On 6 January, General Walt ordered General Platt to reactivate Task Force Delta Headquarters for planning. General Platt had commanded Task Force Delta during Operation Harvest Moon in December, but closed out the headquarters upon completion of the operation. A task force organization allowed the Marines a large degree of leeway in both composition and command for operations outside the major enclaves. Its size was limited only by its mission, and its formation permitted the employment of air and ground components under a

single commander. Equally important, this ad hoc organization permitted the least disruption of the command structure of units remaining in the TAOR's. Normally a Marine task force was of such size to merit a general officer as commander. According to Colonel Peatros “This was a strong factor in getting the Vietnamese generals into the field.

General Platt and Brigadier General Hoang Xuan Lam, the South Vietnamese 2d ARVN Division commander, had established excellent personal relations since working together during Harvest Moon. They also discovered they had a common interest in tennis and played when they had the opportunity. Generals Lam and Platt soon became good friends. On a professional level, the Marines found Lam very cooperative and respected his military judgment

Similar personal friendships facilitated coordination between 111 MAF and the South Vietnamese I Corps military commanders. General Walt stated that for large operations, "General Thi and I talk it over— we come up with a concept and we put the concept to our staffs, who get together and work out the details

The working out of details for Double Eagle was somewhat more complicated. It involved coordination not only with I Corps but with MACV. Seventh Fleet, Field Force, Vietnam, and the Vietnamese authorities in II Corps. General Walt’s original concept involved a two-battalion amphibious landing in southern Quang Ngai Province near Due Pho and a helicopter landing of another battalion in the vicinity ty of the U.S. Special Forces camp at Ba To, 18 miles inland. Field Force, Vietnam and RVN II Corps commands were to launch a supporting operation in Binh Dinh Province to the south while an ARVN task force under General Lam was to block the enemy’s avenues of retreat to the north.

General Walt viewed “these operations as a con-verging effort to entrap the enemy. On the other hand, Major General Stanley R Larsen, the Field Force, Vietnam commander, was less sanguine than Walt and declared “that we should not think in terms of entrapping and annihilating large bodies of VC, but should consider ourselves highly successful to destroy one battalion( Both commanders did agree that the Corps boundaries “were not in-violate they could be crossed by I Corps and U Corps forces as required to exploit the situation

General Platt and his staff expedited final planning for the operation. His ADC command group, reinforced by the Headquarters Company of the 4th Marines as well as members of the 3d Marine Division and 7th Marines staffs, provided the personnel for the Task Force Delta Headquarters. Colonel Donald W. Sherman, the former 3d Division Chief of Staff who had relieved Colonel McClanahan on 24 January 1966 as commander of the 4th Marines, became General Platt's Chief of Staff for the operation. After establishing liaison with the Seventh Fleet, General Platt and Colonel Johnson, whose MAG-36 was to provide helicopter support for the operation, visited General Lam at his headquarters in Quang Ngai to coordinate with the 2d ARVN Division. On 24 January, the task force commander published his operation order and briefed General Walt the next day on the final plan.

Task Force Delta’s operating area consisted of 500 square miles, the center of which was approximately 20 miles south of Quang Ngai City and about 10 miles west of Duc Pho. The southern boundary en-compassed a small portion of northern Binh Dinh Province in U Corps. Red Beach, the site selected for the landing, was a 1,000-meter stretch of flat sand about three and a half miles northeast of Duc Pho. Inland from the beach, the assault elements would have to place heavy reliance on helicopters and amphibian tractors for movement in a region partially inundated by numerous rivers, streams, and marshes. To the west lay a mountainous area of jagged peak scriss crossed by valleys and trails. Despite heavy foliage, there were numerous sites suitable for helicopter landing zones, but the lush jungle vegetation, precipitous hills, and intertwining valleys seriously impeded overland movement from these zones. In short, it was the sort of terrain which favored the enemies highly mobile light infantry and hit-and-run tactics.

The Marine concept of operations called for three distinct phases: reconnaissance, landing, and exploitation. Marine reconnaissance units and an artillery battery were to be inserted at the Special Forces camp a Ba To well before D-Day. From this location, the reconnaissance Marines were to provide information on enemy positions and movement in the western portion of the Double Eagle area of operations. The artillery battery would not only sup-port the reconnaissance missions, but would be in position to cover the amphibious landing forces as they moved inland beyond the range of naval guns. After the establishment of the Ba To contingent, one company of the 2d Battalion, 4th Marines was to conduct a reconnaissance of the landing beach in conjunction with the 2d ARVN Division two weeks before the landing. On D minus 1(27 January), another company from the battalion, with a company from the 4th ARVN Regiment, was to secure Hill 163, which overlooked Red Beach from the south. At H-Hour on 28 January, BLTs 3/1 and 2/4 were to land across Red Beach and secure immediate objectives north and west of the landing beach. Once the landing force had secured the beachhead, the Delta command group was to land, at which time the amphibious task group commander would pass operational control to General Plan. BLT 2/3 was to remain on board amphibious shipping as the task force reserve while the 2d Battalion, 9th Marines was airlifted from DaNang to Quang Ngai City for the final phase of the operation.

Since General Platt wanted to create the impression that his forces were ashore only to conduct limited sweeps close to the coast, the 2d Battalion, 9th Marines was to stay at Quang Ngai and the SLF battalion to remain on board its shipping out of sight over the horizon. The exploitation phase was to be the main effort, signaled by B-52 strikes against suspected enemy troop concentrations and marshalling areas. These B-52 missions or Arc Lights, the codename for all B- 52 strikes in Vietnam, were scheduled for D plus 2. Following this intensive bombardment, the Marine infantry was to move in-land by helicopter to cut off any enemy forces at-tempting to escape.

For the next two weeks the Reconnaissance Marines reported movements of a small group of VC. One 14 man patrol, led by 1st Lieutenant Richard E. Parker Jr. encountered a Significant enemy force near hill 829, approximately 4,000 meters northwest of the Bn To Camp. Lieutenant Parker and an advance party reached the top of the hill at 1400 on 2l January and halted for the day because of poor visibility. Three hours later Parkers Marines heard yelling and firing from the vicinity of their rear base on the lower slope of the mountain. By the time Parker and his group reached the patrols rear party it had already repulsed four or five attacks. In the confusion, 1st Lieutenant James T. Egan, Jr., a forward observer from the artillery battery, had disappeared. Parker and his men searched the immediate area, but found no sign of the missing lieutenant

On the 24th, four battalions of the 1st Cavalry Division began Operation Masher near Bong Son in the coastal region of Binh Dinh Province, 50 miles north of QuiNhon. Six ARVN airborne battalions and six infantry battalions from the 22d ARVN Division reinforced the airmobile division during Operation Thang Phong II, the South Vietnamese companion operation to Masher in Binh Dinh. Further north in I Corps, General Lam’s 2d ARVN Division prepared to launch Operation Lien Ket-22. With the two-battalion South Vietnamese Marine Task Force Bravo attached to his command, General Lam planned a five-battalion advance from a line of departure eight miles south of Quang Ngai City to blocking positions in the Song Ve Valley and the coastal region north of the U.S. Marines in Double Eagle. The combined allied forces for Masher Thang Phong II and Double Eagle/Lien Ket-22 were the equivalent of three divisions The area of operations covered more than 2,000 square miles.

On 26 January, Task Force Delta undertook the last of the preliminary operations before the amphibious landing. Nine UH-34Ds from HMM-261 carried 190 troops of Captain Brian D. Moore’s Company E, 2d Battalion, 4th Marines from Ky Ha Air-field at Chu Lai to the Nui Dau ARVN outpost, eight miles south of the Double Eagle landing beach. At Nui Dau, Major Ernest L. Defazio, the executive officer of the Marine battalion, assumed command of a combined force, consisting of Company E, 4th Marines and the 2d Company, 3d Battalion, 4th ARVN Regiment Shortly after mid-night, the combined unit left the outpost, Company E in the lead followed by the ARVN company. The force was to move to the beach and then travel along the coast and secure Hill 163. According to Defazio, it took over six hours in the darkness to cross the one mile of rugged terrain from Nui Dau to the beach.

Slowed by the loose sand, intense heat during the day, and heavy packs, the combined task unit did not reach the top of Hill 163 until 1300 on 27 January. The Marines and South Vietnamese soldiers prepared defensive positions on the hill which had a commanding view of Red Beach. Major Defazio remarked that he had a “ringside seat’ for the amphibious landing the next day.

At midmorning the surf began to build rapidly. Swells, six to eight feet in height, held up the debarkation of Lieutenant Colonel Trevino’s 2d Battalion, 4th Marines. Nevertheless, by noon, the battalion was ashore, as were the forward elements of Task Force Deltas Headquarters and Lieutenant Colonel Pag's provisional artillery command group. Battery H, 3d Battalion, 11th Marines also landed and reinforced the LVTH-6 platoon in support of the infantry.

Weather hampered the operation for the rest of the day. Although General Platt arrived at Red Beach from Chu Lai by mid afternoon, he was unable to assume operational control of the Double Eagle forces because high seas and pounding surf prevented the landing of sufficient communication equipment As a result, the command of forces ashore remained with the amphibious task force commander, Captain Maddock’s, and with the commander of the landing force, Colonel Burnett, the SLF commander. General PlaIt received the concurrence from Captain Maddock’s “to coordinate actions ashore in the event of emergency which in practical terms would give operational control to Platt

High seas also curtailed the artillery and logistic buildup. Supplies slowly accumulated at the beach support area (BSA) while the rest of the artillery remained on board ship. These units included the 3d 155mm Gun Battery; the 107mm Mortar Battery, 3d Battalion, 12th Marines; Battery M, 4th Battalion, 11th Marines; and a platoon from the 4.2-inch Mortar Battery, 11th Marines.

The VMO-6 commander conceded that he never was able to pinpoint the originator of the message but believed “that it was either from afloat or an enemy transmission’ Zitnik concluded:. “This incident occurred before the transfer of control ashore and contributed to frustrations in General Platts headquarters as well as with the UR­lE pilots

The Marine command attempted to postpone the B-52 strikes for a day, but MACV replied that the missions would either have to be flown on the 30th as scheduled or canceled altogether. Flying high above the low-lying clouds on 30 January, the Stratafortresses struck three target areas in the Song Ve Valley. Despite some improvement in the weather, poor visibility prohibited helicopter operations in the mountains and Marine ground exploitation of the Arc Light missions.

On the afternoon of 30 January, MAG-36 did establish a forward operating base in the Double Eagle BSA, located 400 meters inland from Red Beach and known as “Johnson City7 In addition to the logistic support area and task force headquarters,” Johnson City” contained an expeditionary airfield complete with a tactical air fuel dispensing system (ITAFDS), maintenance facilities, tower, run-way, and airfield lights. As the tactical air commander for the operation, Colonel Johnson established his MAG-36 combat operations center 100 yards from General Platt’s command post and adjacent to the mobile direct air support center ASC) from Marine Air Support Squadron 2. This collocation allowed the air commander to tie in the DASC with the fire support coordination center (FSCC). According to Johnson, the close proximity of the Task Force Delta air and ground commanders “permitted the detailed and continuous planning which enabled us to react expeditiously throughout Double Eagle:’

On 31 January, the weather finally cleared in the objective area and the tempo of operations increased. At 1210, General Platt assumed operational control of the landing force and began to move inland. Two USAF CH-3C helicopters and a Marine Sikorsky CH-37 Mojave lifted the six 105mm howitzers from Battery. H 3d— Battalion, 11th Marines from the “Johnson City” support area to the old French fort so that the artillery could support operations to the west Shortly after noon, Marine UH-34s transported Company E, 2d Battalion, 4th Marines to Hill 508, five miles southwest of the fort. The Marine company was to provide protection for another detachment from the communications platoon, whose mission was to relay radio transmissions from Lieutenant Colonel Trevino’s 2d Battalion which was to operate in this rugged terrain. At 1600 that afternoon, MAG-36 completed the helolift of Trevinds command group and his remaining three companies into a landing zone in the Song ye-Song Ba To Valley, 2,000 meters northwest of Hill 508. The Marine battalion advanced rapidly to exploit one of the Arc Light targets on the high ground to the northeast During the day, 14 Marine jets, 6 A4 Skyhawk-2 F4B Phantoms, and 6 Chance Vought F-8E Crusaders, provided helicopter landing zone preparations and air cover for the infantry.

The next day, 1 February, General Platt moved his forces deeper into the interior of the Double Eagle area of operations. Helicopters from MAG-36 lifted Lieutenant Colonel Donahues 2d Battalion, 9th Marines command group and two rifle companies to a landing zone on the high ground east of the Song Ve, 7,000 meters northwest of where the 2d Battalion, 4th Marines had landed the previous day At the same time, Lieutenant Colonel Horn’s 2d Battalion, 3d Marines made an overland sweep west of the fort area in the valley of the Dra Cau River.

During the advance, the Marines seized hills both for the purpose of providing supporting artillery fire and to maintain better voice communication with the infantry battalions. The Task Force Delta communications platoon established three relay stations on mountain tops to keep radio contact with the widely dispersed maneuver elements. According to General Platt, the task force communications capability was stretched to the absolute limit and the newly distributed ANI PRC-2 5 radios proved in-dispensable and reliable, often reaching distances of 20 to 25 miles.

On 12 February. two UH-34 helicopters inserted two four-man teams from Company B into the mountainous terrain 11,000 meters northwest of Ba To. Shortly after landing, one of the teams observed 31 armed men to their front dressed in green uniforms carrying two mortars. The Marines called an artillery mission which killed 10 enemy. After the artillery had fired another mission, 80 more enemy soldiers appeared. The team asked to be extracted and 15 minutes after its departure, 1st MAW jets, controlled by radar, dropped 39250-pound bombs on the enemy concentration. The next day, a UH-IE from VMO-6 took out the second team, which had come under heavy fire and suffered one man dead.29

During the entire operation, the Marine recon-naissance group conducted more than 40 patrols and sighted nearly 1,000 enemy soldiers. The recon-naissance Marines called for 20 artillery and naval gunfire missions which resulted in at least 19 known enemy dead.30 Battery H, 3d Battalion, 12th Marines at Ba To fired more than 1,900 rounds in support of the~1st Force Reconnaissance Company alone.

Gradually, it became apparent that most of the North Vietnamese units had left the Double Eagle operating area. According to one prisoner report, the main force enemy units withdrew fron Quang Ngai Province a few days before D-Day. The Arm)5s Operation Masher, redesignated White Wing on 5 February because of criticism in certain U.S. Government circles that the U.S.-named operations sound-ed too brutal, turned out to be the main show in-stead of a side event when the 1st Cavalry Division encountered the 80th NVA Regiment in Binh Dinh Province. Even during Masher/White Wing, nearly half of the. 2,000 enemy casualties claimed by the operation occurred during the first heavy fighting. Thereafter, until the end of the operation on 6 March, the cavalry troopers met the same pattern of sporadic resistance that the Marines faced during Double Eagle.

Although Task Force Delta ended its operations in southern Quang Ngai Province on 17 February, Double Eagle entered an entirely new phase 50 miles to the north, a development not called for in the original plans. Major General McCutcheon, acting CG UIMAF  at that time because General Walt was in Washington, had received intelligence that the 1st Viet Cong Regiment had entered the Que Son Valley near the border of Quang Nam and Quang Tin Provinces west of Tam Ky, the area where the Marines had previously conducted Operation Harvest Moon. McCutcheon ordered General Platt to re-deploy Task Force Delta and launch Double Eagle U in this region.

The 1st VC Regiment was not there. Interrogation of prisoners revealed that the Viet Cong unit had withdrawn long before the Marines arrived. For the next 10 days, the Marines swept through numerous villages, cleared out isolated guerrilla bands, and un-covered enemy supplies, but found no major VC units. Task Force Delta accounted for 125 enemy dead and 15 captured. Marine losses were six killed and 136 wounded. The Marines also captured or destroyed caches including 28 tons of rice, 500 pounds of sweet potatoes, 53 weapons, and 450 rounds of ammunition

Task Force Delta began returning to Chu Lai the afternoon of 27 February, but the VC made one last attempt to disrupt the Marine forces before the closeout of the operation. In the early morning hours of 28 February, a VC squad attacked the Task Force Delta command post perimeter, just outside of Tam Ky. A Marine platoon from Company E, 2d Battalion, 7th Marines repulsed the enemy. Captain Edwin W. Besch, who was at the time the Task Force Delta Headquarters Commandant, remembered that the VC were led by a man who had dressed in ARVN uniform and sauntered up in a friendly manner to Marines who had taken him into their... CP for coffee the night before 36 Another Task Force Delta Headquarters staff officer, Colonel Glen E. Martin, recalled that the Marines stopped the VC assault” just short of General Platt's tent. Captain Lee later wrote that” five naked VC with explosives strapped -around their bodies stumbled directly into a 2/7 machine gun position 38 As a result of the early morning action, the Marines killed two VC for sure, possibly another two, and took one wound-ed VC prisoner. The Marines suffered casualties of one man dead and another wounded. The last elements of Task Force Delta departed Tam Ky at 1300 on 1 March and Double Eagle was over.

While neither of the Double Eagle operations produced the desired results, General Platt believed that they both achieved an element of success. Although the Marines had not encountered any sizeable enemy formations, they had taken a heavy toll of local guerrilla forces in these areas. Moreover, General Platt argued that the people residing in both the Que Son Valley and southern Quang Ngai Province learned that neither area was “the VC private backyard because U.S. Marines trampled over a huge area with little or no significant opposition.

SOURCE: 1st Bn 3rd Marines