USA STRATCOM-Pacific Pacific Field Office (PACFO) was created on Okinawa in late 1961 and consisted of 2 officers and a handful of TDY I&C personnel. PACFO was closed out in 1975 (?). Well over 300 personnel, both military and civilian, were assigned to the Office over the years.
Beginning in 1967, George Lane worked with the first US Army agency ( USA STRATCOM) to use modern HF radio performance prediction computer programs. He applied this technology to systems being built throughout Southeast Asia. His work resulted in considerable cost savings, higher reliability and changes in operational planning for HF links.
George is also the moderator of the PACFO Discussion Group devoted to retaining the history of the USASTRATCOM-Pacific Pacific Field Office (PACFO) which was located on the Island of Okinawa. The purpose is to provide a forum for former PACFO members to stay in touch and share memories, photos, etc. Their PHOTO albums include pictures of communications activities and facilities all over our operational area in SE ASIA. You will find pictures of OKINAWA, VIET NAM, HAWAII, KOREA, TIAWAN, THAILAND and the PHILIPPINES as time goes on.
George related an incident when PACFO and the 5th and 7th PsyOp Groups interacted:
The interaction was in the time frame of 1970-71. PACFO was asked to assist in redesigning the the Site-B AM broadcast station in the Chorwan Valley.
As I recall, the 5th PsyOp group operated a small AM station in Seoul which played solid American Rock and Roll music with no announcements or identification. At the time, the Korean Government operated 3 AM stations in Seoul. To determine the popularity of the various programming they took a survey of which stations were being listened to. Well, as you can imagine, it was not one of theirs! For some reason no one 'knew' about this clandestine station. The Korean Govenment was not very happy about the situation and directed that not only would the US transmitter be turned off but ALSO that the antenna be taken down.
The plan was for CEEIA installers to remove the tower and move it to Site-B where it would be used as a reflector for the single tower at Site-B. The Korean Government did not want any chance of that station being heard in South Korea. PACFO was asked to design a two tower array so that the signal would be directed toward Wonsan, North Korea.
The whole plan turned into a SNAFU of 1st magnitude. First of all the tower in Seoul fell down and was destroyed. STRATCOM-Pac offered to supply a tower as we had lots of spare HF stuff all over Asia in the 70's.. So I went up to check out the Site-B antenna and prepare the plans for the directional array. Back then one used a bridge and signal generator to measure the antenna input impedance.. So I am sitting out in the field with a headset on trying to make measurements while the South Koreans fired artillery shells over my head and into the DMZ. Then in the late afternoon, my headset would be blasting out some distant radio station. My Korean assistant said it was Japanese. It sure was! Tokyo had just put up a clear channel Megawatt station. Seems the PsyOp frequency was not registered with the ITU and it now belonged to the Japanese station. So that was the sad end to operations from Site-B as far as I know.
I seemed to have been assigned a lot of projects like that in my 30 years with the Government!