President John F. Kennedy’s concern over the increase in the number of Communist-inspired ‘wars of liberation’ had a great influence on the expansion of SF. The logic was simple: what better force to combat guerrillas than one trained as guerrillas themselves? UW was still to remain SF’s primary mission, but assisting small nations in their counterinsurgency efforts became a major effort.
In October 1961 President Kennedy visited Ft Bragg to see for himself the capabilities of this little-known organisation. A massive effort had been made by the Special Warfare Center and the 7th SFGA to impress the President. Their demonstrations of techniques and equipment made a favourable impression. Fully realising the turn that world events were taking, the President ordered the expansion of SF.
Expansion of a force that requires high quality personnel and lengthy specialist training brings its own inherent problems, and SF was no exception. The three existing groups were brought up to strength. Funds were made available for much-needed equipment and training. The 5th SFGA was activated on 5 December 1961 to support missions in South-East Asia. The 3rd, 6th, and 8th SFGAs were formed in 1963. To support this massive expansion, the SF Training Group was formed to provide a continuous flow of personnel.
The tactical operations centre of the Army Reserve’s 24th SFGA on Hawaii, early 1960s. (Author’s collection)
Small SF units had first been formed in the Army Reserve and Army National Guard in 1959. In 1961 these units were expanded into the 2nd, 9th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 17th, and 24th Reserve and the 16th, 19th, 20th, and 21st National Guard SFGAs. In 1966 these small groups were consolidated into the Reserve’s 11th and 12th and the National Guard’s 19th and 20th SFGAs.
It must be admitted that this expansion did lower the overall quality of SF personnel. Selection and training standards were relaxed somewhat, although the personnel were still triple volunteers, and of much higher quality than the bulk of the Army. In 1965 first enlistment soldiers and second lieutenants were allowed to volunteer for the first time. To gain public support and sufficient volunteers, publicity campaigns were instituted which caused some displeasure among the old hands, and amusement among SF’s detractors.
Though there were problems involved in SF’s expansion, there were also benefits. The increased recruiting efforts and publicity attracted many high quality troops who may not have had an opportunity to volunteer in the past. The development of new items of equipment and techniques of operation would not have been possible without the expansion programme. Training funds for both individuals and units, so critical in the development of an effective organisation, would otherwise have been out of reach. Regardless of its growing pains, SF accomplished the multitude of missions assigned to it. From entire groups down to a single individual, detachments were deployed on countless missions to just about every Allied and friendly country.
Brig.Gen. William P. Yarborough, Special Warfare Center Commanding General, and a British SAS officer confer during a guerrilla warfare exercise near Andrews, North Carolina, September 1960. The general wears a modified fatigue shirt from which the later jungle fatigues were derived. (US Army)
The 1st SFGA continued to deploy teams throughout Asia and the Pacific area. They conducted innumerable civic action projects, trained military and police in counterinsurgency, conducted special operations in South-East Asia (often in support of other SF units already deployed there), and were instrumental in training and developing many nations’ own SF units. Laos, Thailand, the Philippines, South Vietnam, South Korea, and Taiwan were the countries in which most of the operations took place.
The 3rd SFGA was activated on 5 December 1963 at Ft Bragg. It was made responsible for Africa, where a number of small and mostly unpublicised missions were conducted in the Cameroons, Congo, Ethiopia, Guinea, Kenya, Mali, Senegal, and other countries. The 10th SFGA had been involved in some of these prior to the formation of the 3rd. Most of these were small scale advisory and assistance operations, although a team from the 10th accomplished a risky rescue of over 200 Belgian refugees during the 1960 Congo revolution.
For a brief period prior to the activation of the 6th SFGA on 1 May 1963 at Ft Bragg, Company C of the 10th was responsible for North Africa, the Middle East, and part of South-West Asia. The 6th took over responsibility for the Middle East in 1964. Training missions were conducted by SF in Iran, Jordan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and elsewhere, and SF was instrumental in developing these nations’ own special operations units.
Concern over the situation in Latin America due to the proliferation of insurgency movements in a region so close to home led to what would become one of the larger operations outside South-East Asia. The 7th SFGA, as part of its world-wide deployment mission, began conducting advisory operations in various Latin American countries in 1961. Company D of the 7th was moved to the Panama Canal Zone the following year. The next year it was to form the nucleus for the 8th SFGA, activated on 1 April at Ft Gurlick. The 8th sent training teams to almost every country in Central and South America where civic action operations, counterinsurgency training, and development of various special operations units were successfully accomplished.
With all of these missions being conducted throughout the world, the major concern of SF was a remote little corner of Asia that few Americans had even heard of. The first SF unit to operate in South-East Asia was a detachment from the 77th SFGA which trained the Thai Rangers in 1954. The first SF unit in Vietnam was the 14th Special Forces Operational Detachment (SFOD), formed from personnel of the 77th, which spent a brief period there in 1957 training Vietnamese Commandos. Thus began what was to become the largest, longest, and most controversial of SF’s many missions.