I immediately went down the pier to the flagship, a heavy cruiser, and entered the secure command spaces. The call was put through to Deputy Secretary of Defense William Clements, and Clements, in his own direct fashion, told me to get the hell back to Washington as fast as I could. He said that the president had not been satisfied with General Jones’s performance as acting chairman in handling the Mayaguez situation and they wanted me to take over as acting chairman. I persuaded the commander, Second Fleet to make my talk scheduled at the Commonwealth Club, and then, with an escort of Boston cops on Harley Hogs, I was transported to Logan Airport at high speed. From there I flew directly to Andrews Air Force Base in the A-3. I was met at the base operations office by Deputy Secretary Clements, who took me in his official car directly to the White House. On the way he filled me in.
Apparently the president had been frustrated to the point of dissatisfaction with Jones’s handling of the crisis. First, Jones was late in getting to the White House to meet with the Security Council. His reason was that the stock photos he had wanted for his briefing were not “properly mounted.” Then, according to Bill Clements, instead of proposing a course of action to President Ford, Jones asked the president what he wanted the chairman to do. Whatever the reason, Ford did not want to see Jones again as acting chairman and told Clements to have me take over.
Before leaving Washington to go to Boston, I had ordered, as a precautionary measure in my capacity as CNO, that the carrier Coral Sea, which was in transit from Japan to Australia, along with several other ships near the South China Sea, be diverted and proceed to the vicinity of Cambodia.
Driving in from Andrews, I was able to use the secure telephone from the car to talk to the National Military Command Center and get a quick update on the situation. There was little additional news and no fresh intelligence. Upon arrival at the White House, I went directly to the cabinet room, where President Ford was meeting with key members of his cabinet. I was asked for an input from the chiefs, and I explained that I had not stopped by to meet with the chiefs since returning but had been in touch with the Joint Staff, and that my recommendations were to start moving certain immediately available military forces into the area to have assets in place to provide multiple options. As intelligence developed and we learned more of the disposition of the crew of Mayaguez, we would put together the most effective task force to carry out the chosen course of action. We shouldn’t wait for intelligence to trickle in before moving forces on to the scene. Speed was essential. The president quickly agreed with this approach and sent me back to the Pentagon to get things going. I had previously arranged for a meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by telephone from the car, and I briefed them on the session at the White House. After a short discussion, I got their unanimous support for the proposed action. The Joint Staff, by this time, had put a plan together for the initial movement of available forces into the area. The chiefs further agreed that these deployments should be accelerated, and that the Joint Staff should immediately draw up several contingency plans to deal with the possible options the Cambodians might pursue in the disposition of the American crew.
The next day President Ford convened the National Security Council in the cabinet room of the White House. As acting chairman of the JCS, I accompanied Secretary Schlesinger, reporting to the president that the JCS had met the night before and, in the absence of any definitive intelligence, had directed CinCPac to assemble forces in the vicinity, including the carrier Coral Sea, which was proceeding at high speed from its aborted trip to Australia; the first and second landing teams of the Third Marine Division, to be moved from Okinawa to Utapao Royal Thai Air Force Base (RTAFB); a special U.S. Air Force air police commando reaction force to Utapao; and the escort and destroyer Harold E. Holt (DE-1074) and Henry B. Wilson (DDG-7), which were in transit in the Indian Ocean, to proceed at flank speed to the location of Mayaguez, now anchored at Koh Tang Island, about thirty miles off Cambodia. This was not far from where the U.S. merchantman had been seized.
CinCPac was further directed to provide a continuous airborne presence of both combat and surveillance aircraft over the anchorage to “babysit” the Mayaguez. A Navy P-3 Orion was maintaining station as a command center in the area, with Air Force F-4 fighters and A-7 light attack planes relieving on station. There was a multitude of small craft — U.S.-made swift boats and local fishing craft — milling around in the vicinity. Whenever any of these boats attempted to approach the Mayaguez, they were driven off by machine-gun fire across their bows from the U.S. fighters. In the process, three swift boats were sunk.
The president reminded the NSC that the seizure of the Mayaguez had occurred at a very sensitive time. U.S. influence in Southeast Asia was at a low ebb. South Vietnam had been lost to the Communists, and Cambodia had just fallen on 25 April. Ford believed a strong and decisive reaction to the Mayaguez capture was essential, to both deter this threat to U.S. merchant shipping in the future and reassert U.S. influence and prestige in Southeast Asia. The ship had become a symbol of free U.S. presence in the sea lanes of the world. This interference was tantamount to piracy and could not be tolerated.
During the day, the president met with congressional leaders in small groups at the White House, where Secretary Schlesinger and I briefed them on the situation, and the president expressed his deep concern over the situation. Late that afternoon, the JCS, after reviewing the proposals from CinCPac and weighing the alternatives, came up with a plan for a three-pronged attack. Marines would board Mayaguez from the Harold E. Holt, which would pull up alongside. The use of a Marine force rapelling aboard from helicopters had been considered but then abandoned because it would expose the team to very high casualties. The boarding Marines would come from a specially trained unit at the Subic Bay base in the Philippines. A battalion-sized Marine landing force would assault Koh Tang Island in their heavy transport helicopters. The Coral Sea air wing would attack the main base of the Cambodian air force at Kompong Som Airfield in a punitive strike to deter any similar ambitions of other rebel groups in the now turbulent political atmosphere of Southeast Asia. The formal announcement of Ford’s decision to take military action was made the next day, 14 May, at 1745, but the battle would not be joined for another twelve hours.
At first light on 15 May, the Marines landed on Koh Tang in a helicopter airborne assault. The reaction was deadly. The well-dug-in Khmer Rouge, firing rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns from their reinforced bunkers in the jungle, knocked down one helicopter and forced a second to crash land.
Then, at 0800, the Harold E. Holt came alongside the anchored Mayaguez, and the Marines climbed aboard with scaling ladders to find the ship totally abandoned, with neither crew nor Cambodians on board. A small volunteer cadre of merchant mariners and engineers, boarding with the Marines, manned the ship’s engine room and bridge. In five minutes the emergency generator was going. The anchor chain was cut with an acetylene torch, and the Marines had hoisted the U.S. flag by 0820. At 0845, the Harold E. Holt got underway again with the Mayaguez in tow.
Without any warning, at about 0900, a Thai fishing boat approached the destroyer Henry B. Wilson, which was providing gunfire support for the Marine assault, with the thirty-nine Mayaguez crewmembers aboard. The rescue of the ship and its crew was complete.