OPLAN 34A
On August 1, 1964, the North Vietnamese government accuses South Vietnam and the United States of having authorized attacks on Hon Me and Hon Ngu, two of their islands in the Tonkin Gulf.
The North Vietnamese were partly correct; the attacks, conducted just after midnight on July 30, were part of a covert operation called Oplan 34A, which involved raids by South Vietnamese commandos operating under American orders against North Vietnamese coastal and island installations. Although American forces were not directly involved in the actual raids, U.S. Navy ships were on station to conduct electronic surveillance and monitor North Vietnamese defense responses under another program called Operation De Soto. The Oplan 34A attacks played a major role in events that led to what became known as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident.
On August 2, North Vietnamese patrol boats attacked the destroyer USS Maddox which was conducting a De Soto mission in the area. Two days after the first attack, there was another incident that still remains unclear. The Maddox, joined by destroyer USS C. Turner Joy, engaged what were thought at the time to be more attacking North Vietnamese patrol boats. Although it was questionable whether the second attack actually happened or not, the incident provided the rationale for retaliatory air attacks against the North Vietnamese and the subsequent Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which became the basis for the initial escalation of the war in Vietnam and ultimately the insertion of U.S. combat troops into the area.
North Vietnamese accuse South Vietnam and the United States of attack
Seven months later, the first U.S. ground troops arrived in Da Nang marking the beginning of 10-year-long direct involvement of the U.S. in the Vietnam War.
Over the roughly eight years in operation, OPLAN 34A sent over 1,000 missions into waters off North Vietnam. Nearly all missions were successful and achieved their primary or secondary objective.
Category: Historical
Nice piece of historical work. Thanks, ex-OS2. Nic job.
Thank you Ex-PH2, this was interesting to research.
👍👍
These new like buttons are interesting. Ought to be fun to see how they go for posts.
What I do know is that I know entirely too little about this incident, but I never end up having to debate it with anyone, which is surprising.
You’ll more likely hear “Bush lied about WMDs in Iraq” from people who have no idea what a WMD is.
Oh I love those. I’m not an NBC type, but I know enough to be able to retort quite sufficiently about the whole WMD thing. Quite a bit I’ve learned from here and how to learn about it from here. Another great thing about having found TAH.
“These new like buttons are interesting”
Defacto screen name registration. There will be a permannent record of all users for future elimination of those with excessive no likies. See you in the “camps”
ex-OS2 is now the official TAH historian.
I embrace this opportunity to provide historical content at TAH.
Ed, you better run that by Hondo. I thought he was the de facto historian for the site.
By the way, Ed, if you have access to all of Jonn’s email base, will you send me an email so I can contact you directly?
And I thought it was Combat Historian. Damn. Ed’s in deep.
E-mail sent. If I’m in Hondo’s rice bowl, apologies.
Hell, man, no good turn goes unpunished. The fact is that we have more than several folks here who are into history, military and otherwise, and many more who appreciate reading their stuff. As Hondo said below, the more the merrier.
I “like” code monkey hippy chick! Thank you ma’am!
A bonus of having a “like” button is that is Chevyliar shows up under an alias, we will know it because he compulsively likes his own comments.
So would it be wrong to like my own post ????
Not as long as you do it in private.
But if he likes himself more than once per day, he’ll go blind.
It’s ok as long as you stop when you need glasses.
And he’ll need to wash and shave the palms of his hands afterwards.
Somebody has to so, sure, go ahead, Skip.
Great article. WAR STORY ALERT: When I was an admin NCO serving in CINCPAC J3A3 Special Operations in 69′, I processed TS reports of OPLAN34A raids up North. Many contained heroic acts by the Vietnamese troops involved. NVA “junks” were the targets I recall and some serious hand-to-hand was involved.
Last week on Tucker Carlson a retired Colonel Macgregor was a guest, and in the course of the discussion the COL stated the Gulf of Tonkin incident did not happen. He did not distinguish between the 4 August incident (which well may not have happened) and the 2 August incident which indisputably did happen. He was trying to make a case about politicians perhaps falsifying things in order to justify going to war (with Iran in mind). He suggested that was what happened in 1964 by dismissing the entire thing as invented.
Tucker did not challenge him. Tucker’s boast of being the enemy of lying and pomposity took a big hit in my mind that day. That retired Colonel epitomized those characteristics with his lie, and insulted the crew of the USS Maddox.
There is certainly controversy surrounding this and the motives of the decision makers of the day.
Just a continuation of the big lies told over and over again until the inevitable day when all those who know the truth have finally died and only the lies survive.
Except that history lessons have been passed along to enough people that even if all the printed books magically disappear there will be some people left to tell the truth.
I remember the “Tonkin” incident while on board the OKIE 3 and Remember when I was in Boot Camp Great Lakes, One of the guys whom I was friendly with had orders for the Turner Joy.
Good article, ex-OS2. For the record: I have zero issue with anyone posting historical articles here at TAH as long as they’re accurate and aren’t slanted to support a political agenda. The more the merrier. A bit of second/third order effect analysis, though, on this one. The 1 Aug 1964 OPLAN 34A attacks on Hon Me and Hon Ngu may well have caused the attack on the USS Maddox the following day. From North Vietnam’s perspective, the attacks – plus the presence of the USS Maddox in the immediate area – certainly appeared related. So from their perspective, the attack on the USS Maddox was justified. And the fact that US and RVN authorities denied what they knew to be indisputably true about the 1 Aug attacks reinforced their belief. That’s the second order effect. The third order effect is that it gave LBJ the excuse he was looking for to get Congress to pass the Gulf of Tonkin resolution – which in turn gave him carte blanche do do whatever he wanted in SEA, including getting the US into a major war without Congressional approval. And he did exactly that by first lying about the Gulf of Tonkin incidents, withholding the truth about the OPLAN 34A attacks on 1 August, and otherwise lying to the American public while deploying US troops on the QT until we had close to 200,000 troops in country. At that point, we were in so deep that there was no way in hell Congress would force the issue. In short: a damn good argument can be made that OPLAN 34A enabled – indirectly – LBJ to unilaterally commit the US to war in Vietnam. FWIW: the general consensus today – backed by LBJ’s own statements, those of others involved, and later NSA analysis – is that the purported 4 Aug incident involving the USS Maddox and the USS Turner Joy almost certainly never happened. (The 2 August incident indisputably did happen.) It’s also clear that LBJ knew at the time that the second incident had never happened. Nixon justifiably gets hammered regarding being dishonest… Read more »
Much obliged Hondo and I appreciate your commentary.
De nada, amigo. Good article.
FWIW: there was one additional 3rd order effect of OPLAN 34A that I can’t believe I didn’t include above. LBJ’s retaliation for the Gulf of Tonkin “Incidents” obviated Goldwater’s major political weapon during the 1964 Presidential election (that LBJ was soft on Communism), thus ensuring electoral landslide victory. (My guess is that LBJ would have won anyway due to the JFK “sympathy vote” – but without that issue in play, LBJ ended up winning in a landslide.) That landslide enabled LBJ to screw the country royally with his “Great Society” social programs, setting it on a more Socialist course.
So we may also have OPLAN 34A to “thank” for that dramatic increase in social welfare programs that have their origin or dramatic expansion during LBJ’s Administration – and which are today bankrupting the USG.
I would go back to Eisenhower and his failure to save Dien Bien Phu from the Viet Minh. May well have prevented the war as well as Cambodia’s sad demise.
Regarding Cambodia, maybe. But IMO highly doubtful regarding Vietnam.
At the time of Dien Bien Phu, the Vietnamese had been fighting foreign invaders (China, [repeatedly], Cambodia, France, Japan, France again, and [from the North Vietnamese perspective] the USA) for roughly 2000 years – literally ever since the establishment of an independent Vietnam. The historical pattern was periodic foreign conquest of all or part of Vietnam followed by resistance/rebellion followed by regained independence, repeated as necessary. There had also been a historical north/south rivalry in Vietnam, which often devolved into civil war during times of Vietnamese independence. Foreign invaders sometimes exploited or otherwise took advantage of this rivalry.
From the Vietnamese perspective, the US involvement in Vietnam was merely another cycle in their normal historical pattern; only the foreign adversary was different. I suspect rather strongly that had we intervened at Dien Bien Phu we’d simply have conducted the Vietnam War a few years earlier than we actually did. And I also suspect the result would have been much the same; the North Vietnamese were simply willing to endure far more “pain” to achieve national unity than we were to preserve an independent South Vietnam.
If you want to blame anyone for the Vietnam War, blame Truman. Ho Chi Minh openly asked for our assistance in achieving Vietnamese independence from France when he declared short-lived independence in Sep 1945. Hell, he even quoted the Declaration of Independence when he declared independence from France.
Truman was persuaded to support France instead. Biggest single mistake the man ever made, IMO – and we paid for that mistake 20 years later with 58,000+ American lives.
Recalling and analyzing “LBJ’s own statements” seems to be anathema to the political party from which he sprung. A guy could make a lot of hay in that field. Personally, I hate that SOB…abd I’m a Texan.
I’m not a Texan, GDContractor – and I hate LBJ too. In my book, he’s the most loathsome individual to ever hold the office of POTUS. The only one who can give him a run for his money is Billy “Lolita Express” Clintoon – and even then, only if the allegations of his being a rapist and teen diddler are true.
Preach on and Testify Hondo! None of us will be alive when all these truths become self evident. Ike didn’t want to get involved at all, the French wanted us to send troops in under their command, mainly to try to save their Former Colonies. Nixon had the rep for “dirty tricks” but IMHO The Dems perfected that art a long time ago.
I appreciate the history, and it gives me more insight into what happened and how to proceed in my never ending search for true history. History, unfortunately, changes all the time depending on who is relating it and the agenda on which it is related.
I was in on the tail end of Vietnam, but never served in country no matter what my own lying records state. I was, however, stuck in Washington, D.C. for the four years I wore an EM’s uniform. You should have heard the many lies I heard while inspecting areas of the Pentagon and other government buildings, not to mention trying to disguise my obvious military haircut while making my way through the city during the ever present protests! And Rodney Dangerfield thought he got no respect! (I did food and sanitary inspections all around the Military District of Washington.)
I research history all the time. I have history books dating back to the late 1700’s. I also pay attention to things, just as I have since a child. It is always an amazing comparison to see written history against what I have seen with my own eyes and heard with my own ears! But even with different books written in the same time period there can be major differences in the reporting of history. What is the truth? That is always my goal, and I find the best history is from those who lived it.
One of the best histories of the Vietnam war is the one written by retired LTG Philip Davidson, “Vietnam At War: 1946 – 1975.”
Davidson was Westmoreland’s G2 and had a front row seat to the most contentious parts of the war, but he also spends a lot of time going through the history, back to the end of WWII.
In Davidson’s book, one of the things he points out was that the North Vietnamese government was well aware of the US presence in the waters off the coast of NVN and was trying very hard not to provoke any incidents that could lead to escalation of US assistance to SVN which they wanted to avoid at all costs.
Apparently the NVN officer who fired on the Maddox was severely reprimanded for having done so. That lends further credence to the likelihood that the 2nd attack on the Turner Joy never happened.
Some of those 1,000 operations were conducted by the Vietnamese Sea Commandos based in Da Nang. They were advised by the Naval Advisory Detachment (NAD) which was part of MACVSOG. They operated “sterile” fast boats built in Norway, which looked like our WWII PT boats. I received a tour of them and their operations center in 1971.
Something that might be pointed out about the Gulf of Tonkin incidents is that both the Maddox and Turner Joy were engaged in signals intelligence gathering as part of support for the South Vietnamese. In those days, naval sigint was usually a responsibility of the Naval Security Group (NSG) which was ostensibly part of the Navy but actually mostly controlled by the NSA.
The NSA has always been extremely secretive. In the context of the Tonkin Gulf incidents, the specific facts surrounding the purported attacks might well be obscure because the NSA didn’t want them known if such disclosure meant revealing capability and operational methods NSG was using.
In 2005 and 2006, NSA “came clean” on the Gulf of Tonkin incident, PG. Short version: they told LBJ and his cronies what they wanted to hear, facts be damned.
See
https://www.nsa.gov/news-features/declassified-documents/gulf-of-tonkin/articles/
https://www.nsa.gov/news-features/declassified-documents/gulf-of-tonkin/
https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu//NSAEBB/NSAEBB132/press20051201.htm
Very well done, ex-OS2!
Thank you my friend.
[…] Hat: What Does Citizenship Mean When Non-Citizens Can Outvote You? This Ain’t Hell: OPLAN34A, also, Remains Returned By Norks Could Take Up To A Decade To Identify Victory Girls: bRomance […]