Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
Learning Objectives
Know the role of the US Navy in the Vietnam War
(1964-1975) Comprehend the impact of the Vietnam War on the Navys force structure under Admiral Zumwalt during the Nixon administration. Recall the reasons for the relative decline in the U.S. naval preeminence from 1962-1977.
President after his assassination in Dallas in 1963. Increases U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. High level of restrictions put on military planners by his administration. Concerned with Great Society and domestic politics.
Robert S. McNamara
Secretary of Defense in
Kennedy and Johnson Administrations. Use of mathematical models to calculate required military force in Vietnam. Attempted to avoid escalation of the war by putting restrictions on military operations.
U.S. involvement
Congressional approval for the President to take
Rolling Thunder
Theory: punish north until it stops supporting V.C. in South Reality: lasted intermittently until 31 OCT 68 Interrupted by 7 bombing halts which North used to rebuild 304,000 fighter bombers and 2,380 B-52 sorties Evaluation
Rolling Thunder must go down in the history of aerial warfare as the most ambitious, wasteful, and ineffective campaign ever mounted. While damage was . . . done to many targets in the North, no lasting objective was achieved. Hanoi emerged as the winner of Rolling Thunder. (CIA analyst quoted by COL Harry Summers, USA, Historical Atlas of the Vietnam War, p. 96)
Spad or Sandy
ntruder
F-4 Phantom
U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps fighter aircraft
Soviet-built MiG-19
Coastal Patrol Force: Oper ation Mar ket Time (March 1965- December 1972)
Market Time
Coastal interdiction of supplies moved from N.
Evaluation as outstandingly effective: From January to July 1967, Market Time forces . . . inspected or boarded more than 700,000 vessels in South Vietnamese waters. Except for five enemy ships [sighted during Tet] . . . no other enemy trawlers were spotted from July 1967 to August 1969. (COL Harry Summers, USA, Historical Atlas of the Vietnam War, p. 150)
Cautious evaluation: There are no statistics to show what MARKET TIME did not interdict. At the very least, MARKET TIME forced the enemy to be even more inventive and creative in bringing into the South the tools of war. (Symonds, Historical Atlas, p. 210)
Certain evaluation: Forced North Vietnam to expand and rely more heavily on the overland Ho Chi Minh Trail running south through Laos and Cambodia.
Mobile River ine Force of the Brown Water Navy Oper ation Game War den (December 1965- September 1968
Tet and Its Impact (30 J an 1968 20 J an 1969) The Tur ning Point in the War
Giap, architect of Dien Bien Phu (1954 defeat of France) Combine attack by N Vietnamese and Vietcong
Goal: popular uprising (failed) Achieve Dien Bien Phu- like tactical battlefield victory for
propaganda purposes
Scope Struck at 36 of 44 provincial capital and military bases (most notably, Hue and Khe Sanh) 100 other villages
What the Hells Ho Chi Minh Doing Answering Our Saigon Embassy Phone. . . ?
Paul Conrad, Los Angles Times, 1968
TET in and near Saigon 0245 Jan. 31 - 7 Mar. 1968 NVA and VC attack city-wide, especially against US Embassy and MACV HQ (Gen. Westmoreland), near Tan Son Nhut airbase. Also at Bin Hoa airbase (NE of Saigon), busiest in world. (875,000 landings & takeoffs per year) Enemy repulsed by strategic/ tactical foresight of LGEN Fred C. Weyand, veteran of China-BurmaIndia campaign, WW II
Khe Sanh Important base in northern South Vietnam near DMZ. 6,000 Marines under siege by 20,000 North Vietnamese Army regular troops. Supplied by air drops and supported with air strikes. Eventually abandoned.
Hue City
Temple for victims of the resistance against French colonial rule, Hue.
Khe Sanh
Tet at Khe Sanh 21 Jan. - 8 Apr. 1968 I dont want any damn Dinbinfoo. Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson to Gen. Earle Wheeler, CJCS, as 77-day siege began
Immediate Results
Vietcong forces assaulted and entered U.S.
Embassy, Saigon
General Westmoreland, MACV declared victory in
Short Results
No popular uprising Dismay in USA President Johnson renounces candidacy for
re-election (31 Mar 68) Secretary of Defense, McNamara, forced to resign General Westmoreland replaced by General Abrams as U.S. overall commander in Vietnam. VADM Zumwalt appointed Commander, U.S. naval Forces , Vietnam ( Sept 68)
MERGES Game Warden and Mobile Riverine Force
into SEALORDS
The bastards have never been bombed like theyre going to be bombed this time.
---President Richard M. Nixon March 1972 Linebacker I (ended 22 Oct.): 40,000 sorties; 125,000 tons of bombs Linebacker II (18-26 Dec. 1972) 742 B-52, 640 fighter-bomber sorties 15 B-52s lost!!!
ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT
Chicago, Demo. Convention Aug. 1968 Kent State University 4 May 1970
Vietnamization
Turning over the war to S. Vietnamese with
withdrawing American forces as quickly as possible U.S. forces reduced from over 500,000 combat/combat support to a handful of advisors. Admiral Zumwalt, Jr. - withdrawal of naval forces Hanoi signed Paris Accords (Jan 1973) calling for cease-fire throughout S. Vietnam and release of POWs
Nixon opens to China and conducts arms limitation summit
U.S. withdraws forces from South Vietnam North Vietnam agrees to allow South Vietnam to decide government in a free election and to release American POWs
Vastly different from last two years of Korea: U.S. was now withdrawing before indigenous forces were built-up and able to stand on their own. -- COL Harry Summers
Marine regimental commander to Marine LCOL Bernard Trainor, 1969: Were no longer here to win, were merely campaigning, so keep the casualties down. -- from Marine retired MGEN Bernard Trainor, author of Generals War on Gulf
1972: The fighting wasnt over, but the war was won . . . There came a later point at which the war was no longer won. -- Lewis Sorley, author of Thunderbolt: General Creighton Abrams and the Army of His Times
intervention in Southeast Asia and refused to appropriate the full $1 billion in military aid promised South Vietnam by the Nixon administration 30 April 1975: North Vietnamese forces overran South Vietnam; South Vietnams president proclaimed unconditional surrender; U.S. Embassy in Saigon evacuated, the final few Americans leaving by helicopter from the Embassys roof. In operations Eagle Pull and Frequent Wind, 7th Fleet evacuates remaining Americans and foreign
costs
Bigger, more sophisticated
Other Issues Equal opportunity for minorities Adm Rickover Differences with Nixon
USSR New Navy (US in 1890s) Numerous but austere Configured for short war close to home