[3]:601 It supported the combat signal battalions of the divisions and field forces in each corps area. That night (16-17 February) the requested air strikes and illumination failed to materialize. However, no further successes were achieved by the enemy until the mining of the Panamanian freighter Welfare in July 1969. 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. The markets were towns to the north, New Nam Can and Ca Mau primarily. It was the only uncut supply line of any consequence for allied military forces there. The Senior Advisor in the RSSZ at this time was Commander C. J. . Naval Advisory Group Vietnam - Marine Unit Directory - Together We Served Navy Vietnam Patches | Flying Tigers Surplus The number of people then living under Vietnamese control in the area was estimated to be about 9,000. Advisory Team 143, Naval Advisory Group Vietnam - Navy Unit Directory Overall command of the navies was exercised by Commander French Naval Forces Far East, who was himself directly subordinate to the theater commander, Commander in Chief, Armed Forces Indochina. Personal possessions representing the savings of a lifetime were hawked fruitlessly from door to door. This "hot-house" growth was the more notable because it was accomplished in conditions of near constant crisis in the senior Vietnamese Navy leadership. Joint-service command of the US Dept. 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. Although the Chief, Naval Advisory Group was the senior naval officer in Vietnam, he was not in actuality a commander. The Vietnamese Navy itself was not formally established until 1954, and our early advisors worked almost exclusively with French counterparts. 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. General Vo Nguyen Giap, Peoples War, Peoples Army. Embarked were 10 PBRS, a helicopter fire team, and two Patrol Air Cushion Vehicles (PACVs). On 11 May the Government of South Vietnam granted formal authorization for U. S. Navy Market Time units to stop, search, and seize vessels not clearly engaged in innocent passage, inside the three mile limit of the Republic of Vietnam's territorial waters. U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) was a joint-service command of the United States Department of Defense. For this reason, the MAAG was retained as a separate headquarters. Military Assistance Advisory Group - Wikipedia Islands and territorial waters to the north of that line are Cambodian and, to the south, Vietnamese. The situation, in the fall of 1968 was not one for faint hearts. The river hamlets, for all their bogs and sloughs of mud, were alive with activity and sparkled with the laughter of children. 0. A fourth strike was directed at a nearby area on the beach where crates were stacked and from which small arms fire had been received. As 1963 drew to a close there were 742 U. S. Navy officers and men in Vietnam. The Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG-7), for example, had an effective range nearly three times that of the older RPG-2. [2]:59, General Paul D. Harkins was the first commanding general of MACV (COMUSMACV), and was previously the commander of MAAG Vietnam. Under Vietnamese protection this war-ravaged region might be coaxed back to life. First, until late 1968 the operational and logistic capability to mount such a naval patrol did not exist. Over all hung the specter of the French defeat, "in the streets of Paris rather than on the battlefields of Indochina.. Few of these attacks managed to score hits, much less cause serious damage, but the enemy probably reaped considerable propaganda benefit from them and in the world press was credited with more strength than he actually possessed. On 24 July, a Sea Float "Annex" began operation near the intersection of the Cua Lon River and the Cai Nhap Canal. 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. The Archives Branch originally filed the records in the order in which they arrived. NAVAL ADVISORY GROUP, VIETNAM? - VetFriends As a result, the 1st Logistics Command was established. 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. 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. Dense foliage and thick swamps make detection of soldiers from the air and pursuit on the ground extremely difficult. Photograph taken from USS Maddox. 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. At the time, the Military Assistance Advisory Group was the only U.S. military headquarters in South Vietnam. Naturally, stand-off weapons, frequently command-fired from concealed positions well inland, became more attractive to the enemy. It was the opinion of the conference that "the best tactic to interdict coastal traffic infiltration would be to assist and inspire the Vietnamese Navy to increase the quality and quantity of its searches., With regard to the second category of infiltration, it was recommended that a conventional patrol be established by U. S. Navy ships and aircraft. Outside the river mouth, there are restless shoals and a pounding surf. When the III Marine Amphibious Force moved to Da Nang on 6 May 1965, its commanding general, Major General William R. Collins, was designated MACV's naval component commander. It took a great deal of persuasion and strong representations at the highest level, before the shotgun wedding was brought off. Why had not the Bucklew Reports recommendations concerning a mobile patrol force along the Cambodian border been implemented? Size: 3 1/2" x 4 1/4" SKU# P303. 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. By September the Nam Can population figures were growing at a rapid rate, doubling the number of people in the Sea Float area of operations every 25 days. In essence, the early planning envisioned a highly mobile force of river assault craft and embarked troops capable of sustained search and destroy missions in the Delta. Miscellaneous materials that could not be associated with any one office on the commanders staff also are indicated. With little modification, these early recommendations shaped the broad direction of our naval program in Vietnam for the next fourteen years. Under the terms of the Geneva agreement, a military demarcation line was established near the seventeenth parallel in Vietnam. [4]:3301 The deployment of a division-sized U.S. Army force would allow the 1st Marine Division to move north, to provide greater support for the 3rd Marine Division in the northern portion of the I Corps Tactical Zone. In July 1965, in response to the growing size of U.S. Army forces in the country, United States Army Vietnam was established, and both the 2nd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division as well as the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, deployed from the United States. No opposing fire was experienced and after extensively shooting up the area, the ships withdrew. The Naval Advisory Group (NAG) of MACV assumed the responsibilities of the old Naval Section. Vietnam: Tonkin Gulf Collection - history.navy.mil The people came from all over the Delta to harvest the wood and fish of the area. 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. 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. [10]:397[11]:48 U.S. air support operations into Cambodia continued under USSAG/7th AF until August 1973. You've read 1 out of 5 free articles of Proceedings this month. When he was considered ready to take over, the American would leave and a second VNN sailor would be assigned to train in the duties of another American crew member until eventually the entire crew became Vietnamese. The Southeast Asia Lake, Ocean, River, and Delta Strategy (Sea Lords) brought to fruition the long-considered plan to complement the Market Time blockade of the coast of South Vietnam by an inland naval patrol along the Cambodian border from the Gulf of Thailand to an area northeast of the "Parrot's Beak." The Navy has approximately 500 such advisors in-country; their numbers are almost equally divided between officers and enlisted personnel. 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.. They operate with them and they fight alongside them. Vietnam: Naval Advisory Group Vietnam: Naval Forces Vietnam (NAVFORV) Lessons Learned and End of Tour Reports Vietnam: Navy Research and Development Unit (NRDUV) Vietnam Operational. On 16 August 1954, the first U. S. Navy transport to be assigned to Operation Passage to Freedom loaded refugees in Haiphong. [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. He could have been a SEAL or Riverine, some something in between. During the first five days of the Sea Float operation, an average of 102 sampans per day was sighted on the Cua Lon. The objective of the raiders was "to stir up the enemy and keep him off-balance," but other dividends were soon realized in terms of enemy equipment destroyed, and in the increased commitments he was forced to make in defense of his well entrenched position in the Nam Can. Vietnam: Commander Naval Forces Vietnam (COMNAVFORV) In 1959-1960 he attended the U. S. Naval War College, and his most recent assignment prior to re-assuming command of the Vietnamese Navy was that of Commander, Regional Force Boat Group, a command which did not fall under the operational control of the Navy, and which obviously and providentially had afforded the new Commander-in-Chief some relief from the necessity of having to choose sides in the recent political machinations of the naval officer corps. In January 1964, a team of eight naval officers, headed by Captain Phillip H. Bucklew, met in Saigon to study the infiltration problem. Thanks VetFriends. On their return from market they brought potable water, rice, cloth, beer, and other staples. 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. The deep seated economic ills of the Republic of Vietnam, exemplified by a roaring inflation, drove the Vietnamese serviceman up against the wall. Market Time operations were then already in their twentieth week. 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. 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. 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 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. Citation 26 - The Mobile Riverine Force Association - MRFA Until March 1965. 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. Given the seriousness of the military situation, the performance of the Vietnamese Navy was far from satisfactory. Broad areas of the banks were soon taken over by the drying catch. At this time a message was received, its origin unclear, which postponed the scheduled landing. The attack on the U. S. destroyer Maddox in the Tonkin Gulf in early August signaled a new and dramatically different phase of the war in Vietnam. USSAG was activated on 11 February 1973 under the command of commander of MACV. 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. This requirement was strongly re-emphasized later in the month when General Abrams returned from a visit to the United States. Two corps-level HQs were established in 1965-66, Task Force Alpha (soon to become I Field Force, Vietnam) for U.S. forces in the II Corps Tactical Zone and II Field Force, Vietnam, for U.S. Army forces in the III Corps Tactical Zone. They were given hot meals, small gifts, and services which ran the gamut from sampan motor repair to the grinding of woodcutters axes on a wheel specially acquired for that purpose in Nha Trang, and shipped to Sea Float by CTF 115. Administrative procedures were antiquated and incredibly complex. Over the course of 1962 U.S. military strength in South Vietnam rose from about 1,000 to over 11,000 personnel. In microcosm this was the sanctuary tactic employed by the enemy along the national borders with Cambodia, Laos, and North Vietnam. On 30 April, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara approved the eventual transfer of the operational control of Market Time to the Chief, Naval Advisory Group (CNAG), as the agent for Com USMACV. 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. 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 MSOs were not themselves permitted to intercept suspect shipping, but used their radar to vector Vietnamese naval units to suspicious contacts. In addition to taxes in kind, it was estimated that the Viet Cong were able to extort several million piasters each year from this region to fuel their war effort in the lower Delta. On 14 April 1967, the first of the permanent Riverine Assault Force support ships, the USS Kemper County (LST-854), arrived at Vung Tau. River assault craft not only landed and extracted troops, but also provided close and accurate gunfire support, medical evacuation of the wounded, and the supply of ammunition. 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. What could not be moved in was often manufactured in concealed munitions factories by using scrap and dud rounds which were in plentiful supply. USMC Advisory Team Rung Sat Special Zone (RSSZ), Naval Advisory Group For a time, U. S. and French naval advisors worked together in a combined training mission called TRIM, but for all practical purposes the U. S. Navy had assumed primary responsibility for advising the Vietnamese Navy in the fall of 1955. The Junk Force was seriously undermanned, with some Coastal Groups reduced to little more than 50 per cent of authorized strength. In IV Corps Tactical Zone, this situation would plague Sea Lords operations from beginning to end. By the summer of 1966, nearly 50 per cent of the senior officers of the Navy were either out of the country or assigned to non-Navy duties in the country. The holding ground was good and the moor was successful. The River Patrol Force had 2032 men assigned and 197 of its authorized 250 PBRs. For the most part the records of the latter organization contain documentation on U. S. Naval operations. [2]: 59 The former had six River Assault Groups (RAGs) which were patterned after the old French Division Naval DAssaut, but with two significant differences. of Defense in South Vietnam (1962-73), U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam. Operating initially with five APAs, two AKAs, two LSDs, two APDs, and four LSTs, his task force grew in the first three months of the operation to more than 100 Navy and MSTS ships and craft. The river assault craft of the Brown Water Navy, with few exceptions, notably the ASPB, were modifications of World War II landing craft. Cooking, medical work, transport, and the like were carried on right in the trenches, under enemy bombing and crossfire. There were only seven officers and men in Commander Cannons first Navy Section of the Military Advisory Assistance Group, Indochina. The DAO performed many of the same roles of MACV within the restrictions imposed by the Paris Peace Accords until the Fall of Saigon. Vietnamese ground commanders, and some of their American advisors, thought that such a base would be virtually indefensible. Drawn carefully on a map, the Rung Sat Special Zone looks curiously like a human brain, its convolutions etched by numberless rivers and streams. As the U.S. military presence in South Vietnam grew, MACV quickly outgrew the Pasteur Street quarters and expanded into a proliferating number of buildings throughout downtown Saigon. In a series of graduated increases, the Junk Force was authorized an increase to 644 motorized junks less than two years later. To carry out the politically necessary task of Vietnamizing the naval war, it was estimated that the Vietnamese Navy would require an additional ten thousand men on top of the seventeen and a half thousand it then had. In following months additional equipment was transferred to the Vietnamese Navy, primarily patrol craft, and accelerated training of both officers and enlisted men began; some of it in schools in the United States. The period after World War II saw a number of associated Marine Corps formed in the republics of China, Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand. 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. If you served in Advisory Team 143, Naval Advisory Group Vietnam, Join TWS for free to reconnect with service friends. Food, clothing, and other necessities were of course obtainable locally through the levying of Viet Cong "taxes on the regions inhabitants. The childrens desks were fashioned from ammunition boxes, as were the floors of the classrooms. Dept. An action plan was devised which called for a two-battalion blocking force to take position inland along Route 1, while one company advanced along the coast from the nearby Deo Ca outpost. It pointed out, however, the essential futility of a sea quarantine in the absence of an accompanying effort to block inland infiltration routes. Find Coastal Group 16, Naval Advisory Group Vietnam unit information, patches, operation history, veteran photos and more on TogetherWeServed.com. On 2 March 1968, in recognition of the increasing importance the northern group was assuming, the commander of the Clearwater task force moved his headquarters to Cua Viet. The LSTs has lieutenants or lieutenant commanders. The Naval Shipyard struggled along with barely sixty per cent of its authorized work force, and skilled labor could not be attracted or held because of wage scales that were chronically below the market level. The rivers of the Nam Can, being tidal, are heavily salted. Task Force Clearwater. Cang, who had been promoted to the rank of Rear Admiral in the interim, was relieved of his command, as were the mutineers pending completion of an investigation of the affair. MACV was first implemented to assist the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) Vietnam, controlling every advisory and assistance effort in Vietnam. Naval Association of Canada - Association Navale du Canada Prior to his departure, Rear Admiral Veth had recommended to General Abrams and to the Chief of Naval Operations a plan to turn over two River Assault Squadrons (roughly the equivalent of six Vietnamese Navy River Assault Groups) by the end of the fiscal year 1969- Vice Admiral Zumwalt proposed to expand that plan so that virtually all U. S. Navy operational responsibilities in Vietnam with the equipment necessary for meeting them, would be turned over by 30 June 1970. In the same month the Vietnamese Navy was finally persuaded to absorb the Junk Force into the regular Navy, a move long urged by advisors as one which might lead to increasing the effectiveness of coastal patrols. Permission to conduct these operations was granted. He practiced and preached the need for his officers to avoid the political involvements which had crippled the Navy for so long. Significantly, this marked the formal recognition of the Naval Advisory Group's new role as an operational as well as an advisory command. In the morning, shortly after 0800, all three ships moved into Vung Ro Bay, preceded by heavy air strikes and naval gunfire support. Overall Market Time operations were controlled from the Surveillance Operations Center located at the Naval Advisory Group Headquarters in Saigon. 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. If you have a conquering spirit and are not afraid of even the most complex problems, apply now to Naval Group! NAG - Naval Advisory Group. Air strikes were called in, and after the third strike the ship was awash in shallow water, resting on her port side. The old Navy section of MAAG became the Naval Advisory Group, Vietnam, and by the end of 1964 there were 235 naval . Public services broke down in the crush. The old city was declared a free fire zone and became in effect a dumping ground for bombs and other air ordnance that could not be conveniently expended elsewhere in the Delta. The problem of attracting adequate ground forces has already been addressed. 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.. Near the firing line, supply operations had to be carried out in the shortest possible time. 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.". There were 39 smaller craft assigned to support the harbor defense operation, which was code-named Stable Door, under CTF 115. It was the Admirals view at the time that "Vietnamese Navy participation is the key to the success of this operation. To underscore the importance of the cooperative aspects of the venture, a Vietnamese naval officer was assigned as second in command of the MATSB. Ultimately, only the rivers and memories will remain. The proposal was thoroughly discussed at ComNavForV headquarters. 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. 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. Naval Support Activity Saigon - Wikipedia Operation Sea Float. A region of ragged forests, thick mangrove swamps, barren mud flats, and interlacing rivers and canals whose waters churn to vicious tidal currents, it is not readily apparent why anyone would choose to live there. The decision had been made in Washington that Vietnamization was vital to continued home support of the war. Lockheed P3A Orions from Sangley Point in the Philippines patrolled north of Vung Tau to the seventeenth parallel. Light sniper fire was taken, but by mid-afternoon the immediate area near the sunken trawler was secured and the LDNN began salvage operations. The final link in the chain of barriers was forged on 2 January 1969 when Operation Barrier Reef was established on the La Grange-Ong Lon Canal. In May, Military Assistance Advisory Group Vietnam was absorbed by Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV), and Navy Section MAAG became the Naval Advisory Group, MACV. 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. 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. All of these programs hoped to bring about permanent and self-sustaining projects, which would survive the eventual conclusion of the Vietnamization process. After 30 years and learning the computer and finding VetFriends, I went to my first reunion of the USS Navasota AO-106. That headquarters also reported operational and military intelligence through military channels to DOD authorities. Contact with a generally elusive enemy was established on seven occasions. Find Naval Advisory Group Vietnam, HQ, Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) unit information, patches, operation history, veteran photos and more on TogetherWeServed.com. In this instance, however, the sanctuary lay wholly within the territory of South Vietnam and scarcely 15 miles from the capital- This situation, spawned and tolerated by the fractured and at times intransigent Vietnamese command structure, had existed for a number of years. The Naval Advisory Group (NAG) of MACV assumed the responsibilities of the former Naval Section. In June, Admiral Arleigh Burke, Chief of Naval Operations, cited an urgent need for the U. S. Navy to prepare to assume naval responsibilities in restricted waters and rivers. Navy Naval Advisory Group Vietnam | Navy Veteran Locator - togetherweserved Without the reforms introduced and enforced by this officer, the later "Vietnamization of the naval war would have been virtually impossible.
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