Swift Boats: Hard Day on the Bo De

  I thought the end of the world had come...

Contributed by Admiral Paul A. Yost Jr., U.S. Coast Guard (ret)

Photo: Naval Historical Center (A. R. HILL)

In an edited excerpt from an oral history conducted by the Naval Institute’s Paul Stillwell, the former Coast Guard Commandant recalls in vivid detail a Swift boat operation he led as a commander up the Ca Mau’s Bo De River on 12 April 1969. His initial service in Vietnam was from a base at An Thoi on Phu Quoc Island, where he was Commander Task Group 115.4, a component of the U.S. Market Time coastal surveillance patrol.





October 2004

My boss in the operation was Commander Task Force 115, Navy Captain Roy Hoffmann. He was very hands-on. He knew everything going on in his command, and he was a night owl. Hoffmann would call all of his four commanders, I Corps, II Corps, III Corps, and IV Corps in Operation Market Time, at about 2300, sometimes later, to get a report for the day. He was a taskmaster. He was very tough. And he wanted to know everything that was happening.

Early on, we had a major mission into the Ca Mau, up the peninsula at the southern tip of Vietnam. The Westchester County (LST-1167) was my command ship. It was a SEALORDS (Southeast Asia lake, ocean, river, and delta strategy) operation, and I was due to be on the command ship and to have a number of Swift boats (patrol craft fast, or PCFs) making incursions with two companies of Vietnamese Marines that Hoffmann had set up. All the planning was done, and it was my first big operation. Then I got a message from Captain Hoffmann, saying he was going to come out on the Westchester County to observe. I said to myself: "Self, the Westchester County is not big enough to hold both you and Hoffmann. There's going to be a problem." So I said to Captain Hoffmann, "Boss, let me lead the operation into the Ca Mau, and you run the combat information center [CIC] on the ship." That suited him, because he was a fighter. I'm sure he loved it.

We left the ship with eight PCFs, picked up Vietnamese Marines, embarked them, and headed toward the inlet. A lot of radio chatter was going on while we were picking up the Marines and coming back out. As I went past the Westchester County, a ninth PCF left the ship, and Captain Hoffmann told me on the radio that he'd decided to send an explosive ordnance detail with me.

The reason for this was, when you sweep down the banks on either side of the river and come across a line of bunkers, you put your explosive ordnance guys into the bunker to throw in some teargas powder and drop a grenade on top of it, which blows the teargas into the bunker so it can't be inhabited for two or three months, because the teargas keeps seeping out.

I hadn't asked for the explosive ordnance detail, and I didn't know I was going to get it 'til I got it. Now I had nine boats, and I went on in. I had one PCF ahead of me; seven boats were behind me in line up the middle of the river. I had on board two U.S. Marine majors who were advisors to the Vietnamese Marines. When we got to the point where we were supposed to insert them, one of the Marine majors came up to me and said, "I haven't seen anything that even looks like a Viet Cong. No activity. It's hot. It's sweaty. Going is hard. Do you have any problem with inserting us another mile or so up the river?"

I said, "Major, my job is to insert you where you want to be inserted."

He said, "Great. I want to go another mile or so."

I called the ship and said, "Launch the helicopters." The ship had two gunships on her, two Seawolf helicopters that were under my command. But they were now under Captain Hoffmann's command, since he had the ship. Captain Hoffmann apparently said to himself, "Yost doesn't need these helicopters. He's not in contact. If I send the helicopters now and he gets in contact later, they won't have enough fuel to give him the support he needs, so I'll hold them." He wanted to be radio silent, and so he was not anxious to get on the radio. For whatever reason, he never said, "I'm not sending the helicopters."

So I was tooling up the middle of this river, fat, dumb, and happy, with helicopters 10 or 15 minutes from me—I thought. About ten minutes later, we got ambushed from both sides of the river. I thought the end of the world had come—B-40 rockets were exploding. All at once all nine boats had their .50 calibers chattering, “Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.” Everybody who had a weapon was firing it at something. The skippers were two-blocking the throttles (operating at full speed), taking fire all the way. There was so much noise it was hard to get your orders out over the radio, so when we got through the ambush, I directed the boats to beach out on either side, odd boats on the starboard, even boats on the port.