* In a third category are the divisional records of particular offices (i.e., Assistant Chief of Staff for Plans, Assistant Chief of Staff for Operations). With an initial authorized strength of 216 men (113 Army), MACV was envisaged as a temporary HQ that would be withdrawn once the Viet Cong insurgency was brought under control. The group included ATCs, Monitors, and ASPBs. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. Particularly in the years following 1964, enormous sums of money and huge quantities of material and equipment were transferred. The tactic of keeping the enemy constantly on the move, never surrendering the initiative, and denying him a secure base area completely changed the complexion of the war in the "Forest of Assassins." With the arrival of the second APB, the USS Colleton (APB-36), in early May, plans were made to move all these units of the Mobile Riverine Base to Dong Tam. In spite of greatly increased levels of military assistance, the situation in South Vietnam continued to deteriorate. In many cases the historians in Saigon made detailed listings of the messages and these are filed as appendices to this inventory. In June the first operational test of the offshore support ship concept was initiated when the USS Tortuga (BD-26), which had arrived in May, anchored near the mouths of the Co Chien and Bassac Rivers. Islands and territorial waters to the north of that line are Cambodian and, to the south, Vietnamese. In September 1966, Captain Phan was removed from his post, and command of the Navy passed to Lieutenant General Cao Van Vien of the Vietnamese Army. Find USMC Advisory Team Rung Sat Special Zone (RSSZ), Naval Advisory Group Vietnam unit information, patches, operation history, veteran photos and more on TogetherWeServed.com. Certain small increases had been made in the Sea Forces, however, and overall strength had grown to about 3,500 officers and men. The Coastal Surveillance Force enjoyed its finest hour as it thwarted a desperate attempt by the Communists to resupply the offensive by the simultaneous infiltration of four steel-hulled vessels of the fishing trawler type laden with arms. The ship was observed to be of the trawler type, about 130 feet long and displacing perhaps 100 tons. It was inevitable that a significant phase of the counter-insurgency war in Vietnam would be fought on water. It was obvious that from an operational standpoint the establishment of a permanent base on the Cua Lon or Bo De Rivers, capable of supporting PCFs, junks, and river assault craft, was highly desirable. The operation achieved immediate and striking success in its objective of easing pressure on the Long Tau shipping channel. A defensive sea area was proposed which would extend 40 miles from the coast, and it was recommended that the Republic of Vietnam authorize U. S. Naval forces to "stop, board, search, and, if necessary, capture and/or destroy any hostile suspicious craft or vessel found within South Vietnams territorial and contiguous zone waters.. Combined operations in November and December 1968 cleared the important Cho Gao Canal and swept through the Can Tho Crossing corridor and the Dung Island complex in the Bassac River. General Vo Nguyen Giap, Peoples War, Peoples Army. As these records were no longer needed in Saigon they were shipped to the Operation Archives Branch of the Naval History Division (the NHHC Navy Archives). The popular conception of the enemy in Vietnam is that he is an ephemeral figure who travels light, lives off the land, and at the moment of battle somehow always manages to supply himself with arms and munitions dug up from long-buried caches, or plucked magically from the hollow stumps of jungle trees. I was part of a two-man team that consisted of a LCDR and me. As Market Time throttled infiltration from the sea, the communists simply shifted their principal supply lines to inland routes, which crossed the borders from supposedly "neutral Cambodia and Laos. It was assumed that infiltration into South Vietnam by sea fell into two categories: (1) coastwise junk traffic mingling with the more than 50,000 registered civilian craft which plied the coastal waters of South Vietnam; and (2) vessels of trawler size or larger which approached the coast on a generally perpendicular line. Called the United States Support Activities Group & 7th Air Force (USSAG/7th AF), it was located at Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai Air Force Base in northeast Thailand. Frequently, these were individuals who by reason of age or infirmity were ineligible for service in the Uniformed Services. The construction contractor was RMK-BRJ, at a cost of $25 million. 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. "Pigs and chickens programs were initiated at most bases to provide the necessary protein that was often lacking in the diet of the Vietnamese dependents. Captain Chon had served a previous tour as Commander-in-Chief in the period 1957-1959. Its conclusions were that infiltration from the North existed on a scale sufficient to support the expanded level of operations by the enemy in South Vietnam, and that only nominal resistance to that infiltration was being made. On 15 May 1969, therefore, CTF 115 proposed that a PCF Mobile Advance Tactical Support Base (MATSB) be built and positioned in the middle of the Cua Lon River near Old Nam Can. Dense foliage and thick swamps make detection of soldiers from the air and pursuit on the ground extremely difficult. Genesis of the U. S. Navys Role in the War. Most of its people were removed to a site roughly ten miles to the north which was named "New Nam Can to distinguish it from the old district capital. The enormity of this undertaking could not be measured solely in terms of the numbers of the Vietnamese naval personnel it would be necessary to recruit and train. 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. [10]:400. From Nam Can the Communist supply chain ran northward into the remainder of the Delta and into III Corps. Seemingly from nowhere, skilled masons appeared and began the painstaking reconstruction of the areas once ubiquitous beehive charcoal kilns. U.S. Navy advisors helped transform the Vietnam Navy from a small collection of landing craft and minesweepers to the world's fifth largest navy - a modern service of 42,000 sailors and 1,500 surface vessels capable of fighting not only on the rivers of Vietnam but also far out to sea. It was decided, therefore, to shift to a standard family of small arms, using the same caliber of ammunition, and provide more modern supporting weapons. The Vung Ro Incident confirmed what had long been suspected, but for which there had been no previous evidence.1 The large amount of material discovered indicated that more than just a few shipments had been made. Tests were completed on a 36-foot river patrol craft (RPC), and 34 of them were ordered. "Fighting Boats of the United States, by Captain Richards T. Miller, U. S. Navy, in Naval Review 1968. Class of 1953. "[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. In mid-1970 cyclo drivers in Saigon were earning more than Vietnamese Navy Lieutenants, and it was not at all uncommon to encounter beggars in uniform on the streets of the capital city. Provision for systematic screening of materials declared excess by all military commands. 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. New basing and support concepts were created. His long-time associate and premier, Ngo Dinh Diem, announced on 7 July 1955 that a referendum would be held in October to permit the people to choose between Bao Dai and himself. Part of the increase in the number of attacks on shipping could be attributed to the longer range weapons then coming into use. Statistical studies, however, showed that detection probabilities at the level of forces then assigned were still quite low. However, no further successes were achieved by the enemy until the mining of the Panamanian freighter Welfare in July 1969. The Commander-in-Chief Pacific Fleet, common superior of Commander Seventh Fleet and Chief, Naval Advisory Group, determined which units would be assigned. By Commander R. L. Schreadley, U. S. Navy, CNO Naval History - Midshipmen and Cadets, CNO Naval History - Professional Historian. 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. If you served in Advisory Team 143, Naval Advisory Group Vietnam, Join TWS for free to reconnect with service friends. "River Patrol Relearned, by Commander S. A. Swarztrauber, U. S. Navy, in Naval Review 1970. 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. 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. During the first five days of the Sea Float operation, an average of 102 sampans per day was sighted on the Cua Lon. Coast Guard Squadron One provided WPBs for barrier patrols along the seventeenth parallel and in the Gulf of Thailand. All the older sailing junks were either converted to power, or discarded. To improve co-ordination and management of communications-electronics assets, the brigade commander served as the U.S. Army, Vietnam, staff adviser on all matters pertaining to Army communications-electronics. In addition to the headquarters offices, the complex included a barracks, a mess hall, a refrigerated storage building and its own power plant and telephone exchange. Assistance was provided, however, by the First Australian Task Force and by the Royal Thai Army Volunteers. The Mobile Riverine Force had its own floating artillery in the guns of the support ships, and the barge-mounted 105 mm howitzers of the 9th Division. Harkins concurred and General James Francis Collins, commander of United States Army Pacific and Admiral Felt approved the redesignation. All of these operations used U. S. Navy and Vietnamese Navy forces as a blocking force while a combination of Australian, Thai, and Vietnamese troops methodically swept the area around the guerrilla group's base camp. "Combat patrols often consisted of short trips to and from anchorages. [11]:52 The DAO was activated on 28 January 1973 with United States Army Major General John E. Murray, formerly MACV director of logistics, as the Defense Attach and United States Air Force Brigadier General Ralph J. Maglione, formerly the MACV J-1 (Director for Manpower and Personnel), as deputy Defense Attach. The Ammis were fitted out at Nha Be. The roofs of huts were strengthened for defense against mortar attack, and the sides were heavily sand-bagged to afford protection from small arms fire. 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 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. He could have been a SEAL or Riverine, some something in between. [5] Initially, Westmoreland exercised this command through the Chief, Naval Advisory Group. Admiral Harry D. Felt, Commander-in-Chief, Pacific, established the U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, on 8 February 1962, as a subordinate unified command under his control. At 1030 on 16 February 1965, Lieutenant James S- Bowers, U. S. Army, while piloting a UH-1B helicopter on a medical rescue mission from Qui Nhon, sighted a camouflaged ship lying in Vung Ro Bay on South Vietnams central coast. The "Commander, U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam" was known by the abbreviation COMUSMACV (/km.jusmkvi/ "com-U.S.-mack-vee"). The large build-up of U. S. Navy forces in Vietnam was accompanied by a rapid expansion of the Vietnamese Navy. 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. Such a conception is of course largely romantic. Naval Forces in Vietnam and the Naval Advisory Group, Vietnam, was so impressed with SEAL successes that he wanted "hundreds" of SEALs in Vietnam. NSA Danang was under the operational control of Commander III Marine Amphibious Force. 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. The Junk Force was notorious for "gun-decking its operational reports. NAVAL ADVISORY GROUP VIETNAM Air Force Units Army Units Coast Guard Units Marine Corps Units Navy Units Become a VetFriends Member Site Map Search Veterans & Personnel Photos, Humor, Stories & More Military Records & Resources Reunions, Parades, & Events Online Catalog About VetFriends My Profile MetLife Veteran Insurance Discounts Contact Us In December 1961, U. S. air, sea, and ground forces began to play a limited operational role in Vietnam. The arrival in March of elements of the second River Assault Squadron, RAS 11, permitted the deployment of the first units of RAS 9 to other parts of the Delta. Thus, a truly international conglomerate of soldiers and sailors launched the combined operation against Doan-10 on 22 June 1969. Prior to the establishment of Market Time operations, the Nam Can provided a terminus for many Communist arms shipments arriving from the sea. Having the Naval Ships Systems Command provide bunks and mattresses, which might be available from Navy ships being decommissioned. Beyond the contiguous zone, vessels thought to be of South Vietnamese registry, could be searched. He further proposed that all support functions and bases be transferred by the end of the fiscal year 1972. The proposal was thoroughly discussed at ComNavForV headquarters. In March 1965, Westmoreland began a search for a new location large enough to accommodate the entire headquarters. They permitted the enemy to fire from relatively safe positions, well back from the river bank. 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. The Naval Advisory Group reported that "there were cases of failures to carry out orders and missed commitments, but not as many as might have been predicted.. In microcosm this was the sanctuary tactic employed by the enemy along the national borders with Cambodia, Laos, and North Vietnam. The LCUs usually had chiefs or first class petty officers as captains. The Bucklew Report was critical of the sea patrol then in effect, and recommended augmenting it with U. S. forces. At this time a message was received, its origin unclear, which postponed the scheduled landing. The Great Green Fleet of the Delta, the brave PBRs, the Swift boats, and the Brown Water sailor himself will one day soon belong to the past. In concept, it was planned that a Brown Water Navy Task Fleet would be formed from the heavy, armored riverine assault craft, and the speedy and highly maneuverable PCFs and PBRs. Two months later, the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), recently reorganized from an infantry formation, reported in country, and the rest of the 1st Infantry Division arrived in October. That headquarters also reported operational and military intelligence through military channels to DOD authorities. The task force was organized into two groups, the Hue River Security Group and the Dong Ha River Security Group. See if you can find any more photos for positive ID. Once U. S. involvement in the war terminated in 1973 it became clear a more useable arrangement of the records was necessary. 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. In December the first baby, a little girl, was born on Sea Float to the obvious delight of every sailor on board. Market Time operations were then already in their twentieth week. However, on 30 September 1968, when Vice Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr., the first naval officer of three-star rank to be assigned to Vietnam, relieved Rear Admiral Kenneth L. Veth as Commander Naval Forces, Vietnam, the personnel strength of the Navy command stood at 38,386. At the conclusion of their meeting, recommendations were made to increase the number of off-shore patrol ships from 9 to 14, to double the patrol aircraft coverage, to increase the number of PCPs available for inshore work from 54 to 84 and the number of WPBs from 17 to 26. The heaviest fighting of the war had occurred in the North, and consequently the bulk of the French Expeditionary Force and the great mass of its equipment were located there when the fighting ended. There were other reasons as well which argued strongly in that direction. In most cases, the original organization of the records in Saigon was lost during the transshipment process. The second aim was to "pacify" certain vital trans-Delta waterways,7 and the third was "to stir up the enemy and keep him off-balance" by Market Time raider incursions into the rivers of the Ca Mau peninsula. United States. Specific recommendations included: (1) the provision of modern, radar-equipped patrol aircraft; (2) the supply of a variety of small ships and craft for extending the offshore patrol into coastal waters, and for broadening the scope of river operations; and (3) the establishment of adequate repair and logistic facilities to maintain the new equipment to be provided. Advisory Team 143, US Naval Advisory Group, Vietnam. There was, in addition, opposition within the Joint General Staff of the Vietnamese Armed Forces for any aggrandizement of the Vietnamese Navy, which has always been the political inferior of the ARVN. The code name Market Time was assigned to the operation on 24 March. Huge stockpiles accumulated just north of the border in Cambodia as the enemy waited for more propitious times to move them into South Vietnam. The Fleet Reserve Association pledged to raise $75,000 to support "Project Pay Dirtan expansion of the animal husbandry program. Public services broke down in the crush. Huge construction projects were started at Cam Ranh Bay, Da Nang, and elsewhere. In September 1968, it had 81 of its authorized 85 PCFs and 24 of an allowed 26 WPBs. Further, it seemed important that in the wake of effective search and destroy operations a permanent Vietnamese Government presence be established in the Nam Can. https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/navy-seals-beret-flash-vietnam-war-27754383 Reply Thatsrite8182 Additional comment actions In May 1962 it moved to 137 Pasteur Street (.mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output .geo-multi-punct{display:none}.mw-parser-output .longitude,.mw-parser-output .latitude{white-space:nowrap}104658.25N 1064135.94E / 10.7828472N 106.6933167E / 10.7828472; 106.6933167 (pre-1967 MACV, Saigon)) in central Saigon. 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 river assault craft of the Brown Water Navy, with few exceptions, notably the ASPB, were modifications of World War II landing craft. Lieutenant Commander Thoai, supported by Lieutenant Commander Sang from the office of the Vietnamese Navy Chief of Staff, refused to order the troops back ashore. I really hope some other people can find this service and get in touch with people like I did. The deep seated economic ills of the Republic of Vietnam, exemplified by a roaring inflation, drove the Vietnamese serviceman up against the wall. The Interdiction Barriers. Armored river assault craft were assigned to the Cai Nhap patrol and were joined by Coastal Group junks and a Vietnamese Navy reaction force. This headquarters became the Defense Attach Office, Saigon. On 12 January the Commander-in-Chief, Pacific assigned the task force designator 117 and the descriptive title "Riverine Assault Force. On 28 February, TF 117 was officially activated under the operational control of ComNavForV and the administrative control of ComPhibPac. The advisory role was taking second priority and receiving less command attention than the growing direct involvement of U. S. fighting units. The interdiction effort that had been directed against these routes was concentrated on the major rivers, and might be likened to an attempt to stem the flow of water through a sieve by the tactic of inserting a limited number of needles in selected openings in the sieve, effective locally, but virtually useless overall. The decision had been made in Washington that Vietnamization was vital to continued home support of the war. No-Campaign189 28 days ago For all the haters, his dad was 99% a SEAL with NAG - Naval Advisory Group. The 5th Special Forces Group was also established in-country by 1965. U.S. Navy advisors helped transform the Vietnam Navy from a small collection of landing craft and minesweepers to the world's fifth largest navy - a modern service of 42,000 sailors and 1,500 surface vessels capable of fighting not only on the rivers of Vietnam but also far out to sea. Vast numbers of people live on or near the rivers, canals, and seacoasts. The Naval Support Activity, Saigon, which was commissioned when the Headquarters Support Activity was disestablished in May 1966, supported naval operations in II, III, and IV Corps Tactical Zones through its many scattered detachments. In December, an operation called Silver Mace, involving the first open sea transit of heavy riverine assault craft, struck at these barricades and in three days removed them. In that month U. S. Navy Oceangoing Minesweepers (MSOs) joined Vietnamese Navy ships in barrier patrols near the seventeenth parallel. 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. If you have a conquering spirit and are not afraid of even the most complex problems, apply now to Naval Group! As a result of his visit, Project Beef-up was launched, which, in addition to more men, money, and supplies for the Vietnamese military, called for increased U. S. operational participation in the war. A great deal of attention was of course paid to weather forecasting, and the transit was accomplished in the Gulf of Thailand's "good weather" part of the year. At the end of 1964 there were 235 sailors assigned to MACV duties which included support functions in the Saigon area, construction and medical activities, and advising the South Vietnamese Navy and the marine corps. In January 1964, a team of eight naval officers, headed by Captain Phillip H. Bucklew, met in Saigon to study the infiltration problem. At the beginning of the "American period, the Vietnamese Navy had a fleet of over 100 modified landing craft, two LSMs, two PCEs, and three MSCs, almost all of which had originally been transferred to the French through the American naval aid program during the Indochina War. The situation, in the fall of 1968 was not one for faint hearts. The chief naval advisor, Admiral Ward, foresaw the necessity for eventually returning responsibility for all naval operations in Vietnam to the Vietnamese Navy. When President Diem was overthrown, Captain Quyen, who was closely associated with the fallen President, and who had been instrumental in defeating several previously attempted coups, was himself murdered by a subordinate officer sympathetic to the incoming regime. Light sniper fire was taken, but by mid-afternoon the immediate area near the sunken trawler was secured and the LDNN began salvage operations. A new family of fighting craft appeared, newly built or adapted from older boats in our inventory. In the North, the intense and tragic struggle for Hue made it absolutely essential that water communication by way of the Perfume River remain open. This leaves a tremendous gap for the student of the navy in Vietnam for the . Second, there was (and to a degree there continues to be) a profound reluctance on the part of Vietnamese ground force commanders to commit their troops to the aggressive river bank patrols essential to the effectiveness and safety of naval operations on narrow and restricted waterways. As is true for much of the Delta, waterways are vital routes to and from markets, and roads are virtually non-existent. PC 04 and LSM 405 immediately began a run to the beach, but at a range of about 500 yards encountered small arms and automatic weapons fire. and 122 mm. The people came from all over the Delta to harvest the wood and fish of the area. The Navy's fixed wing OV-10 light attack aircraft (Black Ponies) would not arrive in Vietnam until the following April. Three were destroyed, and the fourth was forced to turn back before she entered the "contiguous" zone. From an operation which at one time was thought to have been assigned to the Vietnamese Navy because no Vietnamese Army officer in his right mind could be found to accept it, the Rung Sat Special Zone by early 1970 had become a model for what could be made of a seemingly hopeless situation, given leadership, singleness of purpose, and a spark of imagination. Effective pacification would deny the enemy a strategic haven and source of material and financial support. After 30 years and learning the computer and finding VetFriends, I went to my first reunion of the USS Navasota AO-106. They performed valuable service but, like our Victory and Liberty merchant ships, it is doubtful how much additional service life is left in them. [3]:278 Lieutenant General Paul D. Harkins, the Deputy Commander in Chief, U.S. Army, Pacific, who, as the commander-designate for the task force headquarters (HQ) in the event of operations in Southeast Asia, had participated in the planning for such operations, was appointed commander and promoted to general.
