Department of Defense Photo (USMC) A373406 LtGen James W. Sutherland, USA, center. Commanding General, XXIV Corps, looks out from FSB Ryder with Col Edmund G. Derning, Jr., left. Commanding Officer, 7th Marines, and MajGen Charles F. Widdecke, Commanding General, 1st Marine Division.

This Quang Da Special Zone troop reinforcement was part of the preparations for the XXIV Corps/MR 1 joint summer campaign. Lieutenant General James W. Sutherland, USA, who in June had succeeded General Zais as XXIV Corps commander, had worked out an ambitious plan with General Lam to implement MACV's call for a summer offensive. In Thua Thien, the 101st Airborne and 1st ARVN Divisions would strike toward the Da Krong and A Shau Valleys, base areas from which the NVA threatened Hue. (The establishment of FSB Ripcord in March and April had been a preliminary to this operation). In Quang Tin, elements of the Americal and 2d ARVN divisions would reopen an abandoned airstrip at Kham Due, deep in the mountains, and from there fan out, hunting enemy troops, supply caches, and lines of communication. In Quang Nam, QDSZ, controlling a division-size force for the first time and supported by two battalions of the 7th Marines, would attack Base Areas 112 and 127 west and southwest of Da Nang.5

Summer Offensive: the 7th Marines in Pickens Forest In early July, as preparations began for the summer offensive, the 7th Marines had two of its battalions deployed in what its commander, Colonel Edmund G. Derning, called 'pacification mode,' the 1st Battalion covering the eastern pan of the regiment's TAOR around LZ Baldy and the 3d Battalion guarding the Que Son Valley. The 2d Battalion also operated from LZ Baldy. It functioned as the regiment's 'Swing Battalion,' or mobile reserve, providing companies to reinforce the Rocket Belt during threatened enemy offensive 'high points' and conducting multi-company operations where intelligence found profitable targets, usually in the Que Son Mountains or their foothills.

By early July, the 7th Marines faced what seemed to be a diminishing enemy threat. Colonel Derning's Marines now rarely encountered enemy soldiers in groups of more than 10, and the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong usually avoided sustained combat, relying on sniper fire and boobytraps to inflict Marine casualties. Derning, who had commanded the regiment since February, had gradually altered tactics in response to this decline in combat intensity. A graduate of the Army Special Warfare School at Fort Bragg,