Story 3 - A Tactical SIGINT Success
Story
LTCOL Steve Hart
(Ret'd)
Prologue
-
A little known battle of the Vietnam conflict ...
547 Signal Troop
(hereinafter, the Troop) was a sub-unit on the Order of Battle of
the 1st Australian Task Force for the duration of the Vietnam War.
Its role was to provide timely Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) to the
Task Force, initially operating only as a “post office” for the US
Army SIGINT organisation, but quickly becoming a significant
operational SIGINT resource in its own right.
(1)
Photo -
The "Set Room" of 547 Signal Troop where radio communications of VC
and NVA transmissions were intercepted (7 Signal Regiment Archives).
In an era before the
Australian Army embraced Electronic Warfare (EW), which did not
occur until the late 1970s (and strongly motivated by the Troop’s
successes in South Vietnam), the Troop was required to operate under
stringent strategic security regulations applying to the existence
and distribution of SIGINT. This necessitated restricting the access
to its end-product to a very small number of appropriately-cleared
recipients, many of whom, in the early days of the deployment had
very little exposure to, or confidence in, the intelligence product
being developed. This, together with the ‘fog of war’, was certainly
the case in the lead-up to the Battle of Long Tan. As a direct
result of that battle, the Troop strength was doubled (from 15 to
30) and an R & D task (Project HIGH DIVINE) was initiated with the
Weapons Research Establishment (WRE) to equip the Troop with its own
high frequency airborne radio direction finding (ARDF) equipment, to
be installed in the fixed-wing aircraft of 161 Reconnaissance
Squadron. Officially, the operations of the Troop continued to be
“highly classified “ as secret plus until the release of the three
volumes of the official history of the Australian Army in the
Vietnam War which contain numerous citations referring to the
contribution of the Troop to Task Force operational planning.
In April 2012, the
Defence Honours and Awards Appeals Tribunal initiated an “Inquiry
into the Recognition for Service with 547 Signal Troop in Vietnam
from 1966 to 1971” to examine relevant evidence and consider
appropriate recognition for the Troop’s contribution. A number of
supporting submissions were made including a detailed Troop
submission. This article expands on just one engagement reported in
that submission – one that has yet to be recognised in any official
record of the War.
Much of the prose in this article has been based on the recall of
Troop members who were directly involved in the incident. The
authors are particularly indebted to Adrian Bishop and Jeff Payne
for their contribution. The italicised prose is based on detailed
historical research of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong records and
unit histories undertaken by Ernie Chamberlain and focuses on the
enemy view.
The
Strategic Situation in May-June 1969
The communist headquarters in South Vietnam ordered a month-long campaign of ‘High point” attacks for the period 5 May-20 June 1969. Following the late-May announcement of the planned early-June meetings of Presidents Nixon and Thieu at Midway and the communists’ planned announcement of the formation of their Provisional Revolutionary Government, further significant attacks were planned. With the occupation of Binh Ba village by elements of the 33rd NVA Regiment on 5 June 1969, the Australian Task Force’s 5 RAR became involved in heavy fighting over several days in both Binh Ba (Operation Hammer) and Hoa Long (Operation Tong) villages.
274
VC Regiment – Plans Uncovered
In mid-June 1969, during
normal radio frequency search operations, two experienced Operator
Signals of the Troop, Corporal Roy Dean and Signalman Barry Nesbit,
recognised - purely by its aural characteristics, the radio
transmitter of the headquarters of the VC’s 274th Main Force
Regiment which had been observing radio silence for several days.
While Dean and Nesbitt copied the radio messages, the target
frequency was also being monitored by Troop member, Signalman Jeff
Payne, who was flying a scheduled ARDF mission in a Cessna 180 from
161 Reconnaissance Squadron, piloted by Lieutenant Tony Sedgers. Sig
Payne undertook the tracking procedure and immediately passed this
data (via a secure voice link) to Sergeant Bob Hartley who performed
the appropriate calculations and plotting to determine the location
of the target transmitter. This indicated that the radio station
serving the headquarters of the 274th Regiment was located near a
Thai Army forward base in Long Thanh District of Bien Hoa Province,
38 kilometres north-west of the Australian Tactical Area of
Operational Responsibility (TAOR) but within the Australian Tactical
Area of Intelligence Interest (TAOI).
One of the Troop’s cryptanalysts-linguists, Corporal Adrian Bishop,
was able to decipher and translate the intercepted VC radio
messages. The messages said, inter alia, “when the combat is over
you are to evacuate the wounded to the hospital in the May Tao
mountains as agreed at our planning meeting.” This single piece of
intelligence indicated that a significant attack was imminent as the
Regiment’s casualties were usually evacuated to the nearby Hat Dich
Secret Zone.
The information was quickly passed up the chain to Bien Hoa, thence
on to the Special Security Office serving the headquarters of 2
Corps, Field Force Vietnam (II FFV). After several urgent exchanges
between intelligence staffs, it was agreed by all sides that the
most likely target was the battalion base of the Royal Thai Army
Volunteer Force (RTAVF) 2nd Infantry Battalion/1st Brigade/Black
Panther Division located at Loc An - about 3.5 kilometres south-east
of Long Thanh District town and 28 kilometres east of Saigon. This
Thai position (2)
was defended by two companies – numbering 245 personnel, and
included a US SNCO as a liaison officer. Arrangements were quickly
made to harden the defences of the Thai position and prepare for the
attack.
The
Attack
At about 1.00am on the 16
June, the VC Commander – Nguyen Nam Hung - launched his attack on
the Thai perimeter with two battalions plus sappers and one
battalion and RHQ in reserve. A barrage of VC mortars and rocket
propelled grenades was followed by three waves of ground assaults
and greatly outnumbered the Thai defenders. However, the attackers
were taken completely by surprise and were repulsed with a
bewildering amount of firepower including small arms and mortar
fire, artillery support, claymore anti-personnel mines, helicopter
gunships as well as other US close air support – including napalm.
The battle raged for several hours but the defensive fire was so
intense and casualties so high, the VC Commander was forced to call
off the attack and retreat.
Photo
-Thai troops examining captured 274 VC Regiment weapons after the
unsuccessful attack at Loc An, 16 June 1969
(US Vietnam Center and Archive - No. WA001107).
By coincidence, the
Troop’s senior traffic analyst, Staff Sergeant Darryl Houghton, was
visiting a fraternal American intercept organisation unit at Bien
Hoa and was due to return to Nui Dat later on the morning of the
attack. The Americans were so impressed by the intelligence tip-off
and the successful defence of the Thai position, they diverted
Houghton’s helicopter to the site of the battle. Houghton arrived
just as the body count was completed; 212 enemy bodies were found.
The fire from the helicopter gunships and the base defenders was so
intense that the VC were not able to drag away the bodies of their
KIA as they routinely did during other battles.
(3)
Thai casualties in this battle were six killed and 34
wounded.
In subsequent
notifications
(4),
the 1ATF intelligence staff reported that the action
“resulted in 212 enemy KIA and one enemy PW … Numerous individual
and crew-served weapons, ammunition and other materials were
captured. Captured documents identified the elements of all three
battalions of 274 Regiment, K21 Sapper Reconnaissance Company and
rear elements of 274. … This assault … has probably rendered the
Regiment marginally effective as a regimental-size combat force. It
is assessed that remnants of the Regiment have withdrawn to their
Hat Dich base area and will probably remain there for at least a
month, until replacements are received.”
An important factor to note here is that the number of VC casualties
incurred in this battle in June 1969 were almost as high as those
suffered by 275 Regiment at the Battle of Long Tan with the
Australians almost three years earlier.
Subsequently - and based
on the Troop’s information, the Task Force Commander (Brigadier
Sandy Pearson) directed ambush action on the expected 274 Regiment
withdrawal routes eastward to the May Tao base area. Successes were
reported a few days later.
(5) “Early am on 20 June 1969, 6RAR elements
ambushed a 50-strong VC group moving from west to east, killing 22
at YS498896 [east of Route 2 and just inside Phuoc Tuy Province] –
captured documents tentatively confirmed the 2nd Company of 274
Regiment’s 1st Battalion.” A VC POW confirmed that the group had
been engaged in evacuating wounded from 274 Regiment following their
unsuccessful attack on the Thais. While the ambushing elements of
6RAR had been positioned there on the basis of the Troop’s earlier
intercepts, this is not acknowledged in any history. Hence the
excellent teamwork resulting from this one intercepted encoded
message, and the accurate ARDF fix, resulted in 234 enemy KIA in
just four days.
Yet the background behind
the attack on the Thai position in June 1969 does not appear
anywhere in the annals of Australian (nor apparently in Thai)
military history. (6)
Perhaps understandably, the failed attack on the Thai
position is not mentioned in any published Vietnamese histories of
the War, including in the history of 274 Regiment’s higher
headquarters – the 5th VC Division and Military Region 7, nor in the
recent memoir of the 274 Regiment Commander, Nguyen Nam Hung – now a
retired Major General. Further research of Vietnamese documents
reveals that the C.12-65 Binh Gia Assault Youth Unit from Phuoc Tuy
province was involved in portering the 274 Regiment casualties
eastward to the May Taos. And there was a brief Hanoi account in an
article titled: “Dazzling Military Feats During June” and dated 1
July 1969 - “On 15 June, the PLAF of Bien Hoa Province destroyed a
battalion-size unit of Thai troops near Long Thanh”.
It is almost certain that the recipients of the “tip off” in the Thai perimeter that night were never told that the source was from an Australian intercept. The story is only known to a handful of people outside of the Troop, mostly Americans in the SIGINT community.
Lessons Learnt
Tactical SIGINT is timely
and potentially ‘actionable’, but extremely perishable as events
move quickly. Quite often, it is not possible to verify this
intelligence by other means. The above incident is just one example
where the Troop expeditiously passed information to relevant combat
forces needing the information. Their timely and effective reaction
to that SIGINT, turned a potentially disastrous situation into a
highly successful outcome.
Epilog
At the time of writing
this article, the deliberations of the Defence Honours and Awards
Appeals Tribunal are still in progress. The achievements of this
small RASigs unit have effectively been suppressed for over forty
years - primarily in the perceived interests of national security.
However, it is at least gratifying to the Troop’s members that just
some aspects of their contribution to Task Force operations have now
been acknowledged in the Official Histories.
About the Authors
At the time of this
incident, Steve Hart was the Officer Commanding 547 Signal Troop and
Ernie Chamberlain was the Intelligence Liaison Officer in Baria.
LTCOL Steve Hart served in every commissioned rank at 101 Wrls/7 Sig
Regt in Cabarlah between 1962 and 1976 and completed a two years
attachment to BAOR in Germany "for EW training" in 1964 - 66. He was
the CO of the Regt when it undertook the first Army EW Courses at
Cabarlah in 1975 and raised the first EW Unit, 72 EW Sqn, in 1976.
He also undertook a posting to Washington and left the army in 1980
after 25 years service.
Endnotes
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The Magazine of the
Royal Australian Corps of Signals