Gulf of Tonkin incident revisited

Wings of Gold, Fall 1998 by Johnson, Gregory

Jackson noticed one item featured in the museum , a torpedo tube from a patrol boat. A placard written in English and attached to the tube indicated it was on one of the boats that attacked an American destroyer in the Gulf of Tonkin in August 1964.

"It is hard to fathom what motive the Vietnamese would have for falsely portraying themselves as the aggressors," said Jackson. "The more obvious interpretation, given the surrounding evidence of America's humiliation in the war, is that the Vietnamese now celebrate the Gulf of Tonkin incident as a clever ploy that provoked America to its defeat a decade later."

The role of Naval Aviation is central to this footnote in history for it was the forward presence of the U.S. carriers Constellation and Ticonderoga that projected the first immediate major retaliatory response to the encounter. Still, the Gulf of Tonkin incident is destined to remain a topic of controversy.

Editor's Note: On his last day incountry in Vietnam, awaiting transport to CONUS at Ton Son Nhut Airport in Saigon, Johnson was slightly wounded when Viet Cong terrorist exploded a bomb in the terminal. He shrugged off medical attention in order to make sure he didn't miss his flight home. He retired in 1968 as a COL and is currently the director of

the physical plant at Hawaii Pacific University's Kaneohe campus on Oahu, Hawa. His Naval Aviator son, Greg, author of this article, retired in 1991. He is a research administrator at Penn State University's Applied Research Laboratory. ARL Penn State is one of four U.S. Navy academic research laboratories.