 |
1 |
Rex Rectanus is coming to Arlington today, but he will have to wait his turn. That is the way of the Government cemetery here, and we are all used to standing in line.
I told you that I would tell you the story of how I came to call Rex a pal- but time is short this morning, and I will let this tale speak for itself and fill in the context tomorrow.
Rex was haunted, since there is one of us who is still missing from a war long ago. His name is John “Jack” Graf, who came up through the ranks.
Jack joined the Navy as a recruit in 1945 after growing up in Glendale, California. The pictures of him at the time show a strong-featured young man with a ready grin. He attended the Naval School of Photography at Pensacola, and was assigned to Weather Recon Squadron One (VPW-1) as a Photographer’s Mate Third Class, and the military life suited him. He was subsequently advanced to PM2.
Jack served as a white hat in that squadron from April 1946 until July of 1947. To put it in perspective, my Dad got his wings in Pensacola in early 1946, a member of the third-to-the-last class to complete training as the great demobilization began. The class was offered the choice of going on to the Fleet, or going home to the Reserves.
Millions were taking off the uniform and heading home. Jack stayed with the Fleet.
In fact, Jack became one of the backbones of the Navy, rising to become one of those extraordinary individuals who wear the khaki of a Navy Chief. In May of 1955 he was a member of the Pacific Fleet Combat Camera Group. He was a born leader, though, and decided to apply for a commission as a Limited Duty Officer. He was in Hutchinson, Kansas in 1956, when the letter came from the Bureau announcing that he had been selected to be an officer.
His last hitch as an enlisted man was an adventure unto itself. 1957 was designated the International Geophysical Year, or IGY. The Navy was selected to support a major exploration of the Antarctic wilderness, and the legendary explorer Admiral Robert Byrd led the first Operation Deep Freeze to establish the permanent research station at the South Pole, and mission the service managed for almost a half century.
It was a huge effort, and it is hard to imagine now the global interest in the exploration. In addition to the US, Great Britain, France, Japan, Norway, Chile, Argentina, and the U.S.S.R participated in a massive operation to advance world knowledge of Antarctic hydrography and weather systems, glacial movements, and marine life. The publicity about the last frontier made science seem exciting. Jack felt the same enthusiasm that everyone did around the world. I remember it well, though I was just a small kid.
Jack was selected to be the Chief Photo Mate assigned to Operation Deep Freeze II in 1957, and “wintered over” at the base at McMurdo. He was commissioned as an Ensign (LDO) while at Little America in 1958 as the arctic wind howled.
Jack wanted to fly. He completed Bombardier/Navigator training and flew as a B/N in an A-3D squadron at Sanford, Florida, as a Lieutenant (junior grade). As he learned the art of mission planning and targeting, he realized that he had a unique background. With his experience as a photographer’s mate, he began to put together target packages that improved mission effectiveness by getting helping his fellow aircrew get weapons on target on the first attempt.
He was a natural for Air Intelligence, which specialized in supporting strike aviation, and he was selected to change his military specialty to Special Duty- Air Intelligence.
LCDR George Bernard commented on his commissioned service this way: “We attended Naval Intelligence School together. He was an outstanding Naval officer and a true patriot. He volunteered to winter over at the South Pole and volunteered for duty in Vietnam.”
There was much more to the story. Photographic intelligence had assumed a pivotal role in the Cold War with the Soviet Union. The shoot-down of an Operation KEYHOLE U-2 over the Soviet Union by Gary Francis Powers sparked a crisis at the end of the Eisenhower Administration that reverberated through what became the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Sensitive photographic intelligence demonstrated that medium-range ballistic missiles were going to Cuba. Interpreters who could divine portents from the pictures were central to assessing the intentions of a nuclear-armed enemy. Jack was one of the first to be indoctrinated into the mysteries of satellite reconnaissance, and as such, he became one of the men who held the most sensitive secrets in the nation.
At the same time, American advisors began to flow to South East Asia. Of course, Jack raised his hand to go as one of the first Naval Intelligence Liaison Officers assigned to the Commander, Naval Forces Vietnam. In the course of that assignment, he was in the back-seat of a small observation aircraft conducting a surveillance mission. The unarmed aircraft was taken under fire by Viet Cong forces on the ground, and the pilot was killed. Jack was no stranger to flight, but he was not a pilot. Calmly, he un-strapped the emergency stick from its stowage in the rear cockpit, inserted it into its socket between his knees, and got the airplane back to their village airstrip without the use of the rudder pedals.
Bob Melka served with Jack on this second tour in-country. He said “He had one ambition – serve his country and do it well. That he did, and he put up one helluva good fight right to the end.”
Jack returned to Vietnam in 1969. In the Fall of that year, things were not going well in the war. The Tet Offensive of January, 1968, had changed the tone of the discussion back home, and the optimism in-country that had been present in Jack’s first tour had begun to turn sour. Hawks had begun to turn into Doves, and support was slipping for the war. Some said that Uncle Sam was up to his waist in the Big Muddy and going deeper.
Despite the valiance of the forces in the field, despite successes in tactics and innovation in logistics, the winds were shifting.
The US Naval Forces Vietnam Command History for November, 1969 contains the following note:
Lieutenant Commander John Graf, an intelligence officer, was assigned to the Naval Advisory Group. On 15 November 1969 he and then-Captain Robert White (73rd Aviation Company) were conducting a visual reconnaissance mission in an OV-1C Mohawk aircraft (tail number 61-2690). Their aircraft was hit by enemy fire and was observed by a U.S. Navy patrol boat to be on fire and descending. Both men escaped the burning aircraft, parachuting to the ground.
Although an extensive air and ground search was conducted by allied forces, the two could not be found. White and Graf initially were classed as Missing in Action, but after reliable reports were received indicating that both men had been captured by the Viet Cong, they were reclassified as prisoners of war.
Nothing more was heard of the two men until Major White was released by the Viet Cong on 01 April 1973 – the last American POW released during Operation Homecoming. During his debrief, White reported that he was held with Graf in various prison camps until late January 1970, when Graf escaped with another POW. Captain White never saw Graf after that, but he was told by his captors that Graf had drowned during his escape attempt.
Captured documents and post-war reports by former residents of the area supported what White had been told, and indicated that Graf’s body had been buried somewhere in Vinh Binh Province.
His remains have never been recovered.”
Bob Melka, a naval intelligence officer assigned to the same River Division reported it this way: “I worked, lived, and drank with Jack Graf from 22 May, the day he arrived on-station in Vung Tau, until the Saturday morning in November when his and Lt. White’s Mohawk was downed by ground fire. He served as Third Coastal Zone Intelligence Officer, or, as I’d painted on the windshield frame of our Jeep in International Signal Flags, 3CZIO.
I was a Lieutenant Junior Grade and served directly under him as Asst. 3CZIO. His call sign was “Nobel Skill;” mine was “Nobel Skill Junior.”
I was on duty in the Coastal Surveillance Center preparing Cdr. Paul Yost’s morning intelligence briefing when one of the Swift Boats under Yost’s command radioed from the mouth of the Bassac River that they had just observed a Mohawk go down in flames several kilometers from their position. They reported seeing two fully deployed chutes and requested permission to enter a canal into hostile territory to retrieve the crew.
I knew, based on the location and timing, that this was Lt. White and LCDR Graf. I radioed the 73rd SACs commanding officer to advise that one of his aircraft was just reported lost on the coastal reconnaissance flight, and within minutes, quite literally, the air and waterways over and surrounding the area were bristling with air and watercraft.
We had men on the ground within an hour, recovering the flight helmets and chutes. We questioned the local women and children (no males older than 8 or 9 were ever seen), who informed us that a handful of “soldiers” (VC) had captured the two Americans within moments of their landing and had led them away into the mangroves. The search continued for two more days, including continuous flare illumination throughout the night.”
In his fine book “Special Agent Vietnam,” former civilian Naval Investigation Service officer Douglass H. Hubbard, Jr. reported the events that came after the shoot-down this way:
“In Da Nang, LCDR Tom Brooks exploited his successful relationship with Vietnamese Navy intelligence officers by designing and implementing a program to recruit civilian informants employed within U.S. Navy installations.
Co-coordinated with the U.S. Army’s 525 Military Intelligence Group, the mission objective was to utilize informants to identify Viet Cong sympathizers or other internal problems. The initiative was expanded to recruit and run agents in areas near Navy and Marine Corps facilities in I Corps to report movement of VC in the area. These collection efforts produced information about graft, theft, and intimidation rather than identifying the enemy within.
Naval counterintelligence requirements were satisfied in a variety of ways. U.S. Army counterintelligence personnel were distributed throughout South Vietnam and they shared information. So did well-established CIA resources.
The Vietnamese Navy Security Bloc, to which a full-time adviser from NISOV was assigned, also provided information on a regular basis. It was more than willing to assist when needed.
The VNNSB was needed in the case of the VC’s capture of naval intelligence officer LCDR Jack Graf, USN.
As one would expect of a career intelligence officer, prior to his assignment to South Vietnam, Graf had been exposed to very sensitive, compartmentalized information. His capture, the only such loss by the Navy in the Vietnam War, was viewed with alarm by senior naval intelligence officers. They wanted Jack Graf back as soon as possible.
Graf’s Vietnam assignment had been fourth coastal zone intelligence officer. His area of responsibility encompassed most of the Mekong Delta Area, the most densely populated region in the country. It included riverine areas in which Viet Cong forces remained a potent force. It was over such an area, the coastal mudflats of Kien Hoa Province, where the tributaries of the Mekong flow into the South China Sea, that Graf was lost.
He had been flying in a U.S. Army Mohawk on an intelligence collection mission when the aircraft was taken under fire by enemy forces. Both Graf and the pilot survived the crash and were captured by Viet Cong troops.
COMNAVFORV senior intelligence officer CAPT Robert Pyle, USN, requested urgent assistance from the U.S. Army’s Joint Personnel Recovery Center (JPRC).
He asked Tom Brooks if he would travel to Honolulu, find Mrs. Graf, and assure her that everything possible was being done to find her husband. Brooks found a seat on an Air Force C141 returning to Hawaii and flew into Hickham Air Force Base a few days before Thanksgiving 1969.
His first stop was the Commander in Chief Pacific Fleet (CINCPACFLT) Chaplain’s Office for the name of the casualty assistance coordination officer (CACO), a Marine lieutenant colonel who was not there at the time.
Brooks took Graf’s address and drove over to the house, but Graf’s wife no longer lived there and neighbors were unable to provide her new address.
Walking through the neighborhood looking for somebody who might know it, he came across an older man sitting on his porch who provided the new address from his daughter.
Armed with this information, Brooks called on Mrs. Anne Graf.
The Grafs had no children, Mrs. Graf and her German shepherd lived alone in a nice new housing development, where they had moved immediately before Graf deployed.
Mrs. Graf had no relatives on the island and knew very few people. She was obviously a lonely and worried lady.
Incredibly, although she had been notified about her husband having been shot down some weeks before, nobody had been to see her. Brooks recalls that “I mentioned the CACO’s name, but the name meant nothing to her. I assured her of our efforts to recover Jack, left her my name and address and set out to find that CACO.”
“I found him at his CINCPACFLT desk and angrily accosted him, demanding to know why he had not done his duty with regard to Mrs. Graf. He turned beet red and was about to dress me down for talking disrespectfully to a senior officer. I suggested that we go see the Chief of Staff if he had a problem, but if not, then answer my question.”
The Marine officer immediately turned defensive, saying he had tried to see Mrs. Graf, but she had moved and he had been unable find her. Brooks provided the address and telephone number, and some further, unsolicited words of advice. The next day he called Mrs. Graf. She said the CACO had been to see her that previous afternoon and had been pleasant and apologetic. She characterized him as a nice and helpful man.
“I didn’t tell her any of the story, but expressed my pleasure and wished her well.”
Tom Brooks had no Thanksgiving in 1969; as luck would have it he skipped the holiday when he crossed the International Date Line going back to Saigon.
Back in Vietnam, the Graf rescue effort was not going well. It soon emerged that no U.S. elements had intelligence capabilities in the area and the closest South Vietnamese presence was fifty miles distant from the crash site.
Moreover, it was becoming evident that the Army staff at JPRC was capable neither of imaginative operational planning nor of prompt reaction to the crisis.
It fell to Tom Brooks and his Vietnamese counterparts at VNNSB to make an all-out effort to force a rescue of Graf before it was too late.
Of primary importance in the early planning stages of the operation was dependable intelligence about the situation at and around the crash site:
What enemy units were present?
Where were they?
What stories were in circulation about captured Americans?
Commanders Nguyen Nhu Vy and Nguyen Do Hai of VNNSB set about locating a dependable Vietnamese with knowledge and connections in this lonely, hostile area of the Delta.
They found a VNN junior-grade lieutenant with relatives in the area who volunteered to assist.
This brave Vietnamese officer set off alone aboard a Honda 50 motorcycle into Indian country dressed as a civilian, with full knowledge of the consequences should one of the many Viet Cong sympathizers in the area identify him. He covered a good deal of country in his efforts to acquire information.
Ultimately, his relatives provided the first tangible intelligence about the crash and its victims. In return, they expected Americans to evacuate them by helicopter and resettle the family at a location well away from Viet Cong influence.
Armed with this intelligence, U.S. Army officers at JPRC proved a model of bureaucratic inertia. Alternative operational plans were drawn up and debated as valuable time dribbled away.
Their final plan envisaged floating 155mm howitzers down the river on barges and using Laotian Montagnards to conduct the rescue attempt in the swamps of Kien Hoa. To put all of this rather astonishing plan together would take “several weeks.”
Clearly, Jack was not going to get any meaningful help from that quarter.
Finally the Navy took the matter into its own hands. Tom Brooks visited the province chiefs senior (American) adviser, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, in Ben Tre (Kien Hoa City).
The senior adviser immediately volunteered to help and tried to make a team of U.S. SEAL advisers and their South Vietnamese SEAL counterparts available for the operation, but this plan met with JPRC resistance and it was concluded that he could only use assets that belonged to him and over which U.S. headquarters in Saigon had no say.
Thus Lieutenant Commander Brooks and VNNSB adviser Lt. Ron Lodziewski were given two squads of Vietnamese Regional Forces militia, known as RFPFs (or ruff-puffs), and four or five Kit Carson scouts, who were Viet Cong deserters now working for the ARVN.
They piled into two very overloaded Hueys and set out for the tip of Kien Hoa Peninsula, where the Kit Carson scouts interrogated villagers and were able to learn that “a white man” (Jack), and a black man (Major White) had been taken by the VC down the river by boat some twelve hours before.
The team climbed back into the helos and tried to reconnoiter the river on the way back, but the jungle canopy was so dense that a boat could easily hide at the sound of approaching helicopters.
Tom Brooks remembers the Graf episode as a crushing disappointment, “On December 11,1969,1 was sitting in Ben Tre with my adviser to the VNNSB, Lt. Ron Lodziewski, waiting for a ride back to Saigon after our operation had failed to locate Graf and the Army pilot. It was already obvious that American incompetence was central to the failure. But I will never forget that brave Vietnamese lieutenant junior-grade who got nothing more for his efforts than a rather emotional thank you from me. It was enough for him.”
Returning to Saigon, after the abortive rescue attempt. Brooks and Lieutenant Lodziewski debriefed the mission to CAPT Pyle. Brooks was careful not to reveal too many details, but Pyle nonetheless found out the two been much too closely involved in the operation and had actually gone out into Indian country with the RFPFs.
Brooks remembers, “This got me a sound chewing out for my second offense at traveling places where I was not allowed to go because of my clearances.
The first one was for driving by jeep from Quang Tri to Da Nang down Bernard Fall’s famous Street Without Joy, which was very interesting and totally uneventful, but very much against the rules and, in retrospect, not too smart.”
A number of months later, when most of the Kien Hoa Peninsula had been pacified, a U.S. Army helo pilot observed a black man waving his shirt from a clearing and landed to investigate. The man was the pilot of the Mohawk who had escaped his captors. He confirmed that the NISOV team had, in fact, missed them by only twelve hours and also related that Jack Graf had been killed attempting to escape.
A subsequent interrogation of a VC defector revealed that Graf’s body had been buried in a bridge embankment but that spring flooding had later washed away the bridge and embankment. Jack Graf thus received the burial at sea he would have desired in the nearby, downstream waters of the South China Sea.
Brooks relates, “I have often thought about her and wondered how Mrs. Graf made out. I can still feel sorrow for her. More importantly, I can still feel anger for that CACO. Brave Vietnamese risked their lives to try to rescue a man they had never even met, and the CACO couldn’t take the trouble to track down Mrs. Graf’s new address.”
Anne Graf passed away in 1994, at her home in Florida. She never re-married.
Vic Socotra
1Copyrighted material from Douglass H. Hubbard was used to compile portions of this report. Rights are retained by the author. Other materials copyright 2006 Vic Socotra
Copyright 2009 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Available in RSS!
Close Window |
