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August

Exhibits & Collections > History Up Close > July

In August 1964 it was not only the weather that was hot on board U.S. Navy warships operating in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of North Vietnam. As part of an effort to put military pressure on the Communist nation, U.S. destroyers intensified their Desoto Patrols, engaging in intelligence gathering missions in international waters while South Vietnamese fast patrol boats staged raids against coastal targets.

On the afternoon of 2 August 1964, North Vietnam chose to respond, sending Soviet-built P-4 motor torpedo boats to attack the U.S. destroyer Maddox (DD 731). The attacks were unsuccessful, with torpedoes launched against the American warship missing their mark and naval gunfire scoring only one minor hit. The North Vietnamese paid a heavy price for the attack when F-8 Crusader jet fighters from Fighter Squadron (VF) 51 off the carrier Ticonderoga (CVA 14) strafed them, leaving one motor torpedo boat afire and damaging two others.

What the North Vietnamese failed to do tactically, they succeeded in accomplishing strategically, their emboldened response to American presence in the Tonkin Gulf prompting President Lyndon B. Johnson and his military advisers to step up the Desoto Patrols, dispatching the destroyer C. Turner Joy (DD 951) to join Maddox. On the night of 4 August 1964, Carl von Clausewitz’s “fog of war” was on full display in the Gulf of Tonkin. Maddox and C. Turner Joy reported radar contacts and then radioed that they were under attack from North Vietnamese motor torpedo boats, bringing a flurry of activity in the area and back home in Washington D.C. Aircraft launched from the Ticonderoga, led by VF-51 skipper Commander James Stockdale, arrived on scene and saw no trace of the enemy. Captain John Herrick, in command of the destroyers, reported that upon evaluation of the action, weather and “overeager” sonarmen may have accounted for some of the radar contacts and that a review of the action should take place. Nevertheless, in Washington, intercepted enemy communications combined with the U.S. destroyer reports pointed towards an attack and the decision was made to launch a retaliatory air strike against North Vietnam.

On 5 August 1964, with the carrier Constellation (CVA 64) having steamed into position to join Ticonderoga, sixty-four strike aircraft roared into the skies and headed for the coast of North Vietnam as part of Operation Pierce Arrow. While they were airborne and en route to their targets—the oil storage complex at Vinh and North Vietnamese naval vessels along the coast—President Johnson was in front of television cameras in the Oval Office, stating to the American public that “limited and fitting strikes” were underway in response to “open aggression on the high seas against the United States of America.” Upon completion of the attacks, U.S. Navy aircraft left behind burning oil tanks and some thirty enemy vessels sunk or damaged. Tragically, they also flew back to their carriers minus two of their own, Lieutenant (junior grade) Richard Sather, who was killed when his A-1 Skyraider crashed, and Lieutenant (junior grade) Everett Alvarez, who was taken prisoner after ejecting from his crippled A-4 Skyhawk and held until 1973.

Two days after the retaliatory strikes, the U.S. Congress overwhelmingly passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution giving President Johnson broad authority in using military force in Vietnam without a formal declaration of war. In 1965, the first significant U.S. ground forces went ashore, an event that along with the carrier strikes of August 1964 symbolized the beginning of the long and tortuous American involvement in the Vietnam War.

Pictured at right, Ticonderoga steams through Pacific waters just months before her deck sent aircraft into combat over North Vietnam and A-1 Skyraiders of Attack Squadron (VA) 145 fly over Constellation in September 1964. The flight jacket belonged to Lieutenant (junior grade) Everett Alvarez when he was shot down and features the insignia for Attack Squadron (VA) 144 and notes that he was a Constellation Centurion, having made at least 100 arrested landing on board the ship.