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An Incident off Hainan during the Cold War

Napajohnb
2006-01-03 20:34:49

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During the late 1960�s and early 1970�s I was aboard the USS Eldorado LCC 11 in the capacity of Electronic Warfare Operator, which at that time was part of the Radarman rating. While the Eldorado carried the Flag for Amphibious Operations Western Pacific most of our time was spent independent steaming to various locations where we did electronic surveillance. This was done separately by several groups including �spooks� (a name for intelligence types) of both the Navy and Marine corps, who gathered radio traffic when we were off shore of the various countries, including Viet Nam, Korea and China. My own job was less glamorous, consisting of plotting and recording the electronic signatures of coastal defense radars in these countries.

Occasionally this would involve very close passes of these countries, where we might �accidentally� enter their territorial waters for brief periods. Since I have no official knowledge otherwise I will assume these were accidents. It is significant, though that the Admiral would always leave the ship before these incidents and rejoin us at the next port.

One such incident was at the site of the current trouble, Hainan Island. We were passing from Viet Nam, enroute to Korea for landing exercises near the DMZ. As we passed Hainan I started working with a small crew plotting and recording their costal defense radars. These were low frequency, long-range jobs and when they �painted� us you could hear a long low �WOOOMMMMP� sound in the earphones of the equipment. These radars had to be plotted frequently as they were mounted on trucks and were moved frequently. As we approached a major naval port on the island I noticed that we stayed exactly at the limit of international waters, a tactic that always elicited an American response when the Russians did it to us off the American coast. Very soon the radarman on duty on the surface radar reported two surface contacts closing fast from ...