The Secure Communications Project

One of the problems with the ARDF program was communication between the aircraft and the Artillery Control Centers. Once we located the target, it took time to encrypt the information, contact the Artillery Center, transmit the message, decrypt it, and then send it to the operational artillery units. This processing time could allow the target to pack up and move if their commander suspected they had been located. It wouldn’t take a particularly astute VC to deduce that an American aircraft, with unusual antennae circling his position but not firing at him, must be triangulating his position with direction-finding equipment. Our headquarters in San Antonio, Texas, developed a secure FM voice communications system to address this issue. The 6994th Security Squadron Commander at Tan Son Nhut Air Base in Saigon chose our Detachment as the first unit to install, test, and implement the system. Our operations officer assigned me to serve as the liaison for the Vietnam area in the pilot project.

We installed the equipment in our aircraft while the Army set up the ground equipment at their artillery centers. We then attempted to make the system operational. There were numerous problems with the equipment and synchronizing the daily codes, but we persevered. During a message exchange between my counterpart at the headquarters unit in Texas and me, I became annoyed by the tone of his writing. His final paragraph stated that if we were to succeed in our operations in Vietnam, we must all work harder to make the new system function effectively. As I replied to the first six paragraphs, which were all technical, my annoyance grew at the thought of some faceless person safely sitting in San Antonio instructing me to work harder while I was in Vietnam facing regular gunfire. I typed, “Re your paragraph seven – ridiculous.” Before sending the message to the communications center for transmission to San Antonio, I reconsidered my statement. I blacked it out from the original but neglected to remove it from the carbon copies. The message was transmitted, and I continued working on the project. As luck would have it, the first transmission was received in an unreadable state in San Antonio, prompting them to request a retransmission. Because the original copy of all outgoing messages was sent to the Operations Officer, the operator in the communications center pulled the carbon copy of my message from the file for retransmission. The carbon copy still contained the “ridiculous” comment. This little communication quirk would bring me some trouble.

A few days later, the Operations Officer, Captain Dickey, called me into his office and asked for an explanation regarding a nasty message he had received from San Antonio about my comment. A bit of research uncovered how it occurred, which was sufficient for me. Some weeks later, Captain Dickey entered our Quonset hut and informed me that the Detachment Commander had called and ordered us to report to the orderly room. Knowing I wasn’t due for a promotion, I was curious about what the commander wanted. Upon arrival, someone informed me that A Bird Colonel from San Antonio and the Pacific Security Region Commander from Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii, were in the Commander’s office and wanted to interview me alone. At that moment, I realized everyone else, including Captain Dickey and the Detachment Commander, had vanished from the area. I was alone in the hut, standing before the commander’s door. A sense of dread washed over me. I feared that something terrible must have happened to my family back in the States, and that I was there to receive the bad news. I knocked once and heard a gruff “Enter.”

I entered and saw two bird colonels. One was seated at the Commander’s desk, and the other was in a chair next to the desk. I was supposed to know who they were, but I didn’t. I walked up to the desk, stood at attention, saluted, and said, “Sergeant Joyce, reporting as ordered, Sir.”

“At ease,” snapped the colonel behind the desk. “At ease” does not mean “take a seat and relax.” To stand “at ease” is to adopt a semi-attention position with feet spread apart and hands clasped behind one’s back. He stared at me for several seconds before saying, “So, now I have a face to put with the famous ‘ridiculous’ remark.” I felt it now, I thought. This guy is furious. How did he know about that? My mind raced on. When I made that comment, I hadn’t meant for it to be transmitted, and if it was, I assumed it was intended for someone of a higher rank. Now, I began to suspect that a Captain, Major, or even a Lieutenant Colonel was the project manager at Headquarters, and he was not happy. The Colonel said, “Your smart-aleck remark in the message you sent to San Antonio reached some very high levels.” High enough that I got my butt chewed, and that butt-chewing is now flowing downhill. Can you explain yourself?

I explained how the incident occurred, adding that I thought it was ridiculous for someone in the States to lecture me while I worked twelve hours a day, seven days a week, risking my life daily. I pointed out that when I was flying, I was being shot at, and when on the ground, I regularly dodged incoming mortar rounds because I worked at an Army camp, which was a common target of the VC. I told him it bothered all of us in the unit that someone in an air-conditioned building in the States, working five days a week, chose to tell us to work harder. I wanted to mention the roaches and using an outhouse instead of a clean latrine, but I figured I had said enough. At that point, I remained silent and stood there. I almost smirked when I thought, ‘ What will they do to me? Send me home?’ The colonel sat there, arms crossed, glowering at me for several seconds before he spoke. He said, “Joyce, I was sent here to administer counseling and punishment to you. You upset many people at Headquarters. I’m not doing anything because I agree with you, but you will tell everyone you know that I read you the riot act and threatened to pull some stripes if anything like this happens again. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Sir,” I replied.

He continued, “I’m sure you noticed that there’s no one in this hut but us. I arranged it so our conversation couldn’t be overheard. If it ever gets out that I let you off the hook for this, I’ll know it came from you, and then you’ll see how angry I can get. Get out of here.” I snapped to attention and saluted. He returned my salute; I did an about-face and walked out of the office and the hut. All I ever told anyone was that the PSR Commander raked me over the coals for what I had done. I figure that after 58 years it is safe to assume that everyone involved in this incident is deceased, so I can relate the story now.

The project implementation continued successfully despite the aggravating remark from that jerk in San Antonio. We could soon communicate securely with the Artillery Centers within moments of obtaining the target’s coordinates. One lingering memory associated with the project haunts me. While returning from a mission one evening after dark, I set the radio to the FM frequency we used to contact the Artillery Center in our operational area. The frequency was supposed to be dedicated to our use only, but I heard someone calling a ground station with clear, unencrypted voice transmissions. It was an Army helicopter pilot. He asked the man at the ground station how things were going. The operator on the ground replied that it was a bad day and that he had six KIA to be picked up and taken to a staging area. As I recall, the helicopter pilot’s response was, “What? Are you crazy? Do you want me to land there in the dark to pick up KIAs? You must be nuts. I’ll come back at first light in the morning.” Their unemotional, routine conversation while referring to six men who had been killed in action gave me a sinking feeling. It sounded as if the bodies were no more than pieces of wood lying on the ground. I pictured someone else speaking of my body the same way if I ended up dead. Death had become commonplace.