After 30 years and learning the computer and finding VetFriends, I went to my first reunion of the USS Navasota AO-106. A new family of fighting craft appeared, newly built or adapted from older boats in our inventory. U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) was a joint-service command of the United States Department of Defense. There was always the danger that one of his attacks might succeed in sinking a large ship in the deep water channel, thereby disrupting the flow of supplies to Saigon. Eventually a plan was approved which called for a complex of nine Ammis (later increased to 13), including a helicopter landing platform. The structure of the enemy force responsible for the attacks on Long Tau shipping was rather well known. Day and night, hundreds of thousands of porters and young volunteers crossed passes and forded rivers in spite of enemy planes and delayed-action bombs. Vice Admiral Zumwalt and the New Strategy. The Interdiction Barriers. The first units of the new force arrived at Vung Tau on board the USS Whitfield County (LST-1169) on 7 January 1967 and began training with elements of the U. S. 9th Infantry Division. Estimates of the areas population have varied from 5,000 to 13,000. The strength of the Vietnamese Navy at this time was about 1,900 officers and men. [6]:45, Major component commands of MACV were:[2]:60. Whereas 19 attacks on merchant shipping occurred in June prior to the start of the operation, a high for the war, none at all occurred during the remainder of the month, and only two occurred in July. "Civil Engineers, Seabees, and Bases in Vietnam, by Captain Charles J. Merdinger, Civil Engineer Corps, U. S. Navy, in Naval Review 1970. [9] Establishment [ edit] A year later there were virtually no U. S. Navy combat craft in Vietnam With wholly American crews. Food, clothing, and other necessities were of course obtainable locally through the levying of Viet Cong "taxes on the regions inhabitants. It spread its roots through virtually every sector of Vietnamese society. Having the Naval Ships Systems Command provide bunks and mattresses, which might be available from Navy ships being decommissioned. RPG-62 Vietnamese crews had only been at the base since June 1969 when they arrived with 10 PBRs that had been turned over from USN River Division 554 as part of the U.S. Navy's Accelerated Turnover to the Vietnamese (ACTOV) program. In the North, warnings were scrawled on the walls of public buildings, urging the populace to flee in advance of the Viet Minh Army. The NavForV program did not stop with the construction of shelters. (4) That all Navy commands, unless otherwise specified, be under the operational control of ComNavForV. Throughout 1963 the duties of the U.S. Army Support Group steadily increased, particularly regarding to combat support activities and logistics. Young trees are cut into long, straight poles, stripped of their bark, and sold for construction purposes. On the last full day of the operation a particularly large ammunition cache was destroyed. NAG - Naval Advisory Group. You've read 1 out of 5 free articles of Proceedings this month. Tests were completed on a 36-foot river patrol craft (RPC), and 34 of them were ordered. The men of both navies had adopted the Admiral's daily watchword and admonition to all concerned: "Go faster.". An extremely interesting and ingenious operation occurred on 22 February 1968, in the Phung Hiep district of the Delta. Shortly before the referendum, Diem informed the U. S. Government that he had decided to ask the French to withdraw the Expeditionary Force by March 1956, explaining that he considered the continued presence of French troops in the south to be "one of the principal Communist assets.. On 21 February 1965, the Commander of the U. S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam requested the Commander-in-Chief Pacific and the Commander-in-Chief Pacific Fleet to send representatives to Saigon to plan a combined U. S.-Vietnamese Navy patrol effort. Advisors reported that even these statistics did not reflect the true situation, since units were frequently only "administratively employed. With little modification, these early recommendations shaped the broad direction of our naval program in Vietnam for the next fourteen years. It should be considered by those who criticize the U. S. Navy for "usurping responsibilities rightfully belonging to the Vietnamese Navy at that particular stage of the war. They recommended that, since there was no apparent threat to the French in Indochina from the sea, the American naval aid program should be concentrated on a build-up of river and coastal forces of employment against the Viet Minh insurgents. Such patrols were considered tiresome, time consuming, and virtually devoid of the tangible results obtainable from "search and destroy operations. 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. English language leaflets were floated to the MATSB on tiny wooden rafts. A span of the Phung Hiep bridge was raised early in the morning with the assistance of the Army Engineers, and two River Assault Divisions with troops embarked passed 14 miles up the supposedly "inaccessible" Cai Con Canal for an assault on Viet Cong positions. In October, ComUSMACV directed that a program be developed for an accelerated turnover of U. S. equipment, while the war continued, in order to make the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces (RVNAF) as self-sufficient as possible. The Vietnamese Navy had grown to a force of 6,200 officers and men who operated 50 patrol ships and minecraft, and 208 amphibious and riverine craft. The Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG-7), for example, had an effective range nearly three times that of the older RPG-2. The markets were towns to the north, New Nam Can and Ca Mau primarily. Advisors were assigned to the Sea, River, and Junk Forces, to the Naval Shipyard in Saigon, and to the Vietnamese Navy Headquarters. Numerous automatic weapons and mortars were emplaced, though the primary defense of the MATSB was considered to be the mobile firepower provided by the naval craft and the helicopter fire teams that would be supported there. The Naval Advisory Group was a division of the MACV staff organization and Chief, Naval Advisory Group was therefore without command authority, including disciplinary authority, over any naval personnel in-country. Naval Support Activity Saigon or NSA Saigon was a United States Navy logistics support organization located in Saigon, South Vietnam active from May 1966 to June 1972. His command and control decisions were shaped by the following principles: (1) U. S. Navy operations in Vietnam would be coordinated with Vietnamese Operations, allowing integrated operations to be instituted as soon as practicable; (2) facilities required for U. S. naval operations would be located with Vietnamese naval installations so that support operations could be integrated, and later turnover of the facilities more practically achieved. Within a short time of its capture by the Viet Cong, Old Nam Can presented a scene of the utmost devastation, and it was literally true that scarcely two stones were left piled one upon the other, save for the brick heaps of the ruined charcoal kilns. Each man assigned had to pull his share of the load. The Commander of the task force could say with obvious pride that "Commanders involved in this unique operation felt that they had succeeded in gaining the most difficult of all military advantages in this warsurprise.. Dept. He further proposed that all support functions and bases be transferred by the end of the fiscal year 1972. Islands and territorial waters to the north of that line are Cambodian and, to the south, Vietnamese. Route 12, which once connected Old Nam Can City with Ca Mau City, has long since fallen into disuse, and has all but vanished in the swampy terrain. A most significant factor was the deplorable care, housing, and security of dependent families. The outbreak of the Korean War had brought with it a change in our assessment of the war in Indochina, and we began to view it in certain respects As an extension of the struggle in Korea. In April, Operation Silver Mace II was launched with combined U. S. Navy, U. S. Air Force, Vietnamese Army, Navy, and Marine Corps units. The mooring of this large complex of Ammi barges in tidal currents, which frequently reached velocities of six to eight knots, proved to be a considerable feat in itself. Digital Proceedings content made possible by a gift from CAPT Roger Ekman, USN (Ret.). An industrious woodcutter and his family can earn a very decent living by Vietnamese standards from their labors in the forests of Nam Can. 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 assisting the chief of the advisory group in administering the Military Assistance Program. Classification: Collection had a Kyl-Lott review in September 2003. A new task organization, TF 194, was created for Sea Lords, and assets were chopped to "First Sea Lord" for Specific operations by the commanders of Market Time, Game Warden, and the Mobile Riverine Force. The operational forces had undergone many changes in organization and strength. The NAVFORV and Naval Advisory Group records fall into several main series. The proposal was thoroughly discussed at ComNavForV headquarters. Selected Documents prepared by the U.S. Marine Advisory Unit, Naval Advisory Group, Vietnam War History. Vietnamese ground commanders, and some of their American advisors, thought that such a base would be virtually indefensible. . Morale flagged. As was proven time and time again in Brown Water Nan operations in Vietnam, cooperation with trained and aggressive ground forces was the real key to success. These were normally collected by armed sampans which took up stations on the heavily traveled water routes. Attacks on the Long Tau were ordinarily carried out by small groups of five or fewer men who, after firing their weapons, simply faded back into their haven in the north. Though the number of Vietnamese Navy ships available for coastal patrol increased to 28 during the year, detection remained low. Only 11 were confirmed Viet Cong. Task Force 115 consisted of seven DERs, two MSOs, two LSTs originally used to provide radar coverage of the Mekong River entrances, five SP-2H patrol aircraft based at Tan Son Nhut Airfield at Saigon, and Coast Guard Squadron One with nine WPBs based at An Thoi and eight at Da Nang. As a result, the 1st Logistics Command was established. Significantly, this marked the formal recognition of the Naval Advisory Group's new role as an operational as well as an advisory command. The results of these early patrols, which might be considered precursors of later Market Time operations, did not seem to indicate the existence of large-scale infiltration from the sea. Some were levied through direct or indirect pressures on families or villages, others had very little but starvation as an alternative when the war ruined their farms or turned their traditional fishing grounds into restricted areas. Harkins had the task of advising the South Vietnamese government on security, organization, and employment of their military and paramilitary forces. In the plan, great reliance was placed on "on-the-job" training, and it was hoped that by living with, and operating with, our Brown Water sailors the VNN sailors would learn much by example. There was literally nowhere in the Delta, given navigable water, that the Riverine Assault Force could not go. If the Vietnamese Navy were to continue effective operations in the area after the withdrawal of the U. S. Navy, some sort of an operational and support base would be required. Under the original concept, the LSD and LST were to anchor off the mouths of the major rivers in the Delta and serve as operational bases, each supporting 30 PBRs. The military decisions that were taken at this time were not, nor could they be, based solely on our operational experience in the war. It was not proposed that "Vietnamization" of the naval war would include the transfer of the large units which made offshore support of the Nam Can operations feasible, if less than desirable for the U. S. Navy. Enemy reaction to this unwanted presence in his midst took the form of increased mining and ambush of Swiftboat patrols, and a vigorous psychological warfare operation of his own. Young officers and petty officers were assigned staggering responsibilities in this war and they shouldered them well. The savage communist assault on the cities of South Vietnam during the great Tet Offensive of 1968 called forth the finest in performance from both the U. S. and the Vietnamese Navies, and at the same time it underscored the prevailing strategic weakness of the overall interdiction effort to that time. 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. Group. It was described as a combined U. S. and Vietnamese naval operation to construct a Coastal Group junk and PCF base at Old Nam Can. TWS is the largest online community of Veterans existing today and is a powerful Veteran locator. Designated as Task Force Oregon, it included the 196th Infantry Brigade; the 3rd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division at Chu Lai Base Area; and the 1st Brigade, 10lst Airborne Division. U. S. Navy DEs were withdrawn from the Gulf of Thailand on 26 May 1962, and the MSO patrol was suspended on 1 August. The pacification of vital trans-Delta waterways was the second of the Sea Lords objectives. Shortly before 0600 on 20 February, therefore, both companies were again landed. On 1 August 1965, operational responsibility for Market Time passed from the Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Fleet to General Westmoreland, and operational control from Commander Task Force 71, who had held this duty as a collateral function, to Commander Task Force 115, which was the new designation of the Commander of the Coastal Surveillance Force. Thanks VetFriends. If it seemed unusual for the U. S. Navy to go into the pigs and chickens business halfway around the world, it was. The Vietnamese Navy itself was not formally established until 1954, and our early advisors worked almost exclusively with French counterparts. Miscellaneous materials that could not be associated with any one office on the commanders staff also are indicated. While many of our ships were old, and much of our equipment was, too, the Brown Water sailor exemplified youth. On their return from market they brought potable water, rice, cloth, beer, and other staples. If you have a conquering spirit and are not afraid of even the most complex problems, apply now to Naval Group! The problem of attracting adequate ground forces has already been addressed. "Combat patrols often consisted of short trips to and from anchorages. "Vietnamization" proceeded at a steady pace. The new complex soon earned the nickname "Pentagon East. Under their combined pressure, K gave way. Creation of a NavForV dependent shelter project team to coordinate allocation of materials and technical assistance. Almost immediately the Annex began to outstrip the main complex itself in the number of visitors it attracted. Hard intelligence had repeatedly confirmed that the bulk of enemy war material for the III and IV Corps areas entered Cambodia from the sea, in Communist Chinese and Eastern Bloc ships, primarily through the port of Sihanoukville. Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) is a designation for United States military advisors sent to other countries to assist in the training of conventional armed forces and facilitate military aid. "Building the Advanced Base at Da Nang, by Captain K. P. Huff, U. S. Naval Reserve, in Naval Review 1968. A second attempt was made several hours later, moderate opposition was again experienced, and the ships once more withdrew. It literally rebounded from battle to battle and was later credited by General Westmoreland with having "saved the Delta." A second category, which makes up approximately half the bulk of the records, is messages. The RAG was not provided with a permanently assigned landing force, and, for all practical purposes, operational control had been surrendered to regional Army commanders who employed the river craft almost exclusively in logistic support of encamped ground forces.
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