Gulf of Tonkin & the Vietnam War. Vietnam War: Gulf of Tonkin Incident. The Vietnam War buff will find it fascinating for its wealth of detail carefully set down in understated prose (a welcome relief, I might add, from the hysterical tone that marks much Vietnam War writing). . A North Vietnamese patrol boat also trailed the American ships, reporting on their movements to Haiphong. After the war, Hanoi officials not only acknowledged the event but deemed it important enough to designate its date, Aug. 2, as the Vietnamese Navy's Anniversary Day, "the day our heroic naval forces went out and chased away Maddox and Turner Joy." WebGulf of Tonkin conspiracy. The United States denied involvement. The Health Conspiracy. In addition, the US Navy was instructed to conduct Desoto patrols off North Vietnam. In an effort to increase pressure on North Vietnam, several Norwegian-built fast patrol boats (PTFs) were covertly purchased and transferred to South Vietnam. The original radar contacts dropped off the scope at 2134, but the crews of Maddox and Turner Joy believed they detected two high-speed contacts closing on their position at 44 knots. This was almost certainly a reaction to the recent 34A raids. William Conrad Gibbons, The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War, Part II, 1961-1964, pp. It can be deceived and it is all too often incomplete. I would not suggest that he learned from the Gulf of Tonkin incident so much as that he got from it exactly what he wanted, which was an enormous bump in approval ratings 30 percent overnight, says historian Chris Oppe. The most popular of these is that the incident was either a fabrication or deliberate American provocation. On 7 August, the Senate passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, allowing the administration greater latitude in expanding the war by a vote of 88 to 2. Typically, the missions were carried out by a destroyer specially outfitted with sensitive eavesdropping equipment. CIA Bulletin, 3 August 1964 (see Edward J. Marolda and Oscar P. Fitzgerald, The United States Navy and the Vietnam Conflict: From Military Assistance to Combat, 1959-1965 [Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1986], p. 422). The 122 additional relevant SIGINT products confirmed that the Phu Bai station had misinterpreted or mistranslated many of the early August 3 SIGINT intercepts. ThoughtCo, Feb. 16, 2021, thoughtco.com/vietnam-war-gulf-of-tonkin-incident-2361345. The USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin is shown in 1963. Media Manipulation. American aircraft flying over the scene during the "attack" failed to spot any North Vietnamese boats. Operations Security (OPSEC) concerns and related communications restrictions prevented Maddox and its operational commanders up to the Seventh Fleet from knowing of the commando raid. At 2000 hours local time, Maddox reported it had two surface and three aerial contacts on radar. In the end the Navy agreed, and in concert with MACV, took steps to ensure that "34A operations will be adjusted to prevent interference" with Desoto patrols.7 This did not mean that MACV did not welcome the information brought back by the Desoto patrols, only that the two missions would not actively support one another. The electronic intercept traffic cited here is too voluminous to permit a conclusion that somehow everything was the figment of the collective imaginations on both sides. The subsequent North Vietnamese reporting on the enemy matched the location, course and speed of Maddox. ", "No," replied McCone. Herrick requested aerial reconnaissance for the next morning to search for the wreckage of the torpedo boats he thought he had sunk. During the afternoon of 3 August, another maritime team headed north from Da Nang. In the future, conventional operations would receive all the attention. No actual visual sightings by Maddox.". Returning fire, Maddox scored hits on the P-4s while being struck by a single 14.5-millimeter machine gun bullet. The boats followed at their maximum speed of 44 knots, continuing the chase for more than 20 minutes. The Truth About Tonkin | Naval History Magazine - February 2008 . Soon came a second more sinister interpretation -- that the incident was a conspiracy not only provoked by the Johnson administration but one in fact "scenarioed." Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. Under cover of darkness, four boats (PTF-2, PTF-3, PTF-5, and PTF-6) left Da Nang, racing north up the coast toward the demilitarized zone (DMZ), then angling farther out to sea as they left the safety of South Vietnamese waters.2 About five hours later they neared their objective: the offshore islands of Hon Me and Hon Nieu. Naval Institute Proceedings (February 1992), p. 59. At 0354 on 2 August, the destroyer was just south of Hon Me Island. SOG took the mounting war of words very seriously and assumed the worstthat an investigation would expose its operations against the North. The NSA report exposes translation and analytical errors made by the American SIGINT analystserrors that convinced the naval task force and national authorities that the North had ordered a second attack on August 4, and thus led Maddoxs crew to interpret its radar contacts and other information as confirmation that the ship was again under attack. The after-action reports from the participants in the Gulf arrived in Washington several hours after the report of the second incident. He has written numerous articles on Vietnam War-era special operations and is the author of two books on the war: Trial by Fire: The 1972 Easter Offensive, Americas Last Vietnam Battle (Hippocrene Books, 1994), and Ashes to Ashes: The Phoenix Program and the Vietnam War (Lexington Books, 1990). At each point, the ship would stop and circle, picking up electronic signals before moving on. 12. NSA analysts from shore-based stations shared Herricks belief and transmitted an immediate warning to all major Pacific Theater commandsexcept to Herrick and Maddox. For additional reading, see the recently declassified NSA study by Robert J. Hanyok, Spartans in the Darkness: American SIGINT and the Indochina War, 1945-1975; and Tonkin Gulf and The Escalation of the Vietnam War, by Edward Moise. Did Johnson learn something from the first experience? In a conversation with Johnson, McNamara confirmedthis, with a reference to OP-CON 34A,acovert operation against the North Vietnamese. This is another government conspiracy that's true. A National Security Agency report released in 2007 reveals unequivocally that the alleged Aug. 4, 1964, attack by North Vietnam on U.S. destroyers never actually happened. But, to me, the more pernicious deception was this idea that American ships were sailing innocently in the Gulf of Tonkin and were attacked without provocation, he continues. On Tuesday morning, Aug. 4, 1964, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara called President Lyndon Johnson with a report about a possible confrontation brewing in southeast Asia. That very night, the idea was put to the test. 15. Aircraft from Ticonderoga arrived on-scene at 1528 hours and fired on the boats. The threat removed, Maddox retired from the area to rejoin friendly forces. Unlike McNamara, Johnson, on the morning of Aug.4,1964, was in less of a hurry to respond to an attack. This was reinforced by statements by retired Vietnamese Defense Minister Vo Nguyen Giap who admitted to the Aug. 2 attack but denied ordering another two days later. In the subsequent exchange of fire, neither American nor North Vietnamese ships inflicted significant damage. President, weve just had a report from the commander of that task force out there The report is that they have observed and we don't know by what means two unidentified vessels and three unidentified prop aircraft in the vicinity of the destroyers, McNamara told the president. In any event, the attack took place in broad daylight under conditions of clear visibility. That night and morning, while cruising in heavy weather, the ships received radar, radio, and sonar reports that signaled another North Vietnamese attack. Moving in closer, the crew could see their targeta communications towersilhouetted in the moonlight. "14, Nasty fast patrol boats demonstrated their versatility in the Pacific Ocean before going to Vietnam.U.S. Both of these messages reached Washington shortly after 1400 hours EDT. But by the end of June, the situation had changed. We have ample forces to respond not only to these attacks on these destroyers but also to retaliate, should you wish to do so, against targets on the land, he toldthe president. American SIGINT analysts assessed the North Vietnamese reporting as probable preparations for further military operations against the Desoto patrol. PTF-3 and PTF-6 broke off and streaked south for safety; they were back in port before 1200. Such arguments are rooted in the information and documents released by Daniel Ellsberg and others, and were reinforced over the decades by anniversary interviews with some of the participants, including ships crewmen and officers. The maximum closure distance was originally established at 20 nautical miles, but the commander of the U.S. Everything went smoothly until the early hours of 2 August, when intelligence picked up indications that the North Vietnamese Navy had moved additional Swatows into the vicinity of Hon Me and Hon Nieu Islands and ordered them to prepare for battle. To have a Tonkin Gulf conspiracy means that the several hundred National Security Agency and naval communications cited have been doctored. In turn, that means a minimum of several hundred persons were party to a plot that has remained watertight in sieve-like Washington for two decades. The reports conclusions about the Gulf of Tonkin Incident are particularly relevant as they offer useful insights into the problems that SIGINT faces today in 5. McNamara did not mention the 34A raids.15. Two days later, August 4, Maddox returned to the area, supported by the destroyer Turner Joy (DD-951). In 1964 an Ohio woman took up the challenge that had led to Amelia Earharts disappearance. That initial error shaped all the subsequent assessments about North Vietnamese intentions, as U.S. SIGINT monitored and reported the Norths tracking of the two American destroyers. Haiphong again repeated the recall order after the attack. Those early mistakes led U.S. destroyers to open fire on spurious radar contacts, misinterpret their own propeller noises as incoming torpedoes, and ultimately report an attack that never occurred. Gulf of Tonkin - A secret report reveals how easily soldiers, spies and politicians can jump to a conclusion and plunge the country into war. Hanoi at the time denied all, leading to a third interpretation that remains alive today as what might be called the Stockdale thesis. As Communist communications activity was rising rapidly, American senior leaders were increasing support to the South Vietnamese government. Moises book, however, was based on only the few SIGINT reports he was able to obtain through the Freedom of Information Act. Given the maritime nature of the commando raids, which were launched from Da Nang, the bulk of the intelligence collecting fell to the Navy. 1, p. 646. 9/11. After a suspected torpedo attack by North Vietnamese patrol torpedo boats led to plans for US retaliation,the captain of the Maddox sent a cable to the Joint Chiefs that advised "complete evaluation before any further action"due to grave doubts over whether an attackhad reallyoccurred. The Tonkin Gulf Incident in the past two decades has been treated by at least three full-scale studies, dealt with at length by Congressional committees and extensively referenced in general histories, presidential memoirs and textbooks on the U.S. legislative function. Then, everyones doubts were swept away when a SIGINT intercept from one of the North Vietnamese torpedo boats reported the claim that it had shot down two American planes in the battle area. "11 Kennedy Hickman is a historian, museum director, and curator who specializes in military and naval history. By then, the two American ships were approximately 80 nautical miles from the nearest North Vietnamese coastline and steaming southeast at 20 knots. Even in the darkness, the commandos could see their targeta water tower surrounded by a few military buildings. 8. All missed, probably because the North Vietnamese had fired too soon. 4. Both sides, however, spent August 3 reviewing their contingency plans and analyzing lessons learned from the incident. In addition, the destroyer USS Turner Joy began moving to support Maddox. PTF-2 had mechanical troubles and had to turn back, but the other boats made it to their rendezvous point off the coast from Vinh Son. The battle was over in 22 minutes. And, of course, McNamara himself knew about the "South Vietnamese actions in connection with the two islands," but his cautiously worded answer got him out of admitting it. Thus, the South Vietnamese raid on Hon Me Island, a major North Vietnamese infiltration staging point, became the tripwire that set off the August 2 confrontation in the Gulf of Tonkin. For some reason, however, the second Desoto Mission, to be conducted by Maddox, was not canceled, even though it was scheduled to start at the same time that a late July commando mission was being launched. 136-137. The Gulf of Tonkin incident: the false flag operation that started the Vietnam war. Something Isnt Working Refresh the page to try again. Something Isnt Working . https://www.thoughtco.com/vietnam-war-gulf-of-tonkin-incident-2361345 (accessed March 4, 2023). The NSA report is revealing. Two nearly identical episodes six weeks apart; two nearly opposite responses. Suns and Stars Both countries were backing North Vietnam, but so far they were staying out of the conflict and the White House wanted to keep it that way. This along with flawed signals intelligence from the National Security Agency led Johnson to order retaliatory airstrikes against North Vietnam. Few areas of the world have been as hotly contested as the India-Pakistan border. At about the same time, there were other "secret" missions going on. On 3 August, the CIA confirmed that "Hanois naval units have displayed increasing sensitivity to U.S. and South Vietnamese naval activity in the Gulf of Tonkin during the past several months. History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. Neither the United States nor State of Vietnam signed anything at the 1954 Geneva Conference. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident and many more recent experiences only reinforce the need for intelligence analysts and decision makers to avoid relying exclusively on any single intelligence sourceeven SIGINTparticularly if other intelligence sources are available and the resulting decisions might cost lives. WebThe Gulf of Tonkin and the Vietnam War. Two hours later, Captain Herrick reported the sinking of two enemy patrol boats. WebKnown today as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, this event spawned the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution of 7 August 1964, ultimately leading to open war between North Vietnam and The errors made in the initial analysis were due to a combination of inexperience, limited knowledge of North Vietnams operations and an operational imperative to ensure that the U.S. Navy ships would not be caught by surprise. The North also protested the South Vietnamese commando raid on Hon Me Island and claimed that the Desoto Mission ships had been involved in that raid. The Commander-in-Chief, Pacific, Admiral Harry D. Felt, agreed and suggested that a U.S. Navy ship could be used to vector 34A boats to their targets.6. In response, the North Vietnamese boat launched a torpedo. https://www.historynet.com/case-closed-the-gulf-of-tonkin-incident/, Jerrie Mock: Record-Breaking American Female Pilot, When 21 Sikh Soldiers Fought the Odds Against 10,000 Pashtun Warriors, Few Red Tails Remain: Tuskegee Airman Dies at 96. Or purchase a subscription for unlimited access to real news you can count on. With this information, back in Washington President Johnson and his advisers considered their options. He headed seaward hoping to avoid a confrontation until daybreak, then returned to the coast at 1045, this time north of Hon Me. "13 As far as the State Department was concerned, there was no need to "review" the operations. Midday on August 1, NSGA San Miguel, the U.S. Marine Corps SIGINT detachment co-located with the U.S. Army at Phu Bai, and Maddoxs own DSU all detected the communications directing the North Vietnamese torpedo boats to depart from Haiphong on August 2. After the incident, Herrick was unsure that his ships had been attacked, reporting at 1:27 a.m. Washington time that "Freak weather effects on radar and overeager sonarmen may have accounted for many reports. The people who are calling me up, they want to be damned sure I don't pull 'em out and run, and they want to be damned sure that we're firm. He is the author of Shadow War: The Secret War in Laos, as well as several short studies on special operations, including The War in Cambodia (Osprey Books, 1988), The War in Laos (Osprey Books, 1989), and Southeast Asian Special Forces (Osprey Books, 1990). CIA Director John McCone was convinced that Hanoi was reacting to the raids when it attacked the Maddox. Fluoride. JCS, "34A Chronology of Events," (see Marolda and Fitzgerald, p. 424); Porter. You can find out more about our use, change your default settings, and withdraw your consent at any time with effect for the future by visiting Cookies Settings, which can also be found in the footer of the site. Early Military Career The basic story line of the Gulf of Tonkin incident is as follows: At approximately 1430 hours Vietnam time on August 2, 1964, USS Maddox (DD-731) detected three North Vietnamese torpedo boats approaching at high speed. Scattered small-arms sent tracers toward the commandos, but no one was hurt. Joseph C. Goulden, Truth Is the First Casualty: The Gulf of Tonkin AffairIllusion and Reality (Chicago: Rand McNally & Co., 1969), p. 80. Shortly after ordering the airstrikes, Johnson went on television and addressed the nation regarding the incident. Despite McNamaras nimble answers, North Vietnams insistence that there was a connection between 34A and the Desoto patrols was only natural. This time, however, President Johnson reacted much more skeptically and ultimately decided to take no retaliatory action. This was granted, and four F-8 Crusaders were vectored towards Maddox's position. including the use of armed force" to assist South Vietnam (the resolution passed the House 416 to 0, and the Senate 88 to 2; in January 1971 President Nixon signed legislation that included its "repeal"). The contacts were to the northeast of the ship, putting them about 100 nautical miles from North Vietnam but very close to Chinas Hainan Island. Hanoi was more than willing to tell the world about the attacks, and it took either a fool or an innocent to believe that the United States knew nothing about the raids. We're going to retaliate and well make an announcement a little later in the evening, in the next hour or so and well ask Congress for a resolution of war the next day to support us, Johnson toldan old friend. Media reporting on the NSA reports assessments sparked a brief rehash of the old arguments about the Gulf of Tonkin. McNamara was ready to respond. By late 1958 it was obvious that a major Communist buildup was underway in South Vietnam, but the American SIGINT community was ill-placed and ill-equipped to deal with it. But we sure ought to always leave the impression that if you shoot at us, you're going to get hit, Johnson said. The House passed the resolution unanimously.17 This is not the place to establish the final truth on the Gulf of Tonkin matter and certainly I am not the person to render the ultimate judgment. . After 15 minutes of maneuvering, the F-8s arrived and strafed the North Vietnamese boats, damaging two and leaving the third dead in the water. Neither ships crew knew about the North Vietnamese salvage operation. Until 1964, Desoto patrols stayed at least 20 miles away from the coast. . Just after midnight on 31 July, PTF-2 and PTF-5, commanded by Lieutenant Huyet, arrived undetected at a position 800 yards northeast of the island. The North Vietnamese coastal radars also tracked and reported the positions of U.S. aircraft operating east of the ships, probably the combat air patrol the Seventh Fleet had ordered in support. Quoted in Steve Edwards, "Stalking the Enemys Coast," U.S. Just before midnight, the four boats cut their engines. NSA officials handed the key August SIGINT reports over to the JCS investigating team that examined the incident in September 1964. The North Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs made all this clear in September when it published a "Memorandum Regarding the U.S. War Acts Against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in the First Days of August 1964." 426-436. IV-2 to IV-4. Related:LBJ knew the Vietnam War was a disaster in the making. (2021, February 16). Message, COMUSMACV 291233Z July 1964, CP 291345Z July 1964. Historians still disagree over whether Johnson deliberately misled Congress and the American people about the Tonkin Gulf incident or simply capitalized on an opportunity that came his way. Thats what all the country wants, because Goldwater's raising so much hell about how he's gonna blow 'em off the moon, and they say that we oughtn't to do anything that the national interest doesn't require. Hisfirst ship was USS Glennon (DD-840), a FRAM I destroyer, thesame class as Maddox. Until the ICC investigation blew over a week later, the commandos camped on a small pier. During a meeting at the White House on the evening of 4 August, President Johnson asked McCone, "Do they want a war by attacking our ships in the middle of the Gulf of Tonkin? The report also identifies what SIGINT couldand could nottell commanders about their enemies and their unreliable friends in the war. Along with other American warships, Maddox was steaming in international waters some 28 nautical miles off North Vietnams coast, gathering information on that countrys coastal radars. In November of 2001, the LBJ Presidential library and museum released tapes of phone conversations with the President and then Defense ThoughtCo. On the afternoon of Aug. 2, three Soviet-built P-4 motor torpedo boats were dispatched to attack the destroyer. Most uncertainty has long centered on the alleged second attack of August 4. However, unlike the good old days when -- as the wizened cynical Frenchmen put it, history was a lie agreed-on -- no longer can governments after the battle simply set down how it went and that is that. There remains some disagreement among historians about the second (Aug. 4) incident, which involved the Maddox and another destroyer, the USS Turner Joy. The tug departed Haiphong at approximately 0100 hours on August 4, while the undamaged torpedo boat, T-146, was ordered to stay with the crippled boats and maintain an alert for enemy forces. At about 0600, the two U.S. destroyers resumed the Desoto patrol. Those same reports were shown to the select congressional and senate committees that also investigated the incident. Summary Notes of the 538th Meeting of the NSC, 4 August 1964, 6:15-6:40 p.m., Foreign Relations of the United States 1964-1968, vol. Unfortunately, much of the media reporting combined or confused the events of August 2 and 4 into a single incident. When you visit the site, Dotdash Meredith and its partners may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. Maddox detected the torpedo boats on radar at a range of almost 20,000 yards and turned away at its top speed of 32 knots. The Johnson administration had made the first of several secret diplomatic attempts during the summer of 1964 to convince the North Vietnamese to stop its war on South Vietnam, using the chief Canadian delegate to the ICC, J. Blair Seaborn, to pass the message along to Hanoi. Not all wars are made for navies, and the U.S. Navy had to insinuate itself into the Vietnam one and carve out a role. George C. Herring, ed., The Secret Diplomacy of the Vietnam War: The Negotiating Volumes of the Pentagon Papers (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1983), p. 18. On the night of 4 August, both ships reported renewed attacks by North Vietnamese patrol boats. The two boats headed northeast along the same route they had come, then turned south for the run back to South Vietnam. Signals Intelligence is a valuable source but it is not perfect. Easily outdistancing the North Vietnamese boat, the commandos arrived back at Da Nang shortly after daybreak.8, North Vietnam immediately and publicly linked the 34A raids and the Desoto patrol, a move that threatened tentative peace feelers from Washington that were only just reaching Hanoi. Meanwhile, by late August 3, the North Vietnamese had learned the condition of their torpedo boats and ordered a salvage tug to recover the damaged craft. Hanoi pointed out what Washington denied: "On July 30, 1964 . Senate investigations in 1968 and 1975 did little to clarify the events or the evidence, lending further credence to the various conspiracy theories. It set a very terrible precedent, which is that he would go on to escalate further, not with any striking confidence that his objectives will be achieved, but only with the assurance that, unless he embarked on these massive military escalations, America would fail in Vietnam and he might well be labeled the only president in American history to lose a war.. Mr. For the maritime war specialist, it is of course invaluable. Lyndon Johnson on August 5, 1964, assertedly in reaction to two The first reports of the encounter from the destroyers reached the White House at 1000 EDT. "4 . Seventh Fleet reduced it to 12 nautical miles. A joint resolution of Congress dated August 7, 1964, gave the president authority to increase U.S. involvement in the war between North and South Vietnam and served as the legal basis for escalations in the Johnson and Nixon administrations that likely dwarfed what most Americans could have imagined in August 1964. With that false foundation in their minds, the on-scene naval analysts saw the evidence around them as confirmation of the attack they had been warned about. (The recent NBC television movie In Love and War had Navy pilot James B. Stockdale flying over the scene at the time saying, "I see nothing"; now a retired vice admiral, Stockdale has reiterated the "phoney attack" charge in writings and public speaking.). Hanoi denied the charge that it had fired on the U.S. destroyers on 4 August, calling the charge "an impudent fabrication. The Gulf of Tonkin incident was a complex naval event in the Gulf of Tonkin, off the coast of Vietnam, that was presented to the U.S. Congress on August 5, 1964, as two unprovoked attacks by North Vietnamese torpedo boats on the destroyers Maddox and Turner Joy of the U.S. . WebNational Security Agency/Central Security Service > Home 14. At this point, U.S. involvement in Vietnam remained largely in the background. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution authorized President Lyndon Johnson to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States The Secret Side of the Tonkin Gulf Incident, 2. The disclaimer is required, if for no other reason than because of Chapter 15, "The American Response to the Gulf of Tonkin Attacks," about which more later. President Johnson ordered a halt to all 34A operations "to avoid sending confusing signals associated with recent events in the Gulf of Tonkin." For the rest of the war they would be truly secretand in the end they were a dismal failure. At 1505, when the torpedo boats had closed within 10,000 yards, in accordance with Captain Herricks orders and as allowed under international law at that time, Maddox fired three warning shots. "I think we are kidding the world if you try to give the impression that when the South Vietnamese naval boats bombarded two islands a short distance off the coast of North Vietnam we were not implicated," he scornfully told McNamara during the hearings.16 The Gulf of Tonkin incident, like others in our nation's history, has become the center of considerable controversy and debate. In the days leading up to the first incident of August 2nd, those secret operations had intensified.. There was more or less general acceptance of the Navy's initial account -- there was an unprovoked attack on Aug. 2 by three North Vietnamese patrol boats on an American warship, the destroyer USS Maddox in international waters. Approved on Aug. 10, 1964, the Southeast Asia (Gulf of Tonkin) Resolution, gave Johnson the power to use military force in the region without requiring a declaration of war. He is the author of. On July 31, 1964, the destroyer USS Maddox commenced a Desoto patrol off North Vietnam. Two days later, the Gulf of Tonkin resolution sailedthrough both houses of Congress by a vote of 504 to 2. When the boats reached that point, Maddox fired three warning shots, but the torpedo boats continued inbound at high speed. 302-303. 1, Vietnam 1964 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1992), p. 611. U.S. and South Vietnamese warships intruded into the territorial waters of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and simultaneously shelled: Hon Nieu Island, 4 kilometers off the coast of Thanh Hoa Province [and] Hon Me Island, 12 kilometers off the coast of Thanh Hoa Province." On 28 July, the latest specially fitted destroyer, the Maddox (DD-731), set out from Taiwan for the South China Sea. In fact, an earlier Desoto patrol planned for February had been canceled because of concerns over potential interference with South Vietnamese commando missions scheduled for the same time.