This Military Service Page was created/owned by
Daniel L Arnes, CMDCM
to remember
Wynn, Hugh John, CDR USN(Ret).
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Contact Info
Home Town Visalia, CA
Last Address Rosarito, Baja California
Date of Passing Aug 01, 2012
Location of Interment Lindsay Cemetery - Lindsay, California
Hugh J. Wynn, retired Commander in the United States Navy, passed away quietly in his home in Rosarito, Baja California, on Wednesday, August 1, 2012. Hugh was born in Visalia, California, on November 11, 1936 to Vernon and Georgianna Wynn. He attended the Stone Corral Elementary School his early years and from sixth grade through high school he attended Lindsay schools where he graduated from Lindsay High School in 1954. After College of the Sequoias and U.C. Berkley, Hugh graduated from Navy flight school in Pensacola, Florida, where he also met and married his wife Dian. Hugh served his country for twenty-seven years as an officer in the United States Navy; he was stationed in many parts of the world including Guam, the Mediterranean, Japan and Vietnam. While in Vietnam, Hugh was a member of the courageous Navy Seawolves that were commissioned and decommissioned in Vietnam, not known by many except by those that served and by the sailors and ground forces who owe their lives to their courage and devotion. Hugh was a pilot of a Helicopter Gunship and belonged to a squadron that flew 120,000 missions into the Mekong Delta, which in a year would average 600 missions per pilot. The Seawolves of HA(L) 3 (Helicopter Attack (Light) Three) is the only Navy Squadron to ever fly in combat and is the most decorated Navy Squadron in history.
Published in Visalia Times-Delta on September 14, 2012
Vietnam War/Counteroffensive Phase VII Campaign (70-71)
From Month/Year
July / 1970
To Month/Year
June / 1971
Description This Campaign was from 1 July 1970 to 30 June 1971. In July the Vietnamese Navy assumed sole responsibility f or the Ready Deck operation, which was given a Tran Hung Dao designator like the other former SEALORDS areas. Also in July, the U.S. Navy ceased its combat activity on I Corp's Cua Viet and Hue Rivers. The Americans then transferred the last combatant vessels of Task Force Clearwater to the Vietnamese. A final turnover of river craft at the end of 1970 enabled the Vietnamese Navy to take charge of the Search Turn, Barrier Reef, and Breezy Cove efforts deep in the Mekong Delta. Except for continued support by HAL-3 and VAL-4 aircraft and SEAL detachments, the U.S. Navy's role in the SEALORDS campaign ended in April 1971 when Solid Anchor (previously Sea Float and now based ashore at Nam Can) became a Vietnamese responsibility.
The Vietnamese Navy, which grew from 18,000 men in the fall of 1968 to 32,000 men at the end of 1970, instituted organizational changes to accommodate the new personnel, material, and operational responsibilities. The Vietnamese grouped their riverine assault craft in riverine assault interdiction divisions (RAID) and their PBRs into river interdiction divisions (RID) and river patrol groups (RPG). They also augmented the existing RAGs and coastal groups, the latter now consolidated into 20 units for lack of sufficient patrol junks.
This dramatic change in the nature of the allied war effort reflected the rapid but measured withdrawal from South Vietnam of U.S. naval forces. NAVFORV strength dropped from a peak of 38,083 personnel in September 1968 to 16,757 at the end of 1970. As Admiral Zumwalt transferred resources to the Vietnamese Navy, he disestablished U.S. naval commands and airlifted personnel home. With the redeployment of the Army's 9th Infantry Division and the turnover of 64 riverine assault craft in June 1969, the joint Mobile Riverine Force halted operations. When the Riverine Assault Force (Task Force 117) stood down on 25 August 1969, it became the first major naval command deactivated in Vietnam. By December 1970, COMNAVFORV had transferred to Vietnam the remaining river combatant craft in his command, which included 293 PBRs and 224 riverine assault craft. That month, the River Patrol Force was disestablished and the Task Force 116 designator reassigned to Commander Delta Naval Forces, a new headquarters controlling SEAL and naval aircraft units still in-country.
