After the departure of the last elements of the 3d MAB, only 542 Marine officers and men remained in Vietnam. Most were members of Sub-Unit 1, 1st Air and Naval Gunfire Liaison Company (ANGLICO); others comprised the Marine Advisory Unit (MAU), serving with the Vietnamese Marine Corps, and the U.S. Embassy security guard detachment at Saigon. A few served on the MACV staff.
Quang Nam after the Marines Left
As the 3d Marine Amphibious Brigade completed redeployment during May and June, the 196th Light Infantry Brigade began Operation Caroline Hill, the codename for its search and destroy activities in the mountains and lowlands west and south of Da Nang. The Army brigade, under Colonel William S. Hathaway, USA, who was replaced by Colonel Rutland B. Beard, Jr., USA on 6 June, had four infantry battal�ions and an attached armored cavalry squadron for maneuver elements. Two artillery battalions, the 3d of the 16th U.S. Artillery and the 3d of the 82d U.S. Artillery, provided fire support* The 11th Combat Avi�ation Group, based at Marble Mountain, furnished helicopters.
The mission of the brigade in Quang Nam was to conduct "combat operations in assigned areas of oper�ations within the Brigade Tactical Area of Interest to find, fix and destroy enemy forces, lines of communi�cation and cache sites," to "deny the enemy use of the terrain for movement or the conduct of combat oper�ations," to assist the Quang Nam Province pacifica�tion effort, and to provide "standoff security for designated pacified areas."61 With the exception of one infantry company and one cavalry troop stationed at Da Nang as reaction forces, two infantry companies guarding Brigade Ridge, and another garrisoning Hill 65, the infantry battalions and armored cavalry squa�dron conducted continuous operations in the AOs in which they initially had deployed. The 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry and the 1st Battalion, 46th Infantry patrolled west of Da Nang, with firebases on Hills 270 and 350. The 2d Battalion, 1st Infantry and the cavalry squadron swept the flat land around An Hoa, at times working westward into the Arizona Territory. The 2d Battalion, 21st Infantry searched the Que Sons south of Hill 510 and conducted sweeps in Antenna Valley.
The Army troops, like the Marines before them, had only brief firefights with small enemy detachments, and suffered most of their casualties from boobytraps. In the largest contact of the brigade's first two months in Quang Nam, on 27 May, Troop B of the cavalry squadron, on a combined sweep with the 3d Battal�ion, 51st ARVN Regiment, engaged about 50 VC. The Army cavalrymen and ARVN infantry killed 14 of the enemy and captured five, and five weapons. Between 29 April and 1 July, the 196th Brigade lost 15 dead and 125 wounded in Quang Nam, while killing 162 VC/NVA, taking 11 prisoners, and recovering 78 in�dividual and three crew-served weapons.
The pattern of enemy operations continued un�changed in May and June. Guerrillas and local force units kept up a steady campaign of terrorism and small attacks by fire on South Vietnamese positions. The main forces continued the K-850 offensive. On 29-30 May, another wave of ground and rocket attacks sig�nalled the start of the third and final phase of this campaign. This time, the largest assault came in cen�tral Dai Xuyen District, south of Da Nang, where over 80, 000 South Vietnamese civilians, including high government officials, had gathered for a religious ceremony. In spite of security precautions by the 196th Brigade, the Korean Marines, and the 51st Regiment, three enemy battalions, including elements of the 38th Regiment and 91st Sapper Battalion, attacked the ceremony site on the 30th. The battle raged through�out the day and into the following night before the Communists fell back, leaving behind over 200 dead. The allies, who had lost five killed and 35 wounded, claimed a military victory, but 20 civilians had died in the fighting and homes in the area had suffered extensive damage.62
The 575th Rocket Artillery Battalion, operating from its refuge on Charlie Ridge, continued to bom�bard Da Nang with its erratic, but occasionally dead�ly, missiles. At 0330 on 30 May, for example, the enemy fired 11 122mm rockets at Da Nang Airbase. The six rockets that fell on the airstrip caused no casualties or damage, but the other five landed in downtown Da Nang, where they killed 12 civilians,
* The 3d Battalion, 16th Artillery with headquarters in Da Nang and 155mm howitzer batteries on FSBs in the northeastern Que Sons and on Hill 65, provided direct support to the 1st Squadron, 1st U.S. Cavalry and general support/reinforcing fires for both the 196th Brigade and the 198th Brigade in Quang Tin to the south. The 3d Battalion, 82d Artillery (105mm howitzer) was the direct support unit for the 196th Brigade, with batteries on former Ma�rine FSBs in the Que Sons and in the hills west of Da Nang. This battalion had operational control of Battery D, 1st Battalion, 82d Artillery (8-inch and 175mm howitzers) on Hill 65 and of Battery C, 3d Battalion, 16th Artillery (155mm guns). 23d InfDiv ORLL, Period Ending 150ct71, dtd 1Nov71, pp. 57-61.
