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Vietnam: The Gulf of Tonkin Incident - 'North Vietnamese motor torpedo boat attacking USS Maddox, 2 August 1964'. US Navy photograph 711524.

The Gulf of Tonkin Incident, or the USS Maddox Incident, are the names given to two separate incidents, one disputed, involving North Vietnam and the United States in the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. On August 2, 1964, the destroyer USS Maddox was engaged by three North Vietnamese Navy torpedo boats of the 135th Torpedo Squadron. A sea battle resulted, in which the Maddox expended over 280 3" and 5" shells, and which involved the strafing from four USN F-8 Crusader jet fighter bombers. One US aircraft was damaged, one 14.5mm round hit the destroyer, 3 North Vietnamese torpedo boats were damaged, and 4 North Vietnamese sailors were killed and 6 were wounded; there were no U.S. casualties. The second Tonkin Gulf incident was originally claimed by the U.S. National Security Agency to have occurred on August 4, 1964, as a naval battle, but may not have occurred. The outcome of these two incidents was the passage by Congress of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which granted President Lyndon B. Johnson the authority to assist any Southeast Asian country whose government was considered to be jeopardized by "communist aggression". The resolution served as Johnson's legal justification for deploying U.S. conventional forces and the commencement of open warfare against North Vietnam.