Word: torpedoes
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...August 5, the day after American jets bombed North Vietnam's torpedo-boat bases, both China and the Soviet Union announced that they would not "sit idly by" in the face of any U.S. "aggression" against North Vietnam. It is clear that were South Vietnam to attack North Vietnam, American would risk another Korea and probably worse...
...radarscope. Last week a bad odor lingered over four such radar contacts. They were the blips that appeared in the Tonkin Gulf a fortnight ago and drew the fire of two patrolling U.S. destroyers-and, since then, the fire of innumerable Republican sharpshooters. Were the skunks really North Vietnamese torpedo boats or gunboats, as the destroyer captains believed? If so, were they really indulging in "hostile" behavior-preparing to attack U.S. vessels as they had on two earlier occasions? What damage was really done? The Pentagon has offered no answers, but a few facts about the mysterious engagement...
...because of the ships' sensitive, U-2-like role, the Pentagon was unwilling to release their names. Early in the evening of Sept. 18, the destroyers picked up the four skunks, found them to be moving at speeds of around 40 knots-too fast to be anything but torpedo boats. The destroyers increased their own speed to 30 knots, began running a zigzag course, and kept their narrow sterns to the approaching blips...
...that the pursuers were "hostile," opened fire with their radar-controlled 5-in. guns, although they still could not see their targets by eye. Why did they begin shooting at such a great distance? After the first Tonkin incident, when the U.S.S. Maddox sank one of three at tacking torpedo boats, President Johnson had been scornful of the lone destroyer's marksmanship, so this time the skippers wanted to get in as many ranging rounds as possible to improve their score...
...blew up a sugar mill on Cuba's southern coast last May and shot up a Russian radar station in the same area two weeks ago. Artime, a leader in the abortive Bay of Pigs invasion, now operates out of Central America, is believed to have some dozen torpedo boats armed with 57-mm. recoilless rifles and other weapons. Two other exile possibilities: the smaller November 30 Organization, which says it shelled a Cuban freighter homeward-bound from Canada two weeks ago; and the Comandos Mambises, which claims to have attacked a Russian vessel in the Cuban port...