Swift Boat Skipper
Stories from the
Vietnam War
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About the Book
This book is, first and foremost, a memoir. It is based on the hundreds of pages of letters I wrote to my parents during my years in the Navy as well as the diary that I kept while serving in Vietnam.
I started writing in 1979 to counter the despicable depiction of the actions of sailors on Swift Boats and River Patrol Boats in the Vietnam War in the movie, Apocalypse Now. It was my attempt to tell about the Vietnam War that I knew, while serving at Coastal Division 12 in Danang in 1969–1970.
This book is really a coming-of-age story of a callow college graduate whose service, first on the USS Savage (DER-386), and then as skipper of a Swift Boat turned a boy into a man.
Coastal Division 12 Swift Boats patrolled from the DMZ to Quang Ngai province—the VC stronghold that spawned the My Lai massacre. The patrols were mostly coastal, but one of our key missions in 1969 was the perilous patrols in the Cua Dai River Basin, seeking to wrestle control of the river from the VC and NVA. Many from Coastal Division 12 were wounded there in the firefights, and one officer died.
My memoir also deals with the mixed feelings and emotions of the Swift officers and men when our primary mission switched, in the latter half of my tour, from seeking to defeat the enemy to training Vietnamese officers and men to take over our Swifts as we exited the War. The book recounts the great professionalism and courage of Swift Boat sailors as well as the gradual disillusionment that many of us felt, as the Vietnamization of the War supplanted our original mission of winning the War.
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About the Author
Robert H. Bradley III was born in Philadelphia in 1944. After graduating from Deerfield Academy in 1962 and Williams College in 1966, he went to the U.S. Navy OCS, graduating in December, 1966, in the same class as John Kerry.
He went on two deployments to WestPac, serving as the Damage Control Assistant on the USS Savage (DER-386) in 1967–1968. Volunteering to serve on Swift Boats, he was posted to Coastal Division 12 in Danang in 1969–1970. He first served as Officer-in-Charge of PCF 24, then as Operation Officer of the Division, and lastly as ACTOV Officer responsible for turning over the Swifts to the Vietnamese Navy.
Graduating with an M.A. from the Fletcher School at Tufts University, he married his wife Nancy. Together they spent fourteen years with Citibank in the Middle East, Africa, and Europe.
Returning to Boston in 1985, he helped to start five companies, among which are a bank, a wealth management firm, and a faith-based prep school—Boston Trinity Academy. He continues to serve as Chairman of Bradley, Foster & Sargent.
Rob and Nancy live near Boston. They have two daughters, one son, and twelve grandchildren.
Despite America’s failure in South Vietnam, Rob sees the Vietnam War as just one conflict in the successful effort to counter the Communist aggression that threatened the world between 1945 and 1989. It is now time for the next generation to counter the threat posed by the new axis of evil: Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran.