escort

18th Bde.

1967 Operation OVERTAKE Time Line
18th MP Brigade, 89th MP Group, 716th, 92nd, 95th, 720th MP Battalion's
~ 720th Military Police Battalion Reunion Association ~ Vietnam History Project ~
This Page Last Updated 11 March 2008

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Cargo losses by theft were staggering... the solution was called...
Operation OVERTAKE

89th GP

716th

92nd

95th

720th

Quan Canh

Canh Sat

December During the end of the year the theft of cargo from resupply convoys by members of Vietnamese organized crime black marketers and their confidants employed as civilian truck drivers became staggering with thousands of dollars of high end post exchange goods being stolen every month.

The Operational Plan I pretty much structured Operation OVERTAKE in 1968 as the 89th MP Group Operations Officer for that project, I also dispatched the Response Force. The Response Force was established when we started OVERTAKE because the escorts (188th MP Company) from the battalion down south of Saigon (IV Corps Tactical Zone) were being attacked with no immediate Response Force to quickly come to their assistance. They were just left to their own devices.

When we became aware of this we established the Communications Center so we could monitor the escorts from the company down south through Newport and Saigon Ports and to Long Binh Post. The "escort patrols" were routinely under fire.

When we discovered the "domestic" profile (post, camp and station attitude of units along the convoy route), COL Francis E. "Frank" Payne, 89th MP Group Commander and I took action to help protect the MP escorts. They were not all from the 720th.

We established a Reaction Team with Armored Personnel Carriers (APC's), which COL Payne and I hammered at until we received authorization for delivery of about 13 of the APC's, and several V100's, and the 720th was backed up with personnel from the Infantry company assigned to the 89th MP Group, D Company, 87th Infantry (Rifle Security), for the ammo depot security.

I have a lot of memories about Operation OVERTAKE. I was very involved with its creation and operations during 1968, and I witnessed first hand the bravery of the MPs and Infantry assigned to that detail. And I witnessed more that is not so positive with some of the units involved. MAJ Fred J. Villella, (LTC Retired) S3 Operations Officer, 720th MP Battalion & 89th MP Group, October 1967 to October 1968.

The supplies were being transported from the Saigon Port and Newport Docks in Saigon by vehicles under contract to the U.S. Government through companies such as Pacific Architects and Engineers (PA&E), Philco Ford and PERIL Ltd. (Pope-Evans & Robins International, Ltd.)

Their transportation yard on Highway 316, near Thu Duc, was used by the civilian contractors and their Vietnamese civilian drivers that provided the truck transportation for the cargo transports for the operation.

To add to the problem of security, many of the trucks used by these three U.S. contract companies were subcontracted from local Vietnamese civilian companies and independent operators.

The 89th MP Group of the 18th Military Police Brigade, formulated a plan of action to prevent future thefts. The plan was named Operation OVERTAKE.

In the beginning the primary functional unit for the operation was the 188th Military Police Company, 92nd MP Battalion from Pershing Field Saigon. Elements of the 716th MP Battalion (Saigon Military District) were also involved.

Assisting in the operation were elements of the 95th MP Battalion and the 720th MP Battalion from Long Binh Post.

There were many problems that had to be addressed to curb the thefts. Running the civilian convoys during the already heavy daytime traffic negated the needed convoy security and control check point system effectiveness. During the daytime runs here was very little enemy activity but due to the volume of military and civilian vehicles it was very slow going and easy for one or more of the trucks to slip off the highway unseen by the MP's to their predetermined black market unloading point in many of the small villages along the route.

Fraudulent claims of hijacking by the drivers were hard to refute and in many instances the driver just abandoned his vehicle once it was unloaded. Since most of the thefts were orchestrated by organized crime, bribery of local civilian and indigenous military officials was rampant. Drivers who were part of the organized crews, would appear later with new identities and start all over again.

Exact date unknown Communications were the backbone of coordination for the combined unit MP escorts and check points that would shadow the civilian trucks used in the convoys from the Saigon and Newport Docks to Long Binh Post.

An operations room was set up in the rear of the Post Provost Marshal Office and MP Station, located just inside of Gate #1 on Long Binh Post. From that location the OVERTAKE operators charted on an operations map the number of vehicles, frequency of departures, and progress of the vehicle groups along the route.

It also made it much easier to dispatch assistance from pre-designated units when needed by the escorts.