The Last Battle of the Vietnam War: The Mayaguez incident

[Music] in may of 1975 less than two weeks after the fall of saigon u.s marines were sent back into combat in southeast asia the ss mayaguez incident is an incident that was steeped in politics a trial by fire for many young marines navy corpsmen and airmen and for many a symbol of the frustration and heroism of a painful era in american history history that deserves to be remembered on april 30th 1975 americans were confronted with startling images of the capture of the south vietnamese capital of saigon and america was reeling at the final chapter of a war that had continued for nearly 20 years and cost the u.s some 58 000 dead and 300 thousand wounded the collapse came just nine months into the presidency of gerald ford the only u.s president to serve without having been elected either president or vice president historian andrew gothorp of the university of leyden observed that the fall of south vietnam caused concern by the ford administration about a loss of u.s influence in southeast asia it was not just an academic concern as the shifting winds affected negotiations for the placement of u.s military bases in thailand and the philippines the administration felt that it was important to demonstrate u.s power and respond forcefully to challenges to u.s interests in the region such a challenge would occur on may 12th on april 13th the khmer rouge the popular name for the communist party of kampuchea had taken the cambodian capital of phnom penh defeating the u.s backed chima republic and effectively putting an end to the cambodian civil war the new governments in vietnam and cambodia then fell into sporadic conflict over contested islands between the two nations one result of the conflict was that the chimer navy regularly patrolled waters and territory claimed to buy cambodia the competing territorial claims made the situation at sea complex a matter that was further complicated by the fact that cambodia claimed their territorial waters extended 12 nautical miles while the us only recognized three miles the ss mayaguez was a u.s flag container ship named after city on the west coast of puerto rico the ship operated under contract for the u.s military seat transportation service in support of american forces in southeast asia and at the time was on its way to thailand carrying commercial cargo and supplies for american servicemen the website of the united states merchant marine notes that in the time since cambodia had fallen the kymer rouge had captured 27 crewmen of seven thai fishing boats shot at a south korean freighter captured seven south vietnamese vessels and held a panamanian ship for 35 hours but the crew of the ss mayaguez received no notice of these events charles t miller captain of the mayaguez was quoted following the event at 2 20 on may 12th i first saw them i was challenged by one gunboat he shot over my bow with anti-aircraft machine gun fire then he threw a rocket over me seven armed men anywhere from 20 to 30 years old boarded the vessel shouldering rocket throwers and ak-47s none of them could speak english all they did was point to the gunboat indicating that i was to follow their ship i did so but after the radio operator sent out several sos the distress calls were received by several listeners and passed to the u.s embassy in jakarta indonesia and from there was forwarded to washington time magazine reported that the message said had been fired upon and boarded by cambodian armed forces vessel being escorted to unknown cambodian port a top secret memorandum to the president from the department of defense red early in the morning of 12 may washington time the u.s merchant ship mayaguez was seized in the gulf of thailand in international waters by a cambodian boarding party the cambodian action came at a critical moment time magazine reported that a government policy planner told a reporter there's quite a bit of agreement around here that it wouldn't be a bad thing if the other side goes a step or two too far and try to kick us while we're down would give us a chance to kick back hard the pentagon immediately ordered navy reconnaissance plans to locate the mayagues and the president convened a meeting of the national security council the council headed by national security adviser and secretary of state henry kissinger determined according to aviation historian ralph wetterhan in his 2000 book the last battle the mayaguez incident in the end of the vietnam war to end the crisis decisively fearing the loss of u.s influence in southeast asia after the fall of cambodia and vietnam and not wanting a repeat of the 11-month hostage crisis following the uss pueblo incident in 1968. notes from the meeting kissinger as i see it mr president we have two problems the first problem is how to get the ship back the second problem is how the us appears at this time kissinger suggests i think we should make a strong statement and give a note to the cambodians via the chinese so that we can get some credit if the boat is released i also suggest some show a force a 2018 article in the magazine the diplomat explains president ford voted by secretary of state henry kissinger believed that the ship's seizure provided an opportunity for the united states to prove that others will be worse off if they tackle us and not that they can return to the status quo it's not enough to get the ship's release one pentagon official told newsweek at the time henry kissinger was determined to give the karma rouge a bloody nose the white house press secretary ron nessen issued a statement calling the seizure an act of piracy and demanding the immediate release of the ship warning that serious consequences would follow if the demand went unheeded as us did not have official relations with the cambodian government a note was passed to the chinese foreign ministry demanding the immediate release of the ship and crew and warning that that release does not immediately take place the authorities in phnom penh will be responsible for the consequences however the chinese refused to get involved it's not clear if the message was relayed to the cambodian government the u.s immediately started positioning military assets including ordering the destroyer escort uss harold e holt guided missile destroyer uss henry b wilson and the aircraft carrier uss coral sea as well as assembling marines stationed in the philippines in okinawa reconnaissance aircraft located the mayaguez which was then moved off of kotang island an island of some 2.3 square miles 32 miles off the southwest coast of cambodia but even as plans were being made for a rescue the operation was already taking casualties the u.s seventh air force had prepared a contingency plan to retake the mayaguez using volunteers from the us air force's 56th security police squadron operating from the royal thai air force base at nakhon phenom as part of staging for the operation a ch-53c helicopter of the 56 special operations wing carrying 18 security police and five crew crashed killing all aboard the crash was determined to be the result of a maintenance issue with a metal fatigue crack causing the separation of a main rotor blade concerned that it would be more difficult to retrieve the crew if they were taken to the mainland general david c jones acting chairman of the joint chiefs of staff indicated in the national security council meeting on the 13th that the instructions we have to our commanders are not to let the ship go to port they're to take any action not to include sinking under those orders u.s attack planes f-4s a7ds and f-111s started strafing the water in front of the ship indicating that it should not be moved and eventually attacked and sank or disabled seven small cambodian naval craft near the mayaguez the general also reported that planes had seen people being moved from the ship onto the island lieutenant general brent scowcroft deputy national security adviser summed up the response i see two operations the first is against the ship the second is against the island vice president nelson rockefeller expressed the concern over the us image saying i do not think the freighter is the issue the issue is how we respond many are watching us in korea and elsewhere the big question is whether or not we look silly i think we need to respond quickly although as the council discussed options he added another imperative we do not want a land war in cambodia as a diplomatic solution seemed unlikely and as navy and air force planes continued to harass cambodian boats trying to keep them from moving the crew of the magus to the mainland ward finally approved a plan time magazine notes that the plan showed that ford was willing to risk military force and plenty of it thus to free one freighter and not quite two score crewmen the president called out the marines the air force and the navy he ordered assault troops supported by warships fighter bombers and helicopters to invade a tiny island of disputed nationality a japanese newspaper said of the operation why did the united states have to use a cannon to shoot a chicken the defense pow accounting agency described the plan a two-pronged rescue operation was developed u.s marine units would board the mayaguez with support from the frigate uss harold e holt while a separate u.s marine detachment would undertake an armed assault on kotang varied by u.s air force ch-53 and hh-53 helicopters both actions would begin early on the morning of may 15th the operation would largely be conducted by marines of the 2nd battalion 9th marines who had been undergoing training in okinawa while the 9th marine regiment had seen significant service in vietnam by may of 1975 only a handful of officers and non-commissioned officers remained who had seen combat in a 2012 interview al bailey who was a 19 year old private first class in 1975 said of the marines task for the operation out of the whole operation i would say there were 15 with previous combat experience the whole battalion was green the boarding assault was assumed to be a risk with the possibility of both hostages and cameroon fighters on boards was a concern that explosives might have been planted marines volunteers from the u.s merchant marine who could help to get the vessel going in an explosive's disposal team were lifted by helicopter to the halt holt pulled alongside the maraguez while aircraft saturated it with tear gas gas mass equipped marines then stormed the vessel only defined after an hour-long search that the vessel was deserted simultaneously marines were assaulting the island where the crew was presumed to be held the island was heavily forested and the only landing spots for the ch-53 and hh-53 helicopters were small beaches on the east and west side of the island intelligence was spotty but initial estimates were that only 20 to 40 climber soldiers were on the island being assaulted by more than 200 marines but as the helicopters loaded with marines approached the beach there was a startling development the government in phnom penh released a statement saying that they planned to release the mayaguez and her crew the statement read we had no intention of detaining it permanently and we have no desire to start provocations but not trusting the kymer rouge the us decided to continue the operation until the crew were recovered the marine assault on cotang island went on as it turns out the crew of the mayaguez had never been on the island there was no one there to rescue and more importantly the island was significantly better defended than had been estimated the khmer rouge had prepared the island for attack in case vietnam tried to press its claim for the island instead of 20 to 40 soldiers the island held an estimated 200 to 300 in prepared positions with heavy weapons in fact the u.s knew there were heavy weapons on the islands they had fired on u.s war plans around the mayaguez and the cia had estimated a larger force based on surveillance flights but astoundingly due to security clearance issues and poor coordination that information had not been passed along to the assault force the inexperienced marines of the two nine were headed into a serious fight the diplomat explains when kaima rouge commander m som heard the distant thump of helicopter blades he roused his men and sent them to their battle stations where they locked and loaded anti-aircraft guns large machine guns rocket-propelled grenades small arms and waited for the american's arrival in fortified bunkers dan hoffman the second lieutenant of the time was quoted in american legion magazine in 2012. we were a bunch of young kids mostly right out of school who had no idea what was coming or why they told us we were going up against 15 or 20 militia or fishermen who might have automatic weapons instead we got a reinforced battalion with heavy machine guns mortars and anti-tank guns the assault was hot from the get-go the diplomat describes the first few moments for the helicopter carrying al bailey the kymer rouge held their fire until the chopper was less than 100 feet off the ground when suddenly bailey saw the tree line light up as gunfire began to rip through the hh-53s fuselage bailey said in an interview in 2012 there was already at least 200 rounds or 300 rounds that went through the chopper and when it went through the chopper was like stabbing like stepping through ten you could see the daylight as the rounds went through pfc fred morris told the diplomat we didn't expect resistance we're just going to go on sweep the island get the crew from the ship and be home by noon when those rounds started going through the helicopter we realized that it was it wasn't great the marines offloaded but the helicopter was so damaged it was forced to ditch a mile from shore the second was damaged so badly that it had to turn away without offloading its marines including the company commander on the other side of the island two helicopters were shot down quickly one was struck by two rpgs and two of its crew two navy corpsman and ten marines were killed the remaining marines and crew from the helicopter had to swim for 10 hours before being rescued by 7 am 109 marines and 5 air force crew were on the island but of eight helicopters assigned to the operation three were destroyed and four two damaged to continue the mission and the marines were struggling with fire support from the us warplanes and ships as none of their forward observer or ground support people had made it to the island meanwhile the khmer rouge had already released the crew of the mayaguez putting them on a thai fishing boat with instructions to tell the americans to stop their airstrikes they were picked up by uss wilson at 9 30. when the news was passed to the white house or it was nearing midnight time magazine wrote the president and his chief of staff exchanged whoops of joy henry kissinger beaming ear to ear a lot of them celebrating what in that taught midnight seemed to be a famous victory but the marines were still fighting on kotong by noon the kaiba rouge forces were running out of ammunition cameroon soldier mao ran was quoted in the diplomat we couldn't continue the fighting because we had no bullets we retreated into the forest while the american soldiers occupied our bunkers at first the americans didn't see a reason to deploy more marines but were convinced that more were needed to consolidate the marine positions and keep them from being overrun eventually another hundred marines were landed and some wounded removed fighting continued but the decision was made to evacuate the marines under the covering fire of gunships the air force pilots bravely extracted the marines on the island under heavy fire lieutenant hoffman told the diplomat the pilots are our heroes we owe them our lives but in evacuation three men from the machine gun team lance corporal joseph in hargrove private first class gary c hall and private danny g marshall protecting a flank were left behind the three were able to reach the air force by radio but a rescue was deemed to be too risky the three were captured over the next two days took years to determine their fate but all three were apparently killed shortly after their capture we left three guys on the island fred morris told the american legion that haunts all of us in addition to the rescue operation the us also staged air strikes on cambodian air bases ostensibly to prevent the cambodians from supporting their troops on kotong island the press and administration celebrated the operation as a victory with time magazine saying by drawing a line against aggression in the mayaguez incident ford put potential adversaries on notice that despite recent setbacks in indochina and the middle east the u.s would not allow itself to be intimidated the public reaction was favorable and ford's approval rating raised 11 points but the international effect was not what was hoped and the u.s use of bases in thailand to support the operation resulted in an outcry that eventually forced the u.s to close its air bases there in all 41 americans were killed including those killed in the air force helicopter crash in thailand the names of those 41 americans are the last names written on the wall of the vietnam veterans memorial in washington dc the operation that was touted as a success was actually a fiasco as the american legion page concludes intelligence reports were wrong communications broke down delayed decision making from washington spoiled the element of surprise public opinion and politics were considered in the process and that fiasco still haunts the men who were there navy petty officer tom noble describes the pain we have all suffered over the years we have thought of the 41. we lost more people at kotang than we lost in the first day at okinawa and people have never heard of kotang i hope you enjoyed this 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Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 295,386

Keywords: history, history guy, the history guy, vietnam war, us history, SS mayaguez incident

Id: VU5JPHQGckU

Length: 18min 26sec (1106 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 18 2021