SHALLOWS

Tet, 1968
next day PBRs engaged the enemy in 15 separate incidents during what one officer described
as “a day-long running gun battle.” In one of those engagements near Hoi An in Quang Nam
Province, small arms fire killed one sailor and wounded another. 161 Three hours later, PBRs
53 and 84, accompanied by an Army helicopter, returned to the area and destroyed 15 shore
structures, sank three sampans, and killed seven Viet Cong soldiers. 162
On 30 September, COMNAVFORV terminated Green Wave, and Hunterdon County with
River Section 521 embarked departed I Corps for the Mekong Delta. Fifty percent of the PBRs
in the unit had sustained damage from groundings and combat in just 12 days of operations,
but the main factor that convinced Vice Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, the new COMNAVFORV
at the time, to withdraw his forces was rough seas. High swells in the various bays and inlets
of the northern I Corps area had made operating PBRs from an LST virtually impossible. 163
NAVFORV would have to find other basing solutions.
Less than two months after Hunterdon County’s departure, Game Warden forces returned
to the area, supported by a new land base at Tan My on the Perfume River and a floating base
called Mobile Support Base 1. The base consisted of several pontoon AMMI barges rafted
together and contained enough repair, berthing, messing, and command and control facilities
to support ten PBRs in sustained riverine operations. Mobile Support Base 1, which arrived in
Danang on 2 December, eventually supported PBR operations on the Cua Viet as well. 164
River Section 521 deployed to Tan My soon after Green Wave ended and started patrolling
the Perfume River on 9 January. 165 These patrols were relatively uneventful until 31 January,
when the PAVN and the VC forces attacked Hue and held it for 25 days. During the nascent
hours of the attack, eight PBRs made firing runs on enemy positions on the northern bank of
A Task Force Clearwater PBR crew searches a sampan on the Perfume River in I Corps, 20 August 1968.
USN K-56780
313