The Ky Lam Campaign

Taking advantage of the truce in the political situation, on 4 May, Colonel Simmons published a renewed offensive above the Ky Lam River.  The Ky Lam Campaign, named after the river, was to be a three-phased advance 'to clear the regimental zone of action of organized resistance south to the line of the Thu Bon-Ky Lam-Diem Binh-Cau Lau-Hoi An Rivers'.  At the end of May, the forward battalions were to reach Phase Line Brown, a line which extended from below Dai Loc in the west and followed the La Tho-Thanh Quit Rivers eastward, with the exception of a 2,000 meter-wide horseshoe-shaped salient extending south 5,000 meters along both sides of Route 1 to just above Dien Ban.  In June, the regiment was to begin the second phase of the operation, securing all of Route 4 west of Route 1 and extending the Marines' lines down to the Ky Lam.  During July, the 9th Marines, in the final phase of the campaign, was to advance southward in the region east of Route 1 and incorporate the city of Hoi An in its area of responsibility.

The concept of operations for the offensive required the same 'scrubbing' tactics used in Kings and Georgia.  Battalions were 'to deploy their companies in a diamond configuration, terrain permitting, and to employ all supporting arms imaginatively and vigorously'.  Colonel Simmons later explained that the failure to use air and artillery in the past had resulted in needless Marine casualties.  He believed that the American command had to take a realistic attitude toward civilian casualties.  The selective employment of supporting arms did not by itself increase the number of civilians killed and wounded, but it did cause the inhabitants of contested hamlets to abandon their homes, thus becoming refugees.  Simmons viewed the refugee from his perspective as an asset, 'a person who had made his election physically to move over to our side'.  The removal of refugees from the hamlets in the un-cleared area made the Marine task that much easier.  The cost of housing, feeding these refugees, and rebuilding their hamlets, if necessary, was considered a minimal price to pay.

For the Ky Lam Campaign, Colonel Simmons had four infantry battalions under his operational control.  These were the 2d Battalion, 4th Marines and all three 9th Marines battalions, including the 3d Battalion in An Hoa.  Lieutenant Colonel William F. Doehler's 1st Battalion 9th Marines, which had been the Da Nang Base Defense Battalion, became available for the campaign when relieved by Lieutenant Colonel Dorsey's 3d Battalion, 3d Marines.  Doehler's battalion inherited Dorsey's responsibility for the 9th Marines western sector.

The heaviest fighting in the early stages of the campaign was in Doehler's zone of action.  On 10 May, he had established the battalion's forward command post in Dai Loc.  His Company B, commanded by Captain Norman E. Henry, was on the eastern bank of the Vu Gia, 3,500 meters south of Dai Loc to provide a covering force for units leaving the Georgia area of operations.  That morning, Company A, 9th Marines, which had been under the operational control of the 3d Battalion during Operation Georgia, crossed the Vu Gia in LVTs and rejoined its parent battalion at Dai Loc.  After the river crossing, Company A, prepared for a clearing operation around the town of Dai Loc, which Henry's company made preparations for a similar operation in southern Dai Loc District above the Thu Bon.  Allied intelligence sources indicated that the R-20 Battalion had rein-filtrated this area.  A report received on 11 May stated that a company of the battalion was in the hamlet of Do Nam near a small finger lake, 2,000 meters northwest of Company B's position.

On the morning of 12 May, one of Henry's patrols unexpectedly came upon the enemy.  The 14-man patrol squad had left the company CP at 0630, moving east.  One hour later, the patrol reported that it had come under small arms fire and captured a VC suspect.  Encountering no further resistance, the Marines continued their patrol.  At 0830, the squad leader radioed back that a water buffalo was in its path.  Captain Henry ordered the squad to avoid the animal, but 'if threatened by it, they were given permission to shoot'.  In the squad's next report, about 30 minutes later, the Marines stated that they had wounded the buffalo and were giving chase to finish it off.  Fifteen minutes after that, the patrol reported harassing fire and seeing Viet Cong fleeing to the east 'and that the patrol was giving physical pursuit'.  The patrol leader asked for supporting mortar fire.  Company B's mortar section fired an 81mm ranging round, but the patrol was unable to observe its impact.  Captain Henry ordered his mortars to cease firing, fearing that they might hit his own men.  About that time, the company sent out a second squad to follow the route of the first patrol.  The second  squad came under small arms and mortar fire itself.  The Marines countered with mortar fire from the companies base area which silenced the enemy's weapons.  About 1030, the squad leader reported hearing a 'heavy volume of small arms fire, mortars, M79s, and hand grenades due east of their position', near the village of Do Nam.  Believing that he had found the missing Marines, he asked for an aerial observer.

Although no Marine observation aircraft was available, 'an Army AO {aerial observer} happened into the area and reported an apparent firefight' in the vicinity of the action recently reported by the second squad.  The Army aircraft dropped a red smoke grenade in the village of Do Nam and fired four rockets into a trench-line in front of the Marines.  Making another pass, the Army AO threw out two messages to the Marines below, informing them that there were 20 VC in the trench line.

By this time, Captain Henry decided to move the rest of the company to support his embattered Marines.  By 1145 he had established a 500 meter defensive line near the village of Hoa Tay, 500 meters southwest of the second squad's position.  The company commander then ordered the squad, which had suffered five heat casualties, to pull back to the company lines.  By 1230, the entire company was heavily engaged.  The company's 81mm and 60mm mortars failed to silence the enemy's weapons and Henry asked for artillery and air support.  After an artillery mission fired by the 2d Battalion, 12th Marines, the action died down for about 20 minutes.  At noon, the enemy opened up again with small arms and mortars, but by this time F-4Bs from VMFA-542 were overhead.  The jets' first runs on the entrenched VC in Do Nam once more temporarily silenced the enemy.

    Following the air strikes, about 1320, Captain Henry's men spotted two Marines crossing an open field toward their lines.  Henry ordered 'a base of fire and mortar fire' to cover the two men.  Both Marines were from the first patrol and badly wounded.  The company commander asked them, before they went under sedation, where the rest of the squad was.  The men vaguely pointed in a general direction to the northeast and said they were all dead.  Before being overrun, the wounded men claimed that the patrol had killed 30 of the enemy.

Despite poor communication, Lieutenant Colonel Doehler had been able to follow the course of the Company B action.  Through 'fragments of information which had sifted through', the Marine battalion commander believed that his company had encountered the R-20 Battalion.  He had just received an intelligence report that two companies of the R-20 had reinforced the enemy company already in the area 'to ambush Marine units operating in the area'. Doehler ironically remarked later that since Company B was heavily engaged at the time, 'it was considered to be accurate if not timely report'.

Shortly after 1330, the 1st Battalion commander decided to reinforce his Company B.  After some initial problems in obtaining helicopter support, he moved Company D and a platoon from Company A to link up with Henry's company.  By 1815, the three Marine units were consolidated in a 360-degree defensive perimeter around the hamlet of Hoa Tay.

By this time, Marine Air and artillery had broken the back of enemy resistance.  F-4Bs, F-8s, and A-4s from VMFA-542, VMF (AW)-235, and VMA-214, respectively, joined UH-1E gunships from VMO-2 in 27 close air support missions.  Nine air strikes were run at half-hour intervals.  Marine artillery had fired 242 supporting rounds.  The combination of air and artillery apparently inflicted heavy casualties on the VC.  According to Doehler, the supporting arms disorganized the enemy, forcing them to break up into small groups.  Later interrogation of the villagers revealed that these small bands of VC had slipped back across the Thu Bon during the night of 12 May.  They had forced civilians in the hamlets to carry their dead and wounded.

On the morning of 13 May, Lieutenant Colonel Doehler moved his CP into Hoa Tay and prepared to conduct a two-company search and clear operation.  That afternoon Company B recovered the bodies of the 12 missing Marines near the western tip of the small finger lake.  For the next two days the battalion carried out a series of cordons and searches in the area of southern Dai Loc District containing the hamlets of Hoa Tay, Hoa Nam, and Giao Thuy 2 and 3.

This entire sector contained a series of heavily fortified hamlets interspersed among large, open fields.  Lieutenant Colonel Doehler described the village defenses as formidable, observing:

A complex network of trenches surrounded each of the villages.  In many cases, communication trenches extended from village to village.  These trenches typically were four to six  feet deep with firing positions located every few meters.  At the bottom of the trenches, tunnels were dug back into the ground to provide overhead cover....  In some places bamboo-lined bunkers were found, some of which were underground and some above ground.

Colonel Simmons observed that all of the regiment's contacts during May resulted from VC initiative.  The enemy would begin the action when the Marines were at a disadvantage, either because of numbers or terrain, and in some cases because of both.  The Marines, never the less, eventually attained the upper hand.  For the entire month, the 9th Marines killed more than 270 of the enemy; 75 Marines died, 328 were wounded.  Over 50 percent of the Marines casualties in May were caused by enemy mines and explosive devices, many of them made from equipment abandoned by the ARVN forces south of Da Nang.

* Colonel George W. Carrington, Jr. , who during this period was the 3d Marine Division G-2, recalled,  ". . . they told Bill Doehler to confirm body counts . . . he replied there is not a damn, single {enemy} body out here.  We had to pause for about three full days in counting bodies, in order to allow the totals to catch up with what {was} already reported."  Col George W. Carrington, Jr. , Comments on draft MS, dtd 15 May 78 (Vietnam Comment File).

U.S. MARINES IN VIETNAM
AN EXPANDING WAR

1966

by
Jack Shulimson

HISTORY AND MUSEUMS DIVISION
HEADQUARTERS, U.S. MARINE CORPS
WASHINGTON, D.C.
1982