The only U.S. major ship sunk by enemy action during the Vietnam War was the World War II Bogue-class escort carrier USS Card (ACV-11). The Card had once been a flagship in the Atlantic during the Second World War, had been activated in 1958 and renamed USNS Card (T-AKV-40), and was used to shuttle military equipment into South Vietnam. On May 2, 1964, two Viet Cong commandos attached explosive mines to the ship while it was anchored in Saigon; they sank it in 15 meters of water, killing five crew members.
The Card was remarkably refloated within 17 days, repaired, and put into service until 1970. This incident had much to say regarding the weaknesses of port security and would go on to influence naval security protocols from then onwards.
Technically, no U.S. It was the first time since the end of the Second World War that an enemy Navy aircraft carrier was sunk in combat. The last U.S. escort carrier, USS Bismarck Sea (CVE-95), was sunk in combat.
In the worst naval disaster of World War II, a Navy flattop sinks due to enemy action, going down off Iwo Jima after two Japanese kamikaze attacks on February 21, 1945.
All total, only seven carriers have sunk since that war ended the globe, and none were lost in combat. Some U.S. carriers were used as part of atomic bomb tests, while the USS America (CV-66) proved nearly impossible to sink during live fire exercises.
The most recent carrier to sink was the Brazilian Navy’s flagship NAe São Paulo (A-12), scuttled off the coast of Brazil in February.
The USS Card, however, stands out. Named for Card Sound, a continuation of Biscayne Bay south of Miami, Florida, she was the flagship of Task Group 21.14, a hunter-killer group formed to destroy German submarines in the North Atlantic during WWII.
After the war, the ship was relegated to the reserve fleet and was later reinstated in 1958 as USNS Card (T-AKV-40). As an aircraft transport, the crew was civilian. The ship was operated under Military Sea Transportation Service auspices.
The USS Card was a frequent caller to the port of Saigon, and it was in the early hours of May 2, 1964, after a few helicopters had been loaded aboard for a return trip to the States, that a pair of Viet Cong commandos climbed out of a sewer tunnel near where the ship was anchored and attached two loads of explosives.
Intelligence-gathering capabilities among the saboteurs, Lâm Sơn Náo gathered information about the movements of the ships. According to Náo, recalled years later to the United States Naval Institute (USNI), “I was educated by the revolution, given a mission by my superiors and protected by the city inhabitants.
My job when I was a docker was to gather information on all the American areas, on all their boats, and all their military storage facilities.”
Náo, who became a commando for the Viet Cong a year earlier, had attempted the previous year to blow up the USNS Core (T-AVK-41) but the mine did not explode. He didn’t want to experience this again; he brought two mines with him this time around for the USNS Card-one 80 kilos of TNT, and the other 8 kilos of C-4 explosives.
Neither Náo nor his partner in the operation, who was also one of the port’s workers, received much notice. Náo swam toward the ship, attached the mines, and then swam back toward the sewers, eventually getting back home. Within an hour, and within 15 minutes of his getting home, the mines detonated. Five civilian crew members were killed, and the ship sank stern-first into the harbor in some 15 meters of water.
This was the first and only time a major U.S. vessel was sunk in the battle against the Viet Cong. Recovery operations began almost immediately, and she was refloated just 17 days later.
The USNS Card was taken to the Philippines to be repaired and continued to act as a transport of military hardware until 1970. Security at the Port of Saigon was enormously stepped up after the commando raid. The commando raid has been used as a model ever since to train port security.