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Contact Info
Home Town Hurley and Wakonda, SD
Last Address Buried with full Military Honors, Patriot Guard Riders / Honor Mission Union Cemetery, rural Wakonda SD
Date of Passing Jan 27, 2012
Location of Interment Union Cemetery - Flandreau, South Dakota
Description Operation Sea Dragon occurred during the Vietnam War and was a series of American-led naval operations beginning in 1966 to interdict sea lines of communications and supply going south from North Vietnam to South Vietnam, and to destroy land targets with naval gunfire, as well as to give CIA officers in the area who had sited the targets room to withdraw to extraction zones. The primary purpose of Sea Dragon forces was the interception and destruction of waterborne logistic craft (WBLC), which ranged in size from large self-propelled barges down to small junks and sampans. United States Navy advisers were assigned to the South Vietnamese Navy (VNN) and American minesweepers assisted South Vietnamese Navy ships in carrying out patrols near the Demilitarized Zone. Specially modified attack helicopters were used to pursue North Vietnamese ships and disable them, leaving the ships to be boarded by American and South Vietnamese naval commandos.
My Participation in This Battle or Operation
From Month/Year
October / 1966
To Month/Year
November / 1968
Last Updated: Mar 16, 2020
Personal Memories
Memories While serving aboard the USS Canberra, stationed off the coast of Vietnam, his ship and crew fired over 25,000 rounds of naval gunfire in support of the first full scale landing in the Mekong Delta and US forces in the I, II, and IV Corps areas. In March of 1967, during OPERATION SEA DRAGON, his ship came under intense enemy fire and was hit by enemy shore batteries four times on two separate occasions. A combat veteran, Leland retired after a 20 year career in the Navy, having served at duty stations including Newport RI, Japan, San Diego, Hong Kong, Great Lakes IL, and Virginia Beach VA.
