Operation New York, Operation Troy
See TAO Maps For This/These Operations Here New York
See TAO Maps For This/These Operations Here Troy
The first phase of Operation New York went as planned except the enemy simply was not in the objective area. Companies F and G of the 2d Battalion moved by truck into jump off positions southwest of Pho Lai, arriving at their destination in the late afternoon and early evening of 26 February. About the same time, HMM-163 brought Company K, 3d Marines into blocking positions northeast of the village. Establishing his command group with Companies F and G that evening, Lieutenant Colonel Hanifin ordered the two companies into the attack. Companies F and G advanced through Pho Lai without opposition and reached Company K’s blocking positions at 2215 that night. Task Unit Hotel remained in the Pho Lai vicinity through the next morning, but failed to encounter any enemy. The Marine units of Task Unit Hotel were back at Phu Bai by 1815 on the 27th.
Lieutenant Colonel Hanifin and Task Unit Hotel were to have little rest. An hour and a half after his return to Phu Bai, Hanifin received another call for assistance from General Chuan. The 1st Battalion, 3d ARVN Regiment and a small group of Popular Force and Regional Force troops had engaged the 810th VC Battalion on the supposedly pacified Phu Thu Peninsula located almost immediately to the east of the Phu Bai TAOR. After returning from another briefing at 1st Division Headquarters and receiving permission from III MAF, Hanifin decided to order at 2100 a night helicopter landing of the same forces that he had used in the Pho Lai village area to relieve the pressure on the South Vietnamese battalion. He realized that his men were not fresh, “but they were all that was available. The anticipation of engagement with a VC force boxed in on a peninsula overcame physical handicaps on the part of the troops.
Lieutenant Colonel House’s HMM- 163 landed the three infantry companies of Task Unit Hotel into landing zones just north of the peninsula, completing the entire helilift at 0200 the next morning. Supported by the Marine artillery at Phu Bai on 28 February, Companies F, G, and K advanced abreast toward the southeast. While the South Vietnamese blocking forces from the 1st Battalion moved into position on the enemy’s flanks, the Marine companies made a frontal assault against the well-prepared VC defenses, “at which time the VC broke contact and withdrew in small disorganized groups. The Marines continued the cleanup phase of the operation, meeting occasional enemy resistance, until 3 March. Task Unit Hotel during the one-week operation, also called New York, killed 120 of the enemy, captured 7 more, and seized 69 weapons. The Marines suffered casualties of 17 dead and 37 wounded.
While the Marines conducted Operation New York on the Phu Thu Peninsula, evidence of a growing enemy presence in southern Quang Tn and Thua Thien Provinces continued to mount. In Lam Son-235, 1st ARVN Division units operating east and south of Quang Tn City accounted for over 240 enemy troops, but sustained losses of 23 killed and 158 wounded, including two U.S. advisors, through the end of February. Further south, Communist main force troops on 28 February ambushed a 1st Division unit conducting Operation Lam Son-236 in Phong Dien District of Thua Thien Province, 17 miles north of Hue. As a result of this action, the South Vietnamese suffered casualties of 15 killed and 22 wounded, and lost 56 weapons. Closer to Phu Bai, an ARVN unit reported contact on 1 March with a small Communist force at the Truoi River Bridge on Route 1, six miles south of where Task Unit Hotel had engaged the 810th VC Battalion the day before. Other intelligence revealed that a VC company from the badly mauled 810th, carrying its wounded, was moving toward Route 1 just north of the bridge.12
Influenced by the general buildup of enemy forces and also wanting to capitalize on the intelligence indicating that the remnants of the 810th were fleeing toward the Truoi Bridge, the Marine command decided to reinforce its northern enclave. While alerting additional units at both Da Nang and Chu Lai and with the concurrence of General McCutcheon, the acting CG III MAF, on March 1 General English ordered the deployment of his reserve battalion, the 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, to Phu Bai. Company A of the 1st Battalion, which had only been relieved on line earlier that day, departed Da Nang on Marine fixed-wing transports at 1700 on 1 March. The following day, the battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Hatch, his command group, and Company C joined Company A at Phu Bai. Colonel Fisher, the 3d Marines commander, also arrived at Phu Bai on 2 March to look over the situation.
Upon his arrival at Phu Bai on 2 March, Lieutenant Colonel Hatch came under the operational control of the 3d Marines. Hoping to trap the retreating elements of the 810th, Colonel Fisher ordered Hatch to conduct an operation in the Phu Loc District of Thua Thien Province, southwest of the Phu Thu Peninsula and south of Route 1 and the Truoi River Bridge. One of the reserve companies of Task Unit Hotel at Phu Bai, Company F, 2d Battalion, 9th Marines, already had established blocking positions at the bridge the previous day. Assuming control of the 9th Marines company at the bridge and Company E, 2d Battalion, 1st Marines, Lieutenant Colonel Hatch prepared his scheme of maneuver for a three-company operation. At 1230 on 2 March, one and a half hours after the battalion commander first received his orders, helicopters from HMM- 163 inserted the 1st Battalion’s command group, together with Company E of the 2d Battalion and Company C of the 1st Battalion, into a landing zone 3,000 meters south of Route 1. Remaining west of the Truoi River, the two companies advanced north without encountering any resistance toward the blocking positions of Company F at the bridge. With negligible results, Lieutenant Colonel Hatch closed out the operation, designated Troy, on 3 March, at about the same time Task Unit Hotel secured from Operation New York further north. The remaining elements of the 810th had made good their escape.
During this time, Generals English and McCutcheon, after receiving Colonel Fisher’s report on the enemy buildup in the area, decided to continue with the augmentation of the Phu Bai defenses. Colonel Fisher returned to Phu Bai at 0815 on 3 March with a small command group from the 3d Marines and established Task Group Foxtrot, assuming responsibility for the Phu Bai enclave. Task Group Foxtrot included both infantry battalions, the artillery battalion, and other supporting forces. Lieutenant Colonel Hatch had only a forward headquarters and two of his own infantry companies at Phu Bai, the rest of his command remaining at Da Nang. Hatch assumed operational control of Company K, 3d Battalion, 3d Marines at Phu Bai. Lieutenant Colonel Hanifin retained control of his four infantry companies and also Company F of the 9th Marines. Rounding out the new reinforcements, Battery C, 1st Battalion, 12th Marines arrived from Da Nang with six 105mm howitzers on the afternoon of 3 March and brought the number of artillery pieces under Lieutenant Colonel Rudzis to 30.”
Although intelligence reports continued to speak of a buildup of VC forces near Hue and the likelihood of an attack against the Phu Bai base, the enemy remained quiescent for the next few days. Task Group Foxtrot spent the time consolidating its defenses and planning the extension of the Phu Bai
TAOR.The Marines were confident that they were in control of the situation. On 4 March, General McCutcheon radioed General Krulak that III MAF in Operation New York and the ARVN 1st Division in Operations Lam Son-234, -235, and 236 had killed over 700 of the enemy.
