Operation Texas

A few weeks after Operation Utah ended, the Marines engaged another Communist regiment in the Binh Son! Son Tinh region. Unknown to the allies, the 1st VC Regiment had moved south from the Que Son area north of Chu Lai into northern Quang Ngai Province. on the night of 18-19 March, the enemy regiment overran a remote outpost on Hill 141 about 2,000 meters south of the Tra Bong River and 12,000 meters west-southwest of Binh Son District town. The position was known as the An Hoa outpost taking its name from a nearby village.

When radio contact was lost with the outpost, manned by the 936th Regional Force (RF) Company, and after learning that a 15-man patrol returning to the camp had come under heavy small arms fire from inside the camp, General Lam, on 19 March, decided to send a 2d ARVN Division reaction force to An Hoa. A 10-helicopter detachment from HMM-261, led by Major Robert P. Guay, picked up 120 ARVN soldiers at Quang Ngai and flew toward the outpost. As the helicopters approached the landing zone, enemy heavy machine guns opened fire, hitting eight of the 10 aircraft. Only three of the UH-34s were able to land, discharge their passengers, and take off. At this point, General Lam and the wing decided to 'abort' the mission. Two Phantom jets from VMFA-542 bombed and strafed the former RF outpost so that the Marine helicopters could take out the 30 ARVN troops stranded in the nearby landing zone. HMM-261 completed the evacuation shortly after 1630.'

Faced with the fact that, An Hoa position was now in enemy hands, General Lam asked III MAF for assistance in retaking the outpost. General Kyle, the 3d Marine Division's commanding general, ordered Colonel Peatross, the 7th Marines commander and senior officer at Chu Lai since General Platt's departure to become the III MAF Chief of Staff, to establish liaison with the 2d ARVN Division. On the afternoon of the 19th, Lam and Peatross had agreed to a concept of operations similar to that used for the Utah operation. Marine helicopters were to land a Marine and an ARVN airborne battalion about 4,000 meters west of An Hoa. Both battalions then were to close in on the former RF camp on top of Hill 141. Marine artillery was to support the operation and other infantry units were to be committed as required. The two commanders alerted their respective assault forces, the 3d Battalion, 7th Marines and the 5th ARVN Airborne Battalion, for the combined operation, codenamed Texas.

By early morning on 20 March, Colonel Peatross and Colonel Johnson had established the forward command posts of the 7th Marines and MAG-36 at Binh Son.  Colonel Johnson was once more the tactical air commander for the operation. The 2d ARVN Division also collocated its forward headquarters with the Marines. A battalion artillery group formed around the headquarters of the 3d Battalion, 11th Marines, and consisting of a 105mm howitzer battery and a 155mm howitzer battery, moved into firing positions 5,500 meters southwest of Binh Son. After fixed-wing strikes in the objective area, the 155mm howitzer battery, Captain James 0. Black's Battery M, 4th Battalion, 11th Marines, started firing the landing zone preparation mission at 0730.

Following the air and artillery bombardment, MAG-36 helicopters landed Lieutenant Colonel Charles H. Bodley's 3d Battalion, 7th Marines and the ARYN 5th Airborne Battalion. The two units moved east with the ARVN battalion on the left flank and the Marines on the right. Neither unit met any serious opposition. The 3d Battalion's Company I was helilifted to the top of Hill 141 where the Marines found the bodies of 31 of the outpost defenders; the other 85 were missing. The enemy had departed.

That afternoon, Lieutenant Colonel P. X. Kelley, whose 2d Battalion, 4th Marines had been designated the backup force for Operation Texas, decided to visit Binh Son to check the course of the battle. After an unscheduled stopover at the positions of the 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, he arrived at the 7th Marines command post. Discussing the situation with the regimental staff, he learned that the allies believed that the enemy force, suspected to be the NVA 21st Regiment, had escaped to the west and that his battalion 'would most likely not be committed'.

According to Kelley:

I then talked with Colonel Bruce Jones, the senior advisor to the 2d ARVN Division and suggested that the VC might have moved towards the Vinh Tuy Valley, an area which had considerable activity in the past. My original suggestion at the time was to have 2/4 land there. After considerable discussion, I mentioned the fact that possibly the VC may have done the reverse of the obvious — that they may have moved in an easterly direction from Hill 141, towards the coastal plain. I then suggested the possibility of 3/7 changing its axis of advance to the Vinh Tuy Valley, and once it had passed through the valley it could join with 2/4 for a two-battalion sweep eastward to National Route 1.

The allies planned for the ARVN and Bodley's battalion to attack southeast from An Hoa on 21 March, while Kelley's battalion landed near Phuong Dinh further to the south. General Lam reinforced the 5th ARVN Airborne Battalion with the 4th ARVN Regimental Headquarters; the 2d Battalion, 5th ARVN Regiment; and an APC company. This ARVN task force was to advance until it reached Route 527 and then follow the road until it linked up with another ARVN battalion, the 3d Battalion, 5th ARVN Regiment, in blocking positions west of Route 1. Operating west and southwest of the ARVN forces, Lieutenant Colonel Bodley's battalion was to march through the Vinh Tuy Valley and tie in with Kelley's battalion at Phuong Dinh . In the event of sizeable contact, Colonel Peatross would then commit his reserve, Lieutenant Colonel Young's 3d Battalion, 1st Marines.

On the 21st, both Kelley's and Bodley's battalions encountered large enemy forces in strongly fortified positions. For Kelley's 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, the battle began as UH-34s from MAG-36 carrying the battalion's lead elements approached the landing area. The enemy reacted with small arms and machine gun fire. Company F, which landed first, repulsed attacks from north, east, and south of the landing zone. While the company maneuvered to secure the area, MAG-12 A-4s struck Phuong Dinh. Armed UH- lE's from VMO-6 flew suppressive fire missions while controlling the MAG-12 jets.

By 1115, the battalion command group, Company D, 1st Battalion, 4th Marines, attached to the 2d Battalion for the operation, and Company E had joined Company F on the ground. At this time, Kelley called for artillery bombardment of Phuong Dinh (2) from where most of the enemy resistance was coming. Once the artillery fire ended at 1230, the 2d Battalion began its assault on Phuong Dinh. Company D maneuvered toward the slightly higher ground north of the hamlet, while Companies E and F, with Company E in the lead, attacked due east. Aerial observers overhead detected no movement in Phuong Dinh. Five minutes after the attack started, one of the pilots from VMO-6 radioed Lieutenant Colonel Kelley exclaiming, "My God, I can't believe it! They're erupting from the ground! There are hundreds of them'.

Simultaneously, the advance elements of Company E were hit by massed enemy infantry weapons fire. While the rest of the Marine company established a heavy base of covering fire, one platoon fought its way through the hamlet's outer defenses, only to discover three more interior defensive perimeters, including mutually supporting bunkers and three bands of tactical wire entanglements. Commenting on the situation, Lieutenant Colonel Kelley later wrote:

Since ammunition was running low, I ordered Company E to withdraw to a covered position near the line of departure so that more artillery and air could be delivered on the target. At the same time, I ordered Company D to establish a base of fire to relieve the pressure on Company E.

Company D also ran into heavy enemy resistance and was unable to advance, but the company was able to place enough fire upon the enemy to afford some relief for Company E. At this time, Lieutenant Colonel Kelley and his command group were on a small rise about 50 meters west of the hamlet, caught in a cross fire. Fourteen Marines in this group were killed or wounded. The situation for the 2d Battalion was so critical that Kelley called in air strikes which dropped napalm unusually close to his frontlines.

Marine air and artillery engaged in an all-out effort to support the stalled infantry. Lieutenant Colonel Paul B. Watson, Jr., the commanding officer of the 3d Battalion, 11th Marines, added two new batteries, one 105mm howitzer and one 155mm howitzer, to the battalion artillery group supporting the operation. The original two batteries fired 1,346 rounds in support of the 2d Battalion, 4th Marines during one continuous firing mission lasting from 1330 to 1500. Marine jets at the request of Colonel Johnson supplemented the artillery effort. By 1600, A-4s and F-4s had flown 51 strikes against the enemy. The 1st MAW Tactical Air Control Center (TACC) reported that it had diverted all Marine jets to the Texas operation. Lieutenant Colonel Zitnik remembered that the requests caused some disruption 'at the TACC, but all were provided and utilized'.

With this support and the arrival of additional supplies by 1800, the 2d Battalion was able to consolidate its positions west of Phuong Dinh. Kelley later recalled:

About 2,000 meters to the north of Phuong Dinh, the 3d Battalion, 7th Marines had encountered another fortified hamlet. As the battalion moved through the Vinh Tuy Valley the morning and early afternoon of 21 March, it passed through several nearly abandoned villages which displayed telltale signs of Viet Cong control. Only a few old men, women, and children appeared in fields abounding in unharvested rice and other grains, while Marines found abandoned enemy defenses such as spider traps and tunnels. About 1515, near Thach An Noi (1), enemy machine guns and AK-47s began firing. As at Phuong Dinh, the enemy troops fought from well-prepared positions and showed a high degree of battle discipline. An overcrowded radio net caused delay in obtaining supporting air and artillery, but after three hours of close fighting in the hamlet, the Communist force, an estimated two companies, broke contact.

With two of his battalions heavily engaged on the afternoon of 21 March, Colonel Peatross decided to commit his reserve. He selected the hamlet of Xuan Hoa as the target, 1,500 meters southeast of Phuong Dinh. The helilift of Lieutenant Colonel Young's 3d Battalion, 1st Marines, reinforced with the 2d ARVN Division Strike Company, began at 1600. Lieutenant Colonel Zitnik remembered that his Hueys from VMO-6 had controlled fixed-wing air strikes all afternoon and he had 'thought we had neutralized the area'. The transport helicopters carrying Young's battalion flew 'low over open fields' toward the objective hamlet, situated at the foot of a low-lying hill. Zitnik recalled seeing some uniformed VC heading toward Xuan Hoa and calling down strikes on the hamlet. According to the VMO-6 commander:

The hamlet was almost totally destroyed when the helos appeared, but . . . a few large mm tracers were fired at the flight and hit their mark. The A-4D pilots quickly took the position under attack and quieted the fire, but not until after one helo was hit."

On the ground, the Marine infantry battalion and ARVN company encountered only sporadic resistance until reaching the outskirts of Xuan Hoa. Once more, the Marines and ARVN met well entrenched VC who had organized their defenses within a tree line and bamboo fence which surrounded the hamlet. By nightfall, after two hours of close-quarter combat, Young's battalion had advanced 150 meters into Xuan Hoa. At this time, the estimated enemy company disengaged and retreated, pursued by Marine artillery and Huey

By this time, General Lards had moved to his forward headquarters at Binh Son and very early on 22 March, Brigadier General Lowell E. English, the 3d Marine Division assistant division commander, assumed command of the Marine forces in Operation Texas as Commanding General, Task Force Delta. This reactivation of Task Force Delta was in line with General Walt's policy of having Marine generals in command of major operations in the field with their Vietnamese counterparts. According to Colonel Peatross, the reactivation of Task Force Delta was a change of designation not the establishment of a new headquarters. The 7th Marines staff became the Task Force Delta staff; the only thing that changed was the name. He later wrote:

The allied plan of action for 22 March was to continue the attack. ARVN forces were to advance toward Route 1, while the Marine battalions cleared their respective sectors in the southern area of operations. If the 2d Battalion, 4th Marines and the 3d Battalion, 7th Marines met further resistance in Phuong Dinh and Thach An Noi, Lieutenant Colonel Young's battalion was to attack north, otherwise it was to seize Hill 65, 2,000 meters southeast of Xuan Hoa, and then advance to the northeast.

As planned, the allied battalions renewed their attacks at daybreak, but encountered little opposition. The Communist forces had slipped away during the night. The 4th ARVN Regimental Task Force secured Khanh My and continued, uncontested, eastward along Route 527. Lieutenant Colonel Kelley's 2d Battalion took Phuong Dinh (2) and began searching the hamlet and destroying the enemy's defenses. Further south, Lieutenant Colonel Young's 3d Battalion met only scattered resistance as it seized Hill 65 at 1700 that afternoon and then moved to the northeast to set up night defenses. Bodley's 3d Battalion, 7th Marines also successfully carried out its mission, advancing through Thach An Noi, and then eastward until it reached a line 2,000 meters east of the hamlet.

When it became apparent that strong enemy forces were no longer in the original Texas objective area, General English and Colonel Peatross decided to extend the operation further south. They ordered the helilift of Bodley's battalion from Thach An Noi to a new area near the Phuoc Loc village complex, 9,000 meters to the southeast just above the Tra Khuc River.

The helicopter landing of Bodley's battalion took place without incident and by 1815 the battalion had secured Hill 23, 500 meters north of Phuoc Loc. With the command group remaining on the hill and Company I in blocking positions to the west, Companies K and L advanced on the hamlet. The Marines soon found themselves in the same type of combat that characterized the fighting in Phuong Dinh and Thach An Noi the day before. The enemy force, about two battalions, was firmly entrenched in the hamlet. As the Marine companies closed in on Phuoc Loc, the VC opened fire and stopped the Marine advance. Heavy fighting continued until after dark, but the Marine battalion remained unable to penetrate the enemy's defenses.

Soon after making contact, the Marines called for air and artillery support. The artillery response was immediate; the task force artillery group fired almost 2,000 155mm rounds in support of the 3d Battalion. When the artillery was not active, jets from both MAG-l1 and MAG-12 bombed and strafed the objective area.

The 1st MAW had made some adjustments to bring in fixed-wing support for the operation. When Task Force Delta was activated, General McCurcheon sent Lieutenant Colonel Richard A. Savage from MAG-11 to Chu Lai to be the assistant tactical air commander for the operation. Savage placed the fixed-wing support aircraft on ground alert, rather than on combat air patrols. By keeping the jets on 15-minute ground alert and by close monitoring of the tactical situation, he could scramble the '. . . air craft when it became apparent that they would be needed'.

On the morning of 23 March, the 3d Battalion, 7th Marines secured Phuoc Loc. Again the VC had slipped out during the night. Bodley's battalion remained in the hamlet to destroy the extensive fortifications there. In their search, the Marines discovered an outer and inner ring of trenches and over 300 fighting holes. The Marine battalion also uncovered two intricate tunnel networks which explained how the enemy was able to get out of Phuoc Loc. According to the villagers, the VC had divided into two groups, one of which crossed the Tra Kruc River by boat while the other escaped on foot to the west.

Questioning the residents of Phuoc Loc with the assistance of an ARVN intelligence officer and local authorities, the Marines learned that the enemy force had suffered substantial casualties. Apparently anticipating a battle, the VC had taken 30 men of the hamlet to serve as stretcher bearers on the afternoon of 22 March. They later returned and impressed 80 more people, including old men, women, and children, to haul away the dead and wounded. One old couple told the Marines that they had counted 30-32 dead and about 100 wounded VC being carried past their house. A 56-year old farmer stated that he had seen another 36 bodies shuttled toward the river. Some villagers provided distorted figures obviously to please the Americans; one estimate was 500 dead. Most of the inhabitants of the hamlet remained in their family shelters during the fighting and could not have seen anything. Although finding no enemy bodies in Phuoc Loc. Lieutenant Colonel Bodley, as a result of an analysis of the interrogations, reported 60 enemy dead. The Marine battalion lost seven men killed and 56 wounded in the same engagement.

On the morning of 23 March, the 4th ARVN Regimental Task Force encountered a VC force just west of the railroad on Route 527, killing 40 of the enemy. This engagement was the last significant action of the combined operation. The Marines continued Operation Texas for two more days in order to complete mopping up in Phuoc Loc and Phuong Dinh.

On 24 March, General English deactivated Task Force Delta, and the 7th Marines reassumed control of the operation. The Marines closed out Texas the following day. From captured enemy documents, the allies determined that they had encountered elements of three battalions, the 60th and 90th from the 1st VC Regiment and the 11th from the 21st NVA Regiment. The Marines reported killing 283 enemy troops while sustaining casualties of 99 dead and 212 wounded. Lieutenant Colonel Kelley's 2d Battalion found 168 of the enemy dead in Phuong Dinh

The overriding problem in Operation Texas was one which had plagued the Marine Corps for many years: how to inflict maximum loss on a determined, well-entrenched enemy with complex defensive positions at a minimum loss to one's own forces. In the case of Phuong Dinh over 2,500 rounds of artillery and innumerable air strikes with napalm and heavy ordnance were called. The net result, however, indicated that the enemy in well constructed bunkers, in holes with overhead cover and 20-feet deep tunnels was not appreciably hurt by our preparatory fires and had to be killed in his positions by infantry action at close quarters.

General Westmoreland visited Phuong Dinh on 24 March and observed the extent of the enemy defenses. He had Colonel Peatross assemble the two battalions in the area and thanked them personally for their performance. Later, he sent a congratulatory message to General Walt. The MACV commander complimented the Marine units in the operation for their aggressive spirit and close coordination. General Walt added his 'well done'.

There was a short epilogue to Texas — Operation Indiana. Early on the morning of 28 March, the 3d Battalion, 5th ARVN Regiment, which had remained in positions near the hamlet of Lam Loc approximately 1,500 meters east of Phuoc Loc, repulsed several attacks by an estimated Communist regiment. The Marine command reinforced the ARVN forces when Marine helicopters brought Lieutenant Colonel James P. Kelly's 1st Battalion, 7th Marines into a landing zone 2,000 meters northwest of Lam Loc late that afternoon. The 1st Battalion was to establish blocking positions 2,000 meters to the southwest on the northern bank of the Tra Khuc, but Kelly's Company C ran into an estimated enemy battalion in the hamlet of Vinh Loc, about 500 meters northwest of the landing zone. Shortly after 1900, after taking heavy casualties, the company fell back, so that Marine supporting arms could hit the enemy forces.

On the following day, Kelly's 1st Battalion renewed the assault on Vinh Loc while Lieutenant Colonel Utter's 2d Battalion, 7th Marines deployed into blocking positions 3,000 meters north of Vinh Loc. By this time the enemy units had disengaged and escaped during the night. Kelly's battalion captured one VC and 19 weapons in Vinh Loc. The Marines killed 69 of the enemy while the ARVN forces claimed another 100 Communist dead. Marine losses were 11 dead and 45 wounded, nearly all from the 1st Battalion's Company C. The 7th Marines ended Indiana on 30 March.

Colonel Peatross observed that his battalions fought these March battles largely as integral units. Headquarters and support personnel filled in the gaps in the Chu Lai defenses left by the infantry. Paymaster personnel logged more time in the defense than any other unit at Chu Lai. Peatross later wrote that his 7th Marines had two distinct advantages over other regiments during his tour in Vietnam: 'it had one regimental commander and no changes in the battalion commanders, and these units were always together.  In any event, the month of March had proven to be a bloody one for both the allies and Communist forces in southern I Corps.