But, because Vietnamese n babies do not wear diapers, the families living on the first floor became increasingly damp and angry. One Green Beret team built two-stroy thatch homes for the dependents of theirits Vietnamese irregulars. Their mortar pits and artillery needed more stable platforms, so these were placed inside giant upright cement cylinders. IN other camps, they constructed their buildings so that only the floors floated as the water rose, the furniture, men and rats all moved closer and closer to the ceiling. In some camps, the buildings floated, so that as the water rose, so did the buildings. Thousands of empty oil drums were dumped from low-flying aircraft and the Special Forces built their radio shacks and barracks to float on the bobbing containers. American Special Forces and their Vietnamese counterparts had to perform drastic engineering feats to save their base camps sprinkled throughout the Delta. Even worse, some military camps simply floated away during the flood times, when the snows of Tibet melted and gushed southward. Artillery had to be placed on solid high ground–often too far away to cover troops ont he march. Helicopters could ferry troops to the battlefield, but could not provide day-and-night heavy fire support.

The high rice dikes hindered the use of 4x the “swimming tanks–the black, squat M-113 armored personnel carriers. Trucking troops to battle was rarely possible. The Delta was a nightmare for military tacticians. Nightmare– Bar nightmare– A dream boat.- unsinkable Green Siouts.- River River Dragons.- coming out of Ian Flemming Dr. Waterways rather than roads are teh chief means of transport 5000 miles of navigable inlande waterways fr finger through the area, compared to 1200 miles of once-upon-a-time roads, now mostly cut, mined or excavated by the Viet Cong. American sailors call this brown lifeline “the Mississippi of South East Asia:” the Vietnamese call it Cuu Long–the nine-headed dragon. It forms en route one of the richest ricebowls in the world, producing livelihood for half of South Vietnam‘s population. The mighty Mekong River, one of the longest rivers in the world, rises 2800 miles away along the mountain slopes of Tibet, flounders through or between the countries of South Asia, until, in South Vietnam, it fans out into a lacework of tributaries, estuaries, And riverlets and empties into the South China Sea. Here in the famed Mekong Delta, was a new world for the navy as well as for American ground-pounding Army troops.īut, tThere was more water than ground in the Delta. The story of America’s muddy water war in Vietnam began in 1965 66.-> When American ground troops marched into the jungled areas north of Saigon, the Navy was ordered to survey the problems of operating in the riverine environment south of Saigon–the second battleground. Operation Game Warden is, however, more-counter-insurgency in nature, with emphasis on “un-spinning” Viet Cong supplies for the local population from the local population. This Mississippi River operation, comparable to the tactical innovation of the Mobile Riverine Force in Vietnam, was thus conventional in nature. The battle of the Mississippi River involved conventional naval tactics of overpowering Confederate forts and defeating Confederate forts alo and installations along the river banks, and once this these were defeated, to control thew die x wide es expanses of the river until the next fort could be over-run.

Navy’s task 1500-man task force 116 with Head quarters at Binh Thuy on the outskirts of Cau Tho, the capital of the Mekong Delta and South Vietnam‘s second most popular cityx.Įven America’s last river war, in the conflict between the states, conflict, during the Civil War a century ago, did not see river patrolli inland – patrolling of such magnitude and energy. TheOperation Game Warden is conducted by U. for the past_21 months by 120 riverraft Has been deemed successful enough to expand its size to 200 patrol boats The operation conduced conducted round the clock. The operation, codenamed Game Warden, is designed to block Viet Cong movement of men and supplies across the major branches of the Mekong Re River. Navy Naval history.įor the first time in the 193-year it’s its 193-year history, American Naval forces are conducting inland “muddy-water” patrolling in nose-to-nose combat with its enemy forces.

The remarkably successful operation Game WĪmerican “little boat” patrolling along the major fingers of the Mekong River is unpprecedented in the annals of U. This last article describes the unparalled unparalleled patrolling operation called Game Warden, conducted xkx by the crews of the “Unsinkable River Dragones.) Dragons”). This three-part report examines America’s Rice Paddy Navy in South Vietnam. Navy is again involved in river warfare–for the first time since the American Civil War.

Pbr mobile base one vietnam 1968