Peacetime Aerial Reconnaissance Program Station (Guest Post)

Many Naval Security Group personnel who served during the Vietnam Era are familiar with PIRAZ station – the Primary Identification Radar Advisory Zone established in the Gulf of Tonkin (GOT) in 1966 to track hostile and friendly air traffic over North Vietnam and the GOT.

PIRAZ was continuously manned from its inception until after the cessation of hostilities and the return of the POWs from Hanoi in 1973. Since any ship assigned PIRAZ duties (most were cruisers or DLGs) had a NAVSECGRU detachment, quite a few CTs earned membership in the “Gulf of Tonkin Yacht Club.”