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times will be in given in the military twenty-fourhour
clock. So, all "P.M." times after 1200 hours
can be determined by subtracting 1200 from the
time: e.g., 1700 hours equals 5:00 P.M. Also, it
must be remembered that events in the Gulf of
Tonkin occurred west of the international date
line, so that certain events in the region were
occurring the next day in terms of Washington's
time. For example, if something happened at
1500 hours Zulu, it is reflected as 2200 hours
Golf, 2300 hours Hotel and 1100 hours Romeo of
the same day. However, a two-hour advance in
Zulu time, that is, 1700 hours on 4 August, means
0000 hours Golf and 0100 hours Hotel time on 5
August, while Washington will be 1100 hours on
4 August. For ease of reference, the reader can
observe that there is a eleven-hour difference
between Washington and the Gulf of Tonkin.
(U) Round One: The 2 August Battle
(S//SO It all began with the fireworks of the
night of30j31.July 1964, when South Vietnamese
commandos struck at Hon Me Island (l9"21'N,
105"56'E), located off the central coast of North
Vietnam. At first the commandos tried to land
and attack a radar station, but were driven off.
The raiders then stood offshore in their boats and
peppered the installation with
machine gun and small cannon
fire. At the same time, two other
commando boats bombarded Hon
Ngu Island (lSo4S'N, 105°47'E)
near the port of Vinh. During the
attack, the Maddox had drawn off
from the scene as required by its
orders to stay well out at sea during
the night. On the morning of
31 July, as the Maddox made for
its patrol station near the coast,
Captain Herrick observed the
retreating commando boats
(called "Nasties" after the
Norwegian manufacturer of their
boat, "Nast") heading south.
Communist communications were
intercepted by the navy monitoring site in the
Philippines, which reported the vain attempts by
their patrol craft to catch the "enemy." 39
(S//81) On the morning of 1 August, the ASA
site at Phu Bai, Republic of Vietnam, monitored a
DRV patrol boat, T-146, a Swatow-class patrol
craft communicating tracking data on the
Maddox to another Swatow. At the time,
between 0700G to 0730G(0030Z), the Maddox
was located nine miles southeast of Hon Me
Island moving northeasterly. The Swatow-class
patrol craft was one of a group supplied by the
People's Republic of China. It was a fairly large
patrol craft displacing sixty-seven tons. It had a
top speed of forty-four knots and a cruising speed
of twenty knots. It was armed with two 37-millimeter
(mm) antiaircraft (AA) gun mounts, two
20-mm AAmounts, and carried up to eight depth
charges. This armament limited the Swatow's
role to countering other small vessels. The
Swatow carried the Skin Head surface search
radar. The Swatows often worked in tandem with
P-4 torpedo boats, acting as communications
relays between North Vietnamese naval command
centers and the P-4s, whose long-distance
communications capability was limited. This was
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