FACT: Viet Cong Commandos Sank an American Aircraft Carrier

Interesting PO1 Tony Holland. Of course sinking the USS Card in 50 feet of water was nothing like sinking it out at sea. Thankfully the Card was returned to duty six months later after being raised and repaired.

"It was shortly after midnight when two Viet Cong commandos emerged from a sewer tunnel that emptied into Saigon Port, each man carrying nearly 90 pounds of high explosives and the components needed to make two time bombs.
Their target was the largest American ship in port, USNS Card. An escort carrier that saw distinguished service as a submarine-hunter in the North Atlantic during World War II, during the early morning hours of May 2, 1964, Card was part of U.S. Military Sealift Command.

The ship supported an escalating military commitment of the South Vietnamese government that occurred well before the Tonkin Gulf Incident. Since 1961, Card had transported both fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters to the beleaguered nation as well as the U.S. pilots and support crews need to operate them.

The commandos swam toward Card, where they spent about an hour in the water attaching the charges just above the waterline near the bilge and the engine compartment on the ship’s starboard side. They set the timers and quickly swam away.

The charges exploded. Five civilian crewmen on board Card died, the explosion tore a huge hole in the engine-room compartment and a proud ship that had survived German U-boat attacks was on her way to the bottom — the last aircraft carrier in U.S. military history to date sunk by enemy action.

The sinking of the Card was stunning victory for the Viet Cong, yet little remembered today. It illustrated how vulnerable naval vessels can be even when faced with a low-tech enemy … and how difficult maintaining port security can be in a war with no real front.

But it also demonstrated how resilient American naval forces are. In 17 days, salvage crews raised Card out of nearly 50 feet of water, and six months later the ship returned to service for another six years.

Not surprisingly, North Vietnam celebrated the sinking of Card, considering it a propaganda victory of the first rank. The U.S. government refused to even acknowledge the vessel’s sinking, telling the public the carrier had only been damaged.

The North Vietnamese government even commemorated the event by portraying the operation on a 1964 postage stamp.

Naval vessels often have a mystique about them — they look formidable, bristle with weapons and aircraft, and have the ability to project a nation’s power anywhere on the planet. In particular, aircraft carriers are the symbol of a nation possessing “great power” status.

But they are vulnerable to attack. For example, there are reasons why even aircraft carriers have numerous escort vessels — destroyers, guided-missile cruisers, even submarines — to protect a carrier as well as engage the enemy.

We shouldn’t be too surprised when an enemy takes out a naval vessel in combat, even if it is a commando with a time bomb, James Holmes, a naval historian and analyst who teaches at the U.S. Naval War College, told War Is Boring."
thanks for alerting me SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL

PO1 Tony Holland thanks for the read/shrare of the most interesting! I never heard of this before!
LTC Stephen F.

When we were tied up in Saigon, crew members with rifles and shotguns manned the sides specifically to look for swimmers. We were told to shoot anything that looked suspicious, especially things that did not follow the water movement - i.e. running perpendicular to or opposite the tidal flow. The USS Card was mentioned in at least one briefing to the shooters.

Closest we ever came to having an explosives problem was when a crew member (probably a "Boats") found two claymores in a trash can getting ready to be thrown into the ship's incinerator. (The incinerator was just below the waterline along the starboard side outer bulkhead.) Some troop had forgotten to turn them in before embarking and dumped them in the trash when he discovered them.