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EO 1.4. (c)
the field to get useful bearings on enemy transmitters.
Usually, a team of vehicles, composed of
two jeeps and a 3/4-ton truck, would deploy,
forming a DIF base line in the form of a slight are,
in order to obtain a location of a VC transmitter.
Ironically, the only PRD-ls available in Vietnam
belonged to the ARVN, compliments of an NSA
delivery the previous year. This meant that the
DIF teams manning the PRD-ls were a mix of
Americans and ARVN troops. Packed on board
trucks andjeeps, these teams roamed the flat rice
paddies and forests ofthe Nam Bo region running
down communist transmittersJ
L- .....1With the inherent mobility of the
VCunits, this delay could hardly allow for a lively
strategy of follow-up assaults by ARVN units.
Another problem was that the security of these
teams from VC attacks could not long be guaranteed.
Inevitably, they paid the price for getting so
close to the enemy.
(TSl/SI) On 22 December 1961, an ARVN
DIF mission composed of five ARVN operators
and their American advisor, Specialist 4 James T.
Davis, was returning to Saigon from a mission on
the coast at Ha Tien when it was ambushed near
Due Hoa in Gia Dinh Province. The 3/4-ton truck
they were in had ridden over a remotely controlled
mine which had been detonated by a nearby
VC ambush team. The vehicle rolled onto its
side and slid forward another thirty yards before
coming to rest in a ditch. The VC hiding in the
bushes immediately opened fire. Davis, riding in
the cab, managed to get out and returned fire with
his carbine. A VC round found its target, hitting
Davis' head, killing him instantly. Nine ARVN
soldiers, including the five Vietnamese DIF team
members, also were killed in the gun battle. Davis
would be called the first American soldier to die
in Vietnam; however, this was not strictly true ­
four u.S. advisors had been killed in VCattacks in
the preceding two years. Yet, Specialist Davis was
the first of the newly arrived contingents of advisors
to be killed.
CU) Prior to the attack on Davis' group, the
ASA troops' contact with the enemy had been
(V) Jeep-mounted PRD-1 D/F equipment
(V) SP4 JamesT. Davts, VSASA
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