Attack on the
Pleiku Radio Station
- Vietnam War
- Vietnam
- PSYOP
- From Veritas, Vol. 2, No. 3, 2006
An integral part of the U.S. Army involvement in Vietnam was Psychological Operations (PSYOP). By 1968, the PSYOP campaign was being coordinated by the 4th PSYOP Group. Products were disseminated by a variety of methods, one being radio broadcasts. This article focuses on the radio station operated by the 7th PSYOP Detachment in Pleiku and an enemy attack in March 1968 that temporarily silenced its broadcasts. It is also the story of one soldier, First Lieutenant Michal A. Merkel, one of many PSYOP soldiers who served in Vietnam and who was killed during the 24 March 1968 attack.
Various PSYOP units from the 7th PSYOP Group in Okinawa, Japan, had done temporary duty service in Vietnam since 1965. By 1967, the demand for PSYOP led to the formation of the 4th PSYOP Group in December 1967. The 4th PSYOP Group was formed from the existing 6th PSYOP Battalion and its companies already serving separately in Vietnam. The 7th PSYOP Group remained on Okinawa, responsible for the rest of Asia. Still, it continued to provide assistance to Vietnam.
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In late 1967, U.S. Military Assistance Command–Vietnam (MACV) placed a 50,000-watt AM radio transmitter in Pleiku to broadcast to the northern provinces of South Vietnam. “The Voice of the Army and the People of Vietnam” became one of the most powerful radio transmitters in the country. Still, the radio station was a “bare bones” PSYOP operation created with modular vans, maintenance vans, and 2½-ton trucks. The equipment had been flown in from Okinawa, the home of the 7th PSYOP Group. To help set up the station, two civilian radio technicians, Mr. Bill Hamby and Mr. Bill Howard, flew in from the Sacramento Army Depot, California. For protection, the equipment was partially dug in and barricaded with dirt-filled 55-gallon drums covered with sandbags. The “Voice” became operational in December 1967.
1 The technical nomenclature for the radio station is the AN/TRT-22, 50kW AM Radio Broadcast System, and AN/TRR-18, Receiver System.
2 Douglas P. Elwell, e-mail to Lieutenant Colonel Robert W. Jones Jr., 9 August 2006, USASOC History Office Files, Fort Bragg, NC.
While it was in an ideal location for broadcasting, the site was remote and tactically exposed. The radio station was essentially an outpost—it was not inside any unit’s defensive perimeter. As such, the small compound was very vulnerable to attack. Only barbed wire and concertina fences surrounded the outlying compound. A single wooden guard tower provided early warning. It was guarded by a Vietnamese Army (ARVN) squad. The 23rd ARVN Division was responsible for outer perimeter security in Pleiku. What distinguished the compound from the other American facilities in Pleiku was the 250-foot radio antenna. It quickly became a Viet Cong (VC) rocket and mortar aiming post and rounds were received almost daily.
3 Dr. William W. Forgey, e-mail to Major Nicholas Kinkead, 6 October 2005, USASOC History Office Files, Fort Bragg, NC.