MIDSHIPMEN AT WAR: VIETNAM—AN UNTOLD STORY
By Captain Gordon I. Peterson ’68, USN (Ret.)
MIDSHIPMEN AT WAR: VIETNAM—AN UNTOLD STORY
A mayday call from a downed American pilot springs a Navy helicopter aircrew into rescue mode. Then-Midshipman first class Joseph C. Glutting is aboard the guided-missile destroyer leader Worden near islands south of Hanoi, North Vietnam, during the search-and-rescue operation.
“Our helicopter went in and rescued him, but then North Vietnamese 8-inch shore batteries opened up,” Glutting said. “The first rounds were a bit off, but the second set was very close—they hit so close aboard that the explosions drenched me and my gun crew with sea water.”
Glutting, a 1968 Naval Academy graduate and retired commander, saw firsthand the realities of war during summer at-sea training in 1967. That experience shaped his post-commissioning journey.
“Worden maneuvered to open the range since its 3-inch guns were no match for the enemy’s artillery. Then I saw a FRAM I (Fleet Rehabilitation and Modernization) destroyer steaming in to engage those batteries and making smoke to help hide us while she closed in—firing away with her forward, 5-inch/38-caliber mount. She turned to unmask both her guns and engaged the North Vietnamese 8-inch batteries. It was magnificent! Here was this small ship going in harm’s way to save us—and she did!
“Then and there,” I said, “That’s the kind of ship I want to be on—going forward and attacking, not heading out of harm’s way.”
After reporting aboard Worden in June 1967, Glutting was assigned a general quarters station in charge of a 3-inch/50-caliber gun mount amidships and stood junior-officer watches. Operations at Yankee Station were intense during the carrier air wing’s missions over North Vietnam. During his cruise, Worden supported the carriers and conducted two successful pilot-rescue missions with its embarked helicopter detachment.
Glutting selected surface warfare after graduation. He served in South Vietnam as an adviser in a River Assault and Interdiction Division (RAID) in the Mekong Delta.
The Naval Academy’s professional training-and-education programs play an important role in preparing midshipmen for their service as commissioned officers in the Navy and Marine Corps. At-sea summer training cruises with fleet units are an important component of these programs. They have a long tradition of furthering midshipmen’s professional development, familiarizing them with operational naval forces and motivating them for a career of naval service.
Although these cruises have evolved considerably over the years, they continue to provide valuable “hands-on” functional training, practical applications of academic-course material and leadership-development experience.
A historic chapter in at-sea summer training occurred during the Vietnam War following the major escalation of hostilities between the United States and North Vietnam in 1965. Between 1967 and 1970, hundreds of Naval Academy and NROTC midshipmen were assigned to ships of the U.S. Seventh Fleet conducting combat or combat-support operations—at sea and, several times in small numbers, on the ground in South Vietnam, on its inland waterways and in the air.
Aside from several Academy class histories, Lucky Bag entries and personal accounts, midshipmen’s experiences during one of the longest wars in U.S. history are an untold story. The 50th anniversary of the cessation of combat operations between the United States and North Vietnam occurs in March. Documenting those alumni who served as midshipmen in the Vietnam War is long overdue.
The narratives that follow are a step in the right direction, but many more alumni have a story to tell.
A Pivotal Year
U.S. military assistance and direct operational support to the armed forces of the Republic of Vietnam increased during the early 1960s. The growth was a continuation of U.S. counterinsurgency efforts to assist the beleaguered nation in its fight against communist Viet Cong guerrillas within its borders while also resisting North Vietnamese aggression.
As part of this increase, U.S. Seventh Fleet operations expanded significantly in spring 1964, a pivotal year in the war.
“Beginning in May, a major part of the Seventh Fleet was deployed off the South Vietnamese coast,” Edward J. Marolda noted in By Air, Land, and Sea, his comprehensive history of U.S. naval operations during the war. By summer, for example, Task Force 77’s aircraft carriers Constellation, Ticonderoga and Bon Homme Richard were on station.
Naval Academy and NROTC first class midshipmen served on Seventh Fleet ships for summer cruises prior to this major expansion. According to the Naval Academy superintendent’s special order for summer training in 1963, for example, approximately 225 first class midshipmen in the Class of 1964 were assigned in two groups to sequential, one-month cruises.
During this timeframe, at-sea summer training cruises were scheduled for first and third class midshipmen.
First classmen’s training focused on a junior officer’s duties to enhance their preparation for commissioned service. Third classmen were acquainted with shipboard organization and the duties of a ship’s enlisted crew.
The Class of 1965’s at-sea training in summer 1964 included a Western Pacific cruise for 245 first classmen from early June until early August. Although midshipmen knew their assigned ships, they were not told where they would operate until they reported aboard. The Seventh Fleet’s high operational tempo resulted in many of these midshipmen reporting to ships deployed for operations supporting South Vietnam.
After arriving at their ports of embarkation in Japan and the U.S. Naval Station Subic Bay in the Republic of the Philippines in early June, midshipmen boarded their ships, awaited their arrival or were transported to them at sea by another ship, a flight to an aircraft carrier or by helicopter. This pattern was followed during subsequent years. They performed a wide range of duties on board aircraft carriers, surface combatants, amphibious-force ships and logistics-force ships.
The midshipmen’s experiences varied from ship to ship depending on its type, operational tempo and assigned missions. The degree to which they were assimilated into the ship’s wardroom and assigned meaningful duties also had an influence.
Commander Timothy W. Tedford ’65, USN (Ret.), was assigned to the destroyer Shelton with three classmates.
“The ship had begun 28-day operations in the Gulf of Tonkin,” he said. “We patrolled for four weeks into July just beyond the 12-mile limit off North Vietnam.”
While aboard, Tedford was assigned duties as a division officer and stood four-hour watches in the ship’s junior-officer-of-the-watch rotation. Surface combatants with midshipmen embarked also supported carrier battle group operations.
The amphibious assault ship Valley Forge, with its complement of U.S. Marines and helicopters, embarked both Academy and NROTC midshipmen.
“Early in the cruise,” Lieutenant Colonel Michael G. Malone ’65, USMC (Ret.), recalled, “we sailed to South Vietnam where, just offshore from Da Nang, we offloaded a Marine helicopter squadron that flew to the Marine helicopter air base near China Beach and Marble Mountain.
I had no idea that 19 months later I would be the platoon commander of the amtrak [amphibious tracked vehicle] platoon tasked with protecting the village at the base of the Marble Mountain.”
Seventh Fleet’s wartime operations provided midshipmen ample opportunities to prepare for their future leadership responsibilities as junior officers.
As the end of the Class of 1965’s summer WESTPAC cruise approached in early August, preparations began to disembark them in late July for their return home. The pace reportedly accelerated in the waters off North Vietnam toward the end of the month—before what became known as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident in early August. Midshipmen were aware that an order had been received to transfer them to ships for their return to port.
Captain Robert A. Stanfield ’65, USNR (Ret.), serving on the guided-missile destroyer Berkeley while it was screening Ticonderoga in the Gulf of Tonkin, was “high-lined” to an attack cargo ship with six other midshipmen and returned to Subic.
Jon A. Lazzaretti ’65 recalled his ship’s role in returning midshipmen to port.
“I was assigned to the guided-missile cruiser Topeka,” he said, “one of the ships sent into the Gulf to offload midshipmen assigned to the carriers on Yankee Station as well as midshipmen on the destroyers Turner Joy and Maddox.”
Captain Leslie R. Heselton ’65, USN (Ret.), assigned to Turner Joy with other midshipmen, confirmed they were transferred to Topeka before the Gulf of Tonkin Incident.
“Topeka was quite full of midshipmen for the rest of the cruise,” he said. “Every bunk was occupied.”
The cruiser soon departed for a port call in Hong Kong and then Okinawa and Japan for the midshipmen’s return flights home.
Some midshipmen’s return to port from the Gulf took longer. Captain Francis D. Schlesinger ’65, USN (Ret.), was assigned to the amphibious command ship Eldorado with 12 Academy and NROTC midshipmen.
“We stayed aboard a week after the two attacks,” he said, “and were then literally ‘dumped’ off in Subic Bay.”
They joined other midshipmen and waited days before flights back to the United States were arranged.
Soon after the transfer of most midshipmen from ships operating in the Gulf of Tonkin, a naval confrontation there marked a major turning point in the war. During a surveillance-intelligence patrol in international waters off North Vietnam’s coast on 2 August, Maddox responded to attacks by North Vietnamese torpedo boats. Aircraft from Ticonderoga assisted in repulsing the attacks.
Two days later during a follow-on nighttime patrol in inclement weather, Maddox and Turner Joy again responded to what was reported as another attack by North Vietnamese torpedo boats.
After approval by President Johnson, Ticonderoga and Constellation launched punitive airstrikes against targets in North Vietnam on 5 August. Two Navy aircraft were shot down, resulting in the death of one pilot and the capture of the other.
Subsequently, questions arose whether this second North Vietnamese attack occurred. Decades later, following the declassification and public release of many documents associated with the incident, it was confirmed it had not.
The Navy’s confrontation in the Gulf of Tonkin resulted in the U.S. Congress passing the joint Tonkin Gulf Resolution on 7 August authorizing President Lyndon Johnson to increase U.S. military involvement in the war between South and North Vietnam.
Midshipmen whose assigned ships satisfied the award criteria earned the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal. The Vietnam Service Medal was established in July 1965. Service members who were awarded the expeditionary medal for service in Vietnam before this date were later authorized to exchange it for the new service medal.
The Class of 1965’s assignments in summer 1964 to ships operating off South and North Vietnam during this prelude to major U.S. combat operations paved the way for several follow-on classes to serve during the Vietnam War until summer 1970.
Combat Operations
Three years elapsed before another WESTPAC cruise was scheduled for midshipmen in 1967. As Shipmate reported in 1965, Superintendent Rear Admiral Charles S. Minter Jr. ’37, USN (Ret.), stated, “Our major setback in the cruise program has been the cancellation of foreign port visits, which limits first and third class cruises to Western Atlantic and Eastern Pacific operations.”
A similar schedule followed in 1966.
Overseas summer cruises resumed in 1967 with the Class of 1968. The reality of the war was never far from a midshipman’s mind. The photos and names of Academy alumni who had been killed or were missing in action were displayed in Bancroft Hall’s Rotunda.
U.S. Navy and Marine Corps operations at sea and “in-country” had increased significantly in early 1965. Operation Rolling Thunder, a sustained bombing campaign against targets in North Vietnam, began in March 1965. Carrier battle groups participating in the campaign operated from Yankee Station,a maritime position located initially off the coast of South Vietnam until its relocation approximately 90 miles off the coast of North Vietnam in 1966.
Also in March, Marines assigned to the 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade landed at Da Nang in the I-Corps tactical zone in northern South Vietnam to protect its airfield. A major advanced base for the support of U.S. operations was later developed there. Operation Market Time, the naval blockade of South Vietnam’s coastline by the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Coast Guard and South Vietnam’s Navy also commenced in March.
In December 1965, the Navy’s River Patrol Force (Task Force 116) was created to patrol the massive, strategically important Mekong River Delta’s waterways during Operation Game Warden to disrupt Viet Cong supply lines and activities. The Navy’s first deployment of river patrol boats (PBRs) on the Delta’s rivers and canals soon followed. Additional Navy air, ground and surface units operated in the Delta to support the “Brown Water Navy.” In June 1967, the joint U.S. Navy-U.S. Army Mobile Riverine Task Force 117 began operations in this vast, southern-most region of South Vietnam in the IV-Corps tactical zone.
The Naval Academy’s Seventh Fleet training cruise for 100 first classmen in 1967 was scheduled from 9 June until 4 August. The superintendent’s special order for summer training did not specify where in the Western Pacific. However, before they selected their preference for one of the 11 scheduled cruises, midshipmen were informed this cruise would entail operations
in the waters off Vietnam.
Midshipmen were also told they would be required to complete a cruise journal documenting their training that would be graded and, following their return to the Academy, take an examination based on at-sea training objectives and syllabi. Grades were accredited in calculating their academic-and-professional course multiple for class standing. Failure was not an option.
Unsatisfactory grades could delay a first classman’s graduation until the cruise and the exam were repeated satisfactorily.
These new requirements resulted from a comprehensive review of the Academy’s professional training-and-education programs initiated by Superintendent Rear Admiral Draper L. Kauffman ’33, USN (Ret.), in 1967. Major changes were made to these programs as part of what Kauffman described as a “professional revolution” to establish a better balance with the Academy’s “academic revolution” of the past eight years.
Understandably, completing a cruise journal and taking a graded examination upon return to the Academy caused consternation for some midshipmen, but they also provided an incentive for improved performance.
The Class of 1968’s cohort departed the Academy 8 June for air transport to Travis Air Force Base and thence Clark Air Base in the Philippines. They boarded their ships at U.S. Naval Station Subic Bay or were transported to deployed ships by mid-June. Their combat operations encompassed a wide range of missions, including naval gunfire support, carrier battle-group operations at Yankee Station, maritime harassment-and-interdiction (“H&I”) patrols and logistics support.
The opportunity to serve in wartime interested these midshipmen for professional and personal reasons. The cruise also allowed midshipmen to gain a more informed understanding of U.S. involvement in the war, exposed them to the realities of combat operations and influenced some in their future service-selection decisions.
“I entered the Naval Academy with the desire and plan to become an officer of Marines,” said Lieutenant General Jack W. Klimp ’68, USMC (Ret.). “I selected the Seventh Fleet cruise because we were at war, and I figured this was the best way I could experience at least one aspect of it.”
During his cruise on Bon Homme Richard, Klimp flew on two operational missions in the S-2 Tracker ASW aircraft and one in an A-3D Skywarrior conducting aerial refueling.
“Returning to the carrier in the S-2 on my second flight the pilot invited me up into the cockpit,” Klimp recalled. “That landing convinced me that I was not an aviator.”
Following graduation, he served in Vietnam as a rifle platoon commander, company executive officer and company commander.
The wartime cruise appealed to Commander Thomas Hayes ’68, USN (Ret.). He hoped to serve on a small surface combatant to learn more about the enlisted crew’s duties and to do something meaningful during the war. The possibility that his father, the executive officer of the amphibious assault ship Iwo Jima, might also be deployed in theater did not come to pass.
Hayes and classmate James Dale Jones ’68 were assigned to the destroyer escort Hooper.
“We had a great commanding officer,” Hayes said. “He integrated us into the watch bill and gave us real jobs.”
The midshipmen participated in a broad range of operations, including an important intelligence-gathering mission.
“It was a great experience,” Hayes said, “probably the best thing I did at Navy.”
Following flight school, Hayes served in Vietnam as a helicopter gunship pilot in the Seawolves of Helicopter Attack (Light) Squadron 3. First Lieutenant Jones, USMC, while serving as a platoon leader of a Marine force-reconnaissance unit in Vietnam, was killed in action in 1970.
Colonel John C. McKay ’68, USMC (Ret.), assigned to the destroyer Ault, spent a portion of his cruise with a Marine Corps Combined Action Platoon (CAP) in South Vietnam. McKay served as an enlisted Marine before attending the Academy. When he reported aboard and met with Ault’s commanding officer, the late Commander Robert E. Brady ’49, USN, McKay informed him he planned to serve in the Marine Corps following graduation. Brady soon arranged for McKay to serve ashore as well during his cruise—possibly the first midshipman to do so during the Vietnam War, but not the last.
“I spent a considerable portion of my cruise with the CAP on the Batangan Peninsula, Quang Ngai Province in southern I Corps,” McKay said. “I was also assigned to swift boats participating in Operation Market Time ranging as far south as Vung Tau Province.” While serving aboard Ault, McKay was berthed in a cabin directly below the number two, 5-inch/38 caliber gun turret.
“Sleep was ephemeral in the close quarters of forced air,” McKay recalled, “and seemingly constant gunfire support missions.”
McKay returned to South Vietnam in 1968 following graduation, serving as a platoon commander in the 5th Marines during some of the war’s most bitterly fought engagements. Wounded twice in action in 1969, he was medically evacuated stateside following his second wound—one that resulted in the loss of his left eye and hospitalization for two years. He returned to full duty as an infantry officer.
The Class of 1968’s first classmen returned stateside in early August. Some left with the indelible memory of the attack carrier Forrestal ablaze in the Gulf of Tonkin on 30 July. The carrier
arrived at Yankee Station just five days earlier and commenced flight operations. Other midshipmen saw the carrier arrive for emergency repairs at Subic Bay on 1 August—still trailing smoke from the disastrous fire.
The Navy’s investigation revealed an F-4B Phantom fighter jet’s inadvertent firing of a 5-inch Zuni rocket, caused in part by an electrical malfunction, struck an A-4 Skyhawk during preparations for a strike against North Vietnam. Fed by burning jet fuel and exploding bombs, the fire soon spread below decks. The ship lost 134 officers and men, with an additional 161 injured.
Lieutenant Colonel Richard E. Glantz ’68, USMC (Ret.), assigned with other classmates on the attack carrier Constellation, was present with them in Subic Bay 1 August awaiting their return flight home.
“After spending some 40 days on Yankee Station, I had for the first time as a midshipman grasped the true nature of the Navy’s front-line forces and the selfless devotion of every sailor therein. When we stood on the perimeter of Subic Bay and watched Forrestal limp into the harbor with all hands on deck, my feelings of pride for the Navy were mixed with sorrow for the lost and injured—and the reality of the future career we as midshipman had chosen.”
On the Line with the Carriers
Summer 1968 saw 130 first-class midshipmen in the Class of 1969 assigned to ships operating in the combat zone from early June to early August. In January, North Vietnamese forces and the Viet Cong launched their Tet Offensive across South Vietnam and commenced their extended siege of the U.S. combat base at Khe Sanh. Operations Market Time and Game Warden continued in high gear, as did the Navy’s participation in the air campaign against North Vietnam. Midshipmen again served on ships conducting the gamut of combat operations.
The Class of 1969 cohort arrived in the Philippines and reported to their assigned ships by various means.
“At Subic we boarded the dock landing ship Gunston Hall—built in 1943 and still operating her original reciprocating steam-piston engines,” recalled Stephen Leaman ’69. “She carried dozens of midshipmen to their respective ships.”
Leaman and nine of his classmates were transported by helicopter to the attack carrier America. During the summer months, Task Force 77’s carriers conducted sustained strike operations to slow North Vietnam’s flow of men and war materials to the Viet Cong in South Vietnam.
“I did three weeks with B Division tending 10 boilers and then wore a yellow shirt with the aircraft handling team assigned to the air wing,” Leaman said. “We flew 12 hours on and 12 hours off sharing attack duties with two other carriers on Yankee Station, Bon Homme Richard and Yorktown. Most air wing sailors worked 15 hours every day. I also flew aboard our Carrier Onboard Delivery C-2 Greyhound for take offs and landings.
In July, America got her first kill while we were aboard courtesy of an F-4J Phantom downing a MiG-21.”
Leaman recalled seeing many damaged aircraft after they returned from their missions.
“Others did not come back,” he said. Lieutenant Commander Walter R. Giraldi ’69, USN (Ret.), was transported with his group of midshipmen to Yorktown for a week before transferring to Bon Homme Richard after its arrival on station following a port visit.
“They put us through the paces in different divisions,” he said, “and we saw what the air war in Vietnam was like—underway replenishments, flight operations, arming aircraft, watching 5-inch rockets skid off the flight deck when planes trapped without having all ordnance expended and standing watches.”
Giraldi also experienced catapult launches and arrested landings during a few operational flights in one of the air wing’s E-1B Tracer early warning aircraft.
“Life on the ship was serious business, but there were some down times too,” he said.
During his cruise, a pilot from Fighter Squadron 51 flying an F-8 Crusader downed a North Vietnamese MiG-21.
“He was very willing to talk about the episode and made extensive use of his hands to describe the encounter,” Giraldi said.
Bon Homme Richard’s air wing flew F-8 Crusaders and A-4 Skyhawks since its flight deck was too small for the larger F-4 Phantom fighter-bomber and the A-6 Intruder all-weather attack aircraft.
“The A-4s did the bombing,” said Giraldi, “and it was not uncommon for some to return with battle damage. One A-4 took a round through its wing but was still able to land under control.”
Following graduation and an initial assignment on a guided-missile destroyer, Giraldi served on a Brown Water Navy PBR based in the Rung Sat Special Zone south of Saigon.
The Navy’s mobile logistic-support force played an essential role in enabling Seventh Fleet warships to maintain extremely high tempos of combat operations. Commander Richard D. Gano ’69, USN (Ret.), and three classmates learned just how critical this support was during nearly eight weeks on the ammunition ship Mauna Kea. Gano, a member of the Academy’s Yard Patrol Squadron, was disappointed initially when he was not assigned to a destroyer.
“As it turned out,” he said, “it was a most exciting and rewarding cruise.”
After reporting aboard Mauna Kea during a port visit in Hong Kong, the ship was underway for the Gulf of Tonkin. The commanding officer met with the midshipmen to explain their duties.
“He made it clear we would have numerous responsibilities,” Gano said, “including standing junior-officer-of-the-deck watches leading to solo watches when we qualified as officer
of the deck (OOD). We were soon on station at night at Yankee Station and rearmed Ticonderoga.
“Heavy combat seemed to be occurring everywhere as we rearmed the carriers and the destroyers and cruisers on the gun line close to shore.”
In late July, he was the OOD when Mauna Kea was scheduled to rearm a carrier.
“The carrier ordered us to come alongside,” Gano said.
“I made course adjustments to do so and wondered when an officer would relieve me. As it turned out, with both the XO and CO now on the bridge, the skipper left me at the conn. I brought the ship alongside and completed the rearmament.”
Mauna Kea was subsequently awarded a Meritorious Unit Commendation for its distinguished seven-month support of Seventh Fleet combat operations.
“I returned to the Academy with a letter designating me as an OOD, a Vietnam Service Ribbon and later a Meritorious Unit Commendation ribbon,” Gano said. “I was proud of my
contributions to the war effort. The cruise ended up being a dream come true.”
Commissioned as a surface warfare officer, Gano deployed three times to Vietnam between 1971 and 1975.
CAPT Gordon I. Peterson ’68, USN (Ret.), the Class of 1968’s corresponding secretary, served in the Vietnam War on the destroyer Jenkins during his first-class midshipman’s summer cruise in 1967. He served again in Vietnam as a helo gunship pilot with the Seawolves of HA(L)-3 in 1970-1971, flying 515 combat missions.
Part two will of this story will appear in the March-April issue of Shipmate.