SS Mayaguez c.1975 by shipmodel - FINISHED - scale 1/16" = 1' (1:192) - Dan Pariser

[shipmodel]

Hi JKC - 

 

I find that the GMM railings are quite sturdy, although they will kink if mistreated.  If a bar is bent it is easily nudged back into shape and stays straight.  I also have some from Tom's Modelworks and agree that they are fragile.  But they are useful when I need light railings.  I have used Tom's sets of deck chairs and benches for the Titanic and they are great - highly detailed and in scale.  

I use smooth, flat jawed pliers to do all the bending of PE details.  Folding is done against flat wooden blocks.  Never with my fingers except for long, smooth curves.  I think that I detailed my techniques in the build log of the SS Andrea Doria. 

 

Best of success with your projects.  Post your build log here so I can follow your progress.

 

Be well

 

Dan

[KeithAug]

Dan, I marvel at your image interpretation skills.

[shipmodel]

Hello again to all –

 

Thanks for the comments and likes, as always.   

 

It has not been that long since the last segment, but since this is a retrospective of the build I can get another one out quickly, as long as I have time left over after the honey-do list.  This one is a bit wordy, with only a few photos since I concentrated on building and not taking photos of my progress.  I hope that the explanations will be sufficient.

 

In the second segment, posted a while ago, the superstructure was in the middle of construction based on the available photographs.  To remind you, here is a close-up of the best photo of the superstructure and a ‘plan view’ taken by a US Air Force plane from almost directly overhead.

 

 

At that time all of the decks and deck houses had been built and the doors, handrails, ladders, and railings for the lower decks had been installed.  The structures of the top two decks and the bridge had been built up but not detailed.   Next the funnel was built.  It started with a ¾” birch dowel that was carved down to an oval cross section.

 

 

The dowel was wrapped in 0.02” styrene attached with gel cyano.   The seam was not positioned along the aft centerline but was offset to one side.  I find that even after filling, sanding, priming and painting there can be a slight imperfection in the surface.  I think that it is less noticeable if it is not centered, which is where most people look.  A reinforcing collar was made for the bottom of the stack from 0.015” strip, painted black.  At the top the photos seem to show that there is a narrow lip enclosing a large round exhaust fitting and a much smaller pipe, probably for excess steam.  A homemade decal of the SeaLand logo was created in my printer and applied to both sides of the funnel.  Actually, this decal ultimately looked too small so you will see a larger one in future photos.

 

Directly ahead of the funnel is a large, square fitting.  I could never be sure of its shape or function, but in one of the fuzzier photos there is a hint that it might be a raised hatch with open doors on either side.  The interior can’t be seen at all, but could contain filters for an air intake.  I modeled it that way but I ask anyone who has a better idea to let me know.  I believe that the six capped square tubes that stand alongside the funnel are the exhausts for the ventilation system.  Their relative heights were taken by comparison with doors and railings in the photos.  They were made slightly overlong, then trimmed to a height that ‘looked right’. 

 

The lifeboat davits were Frankensteined from two cast pewter fittings from Bluejacket.  The top arm of a 7/8” davit could be ground to a thinner profile that closely matched the photos.  But the slides were not long enough since the deck had been widened and the lifeboat had to travel further to reach the edge.  I cut off the foot of one fitting but cut the second fitting higher up the slide.  Mating these two gave me the length that I needed.  They were secured with a bit of brass wire across the joint then filled and glued together with an epoxy product called ‘JB Weld’ that has metal particles in it.  I find that it gives one of the strongest bonds across small metal mating surfaces. 

 

 

The detailing of the upper deck and bridge continued with the large radar mast.  It was built up from a length of 1/8” brass tubing with a 0.032” brass rod crossarm for the signal flags.  A PE ladder leads up to a round lookout platform with a bit of PE railing curled around a dowel to fit.  A radar dish was fashioned from several PE fittings.  Although it looks good and matches some photos of the ship, further examination of the photos taken during the incident showed that the radar at that time was a solid bar.  This radar was removed and a more correct one was built and will appear in later photos.  Four guy wires made of fly tying thread were installed later.

 

Two small exhaust stacks were fitted to the forward corners of the bridge house.  They were cut and carved with slots opened down their lower ends to fit over the forward bridge solid railings.  Small sections of plastic tubes were heat bent then trimmed and painted black as exhaust pipes. 

Final details include a smaller simple mast seen in the photos but whose function I don’t know.  A radio loop was bent up from brass rod and installed as well.  PE railings were fitted around all the deck and bridge wing edges and nameboards were printed with a type face that matched those seen in the photos.  To get a sense of the sizes involved, the nameboard is just over 1/16" tall.

 

 

The lifeboat davits were made more accurate by sawing grooves in the integral sheaves where the lifting lines will run, then the channels in the slides were filed open and square.  The davits were painted white with the sheaves and slide channels painted black.  A Bluejacket casting of an open lifeboat was filed smooth and painted.  After the lifeboat was installed over a square section support the lifting lines with PE blocks and tackles were run.  A final line runs at the top from davit to davit for support.  A final detail of coiled hanks of rope hung from this line will be installed later.

 

 

And here is the superstructure with all the final details added, such as the running lights, the guy wires, and the signal flag hoists with an American flag flying.

 

 

In the next segment the bow and stern decks will be detailed.

 

Till then, stay safe and well.

 

Dan

[Keith Black]

 Beautiful work, Dan. 

[KeithAug]

4 hours ago, shipmodel said:

To get a sense of the sizes involved, the nameboard is just over 1/16" tall.

A very telling comment Dan. It caused me to review the deck house much more closely and marvel at the detail.

[shipmodel]

 

Hello again to all.  My thoughts and best wishes to all who have been affected by hurricane Ian.  Listening to the news reports surely puts our activities in perspective.

 

The next portions of the model to detail were the hull areas and raised decks at the bow and stern.   The exterior of the bow was well visualized in several photographs.  In the one below note the hawse pipe for the anchor, the openings in the bulwarks for the fairleads, and the graphics of the ship’s name and company logo. 

 

 

On the model the hawse pipe was located and a cast hawse lip was attached.  The center of the pipe will be drilled open at a later time for the anchor.  The openings in the bulwarks were drilled open with a smaller bitt, then filed to final size and location with needle files.  The ship name is a homemade decal, blue printed on white film.  After attaching the white edges were painted to blend in with the hull color.  The logo at the bow is also homemade.  The red diamond is printed on white film which was carefully cut to form the white edging.  The triple lines are also decal film individually cut to shape and applied.  All the decals were sealed with clear acrylic gloss.

 

 

Unfortunately there were no comparable photos of the machinery on the bow deck.  Here is the best one, taken from overhead.  As you can see, there is a distinct lack of detail.

 

 

Others taken from various angles show even less information, although in this one I could get the height of the foremast.  Each photo, no matter how blurry, could give me a tiny piece of information to add to the totality.

 

 

The only one that had a clear image was taken from a height level with the deck, and although it gave me some idea of the nature of the deck machinery, the locations and sizes were still mostly guesswork.

 

 

Ultimately I fell back on my experience with other working decks and built up in what I believe is a logical sequence.  I started with the fairleads, which I could see and locate from the photos.  Then I put on bollards to take the lines that came in through the fairleads.  Then a pair of capstans were set between the bollards to haul in the lines.  For the anchor machinery a pair of hawse holes were set on either side of the centerline so the anchor chain can run through a pair of chain brakes and then over the heads of a pair of large winches.  The ship’s bell can actually be seen in some of the photos, so it was turned from a dowel, painted brass and installed on a painted brass rod.

 

 

The fore mast as seen in the photos has a running light at the top on a small platform, a cross arm with floodlights at either end, and a ladder running to the top.  It was constructed from brass tube and rod, with plastic details and a photoetched ladder.

 

 

After painting it was set in place flanked by two round topped ventilators. (Yes, I realized later that it was put in backwards. It was turned around before being permanently installed.  Just put it down to another senior moment.)

 

 

The details of the stern raised deck are equally conjectural.  Here is one of the best images that I could locate of the area.  About all that can be said is that there is a mast, painted white with a black top, that comes out of a slightly curved sun shade over most of the deck.

 

 

The second image is a little clearer and some bollards can be seen as well as a cowl ventilator and an ensign staff.

 

 

Accordingly, I installed a railing around the perimeter of the deck and some 12 stanchions bade of brass rod that will hold up the sun shade.

 

 

And here is the final deck layout.  The fairleads and bollards are cast fittings from Bluejacket, as is the cowl ventilator.  The sun shade is built up of a styrene sheet with a layer of parchment colored paper on top meant to simulate the canvas cover of the original.  It has not been permanently attached to the stanchions as yet until the mast and its guy wires are installed.  Since the deck under the sun shade could not be seen, two simple storage boxes were created and set in place.

 

 

In the next segment the containers will be permanently installed on their various support structures.

 

Until then, be well.

 

Dan

[KeithAug]

Excellent work Dan. I still don’t know how you manage to interpret those photos. 

[shipmodel]

Hi Keith - 

 

Thanks for the compliment.

The short answer to your question is - lots and lots of staring at the images and ruling out alternative solutions.

As Sherlock reminds us -  after you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, is the truth.

 

Dan

[shipmodel]

 

Hello again to all, and thanks for the likes of my last posting.

 

Now that the containers had all been built and detailed, it was time to mount them to the ship.  The photos show that above the curved support trestles there was a set of second trestles that supported the containers themselves.  Here in this first photo you can see this ribbed piece, one for each set of containers.  Above the second trestle is a retaining board (or at least that is how I interpret the photos).  This first photo was taken before the piracy incident and shows that the retaining boards also had ribs along their length.

 

 

Notice in this photo that was taken at the time of the incident that the retaining boards are smooth and have no ribs.  I have no idea when the change was made, but since I was modeling the diorama as of the time of the event, I used smooth boards.

 

 

The first step was to build the second trestle assemblies that support each set of 12 containers.  Lengths of 5/8” tall I-beams that fit the look and the relative dimensions seen in the photos were cut to a length just slightly longer than a container.  These then had to sit on top of the trestle supports with enough clearance to allow access to the crane guide rail.

 

 

Each of the I-beams lengths was marked in pencil for 7 ribs.  These were individually cut from 0.03” square strip and glued over the pencil marks.  I used a very small dot of white glue on one end of the rib and put each in place.  When the glue dried I went back and fed a drop of plastic cement by capillary action under the rib.  A gentle press welded the rib in place.  I found that white glue alone made a mess as I moved the rib into position, while using only plastic cement did not give me enough open time to fiddle the pieces into place.  A horizontal reinforcing bar was added just above the halfway point and the assembly was painted in a khaki tan.  I have no evidence for this color, but it sets off well from the bronze of the support trestles and the steel of the containers.

 

 

To get the spacing for the lower trestles on deck I first had to put together the blocks of 12 containers that would sit on the second trestles.  These blocks are in turn made up of four ‘triples’.  I found that it was easiest to get consistent results if I assembled three containers onto a flat plate.  I could align them against a square jig and use thin spacers between them as the glue dried.  Two of these ‘triples’ were similarly attached to a larger plate with a bit larger space between them.  Then the final two triples were stacked on top.  Once all the blocks were made up I took three and dry fit them on top of the trestles on the aft deck.

 

I was very pleased to see how well they fit, given the tight tolerances of the model.  The outside aft corner of the trestle had to leave enough space to walk between it and the deck railing.  The result is perhaps a tad narrow, but looks acceptable.  Without moving anything the centerline and outer corners of the lower trestle were marked and drawn on deck.

 

 

The blocks of containers were removed and each pair of second trestle pieces were joined together to form a pallet.  This was done with I-beam cross-pieces that fit inside the flanges of the trestle pieces.

 

 

Shim pieces were added to the cross-pieces to make up for the differing sizes of I-beam and the pallets were painted.  Now a full block of containers could be attached to each pallet.

 

 

In a similar manner the lower trestles were connected with I-beam cross-pieces that were sized so the trestles fit on deck exactly as marked and the pallets of containers fit exactly between the crane rails.  Once everything was triple checked the trestle assemblies could now be permanently attached to the decks.

 

 

The pallets were set in place on the trestles and the retaining boards added.  These were painted a slightly lighter tan color than the pallets, but the difference is hard to see.  Here at the bow the forwardmost block of containers was not supported on a pallet, but just on I-beams.  This matches what is seen in the photos, but I have no idea why they are different.  In this later photo some additional details have been added, including the guy wires for the forward mast, the railing along the side of the deck, and the fairleads and bollards for the mooring lines.

 

 

The last major element to construct was the pair of rolling cranes to load and unload the containers.  These will be covered in the next segment of the build.

 

Till then, stay well.

 

Dan

[KeithAug]

All looking very good Dan. The containers are looking particularly uniform.

[shipmodel]

 

Hello again to all who are following this build. 

 

Sorry to say that it has been almost a year since my last post, but life has a way of interfering with my literary efforts.  I’m happy to say that most of my health issues have resolved, leaving me with just the usual arthritic knees and a creaking hip replacement.   At 72 this is to be expected, I suppose.  As they say, it’s better than the alternative.  But back to the model - -

 

The build log left off with the ship completed – hull, superstructure, and 96 containers on deck.  The only remaining major structures to build were the two rolling cranes that loaded and unloaded the 35’ long containers.  Here is an overall photo of the ship at sea with the cranes set on their rails immediately forward and aft of the superstructure.

In close-up you can see how they straddle the blocks of containers.  The strong framework extends athwartships to the limits of the deck with a winch assembly on top that rolls side to side to lift and move the containers.

From overhead the overall layout of the cranes can be seen.  Obviously, they have to have at least 35’ between the vertical “U” shaped ends so the containers can move outboard without hindrance.  From the photo it is obvious that there is not much clearance, so my cranes had to be built to reflect these tight tolerances.  

Once again the lack of plans of any kind was a bit of a problem.  The layout and exact shapes of the several components of the cranes had to be deduced from the photographs.  To tease these out from the blurry black and white photos was the hardest photo interpretation task of the entire build.  Look at only the left side of the two images below.  This is as good as it got.  After much head scratching and comparing them to each other and to the many other less detailed photos, I was able to draw outlines of the pieces with a reasonable degree of confidence.   These were drawn in red on the photos

Note that the hinge between the central gallows piece and the movable wing piece must be located below the top of the gallows, otherwise they will not fit together with the tops aligned.  I located this where the red dot is, although there is no fitting to be seen on the outside at this point.  Also, I concluded that the vertical posts seen in the upper photo must be attached to the wing piece since they rotate to horizontal in the lower photos.  I have no direct proof, but I think that they must be some part of a locking mechanism that holds the wing up when extended.

With the shapes decided, rightly or not, I cut a piece of thick card stock so the bottoms of the inner vertical edges just cleared the container stacks and rested just outside of the crane guides on the lower trestles.  From there the shapes of the gallows was drawn in and then the shapes of the wings.  After much erasing and redrawing, I had shapes that fit all of the parameters and tolerances that I needed.

This drawing was finalized, then scanned and copied onto blank paper.  Since there were four gallows pieces, two for each crane, I needed eight identical pieces cut from plastic for the sides.  I first made up the eight blanks with rectangular pieces of 0.040” styrene welded to each other with thin plastic cement.  A simple jig made sure that the inner dimensions between the uprights was consistent and correct.  Small triangles were added to the inner corners as reinforcements as seen in the photos.  Then each gallows drawing was cut from the paper and spray mounted to the plastic blank.  Careful cutting with a sharp blade guided by a metal rule gave me the gallows piece in plastic.  The paper was easily removed with a drop of Goo Gone, a mild solvent.

To make up the thickness of the gallows components four ¼” I-beams were glued to the inner face of one of the gallows pieces.  This not only gave me a consistent thickness, but reinforced the joints between the sheet styrene pieces, rather than relying only on the welding action of the plastic glue.  In a bit of serendipity, using the I-beam across the top gave me a channel in the top that the rolling winches would be mounted on.  Not shown - a second gallows piece was positioned over the I-beams and glued in place.  The open sides were closed in with lengths of styrene strip the width of the I-beam between the two gallows sides.

The wing pieces were made in a similar fashion.  Sixteen wing piece paper outlines were printed out, mounted on sheet styrene, and cut out.  An I-beam was fitted to the straight side of one and a second wing piece glued to the beam to match the first.  In the upper left the sides of the assembly can be seen after being filled in with styrene strip.

Five I-beams of different sizes were all cut to the same length, just a bit longer than the 35’ containers.  A central large beam and two smaller ones at the lower corners connected two of the gallows to each other, forming a strong “U” that slid over the containers and rested on the lower trestles.  Then four of the wing pieces were attached to the upper corners of the gallows and connected to each other with smaller I-beams.  Small pieces of plastic were cut to fit around the lower legs of the gallows representing the control and observation platforms for the cranes.

These assemblies were then detailed with the locking arms, ladders, piping for electric lines or water runoff (I never did figure out which), and some punched discs seen in the photographs.  After painting them tan some black markings were drawn onto the winch channels, then railings were added to the tops of the gallows and around the control platforms.

The winch assembly was put together from some two dozen pieces to build up a moveable platform to match, as best I could figure it out, the less than detailed photographs.  I also had to use some additional common engineering sense for what had to be there, even if I couldn’t see it.  There is a walkway only on the starboard side and behind the two winch control houses.   The windows for the winch houses were cut from black decal film and carefully applied.

Here is the crane mounted on the lower trestles.  In this view you can see the paper applique doors on the winch control houses which had to be there, though I never saw them.  In the enlarged insert, the small black beads that represent the rollers that would allow the winch to run outboard along the channels on top of the gallows.  Similar small wheels were mounted under the legs of the crane to allow it to roll along the lower trestle to pick up containers from any location on the ship.

So here are the pair of cranes, as fitted to the ship, which is now complete. 

The final installment of this build log will focus on the ocean setting and the Cambodian gunboats that captured the ship.  I hope to get it out soon.

 

Until then, stay safe and well.

 

Dan

[mtaylor]

Great to see you back and in action, Dan.  The ship is looking great.

[Jim Lad]

Good to see you back in the workshop, Dan. We had one of those rotten gantry cranes on the 'Kooringa' - terrible pieces of equipment. Thank goodness someone thought of putting the container gantries on the wharf instead.

 

John

[shipmodel]

Hi again to all, and thanks as always for the likes and compliments. 

 

This will be the last segment of the build log, although I plan to edit it down a bit and turn it into an article for the Nautical Research Journal.  Although all ships have their own stories, the history of the Mayaguez is more exciting and tragic than most, so I will go into it in a bit more detail than usual for a build log.  Some of it was set out in the first segment of the log, leaving off with the capture of the ship.  Here, as they say, is the rest of the story.

 

Let’s go back to that fateful day of May 12, 1975.  The SS Mayaguez is heading from Hong Kong to Sattahip in Thailand carrying 107 containers of routine commercial items and 77 containers for the US military of non-military supplies such as mail and PX items.  Although in a recognized and heavily travelled sea lane, she was only 6 miles from the small island of Koh Tang, claimed by both Cambodia and Vietnam.  The communist Khmer Rouge government of Cambodia, which had recently captured power, started enforcing a 12 mile limit off the island and had already seized a number of ships from several countries and had fired on several others.  Despite this, the American military command had not issued any warnings to commercial ships to avoid the area.

 

At 2:18 in the afternoon the captain was called to the bridge by the third mate on watch.  A gunboat carrying a red flag was approaching fast.  A few seconds later there was a burst of machine gun fire over the bow.  Captain Miller decided to continue to see what they would do.  A sailor on the gunboat raised an RPG to his shoulder and fired over the forecastle.  Unable to outrun them the captain stopped the ship and it was boarded by more than a dozen soldiers from two small Cambodian armed boats. 

Here is a close up photo of one of the boats which was used to detail these elements on the model.  The text on the side reads in part: “A Cambodian gunboat nestles alongside the American container ship SS. Mayaguez off Koh Tang Island as its Cambodian Khmer Rouge crew take over the U.S. freighter.  This picture was made by one of the crew.

The crew was swiftly taken captive and the ship directed to the nearby Koh Tang Island.  The Captain and radio operator did an extraordinary job of getting off a series of SOS messages with the ship’s status and position.  These were relayed to US military command in the Phillipines and an Orion P-3 reconnaissance aircraft flew over, but was fired on.  Despite the danger, overflights were continuous after that, although repeatedly fired on.

In Washington an emergency meeting of the National Security Agency was taking place between President Gerald Ford and his team of well-known advisors, Henry Kissinger, Nelson Rockefeller, Donald Rumsfeld, Brent Scowcroft, William Colby, James Schlesinger, and the full Joint Chiefs of Staff.  With that lineup it is not surprising that the final decision was to make a “strong statement” that would be recognized by the Koreans, the Chinese, and the American public.  The reaction of the Khmer Rouge was impossible to calculate and that of the ship’s crew was not important.  American naval elements including the aircraft carrier USS Coral Sea and the frigate USS Holt were directed to steam to the area and await further orders.     

Over the next two days American jets from nearby bases sank several Cambodian gunboats but failed to prevent the crew being taken off the ship onto a fishing boat and ferried to Koh Tang Island.  The ship itself was not taken into a Cambodian port, but that was mostly because the Captain exaggerated the depth of the hull and said the radar would not work, so the ship would ground.  Meanwhile, Marines and other personnel from several bases were assembled nearby by helicopter and also told to stand by.  Tragically, during the moves a helicopter crashed, taking the lives of these 23 USAF Security Police and the flight crewmen pictured here.  This helicopter crash would not be the last.

Back on the model the ship was complete and had to be set into its seascape.  I will not go into detail here as to my method for sculpting and painting a sea.  I have set it down in my build logs of the USS/SS Leviathan and the whaleboat James B Colgate. In fact, I did not photograph this part of the build of this model.  Here, though, is a photo from the Leviathan build of the Plaster of Paris sea with waves and swells molded in with a damp sponge.

The same method was used, but since photos show a calm sea and the ship was to be pictured at anchor after being captured, the surface was only lightly textured and only very small patches of foam were shown around the hull.

One thing that I have found that increases the realistic look of a model far beyond its small size is the waste water discharge towards the stern of the ship.  I made this by bending a small length of styrene rod over a candle flame.  After trimming to length it was inserted into small holes in the hull and the plaster sea.  The rod was textured with gel cyano dabbed on with a toothpick, heavier at the lower end where the stream would have broken up a bit.  Then it was colored with flat white acrylic paint along with the small disturbance on the ocean’s surface.

 With some additional research it was discovered that the Cambodian gunboats were US made “Patrol Craft Fast” PCFs.  Nicknamed “Swift Boats” they had been used in the rivers and coastal areas of Vietnam and also given to the Cambodians when they were our allies during that fight.

An Internet search turned up a low resolution plan of the boats so I was started planning to carve and detail two of them for the diorama.  This would not have been easy with a scale length just over two inches each.   

I then turned to Shapeways, Inc. to see if their designers had something that could be used as a starting point.  To my happy surprise there was a set of two Fast Boats already in the right scale.  They were molded in fairly smooth frosted plastic with the topsides molded separately from the lower hull.  After cutting away the sprue framework the sections were separated and the interior was found to be filled with unhardened resin powder.  This was removed and the topsides glued down to the hull.

The propellers and rudders were removed as were the stern railings which were too thick.  After sanding the boats were painted light grey before detailing.  The guns on the stern deck and on top of the wheelhouse were painted, as were their mounts.  Life rings were added from my spares box along with hull numbers.  The stern railings were replaced with PE trimmed to size and the boats were finished with small paper flags painted with the flag of communist Kampuchea, a yellow temple on a red field.  Hollows were cut into the plaster sea and the boats set in with a bit of plaster to fill any gaps.   Paint and gloss finish melded them into the diorama.

After a few touch-ups of paint the model was complete and ready for delivery to the museum at the US Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, NY.

So here is a side-by-side comparison of the finished model with the photograph that started it all.  I think that I achieved a “compelling evocation of the actual ship.”  Others must think the same, because the model was honored with the Jim Roberts’ Craftsmanship Award at the 2022 Northeast Joint Clubs Show.  My gratitude goes out to all of the judges.

To finish, we return to the tragic and poignant Mayaguez Incident.  By the evening of May 14 the ship had been seized and the crew had been taken off to Koh Tang Island.  President Johnson authorized military action and several Kampuchean gunboats have been sunk.  Naval ships and Marine units were being hurried to the area so a “strong statement” could be made.  By the early morning hours of May 15 the pieces were in place and the order was given to seize back the ship and rescue the crew on Koh Tang Island.  Approaching cautiously, the USS Holt came alongside the Mayaguez.

At 06:13 in the morning, after a bombardment with tear gas, armed Marines in gas masks stormed the ship, only to find that it had been deserted.

With no opposition, the American flag was once again raised above the bridge.

At about the same time a communique from the Kampuchean government was broadcast which blamed the US for the incident and described the Mayaguez as a “CIA spy ship”, but which announced that both the ship and the crew were being released.  This was received in Washington an hour later, but was initially disbelieved.  Nonetheless, it was true and the crew was put on a captured fishing trawler and released.  However, confirmation of this was not established until several hours later.

Without this confirmation the assault on Koh Tang Island went ahead.  Unfortunately, there were two major pieces of information that President Johnson and the Marines did not have.  The first was that during the previous day the crew had all been moved from Koh Tang Island to nearby Koh Rong Sanloem Island.  This was observed by American planes, but it was still believed that some of the crew were on Koh Tang.  The second was that the Khmer Rouge had a much larger and more heavily armed force on Koh Tang which was meant to defend against the Vietnamese who also claimed the island.   

 

In the early morning hours of May 15 eight large helicopters, mostly CH-53 Sea Stallions, with 175 Marines began arriving at Koh Tang.  Of these, three were shot down and two became disabled from mechanical problems.  Nonetheless they landed 109 troops on three landing zones.  This aerial photo shows two of the downed helicopters on East Beach.

A running gun battle across the island continued throughout the day, even after the release of the Mayaquez’ crew was confirmed.  By mid-afternoon the order to withdraw was given and the rest of the day was spent in several attempts to extract the landing force, with additional helicopters shot down and more US troops killed and wounded.  This continued into the night, with confusion abounding amid the increasing fog of war.  Ultimately, the bodies of a number of Marines and four live troops were left behind after all the others were evacuated.  The Khmer Rouge, angered at the deaths aboard the gunboats that had been sunk and the 20 or so troops killed on Koh Tang, ultimately executed all four.

 

The final US death toll for the unnecessary assault on Koh Tang was 18 troops killed and 50 wounded.   Although the Mayaguez Incident did not occur in Vietnam, it is commonly referred to as the last battle of the Vietnam War.  The names of the Marines and other personnel who were killed in combat are inscribed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall.  This does not include the 23 USAF Security Police and flight crew who were killed in the helicopter crash during the troop movements prior to combat.   They were not so honored.

What lessons can be taken away from this poignant tragedy?  Not many, other than that assaults by slow, loud, fragile helicopters are rarely successful – see, e.g., the Iranian hostage rescue mission, ‘Blackhawk Down’ in Mogadishu, and even the successful killing of Osama Bin Laden.

 

Here’s hoping that it may never be necessary to mount another such military action.

 

Be well

 

Dan

[Roger Pellett]

Well done, Dan!

 

Roger

[FlyingFish]

1 hour ago, shipmodel said:

Here’s hoping that it may never be necessary to mount another such military action

Agreed!

[Keith Black]

 Dan, congratulations! Nicely done. 

[mtaylor]

A sad tale with many misteps.  It's a great build Dan. Congratulations.   And also thanks for filing in the story that too many don't know.

[ccoyle]

Great work, Dan!

[GrandpaPhil]

Congratulations!  Very nicely done!

 

What’s next?

[yvesvidal]

Fantastic diorama, Dan.

 

Yves

[KeithAug]

As usual a great model Dan - but alas a tragic story.