Action in Tonkin Gulf
(See Cover) The Gulf of Tonkin is a forbidding body of water. Along its shores lie the brutal war in South Viet Nam, the belligerent Red regime of North Viet Nam's Ho Chi Minh, the ominous expanse of Communist China.
Yet, to the young men of the 2,200-ton U.S. destroyer Maddox, patrol duty in Tonkin seemed as ho-hum and hum drum as duty on any of a hundred other routine tin-can patrols. In this case, the mission of the Maddox was mainly to show the U.S. flag and keep a casual lookout for Communist gun runners or seaborne Red guerrilla cadres. Occasionally the Maddox would slip up to within 13 miles of the Communist mainland, set her radar to sniffing the coast. But the real challenge to her sailors was to stay awake on lonely watches. Few of them even thought about combat; most, in fact, were still in grade school when the Maddox last came under Communist gunfire off Korea in 1953.
No Panic. Thus there was no reason to panic on that sunny Sunday last week when Maddox lookouts sighted three Communist torpedo boats near the island of Hon Me (see map). The destroyer merely continued north on its patrol, and in due course made a leisurely turn and headed back south.
But at 12:30 p.m., as the Maddox cruised down the gulf 30 miles from any land, her radar men spotted three torpedo boats, ten miles to the north, speeding toward the Maddox. They were Russian P-4 types, 85 ft. long, armed with torpedo tubes and 25-mm. machine guns. The destroyer skipper, Commander Herbert L. Ogier, 41, sounded general quarters. Two hundred and fifty-five officers and crewmen raced to their battle stations. Ogier held his course southward. And he waited.
For two hours the crew watched the small craft close in. The destroyer did not try to outrace her pursuers; with a top speed of 33 knots, she could not have done so anyway. It was now 2:40. The boats were approaching at about 45 knots. Ogier made his decision. If they kept boring in, he would open fire. They kept closing. Ogier lobbed three warning shots across their bows. Still they came on.
Two of them moved into a range of 8,000 yds. off the Maddox's starboard quarter and headed toward her stern. The Maddox has twin-mounted 5-in. 38s aft and two twin-mounts forward. Ogier could either swing the Maddox broadside and train one forward pair and the aft pair on the two boats or stay on course and keep the ship's tail toward them. This would permit him to fire at only one boat at a time, but it would provide a slimmer target for enemy torpedoes.
He chose to stay thin.
White Wakes. The battle began at 3:08. The Maddox opened up with her aft five-inchers and her 3-in. and 40-mm. guns. The two trailing craft closed to 5,000 yds., launched one 18-in. torpedo apiece. Officers on the Maddox bridge had no trouble following the foot-wide white wakes of the torpedoes as they ran through the blue-green sea at a depth of 10 ft.
Ogier swung the ship to port. The torpedoes passed 100 yds. to starboard. For a farewell blast, the two boats sprayed away futilely with their 25-mm. machine guns, turned tail and headed toward the north.
Now the third torpedo boat took up the attack. Skillfully, she pulled 5,000 yds. abeam of the destroyer so that evasion would be far more difficult. But this also brought the PT boat under the fire of two pairs of the Maddox's biggest guns. The Maddox fired--a direct hit. The enemy craft stopped dead in the water, helpless and aflame. Later she could not be found and was assumed to have sunk.
In the nearby South China Sea, the U.S. Aircraft Carrier Ticonderoga maintained continuous communication with the Maddox. She reported that four supersonic F-8 Crusader jets, already airborne at the time of the attack, were on the way. Moments later the jets streaked in, unleashed eight Zuni rockets at the two fleeing boats, scored two hits (despite the fact that the early model Zunis are designed for strafing fixed targets) and strafed the boats with their 20-mm. cannon. The two craft slowed but continued north. The jet pilots, certain that the attack had been repulsed, turned back to the Ticonderoga. At 3:29 p.m., the 21-minute battle--the first direct clash between U.S. and Communist armed vehicles since Korea--was over.
Swift Orders. About 4,000 miles away, near Wake Island, a U.S. Navy C-118 staff plane droned toward Honolulu. Aboard was Admiral Ulysses S. Grant Sharp Jr., commander in chief of the U.S. forces in the Pacific (CINCPAC). "Oley" Sharp was returning to his headquarters near Pearl Harbor after touring the U.S. military missions in South Viet Nam and Thailand --the everlasting hot spots of his vast command (see box). It was over the C-118 radiotelephone that the word of the fight in Tonkin Gulf was relayed to Sharp.
The admiral wasted no time. Swiftly he sent orders to his CINCPAC headquarters: the Maddox will stay in the gulf--and a destroyer, the 2,850-ton Turner Joy, then cruising in the South China Sea, will join her at once.
"Here was a U.S. Navy ship attacked on the high seas," Oley Sharp explained later. "You can't accept any interference with our use of international waters. You must go back to the same place and say, 'Here's two of us this time, if you want to try anything.' " When he landed in Honolulu, newsmen were waiting for him. "Our ships are always going to go where they need to be," he said crisply. "If they shoot at us, we are going to shoot back."
Low-Key. In Washington it was after dawn on Sunday-- before the Pentagon had compiled a complete report on the distant sea action. Lyndon Johnson was informed as he dressed for church. To the White House he summoned his top advisers: Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Under Secretary George Ball, Deputy Defense Secretary Cy Vance and General Earle Wheeler, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, weekending in Newport, R.I., got a hurry-up call and rushed back to the capital. For 45 minutes the President and his aides discussed the attack, decided to play the whole affair as low-key as possible in the hope that it was all some sort of misunderstanding on the part of the Communist Viet Minh government at Hanoi. Accordingly, the Pentagon issued a dry statement: The Maddox, "while on routine patrol in international waters," had undergone an "unprovoked attack by three PT-type boats." The White House declined comment. A State Department staffer said that the best possible answer to the attack had been delivered by the Maddox and the U.S. jets. Arriving in New York later for a speech, Dean Rusk said only: "The other side got a sting out of this. If they do it again, they'll get another sting."
Even in private, Washington officials could not offer an intelligent reason that might explain why the puny Hanoi mosquito fleet challenged the 125-ship U.S. Seventh Fleet. Some speculated that Hanoi had somehow connected the Maddox with recent South Vietnamese raids on Hon Me and the neighboring island of Hon Ngu. Yet the Maddox was at least 30 miles from either island at the time of those attacks. And her presence in the gulf was hardly a new provocation, since U.S. destroyers had been patrolling the area frequently over the past two years and are well known to North Vietnamese seafarers.
But lest the North Vietnamese, and by indirection the Red Chinese, misread the U.S. stance, the President ordered the U.S. fleet to pursue and destroy any attacking vessel. "Pursuit," in this case, meant that an enemy could be chased to wherever it might flee, even into the sanctuary of its own territorial waters. To back up the public denunciation of North Viet Nam's attack, moreover, the State Department issued a fiery protest to the Hanoi government.
Lusty Liberty. By Monday, most Americans, leaders and populace alike, were ready to accept the notion that Sunday's attack--incredible as it was--would stand as an isolated incident. The Maddox and the Joy sailed serenely through the Gulf of Tonkin without challenge. Their crews stayed sharp-eyed, but once again began counting the days until their tedium would end, perhaps with lusty liberty in Tokyo, Hong Kong or Manila.
Tuesday dawned. The weather in the gulf turned bad. Thunder rumbled across the water. Sporadic storms churned waves, and the two U.S. destroyers pitched and rolled. Despite the rough going, Maddox radar late in the afternoon again detected the presence of distant company: several tiny blips moved across the scope in tracks paralleling those of the Maddox and Joy.
By nightfall the warships were steaming near the center of the 150-mile-wide gulf, some 65 miles from the nearest land. Yet the number of radar contacts was growing, and their tracks were converging on the destroyers. The Maddox flashed the alert to the Ticonderoga, which was prowling near the mouth of the gulf. Jet fighters snapped off the carrier's runway, soon formed a cover over the U.S. ships.
Gunfire & Gun Smells. Through the darkness, from the west and south, the intruders boldly sped. There were at least six of them, Russian-designed "Swatow" gunboats armed with 37-mm. and 28-mm. guns, and P-4s. At 9:52 they opened fire on the destroyers with automatic weapons, this time from as close as 2,000 yds.
The night glowed eerily with the nightmarish glare of air-dropped flares and boats' searchlights. For 3 1/2 hours, the small boats attacked in pass after pass. Ten enemy torpedoes sizzled through the water. Each time the skippers, tracking the fish by radar, maneuvered to evade them. Gunfire and gun smells and shouts stung the air. Two of the enemy boats went down. Then, at 1:30 a.m., the remaining PTs ended the fight, roared off through the black night to the north.
Long before the attack was over, CINCPAC Admiral Sharp was routed out of bed (about 4 a.m., Hawaii time) by a duty officer. He hurried to the windowless war room on the third deck of his hilltop headquarters overlooking the white sands of the Oahu coast. He slipped into his green leather chair at the center of a U-shaped table, opposite a wall on which illuminated status reports could be flashed, and picked up a dialless gold telephone at his left. On the Stateside end of the circuit was Robert McNamara. Sharp seldom left that room during the next 22 hours. He made about 100 calls to Washington, even more than that to his subordinate Pacific commanders of the Air Force, Army and Navy.
There was no doubt in Sharp's mind that the U.S. would now have to answer this attack with much more than a diplomatic protest note. He recommended that the U.S. hit the North Viet Nam torpedo-boat bases. Could the carriers do the job? asked McNamara. "Hell, yes!" replied Sharp. That was all McNamara needed to know. While McNamara dealt with the problem in Washington, Sharp waited for a decision. "I was watching Saigon time to see how light it was getting, and watching Washington time to see what they were doing. You spend an awful lot of time looking at clocks."
While Sharp watched the clocks, President Johnson, McNamara, Rusk, CIA Chief John McCone and the President's adviser on national security, McGeorge Bundy, met for a luncheon conference in the White House second-floor dining room.
There were no "doves" or "hawks" at this meeting. The possibility of shelling the northern seaport of Haiphong was discussed briefly, but it was discarded since it would involve civilian casualties and would require moving warships into territorial waters. McNamara suggested instead an air strike against five specific targets--four torpedo-boat bases and an oil storage facility. Rusk thought it might be wiser to hit two of the southernmost bases first and save the others for a possible second-stage attack. McCone argued for clobbering all five places, in view of the gravity of the North Vietnamese "act of war" against the destroyers. That was it. "All right," said the President, "let's go."
"We're Going." McNamara hurried back to his office and set the plans in motion. The Pentagon phoned Sharp. In turn, Sharp called the Navy's Pacific Fleet commander, Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, stationed at nearby Makalapa Naval Base, told him: "We're going to clo it." Orders crackled through the Pacific as units of the Seventh Fleet were alerted. The carrier Constellation moved out of Hong Kong--about 500 miles from the Tonkin bases--with instructions to join the Ticonderoga as quickly as possible.
As the massive military machinery gathered its strength, Lyndon Johnson and McNamara briefed the National Security Council and summoned congressional leaders to the White House. McNamara, Rusk, McCone and Wheeler explained the events and the plans. The President was grim, decisive. He made it clear he was informing his old Capitol Hill colleagues, not asking their advice. "These are our plans," he snapped.
Johnson also asked the legislators to move swiftly for a resolution expressing congressional approval and support of "the determination of the President, as Commander in Chief, to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the U.S. and to prevent further aggression." Solemnly, Johnson looked to each man around the table for his agreement. No one dissented. Republican Senator Everett Dirksen, the key figure, waved his O.K.
When he was sure that the air strike at North Viet Nam was under way, Lyndon went on nationwide TV networks at 11:37 p.m. to deliver his somber message. "My fellow Americans: As President and Commander in Chief, it is my duty to report that renewed hostile actions against United States ships on the high seas in the Gulf of Tonkin have today required me to order the military forces of the United States to take action in reply . . . That reply is being given as 1 speak to you tonight. Air action is now in execution against gunboats and certain supporting facilities in North Viet Nam which have been used in these hostile operations."
While voicing U.S. indignation at what he called "this outrage" by the Communists, Johnson carefully avoided any sound of saber rattling. "Our response for the present," he said, "will be limited and fitting. We Americans know, although others appear to forget, the risks of spreading conflict. We still seek no wider war."
Combat-Green. At that moment, planes from the Ticonderoga and the Constellation, now nearing the gulf, were indeed speeding toward their coastal targets. Although it would still be another 1 1/2 hours before they would unleash their first rockets, Hanoi radar undoubtedly had already noted their approach.
The pilots flew through a heavy overcast that forced them to approach at low altitudes--and uncomfortably close to the modern, radar-controlled antiaircraft installations ringing the North Viet Nam bases. Despite the poor visibility and the stiff ground fire, the airmen, nearly all of them' combat-green, performed remarkably well.
The flak was thickest over the northernmost target at Hongay, where 37-mm. and 57-mm. ground batteries atop a hill protected the harbor. From the Constellation, ten A-4 Skyhawk jets, two supersonic twin-engined F-4 Phantoms, and four slower propeller-driven A-1 Skyraiders blasted Communist patrol craft at the docks with bombs, rockets and 20-mm. cannon. Farther to the south, five Skyhawks, thiec Phantoms and four Skyraiders from the Constellation hit Loc Chao.
The Ticonderoga sent six Crusader jets against the southernmost target at Quang Khe. Biggest concentration of airpower--and the most spectacular damage--was focused at Phuc Loi and its nearby oil-storage facilities at Vinh. In all, 32 aircraft from the Ticonderoga ripped into patrol boats there and set a dozen of the depot's 14 storage tanks ablaze. A happy squadron leader radioed that the tanks were "burning profusely" and that black smoke rose 14,000 ft. Up with the smoke went some 90% of the depot's oil, which constitutes 10% of North Viet Nam's stored reserves. And down to the bottom went 25 North Vietnamese patrol craft--more than half of its entire fleet.
Red Reaction. McNamara called the raids "very successful." Oley Sharp, who followed the action on charts in his war room, termed it "well executed." He was proud of the carriers' ability to get into position, their pilots briefed, planes armed and into the air as quickly as they had. "They had to make their preparations at night and in the early morning hours." he said. "It shows their high state of readiness."
The U.S., however, did not come off unscathed. In 64 sorties, two planes were shot down. One of the 365-m.p.h. Skyraiders, piloted by Lieut, (j.g.) Richard Sather, 26, of Pomona, Calif., was hit at Loc Chao and crashed into the sea with no evidence of the flyer's survival. A 680-m.p.h. Skyhawk caught flak at Hongay. Its pilot, Lieut, (j.g.) Everett Alvarez Jr., 26, of San Jose, Calif., radioed that he was bailing out, and other pilots heard the telltale 60-second radio "beeper" signifying an opened parachute. They saw the plane splash three miles at sea. Hanoi later announced it had captured Alvarez. Two other planes were crippled: one reached its carrier; the other made a safe landing in South Viet Nam.
U.S. strategists had little time to congratulate themselves on the success of their "limited and fitting" answer to Red aggression. The big question was how North Viet Nam--and far more significantly, the Red Chinese--would react to the air strikes. And well before the first plane took off, the U.S. began a well-calculated redeployment of its forces to prepare for any Red move.
Immediately, Sharp began shuffling forces in his own command. An antisubmarine task force, led by the carrier Kearsarge (famed for its recovery of orbiting U.S. astronauts), swept into the South China Sea to watch for Red China's roving fleet of submarines. A squadron of Air Force F-102 supersonic interceptors bolted from Clark Field in the Philippines to bases in South Viet Nam to counter any attempt by the Chinese to bolster the Viet Minh with jets. Amphibious landing craft silently embarked for undisclosed destinations.
The Pentagon meanwhile worked out broader plans. The Joint Chiefs transferred an attack carrier group with the flagship Ranger from the First Fleet along the west coast of the U.S. into Sharp's Pacific area. Thailand agreed to accept two squadrons of U.S. Air Force fighter-bombers. More than 50 F-102s and B57 Canberra jet bombers took up residence at airfields at Danang, Saigon and Bienhoa in South Viet Nam. Near Bienhoa, a B57 crashed into the jungle with Capt. Fred C. Cutrer Jr. and Lieut. Leonard L. Kaster aboard. Hampered by Communist guerrillas, rescuers were unable to find the flyers. Flights of F-100 Super Sabre fighters, RF-101 Voodoo reconnaissance planes and F-105 Thunderchief fighter-bombers swept out of the U.S. and streaked toward Pacific bases.
The rapid movement of naval and air units demonstrated the value of a flexible response capability in the U.S. military forces. So, of course, did the dramatic use of carrier airpower along the Gulf of Tonkin. That flexibility and the U.S. advantage in military technology are what made last week's firm U.S. military stance throughout Southeast Asia credible.
Strong on Land. The adversary boasts power too. Red China has 2,500,000 troops to throw into land action. Most of that manpower is still positioned opposite Taiwan. Three armies (about 120,000 men) are near North Viet Nam, another on the island of Hainan in the Gulf of Tonkin. U.S. intelligence says that there has been no recent buildup in these southeast concentrations. The Red Chinese air force, with some 2,000 jet fighters and bombers, is one of the world's largest, but is hampered by shortages of parts and fuel. And her navy is weak: she has 28 subs and about 170 torpedo boats; her largest ships are four destroyers.
While North Viet Nam lost half of her navy last week and has at best about 50 aircraft (presumably none of them jets), her well-trained and high-spirited army numbers about 300,000, backed by a 150,000-man militia. These troops could be checked in a major drive into South Viet Nam only by a direct, all-out U.S. effort. (Last week a North Viet Nam infantry regiment stared across the Ben Hai River at a reinforced Saigon division in South Viet Nam. Neither showed signs of moving.) Hanoi's greatest weakness in such a drive would be her vulnerable supply routes.
Unmasked Aggression. As the U.S. raised its shield, it took pains to assure the world that its actions and responses had all been necessary. McNamara told a press conference that all of the military movements were "appropriate to the provocation." He summed up the air strike simply: "Our objective was to deter the PT-boat fleet from further attacks on our vessels. I believe we have accomplished that." President Johnson pointed out that "the Gulf of Tonkin may be distant, but none can be detached about what has happened there. Aggression--deliberate, willful and systematic aggression--has unmasked its face to the entire world. The world remembers, the world must never forget, that aggression unchallenged is aggression unleashed."
Johnson also issued a pointed warning against further Red interference in Southeast Asia. "To any who may be tempted to support or to widen the present aggression, I say this: There is no threat to any peaceful power from the United States of America. But there can be no peace by aggression and no immunity from reply. That is what is meant by the actions that we took." To help spread that word abroad, Johnson asked Henry Cabot Lodge, former Ambassador to Saigon, to present the U.S. case in allied capitals.
At a hastily called United Nations Security Council meeting, U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson described the U.S. action as a "limited and measured response fitted precisely to the attack that produced it, and the deployment of additional U.S. forces to Southeast Asia is designed to make unmistakably clear that the U.S. cannot be diverted by military attack from its obligations to help its friends establish and protect their independence." Stevenson readily accepted the Soviet Union's rather dispirited demand that the Hanoi government be invited to tell its story to the U.N. Council, on condition that South Viet Nam also would be heard.
Two Dissenters. More than anything, the precise, coolheaded statements that issued last week from U.S. leaders were aimed at assuring an edgy world of America's good faith, and America's determination to use its power only in the defense of itself and its allies. Members of the Congress--debating the resolution approving the President's actions and allowing him the discretion to strike back again if the U.S. is attacked--were concerned about making that same point. The resolution cleared the House with a resounding 416-0 vote after only 40 minutes of debate, but the Senate talked for a full nine hours before approving, 88-2. The only two dissenters were Alaska's Democratic Senator Ernest Gruening and Oregon's irascible Democrat Wayne Morse, both of whom argued that the resolution was unconstitutional because it amounted to a "predated declaration of war power" normally reserved to Congress.
On the other hand, it could be argued that technically Johnson already had all the authority he needed without the resolution--as he had demonstrated so dramatically in the Gulf of Tonkin. The congressional support mainly punctuated the fact that the U.S. was united behind the President. At week's end U.S. forces around the world stood alert. And behind them stood their nation.
This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.