<Li> Vung Ro Bay </Li> <Li> Bo De River, Nha Trang, Tha Cau River </Li> <P> The Gulf of Tonkin incident (Vietnamese: Sự kiện Vịnh Bắc Bộ), also known as the USS Maddox incident, was an international confrontation that led to the United States engaging more directly in the Vietnam War . It involved either one or two separate confrontations involving North Vietnam and the United States in the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin . The original American report blamed North Vietnam for both incidents, but eventually became very controversial with widespread belief that at least one, and possibly both incidents were false, and possibly deliberately so . On August 2, 1964, the destroyer USS Maddox, while performing a signals intelligence patrol as part of DESOTO operations, was pursued by three North Vietnamese Navy torpedo boats of the 135th Torpedo Squadron . Maddox fired three warning shots and the North Vietnamese boats then attacked with torpedoes and machine gun fire . Maddox expended over 280 3 - inch (76.2 mm) and 5 - inch (127 mm) shells in a sea battle . One U.S. aircraft was damaged, three North Vietnamese torpedo boats were damaged, and four North Vietnamese sailors were killed, with six more wounded . There were no U.S. casualties . Maddox "was unscathed except for a single bullet hole from a Vietnamese machine gun round ." </P> <P> It was originally claimed by the National Security Agency that a Second Gulf of Tonkin incident occurred on August 4, 1964, as another sea battle, but instead evidence was found of "Tonkin ghosts" (false radar images) and not actual North Vietnamese torpedo boats . In the 2003 documentary The Fog of War, the former United States Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara admitted that the August 2 USS Maddox attack happened with no Defense Department response, but the August 4 Gulf of Tonkin attack never happened . In 1995, McNamara met with former Vietnam People's Army General Võ Nguyên Giáp to ask what happened on August 4, 1964 in the second Gulf of Tonkin Incident . "Absolutely nothing", Giáp replied . Giáp claimed that the attack had been imaginary . </P>

Escalation of the war in vietnam began with what incident