U.S. Naval Forces, Vietnam and U.S. ground forces had the additional mission of winning the “hearts and minds” of the South Vietnamese through pacification and nation-building measures that can be summed up as working with the rural South Vietnamese to rid their villages of the Communists and then providing advisors to organize the villages through their own governing hierarchy of local chiefs and headmen to defend themselves against the return of the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese army.
All of the U.S. and ARVN ground forces were limited to operations within the provisional borders of South Vietnam, except for a limited foray into the Laos sanctuaries to interdict the North Vietnamese army’s supply lines to South Vietnam. The friendly forces engaged in this war in South Vietnam were never permitted to cross the DMZ into North Vietnam. The penetration of North Vietnam was the mission of Westmoreland’s second war.
North Vietnam had maintained the charade that the North had no part in the fighting in the South but that the Vietcong were simply “agrarian reformers” in conflict with the local governments. The presence of regular North Vietnamese army troop units was categorically denied. So the United States found it difficult to justify, in terms of world opinion, an all-out military campaign into the sovereign territory of North Vietnam. Instead, the United States would rely on what were originally described as “surgical strikes” on military targets, where the chance of collateral damage to nonmilitary targets could be further minimized by stringent rules of engagement (ROE). Therefore, the forces involved in this second war included SAC B-52s flying from Guam, Air Force tactical fighter wings from bases in Thailand and South Vietnam, Marine Corps tactical aircraft from South Vietnamese bases, and naval aircraft flying from carriers at Yankee Station in the Gulf of Tonkin. When practical, U.S. Navy surface combatants, cruisers, and destroyers conducted gun strikes against North Vietnamese logistics and military targets along the coasts that were within range of their guns. Routinely the surface warships were extensively committed in gunfire support of friendly troops ashore in South Vietnam.
The Enterprise and Air Wing 9 were initially assigned to conduct strike operations in support of our allied ground forces engaged “in country.” During a major air effort on 5 December, while in support of an Army Green Beret unit beleaguered in a jungle outpost, the Enterprise topped its earlier operational sortie performance. The following message was from the commander, TF 77, to commander, Seventh Fleet: “I am pleased to advise that the pilots of Air Wing 9, operating from USS Enterprise, set a new one-day record for strike sorties flown. One hundred sixty-five strike sorties were flown today. This number is 34 greater than the record prior to Big E’s arrival on Dixie Station.” Dixie Station was the euphemism describing carrier operations in South Vietnam. The Enterprise had flown 211 sorties that day, 177 of which were classified as combat sorties, including the 165 strike sorties. Unfortunately, this date also marked the loss of the first Enterprise pilot to enemy action when an A-4 was shot down on a recce flight. The pilot was killed.
After ten days of operations into South Vietnam, commander, Seventh Fleet ordered the ship to move north to Yankee Station, where she was to conduct special operations. Yankee Station was the reference point in the northern Gulf of Tonkin where strikes into North Vietnam originated. “Special operations” was the code name for strikes into North Vietnam against well-defended and important targets near Hanoi, Haiphong, and other strategic areas, all heavily guarded by Soviet surface-to-air missiles and Russian MiGs. Task Force 77 maintained a minimum of three carriers operating from Yankee Station, and on several occasions there were as many as five. This carrier force conducted strike operations twenty-four hours a day, regardless of the weather. One carrier flew from midnight to 1200, another from 0800 in the morning to 2000, and a third from 1200 until 2400. This way targets were covered around the clock with the full weight of two carriers during the daylight hours, when the attacks were most effective. Every five days the carriers’ flying periods rotated, so that in thirty days on the line, each carrier had an equal share of night flying, which was hardest on the pilots.
When the twelve-hour flying period was over, the work was not done. During the nonflying hours, the carriers replenished their fuel, ammunition, and stores. When the last plane in the day’s air plan had touched down on the carrier’s deck, the Enterprise immediately swung out of the wind and headed for an underway replenishment (UnRep) group at twenty-five knots. The URG consisted of three or more support ships: an oiler, an ammo ship, and a general stores vessel steaming in a line-abreast formation. Usually these ships were about ten nautical miles away from the carrier formation, struggling at their maximum speed to follow the carrier group.
In February 1966, during a routine, post-flying day replenishment operation, the Enterprise took aviation fuel and ammunition from the Sacramento (AOE-1), the first of a new class of fifty-nine-thousand-ton combat support ships that carried great quantities of both of these combat consumables. The Enterprise’s performance this day elicited the following message from the Sacramento: “Yesterday’s underway replenishment of USS Enterprise transferred a total of 465 short tons. Of this total, 196 short tons were transferred by VERTREP (vertical replenishment, that is, by helicopter). This is a new record for us for a single day’s work and I believe it is a record for any replenishment ship.” The commanding officer of the Sacramento was Capt. Harold Shear, later to be my vice chief of naval operations. This was a new high for carriers as well as the replenishment ship.
The Sacramento later sent the following message to commander, Seventh Fleet: “The Navy’s first fast combat support ship, USS Sacramento (AOE-1), set a replenishment at sea transfer first while operating off the Vietnam coast with the attack carrier Enterprise on 2 June in the South China Sea. The nuclear-powered Enterprise eased alongside Sacramento, rigged four transfer stations, and began to receive the first of a total of 241 short tons of vital conventional ordnance items. The Sacramento’s two Boeing UH-46A helicopters were aloft to transfer simultaneously with the alongside stations and they ‘bombarded’ the flight deck elevator of the attack carrier with palletized ordnance until the completion of all deliveries. The total transfer evolution required 55 minutes, yielding a total transfer record of 258.9 short tons per hour. This is the highest transfer rate recorded for Sacramento to date, and it is believed to be an all time high for sustained replenishment of a significant quantity of ammunition.” This, of course, then became a new record for carriers as well.
Each carrier at Yankee Station conducted replenishment operations almost every day and took four to six hours doing so. It was a matter of policy that all ships remained topped off in all categories to be prepared to respond immediately to any new crisis without having to take the time to load out supplies.
Two-thirds of all replenishments were done at night under “darken-ship conditions,” with carriers, cruisers, destroyers, and Russian spy ships all over the place on different courses and at varying speeds. In addition to having command of his ship, a carrier captain in Task Force 77 was also in command of a task unit consisting of his carrier and two escorting destroyers. Making a rendezvous with the UnRep group and getting the carrier and destroyers alongside safely in the minimum elapsed time was a nice exercise in navigation, maneuvering, communications, and shiphandling. It was a matter of professional pride to accomplish the full sequence of an underway replenishment evolution without a waste of time and with a minimum of radio transmissions.