Vung Ro Bay Incident
| Vung Ro Bay Incident | |||||||
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| Part of the Vietnam War | |||||||
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 South Vietnam United States |
 North Vietnam |
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The Vung Ro Bay Incident refers to the discovery of a 100-ton North Vietnamese naval trawler unloading munitions on a beach in South Vietnam's Vung Ro Bay on February 16, 1965. The incident spurred further United States Navy involvement in the Vietnam War.
[edit] Incident
For years many American analysts had suspected that the Communists were using the sea to supply their forces in the South, but it was not until the Vung Ro event that they gained positive proof of such actions. The United States Seventh Fleet commander, Vice Admiral Paul P. “Brick” Blackburn, observed that the Vung Ro find was “proof positive.” Blackburn and General William Westmoreland called for a major U.S.-Vietnamese anti-infiltration patrol operation.
On February 16, a United States Army officer flying his helicopter along the coast of central South Vietnam suddenly spotted a large, camouflaged naval trawler perpendicular to the shore. Cargo was being unloaded and stacked on the beach at Vung Ro, an isolated bay on the rocky coast. The pilot immediately radioed his sighting to Lieutenant Commander Harvey P. Rodgers, the Senior Advisor to the South Vietnamese 2nd Coastal District headquartered in Nha Trang, who in turn notified the coastal district commander, Lieutenant Commander Ho Van Ky Thoai.
Thoai dispatched South Vietnamese A-1 Skyraiders to the bay where they capsized and sank the ship. Additional air strikes pummeled the stores on the beach the next day, but it was not until 11:00 on the 19 that the South Vietnamese escort Chi Lang II, medium landing ship Tien Giang, and submarine chaser Tuy Dong were able to overcome command indecision and enemy small arms fire from entrenched Viet Cong machine gunners to land their embarked troops and naval commandos. The commandos used shotguns to sweep the defending Viet Cong fighters from their conrete bunkers. [1]
What the soldiers and naval commandos, the latter accompanied by their United States Navy advisor, Lieutenant Franklin W. Anderson, discovered in the wrecked ship and piled up on shore ended a long-running debate among American military and intelligence officials. The allies recovered from the 130-foot North Vietnamese trawler and from shore sites 100 tons of Soviet and Chinese-made war material, including 3,500 to 4,000 rifles and submachine guns, one million rounds of small arms ammunition, 1,500 grenades, 2,000 mortar rounds, and 500 pounds of explosives. The Vung Ro incident followed up on the success of Operation Market Time.[2] Three North Vietnamese naval trawlers of the same type were destroyed in battle on March 1, 1968 by elements of Operation Market Time.
[edit] References
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This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2010) |
- ^ Edward J. Marolda and G. Wesley Pryce, III, A Short History of the United States Navy and the Southeast Asian Conflict, 1950-1975 (Washington: U.S. Naval Historical Center, 1984).
- ^ Thomas J. Cutler, Brown Water, Black Berets: Coastal and Riverine Warfare in Vietnam (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1988), 76-77.
Note: The United States Army officer flying the helicopter on the mission that discovered the North Vietnamese freighter was 1LT James S Bowers (Vermont), the co-pilot was CWO2 Clifford Adkins (Florida). The aircraft was assigned to the 117th Aviation Co., 52nd AVN BN and stationed at Qui Nhon. The aircraft was being flown on a MEDEVAC mission transporting a wounded U.S. Army officer from a remote fire base to a medical facility at Danang for treatment.
[edit] See also
