North Carolina, he was well versed in counterguerrilla tactics and regarded pacification as his main mission. His training with the 1st Marine Raider Battalion in World War II provided him with an excellent understanding of night combat. Derning's new plan drew heavily on both of these elements of his experience.

Department of' Defense Photo (USMC) A373325 Marines from the 2d Platoon, Company B, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines ford the Thu Eon River. Note many of the Marines are wearing soft floppy hats. In mid-July, Colonel Derning and his staff put aside pacification plans and, instead, took up preparations for Operation Pickens Forest* This, the 1st Marine Division's first operation of the year outside its regular TAOR, would form part of the general allied summer incursion into Base Areas (BAs) 112 and 127, the enemy's two principal mountain refuges in Quang Nam.

Fundamental to Derning's 'pacification mode,' was the substantial abandonment of daytime patrols, sweeps, and searches by the 7th Marines' battalions around Baldy and in the Que Son Valley. Daytime maneuvers at the level of combat then prevailing, Derning believed, physically exhausted the troops without achieving significant results. Extensive daytime patrolling also increased the risk of boobytrap casualties with little probability of seriously hurting the enemy in the lowlands since the VC/NVA usually did not move much in the daylight. Instead of maneuvering, Derning's battalions by day surrounded known Viet Cong-controlled hamlets. Manning checkpoints, the Marines supervised the movement of the people between their houses and the fields, to prevent supplies from going out of the hamlets and VC from infiltrating* The cordons, which consisted of static observation posts and firing positions, could be maintained with relatively few Marines. The rest could sleep, repair equipment, or train while company and platoon commanders planned extensive night ambushes and patrols to intercept small enemy units during the VC's preferred time for movement. Derning was convinced that these tactics both weakened the enemy by denying them supplies and mobility and reduced allied losses.6

While two of the battalions followed Derning's scheme of operations, the 'Swing Battalion' continued daytime search and destroy maneuvers, usually in the Que Son Mountains. These operations at times proved productive. On 13 July, for instance. Company H of the 2d Battalion pursued a wounded Viet Cong into a cave in the Que Son foothills west of Baldy and discovered that it had trapped almost 30 VC.

A night-long siege ensued during which seven of the Viet Cong were killed, some of them by Marines who crawled into the cave and shot them at close range with pistols. A total of 20 VC, most of them the Communist leaders of a village, eventually surrendered. Colonel Derning considered this mass surrender and other defections by guerrillas an indication that his pacification strategy was succeeding.7

Each of these areas was a quadrangle of mountain and jungle which served as a collection point for supplies brought from Laos or the Quang Nam lowlands. Each contained cleverly hidden and fortified headquarters, communications centers, and training and rest camps. Here enemy main force units normally spent most of their time between operations. Command groups, including, it was believed, the Front 4

*For more detail on the pacification aspect of this strategy, see Chapter 9.

* In July the division staff resumed the practice of assigning names to operations of battalion or larger size.