namese Joint General Staff redesignated Quang Da Special Zone, the controlling ARVN headquarters in Quang Nam, as the 1st Mobile Brigade Task Force and gave the task force operational control of the 51st In�fantry Regiment, the three-battalion 1st Ranger Group, a squadron from the 1st Armored Brigade, and the 78th and 79th Border Ranger Defense Battalions. The latter were the Civilian Irregular Defense Groups at Nong Son and Thuong Due, redesignated and in�corporated into the regular army. The 1st Task Force also received a new commander, Colonel Nguyen Trong Luat, former assistant division commander of the 2d ARVN Division* This redesignation of QDSZ represented another step in the effort, long sponsored and aided by III MAF, to develop an effective tactical headquarters for all the ARVN troops in Quang Nam. As 1971 began, the 51st Regiment, the principal ground unit of the 1st Task Force, had its battalions in the field around An Hoa and Hills 37 and 55. The Rangers and the armored squadron, still regarded as part of the I Corps reserve, continued to spend most of their time in camp around Da Nang.26

Like Quang Da Special Zone, the 1st Task Force had operational control of the RFs and PFs in Quang Nam, control which it exercised through the province and Da Nang city authorities. The Regional Forces in ear�ly 1971 numbered about 7, 800 effectives in 54 opera�tional companies, and the Popular Forces about 6, 400 men in 202 separate platoons. This was about the max�imum militia strength which the province could main�tain. Hence, the South Vietnamese authorities planned no additional units for the coming year. They would concentrate instead on bringing the existing ones to full strength.** The RFs and PFs were now ac�quiring their own artillery, under a nationwide pro�gram begun during 1970. By 6 January 1971, three RF platoons of 105mm howitzers, with their own sector headquarters and fire direction center, had deployed in Quang Nam. The province PSDF con�tinued to display much promise and some real strength, with about 13, 500 armed members in the field at the beginning of the year. To improve the train�ing of the militia and for better coordination of vil�lage defense, Quang Nam Province and the 1st Task Force were planning to subdivide each district into several areas of operation, each under a RF company commander. The company commander would be responsible for training the PFs and PSDF within his AO and would have operational control of them "on a mission required basis."27

Lieutenant General Robertson, as he took over his new command, found Quang Nam seemingly much more peaceful and secure than it had been during his earlier tour with the 1st Marine Division. He observed: I really was going right back home. I was going back to the same area that I was familiar with .... I recognized progress in the war, favorable progress .... Not as many enemy forces around. They really had pulled away from that area considerably. More work being done in the fields .... It just seemed to me to be a feeling of more security in the hamlets and villages around that area .... Security wise the people were cooperating . . . .28 While the relative quiescence of the enemy in Quang Nam was a fact, Marines differed in their as�sessments of what it meant. The more optimistic ob�servers argued that the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong, short of men and supplies, and suffering from declining discipline and morale, simply were not capa�ble of much beyond occasional terrorism and hit-and-run attacks. Some Marines also assumed another cause of declining activity was the flood in October-November which temporarily disrupted VC/NVA com�mand and control networks and lines of communica�tion, much as it had done with the allies in Quang Nam. Others, including Major John S. Grinalds, S-2 of the 1st Marines, felt that the Communists were fol�lowing a calculated strategy. Grinalds believed that the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese wanted the U.S. withdrawal to proceed on schedule. The enemy would engage in enough military activity, for example firing rockets at Da Nang, to keep both Vietnamese civilians and the American public aware that the war was still going on; but they would not make attacks of suffi�cient strength to constitute a serious threat to allied forces and justify slowing down the removal of Ameri�can troops. Grinalds expected the enemy to bide their time, building up their supply stockpiles, and recruit

* Colonel Nguyen Van Thien, who had done much to build QDSZ into an effective tactical headquarters, had been killed in a plane crash in August 1970, and was finally replaced by Colonel Phan Hoa Hiep. On 1 January 1971, Hiep went to Saigon to command the Armor Corps and Luat succeeded him as commander, 1st Task Force.

** The actual strength of the RFs and PFs in the field often was much below their authorized strength. In Quang Nam in March 1971, for instance, these were the authorized and actual numbers:

Authorized Present for Duty RF 8, 644 7, 820 PF 7, 070 6, 417

- CG XXIV Corps msg to PSAs of Quang Nam and Quang Ngai, dtd 4May71, Box 25, Fidr 26, RG 319 (72A6443), FRC, Suitland, Md.