USS Higbee (DD-806) - Vietnam War

Vietnam War

Ready for action on 3 January 1964, Higbee trained on the West Coast until departing for Japan on 30 June and reached her new homeport, Yokosuka, on 18 July. During the Gulf of Tonkin Incident in August, the destroyer screened carriers of Task Force 77 (TF 77) in the South China Sea. In February 1965 Higbee supported the 9th Marine Brigade at Da Nang, Vietnam. In May she participated in Project Gemini recovery in the Western Pacific. On 1 September Higbee helped to rescue the crew from Arsinoe after the French tanker had grounded off Scarborough Shoals in the South China Sea. The remainder of September was spent in naval gunfire support off South Vietnam. On the return voyage to home port, the ship saw short duty as Station Ship Hong Kong. While in Hong Kong, Princess Margaret was piped aboard the ship.

While operating northeast of Luzon in late January 1966, Higbee sighted Russian hydrographic ship Gidrifon. Returning to South Vietnam in April, Higbee bombarded enemy positions near Cape St. Jacques and the mouth of the Saigon River. On 17 June she departed Yokosuka for the West Coast, arrived Long Beach, her new home port, on 2 July and operated out of there into 1967. In November 1966, Higbee and her squadron had R&R in Acapulco, Mexico, where Bob Hope did an unscheduled servicemen's show for the crews. The first half of 1967 was spent in the yards at Mare Island for a major refit before returning to the Vietnam theater. On 19 April 1972 the Higbee became the first US warship to be bombed during the Vietnam War, when two VPAF (also known as the NVAF-North Vietnamese Air Force) MiG-17s from the 923rd Fighter Regiment attacked, one of which, piloted by Le Xuan Di, dropped a 250 kilogram (500 lb) bomb onto the Higbee's rear 5-inch gun mount, destroying it. The 5-inch gun crew had been outside of their turret, due to a misfire within the mount, when the air attack occurred, which resulted in the wounding of four US sailors. The second MiG-17 flown by Nguyen Van Bay went on to bomb the light cruiser USS Oklahoma City (CLG-5), causing only minor damage.

Although there were no official aircraft losses reported by either side during the aerial attack, witnesses aboard accompanying USN vessel's deploying defensive measures, claimed one of the attacking MIGs with a direct hit by a surface to air missile fired from the USS Sterett (DLG-31). Photos taken by one of the Sterett's crew clearly show the MIG being destroyed by a Terrier missile. Eye witnesses saw a MIG aircraft blown completely to smithereens by a direct Terrier missile strike at only a few thousand yards, pieces of the virtually disintegrated MIG fell into the sea in view of the eye witnesses.