Background intelligence on North Vietnam, its radar networks and command-and-control systems was limited. It is difficult to imagine that the North Vietnamese could come to any other conclusion than that the 34A and Desoto missions were all part of the same operation. Kennedy Hickman is a historian, museum director, and curator who specializes in military and naval history. Hickman, Kennedy. In fact, the United States had been waging a small, secret war against North Vietnam since 1961. For the maritime war specialist, it is of course invaluable. Today, it is believed that this second attack did not occur and was merely reports from jittery radar and sonar operators, but at the time it was taken as evidence that Hanoi was raising the stakes against the United States. Maddox detected the torpedo boats on radar at a range of almost 20,000 yards and turned away at its top speed of 32 knots. At 1505, when the torpedo boats had closed within 10,000 yards, in accordance with Captain Herricks orders and as allowed under international law at that time, Maddox fired three warning shots. Gulf of Tonkin - National Security Agency The reports conclusions about the Gulf of Tonkin Incident are particularly relevant as they offer useful insights into the problems that SIGINT faces today in It authorized the president to "prevent further aggression . Defense Secretary McNamara called the president about the second Phu Bai critic report at approximately 0940 that morning. National Security Agency PTF-1 and PTF-2 were U.S.-built 1950s vintage boats pulled out of mothballs and sent to Vietnam. The NSA report is revealing. He has written numerous articles on Vietnam War-era special operations and is the author of two books on the war: Formerly an analyst with the Washington-based Asian Studies Center, Mr. Conboy is vice president of Lippo Group, a large financial services institution in Jakarta, Indonesia. The only opposition came from a few scattered machine guns on shore, but they did no damage. At this point, U.S. involvement in Vietnam remained largely in the background. He reported those doubts in his after action report transmitted shortly after midnight his time on August 5, which was 1300 hours August 4 in Washington. JCS, "34A Chronology of Events," (see Marolda and Fitzgerald, p. 424); Porter, Vietnam: The Definitive Documentation (Stanfordville, NY: 1979), vol. Efforts to communicate with the torpedo boats failed, probably because of language and communications equipment incompatibility. The errors made in the initial analysis were due to a combination of inexperience, limited knowledge of North Vietnams operations and an operational imperative to ensure that the U.S. Navy ships would not be caught by surprise. In the years covered here, the Navy was generally known throughout the U.S. Mission in Saigon for being in the housekeeping business, operating supply warehouses, and running the officer clubs, PXs and other amenities, an inevitable part of the American military's baggage. The history stops with the U.S. Navy moving into full combat duty -- the naval and air interdictions in South and North Vietnam -- the subject of future volumes. Gulf Of Tonkin Mr. Andrad is a Vietnam War historian with the U.S. Army Center of Military History, where he is writing a book on combat operations from 1969 through 1973. How the Gulf of Tonkin Incident Embroiled the US in the Vietnam The after-action reports from the participants in the Gulf arrived in Washington several hours after the report of the second incident. A North Vietnamese patrol boat also trailed the American ships, reporting on their movements to Haiphong. In the days leading up to the first incident of August 2nd, those secret operations had intensified.. In addition, the US Navy was instructed to conduct Desoto patrols off North Vietnam. It reveals what commanders actually knew, what SIGINT analysts believed and the challenges the SIGINT community and its personnel faced in trying to understand and anticipate the aggressive actions of an imaginative, deeply committed and elusive enemy. Aircraft from Ticonderoga arrived on-scene at 1528 hours and fired on the boats. PRX is a 501(c)(3) organization recognized by the IRS: #263347402. Approved on Aug. 10, 1964, the Southeast Asia (Gulf of Tonkin) Resolution, gave Johnson the power to use military force in the region without requiring a declaration Few areas of the world have been as hotly contested as the India-Pakistan border. Based on this, they launched the political process that led to the wars escalation. Ticonderoga ordered four A-1H Skyraiders into the air to support the ships. Quoted in Steve Edwards, "Stalking the Enemys Coast," U.S. To have a Tonkin Gulf conspiracy means that the several hundred National Security Agency and naval communications cited have been doctored. By late July 1964, SOG had four Nasty-class patrol boats, designated PTF-3, PTF-4, PTF-5, PTF-6 (PTFfast patrol boat). He then requested the passage of a resolution "expressing the unity and determination of the United States in supporting freedom and in protecting peace in Southeast Asia." Thousands of passengers are stranded after Colombias Viva Air grounds flights, The last of Mexicos artisanal salt-makers preserve a 2,000-year-old tradition, I cannot give up: Cambodian rapper says he will sing about injustice despite threats from govt, Ukrainian rock star reflects on a year of war in his country, Ukrainian refugees in Poland will now be charged to stay in state-funded housing, This Colombian town is dimming its lights to attract more tourists to view the night sky, Kneel and apologize!: 76 years after island-wide massacre, Taiwan continues to commemorate and debate the tragedy. The USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin is shown in 1963. WebTo many online conspiracy theorists, the biggest false flag operation of all time was the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. PTF-6 took up station at the mouth of the Ron River, lit up the sky with illumination rounds, and fired at the security post. They never intended to attack U.S. forces, and were not even within 100 nautical miles of the U.S. destroyers position at the time of the purported second engagement.. For the maritime part of the covert operation, Nasty-class fast patrol boats were purchased quietly from Norway to lend the illusion that the United States was not involved in the operations. 12. And who is going to believe that? Senate investigations in 1968 and 1975 did little to clarify the events or the evidence, lending further credence to the various conspiracy theories. PTF-3 and PTF-6 broke off and streaked south for safety; they were back in port before 1200. At Hon Nieu, the attack was a complete surprise. In 1964 the Navy was attempting to determine the extent of North Vietnams maritime infiltration into the South and to identify the Norths coastal defenses so that Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) could better support South Vietnams commando operations against the North. . Suddenly, North Vietnamese guns opened fire from the shore. The first Desoto Mission was conducted by USS Craig (DD-885) in March 1964. The first reports of the encounter from the destroyers reached the White House at 1000 EDT. WebOn August 7, 1964, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, authorizing President Johnson to take any measures he believed were necessary to retaliate and to promote the maintenance of international peace and security in southeast Asia. Just after midnight on 4 August, PTF-6 turned for home, pursued by an enemy Swatow. Herrick requested aerial reconnaissance for the next morning to search for the wreckage of the torpedo boats he thought he had sunk. Gulf of Tonkin - A secret report reveals how easily soldiers, spies and politicians can jump to a conclusion and plunge the country into war. The first such Desoto mission was conducted off the North Vietnamese coast in February 1964, followed by more through the spring. U.S. and South Vietnamese warships intruded into the territorial waters of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and simultaneously shelled: Hon Nieu Island, 4 kilometers off the coast of Thanh Hoa Province [and] Hon Me Island, 12 kilometers off the coast of Thanh Hoa Province." The U.S. Navy stressed that the two technically were not in communication with one another, but the distinction was irrelevant to the North Vietnamese. WebGulf of Tonkin conspiracy. Any escalation in the bombing of the North risked provoking the Russians or, more likely, the Chinese. Johnsonasked for, and received, a resolution of war from the US Congress that led to further escalation in the conflict. But by the end of June, the situation had changed. At the time, the Navy relied heavily on Naval Support Group Activity (NSGA), San Miguel, Philippines, for SIGINT support, augmented by seaborne SIGINT elements called Direct Support Units (DSUs). Badly damaged, the boat limped home. A brief account of the raids is in MACVSOG 1964 Command History, Annex A, 14 January 1965, pp. There remains some disagreement among historians about the second (Aug. 4) incident, which involved the Maddox and another destroyer, the USS Turner Joy. In response, the North Vietnamese built up their naval presence around the offshore islands. Our response, for the present, will be limited and fitting. Both sides, however, spent August 3 reviewing their contingency plans and analyzing lessons learned from the incident. The entirety of the original intercepts, however, were not examined and reanalyzed until after the war. Consequently, while Maddox was in the patrol area, a South Vietnamese commando raid was underway southwest of its position. Formerly an analyst with the Washington-based Asian Studies Center, Mr. Conboy is vice president of Lippo Group, a large financial services institution in Jakarta, Indonesia. Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. When the boats reached that point, Maddox fired three warning shots, but the torpedo boats continued inbound at high speed. This time, however, President Johnson reacted much more skeptically and ultimately decided to take no retaliatory action. In July, General Westmoreland asked that Desoto patrols be expanded to cover 34A missions from Vinh Son north to the islands of Hon Me, Hon Nieu, and Hon Mat, all of which housed North Vietnamese radar installations or other coastwatching equipment. On 6 August, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara told a joint session of the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees that the North Vietnamese attack on the Maddox was ". The Maddox fired againthis time to killhitting the second North Vietnamese boat just as it launched two torpedoes. Both South Vietnamese and U.S. maritime operators in Da Nang assumed that their raids were the cause of the mounting international crisis, and they never for a moment doubted that the North Vietnamese believed that the raids and the Desoto patrols were one and the same. Through the evening of Aug. 4, while no new information arrivedto clarify the eventin the Gulf, the White House narrative was firmly in place. Those early mistakes led U.S. destroyers to open fire on spurious radar contacts, misinterpret their own propeller noises as incoming torpedoes, and ultimately report an attack that never occurred. But for a band of South Vietnamese commandos and a handful of U.S. advisers, not much had changed. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution authorized President Lyndon Johnson to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States The Gulf of Tonkin incident led to the expansion of the Vietnam War that resulted in a lot of American After the incident, Herrick was unsure that his ships had been attacked, reporting at 1:27 a.m. Washington time that "Freak weather effects on radar and overeager sonarmen may have accounted for many reports. The study debunks two strongly held but opposing beliefs about what happened on both dayson the one hand that neither of the reported attacks ever took place at all, and on the other that there was in fact a second deliberate North Vietnamese attack on August 4. In Saigon, General William C. Westmoreland, the new commander of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), approved of the plan, and SOG began testing 81-mm mortars, 4.5-inch rockets, and recoilless rifles aboard the boats.

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