Missing Pieces: - Royal Australian Navy

248 Missing Pieces
attack, SEA DRAGON ships were allocated targets 24 hours in advance, predicated on
the latest reconnaissance and other intelligence, with CTUs responsible for developing
plans of attack. 798 For daytime engagements ships could call upon 7th Fleet carrier aircraft
to spot their fire, and the USN experimented with a remotely controlled TV-equipped
drone system, codenamed ‘Snoopy’, for the same purpose.
Against this generally positive intelligence picture, SEA DRAGON was the scene of
the RAN’s most serious setback of the war, when Hobart (among other ships) was
attacked and hit by missiles fired by USAF aircraft on the night of 16—17 June 1968.
A contributing cause of this ‘friendly fire’ incident was an intelligence report stating
that NVA helicopters were being used to resupply Tiger Island, about 13nm to seaward
of the DMZ — a site used by the NVA to monitor and alert coastal defences to SEA
DRAGON ship activity. Hobart’s Task Unit and the USAF fighters patrolling in the
vicinity of the island were alert to this possibility, and the fighters misidentified the
ships as helicopters and attacked. The problem was a lack of effective coordination,
one with a considerable and unfortunate history. 799
Another intelligence shortcoming was in spotting NGS shoots. In common with their
predecessors in Korea, RAN commanding officers were sceptical of the value of unspotted
engagements of shore targets. 800 This was a particular problem in North Vietnam, where
shoots at night or in bad weather precluded any realistic assessment of damage inflicted,
but it also occurred in the South during so-called harassment and interdiction (H&I) fire
missions. This scepticism was well founded, reflecting the experience gained in the
Korean War, but again not acted upon during the later conflict.
Nevertheless, SEA DRAGON was a successful operation that denied North Vietnam
effective use of its sea frontier to channel supplies to forces in the south, and it did
considerable damage to the military and transportation infrastructure along the North’s
seaboard. 801 Retaliatory damage inflicted on Allied ships was slight, while the NVA was
compelled to divert some of its artillery and surveillance resources to countering the
Allied operation. 802 RAN ships made a substantial contribution to this success, not just in
their performance‚ but in their overall conduct of the operation under the threat of enemy
retaliation. 803 But they were working with a virtually complete intelligence jigsaw.
Operation MaRkeT TiMe
Surveillance and control of RVN coastal waters was a long-standing problem: the USN
had stepped in to assist in Vietnamese coastal surveillance as early as November
1961. 804 The US intervention with MARKET TIME arose from evidence of the ease with
which the NVA was infiltrating supplies into South Vietnam in 1964 and 1965, and
the perceived reluctance of the RVN Navy to take effective action to prevent this. 805
As noted previously, by mid-1965 MARKET TIME operations were being conducted in