#FlashbackFriday: The Exchange Connection to the Mayaguez Incident, ‘Vietnam’s Final Battle’
On May 12, 1975—48 years ago today and less than two weeks after the fall of Saigon—Khmer Rouge forces seized the American container vessel SS Mayaguez and its crew off Cambodia’s coast.
A group of young men from the Khmer Rouge approached the Mayaguez in a small gunboat, fired a shot across the larger ship’s bow, pointed machine guns at Capt. Charles T. Miller and his 39-member crew, boarded the ship and set course toward Koh Tang Island.
The Exchange was affected by this: The ship was carrying 274 military and commercial containers valued at about $5 million, including 36 containers carrying Exchange retrograded merchandise from Vietnam. Exchange officials valued the merchandise at about $500,000.
The ill-fated mission to rescue the crew has often been referred to as “The last battle of the Vietnam War.”
On May 15, U.S. Marines stormed Koh Tang Island, where officials believed the Mayaguez crew was being held. But they were outnumbered, and 41 service members lost their lives in the battle on the island and in associated air operations, including 23 who died in a helicopter crash en route to assisting in the rescue, according to the Gerald Ford Library and Museum. The names of the 41 service members who died are the last names on the Vietnam War Memorial Wall.
The Mayaguez crew members were not on the island or their ship. They were forced to board a fishing boat headed toward mainland Cambodia. Cambodian forces released them just as U.S. military operations got underway, and all 40 crew members were safely recovered by the USS Wilson.
The recovery of the ship itself went more smoothly. The U.S.S. Holt, carrying 59 combat-ready Marines and six Military Sealift Command volunteers, came alongside the Mayaguez. The Marines secured the empty ship and the Holt steamed away with the Mayaguez in tow until the ship was ready to continue under its own power.
Brig. Gen. George L Schulstad, the Exchange’s Pacific commander at the time, later presented a commemorative plaque to the Holt’s officers and crew in appreciation for their rescue of the Mayaguez.
“It is fitting to focus on this important event in contemporary history during the ongoing observance of our nation’s, and indeed the U.S. Navy’s, 200th year,” Schulstad said in presenting the plaque to the ship’s captain, Commander Thomas F. Hawley.
Click here for a timeline of the Mayaguez incident from the Gerald Ford Library and Museum.
Sources: Exchange Post archives, Department of Defense, Gerald Ford Library and Museum
