By: Ken Robinson
Some of the most important stories in a life are not told loudly. They arrive quietly, often late in the evening, when the house is still and conversation drifts toward memory. That is how my father told his stories. There was never bravado in his voice, never a dramatic flourish. He spoke the way professional pilots often do: calmly, precisely, describing events as problems that had to be solved.
It was during one of those quiet evenings that he described to me what it was like to fly the final operational mission of the Vietnam War.
Today, when strategists discuss the danger of mines being laid in the Strait of Hormuz, they usually describe it in abstract terms. The narrow channel carries roughly one fifth of the world’s traded oil. A relatively small number of naval mines could shut it down almost instantly. Tankers would stop moving. Insurance markets would surge. Energy prices would spike across the globe within hours.
Mine warfare is ancient by naval standards, yet it remains one of the most effective weapons ever devised. A mine does nothing until the moment it does everything. It sits silently beneath the water until the magnetic field, pressure wave, or acoustic vibration of a passing ship triggers it.
One mine can cripple a tanker. A field of them can close an entire sea lane.
Whenever I hear analysts talk about that danger today, I think about those conversations with my father.
My father, Colonel James Clifford Robinson of the United States Marine Corps, commanded a CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopter squadron during the closing phase of the Vietnam War. His career stretched across three wars and nearly every chapter of modern Marine aviation.
His story began during World War II.
He enlisted in the Marine Corps by lying about his age. He was fifteen years old.
Like many Marine infantry of that generation he soon found himself in the Pacific theater where the war against Imperial Japan was fought island by island across vast distances of ocean. Marines landed on hostile beaches, fought through jungle terrain and volcanic ridges, and moved forward one island at a time until Japan surrendered in 1945.
When the war ended, his service did not.
He applied for Officer Candidate School as a Naval Aviation Cadet and was commissioned as a United States Marine Corps officer and naval aviator.
His first air war came in Korea, where he flew combat missions as a Marine fighter pilot.
Later he transitioned into helicopters, part of the generation of aviators that transformed Marine Corps warfare. Helicopters allowed Marines to move troops across terrain that previously required long and dangerous ground movements.
My father eventually commanded one of the early CH-53 Sea Stallion squadrons at Marine Corps Air Station Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. The CH-53 was the Marine Corps heavy lift helicopter, powerful enough to carry enormous loads and tow equipment that smaller aircraft simply could not manage.
Before that command he had already lived through another remarkable chapter of aviation history.
He was one of the early plankholder pilots assigned to Marine Helicopter Squadron One, HMX-1. In those years he flew presidential helicopter missions for President’s Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson.
The unit would later become known around the world as Marine One.
But the defining experience of his career remained combat. Over time he completed five tours in Vietnam.
Near the end of that war he was given a mission that he later described to me as one of the strangest, and dangerous assignments of his life.
In 1972 the United States thoroughly mined the Hanoi harbor of Haiphong during Operation Pocket Money. Haiphong was North Vietnam’s primary seaport. Nearly eighty five percent of the country’s imports flowed through it. When the harbor was mined commercial shipping stopped almost overnight.
When the Paris Peace Accords were signed in January 1973 ending direct American participation in the war, the United States agreed to remove the mines it had laid.
The mission became known as Operation End Sweep
The operation was carried out by Task Force 78 of the United States Seventh Fleet. Surface minesweepers, support ships, and airborne mine countermeasure helicopters all played a role. Among the most important tools were the CH-53 Sea Stallions, which could tow large minesweeping devices such as the Mark 105 hydrofoil sled and magnetic sweep systems designed to imitate the presence of a ship.
My father’s CH-53 squadron was part of that effort.
I remember the way he explained the challenge.
“You have to understand something about mines,” he told me once. “They’re patient weapons. They sit on the bottom and wait. The water looks calm but somewhere underneath it is a device designed to tear a ship apart.”
The plan was not to locate every mine individually. That would have taken years. Instead the helicopters would deliberately trigger them.
“We flew low across the harbor,” he told me. “Sometimes only twenty feet above the water. Behind the helicopter we dragged sweep gear that produced the same magnetic and acoustic signals a large ship would create.”
Flying a CH-53 under tow was physically demanding in ways most people would never imagine. The sweep gear created enormous drag in the water. That drag translated directly into the helicopter’s controls. The cyclic felt heavy. The pedals needed constant correction. The aircraft vibrated with a deep mechanical shudder that came up through the seat, through the flight controls, and into the pilot’s hands.
“You could feel the load the whole time,” my father said. “The helicopter talks to you when you’re towing gear like that. Every vibration tells you something.”
Then, without warning, the ocean behind the aircraft could erupt.
“You’d be flying your lane, watching the instruments, feeling that steady drag on the controls,” he told me. “Then suddenly the water behind you explodes into the air. A column hundreds of feet high.”
He would pause slightly when describing that moment.
“That’s when you know you just cleared one.”
The harbor had to be swept methodically.
“We divided the harbor into lanes,” he explained. “It was like mowing a lawn. One helicopter cleared one strip. The next pass overlapped the previous one.”
What made the mission even stranger was where it took place.
The helicopters were flying over North Vietnamese waters only months after the United States had been fighting there.
“One day you’re at war with a place,” my father told me. “The next day you’re clearing their harbor so ships can sail again.”
Operation End Sweep became one of the most unusual operations of the Vietnam War. American forces methodically removed mines that American forces themselves had laid.
For my father the mission represented the closing chapter of a long military life. By then he had fought in the Pacific as a teenage Marine in World War II, flown fighter missions in Korea, transported Presidents of the United States as an HMX-1 pilot, and completed five tours in Vietnam.
Now he was commanding a CH-53 squadron conducting the final operational mission of that war.
I remember him reflecting on that moment once.
“The funny thing about the last mission,” he said quietly, “is that it wasn’t about fighting.”
He paused before finishing the thought.
“It was closure, about cleaning up the danger we left behind.”
Through the summer of 1973 the helicopters continued sweeping Haiphong harbor. Lane by lane. Explosion by explosion. Slowly the minefield disappeared.
Eventually the harbor was declared safe for international shipping.
For the United States the war was finally over.
When analysts today discuss the possibility of mines closing the Strait of Hormuz, I still think about those conversations with my father. Technology has improved. Sensors are more sophisticated. Equipment is more advanced.
But the essential reality of mine warfare has not changed.
Someone still has to fly low over dangerous water.
Someone still has to tow the sweep gear.
And someone still has to wait for the explosion behind them that means the sea lane is safe again.
CH-53 / MH-53 Mine Sweeping Helicopters in the Strait of Hormuz - Today
The primary helicopter still used by the United States Navy for airborne mine countermeasures in the Strait of Hormuz is the Sikorsky MH-53E Sea Dragon.
This aircraft is the largest helicopter in the U.S. Navy inventory and was specifically designed to detect and neutralize naval mines, a critical mission in narrow maritime choke points like the Strait of Hormuz through which roughly twenty percent of the world’s oil supply passes.
How the MH-53 Mine Sweeping System Works
1. Magnetic and acoustic minesweeping sleds
The helicopter tows devices such as the Mk 105 Magnetic Minesweeping Sled, which generates magnetic signatures that mimic the hull of a large ship. Mines triggered by magnetic signatures detonate harmlessly behind the helicopter.
2. Mechanical sweeping gear
Some systems tow cables designed to cut the mooring lines of tethered mines, causing them to float to the surface where they can be destroyed by gunfire or explosive charges.
3. Mine hunting sonar systems
Advanced versions also tow sonar arrays that locate mines resting on the seabed.
Why Helicopters Are Used Instead of Ships
Helicopter mine sweeping offers several operational advantages including speed, safety, precision, and rapid deployment. Helicopters can clear large areas faster than ships, operate hundreds of feet above a minefield, and can work effectively in shallow or restricted waters. Forward based units in Bahrain can reach the Strait of Hormuz quickly during a crisis.
Current U.S. Mine Countermeasure Forces in the Gulf
The United States maintains mine warfare forces in the region through U.S. Fifth Fleet headquartered in Manama, Bahrain. These forces include MH-53E Sea Dragon helicopters, Avenger class mine countermeasure ships, and a growing number of unmanned surface and underwater mine hunting systems.
Strategic Importance
Iran has long considered naval mining one of its most effective asymmetric tools.
When I deployed on Operation PRIME CHANCE during the Tanker War of the 1980s, Iranian mines damaged multiple vessels including the U.S. Navy frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts in 1988. Because of that history, the MH-53E remains a core capability for keeping the Strait of Hormuz open during crisis or war, ensuring that global oil shipments continue moving even under threat of Iranian naval mining.
When I think about that mission I do not picture strategy papers or geopolitical briefings.
I picture my father remembering helicopters flying low across Haiphong harbor, dragging steel through the water, clearing a path one careful lane at a time.
The final American mission of the Vietnam War was not about destroying something.
It was about making the sea safe again for freedom of navigation, and a brief moment of rest - no wars.
Little did we know, we would soon be fighting again - in May, 1975, when Cambodian rebels seized the SS Mayaguez, taking its crew hostage, launching a massive US response and successful rescue mission.
Recently sworn President Gerald R. Ford‘s first international crisis.
Life Comes full circle
The U.S. Navy’s newest and most advanced aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), is now moving toward the Persian Gulf region as part of a growing American naval concentration aimed at deterring Iran and stabilizing the maritime corridor around the Strait of Hormuz.
After completing a brief logistics and maintenance stop in Split, Croatia, the carrier strike group has resumed operations and is transiting toward the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility.
The deployment places the Ford alongside other U.S. carrier forces already operating in the region, including the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) and elements of the USS George H. W. Bush (CVN-77) strike group, creating one of the largest concentrations of American naval combat power in the Middle East in years.
The move underscores Washington’s determination to protect commercial shipping lanes and energy infrastructure as tensions surrounding Iran, the Red Sea, and the Strait of Hormuz continue to escalate.
If minesweeping becomes the mission - The Navy/Marine air/ground team is ready to fulfill their duty.