Knowing the Enemy: Naval Intelligence in Southeast Asia: Naval Intelligence in Southeast Asia

by Richard A. Mobley, Edward J. Marolda, Naval History & Heritage Command (U.S.) (Editor)

Overview

U.S. Navy Intelligence Contribution Key to SE Asia War Effort from 1965-75
Knowing the Enemy, part of the commemorative series The U.S. Navy and the Vietnam War, covers the Navy intelligence establishment’s support to the war effort in Southeast Asia from 1965 to 1975. It describes the contribution of naval intelligence to key strategic, operational, and tactical aspects of the war including the involvement of intelligence in the seminal Tonkin Gulf Crisis of 1964 and the Rolling Thunder and Linebacker bombing campaigns; the monitoring of Sino-Soviet bloc military assistance to Hanoi; the operation of the Seventh Fleet’s reconnaissance aircraft; the enemy’s use of the “neutral” Cambodian port of Sihanoukville; and the support to U.S. Navy riverine operations during the Tet Offensive and the SEALORDS campaign in South Vietnam. 

 Special features elaborate on the experiences of reconnaissance plane pilots navigating the dangerous skies of Indochina; intelligence professionals who braved enemy attacks at shore bases in South Vietnam; the perilous mission in Laos of Observation Squadron 67 (VO-67); the secret voyage of nuclear attack submarine Sculpin (SSN-590); and the leadership and heroism of Captain Earl F. Rectanus, Lieutenant Commander Jack Graf, and other naval intelligence professionals who risked, and sometimes lost, their lives in the service of their country during the war. The work is lavishly illustrated with more than 85 photographs and maps, and includes a select list of suggested readings. This publication will be of interest and value to scholars, veterans, and students of the Vietnam War and the Navy’s role in that conflict. 

Related products:
Vietnam War resources collection can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/catalog/us-military-history/battles-wars/vietnam-war

Other products producted by the U.S. Navy, Naval History and Heritage Command can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/agency/902
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780160937361
Publisher:	United States Dept. of Defense
Publication date:	12/15/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	119
Sales rank:	31,290
File size:	8 MB
Age Range:	16 - 18 Years

About the Author

Richard A. Mobley retired as a commander in the Navy in 2001 and has since worked as a military intelligence analyst for the government. During his career as a naval intelligence officer, he worked closely with many of the organizations discussed in this book. He participated in the evacuation of Saigon in 1975 while serving in the intelligence center aboard Enterprise (CVAN-65). Subsequent Pacific tours included chief of the analysis section in the Fleet Ocean Surveillance Information Facility WESTPAC in Kami Seya, Japan, in the mid-1980s, and chief of indications and warning, U.S. Forces, Korea, in the mid-1990s. Mobley has written Flash Point North Korea: The Pueblo and EC-121 Crises (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2003) and over a dozen professional articles dealing with intelligence, crisis decision making, and military history in the Middle East and Korea. He is a graduate of the National War College, Georgetown University (MA, History), and University of California, Davis (BA, Political Science).

Edward J. Marolda has served as the Director of Naval History (Acting) and the Senior Historian of the Navy at the Naval Historical Center, renamed the Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC). He has written or edited a number of books on the U.S. Navy’s experience in Southeast Asia, including From Military Assistance to Combat, 1959–1965, vol. 2 (with Oscar P. Fitzgerald) in the official series The United States Navy and the Vietnam Conflict; By Sea, Air, and Land: An Illustrated History of the U.S. Navy and the War in Southeast Asia; and Aircraft Carriers, no. 4 in the Bantam series The Illustrated History of the Vietnam War. Dr. Marolda serves as coeditor with Sandra J. Doyle of this series, The U.S. Navy and the Vietnam War, and has authored or coauthored a number of its titles. In 2012 NHHC published Marolda’s Ready Seapower: A History of the U.S. Seventh Fleet, which covers the fleet’s extensive Vietnam War experience. As an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, Dr. Marolda has taught courses on the Cold War in the Far East. He holds degrees in history from Pennsylvania Military College (BA), Georgetown University (MA), and George Washington University (Ph.D). 
 

Table of Contents

Interpretation of the Threat to Southeast Asia
The Question of Seaborne Infiltration
Intelligence Gathering in Laos
Collecting Intelligence on the Enemy’s Doorstep
Intelligence Support during the Tonkin Gulf Incidents
Preparations for War in Southeast Asia
Navy Tactical Reconnaissance 
A Helping Hand to Hanoi: Sino-Soviet Bloc Military Assistance
The Defense of North Vietnam
The Post-1968 Air War in North Vietnam and Laos
Intelligence and the War on the Coast
Cambodia’s Open Door: Sihanoukville 
The Naval War in South Vietnam
Naval Intelligence and the Fight for South Vietnam
NILOs in Action
Intelligence in the Linebacker Campaign
Conclusion

Sidebars

A Recce Pilot in Harm’s Way
In a MiG’s Sights
The Short, Dangerous Life of the Ghost Squadron
CT Duty in “Rocket City”
Sculpin and the Sinking of an Infiltrating Trawler
Zumwalt’s Eyes and Ears
Jack Graf: A Naval Intelligence Hero

The Authors
Acknowledgments
Suggested Reading