spartans_in_darkness

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I
808) for transcription by the American
Vietnamese-language linguists. The Americans
were quickly overwhelmed by the quantity of
intercept. Soon, Vietnamese COMINT personnel
were brought in, under Project Dancer, to transcribe
the take.
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new to Southeast Asia. As far back as the Laotian
crises of the early 19608, the AFSS had put in a
collection mission, Rosebowl, to collect VHF
communications supporting the communist airlift
of supplies to antigovernment forces.
However, the early missions revealed that the
current platform, the venerable C-47, the mission
orbit profiles, and crew fatigue all mitigated
whatever intercept could be gained from the aerial
platform. Changes were needed to produce
effective SIGINT coverage.
(S//SI) The first platform sent-to Southeast
Asia at the time of the Gulf of Tonkin crisis was
the C-130B variant of the Hercules transport, The
SIGINT-equipped aircraft was known as the
Queen Bee and was manned b . AFSS ...ersonnel
he aircraft had the capability for
ten radiotelephone and morse intercept and
search positions, though the mix varied among
individual airframes]
(S//SI) The ground collection of the North
Vietnamese very high frequency radio communications]
J 01\\ \i / /
[was never much more than a supple- (S//SO The C-130 was a far more effective
ment to the airborne collection program. latform for intercept.I
Hearability at the ground sites was subject to the \
vaganes of the electromagnetic environment.
required thirteen SIX-POur
Atmospherics made collection a seasonal affair. missrons tor each at two orbits, the Gulf ofTonkin
Similarly, the increasing importance of the Phu
Bai area as a communications hub for the
American effort in Vietnam meant that interference
from local transmitters degraded collection
efforts. Slowly, the intercept effort declined.
and northwest Thailand, that totalled 156 hours
of coverage. By'early 1965, there were four planes
Iio Southbast A~i\1
I
(s//sn In the meantime, the airborne collection
reconnaissance program (ACRP) gradually
came to the task of intercepting the North
Vietnamese VHF and UHF air defense communications.
As we saw earlier, ACRP efforts were not
(s//sn However, administrative.problems
plagued the effectiveness of the early ACRP mission.
The old bugaboo of a proper staging base
hampered early Queen Bee operations.1
IHowever" after-the crisis
'---------_......
in August, the focal pointfor.the initial processing
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