Operation Sealords: A Front In A Frontless War, An Analysis Of The Brown-Water Navy In Vietnam by William C. McQuilkin

Author:William C. McQuilkin [McQuilkin, William C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
Published: 2015-11-06T00:00:00+00:00

Rung Sat Operations

Concurrently with Ready Deck, another denial of sanctuary operation was conducted in an area known as the Rung Sat Special Zone (RSSZ). The RSSZ had been a thorn in the side of U.S. military leaders since the start of the war. A dense mangrove swamp covering over 400 square miles stretching from Nha Be southeast to Vung Tau and the South China Sea, it also contained the Long Tau River, the main shipping channel between Saigon and the South China Sea.{94} Enemy mining of the Long Tau began in earnest in 1966 in an attempt to cut the South’s lifelines to Saigon. While the VC were never successful in severing this strategic LOC, mining and shipping attacks remained a threat throughout 1967 and 1968 despite stepped-up allied attempts at countering this threat.

Part of the problem was the nature of the environment in the Rung Sat itself. SEAL operations after-action reports in 1968 report that, “The foliage is so thick that it is not unlikely for a patrol to be within a Viet Cong base camp and not realize it.” Additionally, it was almost impossible to move without generating excessive noise, making the element of surprise difficult to achieve, and putting patrols at risk of being counterattacked.{95} U.S. Army 9th Division troops and Vietnamese RF forces conducted sweeps of the area but were ineffective in significantly reducing the enemy threat.

Vice Admiral Robert S. Salzer, U.S. Navy (Retired), who in 1967-68 was serving as Commander CTF 117, later talked about the persistent threat in the Rung Sat, the U.S. Army’s response, and the mine threat in particular:

They (U.S. Army) ran into an ambush. They came storming ashore in battalion-sized strength. That’s one of the weaknesses of the Army, incidentally. They like to do everything with battalion-sized strength, and the Viet Cong wouldn’t melt away.... Mines were very prominent parts of the threat in there (Long Tau). I’m talking about controlled mines, I’m talking about homemade mines, some quite large, that would be implanted on the bottom with an electric cable, usually shielded by bamboo shielding over it, and some little fellow would sit in his hootch, as we called them, and watch with a simple sight, then he’d go “pumph”, and the ship would go up. It was a real threat, to the boats as well as the ships and they used it quite a bit.{96}

It was not as if U.S. forces were unaware of where the threat was coming from. It was known that attacks on shipping were coming from a VC battalion known as DOAN-10 operating from a base camp just north of the Rung Sat in the Nhon Trach district of the Bien Hoa Province. Zumwalt’s predecessor, Rear Admiral Veth, had been alarmed by the attacks, but had done little to counter them. Veth had faced indifference at General Abram’s headquarters and opposition from South Vietnam’s generals.{97}The flawed Vietnamese command structure compounded the problem. That is, despite the growth of the VNN during this time period, they

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