Operation Sealords

Operation Sealords
Date 1968–1971 Location South Vietnam Result Successful disruption of Viet Cong supply and communication lines.
Belligerents
United States  South Vietnam	Viet Cong

Operation Sealords was a military operation that took place during the Vietnam War.

SEALORDS is an acronym for Southeast Asia Lake, Ocean, River, and Delta Strategy. It was a joint operation between United States and South Vietnamese forces which was conceived by Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr., Commander, Naval Forces, Vietnam (COMNAVFORV), and it was intended to disrupt North Vietnamese supply lines in and around the Mekong Delta. As a two-year operation, by 1971 all aspects of Sealords had been turned over to the South Vietnamese Navy.

As American forces prepared the South Vietnamese military to assume complete responsibility for the war under the Nixon Administrations Vietnamization policy, they also worked to keep pressure on the enemy. Due to the successes of Operation Market Time and Operation Game Warden; one of the few places left for the North Vietnamese to smuggle troops and supplies into the Mekong Delta was through the rivers, canals and lakes that were near the Cambodian border.

The Navy in particular spearheaded a drive in the Mekong Delta to isolate and destroy the weakened Communist forces. The Sealords program was a determined effort by the U.S. Navy and the South Vietnamese Navy in conjunction with the U.S. Ninth Infantry Division's Riverine Forces, the Army of the Republic of South Vietnam, and the South Vietnamese Marine Division. The objectives of the Sealords operation sought to cut enemy supply lines from Cambodia and disrupt operations at their base areas deep in the delta. The operation, soon designated as Task Force 194, was developed by Vice Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr. who appointed it to COMNAVFORV (Commander US Naval Forces Vietnam) in September 1968.

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