Tiger Force | |
---|---|
Active | November 1965 to November 1969 (Vietnam) |
Country | United States |
Branch | United States Army |
Type | Special operations forces |
Size | 45 |
Part of | U.S. XVIII Airborne Corps |
Garrison/HQ | Fort Campbell (1st Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade) |
Engagements | Vietnam War |
Decorations | |
Commanders | |
Notable commanders | David Hackworth |
Tiger Force was the name of a long-range reconnaissance patrol (LRRP) unit [1] of the 1st Battalion (Airborne), 327th Infantry, 1st Brigade (Separate), 101st Airborne Division, which fought in the Vietnam War from November 1965 to November 1967. [2] : 22–3 The unit gained notoriety after investigations during the course of the war and decades afterwards revealed extensive war crimes against civilians, which numbered into the hundreds. [3]
The platoon-sized unit, approximately 45 paratroopers, was organized by Major David Hackworth in November 1965 to "outguerrilla the guerrillas". [2] : 13–14, 23, 224 Tiger Force (Recon) 1-327th was a highly decorated small unit in Vietnam, and paid for its reputation with heavy casualties. [4] In October 1968, Tiger Force's parent battalion was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation by President Lyndon B. Johnson, which included a mention of Tiger Force's service at Đắk Tô in June 1966. [5]
On October 19, 2003, Michael D. Sallah, a reporter at The Blade (Toledo) newspaper, obtained unreleased, confidential records of U.S. Army commander Henry Tufts. One file in these records referred to a previously unpublished war crimes investigation known as the Coy Allegation. To investigate this further, Sallah gained access to a large collection of documents produced by the investigation held at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland. [2] : 309–11 [6]
Sallah found that between 1971 and 1975, the Army's Criminal Investigation Command had investigated the Tiger Force unit for alleged war crimes committed between May and November 1967. [2] : 264–306 The documents included sworn statements from many Tiger Force veterans, which detailed war crimes allegedly committed by Tiger Force members during the Song Ve Valley and Operation Wheeler military campaigns. The statements, from both individuals who allegedly participated in the war crimes and those that did not, described war crimes such as the following:
The investigators concluded that many of the war crimes took place. [2] : 383 This included the murder of former ARVN personnel, the murder of two blind brothers, and the routine murder of women, children, and disabled or elderly civilians. [3] Despite these conclusions, the Army decided not to pursue any prosecutions. [2] : 306
Their high bodycounts were recognized and encouraged by military officials. Colonel Morse ordered troops to rack up a body count of 327 casualties in order to match the battalion's infantry designation, 327th. [3] By the end of the campaign, the soldiers were congratulated for their 1000th total kill. [8] Those killed were listed as enemy combatants. [3]
After studying the documents, Sallah and fellow reporter, Mitch Weiss, located and interviewed dozens of veterans who served in Tiger Force during the period in question as well as the CID investigators who later carried out the Army's inquiry. The reporters also traveled to Vietnam and tracked down numerous residents of Song Ve Valley who identified themselves as witnesses. Sallah and Weiss reported that the war crimes were corroborated by both veterans [9] and Song Ve Valley residents. [10] The reporters also managed to track down dozens of additional investigative records not included in the National Archives.
The reporters published their findings in a series of articles in The Toledo Blade [11] in October 2003. The New York Times subsequently performed their own investigation, contacting a few Tiger Force veterans and corroborating The Toledo Blade's findings. [12]
Since The Blade's story, the United States Army has opened a review of the former Tiger Force investigation, but has not yet provided much additional information. On May 11, 2004, Lt. Col. Pamela Hart informed The Blade reporters that she had been too busy responding to prisoner abuse by U.S. soldiers in Iraq to check on the status of the Tiger Force case. [13] The Blade has not reported on any more recent updates from the U.S. Army.
Reporters Michael D. Sallah, Mitch Weiss, and Joe Mahr received a number of awards for their series:
In 2006, Sallah, now an investigative reporter with The Washington Post , and Weiss, an investigative reporter with the Associated Press, co-authored a book chronicling their findings: Tiger Force: A True Story of Men and War (2006). [2]
A Vietnam veteran is an individual who performed active military, naval, or air service in the Republic of Vietnam during the Vietnam War.
The 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) ("Screaming Eagles") is an air assault infantry division of the United States Army that specializes in air assault operations. It can plan, coordinate, and execute battalion-sized air assault operations to seize terrain. These operations can be conducted by mobile teams covering large distances, fighting behind enemy lines, and working in austere environments with limited or degraded infrastructure. It was active in, for example, foreign internal defense and counterterrorism operations in Iraq, in Afghanistan in 2015–2016, and in Syria, as part of Operation Inherent Resolve in 2018–2021.
Colonel David Haskell Hackworth was a United States Army officer and journalist, who was decorated in both the Korean War and Vietnam War. Hackworth is known for his role in the formation and command of Tiger Force, a military unit from the 101st Airborne Division that used guerrilla warfare tactics against Viet Cong in South Vietnam.
The Pulitzer Prizes for 2004 were announced on April 5, 2004.
A long-range reconnaissance patrol, or LRRP, is a small, well-armed reconnaissance team that patrols deep in enemy-held territory.
We Were Soldiers is a 2002 American war film written and directed by Randall Wallace and starring Mel Gibson. Based on the book We Were Soldiers Once… and Young (1992) by Lieutenant General (Ret.) Hal Moore and reporter Joseph L. Galloway, it dramatizes the Battle of Ia Drang on November 14, 1965.
The "Winter Soldier Investigation" was a media event sponsored by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) from January 31, 1971, to February 2, 1971. It was intended to publicize war crimes and atrocities by the United States Armed Forces and their allies in the Vietnam War. The VVAW challenged the morality and conduct of the war by showing the direct relationship between military policies and war crimes in Vietnam. The three-day gathering of 109 veterans and 16 civilians took place in Detroit, Michigan. Discharged servicemen from each branch of the armed forces, as well as civilian contractors, medical personnel and academics, all gave testimony about war crimes they had committed or witnessed during the years 1963–1970.
Sam Ybarra (1945–1982) was a United States Army soldier who served in the Tiger Force commando unit attached to the 101st Airborne Division during the Vietnam War. He is notable for alleged involvement in war crimes alongside the Tiger Force unit.
The 327th Infantry Regiment is an infantry regiment of the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army. During World War II, the 327th was a glider-borne regiment of the 101st Airborne Division. It fought during World War I as part of the 82nd Division. It has also been deployed in the Vietnam War, Gulf War, and most recently to Iraq and Afghanistan. The song "Glider Rider" describes (humorously) some of the slights that glider-borne troops felt they received from the Army during World War II; though the regiment's public fame rose with the 1949 movie Battleground about the Siege of Bastogne in late 1944.
Michael D. Sallah is an American investigative reporter and non-fiction author who has twice been awarded the Pulitzer Prize.
The National Committee for a Citizens Commission of Inquiry on U.S. war crimes in Vietnam was founded in New York by Ralph Schoenman in November 1969 to document American atrocities throughout Indochina. The formation of the organization was prompted by the disclosure of the My Lai Massacre on November 12, 1969, by Seymour Hersh, writing for the New York Times. The group was the first to bring to public attention the testimony of American Vietnam War veterans who had witnessed or participated in atrocities.
Operation Delaware/Operation Lam Son 216 was a joint military operation launched during the Vietnam War. It began on 19 April 1968, with troops from the United States and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) moving into the A Sầu Valley. The A Sầu Valley was a vital corridor for moving military supplies coming from the Ho Chi Minh Trail and was used by the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) as a staging area for numerous attacks in northern I Corps. Other than small, special operations reconnaissance patrols, American and South Vietnamese forces had not been present in the region since the Battle of A Shau in March 1966, when a U.S. Special Forces camp located there was overrun.
The Vietnam War Crimes Working Group (VWCWG) was a Pentagon task force set up in the wake of the My Lai massacre and its media disclosure. The goal of the VWCWG was to attempt to ascertain the veracity of emerging claims of war crimes and atrocities by U.S. armed forces in Vietnam allegedly committed during the Vietnam War period.
Joe Mahr is an American investigative journalist, who won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting.
Nick Turse is an American investigative journalist, historian, and author. He is the associate editor and research director of the blog TomDispatch and a fellow at The Nation Institute.
Mitchell S. Weiss is an American investigative journalist, and an editor at The Charlotte Observer. He won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting, with Joe Mahr and Michael D. Sallah.
The 101st Airborne Division is a specialized modular light infantry division of the US Army trained for air assault operations. The Screaming Eagles has been referred to by journalists as "the tip of the spear" as well as one of the most potent and tactically mobile of the U.S. Army's divisions. The 101st Airborne Division has a history that is nearly a century long. During World War II, it was renowned for its role in Operation Overlord, Operation Market Garden, the liberation of the Netherlands and its action during the Battle of the Bulge around the city of Bastogne, Belgium. During the Vietnam War, the 101st Airborne Division fought in several major campaigns and battles, including the Battle of Hamburger Hill in May 1969. In mid-1968, it was reorganized and redesignated as an airmobile division and then in 1974 as an air assault division. In recent years, the division has served in Iraq and Afghanistan. At the height of the War on Terror, the 101st Airborne Division had over 200 aircraft. The division now has slightly over 100 aircraft.
Operation John Paul Jones was an operation conducted by the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division in Phú Yên Province, lasting from 21 July to 5 September 1966.
Operation Harrison was an operation conducted by the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division in Phú Yên Province, lasting from 26 February to 25 March 1966.
Operation Van Buren was a harvest security operation conducted by the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division in the Tuy Hòa Valley, Phú Yên Province, lasting from 15 January to 25 February 1966.
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