UPDATED DECEMBER 2017
Jerry always claimed he started the Vietnam war.
Despite eventually working for the Navy for over ten years, Jerry only had two weeks of actual sea duty. Those two weeks involved combat, ship to ship transfer in a breeches buoy, physically transferring highly classified documents handcuffed to his wrist, with a sidearm and orders to use it if necessary, actually using said sidearm, and being fired off the deck of an aircraft carrier in a fighter jet. His two week adventure was also known as The Gulf of Tonkin Incident.
[Rex is documenting the story here as best as I can piece it together from various sources. Dad told the story more than a few times, and I sincerely wish I’d tried to get the details down in writing while I could still ask questions. I’ve only done the most modest research, but it’s clear that much of what I thought I knew was simply wrong. Mom gave me the thread to follow when she found a patch from the USS Morton. After confirming the dates of his sea duty with his journal, it’s clear that Dad’s was in the Gulf of Tonkin on the USS Morton in September of 1964, and not on the Turner Joy in August as I’d thought.]
In 1964, Dad was stationed with his family at San Miguel in the Phillipines as a young Lieutenant in the Naval Security Group.
On August 2nd of that year, the US Navy Destroyer USS Maddox (DD-731) was undeniably fired upon by North Vietnamese gunboats in what became known as The Gulf of Tonkin Incident. The Maddox was the 18th DESOTO Patrol intended to gather intelligence, and show the flag in (just barely) international waters. As dad told the story, the obvious but unstated goal of these DESOTO patrols was literally to see what reaction they could provoke.
Two days later, there was another disputed incident involving the destroyer USS Turner Joy (DD-951) as well. This was apparently part of the same DESOTO patrol #18 from 28 July to 23 August, however. This had me confused for many years: Dad always maintained he was involved in the “second” Gulf of Tonkin incident, which was true (he was on DESOTO patrol #19 in September, 1964) but it was the events of August 2nd and 4th involving the Maddox and Turner Joy that led to the Gulf of Tonkin resolution passing on August 10th of that year.
The Turner Joy incident was widely disputed (the current narrative is that they were shooting at shadows in the bad weather — I’m still skeptical). Dad’s mission was about a month later. He always stated that the questions about whether they were actually fired upon was malarkey, “I was directly involved, and can tell you first hand that they were definitely firing on us.” I’m still unsure, however, if he was talking about what happened with the Turner Joy, or whether there were also questions about his own mission on the Morton.
Despite all the subsequent news (and Robert McNamara’s own statement) that the second attack on August 4th never really occurred, and that they were all jumping at “ghosts” in the radar from bad weather, etc., Dad was adamant that there was no question an actual attack was underway. There was definite small arms fire as well as torpedo tracks seen by multiple eye witnesses. Similar to Adm. Joe Vasey’s accounting, almost everyone who was there was steadfastly maintained that it was a real attack without question. Eighteen eyewitnesses were interviewed and all believed it was an actual attack, but, of course, without actual wreckage or other artifacts all the armchair quarterbacks back home now believe it never actually happened.
This declassified NSA news article is quite entertaining to read, and describes the events of both days in early August.
I don’t get the point of the argument, anyway. If no-one disputes the Maddox was attacked (and it’s hard to dispute a smoking North Vietnamese torpedo boat dead in the water) what does it even matter whether or not the Maddox and Turner Joy were attacked again a day later?
The brass decided another DESOTO patrol was warranted, and dispatched the USS Morton (DD-948) to do the same damn thing all over again in September. That’s the mission that Dad was on.
Quoting from Wikipedia: On 11 September 1964, approximately one month after the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, the Director of the Naval Security Group, Pacific (DIRNAVSECGRUPAC) informed the Director of the National Security Agency of plans for an intercept team, SIGAD USN-467P, to be aboard the Morton.
I believe SIGAD USN-467P was Dad’s group.
Dad was responsible for a crew of, I believe, eight enlisted radio operators, linguists, and intelligence types aboard the ship. Dad described their station as basically a small “trailer” full of radio and other equipment and lashed to the deck of the Morton. It was completely sealed with no windows and just a watertight hatch to enter and leave the room. I think he used the word “trailer” to evoke an old aluminum sided Airstream camper trailer, but I’m sure it was more like what the Army calls shelters — windowless boxes strong enough to be parachuted out of cargo planes.
Dad’s DESOTO patrol was #19 from September 14 to September 21. On September 18th, his team detected a Vietnamese order to attack the US ships. He also said there was quite a bit of subsequent “chatter” from the Vietnamese side during the attack that his team was recording. Dad kept a memento of this event in the form of an old reel-to-reel audio tape from inside the “trailer”. I’m absolutely certain that Dad would have been in a lot of trouble if anyone had known he had made and kept that tape!
I heard the original tape several times over the years when I was a kid. Sadly, the original reel-to-reel tape is long lost. Happily, Mom recently discovered a CD containing just a short snippet of the recording. The recording quality is terrible, however, making it almost impossible to make out what they are saying (you can definitely hear the Morton’s weapons firing, though!). (I’ll try to post an enhanced version of the file if I can tweak it enough to hear what they’re saying.)
After the attack, Dad was ordered to hand-carry evidence of the attack back to his superiors (I believe at Subic Bay, Phillipines but possibly elsewhere in Asia). This was by far his most memorable part of the trip, and he often described being abolutely terrified being transferred between two ships in high seas via a breeches buoy. He said that being fired off the carrier and flying and landing in a fighter jet was actually fun, but the breeches buoy was just terrifying.
One funny part of the story: Some of the intelligence material that Dad was responsible for was actually transferred between ships before dad. They put it in a duffel bag that was sent across in the chair of the breeches buoy before Dad. Once it was his turn, the ships weretilting to and fro from the waves, causing his chair to catapult up and down, from almost dunking him in the sea to raising him high in the air. While up in the chair between the boats, Dad saw some crewmen on the far side attempting to open the duffel bag containing the intelligence material. He started waving and shouting at them to back away from the bag, but he couldn’t get their attention. So he pulled out his Navy issued pistol and fired a shot into the air! THAT got their attention — he was then able to frantically wave them away from the bag.
He said after he was safely aboard the other ship, he was later called into the captains quarter’s. He described the captain as a crusty old guy with a thick country accent, reminiscient of Fred Thompson’s character in Hunt for Red October. Dad said he wasn’t exactly dressed down, but he was asked what exactly he was thinking by firing off a handgun.
Here is a since-declassified summary of the events during Dad’s DESOTO patrol.
Regarding Dad’s joking claim that he started the Vietnam war: This memorandum for record of a cabinet meeting with President Johnson one day after the events on the Morton on September 18th, is quite interesting. The “COMINT” referred to in that MFR was what Dad’s team collected and concluding his exciting two weeks of sea duty.
Rex Walters,
9 December, 2017
