Sea Power and Maritime Affairs
Lesson 18: The Navy, Vietnam
and the Limited War, 1964-1975
Learning Objectives
Know the Navy’s roles in the Vietnam War (19641974)
 Comprehend the impact of the Vietnam War on the
Navy’s 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.

Republic of Vietnam
(South)
Democratic Republic
of Vietnam
(North)
U.S. Ally
Capital: Saigon
Communist
Capital: Hanoi
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.
Robert S.
McNamara



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.
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 Vietnam’s claim that no torpedo boats
were present in the area

Carrier strikes ordered in retaliation
Tonkin Gulf Incident
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
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.
Retaliatory strike
on enlisted
barracks
FLAMING
DART
TF 77
(CVs)
ROLLING
THUNDER
TF 77
(CVs)
MARKET
TIME
TF 115
(WPBs, PCFs)
Coastal
Interdiction
GAME
WARDEN
TF 116
(PRBs)
Mekong Delta
Interdiction
SEALORDS
TF 194
(PRBs)
North Vietnamese
bombing
campaign
Interdiction in
Mekong Delta on
Cambodia border
Westmoreland
and LBJ
Cam Ranh Bay
23 DEC ‘67
WESTY’s STRATEGY: “SEARCH AND DESTROY”
MEASUREMENT: BODY BAGS
“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
“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)
F-8 CRUSADER
Douglas A-1 Skyraider - AD or “Able Dog”
“Spad” or “Sandy”
Flew close air support missions in Vietnam.
USS Coral Sea launches A-4
Douglas A-4 Skyhawk

Navy and Marine light attack aircraft in Vietnam.
A-6A Intruder



Introduced in Vietnam.
Navy and Marine carrieror land-based medium
bomber.
Evades enemy radar by
low level flight.
F-4 Phantom

U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps fighter aircraft
flown in Vietnam on fighter and attack missions
Soviet-built MiG-19

Used by North Vietnamese Air Force to defend
against U.S. attacks during the Vietnam War.
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
Overall Conclusions on
Naval Aviation

Cost were too high
 Results were uncertain
 POW suffering
N. Vietnam SAM sites
Coastal Patrol Force: Operation “Market Time”
(March 1965- December 1972)
“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 North’s blockade during Civil War!
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)
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
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.
Mobile Riverine Force of the “Brown Water Navy”
Operation “Game Warden” (December 1965- September 1968
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
River Patrol Boat
Huey Landing on ATC
Monitor leading ATCs
Assault Support Patrol Boat…..sinking…
SEALS on a Assault Boat on Mekong Delta
Marines unloading from at ATC for a River Assault
Tet and Its Impact (30 Jan 1968 – 20 Jan 1969)
“The Turning Point in the War”
Tet Offensive -- January 1968
Conceived by N. Vietnam’s 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
“What the Hell’s Ho Chi Minh Doing Answering
Our Saigon Embassy Phone. . . ?”
Paul Conrad, Los Angles Times, 1968
General Vo Nguyen Giap
Former history teacher
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-BurmaIndia campaign, WW II
A Vietcong (VC) corpse lies on the
US Embassy grounds in Saigon
shortly after the Tet attack.
(U.S. Army photo)
“We fought from house to
house and street to street.
When we had to go inside a
house we’d 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 didn’t
have no flame-throwers.
I didn’t see no tanks in
Saigon. They didn’t have
things like you see in the
movies on TV about World
War II. It surprised me.”
-------U.S. soldier
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.
Hue City
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
Temple for victims of the resistance
against French colonial rule, Hue.
Marines patrol
streets
Hue, Feb. 1968
(USMC photo)
Khe Sanh
Tet at Khe Sanh
21 Jan. - 8 Apr. 1968
“I don’t want any
damn Dinbinfoo.”
Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson to
Gen. Earle Wheeler, CJCS,
as 77-day siege began
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
Short Results






No popular uprising
Dismay in USA
President Johnson renounces candidacy for reelection (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
PRESIDENTIAL
ELECTION
1972
NIXON
vs.
SEN. GEORGE McGOVERN
--- 60 % of popular vote
--- 49 states
“The bastards have never
been bombed like they’re
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!!!
VADM Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr. Commander, U.S. Forces, Vietnam
ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT
Chicago, Demo. Convention
Aug. 1968
Kent State University
4 May 1970
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 ceasefire 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
“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: “We’re no
longer here to win, we’re
merely ‘campaigning,’ so keep
the casualties down.”
-- from Marine retired MGEN
Bernard Trainor, author of
General’s War on Gulf
“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
1972: “The fighting wasn’t 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
(
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 Vietnam’s
president proclaimed unconditional surrender;
U.S. Embassy in Saigon evacuated, the final
few Americans leaving by helicopter from the
Embassy’s roof. In operations Eagle Pull and
Frequent Wind, 7th Fleet evacuates remaining
Americans and foreign nationals
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
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
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
Conclusions from Vietnam

The Vietnam conflict has impacted every
use of the U.S. military since that time.
– Cost to American people dramatic
– Vietnam’s civil war became America’s civil
convulsion
Learning Objectives
Know the Navy’s roles in the Vietnam War (19641974)
 Comprehend the impact of the Vietnam War on the
Navy’s 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.

Next time: The Era of Retrenchment:
Presidents Ford, and Carter,
1974-1980