During his interview, General Westmoreland sat back and reflected on his days as commander of U.S. forces in South Vietnam.
Question: From your vantage point as the senior military office in Vietnam from 1964 through mid-1968, how did you view the Navy’s role in the war?
Westmoreland: It was a very significant role. Vietnam had a coastline, we estimate to be at least 1,200 miles long. The Vietnamese people have spent a lot of time at sea. They’re good sailors and good fishermen. When I arrived in Vietnam, most of their (Vietcong) supplies were coming down by sea. We were able to capture a few trawlers. Upon examination we found they were carrying AK-47s and other weapons. It became pretty obvious that we had to close the sea route. I felt the Navy had the capability of doing it, working with the Vietnamese.
The Vietnamese had at that time a paramilitary naval force called the Junk Force. I asked the Navy to develop a counterpart fleet to work with them and coordinate efforts to seal off the coastline. That was done quite successfully.
Of course, the waterways were plentiful in that country; the enemy was using them extensively. We developed a force designed to interdict and harass the internal waterways, particularly in the IV Region, mainly the Mekong and Bassac rivers. And then when it became obvious we were going to have to deploy some American troops to spur the Vietnamese on in the [Mekong] Delta, we developed the Riverine Force. This force was the idea of a Navy captain on my staff by the name of David F. Welch. That was developed, and the Navy did a very skillful job of it. I dedicated a brigade from the 9th [Infantry] Division to work with this naval force.
Some Marines thought that I was usurping their function. The Marines had no more experience in that type of operation than the Army. The Army organization actually was more compatible; it was smaller, better able to fit on the floating barracks ships, and to do that type of work. It would have been unreasonable to detach—from the north—a Marine brigade. We achieved quite a bit of success with that force.
There were problems involved- immersion foot as an example. We were able to deal with that. It became a problem of troop discipline on foot care. Our doctors were helpful in preventive measures and treatment. There are always negative features and problems with any new venture.
There was the Navy gunfire that came from the Seventh Fleet offshore. They were not under my command, but they were under my operational control with respect to their fire.
The Navy SEAL [sea-air-land] teams worked with the Riverine Force in the waterways with the Swift boats—the high-speed water- jet craft which were quite well armed for their size. It was a boat that was designed and built for operations in the shallow water of the Delta. It didn’t have a prop to get fouled with the undergrowth.
We had a few amphibious operations—but not many. We didn’t have as many as I expected. They were just too costly. Also, it was very difficult to achieve surprise. It became more a matter of movement of troops rather than classic amphibious landings.
Question: How effective was the South Vietnamese Junk Fleet in patrolling its own coasts and waterways when the United States first arrived on the scene?
Westmoreland: They were very ineffective at first, but when the Navy started working with them, setting up regions, and an organization to control them, it became far more effective. I can’t say we sealed off the coast completely, but my guess is we did it on the order of 80 to 90% of what would have otherwise occurred.
Question: The Gulf of Tonkin incident historically marks the turning point of our involvement in Vietnam. Yet three months earlier in Saigon, the USS Card [T-AKV-40] was sabotaged and sunk pier-side. Why don’t you think this incident elicited as strong a reaction as when the USS Turner Joy [DD- 951] and USS Maddox [DD-731] were fired upon in the Gulf? Westmoreland: The Card was in Vietnamese waters on a river in Saigon. The incidents in the Gulf of Tonkin were in international waters. We were in a position to react in international waters. The Saigon government represented a sovereign power. Whom would it react against?
Question: You have stated some disagreement with the Navy’s amphibious doctrine. Why?
Westmoreland: This was a new experience for the Navy; and a new experience for the Army, also. Under the Navy doctrine, the senior naval officer in charge at sea has control of ground maneuver troops until the command is passed to the commander ashore. That's a practical doctrine for a conventional amphibious landing and worked satisfactorily in World War II, in the Pacific, in North Africa, and on the shores of Europe. But in Vietnam the amphibious landings were really a continuation of a ground campaign; they were not a separate, independent assault to establish an independent bridgehead on a foreign shore. They were associated with a ground maneuver, and, therefore, it was quite a different thing. In Vietnam, it was impractical to have the same doctrine apply. We had a number of conferences on this, and it was worked out, but not entirely to the full satisfaction of all parties.
Question: You've described the Johnson administration's policy of graduated response as "…the single most lamentable mistake of the war." To what degree did this policy affect naval operations and strategy?
Westmoreland: A lot of the aircraft bombing the North were, of course, Navy planes, and they were restrained on some targets. I did not have responsibility for the bombing of the North. That was under the jurisdiction of Admiral U. S. Grant Sharp (CinCPac [Commander in Chief Pacific] drew on the Pacific Air Force—which was a component of his command—and the Navy component of his command. Bombing of the North was not within my jurisdiction.
Question: That brings up an important point. You have noted that there were five different authorities calling the shots in the war: CinC, Pac, yourself, and the ambassadors to Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand. But if you include the president, the State Department, the ambassador to Vietnam, and later, the National Security Advisor [Henry Kissinger], there were nine entities involved.
Westmoreland: Well, I wouldn’t say they were all "calling the shots," but certainly they were involved to some degree in policy-making. My military boss on the scene was Admiral Sharp. He did not interfere with my activities; he could have, but he didn't. We shared a mutual confidence. Admiral Sharp and I got along very well.
It would have been better if there had been a single, operational commander for Southeast Asia. But that was not compatible with the doctrine and the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time.
Admiral Sharp and I had some disagreements, but very few, and none was acrimonious.
Question: From the view of a distant observer; and I certainly don't mean this cynically, General, but it almost seems like it was a process of war-by-committee. Is this an accurate assessment, or was there enough cooperation at hand to avoid that?
Westmoreland: There was no committee involved at the field level, but I guess one could say the Joint Chiefs of Staff is a committee. You can say the National Security Council is a committee. But at the fighting level there was no committee involved.
Question: So that issue wasn't a problem from your view?
Westmoreland: Not with me. But, one can argue about some of the decisions.
Question: What were your impressions of Navy and Marine air support for the ground war, especially in the more volatile northern provinces?
Westmoreland: The air support good. We did have a donnybrook when I took control of Marine air forces…at one point. I didn't feel secure at that time with the tactical support being three Army Divisions in the northern region. There were more Army troops in the north at that time than there were Marines.
Question: How effective was fire support from naval units offshore?
Westmoreland: It was responsive. It sure did some good. We used it when we put on a SLAM [seeking, locating, annihilating, and monitoring] operation, and that was coordinated with air strikes and artillery strikes. It was artillery at sea, and we used it just like artillery ashore. Although the ships were not under my command, they supported the operations of my subordinate commanders.
Question: Would mining Haiphong Harbor as early as 1965 have made a difference?
Westmoreland: It would have made a tremendous difference.
Question: President Lyndon Johnson did not want to broaden the war, as an elemental part of his policy. But, in your estimation, would the early naval blockades of Sihanoukville Harbor and the Mekong River inside Cambodia have had a dramatic effect on the war in the early stages?
Westmoreland: It could have, and I believe would have. I urged that, but you’re getting involved in international law there. I asked that the matter be studied. It was studied but never executed. The Vietcong brought in a lot of supplies through those routes. The Central Intelligence Agency misjudged the situation; its intelligence didn’t confirm it. Finally, my own command’s intelligence confirmed the enemy was using Sihanoukville extensively. Question: When your intelligence confirmed it, was anything subsequently done to stop it? Westmoreland: No. It was an open-ended flank. Basic to this was President Johnson’s decree at the outset of the war that he didn’t want to broaden the war, and on that he was very emphatic on not extending the war to the seas. Question: Were the Riverine Forces deployed early enough in the war, in your opinion? Westmoreland: It was timely as related to our buildup. Our buildup could have been earlier, which would have made some difference. The buildup itself was piecemeal.
It involved not only the buildup of troops, but also of our logistical structure.
Question: The experience in Vietnam was unique, militarily, for the United States. It was the first time that we had been involved in a war of that type, under those conditions. Do you think it was as unique for the Navy as it was for the ground effort?
Westmoreland: My impression is that it was probably even more unique for the Navy.
Question: In what way? Westmoreland: I believe that not since the Civil War had the Navy been involved in river operations; but even then I don’t think the Navy did them. I think they were done by the U. S. Army Engineers as General U. S. Grant operated along the Mississippi and the Cumberland rivers. There were some naval operations during the course of the Civil War, but they were mostly warfare at sea. The Northern forces did establish a beachhead in the Beaufort area of South Carolina which it held throughout the whole war. It was obviously supplied by sea. And the war was started right here in Charleston by the firing from the shore on Star of the West. So I would say there was some similarity between the operations on the water during the Civil War and Vietnam.
The amphibious operations during World War II were of a far different character. They were, in the main, against a well-armed enemy ashore. That, of course, we did not have in Vietnam.
The Market Time [coastal security] operation and the Game Warden [riverine] operations were unique. We probably employed more SEAL teams and used them in more different roles than ever before. So my feeling is that in Vietnam, it was probably a more unique experience for the Navy than it was for the Army.
Question: There was a great fear in the mid-1960s that mining Haiphong Harbor might ultimately trigger active Soviet or Chinese involvement in the war. Invariably, this led to a hypersensitivity in Washington which you have described as “chimerical.” Did you feel as though your options had been so severely restricted that you were unable to do the things that you needed to bring the war to an end more quickly?
Westmoreland: Your question implies that I had full charge of the operations. I did not have operations in the North under me. So I was preoccupied with operations in the South. I did try and try again to cross into Cambodia and Laos with my own troops. That was not approved because of the policy of not broadening the war and the fear it might bring the Chinese to the battlefield.
Question: Do you think the U. S. Navy’s role of continually patrolling the eastern Vietnamese coast caused the North to rely more heavily on the Ho Chi Minh Trail?
Westmoreland: There is no question. It was far more expensive, far more difficult for them, and that was part of our strategy. I hoped that we could seal even that route, but that effort was never forthcoming as a policy option. The enemy was forced to use the rugged terrain of Laos as their main supply route.
Question: Looking back at your experience in Vietnam, if you had it all to do over again, would you have done anything differently? Westmoreland: I’ve thought of that many times. Other courses of action were either infeasible at the time or would have created some unforeseen and some foreseen problems. The only thing that really comes to my mind which is a very firm thing is in regard to the media. A big mistake we made was in using the term “search and destroy,” which was stamped as a strategy, which it was not. “Search and destroy” is merely an infantry tactic of finding the enemy, fixing him, and fighting him. We were stuck with the term, and it was terribly distorted and abused by the media.
The second item that I regret is, the use of the term "body count" as an expression involving an assessment of enemy battlefield casualties. The connotation of that expression became a serious public relations liability. But we were stuck with it as a carryover from the early years of the war. I considered trying to change the term to "the Commander's estimate of casualties inflicted on the enemy," which was what it was all about. But I discarded the idea, perhaps unwisely. I was advised that the change would probably not be accepted, in the middle of the war. We were constantly beat over the head by the media with these two unfortunate expressions.
Question: What are you most proud of?
Westmoreland: The thing I am the proudest of is the performance of the troops I was privileged to command: Army troops, Marine troops airmen, Navy, and Coast Guard forces.
Question: In your book, A Soldier Reports [Dell, 1980], you stated, and I’m quoting, “…The military quite clearly did the job that the nation asked and expected of it, and I am convinced that history will reflect more favorably upon the performance of the military than upon that of the politicians and policy makers…” You must have written that more than a decade ago and, today, we are seeing the first real indications of view actually coming to pass.
Westmoreland: I think you are right.
Mr. Chamberland received a bachelor of science degree and a master’s degree from Oklahoma State University. He is a former naval officer who served as executive officer of the U.S. Pacific Fleet Headquarters Support Activity, Makalapa, and as Assistant for Data Analysis, CinCPacFlt. He is currently a nuclear engineer for Charleston Naval Shipyard. He has published articles in Interface Age magazine, Tulsa magazine, and Astronomy magazine. He is the author of the article, “Sealab: Unfinished Legacy,” Proceedings, January 1986.