Back Story—

The Son Tay Recon

By Greg Walker (ret.)
USA Special Forces

Behind the Lines

In February 1998, my follow-on account of the Son Tay raid was published in Behind the Lines (BTL). Earlier I’d had the unique opportunity while at Fort Bragg to gain access to the JFK Museum’s Son Tay archives, a treasure trove of information that supported CCN One-Zero, Captain Jim Butler’s, 1981 account of the SOG led recon of the POW camp on behalf of Colonel Bull Simons. That story is re-published here for the first time.

From Lindsey Butler, Jim Butler’s daughter, in November 2021—
“I am familiar with dad’s friendship with Dale Dehnke as well and heard about what happened with his father too… My dad also made a point to teach me the importance of history and making sure that false history is corrected. Apparently this was one of his biggest goals :) In addition to this being a major component of establishing the SOA, he also taught me the importance of this when I was 16.”

No Fallen Comrade Left Forgotten

Jim Butler, SOG-CCN 1-0, 5 tours, gave me the story of the CCN/Heavy Hook recon in 1981 while I was at DLI and his office at the time was in Carmel, California. Jim was a close friend and colleague of my dad’s and was mentored by dad when he first started at CONN GENERAL in San Jose. I met Jim through dad, and it was Jim who brought me into the SOA as an Associate member, with my GM membership granted about ten years ago, CMD Master Chief Bob Nissley my sponsor. Eldon Bargewell, very close friend of Butler’s, was responsible for seeing 7th Group/El Sal veterans granted SOA GM memberships.

I had the day off and went over to Jim’s office to visit/say hello. We spoke for about two hours, as I recall. When I arrived, he’d been going through some things on his desk. One was the picture of Dale Dehnke that is the intro for this article. He had several SOG patches out, too. His team patch (Python) and RT Alaska, which was the team Dale was strap-hanging with when he was tragically killed just days before scheduled to rotate home.

Read more by Greg Walker’s “Son-Tay—A Story of Success,” published in Behind the Lines, January/February 1998, referred to it at the beginning of this post. He has generously provided scanned images from this hard-to-find publication.

Click here to read the story as it appeared in the magazine.

Jim shared the story of the Heavy Hook/CCN recon into Son Tay—as it was clearly on his mind when I arrived. He and Dale were close, and it was clear Jim was remembering/mourning his loss these many years later. Of the three 1-0s on that mission, Jim was one of them, Dale the lead, and a third whose name I cannot recall. Jim told me that the individual had also survived the war but was in Florida and very ill. Butler’s purpose in sharing his story was clearly to honor Dale, something he’d done at an earlier SOAR, as well.

Dale’s sister, Pam, lives here in Oregon, and we have spoken many times over the years. As Butler had also shared with me, Dale/Pam’s dad was grief-stricken at the loss of his son, whom he adored, and very soon after the funeral he was found deceased at Dale’s grave.

I held on to the account until “Hurricane” became a project; and then wrote the BTL piece. Not long ago I wrote a shorter piece for the Sentinel, too.

There is always discussion as to whether this account ever really happened. I have found in most cases those critical have not read the “Hurricane” chapter on Son Tay; have not known or read the BTL story; and just may have read the piece in the Sentinel…maybe. This includes the extraordinary interviews I had with the pilot/co-pilot of Bull Simons’ helo—with each spoken with individually and then their accounts/recollections shared with the other for clarity/revision and confirmation. Both Britton and Montrem spoke well of each other regarding both the train up in Florida and the actual mission flight in and out.

The Earth Angel mission, which was to coincide with Son Tay, was canceled without explanation, as noted by SGM Mark Gentry, who ran that operation at the time. The first consideration, according to my interview with GEN Singlaub, was that Simons wanted American “eyes on target,” and the Earth Angel teams were all former NVA. Singlaub pointed out SOG had identified Son Tay as a POW camp early on and had developed a plan to raid it—but that was turned down. However, the assets and resources and launch site in Thailand (Heavy Hook) as well as clean air lanes used by CCN to access North Vietnam were still intact and operational. Butler was operating out of Heavy Hook at the time, as well.

Gentry, when he learned of the Heavy Hook mission, offered he now understood why his team was canceled.

Another factor, according to SOG legend Major (ret.) Willie Merkerson, is this. The HALO Earth Angel section had, at times, trouble grouping in the air at night and did/could end up scattered across the jungle with poor chances of linking back up or of being spotted/reported/captured. Not a good deal when we’re talking about the raid.

On the other hand, the Heavy Hook team flew in, using their own aviators and Simons’ aircraft (their aviators knew the routes), and the make-up of 3 One Zeros, a CIA agent, and two Kit Carson scouts (known to Butler/Dehnke) with homeboy experience in the Son Tay area, was a much more viable and reliable way to achieve what Simons’ was after.

Except for that damn water buffalo.

SOA Founder and recon brother James “Jim” E. Butler passed away on June 24, 2021. Read Greg Walker’s tribute to him published in the December 2021 Sentinel. Additionally, Jim’s daughter, Lindsey, sent Greg this link to her dad’s memorial service held Carmel Presbyterian Church.

I had one respected SOA member offer Butler was “confused” when he shared his story with me. It was then I realized he and perhaps others did not understand Jim was telling HIS story and in remembrance of Dale. In short, Butler was one of the three One-Zeros who went in. Hence his knowledge of the details noted in all three of my stories on this.

Some have offered that the OPSEC considerations for Ivory Coast were so critical that no SOG assets in VN would have been considered as there was a “leak” at the highest levels. This was true. However, Heavy Hook was in Thailand and so compartmentalized that it became a viable option for the Son Tay command team to utilize. Eglin in Florida was also a huge security risk, and as raider Jake Jakovenko shared with me at his home several years ago, they ended up confining everyone to base under strict OPSEC guidelines as some were going off post after training for one reason or another.

Willie confirmed that using Heavy Hook as the launch site as it was in Thailand was a sound thought process as he was preparing to transition to that location when he got orders to first attend the Advance course for officers.

The other factor oft overlooked was that the recon team did get close enough to observe the camp. They did not see much activity, but they reported there was NVA military present and it was clearly a prison site. They also observed the nearby compound housing the Chinese cadre teaching the NVA “headhunter” battalions that were proving effective at running SOG teams to ground and wiping them out. That is described in detail in At the Hurricane’s Eye. 

And their observations as shared with Simons & Company allowed for Simons team to know exactly where they’d been set down, what was there, who was there, and how best to engage in the manner they did, killing or wounding the majority of those Chinese instructors there and then successfully “lifting and shifting” back over to the POW camp itself. Again, both Britton’s and Montrem’s recollections of that specific aspect of the mission were invaluable.

And it was Dale’s idea to grab the baby water buffalo found on the LZ when the bird came back in to pick the team up. And as Butler said, they off-loaded it at Heavy Hook, and it became the mascot. And as only a handful of Son Tay command folks knew of the mission and that it launched from Thailand, not Vietnam, no one from USGOV ever looked there when they went on their witch hunt over the buffalo dung found in the Simons-provided helo for the recon.

And anyone outside of the “boots on the ground” guys who doesn’t think SOG or any other post VN war SF operators have not done equally as crazy fun stuff like that under the worst of circumstances need only look at the 93 missions Jerry Shriver ran and some of his escapades.

Postscript:

As is my practice regarding FOIA replies (click to read the letter received) —an initial response (especially from the Agency) and its invitation to file an appeal is pro forma. Fishing expeditions or “lookie loos” will most often stop when they get the first letter.

But an appeal, properly worded and supported, can and has (for me) seen success if only a heavily redacted document or documents that none the less serve their purpose.

My appeal goes out next week and, well, we’ll see…

Click here to read entire letter.

As General Bowra knows firsthand those of us who worked the El Salvador combat recognition effort (ten years in the making) were told from Day One by the Pentagon, the Army, the Agency, and All Others we would fail. No war/no combat for US forces there/“go fly a kite.”

In 1996, our quest was realized and certainly due to the enormous help, encouragement, and direct support from Ken whose Command championed our final packet product not once but three times – the third time being the charm. AFEM, Combat awards and decorations, those wounded or KIA finally acknowledged and their families brought peace as well as long overdue benefits that come from such acknowledgment. In 1998, the largest awards ceremony for 7th Group took place at Bragg with GEN Joe Stringham overseeing the recognition so long overdue extended to El Sal veterans, still serving and otherwise. SFC Greg Fronius’ son stepped forward to receive his dad’s posthumous Silver Star—an award originally denied after Greg’s death while the lone American advisor at El Paraiso, El Salvador, during his heroic defense of that base against an estimated 300 communist guerrillas.

And at Arlington our memorial was attended, again thanks to Ken, by 7th Group ES veterans as we honored our fallen, their families, and the 75,000 Salvadoran who lost their lives during that conflict.

Arlington: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3uy8Ey23Is&t=65s

The only use of the word “never” my dad taught me was “never quit”