Brigadier General Frederick L. Karch, arrived at Da Nang . The 3d Battalion, 9th Marines,
3d Marine Division became the first U . S . ground combat unit to land in Vietnam .
(Gazette, v . 49, no . 4 . Apr 1965, p . 1 ; Unit File - 3d Mar Div .)
Wooden Ships at Red Beach
My second ship, the USS Abnaki (TF96) received orders to work with a Mine Flotilla in Vietnam. I don't recall the date that we arrived "on station." Nor do I remember which mine flotilla it was, awaiting our arrival. The assignment would result in us "mapping" the bottom of an approach to a beach which would eventually be the location of the first (and only) amphibious landing by U.S. Marines; at the time we performed the work I don't remember that we knew the final plan. Our efforts were just part of many unchronicled and meaningless preparations and contingencies of the military, at times seeming almost random. At times, what we were assigned to do seemed like just the Navy equivalent of digging a fox-hole, then filling it back in.
I had joined the Abnaki in December 1963 a couple weeks after John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. When that historic day occurred I was in Tucson, Arizona on shore-leave with orders to report to the USS Abnaki in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii after the leave was complete. The assassination, however, resulted in all military on leave being expedited to their next ordered assignment, as a precautionary measure in case the attack on Kennedy was the beginning of a larger effort. My next assignment happened to be waiting at the salvage docks near Hickam Air Force Base, at the entrance to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
The USS Abnaki (ATF-96) was a so-called fleet sea-going tug. She performed heavy towing over long distances, as well as more pedestrian assignments including towing gunnery targets, supporting salvage or repair efforts, and special "one-off" assignments such as the one I'm about to describe. Soon after I boarded the Abnaki we left for Westpac (Navy-speak for the Western Pacific).
I don't remember which port in Asia we left from to support the Mine Flotilla's efforts...I want to say Subic Bay, Philippines, or maybe Hong Kong. Even though I was one of the duty radiomen aboard and had a higher security clearance than all but three officers, I didn't know what our assignment was about. That message had come in as a long series of 5-character alphanumeric clusters of unintelligible code, then was hand-decrypted by the Operations Officer and delivered under Top Secret cover to the Captain. Soon after, it became common knowledge, at least among those of us in Operations, that we would meet up with a mine squadron near Da Nang harbor and assist them as required.
When we met up with the squadron they off-loaded to us several devices about 3 or 4 feet long, narrow, conical which resembled small missiles. These projectiles were fitted with electronic wires wrapped around the tow-lines. As I remember, these "missiles" even had fins to keep them at a stable depth when towed at a particular speed. As it turned out they contained sonar devices which would rapidly "ping" the bottom of the seabed and allow a "map" of its terrain to be graphed by the portable equipment on board our ship as we towed them along a grid pattern at a pre-determined, optimal speed.
The mine flotilla's vessels were among the few ships remaining in the U.S. "wooden" Navy. The wooden Navy ships worked exclusively in mine sweeping and removal, or mine placement and laying. Their hulls were made of wood, and their exteriors contained little or no ferrous metals, depending instead on copper and brass for most of the external metal. This lack of iron or steel in their hulls made them less susceptible to setting off one of the mines they were laying, or accidentally exploding an enemy mine they were retrieving and disarming.
The whole point of our mission was to map the bottom of Red Beach1 so that this flotilla could lay mines, eventually allowing U.S. mines to be optimally placed to protect the Marine "invasion" landing path to the beach, and of course, the bottom-map would be used to make known the presently unknown bottom terrain of Red Beach1 and its approach so that the fully outfitted Marines would not drown in the surf on their trudge from the landing craft under the burden of 60 or 80 lbs. of gear.
We enlisted men were unaware of the use our efforts would support; per normal Navy operating mentality, we did not know the importance of our efforts at the time we were performing them; we did not know that some native or immigrant son of the U.S. would rely on the accuracy and reliability of our efforts. Perhaps the Captain and the officers knew, but, the crew did not know that one day in the Spring of 1965, 3,300 - 3,500 young men would trudge up the slope of Red Beach1 from their landing craft, in the sole sea-to-land amphibious landing of the entire Viet Nam war, only to be greeted by local townspeople, a few newsmen, school girls with flowers, a few previously assigned U.S. personnel, and several high-ranking South Vietnamese military members. Though Red Beach1 was "hot" during the time we mapped it, the beach would be safer than the streets of New York City by the time the Marines landed.
Suffice it to say, this amphibious event bore no resemblance to "D-Day" on Omaha Beach in France. By that, I intend no take-away from the commitment of the Marines and their leadership...they would have done whatever was needed, including jumping into the surf and scrambling up the beach under deadly fire. But, the day was a foreshadowing of the circus and spectacle which the U.S. presence in South Vietnam would become. Even a none too happy Marine General Karcher was bedecked with flowers by local maidens, and photographed for the world to see, his combat fatigues adorned with blossoms. The U.S.'s "quiet buildup" of troops turned out to be anything but. LBJ was President, and Vietnam was already resembling the clown act in a West Texas circus.
The military leadership and diplomatic corps. had advised against such a spectacle, which would involve tanks and amphibious tractors landing near a large local populace, as well as a column of support ships cluttering the already constricted waters of the bay, but this was about to become a politician's war, and a Southern politician at that. L.B. Johnson knew how to milk a spectacle, and then then steal the cream that rose to the surface. I'm not saying he was directly responsible for the spectacle at Red Beach1 in Da Nang; I'm simply saying that kind of comedy became the hallmark of our presence in SEA under LBJ's command, even as the number of deaths mounted. As it occurred later, under the guise of an attack on the Turner Joy, LBJ was not above creating his own crises and photo-ops in order to justify an escalation of U.S. presence and use of U.S. power in Southeast Asia. But that's a whole other story.
The use of wooden ships would continue for awhile. They would perform some meaningful tasks, but mostly they would be curiosities wherever they docked. And even we salty sailors in the auxiliary fleets would stop and look as we passed by on the adjoining pier, or we would stop in our tasks and watch them sail by at the mouth of this or that harbor. They would perform a few more "live" tasks removing explosive underwater booby-traps in Da Nang and other rivers, and harbors, but as with most Navy traditions, they would slowly fade from use and join the "moth ball fleet" in some harbor's backwater, and, the politicians would eventually take over the strategy and tactics "on the ground" (and on the seas) as the Generals and Admirals became unwilling to risk their ranks and retirement, and become more or less willing pawns to political theater.
I don't know if that day, March 8, 1965, was a Presidential reach-in, or was just the first obvious, unquestionable FUBAR of the Vietnam Conflict, but it wasn't the last...and, now events like that have become the routine. Presidents fire senior officers for comments made in private conversations, and even thwart their tactics at ground level on the field of battle; chain of command has become a possibility but not a certainty, and consequently, most Generals and Admirals are now equally officer and politician, as they must be if they want to retire at full rank and pay.
Maybe a more peaceful world will be the result, I don't know, though generals usually are not the ones who start wars. Starting wars is almost entirely accomplished by politicians these days. In any case, I was there, we were there, before the Marines landed. There always are the unknowns who are there "before"...those beach heads don't prepare themselves for those photo ops of landings.
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| Marine General Karch and 3,500 Marines Storm Red Beach1 in the face of an unrelenting volley of flash-bulbs, handshakes, and flowers in Vietnam's first and last amphibious landing by combat forces. |
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