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"...he and his over- whelmingly outnumbered group parachuted into a field next to the POW compound in the middle of the day, and convinced the Japanese military unit to surrender."
SOG
IX:
Singlaub
by Jean d'Isle
' 
first met COL John K. Singlaub in his
MACV/SOG office in Cho Lon, shortly after I arrived in
Saigon in the summer of 1967. With his crew cut and lean
physique, he looked too young to be a full Colonel. This
was my "welcome aboard" meeting with the boss
and I was a bit intimidated by his reputation.
He was said to be a man who asked direct questions and expected direct answers, who would not tolerate obfuscation and who did not suffer fools lightly. To reinforce this point, I had been told before I arrived in country that a number of his staff officers, some very senior ones included, came to his office once too often unprepared to provide those direct answers and were summarily relieved of their duties and sent back to the U.S. for reassignment. One unfortunate officer was not allowed back in the SOG compound after leaving for lunch. Singlaub would not accept anything short of the best effort from everyone in his organization, in support of the SOG operators whose lives were routinely at risk.
As the Head of the Special Support Group, providing specialized intelligence to his organization, I worked directly with him on a number of highly classified and sensitive operations which required security clearances not held by most of his staff. I was surprised to find how tuned in he was to security considerations and the importance of protecting sensitive intelligence sources. Many field commanders look upon the protection of classified information as an impediment to getting the mission accomplished. I was to find out over the course of that year, and many years later in his autobiography, why COL Singlaub's appreciation of the need for security was so highly developed.
In 1943, as a young Army Lieutenant, Jack Singlaub volunteered for "hazardous duty behind enemy lines" and was accepted into an organization commanded by General "Wild Bill" Donovan: the Office of Strategic Services (predecessor to the Central Intelligence Agency). After extensive ambush and demolition training, Singlaub was assigned a mission to parachute into France to organize and train French resistance units and conduct sabotage and ambush operations. His case officer was the legendary Bill Casey. As the war wound down in Europe, Singlaub, now a Captain, was transferred to OSS operations in the Pacific.
His first 
assignment in that
theater was, prophetically, to equip and train Vietnamese
guerillas( Ho Chi Minh's followers). Their mission was to
parachute into an area north of Hanoi and interdict the
railroad between Hanoi and Southern China to prevent the
movement of Japanese troops and equipment along that
strategic route.
While carrying out that mission, word came of the atomic bombs dropped on the Japanese mainland and the imminent surrender of Japan. U.S. concern that the Japanese would kill POW's held in isolated locations led Captain Singlaub to volunteer to lead a mission to rescue Allied POW's from a Japanese prison camp on Hainan Island. At great personal risk, he and his overwhelmingly outnumbered group parachuted into a field next to the POW compound in the middle of the day, and convinced the Japanese military unit to surrender. They successfully liberated hundreds of Australian and Dutch prisoners.
Following the war, Captain Singlaub remained involved in covert operations under the CIA in Manchuria, as that area played a major role in the post-war power struggle between Communism and Capitalism that eventually led to a Communist government on mainland China and, in 1950, the Korean War.
I will only mention the Korean War and Singlaub's role briefly. He distinguished himself in combat as a battalion commander and was promoted to Major. Eventually, when Singlaub served again in Korea, it would be in 1976 as a General and as the Chief of Staff of the United Nations Command.
A disagreement with President Jimmy Carter over the wisdom of withdrawing all U.S. troops from Korea led to General Singlaub's reassignment. Had we done what President Carter proposed, most military leaders agree it would have led to another war on the Korean peninsula. Those troops are still there, 20 years later, and peace has prevailed.
I last saw General Singlaub in 1973, in Spain, when he passed through on an inspection trip. I chatted with him for awhile about old SOG acquaintances, and he told me about his newest challenge -- learning to fly helicopters. I understand he is now a qualified helo pilot.
Anyone interested in reading a fascinating account of
the life one of
America's real military heroes should get his
autobiography: Hazardous Duty. An American Soldier in
the Twentieth Century by Major General John K.
Singlaub, U.S. Army (Ret), with Malcolm McConnell. ISBN
0-671-79229-6.
__________________________________________________
Jean
d'Isle is a retired naval officer living
in Hawaii.
During his
military career he served in a number of overseas
assignments, including Germany, England, Spain, Viet Nam
and Puerto Rico. Following his retirement, he was an
adjunct faculty member of Hawaii Pacific University and
is currently under contract with the U.S. Navy at the
submarine base in Pearl Harbor.
Jean's column, View From d'Isle, is a regular feature of VegSource On-Line Magazine.