Deep within Viet Cong territory, 19 allied prisoners of war were being held captive. SEAL Team One's mission was to bring them back alive.

By Steve Edwards

T oday the exploits of the U.S. Navy SEALs (sea, air, land) on operations in Southeast Asia are legion. Peo­ric who have heard some of the stories and heard

General William \'Vestmoreland's comments about SEALs be­ing the "most effective fighting force in my command" might be surprised to learn that SEALs practically had to fight their way into the fighting.

U.S. Navy SEAL teams were commissioned on January 1 and January 3, 1962, with learn One assigned to the West Coast and Team T\vo to the East Coast. \x"'ithin days, Team One had dispatched a platoon for training South Vietnamese SEALs-called Lien Doi Naglioi Nhai (LDNN}-for clandes­tine raids into North Vietnam, but for four years that was the total of SEAL commitment to Vietnam. By early 1966, both teams had new commanders and both were chomping at the hir to get into the conflict.

There were -several prohlems. The SEALs had been COIn­

missioned to condun small·unit unconventional warfare in a maritime environment. Nobody in the Navy, outside of the SEALs, knew what that meant; and if they did, they did not know how to 8pply it to Vietnam. The other problem is one that has always pbgued elite unconventional units-prejudice. When officers of the reguhu Navy thought of the SEALs, they thought of prim8 donn8s. Much of the criticism along these lines was not undeserved.

The SEALs descended from the Underwater Demolition 'I(>;lIllS (ULJE) of World \Var II. The teams had heen conceived with very specific tasks in mind, such as clearing the Nor­mandy beaches prior to the invasion. This was not conceived to be a continuing commitment and c8paGility after the war.

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In fact, it was not until the early '70s that a career path was designed within naval special warfare.

By early 1966, Lieutenant Jim Barnes, who was the second commanding officer (CO) of SEAL Team One, had made a proposal to COMUSMACY (the Commander, U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam) to use SEALs in the Rung Sat Special Zone (RSSZ). The RSSZ, also known as the "For­est of Assassins," was critical to the continuing war effort from South Vietnam-the RSSZ could control the approaches to Saigon through the Long Tao River since Saigon is approxi~ mately 50 miles inland. The problem was that the RSSZ was a difficult operating environment, with deep mangrove swamps, and was an area conceded to the Viet Cong (VC).

On February 19, 1966, Lieutenant Barnes and his team of three officers and 12 enlisted men, deployed to South Viet~ l1am (lnd initially set their operation up at Vung Tau, at the mouth of the Long Tao River. This would be the one and only time that the commander of one of the SEAL teams would deploy to South Vietnam with one of his platoons while leaving his executive officer (XO) in charge of daily oper· ations at the SEALs' home base at Coronado, Calif. From this deployment, the ULessons Learned" file written by lieu­tenant Barnes would form the basis for standard operating procedures for the platoons that followed.

It was learned that the standard SEAL deployment period of six months was the perfect time span because of the inten~

rtlily anned and ftlily painted, a U.S. Navy SEAL (sea, air, land) team prepares to disembark from a PBR (river patrol boat) for an operation in the Mekong Delta.

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MAC V instnlled the C IA-inspired Civil O peratio ns and Revolutionary Develop­ment Support (CORDS) organizo tion with responsib ility (or pacification effon s in V iet nam. One program insta lled by Robert Komer, CORDS' director, was the Chieu Hoi, or "open arms:' progra m. The C hieu Hoi progrnm encouraged the Vict Cong Infrestruct ure (VCI) to ra ll y o r de­feel 10 Ihe allied side. Many did, and he­Gtmc invaluahle sources of imelligence.

SEA L!' wotdd vi!'it provincial ChiCH I-Ioi m llying centers to inlerview th e f:1 1-lien: (I-1m' Chan' <J" potl.' l1tial scou ts (or SEA L m iss ions in the dell;'!, A l 'ni Chal1 was frcc {() d o Whill he w;lnted, hut life ;1'= ;1 SEAL Kit C a fStl ll S("(lut \\'as n ot

h"d. "i t (:;11""(111 MIlll ! " , fllrmcf \ 'e ",htl \'p lulltn:rnl 1o work ;, ,, "CP U1 S ((1r Illl'

Ullited S I:II (' .... I!Pl I fn ' roolll and hp:ml :1111..1 welT we\1 ·paid hy till' plcHOtlll lc;ld ('r. SEA L phl t()(l1 1 leadcr:- learned carh o n !hm ,he "i{'!Il ;lIllC" l ' pi:1slcrs, or;)wn In 1111 til l' N ;l \ ; 11 <.. "'l !lt:ra t ions SIIPr'llrt (T n lll!' a l 1\l l1 h ! h lJ\' ;111\.1 <; ig nl'd (or J,y

f 1 !Ill" "it ( ::lr"lll1 ,,! , l il t (f({ :~ o r Kid, toul l i'WdU{I' re;d r( ''' u lr ... 11 Ihl'd l'ffecti\'l'k Ih

0. . ~ thl' I;lre Ill{"\(1" and C:1rl\' ',{'s , m ost "i t ..; wo rking with SE/\Ls \\'('1'1.' ;l(('cptl'd h\ rhe SEAL pla l<,u ll ;l~ rcgu l:1r SEAL~. Kits ;1 lC, orallk, .. !cpt and fought next to

.. " their SEAL "hlOOI1, This relatio nship hccClIne en'I:' more imp{,ll'ul.nt ftS SEA Ls were incre;1~ingly asked to perform "Brigh t Ligh t" missions.

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A SEAL anned lUith a Stoner assault ri fl e in machine-gun configura tion. Rejected by the AmI)' as Jwrd w main win, [he tJersa tile Swner became a favorite SEAL weapon.

"Bright Li ght" was the code name (or operatio ns mounted to rescue American prisoners of war. In thc late '60s, A meri­can leaders expressed their concern for American POWs by ordering that in tel· ligence relating to the POWs be exploited

sity of operations. Each platoon shou ld attempt to do 60 oper· at ions during a six-month deploymem , although this was con· sidered rea ll y hu mping it_ T he SOP (sta ndard operat ing proced ure) for a SEA L platoon operatio nal evolutio n was (or ha l( the platoon (one squad) to go out for night ambush , pr is~ oner snatches, etc., while the other squ ad stayed bnck and rested but ...... as ready to act as reserves if needed. Many secret methods were lear ned o n how to do batrle with a wil y foe li ke the VC in hi ~ home environment-the swamp at night. But some of the most importan t lessons learned by Barnes and his men were methods for develo pment of intel ligence. in fact, it was from this first deploy ment thelt Barnes expound~ ed the d ictum that rhe single factor which cou ld most affect the success of a SEAL platoon deploy ment was t he develop­me nt of in tel ligence.

Ironicall y, I3arnes had specifica ll y precluded the lise o f in­te ll igence developed from South V ietnamese or indigenuus people because of his fear of missio n compromise. This was a very understa ndable fea r but o ne that he would speci fical ~ Iy recant in his "Lessons Lcn rned" report. He said, " It is es~ sential thar Vietnamese Intelligence sources be used whenever possible_ Every effort should be made to develop rapport with counterparts in this fi el d and win mutual confidence."

Barnes wou ld eve ntu ally ~ee his ori ginal o ne pb toon de tachment- Del Delta- grow to n ine platoons covering the entire Meko ng De ll a, incl ud ing the RSSZ.

Fortunate ly fo r t he SEA Ls, others had see n Barnes' vision of the importance o f nat ive intel ligence. O n May 23, 1967,

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full y. T his mea nt that an operational unit like a SEAL pla­toon had o nl y to label a mission Bright Light to secure any assets (helicopters, boats, etc.) it needed. In practice, this could often rcsul t in a ci rcuslike atmosphere, since everyo ne want· ed to be part of a successful Bright Light op. Majors would be fl ying helicopters normally flown by enlisted men, and lieu­tenant commanders would be commanding PBRs (rive r patrol boats) with no prior experience.

It was into this atmosphere that the "Whiskey Platoon" of SEAL Team One deployed to the Republic of Vietnam in November of 1970. Whiskey's officer in charge (O IC) was lieu­tenant Richard Couch. An Annapolis graduate. rare for those timcs, Couch had volunteered for SEAL teams after servi ng as fir st lieutenant and ASW (ant i-submarine warfare) o fficer aboard the destroyer Mansfield (00-728)_ A ll SEA L plaloons when transferring back to CONUS (continental U ni ted Stalcs) would have t he final task of trai ning their SEAL replacements_ It would be up to the O IC of the departing pla­toon as to how he wanted to do it, but it usually came down to two methods. Either the platoon would fly home while leav­ing its O le and a senio r enlisted man behind to do a week or so of tra ining, or the who le platoon would stay and inte· grate a few members eac h night in a series o f o peratio ns. (In­cidentally, when SEAL platoons went home, Ihey all new back to Coronado roge ther in their own airplane alo ng with their weapons.) T he O le of the departing platoon, Lieutenant Tom Richards. who would eventually be commander o f SEAL Team One, chose the latter method.

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Covering rhe shoreline for poss ible ambllsh, SEALs ap/>rQach rheir designaled landing area, from which rhey will move inland. In order 10 condllcr opeTarions on rhe Ca Mall Peninsula, rhe SEAls learned 10 respeer- and emlllOle- rhe Slealrh of rhe Vier Congo

The area of operatio n (AO) was rhe ea Mall Peninsula on the southern tip of Vietnam. The base of operations was "Sol~ id Ancho r;' which at one time was based on barges in the same spot on rhe C li a Lo n River and was called "Sea Ploar ." The AO was dominated by mangrove swamps, voracious bugs, 12-foo< [ides and Vc. f\[ [his paine in [he war, [he Ca Mau Peninsula was strictly "Victor C harlie" turf except for a few villages. Most of the base assets had been turned over (Q the Vietnamese navy with American advisers.

The remaining U.S. clirect·acrio n forces o n Solid Anchor were cwo SEAL pla[oons and a HAG) (helicopcer anack, ligh[) detachment, known as Seawo lves, that fl ew hel icoptcr gun­ships. The "\,(h lves" were fearless, and many SEALS owe their lives to chern. Needless to say, the rei at ionship worked both ways. If word came in that a Seawolf had go ne down, some comfort had to be derived from the certain knowledge that every available SEAL was do ing his best to get to the strick· en man. Rounding o ut the list of assets was a Boat Suppo rt Unit commanded by Lieutenant Bob Naner, a close friend and Annapolis classmate of Couch's, and six Kit Carson scouts.

I[ was one of [he Kics along wi[h SEAL Wal[ Guscaval who had wandered into a village and develo ped informarion from a fi sherman about a POW' camp he had seen up a certain ca· na!. The fi sherman was from a village o n the north shore of Square Bay, and he claimed the camp was o n the 50mh sho re o f Square Bay. (Square Bay is the nocch in the map o n the western side of the sollthernmost rip ofYictnam .) The fi sher~ man said he would lead the SEALs to the camp. This was

the kind of information that was music to SEA L cars. \'Vhcn the intelligence sO Lirce was willing to lead the SEALs in, they knew that there was reason for il high level of confidence in the information-confidence that the camp was there, that there were prisoners, and that it wasn't an ambush.

O n November 21, 1970, [he members of Whiskey Placoon began to map their scraregy. The plan was that they would cross Square Bay after dark in the medium SEAL suppen cmft (MSSC ) while towing sampans that were to be used for silently paddling up the canal for a dawn strike.

Natter used secure communications with thc base to clea r the ream into the area and to secure Seawolf and chopper assismnce. The boat crew prepared the MSSC, checking every­thing from the engines to the ammo bins. The medium SEAL suppOrt cmft was designed spccifi ci.1 ll y fo r SEAL o peratio ns. It was a steel hull of cnramaran configuratio n powered by twin· muffled 427-Cobra gasoline engines_ The [ypical MSSC would carry twO .50-caliber machine gUllS, twO M·60 machine guns, and orrell a General Elcc[ric minigun. The MSSC could really make "the rubble rumble."

The rescue .. ttempt would be made by six SEAls, three Kits, the fi sherman guide, and Couch's Vietnamese interpreter. A second SEAL squad would scand by a[ Solid Anchor co rap­pel in by helicopcer if help was needed.

At 2200 hours, the team loaded the boat, dressed in typi­c,,1 SEAL fashio n: small canteen with drinking tube clipped co shire lapel, grenades of all sorts (SEALs love grenades), pop fl ares , ammunirio n and blue jeans. Blue jeans made a lot less

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•• • "-Already blelldillg illto Ihe foliage, a SEAL learn comes ashore. AI leasl one learn member prefers going barefool, ill view of Ihe marshy

ground in which lhe)' are to moue. Some pre/erred Navy blue jeans to Marine greens, since the jeans made less noise when wet.

noise than "camrnies;' especially when wet. A number of d iffe rent wCflpons were carried, including C hicoll1 AK-47s and M-16s; the heavy-weapons Inan carried the M-60 machine gU ll thaI had been modified and shortened and fitted with a flex tray (or those lo ud-talking, fire-suppressing 7.62 long rounds. Couch carried that favorite of all SEAls, the Stoner assault rifle, which fired S.56mm rounds at the cyclic rate o f 1,100 per minute. The raiding party rounded out their fashion en­semble with camouflage face paint.

Some 300 yards from the south side of the bay, the team switched to the sampans, with the lead sampan holding the fi sherman guide, Couch's best Kit, and the platoon's point man. The second sa mpa n held Couch and his interpreter along with the SEA L radioman and another Kit. The third sa mpan held three SEAls and the other Kit.

An incoming tide helped the sampa ns to slip silentl y into the IS·foot canal, and they were making such good time that Couch was getting ready to order that they hold up to await dawn. Suddenly, there was subdued commotion in the lead sampan. After much heated whispering, Couch determined that they had gone up the wrong canal. To make matters worse, the team had lost rndio contact with the MSSC. With dawn now approaching, the pressure was building on Couch to abort. This mission was dangerous enough if all went well .

\Vatt Gustaval, who was now on his third Vietnam deploy­ment, was of the opinion that they were very close and that this one "felt like a good one." The decision was made to go through with the mission. The team now had to work hard

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aga inst the current but finally found the mourh of the right canal 100 meters from the first. Sti ll no radio contact had been made with the medium support craft, however.

The canal twisted and turned with some 9O~degre e bends. With first light 30 minutes away, the team was approaching the objective when the silence was broken by a cough out in the dark. It was the cough of someone asleep-probably a sentry. Couch signaled the lead sampan to move in and they slid ahead into the night. Within five minutes, a small red dot of light signaled that the sentry was secured.

Couch's sampan jo ined the lead sampan and he climbed into the rickety structure that was the guard post. His pen· light revea led a scared and confused VC sentry, handcuffed and gagged and surrounded by the lead sampan crewmen, who were interrogating him. This was a defiant VC-he wasn't giving any information.

Couch tried everything from increasing threats of violence to offers of money-no d ice. Finally, in fru stration, Couch took his K-bar knife and placed it at his throat. No dice. Just then one of the Kits asked if he could try. Relieved, Couch stepped as ide. The Kit leaned down and spoke to the VC in Vietnamese, "You know who I am and what I will do if you don't talk." Suddenly the VC couldn't tell the SEAls enough about the camp.

The camp was 100 meters farther up the canal and did have POWs, all ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam), in cages separated from the rest of the camp. There was a small securi ­ty fo rce with onl y a few light automatic weapons.

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THE HARD~LUCK X-RAY PLATOON Everyone who has ever served in

combat knows rhnt ships, planes and units hav~ pe::fsonalities all their ow n. In the U.S. Army, for example, the Americal Division has always been a hard-luck ou[fi[ (although twO of its for­mer members, Generals Colin Powell and Norman Schwarzkopf. di stin ~ guished themselves during the Persian Gulf \Var). Sailo rs and airmen ca n tell you that saine ships and aircraft arc definitely sraf;crossed, where no mat; rer how hard you try. everything that can go wrong will go wrong.

A[ the Navy Special Warfare Center at Cotonado, Calif., they will tell you chat this was the case with the SEAL X-ray Platoon. Unlike the Whiskey Pla­toon discussed in the article, X;ray was plagued with bad luck from the start . It: was the least successful of the more [han 20 SEAL teams deployed to the Mekong Delta during the 10 months of thei r peak activity from June I, 1969, to April 10, 1970.

X-ray deployed to the DeI[a in De­ce mber 1970 under the command of Navy Lieutenant Michael Coll ins, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate who had capta ined the water polo team rhere. A UDT (Underwmer Demolitio n Tc;]m) member, he had tran sferred directl y to the SEALs wirho l!( the benefit of SEA L cadre tr::l ining and was in his first SEAL command.

Trouble began almost immed iately. On December 20, 1970, as a squad led by Electricians Mate C hief Frank W. Bowmar was inserted near Truc Giap, the men tripped a vicio us Viet Cong ambush in wh ich Bowmar and Elecrri· cians Mate 3rd C lass James L. Ritter were killed. The radioman and the Kit Carson scout were also hit. T he squad would have been wiped out except for the courageous actions of Radioma n 2nd Class Harold Baker, the rear security man.

Baker went into the river to get out of the killing zone, then struggled back onto the bank with the body of one of his teammates and an M·60 machine gun that he had wtesded from the wa· ter. Laying down a fi erce counter· barrage, Baker admi nistered first aid until the other X·ray squad members came to his relief.

X-ray would be plagued by VC am­bushes with such frequency that ex· perienced SEALs say today [hat [he platoon had to be compromised. O n January 30, 197 1, Fireman Harold Birky was shot in the hip (our miles no rth of Ben Tre during a swecp.and~desrroy

operation. Two other SEAls were also

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SEALs mOtle out after destroying VC fortifications on the Bassac River. X-ray Platoon accomplished missions at a high cost. Was it jinxed- or compromised?

wounded and, under the cover o f air strikes, the platoon was extracted un~ der heavy enemy fire. Birky died while en route to a medical fac ilitYi he was survived by his brother Sam, also a member of SEA L Team O ne.

O n March 4, 197 1, Lieutenant Col­lins was killed in Kien Hoa province in a VC riverine ambush. \'(/irh Collins' death, X·ray was deactivated and its parent unit, Der Golf, decided to pack up the survivors and their weapons and send them home. X-ray departed for home with all its members either killed or wounded. It had accou nted for 36 VC killed, 12 taken prisoner, more than 100 po unds of enemy documents con· fi scated and 340 enemy mines captured. But the price was way [ 00 high.

The specter of X-ray Platoon always arises when operational security is dis· cussed. It was Det Golf's conclusion that

nO[ only was the area's Tacrical Opera­tions Center (mC) compromised but the situatio n had been aggravated by a naive U,S. Navy lieutenant junior grade serving in an administra tive position at the me. The officer had taken "Viet­namization" too seriously and had open­ly posted SEA L planned areas of opera­cion and insert and extract ion po ints for all to sec. Today it is considered highly probable that the VC had prior knowledge of all of X-rays' movements.

As a (oocnote to SEAL history, (here is a bar out by the Sa lton Sea in Cali ­fornia's Imperial Valley, where SEAL platoons go (or tra ini ng. The owner likes SEALs, and liked X-ray Platoon. He thought it would be nice to have a pic· ture of X-ray Platoon on the wall. Sail­ors are superstitio us fo lks. T he picture o( X-ray was put on the wall, but it re· mains the o nly platoon picture there.

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AI SEALs make t/teir "'":' IIlllllg a riverbank, they are backed up by " tYllica lly improvised cocktail of fire llower, including a

1061f11l1 recoille.~s rifle. General Electric minig!tns were a po/mfaT item, if tlte SEAls could obrain one for their craft

The SEALs regagged thc ve, tossed him in the third

sampan and headed up the ca nn!. Couch was still worried

about having no radio. No radio meant no boat support and

no Scawolvcs, so he decided to ready a pop flarc. The boat

cou ld find thcm from the fl ore. T he plan called for the flare

to go lip after first contact, with the tcam advancing in a skir­

m ish line. In the false dawn's ligh t, the camp appeared ahead. The

l'ampans were grounded silently, and the team prepared

to advance. Couch stood cautiously to survey the situa­

t ion and accicicn tOl ll y dropped the pop flare. [t made the

sound of an empty beer ca n dropped o n a patio deck on

n quie t night. I-Ie picked it up quickly and fired it into

the air. Tracers sta rted nyi llg every where, with the VC's tracers col­

ored green and the SEALs' tracers red. The Kits charged into

the c:Jmp fi ri ng, while the SEALs madly looked for the pris­

oncr cages. The camp wns quickly overrun , and the team set

up perimeter security. Nat tcr had spotted the flare and placed

the Semvolvcs over C Ollch'f, pnsiton wh il e Natter made his

W;ly up the ermal in the medium support craft . The radio had

now comc up nnd ;l "slick" (nn unnrmcd UH-I helicoptcr)

W(t S en lied ill with th e other SEAL ~qund to help out if the

VC rn llicd .mel rcturncd. Couch hnJ one of thc SEALs fire lip that indispensable

SEAL Meko ng Delt:l WC:lpon, the chain saw, and hnd him

stnrt cutti ng trees for a hel icopter landing pad to extract the

two VC prisoners, 19 ex-ARVN POWs and an old woman

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and her daughter who had been pressed into cooking duty

by the Vc. It look a n hour and a half for the hdos to pu ll everyone

but 'he SEALs and Kits out of there. The helos couldn't com·

pletely land but would hover about 5-6 fcct off the ground

as the crews helped people in. The SEALs would leave by

the med ium support craft- the plan was to back down the

2,000 meters of the canal to Square Bay. However, both Couch

and Natter were worr ied about the possibility of a VC am­

bush set up "long the canal, so they had the Seawolves blast

both banks with their .50-ca liber machine guns.

In the din o( the Se~wolf fire, Couch and Natter saw what

appeared to be mu zzle fl ashcs from both banks. T hey both

jumped to the medium support craft's forward machine guns

and started blasting away. So intent were they that they failed

to notice the rest of rhe SEALs laughing in the back of the

boat. The Scawolves were firing APIT (armor-piercing in­

cendiary tracers) that exploded on impact- thus the muz­

zle flashcs. The SEALs made it back to Solid Anchor. The Whiskey

Platoon mcmbers would find it difficult to match the success

and cxcitement of their first combat operation. 0

Scctle Edwards has published a nwnber 0/ articles on naval s/)e­

cial H'm/are and is cHrrend.y tUorkinR on a history 0/ U.S. Navy

SEA l. reams, to be published by the U.S. Nallallll.lt itlite. fur fur.

rlter reading, he recommends SEALs in Action, by Kevin Dockery;

and SEAL Team O ne, by Dick Couch.