U.S. Navy Publications

Edward J. Marolda and G. Wesley Pryce, III, A Short History of the United States Navy and the Southeast Asian Conflict, 1950-1975. Washington: Naval Historical Center, 1984. ix, 131 pp.

Edward J. Marolda, By Sea, Air and Land: An Illustrated History of the U.S. Navy and the War in Southeast Asia. Washington: Naval Historical Center, 1994. xvi, 416 pp. An incomplete version of this is available on a Naval Historical Center web site. The main text of the version on the web site is almost identical to that of the printed volume, but most of the photographs and some of the maps have been omitted from the version on the web site.
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Edwin Hooper, Dean Allard, and Oscar Fitzgerald, The United States Navy and the Vietnam Conflict, vol. I, The Setting of the Stage to 1959. Washington: Naval History Division, 1976. xi, 419 pp. The full text is available online to paid subscribers of Questia. I was not impressed by the portion of this I have read; note in particular the way it gives the impression that the French may have been close to defeating the Viet Minh on the battlefield and winning the First Indochina War when the Geneva Conference of 1954 came along and spoiled everything.
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Edward J. Marolda and Oscar Fitzgerald, The United States Navy and the Vietnam Conflict, vol. II, From Military Assistance to Combat, 1959-1965. Washington: Naval Historical Center, 1986.  xv, 591 pp.  Better, but sometimes factually unreliable, particularly in the section dealing with the Tonkin Gulf Incidents of August 1964.
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Edward J. Marolda, Summary of the Tonkin Gulf Crisis of August 1964. In this essay and its associated Bibliography, published electronically on a web site of the Naval Historical Center, Marolda recanted his conclusion, in the volume above, about the reality of the second Tonkin Gulf Incident. He states: "More recent analysis of that data and additional information gathered on the 4 August episode now makes it clear that North Vietnamese naval forces did not attack Maddox and Turner Joy that night in the summer of 1964."

Boats of the United States Navy. Navships 250-452, May 1967. Pages are not numbered; boats are listed in order of length, with inflatable boats treated separately at the end, and an index by type in the front matter. The text has been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project at Texas Tech University, in six parts, from front matter and boats from 9' to 26' long, to boats 72' to 115' long, and inflatable boats.

Command and Control of Air Operations in the Vietnam War. Colloquium on Comtemporary History, January 23, 1991, No. 4. Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1991. 58 pp. The text has been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project at Texas Tech University, in four parts: pp. 1-11: Welcome (Dr. Dean C. Allard), Opening Remarks (Dr. Edward J. Marolda), "Tactical Command and Control of Carrier Operations" (Admiral James L. Holloway III); pp. 12-26: Holloway continued, "Washington's Management of the Rolling Thunder Campaign (Dr. Mark Jacobsen); pp. 27-42: Jacobson continued, "General Westmoreland and Control of the Air War (Dr. Graham A Cosmas), "Operation Niagara: Air Power and the Siege of Khe Sanh" (Bernard C. Nalty); pp. 43-58: Nalty continued, End Notes, General Discussion, Speakers' Biographies.

Commander Anthony R. DeMarco, Oral Histories: Navy Combat Field Historian in Vietnam, 1967-68. Some discussion of DeMarco's time observing PBRs, the Seawolves, the Mobile Riverine Force, etc. in the Mekong Delta.

Roy E. Grossnick et al., United States Naval Aviation, 1910-1995, 4th ed. Washington: Naval Historical Center, 1997. xxii, 811 pp. Part 9: The Sixth Decade, 1960-1969 (pp. 235-276); Part 10: The Seventies, 1970-1980 (pp. 279-330); Appendix 26: Carrier, Carrier Based Squadrons and Non-Carrier Based Squadron Deployments to Vietnam (pp. 705-736).
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Admiral Edwin B. Hooper, Mobility, Support, Endurance: A Story of Naval Operational Logistics in the Vietnam War, 1965-1968. Washington: Naval History Division, 1972.
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Lieutenant Commander Bobbi Hovis, Oral Histories: U.S. Navy Nurse in Saigon, 1963, During Vietnam Conflict. Adapted from "Coup in Saigon: A Nurse Remembers" Navy Medicine 88, no. 6 (Nov.-Dec. 1977), pp. 16-21.

Edward Marolda, ed., Operation End Sweep: A History of Minesweeping Operations in North Vietnam. 1993. 143 pp.
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Mine Warfare Project Office (PM-19), The Mining of North Vietnam, 8 May 1972 to 14 January 1973. (Washington?), 1975. The text has been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project at Texas Tech University, in three parts: Distribution cover letter, front matter, and chapters on background and planning;    most of the chapter "The Mining Operations";   and the remainder of the chapter "The Mining Operations," chapters on effectiveness and public reaction, etc. (includes discussion of damage to U.S. ships by stray mines).

Malcolm Muir, Jr., Black Shoes and Blue Water: Surface Warfare in the United States Navy, 1945-1975. Washington: GPO, 1996. 008-046-00163-3.

Naval Aviation News. Washington, DC: Navy Department. Publication apparently began in 1920. NOTE: shorter articles may not be mentioned in the table of contents just inside the cover of the magazine. Issues since late 1996 available online at Naval Aviation News.
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A random sample illustrating the sorts of Vietnam-related articles that were published:

JO1 Willard B. Bass, Jr., "PIRAZ Station: Control Point in Tonkin Gulf." January 1968, pp. 10-11. The guided missile destroyer USS Wainwright (DLG-28) controlling aircraft in the Positive Identification Radar Advisory Zone in the Gulf of Tonkin.

"Above and Beyond." February 1968, p. 17. Ltjg. Dennis Earl, flying an A-4 of VA-163 from USS `Oriskany~, continued his mission 11/21/67, dropping bombs to crater a road, with both legs badly wounded by a 14.7mm bullet, before returning to the carrier.

JOC John D. Burlage, "Skyhawk." March 1968, pp. 6-10.

JOC Bill Case and JO3 John Redmond, "Pilots Praise the Sturdy Skyhawk." March 1968, pp. 11-13.

PHC Wm. M. Powers, "Vietnam Milk Run." March 1968, pp. 14-17. Mostly photos. Navy C-54s based at Tan Son Nhut doing transport within Vietnam.

Ltjg. T. S. Storck, "Navy Seawolves on River Patrol," "Seawolves." March 1968, pp. 20-22. USS Hartnett County (LST-821) and the UH-1Bs of Helicopter Attack (Light) Squadron Three, Detachment Five, flying from it in the Mekong Delta.

"VP-5's Threefold Mission in Vietnam." March 1968, p. 29. VP-5 (the Mad Foxes) flies P-3A Orions doing night radar coverage of the Gulf of Tonkin, and also patrols as part of Operation Market Time.

Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Command History, 1965-1974. n.p., n.d. vi, 903 pp. The full text has been placed online by the Operational Archives of the U.S. Navy's Naval Historical Center. An index (go to the bottom of the page) gives links both to the whole thing as a huge (231MB) .pdf file and to the individual chapters, some of which are pretty large files just by themselves. Chapter X, "Construction" (pp. 353-540) is particularly useful, since the Naval Facilities Engineering Command was responsible for construction of bases for all U.S. services in Southeast Asia, not just naval bases. The Vietnam section (which actually goes back to 1962) is pp. 380-432, Thailand is pp. 432-436, Cambodia and Laos are pp. 436-37.

Naval War College Review. Issues since 1996 are available online.

Ralph W. Blanchard, "The Newsman in Vietnam: Responsible or Irresponsible?" June 1968, pp. 14-42.

Jean Sauvageot, "A Peace Denied: The United States, Vietnam and the Paris Agreements." Winter 1977, pp. 30-40.

Ulrik Luckow, "Victory over Ignorance and Fear: The U.S. Minelaying Attack on North Vietnam." Jan-Feb 1982, pp. 17-27.

Michael C. Mitchell, "Television and the Vietnam War." May-June 1984, pp. 42-52.

Nicholas J. Pappas, "The Academic Strategists and the Vietnam War." July-August 1983, pp. 32-37.

Charles F. Brower IV, "Strategic Reassessment in Vietnam: The Westmoreland 'Alternate Strategy' of 1967-1968." Spring 1991, pp. 20-51.

Bernard Fall, "The Theory and Practice of Counterinsurgency" LI:1 (Winter 1998) (reprinted from the April 1965 issue).

Neil Sheehan, "The Role of the Press" LI:1 (Winter 1998) (reprinted from the February 1971 issue).

Rear Admiral James B. Stockdale, "Experiences as a POW in Vietnam" LI:1 (Winter 1998) (reprinted from the January-February 1974 issue).

Jonathan S. Wiarda, "The U.S. Coast Guard in Vietnam: Achieving Success in a Difficult War" LI:2 (Spring 1998).

Douglas Porch, "“No Bad Stories”: The American Media-Military Relationship" LV:1 (Winter 2002).

The Navy in Vietnam. Washington: GPO, 1968. 33 pp. Extensively illustrated. The text has been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project at Texas Tech University.

Operational Experience of Fast Battleships: World War II, Korea, Vietnam.
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Order of Battle for Carriers and Carrier-based Squadrons in the Western Pacific (WestPac) and Vietnam 1964-1975. Published online at http://www.history.navy.mil/branches/ordbat.htm. Lists dates for each carrier, without distinguishing the time the carrier was in the immediate vicinity of Vietnam from the time the carrier was in other areas of the Western Pacific. Lists the aircraft squadrons (with aircraft type) aboard.

Riverine Warfare: The U.S. Navy's Operations on Inland Waters, rev. ed. Washington: Naval History Division, Navy Department, 1969. 59 pp. Pages 38-59 deal with the Vietnam War. Extensively illustrated. The text has been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project at Texas Tech University.

Seabees in Action, Vietnam. Pictorial report, 1968. 31 pp.
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Richard Tregaskis, Southeast Asia: Building the Bases, The History of Construction in Southeast Asia. Washington: GPO and Naval Facilities Engineering Command, 1975. xviii, 466 pp.
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Copyright © 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, Edwin E. Moise. This document may be reproduced only if this copyright notice is reproduced with it. Revised June 22, 2006.