SS MAYAGUEZ INCIDENT

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SS MAYAGUEZ INCIDENT

• NS 410

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OUTLINE

• Time Line and Background
• Geographic Location
• Type of Amphibious operation
• Key Players
• Summary of events
• Key Considerations
• Lessons Learned

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Timeline / background

• 15 May USMC mounts rescue operation to recover
  crew of MAYAGUEZ.

Aug 7, 1965 Operation Starlite

• Last helo lifts remaining Marines from the
  embassy roof on 30 April.

April-May 1975 Operation FREQUENT WIND evacuates
remaining US and many Vietnamese from Saigon as
it falls to NVA.
PCF SWIFT GUNBOATS
Beginning in 1965, the SS Mayaguez sailed a
regular route for Sea-Land Services in support of
American forces in Southeast Asia Hong Kong --
Sattahip, Thailand -- Singapore. On May 7, 1975,
about a week after the fall of Saigon, Mayaguez
left Hong Kong on a routine voyage. She could
carry 382 containers below and 94 on deck. She
was the first all-container U.S. flag ship in
foreign trade. She was renamed SS Sea in 1964,
and SS Mayaguez in 1965.
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Geographic location
60 Miles
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(No Transcript)
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Type of amphibious operation

• Assault / Withdrawal

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Key players

• President Gerald Ford
• Khmer Rouge Platoon Commander Mao Ran

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SUMMARY OF EVTS

• Suddenly, a few American-made PCF Swift gunboats
  headed from Poulo Wai towards the Mayaguez. At 2
  PM, a 76-mm shot was fired across her bow.

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The USS CORAL SEA (CVA-43) battle group and an
assault group from the 9th Marines were directed
to land on the island and retake the ship and
crew. Although intelligence estimates indicated
that the island was lightly held, in fact there
were a considerable number of Cambodian troops in
place -- and they had hand-held weapons suitable
for use against helicopters.
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• The Marines staged through U-Tapao RTAFB in
  Thailand and were landed by USAF CH-53A
  helicopters. As the helicopters approached shore,
  the aircraft were taken under fire and four were
  brought down
• One had disembarked its troops and ditched
  offshore the crew was picked up.
• One went down in the surfline and all aboard made
  it ashore.
• One went down in the surfline with a single
  casualty.
• One went down offshore eleven Marines and two
  Navy Corpsmen were not rescued. PFC Greg
  Copenhaver was among those lost.

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SUMMARY OF EVTS
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KEY CONSIDERATIONS

• Over confidence
• Lack of accurate Intelligence
• Strategic, Operational, Tactical overlap
• Ineffective crisis planning.

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Policy Considerations

• Cause and effect in war are not necessarily
  related to one another in a linear fashion.
  Minor tactical events and unanticipated
  human--and technological perturbations can
  produce--or threaten to produce--major changes in
  outcome with respect to strategic or policy
  goals. It becomes quite obvious that this
  operation easily could have failed, except for
  the personal initiative, tenacity, and courage
  demonstrated by the participants--as well as a
  degree of luck.

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Operational Considerations

• Operation had limited scope, individual
  actions--even personalities--take on increased
  importance.

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Tactical Considerations

• Underestimation of enemy resolve and ability to
  repel and effect a frontal assault.

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Technical Considerations

• The Mayaguez incident also demonstrated the role
  of technology in increasing the flow of
  information to and from the battlefield. Accurate
  and timely command, control, communications, and
  intelligence (C3I) is vital to the success of any
  operation. However, it also provides an open door
  for senior leaders to micromanage at the tactical
  level, while their thinking and expertise should
  be directed at the operational and strategic
  levels of war.

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Lessons learned

• Many of these same problems would haunt us five
  years later in the failed attempt to rescue the
  Iranian hostages.
• the implications of command, control,
  communications, computers, and intelligence (C4I)
  
• Technology on military operations. In spite of
  enhanced communications and information-gathering
  technology, leadership can still get the wrong
  message--even in a small, limited operation like
  this.
• The ongoing information revolution is truly a
  double-edged sword. The capability for direct
  connectivity between the national command
  authorities, intermediate commanders, and the
  soldiers or airmen pulling the trigger or
  dropping the bomb was just emerging in 1975 it
  is much more pervasive now. We will need wise
  leadership to determine how to correctly use the
  information genie, now that the bottle is open.

- Lt Col Chris Anderson, USAF reviewer of A Very
Short War The Mayaguez and the Battle of Koh
Tang by John F. Guilmartin, Jr. Texas AM
University Press, Drawer C, College Station,
Texas 77843, 1996, 264 pages.
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• As of 31 December 2001, nine men who participated
  in the MAYAGUEZ raid haven't come home
• From Copenhaver's CH-53A  PFC Daniel A.
  Benedett, USMC  PFC James J. Jacques, USMC  PFC
  James R. Maxwell, USMC  PFC Richard W.
  Rivenburgh, USMC
• From another CH-53A  SSGT Elwood E. Rumbaugh,
  USAF
• Ashore  PFC Gary L. Hall, USMC  LCPL Joseph N.
  Hargrove, USMC  PVT Danny G. Marshall,
  USMC  LCPL Ashton Loney, USMC

Wreckage of a sunken US helicopterraised by an
MIA investigation on Koh Tang in November 1996.