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Operation Sea Dragon
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Operation Sea
Dragon
1967 |
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The Sea Dragon Strikes Again
By Lawrence M. Greenberg, contributing editor of Vietnam Magazine
Napoleon declared that an army
marches on its stomach. Contrary to popular mythology, North Vietnamese regulars
and Viet Cong guerrillas were not exempt from this time-honored adage. They were
dependent on the vast quantities of food and munitions smuggled across South
Vietnam's shores and waterways. It was because of this waterborne logistic
highway that the destroyers Mansfield and Hanson sailed north
toward the 17th parallel before dawn on October 25, 1966.
At 0500 hours, the ships entered North Vietnamese waters and opened a new
phase of the war, attacking WBLC (pronounced "wib-lic" and meaning waterborne
logistic craft and coastal lines of communications) targets still in Communist
waters. As part of Operation Sea Dragon, Seventh Fleet destroyers, cruisers and
eventually one battleship participated in this new mission between October 1966
and November 1968.
The two warships closed to within 14,000 yards of shore by midmorning and
engaged coastal shipping near Dong Hoi. After five hours in North Vietnamese
waters, coastal defense batteries fired on the ships at 0951. The Mansfield
and Hanson turned to the open sea while their aft 5-inch guns engaged
the shore artillery with counter battery fire. The destroyers escaped unscathed
and returned fire on other targets throughout the day, drawing additional,
although equally inaccurate, fire twice more that afternoon. North Vietnamese
representatives at the United Nations complained to the International Control
Commission the next morning about the new U.S. "escalation of war." Despite the
protest the operation continued.
By the end of October, destroyers assigned to Operation Traffic Cop, the
initial phase of Sea Dragon, sank 101 watercraft and damaged another 94 with 928
5-inch projectiles. During the same period, counter battery fire accounted for
another 426 shells. Seventh Fleet achieved these impressive results without the
loss of or damage to a single ship or sailor.
The transition to offensive naval actions in the North evolved from
interdiction missions in the South. Since February 1962, U.S. naval warships
operating in the Gulf of Thailand located infiltrators and directed the small
Vietnamese navy against them below the 17th parallel. After General Maxwell
Taylor visited Vietnam in October 1962 as President John F. Kennedy's special
military adviser, Operation Beef-up expanded both South Vietnamese and U.S.
naval involvement in coastal interdiction.
Despite the emphasis, the February 1965 Vung Ro incident demonstrated
inadequacies in the program and showed the importance of waterborne logistics to
the Viet Cong. At 1030 on February 16, U.S. Army Lieutenant James S. Bowers, a
medevac pilot, sighted a camouflaged ship anchored in Vung Ro Bay along the
central coast. Four allied air strikes on the ship and nearby beach put the
100-ton trawler on her side in shallow water. South Vietnamese troops and a U.S.
Special Forces detachment reached the area after considerable delay and found
more than 4,000 rifles and machine guns, thousands of cases of ammunition, and a
large cache of medical supplies. Aside from the recovered munitions, the
operation confirmed large-scale Communist seaborne resupply and led directly to
Operation Market Time in mid-March.
Market Time combined U.S. and Vietnamese naval forces against coastal
infiltration by the North Vietnamese Naval Transportation Group 125. The
Communists used steel-hulled, 100-ton trawlers and seagoing junks to bring
supplies south, where they were transferred to sampans and other shallow-draft
watercraft for distribution.
One day after JCS (Joint Chiefs of Staff) approval, the destroyers
Higbee and Black began coastal patrols supported by daily
coastal-reconnaissance flights from Tan Son Nhut. Several days later, Buck
seized the first transport, a seagoing junk, just south of the DMZ. Within a
month, Market Time expanded to 28 ships under command of Task Force 71 aboard
the heavy, guided-missile cruiser Canberra. In addition to destroyers,
the operation used Swift patrol craft (PCFs) for close inshore patrolling and
absorbed seventeen 82-foot U.S. Coast Guard cutters (WPBs) from U.S. Coast Guard
Squadron One in late April. The units patrolled first eight, then nine, coastal
sectors covering 1,200 miles and extending 40 miles to sea.
Market Time grew quickly, receiving additional surveillance support from P3A
Orions from Sangley Point in the Philippines. Lockheed P-5 Marlin seaplanes from
seagoing tenders, and Lockheed P-2V Neptunes from Tan Son Nhut and later Cam
Ranh Bay. On August 1, General William S. Westmoreland, commander of MACV
(Military Assistance Command, Vietnam), assumed responsibility for the operation
and delegated operational control to the commander of the Coastal Surveillance
Force. The new unit encompassed Task Forces 71 and 115, already on station off
South Vietnam. During the next three years, 15 U.S. Coast Guard high-endurance
cutters (WHECs) from U.S. Coast Guard Squadron Three joined the patrols.
A month after the mid-February Vung Ro incident, President Lyndon B. Johnson
authorized Pacific Command to implement
Operation Rolling Thunder to strike military
and logistic facilities in the North below the 20th parallel by air. The primary
objective of the operation was to hurt North Vietnam's ability to supply its
troops and guerrilla surrogates in the South. At the same time, two smaller and
less well-known operations - Yankee Team and Barrel Roll - sought to destroy
logistic depots and supply routes in neighboring Laos.
With both
Rolling Thunder and
Market Time in full swing, Pacific Command tacticians examined the potential
for combining the two into a more complete campaign against the North. By
mid-1965, the air war caused considerable problems for the Communists, but
without an active interdiction program to stop supplies before they reached the
South, the overall effect on Hanoi's war-making machine was less than ideal,
especially when foul weather restricted air activity. The staff reasoned that
the significant naval combat, support, electronic warfare, SAR (search and
rescue), and carrier assets already in theater could be used directly against
the North to augment Rolling Thunder.
Admiral Ulysses S. G. Sharp, CINCPAC (Commander in Chief, Pacific Command),
presented his plan for naval surface interdiction below the 20th parallel to the
JCS, which in turn passed it to defense secretary Robert McNamara on May 13,
1966. After two months of debate on the political implications, CINCPAC received
permission to engage clearly defined military targets below the demarcation line
in the southern half of the DMZ. Although less than Admiral Sharp had hoped for,
it was a starting point from which to prove the value of seaborne interdiction
in the forward area.
Even though U.S. warships had yet to attack the North, the Communists
refused to sit idly by while Seventh Fleet elements manned SAR stations in the
Tonkin Gulf beyond North Vietnamese territorial waters. While returning to his
carrier on Yankee Station from a mission over the North on July 1, an F-4
Phantom pilot saw three Communist patrol boats making for the Coontz
and Rogers on a SAR station 55 miles east of Haiphong. An hour later,
F-4s from the Constellation and Hancock attacked the three
boats with rocket and cannon fire 10 miles from the two destroyers. All three
patrol craft went to the bottom. Coontz and Rogers diverted to
the area and rescued 19 survivors, who remained interned in Da Nang until
exchanged for American POWs in 1967 and 1968.
Two weeks after meeting with Seventh Fleet Commander Vice Adm. John J.
Hyland in Vietnam and three months after strikes began in the lower DMZ,
McNamara authorized U.S. seaborne interdiction by two destroyers in North
Vietnamese waters up to 17 degrees 30 minutes north latitude. The carriers
Oriskany, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Coral Sea and
Constellation, all at Yankee Station about 125 miles east of Da Nang,
provided support for the warships, Known originally as Operation Traffic Cop,
McNamara's order allowed naval forces to engage suspected logistic watercraft
but prohibited shore bombardment except in self-defense. Fishing vessels and
non-military craft were exempt from attack.
By November, the number of destroyers patrolling the North increased to
four. While engaging a target 15 miles above the DMZ on the 4th, the Perkins
and Blaine came under close fire from coastal artillery. At 1142, an
airburst above the Blaine, sprayed her superstructure with shrapnel and
caused superficial damage with no casualties. The destroyers returned fire and
called for support from Yankee Station. A 40-minute air strike leveled the site.
One week later, on November 11, the U.S. government expanded the operational
area to the 18th parallel and renamed the littoral interdiction program
Operation Sea Dragon.
Life aboard Sea Dragon destroyers proved stressful and tiring, yet morale
consistently remained high - better, in fact, than morale on similar ships to
the south. This resulted from a combination of frequent and true action by
destroyer crewmen, immediate results from their efforts, and the possibility of
being shot at.
On patrol, one-third of the crew typically remained at battle stations, with
at least one gun mount fully manned while the rest ate, slept and performed
routine shipboard duties. In the CIC (combat information center, the nerve
center of a fighting ship), radarmen kept constant vigil over surface and air
search radars, while receiving contact reports from surveillance aircraft and
other vessels. Once a target was located and identified, the captain normally
ordered general quarters and gave permission to fire. The gunfire direction
officer, sometimes aided by spotter aircraft, adjusted spotting rounds before
announcing "All mounts, both guns, two salvos." Less than 15 seconds later,
5-inch rounds reached the unfortunate ship or shore target.
Skippers sometimes deviated from this pattern, especially when engaging a
single WBLC and if his ship was beyond coastal gun range. In these cases he
might engage the target with the ready mount and forego the call to general
quarters to save wear and tear on his already well-worked crew.
Just four days after Sea Dragon expanded to the 18th parallel, the JCS
changed the rules for engaging shore batteries. This occurred when enemy
shore-based search radars "painted" several destroyers with their radar waves,
and the U.S. government authorized the ships to attack the sites.
At 1046, December 23, 1966, events took an anticipated but little-publicized
turn when the O'Brien took a direct hit from a 57mm shore battery at a
range of 7,800 yards. Three minutes later, while engaged in counter battery fire,
she received a second hit that caused moderate damage to the aft deckhouse. A
call for assistance went out. At Yankee Station, four carriers launched ready
aircraft that suppressed the Communist Artillery. That evening the Benner
relieved O'Brien as she retired to Subic Bay for repairs with two dead
and four injured.
Sea Dragon destroyers amassed an impressive record by year's end: 382
watercraft destroyed and 325 damaged; five coastal defense batteries destroyed
and two damaged; and two radar sites destroyed with another two damaged. Just as
significant, the aggressive operation forced a majority of waterborne logistic
traffic between Dong Hoi and the South to divert to crowded land routes or into
less efficient inland waterways. Also, because of concentrated coastal defense
artillery in the limited Sea Dragon area, Admiral Sharp asked the JCS to
increase the number of destroyers dedicated to the mission and to enlarge the
Sea Dragon area to dilute enemy shore fire.
In mid-January the JCS authorized a third ship for Sea Dragon to provide
coverage near the DMZ while the other two patrolled near the 18th parallel,
Shortly after the February 8-12 Tet truce - marred on its first day by an
exchange between the Stoddard and a coastal artillery site on Hon Mat
Island near Vinh - a fourth destroyer and the first cruiser, the 30-knot
Canberra armed with two 8-inch/55 triple turrets, five twin 5-inch/38s and
four 3-inch/50s, joined the operation. At the same time, the first Royal
Australian Navy destroyer joined Seventh Fleet vessels and participated in
interdiction and shore bombardment missions on both sides of the DMZ. The
additions gave Sea Dragon staying power regardless of air support.
On February 26, McNamara again extended Sea Dragon to include all WBLC
targets and certain military facilities ashore below the 20th parallel. The new
list of land targets included coastal defense and radar sites, roads, bridges
and assorted military command and logistic facilities along the North Vietnamese
littoral.
The same day the boundary moved north, the Canberra, Joseph
Strauss and Benner hit 16 shore targets 10-12 miles south-east of
Thanh Hoa. This was the first time Sea Dragon bombarded shore targets without
enemy provocation. Meanwhile, further south, a second destroyer task unit
composed of the Duncan and Picking attacked ammunition dumps,
barracks and coastal defense sites near Vinh.
While engaging coastal targets 15 miles north of Dong Hoi on March 1, the
Canberra came under intense and, this time, accurate shore fire. Just
after dark the cruiser took two hits from a range of 11,500 yards. the shells
put a 1-inch hole in her deck and damaged several life rafts. The cruiser's
8-inch guns joined the 5-inch guns aboard the Joseph Strauss and
Denver to silence the shore artillery. The Canberra was hit twice
again 10 days later from 17,000 yards but sustained only cosmetic damage.
In May, Sea Dragon combatants temporarily withdrew south to join Task Unit
70.8.9 in Operation Beau Charger, the largest concentration of U.S. surface
ships since the Korean War. During the operation, Canberra combined
forces with the light guided-missile cruisers Providence and St.
Paul and five destroyers (USS Allen M. Sumner (DD-692), USS
Fechteler (DD-870), USS Edson (DD-946), USS Joseph Strauss (DDG-16) and
HMAS Hobart (D-39)) to support Marine amphibious landings and ground sweeps
in the southern part of the DMZ. During the assault, the ships suppressed
Communist artillery in southern North Vietnam and in the upper half of the DMZ.
Back in North Vietnamese waters later in the month, Sea Dragon supplemented a
Rolling Thunder attack on the Quang Khe ferry complex that sank more than 40
watercraft.
Midyear 1967 saw a marked decease in coastal traffic that extended well into
July. As floating targets declined, Sea Dragon concentrated on those ashore,
engaging 518 stationary targets in July, nearly twice the monthly average of
that past spring.
Meanwhile, coastal defense sites increased in number and sophistication. By
midsummer, American intelligence pinpointed some 105 active and 146 inactive or
destroyed sites bounding the Sea Dragon area. Significantly, most now used
search and ranging radars. With the improved equipment, Communist gunners began
to engage U.S. ships more frequently and at ranges to 15,000 yards. By mid-June,
they had fired against Sea Dragon on no fewer than 87 occasions, and the number
of ships hit by coastal defense batteries increased. The Dupont lost
one sailor and saw nine wounded on August 29. The following month, coastal
artillery struck three ships - St. Paul, Damato, and
Mansfield - for a loss of one killed and three wounded, along with
significant but not ship-threatening damages.
As shore gunnery improved, Sea Dragon units employed new tactics and
additional countermeasures of their own. In addition to evasive maneuvers during
an attack and engaging targets from a greater distance (averaging 17,300 yards
by July), the ships used chaff, electronics and smoke - all with uncertain
results.
The fleet also experimented with "Snoopy," a remotely piloted drone used for
spotting. Deployed for the first time on July 30 aboard the Mansfield,
early models suffered from mechanical problems and a jittery camera that plagued
the system. With more engineering and wider application, Snoopy eventually
provided the fleet with valuable information. The largest concern during the
summer, however, was preparing for the anticipated August-September 1968 arrival
of the battleship New Jersey to the line.
October 1967 brought Sea Dragon to the end of its first year and saw the
first shore-based damage to an allied ship. The Australian destroyer HMAS
Perth suffered four wounded on the 18th. Despite improved North Vietnamese
gunnery, sea Dragon statistics were truly remarkable: 2,000 watercraft destroyed
or damaged, 3,300 targets ashore bombarded, and 150 running duels with coastal
artillery. Moreover, the observed flow of waterborne logistics fell to such a
low level (759 in May compared to 200 in October) that Sea Dragon assets were
sent south on several occasions to provide naval gunfire support for allied
ground operations in and below the DMZ. Not surprisingly, whenever the ships
left station, coastal logistic traffic increased until the warships returned.
Operation sea Dragon finished 1967 with 13,976 rounds fired to sink 483 WBLC
targets and damage more than 1,000 others. The number of ships involved in sea
Dragon at any single time varied considerably and rose as high as eight.
Normally, however, the force remained at one cruiser and four destroyers
operating in two separate task units.
Pacific Fleet studied Sea Dragon statistics for 1967 and found the average
WBLC engagement took place at 18,000 yards, required 29 rounds and involved a
46-foot wooden seagoing junk. The most accurate shooting came, not surprisingly,
from the 8-inch cruisers with 20 RPK (rounds per kill) while older 5-inch/38
destroyers took 35 RPK. Newer 5-inch/54 destroyers managed a RPK of just under
28. During 1967, Sea Dragon units spend 1,384 ship days on station and, in
addition to WBLC targets, engaged 3,700 land targets, including 300 coastal
defense and radar sites.
Keeping the ships supplied with bullets, beans and fuel proved a significant
challenge for SERVPAC's (Service Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet) Service Squadron
Three and for Seventh Fleet's logistic support force (Task Force 73), already
supplying combat and support ships off the South Vietnamese coast.
Navy Support Activity, Da Nang, coordinated ammunition resupply by ammo
ships (AEs) from Subic, Guam, Yokosuka, Sasebo and Naval Support Facility Cam
Ranh Bay. Many of the 100 deployed ships required ammunition every three days;
thus, between 70-90 percent of the replenishment was conducted while underway.
During one instance, an AOE replenished the Canberra while the cruiser
was engaged in a night-fire mission.
Fuel and provisions arrived in a similar manner on fleet oilers (AOs), AOEs,
provision ships (AFs) and combat stores ships (AFSs) from Subic, Yokosuka and
Guam. Like their ammo-laden sister ships, the resupply vessels typically steamed
circular routes, first replenishing Yankee Station before going on to Chu Lai
and Da Nang and finally to Sea Dragon. Replenishment ships spent a nominal 21
days on the 3,000 mile circuit before returning to their out-of-theater depots
to refit for the next cruise.
The 1968 Tet Offensive interrupted Sea Dragon operations. Needed desperately
to defend besieged allied forces south of the DMZ, all but two destroyers joined
a fire-support task force that at one time amassed 22 warships on the gun line.
After providing naval gunfire support at Hue, Khe Sanh and along the DMZ, the
heavy cruiser Newport News returned to Sea Dragon in March and
destroyed a large logistic complex north of the Cua Viet River. After the
warm-up exercise, the cruiser and its two destroyers concentrated on targets
between the 18th and 19th parallels.
In April, coincidental to the bombing halt above the DMZ, CINCPAC formally
reduced the operating area by one-third to below the 19th parallel. The decision
was based on fewer WBLC sightings and the need for Sea Dragon ships elsewhere
further south.
Despite the drawdown, the interdiction campaign continued routinely through
the summer with shore bombardment around Ha Tinh, Vinh and Phu Dien Chau. In
August and September, the cruiser and three destroyers struck numerous shore
targets and sank or damaged nearly 1,000 watercraft. Then, on September 29th,
New Jersey arrived on station with 16-inch guns that could reach 85
percent of the military targets in the north.
The following morning, New Jersey resumed her shore bombardment
mission after a 15-year sabbatical since the Korean War. During her first
morning with Sea Dragon, the Iowa-class battleship destroyed a supply
depot north of the Benhai River, a barracks area, roads, 300 meters of occupied
trench lines, and an anti-aircraft battery that made the mistake of engaging a
Marine F-4 Phantom while New Jersey lurked nearby. Communist gunners at
coastal defense sites learned quickly from the incident and often chose to
"abandon site" rather than incur the battleship's wrath.
The world's only active battleship at the time spent a month with Sea Dragon
causing havoc along the North Vietnamese coast. Logistic complexes, troop
concentrations, fortified caves, watercraft, the famous Thanh Hoa Bridge, and
Hon Mat Island's coastal artillery fell victim to New Jersey's
1,900-pound shells. When Washington enacted the November 1, 1968, moratorium on
attacks in the North, the battleship moved south to provide heavy naval gunfire
support until she left Vietnam in April 1969.
The same order that sent the New Jersey southward also brought
Operation Sea Dragon to an end after two years. During its final year, Sea
Dragon claimed 1,507 WBLCs destroyed and another 1,535 damaged; 75 coastal
defense sites destroyed and another 268 damaged; and destruction or heavy damage
to numerous trucks, rail yards, bridges, storage sites, radar sites, and air
defense sites.
While carrying out their duties 66 Sea Dragon ships were fired upon by
coastal defense batteries in 169 incidents, with 38 ships receiving enemy fire
on three or more occasions (for Sumner it was 12 times). Of these, 29
warships were hit, with three ships hit twice. Despite improved accuracy of
shore-based artillery, Sea Dragon forces suffered only light casualties - five
sailors killed and 26 wounded. Communist gunners failed to put any ship out of
commission, although 19 ships withdrew to Japan or the Philippines for repairs.
Coastal interdiction and bombardment of North Vietnam resumed intermittently
in the years after Operation Sea Dragon but never at the same sustained level.
When U.S. warships did return - for example, in April 1972, the Joseph
Strauss and the Richard B. Anderson destroyed the Ben Hai Bridge
while the Oklahoma City, Providence, and several destroyers
pounded the Do Son Peninsula - they were sent after specific targets and
departed the area soon after the mission ended.
Although Sea Dragon failed to stem the flow of men and supplies south, it
forced the Communists to divert much of their logistics support to less
efficient land routes, primarily the Ho Chi Minh trail. Those stores that
continued by water were by and large diverted from coastal waterways to smaller
inland rivers that required frequent offloading and portaging to connecting
channels. Moreover, the elimination of large-scale coastal infiltration forced
Hanoi to employ tens of thousands of potential troops at the less effective
business of defending the coast and manhandling mountains of munitions and
provisions to Communist forces below the DMZ.
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