USS Newport News CA-148 Naval Research - HOSTA Hostile Fire File

"Thunder" USS Newport News CA-148 off North Vietnam October 1967 / image adapted from photo by John Glass

USS Newport News CA-148 Research Pages

USS Newport News CA-148 off North Vietnam

( image from photo by John Glass October 1967 )

Hostile File File (HOSTA) 10/25/1966 - 4/5/1970

The US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) maintains a web site called AAD Access to Archival Databases at which one can browse and download selected archival data files.

AAD Access to Archival Databases

In particular, the Hostile File File (HOSTA) 10/25/1966 - 4/5/1970 (also called Naval Bombardment File) contains a record for every incident of hostile fire against naval ships during that period of the Vietnam War. For USS Newport News CA-148, it identifies precisely the same list of counter battery dates that OPNAV NOTE 1650 shows as eligibility dates for the Combat Action Ribbon, as discussed elsewhere on this web site.

Here is the selection from that file of all hostile fire events mentioning Newport News:

HOSTA Excerpt: USS Newport News events

AAD has four files with data relevant to USS Newport News CA-148. To view them:

1. Go to the AAD website,

2. Select "Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975" in the Subject pulldown,

3. Select "Submit".

The four files of interest in the resulting selection are:

Naval Bombardment File, 10/25/1966 - 4/5/1970 (HOSTA)

Combat Naval Gunfire Support File, 3/1966 - 1/1973 (CONGA)

Combat Area Casualties Database, ca. 1967 - ca. 12/1998

Unit Information for Vietnam Casualties Database, ca. 1983 - 6/19/2002

The second file, CONGA, is mentioned elsewhere on this web site. It contains data for contains data for every naval gunfire mission during the period, essentially for the entire war. Unlike HOSTA, which is small enough to select and download the entire file, CONGA is huge. One must select subsets of interest and download it in pieces. Shipmate Bob Chase and I have both done such downloads and Bob has undertaken the enormous task of plotting all Newport News targets on charts of the area.

The third and fourth files contain information about our lost shipmates. I have not yet downloaded that data nor carefully reviewed it all, but my initial look leaves some doubt about how complete it is.

Carl W. Cole

James Island SC

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