Vietnam War
The summer of 1967, however, brought a different, though by no means new, type of assignment—duty in the Far East. On 5 July 1967, she stood out of Norfolk, bound for the Panama Canal. The destroyer transited the canal on 10 July. After stops at San Diego and Pearl Harbor, she arrived in Yokosuka on 10 August. She departed Yokosuka on 13 August and, after stops at Okinawa and Subic Bay, arrived in Vietnamese waters on the 24th. Patrolling near the 17th parallel, she provided gunfire support for the III Marine Amphibious Force (MAF) during operations ashore during the Vietnam War. That first line period lasted until 17 September when she got underway for a port visit to Kaohsiung, Taiwan. She stopped at Kaohsiung from 20 September to 1 October and then moved on to Hong Kong, which port she visited between 2 and 6 October.
On the 9th, she resumed naval gunfire support duties in Vietnamese waters, this time off the coast of the II Corps tactical zone. During her second tour on the gunline, Waldron's main battery supported troops of the Army's 1st Air Cavalry Division and of the South Vietnamese 40th Division. On 20 October, she concluded her assignments on the gunline and headed for Yankee Station to join the fast carriers of TF 77. Two days later, she rendezvoused with Task Group (TG) 77.8 for two weeks of planeguard duty with the carriers. She departed the war zone again on 3 November and, after a stop at Okinawa, arrived in Yokosuka on the 8th.
A week later, she headed back to Yankee Station with TG 77.8 but parted company with the group on the 18th for a stop at Subic Bay. Waldron returned to Vietnamese waters on 24 November and took up naval gunfire support duties once again off the coast of the II Corps zone. That assignment endured until 10 December when she cleared the war zone for the last time. She made a stop at Subic Bay and then arrived in Yokosuka on 22 December.
Read more about this topic: USS Waldron (DD-699)
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“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)
“That’s just the trouble, Sam Houston—it’s always my move. And damnit, I sometimes can’t tell whether I’m making the right move or not. Now take this Vietnam mess. How in the hell can anyone know for sure what’s right and what’s wrong, Sam?”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“Our job is now clear. All Americans must be prepared to make, on a 24 hour schedule, every war weapon possible and the war factory line will use men and materials which will bring, the war effort to every man, woman, and child in America. All one hundred thirty million of us will be needed to answer the sunrise stealth of the Sabbath Day Assassins.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)