The First Shot
Amid steadily rising tensions over North Vietnams activities on Laos and South Vietnam, at the end July 1964 USS Maddox entered the Gulf of Tonkin for a cruise along the North Vietnamese coast. As a part of general U.S. effort to collect intelligence in potential hot spots, this "Desota Patrol"was focused on obtaining information that would support South Vietnamese coastal raids against North Vietnam.
One of these had just taken place as Maddox began her mission.
On the afternoon of 2 August 1964, while steaming well off shore in international waters, Maddox was attacked by three North Vietnamese motor torpedo boats. The destroyer maneuvered to avoid torpedoes and used her guns against the fast-moving opponents, hitting them all. In turn, she was struck in the aft gun director by a single 14.5 millimeter machine gun bullet. Maddox called for air support from the carrier Ticonderoga, whose planes strafed the three boats, leaving one dead in the water burning. Both sides then separated.
The President and his national security advisors were surprised that Ho Chi Minh had not only failed to buckle under U.S. military pressure but had reached to it in such a bold way.
Johnson, Admiral Ulysses S.G. Sharp, the commander of American military forces in the Pacific, and Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, decided that the United States could not retreat from the clear Communist challenge. They reinforced Maddox with the destroyer USS Turner Joy (DD 951) and directed Captain Herrick to continue his intelligence- gathering mission off North Vietnam with the two naval vessels. On the night of 4 August, the warships reported making contact and then being attacked by several fast craft far out to sea. Officers in the naval chain of command and U.S leaders in Washington were persuade by interpretation of special intelligence and the reports from the ships that North Vietnamese naval forces had attacked the two destroyers.
In response to the attack of 2 August and the suspected attack on 4 August, the President ordered Seventh Fleet forces to launch retaliatory strikes against North Vietnam. On August 5, aircraft from carriers Ticonderoga and the USS Constellations (CVA 64) destroyed an oil facility at Vinh and damaged or sank about 30 enemy naval vessels in port or along the coast. Of greater significance, on 7 August the US Congress overwhelmingly passed the so-called Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which enabled Johnson to employ military force as he saw fit against the Vietnamese Communists. In the first months of 1965, the President ordered the deployment to South Vietnam of major U.S. ground, air, and naval forces.
Information gathered from http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq120-1.htm
Operation Rolling Thunder
Operation Rolling Thunder was a frequently bombing campaign that began on 24 February 1965 and lasted till the end of October 1968. During this period U.S. Air Force and Navy aircraft engaged in a bombing campaign designed to force Ho Chi Minh to abandon his ambition to take over South Vietnam.
The operation began primarily as a diplomatic signal to impress Hanoi with America's determination, essentially a warning that the violence would escalate until Ho Chi Minh "blinked," and secondly it was intended to bolster the sagging morale of the South Vietnamese. Then, Johnson also imposed strict limits on the targets that could be attacked, for China and the Soviet Union were seen as defenders of Communism that might intervene if the North Vietnamese faced defeat. Consequently, the administration tried to punish the North without prevoking the two nations believed to be its protectors.
Information gathered from http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/rolling_thunder.htm
Draft Lottery
A lottery drawing - the first since 1942- was held on December 1, 1969, at Selective Service Nationa Headquarters in Washington, DC. This event determined the order of call for induction duriing calendar year 1970, that is, for registrants born before January 1, 1944, and December 31, 1950. Reinstitution of the lottery was a change from the " draft the oldest man first" method, which had been the determining method for deciding order of call.
Information gathered from http://www.sss.gov/lottery1.htm
War Officially Over
During the early months of 1974, the North Vietnamese army advanced from the north and west on the southern capital. They soon surrounded Siagon with an ever-tightening perimeter. Siagon fell to the Communists on 29 April 1975. On the morning of April 30, 1975, the last Marine boarded a CH-46 helicopter atop the American Embassy in Saigon and took off eastward disappearing into the blue horizon. It was 21 years after the first advisors arrived in country and nearly three years after the last combat troops withdrew.
Information gathered from http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/vietnam.htm
