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Part 4
The Navy and “another government agency” involved had decided that his death was “accidental.” It was not specifically caused by enemy fire, and according to the cover story, simply a training mishap.
Besides…, the highly classified nature of the operation at the time made disclosing the surrounding circumstances of his death particularly difficult …(if not politically awkward).
Not only would it potentially complicate any future rescue attempt, but could also create political problems for an Administration trying hard to convince a divided Nation that direct American involvement in Vietnam’s ground combat ops had all but ceased.
But the risk to Spence and to that of his fellow SEALs on that particularly dangerous operation was from more than just the threat of hostile fire. Several potentially treacherous operational hazards were also closely and inherently linked throughout the operation’s full mission profile.
And although certain aspects of his mission still remain classified, these risks most certainly included:
• the night underwater lock out and launch from Grayback,
• the long cold hours of submerged transit to the target area in a confined & unproven free flooding Mark VII SDV,
• the strong tidal current that made mission success all but impossible and forced the team to abort, and…
• the high risk of detection by aggressive enemy patrol boats probing throughout the several hours that the SEALs where forced to surface in the Tonkin Gulf and await emergency recovery by Helo.
To these mission components that “go with the territory” must be added the one that killed him. In a desperate attempt to brief the back-up SDV team about the strong tidal current prior to their launch from Grayback, Spence had leaped into the night from a Helo too high and fast in an attempt to link-up and lock-in to a submarine - that wasn’t there.
Throughout the entire POW rescue attempt his team needed to remain undetected - even by friendly forces.
But if the enemy did detect the SEALs and forced them to return fire, it would have been merely one more challenge to overcome...one of many in a long sequence of high risk mission profile events of one very difficult and ultimately tragic operation.
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We didn’t know those details back then… All we knew was that a close friend and good teammate, an outstanding officer with tremendous potential, had been killed.
So on the night that we learned of his death four of us gathered once more at the
Chart House and asked for a table for five by the window.*
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