Operation Piranha

Operation Piranha began at 0555 that day when eight A4s strafed White Beach on the Batangan Peninsula's north shore for twenty minutes. Then a single A-4 laid a smoke screen along the beach while the other jets turned their attention inland. There they blasted LZ's out of the thick vegetation with five-hundred-pound 'Daisy Cutter' bombs.

At 0635 the first wave of amphibious tractors carrying members of Companies A and C, 1/7, nosed onto the sand. Within twenty minutes the entire battalion was ashore. The enemy's response was a few poorly aimed sniper rounds. The Marines quickly moved inland and established defensive positions.

At 0730, UH-34Ds carrying assault elements of 3/7 swooped in from the north to LZ Oak, about three kilometers southwest of White Beach. The aircraft deposited their human cargo without incident. Over the next three hours the helicopters ferried in the rest of the battalion. The aircraft then went to pick up ARVN troops.

Following the extensive press coverage that the Marines had received for their successes in Operation Starlite, the local ARVN began openly criticizing them. The South Vietnamese felt slighted because not only had they not had a role in the operation, they had not even been told about it until the landings had occurred. This secrecy stemmed from the I Corps commander, Maj. Gen. Nguyen Chanh Thi. All too aware of the security leaks from his staff, Thi had kept information about Operation Starlite to himself. That fact, how ever, did not prevent the South Vietnamese from feeling excluded from their own war.

Consequently, two ARVN battalions were given roles in Operation Piranha. After dropping the Marines at LZ Oak, sixteen of the UH 34Ds headed south to load elements of the ARVN 2/4 and the South Vietnamese Marine Corps' 3d Battalion. These units were landed at LZ's Birch and Pine, respectively, to the southwest of the Batangan Peninsula. They would conduct a sweep to the northeast toward the An Ky Peninsula, south of Batangan.

During the three days of Operation Piranha, only 1/7 had any significant contact with the VC. On the second day, its Company B discovered a VC field hospital in a large cave near the center of the peninsula. Enemy soldiers within the cave fired on the Marines, killing two and wounding five. When the VC refused to surrender, Marine engineers detonated a large charge of dynamite in the cave. Sixty-six VC died in the blast.

The allied force claimed 178 VC killed during Operation Piranha, with a total of 5 Marines and ARVN killed and 47 wounded. Considering the size of the allied force, Operation Piranha could hardly be deemed a success. In fact, by questioning villagers, the Marines learned that the 1st VC Regiment had fled the area starting several days before the operation began. It was almost as if they'd received advance notice of the plans. And, as soon as the allied troops withdrew, the VC returned. The Batangan Peninsula would remain an enemy stronghold for years. In 1968 it was the site of the infamous My Lai Massacre of civilians by soldiers of the U.S. Army's Americal Division.

For the three months following Operation Starlite, the Viet Cong refused to meet the Marines in battle. Though the units of the 3d Marine Division mounted more than half a dozen operations outside their enclaves, they uncovered few VC. More often than not, enemy resistance was limited to sporadic, ineffective sniper fire.

It was during the lull in the early fall that General Westmoreland finalized his plan for fighting the Vietnam War. Because the plan contained no specific objectives, Westmoreland's directive was more a guideline for conducting the war than a strategy in the conventional sense. Westmoreland divided the war into three phases. The first, ending in 1965, was simply to commit those American and allied forces necessary to halt the losing trend. The second phase, beginning in 1966, foresaw those forces taking the offensive in select high priority areas. At some distant, to-be-determined date, phase three— the complete destruction of the enemy's forces would commence.

Based on MACV's  guidelines, III MAF developed its own concept of operations within I Corps. Primarily it emphasized the 'ink blot' approach, whereby the III MAF was to secure and maintain its coastal enclaves, then gradually expand them as manpower and resources became available. Eventually the three enclaves would meet, and the involved populous coastal areas would be secure.

Within this framework, III MAF produced a 'balanced strategy' for the war. Its three main components consisted of a counterguerrilla campaign within the TAORs, offensive operations against enemy main force units outside the TAORs, and an expanded pacification campaign within the villages in order to destroy the Viet Cong's infrastructure and return the people's loyalty to the government of South Vietnam.

It soon became clear that there existed a significant difference between MACV and III MAF as to where the enemy posed the greatest threat. General Walt was convinced that his first priority was to rid the populous and rice-rich Da Nang region of the Viet Cong. General Westmoreland, on the other hand, desired to destroy enemy main force units in the country's interior.

The MACV commander appreciated General Walt's concerns with pacification efforts. However, Westmoreland preferred that III MAF maintain a three or four battalion reaction force that could respond to large enemy unit sightings. This conflict of emphasis remained a sore point between MACV and III MAF for more than a year before it was resolved.

Tasked with fighting both a big-unit war and an antiguerrilla campaign, General Walt requested more troops. He advised MACV that he needed a second full Marine division to execute his mission. As a result, the 1st Marine Division shifted its headquarters from Camp Pendleton, California, to Okinawa. Several of the division's individual battalions were already in South Vietnam or in the Special Landing Force. By early 1966 the entire division would be incountry.

As III MAF increased in size, General Westmoreland toyed with the idea of placing it under I Field Force command. (Because the South Vietnamese already used the corps designator, MACV developed the field force concept to avoid confusion. Thus, a field force was essentially an American corps but with the additional responsibilities of supply and pacification, as well as an advisory role to the local ARVN commander.) Headquartered in Nha Trang, I Field Force operated in the ARVN II Corps geographical area. General Westmoreland considered placing III MAF under I Field Force, thus creating another link in the chain of command below him, but he did not do so. Concerned about inter-service rivalries, Westmoreland opted to allow III MAF to report directly to him.

At Chu Lai about twenty VC sappers sneaked onto the base. The first notice the Marines had of trouble was when an aircraft blew up. In the fire's light, sentries caught ghostly glimpses of the loincloth clad sappers running among the planes, spraying them with machine-gun fire and throwing satchel charges. The sentries tracked down and killed fifteen of the sappers, but not before two jets were destroyed and six more were severely damaged.

The Viet Cong attack at Marble Mountain was larger, better organized, and more destructive. Some ninety main-force VC attacked the base under a barrage of mortar fire. As at Chu Lai, the attack caught the airfield defenders by surprise. The sappers raced across the tarmac, tossing explosive charges at the neatly parked helicopters. Firing automatic weapons at the sentries, the sappers finally withdrew after a thirty-minute rampage. They left behind seventeen of their own dead and four wounded plus nineteen destroyed helicopters, eleven severely damaged craft, and another twenty that were badly damaged. Three Marines died and ninety-one were wounded in the attack.  The attacks vividly demonstrated that the Viet Cong were the ones who chose when and where the war intensified.