Operation Ivory Coast: MAJ George Petrie

Ken Harbaugh:

I’m Ken Harbaugh, host of Warriors In Their Own Words. In partnership with the Honor Project, we’ve brought this podcast back at a time when our nation needs these stories more than ever.

Warriors in Their Own Words is our attempt to present an unvarnished, unsanitized truth of what we have asked of those who defend this nation. Thank you for listening, and by doing so, honoring those who have served.

Today, we’ll hear from LtCol Howard Stidham. Stidham served in World War II with the Marine Raiders, a special ops force that specialized in amphibious guerilla warfare. In this interview, he recounts The Battle of Makin, the Long Patrol in Guadalcanal, and the Bougainville Campaign.

MAJ George Petrie:

George Petrie. Last name is spelled P-E-T-R-I-E. I retired as a major in from the U.S. Army. I served almost all of my time in Special Forces. I was a Sergeant First Class until 1970 and got a direct commission to First Lieutenant. Shortly after I was commissioned, I went on the Son Tay raid as a First Lieutenant.

We didn't find out what the mission was until the night we went. By that time, there's no backing out. They kept it very secretive, even from us. They initially had told us even the code name, Ivory Coast, that they put on it, Task Group Ivory Coast, was to lead everyone astray, to include us, thinking that we were just training as an anti-terrorist team or a hostage rescue team to be used in the Middle East. Until we really got into rehearsals, then it became obvious to you, we were going to bust a prisoner of war camp. And of course, when we saw the mock-up and everything like that, it was pretty obvious.

However, we didn't know where it was. Our assumptions it was going to be in Laos or going to be in North Vietnam, but most of us assumed it would be in Laos. And of course, there was also some guys even thought, well, it might be in South America, maybe it is in Saudi or in the Middle East. So they really didn't tell us what we were actually in reality going to do until the night we took off and that was in a pre-mission briefing. That's when Bull told us where it was. Oh yeah, yeah. Even if it had told us the first day wouldn't have made any difference and no one would've backed out.

We had three platoons, an assault platoon, which Dick had that actually went in the POW compound to break the prisoners out. We had a command platoon that had, of course, all the command and security elements. Then we had a support platoon that cleared the outside of the areas around the actual internment area. And there was a lot of competition between the platoon. And of course, Dick, our training schedule while we were in rehearsals normally consisted of us having the morning off and going to work at 1:00, doing all afternoon training and then night training until we finished. Dick got us up at 6:00 every morning. We took a very rigorous PT, physical training, and then he found something for us to do that morning before we actually started training schedule.

So training was very, very intensive, particularly once we started in the rehearsals.

The Air Force had to really plan it down to almost a minute detail. You fly a heading of 180 degrees for eight miles and turn right on another heading, fly that for three miles at a certain altitude and turn right. And they practiced that extensively over the southern United States. And of course we, during training, we flew two full profiles. But the route in the navigation was very intricate, and actually the ground plan was too, particularly once we got into... The basic plan was pretty simple, but once we got into alternate plans, what happens if this opportunity doesn't get there? What happens if the command platoon doesn't get there? Who has to do this? Who has to do? So we had quite a few, we had several various alternate plans and we had to rehearse those.

The individual raiders, almost all of them carried CAR-15s, which is a commando version, short barrel version, folding stock version of the M-16. We did have a couple of guys that did carry M-16s. We had M-60 machine guns. We had M-79 grenade launchers. We even had some LAWs, light anti-tank weapon. And every man was armored a .45. The weapons that we used when we first started in our rehearsals, our marksmanship was gross. It was horrible. At night, 50 meters, we were getting maybe 25% hits on the silhouette targets where the guards were supposed to be. This was throughout the whole raid force. A few exceptions were the guys that just were exceptional marksmen.

Colonel Simons was looking in a Field and Stream or gun magazine, Gunsmith, and saw an advertisement for what was called a single-point aiming site. It was like a scope except you couldn't see through it. It had a blue dot in it, and it was an aiming device and you mounted it on the carrying handle of the CAR-15. First, it had to zeroed to the weapon and then your eye, you had to zero it to the site. It was really strange because most shooters are used to closing one eye and shooting. Initially, you had to fire with both eyes open because your left eye, which is your master eye, if you were right-handed, looked in the site and saw the dot. Your right eye looked at the target and it was instantaneous. We had a strap configured around the thing where it was on your neck, to where when you brought the weapon up, you already had your spot well, and it was in perfect condition. So if you were looking at the target, you hit it without a doubt. Our marksmanship, our hit rate went up to over 95% and it was enough. You were very confident with that weapon. It took us about two weeks to get used to it, but once we got used to it, the confidence rate in that weapon was absolutely magnificent.

As far as the NVA on scene, they were in total, absolute shock. We had the support platoon, Colonel Simon's helicopter, he was on, Udo Walther's platoon. They were behind us. The way we came in was we had a CH-53 gunship flown by Marty Donahue in the lead, and their job was to guide us in and use their mini-guns to take out the guard towers. Then we had the assault platoon, then we had the support platoon right behind us. Well, somehow or another, Marty got mislined. When we came out of the valley, out of the mountains into the valley where the camp was, we knew there was another compound about 500 meters south of the camp, but it was supposed to be like a officer school or something, the cadet school. Well, somehow or another, Marty got confused, somebody got mixed up. Best mistake that could have ever have happened, by the way. And he went to that compound. Well, he started over, the mini-guns started firing. Of course, we started firing out the windows, the three or four of us in our helicopter that had targets inside the compound as we approached. And all of a sudden, Marty realized, this is the wrong camp. Well, our pilot, who's right behind him, saw it. So Marty banked off, our pilot banked off, and we went up to the main camp.

Well, the fourth, fifth, and sixth helicopters saw this happen, and they followed us. Well, Colonel Britton, who was flying the support helicopter, as we made our approach in, he had already pulled out of the formation to land on the LZ right beside the compound. Well, the ground looked the same, rice paddies. So he landed and they got out. And it turned out, it wasn't a cadet school. It was a fully manned school with about 150, 200 troops in there. Most of them were not Vietnamese. They were either Chinese or Russian or a mixture because the great big guys. They had almost all uniform. They had nice t-shirts on and stuff. They didn't have time to put their uniforms on. They had a hell of fight there for about six minutes. And our guys killed a lot of them. And then, Britton came back in and picked them up.

The point is, that was a mistake. Had that not have happened, we would've had a major force 500 meters away that could really raised hell with the mission. As it was, they didn't. They were neutralized.

Well, at the main site, command platoon had already gone into the alternate plan if support didn't get there. And when support did get there, they just did a phase through. And we came out of there with one broken ankle and one bullet graze to the tune of probably, there's been a lot of numbers thrown around of how many were killed that night. No one will ever really know except maybe the North Vietnamese, and I doubt if they know. But there were a substantial amount of North Vietnamese killed that night, and wounded.

Our landing was very hard. The CH-3 helicopter, the other platoons came in in CH-53s, which was the Super Jolly Green. You're familiar with that. The compound where we had to land, we had to crash it. We had to land inside the prisoner compound, the quadrant or the closed in, walled in area. And the helicopter had to be small enough to land in that small area. Well, the Huey was fine, but you couldn't ride a Huey four hours and be able to do anything, not with 12 people inside. So we used the CH-3, which we could put 13 members plus extra gear. But Bull did not, Colonel Simon's, and the Air Force and General Manor did not want the pilot to be jockeying around trying to land it safely and take off again with it, because that's the way pilots are. They're going to try to make it an easy landing so they are careful landing so they can get the plane back out. So it was intended to crash the airplane in, just make a crash landing regardless. And we had it already preset with charges to blow it up.

When we landed, came in over the wall, he had accelerated and came in a little bit too low because we had to do some gyrations right before we got in. And when he landed, there was a pole in the trees. There were some big trees in the compound, huge oak trees. Well, one of the hidden amongst the oak trees was this large concrete pole, which they had been doing. They were going to make a volleyball court out there for the guys to play in, I guess. Rotor blade hit the pole and, of course, into the trees and that just... When the helicopter landed, it just spun it like that. Well, I was supposed to have been the second man out because my team sergeant, I was in the right door. My team, Sergeant Kimmer, Tom Kimmer was supposed to come out in front of me and get in the position to cover me when I knocked out the front gate guard tower.

Well, it didn't happen that way. When he did the skew like that, I wasn't holding on. It just catapulted me straight out. But it was a hard landing and pieces of the tree limbs and everything were flying around through the compound.

I hit the ground running. The only problem was we rehearsed that thing so many times. We rehearsed it like 165 times, that everybody had a set route and you knew exactly what your route was. And the good benefit of that is you rehearse it so many times, you do what you're supposed to do and your mind doesn't have to worry about it. Your mind is available to deal with the unexpected. So finally, when I hit the ground running, I was actually going in the wrong direction. It took me a few seconds to get oriented because I said, "No, this ain't right. I'm supposed to be here." And I got confused, but I did manage to get over to the front gate guard tower, which was another mess.

Going in, it was kind of unreal. Our biggest fear that all of us had from day one, and particularly once we got to our launch site in Thailand, and even up until the time of crossing in the North Vietnam, was that the politicians would call it off. Somebody weak dick-it back in Washington and say, "Oh no, we can't do this." And that was the biggest fear. And going in, it was kind of unreal. Once we landed and got into compound, particularly my platoon, we knew right away that there were no prisoners there. The guards were there. There was a full complement of guards at the camp, plus there were several construction workers. They were remodeling the camps, that's why they'd moved to prisoners because of the floodplain there.

Almost instantly, once we hit the ground, there was no American voices and we were expecting that. In our rehearsals when other guys would play the part of prisoners, they would holler at you and everything. And we knew they'd be yelling and hollering and everything, but it was absolute silence in the cell blocks. The only noise, of course, were the guns going off and stuff like that, but there were no American voices. And I knew within the first couple of minutes that we had hit a dry hole.

The agency and the aerial photographs, CIA and the aerial photographs and all the intelligence said that the front gate guard tower was either just a shed or a small tower, and maximum security was supposed to be underneath it either in a cellar or on the first little floor of it. And fortunately, I practiced throwing a grenade. I had to throw a stun grenade into the tower to knock any guards that might be out there before anybody could really do anything inside the compound. So I would do a lot of training practicing at night back in Florida, throwing dummy grenades through tires, and I put them at different angles, but I never put one 35-feet high. And that's how high that sucker was, at least 35-feet high. It was 18-feet across at the base. Great big, huge concrete deal.

And I'm standing there and I'm holding a concussion grenade in my hand, and one of the guys covering me said, "Throw the grenade." And I said, "I can't throw the thing that far. It'll come back on us. And the guy said, "Throw it anyway." And I said, "Okay." And I popped it right in. I couldn't believe it. I stood there and looked at it for a couple seconds. I said, "God, I did it." So once that got out of the way, everything went all right, except the fact there wasn't anybody there.

As we came into the camp, we could see southwest of the camp about 15 kilometers, 20 kilometers south of that, southwest, a compound lit up like a football field. Looked like one of these Friday night Plano High School football deals. And it was, in fact, where the prisoners had been moved, and they were over 200 prisoners in that camp that night. And I found out talking to guys that were in there, my first cousin was a prisoner up there. He and I were raised by my grandmother, but he was in the camp that night. And as were some of the guys here in Dallas that were POWs, and they said the guards didn't even have ammunition for their weapons. He said they would walk around clicking them at night and playing with them. And the way the camp was set up, it'd been perfect if we could have gone there instead, we'd have come out with 200 prisoners instead of that 60 or 80, they had anticipated at Son Tay. That's the fortunes of war. There was a time for operation where there really wasn't. You couldn't go there and then pick up and go somewhere else and land. Number one, your ammunition's been expended. Number two, you're not trained for it. Number three, they're ready for you. They shot something like 40 or 50 SAM missiles at us that night, and they were salvoing them. Because, of course, SAM doesn't activate until it reaches a certain altitude and they were firing them like bullets.

That was the scariest part of whole mission, that 10-minute ride out. I've never seen anything like that in my life before. I don't know how those pilots did it. I wouldn't have done it. I wanted on the ground. I was hoping the helicopter would crash so I could get out, get my feet on the ground. I ain't like that.

You look out the window and it's a solid wall. I mean, it looks like a solid wall of tracers and fire. And when I got on a helicopter, like every GI that I've ever known, once you're on a helicopter coming out, you take all your stuff off and look for a cigarette to light up. Well, I did that. We lifted it off and started through that stuff. I put that cigarette out and put all shit my back, stuff back on and said, "Let me off this thing, Lord. Just put me on the ground."

Oh yeah, we all came out. Throughout the whole thing, we had one man, Leroy Wright, who is the crew chief on our helicopter, Air Force Tech Sergeant. His job, once the helicopter crashed, was to come support my team, help me out. And he had a compound fracture of his ankle when a fire extinguisher broke off, hit him in the ankle. He didn't say anything to anybody, came out, did his job, did everything he was supposed to do. Coming out after we'd come through the Hanoi flat screen, the air defenses and things settled down a little bit and everybody quit pissing their pants, he kind of shook me and said, "I think I'm hurt." And I looked down and pulled his pant leg back and up and the bone sticking straight out. I said, "God, Leroy." And we had a deal. I was going to give him my beret when we got back and he was going to give me the flight jacket he wore. So I told him, I said, "They're going to medevac you as soon as we land." I said, "I'm going to mail you my beret, but give me that flight jacket now. I'll never see it again."

It was a very bold move. The North Vietnamese absolutely were not expecting it. In fact, there was a diversion launched. The Navy launched a diversion down around Haiphong. They sent flights of planes in dropping flares, not bombs. The only planes that were armed were those for flak suppression and MiG support. And there hadn't been any bombing up there in almost a year or maybe even more than a year. And Hanoi lit up. I mean, they weren't under any blackout conditions or anything, so they weren't expecting anything like this. And when the Navy came in, all eyes went that way.

And then I know Colonel Bill Robinson, who's a friend of mine, was our operations officer. He was in a EC, one of them spook planes, spy planes flying out over the Gulf of Tonkin monitoring everything. And he said just a few seconds after we landed, there was this broadcast came across from the North Vietnamese. "There's been a landing. There's been a landing", in a very high-pitched voice. And somebody at one point in Vietnamese said, basically, "Screw it, they're everywhere." And there was a lot of ramifications, intelligence came back. They fired the Chief of Air Defense. I think they probably executed him later. That morning, the morning after the raid, the North Vietnamese government evacuated all their key people to Southern China. And a transport plane carried in 20 or 30 of them hit the side of a mountain that killed all of them. And for the next six months to a year, they committed all kinds of soldiers around in that area looking for people because the word was spread through false intelligence that some of the guys had stayed on the ground and stuff like that. So it tied down a lot of troops.

The main thing that the raid resulted in was, in addition to a very high morale kick in the butt for our guys, they loved it. And the families back home did too, most of them did, once they were reassured that nobody got killed, none of the POWs were killed, was the fact that up until that time, they had these little outlying camps like Son Tay and Faith and the camp that the guys were in, the 200 were in, and they had them spread out in different places. Very few were actually in the Hanoi area at the Hilton or at the Plantation or the Zoo, which were the three main camps there. They were sparsely populated at that time. And they would keep these guys in either solitude, solitary confinement for years, or maybe one or two guys in a cell. They wouldn't let them talk. They were very strict on them. Well, after the raid, they had to close all those outlying camps. They moved all these guys together and they were in 20 to 40, 50-man rooms, big, huge rooms together. And once that happened, they were able to organize themselves in a more structured organization, which later became known as the Fourth Allied POW Wing. And even though they kept a lot of the seniors in solitary confinement, at least a lot of these guys to be together, to be able to communicate with each other verbally instead of tapping and all those kinds of things. And it shook the North Vietnamese to the core. The Russians and the Chinese both were very perturbed over it as far as giving them support and how did you let this happen and everything like that. And they lost face, which is big for the North Vietnamese, huge. Like the Bull said, we went and jerked their tail, had them by the ass, and they didn't know how to let go.

POW's went through a hell of a lot up there, and they're probably, I know there's a stigma on POW's going way back, but these guys were all heroes. Majority of them were. And I think the guys that went on the raid, they were lucky to go on the raid and they can be touted. We can be touted as heroes and, "Oh, you guys are great. You're Son Tay Raiders and all." But I think that every Son Tay Raider, to a man, represents all the Special Forces at that time, because I know there's probably not a man in Special Forces at that time woke up the next morning and said, "Oh my God, I wish I could have gone", and would've gone without any hesitation or doubt. So I think we represented all of Special Forces in that particular operation, particularly those guys that were interested in special operations. So thanks. That's about all I got to say.

Ken Harbaugh:

That was MAJ George Petrie.

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