“Marine Corps Vietnam Tankers
Historical Foundation”
ANNEX G-23 Abbreviated History of the Marine Corps in the Vietnam War.
ANNEX G-23 Abbreviated History of the Marine Corps in the Vietnam War. For the United States Marine Corps, involvement in the nation's longest war began on 2 August 1954 with the arrival of Lieutenant Colonel Victor J. Croizat as a liaison officer with the newly established United States Military Assistance and Advisory Group to the Republic of Vietnam. For the next eight years, Marine activities in Vietnam consisted mainly of advisory and staff responsibilities. This began to change in mid-April 1962 when Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 362 (HMM-362), commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Archie Clapp, deployed to South Vietnam to provide combat service support for the fledgling South Vietnamese army. In the spring of 1964, Marine Detachment, Advisory Team One, commanded by Major Alfred M. Gray Jr., arrived to collect signals intelligence, thereby becoming the first Marine ground unit to arrive in the country. Following the Gulf of Tonkin incident in August 1964, the Marine Corps commitment to Southeast Asia expanded further. The end of 1964 brought an end to the advisory and assistance phase of the Vietnam War. A crucial turning point had been reached and 1965 brought about a major escalation in Marine combat activities in Vietnam. The Buildup - 1965 On 22 February 1965, General William C. Westmoreland, USA, Commander, US Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, requested two Marine battalions to protect the key airbase at Da Nang from increasing threat by the Viet Cong to U.S. installations. In response, on 8 March 1965, the 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade (MEB) landed at Da Nang. By the end of March, nearly 5,000 Marines were at Da Nang, including two infantry battalions, two helicopter squadrons and supply and logistics units. In April the U.S. Government agreed to deploy still more Marines to Vietnam and to permit those at Da Nang to engage in counterinsurgency operations. In June, Major General Lewis W. Walt arrived to take command of the newly formed III Marine Amphibious Force (MAF), comprising both the 3d Marine Division and the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing (MAW). By mid-summer, the Marines had moved outside their cantonment at Da Nang and expanded their Area of Responsibility (AOR) to include the Viet Cong infested villages to the south. Marines landed at Chu Lai, allowing the 1st Wing to expand to new facilities there and at Marble Mountain, home of Marine Aircraft Group (MAG) 36, while MAG-16 remained at the airbase at Da Nang. n August, Marines engaged in their first major offensives against the Viet Cong, Operation STARLITE, which included the 7th Marines, the vanguard of the 1st Marine Division. The action destroyed one Viet Cong battalion and badly mauled a second. By the end of the year, Gen Walt commanded 42,000 Marines. Despite operational successes, pacification in the densely populated areas in the Marine's AOR remained a difficult process. An Expanding War - 1966
In 1966, the size of U.S. Marine forces in
the Republic of Vietnam continued to increase as the remaining units of
the 1st Marine Division, commanded by Major General Lewis J. "Jeff"
Fields, arrived from Okinawa to assist in pacifying the southern areas
of I Corps. Even with its influx of Marines, a manpower shortage plagued
III MAF, compounding an already difficult mission. Senior Marine
commanders expressed strong disagreement with the conduct of the war by
the leadership of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam. The Marines
pushed for a small-scale unit pacification program along the populated
coastal areas, while the Army leadership in Saigon advocated large unit
search and destroy operations against North Vietnamese units. These
disagreements further hindered the ability of III MAF to conduct
effective combat operations. Fighting the North Vietnamese - 1967 While Marines continued conducting pacification and counter-guerrilla operations, most of the heavy fighting in 1967 raged in the north of I Corps along the DMZ. The 3d Marine Division engaged in heavy conventional fighting around the former Special Forces camp at Khe Sanh in the northwestern I Corps, to "Leatherneck Square" in the eastern DMZ. Simultaneously, Marines began construction of the "McNamara Line," a series of strong points, sensors and obstacles designed to deter and detect Communist incursions across the DMZ. Never completed, the McNamara Line drained III MAF of scarce men and materiel. To counter it, the North Vietnamese conducted numerous attacks to destroy it in its infancy, all supported by heavy artillery fire. This resulted in several major engagements during the second half of 1967, most notably at Con Thien. All the while Marine air played a pivotal role in providing fire support, CH-46 and UH-34 helicopters remained the workhorses for logistics support, augmented that year by the first squadron of CH-53 Sea Stallions. By year's end, III MAF had blunted the North Vietnamese push across the DMZ. In all, U.S. Marines conducted 11 major operations of battalion size or larger and more than 356,000 smaller unit patrols and killed nearly 18,000 enemy. But the cost had been high, with 3,000 Marines killed including the 3d Marine Division commander, Major General Bruno A. Hochmuth. Despite augmentation by the Army's Americal Division, III MAF remained stretched in both men and material. But the Marines believed they had made significant strides toward pacification during 1967. However, as 1968 approached, there were ominous indications of an even larger enemy invasion. The Defining Year 1968
The year 1968 proved to be the decisive year
for the Marines in Vietnam. Instead of the traditional cease-fire for
the Tet Lunar New Year, the Communists launched a massive offensive
against 105 cites and towns throughout South Vietnam. In the north,
enemy forces attacked all the major population centers, including Da
Nang and the old Imperial city of Hue. U.S. Marines and South Vietnamese
forces repulsed all the attacks except at Hue. It would take 26 days of
dogged house-to-house fighting to expel the North Vietnamese regulars
from the city, as Marines, more accustomed to fighting in the steamy
jungle, learned the difficult and bloody lessons of urban warfare. High Mobility and Stand Down - 1969 Incrementally, the Marine Corps began redeploying units, and by the end of the year, (1969) the entire 3d Marine Division had returned to Okinawa. As planning to reduce force level in Vietnam continued, Marines continued to engage the enemy throughout I Corps. Colonel Robert H. Barrow's 9th Marines began Operation DEWEY CANYON, perhaps the most successful high-mobility regimental-sized action of the war. Over a two-month period, the Marines operated in the A Shau/Da Krong valleys. By 18 March, the enemy base area had been cleared out, killing more than 1,600 enemy. The Marine air-ground team proved its worth in greatly reducing enemy 122 mm rocket fire into Da Nang. Marine infantry, transported by helicopters, cleared out enemy positions in the rugged "Happy Valley" and "Charlie Ridges" areas, all supported by effective Marine fixed-wing aircraft. Vietnamization and Redeployment - 1970-1972
Throughout 1970, U.S. Marine forces continued
to withdraw from Vietnam. The new policy emanating from Washington was
"Vietnamization." With U.S. airpower and advisors, the ground war was
increasingly turned over to the South Vietnamese. While the invasion of
Cambodia was the major military undertaking of 1970, only a limited
number of Marine aviation assets were involved. Marines still conducted
aggressive campaigns against the enemy, most notably Colonel Edmund G.
Derning's 7th Marines participation in Operation PICKENS FOREST and
Colonel Paul X. Kelley's 1st Marines actions near Da Nang. But by the
end of 1970, more Marines were leaving than arriving as replacements. On
14 April 1971, III MAF redeployed to Okinawa, and two months later
(June) the last ground troops, the 13,000 men of the 3d MAB, flew out
from Da Nang. The Bitter End - 1973-1975
Following the failure of the Communists' 1972
Easter Offensive and an intensive bombing campaign of North Vietnam, a
peace treaty was finally signed in Paris on 27 January 1973. The U.S.
agreed to withdraw all its forces from South Vietnam. The North, in
turn, returned all the U.S. Prisoners of War, including 26 Marines.
Unfortunately, peace was short lived in Vietnam, and in 1974 fighting
resumed in both Cambodia and South Vietnam. By the spring of 1975, the
situation became desperate for the U.S. backed governments in both Phnom
Penh and Saigon. On 12 April, the 31st MAU, commanded by Colonel John F.
Roche, executed a non-combatant evacuation, Operation EAGLE PULL, the
abandonment of the U.S. embassy in Phnom Penh prior to the city's
capitulation to Communist Khmer Rouge forces. Three weeks later, Marines
were called upon to evacuate another embassy, this time in Saigon.
Marines of the 9th MAB successfully executed Operation FREQUENT WIND,
which safely removed hundreds of Americans and Vietnamese civilians
prior to the fall of South Vietnam.
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