FOIA: Gulf of Tonkin Situation Report No. 2

relea00132.pdf

Gulf of Tonkin Situation Report No: 2
Follow up report on the US carrier based attack/s on the DRV PT boats on 5 August 1964. This report gives a brief damage report, based on DRV communications, of the ships attacked by the US and the extent of damage.
Document date: 1964-08-06
Department: NSA Headquarters, Ft. Meade, MD (DIRNSDA)
Author: SIGINT
Document type: Report
pages: 1


Archivist's Notes: The US carrier attacked DRV Naval ships that were a threat to US ships in Interantional waters. The extent of the damage to the DRV ships was to the extent of 9 damaged or lost. This, however, is said to be, by US reports, below estimated figures. The DRV also report having shot down 6 US aircraft - this probably to boost moral - they also dispersed further vessels around the islands and channels of Hon Gay. Reported damage by the US was 9 ships eiether damaged or lost and one oil storage facility. Extent of damage was not 100% known.



[edit on 3/17/2008 by JacKatMtn]

Gulf of Tonkin Situation Report no. 2
1 page, dated 6th August 1964.

This report is based on the U.S. listening in to DRV (Vietnamese) communications.

U.S. attacked DRV PT boat bases on August 5, 1964. According to DRV communications, nine craft were reported damaged or lost though the report says this was far below current estimates.

According to DRV communications, DRV naval authorities were fearing another attack and ordered vessels to disperse and camouflage.

Their list of damaged/lost vessels were as follows:
One unidentified vessel in Ben Thuy area probably lost,
One unidentified unlocated vessel probably damaged,
T336 disabled (damaged in the attack on the Maddox),
T125 damaged,
5 unidentified vessels subordinate to a probable Flotilla 27,
were damaged Vinh oil storage facilities reported as bombed but extent of damage not reported.

All about the Gulf of Tonkin incident here:
Wikipedia

The Gulf of Tonkin Incident defined the beginning of large-scale involvement of U.S. armed forces in Vietnam. It was a pair of supposed attacks carried out by naval forces of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) against two American destroyers, the USS Maddox and the USS Turner Joy. The incident occurred on August 2 and 4, 1964 in the Gulf of Tonkin.
The outcome of the incident was the passage by Congress of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which granted President Lyndon Johnson the authority to assist any Southeast Asian country whose government was considered to be jeopardized by "communist aggression". The resolution served as Johnson's legal justification for escalating American involvement in the Vietnam Conflict, which lasted until 1975.
In 2005, it was revealed in an official NSA declassified report that the Maddox first fired warning shots on the August 2 incident and that there may have been no North Vietnamese boats at the August 4 incident.

This document is a report of the damage assessment after an air attack by the US Navy on the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV). The attack was in response to supposed earlier attacks by the DRV on the US Navy Destroyers USS Maddox and USS Turner Joy on Aug. 2 - 4, 1964. The attack damaged several DRV PT boats and a fueling station for the boats. The document describes how the information was gathered by intercepted radio transmissions where the DRV also claimed to have downed US aircraft, which turned out to be false.

The earlier attacks on the US Destroyers was known as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, it lead to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave President Lyndon Johnson authority to provide military support for ally countries and ultimately led to the Vietnam War. Later it was found that in the first attack, the USS Maddox had fired at the PT boats first, and the second attack didn't even happen, which leads many to speculate that it was a false flag operation.

Related FOIA Document:
FOIA: DRV attack on US Ships in Gulf of Tonkin; 2 - 4 August 1964

[edit on 3/19/2008 by Hal9000]