8. Training a brown water Navy for Vietnam
On December 18, 1965, the United States Navy initiated what was called Operation Game Warden, creating a brown water Navy to interdict traffic on Vietnamese waterways in the Mekong Delta. The only training they had for such operations at the time was from the study of history, it was the first such operation by the Navy since the American Civil War. Most of the boats used in the operation were American-built vessels which had been sent to the French as military aid under Truman and Eisenhower, left behind when the French withdrew. The naval patrols of the delta and associated waterways were supported by attack helicopters.
By March 1966, the ancient craft were being replaced by PBRs (Patrol Boat, River) which were fast, nimble, and rigid-hulled. They typically carried a crew of four, all enlisted men, and all of them cross-trained in each other’s jobs. The boat commander was usually a first-class petty officer. The boats were designed to operate in pairs and usually did, with an officer on board one of them, in command of the operation. By 1966 training for PBR crewmen were formalized in the United States, where sailors in the rates required to man them encountered conditions similar to those in Vietnam. The training areas were in Coronado and Mare Island and in Sonoma Marsh, California.
