Donald Blackburn

Donald Blackburn (1916 - 2008) ) was a United States Army officer who, throughout a long career, was a specialist in insurgency, counterinsurgency and special operations before that was recognized as a specialty, and certainly before it was a prestigious area in the U.S. military.

He became a U.S. Army reserve second lieutenant in 1938, and was assigned to duty in the Phillipines in 1940 to the 24th Infantry at Fort Benning, Ga. In December 1941, he was a battalion-level U.S. adviser in the 12th Phillipine Infantry Regiment.

Filipino-American resistance to the Japanese

After the Bataan Peninsula fell to the Japanese in April 1942, he refused to surrender, and formed a guerilla unit on the Phillipine island of Luzon, which became the 11th Phillipine Infantry Regiment, along with another U.S. special operations legend, Russell Volckmann. He later explained that he managed the stress of a hunted behind-the-lines operator by hard labor, such as chopping wood.

According to another guerilla leader, Robert Latham, he thought, at first, they were other "empire builders", but he was wrong, and Volckmann and Blackburn built a serious organization, especially when more senior U.S. officers were captured. They built a major and effective guerilla organization, working well with both Americans and Filipinos. This regiment, although commanded by a U.S. officer, was commanded by Blackburn, and a regimental commander was normally a colonel, which the Filipinos certainly recongnized. Latham observed that Volckmann, Blackburn's commander, operated in a more remote area than other guerilla units, and felt safer in keeping detailed records. After the recapture of the Phillipines, the work of Volckmann's unit was better documented and thus became more visible to senior U.S. officers. . Latham also said there were frequent arguments over jurisdiction between his unit and Volckmann's, which probably was good education for Blackburn.

Blackburn and Volckmann had escaped from Bataan and joined the guerrilla movement of Colonels Moses and Noble in northern Luzon, who were later captured in June 1943. Following the abortive uprising in the fall of 1942, Volckmann and Blackburn had hidden among friendly natives in Ifugao Province, where they assembled a band of renegade Filipino soldiers and gradually reestablished contact with other groups.

Volckmann assumed command of the movement in northern Luzon and soon demonstrated that he had learned much from their mistakes. In accordance with orders from MacArthur's head-

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Photo: Col. Russell W. Volckmann ( U. S. Army photograph)

quarters, he concentrated on the development of an organization and intelligence net, avoiding major clashes with the Japanese. To gain public confidence and support, he brought rival tribes and factions together through personal diplomacy and instituted a crackdown against bandits who were looting and plundering the natives. Faced with an extensive Japanese network of spies and informers, he and his subordinates also launched a ruthless counterespionage campaign to eliminate the collaborators. Guerrilla agents infiltrated the Neighborhood Associations and the constabulary to identify the informers. Within six months those not executed had fled to the protection of Japanese garrisons. Once it became safe to support the guerrillas, Volckmann noted that "the so-called 'fence-sitters' began toppling in the right direction." 13

Having ensured popular support, Volckmann and his officers could develop the guerrilla organization, which they kept separate from the intelligence net. Dividing northern Luzon into seven districts, he placed each under a commander who was responsible for maintaining popular support and for organizing a unit along the lines of a Philippine Army regiment. For his officer corps he relied heavily on escaped American

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At the end of the war, he was the youngest full colonel in the United States Army, which was not quite sure what to do with a combat-proven 29-year-old colonel. As an indication of the contemporary career dead end that was special operations, twenty years later, he was still a colonel, with the longest time in grade of any colonel in the Army.

Post-WWII before Vietnam

His first postwar command, although not an especially prestigious one, was the commanding officer, 3rd Training Regiment, Fort Jackson, S.C. In 1957, he was assigned to Military Assistant Advisory Group, Vietnam (MAAG-V), where he was the senior U.S. advisor to the Vietnamese regional commander for the southernmost part of Vietnam, around the Mekong Delta.

Next in October 1958, he took command of the original U.S.-based 77th Special Forces Group (later designated the 7th SFG) where he prepared United States Army Special Forces personnel for deployment to places including Southeast Asia.

Vietnam War: MACV-SOG

Blackburn, once the youngest colonel in the U.S. Army and now, the colonel with the longest tenure at that rank, became the second commander of MACV-SOG. For special operations at the time, this was an unusual case of putting "the square peg in the square hole"; most of the commanders had no experience operating intelligence collection or covert action as an insurgent in an area controlled by a hostile government. Those, however, were exactly the things he did in the Phillipines.

Vietnam War: Special Assistant for Counterinsurgency and Special Activities

Later in the war, he was the Special Assistant for Counterinsurgency and Special Activities (SACSA) to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, most notably during Operation IVORY COAST, the attempted rescue of American prisoners of war from the camp at Son Tay in North Vietnam