Operation Flaming Dart I and II

In late July and early August 1964, U.S.trained South Vietnamese naval commandos aboard fast-moving torpedo boats attacked two islands north of the demilitarized zone dividing the two countries. Though they did little physical damage, the attacks infuriated the North Vietnamese. They struck back, attacking the U.S. Navy destroyer Maddoxin in the Gulf of Tonkin with their own torpedo boats on 2 August. A second attack against the Maddox and the recently arrived Turner Joy came two days later. President Lyndon B. Johnson responded by sending naval aircraft on bombing missions against targets in North Vietnam.

The next major event came on 31 October when Viet Cong sappers hit the U.S. Air Force Base at Bien Hoa, northeast of Saigon. Four Americans died and five U.S. planes were destroyed in the attack. On Christmas Eve, a VC terrorist bomb exploded in the down town Saigon Brink Hotel, which served as an American bachelor officers' billet. One American naval officer died and fifty-eight more suffered injuries in the massive blast.

Relative quiet reigned over the country for the next few weeks. Then, in the early morning hours of 7 February 1965, Viet Cong infantry attacked two U.S. Army installations near Pleiku, in South Vietnam's mountainous Central Highlands. The fifteen-minute ground assault left 8 Americans dead and more than 125 wounded.

Elevated to the presidency after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963, Lyndon B. Johnson fought a bitter campaign during the summer and fall of 1964 to be elected in his own right. Regarding the building crisis in South Vietnam, he frequently stated his objections to sending 'American boys to do what Asian boys should be doing.. .' Once elected and safely in office, Johnson wasted no time in committing U.S. forces to the war. Less than twelve hours after the Pleiku attack, U.S. naval fighter-bomber aircraft from the carriers Ranger Hancock, and Coral Sea hit military targets near Dong Hoi, North Vietnam. The next day, in the second stage of Operation flaming Dart, land-based U.S. Air Force F-100 Super Saber jet fighters launched from the Da Nang air base. They struck guerrilla staging and communications centers near Vinh Linh and Chap Le, just across the demilitarized zone.

In a televised speech that same evening, President Johnson announced the air raids to the American public, saying: 'We have no choice but to clear the decks and make absolutely clear our continued determination to back South Vietnam'. The president further stated that he had ordered dependents of American service men stationed in South Vietnam to return home. He then declared, 'I have ordered the deployment to South Vietnam of a HAWK Air Defense Battalion. Other reinforcements, in units and individuals, may follow'.

Though the logic of sending a surface-to-air guided missile weapons system to South Vietnam, which had never been threatened with air attacks, and never would, escaped many, nevertheless the orders went out. On Okinawa the Marines' 1st Light Antiaircraft Missile (LAAM) Battalion got the nod.

Battery A, 1st LAAM flew into Da Nang on the night of 8-9 February. The rest of the battalion, traveling by ship, arrived over the next week. By 16 February the five-hundred-plus Marines of the 1st LAAM occupied positions surrounding the Da Nang air base. America's leaders were convinced that this show of force would persuade North Vietnam's leaders to curtail terrorist attacks.

They were wrong.

On 10 February, the Viet Cong attacked a U.S. Army enlisted men's barracks at coastal Qui Nhon in Binh Dinh Province. Twenty- three American soldiers died; another twenty-two were wounded. President Johnson immediately ordered another round of air strikes. Naval warplanes from the carriers and ground-based aircraft from Da Nang headed north on 12 February under Operation Flaming Dart II.

Significantly, President Johnson referred to these raids not as reprisals but as air operations' provoked by 'continued aggression'. The next day, heeding the recommendations of his key military advisers, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Johnson opted to begin a program of 'measured and limited air action jointly with South Vietnam against selected military targets in North Vietnam.. .' The air attacks would be regularly scheduled several times per week with two or three major targets on each operation. The new campaign was called Rolling Thunder.

Though the first strikes had been scheduled for 20 February, renewed South Vietnamese political instability put Operation Rolling Thunder on hold. The day before, a military coup aimed at the current premier, Gen. Nguyen Khanh, failed. However, after a subsequent vote of no confidence from the Armed Forces Council, Khanh departed the country. The leadership of South Vietnam was again in doubt.

Confronted with an unstable political situation just as a massive air campaign was commencing, Gen. William C. Westmoreland, the new commander, U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), had grave reservations about the ability of the ARVN forces to protect the U.S. air base at Da Nang and the HAWK battalion. He ordered his deputy, Lt. Gen. John L. Throckmorton, to determine what level of U.S. ground forces would be needed for adequate security. Throckmorton responded within twenty-four hours. He recommended two battalions of Marines be deployed to guard the Da Nang complex.

General Westmoreland concurred. He sent the request to his immediate superior, Adm. Ulysses S. Grant Sharp, Jr., Commander in Chief, Pacific, on 22 February. Admiral Sharp forwarded his positive endorsement of Westmoreland's request to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.