Operation Virginia

Despite such reluctance, the Marines in April, at the insistence of General Wesrtmoreland, conducted a one-battalion operation near the isolated Special Forces camp at Khe Sanh in the northwestern corner of Quang Tn Province. General Westmoreland placed a very high priority on the strategic location of Khe Sanh. Surrounded by high hills and mountains and located 4 miles from the Laotian border, 14 miles south of the DMZ, and 55 miles northwest of Phu Bai, the Khe Sanh base overlooked Route 9, the most feasible entry into Quang Tri Province from the west. Using the base to monitor enemy infiltration and for special reconnaissance operations into Laos, the MACV commander also viewed Khe Sanh as 'an eventual jump-off point for ground operations to cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail', if he ever received permission from Washington. He continually stressed to General Walt 'the critical importance of the little plateau'.

In January 1966, the Communists employed 120mm mortars against the Khe Sanh base, but failed to follow up with a ground assault. Intelligence reports, nevertheless, persisted through the following months of an enemy buildup in the area. At the same time that A Shau fell, the Khe Sanh commander informed MACV that enemy units were staging in the area north of the camp. Fearing that a similar fate awaited Khe Sanh as had befallen A Shau, MACV urged upon the Marines a battalion search and destroy mission in the Khe Sanh sector III MAF planned such an operation, codenamed Virginia, for mid-March, but circumstances, including the Marine commitment to Operation Oregon in northeastern Thua Thien Province, forced the Marine command to postpone the operation. In his meeting with General Walt at Chu Lai on 24 March, General Westmoreland continued to emphasize the dangers in the north.

On 27 March, General Kyle, the 3d Marine Division commander, ordered the 4th Marines at Phu Bai to deploy one battalion, reinforced by a 105mm howitzer battery and a mortar battery, to Khe Sanh. Colonel Sherman selected the 1st Battalion, 1st Marines to carry out the operation. Lieutenant Colonel Van D. Bell, Jr., who was to assume command of the battalion on 1 April from Lieutenant Colonel Hatch, several years later recalled that he flew to Khe Sanh at the end of March to establish liaison with the Special Forces commander and to get a feel for the terrain. Bell remembered that he found the Special Forces troops 'very nervous'. According to the Marine officer, the Special Forces were not patrolling, but 'trusted this important mission to the Nungs and some ARVN ...', who often brought in false intelligence. Bell related:

After the completion of. his visit, Lieutenant Colonel Bell returned to Phu Bai and, on 3 April, issued his operation order for Virginia, scheduled to begin two days later. An advance party consisting of the battalion's executive officer, logistic support personnel, and a rifle platoon from Company C arrived at Khe Sanh on 4 April, but bad weather together with the uncertainties of the South Vietnamese political crisis caused a delay in the beginning of the operation for more than a week. On 17 April, Marine KC-130 aircraft from VMGR-152 began to fly the main body of the Marine battalion into the small air field at Khe Sanh. Once more weather conditions hindered the operation and forced the Marines to stop the airlift after nearly 50 percent of the Marine force had landed. Finally on the next day, the transports completed the lift of the battalion and its supporting forces to Khe Sanh.

Lieutenant Colonel Bell established his main base at a coffee plantation just north of the Special Forces camp. His plan called for a three-phased operation within a 10-kilometer radius of Khe Sanh. The Marines were to first search the northeast quadrant, then move to the northwest, and finally to the southwest sector of the area of operations. An ARVN battalion was to secure the southeast quadrant.

On 18 and 19 April, Bell with the assistance of Marine helicopters from HMM-163 moved his forward headquarters, his mortars, an attached reconnaissance platoon, and Company C to a blocking position about six kilometers north of the base camp. Later on the 19th, the Marine helicopters lifted the battalion's remaining companies, A and B, into a landing zone some nine kilometers further to the east. According to plan, the two companies then pushed westward along parallel axes toward the blocking positions. Encountering no resistance, except from the dense vegetation, the attacking companies reached their objective on 21 April. The Marine battalion returned to its base camp two days later.

At this point, the Marines decided to modify their plans for Virginia. Based on negative reports from his reconnaissance patrols in the northwestern sector of the battalion's area of operations, Bell cancelled the second phase of the operation. At the same time, staff officers at both the division and MAF levels wanted to expand the operation to determine, if possible, the validity of the claims of the enemy buildup in the north.  Colonel George W. Cartington Jr., the 3rd Marine Division G-2, later wrote that he suggested Bell march his battalion along Route 9 from Khe Sanh east to the sea.  It was territory hitherto untouched in the war, but it was important to learn if there was infiltration from the north, across the DMZ. Colonel Chaisson, the III MAF G-3 remembered.

Old "Ding Dong" [Bell] only had one shot fired at his unit in the whole [period] he was up there [at Khe Sanh]· . But in order for just a little bravado and to do it a little differently from anyone else up there, we let him march

In preparation for the march, Lieutenant Colonel Bell Pre positioned three 105mm howitzers, together with a second command group under his executive officer and a security force, at Ca Lu, 15 miles east of Khe Sanh on Route 9, to cover the infantry. At the same time, the Marine command moved the 3d Battalion, 4th Marines command group and two companies from Phu Bai to Dong Ha, the eastern terminus of Route 9, from where it could provide a reaction force if Bell's battalion ran into trouble. Outside of difficulty with an attached recalcitrant ARVN company and the heat, the 1st Battalion's trek was uneventful. The battalion reached Cam Lo, some 30 miles from Khe Sanh, at the end of the month. On 1 May, the foot-weary troops rode Marine trucks the remaining eight miles to Dong Ha, where they were greeted by both Generals Walt and Westmoreland. The artillery and the second command group had already been retracted.

Despite the dramatic flourish closing out the operation, Virginia's results were inconclusive except to invalidate the reports of the supposed enemy buildup around Khe Sanh. The size of the enemy's forces in the north and his intentions remained a matter of conjecture. As Lieutenant Colonel Bell pointed out in his after-action report it is difficult to draw any conclusions about the extent of enemy presence along the route of march. The failure of the enemy to attack, or even to harass, the march column could have been inspired by either inadequate forces, fear of excessive punishment by Marine supporting arms and aircraft, or a desire to inspire overconfidence in the area later—or any combination of these or lesser factors."