The newly formed Navy SEALs were first sent into Vietnam in an advisory capacity in March 1962, just a few months after their inception. US military advisors had already been in the country from the mid-1950s, training the forces of the Western-leaning South Vietnamese government as they fought the communist-supported North. When America formally entered the conflict in 1965 after the Gulf of Tonkin incident, Underwater Demolition Team (UDT) frogmen surveyed the beaches of Da Nang before the first US Marines set foot on the Vietnamese coast in March 1965.
After the swelling of the US military commitment into Vietnam, the Navy SEALs’ role in the war widened to undertake active combat missions in the country against the Vietcong and North Vietnamese Army. However, the number of active SEALs was no greater than 120 at any given time due to the clandestine nature of their operation in the country. SEAL Teams 1 and 2 were the first to see action in Vietnam, with Team 1 starting their deployment in February 1967.
This story is from the Issue 119 edition of History of War.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the Issue 119 edition of History of War.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
NAUMACHIA TRUTH BEHIND ROME'S GLADIATOR SEA BATTLES
In their quest for evermore novel and bloody entertainment, the Romans staged enormous naval fights on artificial lakes
OPERATION MANNA
In late April 1945, millions of Dutch civilians were starving as Nazi retribution for the failed Operation Market Garden cut off supplies. eet as In response, Allied bombers launched a risky mission to air-drop food
GASSING HITLER
Just a month before the end of WWI, the future Fuhrer was blinded by a British shell and invalided away from the frontline. Over a century later, has the artillery brigade that launched the fateful attack finally been identified?
SALAMANCA
After years of largely defensive campaigning, Lieutenant General Arthur Wellesley went on the offensive against a French invasion of Andalusia
HUMBERT 'ROCKY'VERSACE
Early in the Vietnam War, a dedicated US Special Forces officer defied his merciless Viet Cong captors and inspired his fellow POWs to survive
LEYTE 1944 SINKING THE RISING SUN
One of the more difficult island campaigns in WWII's Pacific Theatre saw a brutal months-long fight that exhausted Japan’s military strength
MAD DAWN
How technology transformed strategic thinking and military doctrine from the Cold War to the current day
BRUSHES WITH ARMAGEDDON
Humanity came close to self-annihilation with the Cuban Missile Crisis, Broken Arrows’ and other nuclear near misses
THE DEADLY RACE
How the road to peace led to an arms contest between the USA and USSR, with prototypes, proliferation and the world’s biggest bomb
THE MANHATTAN PROJECT
Einstein, Oppenheimer and the race to beat Hitler to the bomb. How a science project in the desert helped win a war
