The United States Navy and the Vietnam Conflict.
Volume I: Edwin Hooper, Dean Allard, and Oscar Fitzgerald,
The Setting of the Stage
to 1959. Washington: Naval History Division, 1976. xi, 419 pp. The full text is available online at Hathi Trust. I was not
impressed by the portion of this I have read; note in particular the way it gives
the impression that the French may have been close to defeating the Viet
Minh on the battlefield and winning the First Indochina War when the Geneva
Conference of 1954 came along and spoiled everything.
D 207.10/3:
Volume II: Edward J. Marolda and Oscar Fitzgerald,
From Military Assistance to Combat,
1959-1965. Washington: Naval Historical Center, 1986. xv, 591 pp. The full text is available online at Hathi Trust. Better,
but sometimes factually unreliable, particularly in the section dealing with the Tonkin Gulf Incidents of August 1964.
D 207.10/3:2
Edward J. Marolda and G. Wesley Pryce, III, A Short History of the United States Navy and the Southeast Asian Conflict, 1950-1975. Washington: Naval Historical Center, 1984. ix, 131 pp.
Edward J. Marolda, By Sea, Air and Land: An Illustrated History of
the U.S. Navy and the War in Southeast Asia. Washington: Naval Historical
Center, 1994. xvi, 416 pp. The full text is online at
Hathi Trust.
D 221.2:SE 1
The U.S. Navy and the Vietnam War.
Jan K. Herman, Navy Medicine in Vietnam: Passage to Freedom to the Fall of Saigon. Washington, D.C.: Naval History & Heritage Command, 2010. 50 pp.
Edward J. Marolda,
The Approaching Storm:
Conflict in Asia, 1945-1965. Washington, DC: Naval History & Heritage Command, 2009. v, 84 pp.
D 221.2:AS 4
Edward J. Marolda and R. Blake Dunnavent, Combat at Close Quarters: Warfare on the Rivers and Canals of Vietnam. Washington, DC: Naval History & Heritage Command, 2015. 82 pp.
Salvatore R. Mercogliano, Fourth Arm of Defense: Sealift and Maritime Logistics in the Vietnam War. Washington, DC: Naval History & Heritage Command, 2017. 78 pp.
Richard A. Mobley and Edward J. Marolda, Knowing the Enemy: Naval Intelligence in Southeast Asia. Washington, DC: Naval History & Heritage Command, 2015. 100 pp. Extensively illustrated.
Malcolm Muir Jr., End of the Saga: The Maritime Evacuation of South Vietnam and Cambodia. Washington, DC: Naval History & Heritage Command, 67 pp.
Norman Polmar and Edward J. Marolda, Naval Air War: The Rolling Thunder Campaign. Washington, DC: Naval History & Heritage Command, 2015. 67 pp.
Stuart I. Rochester, The Battle Behind Bars: Navy and Marine POWs in the Vietnam War. Washington, D.C.: Naval History & Heritage Command, 2010. 67 pp.
John Darrell Sherwood, Nixon's Trident: Naval Power in Southeast Asia, 1968–1972. Washington, D.C.: Naval History & Heritage Command, 2009. 79 pp.
All Hands. "The Bureau of Naval Personnel Career Publication.
September 1964. John E. Jones, "Vietnam Junk Force on Patrol" (pp. 5-8). "'In the Highest Tradition'" (pp. 9-11), a series of brief profiles of U.S. Navy personnel who had been decorated for service in Vietnam.
May 1965. About half this issue (pp. 2-31) is devoted to "The Carrier Navy." pp. 1-19, pp. 20-41, pp. 42-64.
Boats of the United States Navy. Navships 250-452, May 1967. Pages are not numbered; boats are listed in order of length, with inflatable boats treated separately at the end, and an index by type in the front matter. The text has been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project at Texas Tech University, in six parts, from front matter and boats from 9' to 26' long, to boats 72' to 115' long, and inflatable boats.
Colloquium in Contemporary History. The Naval Historical Center hosted conferences under this title irregularly between 1989 and 1998. All of the transcripts have been placed online; some were also published in hard copy.
No. 4, Command and Control of Air Operations in the Vietnam War, January 23, 1991. Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1991. 58 pp. The text has been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project at Texas Tech University, in four parts: pp. 1-11: Welcome (Dr. Dean C. Allard), Opening Remarks (Dr. Edward J. Marolda), "Tactical Command and Control of Carrier Operations" (Admiral James L. Holloway III); pp. 12-26: Holloway continued, "Washington's Management of the Rolling Thunder Campaign (Dr. Mark Jacobsen); pp. 27-42: Jacobson continued, "General Westmoreland and Control of the Air War (Dr. Graham A Cosmas), "Operation Niagara: Air Power and the Siege of Khe Sanh" (Bernard C. Nalty); pp. 43-58: Nalty continued, End Notes, General Discussion, Speakers' Biographies. The text is also available online in unpaginated form at a Naval History & Heritage Command web page.
No, 11, Tet: The Turning Point in Vietnam, September 29, 1998.
Commander Anthony R. DeMarco, Oral Histories: Navy Combat Field Historian in Vietnam, 1967-68. Some discussion of DeMarco's time observing PBRs, the Seawolves, the Mobile Riverine Force, etc., in the Mekong Delta.
Roy E. Grossnick et al.,
United States Naval Aviation, 1910-1995, 4th ed. Washington: Naval
Historical Center, 1997. xxii, 811 pp. Part 9:
The Sixth Decade, 1960-1969 (pp. 235-276);
Part 10: The Seventies, 1970-1980 (pp. 279-330);
Appendix 26: Carrier, Carrier Based Squadrons and
Non-Carrier Based Squadron Deployments to Vietnam (pp. 705-736).
D 221.2:AV 5
Admiral Edwin B. Hooper, Mobility, Support, Endurance: A Story of
Naval Operational Logistics in the Vietnam War, 1965-1968. Washington:
Naval History Division, 1972.
D 207.10/2:L 82
Lieutenant Commander Bobbi Hovis, Oral Histories: U.S. Navy Nurse in Saigon, 1963, During Vietnam Conflict. Adapted from "Coup in Saigon: A Nurse Remembers" Navy Medicine 88, no. 6 (Nov.-Dec. 1977), pp. 16-21.
Edward Marolda, ed., Operation End Sweep: A History of Minesweeping
Operations in North Vietnam. 1993. 143 pp.
D 201.2:Op 2
Mine Warfare Project Office (PM-19), The Mining of North Vietnam, 8 May 1972 to 14 January 1973. (Washington?), 1975. The text has been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project at Texas Tech University, in three parts: Distribution cover letter, front matter, and chapters on background and planning; most of the chapter "The Mining Operations"; and the remainder of the chapter "The Mining Operations," chapters on effectiveness and public reaction, etc. (includes discussion of damage to U.S. ships by stray mines).
Malcolm Muir, Jr., Black Shoes and Blue Water: Surface Warfare in the United States Navy, 1945-1975. Washington: GPO, 1996. 008-046-00163-3.
Naval Aviation News. Washington, DC: Navy Department.
Publication apparently began in 1920. NOTE: shorter articles may
not be mentioned in the table of contents just inside the cover of
the magazine. Issues since late 1996 available online at
Naval Aviation News.
D 202.9:
JO1 Willard B. Bass, Jr., "PIRAZ Station: Control Point in Tonkin Gulf." January 1968, pp. 10-11. The guided missile destroyer USS Wainwright (DLG-28) controlling aircraft in the Positive Identification Radar Advisory Zone in the Gulf of Tonkin.
"Above and Beyond." February 1968, p. 17. Ltjg. Dennis Earl, flying an A-4 of VA-163 from USS `Oriskany~, continued his mission 11/21/67, dropping bombs to crater a road, with both legs badly wounded by a 14.7mm bullet, before returning to the carrier.
JOC John D. Burlage, "Skyhawk." March 1968, pp. 6-10.
JOC Bill Case and JO3 John Redmond, "Pilots Praise the Sturdy Skyhawk." March 1968, pp. 11-13.
PHC Wm. M. Powers, "Vietnam Milk Run." March 1968, pp. 14-17. Mostly photos. Navy C-54s based at Tan Son Nhut doing transport within Vietnam.
Ltjg. T. S. Storck, "Navy Seawolves on River Patrol," "Seawolves." March 1968, pp. 20-22. USS Hartnett County (LST-821) and the UH-1Bs of Helicopter Attack (Light) Squadron Three, Detachment Five, flying from it in the Mekong Delta.
"VP-5's Threefold Mission in Vietnam." March 1968, p. 29. VP-5 (the Mad Foxes) flies P-3A Orions doing night radar coverage of the Gulf of Tonkin, and also patrols as part of Operation Market Time.
Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Command History, 1965-1974. n.p., n.d. vi, 903 pp. The full text has been placed online by the Operational Archives of the U.S. Navy's Naval Historical Center. An index (go to the bottom of the page) gives links both to the whole thing as a huge (231MB) .pdf file and to the individual chapters, some of which are pretty large files just by themselves. Chapter X, "Construction" (pp. 353-540) is particularly useful, since the Naval Facilities Engineering Command was responsible for construction of bases for all U.S. services in Southeast Asia, not just naval bases. The Vietnam section (which actually goes back to 1962) is pp. 380-432, Thailand is pp. 432-436, Cambodia and Laos are pp. 436-37.
Naval War College Review. Most Back Issues Available Online.
LCDR Ralph W. Blanchard, "The Newsman in Vietnam: Responsible or Irresponsible?", June 1968, pp. 14-42.
Jean Sauvageot, "A Peace Denied: The United States, Vietnam and the Paris Agreements." Winter 1977, pp. 30-40.
Ulrik Luckow, "Victory over Ignorance and Fear: The U.S. Minelaying Attack on North Vietnam." Jan-Feb 1982, pp. 17-27.
Michael C. Mitchell, "Television and the Vietnam War." May-June 1984, pp. 42-52.
Nicholas J. Pappas, "The Academic Strategists and the Vietnam War." July-August 1983, pp. 32-37.
Colonel Charles F. Brower IV, "Strategic Reassessment in Vietnam: The Westmoreland 'Alternate Strategy' of 1967-1968." Spring 1991, pp. 20-51.
Bernard Fall, "The Theory and Practice of Counterinsurgency" LI:1 (Winter 1998) (reprinted from the April 1965 issue).
Neil Sheehan, "The Role of the Press" LI:1 (Winter 1998) (reprinted from the February 1971 issue).
Rear Admiral James B. Stockdale, "Experiences as a POW in Vietnam" LI:1 (Winter 1998) (reprinted from the January-February 1974 issue).
Jonathan S. Wiarda, "The U.S. Coast Guard in Vietnam: Achieving Success in a Difficult War" LI:2 (Spring 1998).
Douglas Porch, ""No Bad Stories": The American Media-Military Relationship" LV:1 (Winter 2002).
The Navy in Vietnam. Washington: GPO, 1968. 33 pp. Extensively illustrated. The text has been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project at Texas Tech University.
Operational Experience of Fast Battleships: World War II, Korea,
Vietnam.
D 207.10/2:B 32/4 (fiche?)
Order of Battle for Carriers and Carrier-based Squadrons in the Western Pacific (WestPac) and Vietnam 1964-1975. Published online at http://www.history.navy.mil/branches/ordbat.htm. Lists dates for each carrier, without distinguishing the time the carrier was in the immediate vicinity of Vietnam from the time the carrier was in other areas of the Western Pacific. Lists the aircraft squadrons (with aircraft type) aboard.
Riverine Warfare: The U.S. Navy's Operations on Inland Waters, rev. ed. Washington: Naval History Division, Navy Department, 1969. 59 pp. Pages 38-59 deal with the Vietnam War. Extensively illustrated. The text has been placed on-line in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project at Texas Tech University.
Seabees in Action, Vietnam. Pictorial report, 1968. 31 pp.
D 209.2:Se 1
John Darrell Sherwood, War in the Shallows: U.S. Navy Coastal and Riverine Warfare in Vietnam, 1965–1968. Washington, D.C.: Naval History and Heritage Command, 2015. xviii, 425 pp.
Richard Tregaskis,
Southeast Asia: Building the Bases, The History
of Construction in Southeast Asia. Washington: GPO and Naval Facilities
Engineering Command, 1975. xviii, 466 pp.
D 209.2:As 4
"Trial by Fire: A Carrier Fights for Life" A 1971 Navy documentary film about the diastrous fire aboard USS Forrestal on July 29, 1967, that killed 134 men.
The Naval War: Private Sector Publications
The Naval Air War: Private Sector Publications
Next section: U.S. Congress Documentation
Copyright © 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2009, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2020, 2022. Edwin E. Moise. This document may be reproduced only by permission. Revised September 18, 2022.
Opinions expressed in this page are my own. They could not very well be the opinions of Clemson University, which does not have opinions on the issues in question.