Sergeant Daugherty left Sergeants Cooke and Wagy with the bulk of the team and moved to the southeast with one yard. Sergeant Brokhausen, with Karczewski and two Bru, moved to the east. They were searching the ground and looking up in the trees. Brokhausen hadn’t gone a hundred meters when he spotted Strohlein’s CAR-15 and M-203 lying in the dead leaves at the base of a tree. There were signs that the chute had been pulled from the tree. And you could see where AK-47 rounds had torn into the tree. Expended 5.56 and 40mm casings were found at the base. The CAR-15 had a bullet scar gouged into the stock. No blood trail was found.
Sergeant Wagy found the metascope, and then Brokhausen and Cooke found the map and strobe light. The equipment wasn’t dropped, but had been placed in a straight line. Daugherty said he heard people up on the ridge. They also could smell heat tabs. The team moved up towards the ridge to within two hundred meters of the top. They saw movement all along the top and figured they were being set up for an ambush, and decided to head back to the LZ.
The weather closed in, and they figured if they had to RON, they needed ground to fight from. The team moved into a thick clump of trees about one hundred and fifty meters from the LZ. Once in the thick trees they found trenches about six feet long and chest deep. The trenches had been lined with some kind of luminescent so at night they could be found. There was a high-speed trail that ran up to the ridgeline and it was well used. The team occupied the trenches and put out claymores, then requested a specter gunship to be on station for most of the night. Around 2100, hours the whistles and banging started above the team towards the ridgeline. The team could see the NVA coming down the ridge on line with flashlights every fifty meters. Amazingly the NVA flowed around the trenches and down the finger into the valley. They continued to search the area for the Bright Light team for most of the night. At first light, the team was extracted by CH-53 out of NKP. To this date, Sergeant Strohlein’s fate has never been determined.
Guy Butler - www.butlerimage.co.uk
One last and little known HALO mission was planned by CCN. Sergeant First Class Charles Wesley and three other US HALO members were sent to Camp Long Thanh to conduct mission training. Accompanying Wesley were Sergeants Robert Sinton, Chaffe and Reando. On June 26, 1971, the team started their mission training. By July 3, 1971, the team had made thirteen jumps. Wesley was the low man with the Norden Light. During the team’s training, the light system proved to be very effective for assembly in the air and on the ground.
However, on their last jump, the team exited the C-130E two or three miles off the drop zone. Looking down, Wesley saw a light. Thinking that the ground party had turned on a light for the team, he steered his canopy towards it. Not recognizing any terrain features that resembled their drop zone, Wesley saw a cleared area and landed. The other team members landed close by. As Wesley was trying to untie the quick release that secured his CAR-15 to the main lift web of the parachute, he found that he had a square knot instead. Then he heard Vietnamese voices approaching. Looking around, he spotted ten or fifteen black clad figures all on line coming toward him. Thinking that they
were Viet Cong, Wesley leveled his CAR-15, which was still attached to the parachute harness. He then realized that he had not turned off the canopy light prior to landing, and the black clad figures were walking straight towards him and the other team members. Wesley quickly turned out the light and the voices got even louder. Something was not right. If they were Viet Cong, they would have already started firing at the team. Wesley blinked the canopy light off and on a few times. Then he recognized them as being RFPF’s (Regional Forces/ Popular Forces) by the red scarf tied to their
LBE. They were from a night ambush site and were curious of the light, which had an eerie green glow to it. An M-151 showed up with Ben Dennis at the wheel. “Don’t blame me,” Wesley said, “Melvin Hill was doing the spotting.”
After returning to Danang, the team continued to train and prepare for the jump. Andre Smith, who had recovered from his jump injuries, approached Wesley and asked him if he could be in charge of this HALO mission. Wesley said no. A VR was flown from an OV-10 and Wesley took photographs of the intended drop zone. A few days later, intelligence reports indicated that there were thousands of North Vietnamese in the target area. SOG, not wanting to take another chance in that area, cancelled the mission.
CCN had its fill of HALO operations. Others in SOG, however, wanted to make their mark. The next jump came when intelligence sources identified a suspected North Vietnamese headquarters and prison camp near the communist-held Cambodian town of Kratie. Colonel Roger Pezzelle, who had taken over in July as the Op 35 commander, wanted to launch a reconnaissance mission but was hampered by a shortage of suitable long-range helicopters and political restrictions against American troops entering Cambodia. To circumvent these restrictions, a HALO jump was proposed using one Vietnamese and three Montagnards. Plans called for the team to land in a small clearing north of the
target, then infiltrate south.
In this detail shot you can see the T-10 reserve chute (missing the metal handle at the moment) as well as the UZI SMG, which was supplied with a detachable silencer. Guy Butler - www.butlerimage.co.uk
After midnight on 9 October 1971, the four indigenous commandos boarded a C-130E. As during the previous HALO jumps, the crew mimicked the flight path and schedule of a routine supply shuttle to Thailand. With Pezzelle aboard as an observer, the team jumped from 10,000 feet.
Maintaining a tight assembly, the parachutists steered towards their drop zone. Seconds before landing, however, a man entered the edge of the clearing. Startled by the nocturnal encounter, he began to shout as the jumpers touched ground. Enemy soldiers in the nearby bush were alerted and immediately began to converge on the site. Worse, as the team darted into the bush, one of the Montagnards ran headlong into a pointed branch and poked out an eye. Though separated into three groups and on the run for a day, all four commandos were successfully extracted shortly after dusk.
Not to be outdone, SOG’s Command and Control Central (CCC) in Kontum was preparing a HALO insertion of its own. Far more ambitious than any of the previous missions, CCC planned a jump of ten men, five Americans and five Vietnamese. Forming the core was RT WASHINGTON, a mixed Montagnard team re-formed after being annihilated in December 1970. From RT WASHINGTON came One-Zero, Staff Sergeant Robert McNier, and One-One, Howard Sugar, plus three Sedang Montagnards, one Bnar and one Jarai. Joining them were three more Americans from CCC recon company: Richard Gross, Charles Behler, and Mark Gentry.
Taken to Long Thanh for two weeks of training, the augmented team began parachuting from helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. Two dozen practice jumps later, they were able to exit a C-130E at 25,000 feet with 110 pounds of equipment and land within 50 meters of each other.
With the team mission-ready by early October, CCC had to generate a target. Given the hazards CCN had encountered jumping into jungle canopy, Kontum dictated that its dropzone would be flat and open. Looking at the map for enemy-infested areas that fit that description, planners decided on the Ia Drang valley. The mission itself, apart from further testing the HALO concept, was a general area reconnaissance.
After two weather aborts, the team boarded a C-130E at Long Thanh during the pre-dawn hours of 11 October 1971. As the aircraft lowered its tailramp at 13,500 feet, the ten men continued to breathe off oxygen consoles until one minute before droptime. At the command from Ben Dennis, they walked to the end of the ramp and stepped into space. Unlike the previous teams, all members wore a Norden Light to aid in midair assembly. But Murphy’s Law still intervened: as Mark Gentry left the plane his rucksack ripped loose, causing him to spin away from the rest of the team.
By the time the ten jumpers touched ground, they were divided into three groups. The largest, consisting of McNier, Behler and three Montagnards, assembled in an open area. Sugar, Gross, and two Montagnards gathered in a second field.
Alone, Gentry managed to land in a tree. His survival radio was pre-programmed to the frequency of radios carried by Behler and Gross, but neither appeared to be working. He had better luck raising an orbiting Covey, but the plane was not carrying a night-vision device and could not identify Gentry’s position. Worse, Gentry could hear Vietnamese voices from the jungle around his position. Hiding in the bush until morning, he managed to again contact the Covey.
“The Covey finally got a fix on me and told me to move northeast to link up with Behler and McNier,” said Gentry. “I came across their chutes and gear along the way. Continuing northeast, I arrived at a river and could hear voices. I thought it might be some of the Montagnards from our team, but it turned out to be local communist troops. They saw me and started yelling.”
t
Front view of our recreation of a SOG Halo team member prior to jumping, note the Tropical Rucksack worn beneath the T-10 Reserve Shoot. We would be interested to know exactly how this was attached the jumper if you have any information please contact us on paul@howsplendid.com
As Gentry took to the jungle, the enemy followed close behind. Heading up a streambed, he threw two mini-grenades, slowing some of them. Seeking refuge off the side of the stream, he traded shots while trying to raise Covey on his radio. When he finally answered, Gentry called for tactical airstrikes, only to be told that the coordinates were too close to Sugar and Gross.
Gentry again took to the bush in an attempt to put space between himself and his teammates. Coming upon an open meadow, he dashed to the sanctuary of a bomb crater and relayed an emergency extraction request. Four enemy soldiers approached but unable to cross the exposed terrain, settled on taking potshots from afar. Gentry fired off the last of his ammunition before being picked up at 1000 hours. The same chopper also retrieved Sugar, Gross, and two Montagnards; the rest of the team was recovered that afternoon.
The CCC operation was thus brought to a close and with it, SOG’s flirtation with HALO operations, concluding that “as an alternative method of insertion, parachute insertions have created a new threat that enemy (lines of communication) security forces must be prepared to counter.” SOG headquarters instead shifted emphasis toward static line jumps from low altitudes. Further airborne insertions all but ceased, however, when SOG was deactivated on 31 March 1972, as part of Washington’s plans for disengagement from Indochina. Left with a fraction of the logistical support once available to the Americans, South Vietnam’s Liaison Service had little means to carry on the more exotic infiltration
techniques developed by its U.S. Special Forces counterparts.
In closing, William “Billy” Waugh put it this way:
“We (at SOG) were not the best HALO men assembled, as formation flying was not our specialty. Since it was not, we devised a plan that each man, being separated in the jungle (a given), was a single Recon Man, and should kick ass and take names by blowing Charlie away with TAC AIR (on his own home ground). Recon Company CCN did put HALO into fact, as a silent way to arrive at work.”
STANDARD WEAPONS & EQUIPMENT LIST
The following is a list of weapons and equipment carried by the HALO jumpers. Jumpers were not
limited to only this equipment.
- Reserves were the standard T-10's in service at the time. Bunny helmets, and the HALO
altimeter and wire reserve mount were used. Timers were KAP-III’s.
- No special coveralls were used. Uniforms were the standard jungle fatigues and boots, which
were spray painted black.
- Weapons were the CAR-15/M-203 (carried by Strohlein, Waugh, & Bath), and .22 high standard
silenced pistols.
- LBE was the STABO harness, pistol belt configuration with four or five canteen pouches for
magazines and grenades. SOG knife, rope, first aid and pill kit were also attached.
- Rucksacks contained water and LRRP’s that had been broken down. (That which one did not
want…or wouldn’t eat…was taken out.) Also in the rucksack were an M-14, claymore mines,
poncho and poncho liner. In one of the pouches was the Penn EE camera, binoculars and a
spare battery for the radio.
- Miscellaneous items carried included: Pen flares, to include jungle penetrator flares; VS-17
panel cut to a small rectangle just large enough to be seen by a Covey or Helicopter; IR
strobes; & metascope.
- Individual communication consisted of the URC-10 and URC-68 survival radios. These are line-
of-site radios and worked well when communicating with aircraft.
Some teams may have carried the PRC-25 radio.
CREDITS
Credit must be given to Kenneth Conboy, the originator of this article.
In early 2000, Jim Bath sent Charles Wesley a copy of Conboy’s document. After reading it, Wesley
realized that a lot of the history of HALO Operations was missing, including the actions of jumpers
during training as well as details of the actual jumps. To Conboy’s document, Wesley began adding
information he could remember from that period. Then, he requested the jumpers themselves to tell
their stories and make corrections to what was already written. It is important that the History of HALO
Operations in Vietnam be correct.
All but a few of the HALO jumpers provided stories and information. So, thanks must also be given to
the following men:
Billy Waugh - Robert Castillo - Cliff Newman - Jim Bath
Larry Manes - John Trantanella - Melvin Hill - Jesse Campbell
Others that provided information and details were:
The Bright Light teams 10 and 11 (RT HABU), Lemuel McGlothren and Nick Brokhausen.
Les Chapman, the Covey rider that located Madison Strohlein, and inserted the Bright Light
team provided information.
Ben Dennis, one of the static jumpmasters - he was on TDY from the 1st SFG on Okinawa to
help train the jumpers at Long Thanh.
Robert Sinton for verifying that our team, Wesley, Chaffe and Reando missed the drop zone
and landed in an RFPF ambush on an early morning training jump.
Instructors at Long Thanh at various times:
George Zacker (NCOIC) Larry Manes
Frank Norbury Cliff Newman
Ben Dennis Joe Markham
Harry Denny Melvin Hill
Billy Waugh Tiak Bya Ya
And a few Vietnamese
Location:
Secret Squirel Airsoft Club in chandlers Ford Hampshire
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