Of the remainder, 8% were in contested areas, 2% were in areas under Viet Cong control, and 4% were in hamlets or villages which were unrated. Cooperating with TF Yankee was the 1st ARVN Ranger Group and the two Civilian Irregular Defense Groups at Thuong Duc and Nong Son. Instead, Mr. Enoch's work is comprised of his day to day activities as he posted them in a diary/journal over forty years ago. On 23 February, the 3d Marines were returned to Quang Tri province, and, on 8 March, Taylor Common was brought to an end, TF Yankee headquarters was dissolved, and responsibility for the An Hoa area was returned to the 5th Marines. Its first commander, Major General William C. Lee, observed that "the 101st"has no history, but has a Rendezvous with Destiny." Time and time again, the 101st has kept that rendezvous and in so doing, acquired a proud history. MAG-11 at Da Nang had VMg-1, two A-6A squadronsVMA(AW)-225 and VMA(AW)-242and VMO-2 with its OV-10As. Unit History 67-72 - 101 Vietnam Veterans 15 The problems of air base defense are discussed in "Marine Corps Operations in Vietnam, 1965-1966," Naval Review, 1968, p. 19. The Sea Cobras, with their heavier firepower and twin-engined reliability, quickly proved their combat worth. The 3d Marine Divisions second front continued to be the Laotian border, at right angles to the DMZ. . (General Cushman, after his return to the States, would become the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and, on 1 January 1972, the 25th Commandant of the Marine Corps. . There were no classic beach assaults, no great flaming battles fought at the water's edge. Even so, by the end of January, 86% of the five provinces 3,021,633 persons were living in hamlets considered secure. South and southwest of Da Nang, Operation Taylor Common, begun 7 December 1968, was continuing under control of 1st Marine Division's Task Force Yankee, commanded until 14 February, by Brigadier General Ross T. Dwyer, Jr., and then by Brigadier General Samuel Jaskilka. At the beginning of 1971, III Marine Amphibious Force was authorized 24,811 Southeast Asia Program Marines. Both squadrons would be joined to MAG-15, air component of the 9th Marine Amphibious Brigade. Many of the rest had had malaria or fevers of undetermined origin. The Division claimed 9,643 killed in 1969, 5,225 killed in 1970. After bringing the 51st ARVN Regiment and the Ranger Group back from their foray into the enemy base area, Lam concentrated them, along with his Regional and Popular Forces, in a lowlands saturation campaign which had as its objective the systematic search of every hamlet in Quang Nam province for VCI. Operation Lamar Plain - 1969 - Vietnam 22 The Quang Tri and Da Nang ASRTs stood down on 8 May but the ASRT at FSB Birmingham remained operational until 30 May to support ARVN and U. S. Army units in Lam Son 720 being run in A Shau valley. Of to all the efforts by III Marine Amphibious Force to provide security to the rural areas and to assist in pacification, perhaps the most successful was the Combined Action Program. Route 535 goes south and joins Route 534. Eddie on Instagram: "A medic of the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division The level and intensity of ground combat for the 1st Marine Division, even after allowing for the reduced strength of the Division, had declined almost as a straight-line progression during 1970. Also on 7 November, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing (Rear) was activated at Iwakuni under command of Brigadier General William G. Johnson. The Airborne Division was relieved on 27 July and the burden of completing the fight for Quang Tri fell to the South Vietnamese Marines. On 1 June the transfer of Marble Mountain Air Facility by Colonel Streets MAG-16 to the U. S. Army was completed and the last members of the Group headquarters were on their way to Santa Ana where MAG-16, like MAG-11, would be assigned to the 3d Marine Aircraft Wing. Put into operation the same day, it controlled nearly a thousand sorties, flown by the full gamut of Free World aircraft, before returning to Quang Tri on 31 March. The research for this After Action Report included OPERATIONAL REPORTS, DAILY STAFF JOURNALS and DUTY OFFICER S LOGS at the Battalion, Brigade and Division levels located in the National Archives and Records Administration, 8601 Adelphi Road, College Park, MD 20740-6001. rockets are nothing much more than self-propelled artillery shells.) The move to Bien Hoa began on 16 May and first combat sorties were flown three days later. A total of 41,800 of these reductions were to be Marines. Taken together, these articles, and General Simmons' seriesincluding this concluding article, which discusses the systematic withdrawal of Marine air and ground forcesprovide a valuable record of Marine Corps operations in Vietnam. I Corps was going to enter Lao, they were told, to clean our Base Areas 604 and 611. After taking Quang Tri province the enemy paused to regroup. Camp Eagle (Vietnam) - Wikipedia On 27 March Camp Faulkner near Marble Mountain, home of the 1st Engineer Battalion, went to a mechanized cavalry element of the 23d (Americal) Infantry Division. The 7th Marines were going into the western and southern part of Base Area 112 with the expectation of disrupting the enemys logistics flow. See "Marine Corps Operations in Vietnam, -1966," Naval Review, 1968, p. 26. Fighting at Tam Ky by the 1st Brigade began 15 May 1969 while the 101st's 3rd Brigade battled His plane left at 0755 on Sunday. TERRY SIMMONS, VIETNAM - 101st Airborne, 1968, 1969. M107 has now replaced the 155-mm. Battle of Hamburger Hill in the Vietnam War Scheduled to leave were the 9th Marines, along with proportional shares of combat support and service troops, and a slice of the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing. battery was set up on precipitous FSB Dagger and five companies under control of 2d Battalion, 1st Marines, were inserted into the target area. Another August departure was the 1st LAAM Battalion, a light antiaircraft missile unit armed with the Hawk, which had been in-country since February 1965 without ever having to be called upon to fire against a live target. By 12 May, the focus of the fighting had shifted to the axis of Route 536 which runs from An Hoa to Liberty Bridge. Durham Peak was brought to an end on 13 August. This meant, among other things, that the American advisers had to be left behind. For reasons already discussed, there had been no redeployments of Marines in Increment V. For Increment VI, 11,207 would be redeployed during the period 1 January to 30 April. The base was occuppied by elements of the 2nd Battalion, 501st . 1st Marine Aircraft Wing support of the operation began on 31 January with CH-53DS from HMH-463 moving gear for the 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile) into staging areas near Quang Tri. VMA-223 with its A-4Es and VMFA-542 with its F-4Bs flight-ferried home to El Toro, HMH-361 embarked its CH-53s in the USS Tripoli (LPH-10) and went to Santa Ana. The Brigade was there to provide helicopter and amphibian tractor support to the embattled Vietnamese Marines. Lamar Plain Story It was now time for the 3d Marines to stand-down and get ready to sail for home. Marine A-6s, because of their all-weather capability, were a great favorite of the Seventh Air Force for targeting against "moversNVA trucks on their way south along the Ho Chi Minh road complex in Laos. Heaviest enemy contact was in the "Arizona Territory," a piedmont agricultural area made desolate by the war, lying between the Vu Gia and Thu Bon rivers northwest of An Hoa. At its peak in 1968, before the redeployments had begun, III Marine Amphibious Force had included two Marine divisions plus two Marine regimental landing teams, a very large Marine aircraft wing, a large Force Logistics Command, a U. S. Army corps headquarters, three Army divisions, and an Army mechanized infantry brigade. The principal ground unit scheduled to leave in the fourth increment was the 7 th Marines, now commanded by Colonel Robert H. Piehl. 101st Airborne Vietnam 1969 DVD - YouTube This left the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing with three operating groups. The 101st Airborne Division had moved into the A Shau valley on 22 February and commenced Massachusetts Striker. As September began, Brigade 258 was on the Divisions left front, Brigade 147 on the right; the brigades separated by the Vinh Dinh river. TERRY SIMMONS, VIETNAM - 101st Airborne, 1968, 1969. Purple Heart Four Marine battalions were used in coordination with the 37th and 39th Rangers, two battalions of the 51st ARVN Regiments, and a battalion of the Korean Marine Brigade. Lieutenant General William K. Jones, who had succeeded Lieutenant General Henry W. Buse, Jr., as Commanding General, Fleet Marine Force, Pacific, on 1 July 1970, was in Vietnam from 9 to 11 January 1971 on one of his periodic swings through the Western Pacific. We just got cut to pieces by extremely accurate machine gun fire.. Brigade 369 took up a line along the My Chanh river which marks the boundary between Quang Tri and Thua Thien provinces. On 26 June, Major General Armstrong boarded, a Marine KC-13oF with the last ten members of 3d MAB's headquarters. The idea behind PSDF was that, as security improved, the people would be armed for their own self-defense. The convolutions of the Laotian border protected the enemys back and a portion of his flanks from ground attack and he hadsomething of a rarity for in-country operationsa number of artillery pieces of up to 122-mm. In the next 11 days, 320 enemy dead were counted. The package would leave Marble Mountain early in the morning and stage through LZ Kilo near Khe Sanh. The TAOI would include the secure area, the consolidation zone, the clearing zone, and the border surveillance zone. The combined effort had resulted in a claimed 538 enemy killed, 87 prisoners, 45 Hoi Chanhs, and 171 weapons captured. and 155-mm. Later intelligence indicated that the 38th Regiment had been numbed by the unexpected ferocity of the attack by fire and bewildered by the failure of the expected infantry assault to materialize. howitzers would stay behind), and the 1st Shore Party Battalion (less one company which would remain, chiefly to work helicopter landing zones). Brigade 147 was heavily hit at Mai Loc and Nui Ba Ho and at FSBs Holcomb and Sarge. The plan called for housing 17,000 refugees in three hamlets before the beginning of the fall monsoon. The 1st Wings helicopters, assisted by Division units, particularly the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, evacuated perhaps 30,000 civilians to safety. On June 9, 1969, after weeks of bitter fighting, the 101st Airborne saw victory on the horizon by Ed Sherwood 2/4/2022 Soldiers of the 101st Airborne reposition and clean an 81 mm mortar during Operation Lamar Plain, undertaken to thwart an enemy advance on Tam Ky. (Casemate Publishers) The Marine contribution was essentially complete by the first week in August. By nightfall on the 15th the Citadel had been cleared and at noon on Saturday, 16 September, the red-striped yellow flag of the Republic of Vietnam went up over the ruined west gate. Most of Routes 1 and 4 were under three feet or more of water. At its peak strength in 1968, III Marine Amphibious Force had had 85,755 Marines, more than a quarter of the Marine Corps and more Marines than were ashore at Iwo Jima or Okinawa. The objective for the year was to bring all populated areas of the five provinces under Government of Vietnam (GVN) control and to raise the security level of the population to 90%. The Marine portion of the operation ended 31 May with the commitment of the 2d and 3d Battalions of the 9th Marines to a new operation, Cameron Falls, against elements of the resurgent 304th NVA Division in the old familiar Khe Sanh salient south of Route 9- The Army and ARVN stayed in the A Shau another week, coming out on 7 June. Phase IV would be the withdrawal, looping southward through Base Area 611. On May 20, General Zais sent in two additional U.S. airborne battalions (the 1st Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment and the 2nd Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment), plus a South Vietnamese battalion as reinforcements for his increasingly disgruntled soldiers. The 7th Marines had its command post on Hill 55, well south of Da Nang, and its operations fanned out from there. The 3d Marine Division was under the immediate operational control of the U. S. Armys XXIV Corps which also had the 1st Brigade, 5th Mechanized Infantry Division in eastern Quang Tri province and the 101st Airborne Division in Thua Thien province. The rest, except for a few in the MACV structure, were guards with the U. S. Embassy and consulates. Michael Kopp Stars and StripesSouth Vietnam, March, 1969: Even a short break still means work for four command post radio operators of the 101st Airborne Division as they maintain contact. The last two medium helicopter squadrons at Phu Bai had come down to Marble Mountain Air Facility so that MAG-16 had at that field four medium squadrons equipped with the CH-46D, one heavy squadron with the CH-53, a light squadron with UH-1Es, and another light squadron with AH-1Gs. Don Tegtmeier was in the 101st Airborne as a loader on a 105 mm gun. In addition, some 12,000 Vietnamese had been screened and 256 of them identified as Viet Cong infrastructure or cadre (VCI). This responsibility continued to be discharged by III MAF, primarily through the 1st Military Police Battalion as airfield base defense force and by coordination of all the myriad Free World Military Force tenants in the Da Nang area.15. Radio operators in Vietnam, 1969 | Stars and Stripes The Division located its command post in the Hue Citadel where it was joined by Brigade 147 which required re-fitting. We strive for accuracy and fairness. On 15 January, Colonel Sparks and Lieutenant Colonel Ermil L. Whisman, who commanded Sparks' direct support artillery battalion, 1st Battalion, 12th Marines, were killed southwest of An Hoa when their helicopter was brought down by enemy ground fire. This attempted crossing precipitated a three-day fight with Colonel Robert L. Nichols 7th Marines which cost the enemy 289 killed. Taylor Common's area of operations included the An Hoa basin (the area drained by the convergence of the Thu Bon and Vu Gia rivers which combine to form the Song Ky Lam), as well as the high ground to the west and southwest of An Hoa which harbored the enemy's Base Area 112. It terminated on 7 May 1971. Fordts. Between 0702 and 0928 on 31 August, attack aircraft of the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing delivered 77 tons of ordnance, mostly 1,000-pound bombs and napalm, into the Que Sons in 27 sorties. It was the old familiar attack route, leading to the Cau Do bridges and thence to Da Nang airfield. The Combined Action Program itself had grown during the year by another company headquarters and 13 platoons for a total investment of 1,710 Marines and 119 Navy corpsmen. battery, entered the Song Thu Bon valley south of Nong Son and set up FSB Defiant. The rest of the battalion followed and took the southeast quadrant of the fortress. Thus, the four Combined Action Groups were put under a regimental-equivalent headquarters. You've read 1 out of 5 free articles of Proceedings this month. Marines from 2d Battalion, 7th Marines, counterattacked and drove out the attackers, killing 40.). Most important of all, perhaps, was that the landings not only kept the amphibious art alive, but also actually advanced it by providing testing and training in a combat environment. Courage Under Fire is the first book published about Operation Lamar Plain. This was to rake five days. Eight kilometers of road had been pioneered, two defensive compounds had been built, and a portable saw mill had been set up which cut a quarter-million usable feet of lumber for housing from salvaged dunnage. VMFA-212 was detached to return to Kaneohe, but VMA(AW)-533 arrived at Nam Phong with its all-weather A-6s and flew its first combat mission on 24 June. 101st Airborne Division - Wikipedia In all, then, the 1st Marine Division had 26 rifle squads, roughly two-thirds of a battalion, deployed as CUPPs. Municipal council elections were conducted in Da Nang the same day with a 73% turn-out. In ICTZ, 88% of the eligible voters turned out. On 28 June, province council elections were held and in Quang Nam there was an 83% turn-out of eligible voters. Always slight, he looked gaunt and tired as he shook hands and said good-bye.17. HMM-161 departed in August with its CH-46s for Santa Ana. My Vietnam Experience - May 1968-1969 - 101+ Photos There would continue to be a scattering of casualties, but those who remained were performing essentially liaison, advisory, staff, and guard functions. Everything south of Phase Line Blue, a line drawn along the Vu GiaThu Bon rivers was now the responsibility of (or, in the new terminology, "of interest to) the Army. The largest number were members of the 1st Air and Naval Gunfire Liaison Company, parceled out in teams from just below the DMZ down to the southern tip of the peninsula. In the air, the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing would continue to roam farther afield with its fixed-wing aircraft, strike and reconnaissance operations continuing under the single managership of the Seventh Air Force.14 For the time, also, MAG-13 would continue to be based at Chu Lai. The soldiers of the North Vietnamese 29th Regimentbattle-hardened veterans of the Tet Offensivebeat back another attempt by the 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry on May 14. From the Wing, vmFA-334 departed with its F-4J McDonnell Phantoms for Iwakuni in Japan, and HMM-165, with its CH-46A helicopters, left for Futema on Okinawa. Earlier, in April, the first detachment of AH-1G Bell Cobras had arrived. Vietnam, Somalia, Kuwait, Bosnia, Kosovo . The scheme was to form a box around the suspected base area with an FSB roughly at each corner of the quadrangle. Open fire," it was said, was to be from 2300 on the 28th to 0200 on the 29th. MAG-12, under the command of Colonel Dean C. Macho, was alerted on 12 May to move with two of its A-4 squadrons, VMAs 211 and 311, to Bien Hoa air base in Military Region 3. Coming out of the hills beyond An Hoa in a two battalion attack, the 38th tried to seize Duc Duc district headquarters. Sparrow Hawk, Bald Eagle, and Pacifier were all variants on the same theme. This operation was directed by Brigadier General Regan Fuller from his Task Force Hotel headquarters at Vandegrift Combat Base. The same day, the 1st and 2d Battalions went into Fire Support Bases Mace and Dart in the mountains to the west and began their company-size sweeps. It was believed that the rich alluvial soil, which had once been planted in mulberries for silkworm culture, would support a market garden economy. Due to the bitter fighting and the high casualty rate, Ap Bia Mountain was dubbed Hamburger Hill by journalists covering the Vietnam War. The third increment redeployments further increased the disparity in size between the Army and Marine Corps components. In 1970, a coral of 228 rockets was flung against Da Nang and its environs. The ridgeline's defenders came primarily from Division headquarters and service units. There would be eight more SLF operations during the course of 1969, all in three southern provinces of I Corps Tactical Zone. Most of the conferences centered on Increments VI and VII and the tidy departure of III MAF from Vietnam. howitzers and 4.2-inch mortars), an infantry battalion command post, a logistic support area, and an aid station. There were the usual Tet season terrorist acts, rocket and mortar attacks, and scattered ground action. MAG-12 would concentrate its operations on the southern half of South Vietnam and along the Cambodian border while MAG-15, flying out of Da Nang, would concentrate on the northern half of the country and along the Laotian border. With strength he overwhelmed the new and green 3d ARVN Division, and the old, familiar combat basesKhe Sanh, Camp Carroll, Con Thien, Gio Linhbegan to fall, one by one. Major General William K. Jones, Commanding General of the 3d Division, left for Okinawa on 7 November where he would also be Commanding General, I Marine Expeditionary Force. 101st Airborne Division - Army Unit Directory - Together We Served On 8 February, the ARVN crossed over into Laos, initially against little or no opposition. Another 1,679 Marines had died of non-battle causes. There was a visible sign of better times in Quang Nam province when, on 30 March, the 825-foot Seabee-constructed Liberty Bridge was opened across the Thu Bon river just south of Dai Loc. Under the leadership of General Melvin Zais, commanding general of the 101st Airborne Division, paratroopers engaged a North Vietnamese regiment on the slopes of Ap Bia Mountain on May 10, 1969. Of a total of 45,000 Americans to be redeployed by mid-December, 18,483 would be Marines, essentially the rest of the 3d Division together with a proportional share of aviation and service units. In Vietnam it came to have the specific meaning of an improved landing site for helicopters. On 23 June, the battalion (which had landed at Da Nang on 17 June 1965) moved to Vandegrift combat base to get ready for embarkation to Okinawa. On this same day, 7 May, 16 A-4s from VMA-311 flew their last strike into Laos, the four remaining OV-10As flew their last reconnaissance, HMM-262 stood down its CH-46S, the ASRT on Hill 327 began to dismantle its radars,22 the 1st Military Police Battalion relinquished its airfield security mission to a Regional Force group, and 2d CAG pulled in its last CAPS from Dien Ban district. Ultimate casualties for Lam Son 719 were reported, as of 9 April, as being 13,636 enemy killed, 5,066 individual and 1,934 crew-served weapons taken; 1,483 ARVN killed, 5,420 wounded, and 691 missing. This left the Marines with the 1st Engineer Battalion organic to the 1st Marine Division and Company A, 7th Engineers, in general support of III MAF. The 1st Marine Aircraft Wing was to provide a heavy-lift capability by way of its CH-53S, and, through Seventh Air Force, would be tasked for tactical air support. On 29 March, the 38th NVA Regiment surfaced for the first time in months. He called together the general officers assigned to III MAF and told them he was leaving on 13 December for hospitalization at Bethesda. This was not a field from which Marine air had worked before. The soldiers and Marines joined hands in a cordon and together swept toward the sea, scooping up as they went all Vietnamese civilians for screening. Nothing of possible value to the enemy was left behind and a high standard of police was rigidly enforced.) Operations into the A Shau Valley, 1968-69 - Military Trader/Vehicles With few exceptions, all close air support missions were being controlled by airborne forward air controllers. In Phase I, which began at 0001, 30 January, the 1st Brigade, 5th U.S. Mechanized Division, would open Route 9 from Vandegrift to abandoned Khe Sanh and thence co the Laotian border. Aerial support was hampered by the weather which delayed getting started each day. First, there were the Northern and Southern Sector Defense Commands, forming a belt extending from the Cau Do bridges clockwise around to the Force Logistic Command at Red Beach. On 4 June, Brigadier General Jones released the Force Logistics Command's Camp Booksits remaining Butler buildings now starkly emptyto the ARVN 1st Area Logistical Command. His SAMs the big surface-to-air missileswere moved south, close to the DMZ, from where they could cover much of Quang Tri province. The 3d ARVN Division, including Brigade 147 which had gone up to relieve Brigade 258, now occupied a rough line along the Cua Viet river and it held until 27 April when it broke under a fresh NVA attack. Find History on Facebook (Opens in a new window), Find History on Twitter (Opens in a new window), Find History on YouTube (Opens in a new window), Find History on Instagram (Opens in a new window), Find History on TikTok (Opens in a new window), Current one is: May 11. The program began with Company M, 1st Marines, sending squads into three contested hamlets near Hill 55, to be paired off, CAP fashion, with the local RFs and PFs. The 1st Marines, the sole remaining infantry regiment, put a bob-tailed battalion into the Que Sons to continue Imperial Lake and also to provide security at Baldy until the Vietnamese were ready to take over the base. On the floor of the U.S. Senate, Edward Kennedy scorned the military tactics of the Nixon administration. The essential difference between a TAOI and a TAOR was that the commander was not charged with primary tactical responsibility and was not expected to conduct operations throughout the TAOI on a continuing basis. The floods probably hurt the enemy in Quang Nam more than they did the government. HMM-265 went to Santa Ana with its CH-46s. Lam Son 719 was to be a spoiling action co offset what increasingly appeared to be an intention on the enemy's part to launch a large-scale offensive into the northern provinces of Military Region I. 101st Airborne Division In The A Shau Valley 1969-1971 militaryvideocom 40.7K subscribers Subscribe 1.7K 349K views 13 years ago Like This Movie Trailer? On 30 March 1972, the North Vietnamese began their three-pronged attack. The 101st Airborne was ordered back into Thua Thien to participate in Civil operations designed to bolster the South Vietnamese government forces. Most of MAG-i5s sorties would be flown in Military Regions 1 and 2. After that, the sorely-mauled 90th NVA withdrew into the hills to regroup. The 14th of April 1971 was the day that III Marine Amphibious Force, after just short of six years in-country, left Vietnam.20 Lieutenant General Robertson took his flag and headquarter to Okinawa. Vietnam had been the longest and, in some of its dimensions, the biggest war in Marine Corps history. This called for a major rearrangement of the respective areas of operation for the 5th and 7th Marines. ANGLICO teams were involved in all four military Regions but most were working in Military Region 1. Scope of operations was now down to 2d CAG in Quang Nam province with six companies and 38 platoons. Barrier island and Batangan peninsula, for example, with their Viet Cong-oriented fisherman populations were long-time transshipment points for supplies landed from the sea and then moved inland to mountain base areas. If you served in 101st Airborne Division, Join TWS for free to reconnect with service friends. Execution got underway in late May. III MAF had celebrated the 195th birthday of the Corps on 10 November with a tremendous pageant staged in one of the hangars on the west side of Da Nang airbase. The Hoang Dieu series of operations, which had already moved the ARVN toward an increased responsibility for territorial security, had continued, although at somewhat reduced vigor. On that day, the 2d Battalion, 1st Marines, the last infantry battalion in the field, stood down. 7. Ez a szcikk rszben vagy egszben a(z) 101st Airborne Division (United States) cm angol Wikipdia-szcikk Az eredeti cikk szerkesztit annak laptrtnete sorolja fel. Vietnam - 327 Infantry Veterans 21 The 1st Marine Division was officially welcomed home by President Nixon on 30 April in nationally televised ceremonies. There were not enough of these 59-man cadres to go around so the number of teams available was doubled by halving the size to 30 men and assigning to each team a Regional Force, Popular Force, or National Police Field Force6 platoon to perform the security function. In Phase III, I Corps would conduct systematic search-and-destroy action in Ba e Area 604 in the vicinity of Tchepone. In the north, Colonel LaFonds 3d Marines had been continuing Operation Virginia Ridge in the central DMZ area. He had cut the Ho Chi Minh trail complex and had engaged the enemy in a major battle. A Year In Vietnam With The 101st Airborne: 1969-1970 It was the old Starlite battlefield1 revisited and this operation, called Bold Mariner, with both Special Landing Forces Alpha and Bravo involved, would be the largest Special Landing Force effort of the war. The Marine Corps had begun the war with the UH-34 as it standard medium helicopter and the tough old birds had logged nearly a million combat sorties. In ten months, 16 Marine tactical squadrons had left country.
101st airborne vietnam 1969