Tough Chief of Rescue Troops; Charlie Beckwith Man in the News The Big Man Yelling 'Press On' Tough Colonel Who Directed Rescue Force
April 27, 1980, Page 1Buy Reprints
WASHINGTON, April 26 · In Octo- ber 1965 the small garrison of a United States Special Forces camp at Plei Me in the South Vietnamese highlands was besieged by several thousand North Vietnamese regular infantrymen. A 250-man rescue force was inserted by helicopter into the forests a few miles from the triangularly shaped camp. Charlie Beckwith, then an Army major, led this rescue force through the brush, through the North Vietnamese lines and, at a run, into the front gate of Plei Me. He then, characteristically, tried to take the offensive. He ordered three counterattacks in the first day, discovering after each sally was forced back into Plei Me that major units of North Vietnamese regulars had for the first time been committed to the war in South Vietnam.
The Big Man Yelling ‘Press On'
When a reporter arrived at Plei Me a few days later on a medical evacuation helicopter and asked a grizzled sergeant how to find Major Beckwith, the sergeant answered: "When you see a real big man yelling 'press on!' that's him.” This officer, now Colonel Beckwith, was identified yesterday by a Pentagon official as the commander of the force of troops ferried to the Iranian desert where, officials said, an attempt to rescue Americans held hostage in Teheran, some 200 miles away, was aborted. Exactly what happened at the remote Iranian staging area and precisely how the decision to cancel the rescue was reached is not known to public or press. But, while Colonel Beckwith had shown in Vietnam that he was too professional to be foolhardy, any decision not to press on must have seemed both painful and inescapable. Although, in the words of a fellow officer, "it is definitely not the way to make general in the U.S. Army,” Colonel Beckwith has devoted most of his military career to learning and teaching the arcane arts of "special warfare" and special operations. How special was indicated today when the Pentagon refused at a briefing to name the "colonel on the ground" commanding the operation, disclosing only his rank. Asked for biographical information on Colonel Beckwith, the Army records department disclosed only the following: Born Jan. 22, 1929. Attended college. Commissioned 1952. Assignment "classified." Serial Number 258–364046. Even his middle name is classified by the Pentagon. A bit more is known than that skimpy profile. Colonel Beckwith, who lived in Atlanta, at one point helped train Army Ranger candidates in the swamps and piney woods of the American South. An early volunteer for the Army Special Forces, he was assigned to Vietnam in the mid-1960's and by 1965 was in command of the Delta Project. This small but tough unit was composed of several hundred Indochinese (including ethnic Cambodian and ethnic Chinese) mercenary riflemen recruited and paid by the Special Forces with funds supplied by the Central Intelligence Agency. This Delta force was the Special Forces own "dedicated," or specially assigned, rescue force designed to meet contingencies such as the seige of Plei Me. The then Major Beckwith and his unit held Plei Me successfully until, almost a week after he assumed command, large relief forces from the United States and South Vietnamese armies arrived. In the midst of the siege, hundreds of flares were dropped by American aircraft, and Major Beckwith's Special Forces officers and noncommissioned officers sometimes sat drinking whisky on soft beds made from the hundreds of supply parachutes dropped into the camp." Major Beckwith, a large man with a wiry stubble of a beard, once recalled with an enlisted friend their days shooting quail over pointing dogs. Major Beckwith said in the midst of battle: "Good times, sergeant major. We'll have them again.' Major Beckwith was nearly killed in 1966 while directing another rescue operation near Bong Son when ground fire severely wounded him in a helicopter. An Army surgeon later recalled that "Beckwith is one man who saved his own life." The surgeon explained that the seriously wounded officer had sat upright on his litter and shouted that he needed immediate trauma treatment because, "I'm bleeding to death.” "He was right," said the surgeon. “A few more minutes and he would have been dead." The major was promoted to lieutenant colonel and returned to Vietnam in the late 1960's as a battalion Commander in the 101st Airborne Division. Later assigned to the Special Warfare School at Fort Bragg, N.C., Colonel Beckwith was directed four years ago to help train and lead an antiterrorist unit. The hope apparently was that this elite force could be used to deal with airline hijackings and other terrorist difficulties as Israeli commandos had done in freeing hostages at Entebbe.
Tough Colonel Who Directed Rescue Force
