Battle of Dong Hoi 19 April, 1972Battle of Dong Hoi 19 April, 1972
 | Grand Forks Herald7th Fleet Flagship USS Oklahoma City, and Destroyer USS Higbee, Damaged in Engagements with North VietnameseFriday, April 20, 1972 |
| Saigon (AP) - Heavy fighting erupted anew today on two sides of An Loc, 60 miles North of Saigon, after a 1,600-round enemy artillery bombardment of the war-torn provincial capital, Six North Vietnamese tanks were reported destroyed.
U.S. spokesmen disclosed meanwhile that ships of the U.S. 7th Fleet battled North Vietnamese MIG planes, torpedo boats and shore batteries this week in some of the heaviest sea action of the Indochina war. The destroyer USS Higbee and the 7th Fleet flagship, the cruiser USS Oklahoma City, were damaged. Four Americans were wounded. A MIG jet that bombed the Higbee was shot down by a missile, the Navy said, and it was believed that three North Vietnamese torpedo boats were sunk and a fourth was damaged. 
Damage to Aft Gunmount, USS Higbee DD-806, 20 April 1972 The allied commands also reported that the North Vietnamese offensive, now in it's 22nd day, pushed Vietnamese casualties on both sides last week to their highest levels since the 1968 Tet offensive. The South Vietnamese command reported 1,002 of its troops and 7,117 enemy killed; the U.S. Command reported 12 American battlefield deaths for the second week in a row, the biggest total in six months. The South Vietnamese command said that its paratroopers and rangers were locked in heavy fighting at midway half a mile North and a mile East of An Loc. Twenty U.S. B52's dropped 500 tons of explosives on three sides of the city, trying to break up the enemy concentrations besieging the city. Field reports said North Vietnamese troops spearheaded by tanks renewed the attack from the North and from the Southeast. One battle 2 ½ miles Southeast of the city around a paratrooper position known as Hill 169 was described as "close combat," and casualties were believed to be heavy on both sides. The ground attacks were preceded by a 1,600 round artillery barrage from dawn until dusk Wednesday, and enemy bombardment was renewed today. The Saigon command claimed about 150 enemy killed in and around An Loc Wednesday and today, many of them by air strikes. It said government casualties were light. |
| Pacific Stars & StripesMiGs Can't Sink Navy Courage - Crew Leaps to on Bombed ShipFriday, April 22, 1972 |
| DA NANG, Vietnam (AP) - "MIG coming, MIG coming!" yelled the lookout and seconds later the after deck of the destroyer Higbee was aflame.
The North Vietnamese jet dropped a 250-pound bomb onto the deck of the destroyer, wounding four seamen and destroying a gun mount that housed two 5-inch guns. The U.S. Command said at least three enemy jets attacked an American task force in the Tonkin Gulf off the coast of North Vietnam late Wednesday afternoon. The command said one of the planes was shot down, two enemy torpedo boats were believed sunk and shrapnel from shore battery fire caused minor damage on the cruiser Oklahoma City, the flagship of the 7th fleet. Capt. Ronald Zuilkoski, skipper of the Higbee, said the MIG attacked his ship at least twice before the bomb hit the deck. "In the first two passes, bombs fell left and right of the ship," he said. "But on the third try one hit the deck and exploded under the mount. She flew so low over the deck that you could see everything." Luckily the gun mount was empty, the 12-man gun crew having been ordered out while a round stuck in one of the barrels was hosed down to keep it from exploding. But three men in the ammunition storage compartment under the mount were wounded. Other men pulled them out as the ammunition began to explode. The exploding ammunition ripped open a large section in the Higbee's left side. Flames and clouds of black smoke from leaking oil engulfed the deck as the crew fought the fire. Another warning sounded: "Missile! Missile coming in!" "We heard the missile warning, but we had to stay with the fire or we would have lost the ship," said HT2 John J. O'Brien, 40 of Camden N.J. "It was fantastic-everyone worked together. They did what they were trained to do even though too much happened at one time - flames were everywhere. John T. Allardyce, 26, another HT2 from Allentown, PA, was up forward. "I felt the bomb hit," he said. "It shook the boat forward and then I heard the call for help from O'Brien's section in the rear." Allardyce said the bomb explosion damaged the water system, "but we managed somehow to get the thing under control." "The guys really worked together," said Allardyce. "You'd call for one man to come an help and two would show up." The Higbee entered Da Nang harbor early today. It’s after deck looked like a junkyard floating in a pool of dirty oil. It tied up alongside the repair ship Hector and near the destroyer Buchanan which the U.S. Command said was damaged by shore fire Monday. |
| Vietnam MagazineThe Obsolescent MiG-17 fighter produced North Vietnam’s first jet air-to-air victoriesBy Captain Carl O. Schuster, U.S. Navy (Ret.)Friday, June 2007, Pages 19-21 |
| By 1969, the MiG-17 was relegated primarily to a training and supporting inter4cept attack role. Two years later, VPAF leaders decided to shift some of their MiG-17s to a surface attack role, with 250-kilogram bombs replacing the two 400-liter drop tanks it carried for air intercept missions. Air-to-ground attack training began in March 1971. The initial focus was on anti-shipping missions., Cuban instructors taught maritime strike tactics, while North Vietnamese intelligence studied U.S. naval operating patterns off the North’s coastline.
In March 1972, the 923rd Fighter Regiment’s first six pilots graduated from the training program. They stage to Gat Airfield on April 18, 1972, and awaited their opportunity. It came at 1605 hours the next day, when two Frescos launched to strike four U.S., warships operating nine nautical miles from Nhat Le. The 402nd Radar Company provided target location and movement information as the flight flew just above the terrain en route to the coast. The leads pilot, Le Xuan Di, spotted the smoked from one of the ship’s stacks before he crossed the coasts. A pair of motor torpedo boats was also moving in to strike the U.S. Navy task element as Le approached the target area. He reported sighting a U.S. warship and was given the attack order. He estimated the ship, a World War II-era destroyer, to be 10 to 12 kilometers away as he accelerated toward it. It turned out to bee USS Higbee. The other Fresco, piloted by Nguyen Van Bay, went after the second group of ships about five nautical miles away, the guided missile cruiser Oklahoma City and the destroyer Sterrett. Le climbed to about 400 meters for his approach and released his two bombs from a shallow dive. (Higbee’s captain says the Fresco conducted two attacks, dropping one bomb each time. Le says he flew straight to the target, dropping both bombs at the same time in a single attack.) One bomb hit and destroyed Higbee’s rear gun mount, while the other missed the ship’s fantail by about 10 meters. Le pulled away to the left, did a slow descent to 100 meters and returned directly to Gat. Nguyen overshot Oklahoma City and had to come around for a reattack. He released his bombs too early, missing the cruiser by more than 50 meters and inflicting little noticeable damage. Sterrett fired A Terrier surface-to-air missile at Nguyen as he pulled away, and Sterrett’s crew claimed to have shot him down. The North Vietnamese, however, admit no aerial losses in the attack. To add to the confusion, the North Vietnamese shore batteries spotted Sterret5t’s missile launch shortly after the bomb splashes and reported that it was also damaged in the attack. In fact, Sterrett suffered no damage at all. The entire engagement took less than 17 minutes. |
