Gulf of Tonkin incident (1964). On 2 August 1964, the US navy destroyer USS Maddox was attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin by North Vietnamese torpedo boats while providing radar cover for an amphibious raid into the North by the South Vietnamese. The attack was driven off by the Maddox and aircraft from the carrier USS Ticonderoga. Two days later, the Maddox's jittery crew mistook radar returns from choppy seas for another attack and the Johnson administration responded by bombing a number of targets in North Vietnam and sending a resolution to Congress that was to become the basis for all future US involvement in the Vietnam war.
— David Jordan/Hugh Bicheno
The Oxford Companion to Military History. Copyright © 2001, 2004 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
