The fires on Bataan burned on the evening of April 9, 1942 -
illuminating the white flags of surrender against the nighttime
sky. Woefully outnumbered, outgunned, and ill-equipped, battered
remnants of the American-Philippine army surrendered to the forces
of the Rising Sun. Yet amongst the chaos and devastation of the
American defeat, Army Captain Donald D. Blackburn refused to lay
down his arms. With future SF legend Russell Volckmann, Blackburn
escaped from Bataan and fled to the mountainous jungles of North
Luzon, where they raised a private army of over 22,000 men against
the Japanese. Once there, Blackburn organized a guerrilla regiment
from among the native tribes in the Cagayan Valley. "Blackburn's
Headhunters," as they came to be known, devastated the Japanese
14th Army within the western provinces of North Luzon and destroyed
the Japanese naval base at Aparri - the largest enemy anchorage in
the Philippines. After the war, Blackburn remained on active duty
and played a key role in initiating Special Forces operations in
Southeast Asia. In 1958, as commander of the 77th Special Forces
Group, he spearheaded Operation White Star in Laos - the first
major deployment of American Special Forces to a country with an
active insurgency. Seven years later, Blackburn took command of the
highly classified Studies and Observations Group (SOG), charged
with performing secret missions now that main-force Communist
incursions were on the rise. In the wake of the CIA's disastrous
Leaping Lena program, in 1964 Blackburn revitalized the Special
Operations campaign in South Vietnam. Sending cross-border
reconnaissance teams into Cambodia and North Vietnam, he discovered
the clandestine networks and supply nodes of the infamous Ho Chi
Minh Trail. Taking this information directly to General
Westmoreland, Blackburn received authorization to conduct
full-scale operations against the NVA and Viet Cong operating in
Laos and Cambodia. In combats large and small, the Communists
realized they had met a master of insurgent tactics - and he was on
the US side. Following his return to the United States, Blackburn
was appointed "Special Assistant for Counterinsurgency and Special
Activities," where he was the architect of the infamous Son Tay
Prison Raid. Officially termed Operation Ivory Coast, the Son Tay
raid was the largest POW rescue mission - and indeed, the largest
Special Forces operation - of the Vietnam War. During a period when
United States troops in Southeast Asia faced guerrilla armies on
every side, it has been little recognized today that America had a
superb covert commander of its own, his guerrilla skills honed in
resistance against Japan. This book follows Donald D. Blackburn
through both his youthful days of desperate combat against an
Empire, and through his days as a commander, imparting his lessons
to the newly-realized ranks of America's own Special Forces.
General
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