Gulf of Tonkin incident 1964
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 2 August 1964 – 4 August 1964 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1964 | Wikidata P580 (start time) |
| Era | Post-1945 (1946 onwards) | derived from year |
| Nearest landmass | At sea (nearest continent: Asia) | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Asia | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | Vietnam War | Wikidata P361 |
| Participants | North Vietnam, United States | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | 19.7833, 106.5183 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The Gulf of Tonkin incident (Vietnamese: Sự kiện Vịnh Bắc Bộ) refers to a naval confrontation in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of North Vietnam, which led to the United States engaging more directly in the Vietnam War. On 2 August 1964 there was a clash between a destroyer of the United States Navy that was collecting signals intelligence close to North Vietnamese waters, and three North Vietnamese naval vessels. On the night of 4 August, two US destroyers reported they were attacked by North Vietnamese vessels and that they were returning fire. Later investigation revealed that the 4 August attack did not happen; no North Vietnamese vessels had been present. Shortly after the events, the National Security Agency, an agency of the US Defense Department, deliberately skewed intelligence to create the impression that an attack had been carried out.
On the night of 30 July, South Vietnamese commandos raided a North Vietnamese radar station on the island of Hòn Mê in the Gulf of Tonkin. The next day the destroyer USS Maddox commanded by Commander Herbert L. Ogier began patrolling near the North Vietnamese coast.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Gulf of Tonkin incident (revision 1381164247), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
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