Operation Sea Dragon (Vietnam War)

Operation Sea Dragon
Date 25 October 1966 – October 1968 Location South Vietnam Result Disruption of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong supply and communication lines.
Belligerents
United States South Vietnam	North Vietnam Viet Cong

Operation Sea Dragon occurred during the Vietnam War and was a series of American led naval operations beginning in 1966 to interdict sea lines of communications and supply going south from North Vietnam to South Vietnam, and to destroy land targets with naval gunfire, as well as to give CIA officers in the area who had sited the targets room to withdraw to extraction zones. The primary purpose of Sea Dragon forces was the interception and destruction of water borne logistic craft (WBLC), which ranged in size from large self-propelled barges down to small junks and sampans. United States Navy advisers were assigned to the South Vietnamese Navy (VNN) and American minesweepers assisted South Vietnamese Navy ships in carrying out patrols near the Demilitarized Zone. Specially modified attack helicopters were used to pursue North Vietnamese ships and disable them, leaving the ships to be boarded by American and South Vietnamese naval commandos.

References

• Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War. Oxford University Press, 2000.