More than 8,000 United States Coast Guardsmen served in Vietnam. Their primary mission was patrolling the coast and inland waterways in a variety of cooperative operations with other American service branches. 

One of the most successful Coast Guard collaborations of the war was Operation Market Time, in which large, USCG high-endurance Owasco-class vessels and mid-size, 82-foot Point-class cutters worked alongside U.S. Navy swift boats enforcing a naval blockade to prevent infiltration and exfiltration of enemy forces and materiel by sea. 

As part of Market Time, the cutters conducted patrols from just south of the DMZ to the Mekong Delta. Designed for search and rescue and law-enforcement stateside, Point-class vessels were easily adaptable to their new mission. They were nearly roll-over proof under very choppy conditions and were able to remain at sea for weeks at a time. The United States Coast Guard Cutter (USCGC) Pt. Welcome was one such vessel. 

Operation Market Time: A Coast Guard Story is a memoir by Gerald McGill, a then-24-year-old lieutenant (junior grade) who was in command of the cutter from 1967 to 1968.

Co-authored by his daughter Erin Nobles, the book, which is slated for release later this year, explores the young officer’s tour of duty in Southeast Asia during the war’s most turbulent phase.

Chapters include McGill’s experience being ambushed by the VC on the eve of the 1968 Tet Offensive, as well as the excerpt below, which documents a coordinated assault on the night of Feb. 29, 1968 by a group of NVA trawlers. The action is remembered as the most significant coordinated Coast Guard operation of the war (and for which McGill was awarded the Bronze Star.)

By Gerald A. McGill

ON FEB. 29, 1968, the Point Welcome returned to Danang from a four-day patrol in Area 1 Golf, 70 miles southeast of Danang. Since we were headed home we did not feel the need to conserve fuel so we were running at our best cruising speed of 15 knots. The trip took about four-and-a-half hours. We arrived in Danang about 16:30.

We moored outside of three or four WPBs [water patrol boats], which were moored alongside a large U.S. Navy support ship. As usual, as soon as we were moored, we began taking on fuel, water and food supplies.

About 15 minutes later, the Division 12 Commander, Commander Richard Bauman crossed the inboard WPBs and came aboard the Welcome. This was a little unusual as normally our post patrol debriefing took place in the conference room aboard the Navy ship.

Bauman was not a Coast Guard Academy graduate. He graduated in 1943 (the year I was born) from what is now the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. He served in the Merchant Marine as third mate on the liberty ship Stephen C. Foster, which off loaded bombs on Omaha Beach at Normandy from shortly after D-Day in June 1944 until that September. He served as a Merchant Marine officer for 14 years until he joined the Coast Guard in 1957.

When Bauman came aboard the Point Welcome he asked me, “How soon can you get underway?’”

I replied, “20 minutes sir, 30 minutes max.”

“Good”, he replied, “You’ll be going back out.”

I told him, “The only problem is, I let two of my petty officers go ashore to the PX [post exchange].”

He asked if I would take two comparable petty officers from the other in port boats.

I had no problem with this as everyone in Squadron One had gone through the same training.  I told Bauman I needed an electronics technician and a gunners mate. Fortunately, we were able to find one of each aboard the other WPBs.

Then Bauman said something that surprised me, “Captain, with your permission I would like to ride on the Point Welcome with you.”

He continued, “This is your boat. You make the decisions and I will not interfere.”

I had no problem with any of that and we soon departed.

As we got underway, Bauman told me that the previous evening, a P-2 Neptune aircraft had detected what was believed to be a North Vietnamese SL-class naval trawler heading towards the South Vietnamese coast from just north of the DMZ. The trawler in question was a steel-hulled vessel, 100 feet long, flying no flags to identify its origins.

By the next day, three additional trawlers of similar description had been discovered along the coast. This appeared to be a coordinated movement in what we knew could be an attempt to smuggle weapons and other materiel to the VC.

One trawler was observed to be approximately 150 miles (240 km) south of the DMZ. The USCGC Androscoggin had taken this trawler under surveillance with a plan to intercept as necessary. We were heading south to assist.

For the first hour underway, we ran “general quarters” drills to integrate the new crew members. The individual captains of the WPBs had the discretion to assign crew members among the positions as he felt best. For example, I always put my ET [electronics technician] on the bridge where the radar screen and other electronic gear were located. It was also my practice to have the gunner’s mate man a 50-caliber machine gun on the fantail. With four machine guns back there, I felt that if anything was going to jam that’s where it would happen.

The Welcome was joined by the Point Grey and several U.S. Navy swift boats. We secured from GQ drills to eat dinner and rest up for what I expected to be a long night.

At about 0100 on the morning of March 1, the Androscoggin challenged the trawler as it closed to within seven miles (11 km) of the coast. The trawler fired on the Androscoggin with recoilless rifle and machine gun fire and began speeding towards the beach. (1)

Bauman and I were on the bridge along with my ET and a helmsman. We began following the trawler, accompanied by the Point Grey, two USN swift boats and two army helicopters.

At about 0140, we were ordered to take the trawler under fire. My men illuminated the target with rounds fired from our 81-mm mortar. The trawler grounded 50 yards (46 m) from the mouth of the Song Tha Cau River. We hit the target with two high-explosive mortar rounds.

The trawler exploded, sending steel shrapnel into the air so thick that I later learned the Point Welcome’s radar signal disappeared from the Androscoggin’s radar screen and they thought we were lost. At least two of the trawler’s crew were killed in the explosion and a third was wounded.

The two cutters were showered with debris from the explosions and it is a miracle we suffered no personnel casualties. The Point Welcome’s forward windows were completely blown out. We eventually realized that the port and aft windows were actually blown out from the inside by shrapnel passing through the bridge.

“That’s the closest I ever came to buying it,” Bauman later told friends.

As the shrapnel was raining down, three of the crew members manning the .50 caliber machine guns on the stern took shelter under the Boston whaler, which was tied down on the stern. I will never forget this.

After the fight was over, we discovered a bent carbine bayonet under the small boat. It had come from the trawler. Apparently, the force of the explosions was sufficient to bend a steel bayonet and blow it 500 yards through the air. When the incident was written up for military news, the press release included a photo of the bayonet, referring to it as an “unexpected souvenir.”

After the firefight, most units were returned to their normal patrol areas. We stayed in the area for two days providing security for VNN Junk Force and U.S. Navy divers during recovery operations.

Materiel that the trawler had been carrying was found scattered for 2,000 yards in all directions. The following items were discovered: approximately 600 K-44 carbines, one 12.7-mm heavy machine gun, eleven 7.62-mm light machine guns, [PPSh] 41 sub-machine guns and one 57-mm recoilless rifle, plus multiple rounds of ammunition of all types, as well as medical and personal gear.

In later years, I learned that three of the North Vietnamese trawlers involved in this attempted infiltration had been destroyed by U.S. and RVN forces. The fourth vessel turned around and headed back to the South China Sea, where it was visually trailed until it approached the Chinese coastline. During the rest of my time in Vietnam, there were no other known infiltration attempts by enemy trawlers. The enemy would need to rely upon land routes, as the coastline had been effectively closed.

Gerald A. McGill is the author of the forthcoming book Operation Market Time: A Coast Guard Story.

END NOTES

1. SeeLarzelere, Alex (1997). The Coast Guard at War, Vietnam, 1965-1975. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis.