Initial operations were confined to the Rung Sat Special Zone, where increased Viet Cong attacks on shipping and minesweepers were then being experienced. In October the number of PBRs attached to the task force increased to 220. The NAVFORV and Naval Advisory Group records fall into several main series. In September 1965, Rear Admiral Ward raised the question of naval command relationships in Vietnam with CNO and with General Westmoreland. The ship was observed to be of the trawler type, about 130 feet long and displacing perhaps 100 tons. During the first five days of the Sea Float operation, an average of 102 sampans per day was sighted on the Cua Lon. The fallacy of "the numbers game, the seeming preoccupation with body count, Communist "structures destroyed, and even, in some quarters, with bomb and ammunition expenditure reports was driven home with a vengeance when the communists unleashed their Tet offensive, for while it was true that the "cream" of the enemy's forces was destroyed in that offensive, it was also undeniable that the South Vietnamese people and the credibility of the U. S. and the Government of Vietnam's political and military effort in the war had suffered grievous setbacks, from which they were a long time recovering. Broad areas of the banks were soon taken over by the drying catch. By the fall of 1968, on the eve of the introduction of the U. S. naval command's Accelerated Turnover (ACTOV) Program, the personnel strength of the Vietnamese Navy was more than 17,500. In that month U. S. Navy Oceangoing Minesweepers (MSOs) joined Vietnamese Navy ships in barrier patrols near the seventeenth parallel. They agreed that a study should be conducted on the subject. Join now and never hit a limit. Meanwhile, to the despair of U. S. Navy advisors, the Vietnamese River Assault Groups frequently found themselves involved in logistic support and static defense roles assigned them by ARVN ground commanders. The battlefield supply of ammunition for all of these assorted weapons was a difficult and vexing problem. Frequently, these were individuals who by reason of age or infirmity were ineligible for service in the Uniformed Services. General Vo Nguyen Giap, Peoples War, Peoples Army. Air power, to be sure, could further that pursuit and proved invaluable in support of our boats when they were caught up in a fire fight, but a lesson that was learned in the Indochina War and which was re-learned in the Vietnam War, is that air power has only limited effectiveness in a counterinsurgency war and in the interdiction of enemy lines of communication through difficult and largely trackless terrain. Most importantly, a favorable decision was taken on the establishment of a permanent Vietnamese naval base on the site of Old Nam Can. As 1963 drew to a close there were 742 U. S. Navy officers and men in Vietnam. On 25 February, an additional responsibility was assigned to maintain the lines of communication on the Cua Viet River, just south of the Demilitarized Zone. On 29 April it was announced that Coast Guard Squadron One, with seventeen 82-foot cutters (WPBS), would be lifted to Vietnam for Market Time operations. Photograph taken from USS Maddox. 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. "Application of Doctrine; Victory at Van Tuong Village, by Brigadier General O. F. Peatross, U. S. Marine Corps, in Naval Review 1967. 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. Vessels in the contiguous zone, extending 12 miles from the coast, suspected as infiltrators were also made subject to search and seizure. After the operation they returned to Rach Gia by the same coastal route. The Vietnamese Navy and the advisory effort had expanded sharply. It was proposed that these patrols extend upriver for a distance of 25 miles, the range thought practical for appropriate logistic support and for the objective of controlling the river mouths. This leaves a tremendous gap for the student of the navy in Vietnam for the . It's on the right bc it was developed from slides. Notebooks and pencils were secured and distributed. In August new combined operations were launched against the base camp areas in the Nhon Trach "sanctuary" area outside of the Rung Sat, which was a much harder area for the Viet Cong to hide in. The task force was activated on 24 February with headquarters at Tan My, under the operational control of Commanding General, III MAF. 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. A rare application of sea power developed on the rivers and canals of the Delta, the waterways of I Corps, and along the length of the Vietnamese coast. Power saws and modern lumbering techniques have not yet been introduced in the Nam Can. Although the Chief, Naval Advisory Group was the senior naval officer in Vietnam, he was not in actuality a commander. Units from Vietnamese Naval Coastal Group 24 were also ordered to assist, and requests were sent out for a Vietnamese Navy SEAL Team (LDNN) to provide divers for an attempted salvage of the sunken trawler. The river assault craft of the Brown Water Navy, with few exceptions, notably the ASPB, were modifications of World War II landing craft. His forces were divided into three area commands; North, Central, and South Vietnam. Though we live in what has frequently been termed the "air age" or even the "space age," the fact remains that fully 96 per cent of the immense quantities of material delivered to Vietnam to support the war came in ships. MACV was first implemented to assist the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) Vietnam, controlling every advisory and assistance effort in Vietnam. 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). $9.99; $9.99; Publisher Description. Almost immediately the Annex began to outstrip the main complex itself in the number of visitors it attracted. and 122 mm. There were really two reasons. The Communist soldier in Vietnam travels and fights only to the extent permitted him by slender lines of supply connecting him to a secure rear area. It was reorganized on 15 May 1964 and absorbed MAAG Vietnam to its command when combat unit deployment became too large for advisory group control. A small U.S. military headquarters was needed to continue the military assistance program for the southern Republic of Vietnam Military Forces and supervise the technical assistance still required to complete the goals of Vietnamization. On 31 March 1970 a group of American businessmen in Saigon, including several ex-naval officers, established the "Operation Helping Hand Foundation for the purpose of soliciting and accepting personal contributions to the Vietnamese Navys welfare programs. (4) That all Navy commands, unless otherwise specified, be under the operational control of ComNavForV. By "sequential it was meant, for example, that a VNN sailor would be placed in the crew of one of our boats and trained in the duties of his American counterpart. At this time, U. S. personnel also assumed an advisory role whereas during the French era they had primarily supplied material. *The appendices are missing from the files as of October 2020. Genesis of the U. S. Navys Role in the War. Permission to conduct these operations was granted. A new family of fighting craft appeared, newly built or adapted from older boats in our inventory. A company of Vietnamese Special Forces, meanwhile, would be lifted by helicopter to Dai Lanh, south of Vung Ro, where they would board LSM 405 for an amphibious landing near the sunken trawler: While the conference was progressing, ism 405 was joined at Vung Ro by the Vietnamese PCE 08. On 25 September 1967 the 23rd Infantry (Americal) Division) was activated to control the blocking force, replacing the provisional task force HQ. Original plans called for four APBs, two ARLs, two LSTs, and two River Assault Squadrons (RAS) each consisting of 34 converted LCM-6 craft (26 ATCs, 5 Monitors, 2 CCBs, 1 Refueler), and 16 ASPBs which would be newly constructed.6. . Most Navy officers interpreted this as a serious loss of face for the Vietnamese Navy, but a few actually thought that it might be a blessing in disguise, since the Navy would at last have a voice at meetings of the Joint General Staff. Creation of a NavForV dependent shelter project team to coordinate allocation of materials and technical assistance. In late April 1966, with the Saigon regime locked in a tense confrontation with Buddhist and ARVN rebels in I Corps, Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. and Westmoreland reopened the effort to acquire the Tan Son Nhut soccer field. The facilities at Cua Viet were almost constantly subject to enemy artillery and rocket attack, and the pressures and rigors of life at this exposed forward base were extreme. The "Vung Ro Incident," as it came to be called, led directly to Market Time, the U. S. Navy's first large-scale operational participation in the Vietnam War. At about this same time public statements by Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford signaled the changing U. S. policy on the war. However, the Naval Advisory Group also served in an operational role between March 1965 and 1 April 1966 when NAVFORV was created. A joint organization, it contained an Army, Navy, and Air Force section, each responsible for advising its counterpart in the Vietnamese armed forces and for The streets of the two principal evacuation centers, Hanoi and Haiphong, were soon choked with masses of desperate people. [9]:18, The advance echelon of USSAG/7AF moved from Tan Son Nhut Air Base to Nakhon Phanom on 29 January 1973. MACV occupied its new headquarters early in August 1967. In April, Operation Silver Mace II was launched with combined U. S. Navy, U. S. Air Force, Vietnamese Army, Navy, and Marine Corps units. of the Army Pamphlet 672-3. Cooking, medical work, transport, and the like were carried on right in the trenches, under enemy bombing and crossfire. 9 This canal is 50 to 100 feet wide, 15-20 feet deep, and 10 to 12 miles long. Fish from the rivers and seas are an important staple in the Vietnamese diet. 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 companion piece to this tragedy, often conveniently forgotten by later critics of the war and self-styled pacifists, was the liquidation of perhaps 50,000 "enemies of the people, by the Communists own estimate, during the consolidation of Viet Minh rule in the North. A concerted and innovative psychological operation might succeed in winning the people to active support of the government of Vietnam, the majority of whom were judged to be apolitical. The addition of 17 more craft in October brought the force very close to its authorized allowance of 182 boats. The disadvantages of this support concept for continuing boat operations were the same as noted earlier for the offshore support of PBRs during early Game Warden operations. Miscellaneous materials that could not be associated with any one office on the commanders staff also are indicated. However, no further successes were achieved by the enemy until the mining of the Panamanian freighter Welfare in July 1969. TWS is the largest online community of Veterans existing today and is a powerful Veteran locator. At Geneva, France pledged to remove its Expeditionary Force from all of Vietnam when and if requested to do so by "the Government of Vietnam. The nominal Chief of State in the South at that time was the Emperor Bao Dai, then in exile on the French Riviera. Find Advisory Team 143, Naval Advisory Group Vietnam unit information, patches, operation history, veteran photos and more on TogetherWeServed.com. Classification: Collection had a Kyl-Lott review in September 2003. The June attacks in the Long Tau made it imperative that effective and decisive action be taken against Doan-10. (2) That NavForV be commanded by a naval officer, and that this naval officer have additional duty as Chief, Naval Advisory Group. By the summer of 1966, nearly 50 per cent of the senior officers of the Navy were either out of the country or assigned to non-Navy duties in the country. By September the Nam Can population figures were growing at a rapid rate, doubling the number of people in the Sea Float area of operations every 25 days. "[8]:270, The air-conditioned structure of two-story prefabricated buildings, a little more than a third the size of its Washington namesake, included twelve acres of enclosed office space. 3 Operational Command is the authority to assign missions or forces. Development of plans for several standard shelters constructed from concrete block, some of which would use ferro-cement dome roofs. 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. The motivation of the men concerned was expected to be high. U. S. Marines, traditionally the force trained and equipped for amphibious assault operations, were not available, already having been committed in maximum strength to the I Corps Tactical Zone. The swampy Rung Sat controls the waterways connecting Saigon with the sea. [8], The Vietnamese government refused to turn over the most suitable location, a soccer field (104845.62N 1063957.49E / 10.8126722N 106.6659694E / 10.8126722; 106.6659694 (post-1967 MACV, Saigon)) near the civilian air terminal, allegedly because Premier Nguyn Cao K wanted to keep the property for a postwar tourist hotel. This headquarters became the Defense Attach Office, Saigon. Further, the disappointing performance of the Vietnamese armed forces at Vung Ro cast renewed doubt on the capacity and the willingness of the Vietnamese to stop such infiltration on their own.
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