Deck Log of the USS Maddox
8/2/1964
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As this deck log documents, three North Vietnamese boats attacked the USS
Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin on August 2, 1964 – the first Gulf of Tonkin incident. The
Maddox and aircraft from the USS
Ticonderoga damaged all three hostile boats, almost sinking one.
The
Maddox had been conducting electronic eavesdropping on North Vietnam to assist South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) commando raids on North Vietnamese targets. (Historians now suspect the North Vietnamese boats had set out to attack an ARVN raid in progress when it encountered the
Maddox.)
Following reports of a
second incident two days later, Congress passed the
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave President Lyndon B. Johnson advance approval to respond to military aggression in Southeast Asia without Congressional consultation. (When information surfaced that the second attack on the
Maddox might never have happened, many believed Congress had been conned. It was too late.)
This primary source comes from the Records of the Bureau of Naval Personnel.
National Archives Identifier:
595159Full Citation: Deck Log of the USS Maddox; 8/2/1964; Logbooks of U.S. Navy Ships and Stations, 1941 - 1983; Records of the Bureau of Naval Personnel, Record Group 24; National Archives at College Park, College Park, MD. [Online Version, https://www.docsteach.org/documents/document/deck-log-maddox, April 19, 2024]