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The Lost Commando Recruits of a Top-Secret U.S. Program Are Emerging Years Later From the Shadows of Vietnam
On that issue, the few who have taken up their cause, including two former U.S. Army commanders, believe that the U.S. government has a moral obligation to provide them some back pay and benefits and to speed the emigration of those who remain in Vietnam. But their efforts have not been successful. The United States, which has spent millions of dollars searching Southeast Asia for American prisoners of war and has yet to find one, has done very little to bring back the surviving Vietnamese agents it sent on dangerous missions. According to [Tourison], a former intelligence officer for the Department of Defense, the United States is too embarrassed to admit responsibility for one of the worst covert operations of the war. "The plan to infiltrate the north had long outlived its usefulness, and it was believed by the high command that the operations would not amount to much," he says. "In the end, it was a foolish waste of lives, and bad intelligence. It represented a major underestimation of the enemy, the kind of underestimation we made so many times in Vietnam."
That month, North Vietnamese torpedo boats reportedly attacked two U.S. destroyers in the much-disputed Gulf of Tonkin incident, which some critics say was a ruse used by the United States to escalate the war. President [Lyndon B. Johnson] called the Tonkin incident "unprovoked" aggression and ordered the bombing of North Vietnam-the first step in a massive buildup of U.S. forces. But in the months leading up to the incident, according to the official Navy history, 34A commandos had been conducting coastal raids in the area, raids that the North Vietnamese believed were coordinated by the U.S. destroyers.
Although [Guong Duc Vu] and other commandos have obtained welfare and food stamps after immigrating to the United States, efforts to secure veterans benefits or special priority for those still in refugee camps have failed. Whether they are more deserving than the hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese soldiers who have received no special help after being captured by the Communists is debatable. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs usually requires that someone serve in the U.S. armed forces to qualify for benefits. By special acts of Congress, however, Filipinos whose units were under U.S. commanders during World War II qualify for limited veterans benefits. Similarly, free medical services are available to former Polish and Czechoslovakian soldiers who fought on the Allies' side during World War I and II if they have lived in the United States for at least 10 years.

ON THE TRAIN RIDE FROM PRISON, NHI HUNG DINH SAW HIS COUNTRY for the first time in 18 years. He would never forget the view. Rubble, bombed-out buildings and craters scarred the landscape. Conditions were so squalid in Vinh, a major port in the panhandle of northern Vietnam, that he did not want to get off the train to stretch his legs. The people seemed listless, and Dinh spotted pickpockets among the waiting passengers. It was 1982, seven years after the end of the Vietnam War, but much of the city was still in ruin-the target of some of the conflict's heaviest naval and aerial bombardment.
His train headed south across the Demilitarized Zone, which once split Vietnam into two countries, and pulled into Hue. In 1968, the Viet Cong had ushered in Tet, the Asian lunar New Year, by turning this lovely old town of palaces and temples into a bloody battleground. Shell-pocked buildings still lined the streets, and Dinh saw Amerasian youths selling fruits, cookies and black market cigarettes. He wondered who would raise them. Their fathers, American GIs, had left long ago. It was the same all the way to Ho Chi Minh City, which Dinh had known as Saigon.
At the end of the 700-mile journey, he stood in disbelief outside his family's home in the peaceful seaside town of Vung Tau. It was 10 in the evening. More than 20 years before, he had left the house a cocky, hotheaded young man bolstered, he says, by an American military adviser's promise that he would be a hero. Now, Dinh was returning, middle-aged and in ill health. There would be no hero's welcome-no one was expecting him.
The two police officers who had escorted him from prison pounded on the door and announced Dinh's arrival. There was some commotion inside, and Dinh heard members of his family cursing. They refused to open the door. A brother-in-law flatly accused him of being an impostor. His 75-year-old mother was convinced he must be a ghost. "You're dead, son, go on your way, and I will pray for your soul," she said through the door.
There was no reason for her to think otherwise. Almost two decades before, South Vietnamese military officials had told her that Dinh had been killed during a mission. Where, they would not say. It was a secret. After that, the family received death benefits courtesy of the U.S. government. The lump sum amounted to a year of Dinh's pay-about $300.
Not knowing what else to do, Dinh continued to knock on the door and insist that he was who he said he was. "Soul nothing! He's home!" yelled one of the officers. Finally, the bolt slid back, and his mother realized that the man outside was indeed her son. She wept and collapsed in his arms. Dinh sank into a chair, too numb to speak. It had been so long.
Dinh had been a member of Team Romeo, a commando unit of 10 young Vietnamese, trained, paid and commanded by the U.S. government. For almost a decade, beginning in 1961, he and at least 700 men like him, by one estimate, were sent to wage guerrilla warfare in North Vietnam, first by the Central Intelligence Agency and later by the U.S. Army. Those who were not killed were captured and left to languish for decades in Communist prison camps. Now, the survivors are slowly emerging, bringing with them haunting questions about a top-secret operation that U.S. military leaders admit was a debacle and that might have helped trigger the United States' fateful decision in 1964 to dramatically escalate the Vietnam War.
According to the military, former intelligence officials, historians and the commandos themselves, these men were part of a highly classified operation-which came to be called Operation 34A by the military-that continued from 1961 to 1970 despite repeated failures and the doubts of U.S. leaders. Sedgwick Tourison, an investigator for the Senate Select Committee on POW-MIA Affairs, says that since 1979, hundreds of the former agents and commandos have been released from prison. Many have made their way to the homes of astonished relatives in Vietnam who had been told years before that their loved ones had perished. Between 50 and 60 former commandos are thought to have fled Vietnam for the United States. The rest remain in Southeast Asian refugee camps or in Vietnam, where they are treated as second-class citizens.
Their actual numbers are hard to determine. Much of the documentation about the operations remains secret in military record centers, and what has been declassified provides only a glimpse of what happened to them. In an attempt to locate American MIAs in Vietnam, Tourison says that during the mid- to late 1980s he interviewed nearly all the former commandos living in the United States. From those and other interviews he estimates that 400 to 450 CIA and military operatives, out of a total of about 700, are still living. Dale Andrade, a historian for the government's Center for Military History in Washington, says his best estimate is that 200 to 300 men participated in the 34A part of the operation.
But if the numbers are open to question, the disastrous outcome is not. "It was not worth the effort at all, in my appraisal," retired U.S. Army Gen. William C. Westmoreland, who commanded U.S. ground forces in Vietnam from 1964 to 1968, says of the program. "It was just not productive. We grew skeptical of the teams and skeptical of the intelligence they produced. Not much was contributed to the war effort."
The cost of that failure has been borne by the commandos for years. Imprisoned for war crimes, they endured psychological torture, malnutrition, isolation and living conditions designed to break their spirits or kill them. In refugee camps, they watched as other South Vietnamese who had only spent a couple of years in re-education camps were allowed to emigrate long before they were. Those who came to the United States have had difficulty adapting to the culture. Some still eat only one small meal a day-their prison regimen is hard to shake-and many suffer from medical problems. A few have found meaningful work, but many now live on welfare or the generosity of friends, family or their former comrades. All have sacrificed their youth, and betrayal is a common word among them.
The United States did little, if anything, to seek the commandos' release from prison during the Paris peace talks in 1973 and has not given them veterans benefits for their service. "There is no question who we are," says Ngung Van Le, a former commando who spent almost 17 years in prison and immigrated to Baltimore in 1985. "We fought for our country, but from my standpoint, the United States must do more than just turn its back on us."
On that issue, the few who have taken up their cause, including two former U.S. Army commanders, believe that the U.S. government has a moral obligation to provide them some back pay and benefits and to speed the emigration of those who remain in Vietnam. But their efforts have not been successful. The United States, which has spent millions of dollars searching Southeast Asia for American prisoners of war and has yet to find one, has done very little to bring back the surviving Vietnamese agents it sent on dangerous missions. According to Tourison, a former intelligence officer for the Department of Defense, the United States is too embarrassed to admit responsibility for one of the worst covert operations of the war. "The plan to infiltrate the north had long outlived its usefulness, and it was believed by the high command that the operations would not amount to much," he says. "In the end, it was a foolish waste of lives, and bad intelligence. It represented a major underestimation of the enemy, the kind of underestimation we made so many times in Vietnam."
FEB. 4, 1967, WAS NGUNG VAN LE'S 23RD BIRTHDAY. THAT day, North Vietnamese soldiers surrounded Le's position and beat him with their rifle butts. It was just as well, he says. Torrential rain, a lack of food and fighting through dense jungle in a desperate run for the Laotian border had left the members of Team Hadley too tired to resist. Like so many other 34A missions before, the operation had gone badly. The enemy spotted Team Hadley's helicopters as the unit crossed into North Vietnam. Within 10 days, the North Vietnamese had captured the whole team.
Told by South Vietnamese officials that Le was dead, his parents held a memorial service. But their son was alive hundreds of miles to the north, where he would spend 16 years in prison, convicted of espionage by the North Vietnamese government, then another six months in jail for trying to escape from Vietnam after his release from custody.
Incarceration in such prisons as Pho Lu, Thanh Tri and Phong Quang took its toll. Le was forced to do manual labor all day, eating little more than six ounces of grain cereal. "There was nothing to eat for breakfast. You might get a potato or a piece of turnip once in a while. The barley was hard to digest and hurt your intestines," Le says in Vietnamese. "In time, the slightest amount of work became excruciatingly painful."
Human waste filled the compound and barracks, where there was no running water. Visiting nurses often wore face masks, he says, because the stench permeated everything. Disease was rampant among the prisoners. Despite the horrors of his imprisonment, Le refused to be re-educated, although it might have meant being released. "I resisted and many, many times I was shackled and put in isolation." In 1973, when his captors refused to release him and other prisoners after the Paris peace talks, Le organized a hunger strike. He spent six months in solitary confinement and lost almost half his body weight of 135 pounds. But he survived. "What I could not do was sink down to the level of my captors," he says. "I had to maintain my own honor. If I did not, I would become no better than they were."
In 1976, almost 10 years after his capture, authorities allowed prisoners to write letters home, and Le's family learned that he was alive. "If it is true," his mother and father wrote back skeptically, "you will never believe how overjoyed we are." They asked Le to tell them things only they would know. In his return letter, he reminded them of things he did as a child. Convinced that he was their son, Le's parents took down the picture of him they had placed in a shrine at home for deceased relatives.
Le completed his prison term in 1982 and was paroled. After repeated attempts, he escaped to Malaysia in 1984 and spent a year in refugee camps before the United Nations helped him immigrate to the United States. "I know of four commandos who have been in refugee camps in Thailand and Malaysia for almost two years," Le says. "They are not missing in action. It is very discouraging to know that no one really cares."
THE OPERATION REFERRED TO IN MILITARY PARLANCE AS "34 Alpha" originated in 1961 as a highly touted secret CIA program to organize armed resistance in North Vietnam. U.S. covert operations had actually begun there after the Geneva Conference in 1954, which divided the country into two nations. A handful of CIA operatives formed squads of anti-Communist Vietnamese to organize guerrillas, abduct and assassinate Communist officials, set up espionage networks and distribute propaganda. But the agents had difficulty eluding the Communist control structure, a tightly knit web of local cadres and informers that pervaded the country. Few of the CIA teams survived, and the effort ended in failure by the late 1950s.
According to a section on undercover activities in the Pentagon Papers, the Defense Department's controversial account of the Vietnam War, the CIA renewed its covert operations several years later, when President John F. Kennedy called for a campaign of clandestine warfare in North Vietnam and Laos. Former CIA Director William E. Colby, then chief of the agency's Far Eastern division, started the new program in 1961.
Hung Quoc Tran was one of the first recruits. In the late 1950s, he quit his job as manager of the family jewelry store in Saigon. Channeled through the South Vietnamese military, Tran says, he eventually came under the tutelage of three American CIA officers. In 1961, Tran says, the CIA gave him the code name "Columbus." His orders were to recruit North Vietnamese citizens sympathetic to South Vietnam as spies and to deliver a series of secret messages to anti-Communists in Hanoi. A CIA trawler dropped him along the North Vietnamese coast in May, 1961, and Tran made his way to Hanoi posing as a student. He delivered the first message but the next evening he discovered he was being followed by North Vietnamese security. He was stunned they were on to him so quickly. He managed to drop off another letter to the rebels, but one day in June, police walked up to him on the street, arrested him and took him to Hoa Lo, later known as the Hanoi Hilton.
According to Colby, now 72 and still working as a lawyer in Washington, other agents were equally ineffective. The North Vietnamese captured almost all the operatives and penetrated the program with their own agents. According to recently declassified North Vietnamese records, 34 agents from 17 CIA teams were killed, and about 140 operatives were captured in 1963 alone. Many of those captured were coerced into working for the enemy; those who were not often ended up in showcase trials in Hanoi.
Despite the difficulties, U.S. leaders reorganized the operation a third time and continued it under the aegis of the military. In January, 1964, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff officially began 34A, a more ambitious program of covert operations in North Vietnam. Missions were cleared by the secret 303 Committee, headed by National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy and staffed with senior CIA, Pentagon and State Department officials. Day-to-day operations were taken away from the CIA and delegated to the Military Assistance Command Vietnam, Studies and Observation Group, a branch of the U.S. Army that oversaw all types of covert activity.
According to the official history of the U.S. Navy, the groundwork for turning such covert operations over to the military had been laid on Nov. 20, 1963, when Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara ordered a program for large-scale, covert actions against North Vietnam. At the time, Colby says, he tried to warn U.S. commanders that the operation would not work. He noted the CIA's failures in Vietnam and argued that similar CIA operations in China and Korea in the late 1940s and early 1950s had not been effective. "It was my contention (that we should) phase it down," Colby says. "But the military brass wanted to continue. They had a can-do attitude."
Garbed in black pajamas and camouflage and armed with Swedish submachine guns, pistols and grenades, individual agents and teams were to infiltrate the north by helicopter or small boat. As in the previous CIA missions, recruits were mostly natives of North Vietnam, young men, full of bravado and eager to do something for their country. Once they were trained, military records show, the United States sent them into North Vietnam to organize resistance, raid naval installations, monitor the movement of enemy supplies and troops and blow up bridges and power plants. Teams were assigned to missions lasting a few days to years. According to the Pentagon Papers, McNamara, in a December, 1963, memo to President Lyndon B. Johnson, called the proposal for Operation 34A an "excellent job . . . presenting a wide variety of . . . operations against North Vietnam." U.S. Army Gens. Earl Wheeler and Maxwell Taylor, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, agreed. By June, 1964, however, the first indications of failure surfaced when, according to the official history of the Navy, a series of raids along the North Vietnamese coast produced little except considerable dissatisfaction from ranking commanders: U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam Henry Cabot Lodge said it "might be good training, but we're certainly having no effect on Hanoi." Westmoreland, who eventually became the army's chief of staff, expressed his doubts by July, 1964. Finally, in August, McNamara himself became worried.
That month, North Vietnamese torpedo boats reportedly attacked two U.S. destroyers in the much-disputed Gulf of Tonkin incident, which some critics say was a ruse used by the United States to escalate the war. President Johnson called the Tonkin incident "unprovoked" aggression and ordered the bombing of North Vietnam-the first step in a massive buildup of U.S. forces. But in the months leading up to the incident, according to the official Navy history, 34A commandos had been conducting coastal raids in the area, raids that the North Vietnamese believed were coordinated by the U.S. destroyers.
Despite the indications that 34A was failing, the operation continued as the Vietnam War broadened and American troops poured into the country. Westmoreland says he was briefed from time to time on the operation, but it became a low priority because his attention was directed toward the buildup of U.S. forces. Some of the program's more immediate commanders, such as Col. Donald Blackburn, now a retired general living in Florida, say that they, too, had doubts but continued to send in teams. Blackburn also says he changed the role of some teams to reconnaissance missions that lasted no more than a week.
By 1968, the last 34A team had been sent into North Vietnam; according to Tourison it was dropped by mistake on top of an enemy anti-aircraft installation. Two years later, the teams had all been killed or captured, or were working for the enemy. "The Vietnamese were helpful and brave, but it just did not work," Colby says. "I tried to turn it off after a year or two. Yet, the military wanted to make a fresh start. I don't think they were very effective. But in war, you try everything you can."
SINCE HIS YOUTH IN NORTH VIETNAM, NHI HUNG DINH says, he wanted to avenge his father and other political dissidents who had been forced to flee to South Vietnam because of political persecution by the Communists. His anti-Marxist fervor, he recalls, attracted the attention of a Catholic priest who helped recruit him for covert operations when he was 18.
"I liked the glamorous side of espionage," Dinh, who once fancied himself as a Humphrey Bogart, says in Vietnamese. "I saw it was different from what other people did. I thought the military would be too ordinary, but this would allow traveling here and there, and you'd always be able to have a gun on you."
Sitting in his cramped Huntington Beach apartment recently, Dinh remembers the assurances his American military advisers gave him during training. " `Everywhere you are, there we will be,' " he quotes them as saying. "We didn't see them anywhere."
Dinh's first mission as a 34A commando was on Nov. 19, 1965. It was his last. Team Romeo's choppers flew into North Vietnam. The plan was to stay two years, conducting reconnaissance and sabotage. Instead, the commandos were lost in the jungle for six weeks after being dropped off at the wrong place. Border defense forces finally ambushed the team the first week of January, 1966.
Romeo's members were first sent to prison in Quang Binh, where each commando was put into an underground cell. "A grave for the living," Dinh calls the cells. After nine months, he was transferred to another prison in Thanh Tri near Hanoi and spent a year in solitary confinement. A daily bowl of rice barely kept him alive. On the day of his release in 1982, authorities gave him 20 dong, worth about 2 cents. He says he spent it all on noodle soup at the first food stand he came to. The peddler dished out the portion into a tub instead of a bowl. There was so much, he says, he asked his police escorts to help him eat it.
When he returned home, he found not only his family waiting, but also his fiancee, Bay Nguyen. "His mother told me that he had died," Nguyen says. "But I continued to think that he was still alive." On their wedding night, six months later, she learned for the first time what he had been through. She cried over the scars his shackles had deeply etched around his wrists and ankles. "He told us about how they had stomped on his stomach and about how everyone had open sores from lice in the camps," she says. "There are still scars all over his body."
By 1990, Dinh had managed to get himself and his family to the United States under a U.S. resettlement program for political prisoners, but not before he served three more years for trying to escape from Vietnam. Dinh, 54, and his family now live with another Vietnamese family in a $450-a-month two-bedroom apartment. They get $770 a month in welfare and food stamps. He shares his bed with his wife and their two sons, Anh Hong, 6, and Quan Hong, 4. Dinh, whose injuries left him with chronic fatigue and an inability to concentrate, cannot work.
"Now, I think that I as an individual was so insignificant," he says. "The Americans abandoned an entire government, (so) what am I? I just want people to understand it wasn't as if I was sweet-talked into this. I went into North Vietnam because of my country. Now, I can only live from day to day."
A year after Dinh was captured, U.S. Army Lt. Gen. John K. Singlaub, then a colonel, assumed command of the unit that oversaw 34A missions. Singlaub, who later funneled arms to the Nicaraguan Contras and remains an anti-Communist activist in Alexandria, Va., says that a short while after he took command he became convinced that most of his teams in North Vietnam had been "rolled up by Communist security." In many cases, radio operators were broken under torture and forced to act as double agents. They lured other 34A teams into ambushes and repeatedly ordered airdrops of U.S. equipment the North Vietnamese could use. Retired U.S. Army Col. Fred Caristo, who helped run 34A missions as a captain, remembers one radioman ordering 30 pistols and silencers, 200 cartons of Salem cigarettes, 20 Seiko watches and dozens of pairs of paratrooper boots. "I mean we're talking about some real goodies," says Caristo, who now lives in Woodbridge, Va.
The operation soon emphasized ferreting out double agents and team members who worked for the enemy. Supplies were booby-trapped and teams were lured into position for airstrikes. Yet, in a still-classified report, Singlaub says now, he concluded that the Communist network of informers made it extremely difficult to establish covert operations. "It was not completely futile," Singlaub says, "but from the standpoint of achieving its original goals it was. It was compromised to the extent that it could not achieve those goals."
In retrospect, Dale Andrade, who had some expertise in covert operations during the Vietnam War, contends that U.S. leaders did not take the operation seriously enough. "What makes the tragedy greater," he says, "is that we relied on an operation like this, when we could not think of anything better to do. To the Vietnamese it was very patriotic. But when you read the Pentagon Papers, it is clear that our leaders didn't think it would work very well. The South Vietnamese didn't realize the doubts the Americans had. In that sense, it is tragic."
THE CAPTURED CIA AND 34A COMMANDOS ENDED UP IN RE-EDUCAtion camps and prisons ranging from the infamous Hanoi Hilton to squalid facilities of barbed wire and thatched huts in the countryside. Dinh and Le say they saw scores of 34A commandos and CIA operatives in prison, and many of them died of malnutrition, dysentery, malaria and tropical parasites. Prisoners deemed incorrigible were put into isolation cells for months.
But in late 1972, as the Paris peace talks convened, clothing and food improved for the captured commandos. Word spread among them that all prisoners of war would be released under the emerging treaty. On Jan. 27, 1973, the cease-fire agreement was signed by the United States, South Vietnam and North Vietnam, calling for the return of prisoners of war within 60 days. Although almost 600 U.S. POWs were released, the commandos-some of whom had been in the same prisons as the Americans-were not. In protest, scores of them staged a series of hunger strikes that were mercilessly broken up by prison guards armed with clubs and dogs.
At the negotiating table in Paris, the United States might not have been in any position to ask for the release of the commandos. "How could you ask for them?" Andrade asks. "These were not supposed to be United States teams, and you would not want to disclose your collusion in a secret operation. Even if we were involved in the training and the missions, it was (South Vietnamese) President Nguyen Van Thieu's job to ask for them."
Apparently, the South Vietnamese leader was prepared to ask but did not. According to a former South Vietnamese army colonel now living in Orange County who asked that his name not be used, a list of more than 100 captured South Vietnamese commandos and operatives was supposed to be discussed during the talks. The colonel said that he had participated in preparations for the Paris peace talks and knew of the list of POWs. Thieu, he says, ordered it stricken from the discussions, fearing that the commandos would organize an uprising against his government upon their return. Thieu's whereabouts are unknown.
Tourison, who is writing a book on the commandos, says there is strong evidence that the United States knew the commandos were alive yet did not negotiate for their release. Trials of many of the men were written about by North Vietnamese newspapers or broadcast on their radio networks, he says. Caristo, too, recalls that there were broadcasts about surviving commandos after their families had been paid death benefits. But to his knowledge, he says, the surviving families were never told of the news. "Our intelligence operation failed, and we lied to their families, " Tourison says. "When we had a chance to get them out, we did not take it."
John Madison, now a retired U.S. Army colonel, who headed a U.S. delegation sent to Vietnam to assure the return of American prisoners of war, says he does not recall that the commandos were ever mentioned to him nor was his delegation instructed to inquire about them. The responsibility, he says, rested with the South Vietnamese government, but he does not recall the South Vietnamese talking about them either. Retired U.S. Army Col. Harry G. Summers Jr., a member of the same delegation, says the commandos should have been repatriated under the peace treaty's broad language related to prisoners of war. "They should have been included, but I am not sure their names were brought up by us or anyone else," says Summers, now editor of Vietnam magazine. "Trying them for war crimes or espionage could have been a way the North Vietnamese were able to hang on to them. If anyone is to blame, they are."
SEVEN YEARS AFTER THE Paris peace talks, Guong Duc Vu, now 54, was among the first commandos to escape from prison and make it to the United States. For 10 years, he has lived with his wife, mother and three children in a roach-infested, two-room flat in Chicago that is bare except for a bed salvaged from the garbage and a shelf of religious icons.
Vu was a member of a commando team sent on raids along the North Vietnamese coast. His first three missions had to be aborted. On his fourth and final raid in March, 1964, Vu was captured after his team could not find the patrol craft it was supposed to sink. "We were trying to find another target when some other boats came into view," Vu recalls. "Their guns opened fire. One of our men was killed and another was hit." After a month on the run, he and another team member were captured while they were trying to walk back to South Vietnam.
For 16 years, Vu lived in a filthy thatched prison hut and supplemented his daily ration of barley with snakes, cockroaches and mice. When that wasn't enough, he cinched banana leaves around his midsection to relieve the hunger pangs.
Vu says that in 1980 he was transferred to another camp, where prisoners occasionally received temporary passes to visit relatives. After one furlough, Vu did not return, becoming a fugitive and risking a longer prison term. He joined the exodus of more than a million Vietnamese who left the impoverished nation by boat or dangerous overland routes to reach U.N. refugee camps. Some drowned as overcrowded vessels capsized in heavy seas. Others simply vanished on jungle trails.
"Over there, life had nowhere to go. Here we have freedom," says Vu, speaking in Vietnamese. "My family was reunited only because of God. I never believed we would be back together."
He and his family have tried to be optimistic. He no longer faces the risk of recapture, the prospect of more years in prison or the stigma of an espionage conviction that would keep him from getting work in Vietnam. But lately they have had a string of misfortune. Vu was laid off from his job as a carpenter a few months ago, and his youngest son is a hemophiliac. "We're so weary of everything now," Vu says. "We just want to be left in peace to live day to day."
Although Vu and other commandos have obtained welfare and food stamps after immigrating to the United States, efforts to secure veterans benefits or special priority for those still in refugee camps have failed. Whether they are more deserving than the hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese soldiers who have received no special help after being captured by the Communists is debatable. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs usually requires that someone serve in the U.S. armed forces to qualify for benefits. By special acts of Congress, however, Filipinos whose units were under U.S. commanders during World War II qualify for limited veterans benefits. Similarly, free medical services are available to former Polish and Czechoslovakian soldiers who fought on the Allies' side during World War I and II if they have lived in the United States for at least 10 years.
Changing the qualifications for veterans benefits is a complicated process, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. Exceptions can only be made by act of Congress. "It is quite an effort to get things done. In the case of these Vietnamese, they probably aren't qualified for benefits under the current rules," says spokesman William Layer. "Just because our military used segments of a native population for operations, doesn't necessarily qualify them for anything."
But some of the former commandos believe that they should receive benefits because they were trained, controlled and paid by the U.S. government. "Some of these guys spent more than 20 years behind bars. They certainly deserve something for their efforts," Caristo says.
Singlaub looked into the possibility of compensation, but, he says, the government was unable to rationalize helping the commandos unless the same benefits were extended to all former South Vietnamese soldiers in the United States.
"The explanation was that they are in the same position as regular South Vietnamese soldiers," Singlaub says.
"At one time we looked for benefits for these guys, but people want to forget the war," Caristo says. "They are more interested in U.S. MIAs and normalization of relations with Vietnam."
Tourison estimates that as many as 200 commandos have applied to come to the United States through U.S. refugee programs but only three or four have gotten through despite the fact that they spent much more time in prison under harsher conditions than any captured officer from the Republic of Vietnam's defeated army.
"We have been obligated in the past to help U.S. employees whether or not they were American citizens. We have done more for people who have done less for us than these men," Tourison says. "These guys have paid a price that few American prisoners of war have ever paid."
What is being done on their behalf usually takes place on an individual basis outside the realm of government. Commandos lend each other money or pool their resources to fly a family to the United States from Vietnam. Occasionally, Ngung Van Le and others have informed the United Nations of former commandos who have made it to refugee camps. Supporters, like Tourison, have written letters to help them get jobs or welfare benefits.
In 1987, Tourison wrote the state of California to attempt to get $700 a month in disability payments for Tan Van Nguyen, a 34A commando who now lives in San Jose. Nguyen was captured in 1965 and ended up serving almost 20 years of a life sentence. He participated in one of the 1973 hunger strikes and suffered broken bones and crippling internal injuries before he lapsed into unconsciousness for three days. He is unable to work.
Most commandos have tried, however, to make it on their own, reconciled to the fact that not much will be done for them. In 1984, Hung Quoc Tran finally made it to the United States, where his autobiography "Thep Den" ("Black Steel"), written under the pen name Binh Chi Dang, became popular in the Vietnamese immigrant community. A U.S. official, Tran says, questioned him about American POWs who might still be alive in Vietnam. When Tran asked what was being done for the commandos, the official said that they were not the United States' responsibility.
"Before the man left," Tran says, "he gave me a business card and said to contact him if ever I needed help getting a job. I never called him. We don't want to ask for any more help. We survived the prisons, and we can survive here."
Ngung Van Le, now 47, earns a living hand-engraving silver and pewter in Baltimore. Since he came to the United States, he has spent hundreds of hours telling the Defense Department about the Vietnamese prison system. Officials asked if there are American prisoners of war still in Vietnam. Le says he did not see any after the Paris peace accords.
Le, like many of the former commandos, remains a kind of prisoner. He would like to get married, but he has no prospects. Though he used to get carsick when he first came to the United States, his only pride and joy, he says, is a new Toyota Corolla. Home is a tidy basement room rented from a Vietnamese family. On top of the TV is an old photograph of Team Hadley taken a few days before the unit was dropped into North Vietnam. The kitchen is a hot plate, and his few possessions all fit into the 9-by-12-foot space. Ulcers and intestinal problems caused by the prison diet limit Le to one small meal a day.
"There is probably a certain similarity," he says quietly, "to what I have been used to."mandos
Posted by Nha Kỹ Thuật at 9:35 PM Castor Team Leader Ha Van Chap HINH ANH BIET KICH / John McCain POW 1967-1973 Huy Hiệu Mặt Trận Gươm Thiêng Ái Quốc Website va Taì Liệu Nha Kỹ Thuật Trust Fund account Ha Van Chap
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Thượng Sĩ I Hà Văn Chấp, nguyên Trưởng Toán Castor, một trong 4 người Biệt Kích Sở Bắc đầu tiên đã anh hùng xâm nhập miền Bắc Việt Nam, nhảy dù xuống đồi 885 cách làng Nghỉa Lộ (Tuần Giao - Lai Châu, Bắc Việt) khoãng 1 cây số để thi hành công tác trong đêm 27 tháng 5 năm 1961 History of Nha Ky Thuat





In early 1956 the French built Commando School at Nha Trang was re-established with US military assistance to provide physical training and ranger instruction for up to 100 students. Early the following year President Ngo Dinh Diem ordered the creation of a special unit to conduct clandestine external operations. Initial parachute and communication training for 70 officers and sergeants was conducted at Vung Tau; 58 of these later underwent a four month commando course at Nha Trang under the auspices of a US Army Special Forces Mobile Training Team. Upon completion, they formed the Lien Doi Quang Sat so 1 (I Observation Unit) on I November 1957 at Nha Trang. The unit was put under the Presidential Liaison Office, a special intelligence bureau controlled by President Diem and outside the normal ARVN command structure. The commander was Lt. Col. Le Quang Tung, an ARVN airborne officer and Diem loyalist. Many of the Unit's members came originally from northern Vietnam, reflecting its external operations orientation.

In 1958 the Unit was renamed the Lien Doan Quang Sat so 1, or I Observation Group, reflecting its increase to nearly 400 men in December. By that time the Group was seen as an anti Communist stay behind force in the event of a North Vietnamese conventional invasion; however, because of its privileged position the Group stayed close to Diem and rarely ventured into the field.

By 1960 it was apparent that the main threat to South Vietnam was growing Viet Cong insurgency; the Group abandoned its stay behind role and was assigned missions in VC infested areas. Operations were briefly launched against VC in the Mekong Delta, and later along the Lao border.

In mid 1961 the Group had 340 men in 20 teams of 15, with plan for expansion to 805 men. In October the Group began operations into Laos to reconnoiter North Vietnamese Army logistical corridors into South Vietnam. In November the Group was renamed Lien Doan 77, or 77 Group, in honor of its USSF counterparts. Over the next two years members were regularly inserted into Laos and North Vietnam on harassment and psychological warfare operations. Longer duration agent missions, involving civilians dropped into North Vietnam, also came under the Group's auspices.

The Group's sister unit, 31 Group, began forming in February 1963. Following criticism of 77 Group's perceived role as Diem's 'palace guard', both groups were incorporated into a new command,, the Luc Luong Dac Biet (LLDB) or Special Forces, on 15 March 1963. In theory the LLDB would work closely with the USSF in raising irregular village defense units. This cosmetic change still kept the Special Forces outside of ARVN control, however, and did little to change the performance of Col. Tung's troops. In August, LLDB members attacked Buddhist pagodas across South Vietnam in an effort to stiffle Buddhist opposition to the Diem regime. At the time LLDB strength stood at seven companies, plus an additional three 'civilian' companies used by Diem on political operations. Because of such missions the LLDB became despised and, when anti Diem military units staged a coup d'etat in November, the 'revolutionary' forces arrested Col. Tung and quickly neutralized the LLDB. (Tung was later executed.)

The LLDB after President Ngo Dinh Diem

In the wake of the coup the Presidential Liaison Office was dissolved and its function assumed by the ARVN. The LLDB was put under the control of the Joint General Staff and given the mission of raising paramilitary border and village defense forces with the USSF. External operations were given to the newly formed Liaison Service, also under the JGS. The Liaison Service, commanded by a Colonel, was headquartered in Saigon adjacent to the JGS. It was divided into Task Force 1, 2 and 3, each initially composed of only a small cadre of commandos.

In 1964 the JGS also formed the Technical Service (So Ky Thuat), a covert unit tasked with longer duration agent operations into North Vietnam. Commanded by a Lieutenant Colonel, the Technical Service comprised Group 11 (Doan 11), oriented toward agent operations in Laos and eastern North Vietnam; Group 68 (Doan 68 Thang Long), another infiltration unit; and the Coastal Security Service, a maritime commando group at Da Nang attached to the Technical service with its own contingent of PT boats for seaborne infiltration.

The post Diem LLDB was restructured for its proper role as a source of counter insurgency instructors for paramilitary forces. By February 1964, 31 Group had finished training and was posted to Camp Lam Son south of Nha Trang. In May the Group became responsible for all LLDB detachments in I and 11 Corps. A second reorganization occured in September when 31 Group was renamed III Group and given responsibility for the Special Operations Training Center at Camp Lam Son. Now 77 Group, headquartered at Camp Hung Vuong in Saigon, became 301 Group. In addition, 91 Airborne Ranger Battalion, a three company fast reaction para unit, was raised under LLDB auspices in November. Total LLDB force strength stood at 333 officers, 1270 non commissioned officers and 1270 men. The LLDB command at Nha Trang was assumed by Brig. Gen. Doan Van Quang in August 1965.

By 1965 the LLDB had become almost a mirror image of the USSF. LLDB Headquarters at Nha Trang ran the nearby Special Forces Training Center at Camp Dong Ba Thin. LLDB 'C' Teams, designated A through D Company, were posted to each of South Vietnam's four Military Regions; each 'C' Team had three 'B' Teams, which controlled operational detachments at the sub regional level; 'B' Teams ran 10 to 11 'A' Teams. 'A' Teams were colocated with USSF 'A' Teams at camps concentrated along the South Vietnamese border, where they focused on training Civilian Irregular Defense Force (CIDG) personnel.

In addition, the LLDB Command directly controlled the Delta Operations Center with its Delta teams and the four company 91 Airborne Ranger Battalion, both were used by Project Delta, a special reconnaissance unit of the US Military Assistance Vietnam Studies and Observation Group (MACVSOG), which operated deep in VC/NVA sanctuaries.

On 30 January 1968 the Communists launched their TET general offensive across South Vietnam. Caught celebrating the lunar New Year, the Saigon government was initially ill prepared to counter the VC/NVA attacks. When Nha Trang was hit on the first day the LLDB Headquarters was protected by 91 Airborne Ranger Battalion, recently returned from one of its Project Delta assignments. At only 60 percent strength the Airborne Rangers turned in an excellent performance, pushing the major Communist elements out of Nha Trang in less than a day. The battle, however, cost the life of the battalion commander and wounded the four company commanders.

After a four month retraining in Nha Trang three companies from 91 Airborne Ranger Battalion were brought together with six Delta teams and renamed 81 Airborne Ranger Battalion. In early June the new battalion prepared for urban operations in Saigon after a second surge of Communist attacks pushed goverrunent forces out of the capital's northern suburbs. On 7 June the Airborne Rangers were shuttled into Saigon and began advancing toward VC held sectors around the Duc Tin Military School. After a week of bloody street fighting, much of it at night, the Airborne Rangers pushed the enemy out of the city.

Following the Tet Offensive 81 Airborne Ranger Battalion was increased to six companies, and continued to be used as the main reaction force for Project Delta; four companies were normally assigned Delta missions while two remained in reserve at LLDB Headquarters.

The Strategic Technical Directorate

In late 1968 the Technical Service was expanded into the Nha Ky thuat (Strategic Technical Directorate, or STD) in a move designed to make it more like MACVSOG, the US joint services command created in 1964 which ran reconnaissance, raids and other special operations both inside and outside South Vietnam. Despite internal opposition the Liaison Service was subordinated to the STD as its major combat arm. Like SOG, the STD also had aircraft under its nominal control, including 219 Helicopter Squadron of the Vietnamese Air Force. By the late 1960s the size of the Liaison Service had increased tremendously. Task Forces 1, 2 and 3, commanded by lieutenant colonels and larger than a brigade, were directly analogous to MACVSOG's Command and Control North, Central and South. Each Task Force was broken into a Headquarters, a Security Company, a Reconnaissance Company of ten teams, and two Mobile Launch Sites with contingents of South Vietnamese Army and paramilitary forces under temporary Liaison Service control. Although the Liaison Service was a South Vietnamese unit, all of its operations were funded, planned and controlled by MACVSOG, and recon teams integrated both MACVSOG and Liaison Service personnel.

In December 1970, in accordance with the 'Vietnamization' policy, all CIDG border camps were turned over to the South Vietnamese government and CIDG units were incorporated into the ARVN as Biet Dong Quan, or Ranger, border battalions. No longer needed as a CIDG training force, the LLDB was dissolved in the same month. Officers above captain were sent to the Biet Dong Quan; the best of the remaining officers and men were selected for a new STD unit, the Special Mission Service. At the same time 81 Airborne Ranger Battalion was expanded into 81 Airborne Ranger Group consisting of one Headquarters Company, one Recon Company and seven Exploitation Companies. The Group was put under the direct control of the JGS as a general reserve force.

During 1970 the Liaison Service had staged numerous cross border missions into Cambodia in support of major external sweeps by the US and South Vietnamese forces against Communist sanctuaries. Early the following year the Service sent three recon teams into the 'Laotian Panhandle' two weeks before the ARVN's February Lam Son 719 incursion.

In February 1971 the STD underwent major reorganization in accordance with Vietnamization and its anticipated increase in special operations responsibilities. Headquartered in Saigon, STD command was given to Col. Doan Van Nu, an ARVN airborne officer and former military attache to Taiwan. As STD commander, and a non voting member of the South Vietnamese National Security Council, Nu took orders only from President Nguyen Van Thieu and the Chief of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Vietnam JGS.

The expanded STD consisted of a headquarters, a training center, three support services and six combat services. The training center was located at Camp Yen The in Long Thanh: Yen The, significantly, was the name of a resistance movement in northern Vietnam during the 11th century. Airborne instruction was conducted at the ARVN Airborne Division's Camp Ap Don at Tan Son Nhut. The three support services were Administration & Logistics; Operations & Intelligence; and Psychological Warfare, which ran the 'Vietnam Motherland', 'Voice of Liberty', and 'Patriotic Front of the Sacred Sword' clandestine radio stations. The combat services were the Liaison Service (Loi Ho), the Special Mission Service (Hac Long), Group 11, Group 68, The Air Support Service and the Coastal Security Service.

The Liaison Service (So lien Lac), commanded by a colonel in Saigon, was composed of experienced Loi Ho recon commandos divided among Task Force I (Da Nang), Task Force 2 (Kontum) and Task Force 3 (Ban Me thuot).

The Special Mission Service (So Cong Tac), also commanded by a colonel, was headquartered at Camp Son Tra in Da Nang. It remained in training under US auspices from February 1971 until January 1972. Unlike the shorter duration raid and recon missions performed by the Liaison Service, the SMS was tasked with longer missions into North Vietnam and Laos. It was initially composed of Groups 71, 72 and 75, with the first two headquartered at separate camps at Da Nang. Group 75 was headquartered at Plei Ku in the former LLDB B Co. barracks, with one detachment at Kom Tum to provide a strike force for operations in Cambodia and inside South Vietnam.

Group 11, an airborne infiltration unit based at Da Nang, and Group 68, headquartered in Saigon with detachments at Kom Tum, was soon integrated under SMS command. Group 68 ran airborne trained rallier and agent units, including 'Earth Angels' (NVA ralliers) and 'Pike Hill' teams (Cambodian disguised as Khmer Communists). A typical Earth Angel operation took place on 15 December 1971, when a team was inserted by US aircraft on a reconnaissance mission into Mondolkiri Province, Cambodia. Pike Hill operations were focused in the same region, including a seven man POW recovery team dropped into Ba Kev, Cambodia, on 12 February 1971. Pike Hill operations even extended into Laos, e.g. the four man Pike Hill team parachuted onto the edge of the Bolovens Plateau on 28 December 1971, where it reported on enemy logistics traffic for almost two months. Pike Hill operations peaked in November 1972 when two teams were inserted by C-130 Blackbird aircraft flying at 250 feet north of Kompong Trach, Cambodia. Information from one of these teams resulted in 48 B-52 strikes within one day.

The STD's Air Support Service consisted of 219 'King Bee' Helicopter Squadron, the 114 Observation Sqn., and C-47 transportation elements. The King Bees, originally outfitted with aging H34s, were re-equipped with UH-1 Hueys in 1972. The C-47 fleet was augmented by two C-123 transports and one C-130 Blackbird in the same year. All were based at Nha Trang.

The Easter Offensive 1972

During the 1972 Easter Offensive the combat arms of the STD saw heavy action while performing recon and forward air guide operations. Meanwhile, 81 Airborne Ranger Group was tasked with reinforcing besieged An Loc. The Group was heli lifted into the southern edge of the city in April, and the Airborne Rangers walked north to form the first line of defense against the North Vietnamese. After a month of brutal fighting and heavy losses, the siege was lifted. A monument was later built by the people of An Loc in appreciation of the Group's sacrifices.

In October 1972, the SMS was given responsibility for the tactical footage between Hue and the Lao border. In early 1973 US advisors were withdrawn. The Air Support Service soon proved unable to make up for missing US logistical support, sharply reducing the number of STD external missions. STD personnel, as well as Lien Doan Nguoi Nhai SEALS, were increasingly pulled into President Thieu's Office for special assignments. Later in the year the Liaison Service's Task Force 1, 2 and 3 were redesignated Groups 1, 2 and 3; and Camp Yen The was renamed Camp Quyet Thang ('Must Win'.)

Following a brief respite in the wake of the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, the STD was back in action against encroaching NVA elements in the countryside. In September 1973 two Liaison Service Loi Ho recon teams were inserted by helicopter into Plei Djereng, a key garrison blocking the NVA infiltration corridor down the Western highlands. They were unsuccessful in rallying the defenders after an NVA attack, however. In late 1974 the NVA increased their pressure; especially hard hit was the provincial capital of Phuoc Long in Military Region 3. After several weeks of NVA tank, artillery and infantry attacks the Phuoc Long defense started to crack. In an effort to save the city the government ordered 81 Airborne Ranger Group to reinforce the southern perimeter. After two days of weather delays one company was heli lifted east of the city on the morning of 5 January 1975; and by early afternoon over 250 Airborne Rangers were in Phuoc Long. After a day of relentless NVA assaults most of the original garrison fled; contact was lost with the Airborne Rangers as the NVA began to overwhelm the city. Early the next day Aiborne Rangers stragglers were spotted north of the city. A four day search eventually retrieved some 50 percent survivors.

By March 1975 the NVA had increased pressure on the Central Highlands, prompting Saigon to begin a strategic redeployment from the western half of II Corps. Although the Liaison Service's Groups 2 and 3 provided security for the withdrawing masses the redeployment soon turned into a rout. In the hasty withdrawal Group 2 had forgotten two recon teams in Cambodia; these later walked the entire distance back to the Vietnamese coast. After the fall of the Central Highlands government forces in I Corps began to panic, sparking an exodus to the south. In the confusion Group I of the Liaison Service attempted to provide security for the sealift to Saigon. Meanwhile, the SMS boarded boats on 30 March for Vung Tau.

With the entire northern half of the country lost, Saigon attempted to regroup its forces. 81 Airborne Ranger Group, which had arrived from II Corps in a state of disarray, was refitted at Vung Tau. The Liaison Service was posted in Saigon, with Groups I and 3 reinforcing Bien Hoa and Group 2 protecting the fuel depots. The SMS also reformed in Saigon.

On 6 April 1975 SMS recon teams sent northeast and northwest of Phan Rang discovered elements of two North Vietnamese divisions massing on the city. An additional 100 SMS commandos were flown in as reinforcements, but were captured at the airport as the North Vietnamese overran Phan Rang. A second tak force of 40 Loi Ho commandos was infiltrated into Tay Ninh to attack an NVA command post; the force was intercepted and only two men escaped. By mid April 81 Airborne Ranger Group was put under the operational control of 18th Division and sent to Xuan Loc, where the unit was smashed. The remnants were pulled back to defend Saigon. By the final days of April the NVA had surrounded the capital. Along with other high officials, the STD commander escaped by plane on 27 April. On the next day 500 SMS commandos and STD HQ personnel commandeered a barge and escaped into international waters. The remainder of the Liaison Service fought until capitulation on 30 April.



In 1960 the South Vietnamese Navy proposed the creation of an Underwater Demolitions Team to improve protection of ships, piers and bridges. Later in the year a navy contingent was sent to Taiwan for UDT training; the one officer and seven men who completed the course became the cadre for a Lien Doi Nguoi Nhai (LDNN), or Frogman Unit, formally established in July 1961. The LDNN, with a proposed strength of 48 officers and men, was given the mission of salvage, obstacle removal, pier protection and special amphibious operations.

Soon after the creation of the LDNN a second unit was formed: Biet Hai, or 'Special Sea Force', paramilitary commandos under the operational control of Diem's Presidential Liaison Office and given responsibility for amphibious operations against North Vietnam. US Navy SEAL (Sea, Air and Land) commando teams began deploying to South Vietnam in February 1962 and initiated in March a six month course for the first Biet Hai cadre in airborne, reconnaissance and guerrilla warfare training. By October, 62 men had graduated from the first cycle. A planned second contingent was denied funding.

In early 1964 the LDNN, numbering only one officer and 41 men, began special operations against VC seabome infiltration attempts. Six Communist junks were destroyed by the LDNN at Ilo Ilo Island in January during Operation 'Sea Dog'. During the following month the LDNN began to be used against North Vietnamese targets as part of Operation Plan 34A, a covert action program designed to pressure the Ha Noi regime.

In February a team unsuccessfully attempted to sabotage a North Vietnamese ferry on Cape Ron and Swatow patrol craft at Quang Khe. Missions to destroy the Route I bridges below the 18th Parallel were twice aborted. In March most of the LDNN was transferred to Da Nang and colocated with the remaining Biet Hai conunandos. During May North Vietnam operations resumed by LDNN teams working with newly trained Biet Hai boat crews. On 27 May they scored their first success with the capture of a North Vietnamese junk. On 30 June a team landed on the North Vietnamese coast near a reservoir pump house. Ile team was discovered and a hand to hand fight ensued; two LDNN commandos lost their lives and three 57mm recoiless rifles were abandoned, but 22 North Vietnamese were killed and the pump house was destroyed.

In July a second class of 60 LDNN candidates was selected and began training in Nha Trang during September. Training lasted 16 weeks, and included a 'Hell Week' in which students were required to paddle a boat 115 miles, run 75 miles, carry a boat for 21 miles and swim 10 miles. During the training cycle team members salvaged a sunken landing craft at Nha Trang and a downed aircraft in Binh Duong Province. Thirty-three men completed the course in January 1965 and were based at Vung Tau under the direct control of the Vietnamese Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (Operations).

In 1965 the LDNN was given responsibility for amphibious special operations in South Vietnam. Maritime operations against North Vietnam were given exclusively to the Da Nang based Biet Hai commandos and Hai Tuan boat crews, both incorporated into the new seaborne component of the STD, the So Phong Ve Duyen Hai (Coastal Security Service or CSS). The CSS, a joint services unit, was headed by an Army lieutenant colonel until 1966, then by a Navy commander. CSS missions focused almost entirely on short duration sabotage operations lasting one night, and had a high success rate. The CSS relied heavily on special operations teams temporarily seconded from other services. Teams on loan from the Vietnamese Navy considered most effective, were codenamed 'Vega'. Other teams came from the Vietnamese Marine Corps ('Romulus') and Army ('Nimbus'). The CSS also controlled 40 civilian agents ('Cumulus') until the mid 1960s. Unofficialy, the term Biet Hai was used for all CSS forces, regardless of original service affiliation. CSS training was conducted at Da Nang under the auspices of US Navy SEAL, US Marine, and Vietnamese advisors. Further support was provided by the CSS's Da Nang based US counterpart, the Naval Advisory Detachment, a component of MACVSOG.

By the mid 1960s US Navy SEAL teams were being rotated regularly through South Vietnam on combat tours. Specialists in raids, amphibious reconnaissance and neutralization operations against the VC infrastructure, the SEALs worked closely with the LDNN and began qualifying Vietnamese personnel in basic SEAL tactics. In November 1966 a small cadre of LDNN were brought to Subic Bay in the Philippines for more intensive SEAL training.

In 1967 a third LDNN class numbering over 400 were selected for SEAL training at Vung Tau. Only 27 students finished the one year course and were kept as a separate Hai Kich ('Special Sea Unit,' the Vietnamese term for SEAL) unit within the LDNN. Shortly after their graduation the Communists launched the Tet Offensive most of the LDNN SEALs were moved to Cam Ranh Bay, where a fourth LDNN class began training during 1968. During the year the Vietnamese SEALs operated closely with the US Navy SEALS. The LDNN SEAL Team maintained its focus on operations within South Vietnam, although some missions did extend into Cambodia. Some missions used parachute infiltration.

LDNN after Tet

In 1971, in accordance with increased operational responsibilities under the Vietnamization program, the LDNN was expanded to the Lien Doan Nguoi Nhai (LDNN), or Frogman Group, comprising a SEAL Team, Underwater Demolitions Team, Explosive Ordnance Disposal Team and Boat Support Team. Headquarters remained in Saigon. For the remainder of 1971 the SEALs operated in 12 18-man detachments on neutralization operations and raids inside South Vietnam. SEAL launch sites included Ho Anh, north of Da Nang, Hue and Tinh An.

During the 1972 Easter Offensive the SEALs were transferred to Hue to conduct operations against NVA forces holding Quang Tri; after Quang Tri was retaken some of the SEALs went to Quang Ngai to resume VC neutralization operations. After US Navy SEAL advisors were withdrawn in late 1972 the LDNN SEAL Team, now 200 strong, took over training facilities at Cam Ranh Bay; training, however, was cut in half, with only one fifth given airborne training. The SEALs had been augmented by ten graduates out of 21 LDNN officer candidates sent to the US for SEAL training in 1971.

When the Vietnam ceasefire went into effect in 1973 the SEALs returned to LDNN Headquarters in Saigon. At the same time the CSS was dissolved, with the Navy contingent given the option of transferring to the LDNN.

In late December 1973 the government reiterated its territorial claim to the Paracel Island chain off its coast and dispatched a small garrison of militia to occupy the islands. By early January 1974 the Chinese, who also claimed the islands, had sent a naval task force to retake.the Paracels. On 17 January 30 LDNN SEALs were infiltrated on to the western shores of one of the major islands to confront a Chinese landing party. The Chinese had already departed; but two days later, after SEALs landed on a nearby island, Chinese forces attacked with gunboats and naval infantry. Two SEALs died and the rest were taken prisoner and later repatriated.

During the final days of South Vietnam a 50 man SEAL detachment was sent to Long An; the remainder were kept at LDNN Headquarters in Saigon along with 200 new SEAL trainees. During the early evening of 29 April all SEAL dependents boarded LDNN UDT boats and left Saigon; a few hours later the SEALs departed the capital, linked up with the UDT boats, and were picked up by the US 7th Fleet in international waters.

By Ken Conboy Nha Kỹ Thuật
Republic of Vietnam Special Operation Officer
