Operation Linn River

While the 5th Marines conducted Operation Taylor Common, the 7th Marines conducted Operation Linn River south of Hill 55, which sat about twenty kilometers south of Da Nang and just north of Route 4. The operation's purpose was to cordon and sweep a ten square kilometer area in support of the Le Loi, or the Accelerated Pacification Program.

The operation began at midday on 27 January when 1/7 headed east along Route 4 from its base adjacent to Hill 65. Once the Marines arrived in the objective area, the Marines of 2/26 would join up with them and participate in the cordon. Although little enemy action was expected, four CH-46D helicopters carrying members of 2/26 were badly damaged by small arms fire on 29 January as they hovered over LZ Owl waiting to land. The rest of the lift had to be postponed while replacement aircraft were rounded up. By late that afternoon all units were in position and the initial cordon was established. The next morning, the two battalions began their sweeps. Enemy contact consisted primarily of the Marines engaging fleeing bands of NVA and VC. Although only fifty-three enemy were killed in the two-week operation, the real success came in the relocation of hundreds of endangered Vietnamese to government resettlement villages and the destruction of numerous enemy bunkers and fortifications.

As February began, evidence of an enemy buildup around Da Nang increased. Marine patrols throughout what was now called the 'Da Nang Vital Area' found numerous signs of the enemy's presence. On 8 February, Company L, 3/7, uncovered a cache of 122mm rockets hidden along the banks of the Song Yen, fourteen kilometers south of Da Nang. Two kilometers to the west, another 3d Battalion patrol uncovered thirteen 140mm rockets hidden in a well.

A week later Company D, 1/7, found an enemy platoon in bunkers twenty kilometers southwest of Da Nang. Under the protective umbrella of a well-coordinated artillery barrage, the riflemen launched an assault. As the deep booms of the 155mm shells faded, they were replaced by the sharp cracks of M-16s and the deep throated bursts of M60 machine-gun fire. It was over sooner than any one expected. The NVA suddenly pulled out, leaving the bodies of sixteen of their comrades crumpled in the foliage. Wise to the way of the enemy, the company commander left a squad-sized ambush in the area. The rest of the company noisily withdrew. Soon after dusk the enemy returned to reoccupy the bunker complex. The squad leader sprang the ambush. Two Claymore mines erupted in sharp explosions, spraying thousands of death-causing steel ball bearings across the ambush site. Then the Marines blazed away with their M-16s and M60s. When it was over, fourteen more NVA soldiers had died.

Additional evidence continued to mount that the enemy was up to something. That was proven true on 23 February, the first day of Tet. Early that morning, NVA rockets and mortars fell out of the sky and tore into Da Nang. Lucky hits destroyed an ARVN ammo dump and a 450,000-gallon fuel storage area adjacent to the air base.

While the 122mm rockets rained havoc on Da Nang, enemy in fanny units slipped out of the hills and moved into positions to attack allied installations and disrupt the approaches to the city. Just after midnight, Company K, 3/1, detected enemy soldiers approaching the Song Cau Do bridges south of the city. Seizing the initiative, the grunts, along with Company D, 1st Marine MP Battalion, attacked the still-unassembled enemy units. The fight was short but deadly. The combined unit killed forty'-seven and captured eleven before the rest broke away. A little later, the CP of the 2d Battalion, 1st Marines, a short distance away, was attacked by nearly one hundred Viet Cong. Proving that all Marines are first and foremost riflemen, the headquarters clerks drove them off, incurring only light casualties while killing seventeen VC.

So pervasive were the enemy attacks that a squad of sappers managed to close on the 1st Marine Division headquarters complex, sited on Hill 327 west of Da Nang. Fortunately, security personnel repulsed these satchel charge carrying VC before they did any damage. Then, just to the northwest, the headquarters compound of 2/7 came under a similar attack. Again, headquarters Marines rose to the challenge. Even though the enemy actually breached the defensive wire at one point, the plucky clerks rallied and drove back the enemy. When dawn came, the Marines had lost eighteen killed and eighty wounded in the two futile attacks, but they had slain more than seventy-five of the enemy.

The most serious threat to Da Nang, however, came from the west. The 141st NVA Regiment launched a three-pronged attack with their ultimate objective being the 1st Marine Division headquarters. Company M, 3/7, spoiled the attack when one of its night ambush squads trapped an enemy force west of Hill 10,just a few kilometers southwest of Hill 327. The small band of Marines killed ten NVA and captured a number of weapons in the fight. Later, another Company M squad spotted forty more NVA milling about in the same general area. An accurate artillery barrage dispersed this enemy group. Dawn revealed that this had been an 82mm mortar company. Besides a pair of mortars, the NVA left behind a dozen dead and their wounded first sergeant. He later confirmed that a major offensive had been launched.

As dawn broke, Lt. Col. Francis X. Quinn, the commander of 3/7, committed the rest of his Company M in an attempt to halt the advancing NVA. That wasn't enough. The enemy aggressively pushed forward, engaging the Marines in close-quarters combat. Quinn was forced to send in the rest of his battalion to blunt the attack.

The fighting raged into 24 February. Several times Company L attacked portions of the enemy regiment entrenched in thick bamboo groves along the Song Tuy Loan. Despite repeated air strikes and artillery barrages, the Marines couldn't pry the NVA loose. After taking heavy casualties, including its company commander, Company L was forced to withdraw and regroup. On 26 February, Company M and the two effective platoons of Company L returned to the attack. Despite more air strikes employing both napalm and five-hundred-pound bombs, artillery, and a tear gas barrage, the Marines still could not dislodge the NVA. Not until the morning of the twentyseventh, under the cover of another tear gas blanket, did Company M finally manage to drive a wedge deep into the enemy's lines. Fanning out left and right, the Marines rolled up the enemy's lines. By the time the fight was over, the enemy regimental commander was a prisoner and more than two hundred dead NVA were scattered among the elephant grass.

Although other patrols continued to encounter a few stray bands of NVA throughout early March, the main Tet attacks against Da Nang were effectively blunted on 23 February by Quinn's battalion.

The captured commanding officer of the 141st NVA Regiment proved to be a gold mine of information. He revealed a great deal about the NVA's infiltration routes into the Da Nang area from Laos. Based on this, General Simpson decided to launch an attack into the hills southwest of Da Nang.