One Hundred Years of U.S. Navy Air Power (63 page)

Changes in the concept of carrier employment also occurred in the course of the war from a blue-water replacement for the battleship to that of a more littoral and land-focused platform. This led to the idea of aircraft carriers operating throughout the world in environments where land-based air power may not be available. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger personified his evolving view of the utility of the carrier many years later with his famous question during times of crisis, “Where are the carriers?”
¹⁰⁹
Of course, carriers themselves underwent significant enhancements beginning with upgrades to
Essex
-class ships. This led to development of the big deck super carriers including the
Forrestal
class in 1955 followed by the nuclear-powered
Enterprise
and
Nimitz
classes.
¹¹⁰

A need for carrier-based fighters that could compete with the Communist MiG-15 in air-to-air combat as effectively as the Air Force F-86 Sabre influenced the development of the F-8 Crusader and F-4 Phantom II, both of which performed well against the MiG-17, MiG-19, and MiG-21 in Vietnam. Modernization of naval ground attack capability resulted in production of the superb A-4 Skyhawk light attack jet.
¹¹¹
Further, the need for an all-weather, night strike plane led to production of the A-6 Intruder (along with its electronic warfare variant, the EA-6B Prowler), another weapon system that performed very well in Southeast Asia and
subsequently. The tactical maturing of the helicopter during the war had an impact on land combat like few innovations in military history. This constitutes another important area where the experiences and lessons of the Korean War profoundly affected events a few years later in Vietnam.
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Regrettably, this good use of lessons learned and improvement in warfighting did not extend itself to an understanding of the role of strategy in warfare—and the importance of adequacy in strategy—once the United States committed itself to the conflict in Southeast Asia.
¹¹³
Having accepted war without victory in Korea, American leaders twenty years later found it possible to accept defeat for the first time ever in Vietnam.
¹¹⁴
The most important lesson of Korea and of the history of warfare in general is that wars are won by adequate strategy and not tactical or operational excellence alone. This seems to have been completely lost on America's leaders of the 1960s.
¹¹⁵

THE VIETNAM CONFLICT

The United States went to war in Vietnam to stop aggressive Communism, just as it had in Korea, but numerous differences existed in both the road to war and in its execution. Among the most notable was the gradual nature in which American leaders moved the nation toward engagement. Unlike the Communist invasion of South Korea in 1950, there was no main force attack across a recognized border that could rally international outrage. Apparently the Vietnamese Communists had learned from the mistake of Kim Il-sung in this regard.
¹¹⁶
The leaders of North Vietnam cloaked their aggression under a banner of ideology and nationalism with a heavy coating of ambiguity. Unlike North Korean leaders, they cleverly avoided creating an image in their persons or actions that would stand comparison to the aggressive acts of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan (or for that matter, Communist North Korea).

Another significant difference between Vietnam and Korea involves the state of American military preparedness. Unlike the almost criminal neglect of the U.S. armed forces in the late 1940s, American's military Services entered Vietnam well prepared, probably better prepared than in any of its previous wars. Of course, the U.S. Army was primarily prepared to fight a conventional war and not an insurgency, which constituted a major part of the Vietnam War in its earlier phases.
¹¹⁷
This situation resulted from the Cold War orientation of military leaders of that period, and should not detract from the general quality of the Services. As noted before, all Services had learned many lessons from the Korean War and integrated subsequent improvements into their planning, procurement, training, and Service cultures. It seems the only lesson unlearned was the need for an adequate strategy that would match U.S. policy objectives, adapt America's superb military capability to the needs of the Vietnam War, and turn tactical and operational supremacy into
strategic success.
¹¹⁸
That lesson was the responsibility of America's civilian and military leaders at the highest level, and one in which they failed utterly.

North Vietnam's Communist leader, Ho Chi Minh, initially thought that he could bring down the South Vietnamese government through political action and internal agitation. Yet the government of Ngo Dinh Diem not only survived those efforts, but also began taking effective action against Communist leaders and organizations throughout the South. By 1959 Ho and his colleagues believed it necessary to launch an armed insurgency to achieve their objective. This began on a large scale in July of that year with the infiltration of some four thousand well-trained cadre men into South Vietnam. From that point on, events began to favor the Communists, and by 1961, the Viet Cong appeared on the verge of victory.
¹¹⁹
By this time, the United States was deeply involved in the affairs of South Vietnam and the prospect of its collapse revived memories of the Communist victory in the Chinese civil war, and the political recriminations it created within the United States.
¹²⁰
This presented a problem requiring delicate attention at the highest level of government.

As early as 1950, the United States had established a Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) in Saigon to oversee disbursement of financial aid and delivery of armaments to the French during their Indochina War.
¹²¹
This grew into a mechanism for supporting the government of South Vietnam and eventually included U.S. military advisers to the South Vietnamese armed forces.
¹²²
In the early 1960s, President John F. Kennedy and his administration began to consider, for the first time, the prospect of sending U.S. ground combat forces into the conflict. It was an unappealing prospect, and one that Kennedy avoided, deciding instead for increased financial and material support along with sending additional military advisers.
¹²³
This surge of American support, coupled with more aggressive action by South Vietnamese forces, stabilized the situation for a time. The increased American commitment included contingents of U.S. Army and Marine Corps helicopters designed to enhance the mobility of the Army of Vietnam (ARVN). The Marine element—named Operation Shufly—continued to perform that mission until March 1964 at which time it was absorbed into the larger effort under way in Vietnam.
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In addition to advisers, aviation units, and support elements in South Vietnam, U.S. carriers patrolled the Vietnam coastline throughout the early 1960s, launching unarmed reconnaissance aircraft as well as search and rescue helicopters when any of the aircraft were lost.
¹²⁵
The role of naval aviation in the Vietnam War began with America's earliest involvement and remained an essential element across a wide spectrum of missions throughout.

The aircraft carriers of the Vietnam era included
Essex-
(upgraded),
Midway-
, and
Forrestal
-class ships and
USS Enterprise
. They typically carried Air Wings of two fighter squadrons, two or three attack squadrons, early warning and photoreconnaissance planes, and varying detachments of helicopters. The
Essex
carriers could
support F-8 Crusader fighters, A-1 (formerly AD) Skyraiders, and A-4 Skyhawk attack planes. When the Skyraiders were withdrawn from the fleet in early 1968, they were replaced with additional squadrons of Skyhawks. On the big-deck
Forrestal
carriers, at least one of the fighter squadrons would consist of F-4 Phantom II jets. When the A-6 Intruder bombers reached the fleet in 1965, they also resided on
Forrestal
carriers as did the next generation of light attack planes, the A-7 Corsair II.
¹²⁶
These carriers and their escorts were less mobile in Vietnam than during Korea due primarily to geography. Whereas the peninsular character of Korea provided ample opportunity for carriers to reposition themselves to best support their missions, the linear coastline of Vietnam along the South China Sea did not lend itself to such action. The carriers in Southeast Asia operated about 150 miles offshore from a reference point east of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) named Yankee Station. As in the Korean War, carriers and Air Groups from Seventh Fleet's Task Force 77 performed a variety of missions in support of the war effort.

U.S. Navy F-4B Phantom II from the USS
Ranger
, February 1968
.

Although carrier air tended to focus on North Vietnam early in the war, it so impressed General William Westmoreland that he requested a second station farther south from which to conduct naval air operations in South Vietnam. In response, the Navy created a point off the South Vietnamese coast southeast of Cam Ranh Bay, which it named Dixie Station. This southern position normally had a lower priority for carriers than Yankee Station because Air Force and Marine Corps tactical aircraft were also available from land bases in South Vietnam and Thailand with which to
support ground operations.
¹²⁷
Since Yankee Station primarily supported operations in North Vietnam, it was usually more active and typically had at least three carriers on station permitting twenty-four-hour operations. It was not unusual for there to be four or five carriers on Yankee Station and the count even went as high as six at one point late in the war.
¹²⁸

By the end of 1962, the United States had over 11,000 military personnel in South Vietnam consisting primarily of advisers, pilots, and support personnel. Throughout this early period, officials denied that Americans engaged in combat in South Vietnam. Yet advisers went into battle with their assigned units, and pilots flew combat missions in support of operations from the earliest days, often under the guise of training or advising. Predictably, Americans began taking casualties during this time, including thirty-two killed in action during 1961–1962.
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In February 1962, Washington transformed the MAAG into an overarching organization to coordinate assistance and operations, renaming it the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), with General Paul D. Harkins assigned as commander.
¹³⁰
General William Westmoreland would replace Harkins in this role during July 1964. In November 1963, before Washington had made any key decisions regarding the introduction of American ground combat forces, assassins had taken the lives of Presidents Diem and Kennedy, leaving the new American president, Lyndon B. Johnson, in the position of deciding Vietnam's future.
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Regrettably, Johnson would prove to be America's least resolute wartime president.

When Johnson acceded to the presidency, he faced an increasingly aggressive Communist campaign in South Vietnam, yet his initial reaction was to continue the policy of equivocation, even in face of direct attacks on American personnel and facilities.
¹³²
That would change somewhat in August 1964 with the Gulf of Tonkin incident in which three North Vietnamese patrol boats attacked the American destroyer USS
Maddox
in international waters.
Maddox
was part of the Navy's DeSoto intelligence-gathering program that supported South Vietnam's covert operations in the North. When the enemy boats fired torpedoes at
Maddox
, its captain returned fire and vectored in a flight of F-8 Crusaders from USS
Ticonderoga
, which attacked with rockets and cannon fire, adding to the damage inflicted by
Maddox
and sinking at least one of the boats. Two days later, during hours of darkness, a second attacked occurred, which the sailors of
Maddox
and
Turner Joy
(which had joined
Maddox
after the first attack) believed to be real, but many historians consider illusionary.
¹³³
Regardless of the veracity of the second attack, the Gulf of Tonkin incident(s) marked the beginning of a greater level of American involvement in the Vietnam War. Within hours, President Johnson ordered retaliatory air raids, known as Operation Pierce Arrow, against five patrol boat bases along the North Vietnam coast, on any enemy boats observed, and at the fuel installation at Vinh. Crusader, Skyhawk, and Skyraider aircraft from
Ticonderoga
and
Constellation
launched
their attacks on 5 August, sinking eight boats, damaging twenty-one, and destroying the fuel installation at Vinh. The Navy lost two planes in the attack including an A-4 Skyhawk flown by Lieutenant (jg) Everett Alvarez from
Constellation
. Alverez became the first Navy prisoner of war in Vietnam, remaining so for the next eight and a half years.
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Regrettably, the pilot of the second plane, Lieutenant (jg) Richard Sather did not survive. Both losses resulted from ground-based anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) fire.
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