I really like navy historical past and specifically SOF and SI historical past, having served in each communities. I particularly respect the MI stuff since so little has been revealed. The US Military’s Navy Intelligence Soldier Heritage Studying Heart just lately shared this submit:
Picture: Personnel of the first ASTD, one of many ARVN items supported by the DARRS detachments
On 31 July 1970, the Military Safety Company (ASA) established Division Advisors Radio Analysis Assist (DARRS) Detachments in South Vietnam. The DARRS detachments had been an effort to additional the general “Vietnamization” of the warfare in addition to present direct help to the American advisors with Military of Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) divisions.
In early 1969, President Richard Nixon’s administration started a program to finish American involvement in Vietnam, which concerned increasing, equipping, and coaching South Vietnamese navy forces so they might take an elevated fight function whereas lowering the variety of American forces. As a part of this broader program, the ARVN started to arrange their SIGINT effort. To help their divisions, they organized ARVN Particular Technical Detachments (ASTDs) consisting of 4 officers and fifty-six enlisted personnel. Modeled on the ASA’s extremely profitable direct help items connected to American divisions and separate brigades, the ASTDs offered SIGINT help to fight divisions and handed data up the South Vietnamese cryptologic chain of command. On 1 July 1969, two ARVN divisions obtained the primary ASTDs.
Below the phrases of the Vietnamese Enchancment and Modernization Program, ASA’s 509th Radio Analysis (RR) Group, below Col. William W. Higgins, would help the ASTDs by offering mission tools and logistical help and by instructing the South Vietnamese on the right way to carry out their very own upkeep. All of the whereas, ASA leaders continued to take each alternative to press the ARVN to focus upon voice intercept and even provided on-the-job coaching by briefly assigning Vietnamese to the 509th RR Group’s personal low-level voice intercept groups.
Over the following 12 months, Higgins and his group informally supported the ARVN’s nascent SIGINT efforts. Below Undertaking SCREWDRIVER, 509th RR troopers commonly visited South Vietnamese components to cross on upkeep ideas and to make sure they had been receiving needed provides. These visits additionally proved a superb means to observe general operational progress.
On the similar time, intelligence help for American advisors turned extra important. Consequently, the 509th RR Group field-tested the idea of a workforce devoted to particularly help the senior American advisor for the first ARVN Division. This take a look at proved so profitable that the U.S. Navy Help Command, Vietnam (MACV) accredited the idea for all the ASTDs. On 31 July 1970, MACV and ASA established the DARRS detachments.
The DARRS detachments’ main operate was to cross SIGINT data to senior American personnel advising the South Vietnamese divisions and to offer a sanitized model for the ARVN commanders. As well as, DARRS personnel offered the ASTDs with fixed help and recommendation. Their influence was instantly evident and started to guarantee that the ARVN detachments had been operationally practical.
As one advisor famous, “For a very long time we had a scarcity of exhausting intelligence…The ninth DARRS has given us the power to make estimates and permit the commander to make selections.”
?Michael E. Bigelow
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