Team HECTOR

Captain Nguyen Huu Luyen, a Regular Army officer assigned to the Strategic Technical doctorate, was an experienced training officer dedicated professionally and personally to the defeat of the Communists. Luyen decided to do something to prove that the long-range team concept worked and worked well. His solution was to recruit his own team, one he could personally select, and bring in “volunteers,” kids who had at least an eleventh-grade education, to form a large team named Bac Binh. He would personally supervise their training, insert them, and bring them back alive. He predicted that they would eventually become core cadre to train the teams that would follow. As Captain Luyen explained it to his team members, the problem in locating the teams dropped into North Vietnam was that the teams were simply unable to locate and report their positions.

Team Bac Binh began training in November 1965. Luyen took personal command of the team's training. He tried to mold it into a large team that could be broken down into four smaller teams. By June 1966, the training had been completed and the teams were ready for launch. Captain Luyen's original group of more than forty was down to less than thirty, enough for only two teams. The first team, Bac Binh 1, elected Bui Quang Cat as its commander. Captain Luyen, true to his convictions, informed the team that he would accompany it into North Vietnam as military adviser. The team moved into the restricted area that June and was re-designated Hector 1. On 22 June, it followed the same path as earlier teams, first to Thailand and then by helicopter into the karst formations of western Quang Binh province. Safely on the ground, Hector 1 established operational base and the first month was able to operate without being captured.

Captain Luyen took the team commander and two other team members, Dinh Van Vuong and Nguyen Manh Hai, into a small mountain village to make contact with the local villagers. Other team members expressed some apprehension, but Captain Luyen assured them that it would be all right – they could get into the village and out again without any problem. He ignored the very warning that he so often passed on to his trainees. When the villagers asked him to wait, he waited while they informed local security services of his presence. The four men were captured.

The team members remaining at the operational base knew the correct procedures to follow. They were to wait for Captain Luyen and the others for no more than three hours before changing their base. Instead, they waited for five hours, so strong was their belief in the invincibility of Captain Luyen. Meanwhile, the North Vietnamese forced the team commander to lead them to the team base and they captured the remainder of Hector 1. The team's two principal radio operators were added to the North Vietnamese list of agents now operating their radios under Hanoi control.

MACSOG5 steady transformation from covert agent operations to more overt reconnaissance missions coincided with General Westmoreland's efforts to move beyond the first phase of his campaign to deny Hanoi an early victory in the South. His first phase had employed U.S. forces to defend major population centers, which allowed the South Vietnamese Army to consolidate Vietnamese control in such areas. This shift from the largely defensive operations in 1965 to Westmoreland's open-ended phase 11 envisioned American forces pushing outward from South Vietnamese population centers into the Communist base areas. Westmoreland believed that American attacks into the communist base would disrupt the larger enemy units he faced and, though security during upcoming harvests, deny the enemy the ability to feed itself from foodstuffs grown inside South Vietnam . Such ground operations were coordinated with Seventh Fleet efforts in the Gulf of Tonkin to shutdown the maritime infiltration of supplies by the Vietnam peoples Navy group 125.

The spring of 1966 saw continued public disturbances as the Buddhists demanded more reforms from the South Vietnamese government. Washington was advocating elections as the way to demonstrate the democratic process that the State Department had long felt was sorely needed to provide a fundamental foundation for the heirs of the late president Diem.

As Hector was preparing to go North, Vietnam people's army forces struck directly across the DMZ, rather than make a round about march along its western edge through Laos . This coincided with increasing American air strikes down the Ho Chi Minh Trail, including the use of B-52 bombers inside Laos to the west of such border-crossing lanes as the Mu Gia pass. The tens of thousands of local youths from the Norths Assault Young group, particularly teenage women quickly repaired the roads and largely negated the temporary interdiction of the supply and personnel infiltration routes.

Brig. Gen. Joseph A. McChristian, Westmoreland's chief of intelligence (J-2), warned that North Vietnamese forces increasingly were relying on the Cambodian sanctuaries to sustain their growing ground attack. This was supported by intelligence from all sources that provided hard evidence of Hanoi 559 th group supply lines being enlarged and extended well into Cambodia . Defense Secretary McNamara, faced with growing pressure to strike into the Cambodian sanctuaries, was effectively prohibiting any statements from the senior commanders in the field about the growing role of these sanctuaries. McNamara found support from the CIA analysts who viewed General Westmoreland's command as “Overstating the significance of Cambodia to the Communists fighting in South Vietnam .”

McNamara now let slip a new concept, called project Jason, pushed on him by his advisers. Publicized by McNamara in September and soon nick-named “McNamara's Line”. This concept envisioned a line of sensors and interlocking defensive fortifications that threatened to tie down hundreds of thousands of American and South Vietnamese troops in static defensive positions although the massive defensive fortification aspect would never be implemented, the concept signaled the use of sensors in a concerted effort to bring electronics to the ground war. The agent teams still in training at Long Thanh were quietly prepared to play a small part in the early employment and test of the sensor concept on the ground inside North Vietnam .

Ha Dang Tan. Tan was captured May 15, 2966 during a coastal assault on mission ot team Rolumus.
Photo courtesey of Tan's widow.

On 13 September 1966, the remaining members of teams Bac Binh were designated team Hector 2. They moved into the restricted area at Long Thanh to hear their mission briefing. U.S.A Army major, with captain Dung interpreting, outlined their mission; conduct reconnaissance on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. More precise mission orders would come by radio after they arrived in North Vietnam and had established contact with the Directorate. This operation would last two years, and they could expect monthly adjustments in their specific operating area, depending on the mission and the situation.

Captain Dung briefed separately that Hector 2's mission included searching for Hector 1 and reporting back on its location if found. After the Directorate lost contact with Hector 1, Captain Dung, flying over the area in an 1-19, had personally searched for it. He even took aerial photographs of the area where the team was supposed to be, but they showed no sign of it. Captain Dung stressed the personal ties between the men in teams Hector 1 and 2. He wanted Hector 2 to have a spirit of responsibility in fulfilling its role as an augmentation team by helping to locate Hector 1, just as Hector 1 had gone into North Vietnam to develop a “safe and secure” base of operations for itself and Hector 2. In short, Hector 1 was looking for Hector 2 to come to its rescue.

Dang Dinh Thuy, the military advisor for Hector 2, urged a launch as soon as possible, and his views were echoed by the team members, most of whom believed strongly in Captain Luyen and his ability to survive. They all accepted Captain Dung's explanation that Hector 1 somehow had become lost in the mountains.

Captain Dung reviewed each individual's position and duty in Hector 2 Mai Nhue Anh was team commander, and Vu Van Chi was deputy commander. When they landed in North Vietnam , Hoang Dinh Kha was to be the first off the helicopter. He would determine the security status of the area. While other team members assisted in off-loading the heavy boxes of equipment.

Strata 112, AKA Hector 2, during training, South Vietnam, 1967. From left: Major Crawford, Nguyen Van Tiem (supply specialist), Ngo Phong Hai (third from left), Nguyen Van Huan (looking to rear). Photo courtesy a former commando.

Aerial photography showed their landing zone as a tiny dot in an area of operations that would be approximately five thousand square kilometers. They would be dropped by helicopter some distance away from the Ho Chi Minh Trail and well away from any villages in an area of mountains and karst formations. Here, they would be safe and secure.

They were told that the helicopter they would use for the insertion was a modern, fast aircraft; forty of them had been sent to Southeast Asia exclusively for team insertions. The helicopter could also transport large amounts of supplies that would be off-loaded onto a landing zone, thus avoiding the problem of equipment lost during airdrops. Everything was being done to make sure that Hector 2 would succeed in its mission.

After the briefings, Team Hector 2 was airlifted by an American transport to Uddorn Air Base in Thailand , where it transferred onto a new American helicopter for the relatively short flight to its landing site.

The flight in was uneventful. The team was soon inserted into an area that seemed more like a primitive park than a landing zone inside North Vietnam . Supposedly it was the landing zone where Hector 1 had been inserted less than three months before.

The aerial photographs reviewed by the team at Long Thanh did not convey the quiet peace of the landing site, with a stream running through tall elephant grass. The area, measuring less than two hundred feet across, was surrounded by stark karst formations. The team members could imagine night-time scenes of deer and other wild animals coming to feed there. As captain Dung had said, it appeared far removed from any North Vietnamese forces, safely isolated, from which they could easily conduct reconnaissance against the Ho Chi Minh Trail. There seemed to be no more perfect spot than this.

The helicopter came in slowly for its landing. The weight of the team and equipment unexpectedly caused the aircraft to become mired in the soft ground. Everyone, including Captain Dung and the American training officer who had come with them, joined in off-loading the equipment as quickly as possible. The helicopters load was lightened sufficiently for it to take off, and there was a lot of joking, smiling and waving good-bye as the helicopter off for the flight back to Thailand .

Less than five minutes later, staccato bursts of AK-47 assault riffle fire were directed at the team members as they were unpacking crates. Everyone had the same thought instantly – they had walked into a trap!

Deputy Commander Vu Van Chi had one of his team members, Huan, return fire, but the North Vietnamese appeared to fade away in the face of it. Huan began to move out in the direction of the enemy and was mortally wounded by a sudden burst of machine-gun fire within seconds. The tempo of fire increased as well-positioned ambushers sprayed the center of the team's position from a break in the dense brush perimeter.

During the opening fire, Hoang Dinh Kha also had been hit, possibly in the heart. His body lay covered in a massive amount of blood as the North Vietnamese opened up with a heavy volume of automatic weapons fire. Clearly, their objective was to kill the commandos, not merely keep them pinned down and captured them.

Running toward a nearby cleft in the karst, Vu Van Chi encountered four armed North Vietnamese and immediately opened fire. The lieutenant directing a three-man cell was hit in the arm, the bullet passing through it and hitting his trigger finger. One cell member was hit in the thigh with the bullet lodging in his buttocks. The other two, lying close by were killed almost immediately after an initial heavy exchange of fire both sides ceased firing to consolidate their positions in the positions in the approaching dusk. By now, the team was scattered around the landing zone, and contact was lost as each individual waited quietly for the North Vietnamese to make their next move.

The next morning, a heavy rain started to fall. The team was now completely scattered. Several small, isolated groups prepared to attempt evasion. This “perfect” landing zone had now become the most perfect death trap.

Vu Van Chi, Nguyen Ngoc Nghia, and Tong Van Thai withdrew quickly into a nearby open cave, but they were prepared to move out at the first opportunity. As day broke into a downpour, the three found themselves surrounded by well-armed North Vietnamese, who approached with their automatic into the cave and called on the three to surrender. Chi told Nghia and Thai that he would go outside first and to open fire if he was shot. They were to fire until nearly out of ammunition and then commit suicide. They agreed and Chi walked into the arms of the waiting North Vietnamese. He was quickly disarmed and tied tightly with telephone wire. Seeing that Chi had not been shot outright, his two comrades followed him out and surrendered. Nearly the entire team was captured that day, although the primary radio operator, Nguyen Van Dinh, managed to evade capture for eight days.

The sudden, fierce attack so soon after their landing meant that the Team was unable to establish radio contact with the Directorate after its insertion. During their training at Long Thanh, Captain Dung had emphasized the need to establishe communications with the Directorate within the first twenty-four hours of the mission, their swift capture within that period could have resulted in their radio operators being recruited, but Nguyen Van Dinh evasion prevented this. Nghia, who has been captured with Vu Van Chi, had the team's radio equipment but not the signal operating instructions and codes, which were with Dinh. By the time Dinh was captured, it was too late for the North Vietnamese to attempt radio contact with the Directorate because late contact would indicate that the team had been captured and was under hostile control.

As the individual commandos were captured and herded together, they learned that their captors were from a North Vietnamese border defense regiment permanently stationed along this part of the “Strategic route,” that broad system of roads and trails known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The troops bragged that they provided security for the North Vietnamese Army units moving into Laos through Quang Binh province as they made their way into South Vietnam . The captors were all so very young and spoke with the heavy accent of the natives of Quang Binh province. To capture the Commandos, they explained, they had been reinforced by local village militia as added insurance that the commandos would be unable to evade the ambush.