An additional LST was recommended for providing radar coverage of the mouths of the Mekong (three were already providing this service, but the normal needs of rest and maintenance meant that that number was insufficient to provide constant cover). Early effort notwithstanding, the Viet Cong successfully mined one ship each in 1965 and 1966 (the SS Eastern Mariner and the SS Baton Rouge Victory respectively). In keeping with the recommendations of the September conference, it was planned that the task force would initially consist of 120 specially designed river patrol boats (PBRs), 20 LCPLs, an LSD, an LST, and 8 UH-1B helicopters. Two of these are the subject and serial files of the immediate office of the Commander. In March 1965, Westmoreland began a search for a new location large enough to accommodate the entire headquarters. At about this same time, a personal friend and confidant of Diem, Lieutenant Commander Le Quang My, was appointed to the important post of Naval Deputy to the Vietnamese Armed Forces General Staff. Conversely, the Vietnamese sailors, seeing that the boats and the responsibility for operating them were soon going to be theirs, would be expected to redouble their efforts to prepare themselves. It was proposed that these patrols extend upriver for a distance of 25 miles, the range thought practical for appropriate logistic support and for the objective of controlling the river mouths. As Vietnamese sailors replaced American sailors on the rivers, and as other American sailors became available from the gradual phasing out of Navy responsibilities in I Corps, Naval Construction Action Teams (NAVCATS) were formed and young and sometimes bewildered U. S. Navy sailors, under Seabee supervision, became laborers, hod carriers, masons and carpenters in the dependents shelter project. The pacification of vital trans-Delta waterways was the second of the Sea Lords objectives. By the spring of 1970, the personnel strength of Naval Forces, Vietnam had declined by almost 25 per cent since the start of the ACTOV program, and it was projected that by the following August another 25 per cent or more would possibly go home. - Veteran J. Reuter. They were accompanied by the USS Mercer (APB-39) and the USS Satyr (ARL-23). The people of the Nam Can were warned by the Viet Cong to stay away from Sea Float. By 1954, the strength of the French Navy engaged in the Indochina War stood at more than 10,000 men, and the tiny Vietnamese Navy mustered an additional 1,500 officers and men. In 1955 after the French defeat in Indochina the Navy Section became part of the Military Assistance Advisory Group, Vietnam. From Nam Can the Communist supply chain ran northward into the remainder of the Delta and into III Corps. Find Coastal Group 16, Naval Advisory Group Vietnam unit information, patches, operation history, veteran photos and more on TogetherWeServed.com. 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. 9 This canal is 50 to 100 feet wide, 15-20 feet deep, and 10 to 12 miles long. At peak strength in 1968, the American naval advisory . 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. Although numerous MAAGs operated around the world throughout the 1940s-1970s, including in Yugoslavia after 1951, the most famous MAAGs were those active in Southeast Asia before and during . These were normally collected by armed sampans which took up stations on the heavily traveled water routes. [7] COMUSMACV was in one sense the top person in charge of the U.S. military on the Indochinese peninsula; however, in reality, the CINCPAC and the U.S. ambassadors to Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia also had "top person in charge" status with regard to various aspects of the war's strategy. MACV was first implemented to assist the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) Vietnam, controlling every advisory and assistance effort in Vietnam. 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. The number of people then living under Vietnamese control in the area was estimated to be about 9,000. Power saws and modern lumbering techniques have not yet been introduced in the Nam Can. This undoubtedly irritated those Vietnamese officers who felt their functions were being usurped by the Americans. "The Service Force, Pacific Fleet in Action, by Rear Admiral Edwin B. Hooper, U. S. Navy, in Naval Review 1968. The swampy Rung Sat controls the waterways connecting Saigon with the sea. A rumor, the authenticity of which could not be determined, circulated on Sea Float that "Hanoi Hannah" herself had taken note of the new operation and she had warned that the MATSB would be "at the bottom of Song Cua Lon by 17 July." The Junk Force was viewed by many Vietnamese naval officers with something akin to disdain. In the summer and fall of 1966, the establishment of a "Mekong Delta Mobile Afloat Force (MDMAF) was the subject of discussions between ComUSMACV and ComNavForV. On 1 September 1966, the first administrative unit of the future Mobile Riverine Force, River Assault Flotilla One, was commissioned at the Naval Amphibious Base, Coronado, California, with Captain W. C. Wells, U. S. Navy, as its Commander. The Junk Force was officered by the Vietnamese Navy, but it was a frequent complaint of U. S. Navy advisors that seldom, if ever, did a Vietnamese naval officer actually accompany the junks on patrol. 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. What had been conceived and organized as an advisers job, no longer fit the changing nature of growing operational command. By the fall of 1965, U. S. Navy units in Vietnam included: (1) the Marines in I Corps; (2) Navy support personnel under ComPhibPacs command at Da Nang and Chu Lai (on 1 October Naval Support Activity, Da Nang, was established under ComUSMACVs operational control and PhibPac support terminated); (3) Construction Battalions in I Corps and Seabee Teams throughout the country who also worked under the Military Assistance Command Vietnam; (4) the Officer in Charge of Construction and his organization; (5) the Naval Advisory Group; (6) the Headquarters Support Activity, Saigon (whose responsibilities were being phased out and taken over by the U. S. Army); (7) the Military Sea Transportation Service Office, Vietnam; and (8) numerous smaller activities. On 15 May 1964, the Navy Section became the Naval Advisory Group when the Military Assistance Advisory Group was merged into the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam. See if you can find any more photos for positive ID. By the spring of 1970 it was believed that appropriated funds could be found to finance 10,500 of these. The heart of the problem was, of course, political and not peculiar to the Vietnamese Navy, nor for that matter to the Vietnamese armed forces as a whole. Thanks VetFriends. A second category, which makes up approximately half the bulk of the records, is messages. Advisors were assigned to the Sea, River, and Junk Forces, to the Naval Shipyard in Saigon, and to the Vietnamese Navy Headquarters. The Naval Support Activity, Da Nang had grown to become the Navys largest overseas shore command. The Junk Force was seriously undermanned, with some Coastal Groups reduced to little more than 50 per cent of authorized strength. Vice Adm. Elmo Zumwalt, Commander, U.S. There were really two reasons. The Naval Association of Canada and the Royal Canadian Navy will once again host the Battle of the Atlantic Gala Dinner in Ottawa, this year on 3 May 2023. [2]:59, MACV was disestablished on 29 March 1973 and replaced by the Defense Attach Office (DAO), Saigon. The 5th Special Forces Group was also established in-country by 1965. In some respects, of course, the effectiveness of such an operation was probably not measurable, for like the tariff in international trade, Market Time may have discouraged certain Communist arms shipments from ever being attempted. Embarked were 10 PBRS, a helicopter fire team, and two Patrol Air Cushion Vehicles (PACVs). Search Turn was followed, on 16 November, by Operation Foul Deck (later renamed Tran Hung Dao), which placed naval patrols on the Rach Giang Thanh and Vinh Te Canal at the Cambodian border itself, and by Operation Giant Slingshot on 6 December, which extended the barrier patrols to the Vam Co Dong and Vam Co Tay Rivers on either side of the notorious Parrots Beak. 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. 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. By the middle of August the number had increased to 159 per day and the average size of the sampans was larger as heavier cargoes, mostly of wood, were moved to market. LSM 405 then departed for Dai Lanh, returning in the early evening with the company of Special Forces. The area commands were in turn divided into river, coastal, and sea forces. Area clearance and mopping-up operations continued until 24 February, plagued as before by continued foot dragging and intransigence. 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. "Fighting Boats of the United States, by Captain Richards T. Miller, U. S. Navy, in Naval Review 1968. Harkins concurred and General James Francis Collins, commander of United States Army Pacific and Admiral Felt approved the redesignation. Permission to conduct these operations was granted. In February 1966, the first Game Warden sailors reported for duty, and in March the first PBRs arrived. [3]:601 It supported the combat signal battalions of the divisions and field forces in each corps area. 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. The River Patrol Force had 2032 men assigned and 197 of its authorized 250 PBRs. During the long months of the northeast monsoon the climate is probably the countrys worst, with cold, grey and rainy days following each other in seemingly endless succession. 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. Progressive Management. An additional mission was "to improve the Vietnamese Navy's counter-insurgency capabilities and assist Vietnamese and U. S. Forces to secure the coastal regions and major rivers in order to defeat the Communist insurgency in Vietnam.". Most importantly, a favorable decision was taken on the establishment of a permanent Vietnamese naval base on the site of Old Nam Can. Classification: Collection had a Kyl-Lott review in September 2003. It is hard and demanding work. The effects this development had on the U. S. Navys role in Vietnam were extremely important and resulted in the eventual substitution of American for French influence in the shaping of the young Vietnamese Navy. The Junk Force put only an average of 40 per cent of its available boats to sea on any given day. The original MACV Headquarters were colocated with MAAG at 606 Trn Hng o, Cholon. The increase in Vietnamese naval manpower, a modest sign of change at best, is a typical example of the handicaps suffered by the program. Effective pacification would deny the enemy a strategic haven and source of material and financial support. Morale flagged. Furthermore, ground commanders generally tended to discount the economic and strategic importance of the Nam Can. These messages have been further broken down by subject (i.e., Coastal Patrol, River Patrol, Intelligence, etc.). [10]:397[11]:48 U.S. air support operations into Cambodia continued under USSAG/7th AF until August 1973. It is a bitter pill for a whole generation of American "nation builders to swallow, but the brutal fact is that no Vietnamese Government until possibly the present one inspired in its people the loyalty, the unhesitating support, the patriotism and spirit of self-sacrifice essential to the welding of an effective defense force. Naval Advisory Group Vietnam Patch. 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. The Riverine Assault Force with its 3717 officers and men operated 161 specialized river craft, and these included 103 ATCs, 31 ASPBs, 6 CCBs, 17 Monitors and 4 Refuelers. By the fall of 1968, on the eve of the introduction of the U. S. naval command's Accelerated Turnover (ACTOV) Program, the personnel strength of the Vietnamese Navy was more than 17,500. While the Junk Force was concerned with inshore and Delta river traffic, the Vietnamese Navy Sea force ships assigned to Market Time patrol were ordinarily placed under the operational control of the Coastal Zone commanders. In numbers of ships and craft assigned, the River Forces had not appreciably changed since 1955. Here are the Named Campaigns: 1) Vietnam Advisory Campaign - 15 March 1962 - 7 March 1965 2) Vietnam Defense Campaign - 8 March - 24 December 1965 3) Vietnamese Counteroffensive - 25 December 1965 - 30 June 1966 4) Vietnamese Counteroffensive Phase II - 1 July 1966 - 31 May 1967 [6]:2 Naval Support Activity Danang (NSA Danang), provided logistic support to all American forces in I Corps, where the predominant Marine presence demanded a naval supply establishment. U.S. No-Campaign189 28 days ago For all the haters, his dad was 99% a SEAL with NAG - Naval Advisory Group. 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. 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. The people came from all over the Delta to harvest the wood and fish of the area.

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