Blue Light was a United States Army counter-terrorist subunit of the 5th Special Forces Group that existed in the late 1970s. It was founded in 1977 to fill the capabilities gap in counter-terrorism operations while Delta Force became operational.

It was the U.S. Army's first dedicated, permanent, counter-terrorism unit, and the predecessor to the Critical Threat Advisory Companies (CTAC) now found in every Special Forces Group.. Drawn almost exclusively from Special Forces veterans of the Vietnam war, its mission set focusing on tubular assaults and hostage rescues ultimately overlapped with that of Delta Force and the unit was disbanded in 1978 when Delta Force became operational, with a small number of former Blue Light members successfully being selected for Delta.

Due to the unit's interim status and short tenure, it was never deployed for an actual hostage rescue.

History and operations

Background

In the early 1970s, the U.S. Army lacked a dedicated counter-terrorism unit. In 1976, following the success of the hostage rescue at Entebbe airport by Israel's special forces, the Pentagon made inquiries to General Jack Hennessey, commander of US Readiness Command (REDCOM) as to whether his forces could accomplish the same mission. According to Rod Lenahan, Hennessey replied that he had sufficient men but that they were not trained or equipped for such a mission. Reviewing a concepted, but never implemented plan from 1975 to address a wide range of terrorist threats, the Pentagon established two counter-terrorism contingency forces. JTF-7 would focus on the Middle East and Africa region, and JTF-11 would focus on Asia and the Pacific region.

In 1977, the task forces conducted a mock assault on a C-130 aircraft involving an entire Special Forces battalion (3rd Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group) parachuting in by static line, supported by an advanced force operation to from a 12-man team inserted by HALO jump. The exercises were part of the Army's annual Emergency Deployment Readiness Exercises (EDRE), this particular one under the auspices of the XVIII Airborne Corps. In March 1977, 3rd Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group commander LTC Rod Paschall was tasked with responding to domestic terrorist attacks including black militancy in the form of the then ongoing "Hanafi siege" in which armed gunmen from a Sunni orthodox splinter group of the Nation of Islam took over several buildings in the Washington D.C. area and held over 150 hostages.

The unit began conducting marksmanship and helicopter rappel training in preparation for inserting onto the roofs of the buildings held by Khalifaa Hamaas Abdul Khaalis and his followers. However, due to the intervention of ambassadors Ashraf Ghorbal of Egypt, Ardeshir Zahedi of Iran, and Sahabzada Yaqubkhan of Pakistan, the Hanafi forces surrendered before 5th Group was able to be deployed from Fort Bragg, North Carolina. In Fall 1977, the battalion participated in another counter-terrorism focused EDRE called "End Game", in which the Special Forces alert force and elements of 1st Ranger Battalion conducted a mock boarding of President Carter's Boeing 707, with the SF team penetrating the cockpit through an ingress technique that even the pilots of the plane did not know existed.

Formation

Following the successful rescue by the West German counterterrorism unit GSG-9 of 70 hostages from a Lufthansa airliner in Somalia hijacked by the PLO, it became clear that the U.S. could not perform the same mission. Following the GSG-9 Somalia rescue operation, Beckwith was given the approval to activate what would become Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta, or Delta Force; however, Beckwith had estimated it would take 24 months to assemble the required troops and funding. Due to the close-knit nature of the Special Forces community in Vietnam, many of the Blue Light members held a grudge against Beckwith, who they nicknamed derisively "Chargin' Charlie" for his aggressive personality, accusing him of taking unnecessary casualties taken during Project Delta operations in the Lao Valley (in which Beckwith himself was shot and seriously wounded by a .51 caliber machine gun round). A particular sticking point was Beckwith's insistence that all Blue Light members undergo Delta's selection and assessment process.

Origin of name

According to historian Jack Murphy, "Blue Light" was the non-classified name for the unit, which was actually under a classified project that "no one ever actually used", a naming convention used by Green Light as well.

Founding member Gary O'Neal postulated in his book, American Warrior, that Robert Anthony Mountel used the name because it was the name of an undercover OSS mission in France during World War II.

Organization and capabilities

thumb|Blue Light members Col. Robert Anthony Mountel (L), Spc. Katie McBrayer (Center), Col. Tom Carlin (R)

Blue Light's original founding consisted of about 75 operators, organized into two assault teams structured around the familiar 12-man Special Forces ODA arrangement, and a third assault team consisting of a 24-man element that was additionally tasked with intelligence collection, plus a sniper/observer team, a HUMINT support team from the 801st MID, and a SIGINT support team from the 400th Special Operations Detachment. The detachment from the 801st was commanded by Blue Light's S-2 (intelligence officer), Captain Timothy J. Casey, who was later one of the intelligence officers assigned to JTF 1–79 which commanded the ill-fated Operation Eagle Claw.

The standard counter-terrorism EDRE called for a Ranger battalion to static-line jump in several miles from the target and infiltrate on foot to quietly cordon off the target, followed by a Blue Light HALO free fall insertion inside that perimeter. In one EDRE using this format located in Nevada, Blue Light conducted the first nighttime mass-tactical HALO jump, involving 25 jumpers. All 25 jumpers landed within the perimeter established by 2nd Ranger Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment.

Blue Light pioneered a number of advancements in training and tactical shooting that are now commonplace. Blue Light was the first to utilize the pistol as a primary offensive weapon, issuing the M1911 for assaulters climbing on aircraft wings and conducting tubular assaults -- both the preference for custom M1911s and the tubular assault expertise would later become hallmarks of Delta Force. Operators attended training from civilian expert instructors, such as Jeff Cooper's Gunsite Academy. Operators practiced shooting under stress, including after long runs and HALO insertions. Shoot house training took place in warehouses, buildings, cruise ships and a "Hogan's Alley"-style urban environment. The cruise ship mission eventually became so important that Blue Light stood up a maritime section specifically focused on just these capabilities, which recruited from master divers who had served in Vietnam (mostly in MACV-SOG) familiar with multiple languages. The maritime section developed a new technique for stealthily boarding a hostile cruise ship via using sticky pads that would allow them to crawl up the ship's garbage chute. Blue Light conducted live-fire demonstrations for VIPs, including directors of the FBI and CIA; at one point two snipers located three hundred yards down range shot balloons located four inches away from Army Chief of Staff General Bernard W. Rogers' head.

The unit recruited a female soldier named Katie McBrayer from 5th Group's intelligence support element, where she had served as a 96B intelligence analyst with the rank of E-4 Specialist. McBrayer was trained to dress as a civilian nurse or flight attendant to infiltrate a hostage aircraft and gather intelligence. She was trained on the M1911, and became HALO qualified. When the unit was being disbanded, McBrayer was not allowed to assess for Delta with the rest of Blue Light; she was offered an administrative position as Mountel's driver, but left the military instead.

Facilities

Blue Light was headquartered at Mott Lake in a compound formerly used as 7th Special Forces Group's isolation facility.