Vietnam
Massey was ordered to the Pacific for the second time, in January 1966. Departing Newport, Rhode Island, on the 19th, she transited the Panama Canal and headed into the Pacific. On 28 February she arrived at Kaosiung, Taiwan, commencing operations in the South China Sea the following week. The destroyer cruised off the coast of Vietnam, providing gunfire support for ground forces and rescue service for carriers, as well as performing picket duty assignments, until departing Tonkin Gulf 3 July for Subic Bay, Philippine Islands. From the Philippines, she steamed for home via the Suez Canal. She arrived at Newport 17 August having circumnavigated the world. On 28 September she entered the Naval Shipyard at Boston for repairs.
Back in top shape early in 1967, Massey operated along the east coast and in the Caribbean, until departing Newport 2 May for the Mediterranean. The destroyer reached Gibraltar on the 11th and operated with the 6th Fleet for the next 4 months. Steaming to the eastern Mediterranean she relieved destroyer Dyess in towing Atlantis to Rhodes after the sloop had been damaged in a collision with a merchant tanker.
Read more about this topic: USS Massey (DD-778)
Famous quotes containing the word vietnam:
“I told them I’m not going to let Vietnam go the way of China. I told them to go back and tell those generals in Saigon that Lyndon Johnson intends to stand by our word, but by God, I want something for my money. I want ‘em to get off their butts and get out in those jungles and whip hell out of some Communists. And then I want ‘em to leave me alone, because I’ve got some bigger things to do right here at home.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now.”
—Richard M. Nixon (b. 1913)
“I was proud of the youths who opposed the war in Vietnam because they were my babies.”
—Benjamin Spock (b. 1903)