Google Pounding the Do Son Peninsula for full story. Here is the good part right here.

On the morning of the May 9th, 1972 Captain Rogness Johnson, the commander of Destroyer Squadron 31 (DESRON 31) who was embarked in the Buchanan (DDG-14), and Commander James Thearle, the destroyer’s skipper, formed up the attacking force’s four destroyers in column; the Buchanan led the way, followed by the Myles C. Fox (DD-829), Berkeley
(DDG-15), and Richard S. Edwards (DD-950).
At 0828 at a range of 4,000 yards, Thearle ordered the
Buchanan, followed by the Fox, to turn to starboard and onto their firing course of 045T. The Berkeley, followed by the Edwards, turned to port and onto their own firing course. The intent was to distract and confuse the North Vietnamese and make it harder for them to pick a target. With the rising sun perfectly silhouetting the warships for enemy gunners, Commander Thearle and the destroyer
skippers were already concerned about the daylight mission. In any event, the four destroyers fired 903 5-inch rounds at preselected targets on the peninsula.
After completing a 30-minute firing run, the Buchanan
and Fox continued to turn to starboard and to course 180T to retire. North Vietnamese 152-mm shells, however, rained down on them, and both skippers violently maneuvered their vessels into the most recent splash marks on the assumption no two shells were going to come down in the same spot. Although
the counterbattery fire was intense, no casualties were incurred, and both ships retired to the safety of Tonkin Gulf. Experiencing much of the same, the Edwards and Berkeley continued to port and also safely retired into the gulf. Minutes later, at 0900, the Coral Sea aircraft came in low and slow, dropping 36 mines across the entrance to Haiphong Harbor. The destroyers’ tactic of distracting the enemy batteries worked perfectly, and there were no aircraft losses. Meanwhile, poor weather forced the Kitty Hawk
aircraft to divert to secondary targets, which they hit at 0908. The mining portion of the operation took less than 2 minutes. The first strategic moves of the blockade strategy were accomplished. Soon ships would not be able to safely enter or leave Haiphong Harbor, effectively cutting North Vietnam’s main seaborne supply line.

The problem with this is that my recollection is that Edwards under the inimitable Capt Jack Deal led the way with DesRon 9 aboard commanding the entire operation. Captain Deal, as the Edwards pounded Haiphong, laughing at the NVA gunnery: "These guys couldn't hit the broad side of a barn, Commodore! We can stay here all day if we want!"

I was there as an ETR and ship's photographer photographing the event from aboard ship. I recall Cmdr Deal making the same comment after we made our way out into the gulf.

I too recall the Captain making this comment! We were the first to enter the harbor and the last out.

Don-

I was on Myles C. Fox that day, and I now volunteer with the Navy Museum in DC, working on, among other things, Vietnam stuff. For years, I've been looking for photos of that operation. Did you happen to save any?

Many thanks -

Jim

I was on Richard S. Edwards during this mission. I too remember DesRon 9 being on the Edwards perhaps because ours was the newest and relatively speaking the most comfortable of the three ships in the squadron. It seemed that the other ships during previous missions tended to draw more fire than ours. My GQ station was the surface radar and I can remember seeing blips on my screen during our numerous gunfire missions falling from enemy gunfire around those ships. They were not very accurate to be sure. We got shot at one night by a BIG gun that shook the crap out of the ship on some island we came a little to close to. I remember the Skipper (Cmdr Deal...a fine man) drawing a big circle in red around that island!

During the mining of Haiphong, our mission was to fire on enemy anti-aircraft guns. I remember three large blips on my screen which my lookout reported to me as being Russian freighters, which we just happened to be shooting over! I wondered to myself why we didn't just drop our gun sights a little. That's probably why I am not Secretary of State!

I remember when we received the charts for that particular mission, we laid them out on the DRT table to see what our next mission was. As I gazed at the chart it began to slowly dawn on me that this probably wasn't the liberty port the Skipper had promised us.

DesRon9 (I guess that is who he was, we knew him as the Commodore) was directing a particular mission firing on targets in North Vietnam. The enemy was not very accommodating and didn't always provide us with accurate charts. On this mission we had to get closer to land than we planned in order to fire on our designated target. Getting closer and closer the depth below keep was getting less and less. Finally the Skipper aborted the mission over the Commodores protests. Skipper replied that it was his ship! Right full rudder! I loved that man!

Are you still at the NHHC in DC? If so I have a 8MM film of all the DD Linebacker Ops from Apr to Mid May 1972. I was the XO of the USS Richard S. Edwards (DD-950) which was the flagship at this time. Please contact me.

I have 8mm movies of this ops. Are you still at NHHC?

If it is still up I suggest everyone read the R. S. Edwards log which is posted at
www..my heritage.com/military_records under "The 1972 WestPAC cruise of the USS Richard S. Edwards DD-950"

That's my dad!

Unfortunately I was at my GQ post at the forward board in the forward engine room and didn't get to see tha action as most of B, M and R division was below decks. I was sitting on the bulkhead with my sound powered headset on being quite comfortable as the big guns sounded busy and thanking my rate that I didn't have to work in the ammo lockers as we could tell by the sounds over us that it was a busy day. Then a round went off a little too close to the port side and knocked me almost to the MM in front of me. Years later I was reading about "Operation Pocket Money" and was amazed at all the ships involved. I have a typed record that was inside my original Cruz book that is a summary of the '72 Wespac cruise. From April 26th until October 25th the gunners and support fired 21,625 rounds of 5"/54 cal rounds. Today I can sleep through anything except the one time we lost power and the ship got really, really quite. That detail was not in the log.