Veteran of the Day, August 19, 2026
BOATSWAIN’S MATE SECOND CLASS
WILLIAM ROBERT TAYLOR
UNITED STATES NAVY
RIVER ASSAULT SQUADRON 13 • RIVER ASSAULT DIVISION 131
TASK FORCE 117 • MOBILE RIVERINE FORCE
January 8, 1947 – August 2, 1968
Honolulu, Hawaii
Killed in Action • Chuong Thien Province • Vietnam
Honored on Panel 49W, Line 1 of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
THE SAILOR WHO TOOK THE NAVY INTO THE JUNGLE
When we picture the United States Navy at war, we picture oceans.
Aircraft carriers.
Destroyers.
Submarines.
Great ships moving across open water.
But that is not where William Robert Taylor fought his war.
His Navy sailed through rice paddies.
Past mangrove swamps.
Along muddy rivers.
Into narrow canals surrounded by jungle.
And sometimes the enemy was not miles away.
Sometimes he was on the riverbank.
William Taylor belonged to America’s brown-water Navy.
And on August 2, 1968, the 21-year-old sailor from Hawaii gave his life on one of the waterways of the Mekong Delta.
FROM HONOLULU
William Robert Taylor was born January 8, 1947.
His home of record was Honolulu, Hawaii.
The ocean was part of the landscape of his youth.
Then William joined the United States Navy.
Eventually he became a Boatswain’s Mate Second Class, a petty officer entrusted with the seamanship and demanding deck work that has formed the backbone of Navy life for generations.
But Vietnam would give the word sailor an entirely different meaning.
William’s ship was barely recognizable as a traditional Navy vessel.
It was an armored river assault boat.
TANGO 131-9
William served aboard:
T-131-9
The “T” stood for Tango boat, the nickname sailors gave the Navy’s Armored Troop Carriers.
His unit was:
River Assault Squadron 13
River Assault Division 131
Task Force 117
United States Naval Forces Vietnam
River Assault Squadron 13 had only recently arrived in Vietnam.
Its mission was direct and dangerous:
Carry troops and equipment into combat.
Support them after they arrived.
Patrol hostile waterways.
Sweep for mines.
Provide fire support.
Block enemy movement.
Resupply troops.
And go wherever the river carried the fight.
T-131-9 completed outfitting and testing in Vietnam in June 1968.
Less than two months later, William Taylor would die aboard her.
THE MOBILE RIVERINE FORCE
Task Force 117 was part of one of the most unusual American fighting forces of the Vietnam War:
the Mobile Riverine Force.
It combined United States Navy river assault craft with Army infantry.
The concept was ingenious.
Much of the Mekong Delta was extraordinarily difficult for conventional ground forces to cross.
Rice paddies flooded.
Jungle restricted movement.
Roads were limited.
But the Delta contained thousands of miles of rivers and canals.
So America turned the waterways into roads.
The Army supplied soldiers.
The Navy supplied the transportation, firepower and sailors willing to take them there.
William Taylor was one of those sailors.
THE TANGO BOAT
An Armored Troop Carrier began life from the basic design of a landing craft.
Then Vietnam transformed it.
Armor was added.
Machine guns were mounted.
Weapons positions appeared.
The boats were modified to carry soldiers directly into hostile territory.
The Tango boat could move infantry along rivers and canals, lower its ramp and put soldiers ashore.
Then the sailors remained.
They provided covering fire.
They evacuated wounded.
They brought ammunition and supplies forward.
And when the soldiers needed to leave, the Navy returned for them.
There was no horizon separating these sailors from the enemy.
Only a riverbank.
A DIFFERENT KIND OF NAVAL BATTLE
The official history of Navy riverine warfare describes the environment vividly.
Dense vegetation along the waterways provided ideal concealment for enemy ambushes.
Mines could be hidden beneath muddy water.
Viet Cong fighters could wait behind vegetation along the banks.
An engagement could begin with a mine explosion followed immediately by small-arms fire, rockets or heavier weapons.
Sometimes combat occurred at ranges measured not in miles, but in feet.
This was the Navy William Taylor knew.
No broad Pacific horizon.
No deep blue water.
Just muddy rivers twisting toward another bend.
And no way of knowing what waited beyond it.
SUMMER 1968
By the summer of 1968, River Assault Squadron 13 was operating throughout the Delta.
Its boats supported American and South Vietnamese forces in province after province.
William’s T-131-9 had joined River Assault Division 131 only in early June.
The squadron had already learned how unforgiving river warfare could be.
On July 13, other boats in the division were ambushed in western Dinh Tuong Province.
Two Tango boats struck mines and sank while positioned near an entrance to the operational area.
The lesson was unmistakable.
Every river could hide an ambush.
Every canal could conceal a mine.
Every bend could become a battlefield.
Still, the boats kept moving.
INTO CHUONG THIEN
On July 30, 1968, the Mobile Riverine Force began a major operation in the twin-rivers region of Chuong Thien Province, approximately forty miles south of Can Tho.
The operation would continue through August 8.
It carried American riverine forces into territory where the Viet Cong had operated with relative security.
For more than a decade, parts of this region had been considered an enemy stronghold.
Now the river sailors were going in.
The Navy’s official history records that this operation pushed the Mobile Riverine Force into the notorious enemy sanctuary and farther from its normal support facilities than its assault boats had previously operated.
William Taylor and T-131-9 were part of that riverine world.
AUGUST 2, 1968
Four days into the operation came:
August 2, 1968.
River Assault Squadron 13’s own casualty history records:
William R. Taylor
BM2
Honolulu, Hawaii
ATC-131-9
Chuong Thien
William was killed.
He was 21 years old.
The Navy casualty records identify his death as hostile.
The Purple Heart among his decorations tells us the same thing in another language:
A young sailor from Hawaii had encountered the enemy on the rivers of Vietnam.
And he did not come home alive.
HIS DECORATIONS
William’s recorded decorations include:
Purple Heart
Combat Action Ribbon
Navy Good Conduct Medal
National Defense Service Medal
Vietnam Service Medal
Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal
The Combat Action Ribbon is particularly meaningful.
It tells us William was not simply transporting men through a distant war.
He had personally participated in combat.
The Purple Heart tells us what that combat ultimately cost him.
TWENTY-ONE
William was born January 8, 1947.
He died August 2, 1968.
He was twenty-one.
Again, we confront the youth hidden behind a military photograph.
BM2 sounds experienced.
Petty Officer Second Class sounds established.
Boat crewman.
Combat sailor.
Riverine warrior.
But William Robert Taylor had been alive only twenty-one years.
His twenty-second birthday should have come the following January.
Instead, Honolulu received the news that one of its sons had died thousands of miles away on a muddy river in Vietnam.
FROM ONE PACIFIC SHORE TO ANOTHER
There is something poignant about William’s geography.
He came from Hawaii.
An island home surrounded by the Pacific Ocean.
He joined the Navy.
Then the Navy carried him across that ocean.
But ultimately his war was fought not upon it.
His battlefield became the rivers of Southeast Asia.
From the waters surrounding Honolulu to the canals of the Mekong Delta, William’s life was connected by water.
The difference was that the last waterway he traveled could hide an enemy only yards away.
HAWAII’S SACRIFICE
William was not Hawaii’s only son lost in Vietnam.
Men from Honolulu, Hilo, Kahului, Wahiawa and communities throughout the islands served in Southeast Asia.
Their names remind us that America’s Vietnam generation came from everywhere.
From enormous cities.
From rural farms.
From Guam.
From Hawaii.
From every corner of the country and its territories.
Different hometowns.
Different branches.
Different jobs.
One generation asked to serve.
William answered that call wearing Navy blue.
PANEL 49 WEST
Today William has another place in American memory.
Walk along the Vietnam Veterans Memorial until you reach:
Panel 49W.
Then find the very first line.
There is his name:
WILLIAM R TAYLOR
Panel 49W • Line 1
Three words carved into black granite.
But those three words contain much more.
Honolulu.
Twenty-one years.
A Navy uniform.
River Assault Squadron 13.
Task Force 117.
A Tango boat.
The Mekong Delta.
Chuong Thien.
August 2, 1968.
And a sailor who never returned home alive.
THE BROWN-WATER SAILORS
The Vietnam War created generations of sailors whose service looked unlike almost anything traditionally associated with the Navy.
They slept aboard floating bases.
They operated from remote support facilities.
They traveled narrow canals.
They fought from armored landing craft.
They carried soldiers into places where infantry could not easily reach by road.
They exchanged fire with enemy troops hidden along riverbanks.
They became:
the Brown-Water Navy.
Their boats were small.
Their battlefield was confined.
Their enemy was often close.
And their courage was enormous.
William Taylor was one of them.
FINAL SALUTE
Today we remember a sailor from Hawaii.
Not aboard an aircraft carrier.
Not aboard a battleship.
Not standing on the deck of a destroyer somewhere beyond the horizon.
We remember him aboard:
T-131-9.
An armored troop carrier moving through the rivers of Vietnam.
We remember the twenty-one-year-old Boatswain’s Mate.
We remember the sailor who carried soldiers toward battle.
We remember the petty officer who fought alongside them when battle found the boats.
And we remember the young man from Honolulu who never returned to the islands he called home.
Today, fifty-eight years later, we say his name:
BOATSWAIN’S MATE SECOND CLASS
WILLIAM ROBERT TAYLOR
United States Navy
River Assault Squadron 13
River Assault Division 131
Task Force 117
Tango Boat T-131-9
January 8, 1947 – August 2, 1968
Honolulu, Hawaii
21 Years Old
Killed in Action • Chuong Thien Province
Panel 49W • Line 1
From the blue waters of Hawaii…
to the brown waters of Vietnam.
He served.
He fought.
He sacrificed.
And America remembers.
Rest easy, Sailor.
Your final river patrol is complete.
Honor the Fallen. Support the Living. Teach the Next Generation.
Veteran of the Day • August 19, 2026 • America 250
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