spartans_in_darkness

l'8P SEbRE~NbQMIN~UX1
Eo 1.4. (c)
,...-...,......".......,........,,............,,...-----,--11
_______....ISchedules had to be established,
as well as a method for warning of Saigon's
(and later American) naval and aerial surveillance
patrols.
1. 4. (c)
1. 4. (d)
CU) Surprisingly, in spite of the SIGINT and
other intelligence - mostly captured enemycrews
and papers from captured or abandoned vesselsthe
scope and intensity of the communist maritime
infiltration system were difficult to quantify.
In December 1961, the U.S. navy began interdicting
suspected communist sea traffic. A patrol
line was established along the seventeenth parallel
and was manned by five ocean-going
minesweepers supplemented by army and navy
reconnaissance aircraft. The first interdiction
efforts were meant both to infuse the South
Vietnamese Navy with a positive spirit and to
allow the Americans to determine the extent and
nature ofthe seaborne infiltration from the North
Vietnam.l"
CU) Ironically, the Navy brass was skeptical of
the size of the infiltration from the north. Admiral
Harry Felt, Commander-in-Chief Pacific Fleet
CCINCPACFLT), and other officers felt that only
small-scale, cross-border movement by sampans
was actually taking place and that the current
interdiction effort was not really useful. 67 At this
stage, the impetus for continued patrols came
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EO 1.4. (c)
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