U. S. MARINE CORPS
CIVIC ACTION EFFORTS IN VIETNAM
MARCH 1965 - MARCH 1966
by
Captain Russel H. Stolfi, USMCR
Historical Branch
G-3 Division
Headquarters, U. S. Marine Corps
1968
FIGURE NOT AVAILABLE
A young boy, hopelessly crippled as well as orphaned, receives a ray of
happiness from an unusual source. The Marine Corps, a professional combat
force, moves in to win the rural population in the ancient game of guerrilla
warfare. (photograph courtesy of GySgt Russell W. Savatt)
FOREWORD
The origin of this pamphlet lies in the continuing program at all levels
of command to keep Marines informed of the ways of combat and civic action in
Vietnam. Not limited in any way to set methods and means, this informational
effort spreads across a wide variety of projects, all aimed at making the
lessons learned in Vietnam available to the Marine who is fighting there and
the Marine who is soon due to take his turn in combat.
Our officers and men in Vietnam are deeply involved in efforts to improve
the situation of the Vietnamese people. This pamphlet tells the story of the
first formative year of civilian-aid policies, programs, and actions of the
III Marine Amphibious Force. To write the study and to perform the extensive
and involved research necessary to document its text, the Marine Corps was
able to call upon a particularly well-qualified reserve officer, Captain
Russel H. Stolfi, who volunteered for several months of active duty in the
spring of 1967 for this purpose. In civilian life, Captain Stolfi, who holds
a doctor of philosophy degree in history from Stanford University, is
Assistant Professor of History at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey,
California.
The pamphlet is based largely on sources available in the Washington
area, including the records of various activities of the Departments of
Defense and State, of the CARE organization, and of the Office of the
Administrative Assistant to the President. Other sources include
correspondence and interviews with participants in the actions described. In
some cases documents from which information was taken are still classified,
however, the information used in the text is unclassified.
H. NICKERSON, JR.
Major General, U. S. Marine Corps
Assistant Chief of Staff, G-3
REVIEWED AND APPROVED: 9 January 1968
CONTENTS
Original On-Line
Page Page
Foreword i 5
Chapter I: The Changing Pattern of War: Marine 1 7
Corps Civic Action
Chapter II: The Governing Institutions of the 4 12
Republic of Vietnam: March 1965-
March 1966
Chapter III: Military Civic Action in Vietnam 11 19
Chapter IV: The Landing of Major Marine Corps Air 15 25
and Ground Forces in South Vietnam
and the Early Development of Civic
Action: March-July 1965
Chapter V: The Turning Point in Civic Action: 34 46
August 1965
Chapter VI: Accelerating the Pace of Civic Action: 42 56
The Challenge of support for Rural
Construction (September-December 1965)
Chapter VII: A New Calendar Year: Patterns of Civic 61 77
Action in January-March 1966
Notes 82 102
Appendix Contents of CARE kits provided through 96 116
Reserve Civic Actions Fund for Vietnam
Chapter I
The Changing Pattern of War:
Marine Corps Civic Action
It was early evening and the Viet Cong platoon made its way towards the
bridge over the River Phu Bai a few miles southeast of Hue, the former royal
capital of Vietnam. Pham Van Thuong, card carrying communist party member and
commander of the platoon, could only have felt comfortably at home. He had
been born a few miles from his present location. Most of Thuong's short life
had been spent close to his birthplace near Hue/Phu Bai where the Marine Corps
was now located. Thuong had played, gone to school, and helped his parents in
household chores like myriad other children in Vietnam. He had also seen the
war against the French, travelled briefly in North Vietnam, and now was
participating in a war against a government of his own people in Saigon.
Thuong was tough physically and at ease in his early evening environment and
revolutionary task. The Viet Cong were rulers of the night. Thuong probably
felt little anxiety about the presence of the Popular Forces which had been
organized by the local, government to resist the Viet Cong. This euphoria was
merciful. Pham Van Thuong had only a few more minutes to live.<1>
The Combined Action Company (CAC) ambush had been set carefully and
professionally. Marines and Popular Forces had worked together for almost
four months in the Hue/Phu Bai area, and the combination of Marine Corps
firepower and discipline and Vietnamese familiarity with the terrain had
become literally a killing one. At about 2030 on the evening of 29 November
1965, the handful of hunters sensed the presence of the Viet Cong.<2>
Pham Van Thuong possibly never heard the rifle fire which struck him
down. No warning had been given. Thuong's final thoughts will never be
known. Probably they were the mundane military ones concerning the soundest
way to cross the bridge into the hamlet of Phu Bai (VI).<3> Small arms fire
from the CAC-3 ambush at the bridge shattered the Viet Cong platoon. Fortune
was not with either Thuong or his men. The latter fled southward where they
were hit by CAC-4. Then they headed westward into the hills passing through
blocking artillery fires on the way. (See Sketch Map).
Since the Marine Corps had formally arrived in Vietnam in March 1965, it
had learned a lot about the other war, i.e., the struggle against the
clandestine apparatus of the Viet Cong (the Viet Cong infrastructure). This
was no surprise because the Marine Corps was a professional military
organization which existed to learn swiftly from the shock of combat.
1
Vietnam was a combat experience that differed little in many of its lessons
from other parts of the world; and, Marines had fought and operated in
practically all of them. In Vietnam in November 1965, as Thuong's platoon
advanced towards the Phu Bai River, the Marine Corps was as confident of
producing a professional effort as it had been in Korea during the winter and
Guadalcanal in the summer.
But Vietnam offered special frustrations. The original mission, to
secure enclaves in the northern region of Vietnam containing air and
communications installations, was simplicity itself.<4> The Marine air-ground
team promptly occupied those areas and secured them. Equally promptly the
Marine Corps leaders sensed the futility of defending a few bits of level
terrain to support long-range air bombardment. Under Marine Corps noses the
Viet Cong controlled much of the countryside. They had capitalized on the
instability of the Vietnamese government from 1963-1965 to push deeply into
the lowland and coastal parts of the northern region.<5> Outside of the major
cities movement was possible only during daylight, and a sullen, fearful
peasantry became omnipresent. When night fell, the forces of the Vietnamese
government retracted into various brittle defensive points and the small
numbers of hard, well-armed Viet Cong roamed at will.<6>
Targets were available for Marine Corps units in the form of Viet Cong
main forces; these were conventionally organized military formations. At
carefully selected times the main forces engaged units of both the Army of the
Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and the Marine Corps. But the precious main forces
made it a rule to initiate only battles in which success was mathematically
predictable. Normally they were beyond knowledge and reach. Furthermore, the
destruction of main force units of the Viet Cong yielded little result.
Phoenix-like, new forces arose from the ashes of the old. The Viet Cong
infrastructure was the life-giver to destroyed units through its ability to
recruit from among the peasant masses. At the same time the terroristic
apparatus of the infrastructure ensured the neutrality of the Vietnamese
peasant. The ultimate enemy of the Vietnamese government and the Marine Corps
was everywhere, yet nowhere. The key to the detection of the Viet Cong
infrastructure lay in the Vietnamese peasantry, comprising approximately 80
percent of the total population. The peasants alone could eradicate the Viet
Cong by exposing their presence and movements to the allied forces. Properly
armed and supported, the peasants themselves could destroy the Viet Cong in
personal vendettas engendered by the all-pervading form of Viet Cong
discipline, terror--the threat and consummation of death sentences against
recalcitrant peasants.
Positive security against Viet Cong violence was needed to extract the
presence and movements of the rural communist revolutionaries from the
uncommitted peasantry. Security in
2
FIGURE NOT AVAILABLE
The concept of the Combined Action Company (CAC) was originated in the
Hue/Phu Bai TAOR in August 1965. In this photograph taken on 21 September
1965, 1stLt Paul R. Ek, commander of the original CAC, makes a point with two
members of his newly-formed company. (USMC A185800)
FIGURE NOT AVAILABLE
Summit conference: the basic unit of the Combined Action Company was the
CAC squad. In this photograph, Sgt David W. Sommers (second from right),
squad leader and the Marine responsible for the protection of Thuy Tan village
in the Hue/Phu Bai TAOR, talks over the report of one of his lance corporals.
(USMC A185759)
2a
FIGURE NOT AVAILABLE
Sketch Map of Combined Action Company Ambush at the Phu Bai Bridge.
2b
conjunction with an aggressive program of rural development, revolutionary in
the sense of its far-reaching and rapid benefits for the peasantry, were the
keys to success. Obviously the Marine Corps could not provide security in
every village and hamlet. Security and development would rest upon the
peasants themselves in conjunction with effective local governing officials.
But the Marine Corps could assist in many ways in the reestablishment of
security by the Vietnamese government. In one experiment Marine Corps and
local rural defense forces, i.e., Popular Forces, recruited and controlled at
the village and hamlet level, were formed into CACs whose platoons were to be
trained by the Marine Corps to provide 24-hour local security. The CACs were
one of many Marine Corps responses to the ultimate problem of reestablishing
local government in the hands of the Government of Vietnam (GVN) and freeing
the peasants from the Viet Cong terror.<7>
The CAC under the command of First Lieutenant Paul R. Ek was the first of
the integrated Vietnamese and Marine Corps defense and training units. The
CAC was under the supervision of the 3d Battalion, 4th Marines, and operated
in the Hue/Phu Bai enclave southeast of Hue, a city rich in the trappings of
Vietnam's historical heritage.<8> Each of its platoons included one Marine
Corps rifle squad, and the mission of the Marines was to train the Popular
Forces to fight successfully against the Viet Cong anywhere, anytime. In one
small way a new wind was blowing through Vietnam.
One of First Lieutenant Ek's squads had been responsible for the
successful ambush on 29 November 1965 with its professional request for
artillery fire, subsequent coordination with another ambush squad, and the
calling of blocking artillery fires (see Sketch Map). The new wind passing
through Vietnam carried with it a hardness of will and expertise of operation
that would destroy the enemy on his chosen ground--among the peasantry.
Popular Forces would be trained which would be capable of dominating the
countryside not only during familiar day but especially during the dreaded
night. Behind the screen of effective Popular Forces, expert cadres, i.e.,
core or nucleus personnel, trained by experts at the national level would
destroy the Viet Cong infrastructure. Large units of the Marine Corps and the
ARVN would keep at bay and destroy the Viet Cong main force and the Army of
North Vietnam. The death of Pham Van Thuong represented something more than
an isolated incident. The first fully coordinated effort to defeat the Viet
Cong was emerging. Military civic action, expressed in security measures like
the CAC concept would provide the link between the war against the enemy main
forces and the reestablishment of political control by the GVN at the grass
roots level.
3
Chapter II
The Governing Institutions of the Republic of Vietnam
March 1965 - March 1966
Background
Late in 1955, a national referendum in South Vietnam deposed the head of
state, Bao Dai, and chose Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem as President of the
Republic of Vietnam. By 26 October 1956 a constitution had been promulgated
providing for a strong executive, a unicameral national assembly, and a
judicial system with safeguards for individual rights. Diem proved to be an
effective leader; he was able to consolidate his political position and
eliminate the private armies of the religious sects. With U. S. aid he built
a formidable national army, established a system of administration, and made
progress towards reconstructing the national economy. But Diem's progress
threatened North Vietnamese hopes for a unification of the Vietnamese people
under northern domination. Simultaneously, Diem's lack of progress in
bringing about more rapid social, economic, religious, and political
readjustments supported indigenous unrest in the south. Between 1956-1960 the
Viet Cong, a melange of northern and southern communists, began and then
expanded a campaign to destroy the stability of the southern government and
move into the resulting vacuum. By 1960 the control of the movement had
slipped decisively into the hands of the Hanoi government because of the
stubborn resistance of Diem and his American-supported army and
administration.<1>
Between 1960-1963 the Viet Cong movement made crucial gains in South
Vietnam. The violent communist tactics of murder and intimidation of the
personnel of the Republican government destroyed the government's political
apparatus over large parts of rural Vietnam. The Viet Cong occupied the void
and using techniques dating back to 1917 established an ominous shadow
government which in many rural areas possessed more substance than anything
which slain Republican officials could provide. By late 1963, the Diem
government, was no longer able to cope with the armed, disciplined, and
intellectually coherent movement which threatened its existence. The
Vietnamese Army moved inexorably into the position of political power.
During several violent days, 1-4 November 1963, a military coup overthrew
the Diem regime, suspended the constitution of 1956, and dissolved the
national assembly. The success of the Viet Cong and the agitation of the
Buddhists against the Diem Republic had forced a change of government by the
armed forces.<2> The revolutionary leaders centralized power in a
Revolutionary
4
Military Council which announced its intention to reinstall civilian
leadership as soon as possible. Between November 1963-November 1964 the
Vietnamese armed forces split their efforts between political and military
operations. The Viet Cong made enormous gains during this period. The
temporary nature of the national government weakened the resolve of the
governing officials. Simultaneously, the enforced participation of the
military leadership in politics restricted effective military operations. By
4 November 1964, civilian leadership had been reintroduced into the
government: Tran Van Hung became prime minister and Phan Khac Suu became
chief of state. By the turn of 1965, however, Viet Cong gains during the
continual progression of temporary national governments ruled out the survival
of any democratic, civilian government. The armed forces remained the
critical element of stability early in 1965 and forced a readjustment of the
civilian government during the period 27 January-16 February 1965.<3> The
continuing instability of the government and the concomitant Viet Cong gains
forced the intervention of ground combat forces of the United States in March
1965.
The Critical Situation of Early 1965
The U. S. intervention of early 1965 required time for the buildup of
significant physical force and even more time for the formulation of an
effective program of support for the Government of Vietnam. The Vietnamese
political situation continued to deteriorate, and on 11 June 1965 the civilian
government, which was unable either to resolve the problem of a new
constitution or to cope with the accelerating scale of Viet Cong operations,
asked the armed forces to assume the responsibilities of the national
government. The armed forces responded by 19 June 1965 with the creation of a
Provisional Convention (preliminary constitution) which vested supreme power
in a Congress of the Armed Forces. This military government has been called
the Ky government because of the position of Air Vice Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky
both as prime minister and de facto leader of the state.<4>
The Marine Corps arrived in Vietnam under frustrating circumstances. No
clear-cut case of foreign aggression was in evidence and the Government of
Vietnam in March 1965 was a temporary one which was obviously unable to deal
with the revolutionary situation. The Marine Corps found itself in the
position of defending an airbase in the Da Nang area in support of an
authoritarian civilian government which was soon to be changed to a more
authoritarian military government. The enemy, the Viet Cong, was a band of
North Vietnamese-influenced communists characterized by an appealing program
for change. But the Ky government, the authoritarian military one, made
persistent claims that it had no interest in permanent power and the
communists proved to be so closely associated with the
5
Hanoi government that little doubt was left about the unification of the two
Vietnams under northern domination in the event of the triumph of the Viet
Cong. If the South Vietnamese people had wanted that unification the United
States would have had little justification for its intervention in early 1965.
But the deliberate attempted murder of the Government of South Vietnam during
the period 1959-1965 represented a method of change which was intolerable
morally. Finally, the Viet Cong movement was too well organized to pass as a
spontaneous rural uprising. Viet Cong brutality and organization were coldly
efficient. So much efficiency so close to North Vietnam revealed the threat
of the introduction of an ideology detrimental to U. S. interests.
The Formation of a Durable Military Government
The Ky government of June 1965 bore the load of almost ten years of
Vietnamese struggle against a calculated attempt to destroy the governments of
Vietnam. The government was a last-ditch military one based on the unity of
the officer corps of the armed forces. The officer corps provisionally vested
the sovereignty of the Vietnamese state in the Congress of the Armed Forces.
The executive arm of the Congress was the National Leadership Committee which
exercised the powers of the Congress and directed governmental affairs. The
Chairman of the National Leadership Committee, who was in effect the head of
state, was Lieutenant General Nguyen Van Thieu. Directly below the Leadership
Committee was the Central Executive Committee whose chairman was Marshal Ky.
He was the central figure in the government and acted as prime minister. Ky
had the authority to organize the executive branch of the government and to
propose to the Chairman of the National Leadership Committee all cabinet
appointments. The center of national power lay ultimately in the National
Leadership Committee which was comprised on 19 June 1965 of nine members of
the armed forces including Ky as Commissioner for the Executive. Each Corps
Commander was represented on the committee also; and, because of the presence
of combat soldiers under the Corps Commanders, each commander was a center of
armed influence in he state.<5>
The prime minister controlled Vietnam through a cabinet of several
ministers and numerous secretaries of state. He appointed and replaced all
public officials; approval by the National Leadership Committee was required
only in the case of Province Chief, Director General,or higher. Mayors of the
autonomous cities and the Prefecture of Saigon were also appointed by the
prime minister. Below the national level a vast hierarchy of local government
existed. Four Corps Areas or Regions existed in which the senior governmental
delegate has the military commander. The Commanding General, III Marine
Amphibious Force, became the senior military advisor to the
6
Vietnamese general commanding I Corps ( the First Region) in August 1965.
Subordinate to the Vietnamese Corps Commanders were the Provincial Chiefs who
directed the efforts of the District Chiefs and carried out the functions of
government at the provincial level. The Province Chiefs, who were advised by
elected Provincial Councils, provided extensive services for the Vietnamese
people and were supported by technical assistants from the national
ministeries. Below the provinces (43 in number) were ranged districts (234),
grouped villages (2558), and hamlets (13,211). Most of the population of
Vietnam was rural and resided in the hamlets. The national government
ultimately contacted most of the population at the hamlet level, i.e., the
grouped villages were units of administrative convenience and were comprised
of a certain number of hamlets, usually four to six.<6>
The Viet Cong
The Viet Cong had concentrated their attack on the Government of Vietnam
by destroying the governing officials at the hamlet and village levels. The
Viet Cong emphasized the political aspects of the struggle and replaced slain,
kidnapped, and terrorized officials with communist or communist-appointed
officials. The communists formed a government within a government and
literally stole the bodies and minds of the peasants by a combination of armed
force and astute rural propaganda. But the appeal to force is central in the
Viet Cong movement and has remained, in combination with superlative
organization, the main strength of the movement. The following comment
illustrated the strength of the Viet Cong appeal to the peasantry but also
revealed striking weaknesses. A village elder characterized their rule by
saying:
If you do as the Viet Cong say they are very correct.
They never steal. They tax.
If they take a chicken they pay.
If you do not cooperate, they shoot you in the stomach.<7>
The Viet Cong generated much fear amongst the rural population of South
Vietnam by their policy of balanced ruthlessness. In areas where the
Government of Vietnam was unable to provide security for its citizens, the
Viet Cong were able to swim undetected in a sea of terrorized humanity.
Simultaneously, the Viet Cong made exaggerated promises of a better life for
the Vietnamese peasant. Government projects were ridiculed, harassed, and
destroyed by the rural Robin Hoods who had to produce no results until they
were in power. The Viet Cong used promises of a better future with the
reality of present violence to erode the influence of the Republican
government. The Republic could succeed against the movement only by the
implementation of a more effective program designed to win back the fearful
rural masses. The harsh geographical reality of a
7
hostile border abutting on Vietnam in the North made the chances of
unsupported government success against the Viet Cong problematical.<8>
Vietnamese Rural Construction (1965)
and Revolutionary Development (1966)
In 1965 with disaster staring it in the face, the Vietnamese government,
with the urging of the U. S. Mission Council in Vietnam, executed a
well-conceived rural pacification plan. Improved civil/military coordination
was achieved and significant changes in terminology were made during the year.
For example, on 5 April 1965 the government supplanted the term pacification
with the new one, rural construction. But the instability of the government
during the first half of 1965 slowed the release of funds for the rural
construction program. The national government did not release monies until
April 1965, and the program was further slowed by changes in the national
organization for rural construction and finally the death of the Minister of
Rural Construction in August 1965. As a result, the government's
accomplishments in rural construction in 1965 were slight. But the
combination of the Ky military government and massive U. S. ground and air
forces prevented decisive Viet Cong success even though the allies produced no
forward momentum of their own.<9>
Prime Minister Ky initiated planning for 1966 rural construction in
September 1965 when he requested that the U. S. Mission Liaison Group help to
determine the National Priority Areas for Rural Construction in 1966. The
reason for the establishment of those areas was to ensure the concentration of
national resources in vital areas of the country. The government established
four priority areas for the calendar year 1966. The area around Da Nang,
Quang Nam Province, became one of them.<10>
Planning continued in November and December 1965 and on 15 December 1965,
the Vietnamese Joint General Staff published Directive AB 140 as the basic
military plan for support of rural construction in 1966. The directive
assigned Corps Priority Areas in addition to the national areas and directed
the holders of real power in Vietnam, the Corps Commanders, to support rural
construction in their areas. The combined campaign for 1966 was published by
the U. S. Military Assistance Command and the Vietnamese Joint General Staff
on 31 December 1965 and linked the U. S. and Vietnamese military plans with
rural construction. But progress was slow in 1966. Civilian rural
construction activities suffered from the lack of trained cadres, i.e.,
organizing personnel, to provide the leadership at the hamlet level for the
reestablishment of government control. But the government continued to press
for rural improvement and its determination was revealed in the change of the
8
term rural construction to the more forceful expression, revolutionary
development. With the graduation of the first revolutionary development cadres
in May 1966, and the aggressive leadership of the Minister of Revolutionary
Development, the government's program began to edge forward after the middle
of 1966. Military activities proved to be the vital flaw in the revolutionary
development program. The government planners bad not given enough firm and
precise direction to the armed forces regarding their role. The Vietnamese
armed forces continued to carry out the task of combatting the main force of
the Viet Cong and failed to provide the security required to ensure the
success of the revolutionary development groups. Security devolved on the
Regional and Popular Forces; but, they remained too weak to provide adequate
security without substantial reinforcement by the Vietnamese army.
Rural construction had become by December 1965 the thread which
productively held together the military and the civil efforts of the Republic.
The plans for rural construction not only coordinated the Republican military
and civil activities but also related them to the U. S. and Free World
military, political, and humanitarian aid programs. Rural construction became
the government's coordinated plan for survival. No Ministry of Rural
Construction existed in Vietnam throughout 1965. By 12 October 1965, however,
a Secretary of State for Rural Construction had been created and Aspirant
General Nguyen Duc Thang became first holder of the position. Later, in the
national government's reorganization of 21 February 1966, General Thang became
Secretary of State for Revolutionary Development within the Ministry of War
and Construction. By July 1966, however, Thang had become Minister of
Revolutionary Development with two secretaries of state operating under his
direction.<11>
Rural construction evolved from late 1965 onwards as the attempt of the
national government to reestablish its control over the basic, traditional
Vietnamese political groupment--the hamlet. Hamlets had been part of
Vietnamese peasant life for over two millenniums; they were political bedrock
for the Vietnamese nation. The importance of the hamlet was shown in the late
1940's when the Viet Minh, rural revolutionaries extraordinary, were forced to
create the grouped village, an administrative superstructure used to control
the hamlets. But the grouped village existed in Vietnam only insofar as it
was comprised of a certain number of hamlets. The war has been fought around
the latter which have borne the brunt of destruction. General Thang, with a
keen sense of historical reality, recognized their importance for both sides
in the present struggle. He designed the revolutionary development program to
rebuild the basic structure of traditional Vietnamese life and at the same
time bring about beneficial change in the life of the Vietnamese peasant.<12>
9
The spearhead of the rural construction program had been the People's
Action Teams (PATs), 40-man groups which began the process of political and
social change in secured areas. At the end of 1965 the Vietnamese began to
train more effective personnel called Revolutionary Development Cadre (RD
Cadre) who were organized into 59-man Revolutionary Development Groups (RD
Groups). General Thang's most important task, outside of coordinating the
support of the Vietnamese and the U. S. governments behind revolutionary
development, has been the training of the young men who would drive the
program into the political and social foundation of Vietnam. The battlefield
of the struggle for change in 1965 and 1966 was in the areas where the PATs
and later the RD Groups were committed. The Marine Corps quickly sensed the
importance of revolutionary development and by the turn of 1966 emphasized
civic action and psychological warfare in direct support of revolutionary
development.
10
Chapter III
Military Civic Action in Vietnam
Military civic action is something which used the formidable potential of
armed and disciplined military organizations to accomplish difficult civil
tasks. History had shown that men could do anything with bayonets except sit
on them, and this general notice was well taken in the case of Vietnam.<1> In
Vietnam, sitting on bayonets in the 1960s would have been using the Allied
armed forces only for large unit actions against the elusive main forces of
the Viet Cong. But had the Allies followed that course of action, the
struggle for control of the Vietnamese peasantry by the GVN would have
remained unaffected because the Viet Cong infrastructure would have been more
than a match for the local Vietnamese government. The Allied armed forces
were the most effective organizations for the supression of the guerrilla
terror and had to be used in a concept which was balanced between combat
against the main forces of the Viet Cong and security for local government.
Well before intervening with major ground forces at the request of the
GVN in 1965, the U. S Government had realized the importance of military
organizations in accomplishing beneficial change in countries which were
modernizing themselves. By 1962, "U. S. military and assistance legislation
and directives provide [d] that military assistance programs should encourage
the use of local military and paramilitary forces in developing countries on
projects helpful to social and economic development."<2> The U. S. Government
encouraged the use of the ARVN for operations in support of pacification. But
the ARVN operations were weakly developed because of the expressed view that
economic and social aid by the armed forces should not "detract from
capabilities to perform primary military missions."<3>
Operations against the main force of the Viet Cong, however, were only
one part of the ARVN struggle to support the central objective of the war in
Vietnam. That objective--the creation of a Government of the Republic of
Vietnam viable enough to crush the insurgency and to resist future aggression
--was too difficult to tie up the ARVN simply in the defense of fixed
installations and actions against the main force of the Viet Cong. In the
existing war the immediate objective was to create a civilian population
confident enough of the protection of the GVN to expose the presence and
movements of the insurgents. The central reality of the war was a Vietnamese
population which was overwhelmingly rural. As a result, both the ARVN and the
Marine Corps had to support local, rural government scattered through myriad
hamlets and connected by a primitive communications
11
network. Marine Corps support, for example, had to range far beyond the
static defense of air installations.
Rural Construction
The Marine Corps, however, was an organization which did not exist to
create a program for viable government in a foreign state. That program lay
with the GVN, and existed in spite of the dislocation of 1963-1965. In 1965,
rural construction was the term describing the government's program to secure
the central objective of the war.<4> The government's plan was a sound one
which concentrated on the central reality of life in the new state--a
primitive, rural way of existence.<5> The program was of paramount importance
to the Marine Corps. Success of the program promised victory over the Viet
Cong, stability for the Republic, and the release of U. S. military forces.
The rural construction program was comprised of:
The integrated military and civil process to restore, consolidate,
and expand governmental control so that nation building [could]
progress throughout the Republic of Vietnam. It consist[ed] of those
coordinated military and civil actions to liberate the people from VC
control, restore public security, initiate political and economic
development, extend effective government authority and win the willing
support of the people towards those ends.<6>
The definition was dry but the program was important. How was military
civic action related to rural construction? Civic action was largely the
friendly military plan of support for rural construction. It existed in close
coordination with large and small unit combat operations against the Viet
Cong. Military civic action in March 1965 was by theoretical definition
primarily a function of the ARVN. But no directives existed discouraging
U. S. military participation in civic action; to the contrary, U. S. military
forces were encouraged to participate. The following Marine Corps definition
of military civic action concentrates on the role of the indigenous armed
forces in the support of government but it also ties in the efforts of U. S.
forces:
The use of preponderantly indigenous military forces on projects
useful to the local population at all levels in fields such as
education, training, public works, agriculture, transportation,
communications, health, sanitation, and other contributing to
economic and social development, which would also serve to improve
the standing of the military forces with the population (U. S. forces
may at [any time] advise or engage in military civic actions in
overseas areas).<7>
12
FIGURE NOT AVAILABLE
Combined Action Companies had two missions. The first was that of
providing security for Vietnamese peasants. The second, shown here, was the
encouraging of self-help projects among the villagers. In this scene Cpl Earl
J. Suter helps to build a shelter for his CAC squad at Thuy Luong two miles
south of Hue/Phu Bai on 25 September 1965. (USMC A185707)
FIGURE NOT AVAILABLE
Food for the needy: the Distribution of food began to reach major
proportions by the end of 1965. In this photograph taken at Tra Kieu near Da
Nang on 17 August 1965, two officers of MAG-16 present supplies received from
the U.S. Agency for International Development to the village priest for
distribution to the local orphanage and old people's home. (USMC A184979)
12a
This general definition was valid for the military organizations of
states throughout the world in the process of peaceful technical change. But
the definition was not precise enough for the Vietnamese situation. In
Vietnam, military civic action served to link together the formal combat
effort of the military forces with the political, social, and economic
reconstruction efforts of the GVN. Civic action harnessed energies of both
the ARVN and the Marine Corps, which remained after the formal combat
commitments, to the tasks of rural construction.
The Place of Marine Corps Civic Action
in the Vietnamese War
The question then arose: where did Marine Corps civic action fit in with
the overall struggle in Vietnam? This question had to be answered before the
civic actions of the Marine Corps could have real meaning. Chart Number One
presents the situation graphically. The total Marine Corps effort in the
triple sense of large unit, counterguerrilla, and civic actions was part of a
larger effort to control and reconstruct Vietnam and to defeat the Viet Cong.
The Commanding General, III Marine Amphibious Force (CG, III MAF) was highly
placed in the U. S. chain of military command and after August 1965, he
functioned as Senior Military, Advisor to the Vietnamese general commanding
the First Military Region. Additionally, the CG, III MAF, coordinated his
operations with the programs of the various U. S. Government agencies and
departments. The Vietnamese political effort was controlled by the general
commanding the First Military Region; but that effort functioned largely
through the local civilian officials who were supported technically by the
national ministeries.<8>
Marine Corps civic action also had to be set in the political context of
U. S. involvement in a revolutionary situation in a sovereign state.<9> The
basic premise of U. S. involvement was the protection of U. S. and Free World
interests in SE Asia. These interests were best served by the support of the
existing Government of Vietnam. But because of the political sovereignty of
Vietnam, U. S. support for the Vietnamese government had to take the form of
support for that government's chosen plan for survival. For example, large
unit ground actions by the Marine Corps were ultimately effective only if they
reinforced the stability of the South Vietnamese government and advanced its
survival plan.
13
The Coordination of Civic Action and
Vietnamese Plans for Survival
Marine Corps civic action had to be coordinated with all of the
activities supporting Vietnamese revolutionary development and had to take
into account the total availability of resources to be really effective.<10>
For example, Marine assistance in the construction of a hamlet schoolhouse was
a frustrating event for the local population and the Marine Corps alike if no
teachers were available to grace the school. The Marine Corps was unable to
create Vietnamese teachers, and the local hamlet or village government was
also unable to manufacture them. Coordination with the higher levels of
government concerning the availability of both human and material resources
was one of the keys to success. Generally the Marine Corps had to coordinate
with the following general entities: (1) the Vietnamese government (district,
provincials regional levels), (2) U. S. Government agencies and departments
and (3) private U. S. relief organizations. Coordination was mandatory if any
lasting effect were to be obtained from civic action. It was probably
accurate to say that effective Marine Corps civic action began with Major
General Lewis W. Walt's formation in August 1965 of a Joint Coordinating
Council for the I Corps Tactical Zone (ICTZ). General Walt, who had become
commanding general of the III Marine Amphibious Force (III MAF) in June 1965,
was aware of the immense process of historical change taking place in Vietnam
and was determined to join that process and reinforce in a direction favorable
to the Vietnamese government.<11>
The direction which was sensed by him as being decisive in midsummer 1965
was support of Vietnamese rural construction. By August 1965, with his
appointment as Senior Military Advisor to the Commanding General, I Corps,
General Walt began to implement a coordinated civic action program with the
formation of a council which would include representatives of all of the
organizations in the I Corps Tactical Zone supporting rural construction. The
purpose of the council was to coordinate the services and resources of all
organizations military, civilian and private, in support of rural
construction. The thread which began to run through Marine Corps civic action
after August 1965 was that of self-effacing support for Vietnamese rural
construction.
14
FIGURE NOT AVAILABLE
CHART NUMBER ONE
US/GVN REVOLUTIONARY DEVELOPMENT STRUCTURE - MARCH 1956
14a
Chapter IV
The Landing of Major Marine Corps Air and Ground Forces
in South Vietnam and the Early Development
of Civic Action: March-July 1965
Background
By March 1964, the United States Government realized that its hopes of an
early ending to the conflict in South Vietnam were premature. General Maxwell
D. Taylor, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated that the Viet Cong
had taken advantage of the instability of the Vietnamese Government and the
lack of coordination and diffusion in the strategic hamlet program (the
forerunner of revolutionary development) to make vast gains.<1> The Viet Cong
had negated the strategic hamlet operations and had passed over to the
offensive, launching major daylight attacks against the ARVN. The situation
was plainly deteriorating and by the end of 1964 the U. S. advisory effort was
built up to a total of 20,000 personnel. The situation in Southeast Asia had
deteriorated in other ways also. Various ties had existed between the Viet
Cong and the Democratic Republic of North Vietnam since the beginning of the
struggle in 1956; but, in 1964 North Vietnamese assistance had become concrete
in the form of massive infiltration by the North Vietnamese Army into the
south. A precarious balance, at best, had existed in South Vietnam late in
1963. By late 1964, North Vietnamese intervention and the gains of the Viet
Cong in combination with the internal instability in the south, threatened to
destroy the balance.<2>
At the turn of 1965, the Viet Cong supported by elements of the North
Vietnamese Army including the major part of the 325TH DIVISION maintained
heavy military pressure against the GVN. The full measure of Viet Cong
confidence was revealed in the impolitic attack on the U. S. military compound
at Pleiku. The Viet Cong, for whom the essence of the struggle was political,
took leave of sound political judgement in creating the incident. President
Lyndon B. Johnson had made it clear that the communist tactics of force and
intimidation against the GVN were not an acceptable means of social and
economic change even though change was the common goal of both the United
States and the two Vietnams. The attack at Pleiku focused violence against
the U. S. Government, furnished stark evidence of the method of advance by
force, and resulted in a reaction so powerful that the heady smell of
communist victory turned to one of aid-station antiseptic. Roses turned to
iodine as the Viet Cong realized that force indeed was the ultimate arbitor in
the world of competing sovereign states.
15
The Landing of Major Marine Combat Forces
The United States began to bomb "selected" targets in North Vietnam in
February 1965, and under the pressure of bold Viet Cong advances, sent the
first major ground combatant forces into the Republic. Early on Monday
morning 8 March 1965, Marines under the direction of the Headquarters, 9th
Marine Expeditionary Brigade (MEB) landed by sea and air close to Da Nang,
Quang Nam province, Republic of Vietnam. Although the intervention of ground
forces ultimately ensured the survival of the Republic, the immediate physical
effect on military operations in Vietnam was negligible. Brigadier General
Frederick C. Karch, Commanding General, 9th MEB had only two battalion landing
teams (BLTs) under his command with supporting and reinforcing air, artillery,
antiaircraft, engineer, and logistics organizations. The most significant
factor, though, which restricted Marine Corps operations was the Vietnamese
government's fear concerning its own sovereignty. The 9th MEB was originally
restricted to a few square miles of territory in several different locations.
The locations became known as Tactical Areas of Responsibility (TAORs) and the
Vietnamese restricted Marine Corps operations to those areas. The mission of
the 9th MEB was strictly defensive--to secure the Da Nang Airbase. And the
defense, in deference to the wishes of the Vietnamese government was to extend
no farther than the tight limits of the assigned TAORs.<3>
Neither the national nor the local Vietnamese government was able to
predict the reaction of the populace to the Marine corps--a foreign ground
combat force. The inpredictability of the civilian reaction forced a
gradualist approach on the GVN. The government isolated the Marines first
within the perimeter of the uninhabited air base and then to Hills 327 and 268
(heights in meters) immediately west of the base. The hills were also
practically uninhabited.<4> The TAOR, which was physically divided into two
parts, had an area of only eight square miles and included the sparse
population of 1,930 civilians. The Marines outnumbered the civilian
population within the TAOR and remained sealed off from the rest of the
people. The Marines were separated psychologically from the people by the
limited defensive mission and physically by wire obstacles and cleared fields
of fire.<5>
The Beginnings of Marine Corps Civic Action
Marine Corps civic action during the period 8 March-20 April 1965 was
sharply restricted by the Marine Corps isolation. Civic action consisted
primarily of spontaneous acts of commiseration and charity by individual
Marines towards a small population whose pacification was largely extraneous
to the tightly circumscribed Marine Corps mission. The concept of purposeful
Marine Corps civic action to support the GVN was absent during March 1965 and
most of April. The 9th MEB was
16
keenly aware of the importance of popularizing the presence of Marines in
Vietnam but with the continuing buildup and the emphasis on static positions
in the absence of room for maneuver, neither the need nor the opportunity for
civic action arose. Marine Corps efforts to popularize the presence of the
9th MEB could be characterized by the words limited people-to-people contact.
No full-time Civil Affairs Officers existed at battalion or squadron level.
And the Civil Affairs Officers at brigade level, and after 15 April 1965, with
the 3d Marines, were simply not in the mainstream of concern in March and
April 1965. The Marine Corps was busy getting ashore. And during the first
two months, "ashore" was a humble area divorced from the great struggle for
the loyalty of the Vietnamese people.<6>
The Vietnamese government was only gradually relieved of its nervousness
about the presence of Marines. By early April 1965, however, the general
indifference of the civilian population to the Marine Corps landing was
apparent. The care taken by the Marine Corps to reduce friction between
Marines and Vietnamese civilians made a favorable impression which was
reinforced by the embryonic but positive and sincere efforts of the individual
Marine to relieve misery wherever it was present. At the same time it became
apparent that the Marine Corps needed to establish control over areas well
beyond the fixed perimeter of the Da Nang Airbase to ensure its security. On
20 April 1965, after discussion and coordination between the CG, 9th MEB and
the CG, ICTZ, the Marine Corps began to patrol forward in its TAORs beyond the
wire and other obstacles of the static positions. Soldiers and civil affairs
personnel of the ARVN accompanied the Marine patrols which were intended to
make the local villagers aware of the presence of the Marine Corps and to
allow the Marines to meet the local governing officials on a face-to-face
basis.<7>
On 10 April 1965, several days prior to the time that units of the 9th
MEB began to patrol forward in their TAORs, the Da Nang area of responsibility
was expanded from eight to twelve square miles. Although the total area of
responsibility remained small, the population jumped several hundred percent
to the substantial total of 11,441 civilians. On the same day, the number of
BLTs in Vietnam rose from two to three with the arrival of BLT 2/3, i.e., the
BLT formed around the 2d Battalion, 3d Marines. One day later, elements of
that organization were lifted by helicopter to the village of Hue/Phu Bai (see
Map Number Three) with the mission of temporarily securing the airfield and
the radio station located there. On 14-15 April 1965, the strength of the 9th
MEB rose to a total of four BLTs with the arrival of BLT 3/4. This combat
organization was committed in the Hue/Bhu Bai area and relieved the units
which had temporarily secured the air and radio installations. The two
additional battalions accentuated the lack of room for maneuver for the Marine
Corps units within the enlarged but
17
still sharply restricted TAORs.<8>
Summary: March-April 1965
The Marine Corps carried out a combat mission in March 1965 which
entailed an extensive buildup of strength and the simultaneous orientation to
the realities of war in Vietnam. The initial problems of building from a void
in ground combat strength at the water's (and airfield's) edge to strength
capable of carrying out the assigned mission were those simply of getting
ashore. Although the landing was unopposed and several hundred Marines had
been ashore in various missions prior to the landing of the 9th MEB, the task
demanded the full concentration of the Headquarters, 9th MEB, and the maneuver
and supporting elements.
The strictly circumscribed mission of the Marine Corps and the low
population of the operating areas limited contact with the civilian
population. Both the mission and the operating areas permitted by the
sovereign Republic of Vietnam reflected profound fear of U. S. military
strength. The Republic had no way of gauging the reaction of a restless, war-
weary peasantry to the intrusion of an obviously foreign, e.g.,
caucasian/negro ground force. The ARVN, which had become partly separated
from the population through its emphasis on operations against the main force
of the Viet Cong, did not offer a comforting precedent for the arrival of a
new military force in the country. The Republican government and the ARVN
expected and were prepared for difficulty and reduced the contact between
Marines and the peasantry to a minimum. The Marine Corps preoccupation with
the buildup of strength and the Vietnamese concern over protecting the
sovereignty of the Republic permitted only a moderate amount of spontaneous
civic action and practically no well-organized activity in March-April 1965.
The Expanding Marine Corps Effort:
Formation of the III Marine Amphibious Force
Late in April 1965 the decision was made to establish a new TAOR for the
Marine Corps which would include the area eventually known as Chu Lai, a sandy
uncultivated waste near An Tan, Quang Tin Province, lying approximately 75
miles south east of Da Nang by road. The Marine Corps chose this uninhabited
area for use as an airbase for Marine Corps fighter and attack aircraft and a
center for the support of the GVN in the nearby heavily populated coastal
areas of Northern Quang Ngai Province and Central Quang Tin.<9> To secure the
Chu Lai area the Marine Corps had to commit a force substantial enough to move
the center of gravity of the 3d Marine Division from Okinawa to the Republic
of Vietnam. The results of the commitment of the 3d Marine Expeditionary
Brigade at Chu Lai on 7 May 1965 were
18
far-reaching. The place of the division commander was in Vietnam with the
bulk of his division. The Marine Corps concept of the air-ground team also
required the presence of an equivalent air element. In a swift rush of
events, the HQ, III MEF a command element senior enough to control a division-
wing organization, established itself ashore at Da Nang at 0800, 6 May 1965.
Almost simultaneously the Headquarters, 3d Marine Division (-) (Reinforced)
(Forward) arrived and was activated at Da Nang. One day later on 7 May 1965,
III Marine Expeditionary Force was redesignated III Marine Amphibious Force
(III MAF) for political reasons. The word, expeditionary, smacked too much of
the gunboat imperialism of a bygone era and had been used by the French forces
which entered Vietnam at the end of the Second World War. Less than one week
later the Headquarters, 1st Marine Air Wing (MAW) (Advanced) was established
at the Da Nang Airbase. On 12 May 1965, when the Chu Lai amphibious operation
terminated, command of all of the Marine Corps landing force elements in
Vietnam passed to the CG, III MAF.<10>
The massive buildup of early May shifted the Marine Corps mission away
from a tightly circumscribed defensive one. By 12 May 1965, seven battalions
stood in Vietnam and were deployed within three TAORs totalling the modest
area of 15 square miles. The battalions were more than capable of defending
their assigned areas. Therein lay the inefficiency of the situation. They
had the mobility, firepower, and numbers to keep the Viet Cong at far greater
distances than those involved in holding 15 square miles. Additionally, the
presence of the Viet Cong infrastructure became familiar to Marines as an
enemy closer and more real than the main force of the Viet Cong. III MAF
required room for offensive maneuver forward of the tight perimeters which had
been established around the airfields and radio installations. And the GVN
needed the security that the Marine Corps combat units could provide in
support of rural construction and the offensive strength which could be used
against the main force of the Viet Cong. The situation in which more than
14,000 Marines were defending several square miles containing approximately
14,000 civilians was untenable in the light of the desperate situation of the
GVN.
In May 1965, a civic action effort began which was advanced beyond the
stage of spontaneous people-to-people contact between Marines and Vietnamese
civilians. Between 4-10 May 1965, BLT 2/3, which was assigned the TAOR
northwest of Da Nang, cleared the village of Le My (also known as Hoa Loc)
(see Map Number One). For the following reason, however, the experience was a
frustrating one which served to introduce more advanced Marine Corps civic
action into Vietnam. Lieutenant Colonel David A. Clement, Commanding Officer,
2d Battalion, 3d Marines, who had cooperated closely with the Chief of the Hoa
Vang District during the clearing operation, realized almost instinctively
that his strenuous efforts would be negated unless continuing pressure was
brought to bear on the remnants of the Viet Cong
19
infrastructure in Le My village. Accordingly, the first complete pacification
in which Marines were involved began in earnest on 11 May 1965 after the
elimination of most of the Viet Cong from The My.<11>
Farther south in the TAOR located at Chu Thai, the arrival of a third BLT
on 12 May 1965 gave the Marine Corps a chance to conduct offensive action in
support of Vietnamese rural construction. The airfield which was being
constructed at Chu Lai from Airfield Matting, AM2 (aluminum alloy material),
was located only a few hundred meters from the South China Sea. The perimeter
was unusually easy to defend with one side being close to the sea, the
immediate area uninhabited, and the general area sparsely peopled. As a
result, the three BLTs were more than adequate for the defense and were able
to conduct offensive operations both along the coast and inland.
Effective 25 May 1965, the GVN authorized the first major expansion of
the Marine Corps TAORs. Until that date the Marine Corps landing force had
been literally bulging out of its operating areas especially in the Chu Thai
area. The Da Nang TAOR was expanded to the impressive total of 156 square
miles and included a civilian population of 46,146 persons. The GVN also
expanded the Chu Thai and the Hue/Phu Bai TAORs, and the Marine Corps became
responsible for the protection of a total area of 239 square miles with a
civilian population of approximately 77,000 persons.<12> In the Chu Thai
area, favorable opportunities arose for civic action, and the 4th Regimental
Landing Team (redesignated on 12 May 1965 as 4th Marines) produced results on
the basis of local initiative. The 4th Marines directed its efforts towards
building civilian confidence in the Marine Corps and acquiring intelligence
about the Viet Cong.
Advancing Concepts of Civic Action: May-June 1965
Early in May 1965, the Civil Affairs Officer of III MAF, Major Charles J.
Keever, had arrived in Vietnam and had proposed a concept for civic action.
Additionally, he began to write instructions for the reporting of civic action
activities. But coordination with the U. S. and Vietnamese government
agencies and the U. S. private relief organizations in order to formulate an
effective civic action program was a time consuming task. The Civil Affairs
Officer made staff visits in the Chu Thai and Da Nang areas to get information
about the Vietnamese people and the details of their home life as well as the
civic action activities of the Marine Corps combat and supporting units. HQ,
III MAF greatly expanded its functions of coordination within its TAORs as a
result of the Letter of Instruction of 29 May 1965 from the Commander, U. S.
Military Advisory Command, Vietnam (ComUSMACV), appointing the CG, III MAF, as
Special Area Coordinator for the Da Nang area. The CG,
20
III MAF, became responsible for liaison with local military and civilian
leaders concerning matters involving U. S. military personnel.<13> By the end
of May, the Civil Affairs Officer of III MAF was functioning within a large
area permeated by the clandestine Viet Cong political apparatus. The Marine
Corps began to rub shoulders with the Viet Cong infrastructure and the
friction which was created helped to impress on HQ, III MAF, the importance of
Vietnamese rural construction. The CG, III MAF, and his Civil Affairs Officer
(CAO) began to realize the importance of directing Marine Corps civic action
towards support of the governing officials of the Republic and the Vietnamese
program of rural construction.
On 7 June 1965, HQ, III MAF, now under the leadership of Major General
Lewis W. Walt, promulgated concepts of civic action for the Republic of
Vietnam.<14> General Walt had arrived in Vietnam on 30 May 1965 and had
assumed command of III MAF on 4 June 1965 from Major General William R.
Collins. As events would show, he was extraordinarily interested in supporting
Vietnamese plans for rural construction. The instructions issued under his
authority proved unusually durable. HQ, III MAF, correctly identified the
government's rural problems and began to establish the mission and the concept
of operations to assist the Republic in overcoming the attack on its
authority.<15> The order of III MAF left little doubt that civic action in
support of the hard pressed local government and not "civil affairs/military
government operations as that term is normally understood" would be the basis
of Marine Corps action.<16> The spirit came out strongly in the following
part of the concept of operations:
Civic action will be conducted as needed and/or requested
in a guest-host relationship with the government of the Republic
of Vietnam. Reliance will be placed upon agreement and cooperation
for the achievement of mutually advantageous objectives of the two
governments.<17>
Civic Action in Vietnam:
the Picture at the End of June 1965
In June 1965, however, civic action in Vietnam at the battalion level
remained in the advanced stages of a people-to-people program. The complete
cycle of rural construction was being carried out only in Le My where
unusually favorably circumstances had permitted the 2d Battalion, 3d Marines,
to occupy the village and to cooperate with the district and village governing
authorities. Elsewhere in June in the ICTZ, the Vietnamese government
approved a massive expansion of the Marine Corps TAORs. As a direct result,
the Marine Corps began an aggressive program of counterguerrilla operations in
the midst of a moderately dense civilian population.<18> As the Marine
21
Corps began to contact the Viet Cong infrastructure through its operation at
Le My and as a result of the counterguerrilla effort, it also began to
coordinate its assistance to the rural population with the numerous U. S.
government agencies in ICTZ. Simultaneously, various private U. S. assistance
and relief organizations both in Vietnam and in the United States began to be
synchronized with Marine Corps civic action. Finally, the first attack
aircraft arrived at the Chu Lai airfield on 1 June 1965 and encouraged deeper
moves against the main force of the Viet Cong, further expansion of the TAORs,
and more sophisticated civic action.
III MAF had established an effective program of medical support for the
rural population by June 1965. Permanent programs were set up in several
fixed locations as contrasted with the numerous but irregular contacts made by
individual Navy medical corpsmen operating with the daylight patrols. On 15
May 1965 at Le My, the 2d Battalion, 3d Marines, had begun to support a daily
medical service. Corpsmen assisted local health workers there in providing
medical treatment to the local people and helped to instruct the government
medical trainees. The situation at Le My was ideal. The battalion was
committed to the support of the Vietnamese rural construction cycle hereby the
village would be returned to the control of local officials of the Republican
government. Lieutenant Colonel Clement's battalion ensured the immediate
physical security of the village and encouraged a self-help attitude amongst
the officials and the citizens which would free the battalion as soon as
possible from its support and security functions. The Marine Corps treated
approximately 3,000 villagers each week at Le My; and, often the people
required immediate evacuation to hospital facilities.<19>
Late in June and farther north in the Hue/Phu Bai TAOR, Lieutenant
Colonel William W. Taylor's 3d Battalion, 4th Marines, established a weekly
medical service in the villages of Thuy Phu, Thuy Long, and Thuy Than.<20>
Civic action had developed slowly at Hue/Phu Bai because of the military and
the demographic situations. There the 3d Battalion, 4th Marines was in an
unusual tactical position. It was a single battalion defending an airfield
and radio station isolated from the two large Marine Corps TAORs at Da Nang
and Chu Lai. The defensive situation at Hue/Phu Bai was inherently more
difficult than in the other Marine Corps areas; for example, no part of the
TAOR at Hue/Phu Bai lay on the sea. The isolated and land-bound position of
the 3d Battalion, 4th Marines was responsible for the battalion's emphasis on
tactics and eventually the hard type of civic action, i.e., civic action which
stressed security measures. The battalion's TAOR was also sparsely populated
with most of the area hilly, covered with clear forest, and totally
uninhabited.
22
During the first half of June 1965, the battalion had concentrated on
visits by medical teams supported by powerful security detachments. The
visits were important because of their immediate impact and their
effectiveness in meeting a basic need of the peasantry. But the visits were
irregular and had the nature of a warm, humanitarian gift rather than
impersonal direct support for the local Vietnamese government. The battalion
described its medical civic action as people-to-people medical assistance
visits; the description illustrated the almost private nature of civic action
as late as mid-June 1965.<21> But with the expansion of the TAOR on 15 June
1965 from 38 to 61 square miles, the civilian population increased from 8,000
to roughly 18,000 persons.<22> This latest expansion combined with the
precise yet flexible instructions from HQ, III MAF helped to transform civic
action into a regular program which would support the expanding
counterguerrilla operations in the area and ultimately buttress Vietnamese
rural construction.
In the Chu Lai area, two of the infantry battalions had established
regular medical service by June 1965 while the 3d Battalion, 12th Marines, a
more centrally located artillery battalion, provided a daily dispensary
service in conjunction with Company B, 3d Medical Battalion. The Marine Corps
TAOR around Chu Lai was expanded during June, and by the latter half of the
month the Vietnamese government had given the Marine Corps the authority to
conduct unilateral offensive operations within its limits. The Marine Corps
began to place greater emphasis on patrolling and ambushing far out in the
TAOR. The Marines developed a coherent system of defensive positions to stop
enemy attacks which was known as the Forward Edge of the Battle Area (FEBA).
The Marine Corps intended to protect the Chu Lai airfield by vigorous
offensive action far from the field and anchored on the fixed positions of the
FEBA. The rise in patrolling activity increased the necessity for a regular
civic action program coordinated with the local Vietnamese officials. The 2d
Battalion, 4th Marines began to operate a medical aid station at Ky Lien
village every other day. Corpsmen provided medical treatment for 100-200
people during each visit of the medical team. The 3d Battalion, 3d Marines
also provided medical assistance on a regular basis in its area of
responsibility in the southern part of the Chu Lai TAOR in the District of
Binh Son, Quang Ngai Province.<23> Between 25 May-15 June 1965, the TAOR was
expanded from 55 to 101 square miles and the population increased from 23,000
to almost 56,000 civilians.<24> These changes in area and population
initially interfered with the development and the continuity of Marine Corps
civic action by focusing Marine Corps energies on the construction of new
defensive positions as the FEBA expanded inland from the South China Sea.
The rough edges of Marine Corps civic action were still apparent in June
1965. First Lieutenant William F. B. Francis,
23
who had become Civil Affairs Officer of the 3d Marines on 15 April 1965,
presented a picture of civic action which substantiated the preoccupation of
the infantry battalions with tactical missions and the association of civic
action with superficial people-to-people contact. Francis also made it clear
that the other U. S. military units in Vietnam in April 1965 had little to
offer in the way of useful precedents. He met a problem of obtaining basic
supplies, e.g., medicine, food, and clothing, for a civic action program and
was forced to obtain them largely as gifts. Clear, legitimate channels of
requisitioning and funding for civic action supplies took time to establish.
Coordination between the Marine Corps and the various relief agencies
including the U. S. Agency for International Development and the Catholic
Relief Society (USAID and CRS) was slow in developing. Only a gratuitous
trickle of supplies for civic action was received until late June 1965.<25>
Lieutenant Francis believed that the medical program in 1965 was the most
important one in civic action. He emphasized the necessity for continuity in
medical civic action and stated that "to treat [the people] once and let them
go did absolutely nothing... They felt better for a little while, but really
it was ineffective unless continued treatment were available."<26> Francis
was critical of "pill patrols" amongst the Special Forces, or small patrols
accompanied by medical personnel who would provide simple first aid. He
emphasized that the irregular approach represented by the small combat or
reconnaissance patrol "was almost a gimmick to win the favor and attention of
the people [in order] to gain their confidence."<27> A medical facility
operating at a fixed well-known location in conjunction with a training
program for Vietnamese health workers was the best approach. Francis' basic
opinion of the civil affairs effort in Vietnam during the early summer of 1965
was that the action "was enthusiastic but it was disorganized....just sort of
groping and feeling with inadequate supplies and personnel."<28>
Captain Lionel V. Silva, the Civil Affairs Officer of the 2d Battalion,
3d Marines painted a somewhat different picture. His battalion engaged in an
operation in the Le My area designed to clear the Viet Cong from the village
complex and to secure the area for the GVN. The battalion commander and
Captain Silva soon learned that the temporary clearing of the Viet Cong was
relatively simple; for example, after one week of shooting there were no more
rifle-carrying Viet Cong within the village complex. But the card-carrying
Viet Cong of the infrastructure remained and the population had not changed
from its apathetic attitude towards the government. Lieutenant Colonel
Clement, the battalion commander, thereupon decided to make his stand in the
village itself. Clement was fortunate in the location of his TAOR. The
larger Da Nang TAOR was expanded several times during the pacification
campaign, but the 2d Battalion, 3d Marine
24
FIGURE NOT AVAILABLE
Toys for little girls: two small waifs receive presents furnished through
the U. S. Navy's Project Handclasp. 1stLt Brendan E. Cavanaugh makes the
presentation in the village of Noa Thanh near Da Nang on 27 August 1965. (USMC
A185025)
FIGURE NOT AVAILABLE
Candy was one of the basic commodities distributed during the early
spontaneous days of civic action. In this picture taken on 10 September 1965
LtCol William F. Donahue, CO, 2nd Battalion, 9th Marines passes out candy to
the children of Cam Ne (VI). This hamlet was located in the middle of a hard-
core VC area only four miles southwest of Da Nang. (USMC A185697)
24a
was able to secure its area of responsibility without a radical shift of its
tactical positions. Continuity proved to be the keynote of success. The
battalion established a dispensary which proved to be permanent because
Vietnamese health workers were trained to staff it and were kept alive by
Marine Corps rifles. Finally, and probably most important, local security
forces were reestablished and were aggressively supported by the people.<29>
Captain Silva, who was running the civic action program, showed insight into
the problems of successful civic action when he said "it was obvious that we
[would] not always be in the Le My area. Even though we occupied it today, we
knew that eventually our operations would necessitate our moving out."<30>
Lieutenant Colonel Clement emphasized the same point. To him the essence of
success was to create an administration supported by the people and capable of
leading, treating, feeding, and protecting them by the time that the battalion
was forced to leave.
But notwithstanding the individual success at Le My, the general picture
of Marine Corps civic action was less a calculated effort at supporting local
government and more an enthusiastic, irregular effort at medical assistance,
support for local orphanages, efforts to improve communications, and various
other activities. Lieutenant Francis painted the most accurate, general
picture of civic action for the period March-May 1965. In June, however, HQ,
III MAF provided central direction for the civic action effort in the form of
concepts of civic action and the general picture began to change.
A Stormy Month and an Expanding Mission for III MAF
The transition from June to July 1965 in Vietnam was sharp and stormy for
the Marine Corps. Early in the morning on 1 July 1965, Viet Cong forces
attacked the southern end of the Da Nang Airbase between two fortified static
posts. The attack was a raid conducted by small forces supported by 81mm
mortars and probably one 57mm recoilless rifle. The Viet Cong in a stealthy,
time-consuming operation cut their way through the wire obstacles at the
southeast end of the runway. The cutting probably took more than 1-1/2 hours
at the end of which time a coordinated attack took place. The mortars and the
recoilless rifle fired for a period of four or five minutes. The fire was
probably intended to inflict as much damage as possible while simultaneously
suppressing resistance in the immediate area of the penetration so that Viet
Cong with demolition charges could destroy the closest aircraft. The Viet
Cong inflicted moderate damage during the attack and quickly retired after the
demolitions thrust. Empty 81mm mortar cases found approximately 300 meters
east of the runway testified to the boldness of the raid and the
ineffectiveness of the boundaries of the Marine Corps TAOR. The Viet Cong had
launched their raid from an area which was not part of the Marine Corps
TAOR.<31>
25
HQ, III MAF reacted swiftly to the anomalies in the defensive situation
to the east and south of the airbase. To ensure the defense of the airbase,
the infantry battalion banning the defensive perimeter needed room to patrol,
ambush, and maneuver several thousand meters forward of the perimeter. On 5
July 1965, CG, III MAF requested from CG, I Corps permission to enlarge the
Marine Corps TAOR by moving eight kilometers into the densely populated rice
growing region south of Da Nang to ensure adequate depth for the defense of
the airbase. CG, I Corps sanctioned the expansion of the Marine Corps into
the critical area south of Da Nang on 13 July 1965. Two days later, on 15
July 1965, CG, III MAF assumed responsibility for the area. The number of
civilians under the control of the Marine Corps in the Da Nang area now
totalled approximately 126,000 persons.<32> The raid on the Da Nang Airbase
and its aftermath had deep repercussions in Marine Corps civic action. After
15 July 1965, III MAF came into direct competition with the Viet Cong for the
loyalties and the support of the Vietnamese peasantry in a critical rice
growing region immediately adjacent to a major city.
Nevertheless, Marine Corps civic action continued to have a
people-to-people, or charitable ring to it. HQ, III MAF declared the
objectives of Marine Corps civic action to be to gain support for the GVN and
to win the confidence and cooperation of the Vietnamese civilians in the
TAORS.<33> The Marine Corps, however, was not aware of the depth of
Vietnamese efforts to win the struggle politically by means of rural
construction. The Vietnamese government had placed heavy restrictions on the
size of the Marine Corps TAORs and the missions to be performed inside of them
because it doubted the ability of the Marine Corps to operate effectively in
any of the densely populated areas of I Corps Tactical Zone. These
restrictions and doubts were important reasons for the initial Marine Corps
lack of concentration on the support of rural construction. For example,
prior to 15 July 1965, the boundary of the Da Nang TAOR and the eastern
defensive wire of the airbase coincided. The Marines were literally fenced in
and physically cut off from the population to the east and south of the
airbase. And they carried out little civic action on the uninhabited runway.
From March-July 1965, medical treatment was the most important civic
action project of the Marine Corps. Teams of Marines, Navy medical corpsmen,
and interpreters visited hamlets throughout the TAORs in a more advanced
program than the original spontaneous efforts by combat patrols. In July
alone approximately 29,000 civilians were treated for various minor ailments
and a substantial number of people were evacuated for treatment of major
afflictions. The number of treatments was impressive, but the real importance
would be difficult to gauge. Medical teams made numerous treatments in
unsecured areas where an appreciative but terrorized populace was simply
unable to respond in any way beneficial to the Vietnamese cause. Probably the
most important effort by July 1965 had been made at the
26
permanent dispensary at Le My which operated on a daily schedule. The
dispensary attracted a large number of Vietnamese peasants from miles around
the village. The provision of regular service at central locations pointed
the way to increased numbers of treatments for Vietnamese peasants and greater
numbers of intelligence contacts for the Marine Corps. Probably most
important though, regular treatment at fixed locations enabled the Marine
Corps to train Vietnamese personnel to assist and eventually run the health
centers which the people had come to appreciate. Short-term, high-impact
medical visits at irregular times and in varying locations continued to be
made effectively after July 1965.<34> But after that month a gradual shift
began towards more direct support of the Vietnamese government in the form of
regular service and the training of Vietnamese rural health workers.
Other civic action programs ranked below medical assistance in both
general importance and immediate impact in the period March-July 1965. But
some of the other programs were unusually simple and effective. A thing so
humble in the United States as soap highlighted an important reality of
disease and infection in Vietnam. Approximately 75 percent of the ailments
treated by the medical teams were skin infections caused largely by the lack
of knowledge of basic hygiene among mothers and persons who were responsible
for the care of small children. The Vietnamese peasant quickly accepted soap
as a beneficial addition to his existence. The transfer of soap between
Marines and Vietnamese civilians became an important part of civic action from
the lowest through the highest levels in III MAF. And the CG, Fleet Marine
Force, Pacific (FMFPac) supported a campaign in the United States to collect
soap for civic action.<35>
Units of III MAF distributed food and clothing in large quantities in
South Vietnam. Sources of these basic commodities varied enormously and
helped to direct Marine Corps attention to the problems of coordination among
the numerous agencies and organizations competing to assist the rural
population. Unused military rations, e.g., types C, B, and A, were passed on
to especially needy Vietnamese individuals and families by Marine Corps units.
In contrast with this spontaneous activity, III MAF received substantial
quantities of wheat from the Catholic Relief Services, a powerful U.S. private
relief organization which donated over 6,000 pounds of bulgur (a type of
parched, crushed wheat) and delivered it to units of III MAF in Vietnam.<36>
Clothing was a critical need for the Vietnamese people also, especially among
the younger children. Parents and elders were often well-clothed because of
their productive functions in a primitive rural society, but they neglected
the satisfactory clothing of their younger children. The hot and humid
climate of Vietnam was the reason for the physical neglect. The parents, who
were certainly not apathetic towards their children, saw little reason for
concern over clothing
27
of the younger ones. But footwear, light clothes, and hats were necessary to
counteract the hazards of infections from punctures, infestation by worms, and
the effects of the sun. The July temperature variation was a hazard also;
scantily clad or naked children were apt to have common colds turn into
serious upper respiratory infections and pneumonia. The Commanding Officer,
4th Marines was prompted by the needs of the peasants in the Chu Lai area to
request his wife on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, to organize a drive for
clothing and send the collected material to his regiment. Marine Corps wives
on Oahu collected over 1,000 pounds of clothing for this humanitarian purpose,
and the Marines in the Chu Lai TAOR distributed it to the most needy
individuals and families that they were able to find through coordination with
the local authorities.<37>
The Cooperative for American Relief Everywhere (CARE> and Project
HANDCLASP were additional sources of civic action materials. CARE was a
nonprofit, joint organization of 26 accredited American service agencies which
had been formed in 1945 to help Americans overseas. Since that time, CARE has
changed its emphasis to help human beings everywhere and has delivered almost
one billion dollars worth of supplies overseas.<38> Project HANDCLASP was an
official Navy program which had been formed in 1962 to promote mutual
understanding between Americans and citizens of other lands. In June 1965,
the Marine Corps units in Vietnam were brought into the program and shortly
after that month began to receive HANDCLASP supplies for their civic action
programs.<39>
On 5 July 1965, the first CARE supplies for III MAF arrive in Vietnam;
the shipment was a humble beginning for a program with important possibilities
for expansion by the Marine Corps. Two barrels of soap and two boxes of
medical supplies comprised the first shipment. The directors of HANDCLASP
delivered a substantial amount or supplies during July 1965 to Vietnam for
distribution by III MAF. The relief and humanitarian nature of HANDCLASP as
it applied to Vietnam was revealed in the shipping list of the thirst group of
supplies. The first shipment, approximately 9,000 pounds of supplies, was
comprised mainly of soap, buttons, thread, medicine, nutribio (a food
supplement), and toys. Both CARE and HANDCLASP after humble beginnings, would
become important sources of aid for Marine Corps civic action as III MAF
expanded its TAORs and began to support Vietnamese local government and rural
construction. The provision of Marine Corps engineering and general
construction assistance to Vietnamese in July 1965 highlighted the enforced
limits of civic action during the first five months in Vietnam. Operational
commitments minimized engineer work in support of civic action. The Marine
Corps spent several months on the defensive in TAORs which were only gradually
expanded. Construction of Main Lines of Resistance (later termed Forward
28
Edges of the Battle Area) took precedence over all building activity in the
infantry battalions. And the engineer effort was split amongst airfield
construction and engineer assistance for clearing new campsites, providing for
area drainage, and constructing and repairing routes of communication within
the expanding TAORs.<40> The continuous buildup of forces and the gradual
movement inland and along the coast inhibited civic action construction
projects.
The development of new life hamlets and the integration of refugees back
into Vietnamese life were vital issues in the war and were affected by the
initial defensive posture of the Marine Corps. III MAF units relocated
civilian homes lying in fields of fire on the defensive perimeters surrounding
the Da Nang Airbase and the Chu Lai Airfield. The movement of civilians under
these circumstances was not the usual spontaneous and humanitarian thing on
which the Marine Corps had concentrated. Coordination with the local
governing officials proved difficult; this problem was reflected in the
persistent return of displaced civilians to their cultivated plots.
Additionally, the Marine Corps did not succeed in solving the problem of fair
and timely payment of claims by the GVN.<41>
The First Five Months of Civic Action:
Rising Emphasis on Support for Local Government
Nevertheless, the Marine Corps achieved substantial results in civic
action during the first five months (March-July 1965) in Vietnam in the face
of difficulties in emphasis, coordination, and adjustment. Command emphasis
was primarily on the tactical integrity of the TAORs and secondarily on things
like civic action. HQ, III MAF only gradually established coordination
between its activities and those of HQ, I Corps Tactical Zone. The CG, I
Corps remained suspicious of the intentions and the effectiveness of the
Marine Corps and this fact interfered with coordination. But once General
Walt had assured the tactical integrity of his TAORs, he proceeded to the long
final step of determining what assistance the GVN required to win the rural
struggle. The Marine Corps had required time to adjust to the movements of
infantry battalions which were required to secure the expanding TAORs. III
MAF also required time to develop and apply a sound theory of operations which
took into account the necessity for security for the officials of the GVN who
were executing the Republic's plan for rural construction. By the end of
July, General Walt began to sense that civic action was the link between the
Marine Corps tactical mission and Vietnamese rural construction.
Various factors by June and July 1965 pointed out the importance of
purposeful civic action in support of the GVN. Continuous and regular medical
support for the local population,
29
either at fixed locations or at different locations on a fixed schedule, had
proven to be extraordinarily effective. The increasing emphasis on regular
service implied the integration of Marine Corps medical treatments with the
struggling Vietnamese Rural Health Service. A vital link with the Vietnamese
health program began to be forged by the training of rural health workers by
corpsmen both in the Da Nang and Chu Lai areas.<42> The Commanding Officer,
4th Marines, Colonel Edward P. Dupras, Jr., set up a medical training program
for Vietnamese health workers in his area on 23 June 1965. Colonel Dupras'
effort was a pioneering one in the Chu Lai TAOR and revealed the trend towards
civic action in direct support of the GVN.<43>
But coordination between HQ, III MAF and the U. S. Operations Mission in
Vietnam, the civilian side of the American effort in the Republic was slow in
developing. Medical Civic Action Program (MEDCAP) supplies were distributed
by the U. S. Operations Mission to the U. S. agencies and forces in Vietnam.
The Marine Corps received no MEDCAP supplies through regular channels in
March-April 1965 and not until June were appreciable quantities received. For
example, on 30 June 1965, the Marine Corps received 1,500 pounds (value
$2,355.25) of medical supplies to be used during the month of July.<44>
Coordination between the U. S. Operations Mission and III MAF was critical for
both organizations. The mission had funds for medical supplies for support of
rural construction but no operating personnel at the hamlet-village level.<45>
The Marine Corps, on the other band, had thousands of Marines and scores of
doctors and corpsmen who were available as a concrete link between the U. S.
government and the people of Vietnam at the hamlet level.
Throughout the first five months in Vietnam as Marine Corps support for
Vietnamese rural construction began to coalesce, individual Marines launched
spontaneous "programs" of their own which served as a powerful antidote to the
Viet Cong propaganda which emphasized the brutality and ruthlessness of a
foreign, professional, combat force. Sergeant John D. Moss of Marine
Composite Reconnaissance Squadron (VMCJ) 1 bought a small horse in mid-June
1965 near the Da Nang Airbase.<46> Sergeant Moss then went into the free pony
ride business and brought brief happiness and lasting memories into the lives
of many innocents. Less well known was the anonymous Marine who impressed Mr.
Nguyen Dinh Nam, Village Chief of Hoa Than (directly west of Da Nang). After
observing Marine Corps operations for three months, Mr. Nam wrote a letter
expressing the emotions of the people in Northwest Hoa Vang towards the Marine
Corps. Both he and the rural population were especially impressed by the
spontaneous humanity of the combat Marines. Mr. Nam noted the following:
30
FIGURE NOT AVAILABLE
Medical evacuation: a Vietnamese farmer waits for helicopter evacuation
on 5 May 1965 northwest of Da Nang. Sgt Dubry, Company G, 2nd Battalion, 3rd
Marines, is in immediate command of the move. Evacuation of seriously sick or
injured civilians was an important part of the Medical Civic Action Program.
(USMC A184126)
FIGURE NOT AVAILABLE
Eye ailments: infections of the eyes were notoriously common in Vietnam
and were the result largely of missing emphasis on the use of soap and water.
In this scene HM-2 M.E. Prigmore assists an old grey-beard while a probable
father and small daughter wait their turn. Note the curious but apprehensive
spectator at lower right. (USMC A184659)
30a
They [the Marines] have all the favorable attitudes towards the
people of this area. For example, it was noted that one officer of
the rank of Major while walking saw a child whose foot was bleeding.
He stopped and was happy to dress the boy's foot.<47>
Various Marine Corps combat and supporting organizations carried out
humanitarian civic action which was imaginative and resourceful. On Monday 19
July 1965, Company D, 1st Battalion, 3d Marines purchased a young water
buffalo for 4,000 piasters ("tourist" rate of exchange approximately 75
piasters to one dollar) at Hoa Thinh,a village complex located a few miles
southwest of the Da Nang Airbase. The company planned to raise the buffalo
and then give it to an especially needy family.<48> Closer to the center of
the TAOR, the Force Logistics Support Group (FLSG) after its formation in the
Da Nang area, began to support local charitable organizations. Members of the
FLSG discovered that in the Sacred Heart Orphanage, a struggling religious
charity, flour for bread was being provided in moderate quantities from
Vietnamese government sources. But the Catholic sisters operating the charity
seemed less pleased than they should have been with the generosity of the
government. The FLSG soon found the answer to the paradox. The orphanage had
no facilities for baking bread and the sisters had to deal with a city bakery
which took half of the flour as the charge for preparing the remainder as
bread. The HQ, FLSG, put available Marine Corps ovens to work in support of
the handful of sisters and their brood of helpless and unwanted youngsters.
One thousand pounds of bread were soon baked for the cause of the Sacred
Heart.
The efforts of Marine Corps civic action were difficult to measure in
terms of advances in the struggle against the Viet Cong. HQ, III MAF began to
collect statistics on the number of medical treatments rendered, pounds of
food and clothing distributed, etc. But the correlation between medical
treatments and the erosion of the Viet Cong political and military effort was
too complex for definition. For example, how many civic action medical
treatments advanced the Republican cause a certain percent towards final
victory in the war? Questions of this sort were possible to broach; however,
they were impossible to answer. Probably the most effective correlation
between civic action and the struggle against the Viet Cong was information
received from the peasants about the movements, activities, and plans of the
rural communists. But the receipt of information of intelligence value was
more dependent on calculated and effective security than warm, spontaneous,
and humanitarian civic action. Nevertheless, there was a close relationship
between security and civic action. Whenever Marine Corps civic action took
place, Marine Corps rifles provided security, unwittingly at first in many
cases but eventually on purpose. And in spite of the lack of a precise
mathematical correlation between medical treatments for Vietnamese civilians
and progress
31
against the Viet Cong, there was an indisputable increase in hard information
about the enemy.<49>
Why was this information important? The Viet Cong existed only with the
silence of the rural population. Viet Cong movement and functioning was
impossible in the event of general disclosure by the peasantry. Lawrence of
Arabia, two generations ago spelled out the reality of a successful guerrilla
movement in a brief thought--a civilian population unwilling to disclose the
presence and movements of the guerrilla functionaries. Lawrence's thought was
a function of his experience in the sparsely populated Northwestern Arabian
Peninsula. In the densely populated areas around Da Nang, guerrillas were
even less able to move without the knowledge of the peasantry. Viet Cong
success depended on muting the local people and this was done by a combination
of physical terror and hope for a better future life. The emphasis was on
terror, however, and any successful counteraction by the Marine Corps and the
Vietnamese government would have to take the form of either more effective
terror or decisive security against the Viet Cong atrocities.<50> The Viet
Cong promise of a brighter future would have to be undercut by an effective
program of rural construction on the part of the Republic and civic action by
the Marine Corps.
The success of Marine Corps civic action could be measured by the receipt
of intelligence information from the peasantry. And because the peasants
provided information only with adequate security, the providing of
intelligence information became one of the best indicators of progress in the
war. Reliable information began to increase by mid-June 1965, and by July,
peasants were providing information in a large number of exchanges. For
example, on 10 July 1965, the peasants at Le My reported that route 545 (see
Map Number One) was mined just north of Hill 282. Two days later, the 1st
Battalion, 3d Marines reported that civilians from Thinh Tay had exposed the
presence of a Viet Cone company located approximately 1,200 meters southwest
of the district headquarters at Hieu Duc in notorious "Happy Valley" (see Map
Number One). Marine Corps infantry battalions which had won the confidence of
the people by careful attention to their feelings and needs were sometimes
rewarded with remarkably precise and valuable information. On 24 July 1965, a
woman living in Kinh Than reported that two days earlier, 100 Viet Cong
carrying small arms including one automatic rifle and each carrying one
grenade passed by her home. She also noted that the Viet Cong were wearing
black uniforms and carrying rice in long cloth rolls.<51>
Civilians like the woman of Kinh Thanh repaid heavy investments in civic
action. The Viet Cong insurgency was simply not possible with a population of
similar people Civic action aimed to create peasants who recognized the Marine
Corps as a benevolent protector and who were willing to work hand in hand with
the Republican government for the advancement of the rural
32
areas. And the concept began to emerge that Marine Corps combat operations
against the main and guerrilla forces of the Viet Cong were not solely for the
purpose of inflicting casualties. The higher Marine Corps leadership began to
visualize the combat operations as the screen behind which Vietnamese rural
construction could progress and "the other war" could finally be won.
33
Chapter V
A Turning Point
August 1965
August 1965 ushered in a fresh realization of the importance of civic
action. HQ III MAF and the infantry battalions had learned that successful
engagements against main force enemy units and interference with the movements
of guerrillas were of little importance if the GVN was unable either to
execute an effective program of rural construction or to reconstruct
Republican government, and the 9th Marines were obliged to carry out
operations behind its frontline positions because of the presence of a Viet
Cong dominated peasantry in Cam Ne village.<1> These operations called
attention to the need for much greater coordination between HQ, III MAF and
the Vietnamese government in the northern region. The Vietnamese government
was meeting heavy weather south of Da Nang and the Marine Corps had to trim
its combat sails in order to assist Vietnamese rural construction behind the
Marine Corps FEBA. On 7 August 1965, General Walt assumed operational control
of the I Corps Advisory Group, a task which carried with is the necessity for
increased knowledge of Vietnamese plans and capabilities.<2>
The general situation in August demanded more effective coordination
between the commanders, politicians, and functionaries who disposed of the
resources of combatting the Viet Cong. HQ, III MAF had coordinated
extensively with the Vietnamese authorities prior to August 1965, but the most
effective aims for Marine Corps civic action had not yet been determined. At
the battalion level, civic action continued to have the spirit of an
enthusiastic people-to-people effort rather than a program synchronized
towards a single decisive goal.<3> For example, the diffuse idea of winning
the people was simply not enough to direct a useful program of civic action.
The GVN, the U. S. Operations Mission, and the Marine Corps were winning the
people; but, the Vietnamese Government was unable to secure areas cleared by
the Marine Corps and ARVN combat units. General Walt needed a firmer target
for civic action. He had to know two things: first, the Republic's rural
construction plans, and second, the resources available in ICTZ to support
those plans. To discover those things he needed a better system of
coordination between himself and the authorities of the Vietnamese state.
34
The Formation of the I Corps Joint Coordinating Council:
late August 1965
But the complexities of fighting in a foreign, sovereign state presented
problems. Neither the United States nor South Vietnam would accept a single
military commander and staff. Yet the Republican Government required the
efficient use of all of the resources available for the struggle if it were
ever to reestablish control over its Northern Region. The situation called
for great tact; both the United States and Vietnamese authorities required a
coordinating body to ensure the use of available resources in support of an
effective plan for the survival of the Vietnamese government. "Pursuant to
the August 25, 1965, conversation between General L. W Walt...and Mr. Marcus
J. Gordon, Regional Director USOM [United States Operations Mission], I Corps,
the first meeting of a permanent regional working group was convened on August
30, 1965."<4> The Civil Affairs Officer of III MAF had suggested on 29 August
1965 that the coordinating council which had been created several days earlier
by the meeting between Walt and Gordon be called the I Corps Joint
Coordinating Council (I Corps JCC). The term, council, had no connotation in
the Republic of Vietnam which precluded its use. The term, joint, was used
because General Walt and Mr. Gordon intended that the Vietnamese as well as
the Americans be represented.
The establishment of the I Corps JCC was a milestone in the development
of Marine Corps civic action in Vietnam. The mission of the council spelled
out the importance of Vietnamese rural construction and was intended to ensure
maximum support for it. The I Corps JCC was to become familiar with the GVN's
rural construction program in the ICTZ. Having become familiar with the plan,
the I Corps JCC was to determine the requirements for cooperation and support
between agencies and to recommend methods or procedures to meet the
requirements.<5>
General Walt, who had been designated as Senior U. S. Military Advisor to
the CG, I Corps, earlier in August 1965, intended that the I Corps JCC focus
Marine Corps civic action on a concrete central mission, essentially that of
supporting Vietnamese rural construction. General Walt also intended that all
of the U. S. agencies and private organizations operating in ICTZ be
synchronized in support of rural construction by a regional-level coordinating
body. The Senior (Vietnamese) Government Delegate in the First Region was
immediately aware of the importance of the council. General Thi met with
General Walt on 28 September 1965 and agreed to the formation and purposes of
the I Corps JCC and appointed Lieutenant Colonel Cach, I Corps Rural
Construction Officer, as the government liaison officer to the council.
The I Corps JCC rapidly became the coordinating hub for the civil
activities of most of the U. S. governmental agencies in
35
the Northern Region of Vietnam. In addition to the representatives of the
Vietnamese government and HQ, III MAF, membership on the council included
members of the following U. S. military, naval, and civilian agencies:
a. I Corps Advisory Group, MACV.
b. MACV Combined Studies Division.
c Naval Support Activity, Da Nang.
d. U. S. Embassy, Political Advisor on Staff, III MAF.
e. U. S. Agency for International Development, 1st Region.
f. Joint U. S. Public Affairs Office, 1st Region.
The formation of the council under the auspices of the CG, III MAF
focused Marine Corps attention on the importance of the other war in Vietnam
and was a powerful boost for organized civic action.<6> But rural
construction was a complex thing and the members of the council had to
establish several working committees to assist them in accomplishing their
mission. The committees, within their assigned fields, monitored the
development of U. S. and Vietnamese plans for future action and determined the
capabilities of the U. S. and Vietnamese military organizations and civilian
agencies to support the plans. The committees which were formed by the I
Corps JCC read like a list of civic action programs. The following were in
operation by January 1966:<7>
a. Public Health d. Commodities Distribution
b. Education e. Psychological Warfare
c. Roads f Port of Da Nang
General Walt realized, and his feelings were shared by the Commanding
General, Fleet Marine Force, Pacific, Lieutenant General Victor H. Krulak,
that the central issue of the struggle was the reinstitution of Republican
political control over the rural areas. But Walt knew that the lasting
control, which had eluded the Marine Corps in its embryonic efforts against
the Viet Cong from March August 1965, would result only from an indigenous
political effort. In turn, Marine Corps civic action could provide vital
support for the government's effort only if HQ, III MAF, knew the government's
plans, both political and military. In the Marine Corps scheme of things,
civic action linked Vietnamese rural construction with the combat operations
of the Marine air-ground team. To underscore the importance of the I Corps
JCC, General Walt designated Brigadier Generals Keith B. McCutcheon and Melvin
D. Henderson to sit on the council replacing the former colonel "to ensure
that the III MAF [was] giving the council the best possible support in its
program of assisting the government of Vietnam in the execution of its rural
construction program in the ICTZ."<8> The two generals began to represent the
Marine Corps on 15 November 1965.
36
Golden Fleece
At the highest level the month of August 1965 was a milestone in the
synchronization of Marine Corps civic action with Vietnamese rural
construction. But farther down the chain of command, Marines developed
several projects which proved to be of lasting importance. Lieutenant Colonel
Verle E. Ludwig, Commanding Officer, 1st Battalion, 9th Marines, controlled a
sector which included four villages and numerous hamlets. Ludwig took a deep
interest in the village chiefs and made effective efforts to support their
authority and to provide for the real needs of their people. As the price for
Marine Corps efforts, Ludwig sought information of intelligence value about
the Viet Cong. The battalion formed a joint "Area Security Council" and
conducted a vigorous and effective counter-guerrilla campaign which totally
changed the balance of power in its TAOR. The peasants, like those at Le My,
soon were convinced that the battalion was able to protect them from the Viet
Cong. After a particularly aggressive Marine Corps sweep through the
battalion TAOR on 29 August 1965, Huynh Ba Trinh, Village Chief of Hoa Hai,
"said that the villagers were impressed by the U. S. Marines and wanted to
know if [they] would help them protect their rice crop from the Viet Cong
tax."<9> The chain of events was ideal. The peasants needed assistance and
had requested it through their government leader. The Marine Corps was
presented with a golden opportunity to support a representative of the local
government and to fulfill a basic need of a large number of people.
Lieutenant Colonel Ludwig's efforts at coordination, and demonstrations of
Marine Corps superiority over the Viet Cong, were fused with the basic needs
of a terrorized and partly starved population. Lieutenant Colonel Ludwig
accepted the invitation to protect the rice crop and Operation GOLDEN FLEECE
was born.
HQ, III MAF seized the opportunity offered in the area of the 1st
Battalion, 9th Marines, and by mid-September 1965, GOLDEN FLEECE operations
were absorbing the energies of a full Marine regiment and were taking place
both in the Da Nang and Chu Lai areas. The Marine Corps took the initiative
from the Viet Cong in the critical field of food supply. Marine Corps
infantry battalions forced the Viet Cong to fight for rice which had been
uncontested for the last two years of Republican weakness.
A major strength of the Viet Cong had been its lack of dependence on
fixed supporting installations. Conversely, in order to maintain the image
and the reality of political control, the Republican government had to protect
fixed installations and areas. The Viet Cong could be likened to bank robbers
in a city who had the practical advantages of surprise in point and place of
robbery, and the psychological advantages of being daring, resourceful
individuals aligned against the
37
police forces of an existing regime. The government and Viet Cong roles were
not completely reversed during the GOLDEN FLEECE operations, but only one rice
bank could be robbed during the harvest of autumn 1965. Finally, the Robin
Hood diguise of the Viet Cong was wearing thin by 1965. The Vietnamese
peasantry, in spite of the heady Viet Cong promises for the future and the
enforcement of terror in the present, had requested assistance from the Marine
Corps. The request of the people for protection against the Viet Cong was the
most important fact about GOLDEN FLEECE.
The GOLDEN FLEECE operations in autumn 1965 effectively harassed the
Viet Cong. The latter had been so successful curing 1963-1964 that they
controlled large areas of the rich ice lands in the ICTZ, i.e., the bank
robbers had done so well that they owned and occupied the northern rice bank
by 1965. But vested interests were anathema to guerrilla movements. The
strength of the Viet Cong lay in the ability to choose the weakest of a
multitude of opposing installations and launch well-planned attacks against
them in overwhelming strength.<10> Operation GOLDEN FLEECE forced the Viet
Cong either to give up an installation on which they had come to depend after
two years of exploitation, or fight on Marine Corps terms. Discretion was the
better part of Viet Cong valor. The Viet Cong lost probably 90 percent of the
unrefined rice that they could reasonably have expected to collect based on
their "tax receipts" during the preceding harvest.<11>
The Importance of Local Security:
Development of the Combined Action Company Concept
The Marine Corps developed another scheme in August 1965 which provided
hard security for the peasants and supported rural construction. Security for
the Republic's hamlet dwellers was the beginning and the end of rural
construction, and already by August, the Marine Corps was providing it against
main force Viet Cong units. For example, on 18 August 1965, the 7th Marines
launched Operation STARLITE (18-21 August) against a main force regiment and
obliterated it. Reliable body count set the Viet Cong dead at 699 and
intelligence follow-up revealed probable losses of 1,400 dead including a
general officer.<12> And equally as important as success in large unit
operations, III MAF launched a program of saturation patrolling and ambushing
during the hours of both daylight and darkness. Marines moved freely in "Viet
Cong country" 24 hours a day and this professional effort became the shield
behind which the Vietnamese government could reestablish control over the
countryside. For any lasting effort, however, the government and not the
Marine Corps would have to protect the rural population; but, government was
something which had its foundation in the people. The government officials
and the people ultimately had to protect themselves; and, the best
38
FIGURE NOT AVAILABLE
Golden Fleece: the operations which were called Golden Fleece began in
August 1965 in the Da Nang TAOR and rapidly spread to other Marine areas. In
this picture taken in September, Marine rifles protect peasants carrying rice
to amphibious tracked vehicles (LVTP-5) for transport to a secure area. Golden
Fleece was a response to local calls for aid. (MCA185781)
Soap and water: lack of personal hygiene was responsible for the high
incidence of skin disease among children and adults in Vietnam. In this scene
Marines wash a little boy as a lesson for the mothers of Thuy Tan village west
of Hue/Phu Bai in Sep 65. LtCol Khoa, Province Chief of Thua Thien, evidently
approves of this joint operation. (USMC A185541)
38a
form of self-help for the people was participation in the security effort
against the Viet Cong terror.
The Vietnamese people helped to protect themselves locally by forming
Popular Force platoons which were used at the hamlet and village level.<13>
Some of the better trained and motivated platoons produced remarkable results.
But in general, the equipment and training of the platoons and their
unimaginative use in static defensive positions made them a slender reed in
the fight against the Viet Cong. The latter were able to concentrate
themselves at leisure against the fixed posts of the Popular Forces and by
launching attacks with a predetermined crushing superiority in numbers and
firepower were able to overwhelm them with ominous regularity.
During August 1965, however, in the Hue/Phu Bai area, the Marine Corps
with the cooperation of several village chiefs formed a Joint Action Company
to meet the problem of local security. Both the Marines and Vietnamese knew
the limitations of the Popular Forces but wanted to place local security on
Vietnamese shoulders. Several village chiefs agreed to allow four Popular
Force platoons to work directly with four Marine rifle squads. The resultant
force was called a Joint Action Company and was commanded by a Marine Corps
officer who used the Marines to train the Popular Forces in small unit
tactics, marksmanship, etc., and to serve as the nucleus for patrols and
ambushes throughout the village area assigned to each platoon. The joint
platoons would also conduct vigorous civic action programs in support of the
local governing officials. The program would emphasize self-help by the
peasants in the civic action projects while security would be provided by the
joint platoons.<14>
By 14 August 1965 the CG, 1st Vietnamese Army Division, had assigned six
Popular Force platoons in the Hue/Phu Bai area to the operational control of
the CO, 3d Battalion, 4th Marines. The latter ensured the coordination of
operations within the battalion TAOR by providing communications between the
Joint Action Company and the battalion's combat operations center.
Additionally, a Marine Corps officer with a knowledge of the Vietnamese
language commanded the company and a Vietnamese officer acted as executive
officer facilitating cooperation in both directions--Vietnamese and Marine
Corps. The Joint Action Company immediately freed one Marine Corps rifle
company from security duty within the perimeter. The concept promised to free
the attached Marine rifle squads as soon as the Popular Forces had received
the training and gained the confidence to defeat the Viet Cong alone.
The integration of Marines into Popular Force platoons was successful
from the beginning. In an "exclusive interview" with a reporter of the Los
Angeles Times, General Walt revealed on 21 September 1965, that the concept
was being tested and
39
emphasized that the integration did not involve first line Vietnamese
soldiers.<15> General Walt cautiously revealed the integration because of the
implications of foreign military control over Vietnamese forces. Walt's
caution was also justified in order to reduce the impact of any unforeseen
setback in the program. By the end of September, though, it was evident chat
the program was developing successfully and General Walt publically announced
a new and successful program in civic action.
The ultimate importance of the integration program or Combined Action
Companies--the present term for the former Joint Action Companies--was the
support provided for Vietnamese revolutionary development. Captain Francis J.
West, Jr., writing at first band about the Combined Action Companies, had the
following to say concerning their broader implications:
Properly used and supervised, the CAC can become a catalyst
for development at the village level. Where there are Revolutionary
Development Teams it can aid and support them. Where there are no
Revolutionary Development Teams it can work to help the Popular
Forces and hamlet chiefs and elders bring about change and progress.
CAC is an interim program designed to assist the Vietnamese. It is
not designed to displace the village leadership or replace the
Revolutionary Development Program. Quite the contrary...village
chiefs and Revolutionary Development Team Leaders have been quick
to use the CAC units in their support.<16>
Support for Civic Action from the United States:
the Reserve Civic Action Fund
While the development of civic action was accelerating in August 1965
with the appearance of the GOLDEN FLEECE and the CAC concepts, the Marine
Corps began a notable program of support for civic action on a nation-wide
scale in the United States. Captain Rodgers T. Smith, who was stationed at
HQ, U. S. Marine Corps, Division of Reserve, and several other officers knew
that tools, food, medicine, and other necessities were in short supply for
Vietnamese civilians within the Marine TAORs despite government and private
assistance efforts. Yet thousands of Marines were in close, daily contact
with Vietnamese civilians at the hamlet level and were available to distribute
additional supplies. At the same time thousands of Marine Corps reservists
were anxious to assist their regular comrades by contributions of their own.
An effective system would have been to purchase supplies in the United States
and ship them overseas to III MAF which had the Marines and the machines to
distribute them. But shipping space was at a premium as a result of the
buildup in Vietnam, and the purchase of commodities directly by Marines was
prohibited by Marine Corps policy.<17>
40
FIGURES NOT AVAILABLE
Claims against the Marine Corps: damage to crops and homes and injuries
to civilians were the inevitable result of a war amongst the people. In this
picture taken south of Da Nang on 13 Aug 65 the CG, III MAF himself presents a
new motor-bike to a claimant. The civilian (right) was struck by a Marine
truck which destroyed his former bike. (USMC A184977)
Clothes for old men: the warm scarf was contributed from the United
States to Marines of III MAF who in turn arranged for its presentation to a
citizen of Vietnam through officials of the government. In this scene an ARVN
soldier contributes the scarf in June 1965 to a needy farmer under pleasant
and effective circumstances. Note the waif lower right. (USMC A184687)
40a
With these problems in mind, Major Glenn B. Stevens and Captain Smith
visited the Washington office of CARE on 24 August 1965 and discussed ways
that the Marine Corps Reserve and CARE could alleviate the suffering of human
beings in Vietnam and further the cause of Marine Corps civic action.<18> The
Marine Corps officers and the Director of the Washington CARE Office, Mrs.
Ruth M. Hamilton, rapidly worked out a mutually agreeable plan. Marines would
collect no monies; instead, each Marine in the reserve would contribute
directly to CARE offices throughout the United States in envelopes marked
specifically for the "Marine Corps Reserve Civic Action for Vietnam." CARE
would then purchase the needed supplies and deliver them to the III MAF. To
avoid the bottleneck in shipping space from the United States and to assist
the Vietnamese economy, CARE would purchase as much of the supplies as
possible within Vietnam itself. The Commandant of the Marine Corps launched
the program officially on 13 September 1965 and emphasized that the conduct of
a joint Marine Corps Reserve/CARE Program was a task short of mobilization for
which the Reserve was singularly well-qualified.<19> The Reserve did not
disappoint the Commandant; by 3 January 1966 it had contributed over $100,000
and simultaneously had carried out a bit of civic action in the United States
--the annual Toys for Tots Program.<20>
41
Chapter VI
Accelerating the Pace of Civic Action
The Challenge of Support of Rural Construction
(September-December 1965)
For the Marines in Vietnam, the month of September 1965 was one of
expanding civic action programs and increasing emphasis on patrolling and
ambushing. Patrols and ambushes began to mesh more closely with civic action
and rural construction. Both of the latter were possible only with the
security or the operators of the civic action medical teams, Vietnamese
People's Action Teams, etc. Operations like STARLITE and PIRANHA (7-10
September 1965) against main force Viet Cong units reduced the chances of
overt action against the air facilities in the Marine Corps TAORs.<1> But
these operations took place i