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547 Signal Troop and the Army Security Agency 547 SIGNAL TROOP AND THE ARMY SECURITY AGENCY Phil Rutherford Ph.D 2020 547 Signal Troop and the American Security Agency PAGE INTENTIONALLY BLANK 2 | Page 547 Signal Troop and the American Security Agency 547 Signal Troop and the Army Security Agency Phil Rutherford Ph.D Copyright © 2020 by Phil Rutherford. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording or other electronic or mechanical methods, or by information storage and retrieval system without prior written permission of the author, except in the case of reasonable quotations in critical reviews, for study purposes or other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. The information contained in this publication has been drawn from publicly available sources, including declassified records and contemporary literature. The ideas and processes described in this book are drawn from interviews and personal recollections of members of 547 Signal Troop and the allies with whom the Australians closely worked during the war, and may vary from the experiences or recollections of others. The author is not an expert in the equipment or processes described in this publication, therefore any discussions or descriptions of the equipment or processes have been drawn from the available literature. Wherever possible secondary sources have been reviewed in order to clarify the details described in this publication and, where available, sources have been cited. Owners of photographs or illustrations used in this publication who have not been acknowledged are requested to contact the author in order that such acknowledgement may be properly made. P D Rutherford Ph.D [email protected] 3 | Page 547 Signal Troop and the American Security Agency Table of Contents FOREWORD ..................................................................................................................................... 7 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................. 9 The road blocks ............................................................................................................................ 10 PART ONE - COMMAND AND CONTROL ................................................................................ 12 A question of ownership ............................................................................................................... 13 The USASA ................................................................................................................................... 14 Off to war ..................................................................................................................................... 15 Command and control in Vietnam ............................................................................................... 16 Under control of the US forces .................................................................................................... 18 The Troop increases its value ...................................................................................................... 20 The birth of the US military cryptography ................................................................................... 24 “Chut, J’ecoute” – US intercept during World War One ............................................................ 25 “Gentlemen do not read each other’s mail!” .............................................................................. 27 PART THREE - THE ARMY SECURITY AGENCY GOES TO WAR ....................................... 29 The ASA grows ............................................................................................................................. 31 509th Radio Research Group ........................................................................................................ 33 303rd Radio Research Battalion ................................................................................................... 35 COLLECTION MANAGEMENT AUTHORITIES ....................................................................... 37 175th Radio Research Company ................................................................................................... 38 DIRECT SUPPORT UNITS ............................................................................................................ 41 ARDF ............................................................................................................................................... 43 The ASA takes to the skies ............................................................................................................ 44 The US Air Force joins the fight .................................................................................................. 45 From experiment to operation ..................................................................................................... 46 ASA versus USAFSS ..................................................................................................................... 47 PART FOUR – ASA AND THE AUSTRALIAN TASK FORCE .................................................. 50 547 Sig Tp arrives in country ....................................................................................................... 50 DSU to the Task Force ................................................................................................................. 52 Dodo ............................................................................................................................................. 52 SIGINT and the battle at Long Tan .............................................................................................. 60 Side-stepping official channels .................................................................................................... 62 Operation TOLEDO ..................................................................................................................... 63 4 | Page 547 Signal Troop and the American Security Agency Special Forces pick up the DF task ............................................................................................. 66 D445 ............................................................................................................................................. 68 DET 2, 175TH RR COY – NUI DAT ............................................................................................... 69 Det 2 joins the Australians ........................................................................................................... 69 A death in the family .................................................................................................................... 73 Det 2 moves again ........................................................................................................................ 74 PART FIVE – POSTCRIPT ............................................................................................................ 76 Chasing the Chau Duc ................................................................................................................. 79 Speaking of recognition ............................................................................................................... 81 GLOSSARY .................................................................................................................................... 85 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................ 89 5 | Page 547 Signal Troop and the American Security Agency PAGE INTENTIONALLY BLANK 6 | Page 547 Signal Troop and the American Security Agency FOREWORD ‘Not only do you not exist, you never will have existed. You will remain for always unknown and unacknowledged. There will be no awards, no glory. There will be no medals for this unit.’1 This paper concerns an aspect of military history known to only a very few inside the Australian Defence Forces. In fact, the full story is known to an even narrower tranche of those whose security clearances were sufficiently high to give them access to the world of signals intelligence during the Vietnam War, including the soldiers who lived this story. Even the families of soldiers who served in this unit were for many decades unaware of the true nature of their actions. Little was, and still is, known about the highly secretive 547 Signal Troop. It was unique amongst both Australian and allied forces because it belonged to neither the Australian nor the American higher commands, but at the same time it was under direct control of both. And while the Troop gave continuous support to both the 1st Australian Task Force (1 ATF) and the Second Field Force—Vietnam (II FFV) it was never listed in the order of battle for either. Throughout most of the five and a half years the Troop was in Vietnam, the military, and the government, did their best to deny its existence, the success of which was borne out by a report prepared for the Federal Government in 2015 in which the Australian Army is quoted as finding little praiseworthy in the Troop’s actions. But the Troop did exist, as proven by the high praise and commendations received from both Australian and American commanders during and after the war. The authority upon which the Troop was ordered to Vietnam came from an agreement between the intelligence services of the Australian and
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