William+Andrews-+TONKIN+GULF+INCIDENT

Tonkin Golf Incident By William Andrews The Golf of Tonkin Incident happened during the first year of Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidency. After President Kennedy died, President Johnson ordered more forces to Vietnam, and allowed the Central Intelligence Agency to carry out Operation 34A, which sent more ships to Vietnamese waters. These ships had secretly been purchased from Norway. The Navy SEAL team trained South Vietnamese men, and they were dropped behind enemy lines in July, 1964. They were sent to attack the North Vietnamese. On the summer night of July 31, 1964, the Navy destroyer U.S.S. Maddox was sent to patrol the Gulf of Tonkin, which is located to the northeast of Vietnam. It was sent there because South Vietnamese volunteers, who had been dropped behind enemy lines, were attacking in the gulf area. The Maddox was sent to check if the North Vietnamese radar and defenses were strong, and could catch these men. It was given orders to not go closer than eight miles from the Vietnamese coast, and four miles from the island of Hon Nieu. On August 2, three North Vietnamese ships fired on the Maddox. The Maddox outgunned all three ships. Two days later, on August 4, the Maddox and another ship, The Turner Joy, both led by Captain John J. Herrick, were still patrolling. This time they were given the order not to go closer than eleven miles off the Vietnamese coast. That night there was a great storm on the Gulf of Tonkin. Both ships thought they were being attacked by the North Vietnamese, and immediately reported back to HQ that they were being attacked. For two full hours the two boats fired at targets on their radars. Only later did the captain of the Maddox admit that the stormy night could have tricked them into believing that they were being attacked. But unfortunately it was too late. Soon President Johnson got the word of the supposed attack, and ordered 64 jets to bomb pre-mapped military targets. This caught the Vietnamese by surprise because they were not expecting to be attacked. Because of this, they were only able to shoot down two of the 64 American jets. That night President Johnson appeared on TV to the American public and announced that our ships in Vietnam had been attacked. The next day he told Congress the North Vietnamese had conducted further attacks against the United States. He then pushed for a resolution that, as he said, “expresses the unity and determination of the United States in supporting freedom and in protecting peace in Southeast Asia.” An hour after the jets, Herrick, the captain, radioed in that the attack may never have happened, and there may not have been any Vietnamese boats in the vicinity. Later he radioed in again saying that if there was a boat, it fired a torpedo, which was heard but not seen. He also said that all of our torpedo reports might be wrong, because the sonar man was probably hearing the ship’s propeller beat. President Johnson, after hearing this said, “For all I know our Navy was shooting at whales out there.”

Sources: Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: a political, social, and military history. The National Security Arcive