spartans_in_darkness

EO 1.4. (c)
Tep SEeRETh'eeMIN'ff/Xl
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_________Ito alert and initially vector
the intercepting MiGs. The GCl controllers at
the various MiG bases, which included the North
Koreans at Phuc Yen, Gia Lam, and Kep, and the
Russians at Phuc Yen, used VHF voice communications
to direct the MiGs to the threat area.
There could be as many as four controllers at an
airfield, all of whom had specific functions. There
was an airfield controller who handled flight
activity around an airfield, which, on occasion,
could include GCl. There was also a tower controller
who directed takeoff and landing operations
for aircraft. A third controller, the direction
finding (DF) controller, provided navigational
information to pilots, especially those returning
from combat activity. These controllers were
responsible for directing returning missions back
to their airfields.
CU) Finally, there was the GCl controller
whose main mission was to direct the fighters to
the area of the hostile aircraft. The GCl controllers
were the heart of the North Vietnamese
fighter defense system. The controller was able to
tell the MiGs the locations of the attacking aircraft
and was able to position them behind the
U.S. aircraft so as to set them up with the advantage
of surprise and position. The GCl controllers
often were able to warn MiGs when they might be
attacked, making it difficult for U.S. pilots to
ambush MiGs. Later in the war, some senior
Vietnamese pilots would double as controllers,
bringing their combat experience with the
Americans to the positioning of their pilot
charges.
CU) Hanoi's controllers had the advantage of
the information from its extensive radar coverage
of the region. Knowing also the locations of its
own aircraft, they could see the entire combat situation
come together on their own plotting
boards and radar screens. Since American radar
coverage could penetrate only partway into North
Vietnam, Hanoi had a distinct advantage in the
air war that commenced in early 1965. The
Americans needed a way to overcome this imbalance.
SIGlNT, it seemed, might provide the solution.
(S//SI) In Search ofa Target:
The Early Days of SIGINT Support
to Air Operations, 1962-1965
(T8//8I) Since as early as 1962, there had
been an AFSS intercept site on Monkey Mountain
overlooking Danang harbor that had been
tasked with VHF collection against the North
Vietnamese air force and air defense forces.
However, there was a problem: there simply was
not much of anything in the way of Hanoi's air
defense communications to collect. In those early
days, the DRV's air force was a motley collection
of captured French and Chinese-supplied transport
and reconnaissance aircraft whose early contribution
to the Indochina war had been limited
to the role of air cargo transport for Pathet Lao
forces during the 1962-63 fighting."
(TS//SI) The completely frustrating point for
the USAFSSoperation in South Vietnam, going as
far back as the contingency plan of mid-1960, was
that the mission it had planned for, that is, the
exploitation of the enemy's communications in an
air war, had not developed. This lack of an active
mission bedeviled the site's operations for much
of its first year-and-a-half. What the airmen were
really doing those first days was making the best
of the decision to locate them in areas where the
primary consideration was not hearability of the
enemy's signals, but administrative concern. The
airmen had to scramble to justify their work and
hold on until the air war started.:" It was understood
by the USAFSS command and the Air
Force's liaison element, the 2nd Air Division, that
the moment an air war developed, a COMINT
capability in support of tactical air operations
would be needed, and immediately at that.23
E8//SI) Ironically, the buildup of the SIGINT
capability against the DRY's air defense and air
communications systems tracked the similar
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