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9th ITT History
By Ron Bragdon


      The 9th ITT was stood up as part of the 1st Marine Division aboard Camp Pendleton, CA in December 1965. After three months at DLI, the 9th ITT arrived in Da Nang, Vietnam on 19 April 1966. The 9th ITT was moved to the airfield in Chu Lai and relieved the 7th ITT (also formed in 1965). The ITT operated primarily out of an interrogation facility on the south end of the airfield, but also supported the combat troops. 9th ITT members provided that support in: Operation Hotsprings (22-23 Apr 1966), Operation Montgomery (7-15 May 1966), Operation Oakland (29 Jun-1 Jul 1966), Operation Franklin (27-29 Aug 1966), Operation Fresno (8-17 Sep 1966), and Golden Fleece (18-20 Sep 1966).

AS I RECALL: "THE FORMING AND DEPLOYMENT OF THE 9TH INTERROGATION TRANSLATION TEAM (9th ITT)"

Note:  The following is a brief history of the forming, training (or lack thereof), and deployment to the then Republic of Viet Nam (RVN) of the 9th ITT.  What follows is purely the recollection of the author and may suffer some inaccuracies due to age and senility.

      During the summer of 1965 the author was an instructor at The Track Vehicle School in the 21 Area at Camp Pendleton and chaffing at the bit to get to Viet Nam.  A number of AA forms had been submitted to HQMC requesting reassignment apparently to no avail.  Then out of the blue there arrived a set of orders to the         (9th ITT) and a move to mainside at Camp Pendleton.  The 9th ITT along with the 7th ITT and two Interpreter Teams (don't recall the designations) were being formed and preparing for a short course of instruction in Vietnamese at the Defense Language Institute, West Coast (may have still been the Army Language School) in Monterey, California.

      Members of the team came from a variety of MOSs and a variety of backgrounds.  The original 9th ITT was manned by:

                 Capt. George Gaumont, Team Commander

                 1stLt.Bob Madigan (Lawyer)

                 1stLt Dick Morley (Supply)

                 2ndLt Denny Ellerman (Intelligence)

                 GYSGT St. Hilaire Team Chief

                 SGT Davis

                 SGT James

                 SGt Rogers

                 SGT Stockton

                 SGT Winkler

      Three other members of the Team: CPL Crockett, CPL Kahn, and LCPL Massey were still in language training and would join the Team after deployment to RVN.

      After forming, the first order of business was a series of lectures on RVN and talking with some interrogators and translators who had been in country and their advice on interrogations techniques, etc. There was no time, apparently, for formal instruction at the Army Intelligence School at Ft. Holabird.  I recall very little time spent on Interrogation.  Most of the training time was devoted to lectures on the UCMJ, Code of Conduct and weapons familiarization.  In about October 1965 the two ITTs and ITs headed for Monterey and a 12 week short course of instruction in Vietnamese.  We only had one team member who spoke Vietnamese (SGT Earl Davis) the rest of us were either French, Russian, or Chinese speakers.  The three months at Monterey could be the subject of an entire manuscript.  Suffice it to say we knew we were going to Viet Nam and we partied as well as studied Vietnamese.  All of us, somehow or the other, managed to graduate but after only three months of training were not very fluent. 

      Upon our arrival back at Camp Pendleton our major goal was to get some interrogation training and receive new equipment (everything from Jeeps to weapons to tents to admin supplies).

      Again, our actual interrogation training was more "sea stories" from Marines who had already served 6 months or so in Viet Nam as interrogator translators.  When we got ready to deploy we were issued classified orders (try taking those to Disbursing to get paid!), took care of personal business, and prepared to fly out of North Island.  One of the more amusing moments was taping out our jeep tactical markings and driving down Interstate 5 to San Diego.  The tactical markings were taped out so no one would know who we were or where we were going.  (This, in March 1966).  The 9th ITT and one of the ITs were going to the 1st MARDIV and the 7th ITT and one of the ITs to the 3rd MARDIV.

      The shortcoming in our training was actual interrogation techniques and detailed instruction in the nuances of the situation on the ground.

      When we arrived at Chu Lai the 3rd ITT (memory doesn’t serve me well here) Harold Weist, Gysgt Nichols and another member of the Third Team stayed with us for a couple of months(weeks?) to break us into actual interrogation of prisoners.  This period was critical to the later successes of the 9th Team. Of all the people instrumental in our learning experience Harold Weist spent more quality time with us giving us the nuts and bolts of interrogation techniques tailored to the  war we were fighting.

      The 9th Team stayed at Chu Lai and continued our support to the 1ST MARDIV until spring 1967.  We then moved to Danang, and with the influx of new ITTs, we were assigned support the 7th Marines on hill 55.

      I left the 9th Team in June 1968 and transferred to the 5th ITT at Camp Pendleton.

            The lack of training for Marine interrogators and the 02 community in general later became drivers for a revamp to intelligence training for Marines in the Intelligence Field in the early 70s.

 

Once Upon a Time in the Bo-Bans

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      The time was in the autumn of 1968. The place was on Hill 10 west of Freedom Hill, Hieu Duc District, Quang Nam Province, Vietnam. Hill 10 was the shared home of 1/7 and the District Headquarters. I was part of the 9th ITT sub-team assigned to 1/7.

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      Nearby villages and hamlets were Thuy Loan, the district market town, and a collection of hamlets known as the Bo Bans. (3 or 4 in all). Thuy Loan was a very active place with groceries and goodies being bought and sold on a daily basis. It was also the home of a Combined Action Platoon (CAP). The entire area was among the first areas to be “pacified” beginning in 1965. Tet of 1968 had come and gone, and the local Viet Cong (VC) were virtually decimated and used primarily for rice bearers and local guides. The real Communist power was the NVA. Contact in the Bo Bans was rare because almost no one lived there anymore.

      As with any unit that remains deployed beyond the limits of a single tour, 1/7 had a number of new company commanders with little to no combat experience in that role. The exception being Captain Robb (later governor of Virginia), who commanded the company stationed on Hill 69, on the far side of the Bo Bans from Hill 10. The battalion commander decided that a “Hammer and Anvil” operation from Thuy Loan through the Bo Bans to near Hill 69 (where that company would provide the anvil) would be a perfect opportunity for a command and control exercise, thereby improving the various commanders’ expertise. Actual contact was not anticipated, but could be dealt with should it occur.

      That being the case, I considered the operation to be a probable “milk run”, and remained on Hill 10 at the prisoner compound, in a stand-by mode.

      Interestingly enough, “green” company commanders is not an occurrence limited to the USMC. It seems that the 301st battalion of the First NVA Regiment (the Red River Regiment) had identically the same problem as 1/7. Their battalion commander decided that a little propagandize and rice collection operation to Thuy Loan would be just the ticket to give his company commanders a little war zone experience with little risk of contact with a force of any size.

      Both battalion commanders picked the same day over the same terrain from opposite directions.

      A note about how the Communist Armed Forces are organized is in order here. There are, as in our forces, a commanding officer (CO) and an executive officer (XO). Additionally, however, there is a political officer (PO) and assistant political officer (APO). In structure, the CO and PO are co-equals, as are the XO and APO. Each can countermand the other.

      The following was reported from the CAP unit resident in Thuy Loan:

      An NVA company was in Thuy Loan, and there were no US Marines to be found anywhere. The CO was a bit nervous because they had encountered no resistance at all in approaching the village. It appeared “too easy”, and he feared a trap of some sort. The PO however was very eager to do the propagandizing and collection portion of the operation and was adamant about staying in the ville. They were obviously arguing with each other about how to proceed as they walked through Thuy Loan.

      Eventually they arrived near the village HQ of the CAP unit, who were hunkered down in a bunker knowing that they were no match for this kind of military power. At about this time the NVA CO announced that he was going to pull his company out of the ville until they could determine where the USMC units were. The PO would have none of this, and proceeded to pull out his pistol and shot the CO, and left him for dead. The PO returned to the market area, and the CAP unit pulled the CO into the bunker and started giving aid. The CAP unit also radioed the District HQ as to what had just happened.

      District contacted 1/7 and informed them as to what was going on. Somehow (one of those mysteries of combat) both the USMC and the NVA had passed though each others’ lines without making contact. The maneuvering units of 1/7 reversed course, linked up on line, and swept back toward Thuy Loan. The CO was carried up to District by the CAP, and I was sent to District to find out what I could.

      What I found was one badly injured and highly incensed North Vietnamese officer who happened to speak a dialect very similar to the one I had been taught as my “home” dialect. The bullet had been removed and he had been administered some pain relief. He was a bit groggy. Once he realized who I was and why I was there, he called to the corpsman telling him to give him something to stay awake with. He then told me everything I have just related on the NVA side above. I had all I could do just to keep up with the writing.

      Realizing that we had Marine units on operation in the area, I rapidly began to ascertain the escape and retreat route the NVA planned to use that day. I was able to develop where the units were supposed to be hour-by-hour all the way back to their base-camp area in the Anamite Mountains to the west. Although the 1/7 units were able to establish some contact, by the time the information could be gotten to them, the NVA were beyond practical infantry range. However, the NVA were well within artillery and air strike range, especially given the intended time-table of the retreat schedule.

Post-log:

      A few weeks later in the normal course of warfare a member of the 301st of the 1st was captured. After interrogating him for the usual stuff for that day, I asked if he had been part of the operations in Thuy Loan a few weeks earlier. He had. I asked about the trip back to the mountains, and he said that it had been a very hard trip with lots of artillery and air strikes being brought to bear.

      Nice!