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Sea Power and Maritime Affairs

Lesson 24: The US Navy, Vietnam and Limited War, 1964-1975

Learning Objectives

• Know the role of the US Navy in the Vietnam War (1964-1975)

• 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.

Remember our Themes!

• The Navy as an Instrument of Foreign Policy• Interaction between Congress and the Navy• Interservice Relations• Technology• Leadership• Strategy and Tactics• Evolution of Naval Doctrine

Republic of Vietnam(South)U.S. Ally

Capital: Saigon

Democratic Republic of

Vietnam(North)

CommunistCapital: 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.

FLAMING DART

ROLLING THUNDER

MARKET TIME

GAME WARDEN

TF 77(CVs)

TF 77(CVs)

TF 115(WPBs, PCFs)

TF 116(PRBs)

Retaliatory strike on enlisted barracks

North Vietnamese bombing campaign

Coastal Interdiction

Mekong Delta Interdiction

SEALORDS TF 194(PRBs)

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 until 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)

Douglas A-1 Skyraider - AD or “Able Dog”

“Spad” or “Sandy”

Flew close air support missions in Vietnam.

Douglas A-4 Skyhawk

• Navy and Marine light attack aircraft in Vietnam.

A-6A Intruder

• Introduced in Vietnam.• Navy and Marine

carrier- or 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.

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)

.50 caliber machine guns of PCF

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)

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

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 GiapFormer history teacher

TET in and near Saigon0245 Jan. 31 - 7 Mar. 1968

NVA and VC attack city-wide,especially against US Embassyand MACV HQ(Gen. Westmoreland),near Tan Son Nhut airbase.

Also at Bin Hoa airbase(NE of Saigon), busiestin world. (875,000landings & takeoffs per year)

Enemy repulsed by strategic/tactical foresight ofLGEN Fred C. Weyand,veteran of China-Burma-India campaign, WW II

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 Hue0330, 31 Jan. - 2 Mar. 1968

“The twenty-five day struggle forHue was the longest and bloodiestground action of the Tet offensive,and, quite possibly, the longestand bloodiest single action of theSecond Indochina War.”

--- Don Oberdorfer author of Tet!, first-hand witness

Temple for victims of the resistance against French colonial rule, Hue.

Marines patrolstreets

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 toGen. 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

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

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

1972

NIXON

vs.

SEN. GEORGE McGOVERN

--- 60 % of popular vote--- 49 states

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

1972

NIXON

vs.

SEN. GEORGE McGOVERN

--- 60 % of popular vote--- 49 states

“The bastards have neverbeen bombed like they’regoing to be bombedthis 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 sorties15 B-52s lost!!!

VADM Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr. Commander, U.S. Forces, Vietnam

ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT

Chicago, Demo. Convention Aug. 1968Kent State University4 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

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

“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

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

US – USSR Navy Comparison

• US– “Old Navy”

• Carriers

– Quality over quantity– Configured for log

wars far from home

• USSR– “New Navy” (US in

1890s)– Numerous but austere– Configured for short

war close to home

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– Debates on use of force centered around

“clear military objectives” and a clearly defined withdrawal point• Powell and Weinberger Doctrines