Special Ops: Four Accounts of the Military's Elite Forces

by Orr Kelly

  Now up on the surface were all of these ships, probably seventy or eighty ships. That’s when they had a whole fleet of ships in the [Tonkin] gulf. We looked at them through the periscope. As far as you could see, there were ships. It looked like the World War II invasion of Normandy.

  And no one knew the Grayback was there. This submarine snuck in under all these ships with her battery motors and nobody knew it was there. At that time the Grayback was one of about four boats still battery powered. Everything else was nuclear. The nuclear boats are noisy. I don’t care how they try to quiet them down, they’re very noisy.

  So when we were sneaking through there the submarine crew just loved it. They’re sneaking through this big fleet and nobody knows they are there.

  Did you have to be quiet?

  When we were close to a ship, we were real quiet. You can’t use any of the machinery. You can’t flush the toilet. The SEALs were bored. We were just passengers. We’d take all the movies up in the dry deck shelter and watch movies all day. Then they would come in and say, you guys turn the projector off because we have to go on silence. They snuck in and they did that extremely well. That submarine snuck under everybody’s noses. You had all these ships up there and nobody expected a submarine.

  How long did it take to get through the fleet?

  They were doing it forever. When they ran the snorkel up at night, they would have to make sure they were not near a ship. It seemed like it took a couple of days. They let us look through the periscope. Not since D day in Normandy has anyone seen so many ships. It was scary. You go around with the periscope and they’re all over the place.

  Did the submarine crew know what was going on?

  Everybody on the boat knew something was up, when you bring on a platoon of SEALs and a platoon of frogmen. [The term frogmen is sometimes used, as here, to refer specifically to UDT swimmers.] That’s what the Grayback was designed to do, to sneak in there. They did it extremely well.

  Basically, what we were going to do was, we—the SEALs—were going to check out a couple of islands. The Grayback was going to take us as far up as it could, as close into shore as it could. And then the SDV was going to take us the rest of the way.

  Our instructions were to go on the beach and a friendly agent was going to approach us on the beach or there was going to be signaling by a red flag on a sampan coming down the river. Because of my previous experience in Vietnam, I was going to be the official greeter of the friendly agent, who would be leading one or two, three or four escaped POWs—we didn’t know how many people there were going to be—and we were going to try to get them back to the submarine.

  From my experience in Vietnam, I knew a lot of these guys fly a flag and a lot of them are red. So that was going to be a tough thing to call. They were going to be coming down the river and they were going to be on the coast, maybe on one of these islands. We were to go out and check the islands. I was going to approach them if we somehow came across them on the beach and somehow get them back to the Grayback.

  Now, how were we going to get them back to the Grayback? It was going to be either a swim, after a five-minute lesson in how to use our equipment; it might have been a surface transit with the SDV; or it could have been an IBS—a rubber boat.

  The idea was that the first SDV crew would go over and feel the area out, check the conditions. Look for anybody who might have a red light—it might have been at night—or a red flag. And then the two SEALs would stay ashore for a day or two and get relieved in a couple of days. And that was it.

  Before we went, we tried to figure out the tides and the current from the river and everything. We laid it out with a compass. We said, we only have to go three thousand or four thousand yards. That’s easy. Well, it’s easy in San Diego or Subic Bay. But when you’ve got to work with that huge river current they have there and cope with the tides, even if you plan it with the tides, it could run against you. It ran against us. We launched about midnight. [3–4 June 1972.] But we underestimated the currents. The SDV kept going and going and going.

  John [Lutz, the SDV pilot] says, “You know, we’re not moving very far. We must have a hell of a current.”

  We made the decision to turn around and try to get back. The plan was, the submarine would send a signal out at specific times and we had a receiver so we could find them.

  We ran and ran and ran all night. Finally, the SDV batteries gave out. We launched just before midnight and just before dawn the SDV batteries gave out. That means there’s no way to get the SDV back to the submarine. Our contingency plan, in case we had to abandon the SDV, was we would stay in the water, swim as far out to sea as we could, stay together, and initiate our radio recall—we had these waterproof radios—and then they would pick us up by search and rescue helicopter.

  So anyway, the SDV runs out of battery juice and we have to bail out. We actuate our call sign and the helicopters come by to pick us up. Even though we had turned around, we were still quite a ways off from the Grayback. It was farther out than I thought. It had to stay in eighty feet of water.

  So we get picked up by a helicopter. The only thing we could salvage out of the SDV was the communications equipment and that was critical. We had to get those out. Some of those systems had regulators hooked up to them and that’s how we talked to each other. It was hard to get a system and it was kind of expensive.

  It was really the only thing we could salvage out of the boat. We couldn’t get the motor, we couldn’t get the batteries. We damn sure couldn’t pick up the boat. It’s seven or eight o’clock in the morning. Broad daylight.

  John Lutz, the SDV officer, says we’re going to have to sink the boat. The SDV kept floating, no matter what we tried to do in the water. Normally, you pump increments of water into the SDV to balance it and that sucker will sink. Well that boat just sat on the surface.

  There was a minigun in the door of the helicopter.

  So John says, “Can you shoot that thing full of holes?”

  The air crewman naturally nods, yeah.

  The guy shoots and he doesn’t know where to shoot so John says, “I’ll shoot it.”

  Poor John, there’s almost a tear in his eye as he pulls the trigger. He just saturated it. He knew what tanks to hit. The boat sank finally.

  So we go back to the [cruiser USS] Long Beach instead of going to the Grayback, for obvious reasons.

  We tell the guy in charge there they have to let the guys on the submarine know they have to plan for the current.

  John says, “Hey, whatever happens to the next operation, be sure they plan it with the current. Because that current—when the tide is ebbing, there is going to be a hell of a current coming out of the river. So you have to plan on that. You have to either move the Grayback or do this or that or do something to compensate so you can get to that island.”

  But the Grayback is on radio silence and they don’t put their antenna up because the last time they did that someone shot at them. [The crew of a destroyer, the USS Harold E. Holt, spotted the submarine and fired at it but fortunately missed.] The Grayback only sticks their snorkel up at night to charge their batteries. The communication, when they did stick it up, was real sparse. Not very good. Somehow, they didn’t get the word.

  But on the Long Beach, we know that [Lts.] Bob Conger and Tom McGrath are going to launch the second SDV. Jesus Christ, that’s going to be a problem if they do that. So we can’t get the Grayback on the radio to warn them. Spence Dry and John Lutz and myself figured we’ve got to get back to stop them or brief them before they take off.

  So the decision was made. They say, “Okay, we’re going to send you back”—the SDV crew from the first op.

  We got the sub to put up Nancy gear, the infrared gear, on the snorkel. They were going to put the snorkel up with an infrared light on it. The helicopter was going to home in and drop us before that other SDV was launched. We had to talk to the pilot and navigator of the SDV before they go out, before 2300.

 
We briefed the helicopter pilot. We told him the snorkel was going to be up, there’s going to be infrared on the snorkel facing seaward. So the approach would have been from the seaward toward the shore.

  The pilot flew around and he had trouble locating the Grayback. And when he finally found what he thought was the infrared signal, it was an actual red light. He flies toward it. And it’s right on the beach!

  Boy! The helicopter makes this 90-degree turn, a U-turn as quick as I’ve seen anybody do it. I’ll tell you! So we flew around and as we came around, the pilot says, “All right, I see this light. I’m coming in on this light.”

  He was using infrared gear somehow. I look and I see, yeah, we’re about two-three thousand yards offshore. It was real windy and it was real dark and the water was real choppy.

  Prior to the helicopter taking off, we told the pilot we wanted to make sure that the height and the speed was clear, that it was no higher—absolutely no higher—and I’m looking at this guy. He had a red mustache, big lieutenant. I said, absolutely no higher than twenty feet, twenty knots.

  And he said, “Well, I’ll try to get you as close as I can to that.”

  I said, “If you’ve got to go lower, go lower, but absolutely no higher. I’d also like to have some control from the door. If I think you’re a little too high, I’m going to ask you to come down a little bit.”

  I know how these pilots are. They don’t like people telling them how to fly their airplanes. By the same token, I want to have my own life in my hands.

  You took charge even though Spence Dry was senior in rank?

  Yeah, I did that because of my experience. Out of all the SEALs there I was the guy who had the most experience with cast and recovery. But we did it as part of our training before going on the Grayback. So everybody knew how to do it.

  Most people who have done a lot of cast and recovery, they can tell when a helicopter gets close to the water because the prop blast will blow water up. If it’s right up to you, if that foam or spray is there, you’re fine. That helicopter is probably five feet from the surface. He’s real close, five or ten feet. We usually judge—we look out the back of the helicopter just past the tail. If you can see the spray there, you’re ten, fifteen, maximum twenty feet. If you don’t see any spray, that sucker is a little bit higher.

  We told that to the helicopter crew.

  We came around and the air crewman who was going to drop us on the command from the pilot, he says, “Are you ready to go?”

  Then he says, “Go!”

  I stick my head out and I say, “Hold it! Hold it! We’re way too high! Ask the pilot to go around.”

  The helicopter makes a slow turn, comes around again, comes up on the pass again. Before, I had told the pilot, if at all possible, to try to drop us upwind. Chances for the helicopter slowing down would be a lot better. So he said, yeah, he was going to do that.

  We came around the second time and I looked at it and I said, “Hey, bring this sucker down another five feet.”

  I feel it lowering. Another five feet. But I don’t see any spray and I canceled the second pass. And then I canceled the third pass and I canceled the fourth pass.

  Each time I cancel a pass, the helicopter is turning quicker and quicker. Finally Spence Dry comes up to me. I remember seeing his face in that red light.

  He says, “Hey, Moki, we’ve got to get back there as quick as we can because these guys are taking off.”

  So I say all right. I tell the air crewman, “Tell that pilot to get down. Let’s get some water spray on the tail of this sucker. We’re way, way, way too high.”

  So he comes around and I look out and I think I can see some spray. Even though it’s dark, that white spray will carry. Finally, I saw it. This is it. The pilot gives the word to the air crewman, go. And I look over and I say, “It looks good.”

  I step back. I was going to be the third guy out.

  We waited a few seconds. That’s critical, when we wait a few seconds because your altitude can change. So the guy says, “Go!”

  Spence goes out. John Lutz goes out. I go out. Then Edwards went out. The plan was, the first two guys hook up and swim toward the second two guys. They hookup and swim toward the first two guys.

  I go out the door and I turn in the direction of the helicopter. I hold my hand up so I can angle my body down.

  I’ve got a wet-suit top on and I’ve got my camouflage uniform over that and then I had my web equipment and a Swedish K submachine gun. Our procedure is to unhook all your web gear so in case you get hurt you can dump real quick. Then we had swim fins under our arm.

  So I turned and faced the direction the helicopter was going and I stuck my hand up and I counted: One thousand. Two thousand. Three thousand. And I didn’t hit the water by three thousand.

  I said, “Goddamn!”

  And then I hit the water, wham! To me, in my mind, that’s four seconds. Sixteen feet the first second, 32 feet the second second, 64 feet the third second. So I don’t know how high we were. I do know we were way, way, way above twenty feet, twenty knots.

  I also hit very hard. Boom! And I went sideways and I twisted my knee a little bit. And it was choppy.

  The next thing I notice is that as I turned to find the guy who went out after me, I see the helicopter going this way and I turn and the wind is blowing the other way. The wind is blowing a good ten-fifteen knots.

  So I say, “Goddamn, this sucker dropped us downwind.”

  I call for Edwards, the guy I’m supposed to hook up with. And I get no answer. Then I call on the other side, for the guy who went out before me, John Lutz.

  John says, “I’m hurt, I can’t hardly swim. My knee is hurt. My back is hurt”

  I say, “Well listen, you try to find Spence and I’ll find Edwards.”

  For about ten or fifteen minutes there are the two of us. I would zigzag toward the direction Edwards was in and zigzag back. We’re supposed to be like twenty-five yards apart.

  I swam up to John. I say, “I can’t find him. You find Spence?”

  He says, “No. I can’t find him. He’s not answering.”

  I say, “Oh, no, we lost two guys. Let me try to go find Edwards again.”

  So I swim down for the third or fourth time and on the way back, I get my head up and I’m listening. I remember bringing my head up and I hear a moan, and I’m not kidding you, probably less than five feet away from me is Edwards and he’s kind of floating facedown and so I bring his head up. He was hurt so bad that he couldn’t flip over on his back. And I just barely heard his groan and just barely saw him.

  So I grab him, inflate his life jacket, and swim him back up to Lutz. And I say, “John, you hold him. I’m going to find Spence.”

  So I swim on the other side, downwind and zigzagging as much as five yards on either side of the track I thought he was on. And I had John call to me every few seconds so I wouldn’t get lost. I couldn’t find Spence. I did that three or four times.

  I think, “Oh no, now what is going on? This is something that has turned into shit.”

  I get back and John and I are sitting there and we are calling and calling. About an hour goes by after the drop. We’re still calling and we hear, “We’re over here!” [Martin learned later that the second SDV had launched about the time he and his colleagues were preparing to jump into the water in an effort to warn the other crew about the dangers they faced.]

  So we swam maybe fifty or seventy-five yards—not far away. We find the second SDV crew. We find Tom McGrath, Bob Conger, and Steve McConnell, who was the navigator.

  I go, “What the hell are you guys doing here? You guys were not supposed to launch. Didn’t you get the word?”

  Well, they say, we wanted to go on the op and this and that and find these guys and we got carried away. They didn’t say that but that’s what happened. Everybody got carried away with the whole prospect of liberating some American people.

  I say, “Where is Sam Birkey?” He’s the other SE
AL.

  They say, “Well, we lost the SDV.”

  I say, “What do you mean you lost the SDV? I can tell you how we lost ours. How’d you lose yours?”

  “Well, we launched off the Grayback and the thing sank like a rock so we abandoned it”

  So I go, “Jesus Christ, has this thing turned into shit or what?”

  They had left Birkey in the SDV. They didn’t want to admit they had left him in the SDV.

  I’m thinking, “Here I am, I’ve been in Vietnam for a little over two years, been shit at and shot at and you name it and I’ve done it and I’m going to die with a bunch of these dummies.”

  I didn’t mean that literally. But I have no control. When I put my life in somebody else’s control, I’ve lost my destiny. That’s exactly what was happening on that operation.

  I’m in the water. I’m less than two thousand yards from shore and all night long we hear these patrol boats start up because we’re near this one island that has these patrol boats. I could see myself behind bamboo bars.

  So I said, “All right, everybody, let’s swim to sea.”

  So we’re swimming to sea. The obvious thing is to swim to sea. So somebody pulls their radio out and starts calling the helicopter. This is one o’clock in the morning.

  I say, “That sucker is not going to come out until seven.”

  “Well, let’s try.”

  So they turn on the radio, which has two modes. One is voice mode in which you can actually talk to them. And there’s three or four different channels for it. And then there’s the other one that sends out a continuous signal. So they’re doing all of this. And I say, the only thing you’re doing is telling those guys over there.

  You could see the lights on shore.

  The wind died down about an hour later and it was relatively calm. There’s all this pissing and moaning. And I hear this, “Get your foot out of my face!” And I think, now what the hell is this?

  I looked across this tight group of guys. I’ve got Edwards on one arm and we’re swimming. These other three guys are, I guess they are following.