Lt. Nguyen Nhieu
Chief, Electronic Reconnaissance Team, Giang Doan and Ham Doi Naval Bases, ARVN Navy (South Vietnam)
During my college years, in the spring of 1968, a law school in Saigon accepted my application. My mother was so happy since she thought I didn't have to serve in the military, as my father and two elder brothers were doing at that time. She also planned for me to apply for the further study overseas in the Western countries like the United States. In the fall, however, I found out that the war was everywhere and affected everybody in the college. Neither the students nor the faculty members were allowed to travel abroad. All the professors talked about the war in their classes. Antiwar flyers and rallies flooded the cafeteria and dorms. The students were guessing who the secret Viet Cong members were and who the undercover South Vietnamese government agents were on the campus. Some students disappeared from my classes and never came back. Rumors followed them. These students either left the capital city for the Viet Cong guerrilla force or were assassinated by the secret agents. Everybody worried about the outcome of the war, not about their grade in the class. Certainly, your career and your future depended upon which side you were on, not how well you were educated.
I just couldn't learn any more after I had finished my general education in my first year as a freshman. Toward the end of the fall semester in late 1969, a couple of naval officers visited our classroom for recruitment purposes. After their propaganda and offer briefing, I signed up for the ARVN Navy without much hesitation. My decision almost blew away my mother, who cried and yelled at me, complaining why I didn't talk to her before my enlistment. She didn't understand why I volunteered when everybody else tried to avoid the draft.
I explained to her that I believed it was a very good offer. First of all, the ARVN Navy promised one year of training in a naval academy. All the courses I would take were considered as college credits to fulfill my degree requirement. That would include a six-month study in the South Vietnamese naval academy and six-month training in a naval school in America.5 My mother felt better after she knew about the training opportunity in America. Second, after training, I would be a naval officer working in the office, not a soldier on the front line. Third, I had to serve in the military before my graduation or before I would start to look for a job. You can't get any government position or any decent job in a law firm without a military service record in South Vietnam. Eventually, my mother agreed with me.
In January 1970, I joined the ARVN Navy. For the next three months, I received some basic training at a naval base in Saigon.6 There were about two hundred naval trainees in our class. We drilled every day and learned how to use small arms. We visited various ships and gunboats and took part in several naval exercises off the coast. I still remember that one day we got on board an American warship outside the Saigon harbor. The American ship was equipped with new technology and powerful weapons. And, American sailors and officers were very friendly.
After the basic training, they sent me with forty other officer-students from our class to a naval academy in Nha Trang City for advanced training. For the next four months, I studied electronics engineering, radar operations, and electronic detection technology at the naval school. Some of the instructors were American naval officers. Patient and kind, they taught us everything from the books to their combat experience. All of us studied very hard. We were told that only the top ten out of forty officer-students would go to America for further training and study. I worked very hard during these months. My strong English background and solid core curriculum at the college had really helped me all the way to the top of the class. By the end of this advanced training, I knew that I was going to America for further study, and that I would become a petty officer first class.
In August 1970, I came to America with eight of my classmates from the Nha Trang Navy Academy. We went to the U.S. Naval War College at Newport, Rhode Island. We were divided into two groups, four of us studying naval intelligence.7 I studied electronic interception and detection of enemy signals, radio messages, and telegraphs. Even though they cut our training from six to three months, I learned a lot at the U.S. Naval War College. We traveled a lot during this period, including trips to New York, Washington, Philadelphia, Chicago, Norfolk, and Miami. That was an eye-opening experience, and I began to dream of coming to America after the war.
Saigon and Surrounding River Bases, 1964–1975
Upon my return, I was promoted to lieutenant by the ARVN Navy in November 1970. The ARVN Navy had two main branches: the offshore sea fleet and the inland river fleet.8 I was assigned to the river operations at the Giang Doan River base. I served two years in the river unit, and two years with the sea fleet at the Ham Doi Naval Base.
From 1971 to 1973, my assignment was electronic information collection along the rivers for the ARVN Naval Intelligence Center. I led an intelligence team of about forty naval officers and sailors. We were traveling on a small reconnaissance boat equipped with new electronic devices. We were sailing along the rivers with six or eight officers, about three or four days for each trip. We collected electronic information by intercepting radio signals of the NVA and Viet Cong. These Communist radio operators and communication officers must have been very well trained. It was very difficult for us to break their codes and to figure out what they were talking about. After each trip, we analyzed the information and reported the Communist troops’ movements and deployments to the navy intelligence center.
As the collection team chief, I knew my mission and tried to avoid any engagement with the Viet Cong and NVA in order to protect my team members and electronic equipment. On several occasions, however, we had to fight our way out of a dangerous situation.
In February 1972, for example, we were sailing along the Go Quao River near Rach Gia. On the third day, we discovered information of a large-scale movement of the NVA troops. When the Communist troops moved, we followed them for two days. On the fourth day, however, we lost their radio signals because they had marched too far away from the river. In order to find out their destination, I decided to land our team and follow the NVA movements. Before we could relocate these troops, we were ambushed by the local Viet Cong from a village. One of the officers was killed, and two were wounded. I had a minor injury. It was so sad to see your men get killed or wounded because they followed your orders. I still feel sorry about those officers today. But at that moment you are sure that these men are loyal to you and to our government.
I knew that the Communists considered the U.S. and ARVN intelligence the most dangerous and that our intelligence would be fatal to their victory. Thus, they tried everything they could to neutralize our operations and destroy our units. As a team chief, I was told from time to time by my superiors that our security wasn't perfect and there could be inside VC agents, that you needed self-protection and trusted nobody, and that you were always prepared for the worst. My officers were transferred frequently, and we changed our team base several times.
In the spring of 1973, after the American troops withdrew, I was transferred to the sea fleet and led an intelligence collection team on an escort ship. This was a big gunship, but I had a smaller group, about ten officers, working under my command most of the time. I had a similar assignment: collecting electronic information and intercepting radio signals of the movements the Viet Cong [PLAF] and NVA forces.
I was unhappy about this transfer, not because of the new assignment, but because of a missed promotion opportunity. I was supposed to be promoted to lieutenant commander during this transfer. But somebody else got the promotion. That was the problem of the ARVN Navy, in which honest people didn't get promoted or awarded, but those sneaky and dishonest people would get all they wanted. I served as a lieutenant for four years with the Navy. I never got a promotion.
Nevertheless, we had better electronic equipment and a longer range radar system built in the escort ship, which had been operated by the U.S. Navy and then was transferred to the ARVN Navy.9