South of Saigon

Martin Wilens

Description

A secret mission sends the author to Vietnam's Mekong Delta, the bread basket of old Indo - China. He uncovers a sophisticated enemy supply network unknown to our military hierarchy.



Using intelligence data covertly gathered in Cambodia and analyzed at the Center for Naval Analyses in Arlington, Virginia they discover and destroy Vietcong forces and interdict VC supply lines with a mixture of intrigue and romance.



A U. S. Naval story never told, complete with declassified maps from the Office of Naval Intelligence, and illuminating pictures of Saigon and archaic areas of the Delta taken by the author forty - six years ago, a depiction of "old Saigon" and real relationships between North and South Vietnam are related.



Headquartered in Saigon, the true interaction between our Navy and Army ( MACV ) brass couched in the background of wartime Saigon, often referred to as the " Paris of the Orient", and Washington, D. C. is insightfully told.

Sujets

• Histoire
• Vietnam
• Military
• Mekong
• Vietnam War
• Viêt Nam
• History
• War

Informations

• Publié par: Xlibris US
• Date de parution: 18 juillet 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• EAN13: 9781477135983
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 5 Mo

Extrait

South of Saigon


A Secret Naval Mission to Southeast Asia







Martin Wilens



Copyright © 2012 by Martin Wilens.
Library of Congress Control Number:
2012911695
ISBN:
Hardcover
978-1-4771-3597-6
Softcover
978-1-4771-3596-9
eBook
978-1-4771-3596-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.




Rev. date: 09/16/2022



Xlibris
844-714-8691
www.Xlibris.com
594103














To all my friends and family, especially my late brother Mel, and late son Herbert, who have heard parts of this story over the past forty years and can now, in spirit, put it all together.

And to the men and women who have fallen in fighting for liberty and freedom.



Contents
Introduction
I. Arlington, Virginia – The Center for Naval Analyses (CNA)
II. Pearl Harbor – I’m On My Way
III. Saigon – Cholon District, Tu Do Street, and the Tunnels
IV. Game Warden and Market Time – On Patrol
V. Sihanoukville, Cambodia – Behind Enemy Lines
VI. The Plain of Reeds – Thanksgiving ’66, Muc Hoa and Cambodia
VII. Vung Tau Peninsula – Home of the ACVs
VIII. Preparing for Battle – A New Concept
IX. The Battle for the Mekong – December ’66
X. Hong Kong and Tokyo – On the Way Home
Epilogue —The Vietnamese and Gulf Wars, Forty Years Later
Appendix Department of the Navy and Army Reports National Liberation Front (NLF)— Wikipedia History



Maps and Illustrations
1. MAP 1. USN coastal patrol patterns—Market Time
2. MAP 2. South Vietnam Corps Districts and Infiltration Routes
3. MAP 3. Mekong Delta—IV Corps Zone—VC strong points (shaded areas) (*)
4. MAP 4. III & IV Corps Zones, SVN – Insert map of Vung Tau
5. MAP 5. Detailed map of Saigon—(Ho Chi Minh City)
6. MAP 6. Mekong Tributaries and key outposts—Insert of Saigon areas (**)
7. MAP 7. Infiltration Routes—including Sihanoukville trail
8. Chart 9. Command Relations for Riverine Operations
9. Junks on the upper Mekong River, Cambodian mountains, 1966
10. Montagnards, tribal warriors from highlands of III Corps, VC avoided them
11. Non-combatant ID card
12. Morning rush hour in downtown Saigon USN Research Office on right
13. Midmorning markets, downtown Saigon. No shortage of food.
14. Some of Saigon’s low-income apartments
15. UH—1E Helo & Author
16. Author stands next to underside of PACV 2 under repair at Cat Lo
17. VC Prisoners—Independence day parade in Saigon, complete with black pajamas
18. Nadine
19. PACVs maneuver across Plain of Reeds
20. Muc Hoa—Plain of Reeds, Thanksgiving, 1966
21. Muc Hoa—Towncenter with ACV off-cushion about 20 km. from Cambodia
22. Tree lines checker board across Plain of Reeds
23. Plain of Reeds, West of Saigon—Cambodia in background
24. PACV hovers on full cushion—dreaded treelines in background
25. The PACV men on patrol
26. CIDG mercenaries go for a ride
27. My Cornell buddy—LTJG Kip Kumler
28. PACV 3 stops to inspect junk on the My Tho River.
29. Aussie paratroopers at Bien Hoa Airbase
30. Aerial view of Plain of Reeds and Muc Hoa
31. Helos accompany ACVs around the Plain of Reeds
32. Author and Kip Kumler take pictures of each other fromUH—1E helo to PACV 2—Plain of Reeds
33. PACV’s hover on full cushion on Muc Hoa airstrip—Plain of Reeds
34. Author (center of photo) posses with arms around two CIDG mercenaries
35. Two VC prisoners—their last picture, somewhere in Cambodia
36. Independence day parade photos—October 30, 1966.
a. Independence Da y parade. US civilians banned. Presidential palace.
b. South Vietnamese Navy (SVN), parade in their finest.
c. South Vietnamese premier kicks off parade. Nice car . October 30, 1966.
d. Montagnard commander salutes American Review stand and Vietnamese premier
e. Montagnard elephants march toward presidential palace. South Vietnam’s fiercest fighters.
f. Decorated vets parade. Overseen by Saigon’s finest (White Mice).
g. Independence Day parad e—Special Forces
h. South Vietnamese Marines and Paratroopers parade
i. South Vietnamese Nurs e Corps
j. South Vietnamese Cadets with red berets from Dalat Academy—Vietnam’s Westpoint
37. Mortar explodes at parade. US naval officer killed.
38. PACV-3 steering disabled by gunfire. Crew steers craft back to Muc Hoa.
39. PACV off-cushion searching for “booby traps”, Plain of Reeds
40. CIDG personnel search for grenade “booby traps”
41. CIDG discovers booby trap—grenade in hand
42. Close-up of grenade booby trap—Plain of Reeds
43. VC outposts being destroyed
44. VC Ammo station destroyed
45. VC hut discovered near Cambodian border. ACV’s on horizon set it afire.
46. CIDG discover VC rice station—Plain of Reeds
47. PACV foreground—CIDG destroys ammunition dump


(*) Maps obtain from the Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland. Referrence: Historical Atlas of the USN, by Craig L. Symonds. Current map of the Mekong Delta may contain modern-day designations of places and rivers that differ from 1966

(**) A series of detailed maps of NVN & SVN showing “city maps” of Hanoi, Saigon, and Vung Tau. .



Introduction
My story begins on a sultry summer day in 1966 at the US Navy think tank in Arlington, Virginia, known as CNA, where I was employed as an operations research engineer. I had just joined this group, moving from my previous job as deputy manager of the nuclear ship Savannah program at the US Atomic Energy Commission, a thirty-minute Beltway ride around Washington, DC, to Germantown, Maryland. I was hired to assist in conducting studies on nuclear naval forces for the then secretary of defense, Robert McNamara, at DDRE (*) in the Pentagon. It ends on a flight home from the Mekong Delta, South Vietnam, on New Year’s Eve six months later, having spent my time initially testing three militarized air cushion vehicles (ACVs) in riverine patrol in the delta south of Saigon.

My mission gravitated from an “op. eval.” of these three British-designed (Westland Aircraft) low flying boats that had operational speeds over calm waters in excess of fifty knots, to advising ADM Veth, deputy commander of naval forces in South Vietnam (ComNavForV) (**) , on the conduct of Market Time and Game Warden, the coastal and riverine patrol missions in IV Corps Zone (south of Saigon). These craft were unique because a cushion of air was trapped beneath four to six feet of flexible neoprene skirts completely surrounding the craft and could operate over any terrain that didn’t present obstacles higher than that.

My mission became, as so many things in warfare, far different and vastly more important than originally intended.

Specifically, the good admiral merely wanted me to figure out how the Viet Cong and scattered units of the North Vietnamese Army were being supplied from the North, when our patrols along the coast and throughout the tributaries of the Mekong in the delta were finding nothing.

This is that story . . .



Junk s o n th e uppe r Mekon g River , Cambodia n mountains , 1966


Montagnards , triba l warrior s fro m highland s o f II I Corps , V C avoide d them


(*) Department of Defense Research and Engineering.

(**) Rear Admiral Norvell G. Ward was chief of the US Naval Advisory Group from April 1, 1966, until April 27, 1967, when Rear Admiral Kenneth Veth assumed that role. In the interim, Admiral Veth was deputy chief.



I
Arlington, Virginia – The Center for Naval Analyses (CNA)
The Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) occupied a twenty-story building overlooking the Potomac River, in a section of Arlington, Virginia, known as Rosslyn, and by many as Pentagon East. Looking out over the snarled rush-hour traffic fighting its way across Key Bridge to Georgetown. I was staying late, not to earn any points with the “think tank gamers” who were busy trying to figure out who to screw out of some posh foreign trip or steal one of their associates’ work to use in the next useless study the US Navy would ignore. Having finished whatever paperwork I had ginned up for our study’s leader, a buddy of mine named Dudley “Doc” Colladay walked into my office, while I was engaged in a phone call with my man on Wall Street. Being able to double as an operations research engineer and a stock picker, I was double dipping like most bureaucrats, playing the stock market in order to feed four kids on a government salary, despite my wife doing private-duty nursing on the side to make both ends meet.

Using “pattern recognition,” a knowledge of how technical analysis worked in the world of the Street’s vultures, I was plotting out tomorrow’s market moves when our surface effect ship (SES) study leader, Doc, suggested we call Nancy, “his side squee