Background: Bill Bell
Current Residence: Arkansas.
Garnett "Bill" Bell is a native of Marshall, Texas. He entered military service in 1960 as an enlisted man in the U.S. Army airborne-infantry. During his initial tour, he participated in parachute operations staged near the border of the former Soviet Union and Turkey after Captain Francis Gary Powers was shot down in the well-known U-2 aircraft incident. After completing his first tour, he was transferred to reserve status as a civilian aircraft operations agent for Southern Air, Inc.
Mr. Bell returned to active military duty in 1965 and received Vietnamese language and area studies training before being assigned to the Central Highlands area of Vietnam with the 25th Infantry Division. Due to his language skills, he led friendly Montagnard and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) defectors on covert scouting missions along the borders of Laos and Cambodia to locate enemy base areas and supply caches. After a period of intense combat operations, in 1967 Mr. Bell returned for intelligence training at Fort Holabird, Maryland, followed by advanced schooling in the Vietnamese Language at the Defense Language Institute, Biggs Field, Texas.
Upon completion of language study, he was reassigned back to southern Vietnam in the Bien Hoa/War Zone “D” area near Saigon with the 101st Airborne Division’s Military Intelligence Detachment. There, Mr. Bell uncovered evidence of the pending NVA attack against Bien Hoa airbase.
Shortly thereafter, Mr. Bell was summoned to Saigon to work at the national intelligence level, where he specialized in human intelligence collection concerning enemy scientific-medical techniques, North Vietnamese infiltration-logistics into South Vietnam, POW/MIA, Third Country order of battle, and the Viet Cong Infrastructure (VCI).
Upon completion of his second Vietnam tour, Mr. Bell was sent to the John F. Kennedy Center for Special Warfare at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where he worked on the planning committee for prisoner/hostage rescue of the highly classified Joint Unconventional Warfare Task Force Alpha. He also received Ranger, Jumpmaster, and Psychological Operations training, followed by extensive education in the Thai/Lao Language at the Defense Language Institute, Monterey, CA.
In 1973, with the signing of the Paris Peace Accords, Mr. Bell was hand-chosen as the U.S. side’s interpreter-translator for “Operation Homecoming,” the release of U.S. POW's by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam), the Provisional Revolutionary Government (Viet Cong), and the Pathet Lao. Later, he was asked to join the Hanoi Liaison Office of the Joint Casualty Resolution Center (JCRC). Mr. Bell made several trips to North Vietnam to inspect the graves of U.S. POW's who died in captivity, and to negotiate for the repatriation of their remains.
In early 1974 Mr. Bell was reassigned as an instructor in the Department of Exploitation and Counterintelligence, U.S. Army Intelligence Center and School. Later that same year he returned to the POW/MIA issue when he was chosen as Chief of Liaison for the U.S. Delegation, Four Party Joint Military Team, U.S. Embassy, Saigon. In this capacity, Mr. Bell made several trips to Hanoi to discuss various issues with the North Vietnamese. On April 4, 1975, his wife and son were killed in the famous crash of the C-5A during “Operation Babylift.” After escorting his surviving daughter back to the States, he returned and began assisting in the clandestine evacuation of American and South Vietnamese nationals from Saigon. On 25 April 1975, Mr. Bell traveled with only one other American to Hanoi, where they received the North Vietnamese terms for the final American withdrawel from Vietnam. This was the last mission U.S. officials undertook to North Vietnam prior to the communist victory. On 30 April 1975, Mr. Bell helped to organize the evacuation by helicopter from the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, and he was the last officially assigned American to leave the embattled city.
In May 1975 Mr. Bell was ordered to assist a classified project of the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Indochina Refugee Reception Center, Fort Chaffee, Arkansas. After Fort Chaffee was converted to house Cuban refugees in 1980, Mr. Bell was reassigned as the Chief of Operations for the Joint Casualty Resolution Center in Hawaii. There he developed the first organized interview route, collecting POW/MIA information from Vietnamese refugees fleeing their country. In 1981, he was transferred to the JCRC headquarters, Bangkok, Thailand where he worked in the border areas of Cambodia and Laos interviewing refugees for POW/MIA information. Mr. Bell also collected POW/MIA information in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Macau, Japan, and the People’s Republic of China. In 1985, Mr. Bell participated in the first two crash-site excavations allowed by the governments of Laos and Vietnam. Because of his extraordinary language and interview skills, in 1988 Mr. Bell became the U.S. government’s senior field investigator for the first POW/MIA search and recovery operations undertaken in postwar Vietnam.
In May 1991, again due to his intimate knowledge of the POW/MIA issue, Mr. Bell became the first U.S. government official to be assigned to communist Vietnam since the war ended when he became the Chief of the newly created U.S. Office for POW/MIA Affairs in Hanoi. In November 1991, Mr. Bell was called to testify before the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs. During his testimony, Mr. Bell stated his belief, based on his years of experience, that the communists held a small number of American POWs back. The resultant uproar landed him on the front page of USA Today and other major news media. He remained Chief of the U.S. Office for POW/MIA Affairs in Hanoi, until nominated to be the Special Assistant to the Commander of the Department of Defense’s newly created Joint Task Force-Full Accounting, the replacement for the old Joint Casualty Resolution Center. He retired in mid-1993.
Since his retirement, Mr. Bell has served on the Governor of Arkansas POW/MIA Verification Task Force, created by then Governor Bill Clinton. He has also served as a chapter-level and state-level Chairman for POW/MIA Committees of the Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA) and the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), as well as being a member of POW/MIA Committees of both organizations at the national-level. He has also served as a POW/MIA Adviser to the Executive Director of the American Legion and as a Post Commander of the VFW. In working with the various Veterans Service Organizations, Mr. Bell has traveled throughout the United States to address both state and national conventions regarding the important POW/MIA issue. Mr. Bell has also been called on two occasions to Washington, D.C. to testify before the U.S. Senate, and the U.S. House of Representatives on three occasions. He has been a featured speaker at the massive “Rolling Thunder” parades held every Memorial Day in Washington, DC.
During his military and civil service career Mr. Bell was awarded the Legion of Merit, Bronze Star, Purple Heart, Cross of Gallantry, Combat Infantryman's Badge, Ranger Tab, Senior Parachutist Badge, the Civilian Meritorious Service Medal and numerous other decorations. Mr. Bell is a graduate of Chaminade University, Honolulu, Hawaii.
|
Moore's
Marauders is a non-profit organization that receives no government funding. We
rely solely on your contributions to help us locate the 35,000
