Article about American Marine Corps' failure to reclaim Hoi An

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363-06261 to 363-06267.pdf

Digital Object Identifier

363-06261 to 363-06267

Title

Article about American Marine Corps' failure to reclaim Hoi An

Description

Original title: "AMERICAN MARINES AND PACIFICATION HEADACHES", Keever's title: "'Keeping your rear covered,': Big problem for U.S. Marines Securing Danang Airbase" This article was later reproduced in Congressoinal Record. Article about American Marines' delay in claiming Hoi An, article 4 of 4-article series, for the New York Herald Tribune

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Draft transcripts were automatically generated via Google Document AI and are currently under review. Please report significant errors to Archives & Special Collections at archives@unl.edu.

Transcript

deepe wrapup--article 4 of 4-article series page 1 AMERICAN MARINES AND PACIFICATION HEADACHES FIVE MOUNTAIN VILLAGES, SOUTH VIETNAM--Last fall, the battle cry of the American Marines was “We’ll be in Hoi An by New Year’s ‘66.” Today, they estimate it will be New Year’s ‘68. The hold-up in reaching Hoi An, a provincial capital situated only 15 miles south of the strategic airbase of Danang, illustrates the changing concepts of how American troops are to be employed in Vietnam--and some of the many problems they face. “We could easily have fought our way to Hoi An,” one Marine explained. “But then, we would have had to fought our way back. The essential problem of this war is not moving your frontlines forward--but is keeping your rear covered.” This problem of “keeping your rear covered” is usually identified as that “twilight area” of pacification, which ties together the military, political, social and economic aspects of the war to control and gain the support of the [deletion: local] rural population. Without control and support of the [deletion: rural population] villagers, officials here believe the war could continue for years. deepe wrapup--article 4 of 4-article series page 2 The decision to halt the advance of the Marine frontline positions until the Vietnamese cadre could pacify the population brought vocal dissents within the Marine Corps ranks and sneers from Army colonels who claimed “the Marines are afraid to go out and find the Viet Cong.” Under the direction of Marine commander Maj. Gen. Lewis Walt, and backed by key Army generals in Saigon, however, the Marine effort outside of Danang slowly began to dovetail with the activities of the Vietnamese government to control the population. “In a conventional war, progress is measured by an advancing frontline,” one reliable source explained. “But in this war our outlying positions [deletion: is] are constant and progress must be measured in the third dimension. We must go in depth down into the population to dig out the Viet Cong infrastructure and then [deletion: re-building] re-build the local anti-Communist government.” The result of this coordinated Marine-Vietnamese effort is the “Five Mountain Villages Campaign” initiated less than ten miles southwest of Danang, [XXXX indicating deletion] and 15 miles from Ha Hoi An. This campaign has been tabbed the No. 1 priority project in the country; it is the foremost attempt in pacification and a pilot case for future decision-making in Vietnam. deepe wrapup--article 4 of 4-article series page 3 Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara was briefed in depth on the project during his last visit. “If this plan doesn’t succeed here, it’s not going to succeed anywhere else in the country,” one reliable source explained. “We’ll really be in serious trouble then.” The project has already run into some serious trouble. “Now we’re just spinning our wheels,” one source explained. The “Five Mountain Villages” campaign called for the pacification of five villages (subdivided into 19 [deletion: villages] hamlets), covering a twenty square kilometer area. The five-village complex [XXXX indicating deletion] contains 42,000 population--[deletion: of which] about seven percent of the families are considered to be related to the Viet Cong Communists. The [deletion: villages] densely populated villages, snuggled in lush rice paddy, [deletion: is] are surrounded by the [XXXX indicating deletion] five peaks of mountains containing grey and salmon-colored marble. (“These Marble Mountains would make a great tourist attraction, but you’ be killed going out there,” one Marine cracked). deepe wrapup--article 4 of 4-article series page 4 The plan called for three components for pacification--the American Marines who secure the outer perimeter of the area by myriads of patrols to prevent the invasion of hard-core Communist units, the Vietnamese paramilitary troops who secure the villages, and the Vietnamese civilian cadre who through distribution of economic goods, psychological warfare, census-taking and organizing the people attempt to weed out the Viet Cong infrastructure and convince the villagers to side with the anti-Communist government forces. “The role of the American Marines is [XXXX indicating deletion] like an egg,” one reliable source explained. “Our frontlines on the rim of the area is the shell--but like a shell, the lines can be broken. The vital installation--the Danang airbase--is the [deletion: yok yok] yolk and we also defend that. The white is what we are trying to pacify and then solidify.” On October 18, the Vietnamese government [deletion: , with Marines on the [illegible],] forces, began their pacification in the rear by using one headquarters company and [deletion: one] four understrength line companies of the 59th Regional Forces Battalion to sweep through the area. Then 327 civilian cadre were moved in from the provincial headquarters and the Vietnamese commander put them through a detailed two-week re-training course. Then the commander received five Vietnamese People’s Action Teams (PAT’s), totalling 50 persons, who were responsible for census taking and other activities. deepe wrapup--article 4 of 4-article series page 5 In each of the five villages, the Vietnamese commander placed and Regional Forces company and one People’s Action Team; in each of the 19 hamlets, he placed a civilian cadre team. “But during the third week of the campaign a 50-man Viet Cong platoon broke through the Marine blocking position and were in our area shooting things us up and they hit us hard,” one reliable source explained. “Five regional force troopers and several cadremen were killed. Since each of our armed companies were 42 per cent understrength, we had 15-man platoons [deletion: in] when we should have had 35 men. And fighting against 50 Viet Cong, of course, we lose against those odds. Until that we were just beginning to get the confidence of the people--but after that, the people clammed up and wouldn’t tell us anything. And it also hurt the morale of our cadre. One whole 11-man team took off--but the district chief talked them into coming back. Then, four nights later, the same Viet Cong platoon hit us again. They slipped in between two Marine patrols, attacked the Regional Force headquarters unit of 17 men, killed several civilian cadre and kidnapped two of the women working with the drama unit. We haven’t seen the women since. One of the American Marines saw the whole action from 50 yards away--but he couldn’t open up with his machinegun. He would have killed more friendlies than enemy. deepe wrapup--article 4 of 4-article series page 6 “Of course, the Marines can’t stop all small-unit infiltration. It would take the Marines shoulder-to-shoulder to do that. And once you had that, the Viet Cong would mortar them from across the river, which they’ve already started doing.” Since these late November actions, the Vietnamese have slightly reinforced the area with troop strength and the Marines have moved in more units; now the Marines are not only holding the outer perimeter by extensive patrolling, but they are also responsible for securing the civilian cadre in 11 of the 19 villages, [deletion: while] with the Vietnamese troops defending the remaining 8. By mid-December, “we started pacifying again and things were moving slow, but good,” [insertion: the source continued.] The people started giving us good intelligence and were turning in some Viet Cong. For the first time, on a Sunday afternoon families from Danang would come to the villages here to visit their relatives; more than 100 families moved back into the area--but [deletion: noon of] none of the people were of draft age.” During late December, however, the Viet Cong launched on one night four harassing actions, including mortaring the central command post and [XXXX indicating deletion] attacking another People’s Action Team, killing several of them. deepe wrapup--article 4 of 4-article series page 7 Gradually, through the operation, the number of civilian cadremen dropped from 331 to 304; one serious disadvantage of them is they were considered by reliable sources to be poorly trained for [deletion: the] their work and secondly none of them were residents of the villages being pacified, which is considered to be an essential [deletion: point] pre-requisite. Problems also arose [deletion: about] with the 10-man People’s Action Teams, which are equipped, trained and paid for political activities and [deletion: a] intelligence gathering by a subdivision of the American Central Intelligence Agency. The Vietnamese commander wanted to use the teams for providing security since they had better guns than his military troops; the teams didn’t want to provide security. One of the five teams defected en masse and the province chief transferred a second team which caused [deletion: problems] trouble. “But the biggest headache is that we can’t move our Vietnamese troops and cadre out of this 20 square kilometer chunk of villages until we have villagers here who can defend the Five Mountain Village area. And there’s not one young man here between 10 and 38 we can recruit. We have lost the middle generation. No one has yet begun to find the answer to that problem.” There are eighty square kilometers of land to be pacified before reaching Hoi An. And that’s why the present official estimate is Hoi An will be reached by New Year’s, 1968. -30-

Date

1965, Dec. 27

Subject

Vietnam War, 1961-1975; United States. Marine Corps; Strategy; United States. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam. Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support

Location

Five mountain villages, South Vietnam

Coordinates

10.8231; 106.6311

Size

20 x 26 cm

Container

B187, F6

Format

dispatches

Collection Number

MS 363

Collection Title

Beverly Deepe Keever, Journalism Papers

Creator

Keever, Beverly Deepe

Collector

Keever, Beverly Deepe

Copyright Information

These images are for educational use only. To inquire about usage or publication, please contact Archives & Special Collections.

Publisher

Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries

Language

English