On
April 6, 1966 the 856th Radio Research
Detachment was reborn and assigned to the
199th Light Infantry Brigade.
Most of the missions of the U.S. Army
Security Agency were highly classified
during the war effort. Secret cover
designations (radio research
designations) were used in lieu of the
actual unit designations on unit lists
and reports. So the 856th Army Security
Agency Detachment became the 856th Radio
Research Detachment (RRD) for service in
Vietnam
The 856th RRD was the only direct support
unit to the 199th Light Infantry Brigade
(LIB) to deploy with the 280-man advance
party to Vietnam in November 1966. The
199th LIB, trained for counterinsurgency
warfare, provided security in the III
Corps tactical zone around the Long Binh
complex, the Bien Hoa Air Base and other
vital areas in and around the city of
Saigon. The 856th RRD at that time was a
51 - man unit; an infantry officer
(usually a captain) was the unit's
commanding officer. The unit commander
worked in coordination with the 199th's
infantry commanders, offering them a
means to check their signal security and
improve their communications
capabilities.
The overall mission of the 856th RRD was
to locate enemy radio transmitters (enemy
crystal radio sets) by use of
triangulation techniques. The unit used
three direction - finding tracking teams
located at three different listening post
sites, usually forming a triangle with
one another .They intercepted, located
and pinpointed Viet Cong transmitters.
This information was then forwarded to
the base camp operations center tor
interpretation and analysis. If the
information was good, an artillery
barrage would be called in on the enemy
position.
As the result of the unit's Vietnam
service. it received the Valorous Unit
Award for combat actions during the Tel
Offensive of 1968, three Meritorious Unit
Commendations ,three Vietnamese Cross of
Gallantry - with Palm awards. and two
Vietnamese Civil Action Honor Medals
(First Class).
856th RRD
Defending
Long Binh
By
William E. Rowe
During Tet 1968, the
856th Radio Research Detachment went from
listening to the enemy's radio traffic to
fighting the enemy firsthand.
At 0230
hours on January 31, 1968, a red alert
sounded for the entire Long Binh
compound, better known there as
"LBJ," a play on words on the
initials of President Lyndon Baines
Johnson and the U.S. Army Vietnam
confinement facility known as "Long
Binh Jail." At 0300, everyone in my
unit took up fighting positions either in
the operations building or along our
bunker line. Half awake, I stumbled
around my sleeping area trying to find my
clothes; I was the last operator to take
up a fighting position along the bunker
line. At 0330, a rocket and mortar attack
began zeroing in on the LBJ compound and
the Bien Hoa Air Base. The Tet Offensive
of 1968 had begun.
More than a month earlier, my direction
finding team had set up a listening post
(LP) on top of a star bunker overlooking
the hamlet of Ga Ho Nail. The concrete
bunker contained gun ports for two
.50-caliber machine guns and several
slots for smaller automatic weapons.
Located about 1,500 meters below the unit
operations building. We used the call
sign of Lima-Papa- Charlie (LPC) to bring
up our "Driftwood" network. The
Driftwood net consisted of three LP sites
that formed a triangle. We located the
second LP site to the right, in front of
a guard rower that overlooked Ga Ho Nai
The third LP site, located to our left.
sat on the perimeter of the Bien Hoa Air
Base near the 175th Radio Research
Company.
The Morse-code intercept operators, or
"ditty-boppers" as we were
known, determined the location of enemy
communication devices - enemy
transmitters, usually hand-held 3 crystal
radio sets. The Viet Cong sent their
coded messages to one another using these
devices. We determined the coordinates of
a transmitter by using triangulation
methods among the three LP sites. We then
called the coordinates in to our
operations building, where the
transmitter's location was then verified
on a topographic map by our unit
commander. If there were no friendly
forces within the area, the identified
transmitters were fired upon from a
nearby fire support base (FSB). The FSB's
artillery walked their howitzer rounds
out every 10 meters in a north-south awl
east-west pattern for up to 100 meters in
each direction.
On January 4, 1968 members of our unit,
the 856th Radio Research Detachment (RRD)
began constructing two combat bunkers
along our unit's perimeter . The bunkers
were to house two M-60 machine guns, with
an 81 mm mortar resting on the top of
each bunker. Beyond the bunker line, we
extended several rows of concertina wire
- three on the bottom row, then two, and
then one on top. We placed many Claymore
mines in the middle of the wire , right
in front of our bunkers .
Then strange things began happening
around our barracks and our LP site. On
January 13 ,a barracks adjacent to ours
blew up: a Claymore mine ripped one half
of it apart. Later that same day an
explosive device destroyed an ammo bunker
near our barracks. On the 15th my team
took heavy sniper fire while working our
equipment on top of the star hunker. We
were trying to get a fix on an enemy
transmission that seemed to he coming
from right under our bunker.I told
myself, "This guy is close!"
The enemy transmitter, a squawker came
over the airways as if he were going to
knock the headset right off my head
"This guy is situated where he can
watch us work our equipment" - that
thought kept buzzing through my head.
Every time I tried to get a fix on him,
he would stop sending. Then he would
start again. This dog and pony show went
on for about 30 more minutes As he
started sending, his buddy, a sniper,
would take several pot shots at us.
Sometimes the sniper fire became so
intense it made us dive off the top of
our LP site and take cover inside the
star bunker. We finally called detachment
headquarters over the Driftwood net and
told them about our situation. They
calmed us, saying they would take care of
the sniper for us.
A few minutes later, several choppers
landed in an open area in front of our
bunker. We told them the sniper fire was
coming from a house, or hooch, with a
blue roof, about 770 meters to the left
and out in front of our LP site. Soldiers
from the 199th Light Infantry Brigade
(LIB) got out of the choppers and started
to sweep the area. A firefight broke out
about 10 minutes into the sweep as the
grunts approached the sniper's hooch.
Then the firefight proceeded westward
toward Saigon along Highway 1. For about
an hour. fierce fighting took place hooch
to hooch. That night, after the fighting
ended the 199th LIB counted xx dead enemy
soldiers. The transmitter and his sniper
buddy were gone.
The 199th learned from its
intelligence-gathering ettorts and from
information supplied to it trom the
350th's tracking teams that the enemy
dead were from the 274th and 275th 7th
Viet Cong regiments, whose objective was
to overrun the Long Binh compound. the
Bien Hoa Air Base, and several other
locations in and around the Saigon area.
The 275th Viet Cong Regiment included a
good number of North Vietnamese Army
(NVA) regulars. Just coming off the Ho
Chi Minh Trail, they provided well-
trained replacements to the regiment. The
province local force battalion (the D445
Viet Cong Battalion ot Phuoc Tuy
province) also supplied needed
replacements to the 275th VC Regiment. No
one knew anything about the 274th VC
Regiment a possible sister unit to the
274th VC Regiment. Everyone figured it
contained the same organational structure
and troop strength as the 275th.
After the firefight we passed this
information to the Military Assistance
Command. Vietnam (MACV) located in Saigon
at the Tan Son Nhut Air Base. We also
told MACV headquarters personnel about
reports of the planned attack on the Bien
Hoa Air Base and several sites in Saigon
such as the MACV headquarters building ,
the U.S. Embassy, the relay station, the
radio station ,and the Phu Tho racetrack.
We reported that the Viet Cong regiment
planned to attack the Long Binh complex
and the II Field Forces headquarters
located in the LBJ compound. MACV
headquarters personnel sloughed off this
information They ignored intelligence
reports indicating the Viet Cong were
assembling in tunnels, caves and foxholes
in a grave yard located in front of the
guard tower LP site that looked over the
village of Ga Ho Nai.
On january 21. 1968 the 856th RRD got a
new company commander Captain Walker, M,
Runyon . As his first order, he assigned
Meg l sound-activated LP team in front of
the graveyard area .Runyon hoped to
verify the whereabouts of the reported
enemy positions in the area. lan Campbell
and a guy named McBain were the two
ditty-boppers assigned to the LP site.
Campbell had taken an advanced course In
direction-finding techniques at Fort
Lewis Wash. before arriving at the unit.
Campbell and McBain had worked together
for several months
The two members of the noise/voice LP
reassigned to the guard tower site were
Martin and Browning .They were new to the
unit.and had been in-country for a short
rime. and had taken their in-country
training at a centre located on the LBJ
compound. They used electronic listening
devices buried or set up along NVA or
Viet Cong supply routes,to determine
enemy movements and the content of enemy
voice transmissions. In addition to
listening for Viet Cong voice
communications, Campbell said he used a
special direction finder-calibrating
transmitter that transmitted on an even
frequency in the band between 285 and 315
kilocycles or on a frequency of 480
kilocycles For two days .Martin and
Browning tried to intercept enemy
transmissions in the graveyard area but
heard nothing. No enemy movement was
detected.
Early on the morning of January 30 1968
Charlie (the Viet Cong)struck along a
600-mile front. More than 100,000 NVA and
Viet Cong, cadre members attacked cities
and military installations with
Hue,Saigon, Phu Bai, Bien Hoa, and Long
Binh taking the brunt of the attacks. Two
main force units of the Viet Cong 5th
Division, the 274th and 275th Viet Cong
regiments attacked the Bien Hoa Air Base
and the II Field Forces headquarters at
the Long Binh compound. Both sites were
hit with heavy rocket and mortar fire,
automatic-weapons fire and intense
small-arms fire.
The rocket and mortar attacks came from
two locations, Thu Duc and a village
named Hoa An. The rockets and mortars
coming from the Thu Duc site were right
on the money, walking those mortars and
rockets across the LB] compound toward
the 199th's helipad and our unit's bunker
line. Brigade intelligence located the
rocket launcher. Aerial observation, on
station over the Bien Hoa Air Base at
that time, pinpointed the exact location
of the launch site. An artillery barrage,
called in from the 2nd Battalion, 40th
Artillery, destroyed the Thu Duc site
with a direct hit.
Part of the aerial observation team was
an AC-47 gunship, or "Spooky".
They located the Hoa An launch site by
observing muzzle flashes coming out of
the area. The enemy rocket barrage had
followed a path down Highway 1 instead of
walking their rounds at an angle across
the LBJ compound toward our bunker line.
When the Viet Cong gunners (at the Hoa An
site) realized they were walking their
rounds in the wrong direction, they
changed the direction of fire and aimed
them toward our bunker line. A
lightning-quick burst from Spooky's
Gatling guns destroyed the Hoa An launch
site before any of the rockets or mortars
reached our bunker line.
Coinciding with the rocket and mortar
attacks were probing attacks by another
Viet Cong battalion along the eastern and
southeastern perimeter boundaries of the
compound. The probing attack units
included Viet Cong sapper squads. Another
Viet Cong battalion infiltrated near the
area of the 3rd Ordnance (Long Binh)
ammunition dump. In a few moments, the
huge dump became a fireball, the shock of
the explosion echoing over an area of 50
miles. As the ammo dump burst into
flames, secondary explosions erupted in
other storage areas, and for the next
three days, fires burned out of control.
The 199th LIB let each storage area
explode until the entire dump blew itself
up and out.
All told, five or six Viet Cong
battalions attacked the LBJ compound.
Another unit assaulted the 12th Aviation
Group and its helipad from the west, and
a Viet Cong machine-gun company
infiltrated southwest of the 199th
Brigade's main base, with orders to wipe
out the helicopters that rested on the
brigade's helipad. Several battalions of
the 275rh Viet Cong Regiment assembled in
front of our unit's bunker line for a
frontal assault. They had been hiding in
tunnels and foxholes in the area for
about two weeks, awaiting orders from
Hanoi to start their attack on the
compound. If successful, their attack
could take them all the way into Saigon.
For the next 2 1/2 hours, the Viet Cong
initiated probing attacks against our
bunker line and other positions along our
perimeter. A signal company and a
military police detachment manned two or
three other perimeter bunkers with fewer
than 10 soldiers. Our unit numbered 51
members. Most of my buddies were in the
operations building setting satchel
charges and incendiary grenades to all
the filing cabinets, equipment (radios
and receivers), maps and
reports-everything that should not fall
into the hands of the enemy. We were
stationed at the weakest section of the
perimeter and outnumbered by who knew how
many. We didn't like the odds.
The Viet Cong approached our unit's
bunker line about five times trying to
get through the wire about 50 meters out
in front of the bunkers. Each time they
attacked some would get hung up on the
wire. Each time they attacked, we went
crazy, yelling expletives as we went out
to meet them, yelling and firing each
time they approached. A mound of enemy
dead was forming in front of the
concertina, body upon body.
The frontal attacks lasted for another
two hours. After each advance, we would
pace up and down the bunker line,
nervously anticipating the next attack.
After each attack, the mound of enemy
dead got bigger and bigger.
By this time, several unit members were
running low on ammunition. Two sergeants
went to look for more ammo in the motor
pool area and in our storage conexes, but
returned empty-handed. When the word went
around that we were running out of
ammunition, the guys along the bunker
line went manic. Those not swearing
loudly were praying, preparing for
close-in fighting. We knew if we did not
get more ammunition it would he a
one-on-one struggle for each of us.
Suddenly, it was unnervingly quiet. We
waited as the great mass of crouched
figures steadily approached . What
remained of the 275th Viet Cong Regiment
came at us over the moundof dead VC one
more time! Our orders were to hold our
fire until the Viet Cong came up on the
wire. The waiting was agony. When we
could wait no longer, we started to run
toward the wire to meet them head on.
Soon, though, we had reason to race back
toward our bunkers. We heard them before
we saw them Spooky and six Huey gunships,
coming in low from behind our operations
building. Spooky made a pass at the rear
of the advancing Viet Cong and let loose
with a seven-second barrage from its
miniguns. The Hueys from A Troop, 3rd
Squadron, 17th Air Cavalry, came in from
the front, firing their machine guns and
rockets. Spooky circled and came in for a
frontal assault on the paralyzed Viet
Cong, then made a second pass, spraying
the area with another seven-second
minigun barrage. The Hueys circled the
area and attacked the VC from their rear,
firing their machine guns and rockets.
On the ground, there was more bad news
for the VC. A platoon of armored
personnel carriers (APCs) from D Troop,
17th Cavalry, and a platoon of tanks from
the 11th Armored Cavalry came up and took
firing positions along our bunker line.
The APCs and tanks fired at point-blank
range directly point-blank range directly
into the mound of enemy dead. Jeeps with
rear-mounted M-60 machine guns raced in
and out of the into the mound of enemy
dead. The Jeeps raced in and out of the
area all night long, creating havoc in
the rear of the fleeing horde of Viet
Cong.
Two companies from the 4th Battalion,
12th Infantry (of the 199th LIB), smashed
into the rear of the fleeing Viet Cong,
cutting off their retreat. For the next
three days the 199th LIB remained in
blocking positions.
On February 5,1968, we woke up with our
backs resting against the inside baggie
wall of the second combat bunker. We
looked at each other as we silently
passed a canteen of water around. Our
shirts were hanging open, soaked with
sweat. Every so often we blinked, trying
to orient ourselves as to time and place.
Our First Sergeant stuck his head into
the bunker, told us to go out to the
mound of enemy dead and take part in the
body count. When we got out to the mound,
we stared in horror.A puff of smoke came
up and out of the middle of the mound as
we looked at the twisted bodies of dead
Viet Cong. I turned my back and vomited.
We staggered back to the bunker line,
unable to perform the body count.
About 0930 the next day, we again went
out to help with the body count. And
again, as we approached the mound of
enemy dead, we backed off. Once again the
stench stopped the body count. The mound
still smoldering after five days,
disappeared when they brought in the Rome
plows to bury the dead. The plows pushed
about 400 dead Viet Cong into a low
drainage area to the right and in front
of our bunker line.
Captain Runyon closed down the Driftwood
net right after the Tet Offensive,as
there were no ditty-boppers left to man
the PRD- 1 direction finders. Fort Devens
(my advanced individual training school)
had stopped graduating ditty-boppers;
there were then no replacements for the
Morse Code intercept operators. Fort
Devens told the research units to make do
with what they already had.
We could feel the concept of the war
changing. We were told we were going back
on the defensive once again. After Tet,
the Viet Cong became less important. Most
VC units ceased to exist after the
fighting ended. Countrywide, more than
38,000 enemy soldiers died; 7,000 became
POWs. The NVA regulars who did not take
part in the fighting in great numbers
became the predominant fighting force.
More than 400 Viet Cong died in front of
our bunker line. More than 960 Viet Cong
died around the LBJ perimeter during the
first 18 hours of the Tet Offensive of
1968. Viet Cong losses also included 32
POWs, and another 42 became detainees.
The 199th LIB captured many VC weapons,
including 78 semiautomatic and 68
crew-served weapons. Nine members of the
199th LIB died during the attacks; 55
were wounded. None of the 856th RRD
members was killed or wounded.
Three
years after Tet, on March 6, 1971
the 856th RRD was inactivated in Vietnam.
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