The signal success of the Oxford [redacted] during the Cuban Missile Crisis resulted in a boom in the Technical Research Ship (TRS) program. NSA’s long-term TRS program included [redacted]. Military Sea Transport Service (MSTS) charters and five of the larger Oxford-class Liberty ships. The Navy had an even more grandiose plan to build a TRS fleet from the keel up, at a cost of $35 million per vessel. They would have a cruising speed of at least twenty knots. But despite the giddy success of the Oxford, the numbers did not add up. For instance, it cost $13.5 million to convert a Liberty ship into an Oxford-class vessel, but only $3.3 million to redo a Valdez class MSTS ship. DoD was strapped for cash for the Vietnam buildup, and this kind of floating SIGINT platform, logical in theory, fell victim to the budget axe.
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President Johnson … expressed concerns over the number of aircraft being lost on Rolling Thunder missions. Between January and September 1966, a total of228 fixed-wing combat and support aircraft had been lost during missions against North Vietnam. The question in Washington was, did the enemy have prior warning of U.S. raids against North Vietnam? … The answer was yes, they did.
Stephen J. Kelley in PURPLE DRAGON: The Origin and Development of the United States OPSEC Program
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On this day May 4, 1942, Captain Ranson “Fullie” Fullenwider would lead the FRUPAC Radio Intelligence Unit RIU on the aircraft carrier USS LEXINGTON CV-2 during the Battle of the Coral Sea. He and his team would escape injury when the LEXINGTON was attacked and the ship had to be abandoned. Two months later at the Battle of Midway he would also be leading the RUI team on the USS YORKTOWN CV-5 and would be among the last to leave the burning YORKTOWN with ADM Fletcher..
Photo credit – NCVA
May 4, 1942, 29 Navajos reported to Fort Defiance, Arizona, the first of roughly 400 to be trained as code talkers. Make sure to check the links at the end of the page for more articles about the Code Talkers.
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Communist attacks on the destroyer USS Maddox (DD 731) in the Gulf of Tonkin in August 1964 and the killing of American service personnel in South Vietnam later in the year and in early 1965 convinced American military leaders that the outbreak of war was imminent. It was apparent that rather than buckling under U.S. military pressure, Hanoi had decided to take the offensive. CINCPAC noted in March 1965 a “shift of communist tactics” intended to “bring about the disengagement of the U.S. in South Vietnam.” In a prescient statement, Admiral Sharp concluded that the North Vietnamese felt that “if they can kill Americans, harass U.S. personnel, and destroy U.S. facilities the American people will, in time, become so tired of the war that we will abandon our efforts there.”
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By CDR Brian Schulz, Commanding Officer, Navy Information Operations Command Yokosuka, Japan.
When football pundits talk about the “great” head coaches, their assessments turn to championships and then inevitably to the “coaching tree.” This idea of a coaching tree is identifying what former assistant coaches under a head coach went on to their own success as a head coach. Bill Parcells, one of the all time greats (I said “one of,” don’t stop reading now out of Giants/Patriots/Jets/Cowboys hatred), has a coaching tree that includes Bill Belichick, Sean Payton, Mike Zimmer, Anthony Lynn, Doug Marrone, and Todd Bowles…all former assistants under Parcells and now all pretty successful head coaches (or former, in Bowles case) in their own right.
Continue reading “Coaching Trees (NSGA Kunia 2002-2004) (Guest Post)”
Station HYPO 