SHALLOWS

War in the Shallows
cargo. At 1200, LSSL-226, a VNN ship, finally pulled the trawler free and towed it to Saigon. It
arrived at the VNN shipyard on the morning of 23 June. 85
Salvage teams ultimately recovered over 100 tons of cargo from the 99-foot trawler. The weapons
were mainly Chinese-manufactured with some Soviet and North Korean weapons. Included
in the haul were seven 82mm mortars, 316 automatic rifles, 21 light machine guns, 20 75mm
recoilless rifles, 25 40mm rocket launchers, and 222,880 7.62mm rounds (the standard round for
the AK-47 rifle), as well as numerous other ammunition. Intelligence officers concluded that the
large quantity of sophisticated arms indicated that the cargo was intended for units stationed well
beyond the local area. This was the most significant trawler intercept since the Vung Ro incident
and the second major trawler intercept by Coast Guard cutters. From July 1965 to December 1971,
Market Time forces destroyed or captured ten enemy trawlers. Coast Guard cutters played a major
role in nine of these intercepts. Historian Paul Scotti argues, “the Coast Guard’s experience in
long, wearisome rescue searches gave them an advantage in maintaining alertness during patrol
monotony.” This author believes that it had as much to do with the endurance and range of the
WPB as it did with the fine crews that manned them. As suspected infiltrators closed on the
Vietnamese coastline, WPBs were statistically more likely to be called in to intercept the ships
rather than were PCFs, which had shorter patrols and a more limited range. 86
The night after the engagement, Stephen Ulmer offloaded his two wounded men to Tortuga
for treatment of minor injuries and received some ice cream for the rest of his crew. He then
dropped Commander Baird off at Haverfield. At 0200 on the 21st, he finally sat down to write
his after-action report, and the next thing he remembered was being medically evacuated to
Vung Tau. Doctors later told him that he had passed out from exhaustion, but his vitals were fine
and he soon returned to duty. It was not until 1970 that Ulmer was diagnosed with a mild form
of epilepsy called “petit mal.” Apparently, the stress of battle had induced his first documented
seizure. 87 The Coast Guard would later award him a Silver Star for the trawler intercept, and
Vietnamese head of state, Nguyen Van Thieu, would personally confer him with a Vietnamese
Cross of Gallantry. Although the events of June 1966 forever changed Ulmer’s life and may have
propelled him to high rank in the Coast Guard, this pious young man never lost track of his
true calling. At the change of command ceremony for his last command (Coast Guard Base,
Mayport, Florida), he told his men, “I have attempted to fulfill my duty to my Commander in
Chief, the President of the United States, as a commissioned Coast Guard officer; but I have
received a commission from the Supreme Commander in Chief, the Lord Jesus Christ, to serve
Him as a pastor; therefore, I must obey.” Ulmer lived up to this promise by attending Dallas
Theological Seminary and later becoming an ordained Baptist minister.
Arrival of the PCFs
In September 1965 representatives from CINCPAC, MACV, CINCPACFLT, OPNAV, and
the Naval Advisory Group met in Saigon to examine the infiltration problem. The study that
resulted, known as the Long Range Plan for the U.S. Naval Effort in Vietnam, made a variety
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