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] 7 [ ] Chapter One [ Raid Conception The shocking and bold plan to rescue American prisoners of war from North Vietnam required a unique, specially trained joint military task force and approval from the president of the United States, Richard M. Nixon. Military leaders assembled the best available Army and Air Force volunteers in Florida for training in utmost secrecy, half a world away from those who suffered deprivation, brainwashing, and torture in enemy captivity. The prisoner of war camp selected for this rescue was near Son Tay, twenty-three miles west of North Vietnam’s capital of Hanoi. It was in the most heavily defended area of the country, close to MIG interceptor air bases, and carefully positioned antiaircraft artillery and surface-toair missile sites. The raid planners had information that this camp held about sixty Air Force and Navy airmen who had survived being shot down on missions over the enemy’s territory. Feasibility Study In May 1970, a small group of intelligence officials at the Air Force’s 1127th Field Activities Group at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, concluded from reconnaissance photographs and other fragmentary information that there was a prisoner of war camp near the North Vietnamese town of Son Tay. They were equally convinced that this camp’s POWs were trying to communicate with U.S. reconnaissance aircraft by the way they arranged their laundry and how they marked the ground surface inside their compound . The prisoners were sending signals. This startling discovery was brought to the attention of Brig. Gen. James R. Allen, Deputy Director for Plans and Policy in the Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans and Operations, who was in a position to follow up on it. He was delighted to learn about this find and turned to his favorite covert operations planner, Col. Norman H. Frisbie, with instructions to isolate himself in a secure the son tay raid ] 8 [ place and come up with a quick assessment of our military capability to execute such a mission.1 Colonel Frisbie was from the Air Force Plans and Policy Directorate. He explored the capabilities of available aircraft that could do the job and concluded that a rescue attempt could be made with a relatively small number of ground troops and a few Jolly Green Giant helicopters. His boss liked the idea and took it to Brig. Gen. Donald D. Blackburn , who was the Special Assistant for Counterinsurgency and Special Activities (SACSA). Blackburn was excited about this unexpected opportunity to make a positive impact on the Vietnam War, and he convened a fifteen-member feasibility study group on 10 June 1970 to conduct initial planning for the raid.2 The code name for this phase of the POW rescue planning was Operation Polar Circle. He anticipated having a member of his immediate staff chair this group, but his intended officer already had well-established vacation plans. Blackburn could not wait until that staff member became available, so he designated Frisbie as chief of the Joint Feasibility Study Group. This group included representatives from the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps. The initial feasibility concepts had the Army and the Air Force going their separate ways on getting the raiders to Son Tay. Senior Army officers were serious in advocating the use of Bell Helicopter UH-1Hs for this operation in spite of their short range and limited load capability at higher altitudes. They envisioned staging them from various Special Forces sites in Laos that were much closer to Son Tay than bases in Thailand . The Air Force focused on Sikorsky HH-53s, the Super Jolly Green Giants, which were faster and capable of much larger payloads. They had an unlimited range because they could be refueled in the air as often as necessary. Blackburn was well aware of their capabilities from his prior assignment as chief of the clandestine Studies and Observation Group (SOG) in Saigon. Maj. Jim Morris, who would become the Special Forces plans officer once the raider force assembled in Florida, had prior operational experience with the HH-53s in Laos. Their views prevailed and the initial planning focused on using the Super Jolly Green Giants. But the UH-1Hs did not fall by the wayside. A small helicopter, the size of Bell Helicopter’s Huey, was needed to land the troops inside the POW compound.3 Mission security had to be perfect for the raid to materialize. Any leak of the planned POW rescue could result in...

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