefed in Washington wee impessed with this idea that weathe factos wee not being COnsideed in some of the majo national secuity weapons systems. What happened then? GRMES: wote a long memo of the vaious majo pogams the National Secuity Council was involved in. stated the vaious weathe impacts in these aeas that they ought to conside and told them to put it on file, which they did. They put it on pemanent file in a numbe of officesa Then gave them individual names and telephone numbes that could give them the kind of suppot that they needed at ETAC [and) at the Pentagon--that could come ove at a moment's notice if they'd get a call fom NSC and sit down with them at eithe the planning o the opeational decision stage a Since thee was no specific plan to ceate a staff weathe office position fo the NSC said, "These guys ought to be able to handle it." Then on a pesonal basis said, "Because we know each othe, if thee [is] some poblem you don't want to talk ove with these othe individuals, o some new consideation, can come back and be available a " So, in essence, this is what Geneal Best wanted. He said, "Don't ceate a system that is solely pesonality dependent." wasn't tying to ceate a system that could only exist if you had Keith Gimes staying thee. Now, as to what's tanspied, couldn't get Zapinski to eve appove a TOY out of this place to peiodically get back with the people. FULLER: You had no feedback on this afte you etuned fom that initial tip? 237 The Dominican Cisis, 1965 FULLER: n you ole with Det 75 and the ai commandos, pio to the time you went to Laos, you wee involved with the Dominican Cisis in 1965a 'd like you to comment on you expeiences. GRMES: n unfolding the Dominican Cisis eally don't ecall the specific dates, but was at Andews [AFB, Mayland] on Amed Foces Day in the Special Ai Wafae Cente had a display. My toops had a static display of thei own and wee paticipating in some paachute jumps and demonstations of thei paticula weathe skills. Fom thee we wee called diectly to Hulbut. But two o thee days befoe things had begun to deteioate apidly in the Dominican Republic. had been following it in the newspapes. A spontaneous distubance in Santo Domingo had suddenly been siezed upon and eupted into lage scale violence. The Ameicans in the Dominican Republic wee consideed to be in consideable dange. Thee had been a fai amount of killing and looting. The intenational community, which lives in the westen pat of the city, had some of its consulates and embassies taken. Some of the people had been manhandled. So Ambassado W. T. [Tapley) "Tap" Bennett [J.) called a Maine unit afloat in the Caibbean aea to land and povide secuity fo the evacuation of membes of the intenational community. This was all tanspiing duing the few days befoe ou small commando contingent went up to Andews. About two O'clock in the aftenoon was paged on the speake system on the flight line fo a telephone call. The wing commande wanted me to etun to Hulbut by eight o'clock that night. He set up a flight. My toops would have the gea eady. FULLER: By "wing commande" you ae talking about the special opeations wing down at Hulbut? GRMES: No. A foce of about 500 U. S. Maines landed by helicopte at Santo Domingo on Apil Ambassado Bennett, who had been visiting in the United States, etuned as the Maines wee establishing themselves ashoe. See Benad C. Nalty, The Ai Foee and the Dominiean Cisis (Washington, DC: USAF Histoical Div. Liaison Office, 1967) (TS, NOFORN, Gp-l), pp

23 238 GRMES: That's ight, 1st Special Opeations Wing. suspected it w~s because of the bewing cisis in the Dominican Republic, but d1dn't eally know. We ween't told. So when landed at Hulbut about five-thity in the evening, my two toops, Andy Wilde and Bill (A/2C William D.J Batey had aleady been chosen by Segeant Tom Watson to be the ones--since didn't eally know the natue of what was going on--to accompany me. The wing commande said he wanted a team. Ou nomal team that we would deploy was one office and two NCOs, o one foecaste and two obseves. Eveything was eady. We all kept ou gea in a eal high state of eadiness. About all that was necessay was to gab my ucksack that we kept stoed with all the othe individual ucksacks down at Det 75. All the gea (wasj in it that would need. All needed fom home was a couple moe sets of fatigues a few civilian clothes, and some changes of undewea and socks, and ' we wee on ou way. We wee aibone in less than two hous fom the time landed at Hulbut. MSgt Watson (~eft) and Ai le Wi~de in 1964 ~ith the distinctive ai (UJ commando bush hats. Watson holds a Bunton compass while Wilde has Bome standad components.fo~ the AN/ PMQ-4 manual meteoological station. About 18 ~onths afte th~s p~ctue ~ab taken, both men suvived clobe 8~ape~ ~~th the enemy in Laos. When the Pathet Lao attacked and ovean L~ma S~te 169 at Pan Pha Thuong on 16Dec65, Wilde was the only Ameican thee.and baely esc,!ped,. A full-scale escue attempt was initiated by t~e a~ attache at V~ent~an~ and, afte 36 hous evading the enemy, W.~de ~a. pu~~ed fom the Jung~e by he~icopt.. n mid-feb66 fi.nd~y foces abandoned Na Khang (Lima Site 36) When it came unde he~vy mota attack. WatBon was able to salvage a theodolite and 80me basic obsevi~g ge~, but the ~N / G~Q-1 wind-m~asui~g set was destoyed. n conjunct~on w~th gound f~ght~ng, USAF a~ st~kes educed the site to chaed emains. (USAF Photo) t was the 1st Ai Commando Wing, UNC L ASS FED [ \ 239 FULLER: Was it explained to you at Hulbut whee you wee going? GRMES: t was not explained. We wee told we would go to Homestead Ai Foce Base and weld get instuctions thee. We climbed on boad a C-123 along with seveal of ou ai commando U-10 pilots who wee also told that we'd get instuctions at Homestead. The pilot of the C-123 didn't even know whee he was going beyond Homestead. Of couse all of us assumed that we'd be going to the Dominican Republic.. So we landed at Homestead in the wee hous of the moning and got instuctions to poceed to Santo Domingo diect. We would be conducting a suveillance opeation. would be hooking up with the 7th Special Foces, with Colonel Ed Maye, the name that came up in Son Tay. Colonel Maye bought a contingent of special foces. He was the special opeato in the aea. We would espond to his needs. Not just the weathe people, but the entie ai commando contingent that went down would espond to Ed Maye'S needs. FULLER: Who gave you these instuctions at Homestead? GRMES: We wee met by a lieutenant colonel that had neve seen befoe. think he was simply acting as an intemediay. He seemed to have no infomation, no insight, no feel at all fo the poblem. FULLER: fly fom But this was sufficient justification to jump on boad a 123 and Homestead to Santo Domingo. GRMES: That's ight. Ed Maye woked with us a geat deal in the past. Ed Maye was the commande of the 7th Special Foces Goup at Fot Bagg. Though what once was called Wate Moccasin, late called Cheokee Tail, and late called Gobble Woods, a seies of Swift Stike execises, Ed Maye came to know the special ai wafae capability vey, vey well. He knew the things we could do fo him and asked that we come on down- had gotten some messages out though some appopiate channels. Down we went. When we got to Santo Domingo things wee still in quite a state of confusion. Quite a few Guad and Reseve C-ll9s wee on the amp await [-ing] cleaance at the field. t was a athe confused situation. The Ai Foce contingent had just sot of gotten in place. An ALCE (Ailift Contol Element} was in the pocess of being set up. People wee tying to thow up tents hee and thee. t was that disoganized initial phase of any contingency opeation. [But1 it looks moe disoganized than it is. People (weej tying to settle down fo a faily long haul. FULLER: What day did you aive thee, do you ecall? t's in May, isn't it? GRMES: t's in May. t was in the moning hous afte sunup the day afte Amed Foces Day (9 MayJ. A U-lO was flown in on boad anothe aicaft, with the wings emoved. was not pesent at the time. A couple of NCOs who wee V-O mechanics put it togethe again and by late that day ou V-0 pilots wee flying suveillance missions. Now what happened in the inteim to make the Dominicans so concened was that, though this had been a spontaneous disoganized undetaking, the pos wee apidly gaining contol--using this moment to solidify dissident goups unde Maxist leadeship. t was quickly becoming a captive dissidence to the pos that ae always waiting in the wings and had been specifically tained fo these puposes. Thee was geat UNCLASS F ED

24 240 concen that Fidel Casto would attempt to infiltate some agents which he had done on a numbe of occasions in the past. Thee was a cetain feeling that dissidents, [who] had been petty well kept unde tow but had sufaced since [Geneal Rafael Leonidas] Tujillo [Holing] had been assassinated, would make some aids and attempts on police camps and isolated police posts and begin to fom some incipient gueilla bands. So this was the thing we special wafae people, the special foces and the ai commandos, wee concened with. Thee wee two aeas of vey citical concen. One [was] the entie noth coast which was just honeycombed with a maze of deep, secluded inlets whee agents, ams, and assistance of all kinds CQuld be put ashoe. think it tells something of the chaacte of the noth coast to say that the pime ecognized and acknowledged occupation of most of the citizeny of the noth coast of the Dominican Republic is smuggling. t's a place whee you can hide a thousand little boats unde the ovehanging tees in these naow little inlets fom the sea. They cut this limestone quite deep. t's eally a kast topogaphy that goes ight down into the sea. Anothe aea of geat concen was the Haitian bode. The Dominicans have taditionally feaed the Haitians. Haitian leftest goups would attempt to move into the mountains. Also, with this vey close poximity to Cuba, thee had been in the past Casto infiltatos in the high mountain county aound Constanza. When we tavelled up this mountain we noticed it had been buned off vey ecently. asked the Dominican Amy captain who was accompanying us what caused the fie. He said one night seveal Cuban paachutists had been obseved to jump into the aea. Rathe than tack them down, they simply set fie to the whole mountain below whee they wee and buned it up. They late found the bodies, the paachute hanesses, and the equipment they jumped with. Sot of a "shoot-now-ask-questions-ate" appoach. But thei assumption was they wee not spot paachutists and they did not jump into the mountains of the Dominican Republic at night just fo scientific puposes. 'm getting ahead of myself. We ae tying to get settled down. Ou small ai commando contingent settled in an old squadon ops building on the south end of the unway. t was unoccupied [except fo] many geat inhabitants, like huge taantulas. We cleaned it out a little bit; spent a couple of hous. Then we tied to figue out what to do to do ou job down hee. The fist thing had to do was go into Santo Domingo itself. The 82d Aibone [Division] aived just pio to ou aival, moved ight downtown, and [was] given the easten half of the city. The westen half of the city was contolled by U. S. Maines. A numbe of Maines and 82d Aibone toops had aleady been killed. They had just opened up a coido a block wide, an aea they said they had contol of, on eithe side of the highway unning fom the aipot at Santo Domingo into the city. This got to be a vey spoting event, because on these fequent tips would have to make into Tujillo's Palace, which is whee [Lieutenant] Geneal Buce la.] Palme (J,1 had set up his headquates, and into the villa immediately acoss the steet whee Colonel Maye had his As u. S. Commande, Dominican Republic (USCOMOOMREP), the commande of all U. S. foces ashoe thee. 241 ~., ' llf\~' to G~mes said Late that one Of the ~ays found to entetat.n themselves was taantul.a fights. UNCLASS.FED 1

25 242 [ 24 3 headquates set up, we wee fequently shot at. n a jeep you just poued the coal to it as much as you could [to] dive though this coido. The 82d Aibone in fact did have the dissidents--the ebels, if you want to cal l them that, though they ween t t eally oganized enough to be ebels--un out of this two-block wide coido, but they could get in the next block and fie fom windows. The 82d had odes not to clea that aea, just to keep the coido open. So fom talle buildings in the next block you'd get fie. t was (a] situation guaanteed to keep you on you toes. So Colonel Maye, in unfolding his opeation, decided to place a seies of special foces teams in the jungle, some on thei own, some woking with Dominican Amy units. We had excellent coopeation with the Dominican Amy, o should say they coopeated vey well with us. The feeling within the Dominican militay was that we had come to help stabilize the situation. We wee cetainly not enemies of the Dominican militay. On the othe hand, we didn't want to take up a stong stance against the ebels. All we wee in fact doing was to ty and stabilize conditions and bing some semblance of ode to the island. (u] Well, the island was petty well unde the semblance of ode, outside of Santo Domingo. Santo Domingo was a mess. The dissidents buned quite a bit of popety. You could see the hulks of buned out automobiles along t~e steets. The dissidents even destoyed a few of the light tanks belonging to the Dominican Amy. They ovewhelmed the s mall gaison posts within the metopolitan aea and passed out ams to Dominican citizens. A closely watched seies of contol points had been established aound Santo Domingo because the ebels had clealy been getting some outside assistance and wee attempting to smuggle ams i nto the city. So the Dominican militay's thoughts petty much wee: We'll ty to contain the ebels in the city, kind of seal them off. The U. S. pesence, in an attempt to potect the citizens of the intenational community and not let things get out of hand, will sot of stabilize the city. Then we will attempt to let this thing simme down. f the ebels can't get in and can't get out and can't get additional ams in, it's only a matte of time befoe they'll be willing to come to some tems." This imposed some eal hadships on the city because the food supply dwindled to pactically nothing. Wate and sanitation facilities, the whole life of the city, boke down. Well, if the ebels wee going to make good, they had to get some outside assistance o get something going in the countyside because hee they wee tapped. Thee just wasn't any place fo them to go. can't say they contolled, but neithe did the Dominican authoities contol, the bulk of Santo Domingo. The small quates aound the intenational community. the embassy aea, a nd the oads going into these aeas, wee the only places eally contolled by the Ameicans. The ebels oamed somewhat at will within cetain sectos of the city. Thee was a geat impatience. The Dominican Ai Foce commande, (Bigadie1 Geneal [Elias) Wessin y Wessin, was vey impatient to do something about this situation. The dissidents had contol of the adio station and wee making boadcasts. Seveal days late Wesson y Wesson, who had not been esticted on flying. loaded some of his F-Sls, ecently completely ebuilt and beautifully ehabed b y Cavalie down at Saasota. He loaded them with ockets and bombs and bombed the adio station. He put it out of commission. Unfotunately it was vey close (to] an aea held by the Maines [who] thought he was attacking them. These toops had neve been unde fie fom an aicaft befoe and hee was an F-5l diving in, fiing ockets [and] dopping bombs. So the Maines stated [ Right and bezow: An atizley fotification along the coido into and out Of Santo Domingo in May 1965 ~ contolled by the 82d Aibone Division A Santo Domingo contol point.