Advisory Team 143, US Naval Advisory Group, Vietnam. Area clearance and mopping-up operations continued until 24 February, plagued as before by continued foot dragging and intransigence. The Vietnamese Navy itself was not formally established until 1954, and our early advisors worked almost exclusively with French counterparts. The pacification of vital trans-Delta waterways was the second of the Sea Lords objectives. They operate with them and they fight alongside them. The records in this collection were collected at the naval headquarters in Saigon by naval officers who acted as historians and were assigned to the staff. 5 See "River Patrol Relearned by Commander Sayre A. Swarztrauber, U. S. Navy, in Naval Review 1970. The holding ground was good and the moor was successful. As the U.S. military presence in South Vietnam grew, MACV quickly outgrew the Pasteur Street quarters and expanded into a proliferating number of buildings throughout downtown Saigon. TWS is the largest online community of Veterans existing today and is a powerful Veteran locator. Captain (now Commodore) Tran Van Chon was named to the top Navy post on 31 October 1966, a move that took the Naval Advisory Group completely by surprise, since he had been "exiled for so long (five years). The Nam Can district of An Xuyen Province is located on the southernmost tip of the Ca Mau peninsula, some 150 miles southwest of Saigon. Looking at it from the north, across many miles of difficult and enemy controlled terrain, their view was quite naturally a different one from that enjoyed by the Navy, which eyed the proposal from the vantage point of the sea. In the same month the Vietnamese Navy was finally persuaded to absorb the Junk Force into the regular Navy, a move long urged by advisors as one which might lead to increasing the effectiveness of coastal patrols. Similar conditions were experienced when the LSTs especially re-configured for Game Warden arrived in Vietnam, and so gradually the offshore support concept was abandoned in favor of afloat and shore support bases in the rivers themselves. It was described as a combined U. S. and Vietnamese naval operation to construct a Coastal Group junk and PCF base at Old Nam Can. The Ammis were fitted out at Nha Be. If you served in USMC Advisory Team Rung Sat Special Zone (RSSZ), Naval Advisory Group Vietnam, Join TWS for free to . RPG-62 Vietnamese crews had only been at the base since June 1969 when they arrived with 10 PBRs that had been turned over from USN River Division 554 as part of the U.S. Navy's Accelerated Turnover to the Vietnamese (ACTOV) program. [7] COMUSMACV was in one sense the top person in charge of the U.S. military on the Indochinese peninsula; however, in reality, the CINCPAC and the U.S. ambassadors to Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia also had "top person in charge" status with regard to various aspects of the war's strategy. In following months additional equipment was transferred to the Vietnamese Navy, primarily patrol craft, and accelerated training of both officers and enlisted men began; some of it in schools in the United States. This had been largely accomplished with river patrols, drastic defoliation, mine sweeping, and by hunting the enemy on land. U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) was a joint-service command of the United States Department of Defense. By the middle of October 1969, it was estimated that more than 3000 people were living under Vietnamese control in the Nam Can. At 1030 on 16 February 1965, Lieutenant James S- Bowers, U. S. Army, while piloting a UH-1B helicopter on a medical rescue mission from Qui Nhon, sighted a camouflaged ship lying in Vung Ro Bay on South Vietnams central coast. Digital Proceedings content made possible by a gift from CAPT Roger Ekman, USN (Ret.). [9]:189, By 29 March, the only American military personnel left in South Vietnam were the U.S. delegates to the Four-Party Joint Military Commission established under the Paris Peace Accords to oversee the ceasefire, themselves in the process of winding up work and departing; the fifty man DAO military contingent; and a 143-man Marine Security Guard. All the older sailing junks were either converted to power, or discarded. In this instance, however, the sanctuary lay wholly within the territory of South Vietnam and scarcely 15 miles from the capital- This situation, spawned and tolerated by the fractured and at times intransigent Vietnamese command structure, had existed for a number of years. DANFS - Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Permitting Policy and Resource Management, The 9/11 Terrorist Attacks: 20 Years Later, "Ex Scientia Tridens": The U.S. The third and perhaps most important task was to develop and recommend a plan which, if approved, would make it possible to accelerate the scheduled turnover of U. S. Navy equipment to the Vietnamese. USSAG was activated on 11 February 1973 under the command of commander of MACV. In the fall of that year a joint State-Defense Survey Mission visited Vietnam. As 1963 drew to a close there were 742 U. S. Navy officers and men in Vietnam. Naval Advisory Group, Vietnam Notes Commander Graf was a member of the Naval Advisory Group, Vietnam. Most of its people were removed to a site roughly ten miles to the north which was named "New Nam Can to distinguish it from the old district capital. After the operation they returned to Rach Gia by the same coastal route. In the light of these events, ComNavForVs Accelerated Turnover Plan (ACTOV) was approved. As the quotation from General Giap so well affirms, the importance of logistics in war has not changed very much since Napoleons famous dictum that an army travels on its stomach. In the meantime, TF 116, Game Warden, had been established (on 18 December 1965) with an assigned mission "to assist the Government of South Vietnam in denying the enemy the use of the major rivers of the Delta and the Rung Sat Special Zone. Rear Admiral Ward was assigned additional duty as CTF 116. The Fleet Reserve Association pledged to raise $75,000 to support "Project Pay Dirtan expansion of the animal husbandry program. In December, an operation called Silver Mace, involving the first open sea transit of heavy riverine assault craft, struck at these barricades and in three days removed them. USMC Advisory Team Rung Sat Special Zone (RSSZ), Naval Advisory Group The two Vietnamese RAIDS promptly began operations on the Giant Slingshot barrier. rockets, some of which were wired for command firing from camouflaged spider holes many meters away from the banks. *The appendices are missing from the files as of October 2020. It was not proposed that "Vietnamization" of the naval war would include the transfer of the large units which made offshore support of the Nam Can operations feasible, if less than desirable for the U. S. Navy. PDF DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT A: Approved for public release; distribution is English language leaflets were floated to the MATSB on tiny wooden rafts. The streets of the two principal evacuation centers, Hanoi and Haiphong, were soon choked with masses of desperate people. At this time a message was received, its origin unclear, which postponed the scheduled landing. The LCUs usually had chiefs or first class petty officers as captains. That night (16-17 February) the requested air strikes and illumination failed to materialize. They permitted the enemy to fire from relatively safe positions, well back from the river bank. Many of those ships were tired relics of our great merchant fleet of World War II, soon to be consigned to the scrap heap. Group. In recognition of the expanding U. S. role, Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) was established in February 1962, and the Headquarters Support Activity was commissioned on 1 July. [2]:59. There were other reasons as well which argued strongly in that direction. Update. Waterborne transportation is relied upon almost exclusively in the rural areas for the movement of goods and crops to market, and for inter-village communications. The Naval Association of Canada and the Royal Canadian Navy will once again host the Battle of the Atlantic Gala Dinner in Ottawa, this year on 3 May 2023. As industrial contractor, designer and overall integrator of whole warships and combat systems, Naval Group is an international player in naval defence. The first capture of infiltrators by a U. S. Navy ship occurred late in May, when the USS Back (DD-761) boarded a junk near the seventeenth parallel. On 16 August 1954, the first U. S. Navy transport to be assigned to Operation Passage to Freedom loaded refugees in Haiphong. It was believed to consist of either nine or ten elements (Doi) of between 30 and 55 men each. As in the past, we will honour those who served in the RCN, the Royal Canadian Air Force, and the Canadian Merchant Navy during the Second World War's Battle of the Atlantic, as well as the Korean War. A fourth strike was directed at a nearby area on the beach where crates were stacked and from which small arms fire had been received. Light sniper fire was taken, but by mid-afternoon the immediate area near the sunken trawler was secured and the LDNN began salvage operations. The river hamlets, for all their bogs and sloughs of mud, were alive with activity and sparkled with the laughter of children. The chief naval advisor, Admiral Ward, foresaw the necessity for eventually returning responsibility for all naval operations in Vietnam to the Vietnamese Navy. https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/navy-seals-beret-flash-vietnam-war-27754383 Reply Thatsrite8182 Additional comment actions 9 This canal is 50 to 100 feet wide, 15-20 feet deep, and 10 to 12 miles long. Further, the Vietnamese Navy was commanded by a French officer, and most other important posts and commands were held by Frenchmen. In June the first operational test of the offshore support ship concept was initiated when the USS Tortuga (BD-26), which had arrived in May, anchored near the mouths of the Co Chien and Bassac Rivers. By drawing upon the lessons learned in the deployment of the Advance Tactical Support Bases (ATSBs) in the Giant Slingshot operation, such a base, using an array of Ammi pontoon barges, was considered both feasible and defensible. The Special Forces company commander displayed great reluctance to use his men to assist in moving the remaining cache material to the beach and refused to order an end to the looting of medical supplies, which took place on a large scale. However, the Naval Advisory Group also served in an operational role between March 1965 and 1 April 1966 when NAVFORV was created. A defensive sea area was proposed which would extend 40 miles from the coast, and it was recommended that the Republic of Vietnam authorize U. S. Naval forces to "stop, board, search, and, if necessary, capture and/or destroy any hostile suspicious craft or vessel found within South Vietnams territorial and contiguous zone waters.. The 1st Signal Brigade operated the many elements of the Defense Communications System in South Vietnam. Classification: Collection had a Kyl-Lott review in September 2003. "Civil Engineers, Seabees, and Bases in Vietnam, by Captain Charles J. Merdinger, Civil Engineer Corps, U. S. Navy, in Naval Review 1970. two-volume history of the u.s. Navy in Vietnam the second volume ends with the year 1965. 220th Aviation Company "Catkillers" Web Page It pointed out, however, the essential futility of a sea quarantine in the absence of an accompanying effort to block inland infiltration routes. By 1 April 1970, 242 craft, worth more than $68 million, had been turned over under the ACTOV program. Food, clothing, and other necessities were of course obtainable locally through the levying of Viet Cong "taxes on the regions inhabitants. The first turnover of U. S. Navy boats and equipment occurred on schedule on 1 February 1969, when River Assault Division 91 of the Riverine Assault Force was dissolved and VNN River Assault and Interdiction Divisions 70 and 71 were formed. The Mobile Riverine Force had its own floating artillery in the guns of the support ships, and the barge-mounted 105 mm howitzers of the 9th Division. On 1 September 1966, the first administrative unit of the future Mobile Riverine Force, River Assault Flotilla One, was commissioned at the Naval Amphibious Base, Coronado, California, with Captain W. C. Wells, U. S. Navy, as its Commander. Not far from the landing area, the Special Forces uncovered a large cache of about 4,000 assorted rifles, submachine guns, BAR type weapons, several thousand cases of ammunition, and very large quantities of medical supplies. In IV Corps Tactical Zone, this situation would plague Sea Lords operations from beginning to end. Enlarge. Day and night, hundreds of thousands of porters and young volunteers crossed passes and forded rivers in spite of enemy planes and delayed-action bombs. When the Navy became involved in port security (basically an Army responsibility), the incidence of minings at anchor fell off. The leadership of our Navy for many years to come will be drawn largely from the ranks of those whose courage and sense of responsibility were fire-hardened on the rivers of Vietnam. With relatively few exceptions, our sailors, Amend and Vietnamese, accepted the challenge and perform well in the months following the implementation the plan. The issuance of a personal appeal to the Navy League for donations of construction materials, which could be transported to Vietnam on deploying Navy ships. They had been . The NavForV program did not stop with the construction of shelters. An additional LST was recommended for providing radar coverage of the mouths of the Mekong (three were already providing this service, but the normal needs of rest and maintenance meant that that number was insufficient to provide constant cover). [8]:270. The irregulars were ordinarily recruited from the population in the vicinity of each coastal group. Thanks VetFriends. Early effort notwithstanding, the Viet Cong successfully mined one ship each in 1965 and 1966 (the SS Eastern Mariner and the SS Baton Rouge Victory respectively). "The Service Force, Pacific Fleet in Action, by Rear Admiral Edwin B. Hooper, U. S. Navy, in Naval Review 1968. Harkins had the task of advising the South Vietnamese government on security, organization, and employment of their military and paramilitary forces. The change of command took place on 10 May 1965. During the long months of the northeast monsoon the climate is probably the countrys worst, with cold, grey and rainy days following each other in seemingly endless succession. The Commander of the task force could say with obvious pride that "Commanders involved in this unique operation felt that they had succeeded in gaining the most difficult of all military advantages in this warsurprise.. Overview: American leaders established the Military Assistance Advisory Command, Vietnam, in May 1964. Combined operations in November and December 1968 cleared the important Cho Gao Canal and swept through the Can Tho Crossing corridor and the Dung Island complex in the Bassac River. After 30 years and learning the computer and finding VetFriends, I went to my first reunion of the USS Navasota AO-106. First, until late 1968 the operational and logistic capability to mount such a naval patrol did not exist. By the first week of the month, 28 U. S. Navy ships were participating, under the operational control of CTF 71 in the USS Canberra (CAG-2). It was unmistakably evident that great amounts of supplies for the Communists had been brought into Vietnam to support and fuel the offensive. The construction contractor was RMK-BRJ, at a cost of $25 million. At 0215 the next morning, however, message orders were received to do so immediately. In keeping with the recommendations of the September conference, it was planned that the task force would initially consist of 120 specially designed river patrol boats (PBRs), 20 LCPLs, an LSD, an LST, and 8 UH-1B helicopters. Vietnam: Tonkin Gulf Collection - history.navy.mil It spread its roots through virtually every sector of Vietnamese society. Seemingly from nowhere, skilled masons appeared and began the painstaking reconstruction of the areas once ubiquitous beehive charcoal kilns. The most economical and direct routes for supplying the Viet Cong were sea routes. Minesweeping and Interdiction Division 93, Historical Information on the Vietnamese Navy. River Assault Groups seldom went on combat missions. Find Coastal Group 16, Naval Advisory Group Vietnam unit information, patches, operation history, veteran photos and more on TogetherWeServed.com. Statistical studies, however, showed that detection probabilities at the level of forces then assigned were still quite low. On 26 April 1966, Captain Tran Van Phan, the former Chief of Staff to Admiral Cang, was designated Acting Commander-in-Chief, and in May all of the mutineers, with the exception of the River Force Commander, who was replaced, were returned to their original posts. As a result of his visit, Project Beef-up was launched, which, in addition to more men, money, and supplies for the Vietnamese military, called for increased U. S. operational participation in the war. A battalion of either Vietnamese Marines, or the Mobile Strike Force was requested to augment the Rung Sat Commanders ground troops. In attempting to restore the records to their original arrangement, they first were divided into those of Chief, Naval Advisory Group and Commander, Naval Forces Vietnam. The River Patrol Force had 2032 men assigned and 197 of its authorized 250 PBRs. In 1964 an enemy mine sank an aircraft transport which was later raised at her berth in Saigon. 1 The patrols along the seventeenth parallel, and near the Brevie Line in the Gulf of Thailand in late 1961 and 1962, in which U. S. Navy MSOs and des participated in a very limited way (using their radars to vector VNN ships to suspicious contacts), did not indicate large scale infiltration from the sea. Two corps-level HQs were established in 1965-66, Task Force Alpha (soon to become I Field Force, Vietnam) for U.S. forces in the II Corps Tactical Zone and II Field Force, Vietnam, for U.S. Army forces in the III Corps Tactical Zone. Harkins concurred and General James Francis Collins, commander of United States Army Pacific and Admiral Felt approved the redesignation. 0. Assistance, advice, and expertise in the formulation and implementation of the accelerated turnover program could be expected, within budgetary limitations, from the other Pacific commands and from the Navy in Washington. Collection Number: HDCL/34 (Formerly COLL/353). On 1 August 1965, operational responsibility for Market Time passed from the Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Fleet to General Westmoreland, and operational control from Commander Task Force 71, who had held this duty as a collateral function, to Commander Task Force 115, which was the new designation of the Commander of the Coastal Surveillance Force. The RAG was not provided with a permanently assigned landing force, and, for all practical purposes, operational control had been surrendered to regional Army commanders who employed the river craft almost exclusively in logistic support of encamped ground forces. Coast Guard Squadron One provided WPBs for barrier patrols along the seventeenth parallel and in the Gulf of Thailand. NAVAL ADVISORY GROUP VIETNAM? - VetFriends After reorganization he was succeeded by General William C. Westmoreland in June 1964, followed by General Creighton W. Abrams (July 1968) and General Frederick C. Weyand (June 1972). In February 1966, the first Game Warden sailors reported for duty, and in March the first PBRs arrived. Young officers and petty officers were assigned staggering responsibilities in this war and they shouldered them well. These are netted in cleverly designed fish traps which are located strategically in the waterways to make best use of the currents and backwaters. All U.S. Army units in South Vietnam, excluding advisory attachments, were assigned to the Army Support Group for administrative and logistical needs. In a series of graduated increases, the Junk Force was authorized an increase to 644 motorized junks less than two years later. [6]:45, Major component commands of MACV were:[2]:60. Specific recommendations included: (1) the provision of modern, radar-equipped patrol aircraft; (2) the supply of a variety of small ships and craft for extending the offshore patrol into coastal waters, and for broadening the scope of river operations; and (3) the establishment of adequate repair and logistic facilities to maintain the new equipment to be provided. [3]:278 Lieutenant General Paul D. Harkins, the Deputy Commander in Chief, U.S. Army, Pacific, who, as the commander-designate for the task force headquarters (HQ) in the event of operations in Southeast Asia, had participated in the planning for such operations, was appointed commander and promoted to general. Operation Sea Float. and 122 mm. Why had not the Bucklew Reports recommendations concerning a mobile patrol force along the Cambodian border been implemented? Each service continued to provide its own logistical support. Construction of a block plant at Cam Ranh Bay. There were four flag officers either on hand or with orders to Vietnam at the time of Vice Admiral Zumwalts assumption of commandComNavForV, Deputy ComNavForV, Commander U. S. Naval Support Activity, Da Nang, and the Officer in Charge of Construction. (3) That NavForV not include III MAF, which would continue under the operational command of CinCPacFlt and operational control of ComUSMACV. Control of the waterways of Vietnam also implies control of a large part of that country's population. Almost immediately the Annex began to outstrip the main complex itself in the number of visitors it attracted.
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