General Questions About The Case

[snowmman]

i made some other posts on Braden on the suspects pages

but here's an interesting braden story from 1944

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FRIDAY, JANUARY 05, 2007
Second Battalion 501st PIR at Bizory, Belgium
December 1944 through January 1945

Preface

The following is this author’s description of the flow of events and action as experienced by the men of Second Battalion, 501 Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division beginning on the 18 December 1944 and ending on 15 January 1945. It is based on veteran’s accounts shared with the author in personal discussions, written accounts by veterans, and documents on file in the National Archives in Washington DC. It is in no way meant to be an accurate or final account, but the most probable based on the author’s interpretation of the material presented.


Peter Broome, first squad, second platoon, Easy Co., recalls that the German listening post in front of his foxhole on the farm track in Bizory was very close. Being a baseball player, Broome always judged distances in terms of baseball. The German listening post was close enough to him that a good little league pitcher could knock the helmet off the man sitting in it from his foxhole.\

Harry Mole recalls sitting in the listening post one night as being no fun at all. “You start to see things. It gets a bit hairy all out there by yourself.”

A fellow Easy trooper, Ted Braden, would crawl out to the listening post alone just after sundown. He knew that by the time he was settled into the listening post two German soldiers would be making their way as quietly as possible from tree to tree along the farm track to their listening post only a few dozen feet away.

The Germans always sent two men to such an outpost for they knew one soldier might be tempted to make his way to the American lines and give himself up. Men on listening outpost duty frequently heard snoring from their German counterparts.

[Robert99]

Turns out an AOA indicator provides very useful info for general aviation pilots. My son owns and flies a two seat carbon fiber Aero Shark with two very up to date glass panels. He not only has an a AOA indicator on each LCD panel but also a voice annunciator that will give a loud verbal warning if AOA increases beyond safe limits given other factors such as airspeed. He bought the plane used from an Air National Guard F-16 pilot. The seller gave him a lot of useful tips about AOA, info that was omitted from my son’s basic flight training. My son told me if you stay on top of AOA you will never have an unintended stall.

377

Glass panels came along well after I retired so I don't have any personal experience with them or with AOA instruments either.  But wings do stall at essentially the same angle of attack which depends on the flap/slats configuration among other things.  For a specific configuration, the stall speed varies as a function of the aircraft's weight.  But as your son points out, if you keep the AOA below the stall AOA for your specific aircraft configuration you won't stall.

As I mentioned previously, the Navy pioneered the use of AOA indicators.  I have heard that the Navy tries to keep the wind over the deck at a given value and will adjust the speed of the carrier to maintain that speed.  So presumably the deck touchdown speed of an aircraft will vary depending on the weight of the landing aircraft.  That is, identical configured aircraft flying at the same AOA will touch down at different speeds depending on their weight.

[Robert99]

"also page 65 testimony of S. Lewis Wallick, test pilot on the air stairs test of the 727 ( I think he was the test pilot. I didn't double check the report snip above)"

Lew Wallick was the pilot on at least one of the air stairs test flights.  He was also the 727 project pilot and made the first flight of the 727.

[snowmman]

it's interesting that Braden turned to petty crime.

I was wondering what other MACV-SOG turned to crime

in terms of numbers, it's a relatively small number of  people

here's an estimate of total numbers, from a macvsog kia/mia web page
He estimates 400-600 in recon/hatchet teams during the entire vietnam operational period.

And Braden was a team leader!

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12,000 were Special Forces Soldiers who served in Vietnam , other sources say 20,000. of that 12,000 only 2,000 served in Vietnam with SOG.   ---- And of those 2,000, only 400 to a maximum of 600 served in SOG Recon/Hatchet Forces


Commandos who were the SF troop Operators actually fighting in a combat environment with the other 1,400 being support during the 8 year period of their existence.

Of those 400-600 suffered more than half of all the Special Forces fatalities and eighty-five percent of the SF missing in action cases in the war. This yields 50 to a max of 75 Commando operators per year.

With three (3) operational units, CCN, CCC, CCS, each would have around 17 to 25 SF Commandos operators on an annual basis. (Based on the roster for Command and Control North Recon Company as of April 1971, there were 30 Recon Team with a total of 95 American SF assigned to teams; however, not were operational as some were in stand down or not operational.
During the early years, the teams running were much smaller as the missions grew, the teams requirements grew so it is not possible to know exactly or even approximately how man Americans served in Recon or Hatchet forces over the 1964 thru April 1972.  The first Recon team that ran a mission was inserted October 18, 1965. 

Taking this information, actual operations was, and assuming the last mission was ran the last day April 72, teams were operational for 6 and a half year.  In August 1970 a number of RT member were transferred from CCS to CCN, thus increasing the strength of Recon Company of CCN and reducing the strength for CCS.

I mention this as the 30 team reported in Apr 71 cannot be used as a data point to try and calculate the strength of Recon and Hatchet for each period of time and location.  I, therefore, conclude that the number would be between the calculation of 400 to 600 throughout the entire operational period.

[Olemisscub]

for what it's worth, Carr said he can't recall seeing Braden's name in any of the 302's. Additionally, I asked him if he ever recalls seeing "MACVSOG" or some other iteration of it and he said he did not. This, of course, makes sense because classified information wasn't put in 302's. With SOG being classified at the time, Carr said they'd probably just leave out the specifics and refer to any of those suspects as "Green Berets" or generic "Special Forces"

[snowmman]

Here's one thing we haven't discussed.
The mythology around the invincible Ted Braden.

Note the mythology extends to WWII. I mean people just like telling stories about how Ted was able to stay alive in risky combat situations.

But look at the petty crimes he got caught for. Seems to me, that he was mediocre when it came to crime. How much other crime did he do that was not discovered? Unknown.

The story of him and wife Pat owning Mercedes is intriguing.
She says she didn't file for divorce because of lack of money.
I'm thinking there was a time when there was money.
Where did it come from? Other petty crime? Trucking insurance fraud?

Braden could be the mixture of competence in one area, and not great competence in another area.

The stories around Braden like to paint him as equally brilliant in everything he did.

He wasn't.

Even the macv-sog stories are a little overstated. None of the missions accomplished as much as they like to say they did.
Sure the guys took risks, And died and took casualties.
But taking risks and dieing...there will always be survivors at some level.
It's hard to say what is attributable to being "good at it"

The best way to stay alive is to not take risks. Or to do things that others think are risky (appearance risk) that really aren't.

Because if the risk is real, you eventually die. Or get caught and sent to federal prison...

[snowmman]

i did a search of ocr'ed text of the fbi files on "vietnam" and macv

some vietnam. Not much

I'll try special forces and green beret. Doubt there's anything.

They just didn't think they were dealing with a vietnam guy I think, because of the age issue.
they thought they had a middle-aged guy from stateside. (biased thinking)

[snowmman]

Given the small number of macv-sog...
if there was even an inkling of macv-sog suspicion, there couldn't be more than 10 people worth investigating.

I mean I wonder what the list of 10 would be.

Braden was the only thing I came up with.

[snowmman]

interesting comment that Braden was a "gambler" while married to the first wife  (from the 1950 census?)

 
In the 1950 federal census, Ted was 21, married and living in Columbus Georgia. He was a boarder in the house of Cecil and Breta Jones. Also in the household were Ted and Rosalind's 3 children. Ted stated that he was a gambler in the entertainment industry. A newspaper article from about that time shows his financial circumstances. See Georgia, Muscogee County.

I checked the 1950 census and it's true. the relevant page is attached below

[snowmman]

Georgia, Muscogee County
The following appeared in The Columbus Ledger on January 17th 1950 on page 17:

There will be sold at public outcry to the highest and best bidder for cash before the Court House door of Muscogee County between the legal hours of sale. on the first Tuesday in February, 1950, the following property to-wit:

One 1946 Club Coupe Mercury automobile, Motor No 96A1318394 Said property was found in possession of Hardaway Motor Co. and levied on as the property of Ted B. Braden Jr. to satisfy a foreclosure on conditional bill of sale against him in favor of Federal Services Finance Corporation from the Superior Court of Muscogee County, Ga.

This the 30th day of December, 1949. E. F. Howell, Sheriff, Muscogee Co., Georgia January 16, 17, 24, 31, 1950.

[snowmman]

Just noticed this at dz.com (sorry i didn't note the credit)
copying here just for info.

braden's discharge (dd-214) from his wwii era enlistment

noted he had gray eyes then (brown hair)
the later pennsyvlania police report had noted gray/hazel

another case of his signature at the bottom also