On 16 February 1965, 1st Lt. James S. Bowers, a United States Army officer flying a MEDEVAC helicopter along the coast of central South Vietnam spotted a naval trawler camouflaged with trees and bushes perpendicular to the shore.

[2] Commander Ho confirmed that no friendly troops were in the vicinity and dispatched Republic of Vietnam Air Force A-1 Skyraiders to the bay where they capsized and sank the trawler.

The commandos used shotguns to sweep the defending Viet Cong fighters from their concrete bunkers[3][4] What the soldiers and naval commandos, the latter accompanied by their United States Navy advisor, Lieutenant Franklin W. Anderson, discovered in the wrecked ship and piled up on shore ended a long-running debate among American military and intelligence officials.

[5] For years many American analysts had suspected that the Communists were using the sea to supply their forces in the South, but it was not until the Vung Ro event that they gained positive proof of such actions.

The United States Seventh Fleet commander, Vice Admiral Paul Blackburn, observed that the Vung Ro find was "proof positive".