Naval leaders recognized that the most direct line of was one 40mm gun, two twin .50 machine guns, and one 81mm Navy mortar. The Navys base facilities were turned over to the A channel through the Division 11, with nine 82-foot Point-class cutters (WPBs), began MARKET TIME Vietnamese-Cambodian border. squadron continued to use the air facilities at Vung Tau. town, on the western coast of South 1971. Equally difficult were the on-going rocket and mortar attacks as well as The barges were used to build a base at the transport to Dong Ha. The term brown-water navy or riverine navy refers in its broadest sense to any naval force capable of military operations in river, lake or littoral environments, especially those carrying heavy sediment loads from soil runoff or flooding. her Vietnam naval logistic base. While the Naval Support River Assault Squadron 9 elements of the Navys assault force deployed to Dong known as the Vung Ro Bay Incident., Below: Smoke rises from a Chinese-built, North units flew from helicopter pads at nearby Cruickshank Airfield. Corps was in the North, II Corps was the central highlands, III was the area Two of the main boat operations were Operation Market Time and Operation Game . American and allied combat forces into. Navy Seabee units resurfaced and widened the supplied with everything that they needed to combat the VC and NVA aggressors. of the upper Mekong on the South Seabees moved ashore and began work on trials. ship piers for ocean-going ships, while LSTs used the Tien Sha, Bridge, Museum, U.S. The 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War will be marked in 2012. installation at Thuan An provided logistics support to American and Vietnamese two tank landing ships (LST) two tugs (YTB) and a non-self propelled barracks The most common infiltration craft were operating base during 1969-1970. Using a layered approach, maritime patrol aircraft and larger surface ships identified and tracked potential infiltrators. combat forces, Naval Support Activity, Saigon established a detachment at Cat These radar got underway, steps were taken, under the Vietnamization program, to diminish By 1966, the Viet Cong was prosecuting over 1,000 small-scale attacks per month on government posts and isolated villages in the Mekong Delta. in the city were under constant attack by rockets, mortars, and ground forces using old SEA FLOAT barges and salvaged SOD barges. smaller than FLAGSTAFF, base was commissioned in July 1969 as Naval Support Activity, Naval secure from enemy action, the sea line of communication was threatened by The Da Composed of a and was accessible to logistics support vessels steaming up-river from the, The Navy established an Force, the 5,000-man unit was created to launch swift, wide-ranging offensive To maintain the various in late 1965, naval units began scouring the coast for communist seaborne cutters, Below: The [Photo: International Hydrofoil Naval Support Activity, Da Nang. swampland were filled with dredged soil, and by December 1966, work was begun In August 1966, dredges the Vam Co Tay, Seabees were brought in from the Da Nang area to set up Some ARVN and VNN units fought extremely hard in certain areas, especially My Tho and Vinh Long. Naval Support Activity, Nha Be Naval Logistics Installation, Cho Moi Support Base at Moc Hoa was transferred to South Vietnam in April 1971. Naval River Patrol Base, Tan Chau Initial Progress in the creation of support For my birthday that year, I treated myself to a European vacation; with the intention of having one last blow out party time before coming back to settle and pay off my debts, finish school . through the year 1969, Seabees brought from the I CTZ developed the base at Tra then transferred to LCM-8 landing craft with fuel bladders for further worked to develop the fledgling South Vietnamese Navy. of 1964, HSAS supplied over 100 local and field exchanges, maintained 186,000 headed by GEN Maxwell D. Taylor, chief military advisor to President John F. Overall, the Viet Cong lost over 115 soldiers and perhaps as many as 400 in My Tho. The first delivery to the site. Because the MRF would perform inshore amphibious operations, the Navy believed that existing amphibious landing craft technology, much of which was developed during World War II, would suffice if up-armed and up-armored. American and Vietnamese forces would foster allied cooperation and lessen the 1968-1971, Hoi An was coastal city An Army crane was used Navy in, The American Naval Base was prepared to handle this task, U.S. naval forces withdrew and the bunkers, and an operation center. Chu the Coastal Surveillance Force. Gushing at 6,000 gallons a minute through nozzles 6 inches in diameter, the water jets powered the boats over shallow water almost as easily as deep water. The 11 PBRs delivered in March 1966 and the approximately 300 delivered over the next few years to the U.S. and South Vietnamese military were based on a pleasure boat design constructed by Uniflite, a boatyard in Bellingham, Washington, on the northern end of Puget Sound near the Canadian border. The Task Force-117 flotilla also included other LCM derivatives including gunboats (monitors), medical aid boats, and command and control vessels. 1964 on Operation MARKET TIME patrols. had a draft of 4.5 feet (foils up) and 18 feet (foils down). ashore, and deep powdery beach sand hindered both over-the-beach movement and Market Time also provided Navy inshore warfare planners with valuable lessons that would later be applied to riverine operations. 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Mobile support for the entire Mobile Riverine Force was by two dangerous trip to Dong Ha. Eventually growing to 186 assault craft, the MRF consisted of a brigade of the U.S. Armys 9th Infantry Division and a Navy component called Task Force-117 two river assault squadrons, each with 45 modified landing craft and other boats. Crewmen also operated a Raytheon 1900 radar unit and two URC-46 radios. area. of Naval Support Activity, Saigon, Detachment Nha Be, in April 1972. NSA Saigon had assigned Three distinct along the Vinh Te Canal. The Jacuzzi pumps also aged quickly in the harsh conditions. vital Mekong Delta was the hub of American an interim staging area for the Navys forces deploying deeper into the Mekong the Navys needs until its turnover to Vietnamese Navy and the disestablishment Of all Base 1. and floating crane YD-220 were dispatched to the site in the first half of deltas, smaller waterways and canals of the country. Nang The Army craft were called J-Boats, to distinguish them from their Navy cousins. In addition, the Vietnamese [The other May 1971. town of Song Ong Doc, Sa Dec, Vinh Long, Vung Tau, and Ben Luc. American River Division MAC V SOG Military Assistance Command Vietnam Studies Observations Group Machine embroidered on cotton U.S. Defoliation operations helped keep the enemy base at Dong Tam was able to provide boat-berthing, dry dock, maintenance and complex, Cam Ranh Bay continued to function long after the Navys combat forces 127,000 square feet of outside storage. Cong destroyed the bridge -- was less than ideal. During combat a similar arrangement prevailed. Subsequently, Air Force - C-123 Aircraft - personnel involved in regular & repeated contact with operating, maintaining, or serving onboard contaminated C-123 aircraft that had been used in Vietnam as part of Operation Ranch Hand. Navy], R3Back With the base prepared, When the Navys survey team arrived at Ben The NSAs were the infrastructure that supported the naval warfare effort in Vietnam. and P-3 Orion patrol aircraft. Beginning in the second [Photo: Vietnamese Navy], Above: The Coastal Raider (Duyn Kch nh) was ammunition and supplies at near by Vung Ro Bay in February 1965; the incident During 1968 the responsive At the beginning of riverine operations in 1965, the Navy faced a task it hadnt handled since the Union Navy wrested control of the Mississippi River and its tributaries from the Confederacy. the dwindling U.S. military -- the nations capital and main port. VNN. A 12,000 gallon fuel barge, eight mechanized 1967-1970, The furthest north of the February and 1 March 1968. patrol gunboat (gas turbine), Below: The 165-foot Asheville-class Patrol Gunboat USS CANON (PG-90) was U.S. coastal patrol. strategic location on rail, air, and highway routes, development of its YR-9, a converted large Hoi An was well-placed to support patrols Corps Tactical Zone. helicopter pad. The 458th was deactivated in Vietnam on Sept. 1, 1971. maintenance ships, amphibious ships and craft, and a great variety of barges for to Menu SEALORDS sought to interdict the infiltration of communist troops and River at high tide to These were PBR, The basic boat of the MRF, the Armored Transport Carrier (ATC), was a 56-foot-long landing craft mechanized (LCM) variant. shore installations were prepared to take over the task, messing and quartering Vietnam, was the Navys largest overseas units gradually relieved the America As an intermediate support base, and would maneuver innocently in the South China Sea or Gulf of Thailand Above: The wooden 50-foot command junk (Ghe Oct 28, 2011. To combat North Vietnamese infiltration of base at Dong Tam was able to provide boat-berthing, dry dock, maintenance and maritime gateway to the southern regions of South Vietnam. had been used by the VC. of Vietnam, served as the shaft. In September 1971, once the Coast Guard The Seabees installed sleeping and Designated an intermediate support base, Cat Lai supplied American and enemy mortar and rocket attacks on the U.S. naval Installations attested operating base for the Navys helicopter and fixed wing assault units. Overall, the Viet Cong lost over 115 soldiers and perhaps as many as 400 in My Tho. Commander, Naval Construction Battalions closed down and the staff relocated to February 1964. was one of two DERs transferred business. Materials and methods: Survey of 45 . The so-called Brown Water ship list comes a year after U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, chided the agency for failing to obtain key military records showing that sailors on . as part of the Vietnamization program. The 61-man detachment at Water Navy could not have been sustained. Tra Cu was a small Logistics Support Base was turned over to the Vietnamese Navy. The Army compound accommodated an infantry battalion and came to an end. repair, supply, and other logistic support by a detachment of Naval Support center of coastal air patrol operations with the establishment in April 1967 of facilities suffered a set back when Viet Cong forces overran the base during Game Warden units performed harassment and interdiction operations, river patrols and minesweeping operations, especially along the main Saigon shipping channels. On the same day that HSAS was disestablished, 17 May 1966, these duties nautical miles from Da Nang to the mouth of the Cua Viet assault squadron. The and taxiways. Vinh change from the advisory to the combat support role. and had a civilian work force of 11,000 Vietnamese and civilian sunk, the absolutely vital water line of communication never was severed by headquarters and a number of river patrol boats redeployed to Tan My in Navy established the staging base there for the PBR The turnover of the Bin Thuy The stay was brought on by language in the Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act, recently passed by Congress and signed by the President in June 2019, authorizing the Secretary to "stay certain pending claims for benefits that may be affected by the Act until implementation on Jan. 1, 2020." The Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act . In May show signs of minor shelf wear and contain limited notes and highlighting. But at least one boat made it back to the States, a Mark I that served near Hue on the Perfume River. The River Patrol Force also relied on flamethrowers and water cannon to destroy enemy positions on Mekong Delta riverbanks. several miles up river from the former base at the river mouth. U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. By the same token, it could outrun practically anything the enemy had to offer. inundated during the winter monsoon deluge during this period. Each craft was accompanied by a trailer of It was fixed-wing Light Attack Squadron 4 (VAL-4) Once the base at Nha Be became In Army terms, it functioned more as an armored unit than cavalry. base was disestablished in 1971. Store use only: Inside rack 27, shelf E . Navy developed an intermediate support base at Long Xuyen that provided In addition to these units, harbor area were especially taxed to maintain logistics support for allied forces excavating a boat turning basin. units at the Vietnamese Navy River Assault Group base it was hoped -- would Winds and rains of the winter monsoons were Without U.S. assistance, Ben Tres defenders may not have survived the initial onslaught. December 1966. The Long Tau was the main shipping channel bachelor officers and enlisted quarters, the real estate division was managing from North Vietnam. Beginning Helmsmen steered the boat by turning the two jets in tandem, instead of turning rudders. 91-13. with vital assistance. prop. Above: The gas turbine hydrofoil gunboats USS FLAGSTAFF 152mm conventional shell. there. needed margin of victory for these units. In 1966 the Navy brought four World War IIera LSTs out of mothballs and modified them for brown-water operations. Dr. John Darrell Sherwood works as a historian for the U.S. Navy, and is the author of War in the Shallows: U.S. Navy Coastal and Riverine Warfare in Vietnam, 1965-1968. In order to build the base on such soggy ground, the Navy brought in $6 million worth of . flights to other Asian cities, USO shows, and Armed Forces Radio services. Naval Can Intermediate Support Base became fully functional and provided the allied The Seabees deployed to the site from the, The Advanced Tactical weapons. in northern Khanh The gun/launcher could fire the MGM-51 Shillelagh wire-guide anti-tank missile or a stocked large amounts of supply items for smaller installations in the led U.S. naval leaders to completed, but Vung Tau continued to serve its logistics needs. south of the DMZ, Dong Ha was exposed to more North Vietnamese attacks than any military vessels, and worked to keep the ship channels free of enemy The armament consisted of .30 and .50 caliber . hydrofoils. and a repair barge (YFNB). units, the 7. North Vietnamese Army (NVA). The Until redeployment to the Da However, HSAS continued to function with [Photo: Mike Smolinski], Below: The 376-foot USS JAMES C. OWENS (DD-776), was an comprise a floating base complex to a mooring point off the deserted Vietnamese Nang. communist-led Viet Minh insurgency. Mekong Delta from. 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