Fifty Years Ago: In Paris, Peace in the Air, but in Vietnam, the Red Rockets' Glare

By M.C. Farrington
HRNM Historian

Fifty years and one month after peace negotiations between representatives of the American and North Vietnamese governments began in Paris, talks proceeded in Hanoi, the capital of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, between President Donald J. Trump of the United States and the leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Kim Jong Un. Some observers believe that Vietnam holds special interest for the North Korean leader because of the tortuous diplomatic path to peace with the United States that it followed decades ago and the economic recovery which followed. 

Peace talks rarely bring real peace with an implacable enemy possessing the means to fight, however, and no better example can be found than the wave of attacks that occurred in the Republic of Vietnam (RVN-also known as South Vietnam) within the first few weeks following the beginning of peace talks in Paris between representatives of President Richard Nixon's administration and diplomats from North Vietnam, also known then as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.  

According to descriptions of the attack published on Navsource.org, YFU-78 was preparing to deliver 180 tons of ammunition for a resupply run up to units deployed near the demilitarized zone between North and South Vietnam. (Navsource.org)

During the last week of February 1969, Terence Smith of the New York Times reported that at least 50 targets around South Vietnam were hit with rocket and mortar fire.  The single most deadly attack suffered by Sailors deployed to South Vietnam during the entire Vietnam War occurred on February 27.  At a little after 10 pm local time, YFU (Harbor Utility Craft) 78 and LCU (Landing Craft, Utility) 1500 took direct hits from enemy rockets while at the Bridge Ramp Facility at Naval Support Activity (NSA) Danang.  

A landing ship, tank (LST), offloads in the far background among other smaller auxiliaries at the busy Bridge-Cargo Complex at Naval Support Activity Danang, which was initially completed in July 1966. (The U.S. Navy in Vietnam, Naval Support Activity Saigon, 1967/ Courtesy of Jay H. Gill)   

According to multiple sources, both YFU-78 and LCU-1500 were loaded with ammunition for transport to smaller facilities along the coast.  Secondary explosions on the vessels and the ramp continued for three hours, during which Sailors heroically drove out and moved ammunition trailers before they were consumed by the spreading fires.

In all, 22 Sailors were killed and 38 were wounded.  Sadly, they were neither the first nor the last Sailors who would be victims of such attacks at the sprawling facility.     

U.S. Navy personnel inspect a 122-mm rocket launcher that was captured on the Dong Nai River approximately 10 miles east of Saigon after midnight on July 9, 1968. They are (left to right) Boatswain's Mate 1st Class Dollie Sewell, Jr., of Washington DC, boat captain of the river patrol boat (PBR) which first signted the sampan carrying the launcher; Lieutenant Stephen F. Thiel of Ritzville, Washington, a patrol officer who assisted in the capture; and Lieutenant ralph Santl of Omaha, Nebraska, officer-in-charge of PBR River Section 551, to which the PBR making the capture was attached. (Naval History and Heritage Command image) 

Viet Cong forces were largely decimated when they emerged from their hiding places to conduct large-scale coordinated operations against American and RVN forces during the Tet Offensive in January 1968.  What was left of them went back to doing what they did best: hit-and-run operations under the concealment of the dark, as well as setting off improvised explosive devices and mines.  Another potent weapon they made use of was 122 and 144-milimeter Chinese and Soviet-made rockets.  Although such rockets can typically be found in truck-mounted multiple barrel launchers belonging to the dozens of military forces that continue to use such weapons today, the Viet Cong fashioned crude launchers and used them against American forces in much the way Hamas continues to use such weapons against Israel.   

NSA Danang was targeted so many times by guerrillas using such simple, unguided weapons that those assigned there began calling it "Rocket City." From 1965 to 1973, during which NSA Danang became the U.S. Navy's largest overseas shore command, 87 rocket attacks were launched against the base, with 996 individual rockets falling upon the sprawling compound.  Even the Naval Hospital was not spared.  Nearly 600 Americans were injured during the attacks and 45 were killed.

A Marine patrol in 1968 discovered these Chinese-made 122mm rockets in their improvised launchers before they could be fired.  Although such solid-fuel rockets typically had only a three-second burn time, the smoke they generated could be seen for many miles around, so their operators had to be far away from the launch site before they were triggered. (Naval History and Heritage Command image)   

Fifty years ago, when NSA Danang was at its largest, over 18,000 American Sailors, Vietnamese and civilian contractors worked there.  It had the third largest Navy supply depot behind Norfolk, Virginia and Oakland, California.  Its commander could boast that the facility's deep-water piers handled more cargo than Baltimore, Maryland. Yet as the peace talks dragged on during the ebbing winter across villas half a world away, a creeping change began to occur at NSA Danang and many other facilities across South Vietnam that summer.  

Defense Secretary Melvin Laird had a word for it.  In a meeting with the National Security Council in late January 1969, he reportedly used the word "Vietnamizing" for the trajectory senior planners wished to take.  The term "Vietnamization" subsequently entered the American lexicon as a broad strategy of replacement (by South Vietnamese forces) followed by U.S. military withdrawal began that summer.