DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY -- NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER
805 KIDDER BREESE SE -- WASHINGTON NAVY YARD
WASHINGTON DC 20374-5060
Chapter 1: The Early Years, 1950-1959
From
the beginning of the conflict in Southeast Asia, the Navy played
a key role in support of American strategic objectives. With the
Communist seizure of China in 1949 and the invasion of South Korea
by North Korean and Chinese forces the following year, U.S. leaders
concluded that the Indochina Peninsula and possibly all Southeast
Asia soon might also sink under the rising Communist tide.
To prevent this loss,
the administration of President Harry S. Truman provided military
aid and advisory assistance to France,then fighting to retain
control of its Indochinese possessions against an indigenous Communist
movement, the Viet Minh, led by Ho Chi Minh.
On 3 August 1950,
the U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group(MAAG), Indochina,
arrived in Saigon to administer the material assistance program.
The MAAG's Navy Section, comprised of Commander John B. Howland
and seven other officers and men, was on hand at the end of October
to process the first shipment of naval material, which consisted
of Grumman F6F Hellcat fighters, to French forces. During the
next four years, as part of the Mutual Defense Assistance Program,
the United States delivered military aid totaling $2.6 billion,
including two light aircraft carriers, renamed by the French Bois
Belleau and La Fayette, 438 amphibious landing ships
and craft, armored river patrol boats and other vessels, and 500
aircraft. In addition, the Navy Section of MAAG oversaw the provision
of spare parts and the development of base facilities such as
the Naval Shipyard in Saigon and the Naval Amphibious Base in
Haiphong.
The
fleet complemented these efforts with port calls and task force
deployments intended to highlight American support for the anti-Communist
stand of France and its Indochinese allies of the French Union.
As early as March 1950, the Seventh Fleet commander, with destroyers
Stickell (DD 888) and Richard B.Anderson (DD 786), visited Saigon
while 60 plans aircraft carrier from Boxer (CVA 21) overflew the
city. In October 1953, the four ships of Destroyer Division 30
conducted a similar show-the-flag voyage up the Saigon River.
In the spring of
1954, the fleet's presence took another form in Southeast Asian
waters when the French military effort in Indochina reached a
climax at the battle of Dien Bien Phu. Responding to pleas from
the French, who were fighting desperately to hold on to their
isolated bastion in the mountains of Tonkin, the administration
of President Dwight D. Eisenhower deployed an aircraft carrier
task force and supporting units into the South China Sea. At various
times Wasp (CVA 18),Essex (CVA 9), Boxer, and Philippine Sea (CV
47) steamed off the Indochinese Peninsula prepared to launch their
aircraft against Communist forces besieging the French base. Awaiting
a possible order from Washington to enter the conflict, naval
leaders dispatched carrier reconnaissance planes to fly over the
area around Dien Bien Phu. The aircraft gathered intelligence
on Viet Minh troop movements and logistic buildup. Finally, President
Eisenhower, concluding that the risks of unilateral U.S. intervention
might far outweigh the gains,decided against any action. On 7
May 1954, Viet Minh forces overwhelmed the last French defenders
of the surrounded outpost. Two months later, hard on the heels
of this defeat, France surrendered its interests to Indochina
at an international conference in Geneva, Switzerland.
Passage to Freedom
The Geneva Agreement on the Cessation of Hostilities divided
Vietnam into two zones for the regroupment of the contending Viet
Minh and French forces. Ho Chi Minh's troops concentrated north
of a provisional military demarcation line established along the
Ben Hai River at the 17th parallel while French and allied indigenous
forces regrouped to the south of it. At the same time, Vietnamese
civilians were allowed to emigrate to the zone of their choice.
The U.S Navy answered the French government call to assist in
evacuating the hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese and ethnic
Chinese who chose to live in the predominately non-Communist South.
From August 1954 to May 1955 the Navy mounted a massive sea lift
between the ports of Haiphong and Saigon. To carry out the operation,
named Passage to Freedom, the Pacific Fleet concentrated 74 tank
landing ships (LST), transports, attack cargo ships, dock landing
ships (LSD), and other vessels in the South China Sea under Rear
Admiral Lorenzo S. Sabin, Commander Amphibious Force, Western
Pacific and Commander Amphibious Group 1.
The Navy's Military
Sea Transportation Service (MSTS) provided an additional 39 transports.
This large group of ships, shuttling between North and South Vietnam,
was supplied and replenished by the Logistic Support Force, Western
Pacific, whose oiler, cargo, provision, repair, salvage, and hospital
ships were stationed at the midway point in Danang Bay. Fleet
medical units and Naval Beach Group 1 elements helped ease the
plight of the Vietnamese refugees encamped ashore at both ends
of the transit route. By 20 May 1955, the Navy had transported
293,000 immigrants, many of them Catholics, who soon formed the
core of the anti-Communist segment of the population in South
Vietnam. In addition to 17,800 Vietnamese military personnel,
the American flotilla carried south 8,135 vehicles and 68,757
tons of cargo,much of it material provided to the French under
the Mutual Defense Assistance Program.
Development of the Vietnamese Navy
In succeeding years, the Navy continued its support of the
new Republic of Vietnam as the United States filled the vacuum
left by the French. The Eisenhower administration, guided by Secretary
of State John Foster Dulles, was instrumental in forming the Southeast
Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), a coalition of non-Communist
states concerned with preventing the further extension of Communist
influence in the region. In addition, the United States undertook
the task of equipping and training an indigenous South Vietnamese
armed force capable of defending the country during the initial
phases of attack by an external power.
Because Ho Chi Minh's
regime was concerned with consolidating control over North Vietnam
in the years following the end of its war with France, the threat
to President Ngo Dinh Diem's South Vietnam was temporarily limited.
Thus, the U.S. military mission in the country had a grace period
in which to prepare South Vietnam for the enemy's expected offensive.From
1954 to 1959, the Navy Section of the Military Assistance Advisory
Group (MAAG), Vietnam, worked to develop a viable navy for South
Vietnam. The number of advisors allowed in-country at anyone time
was limited by the Geneva Accord restriction on there introduction
of military personnel. In this period there were never more than
79 naval advisors assigned to MAAG or to the Temporary Equipment
Recovery Mission, created to salvage American aid material left
in Vietnam by the French. But these Navy and marine Corps advisors
were important in the development of the Vietnamese Navy, which
grew from a force of 1,500 men, and a small number of ships and
craft to a force of 5,000 men and 119 ships and craft. Controlled
by the Chief of the General Staff of the Vietnamese Armed Forces,
the navy was organized into a Naval Staff; Sea Force, River Force,
and Marine Corps operating forces; and a shore establishment.
The latter group comprised the Naval Stations and Schools and
the Naval Supply Center, Saigon.
The American naval
advisors concentrated on providing material assistance to the
Vietnamese Navy. Many vessels were left behind by the French,
but the advisory group designated additional material aid that
was needed and administered the deliveries. Patrol craft, escorts,
minesweepers, and landing craft were acquired so that the South
Vietnamese could carry out the priority mission of supporting
its army with coastal patrol, escort and transportation, harbor
defense, limited minelaying and minesweeping, and antisubmarine
warfare. In addition, the naval trainers taught gunnery, navigation,
and other subjects at the Nha Trang Naval School and worked to
improve management skills at the Saigon Naval Shipyard. The Navy
Section also served as the field office for the evaluation of
new weapons, boats, and equipment for possible future use in the
special environment of Southeast Asia. These relatively modest
efforts to prepare the South Vietnamese Navy for combat would
soon be tested.
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08 November 1997
