Chapter 6

The Fall-Winter Campaign in Quang Nam, October-December 1970

New Campaign Plans and Changes in Tactics-The Course of the Fall-Winter Campaign Operation Imperial Lake Continues-5th Marines in the Lowlands'. Noble Canyon and Tulare Tails I and II 1st Marines Operations, October-December WO-The War in Quang Nam at the End of the Year

New Campaign Plans and Changes in Tactics

As Marine strength declined, allied staffs throughout Military Region 1 drafted their fall and winter campaign plans. With fewer allied troops available and with the monsoon rains sure to restrict air support of operations deep in the mountains, Americans and South Vietnamese alike prepared to commit their regular units alongside the Regional and Popular Forces in major pacification efforts in the lowlands. At the same rime. III MAF modified its operating methods to get the most out of its remaining Marine air and ground forces.

On 8 September, XXIV Corps and MR 1 issued their Combined Fall-Winter Military Campaign Plan for 1970-71. The plan, which would guide operations from September 1970 through February 1971, assigned tasks to each component of the South Vietnamese Armed Forces (RVNAF) and allied forces in the military region. Mostly restating earlier directives, the plan called for a balance between offensive actions against base areas and protection of population centers, with an increased emphasis on efforts to eliminate the Viet Cong and their administrative apparatus at the village and hamlet level. The plan directed III MAF essentially to continue what it already was doing: to protect the Rocket Belt; to cooperate with the Government of Vietnam (GVN) in pacification activities; and to continue its drive against enemy bases in the Que Son Mountains.'

The XXIV Corps/MR 1 Combined Campaign Plan conformed closely to MACV guidelines. The MACV fall and winter campaign directive, which was formally issued on 21 September, instructed all U.S. forces to concentrate on small-unit action to protect pacified and semipacifled areas. Units were to undertake large-scale offensives only when intelligence sources identified and located especially important targets.2

Lieutenant General Lam soon committed all the ARVN forces in Quang Nam to support pacification. On 22 October, he launched Operation Hoang Dieu. Conceived by Lam and named after a 19th Century Vietnamese national hero* who had been born in Quang Nam, the operation involved the 51st ARVN Regiment, the 1st Ranger Group, and the 2d and 3d Troops of the 17th Armored Cavalry Squadron. These Vietnamese regular units would cooperate with over 300 RF and PF platoons, the People's Self Defense Force (PSDF), and the national police in a province-wide combined offensive against Viet Cong who had infiltrated the populated areas. Lam assigned each military unit and each district in the province an area of operations to be covered by the troops under its command. In the case of the districts, which controlled the RFs and PFs, these areas usually were smaller in size than the territory encompassed within their political boundaries. Lam also arranged for III MAF to cover areas in the northern and western fringes of the populated region of Da Nang and in the Que Son Valley and for the Korean Marines to conduct saturation operations in two portions of their TAOR.

Within each command's zone of responsibility, troops would fill the countryside around the clock with small-unit patrols and ambushes. They would cooperate with police and local officials to cordon and search hamlets, concentrating on about 80 known VC-infested communities. In an attempt to restrict clandestine movement of Communist personnel and supplies, the allies would set up check points daily at a changing series of positions on major roads. They also planned to establish two combined holding and interrogation centers for persons detained by the roadblocks and by cordon and search operations, thus assuring rapid correlation and distribution of current information. Operation Hoang Dieu initially was planned to last 30 days. In fact, it continued through November and into the first days of December.3

By shifting his forces from search and destroy operations in the mountains to saturation of the populat-

* Hoang Dieu was born in 1828 in Phy Ky in Dien Ban District, Quang Nam. In 1882, during the French conquest of Indochina, he served as governor and minister of defense of Bac Ha City (later renamed Hanoi). When the French overran the city, Hoang Dieu hanged himself. 1st MarDiv FragO 62-70, dtd 190ct70, in 1st MarDivJnl File, 20-310ct70.