Bøger af U S Marine Corps History Division

In the 77 days from 20 January to 18 March of 1968, two divisions of the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) surrounded a regiment of U.S. Marines on a mountain plateau in the northwest corner of South Vietnam known as Khe sanh. The episode was no accident; it was in fact a carefully orchestrated meeting in which both sides got what they wanted. The north Vietnamese succeeded in surrounding the Marines in a situation in many ways similar to Dien Bien Phu, and may have been seeking similar tactical, operational, and strategic results. General William C. Westmoreland, the commander of the joint U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam (COMUSMACV), meanwhile, sought to lure the NVA into the unpopulated terrain around the 26th Marines in order to wage a battle of annihilation with air power. In this respect Khe Sanh has been lauded as a great victory of air power, a military instrument of dubious suitability to much of the Vietnam conflict. The facts support the assessment that air power was the decisive element at Khe Sanh, delivering more than 96 percent of the ordnance used against the NVA. This work focuses mainly on fixed-wing close air support, or the support provided by jet and propeller-driven conventional aircraft, to the general exclusion of rotary-wing aircraft, also known as helicopters. There are several reasons for this, none of which are meant to belittle the contributions or heroism of the Marine, Army, and Air Force helicopter pilots who fought in the hills around Khe Sanh. First, until the arrival of the AH-1G Cobra in April 1969, there was no helicopter designed for dedicated close air support of Marines in Vietnam. The primary gunship during the battle of Khe Sanh was the UH-1E outfitted with machine guns and rocket launchers for the escort of unarmed helicopters. These helicopters were sometimes used for the direct support of ground troops with suppressive fires and were frequently used as forward air controllers, spotting and marking targets for fixed-wing aircraft with heavier ordnance. These roles are appropriately discussed alongside the contributions of the fixed-wing aircraft, but as a general rule, analysis remains focused on the heavier attack aircraft.

U.S. Marines as advisors have a long history, from Presley O'Bannon at Tripoli through Iraq and Afghanistan via Haiti, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Philippines, and Vietnam. While most Marines think of the Vietnamese Marine Corps as the primary advisory experience during that conflict, others served with various other advisory programs with the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Joint Special Operations, and U.S. Civil Operations and Rural Development Support. One of these is the subject of this study: Marine advisors with the Vietnamese Provincial Reconnaissance Units (PRUs). This narrative is a combination of experience, research, and reflection. While other journalistic or academic accounts have been published, this is a narrative of participants. Many historians consider the two most effective counterinsurgency organizations employed during the Vietnam War to have been the PRU and USMC Combined Action Platoons (CAP). In both cases, U.S. Marines played a significant role in the success of these innovative programs. It should be pointed out, however, that the number of U.S. Marines assigned to these programs was small and the bulk of the forces were locally recruited fighters. Both programs used a small cadre of Marines providing leadership, training, and combat support for large numbers of indigenous troops, and in so doing, capitalized on the inherent strengths of each. The author believes that both of these programs have applicability in any counterinsurgency where U.S. forces are called upon to assist a host government. Obviously, adjustments to these programs would have to be made to take into account local conditions, but the core concept of providing U.S. Marines to command or advise local militia and special police units is one that has great promise for success. With a clear understanding of why the PRUs and CAPs worked, and with the necessary adjustments to take into account local conditions, similar units can be created to defeat future insurgencies. With this in mind, the author hopes that this work will provide U.S. military planners with insights into creating and managing units capable of defeating a well-organized and highly motivated insurgent political infrastructure.