wounded 11, and damaged six houses. Three more rocket attacks occurred during the first week of June, including the one on the 5th that narrowly missed Colonel Pommerenk's quarters at the airbase. This persistant harassing fire concerned Lieutenant General Lam, who ordered the Quang Nam Province Chief to increase night patrols in the Rocket Belt and conduct more combined antirocket search and destroy opera­tions with allied forces.63

By mid-summer, both MACV and XXIV Corps were convinced that Quang Nam was becoming militarily less secure. Lieutenant General Sutherland, the XXIV Corps commander, observed in August:

Quang Nam Province has a serious security problem. Present force levels in the province are inadequate to main­tain the security level we had prior to U.S. Marine redeploy­ments, since we have only the 196th Brigade and the 11th CAG replacing the 1st Marine Division and . . . [1st MAW]. Coordination between Vietnamese agencies has [also] been a problem in the province . . . .64

At about the same time, General Abrams reported to CinCPac that "a continuing pattern of regression" in security had become evident since November 1970 in Quang Nam, Quang Tin, and Quang Ngai in southern MR 1 and in Binh Dinh in northern MR 2. Abrams called these provinces, which comprised the enemy's Military Region 5, "one of the most troubled areas on the map of South Vietnam." The security rat­ing of these provinces under the Hamlet Evaluation System all had fallen 10-15 percent since the previous November, and other indices of progress, such as the number of Chieu Hois, also had declined. The ene­my appeared to have regained "significant . . . influence" over a substantial minority of the popu­lation of each province. In Quang Nam, the worst of [he four, the Communists now controlled about 17 percent of the people. Abrams attributed this regres­sion primarily to the reduction in U.S. forces in the area, especially the removal of the Marines from Quang Nam. He also cited poor coordination between the ARVN and local forces, a lack of mobile Regional Forces in many districts, and the devisive effects of the GVN elections as causes of the deterioration in security.

Abrams concluded:

The overall impact of these combined factors has been a growing uncertainty and a lessening of self-confidence among local officials, local forces, and the general populace. The enemy in rum is taking advantage of this situation by directing the preponderance of his activities towards ter­rorism, to the general exclusion of large scale military ac­tions. He has established psychological dominance over much of the populace and local friendly forces ....

On an optimistic note, Abrams ended his report by declaring, "This dominance is essentially a state of mind which can be changed."65

In spite of these pessimistic assessments, the situa­tion in Quang Nam appeared to improve during the last half of 1971. After the end of the third phase of the K-850 Campaign, the 38th Regiment and other enemy main force units withdrew from the lowlands into Base Area 112 and did not again emerge- Harass­ing attacks by guerrillas and local forces decreased in frequency and did less damage. Between January and June, according to a XXIV Corps analysis, the enemy made 424 attacks by fire and 97 ground attacks against secure areas and consolidation zones in Quang Nam. These attacks resulted in 294 South Vietnamese and allied dead and 1, 021 wounded. Between July and De­cember, the Communists made only 303 fire attacks and 25 ground assaults, killing 74 South Vietnamese and allied personnel and wounding 211. Rocket attacks on Da Nang stopped after the national elections in October, and by the end of the year the city had en­joyed three consecutive bombardment-free months. The cessation resulted partly from the 1st Task Force's Operation Da Nang 101, during which ARVN and RFs and PFs continually patrolled the Rocket Belt.66

Except for the decline in security noted by Suther­land and Abrams which was partially remedied by the end of the year, no major alteration occurred in the military situation in Quang Nam after the Marines' departure. The enemy made no significant noticeable gains, but neither did the allies. The ARVN and lo­cal forces seemed to be holding their own, which could be interpreted as a success for Vietnamization. The question remained whether the South Vietnamese forces were sufficient in number and quality to hold the province when the remaining allied units withdrew.