The USS Newport News then spent fifty days patrolling off the coast of North Vietnam as part of Operation Sea Dragon, the Navy's effort to destroy waterborne logistics craft, military supply routes and installations in North Vietnam.
During this period of time, she conducted 156 strikes against 325 North Vietnamese coastal defense sites. According to observers, the ship sank 17 waterborne logistics craft, damaged another 14 and destroyed several enemy bunkers and radar sites, bridges, barges, trucks and roads.
(Waterborne logistics craft are ships that deliver supplies to military units and sites, in case you're wondering like me.)
On 19 December 1967, the ship exchanged fire with 20-28 separate shore batteries, simultaneously, off the coast of North Vietnam. During this engagement, over 300 enemy rounds bracketed the Newport News, but she suffered no direct hits.
This encounter caused forward observers to nickname the Newport News "The Gray Ghost from the East Coast." She kept that moniker throughout three deployments to Vietnam.
--Cooter
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