Using his capacity to speak Vietnamese, Amb. Quinn in 1970 debriefed a Viet Cong defector and learned about an enemy military headquarters several provinces away. Taking the defector with him, he traveled by helicopter to Ba Xuyen where he enlisted U.S. Navy river patrol boats and a Vietnamese military force to successfully assault the island where the enemy headquarters were located. He recalls the phenomenon where the tracer bullets fired at the Navy boats as they attacked, all appeared to be coming right at him.
THE ARCHIVE OF AMBASSADOR KENNETH M. QUINN
FROM THE MISSISSIPPI TO THE MEKONG