(See Cover) The Gulf of Tonkin is a forbidding body of water. Along its shores lie the brutal war in South Viet Nam, the belligerent Red regime of North Viet Nam's Ho Chi Minh, the ominous expanse of Communist China.
Yet, to the young men of the 2,200-ton U.S. destroyer Maddox, patrol duty in Tonkin seemed as ho-hum and hum drum as duty on any of a hundred other routine tin-can patrols. In this case, the mission of the Maddox was mainly to show the U.S. flag and keep a casual lookout for Communist gun runners or seaborne Red guerrilla cadres. Occasionally the Maddox would slip up to within 13 miles of the Communist mainland, set her radar to sniffing the coast. But the real challenge to her sailors was to stay awake on lonely watches. Few of them even thought about combat; most, in fact, were still in grade school when the Maddox last came under Communist gunfire off Korea in 1953.
No Panic. Thus there was no reason to panic on that sunny Sunday last week when Maddox lookouts sighted three Communist torpedo boats near the island of Hon Me (see map). The destroyer merely continued north on its patrol, and in due course made a leisurely turn and headed back south.
But at 12:30 p.m., as the Maddox cruised down the gulf 30 miles from any land, her radar men spotted three torpedo boats, ten miles to the north, speeding toward the Maddox. They were Russian P-4 types, 85 ft. long, armed with torpedo tubes and 25-mm. machine guns. The destroyer skipper, Commander Herbert L. Ogier, 41, sounded general quarters. Two hundred and fifty-five officers and crewmen raced to their battle stations. Ogier held his course southward. And he waited.
For two hours the crew watched the small craft close in. The destroyer did not try to outrace her pursuers; with a top speed of 33 knots, she could not have done so anyway. It was now 2:40. The boats were approaching at about 45 knots. Ogier made his decision. If they kept boring in, he would open fire. They kept closing. Ogier lobbed three warning shots across their bows. Still they came on.
Two of them moved into a range of 8,000 yds. off the Maddox's starboard quarter and headed toward her stern. The Maddox has twin-mounted 5-in. 38s aft and two twin-mounts forward. Ogier could either swing the Maddox broadside and train one forward pair and the aft pair on the two boats or stay on course and keep the ship's tail toward them. This would permit him to fire at only one boat at a time, but it would provide a slimmer target for enemy torpedoes.
He chose to stay thin.
White Wakes. The battle began at 3:08. The Maddox opened up with her aft five-inchers and her 3-in. and 40-mm. guns. The two trailing craft closed to 5,000 yds., launched one 18-in. torpedo apiece. Officers on the Maddox bridge had no trouble following the foot-wide white wakes of the torpedoes as they ran through the blue-green sea at a depth of 10 ft.
Ogier swung the ship to port. The torpedoes passed 100 yds. to starboard. For a farewell blast, the two boats sprayed away futilely with their 25-mm. machine guns, turned tail and headed toward the north.