spartans_in_darkness

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(V) P-4
motor
to rped 0
boilt
Island had led Hanoi to make preparations to
repel any further assaults. NSA added that
"...THE INDICATED SENSITIVITY ON PART OF
DRV AS WELL AS THEIR INDICATED PREPA­
RL\TION TO COUNTER, POS[SI]BLE THE DRV
REACTION TO DESOTO PATROL MIGHT BE
MORE SEVERE THAN WOULD BE OTHER­
WISE BE ANTICIPATED." The problem with the
Maddox not receiving these critical warnings
would not be resolved until after the first attack.t''
ETS//SI) Shortly before noon, at 1144G
(0444Z), the Marine SIGINT group attached to
the ASA site at Phu Bai, RVN, intercepted a message
from the T-142 Swatow-class patrol boat to
the DRV naval base at Port Wallut which stated
that "[WE] HAVE RECENED THE ORDERS.
[T]146 AND [T]142 DID USE [1 Group unreadable]
HIGH SPEED TO GET TOGETHER [PAR­
ALLEL] WITH ENEMY FOLLOWING
LAUNCHED TORPEDOES." 47 The Phu Bai station
issued a Critic, short for a critical message,
that alerted all relevant commands, and the
Maddox, of the planned attack. In the same
report, the Phu Bai site added that four boats,
T-142, T-146, T-166, and T-135, had been
engaged in tracking and following an "enemy"
which "is probably the current Desoto mission."
The final paragraph of the message added that
the DRV naval facility in Port Wallut was acting
as the shore-based "coordinator/director" for the
surveillance of the probable Desoto vesse1. 4 8
ES//SI) About a half hour later, at 1218G
(0518Z), another Marine SIGINT detachment
stationed with the navy monitoring station at San
Miguel, Philippines, intercepted the same message.
This later intercept is not unusual; it meant
that the Vietnamese were retransmitting the message
to ensure its reception. However, this intercept
was reported in a different manner than Phu
Bai's version. The second version was reported as
a translation instead of a report. In essence, this
meant that the actual intercept was reported, and
not a restatement of its contents. Therefore, some
interesting items of intelligence, which were
missing from the first report, were included.
ES//SI) First of all, the second version contained
what is known as the "file time" of the DRV
message, that is, the time when the message was
entered into a log prior to its transmission by the
Vietnamese radio operator on the T-142. In this
case, a file time of 1113G was noted. This time reference
tells us that there was a half-hour delay
between the receipt of the message from the originator
and the initial transmittal of the "attack"
message (1144G/0444Z), as well as an hour's difference
in the second intercept (l218G/0518Z).
The differences are interesting for two reasons.
First of all, if the intercept times from both
American sites reflect the beginning of the actual
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