CHAPTER 5

The 3d Division War in Southern Quang Tri and Northern Thua Thien, Operations Osceola and Neosho

Protecting the Quang Tri Base, Operation Osceola, l-20 January 1968 Operation Neosho and Operations in the CoBi-Thanh Tan, l-20 January 1968-Operation Checkers

Protecting The Quang Tri Base, Operation Osceola, 1-20 January 1968

Faced with the buildup of the North Vietnamese forces opposing them at the end of 1967, General Tompkins and the 3d Marine Division staff prepared for the forward deployment of the remaining division units in Operation Checkers from Thua Thien Province to Quang Tri, including the movement of the division command post from Phu Bai to Dong Ha. In turn, the 1st Marines in southern Quang Tri was to take over the 4th Marines TAOR in Thua Thien and then eventually revert to the control of the 1st Marine Division.

The 1st Marines had moved north from Da Nang in early October 1967 to reinforce the 3d Marine Division and conduct Operation Medina. Medina was a multi-battalion operation designed to clear the Hai Lang National Forest, located south and west of Quang Tri City and containing the enemy Base Area 101. Base Area l O l, in the far southwestern reaches of the forest, extended down to and beyond the Quang Tri and Thua Thien provincial border, and was home to the 5th and 9th NVA Regiments. After offering resistance in a few heavy skirmishes during the first phase of the operation, enemy forces eluded the Marines for the rest of the operation.* In the nearly impenetrable jungle terrain, the 1st Marines uncovered some enemy base camps and storage areas but no sign of NVA or VC troops. After confiscating more than four tons of enemy rice and miscellaneous weapons and ammunition, the Marines ended Operation Medina on 20 October and immediately began Osceola.1

In Osceola, the 1st Marines with two battalions, the 2d Battalion, 4th Marines and 2d Battalion, 1st Marines, remained in the same objective area, but also became responsible for the newly established Quang Tri base, near the city of Quang Tri. Out of North Vietnamese heavy artillery range, the Quang Tri base served as a backup to the main logistic base at Dong Ha and provided a new air facility for the Marine forces in the north. On 25 October, the first KC-130 transport aircraft landed at the Quang Tri Airfield.2

In command of the 1st Marines since July 1967, Colonel Herbert E. Ing, Jr., an experienced and decorated combat officer, viewed his Osceola mission differently than that of Medina. At the beginning of Osceola, American intelligence warned that the North Vietnamese were reorganizing for an offensive against Quang Tri City. Colonel Ing believed, however, that Operation Medina and ARVN supporting operations had thwarted any such plan. As a native Long Islander and former enlisted Marine who shrewdly selected his options, he took practical steps to safeguard the Quang Tri base and to cut down on his own casualties. Concentrating on defending the airbase rather than fruitless searches for enemy units in the jungle, Ing initiated a pacification campaign and organized an innovative anti-mine program.?

During Osceola, the 1st Marines only once engaged an enemy main force unit, the VC 808th Battalion, at the edge of the Hai Lang National Forest near the Giang River, about four to five miles south of the Quang Tri base. The 808th and the 4l6th VC Battalions apparently alternated moving into the Quang Tri coastal region to disrupt the South Vietnamese government apparatus there. The VC employed at least three hamlets in the central portion of the Osceola operating area, Nhu Le, Nhan Bieu, and Thuong Phuoc, all on or near the Thach Han River, as way stations for their units travelling to and from the base areas into the populated coastal plain. Colonel Ing considered that securing or at least neutralizing these hamlets was absolutely vital to the success of his mission.4

Sustaining most of his casualties from mines and occasional sniper rounds. Colonel Ing, on 27 November 1967, established an infantry cordon around Nhu

* Colonel Gordon D. Batcheller, who as a captain commanded Company A, 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, observed that in the initial contact in Medina, the enemy more than held its own: 'They were fast and agile and we were slow and clumsy. Terrain, vegetation, insufficient helo support had something to do with it.' Col Gordon D. Batcheller, Comments on draft chapter, dtd 10Decl994 (Vietnam Comment File).