Sea Power and Maritime Affairs

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Sea Power and Maritime Affairs

• Lesson 18 The Navy, Vietnam and
• Limited War, 1964-1975

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Cohenno
Guernsey
Harlan
Moss
Rey
Draper
Ihnotic
Fairbanks
Tegegne
Cope
Jamplis
Teuscher
Daniels
Tiu
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Learning Objectives

• Know the Navys roles in the Vietnam War
  (1964-1974)
• Comprehend the impact of the Vietnam War on the
  Navys force structure under Admiral Zumwalt
  during the Nixon administration.
• Recall the reasons for the relative decline in
  the U.S. naval preeminence from 1962-1977.
• Comprehend the differing naval policies of the
  U.S. and the Soviet Union and how those
  differences affected their resulting force
  structure.

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• Republic of Vietnam
• (South)
• U.S. Ally
• Capital Saigon

• Democratic Republic of Vietnam
• (North)
• Communist
• Capital Hanoi

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Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ)

• Succeeds Kennedy as President after his
  assassination in Dallas in 1963.
• Increases U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.
• High level of restrictions put on military
  planners by his administration.
• Concerned with Great Society and domestic
  politics.

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Robert S. McNamara
LT Henrie?

• Secretary of Defense in Kennedy and Johnson
  Administrations.
• Use of mathematical models to calculate required
  military force in Vietnam.
• Attempted to avoid escalation of the war by
  putting restrictions on military operations.

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Tonkin Gulf Incident - 1964

• U.S. Seventh Fleet operating off Vietnam coast
• Surveillance and covert operations against North
  Vietnam
• Destroyers USS Maddox and USS Turner Joy
• Night attacks by North Vietnamese torpedo boats
  reported
• Evidence supports North Vietnams claim that no
  torpedo boats were present in the area
• Carrier strikes ordered in retaliation

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Tonkin Gulf Incident
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Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

• LBJ requests authority from Congress to increase
  U.S. involvement
• Congressional approval for the President to take
  all necessary measures to repel any armed
  attack in Vietnam
• Made him look good against Barry Goldwater

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Escalating Intervention - 1965

• Johnson Administration goes to work after the
  election
• MACV- Military Assistance Command Vietnam
• Overall- General William Westmoreland
• Naval Advisory Group
• Sea Force
• River Force
• Junk Force
• Task Forces
• Ground war of attrition against North Vietnam
  begins.

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Retaliatory strike on enlisted barracks
FLAMING DART
TF 77 (CVs)
ROLLING THUNDER
TF 77 (CVs)
North Vietnamese bombing campaign
MARKET TIME
TF 115 (WPBs, PCFs)
Coastal Interdiction
GAME WARDEN
Mekong Delta Interdiction
TF 116 (PRBs)
SEALORDS
Interdiction in Mekong Delta on Cambodia border
TF 194 (PRBs)
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Westmoreland and LBJ Cam Ranh Bay 23 DEC 67
WESTYs STRATEGY SEARCH AND
DESTROY MEASUREMENT BODY BAGS
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Rolling Thunder

• Theory punish north until it stops supporting
  V.C. in South
• Reality lasted intermittently un 31 OCT 68
• Interrupted by 7 bombing halts which North used
  to rebuild
• 304,000 fighter bombers and 2,380 B-52 sorties
• Evaluation

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Rolling Thunder must go down in the history of
aerial warfare as the most ambitious, wasteful,
and ineffective campaign ever mounted. While
damage was . . . done to many targets in the
North, no lasting objective was achieved. Hanoi
emerged as the winner of Rolling Thunder. (CIA
analyst quoted by COL Harry Summers, USA,
Historical Atlas of the Vietnam War, p. 96)
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Douglas A-1 Skyraider - AD or Able Dog Spad
or Sandy

• Flew close air support missions in Vietnam.

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USS Coral Sea launches A-4
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Douglas A-4 Skyhawk

• Navy and Marine light attack aircraft in Vietnam.

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A-6A Intruder

• Introduced in Vietnam.
• Navy and Marine carrier- or land-based medium
  bomber.
• Evades enemy radar by low level flight.

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F-4 Phantom

• U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps fighter
  aircraft flown in Vietnam on fighter and attack
  missions

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Soviet-built MiG-19

• Used by North Vietnamese Air Force to defend
  against U.S. attacks during the Vietnam War.

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May 1965 Naval shore bombardment begins against
South Vietnam as supplement to air strikes in
support of military operations along the coast
first since Korean War. NGF, USS Carronade
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Overall Conclusions on Naval Aviation

• Cost were too high
• Results were uncertain
• POW suffering

N. Vietnam SAM sites
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Coastal Patrol Force Operation Market
Time (March 1965- December 1972)
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Market Time

• Coastal interdiction of supplies moved from N.
  Vietnam to South Vietnam by small boats, etc.
• Improvised Force
• 84 PCF armed with .50 cal machine guns and 81-mm
  mortar.
• Destroyers, destroyer escorts, minesweepers
• Coast Guard Cutters
• Not unlike Norths blockade during Civil War!

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Evaluation as outstandingly effective From
January to July 1967, Market Time forces . . .
inspected or boarded more than 700,000 vessels in
South Vietnamese waters. Except for five enemy
ships sighted during Tet . . . no other enemy
trawlers were spotted from July 1967 to August
1969. (COL Harry Summers, USA, Historical Atlas
of the Vietnam War, p. 150)
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Cautious evaluation There are no statistics to
show what MARKET TIME did not interdict. At the
very least, MARKET TIME forced the enemy to be
even more inventive and creative in bringing into
the South the tools of war. (Symonds, Historical
Atlas, p. 210)
.50 caliber machine guns of PCF
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S. Viet Junk Boat Force operating during Market
Time
Certain evaluation Forced North Vietnam to
expand and rely more heavily on the overland Ho
Chi Minh Trail running south through Laos and
Cambodia.
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Mobile Riverine Force of the Brown Water
Navy Operation Game Warden (December 1965-
September 1968
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Brown Water Navy

• Deny use of Mekong River and tributaries
• Specially designed and improvised small craft
• 50 FT, aluminum hull fast patrol craft (PCFs),
  .50 cal and 81-mm
• 31 ft, fiberglass, river patrol boat. 25 knots
• Monitors, armored troop carriers (ATC)
• Highly Dangerous
• Less effective and more costly than coastal
  interdiction
• Turned over to S. Vietnamese during
  Vietnamization in Feb 69

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River Patrol Boat
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Huey Landing on ATC
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Monitor leading ATCs
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Assault Support Patrol Boat..sinking
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SEALS on a Assault Boat on Mekong Delta
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Marines unloading from at ATC for a River Assault
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Tet and Its Impact (30 Jan 1968 20 Jan
1969) The Turning Point in the War
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Tet Offensive -- January 1968

• Conceived by N. Vietnams General Vo Nguyen Giap,
  architect of Dien Bien Phu (1954 defeat of
  France)
• Combine attack by N Vietnamese and Vietcong
• Goal popular uprising (failed)
• Achieve Dien Bien Phu- like tactical battlefield
  victory for propaganda purposes
• Scope
• Struck at 36 of 44 provincial capital and
  military bases (most notably, Hue and Khe Sanh)
• 100 other villages

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What the Hells Ho Chi Minh Doing Answering
Our Saigon Embassy Phone. . . ? Paul Conrad,
Los Angles Times, 1968
General Vo Nguyen Giap Former history teacher
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TET in and near Saigon 0245 Jan. 31 - 7 Mar.
1968 NVA and VC attack city-wide, especially
against US Embassy and MACV HQ (Gen.
Westmoreland), near Tan Son Nhut airbase. Also
at Bin Hoa airbase (NE of Saigon), busiest in
world. (875,000 landings takeoffs per
year) Enemy repulsed by strategic/ tactical
foresight of LGEN Fred C. Weyand, veteran of
China-Burma- India campaign, WW II
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We fought from house to house and street to
street. When we had to go inside a house wed
just shoot inside with our rifles and then
the M-60. Then we had to go up into the house
and make sure they were dead. We didnt have no
flame-throwers. I didnt see no tanks in Saigon.
They didnt have things like you see in
the movies on TV about World War II. It
surprised me. -------U.S. soldier
A Vietcong (VC) corpse lies on the US
Embassy grounds in Saigon shortly after the Tet
attack. (U.S. Army photo)
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Marines in the Tet Offensive

• Hue City
• Ancient capital of Vietnam.
• Held by North Vietnamese and Viet Cong for 26
  days.
• Retaken by Marines and South Vietnamese forces.
• Street fighting from house to house.
• Khe Sanh
• Important base in northern South Vietnam near
  DMZ.
• 6,000 Marines under siege by 20,000 North
  Vietnamese Army regular troops.
• Supplied by air drops and supported with air
  strikes.
• Eventually abandoned.

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Hue City
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Tet at Hue 0330, 31 Jan. - 2 Mar. 1968 The
twenty-five day struggle for Hue was the longest
and bloodiest ground action of the Tet
offensive, and, quite possibly, the longest and
bloodiest single action of the Second Indochina
War. --- Don Oberdorfer
author of Tet!, first-hand
witness
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Temple for victims of the resistance against
French colonial rule, Hue.
Marines patrol streets Hue, Feb. 1968 (USMC photo)
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Khe Sanh
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Tet at Khe Sanh 21 Jan. - 8 Apr.
1968 I dont want any damn Dinbinfoo. Pres.
Lyndon B. Johnson to Gen. Earle Wheeler, CJCS, as
77-day siege began
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Immediate Results

• Vietcong forces assaulted and entered U.S.
  Embassy, Saigon
• General Westmoreland, MACV declared victory in
  Saigon by 0915, 30 January.
• After initial shock, U.S./ARVN repelled all NVA
  forces.
• No popular uprising- disappointment to Giap, BUT
• Dismay in USA

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Short Results

• No popular uprising
• Dismay in USA
• President Johnson renounces candidacy for
  re-election (31 Mar 68)
• Secretary of Defense, McNamara, forced to resign
• General Westmoreland replaced by General Abrams
  as U.S. overall commander in Vietnam.
• VADM Zumwalt appointed Commander, U.S. naval
  Forces , Vietnam ( Sept 68)
• MERGES Game Warden and Mobile Riverine Force into
  SEALORDS

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PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 1972 NIXON vs. SEN.
GEORGE McGOVERN --- 60 of popular vote --- 49
states
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The bastards have never been bombed like
theyre going to be bombed this
time. ---President Richard .M. Nixon March
1972 Linebacker I (ended 22 Oct.) 40,000
sorties 125,000 tons of bombs Linebacker II
(18-26 Dec. 1972) 742 B-52, 640 fighter-bomber
sorties 15 B-52s lost!!!
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VADM Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr. Commander, U.S.
Forces, Vietnam
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ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT Chicago, Demo. Convention
Aug. 1968 Kent State University 4 May 1970
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Vietnamization

• Turning over the war to S. Vietnamese with
  withdrawing American forces as quickly as
  possible
• U.S. forces reduced from over 500,000
  combat/combat support to a handful of advisors.
• Admiral Zumwalt, Jr. - withdrawal of naval forces
• Hanoi signed Paris Accords (Jan 1973) calling for
  cease-fire throughout S. Vietnam and release of
  POWs
• Nixon opens to China and conducts arms limitation
  summit with Moscow
• Peace negotiations in Paris - Henry Kissinger.
• U.S. withdraws forces from South Vietnam
• North Vietnam agrees to allow South Vietnam to
  decide government in a free election and to
  release American POWs

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Vastly different from last two years of
Korea U.S. was now withdrawing before
indigenous forces were built-up and able to stand
on their own. -- COL Harry Summers
Marine regimental commander to Marine LCOL
Bernard Trainor, 1969 Were no longer here to
win, were merely campaigning, so keep the
casualties down. -- from Marine retired MGEN
Bernard Trainor, author of Generals War on Gulf
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Vietnamization offered a way to get the United
States, the Republicans, Richard Nixon, and most
important, Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird,
out of the Vietnam quagmire. Whether it would
work or not was secondary. It was an exit. --
LGEN Philip Davidson
Vietnamization was the model or paradigm of a
new strategy of retreat. -- Norman Podhoretz,
editor of Commentary
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1972 The fighting wasnt over, but the war was
won . . . There came a later point at which the
war was no longer won. -- Lewis Sorley, author
of Thunderbolt General Creighton Abrams and the
Army of His Times (
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Watching South Vietnam Go Under (1973-1975)

• Congress rejected any further military
  intervention in Southeast Asia and refused to
  appropriate the full 1 billion in military aid
  promised South Vietnam by the Nixon
  administration
• 30 April 1975 North Vietnamese forces overran
  South Vietnam South Vietnams president
  proclaimed unconditional surrender
• U.S. Embassy in Saigon evacuated, the final few
  Americans leaving by helicopter from the
  Embassys roof. In operations Eagle Pull and
  Frequent Wind, 7th Fleet evacuates remaining
  Americans and foreign nationals

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Postwar Problems of U.S. Navy

• Impact of Vietnam
• Hiatus in shipbuilding
• Inadequate Funding
• High personnel costs
• Aging WWII fleet
• Skyrocketing procurement costs
• Bigger, more sophisticated ships
• Push for Nuke power Admiral Rickover

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Shaping the Navy after Vietnam

• ADM Elmo Zumwalt, Jr.
• High-low mix
• Missions
• Sea Control
• Power Projection
• High End Carriers
• Low End Inexpensive platforms, escort duty etc.
• Sea Control Ship
• Other Issues
• Equal opportunity for minorities
• Adm Rickover
• Differences with Nixon

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Comparison Between U.S. and Soviet Navies

• Categories of differences number of major ships,
  number of ships by type, tonnage by type fleets,
  operational ship days out of area
• Reasons geography, internal defense, perceived
  threats, naval background, economic approach to
  ship building
• Navies configured for different wars

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Conclusions from Vietnam

• The Vietnam conflict has impacted every use of
  the U.S. military since that time.
• Cost to American people dramatic
• Vietnams civil war became Americas civil
  convulsion

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Learning Objectives

• Know the Navys roles in the Vietnam War
  (1964-1974)
• Comprehend the impact of the Vietnam War on the
  Navys force structure under Admiral Zumwalt
  during the Nixon administration.
• Recall the reasons for the relative decline in
  the U.S. naval preeminence from 1962-1977.
• Comprehend the differing naval policies of the
  U.S. and the Soviet Union and how those
  differences affected their resulting force
  structure.

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Next time The Era of Retrenchment Presidents
Ford, and Carter, 1974-1980