Hòn Mê
| Hòn Mê | ||
|---|---|---|
| Waters | Gulf of Tonkin | |
| Geographical location | 19 ° 22 '14 " N , 105 ° 55' 36" E | |
|
||
| surface | 4.2 km² | |
| Highest elevation | 251 m | |
Hòn Mê is a Vietnamese island in the South China Sea . The island in the Gulf of Tonkin is twelve kilometers off the mainland coast of northern Vietnam and belongs to the province of Thanh Hóa .
The next larger town on the mainland is Tĩnh Gia , around 25 kilometers northwest of the island. At the highest point of the island is a lighthouse built in 1977 . The concrete lighthouse has a height of 18.5 meters, and stands on the house of the lighthouse keeper.
history
During the Vietnam War, there were radar systems of the Vietnamese People's Army and units to secure them on the then North Vietnamese island of Hòn Mê . As part of Operation 34A , four American Tjeld-class speedboats with South Vietnamese crew (PTF-2, PTF-3, PTF-5, PTF-6) attacked the radar and other military equipment on the night of July 30th to 31st, 1964 Installations on the islands of Hòn Ngư and Hòn Mê with recoilless guns ( 57mm M18 recoilless rifle ). On the morning of July 31, these four boats met the American destroyer USS Maddox , which was entering the Gulf of Tonkin as part of Operation Desoto, as they marched back to Da Nang naval base . Two days later, on August 2, 1964, the USS Maddox near Hòn Mê was involved in the Tonkin incident . The radar station, coastal batteries and other military facilities on the island of Hòn Mê were repeatedly attacked by American aircraft and naval units during the further course of the Vietnam War.
In 1986, the Vietnamese Council of Ministers declared the entire island of Hòn Mê, including its coastal zone, a nature reserve with an area of five square kilometers. In 1999, the Hòn Mê nature reserve was looked after by eleven employees, five of whom work in an office on the mainland and six in a guard post on Hòn Mê. In 1997 the island was removed from the list of nationally designated nature reserves.
literature
- Edwin E. Moïse: Tonkin Gulf and the escalation of the Vietnam War . University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill NC 1996, ISBN 0-8078-2300-7 .
- BirdLife International in Indochina (Ed.): SourceBook of Exiting and Proposed Protected Areas in Vietnam. 2nd Edition. BirdLife International in Indochina, Hanoi 2004.
Individual evidence
- ^ Russ Rowlett: Lighthouses of Northern Vietnam ( English ) In: The Lighthouse Directory . University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill . Retrieved May 13, 2011.
- ↑ Đèn biển Hòn Mê ( Memento of the original from November 17, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at the Maritime Safety Company. (Retrieved May 13, 2011.)
- ^ Edwin E. Moïse: Tonkin Gulf and the escalation of the Vietnam War . Chapel Hill 1996, p. 56.
- ^ Edwin E. Moïse: Tonkin Gulf and the escalation of the Vietnam War . Chapel Hill 1996, pp. 68-85.
- ↑ Decision No. 194 / CT of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of August 9, 1986, quoted from Hon Me Nature Reserve (PDF; 38 kB) . In: Sourcebook of Existing and Proposed Protected Areas in Vietnam . Hanoi 2004.
- ↑ Asian Development Bank (ADB 1999), quoted from Hon Me Nature Reserve (PDF; 38 kB) . In: Sourcebook of Existing and Proposed Protected Areas in Vietnam . Hanoi 2004.
- ^ Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of Vietnam (MARD 1997), quoted from Hon Me Nature Reserve (PDF; 38 kB) . In: Sourcebook of Existing and Proposed Protected Areas in Vietnam . Hanoi 2004.
