Operation Reno

Contingency Planning and Reconnaissance at Dong Ha

Through this period, General Westmoreland continued to insist on the development of contingency plans to meet any enemy offensive. At the April commanders' conference, he asked that all subordinate commands 'work up detailed scenarios of what the enemy might do'. In preparing such studies, the MACV commander suggested that the U.S. planners assume that the Communists 'will try to suck us into a fight on a field of their choosing', and that it was 'necessary to war game in order to avoid barging into battle at a disadvantage'. He further told the assembled commanders that they could not depend upon MACV for reserves since the enemy might strike in more than one place and that they should plan accordingly.

Other U.S. commands, outside of MACV, were also preparing contingency studies. Earlier in the month, the U.S. Army Pacific presented a plan to CinCPac that called for the establishment of a two division Army corps which would be deployed north along the DMZ and extend into Laos. According to the Army planners, such a move would take 'the war out of the south', and bring it 'to the north, where we can fight better and make the enemy mass near the DMZ'.

Although General Westmoreland was reluctant to move any Army troops into I Corps and opposed at the time to the insertion of another command there not under III MAF, he looked favorably at the establishment of a corps-sized contingency force under his control. At the April commanders' conference, he brought up the idea of the establishment of a corps-size 'strike' force, consisting of three divisions, that would be 'capable of moving anywhere in South Vietnam to confront any strong enemy thrusts'. The MACV commander cautioned that this idea was still in a conceptual stage and that none of the major command and control or logistic problems used by such a force had as yet been addressed. Westmoreland was not even sure whether such a 'strike force' would be based in Vietnam or on Okinawa, or possibly split between the two. In any event, during the next month or so, both the Westmoreland 'strike force' and the U.S. Army Pacific plans continued to be discussed among senior U.S. commanders, but without any resolution.

While the American commands prepared their various contingency plans, evidence began to mount of an enemy buildup in the eastern DMZ sector. In mid-May, U.S. reconnaissance aircraft observed increased truck traffic in southern North Vietnam moving south along Route 1. On 19 May, NVA units, in early morning assaults, attacked two ARVN outposts, Gio Linh and Con Thien, just south of the Demilitarized Zone. At both outposts, the South Vietnamese sustained heavy losses, 43 dead and 54 wounded at Gio Linh and 20 casualties at Con Thien. On the same date, a North Vietnamese surrendered to the ARVN and told his captors the 324B NVA Division had infiltrated through the DMZ into South Vietnam. Three days later, 22 May, the 2d Battalion, 2nd ARVN Regiment, in a search and destroy mission about eight kilometers north of Dong Ha, located a VC company, killing 35 and capturing three of the enemy, at a cost of seven ARVN dead.

Based on additional intelligence that indicated the presence of a North Vietnamese force, possibly of regimental size, east and west of Dong Ha with the mission of taking that city and later attacking Quang Tri, MACV alerted III MAF on 28 May that the situation might require the movement of a Marine battalion to the Dong Ha Air Facility. In anticipation of the proposed operation, the Marine command designated Lieutenant Colonel "P. X." Kelley's 2d Battalion, 4th Marines at Da Nang for the move north. Kelley's battalion was already slated to join its parent regiment at Phu Bai and exchange TAORs with Lieutenant Colonel Bell's 1st Battalion, 1st Marines which was scheduled to go to Da Nang .

On 29 May, General Kyle, the 3d Marine Division commander, made liaison arrangements with the 1st ARVN Division and issued his operational order for the Dong Ha operation, codenamed Reno. The following day, he placed Kelley's battalion under the operational control of the 4th Marines and Marine KC-130s flew the 2nd Battalion's command group, two infantry companies, an attached artillery battery, and support troops to Dong Ha.

From 30 May through 8 June, Kelley's battalion, in coordination with the ARVN, conducted a reconnaissance in force within an eight-kilometer radius of Dong Ha. During this 11-day period, the only enemy activity was an ambush of a six-man U.S. Air Force survey team from the Air Force radar detachment based at the Dong Ha Air Facility. The team had departed the airfield in a jeep on the morning of 5 June after refusing an offer by Kelley to provide security. An air observer at 1500 that afternoon spotted a burning vehicle four miles south of Dong Ha and a Marine reaction force, arriving at the scene 20 minutes later, found all six men of the survey team shot to death. There was no sign of the VC. The ambushers apparently stopped the jeep with a grenade, killed each of the Air Force men with a bullet to the head, and then burned the vehicle. Despite this incident, the 2d Battalion found little evidence of any major enemy unit in the Dong Ha sector. With the closeout of Operation Reno on 8 June, the Marine battalion departed Dong Ha. During the operation, the Marines killed three NVA with no casualties of their own. The enemy's intentions in the north still remained unclear.