capacity, with four attached medical detachments to provide specialty care hot to be totally dependent on the hospital for administration and logistics, and one helicopter ambulance detachment to provide evacuation capability to the treatment facility.

Over-all planning and guidance for the deployment of all incoming units became the responsibility of CINCPAC under the direction of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Department of Defense. Logistical support responsibility was subsequently isolated and delegated to USARYIS (U.S. Army, Ryukyu Islands), a subordinate command of USARPAC (U.S. Anny, Pacific). Logistical support of the medical units committed to Vietnam would become a major responsibility of the USARYIS surgeon's headquarters.

Medical Service During, the Advisory Years

The field hospital recommended for deployment in December 1961 was to become operational in April of the following year, In the interim, however, arriving Army units, primarily transportation companies, could not be left without any, form of medical service. During January and February 1962, three small medical detachments, each attached to a transportation company, disembarked in South Vietnam. Each provided, on air area basis, limited dispensary and general medical care, for the units to which they were attached, as well as for all other U.S. personnel in their area.

To co-ordinate, logistical and administrative support for the increasing number of U.S. Army personnel and units, USARYIS Support Group (Provisional) was established. On 24 February 1962, its medical section, comprised of one plans and operations officer and a chief clerk, both temporarily reassigned from the medical section of the 9th Logjstical Command in Thailand, initiated medical activities in Vietnam. Through March, the medical section concentrated on assessing the capabilities of Arrny medical units in Vietnam, recornmending to USARPAC through USARYIS headquarters that preventive rnedicine and veterinary food inspection detachments be sent from the United States to the theater of operations. Those requirements were subsequently corroborated by Major General Achilles L, Tynes, MC, USARPAC chief, surgeon and Colonel Thornas P. Caito, MSC, chief of his plans and operations division during a prolonged visit both made to Southeast Asia between 30 March and 1 May 1962.

However, the medical section would not see the fruition of its efforts as a staff office of the USARYIS Support Group (Provisional) headquarters, On 1 April 1962, the temporary USARYIS Support Group was redesignated USASGV (U.S. Army Support Group, Vietnam), and placed under the command and control of General Harkins as