Article on riverine warfare tactics

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Digital Object Identifier: 363-01402 to 363-01426
Title: Article on riverine warfare tactics
Description: Original title: "Mobile." Keever's title: "River Warfare Amphibious Operations Meld US Navy and Army." Original caption: "This second article discusses the miniaturized amphibious operations conducted by the US Mobile Riverine Force" Article by Keever for the Christian Science Monitor on the riverine warfare tactics in Vietnam
AI Usage Disclosure: Draft transcripts were automatically generated via Google Document AI and are currently under review. Please report significant errors to Archives & Special Collections at archives@unl.edu.
Transcript: --------------------
- Page 1
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Beverly Ann Deepe
38, Vo Tanh
Saigon, Vietnam,
January 30, 1968
Mobile--page 1
(The U. S. Navy is again engaged in river warfare--for the
first time since the American Civil War.
This three-part report
examines America's Rice Paddy Navy in Vietnam. This second article
discusses the miniaturized amphis amphibious operations conducted
by the U. S. Mobile Riverine Force, including its Monitors of the
Mekong Delta.).
ABOARD USS BENEWAH, SOUTH VIETNAM.
The upcoming American buildup of forces in the Mekong Delta
is considered a matter of controversy in Washington; here it is considered
a matter of fact.
Highly
Part of this American buildup--the details of which are
still classified--is known to include increasing the
once-experimental
U. S. Mobile Riverine Force--the first joing joint Navy Army river
campaign since the American Civil War. the first American river force
since the defeat of the Confederacy.
Jetself
Comi Commissioned in September, 1966, this riverine force,
notable for its once-in-a-centry uniqueness, is also the first time
Campaign
since the American Civil War the first joint Navy-Army river campaing
since the American Civil War. The Mobile Riverine Force has two
separate, but coordinated components:
two "floating" battalions of the
U. S. 9th Infantry Division (2000 soldiers) and the Navy's River
the mini-arm
Assault Flotilla One (1800 men), which taxis the Army troops into
their amphibious assaults. The GS/S
Benewal is the.
flagship for the both the navy And
Army Command He
The floating Home
and some the
"
Sectiones,
mabil berth for more fro
a.
a dizen
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Deepe
Mobile – Page
-
The USS Benewah is the flagship for the Navy and Army
commands and staff sections,
fov officers and enlisted men,
of the river assault boats.
the "floating home" for 1,100 of these
and a mobile berth for more than a dozen
Besides the Benewah, the Navy
has also provided four other ships, two to serve as floating barracks,
which
one for repair work and one as a floating supply warehouse. The sexskipam
One of the barrack ships, for example, is hem APL-27 26, an
ax auxiliary pero personnel lighter without self-propulsion,
is affectionately named by its 800 inhabi residents as "the Green Apple."
These ships, the only ones in the U. S. Navy painted "marine green"
only one in the U.S. Navy painted merine roon inster "haze gray"
are praised for keeping the American troops "out of the hair" of the
Vietnamese civilians and for preventing economic dislocation, inflation
and political unrest that has worried land-based commanders.
self-contained complex of ships is a mobile base area and moves from river to r
river depending on where amphibious troops operations are being conducted.
This
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Deepe
Mobile--page 3
Enminmamm
its
The future expansion of the Mobile Riverine Force rests
is bei has been assured by themf effectiveness of the units
in a xi past six-month experimental period of systematic operations
in both the Mekong Delta and the Rung Sat Speic Special Zone, which
lines the ocean-going shipping channel into Saigon. In this six-month
period, 1847 Viet Cong have been killed compared to 184 American sailors
and Army infantrymen. This 10 to 1 kill-ration is higher than any other
American unit in Vietnam. During this period, the Navy's mobile base
Large-Sule
mobile bane he moved and dropped anchor in seven different places
to Clossend
from which the Army sprang off for their search-and-destroy raids.
سفن
Fifteen major contacts with the Viet Cong have been made;
were
2000 enemy bunkers and fortifications have been destroyed.
more than
Captured
items include 450 weapons, 80,000 rounds of ammunition and 43 tons
of supplies 1847 Viot Cong have been killed compared to 184 American
sailors and infantrymen. This 10 to 1 kill-ration is her higher
than any other American unit in Vietnam. Captured enemy dostuments
documents indicate some battered Viet Cong battalions, once 700-men
strong, have been rendered 45 per cent effective. With supplies and
morale running low, Viet Cong commanders have ordered their units
to avoid contact with the Mobile Riverine Force. American officials,
from Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara down to Vietnam commanders,
are pleased with the results of the Mobile Riverine Force. And,
plans are underway to expand it dramatically.
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Deepe
Mobile--page 4
Λ
The tactical purpose of the Mobile Riverine Force is to
Heer-borne, yet
conduct classical search-and-destroy infantry operation, of three or four
days duration duration, in an attempt to crush the 37,000 Viet Cong
Hard Hat"
main-force battalions in the Mekong Delta. These Viet Cong
and beefed-up
units,
now being repli replenished with North Vietnamese troopers
of battalions and regiments, inosents hoernate in fort-like wase
areas, generally the low, wet ground of remote mangrove swamps or along
isolated rivers. They maintained training centers for new recruits,
recreation parks for battle-weary ones, combat hospitals built under
dense foliage, sewing factories for making uniforms and even PX's
ING
filled with hair tonic and candy.
Well-armed and overpower fro for
the meagre Vietnamese government units, x the Viet Cong stream Strength
caused military commanders to seek an elite American aqua-borne strike
force to carry the war to the Communist's flooded backyard. If these
Viet Cong hard-hat units could be smashed, the Viet C Vietnamese government
troops could week out the remaining guerrillas infesting the villages.
recently
Then, the newly-elected government in Saigon could pacify the villages,
bringing the people peace and a new standard of living by building
schools, bridges, irrigation projects and dispensaries.
By September, 1966, American commanders had the answer
with the commissioning of the Mobile Riverine Force the first Americen
river force since the d defeat of the Confederacy.
The force has two
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Mobile - page 5.-
Unlike the helicopter
The Navy, instead of supporting a traditional Io
Iwo Jima-styled operation with titantic battleships and destroyers,
initiated
was committed in the Mekong Delta to amphibious warfare whittled
down to a Tom Thumb scale.
"Our amphibious operations are a miniature in time and
scale," one officer explained. "The Navy carries in a strike force
which assaults and searches for several days and then leaves. The
force doesn't stay to occupy territory as x was done in Iwo Jima."
The Army troops in the Delta use the same classical infantry
tactics on land, whether they are positioned there by boats, helicopters
or trucks; with troops and boats they construct a box around a pocket
of Viet Cong and then attempt to shrink the sides of the box until the
enemy is aau ht,
However, without roads in the Delta,
trucks were
in "
Air
advisable.
The advantage of using boats, instead of helicopters, is from the
in the
Swan
Army standpoint, assault boats and are more useful than helicopters,
first because helicopters can not land troops in some of the mangrove
swamps, second because the boats remain with the infantry troops throughout
the operation and provide minute to minute gmommum fire support,
night,
from the ground, rather than from the a
(antically overhead..
troops, instead of overhead from helicopters
.
even at
Horizontally
close-in/ near the ground
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Deep
mobile-page 6.
River page
to Condyer
+ Surtation it first
20th Century to the dy dis
mini – Armadi
a new.
#newyor
The Navy, however, did not have to consult its Civil War
hei history books to re-learn river doctrine and to revamp its equipment;
the
it simply consulted the Vietnamese Navy. By a quirk of history,
Vietnamese sailors became the advisors to the world's most powerful
Navy. Shortly after World War II, the
Frome
left the French
a number of naval lending craft amens amongst other war surplus goods.
The French modified and armored them, then shipped them to Vietnam
during the French Indo-China War nearly two decades ago. These armar ed
vessels, come called. Monitors, were organized into Naval Assault
Divisions,
similar to the American organization now. They were the only
tactical innovation the French made in conducting the unconventional war.
When the French lost the war, the flotilla was turned over to the fledging
Vietnamese Navy, which kept them running for years more by ingenuity
than an adequacy of spare parts. When the American advisory effort began
in earnest in 1962, the American sailors started to learn the secrets
of inland water war from the Vietnamese.
(Love)
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Дебре
Mobile
River--pa,
7.
Copying the Vietnamese river gunboats,
American naval
experts designed their "vest pocket navy." Their task force in miniature
consisted of bantam battleships, called Monitors, dwarfed destroyers,
baby flagships and the armored troop transports. Most of the vessels
were modifications of LCM's (Landing Craft, Mechanized), the workhorse
of World War II invasions, which makes the vessels older than the
majority of the sailors and soldiers who ride it. One World War II
veteran sailor explained, "You remember the pictures of Iwo Jima
with the big boats steaming in the distance and the little boats
carrying troops from the big boats to the beacner beaches. Well, in
the Delta we're fighting with only those little boats."
The gunfire of the boats in River Flotilla One squa
quadruples the orgmiz organic, minute-to-minute firepower of the two
infantry battalions they carry into battle. The heavy gunboat of the
flotilla is called the Monitor. The Civil War Monitor--the "cheesebox
on a raft"--would hardly compare with its smaller latter-day version.
The original flat-decked ironclad weighed 900 tons, was 172 feet long and
carried a crow of 58. The 20th-century version weighs 85 tons, is
60 feet, 6 inches long and carries a crew of 11. The famed turret a
century ago revolutionized warfare by turning its two eleven-inch guns,
rather than having the entire boat me maneuvered; the 20th-century
version has four turrets, containing a .40 mm. forward cannon, a .20 mm.
cannon, a twin .50 and one .30 calibre machineguns. An .81 mm.
morter is housed in the bowels of the boat./
(More)
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Deepe..
Mobile.
River--pa
48
A communications module replaces the Monitor's
mortar pit in the baby flagship. For the armored troop carriers,
a 40-man troop compartment replaces the mortar pit and the forward gun
turret.
Several troop carriers have added a small helicopter pad,
the size of two ping-pong tables, above the troop level; sailors
refer to this craft as the smallest aircraft carrier in the world.
newest boat in the flotilla-built especially for Vietnam--is the
Assault Support Patrol Boat (ASPB), a 50-foot dwarfed destroyer
designed to escort the slower troop-carriers and to provide counter-
measures against enemy mines.
The
Unlike the Vietnamese gunboats, the American versions have
Rounds
a grating of trigger armor-like bars on a jail window-over the vulnerable
portions of the boat. This causes the Viet Cong recaill recoiless rifles
to point-detonate harmlessly on the outside of the vessel rather than
piercing the armor and throwing pellets over the troops inside. A four-
inch ring of syrofoam was also added along the waterline to absorb the
heat and pellets of Viet Cong weaponry. Other innovations for the Mobile
Riverine Force includes the only waterborne bad battalion in the world,
which the Army invented when it has yet to find any solid river bank on
its turo Six - gun batterie
which to drive
towed.
Six-9
truck towed batteries.
105-mm.
artillery
Hintzer
(More)
8
truck_
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Deepe
Mobile
Züge 9.
The Navy relied heavily on Vietnamese experience, not only
in boat design, but also in river tactics and lessons learned. In the
United States, a Pret Vietnamese lecturer taught the sailors about the
FRESH
expected problems of the my water war. Before the American boats
arrived in Vietnam, the Vietnamese loanded loaned the U. S. Navy
their own vessels---a sort of lend-lease in reverse. In Vietnam,
American sailors fought, lived and worked with Vietnamese river crews
for two weeks, before starting to operato separately.
"I got a world of information from the Vietnamese
one American officer explained.
commander I accompanied,"
me how the Viet Cong ambush and where they ambush; how and
"Ho told
where they may mine you. I learned that sometimes the Viet Cong
let you pass by three or four times on the river, but they zap you the
fifth time. I learned to expect the unexpected everythaze."
Another senior Naval commandor explained, "The American
sailors, who had never sailed rivers in wartime, learned from the
Vietnamese how to make the rivers work for them, not against them, how
to handle the boats, learned the seamanship of tides and currents, the
waterways and the lore of the rivers."
ways of the
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Deepe
mobile--page 10
The Mobile Riverine Force is as coordinated as during the American Civil
two
War when the Army and Navy were working together "like to blades of a
pair of shear
"Everything we do the Army is coordinated and enmeshed,"
one senior Naval officer explained. "The Army wouldn't exist here without
the Navy and the Navy would have no purpose without the Army."
00",
in the more earthy language of a young seaman, which
"The Doggies (Army)
the soldiers call "swabbies":
are happy with the
And we
good food, clean sheets and hot showers the Navy supplies.
sailors watch the Army marching up to its neck in mud and think Thank
God, wel we're in the Navy'."
Yet, the Mobile Riverine Force breaks one cardinal 20th
cet century military principle--unity of command. No one o commander
calls the shots throughout the operations.
"The unity of command principle is completely violated,"
snerior Army officer explained. "There are two commands in this force.
There's no operational control for the whole force.
anxapaxatṁgnxhxnrmmm
one
m.Tammxxx.xxxmm
XBIBERXONmamm The Army plans the sceme o scheme
of maneuver for the operation and then we ask the Navy if they will support
us. So far, the Navy has always said yes. I don't know what will happen
if it ever says no--then something has to give."
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Doope
mobile-age 11.
This 20th-century Army-Navy marriage produced some of
the zaniest mad-ventures in recent military history. While all
American si sailors and soldiers spoke English, they spoke different
technical dialects. Ship signs had to re-painted in both vocabularios
and terminologies defined bow (front of the ship), passageway (hall),
galley (mess hall), scuttlebutt (water fountain), overhead (ceiling),
bulkhead (wall). Incoming Army officers were given orientation
briefings on Naval wardroom etiquettes no discussion of women or
politics and don't sit down before the ship's captain. Considering
itself a "gentleman's service," the Navy quietly persuaded the
infantrymen to "hose down" the mud from their fatigues and boots
before boarding the ships. This was ger gradually extended to include
an Army officer searching the infantrymon for live ammunition before
floating
boarding the barracks, ships, a necessity dramatized when a shook-up
startled sailor found an Army grenade in the ship's washing machine.
A common complaint among the Army troopers was they could not drink
beer on the Navy ships-a traditional regulation on commissioned vessels.
An inter-service compromisest, however, lead to a monthly beer party
on the off-ship, non-commissioned Navy pontoons with the Army soldiers
being issued Army beer and the sailors, in a separate line, receiving
Navy-issued bear.
(More)
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Deepe
Mobile
River page
day.
Humorous incidents and surprises were often the order of the
One Naval vessel was thrown into a turmoil when the crew discovered
and it survived for two days as the Navy attempted to
a cobra aboard
freeze it, gas it and smoke it out with a fire extinguisher. At least
one Army ground commander was heard to request over the radio: "Request
permission to kill a V.C. crocodile." The reply: "Permission granted if
you can determine it's V.C." (It wasn't killed.) Soldiers began to
respect skin-piercing red ants, which they reported to be "Viet Cong
indoctrinated." The Army troopers started carrying cigarettes, pipes,
Bibles and maps in their helmets in order to keep them dry as they forged
swamps and streams. Some soldiers, when rivertops covered their helmets,
learned to hold their breath and walk along the river bottom until they
rose on the other side. Non-swimmers blew up their rubber air mattresses
And
mad paddled themselves across the river, along with the squad's ammunition.
Frequently, soldiers had to use ropes or sticks to pull their buddies out
of the chest-deep rice paddies; one G.I. had to be retrieved by grabbing
hold of a helicopter skid.
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Beverly Ann Deepe
38, Vo Tanh
Saigon, Vietnam
January 31, 1968
warden--page 1
(The U. S. Navy is again involved in river warfare--
This
for the first time since the American Civil War. This three-part
report examines America's Rice Paddy Navy in South Vietnam.
last article describes the unparalled unparalleled patrolling operation,
conductedxx by the crews of the "Unsinkable
called Game Warden,
River Dragones) Dragons").
Binh Thuy,
South Vietnam
The remarkably successful operation Game W
American "little boat" patrolling along the major fingers
of the Mekong River is unprecedented in the annals of U. S. Navy Naval
history.
193
Es its 193-year
For the first time in the
history, American Naval forces are conducting inland "muddy-water"
patrolling in nose-to-nose combat with its enemy forces.
The operation, codenamed Game Warden, is designed
to block Viet Cong movement of men and supplies across the major
rond the
branches of the Mekong Re River. The operation conduced conducted Clock.
A
Has been
for the past 1 months by 120 river cropt
deemed Fuccessful enough
to expand
its
fullnough
200
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deepe
warden--page 2
the operation Same Wonder is conducted.
1500-mon task force
TASK
by T.S. Noon's
novy's
task 1500
by 6
196
with Hand quarters at Bert they on
The Capital & the.
the outskirts 2 Cro
Mekong
Even America's last river war, in the conflict between the States
conflict, during the Civil War a century ago did not see river patrolli
inland+ patrolling of such magnitude and energy. The battle of the Mississippi
River involved conventional naval tactics of overpowering Confederate
forts and defeating Confederate forts alo and installations along the
river banks, and once this these were defeated,
to control thew die
:: wide es expanses of the river until the next fort could be over-run.
This
Mississippi River operation,
comparable to the tactical innovation
thus conventional in nature
of the Mobile Riverine Force in Vietnam,
Operation Game Warden,
is,
however, more counter-insurgency in nature,
with emphasis on "un-spinning" Viet Cong supplies for the local population.
from the local population.
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Deepe
Wonde
River-page
سلام
66-5
The story of America's muddy water war in Vietnam began
in 1965. When American ground troops marched into the jungled areas
north of Saigon, the Navy was ordered to survey the problems of
operating in the riverine environment south of Saigon--the second
battleground. Here, in the famed Mekong Delta, was a new world
for the Navy as well as for American ground-pounding Army troops.
there was more water than ground in the Delta.
But,
There
And
The mighty Mekong River, one of the longest rivers in the world,
rises 2800 miles away along the mountain slopes of Tibet, flounders
through or between the countries of South Asia, until, in South
Vietnam, it fans out into a lacework of tributaries, estuaries
riverlets and empties into the South China Sea. It forms en route
one of the richest ricebowls in the world, producing livelihood for
half of South Vietnam's population.
American sailors call this
brown lifeline "the Mississippi of South East Asia;" the Vietnamese
call it Cuu Long--the nine-headed dragon. Waterways rather than roads
are the chief means of transport; 5000 miles of navigable inland
waterways fr finger through the area, compared to 1200 miles of
once-upon-a-time roads, now mostly cut, mined or excavated by the
Viet Cong.
(More)
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Deepe
River-page 10
4
The Delta was a nightmare for military tacticians.
Trucking
troops to battle was rarely possible. The high rice dikes hindered the
S
use of x the "swimming tank"--the black, squat M-113 armored personnel
carriers. Helicopters could ferry troops to the battlefield, but could
not provide day-and-night heavy fire support. Artillery had to be placed
on solid high ground-often too far away to cover troops on the march.
some military camps simply floated away during the flood
times, when the snows of Tibet melted and gushed southward. American
Special Forces and their Vietnamese counterparts had to perform drastic
engineering feats to save their base camps sprinkled throughout the
Even worse,
Delta.
Thousands of empty oil drums were dumped from low-flying aircraft
and the Special Forces built their radio shacks and barracks to float
on the bobbing containers. In some camps, the buildings floated,
that as the water rose,
SO
so did the buildings. But, this required too many
oil drums. In other camps, they constructed their buildings so that only
the floors floated; as the water rose, the furniture, men and rats all
moved closer and closer to the ceiling.
Their mortar pits and artillery
needed more stable platforms, so these were placed inside giant upright
coment cylinders One Green Beret team built two-story thatch homes for the
dependents of their Vietnamese irregulars. But, because Vietnamese
babies do not wear diapers, the families living on the first floor
became increasingly damp and angry. So,
houses, letting one family live on the first floor most of the year,
moving them up to the second floor when the floods arrived.
the Americans built more
but
(More)
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Deepe
Woordry
River
page 15
"I was born in the Louisiana bayoux," one Special Forces.
commander, a Negro captain, told me as he stared at his triangular
island-camp surrounded by marshland.
"But I left there twelve years
ago. I had to come to Vietnam to find Louisiana again."
Nightmare int
та
#
Partially
By April, 1966, the Navy had answered part of, this
more new dreambut, the Siilor
enomous Delta problem. The answer was the PBR patrol boat, river.
cale the "sentable River goes one the.
PBR nightin
offertionitale
The 31-foot fiberglass boat, heavily armed and carrying a four-man crew,
is a souped-up carbon copy of the $16,000 cabin cruisers which have
delighted water skiing enthusiasts in Puget Sound and Miami Bay. But,
the vessel costs the Navy $85,000, with twin 220-horsepower diesel
engines, armor along the steering apparatus and special twin water
jet pumps, replacing a propeller which would get tangled in river
As the American Civil War startled naval warriors with the
debris.
advent of ironolads, tin-clads and even cotton-clads, the PBR
revolutionized today's muddy water Navy with two common household
products: fiberglass and styrofoam.
as steel
The fiberglass makes the boat half as heavy and expensive
and the sailors are delighted there is no rust to scrape off.
The honeycombed styrofoam, commonly used for Christmas decorations,
acts as flotation inside the boat.
Both ingredients mean the boat
is difficult to sink.
(More)
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Deepe
mobite
River--page 12
26
"Here's the world's most powerful Navy fighting a war
with 31-foot fiberglass boats," one sailor mused, as though the fact
astonished even him. "But, I love this boat.
it to shreds, but the pieces will still float.
The Viet Cong can shoot
It's a giant ping pong
ball."
Other sailors frequently recalled, "In the days of
John Paul Jones, we said the Navy was made of wooden ships and iron
mon.
Then we got iron ships and iron men. Now we've added plastic
boats and steel men.
almost two gen Ago #
initiated
The 120 PBR's, like Indians on a cloverleaf warpath,
started 24-hour patrolling along 250 miles of the four main Mekong
channel the Hen Luon Co Chien, Bassac and My Tho. The
operation is officially named Game Warden, but some sailors refer to
it as real-life Terry and the Pirates. The operation was designed to
stabilize the four major fingers of the Mekong, to erase Viet Cong
tax collection and smuggling of war goods and to re-establish Vietnamese
government control. Navy officials believe they are succeeding and
its fuist
plan to increase soon the number of patrol boats to 200. In/19 months
of operation, the Game Warden crews have inspected 250,408 watercraft,
The
detained 9,460 persons for improper identification
the
Viet Cong
have suffered 1,226 boats destroyed or captured, 1254 guerrillas
killed and 308 fortifications denge damaged or destroyed.
(More)
And
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Всере
River-page 13
137
galore.
mud,
Initially,
the Navy crews suffered nautical headaches
Viet Cong river barricades, made of coconut tree logs and
had to be blown up. The crews inherited old French charts
that
and Army ground maps,
neither of which showed sandbards
could mysteriously appear in the middle of the main channel one day
but be gone the next. One officer grounded his boat--"there was enough
land on all sides of the vessel to play football"--one enlisted man
laughed; the boat had to wait ten hours for the tide to carry it out
again. Many of the smaller streams of the Mekong had never boen
charted, or even named.
Juliet Canal, Route
Hd Island No. 10.
66, Highway 101, Purple Heart Alley, and Meiss's Mire) were plotted
on official charts, named after major firefights, humorous
incidents, radio call signs or the first patrol officer to transit
the stream.
10"
Americans in Vietnam, often use the Vitnemersion club tops.
to something bad,
distinct
In this case,
Island No. 10 is the nickname of Dung Island at the
mouth of the Bassac River, where the PBR's have had numerous firefights
with the Viet Cong. The nickname is unrelated to the American Civil
War island-battleground of the same name, which was a key Confederate
defense in the Mississippi River. After weeks of siege and bombardment,
Island No. 10 fell on April 7, 1962, and lead to the fall of New Orleans
18 days later. The Mississippi River has since washed Island No. 10
into oblivion.).
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Deepe
8
River page 14
At first,
the Vietnamese river people were terrified of the
PBR's, calling them "Little Green Monsters," or the "River Dragon."
Intelligence information glan gleaned from the people was scarce.
But
the 1500 sailors, who proudly wear the black berets, had been taught
two weeks of Vietnamese language before leaving the United States.
Gradually, they struck up "how's the fishing"
the river villagers.
conversations with
"We started handing out little plastic buckets painted
in the yellow-and-red Vietnamese government colors," EN2 Charles
Cox, Sr., of Los Angeles recalled. "Each bucket contained soap,
twel towels, fish hooks, needles, thread and aspirins. Sen suddenly,
the sampans came running up and down the river swarming all over to
get the buckets.".
2#
EN2 Cox,
a 42-year-old veteran of World War II and Korea,
explained, Soon we were making friends on the river. I could pick
the day the old gray-bearded farmer from the island would be going
to market. In four months, we knew most of the water taxi drivers
on the river. I remember one guy we kept asking if he'd seen any V. C.;
we knew his neighborhood was loaded with them, but he'd say nothing.
Then, one day he took his wife to the hospital with grenade fragments
sprayed over her back. The V. C. had stored a hand grenade in their
garden and as his wife was hoeing, the grenade exploded. Not only did
it injury his wife--but the V. C. wanted to charge him 700 piastres
($7) for the grenade. He was furious and after that, he started to tell
us alot."
(More)
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Deepe
River-page
09.
As the FBR's were often the only contact with the outside
Sometimes the Viet Cong
world for many river hamlets, the sailors began taking flares, grenades
and ammo to the isolated outposts and to rush to their rescue when undr
under Viet Cong attack. (A favorite Communist tactic was not only to
stomp a defeated outpost into the ground, but also to add insult to
injury by digging up the outpost and dumpting the dirt into the
river, leaving only a water-filled crater.
would string the heads of government soldiers on the barbed wire
perimeter in full view of all boat-passers.) Then, the river
people began to ask the PBR's for medical evacuations (one baby was
born on one boat) and the sailors started to transport a medical
corpsman to the villages. They also supplied blackboards, books
and cement for schools that had fallen into disrepair. Some "adopted*
children in outposts, giving them dolls sent by families in the
United States. Children with hairlips were sent to American
plastic surgeons and were mended. C-rations (called Sea-Rats by the
sailors) were liberally distributed to mal-nourished fishermen.
Within months, the PBR's had made friends along the Mekong.
(More)
--------------------
- Page 22
--------------------
Deepe
Canber
page 16 10.
Systematically,
the combat sailors, aided by Vietnamese
Under
One
policemen, began searching for Viet Cong contraband and smuggled war
materials. Under the false floor boards of sampans, they found weapons
and large quantities of rice. (One sailor also found a shark).
the U-shaped, palm-leaf roofs of samps sampans they found rifles.
woman was found sterri steering a barge-ful of 1000 nuoc mam jars;
975 were filled with the evil-smelling fish sauce; 25 contained
Other modicines were found in babies diapers
assorted antibiotics.
or inside loaves of bread. Hand grenades in waterproofed sacks were
found attached to the underside of barges; the sailors began using
effective metal detectors. They requested a Vietnamese police-woman
to accompany them to search the x female passengers,
medicines in their blouses. Viet Cong tax receipts, reading, "Your
money is helping to kill Americans,"
were found in younes his
who hid
coloring books. The sailors destroyed and disproved to signs
along the river banks reading, "The Viet Cong cross the river here
and the patrol boats can not stop us."
(More)
--------------------
- Page 23
--------------------
Deepe
Wunden
River page //
Each bloody firefight with the Viet Cong gradually shrank
the coffers of Communist tax collectors. Along the Ham Luong River,
villagers no longer had tola pay 2 100,000-pite piastres ($1000) in
"we had a firefight
Viet Cong taxes, but as one sailor observed,
In appreciation,
the
every day far for four months to stop that."
river people began to stop the PBR's and give the sailors bananas,
pineapples and other axotic tropical fruit. Motorized sampan owners
wrote the U. S. Naval commander a letter saying, "Since the day the
PBR's arrived on the Ham Luong river River, the heartless V. C.
actions were put to an end. For example, before the PBR's arrived,
the owner of the Hung Phat motorized sampan was captured and riquidae
liquidated by the V. C. and a number of other owners were forced to
witness the execution. Now these ameele atrocities have ceased."
Firefights between PBR's and Viet Cong hidden on the
one occured every hour.
river banks were common; often, initially,
18
During -month period, one sailor was 289 firefights. Last year the
some sailors were wounded
In the
boat crews suffered 23 per cent casualties;
three times, but refused to leave the war zone as they could have.
trees, the Viet Cong hung claymore mines, which splattered the
crews with king-size shotgun pellets. One resill recoiless rifle round
squarely hit one boat in the engine, killing two amem crew members and
flipping the remaining two into the air. Intelligence reports indicate
the two landed in the water, swam ashore and were captured by the Viet
Conf, who paraded them around the remote villages like cattle.
(More)
--------------------
- Page 24
--------------------
Deepe
River--page 1/2
EN2 Cox,
who has extended in Vietnam to serve 18 months,
explained the increasing measure of success of the black-boret sailors:
"When our patrols first started in 1966, the Viet Cong had
wide open control of the main rivers. At first they would fight us from
their sampans, but they soon found the PBR's could run and shoot faster.
Then they started to signal across the rivers with lights when the
PBR's weren't around, but we picked up the movement on our radar. After
that, they moved in a security company on each side of the river to
protect their crossings and to divert the PBR's attention with a
firefight. That also failed. Now they just sneak across in one or
two sampans and move like the underground railroad did in the Civil
War. That's the stage things are now. We're just patrolmen on a highway."
During the past 18 months, the boat captained by EN2 Cox,
a husky Negro,
PBR-109
took 60 hits--a near-record in the Delta. He captained
HM Jonn
Эт
on.
member used in
a little boot" number, whitt
Ther
dar
become
tute
John F. Kennedy.
Parsident
--------------------
- Page 25
--------------------
wurden - Page 13.
Grita tris
Meetin
Jackong
braucher & the nekong River.
Now tents More And More
use the Conted, the
Unsinkable River Dragane
mire
to operate.
simply Along
are beginnin
the Snellin
Stems Hand
For more
Canals. This Success
of this
de
cult And
dangerous atte
determine
Cuillin put detin quration
نفسه
the South Unitranice
Vores estables # control
تحميه
its citzenry.
in The Mekong
over.
Rain, where Half the population
lives
War,
As more and more American troops enter Vietnam's Delta
they will follow the river-borne concept laid down by America's
Rice Paddy Navy. This mini-Navy, alongside
This mini-Navy, alongside
the world's gigantic
Reminiscent
nuclear-powered ships, has already proved worthy of the words written
America's
by President Lincoln during the last river war:
"Nor must Uncle Sam's web feet be forgotten. At all the
watery margins they have been present. Not only on the deepft sea,
the broad bay, the rapid river, but also up the narrow muddy bayou, and
wherever the ground was a little damp, they have been and made their
tracks.
-30-
Date: 1968, Jan. 30
Subject: Vietnam War, 1961-1975; Riverine operations; Strategy
Location: South Vietnam
Coordinates: 10.8231; 106.6297
Size: 20 x 33 cm
Container: B9, F9
Format: dispatches
Collection Number: MS 363
Collection Title: Beverly Deepe Keever, Journalism Papers
Creator: Keever, Beverly Deepe
Collector: Keever, Beverly Deepe
Copyright Information: These images are for educational use only. To inquire about usage or publication, please contact Archives & Special Collections.
Publisher: Archives & Special Collections
Language: English