The Ether Zone: U.S. Army Special Forces Detachment B-52, Project Delta

by Morris Ray

  He wanted to scream at them to stop coming—what the hell could they be thinking, walking into his fire? Gray continued to slide farther down. He figured he’d bought some time and paused to fluff up the grass to hide his trail. He continued more slowly, inching through the tall grass and down the dangerous slope, careful not to leave a path for them to follow this time.

  Fifteen minutes elapsed when he again heard voices; harsh Vietnamese military orders and the sound of a crew-served weapon being positioned. Two words repeatedly floated toward him; “American” and “officer”. Having come to the edge of the jungle at the base of the knoll, he lay silently while the NVA searched the tall grass and barked some radio orders. Concealed and quiet, Gray remained another two hours, hoping against hope that another team member might join him. When finally dark, he began to crawl toward an area he’d earlier picked out on his map as a possible extraction destination.

  This time, luck was with him. Exhausted and dehydrated, he reached the pickup point at dusk, just as a FAC flew overhead. Gray popped a white flare and waited. Thirty minutes passed before he heard aircraft; this time he shot two white and two red flares at four armed helicopters. Determined to be seen, he also tossed a yellow smoke canister into the clearing for good measure. One of the choppers suddenly swooped in, landed and picked him up—he was the only one to make it back alive. Intelligence reports indicated more than 1,000 NVA soldiers, in four-man groups, had been searching for him.

  Left to Right: Recon NCO, MSG Wiley Gray; MSG Leonard Booth; Ranger NCOIC, Delta S-4 Charles Moore; Ranger Advisor for 81st Ranger Battalion, Tony Jantovski; FAC, John Flanagan. Gray and Flanagan were preparing to launch in support of Project Delta operations at Tay Ninh, May 1966. (Photo courtesy of Charles Moore)

  * * * * * *

  The remains of Cecil Hodgson and Ron Terry were never recovered; the Army carries them as MIA. On 16 April 2001, Wiley Gray, age 70, passed away from a heart attack. Returning from the fateful operation, Gray unceremoniously refused a nomination for the Distinguished Service Cross, remarking, “I wasn’t able to save anyone but myself. I don’t deserve a medal for that.”26 On a beautiful May morning, six draft horses hauled the caisson and Wiley Gray’s casket on his final patrol. As was appropriate, he was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery beside this nation’s other heroes. With profound sadness, yet pride from his family, friends and veteran Delta buddies attending— Wiley Gray’s passing makes the world seem a lesser place.

  * * * * * *

  After Badolati was hit, he told Huston he’d never make it out alive. Even before the team split up, Badolati urged Huston to go on without him. He’d argued that he and McKeith would stand a much better chance if they didn’t wait around for him to die. Throughout the ordeal, he pleaded with Huston to leave him behind. He knew he was dying and didn’t want to do so with the knowledge that he had taken the others with him. Badolati sensed that if he stopped, the others wouldn’t leave him; yet, he knew they couldn’t afford to stay with him and remain alive. Miraculously, Frank Badolati remained on his feet, more dead than alive, longer than any man with a severed arm could be expected to.

  As they waited by the stream, Huston leaned close to Badolati’s lips as Badolati whispered his final words, “Save yourselves.”

  “These guys operate in the Ether Zone,” General Robert Cushman told Delta Commander Chuck Allen. Badolati had surely been in the Ether Zone that day—he didn’t want his brothers to die because of him. Huston said of Badolati, “...by his determination to keep going in order to spare us, Sergeant Badolati saved my team from complete annihilation.” Staff Sergeant Frank Badolati’s body was never recovered.

  It was February 1966 when the 1st Cav Division ran the ill-fated operation near Bong Son in the An Lao Valley, and Major Art Strange’s prophecy to Charlie Beckwith came to pass. Regardless of the outcome, uncommon valor was the order of the day, and Project Delta took the field. Five Silver stars were won during that operation: SFC Marlin C. Cook (KIA), SFC Jesse L. Hancock (KIA), SFC Cecil J. Hodgson (MIA), SSG Donald L. Dotson (KIA) and SSG George A. Hoagland (KIA). Staff Sergeant Charles F. Hiner was awarded the Bronze Star for his extreme bravery under enemy fire. Master Sergeant Wiley Gray’s nomination for the Distinguished Service Cross was refused—by him. Ronald Terry and Cecil Hodgson remain on the Army’s rolls as MIA.

  And so it has been written: “Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”

  SSG Frank Badolati, Project Delta Headquarters, 1965. (Photo courtesy of Ray Davidson)

  26 Roger L. Albertson, U.S. Army Special Forces.” The Last Survivor: A Memorial Day Tribute.” www.projectdelta.net/gray_story.htm

  TEN

  Why We Fight

  “Every man in Delta Recon deserves the Bronze Star with

  ‘V’ device each time he steps off a helicopter for a mission.”

  - General William C. Westmoreland

  IN JANUARY 1966, NORM DONEY WAS in Panama helping to establish the relatively new 8th Special Forces Group when orders came for South Vietnam. Married, his young wife pregnant with their first child, he figured he’d spent enough time away from his family and viewed his new orders with trepidation. All Doney knew was that he was being assigned to the 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne) in Nha Trang, and would receive specific assignment orders upon his arrival. He’d only been informed that due to losses relating to some obscure secret project in the An Loa Valley, Project Delta was seeking experienced men to fill critical slots. Doney enjoyed a solid reputation, and since he had previously deployed on White Star, a classified project in Laos during 1961, he was just what they were looking for. Learning that Ron Terry, his demo sergeant during White Star, was among the men missing, Doney immediately volunteered for Project Delta.

  During the early years, Special Forces circles were small, and nearly all the NCOs who’d been around for a while knew everyone else; a man’s reputation followed him. Project Delta, with some of the most experienced and capable NCOs, was no exception. Arriving in Nha Trang, Doney discovered he knew most of those assigned. He reported to B-52 in April while Wiley Gray was in charge of Recon, and was immediately assigned to a recon team. Lieutenant Colonel John Warren was the commanding officer. Doney acknowledged that Warren was “a pretty good commander.” Typically a commander would turn-over every six months, but the NCOs, especially in Recon, were Project Delta’s backbone. Many NCOs stayed on, or returned for several tours to ensure the continuity and experience of the Project. Master Sergeant Jim Shoulders was among those, and the first to welcome Doney to Recon.

  Doney vividly recalled his first recon operation with B-52, Project Delta. B-52 had just deployed six recon teams, one company of the 81st Rangers, the 2nd Platoon of 171st Aviation Company, and one USAF FAC in support of the 1st Infantry Division operating near Tay Ninh. Sergeant First Class Charlie Telfair was his One Zero, and four VNSF recon personnel went along. Doney’s team, Recon Team-1, was to conduct reconnaissance and surveillance within their assigned area, determine the location and movement of enemy units on the eastern flank of the 1st U.S. Infantry Division and conduct air strikes and direct artillery fire against targets of opportunity.

  Team-1, along with two other teams placed in adjacent areas, went in without incident at last light on 7 May 1966. As the helicopter lifted away, leaving them on the LZ, Telfair started his point man into the jungle. Doney felt a strong feeling of being alone. They moved rapidly and silently to distance themselves from the commotion caused during their drop off. Traveling until too dark to navigate further, Telfair signaled the point man to stop, and in a dense thicket they set up a tight perimeter defense to wait out the night. Doney recalled being awakened around midnight by loud rumbling—it sounded like a freight train headed through their campsite—and being lifted a foot off the ground. It was only after he cleared the fog of sleep from his head that he realized what had made the commotion. Someone had forgotten to tell them about a scheduled B-52 bomb
strike nearby with 2,000-pound bombs. That “friendly” incident scared him as much as any subsequent enemy encounter.

  Back at the FOB, it was being reported that Team-2, dropped into an adjacent area, had encountered heavy enemy concentration; they were on the run and had requested immediate extraction. Three additional recon teams were slated to infiltrate the following morning, but had to abort due to poor weather. They’d be unable to deploy until the evening of 8 May. On the ground, Team-5 had successfully penetrated the enemy’s outer defenses and reported VC work details preparing fighting positions. They also observed numerous well-equipped NVA troops milling about. Inching forward slowly and cautiously, they tried to traverse the forces’ flanks to determine how far the defenses stretched, but after encountering enemy forces from several directions, knew they had been detected and were being systematically surrounded. Eventually, the mission deteriorated into a running gun battle to simply stay alive, and a wild helicopter extraction under intense automatic fire.

  Compromised, Team-3 had also been extracted under heavy fire after they directed forty-four air strike sorties, killing an estimated 150 NVA soldiers. It was now obvious the area was saturated with NVA and VC units, and further recon team movement would be extremely dangerous.

  Through radio traffic, Doney’s team picked up enough information to understand that large enemy concentrations were moving through their area; they knew they had to be extremely careful. Using stealth and secrecy, the team moved cautiously throughout the next day across mostly flat but dense vegetation. They determined the enemy was not using any main roads or trails, but always had a security force of at least two-to-five men, well in front of the main body. The point man held them up as they came to a small clearing; they observed two bicycles leaning against a hut while men’s voices came from inside. They could’ve taken it out, but it wasn’t their mission. Instead they pulled back, skirted the clearing and then dropped onto a rocky creek bed. They followed the creek for a mile, finally coming to a bridge that had been partially destroyed by previous air strikes. Doney climbed a small tree and spotted two NVA soldiers coming toward him.

  He motioned for the team to remain silent, and waited, scarcely breathing. “One of them looked right at me,” Doney recalls. “I think he saw me...but didn’t see me...if that makes any sense. Think what it’s like when you look at something but it doesn’t register, because you don’t expect it to be there. Anyway, they walked right past us.”

  As Doney began to descend, he froze. A larger contingent of uniformed men appeared, camouflaged with shrub limbs and brush, headed directly toward him. Doney whispered down to Telfair, “Get on the horn and call for an air strike. There’s a squad coming down the trail.”

  Telfair moved away from the trail, contacted headquarters and had begun delivering his report when Doney urgently whispered, “Make that a platoon.”

  Telfair began to broadcast again, but then was interrupted again. “No, wait. It’s a company.”

  Amazed by the sheer size of this adversary, Doney watched as an officer directed troops to either the right or left side of the trail, apparently for a break. He surmised he’d been wrong. It was at least a battalion of NVA soldiers, and he suspected even more, because he could hear movement and voices in the thick vegetation. He was concerned they would hear his heart pounding. Telfair whispered urgently into the radio handset, calling for an air strike, as Doney scurried down the tree.

  It was an anxiety-filled hour before the FAC finally appeared. When the pilot saw the massive numbers, it didn’t take long for the jets to arrive—within minutes a jet sonic boom startled them into action. Then others came in lower, their 500-pound bomb blasts and napalm shattered the jungle quiet. Doney and Telfair both grinned—this was the sound of freedom and they loved it. As soon as the air strike began in earnest and they could tell the ordnance was falling accurately, Telfair called for extraction. The only clearing suitable for a LZ was close to the enemy battalion being blasted by air strikes, but they had little choice. It would have to do. Covertly, they successfully traversed around the air strike, reaching their destination without incident—they waited breathlessly, expecting to be attacked at any moment.

  Time dragged as the team huddled near the edge of the LZ, precariously close to at least a regiment of swarming NVA soldiers. When Doney finally saw the chopper coming in, his team leaped up and ran onto clearing, anxious to be in position, so as to limit their exposure in the opening. The chopper’s skids were still six feet from the ground when the enemy realized what was happening and opened up. The pilot took a hit in the foot, while the door gunner took one through his hand. The team watched helplessly as the chopper pulled up and flew off, leaving them stranded on the LZ. There was no time to make plans; if they were to survive, they’d have to get away fast! The helicopter’s aborted attempt had given away their position; the enemy would be upon them within minutes. Quickly, they faded into the jungle, miraculously evading enemy detection. They soon found a spot to hole up until dark, when they would try to slip away.

  It was nearly dark when Telfair was given another pickup point, but they had to reach it before dark or look forward to being holed up another night. Their concern was that the suitable LZ they’d been given was only a short distance from the enemy-occupied village that had been previously pounded to rubble by air strikes.

  “We’ve got no choice,” Telfair shrugged. “We either make it to that LZ or we’re stuck here. Move out.”

  Reaching it involved using all their skill and stealth. At times, the team scooted along on their bellies between machinegun bunkers— one enemy patrol passed within five meters as they lay beside a narrow trail. Skirting through the enemy’s positions and the heavy patrols between them and their potential designation, the team finally made it at dusk to the edge of the LZ. They knew they weren’t yet out of the woods, for when the chopper arrived, the enemy patrols opened up again. This time, the pilot held firm until all were aboard and extracted them under heavy fire. Although bullet holes dotted the chopper’s fuselage, remarkably neither the team nor helicopter crew sustained casualties. Norm Doney, relieved to survive his first Delta recon experience, and no longer the FNG, asked Telfair if they were always that tenuous. Telfair never hesitated, replying, “Always.”

  Project Delta spent much time in the Tay Ninh area of operations before being pulled back to Nha Trang. They’d lost a FAC, a number of Rangers and other Recon colleagues while there. When General William Westmoreland visited the FOB to receive a briefing, he commented to MAJ Allen, “Every man in Recon deserves the Bronze Star with ‘V’ device each time he steps from the helicopter for a mission.”

  One month later, Doney accompanied SFC Charlie Harper and four VNSF recon men into Tay Ninh to support the 25th Infantry Division. Plans were quickly drawn for B-52 to deploy a combined U.S./VN Delta Headquarters for the FOB; six recon teams, the 81st Airborne Ranger Battalion, previously designated as the 91st Airborne Rangers, one USAF FAC and a platoon of the 281st AHC (Project Delta).

  MSG Norman Doney (left) accepts the Bronze Star with “V” device from MAJ Charles “Bruiser” Allen, CO, Project Delta, Nha Trang, 9 Feb 1968. (Photo courtesy of Norman Doney)

  “We went in just before dark,” Doney reminisced. “That’s the way I liked doing it because if we ran into trouble on the LZ, they’d have only an hour or so of daylight before it got too dark for them to chase us. We wanted to go as far as we could before darkness set in, so we followed the river, then a small tributary leading west toward where we’d seen smoke rising above the trees as we flew in. We knew around dusk would be when they lit their cooking fires. We figured to hone-in on that and call in an air strike as they were having dinner. We had to be careful in the dark though, or we might just stumble into their camp.”

  As Team-1 moved silently along the small river, they could hear bamboo reeds clicking in a rhythmic cadence from the opposite bank. The team dropped to the ground, crawling until they could observe across th
e river. A formation of NVA soldiers appeared to be conducting Physical Training (PT), exercising in cadence to the clicking bamboo. Doney quickly got on the radio and reached the circling FAC, who was waiting for their call. Within minutes, the malevolent roar of jets filled the sky while bomb concussions shook the jungle. Doney noticed some smoke near his location and on his side of the river. He asked for an air strike on that position, and two jets came in low, splashing their napalm death over the targeted area. That strike was devastating, and as the NVA soldiers broke and ran for their lives, they headed straight toward them and their concealed location.

  “To this day I don’t know why they didn’t see us,” Doney mused. “I could’ve tripped some with my rifle if I’d wanted to. A few nearly stepped on me as they ran, trying to escape that terrible napalm rain. I figured we’d be history if we didn’t get out quickly.”