This Vietnam War Veterans Day, Woodstock Navy veteran remembers real final battle – and rescue

On Wednesday, the nation recognizes Vietnam War Veterans Day on the 50th anniversary of the end of ground operations in the war. But two local Navy veterans are among those with experience in the war who say the final battle came nearly 26 months later.

Sten Johnson of Woodstock was an electrician aboard the USS Henry B. Wilson in May 1975 when he jumped into the water near the Cambodian island of Koh Tang to help rescue Marines whose helicopters had been shot down during a fierce firefight with Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge.

The Cambodians had seized the American merchant vessel SS Mayaguez and its crew of 39 in disputed waters, leading President Gerald R. Ford to order a massive rescue mission.

A U.S. Navy ship found the Mayaguez abandoned, and military officials incorrectly believed its crew members were in captivity on Koh Tang. A U.S. aerial attack and land invasion of the island failed to locate the crew members.

But the Henry B. Wilson, which was supposed to assist with the attack, found the Mayaguez crew on a crowded Thai fishing boat. The merchant sailors had been set free on the vessel.

Telling the tale

Art Ellingsen of Arlington Heights had left the Henry B. Wilson nearly three years earlier but found himself a sought-after interview by broadcast media in central Illinois in the aftermath of the Mayaguez incident.

“They wanted someone who had been on the Wilson,” he said, remembering he was asked to wear something with the ship’s name on it.

The successful, but costly, rescue operation became a morale boost for American efforts and Ford’s presidency just weeks after the dispiriting fall of Saigon.

In addition to being commander and chaplain of American Legion Post 216 in Elk Grove Village, Ellingsen has become something of a historian of the incident and the entire service life of the Henry B. Wilson.

Honoring the veterans

This year’s Vietnam War Veterans Day marks 50 years since U.S. ground operations ended on March 29, 1973, halting the long warfare in the Southeast Asian country. But as the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., attests, American involvement in combat in the region lasted another 26 months. The Mayaguez incident sparked the final battle.

The military fatalities that ensued are the last 41 names on the memorial: 25 Air Force pilots and crew members, two Navy corpsmen and 14 Marines lost during the ground and air attack.

I was always proud of my time in the Navy. ... A lot of people that didn’t serve really don’t understand what people gave up when they served.

—  Sten Johnson of Woodstock

That list of names almost certainly would have been longer had it not been for the intervention of the Henry B. Wilson and the direct actions of crew members like Johnson, said the ship’s then-photographer Wayne Stewart of Spokane, Washington.

He recalled there were eight to 10 Marines rescued.

“The Marines were pretty well exhausted,” Stewart said. “They had been in the water for some time.”

The Wilson had been at the evacuation of Saigon in late April 1975. But the ship was up by Taiwan when it received the call to respond to the capture of the Mayaguez, Johnson recalled.

Apart from having to refuel and resupply in the Philippines, it rushed to Kho Tang island, where faulty intelligence believed the Mayaguez crew was being held.

The Wilson had acquired a firefighter’s reputation for responding to any emergency where it could help. It had armaments that made it rare for the crew to be concerned about its own safety, Johnson said. “It really had a record for pounding and destroying. I wasn’t worried about a thing.”

Johnson’s responsibility was to repair any fault or damage to the ship to keep it operating at maximum efficiency during any battle.

He expected to spend the entire mission deep inside the Wilson. But when he heard about the number of downed and injured Marines in the water, he believed their rescue was beyond the ability of the ship’s single certified rescue swimmer and sought out the executive officer.

“I said, ‘XO, I want to go after them,’ ” Johnson recalled.

The officer immediately asked if he was qualified, and Johnson said that he wouldn’t be volunteering if he couldn’t swim.

Among the injuries of the Marines he encountered in the water were second- and third-degree burns from the explosion of their helicopters the result of missile strikes.

Stewart said a ship such as the Wilson normally would have tried to soften up enemy ground forces before such a Marine invasion but couldn’t get there before the go-ahead to begin the land and helicopter assault.

Although Johnson has to think hard about whether there was any connection between his actions that day and his later becoming a part-time firefighter in Crystal Lake, he believes both decisions simply were following the call of the right thing to do.

“At the time, I never even thought about it,” he said. “When I look back at it, I did my time in the Navy, and I was always proud of my time in the Navy. ... A lot of people that didn’t serve really don’t understand what people gave up when they served.”

Vietnam War Veterans Day

Vietnam War Veterans Day officially was recognized only six years ago. While most veterans agree it’s a positive development to receive such recognition at all, Ellingsen said the date could have been better chosen.

While March 29, 1973, may have more meaning to the ground-based Army forces that got to leave that day, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial has included the fallen up to May 1975, Ellingsen said.

Johnson said he believes Vietnam War veterans didn’t begin to share the respect other veterans received until Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Ellingsen said he didn’t feel that was true until after 9/11, a decade later.

Johnson said Vietnam War Veterans Day probably is best observed by remembering the good days, the bad days and those who gave all they had.

“When I think about it,” he said, “I think, ‘Thank God it’s over.’”

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