Action Viewed from the USS Maddox

Three North Vietnamese P-4 torpedo boats attacked the USS Maddox, an American destroyer patrolling the Gulf of Tonkin, on August 2, 1964 – the first Gulf of Tonkin incident. This photograph, taken from the deck of the Maddox, shows one of the enemy boats racing across the water. None of the torpedoes, and only one of the shells from a deck gun, hit the Maddox. Aircraft from the USS Ticonderoga helped drive off the attackers.

The Maddox had been conducting electronic eavesdropping on North Vietnam to assist South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) commando raids on North Vietnamese targets, though the American public didn't know that at the time. Historians now suspect the North Vietnamese boats had set out to attack an ARVN raid in progress when it encountered the Maddox.