A few days ago one of my friends and I were writing about the Vietnam war.
I said I did not understand why we didn’t fully destroy Hanoi and Haiphong harbor and quickly win the war.
He replied: wasn't Johnson concerned about getting into a war with China or Russia?
I said: He possibly was concerned about China. He was worried that if the communists took south Vietnam there would be a domino effect across the far east.
His question sparked a memory; I had read an article perhaps 30-40 years ago about the gulf of Tonkin incident, that suggested the incident that started the Vietnam war, never actually happened.
I wanted to refresh my memory this morning and found this link truth-about-tonkin. It was just released in part in 2005 and more in 2006 and is results of actual U.S. navy investigations. It is a long report, so I will condense it to the bare essentials which you may read for yourself in the whole report.
On August 2, 1964 the USS Maddox was offshore of north Vietnam gathering intelligence on north Vietnam's radar sites. Unknown to the ship, the south Vietnamese navy was conducting commando raids in the same area. The north's navy sent out torpedo boats to intercept the south's commando craft and what they believed was a destroyer aiding the south's patrol craft. Shots were fired first by the Maddox when the north's PT boats got within 10,000 yards, damaging 2 of the 3 boats. The north's boats fired torpedoes that missed the Maddox. The north retired and the Maddox headed south.
On August 3, 1964 the Maddox returned and on the 4th it was joined by the USS Turner Joy. That day there were thunderstorms and high seas. The radars on both ships were not working properly so the ships were relying on sonar to detect any incoming threats. The ships were conducting evasive action from what they thought were enemy boats. The sonar on both ships were actually picking up each others high speed propellers. The radar (not working properly) was picking up returns from the six foot high swells making it look like the ships were being attacked from all sides. Lookouts reported sighting torpedo trails in the water. The ships called for air support from the USS Ticonderoga. An F-8 Crusader was launched, by the then commander James Stockdale (who later ran for vice-president in 1992 along with Ross Perot). Stockdale circled above at less than 2000 feet altitude for 90 minutes and reported he had the best seat in the house and there were no enemy boats in the area and that the US destroyers continued to shoot at phantom targets.
August 5, 1964 the captain of the Maddox reported to Honolulu command that there were no torpedo attacks, no visual sighting of enemy boats and the event was triggered by bad weather, bad radar echos and overeager sonar men. Hours later the captain reversed his story. Admiral Sharp in Hawaii reported to Robert McNamara (secretary of defense) that the conflicting stories made him want to delay any retaliation until he had more solid information. McNamara decided differently and that night president Johnson was on TV announcing the war had begun. The very first air strike of the war was led by the same commander Stockdale who despite his reservations, did what he considered was his duty.
So 58,000 lives and 10 years later the war stopped and 42 years after the fact, the navy declassified the report on what really started the war was false.
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