Shadow Warriors: Inside the Special Forces sic-3 Page 18

  CLANDESTINE ENTRY

  There are several ways to get into a country where American soldiers are not wanted. They can come in covertly — as tourists, workers, or businessmen — or clandestinely — by submarine, boat, or aircraft — or they can drop in by parachute, which is more often than not the way it gets done.

  That means Special Forces troops spend a lot of time jumping out of airplanes.

  Carl Stiner talks about the way they did it in 1964:

  When a lot of people are dropping out of a formation of large aircraft, the first priority is getting them all down safely. Conventional airborne units jump with a standard (not maneuverable) parachute in order to minimize the risk of midair entanglements — a good way to get seriously hurt, or killed. The other priority is keeping them together in some kind of order, so thousands of soldiers are not scattered all over the countryside. This priority is handled by a technique called "cross-loading": squads, platoons, and crews are loaded on each airplane so that they exit near where their mission is to be accomplished on the ground. This minimizes assembly time after landing and maximizes the fighting effectiveness of the units.

  On a jump mission, the pilot flying the airplane is in charge overall, but the jumpmaster in the back is responsible for all the jumpers. That means he has to know where he is at all times. And he does that by communicating with the pilot, by studying the map, and by plotting checkpoints on that map — points on the ground such as rivers, bridges, or natural features that he can recognize from the air en route to the drop area.

  Meanwhile, since the pilot is up in the cockpit where he can see more, he helps by calling out, "We have crossed such and such a river," or, "We're approaching such and such a terrain feature."

  When you were inserting an A-Detachment into what we called denied territory (territory where we weren't welcome and where it could be dangerous to be an American soldier), you wanted the team to be able to land as close to each other as possible.

  By that time, Tojo parachutes had replaced the older, simpler parachutes on which I had originally trained. In those days, the Tojo parachutes were steerable to a degree. Not steerable enough for you to aim at a point on the ground and hit it, but enough to permit the detachment to assemble in the air and then come down in the same immediate area.

  The Tojos looked like your regular umbrella canopies, but they had a twenty-square-foot orifice in the back in the shape of an oval, and out of this would come thrust of about eight knots. The chute had a system of slip risers on rollers that you activated after you exited the airplane. By tilting the canopy one way or another, that allowed you to direct that thrust.

  When you jumped, the slip risers were secured to your harness with forks. Once you were in the air, you pulled the forks out, and the risers were released to slip on the rollers. Then if you wanted to turn to the right, for example, you'd reach back with your right hand and grab the right rear riser, and with your left hand you'd grab the left front. Then you'd pull the right rear down and push the left front up. That would tilt the canopy so you would turn to the right. When you got turned around as far as you wanted to go, then you'd center them again and you'd straighten out…. Or you tried to, because you never really kept going in that direction.

  The big problem for the jumper was orienting the chute to face the wind as he was coming in for his landing. (If a jumper came in running with the wind, he would hit the ground at the speed of the wind, plus the eight knots of thrust coming out of the chute's rear orifice.) The tendency of the parachute was to turn and run with the wind, which meant that jumpers had to work at the risers constantly to keep themselves properly oriented. Since most Special Forces jumps were at night, the best indication of wind direction was the sensation of it on a jumper's face.

  If everything was going right, the team would leave the airplane as a chalk or string. The lead jumper would normally face into the wind and hold until everybody else could assemble on him by steering their parachutes. They'd try to work it so they'd be about a hundred feet apart. Fifty to a hundred feet was the normal separation distance for experienced jumpers. That way, all of the detachment had a better chance of landing close to each other and defending itself upon landing. You're vulnerable on the drop zone!

  The separation distance was very important, because if chutes became entangled there was a serious risk of a canopy collapse. This was especially true of the Tojo chutes, because these chutes tended to push each other.

  Each jumper also had a reserve chute that was good as long as you were more than 500 feet up. Should it become necessary to activate your reserve, you would pull the handle with your right hand while holding your left hand in front of the reserve in order to catch it when it popped out of its container. Then you worked your right hand underneath the skirt of the reserve and threw it down and to your left as hard as you could to facilitate inflation.

  If this didn't work, you would have to try again. Sometimes the reserve would just go up partially inflated and wrap around the main chute, which was not fully inflated. People who get hurt jumping usually get hurt when they land. But when you get an entanglement, you're looking at real trouble.

  Nowadays, reserve parachutes are much improved. These arc equipped with a cartridge that propels the canopy far enough out to give you a much greater percentage for inflation, regardless of the malfunction with your main chute.

  A jumper was also taught not to look for or reach for the ground on a night parachute jump. Rather, he was trained to look for the silhouette of the tree line, which would tell him he was thirty to fifty feet from the ground and could start preparing to land by making sure he was facing into the wind and by holding his feet and knees tightly together, which allowed the jumper to roll instantly in the direction of drift, and thus minimize the risk of a broken leg.

  After everyone had assembled on the lead jumper, he would aim as best he could to drop into the drop zone — there was normally not much space, maybe a small opening in the trees, a clearing perhaps two or three hundred yards wide. Once he was on the ground, the other jumpers, who by now have stacked themselves above him, could aim directly on him and could usually land within a circle of a hundred feet.

  After you were down, the first order of business was defending yourself as a team, but you had to do something about the parachute, and you had two options. You could take it with you or you could bury it. You could never leave it lying where you landed, because if you did, it could be spotted either from the ground or from the air.

  Of the two options, taking your parachute with you was the least desirable choice. It was a lot of extra weight and volume to lug around. The best solution was to move off the drop zone, find a secure location in a gully or wooded area, and bury it so it couldn't be found.

  Either way, you wanted to get out of the drop site almost immediately, carrying the parachute. Once you had reached a concealed location, you could usually bury your parachute in about fifteen or twenty minutes.

  And from there you moved out in accordance with your plan for accomplishing the mission.

  LAND NAVIGATION

  Finding your objective was far from a given. It was nighttime; the terrain was unfamiliar, the people potentially hostile, and in those days there were no night-vision goggles or GPS satellites to help you find your way. The teams had to be expert at land navigation and find their objectives the old-fashioned way — the way they'd probably learned to do it in Ranger training — by relying on maps, compasses, and the stars.

  They had to be dead-certain expert map readers, they had to be equally proficient using compasses, and they had to know how to count their pace.

  Carl Stiner continues:

  AN important part of the preparation for a mission involved studying the maps of the area where we'd be operating. We had to make ourselves absolutely familiar with that territory. Not only was there very little room for error in linking up with our objective (which might be a guerrilla band or a place where we could hide while we set
up for our larger mission), but we also had to avoid blundering into one of the many places where we were not welcome. That meant we memorized everything we might need to know — all the landmarks — rivers and streams, dams, bridges, roads, crossroads, transmission towers, power transmission junctions, and other infrastructure elements, as well as towns, villages, police, and military facilities.

  When we were in the field, one man would keep track of the compass, while two pace men working in conjunction with each other would keep count of the pace. And anybody in the team could handle these jobs. The detachment commander usually kept himself free to manage and orchestrate the operation. The important thing was to keep an accurate count no matter what happened (so we'd have two men counting). But we also had to make sure that we didn't lose count if we ran into an ambush or some other event that might cause somebody to forget the count.

  Meanwhile, even though we had memorized the map and had confidence in our compass reading and pace counting, every once in a while it was a good idea to make sure we were still on track. And that meant checking our map — not an easy thing to do in the dark when you can't show any light.

  The way we did it was to use our GI flashlights and get under a poncho. Our GI flashlights had a series of filters that were kept in the cap that covered the battery compartment. One of these was a red filter, and that was the one we used, because red light has less effect on your night vision. While everyone else in the team circled around the poncho and stood guard, the commander, his second (whoever would take over if something happened to him), the compass man, and the pace man would get under the poncho and study the map to determine if they were exactly where they should be. If they had deviated, then they'd work out the adjustments they had to make.

  It was also possible to navigate by the stars, if, for example, something had happened to our compass. But we preferred the compass, because it was not weather dependent. Still, we had to learn the basic constellations — the Big Dipper, Orion, the Scorpion, in the Northern Hemisphere; Cassiopeia in the Southern. We learned that the two corner stars of the Dipper point to the North Star, which lies five times the distance separating the two pointer stars. So if we could see stars, we could find our way.

  One final aspect of planning our route was to identify rallying points. That way, if we got ambushed or ran into some other enemy action, we could break contact and split up, and everybody would reassemble at the next rallying point, or the last one we had passed — depending upon whichever the commander designated.

  There is a myth that Special Forces soldiers itch for firefights — that they are all Rambo-like killing machines with nothing better to do than waste enemies. There is zero reality in this myth. Special Forces soldiers are not killing machines; their value lies elsewhere. They are simply too highly trained, too valuable, to be placed in greater risk than is absolutely essential. That means they avoid fights when they can. They fade away into the woods rather than stand up and prove how macho they are. In fact, the Special Forces selection process selects against those types. No Rambos. No Tim McVeighs. Special Forces soldiers are fighters, and they can call upon that energy and skill to kill when they must; but they are expected to focus that fighter energy in a laser-sharp, mature way.

  RESUPPLY

  Surviving in a covert or clandestine environment doesn't come easily. Living conditions are apt to be paleolithic. Food comes from. wherever you can scrounge it. Water is more often than not contaminated. And a significant portion of the population is apt to have a desire to torture or kill the "American invaders," even if another significant part of the population is glad to have them around.

  Meanwhile, living off the land has limits. Despite their best efforts, the team may not find enough food to keep going. They may run out of ammunition or medical supplies. Wounded may have to be evacuated. And there you are, with many hostile miles separating you from the supply chain.

  Demands for supplies can grow especially strong when forming or aiding a guerrilla band. Guerrillas may welcome them, tolerate their presence, or prefer to do without them, but they always crave the American bounty they are convinced the American soldiers are there to shower on them — food, medical supplies, uniforms, electronics, weapons, and ammunition. Showering such bounty is not a primary mission, yet often enough, the guerrillas may be more interested in the supplies than in the fight — thus yielding an opportunity for an A-Detachment to exercise its thinking and negotiating skills: "You do what we think is best, and we'll provide you with food and weapons."

  In any event, the team has to know how to get in resupply. In rare circumstances, a team will be in a situation that permits a submarine delivery. Far more regularly, supplies are air-dropped or flown in.

  Carl Stiner tells how this was done:

  When you needed supplies, you sent out a list of your requirements by tapping them out in code on your ANGRA-109 radio. How the supplies would be delivered — whether dropped or flown in — depended on the nature of the situation.

  If you were going to be resupplied by parachute, you would have selected a place where you wanted the supplies dropped — a clearing in the woods, the edge of a field, an empty section of a road, an open hilltop. This drop zone information, together with the code letter you'd use to signal the pilot (formed by small flaming cans), would be included in the resupply request. Then a day or two later, you'd learn when you could expect the delivery. This was always at night, at a particular time. Let's say 0330 on April 17.

  On the seventeenth of April, you'd set up at the drop zone with your team and with the guerrillas you might need to secure the area and carry the supplies to the camp (if you were working with guerrillas). A few minutes before drop time, you would mark out the drop point with flame pots you'd make by filling C-ration cans (or any metal cans) with sand and gasoline. You would light these so they'd be visible two minutes prior to the designated drop time, and you left them lit for two to three minutes, but no more. If the plane wasn't there by then, you put them out.

  A single plane would usually be flying this mission. The pilot had to penetrate enemy airspace, come in low enough to avoid radar, set a course, and then find these little points of light during that five-minute window, drop, and then continue on the course he'd set, so no enemy who might be looking could track where the drop had been made (or if it had been made).

  Naturally, if he didn't find you during the five-minute window, you got no resupply. And you had to try again later.

  The minute the plane was overhead, you put out the flame pots and prepared to grab the bundle that was parachuting down. Usually it came equipped with a tiny flashing light attached so you could see where it was coming down and start moving to where it was going to hit.

  Once you had recovered the bundle, you had to recover the parachute and the cargo net the bundle was dropped in, then distribute the load among your carrying party (which might be just your team or it might be guerrillas), and sanitize the area so nobody could tell later that you had taken an airdrop there. This was all accomplished in the shortest possible time in order to avoid detection and compromise.

  It was always interesting to find out what you were actually getting. Food, for instance, often came in the form of living animals. Sometimes you'd learn they had dropped a live animal when you heard moos coming from out of the sky. When that happened, you knew you had a problem. And if you had farm experience, you were grateful for it. Cows are never easy, and they aren't trained to jump out of airplanes; and if they hit the ground and broke a leg, you had a real problem. But even if they came down uninjured, they were often not gentle enough to be led off easily. Either way, they often started bellowing and making all kinds of noise, so you had to kill them right there, and then quarter the meat on the spot, so your carrying party could carry the edible parts and bury what you couldn't use.

  Sometimes you might get a goat, a pig, or chickens. And on the whole, we preferred these to cows. They're easier to come by, relatively easy to handle,
they don't weigh that much, and one person can usually carry them.

  Eating out there in the woods was where I learned the value of hot sauce. Every Special Forces soldier carries a bottle of hot sauce in his rucksack. Once we got animals or birds back to camp and butchered them, well, you don't do the best job of cooking in the world out there, so a little hot sauce covers a lot of errors — Louisiana hot sauce, Texas Pete, or Tabasco — it sure helps the taste. It also helps regular rations, which we often had dropped in.

  Of course, the A-Detachment part is not all there is to know about the resupply story. Let's look at it from the headquarters side:

  Let's say we had a mission to resupply an A-Detachment in the field. The mission would go to the NCO who was the S-4 (logistics) of the C-Detachment to which the A-Detachment belonged. It was his job to put it all together. If it was a goat, pig, cow, or chickens, he had to go buy it from some farmer (funds were provided to pay for it), and he had to build a cage for it.

  Among the other details he had to know would be the kind of airplane that would fly the mission, including most crucially the dimensions of its exit door, since you couldn't get anything in or out that was larger than the door. In other words, he had to take the size of the door into consideration in choosing an animal to air-drop and building a cage to contain it.

  The NCO would then fly the mission, and he'd be the one who made the drop. While the pilot flew the course over the drop zone, the NCO had to put the animal, the cage, or the bundle out through the door at the right time to make it hit the drop zone that the A-Detachment had illuminated on the ground.

  One time, while I was the S-3 of the C-Detachment, an A-Detachment had called in for resupply, and we had set up a drop that was to fly in on an Armv U-10 Helio Courier. The U-10 was a high-wing, single-engine turboprop that was both very rugged and a super-short-field airplane, which could take off and land in a matter of yards (every time you landed in one, you thought you'd crashed, because you hit the ground so hard). Though it was technically a four-place aircraft, we usually took out the rear seats to make room for cargo.