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[Includes 11 illustrations and 6 maps] The Guerilla Warfare in the jungles and paddies of Vietnam was unlike the previous wars that the United States had been involved in for the past hundred years; there were no frontlines, no rest areas, few uniformed enemies and a terrorized population unwilling to help. The tactics, strategies and experiences that would show the way forward were often developed by the small units; squads, platoons and outposts who saw the most of the hard fighting in isolated engagements with their elusive enemies. To ensure that this valuable resource of knowledge and experience was disseminated to all the men of the Corps, the Marine Intelligence department plucked Captain Francis J West Jr and sent him to join the 5th Marines on their day-to-day engagements, patrols and ambushes. What he learnt and recorded, frequently under fire, were the actual experiences of the USMC at the sharp end of the fighting during the Summer of 1966. Aimed at the men of the Corps he wrote of the tense ambushes, long range patrols, 15 second engagements, artillery support, airstrikes and even battalion level sweeps through the awful conditions of the war. A vivid and visceral account of the struggle of the U.S. Marines during the summer of 1966.
The origin of this publication 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. Recognizing a need to inform the men who are the key to the success of Marine Corps operations—the enlisted Marines and junior officers of combat and combat support units—the former Assistant Chief of Staff, G-3, Major General William R. Collins, originated a project to provide a timely series of short, factual narratives of small unit action, stories which would have lessons learned as an integral part. Essential to General Collins' concept was the fact that the stories would have to be both highly readable and historically accurate. The basic requirement called for an author trained in the methodology of research, with recent active duty experience at the small unit level in the FMF, and a proven ability to write in e style that would ensure wide readership. This publication, then, is based upon first-hand, eyewitness accounting of the events described. It is documented by notes and taped interviews taken in the field and includes lessons learned from the mouths of the Marines who are currently fighting in Vietnam. It is published for the information of those men who are serving and who will serve in Vietnam, as well as for the use of other interested Americans, so that they may better understand the demands of the Vietnam conflict on the individual Marine.
This is the second volume in a series of chronological histories prepared by the Marine Corps History and Museums Division to cover the entire span of Marine Corps involvement in the Vietnam War. This volume details the Marine activities during 1965, the year the war escalated and major American combat units were committed to the conflict. The narrative traces the landing of the nearly 5,000-man 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade and its transformation into the ΙII Marine Amphibious Force, which by the end of the year contained over 38,000 Marines. During this period, the Marines established three enclaves in South Vietnam’s northernmost corps area, I Corps, and their mission expanded from defense of the Da Nang Airbase to a balanced strategy involving base defense, offensive operations, and pacification. This volume continues to treat the activities of Marine advisors to the South Vietnamese armed forces but in less detail than its predecessor volume, U.S. Marines in Vietnam, 1954-1964; The Advisory and Combat Assistance Era.