Missing Pieces: - Royal Australian Navy

PROPPing uP a dOMinO: VieTnaM 1967–71
control foreign access to sensitive national material with a high degree of confidence.
However, in wartime operations, where foreign units were to be interchangeable with
USN ships and needed to use the same kinds of information to be effective, segregation
of NOFORN information would be difficult to effect with certainty. The USN in general,
and the 7th Fleet in particular, had many programs of which the Australians had no
‘need to know’. At issue was the protection of this sensitive information.
The matter received high-level USN consideration and, in the end, all the information
the RAN ships would need to fulfill their foreseen responsibilities was released. 783
There were also changes necessary to USN communications arrangements, with
NOFORN messages needing to be off-line encrypted for transmission on the fleet
broadcasts monitored by the Australian ships. RAN commanding officers reported
few information release problems, and the USN demonstrated a remarkable degree
of trust in the Australians. 784
On the RAN side, some effort was required to bring the ships deploying to a state of
training commensurate with their future tasks. Key areas of concentration in the workup
of the ships were damage control and NGS, which required that RAN procedures
be modified to equate with those employed in 7th Fleet. 785 Remarkably, little attention
was paid to providing the RAN ships’ companies with an understanding of the politicomilitary
background to the war.
It wasn’t just fine ships the 7th Fleet gained. The guided missile destroyers were the
‘first eleven’ of the RAN, and their commanding officers and key members of the ships’
companies were specially chosen for these postings. All but one of the Vietnam-era
commanding officers made flag rank, and one became CNS. In the 7th Fleet, USN
escorts frequently had junior commanders in their first command, which they held
for only one year. During this time they had to distinguish themselves — theirs was
a 600-plus ship navy, after all. The RAN commanding officers had more respect for
the enemy, and a great deal more regard for the relative value of their ships over the
transient requirements of a spotter ashore. 786
Operation sea dRagOn — action north of the dMZ
The United States had considered a blockade of North Vietnam as early as August
1961, but the proposal met opposition from CINCPAC. 787 However, on 15 October 1966
approval was given to conduct attacks on suspected WBLCs north of the DMZ, and
destroyers were assigned for this purpose. The northern limit of the SEA DRAGON
interdiction zone was advanced to 18° North in November 1966 and to 20° north in
February 1967, and then withdrawn to 19° North in April 1968. 788 Map 27, based on
Grey, Up Top, shows the SEA DRAGON area of operations. Because of the probability
of coastal defences returning fire on Allied units, ships assigned would, preferably,
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