THE FIRST FIGHT

U.S. MARINES IN OPERATION STARLITE

AUGUST 1965

COLONEL ROD ANDREW JR., U.S. MARINE CORPS RESERVE

MARINES IN THE VIETNAM WAR COMMEMORATIVE SERIES 
This pamphlet history, one in a series devoted to U.S. Marines in the Vietnam War, is published for the education and training 

of Marines by the History Division, Marine Corps University, Quantico, Virginia, as part of the U.S. Department of Defense 

observance of the fiftieth anniversary of that war. Editorial costs have been defrayed in part by contributions from members of 

the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation.

Marines in the Vietnam War Commemorative Series

Director of Marine Corps History

Dr. Charles P. Neimeyer

Chief Historian of the Marine Corps

Charles D. Melson

Senior Editor

Angela J. Anderson

Vietnam War Commemorative Series Editor

Shawn H. Vreeland

Visual Information Specialist

Robert A. Kocher

2015

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The First Fight | 1

On 18 August 1965, U.S. Marines of Regimental 

Landing Team 7 (RLT 7) and Viet Cong soldiers 

of the 1st Viet Cong Regiment met each other in a 

ferocious struggle that would continue for several more days. 

Operation Starlite, as the Marines called it, took place on the 

Van Tuong Peninsula, about 10 miles south of the Marine 

base at Chu Lai. It was a significant battle for many reasons. 

Though the Marines and Viet Cong had encountered each 

other in small-sized patrols and ambushes before, Operation Starlite was the first time they met in open battle in 

regimental-sized formations. Both sides learned several lessons about how the enemy fought, and each came to appreciate the other as a formidable foe. In the short term, the 

tactical victory won by the Marines validated such operational concepts as vertical envelopment, amphibious assault, 

and combined arms that had not been put into practice on 

a large scale since the Korean War. It proved that Marine 

ground troops and their junior officers and noncommissioned 

officers, as well as Marine aviators, were just as tough and reliable as their forebears who had fought in World War II and 

Korea. In the long term, Starlite foreshadowed the American 

military’s commitment to conventional warfare in Vietnam 

and showed how difficult it would be to defeat Communist 

forces in South Vietnam.

For years, the United States had grown increasingly concerned about the expanding Communist insurgency in South 

Vietnam. Influenced by the domino theory of the Cold War, 

American policy makers came to believe that a Communist 

success in overthrowing the U.S.-backed government in 

Saigon would destabilize all of Southeast Asia and represent 

a major victory for Communism. By late 1964, the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson was convinced 

that the United States would have to intervene directly with 

American military forces to prevent this from occurring.

In its most significant effort to date to persuade North 

Vietnam to end its support of the Communist insurgency 

in the south, the Johnson administration approved a major 

aerial bombardment campaign in early 1965. Code-named 

Rolling Thunder, this operation commenced on 2 March 

1965. It did nothing to curtail North Vietnamese infiltration into or Communist attacks within South Vietnam, however, and the campaign was therefore extended indefinitely 

(it would continue until November 1968). This reliance on 

air attacks to influence Communist behavior made it all the 
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The First Fight | 3

more important to provide reliable security for the American 

air base at Da Nang in the northern region of South Vietnam. 

American planners deemed the base vital for future air campaigns against the North and considered the ability of South 

Vietnam’s own forces to protect the base questionable.

Thus, on 8 March 1965, the U.S. Marines’ Battalion 

Landing Team 3/9 made an amphibious landing just north 

of Da Nang, marking the beginning of the formal presence 

of American ground troops in Vietnam. Later that day, Battalion Landing Team 1/3 began arriving by airplane at the Da 

Nang airfield. This landing and the initial buildup of forces in 

the Da Nang area came under the operational control of the 

9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade (9th MEB) commanded 

by Brigadier General Frederick J. Karch. The 9th MEB also 

included two helicopter squadrons and limited logistical 

support. 

The initial justification for the Marines’ presence in Da 

Nang, then, was the security of the air base there. Senior 

military leaders argued that it would serve other purposes as 

well. The Joint Chiefs of Staff; General William C. Westmoreland, USA, commander of U.S. Military Assistance 

Command, Vietnam (USMACV); Marine Corps Commandant General Wallace M. Greene Jr.; and Lieutenant General Victor H. Krulak, commanding general of Fleet Marine 

Force, Pacific (FMFPac), argued that the arrival of the 

Marines in Da Nang would make Army of the Republic of 

Vietnam (ARVN) forces available for more aggressive operations in the area and would establish a protected enclave that 

could facilitate a further escalation of the American presence 

or protect a withdrawal if the president thought either necessary. Additionally, the Johnson administration seemed hopeful that such a show of American force could reinvigorate the 

ARVN and have a decisive effect in stabilizing South Vietnam, without involving U.S. troops in actual ground combat. 

The 7 March landing order from the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 

Washington had directed that “the U.S. Marine force will not, 

Defense Department (Marine Corps) A183734-B

BGen Frederick J. Karch, commander of 9th MEB, talks with MajGen Nguyen Chanh Thi (center) and BGen Hoang Xuan Lam 

(left) on the beach just prior to the Marines’ initial landing at Da Nang on 8 March 1965. General Thi was the ARVN commander 

for the entire I Corps region, and General Lam was the commander of 2d ARVN Division, which would participate in the mop-up 

phase of Operation Starlite. 
repeat will not, engage in day-to-day actions against the Viet 

Cong.” In fact, the Marine infantry battalions’ formal mission 

was simply to provide security for the Da Nang airfield, from 

which American aircraft were supporting ARVN operations 

inside South Vietnam. During this period, there were many 

restrictions on how the Marines could be employed, and even 

on their ability to return hostile fire—restraints which were 

frustrating to the men in the fighting holes.

General Westmoreland, however, pushed for a broader role 

for American ground troops. He did not believe that securing air bases, launching air attacks on North Vietnam, and 

assisting in the buildup of ARVN forces would be enough to 

force North Vietnam to cease its support of the Viet Cong or 

to stabilize South Vietnam’s government. In late March, he 

recommended a further buildup of U.S. ground forces and a 

more active role for them. He had little trouble convincing his 

superiors. On 1 April, President Johnson approved an increase 

of U.S. forces in Vietnam, including the deployment of more 

Marines. He also sanctioned an alteration of the 9th MEB’s 

mission that would allow the Marines to participate “in active 

combat under conditions to be established and approved by 

the Secretary of Defense in consultation with the Secretary 

of State.” By 14 April, the Marines had received permission 

to engage in offensive operations under certain conditions.*

Meanwhile, more Marines had arrived in Da Nang, as 

well as in the area of the Hue–Phu Bai airstrip, about eight 

miles south of the ancient capital city of Hue. In addition, 

the 9th MEB, soon to become superseded by the III Marine 

Amphibious Force (III MAF), began establishing a third 

enclave at Chu Lai, about 50 miles south of Da Nang and 

8 miles north of the mouth of the Tra Bong River. Finally, 

in mid-July, a reinforced battalion and a helicopter squadron 

established a fourth enclave at Qui Nhon, some 175 miles 

south of Da Nang.

The arrival of American ground troops in the spring of 

1965 marked the escalation of a debate over strategy. General Westmoreland convinced President Johnson that the 

United States should deploy more than 200,000 troops to the 

*Westmoreland permitted the Marines to engage in offensive action as a 

reaction force in coordination with South Vietnamese forces, make deep reconnaissance patrols, and “undertake in coordination with RVN [Republic of 

Vietnam] I Corps, an intensifying program of offensive operations to fix and 

destroy the VC [Viet Cong] in the general Da Nang area.” 

Republic of Vietnam and, with the help of such allies as Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea, begin offensive operations to prevent an enemy victory in 1965, with the ultimate 

aim of destroying enemy forces on the battlefield by 1968. 

Thus, Westmoreland envisioned focusing on the destruction 

of enemy forces in a purely military sense, in what would later 

be called “search-and-destroy” operations. The United States 

would use large mobile formations and rely on its superior 

firepower to seek out and destroy Communist military formations, both conventional and guerilla, which would in 

turn bring peace and stability to South Vietnam. Holding a 

different point of view were senior Marine leaders such as 

Lieutenant General Victor Krulak, successive III MAF commanders Major Generals William R. Collins and Lewis W. 

Walt, and Brigadier General Frederick Karch. These generals 

did not object to seizing occasional opportunities to strike 

Communist main force units, but they preferred to pursue 

an “enclave,” “pacification,” or “clear and hold” strategy. This 

would entail bringing the focus of the war to the village level. 

American forces would establish physical security and foster 

economic development, land reform, and local democracy, 

thereby denying to large enemy forces the local support they 

needed in terms of food, taxes, and intelligence. American 

troops would also train local pro-Saigon “popular forces” and 

work closely with the ARVN. Like a “spreading ink blot,” 

more and more rural areas would be pacified in this way, 

denying support to the enemy and stabilizing the South Vietnamese regime. Marine officers conceded that this approach 

would take time, but it would cause fewer American casualties, foster a closer relationship with a strengthened South 

Vietnamese government, and ultimately be more effective in 

stabilizing the country. This internal strategic debate between 

senior Marine Corps and Army leaders would shape American operational concepts for several more years. For the most 

part, General Westmoreland, as the senior military commander in Vietnam, won the debate. In many ways, Operation Starlite would represent the coming ascendency of his 

approach to fighting the war.

General Walt’s III MAF took on the responsibility of 

assisting the ARVN in pacifying the I Corps Tactical Zone, 

consisting of South Vietnam’s five northernmost provinces—Quang Tri, Thua Thien, Quang Nam, Quang Tin, and 

Quang Ngai. The terrain, weather, and enemy presence in 

4 | Marines in the Vietnam War Commemorative Series
The First Fight | 5

the I Corps zone presented formidable challenges. The flat, 

sandy terrain along the coast in the I Corps area quickly 

gave way to a strip of arable land aptly described by Marine 

historian Allan R. Millett as “delta rice lands,” full of “rice 

paddies, dikes, narrow village trails, and tree lines.” The delta, 

in turn, merged into hilly or mountainous terrain full of 

bamboo thickets and thick rain forests. Miserably cold and 

wet in the winter monsoon season (some areas receive more 

than 100 inches of rain per year), the Marines in I Corps 

would endure debilitating heat and humidity in the summer. 

The area’s northern location put it close to Communist base 

camps in North Vietnam and Laos. Moreover, the Viet 

Cong had been particularly active there over the last several 

years and controlled most of the countryside and the local 

population.

By mid-July, the Marines of III MAF had established 

enclaves (air bases protected by ground troops) at Da Nang, 

Phu Bai, Chu Lai, and Qui Nhon. Operating in and around 

the Chu Lai base was the regimental command post of 

4th Marines with two of its battalions—1st Battalion, 4th 

Marines, and 2d Battalion, 4th Marines—as well as 3d Battalion, 3d Marines. The Chu Lai base received further reinforcement on 14 August with the arrival of the headquarters 

of 7th Marines and the administrative (rather than tactical) 

landing of 1st Battalion, 7th Marines.

The Enemy

Vietnamese Communists also perceived the year 1965 as a 

crucial time. Since 1959, the Communist regime in Hanoi 

had stated its intention was to destabilize and overthrow the 

pro-Western regime based farther south in Saigon, in the 

Republic of Vietnam. In 1961, it established the People’s Liberation Armed Forces or Liberation Army of South Vietnam, 

more commonly known as the Viet Cong, to help achieve this 

goal. Increasingly, one of the means of challenging the Saigon 

regime had been through conventional military operations 

against the ARVN. By the end of 1964, the Viet Cong were 

operating in several locations in regimental strength. In several pitched battles between December 1964 and the summer 

of 1965, the Viet Cong inflicted devastating losses on ARVN 

units. Hanoi was confident of the Viet Cong’s ability to 

destroy the ARVN in a one-on-one fight, but the crucial 

remaining wild card was the Americans. The Communists 

needed to defeat the ARVN before the Americans could 

arrive in sufficient strength to turn the tide in Saigon’s favor. 

Three factions of the Viet Cong operated under Communist control. First, explains historian Warren Wilkins, were 

the “village guerillas or militia detachments [that] resembled 

the Westernized caricature of a Viet Cong combatant—

a shoddily armed, ‘farmer by day, guerilla by night’ fighter 

engaged in setting booby traps and picking off American 

infantrymen.” The second group consisted of “local force” 

Viet Cong organized at the provincial level who were better 

trained and better armed. Finally, there were the “main-force” 

Viet Cong units organized up to the battalion and regimental levels; these units were well trained, well equipped with 

Communist bloc weapons, and well led by a cadre of veterans who had fought the ARVN, the French, and in some 

cases even the Japanese. Unlike local guerillas at the village 

level, main-force Viet Cong units were committed early in 

the war to demolishing ARVN units before the large-scale 

deployment of American forces made that goal more difficult. 

When the United States did commit ground units on a large 

scale, the Viet Cong made a deliberate effort, at least for a 

period beginning in August 1965 and lasting well into 1966, 

to defeat those forces with conventional tactics in a “big unit” 

war.

The 1st Viet Cong Regiment, like other main-force Viet 

Cong units, was a veteran, professional force. It was capably 

led and well supplied, and had repeatedly defeated ARVN 

forces in major actions in the latter half of 1964 and first half 

of 1965. It consisted of four battalions—the 40th, 60th, and 

90th recently reinforced by the 45th Weapons Battalion. Many 

of its officers were veterans of the war against the French. 

By the time of Operation Starlite, some of the enlisted soldiers were recent conscripts obtained from the Quang Ngai 

region, the province just south of Chu Lai. Others were conscripts who had joined the regiment months earlier, and some 

were volunteers who had angrily decided to resist abuses by 

officials serving the Saigon regime. Whether conscripts or 

volunteers, many of the men were already veterans of several fierce battles with ARVN forces. Recently, the regiment 

had overrun the 1st Battalion, 51st ARVN Regiment, in the 

last week of May. This action occurred at the village of Ba 

Gia, 20 miles south of Chu Lai. Five weeks later, the 1st Viet 

Cong Regiment struck the same ARVN battalion again, and 
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The First Fight | 7

this time virtually annihilated it. By the end of the battle, 

the ARVN battalion’s strength was reduced from 257 men 

to 40. The Viet Cong had captured two 105mm howitzers 

and reportedly killed two American advisors attached to the 

ARVN battalion—Captain William F. Eisenbraun, USA, 

and Sergeant First Class Henry A. Musa Jr., USA—as well 

as the copilot of an American helicopter providing air support—Chief Warrant Officer Allen L. Holt, USA.*

 These two 

actions at Ba Gia were so successful that the 1st Viet Cong 

Regiment proudly called itself the “Ba Gia” Regiment. 

The 1st Viet Cong Regiment had sustained heavy losses at 

Ba Gia as well, and it began moving north in early August 

toward Chu Lai in order to rest, refit, and gather and train 

new recruits. At that time, Colonel Leo J. Dulacki, General 

Walt’s intelligence officer, began receiving “countless lowlevel reports” from the various intelligence collection organizations on the movement of the 1st Viet Cong Regiment. 

Many of the reports seemed contradictory and unreliable, 

but with careful study the general picture emerged that the 

enemy regiment was moving north toward Chu Lai. 

This information corresponded with increased pressure on 

III MAF from General Westmoreland to engage the enemy 

in large-scale conventional combat operations. Marine officers in Vietnam at this time, despite their faith in pacification and combined action with loyal progovernment militia, 

had no particular aversion to launching larger offensive 

operations as well. In fact, frustration was already growing 

throughout the ranks, from private to general, with the endless routine of patrols, ambushes, and counterambushes that 

occasionally produced Marine and enemy casualties but no 

opportunity to fix and destroy large enemy formations in 

open battle. But when General Westmoreland pushed the 

III MAF commander, Major General Walt, to launch larger 

offensive operations farther away from his bases, Walt had to 

remind him that such a course would violate his latest written instructions. A 6 May letter of instruction limited III 

MAF offensive operations to “reserve/reaction” missions in 

support of South Vietnamese units already heavily engaged 

with a Communist force and to limited offensive operations 

*Capt Eisenbraun was initially reported killed; however, later reports showed 

that he was captured and died in captivity in 1967. SFC Musa and CWO-2 

Holt were definitely killed in the Ba Gia engagement.

within the tactical area of responsibility of III MAF forces “to 

prevent massing of enemy forces for surprise attacks on base 

areas.” In other words, the only time that the Marines could 

launch major offensive operations was to bail out ARVN 

units that were already in trouble or to preempt an imminent 

Communist strike on a Marine base. Westmoreland replied 

that those restrictions were no longer realistic, that General 

Walt was to rewrite them in order to give himself the authority he needed to act more aggressively, and that Westmoreland would approve the revisions. On 6 August, Walt received 

official permission to undertake large offensives against the 

enemy.

Thus, III MAF had obtained permission to go after the 

enemy on a large scale at a time in which the 1st Viet Cong 

Regiment had just come into its sights and intelligence sources 

were painting a clearer picture of where the unit was. Moreover, this occurred when Marines of all ranks were growing 

weary of the seemingly indecisive outcomes of patrols and 

small-unit actions. On the very day that Walt’s written guidance from Westmoreland was officially changed, a battalionsized force from the 4th Marine Regiment and the 51st 

ARVN Regiment launched a two-day operation, Operation Thunderbolt, south of the Tra Bong River but west of 

Highway 1, thus west of the area in which Operation Starlite 

would later take place. The Marines returned to base on the 

seventh having met only light resistance.

Meanwhile, units from 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, had 

been patrolling in the Van Tuong Peninsula south of the Tra 

Bong River, 9–10 miles south of Chu Lai, since the previous month. It was an area of dense vegetation with few open 

fields of fire except in areas of open rice paddies. Even the 

rice paddies were divided and segmented by hedgerows six to 

eight feet high consisting of bamboo thickets and hardwood 

trees that could provide cover and concealment to defending 

forces. Many small villages dotted the area, including the centrally located Van Tuong. The broken terrain militated against 

Marines easily conducting a sweep of the area to root out 

local guerrillas along with their weapons and underground 

supplies, a common activity of Marine troops. The Marines 

came to realize that the Viet Cong already had a significant 

hold in the Van Tuong area and had been able to extract supplies and conscripts from it. Additionally, during Starlite 

itself, they would find that there were literally hundreds of 
8 | Marines in the Vietnam War Commemorative Series 

Lewis Walt graduated in 1936 from Colorado State University, where he was captain of the football and wrestling teams, 

student body president, and cadet colonel 

of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps 

detachment. He accepted a commission as 

a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps 

in July of that year. By the time the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 

1941, Walt had served two overseas tours; 

he was promoted to captain that month. 

He volunteered to join the 1st Raider 

Battalion and led Company A of that unit 

in its assault on Tulagi in the Solomon 

Islands in August 1942. For his gallantry 

in that action, he was awarded the Silver 

Star. He was promoted to major the next 

month and given command of 2d Battalion, 5th Marines, on Guadalcanal. In that 

epic battle, Walt was wounded, cited for 

bravery, and “spot promoted” to lieutenant 

colonel, having now been promoted twice 

in a year’s time. For his leadership of 3d 

Battalion, 5th Marines, at Cape Gloucester on New Britain, he was awarded the 

Navy Cross. He received a second Navy 

Cross for his leadership of the same unit 

at Peleliu in 1944. During the Korean 

War, Colonel Walt commanded the 5th 

Marine Regiment and also served as chief 

of staff of 1st Marine Division. In Korea, 

he was awarded the Legion of Merit 

and the Bronze Star, both with Combat 

“V.” While commanding the 5th Marine 

Regiment in Korea, one of Walt’s battalion commanders had been Oscar F. “Peat” 

Peatross, who would later lead RLT 7 

during Starlite.

In June 1965, Major General Walt 

became commander of III MAF in Vietnam, where he served until 1967. He was 

promoted to lieutenant general in 1966, 

and he became Assistant Commandant 

of the Marine Corps on 1 January 1968. 

While still holding this post, he was promoted to general. He retired from the 

Marine Corps on 1 February 1971. At 

the end of his career, Walt published a 

book titled Strange War, Strange Strategy: 

A General’s Report on Vietnam (1970) in 

which he reflected on his Vietnam experiences and expressed regret that Army 

officers had not been more open to methods of counterinsurgency warfare that 

were well known to Marine officers in the 

1930s who had suppressed insurgencies in 

Haiti and Nicaragua during the so-called 

Banana Wars.

Defense Department (Marine Corps) A412382

Major General Lewis W. Walt 

underground caves and interconnected tunnels, some used 

by civilians to store their food and others by the enemy to 

hide weapons, ammunition, supplies, and soldiers. The Viet 

Cong had transformed the majority of the villages in the area 

into fortified villages, complete with bunkers, interconnecting tunnels, booby traps, and huts with collapsing walls that 

could be quickly lowered, enabling machine guns inside to 

fire in prearranged fields of fire. 

Marines of 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, patrolled the Van 

Tuong Peninsula region frequently in July, originally with 

platoon-sized units. As they consistently made significant 

enemy contact, they subsequently shifted to company-sized 

patrols of two to four days’ duration. The commander of 

Company M, Captain Calvin M. Morris, remembered that 

“every time we went over there, we got hit. We got hit and 

got hit and got hit.” Obviously, there was a significant Viet 

Cong militia presence in the area even before the arrival of 

the 1st Viet Cong Regiment. By the middle of August, though, 

Morris noticed a difference in the appearance and quality of 

enemy troops his Marines were facing. On 14 August, Morris’s company conducted a heliborne operation in the area. 

Marines from Company M had numerous sightings of wellequipped and well-armed enemy soldiers and exchanged fire 

several times. At one point, Morris called in an artillery fire 

mission on an enemy mortar position. When the mission 

was complete, Morris and his men discovered several dead 
The First Fight | 9

enemy soldiers. Unlike the black pajama–clad guerillas they 

had previously encountered, these were “dressed in khaki, 

squared away,” well equipped and well armed. They had AK47 

Kalashnikov assault rifles and Russian-made rocket launchers, weapons that Morris’s Marines had never seen the enemy 

carry before. Company M’s Marines put the bodies and the 

captured weapons on a helicopter and sent them back to base 

for inspection. To Morris, it was the first indication that the 

Marines were now dealing with a professional, well-trained 

force.*

On the day of Company M’s return to Chu Lai, 15 August, 

two other major pieces of intelligence arrived that had a decisive effect on the thinking of General Walt and his staff. First, 

Major General Nguyen Chanh Thi, ARVN commander for 

the entire I Corps region, informed Walt that a Viet Cong 

defector had provided his forces with urgent information. 

The enemy deserter was a 17-year-old youth named Vo Thao 

*Later, the Marines would find that, despite the presence of Chinese and 

Soviet-bloc weapons, the 1st Viet Cong Regiment was also armed with 

U.S. weapons, including World War II–era Garand M1 rifles, Browning 

Automatic Rifles (BARs), M79 grenade launchers, and 60mm and 81mm 

mortars. 

who had been conscripted earlier in the year and assigned to 

the 40th Battalion, 1st Viet Cong Regiment. Thao had family 

members on both sides of the war, although most worked for 

the ARVN or the Americans, and he had requested leave to 

visit his family. When his commander refused, the young man 

forged fake leave papers and deserted. General Thi personally questioned Vo Thao, who stated that the 1st Viet Cong 

Regiment was on the Van Tuong Peninsula and preparing to 

attack the Marine base at Chu Lai. Thi considered this information to be the most important and reliable intelligence he 

had received during the entire war and informed Walt immediately. The Marine general immediately made plans to visit 

his own commanders in Chu Lai the next day, the sixteenth. 

One possible response to the information Walt had was to 

continue to strengthen the defenses around Chu Lai and wait 

for the presumed enemy attack. Instead, by the evening of the 

fifteenth, it was clear that Walt had already made up his mind 

to launch a large preemptive attack on the 1st Viet Cong Regiment as soon as possible.

Also on 15 August, signals intelligence sources confirmed 

the location of the enemy regiment on the Van Tuong Peninsula. National Security Agency officials in Saigon alerted 

Photo courtesy of LtCol Calvin M. Morris 

Then-Capt Calvin M. Morris (left), commanding officer of Company M, 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, and his company executive 

officer, 1stLt William M. Krulak (center), son of FMFPac’s commanding general, LtGen Victor H. Krulak. This photo, taken weeks 

before Starlite, shows the Marines very near the spot where Company M established its blocking position north of Van Tuong on 

17 August. 
10 | Marines in the Vietnam War Commemorative Series 

General Joseph A. McChristian, USA, chief of the intelligence staff of USMACV. General Walt also probably learned 

of this development on the fifteenth, though he certainly 

knew of it by the next day when General McChristian 

met with him personally. According to a National Security 

Agency article that was classified at the time, Walt referred 

to the signals intelligence report as “a clinching factor in the 

decision to launch this operation.”*

The information given by the Viet Cong defector was 

useful, but not wholly accurate. Based on his interrogation, 

Marine planners believed that two complete battalions, the 

*According to the III MAF command chronology, the III MAF staff 

received news of the defector’s information on the night of 14 August. This 

is not inconsistent with the claim of most sources that Gen Thi personally 

briefed MajGen Walt on the fifteenth. Meanwhile, it is possible that, 

as Otto J. Lehrack claims, III MAF and Gen Walt received the signals 

intelligence report on 15 August, before Gen McChristian met with Walt 

on the sixteenth. Walt probably received both pieces of information on the 

fifteenth and had made the decision by that evening to strike the 1st Viet 

Cong Regiment.

40th and 60th, were in the Van Tuong area, as well as the 

regimental command post and elements of the 90th Battalion

and the 45th Weapons Battalion—a total of about 2,000 men. 

Apparently, the forces that were actually there were the 40th

and 60th Battalions and elements of the 45th Weapons Battalion—a total of 1,500 men. The regimental command post 

and the rest of the battalion were located approximately 15 

kilometers farther south. The senior officers of the regiment 

were away at a planning meeting in the hill country farther 

west. Contrary to American and General Thi’s assumptions, 

the 1st Viet Cong Regiment had no immediate plans to make a 

large attack on Chu Lai. As related above, the unit was recuperating in addition to recruiting and training new recruits. 

Planning the Battle, 16–17 August

General Walt flew to Chu Lai on the sixteenth for a planning conference. Present were Brigadier General Karch, now 

the assistant division commander of 3d Marine Division, and 

Photo courtesy of LtCol Calvin M. Morris 

Mouth of the Tra Bong River. As Marines from the Chu Lai area conducted numerous operations in the area south of the river in 

July and August 1965, they often were inserted or extracted from the mouth of the river with LVTP5 “amtracs.” 
The First Fight | 11

Colonels James F. McClanahan and Oscar F. Peatross, commanders of the 4th Marines and 7th Marines, respectively. 

General Karch suggested first sending a reconnaissance battalion through the area “to see what’s in there.” Karch later 

summarized the response to his suggestion as “no, we’ve got 

to surprise them, we’ve got to overwhelm them, and this is 

the way we are going to do it.” 

The way the Marines “were going to do it” was to combine 

their heliborne and amphibious capabilities with fire support 

from air, artillery, and naval guns, along with speed, secrecy, 

and surprise. Walt and his officers envisioned a hammer-andanvil operation. On the north side of the engagement area, 

one company would act as a blocking force. One battalion, 

or the bulk of it, would embark on amphibious shipping in 

Chu Lai and make a landing on the beaches south of the 

Van Tuong village complex. A second battalion would land 

by helicopter on the western side of the engagement area in 

three separate landing zones named Red, White, and Blue. 

The two battalions would drive the 1st Viet Cong Regiment

east and northeast into the sea with the blocking force preventing an escape to the north. Trapped between Marine 

forces in several directions and the sea, the enemy would have 

little room to maneuver or escape. 

Throughout the planning of Operation Starlite, heavy 

emphasis was placed on secrecy. General Thi himself insisted 

that his own ARVN officers should not be informed. He 

agreed with General Walt that it should be a Marine-only 

operation and shared the concerns of American officers that 

whenever ARVN officers knew about American plans, it 

seemed that leaks occurred and the enemy learned of them 

as well. General Walt did not object to this policy, but he did 

express concern to General Thi about the possible reaction 

of the nearby 2d ARVN Division, commanded by Brigadier 

General Hoang Xuan Lam, if a large-scale battle flared up in 

their area. In the words of the 3d Marine Division operations 

officer, Colonel Donald P. Wyckoff, Walt “convinced Thi that 

1

CASUALTIES

VC USMC

599 KIA

6 Captured

111 Weapons

51 KIA

203 WIA

Suspected enemy locations.

4 18 AUG 1400

SLF lands to

complete entrapment.

3 18 AUG 0600

Marine Bn lands

by helicopter.

1 18 AUG 0300

Blocking Force

in position.

2 18 AUG 0600

Marine Bn lands

on the beach.

LAOS

II CTZ

I CTZ

OPERATION STARLITE

DMZ NVN

Dong Ha

Phu Bai

Danang

Chu

 Lai

Duc

 Pho

KILOMETERS

0 20 60

FMFPac Headquarters 

This map was produced by FMFPac after the conclusion of Operation Starlite as a summary of the battle’s concept of operations 

and outcomes.
12 | Marines in the Vietnam War Commemorative Series 

General Lam had to know ahead of time to keep his own 

forces in rein. To my recollection, this was done on a personto-person basis from Thi to Lam and Lam kept the information in strict confidence until the battle began.”*

 Even most 

of the Marines who would be participating in the operation 

were told nothing of the larger mission or concept of operations until after the battle began. Battalion and company 

commanders received orders not to divulge details to their 

men. 

There was also a great emphasis on speed, in carrying out 

the operation quickly with a minimum of planning time. This 

was partly related to the desire for secrecy, but also to make 

sure the Americans could take decisive action while the intelligence on the location of the 1st Viet Cong Regiment was still 

valid. As the intelligence chief of 7th Marines later said, when 

it took four or five days to plan an operation, the intelligence 

on Viet Cong locations never seemed to be accurate. It was 

important to react more quickly than that to credible intelligence. Besides, the belief of General Thi and his American 

allies was that the enemy regiment was planning an attack on 

Chu Lai, and General Walt wanted to preempt that possibility. Colonel Peatross recalled that in the early planning “it was 

a matter of going quickly or not going at all.”

This sense of urgency affected, in turn, the difficult decision on which infantry units to use for the attack. The primary forces at Chu Lai consisted of the 1st and 2d Battalions of 

the 4th Marines, along with 3d Battalion, 3d Marines. Walt 

did not consider the bulk of the 4th Marines to be available 

because its use would leave Chu Lai too weakly defended. 

There were other units in Da Nang and Qui Nhon, but they 

were too far away to be employed quickly. Colonel Peatross’s 

command group of the 7th Marine Regiment, however, along 

with 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, had just landed in Chu Lai 

the day before. Thus, early in the planning meeting on the 

*Earlier works on Operation Starlite imply that it was Walt who asked Thi 

not to inform other ARVN officers of the attack, as they quote Walt’s later 

comment that he “recommended that only Generals Thi and Lam be told. 

General Westmoreland concurred and approved my action” (see Shulimson 

and Johnson, p. 83; and also Lehrack, p. 64). However, both the postwar 

written comments of Walt’s S-2 intelligence officer, Col Leo Dulacki, and a 

1973 interview of Peatross clearly state that it was Thi who wanted the secret 

kept from other ARVN officers; it was Walt who convinced Thi that Gen 

Lam needed to be informed as well. Probably, Thi and Walt were in general 

agreement about the need to guard the information from most ARVN 

officers, and Walt was the one who passed that recommendation on to Gen 

Westmoreland.

sixteenth, Walt turned to Colonel Peatross and said, “Peat, 

you’re the only one available.” Although Colonel Peatross’s 

regimental command group was present and ready, the battalions of 7th Marines were scattered. The 2d Battalion, 7th 

Marines, was some distance away at Qui Nhon and had not 

been under Peatross’s operational control for several months; 

the 3d Battalion had been afloat as part of the Seventh Fleet’s 

Special Landing Force (SLF) and was currently 722 miles 

away at Subic Bay, the Philippines. In accordance with orders 

from III MAF, the 1st Battalion had just made an administrative, rather than tactical, amphibious landing at Chu Lai, 

with the expectation that it would have several days to get 

ready for action. Some of its logistical supplies were still on 

board ship, and other equipment was on the beach and not 

yet married up with its appropriate companies. Moreover, 

this battalion was new to Vietnam and, unlike the battalions 

already at Chu Lai, unfamiliar with the area in which it would 

have to operate.

Walt and the other senior officers at the conference 

decided to commit 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, and 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, to the operation and assign them to the 

operational control of Colonel Peatross and his 7th Marines 

command group. Their departure from the Chu Lai perimeter 

would create some risk, but the recent arrival of 1st Battalion, 

7th Marines, would partially offset that. The use of only two 

battalions, however, made the numerical odds of Marines to 

enemy soldiers no better than one-to-one in a relatively complicated offensive operation. Colonel Peatross therefore asked 

for the use of 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, then part of the 

SLF.** Walt immediately agreed and quickly was able to gain 

approval from Admiral Ulysses S. Grant Sharp, USN, commander in chief of Pacific Command. In fact, the availability 

of the 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, was critical to the planning of the operation. Late on the afternoon of the fifteenth, 

Marine planners in Chu Lai received word that the SLF 

could arrive off the coast of the Van Tuong Peninsula within 

72 hours; hence, if Starlite was set to begin on 18 August, 

**Marine elements belonging to the SLF at this time included 3d Battalion, 

7th Marines; Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 163 (HMM-163); 

and the USS Iwo Jima (LPH 2), USS Point Defiance (LSD 31), and USS 

Talladega (APA 208). In July, the SLF had defended the Army supply base 

at Qui Nhon until combat-ready Army units could arrive. At the time of 

the initial planning of Operation Starlite, it was in Subic Bay conducting 

training and equipment upkeep.
The First Fight | 13

the 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, would be available sometime 

that day. 

In addition to a third infantry battalion, Peatross’s 

regimental-sized force, RLT 7, would enjoy naval gunfire support from two U.S. Navy destroyers—the USS Orleck (DD 

886) and USS Pritchett (DD 561)—and one cruiser—the 

USS Galveston (CLG 3). Air support would include fighter 

aircraft from Marine Aircraft Groups 11 and 12 (MAG-11 

and MAG-12) from Chu Lai; approximately 8 Army Bell 

UH-1E Iroquois helicopters (commonly known as Hueys) 

based in Quang Ni; and a total of 24 Sikorsky UH-34D Seahorse helicopters and Hueys from Marine Medium Helicopter Squadrons 261 and 361 (HMM-261 and HMM-361). 

The latter two units would shuttle 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, 

into the landing zones on the morning of 18 August, then 

provide medical evacuation and resupply support to the entire 

ground force as the battle progressed. Finally, two artillery 

batteries belonging to 3d Battalion, 12th Marines Artillery 

Group, in Chu Lai would move south, one by helicopter and 

one overland, to better support the infantry. Planners anticipated that other long-range artillery belonging to the artillery 

group in Chu Lai would also be able to deliver fires from 

there without having to move south.

Assuming overall command of RLT 7 was the 7th 

Marines’ commander, Colonel Peatross. A native of Raleigh, 

North Carolina, and a graduate of North Carolina State 

College, Peatross had joined the Marine Corps in 1940. His 

rich, soft Southern drawl and trim, bespectacled figure belied 

his ferocity in combat. In World War II, Peatross had been 

a member of the famed 2d Marine Raider Battalion, earning the Navy Cross for valor on the Makin Island raid. He 

subsequently fought at Guadalcanal, Bougainville, and Iwo 

Jima, and in the Korean War as a battalion commander under 

then-Colonel Lewis Walt.

Peatross found himself in the interesting situation of leading two battalions into combat that did not organically belong 

to him; only the floating reserve, 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, 

currently with the SLF, was formally a part of his regiment. 

Peatross, however, considered himself “rather fortunate” in 

that he was very familiar with the battalion commanders who 

would come under his direction. Lieutenant Colonel Joseph 

E. Muir, commander of 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, had earlier commanded a battalion in 7th Marines as a major under 

Peatross, and Peatross had great confidence in him. A former 

enlisted Marine, Muir was soft-spoken, energetic, harddriving, and universally respected by his men. Muir was at the 

front lines with his troops so often that his staff officers were 

constantly concerned about him.* Lieutenant Colonel Joseph 

R. “Bull” Fisher, commander of 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, 

was also a former enlisted man and a veteran of World War 

II. Fisher and Peatross had served together at Iwo Jima, 

where Fisher had been wounded twice. Later, he earned a 

Navy Cross while leading an infantry company in the breakout from the Chosin Reservoir in Korea in 1950. Fisher, too, 

enjoyed the confidence of Peatross and the affection of his 

Marines, one of whom remembered him as “a good, tough, 

old guy.” As Peatross later related, he, Fisher, and Muir were 

“familiar with each other from a personality point of view,” 

which Peatross considered to be very important. Moreover, 

Peatross’s staff had also worked with Lieutenant Colonels 

Fisher and Muir and had no problem working with their 

respective battalion staffs. In fact, remembered Peatross, the 

planning was so hasty that “there was no time to bring up 

problems.”

Around 1330 on 16 August, Lieutenant Colonel Muir 

summoned Major Andrew G. Comer, his battalion executive 

officer, to his tent and informed him that their battalion and 

2d Battalion, 4th Marines, would be attacking enemy forces 

on the peninsula on the eighteenth. This left little time for 

planning. Admittedly, some initial planning and thought had 

already been done by the senior officers of 4th Marines in 

anticipation of having to attack enemy forces on the peninsula one day. These rough plans were turned over to the 

7th Marines’ command group. The staffs of 3d Battalion, 3d 

Marines, and the 4th Marine Regiment had frequently discussed and made plans for an amphibious assault. As Comer 

remembered, “We already had a similar operation on paper.” 

Nevertheless, the final planning had to be done quickly, and 

*Just weeks after Starlite, on 11 September 1965, LtCol Muir was killed 

in an operation in the Da Nang area when he stepped on a 155mm shell 

that had been rigged as a booby trap. He was the first American battalion 

commander to be killed in Vietnam. Muir was posthumously awarded the 

Navy Cross for his bold leadership during Operation Starlite. Capt David 

A. Ramsey, the S-3 operations officer in Muir’s battalion, called him “one 

of the finest Marines that I had the pleasure to serve with.” Attending his 

funeral was his 18-year-old son, Joseph E. Muir II, a cadet at West Point. The 

younger Muir asserted that he was “very, very, very proud” of his father and 

wanted to go fight in Vietnam as a soldier or Marine. 
14 | Marines in the Vietnam War Commemorative Series 

it required “maximum effort” to plan and stage the forces 

in time for a morning landing on 18 August. To this end, a 

number of officers, including Colonel Peatross and the two 

battalion commanders, flew over the peninsula in General 

Walt’s personal UH-1E helicopter just before dusk on 16 

August. During this flight, the officers selected a beach for a 

landing site for 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, and three helicopter landing zones for 2d Battalion, 4th Marines.

Marine officers in Chu Lai then hurriedly completed 

the details of the plan. On 17 August, Company M of 3d 

Battalion, 3d Marines, would make a five- to six-mile foot 

march to the beach just north of the mouth of the Tra Bong 

River. There the company would board amphibian tractors*

*Specifically, these were LVTP5s. The Landing Vehicle, Tracked, Personnel, 

Mark 5 (LVTP5) was an armored amphibious assault vehicle equipped with 

two .30-caliber machine guns.

(nicknamed “amtracs” or “amtraks”), make the short journey 

to the beach south of the mouth of the river, debark, and 

move inland in a southerly direction. It was to be in position 

as a blocking force in the northern portion of the engagement 

area by early the next morning.

The rest of 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, would conduct the 

amphibious landing. As the battalion withdrew from its positions around Chu Lai in the predawn hours of 17 August, 

it would be replaced by 1st Battalion, 7th Marines. The rifle 

companies and supporting arms, including three M67 flame 

tanks, five M48 Patton tanks, and four M50 Ontos antitank 

vehicles, would board amphibious shipping later that day. The 

amphibious task force would depart at 2200 and initially sail 

east to deceive Viet Cong or local informants who might be 

in sampans just off the coast. Then the ships would turn south 

and arrive off the landing area a few hours before H-hour, 

which was 0630 on the eighteenth. Most of the Marines who 

The Ontos

The official name for the Allis-Chalmers 

M50 Ontos was the “Rifle, 106mm, SelfPropelled M50.” It was an armored tracked 

vehicle originally designed in the 1950s to 

be a fast-moving antitank weapon. The 

Army rejected the Ontos, but the Marine 

Corps, badly needing an antiarmor capability, purchased 297 of them. It featured 

six M40 106mm recoilless rifles that 

could be fired in immediate succession to 

blast through an armored target, as well 

as a .30-caliber machine gun. Four of the 

recoilless rifles had a .50-caliber spotting 

rifle attached to aid in marking targets. 

The vehicle could carry 18 rounds of main 

gun ammunition at a time.

The Marine Corps used the Ontos 

extensively in the Vietnam War, though 

rarely in its originally designed role as a 

tank-killer since the North Vietnamese 

Army and Viet Cong had virtually no 

armor capability. Instead, the Marines 

used it in Vietnam much as they did tanks, 

as a powerful anti-infantry weapon. In fact, 

in some ways the Ontos was more useful 

than the M48 tank because it was lighter 

and could traverse terrain that tanks could 

not. It was popular with infantrymen 

because of the firepower it brought to the 

battlefield, as well as its maneuverability. 

The Ontos did have problems, however, 

such as its inability to carry more than 

18 rounds at a time and the need for its 

crew to expose themselves to enemy fire 

in order to reload the recoilless rifles. Its 

light armor was effective against small 

arms and machine guns but vulnerable 

to rocket propelled grenades. Still, the 

Ontos played a significant role in many 

battles fought by the Marines in Vietnam. 

Because the Ontos had been purchased in 

limited numbers, it was largely expended 

by 1969, when it was officially removed 

from service.

Defense Department (Marine Corps) A185287
The First Fight | 15

boarded the ships did not learn where they were going until 

they arrived off Green Beach at An Cuong (2).* Companies K 

and I from 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, were to land on Green 

Beach—Company K on the right and Company I on the left. 

Company K would seize the high ground in its front and be 

prepared to turn right and continue the attack to the north. 

Company I was assigned to attack through the village of An 

Cuong (1) and push west until making contact with the right 

flank of 2d Battalion, 4th Marines. Both companies would be 

accompanied by a detachment of combat engineers. The platoon of four Ontos antitank vehicles from the 3d Anti-Tank 

Battalion were to begin landing with Company K and provide that company with direct support as more of its vehicles 

arrived in successive waves. Similarly, a platoon of M48 tanks 

would begin arriving two minutes behind Company I and 

initially provide direct support for it. After the initial landing, the battalion reserve—Company L of 3d Battalion, 3d 

Marines—would arrive along with the 81mm mortar platoon, 

the latter in general support of the battalion landing team.

Just as 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, was establishing a 

beachhead and beginning to drive inland, 2d Battalion, 4th 

Marines, was scheduled to land by helicopter to the west of 

the engagement area. Company G was to land at Landing 

Zone (LZ) Red at 0645, Company E at LZ White at 0730, 

and Company H at LZ Blue at 0745, followed by the battalion command group at LZ White at 0815. The battalion 

would then push northeast, linking up with 3d Battalion, 3d 

Marines, on the right, and eventually with Company M, 3d 

Battalion, 3d Marines, on the left.

According to Colonel Peatross’s plans, the Marines would 

rely heavily on U.S. Navy shipping not only to support the 

amphibious landing with landing craft and naval gunfire, but 

also for logistics. The regimental commander ordered his staff 

not to maintain a large logistics support area (LSA) ashore in 

order to facilitate mobility and reduce the need to use ground 

troops for security. The LSA would maintain only one day’s 

worth of rations and two days’ of ammunition. Peatross’s 

logistics staff worked out a plan by which supplies would be 

stockpiled on the helicopter deck of the USS Cabildo (LSD 

*Hamlets and villages in Vietnam sometimes have the same name; in such 

cases, parenthetical numbers are used after the name in order to differentiate 

them.

16), and helicopters would ferry the supplies ashore, in most 

cases directly to the supported battalions rather than to the 

regiment’s LSA.

The first Marines to arrive in the engagement area were 

those of Captain Calvin Morris’s Company M from 3d Battalion, 3d Marines. They landed on a beach less than a kilometer south of the mouth of the Tra Bong River at 1700 on 

17 August. Morris moved his company in a southerly direction in three parallel platoon columns. Two platoons followed a parallel pair of ridgelines with another in the valley 

in between. Each platoon column was approximately 200 

to 300 meters apart so that they could provide mutual support. Company M had little enemy contact other than several 

sniper rounds from long range and one man being slightly 

wounded by a booby trap. When this mishap occurred, Captain Morris passed the word that the injured man would be 

carried by his comrades rather than evacuated by helicopter 

as usual. In keeping with the secrecy of the mission, he did 

not explain the reason for this order, but his thinking was that 

such an evacuation would draw attention to the operation 

and alert the enemy that a large operation was in the works. 

The company dug in at dusk and then moved again at 0100 

on the eighteenth, occupying and securing another position 

around 0400. The reason for this latter move was that Company M had a secondary mission besides acting as a blocking 

force. It was also supposed to secure a landing zone for the 

107mm “howtar” battery that would be arriving that morning 

and then provide security for it. 

The howtars were an innovation that combined two existing weapons systems. The 107mm mortar was mounted onto 

the platform of the 75mm pack howitzer. The result was not 

only a mortar that had more firepower than the standard 

81mm mortar, but one that could be towed by vehicles and 

still be light enough to be transported by helicopter as well. 

No helicopter available at the time could transport the lightest standard U.S. artillery piece, the M101 105mm howitzer, 

but this was not the case with the howtar. Howtar batteries were manned by artillerymen rather than mortarmen. 

Operation Starlite included the use of a howtar battery, also 

known as Whiskey Battery, from 3d Battalion, 12th Marines 

Artillery Group, and the howtars would play a major fire support role in the upcoming battle. They were assigned a direct 
16 | Marines in the Vietnam War Commemorative Series

support mission to RLT 7.* Delays in picking up the howtars 

at Chu Lai meant that they arrived later than scheduled in 

the landing zone that Captain Morris’s Marines had secured, 

coming in at 0930. For the next several days, Company M not 

only had to protect the howtars, but also cover at least a mile 

of frontage as a blocking force, something Morris attempted 

to do with an ongoing series of platoon-sized patrols.

The other battery that moved south from the Chu Lai 

cantonment was Battery K, 4th Battalion, 12th Marines, 

which was also part of the 3d Battalion, 12th Marines Artillery Group. It was accompanied by a forward fire-direction 

center from the artillery group under Captain George A. 

Baker III, the group’s assistant operations officer and fire 

direction officer. The use of Battery K was an example of the 

secrecy and haste in which Starlite was planned and executed, 

and the difficulties that resulted. Captain Baker was given 

simple and perfunctory verbal orders instead of an operations 

order or a fragmentary order. At 0500, he led three of Battery 

K’s guns (M109 155mm self-propelled howitzers) and his 

fire direction cell out of the cantonment and traveled south 

along Highway 1 in the dark. The battery emplaced near the 

junction of the highway and the north bank of the Tra Bong 

River, assuming the future need of resupply and hoping to 

minimize the risk of hitting mines when travelling off-road. 

Captain Baker remembered that, for most of the operation, communications were “horrible.” One major problem 

was that he was not provided with the frequencies for 7th 

Marines, the unit he was supposed to support, and could 

usually only communicate with the regiment through aerial 

observers in aircraft. When no aerial observers were aloft, his 

communications suffered again. He did have communications with the artillery group command post at Chu Lai, and 

sometimes it could relay for him. Often, though, the lack of 

communications between Battery K and 7th Marines meant 

that the infantry relied on the howtar battery for most of its 

support. Every participant familiar with the howtars noted 

that their contribution was outstanding, but the 155mm 

howitzers possessed by Battery K were a naturally more accurate weapon than the howtars. Thus, several missions fired by 

*For more on the employment, advantages, and disadvantages of the howtar 

weapons system, see Capt John J. Carr’s interview with Maj E. A. Godfrey, 

14 July 1966, Tape 161 (Oral History Collection, Marine Corps History 

Division, Quantico, VA).

Courtesy of LtCol Calvin M. Morris

These three photos depict the terrain Company M traversed 

after it debarked from amtracs and marched to its blocking 

position on 17–18 August. After debarking, the company 

moved through standing water, sand dunes, and then hilly terrain with thick vegetation. 
the howtars because of the poor communications and communications planning could probably have been fired more 

effectively by Battery K. Moreover, Baker and the artillery 

battery with him had no infantry support, even though they 

were located several miles outside the cantonment and vulnerable to an enemy infantry attack, or even to an ambush 

while travelling along Highway 1. Still, Battery K was able 

to fire a number of useful missions (an average of about 10 

missions per day over the next several days) in support of 

the infantry. Because of the difficulties in communications, 

however, it often took far longer to fire and complete a mission than it should have. Around 1200 on the eighteenth, two 

more of the battery’s guns were sent to join Baker and the 

forward element because of the large volume of fire requested 

by RLT 7.

Amphibious Landings

As Company M, 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, was establishing 

its blocking position on the northern side of the engagement area in the late afternoon and night of 17 August, the 

28

28

25

12

14

9 6

12 17

36

37

32

28 15

14

14

14

3

14 15

6

4

sand sand

sand

sand

5

coral 4

coral reef coral

rock

17

mud

sand

sand

mud

sand coral

rocky

rocky

rocky

19

sand

8 15

rocky

4 sand

sand

7

8

5

13 sand

15

1

1

16

7

8

17

13

11

9

sand

coral 1

sand 3

9

70

sand

8 reef

6 7

10

6

2

2

10

2

6

6

2

1

5

20

60

Dong L e (1)

Dong Le (4)

Dong Le (6)

Dong Le (5)

Phuoc Hoa (2)

Phuoc 

Hoa (3)

Phuoc Hoa

Phuoc Hoa (4)

Phuoc Hoa (5)

Phu Long (1) Phu Long (2)

Phu Long (1)

Phu Long (5)

Van Tuong (2)

Phuoc Thuan (2)

Van Tuong (1)

Van Tuong (3)

Phuoc Thuan (3)

Van Tuong (5)

Phu Long (4)

Nui Go Dam

Phu Long (3)

Nam Yen (2)

Nam Yen (1)

Nam Yen (4)

Nam Yen (5)

Nam Yen (6)

Van Tuong (4)

Thuong

Hoa (1) Thuong

Hoa (2)

Thuong

Hoa(3)

Thuong Hoa (5)

Thuong Hoa (6)

TINH QUANG NGAI

TRUNG PHAN

Tan Hy(1)

Dong Le (2)

Dong Le (3)

Le Thuy(1)

Le Thuỷ(2)

Phuoc Tho(5)

Phuoc Tho(6)

Phuoc 

Tho(3)

Phuoc Thọ(4)

Án Cuong(2)

An Loc

Thanh Thuy

An Thoi (1)

An Thoi (2)

Lac Son (1)

Nui Pho Tinh

Athletic

Field

Phuoc Thuan (1)

Giao Thuy(6)

Giao Thuy(4)

Giao Thuy(3)

Son Tra (4)

Son Tra (2) Tuye Diem(6)

VUNG NHONA

VINH NHONA

BAU CA CAI

Son Tra (3) Son Tra (1)

Dong Le (7 )

Tan Hy(2)

Thuong Hoa (4)

Nui Dam lei

Nam Yen (3)

1

III

VC

Na

W M 3 0420

M 3 0100

LZ RED

LZ WHITE

LZ BLUE

GREEN BEACH

PL CHERRY

N Meters

0 1000

PL APPLE 

A

PL BANANA

Map adapted by Marine Corps History Division 

Company M, 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, landed near the mouth of the Tra Bong River late on the afternoon of 17 August 1965. This 

map shows its subsequent positions at 0100 and 0420, 18 August, as well as that of the 107mm howtar battery.

The First Fight | 17
18 | Marines in the Vietnam War Commemorative Series 

remainder of the battalion was loading onto ships and making 

its circuitous route to Green Beach. Companies K and I of 

3d Battalion, 3d Marines, and their supporting attachments 

landed as planned at 0630 on 18 August. Just prior to their 

landing, the beach was prepped by several strafing runs by 

Douglas A-4 Skyhawks from MAG-12. Colonel Peatross 

and his staff had decided to use strafing runs, but not naval 

gunfire or aerial bombs, on the beach because of the danger 

to the nearby village of An Cuong (1).

On the right flank, Captain Jay A. Doub’s Company K 

received automatic weapons fire immediately upon landing. After calling in an air strike, the Marines moved forward, securing the right, or northern, side of the village of 

An Cuong (1). They then pushed forward and secured the 

high ground immediately beyond the village, which included 

Hill 22. Company K pivoted right and began advancing in 

a northerly direction, with 3d Platoon on the right, 2d Platoon on the left, and 1st Platoon in reserve. The company had 

advanced nearly two kilometers inland from the beach when 

both 2d and 3d Platoons began receiving heavy automatic 

weapons fire from a trench line in their front and from the left 

flank. Both platoons were pinned down, with the exception 

of 1st Squad of 2d Platoon. At that point, First Lieutenant 

Amos Burt Hinson III, platoon commander of 2d Platoon, 

led his 1st Squad in a ferocious assault. During the course 

of the action, the platoon sergeant, Staff Sergeant James A. 

Campbell, was wounded, and the squad leader of 1st Squad, 

Sergeant Frank H. Blank, was killed. Still, the squad advanced 

against heavy enemy fire, with Lieutenant Hinson firing his 

pistol and the handful of Marines with him killing numerous 

Viet Cong soldiers. Hinson would later be awarded the Silver 

Star for his actions. His leadership and the determination of 

the Marines with him had driven the Viet Cong away and 

relieved pressure along the entire front of 3d Battalion, 3d 

Marines. 

Captain James E. McDavid’s Company L, 3d Battalion, 

3d Marines, landed 30 minutes after Company K and moved 

quickly to the right flank of the beachhead. As the Marines 

of Company L moved out, they received fire from small arms 

and at least one automatic weapon. Captain McDavid immediately deployed his Marines from what he called a “crowded 

type landing” to deal with these threats. He moved the 3d 

Platoon to the far right to attempt to flank the source of the 

incoming fire and 2d Platoon into the center. He then located 

an Ontos on the right flank of Company K and moved it into 

the line of fire. McDavid reported later that the crew chief of 

the Ontos, who remained unnamed, “distinguished himself 

in this action and continually exposed himself to direct fire.” 

The Ontos crew chief could not fire his 106mm main armament due to the closeness of the terrain and the risk of injuring Marine infantrymen located directly behind the weapon. 

When he tried to use his machine gun, it quickly jammed, so 

he began engaging the enemy with his .50-caliber spotting 

rifle. McDavid also deployed an M60 machine gun to the 

left of the Ontos and reported that the gunner, Private First 

Class John H. Boast, “also particularly distinguished himself.” 

Boast moved onto the top of a small hill that offered no cover 

and “calmly set in his MG [machine gun] with the incoming [fire] cutting the leaves around him.” The combination of 

Boast’s machine gun fire, the fire from the Ontos, and Captain McDavid’s leadership silenced the incoming fire so that 

all three platoons could advance. Soon the company encountered a large cave network, which was later destroyed with 

explosives by the combat engineers. Throughout the course of 

the day, Company L received small-arms and machine-gun 

fire as it advanced inland to the west and north alongside the 

Defense Department (Marine Corps) A184498 

Marines in an LVTP5 amtrac receive final instructions before 

going ashore during an amphibious landing in Vietnam in the 

summer of 1965. Marines from 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, went 

ashore in amtracs like this one on the morning of 18 August 

during Operation Starlite. Marines based in Chu Lai also used 

these vehicles in numerous operations near the mouth of the 

Tra Bong River in summer 1965. 
The First Fight | 19

right flank of Company K. Both companies crossed Phase 

Line Apple and then reached Phase Line Banana, utilizing 

artillery fire (which was inaccurate and ineffective), mortars, 

and air support. By nightfall they had driven some 2,000 

meters inland and established perimeter defenses along 

Phase Line Banana.

As Company K was landing and preparing to secure the 

northern half of Green Beach and of An Cuong (1), Company I performed similar tasks on the southern half of the landing area. Just as the ramps lowered on the landing vehicles to 

allow the Marines to rush ashore, a large explosion occurred 

on the beach just in front of them. The blast certainly got 

the Marines’ attention, but injured no one; they soon found 

an electrical wire running from the site of the explosion to 

a trench line 150 meters away. Facing no other immediate 

resistance, Company I quickly secured the southern half of 

the village and continued with its next assignment, which 

was to move west until it reached a streambed two kilometers 

beyond the village. Along the way, the company encountered 

a covered trench line that led to two cave systems. Searches of 

the caves turned up nothing more than digging tools. 

Though the Viet Cong in the area were expecting an 

American attack in the near future, they were initially caught 

off guard in the opening phase of the battle. The enemy forces 

N

Meters

0 1000

rocky

sand

19

coral rocky

sand

rocky

rocky

sand

8 15

mud

sand

rocky

Van Tuong (1)

Van Tuong (3)

Van Tuong (4)

Van Tuong (5)

Van Tuong (2)

An Thoi (2)

An Cuong (2)

Nam Yen (3)

An Thoi (1)

Yen (4)

Nui Dam Iei

Thanh Thuy

PL APPLE

PL BANANA

Lac Son (1)

An Cuong (1)

Nam 

K 3 L 3

I 3

x 22

caves

landed 0630

landed 0700

landed 0630

caves

)

ky

Map adapted by Marine Corps History Division 

Amphibious landings by 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, and initial inland advance, 0630–1000, 18 August. Companies K and I landed 

at 0630, and Company L landed at 0700. 
20 | Marines in the Vietnam War Commemorative Series

opposing the Marine advance came under the overall command of Nguyen Dinh Trong, a political officer who served 

as the acting regimental commander while the actual commander was away. Trong was a veteran of the colonial wars 

against the French. He and his subordinates did not fully 

appreciate the ability of the Marines to bring large forces 

into battle by sea and by helicopter, and they ultimately concluded that the main threat would be overland attacks from 

the north and west. Consequently, when an entire battalion 

of Marines stormed ashore at An Cuong (1), the Viet Cong 

were not prepared.

Seeing the ships offshore early on the morning of the 

eighteenth, Trong decided that one of his main goals would 

have to be delaying the Marine advance long enough to protect the regimental headquarters located in the village of Van 

Tuong (1), just four kilometers from Green Beach. Leading 

the effort on the front lines against 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, 

was a capable staff officer, Lieutenant Phan Tan Huan. When 

the explosive charge detonated on the beach had failed to 

slow Company I and machine gun fire from An Cuong (1) 

had not stopped the Marines of Company K, Lieutenant 

Huan continued to resist from positions on Hill 22. Later, 

his forces would direct heavy enemy fire on the Marines from 

positions on the high ground just southeast of An Thoi (1).

On the left of Company K, Company I continued advancing west. Company I’s commander, Captain Bruce D. Webb, 

was aware that the unit on his left, Company H, 2d Battalion, 

4th Marines, was having great difficulty. He therefore asked 

and received permission to cross into 2d Battalion’s zone of 

action to help secure the village of An Cuong (2). About the 

time Company I reached the village, it was joined by three 

tanks that had landed at Green Beach shortly after Company 

I’s landing. There was a wide, deep trench south of the village, 

requiring the tanks to make a wide detour to the south and 

west. Captain Webb ordered the 1st Squad of 1st Platoon, 

led by Corporal Robert E. O’Malley, to accompany the tanks. 

O’Malley placed three or four men on each tank, and the 

tanks began advancing rapidly on the far left flank of Company I. For much of the route, the tanks and O’Malley’s squad 

advanced alongside a long hedgerow that, they thought, 

offered some concealment. Within minutes, however, enemy 

rounds from an automatic rifle ripped into the column, badly 

wounding Lance Corporal Merlon E. Marquardt. O’Malley 

halted the tanks, ordered two Marines to tend to Marquardt, 

and sent Lance Corporal Christopher W. Buchs back to the 

village to find a medical corpsman. Buchs ran quickly to the 

village and returned with a promise from a corpsman that he 

would come as soon as he finished assisting another casualty. 

Meanwhile, the remaining members of the squad used fireand-maneuver tactics as they advanced across a rice paddy 

toward the hedgerow, firing their weapons and lobbing grenades. They realized, however, that the Viet Cong were in a 

trench behind the hedgerow, so as the grenades sailed over 

the hedgerow, they went over the trench as well and had 

little effect. Lance Corporal Buchs, who had returned from 

seeking a corpsman, spotted a gap in the hedgerow, and he 

and Corporal O’Malley crawled toward it. Buchs recalls that 

O’Malley then turned to him and said, “Let’s go, Buck.”

Both Marines burst through the hedgerow and jumped 

into the trench, with Buchs firing to the left and killing four 

enemy soldiers and O’Malley firing to the right, immediately 

killing eight. The two Marines ran out of ammunition just 

as they saw more Viet Cong approaching, so they jumped 

out of the trench to reload and jumped back in. They were 

joined by Lance Corporal Forrest Hayden and Private Robert 

L. Rimpson. One of the wounded Viet Cong was only pretending to be dead and tossed a grenade, wounding Hayden 

in the hip and O’Malley in the foot. Buchs killed this enemy 

soldier, and then he and O’Malley pulled Hayden out of the 

trench. Immediately afterward, Rimpson stepped up and 

killed another Viet Cong with his M79 grenade launcher at 

a range of 15 yards. The members of O’Malley’s squad then 

gathered the enemy weapons in the trench; collected their 

own wounded and the body of Lance Corporal Marquardt, 

who had died; loaded them on the tanks; and continued the 

advance west.

After remounting the tanks, then dismounting a second 

time after receiving more fire, Corporal O’Malley and the 

rest of his squad were involved in more heroics. As the tanks 

they were riding continued advancing, they received enemy 

mortar, artillery, and small-arms fire. This fire disabled one 

of the tanks and caused more casualties in the rifle squad; 

O’Malley was wounded in the forearm by a piece of shrapnel but refused to be evacuated. He moved his squad to a 

trench line behind and away from the tanks, hoping to protect his men from the fire the tanks were receiving. He, Lance 
Robert O’Malley was the first Marine of the Vietnam War to receive the Medal of 

Honor, the nation’s highest decoration, for conspicuous gallantry in combat as a corporal on 18 August 1965. He was decorated by President Johnson at a White House 

ceremony on 6 December 1966.

O’Malley was born 3 June 1943, in New York, New York. He attended high school 

there and worked as a newspaper carrier for the Star Journal. Enlisting in the Marine 

Corps on 11 October 1961, he completed basic training at the Marine Corps Recruit 

Depot, Parris Island, South Carolina. Transferred to Camp Pendleton in California, 

he served with the 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division. He was promoted to private 

first class in May 1962.

The following year, he arrived on Okinawa as a member of the 3d Battalion, 9th 

Marines, 3d Marine Division. While there, he was promoted to lance corporal in 

March 1963 and to corporal in November 1963. He returned to Camp Pendleton in 

1964 as a member of the 2d Battalion, 1st Marines, 1st Marine Division. Corporal 

O’Malley was transferred overseas again in 1965 and took part in combat in Vietnam while assigned to Company I, 3d Battalion, 

3d Marine Regiment, 3d Marine Division. He was promoted to sergeant in December 1965. 

Corporal Robert E. O’Malley

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action against 

the Communist (Viet Cong) forces at the risk of his life above 

and beyond the call of duty while serving as Squad Leader in 

Company “I,” Third Battalion, Third Marines, Third Marine 

Division (Reinforced) near An Cu’ong 2, South Vietnam, 

on 18 August 1965. While leading his squad in the assault 

against a strongly entrenched enemy force, his unit came 

under intense small arms fire. With complete disregard for 

his personal safety, Corporal O’Malley raced across an open 

rice paddy to a trench line where the enemy forces were 

located. Jumping into the trench, he attacked the Viet Cong 

with his rifle and grenades, and singly killed eight of the 

enemy. He then led his squad to the assistance of an adjacent 

Marine unit which was suffering heavy casualties. Continuing to press forward, he reloaded his weapon and fired with 

telling effect into the enemy emplacement. He personally 

assisted in the evacuation of several wounded Marines, and 

again regrouping the remnants of his squad, he returned to 

the point of the heaviest fighting. Ordered to an evacuation 

point by an officer, Corporal O’Malley gathered his besieged 

and badly wounded squad, and boldly led them under fire to 

a helicopter for withdrawal. Although three times wounded 

in this encounter, and facing imminent death from a fanatic 

and determined enemy, he steadfastly refused evacuation and 

continued to cover his squad’s boarding of the helicopters 

while, from an exposed position, he delivered fire against the 

enemy until his wounded men were evacuated. Only then, 

with his last mission accomplished, did he permit himself 

to be removed from the battlefield. By his valor, leadership, 

and courageous efforts in behalf of his comrades, he served 

as an inspiration to all who observed him, and reflected the 

highest credit upon the Marine Corps and the United States 

Naval Service. 

Medal of Honor Citation

Defense Department (Marine Corps) A185287
22 | Marines in the Vietnam War Commemorative Series 

Corporal Buchs, and Private Rimpson began assisting in the 

evacuation of many wounded Marines, mostly belonging to 

2d Battalion, 4th Marines, in the vicinity of the village of 

An Cuong (2). He made several trips across open terrain 

under fire to retrieve dead and wounded Marines and carry 

them back to a landing zone where they were being evacuated. At one point, a mortar round exploded and wounded 

O’Malley in the chest—his third wound. Lance Corporal 

Buchs recalled, “I looked at him; I could see he was hurt, but 

he kept moving.” O’Malley continued to fire on the enemy 

and assist in evacuating others. By this point, every member 

of O’Malley’s squad had been killed or wounded, and the 

only ones who had not been evacuated were him, Buchs, 

and Rimpson. The latter two tried to persuade O’Malley to 

board one of the helicopters, but as Rimpson related later, 

“He said he didn’t feel right going back, and he wasn’t going 

to leave us there alone.” When a helicopter arrived to evacuate the remaining wounded Marines in his squad, O’Malley 

stayed behind and provided covering fire so that the rest of 

the Marines could cross an open field to reach the aircraft. He 

was the last Marine in his squad to be evacuated.

Later, Corporal O’Malley would become the first Marine 

in the Vietnam War to be awarded the Congressional Medal 

of Honor.* As for Buchs and Rimpson, they were both evacuated to a hospital ship, where they heard rumors that “India 

Company had been wiped out.” Both of them managed to 

hitch helicopter rides back to their unit, still on the Van 

Tuong Peninsula, to find out that the story fortunately was 

not true. They both received the Silver Star for their actions 

on 18 August.

Corporal O’Malley’s squad was not the only element of 

Company I to face fierce resistance as it crossed a streambed and approached An Cuong (2), a heavily wooded village fortified with trench lines covered with branches and log 

and sand fortifications. There were fighting holes inside the 

village itself and a system of interconnected tunnels. With a 

platoon of tanks reinforcing them, the Marines assaulted the 

village with three platoons abreast. Company I suppressed 

the fire coming from the other side of the streambed, crossed 

*1stLt Frank S. Reasoner of 3d Reconnaissance Battalion was the second; his 

action occurred weeks before O’Malley’s, but his family did not receive his 

posthumous award until after O’Malley was recognized. 

the streambed, and reached the outskirts of An Cuong (2). As 

one Marine began to shoot “dead” Viet Cong on the ground 

to make sure they were not simply “playing dead,” Captain 

Webb ordered him not to do so, saying it was inhumane. 

Moments later, one of the Viet Cong, pretending to be dead, 

lobbed a grenade toward Webb and his command group. 

Several Marines were wounded or killed, and Captain Webb, 

beloved and respected by his men, was killed. At this time, 

the company executive officer, First Lieutenant Richard D. 

Purnell, was on the left flank of the company near O’Malley’s 

squad, attempting to oversee the evacuation of casualties. He 

soon learned that not only had Captain Webb died, but the 

unit had also lost its company gunnery sergeant, the artillery 

forward observer, and two of its radio operators. Purnell was 

new to the outfit and knew few of the platoon or squad leaders well, and his command group was decimated, but now it 

was up to him to take charge. He radioed his battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Muir, to inform him of 

the situation and of the fact that Company I had cleared the 

village. Muir ordered Purnell to move the company north and 

catch up with the left flank of Company K. 

Helicopter Landings

The reason that the threat from An Cuong (2) still existed 

on Company I’s left flank, and the reason that Colonel Peatross allowed Captain Webb to cross into 2d Battalion, 4th 

Marines’ zone of action, was that Company H of the 2d 

Battalion—which was supposed to be on Company I’s left 

flank by that time—was having plenty of trouble of its own. 

Though LZ Red, the northernmost landing zone, was virtually undefended by Viet Cong forces, LZ White was not, and 

LZ Blue, unbeknownst to the Marines, was located near the 

heart of the Viet Cong defenses.

The worst of the fighting did not begin immediately. The 

2d Battalion began its series of helicopter landings at 0645, 

shortly after artillery and aircraft delivered preparatory fires 

on the landing zones. At that time, Company G landed virtually unopposed at LZ Red. At 0730, Company E landed 

at LZ White while receiving small-arms and automaticweapons fire from a ridgeline one kilometer to the northeast. 

Attack aircraft and Huey helicopters attacked the ridgeline 

in support of Company E. Nevertheless, the Marines on the 

ground suffered a few casualties while still in the landing 
The First Fight | 23

zone that had to be evacuated only minutes after arrival. At 

0815, Lieutenant Colonel Fisher’s 2d Battalion command 

group also landed at LZ White while under sporadic small 

arms fire.*

At 0830, Companies E and G began attacking in a 

northeasterly direction, while the battalion command group 

followed in the trace of Company E. Company G received virtually no resistance as its Marines secured the villages of Phu 

Long (1) and Phu Long (2). While searching the villages, the 

Marines found tunnels, trenches, and fighting holes that were 

cleverly concealed in hedgerows. They also apprehended eight 

Viet Cong in the area. By midafternoon, Company G had 

established positions along Phase Line Banana roughly two 

*The command chronology for the 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, states that 

Company E suffered no casualties in the first minutes of the landing, but 

1stLt Douglas M. Ryan, a platoon commander in the company interviewed 

shortly after the battle, contradicts that statement. Often, after action reports 

in command chronologies were written hurriedly and while the unit was 

busily engaged in other operations, so this account favors 1stLt Ryan’s 

recollection. Ryan’s platoon was the first to land, and he was in a good position 

to know whether or not there were casualties in the opening minutes.

kilometers northeast of its original position at LZ Red and 

made contact with Company M, 3d Battalion, 3d Marines.

Company E and the command group had a more difficult time. As they advanced northeast, they received fire from 

60mm and 81mm mortars, machine guns, and small arms 

from an estimated 60 Viet Cong. Company E managed to 

secure the first ridge to the northeast of LZ White at around 

1000, but this accomplishment came at the cost of 2 Marines 

killed and 15 wounded. Medical evacuations were requested, 

though it was some 50 minutes before the first helicopters 

could arrive. The 81mm mortar section displaced forward 

and, according to 2d Battalion’s official command chronology, 

“continued to fire at probable Viet Cong withdrawal routes.” 

Once the first ridge was secured and casualties evacuated, 

Company E and the command group resumed their sweep at 

around 1100, moving in a northeasterly direction. At around 

1200, when they were located near a hamlet several hundred 

meters past the ridge, they began receiving fire from the 

front, front right, and left flank. An estimated 50 Viet Cong 

were firing 81mm and 60mm mortars, 57mm recoilless rifles, 

Defense Department (Marine Corps) A185827 

A Marine M48 main battle tank (far left) assists as infantrymen search a riverbed during Operation Starlite. As this picture was 

taken, the Marines found several holes along the shores that were suspected hiding spots for Viet Cong.
24 | Marines in the Vietnam War Commemorative Series 

automatic weapons, and small arms. Company E’s Marines 

returned fire with all their organic weapons and one .50-

caliber machine gun attached to the unit.

The hamlet to the right front of Company E was nearly 

surrounded by a thick bamboo wall roughly seven to eight feet 

high. On the right flank of the company was 3d Platoon, led 

by First Lieutenant Douglas M. Ryan. The Marines in Ryan’s 

platoon found a gap in the wall on the right side, and he and 

his rightmost squad passed through the gap and along the 

path that led from it toward the interior of the hamlet. There 

were punji traps of bamboo spikes on either side of the path. 

The other two squads were following behind but still outside 

the wall. At that point, mortar rounds exploded in the midst 

of the Marines on the path, and the Viet Cong poured automatic weapons fire into them. Almost immediately, five or 

six 3d Platoon members—mostly from the leading squad—

were wounded; the Navy medical corpsman was wounded 

as well. Ryan dove into a trench and 

tried to figure out where the fire was 

coming from. He unsuccessfully tried 

to reach the company commander 

on the radio. Then, he got the attention of the squad leaders of the other 

two squads and motioned for them 

to charge through the gap and move 

quickly to the right alongside the interior of the wall. Without hesitation, 

they did so, as other Marines brought 

up a machine gun and killed the Viet 

Cong. Third Platoon retrieved all its 

wounded, and they were evacuated by 

helicopter within minutes. Aggressiveness and initiative thus kept the 

situation from becoming worse than 

it was. After Company E consolidated 

the position, evacuated eight wounded 

Marines (along with two from the 

command group), and gathered more 

enemy weapons, it continued its pursuit. As Lieutenant Ryan said, “We 

definitely had the VC on the run, but 

they definitely knew how to set up an 

ambush.” By this point, Company E 

and the command group had lost two men killed and at least 

two dozen wounded.

As Company E and the command group continued their 

advance, they continued to find numerous enemy fighting 

holes and camouflaged punji traps. Around 1515, members of 

the command group—including Gunnery Sergeant Edward 

Garr, the acting S-3 operations officer, and the 81mm mortar 

platoon assistant platoon commander, Master Gunnery Sergeant John S. Russell—spotted a group of approximately 100 

Viet Cong moving at a slow trot. The enemy troops were 

less than a kilometer east of the Marines who spotted them, 

and they were moving southeast past the Marines, who were 

moving north. They were carrying mortars, machine guns, 

small arms, and recoilless rifles and, uncharacteristically, were 

in the open and easy to spot, though they did have foliage 

attached to their backs. The command group called an artillery mission. There was a lapse of 12 minutes before the first 

Map courtesy of Capt Edward Garr 

Tactical map used by then-GySgt Edward Garr, who became acting S-3 operations officer of 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, on 18 August. At the bottom of the map, the boundary between 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, and 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, is inaccurately 

drawn. It should follow the streambed just east of An Cuong (2). 
The First Fight | 25

rounds landed, but the howtar battery fired 20 rounds on 

the enemy unit with devastating effects. Lieutenant Colonel 

Fisher, who later flew over the area in a helicopter, estimated 

that the mission had killed 90 enemy soldiers. As will be seen 

later, this Viet Cong unit was moving into a temporary gap 

in the Marine lines created when Company I was ordered to 

divert back to the south to participate in an attempt to rescue 

a lost supply convoy. If the artillery mission had not been as 

devastatingly effective as it was, the enemy would probably 

have penetrated deep into the center of the Marine lines.

12

14

9 6

12 17

3

14 15

6

4

sand sand

sand

sand

5

coral 4

coral reef

rocky

sand

75

13 sand

15

1

1

16

7

8

17

9

sand

coral 1

sand 3

9

8 reef

6 7

10

6

2

2

2

6

6

2

1

5

Dong L e (1)

Đồng Lê (4)

Đồng Lê (6)

Đồng Lê (5)

Phuoc Hoa (2)

Phuoc 

Hoa (3)

Phưoc Hoa

Phuoc Hoa (4)

Phuoc Hoa (5)

Phu Long (1) Phu Long (2)

Phú Long (1)

Phu Long (5)

Van Tuong (2)

Phuoc Thuan (2)

Van Tuong (1)

Van Tuong (3)

Phuoc Thu

Van Tuong (5)

Phu Long (4)

Núi Go Dam

Phu Long (3)

Nam Yen (2)

Nam Yen (1)

Nam Yen (4)

Nam Yen (5)

Nam Yen (6)

Thuong 

Hoa (2)

Thuong 

Hoa (3)

Thuong Hoa (4)

g Hoa (5)

Thường Hoá (6)

TÍNH QUẦNG NGẠI

TRUNG PHẦN

Tân Hy(2)

y(1)

Dong Le (2)

Dong Le (3)

Le Thuy(1)

Le Thuy(2)

Nam Yen (3)

Phuoc Tho(5)

Phuoc Tho(6)

Phuoc 

Tho(3)

)

Án Cuong(2)

An Loc

An Thoi (2)

Lac Son (1)

Nui Pho Tinh

Athletic

Field

Phuoc Thuan

Nui Dam lei

Sơn Trà (4)

Trà (2) Tuyê

Điêm(6)

VUNG

BAU CA CAI

Đồng Lê (7 )

0 Meters 1000 N

Lo

1

III

VC

Nam Ye

PL APPLE 

PL BANANA

W

M 3

I 3K 3

L 3

H 4

G 4

43X

E 4

III

7

LZ WHITE

LZ BLUE GREEN BEACH

LZ RED

An Thoi (1)

Thanh Thu

Map adapted by Marine Corps History Division 

Tactical situation at 1300, 18 August. Most units have reached or are closing in on their first-day objectives. Company H, 2d 

Battalion, 4th Marines, having landed in the midst of an enemy battalion, is battling fierce resistance in the area of Nam Yen (3).
26 | Marines in the Vietnam War Commemorative Series 

Thus, the fortunes of the units of 2d Battalion, 4th 

Marines, varied on 18 August. Company G, the first to land, 

encountered no resistance in the landing zone and none 

afterward. Company E, the second to land, had some difficulty in the landing zone and much more as the day wore 

on, but it was able to accomplish its objectives despite the 

heavy casualties sustained by it and the command group. The 

helicopter crews who spent the morning shuttling the infantrymen into the landing zones noticed how enemy resistance 

became fiercer as the morning went on. Staff Sergeant Coy 

D. Overstreet, the crew chief for HMM-361’s commanding 

officer, Lieutenant Colonel Lloyd J. Childers, remembered 

that the first deliveries of troops he made into LZ White had 

received only moderate fire. As he put it, “It seems like they 

held their fire on the first and second wave,” not realizing 

the Americans were launching a major operation. Indeed, the 

Marines later learned that Viet Cong units in the area were 

eating breakfast and conducting unit training on the morning 

of the eighteenth and not expecting a large-scale attack, at 

least not by air. Within an hour or two of the initial landings, 

however, enemy resistance stiffened. Thus, while Company E 

and the command group eventually found themselves in a 

tough fight, it was Company H, the last unit to arrive, that 

ran into trouble almost as soon as it landed. 

The Ordeal of Hotel Company

The first elements of Company H began arriving at LZ Blue, 

just south of Nam Yen (3), on schedule at 0745. The village 

was only 100–200 meters north of the landing zone, while 

a small knoll, Hill 43, was approximately 400 meters to the 

southwest. The other high ground that overlooked the landing zone was Hill 30, just north of the village of An Cuong 

(2). The Marines of Company H were unaware that they were 

actually landing within the perimeter of the 60th Viet Cong 

Battalion; in fact, U.S. intelligence had estimated the battalion’s location to be farther away. The enemy allowed the first 

aircraft to land against little resistance, but then poured heavy 

fire into the succeeding waves and into the Marines already 

on the landing zone. The majority of the fire was coming from 

the southwest, in the direction of Hill 43. 

A number of Americans were killed in the barrage of 

enemy fire. A handful of U.S. Army Huey gunships from the 

Defense Department (Marine Corps) A184945 

Marines advance through the broken terrain of the Van Tuong Peninsula during Operation Starlite on 18 August 1965. This 

picture is looking toward the village of Van Tuong and shows smoke from American supporting arms attacks in the background. 
The First Fight | 27

7th Airlift Platoon were providing covering fire for the landing force. The pilots of one of the gunships, Major Donald 

G. Radcliff, USA, was shot through the neck and killed, 

while a crew member was wounded. Casualties began to 

mount on the ground as well, but Company H’s commander, 

First Lieutenant Homer K. Jenkins, was not yet fully aware 

of the enemy’s strength in the area. In fact, he believed that 

his Marines had at least established fire superiority over the 

enemy to his southwest, and they could already count three 

dead Viet Cong troops. Soon, the company had established 

its perimeter around the landing zone. Lieutenant Jenkins led 

his 1st and 3d Platoons toward his first objective, Nam Yen 

(3), from which he had not yet received any fire. He ordered 

2d Platoon to secure Hill 43 to his rear.

Both attacks ran into intense resistance and bogged down. 

At Hill 43, 2d Platoon collided with an enemy unit that had 

fortified the hill with bunkers, trenches, and machine gun 

positions. One Marine, Lance Corporal Ernie W. Wallace, 

spied a large group of Viet Cong advancing along a trench 

line and fired at them with his M60 machine gun. Advancing 

toward them and firing the gun from his hip and shoulder, 

the hulking Lance Corporal Wallace single-handedly killed 

an estimated 25 enemy soldiers. Still, 2d Platoon’s attack got 

no farther than the base of the hill.

The attack on Nam Yen (3) fared little better. Using his 3d 

Platoon as a supporting base of fire, Jenkins had his 1st Platoon assault Nam Yen (3). There, they ran into the 3d Company of the 60th Viet Cong Battalion, which held its fire until 

1st Platoon came within a very short range of the village. 

Suddenly, the Viet Cong unleashed a withering fusillade of 

small-arms and machine-gun fire and grenades. Snipers fired 

at the Marines from the tops of trees, and what seemed to be 

bushes turned out to be enemy soldiers firing at them. The 

village was filled with numerous spider holes and bunkers. In 

some cases, the walls of houses dropped to the ground, allowing the enemy to use preplanned fields of fire. The 1st Platoon 

briefly fought its way into the village and was able to pass the 

first row of houses, but the fire became so intense that Jenkins 

ordered it to withdraw.

Jenkins then made several decisions. First, even as he 

withdrew 1st Platoon from Nam Yen (3), he called air strikes 

on the village. Probably, he hoped that this would help cover 

his withdrawal, but even while the air strikes were occurring, 

his men still received small arms fire from Nam Yen (3). These 

were the air strikes that momentarily halted the advance of 

Company I, 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, as fragments from the 

bombs slightly wounded two Marines from that company 

near An Cuong (2).

Second, Lieutenant Jenkins decided to concentrate on 

one objective at a time, and with Hill 43 being the highest 

point in the area from which he could receive small arms fire 

and with it being to his rear, he decided to attack it with his 

entire company. He called for additional air strikes on Hill 

43, and soon he had the support of McDonnell Douglas 

F-4B Phantoms from Marine Fighter Attack Squadrons 

513 and 542 of MAG-11, which covered the hill with highexplosive bombs and napalm. Aided also by two tanks that 

had landed on the beach at An Cuong (1), Company H 

doggedly attacked the hill as well as the hedgerows, houses, 

and other positions in the area from which it received fire. 

By 1000, Jenkins had the support of five tanks, including 

one flame tank, and three Ontos. His men eliminated several enemy machine-gun positions, discovered numerous 

dead Viet Cong scattered throughout the brush, captured 50 

enemy weapons, and evacuated one enemy prisoner.

Thanks to the heroic efforts of HMM-361, Company 

H also managed to evacuate its first Marine killed in action, 

Lance Corporal James R. Brooks Jr., and 11 of its wounded. 

By 0900, the helicopter pilots and crewmen had each made 

four or five trips to the landing zones to ferry troops into the 

fight. As Staff Sergeant Overstreet, the crew chief for Lieutenant Colonel Childers recalled, from about 0815 or 0830 

onward, the helicopters received heavy fire every time they 

went into a landing zone. Again and again, they landed and 

took off under fire in response to urgent requests for casualty evacuations, ammunition, and water. During one of his 

landings at around 0900, Overstreet engaged in a firefight 

with enemy soldiers with his M60 machine gun at a range 

of less than 50 yards. As Childers hovered over the landing zone to allow wounded infantrymen to be gathered 

and loaded on board, the staff sergeant observed two men 

charging toward the aircraft. Marine infantrymen in the area 

appeared not to notice them, even after the number of charging enemy soldiers grew from 2 to 20. As Overstreet recalled 

it, the Viet Cong soldiers had been camouflaged as bushes: 

“All the bushes got up and they started firing.” Staff Sergeant 
28 | Marines in the Vietnam War Commemorative Series

Overstreet hit at least two of the enemy with his machine 

gun fire; meanwhile, an enemy recoilless rifle round struck 

the ground just beneath the aircraft and shook it violently. 

Lieutenant Colonel Childers held the helicopter in position 

long enough to load the casualties and departed just in time.

By around 1300, 14 of HMM-361’s 16 helicopters had 

been struck by enemy fire. More than eight of them had 

suffered “downing hits” but managed to reach a location 

where they could be repaired. Crews on the ground took 

parts from some aircraft to keep others going. Additionally, 

five or six pilots and several crew chiefs and gunners had been 

wounded, requiring the constant shuffling of aircrews to keep 

the helicopters in the air.

Now that Company H had secured Hill 43, Lieutenant 

Jenkins turned his attention back to resuming his attack to the 

north. Company H and the tanks and Ontos advanced into 

the area of rice paddies divided by tall hedgerows between 

Nam Yen (3) and An Cuong (2). Jenkins mistakenly believed 

that Company I, 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, had cleared Nam 

Yen (3), and planned to bypass it on its eastern side. As Company H moved, 2d Platoon was on the right, 3d on the left, 

and 1st Platoon was acting as a rear guard. Lieutenant Jenkins placed the tanks immediately behind the assault line of 

the leading platoons, and the three Ontos in the rear and on 

the flanks. While the company was in this open terrain, 1st 

Platoon, in the rear, began receiving machine gun fire from 

Nam Yen (3), as well as from the east. Then mortar rounds 

began raining down on the two lead platoons, and the tracked 

vehicles had trouble maneuvering in the soggy rice paddies. 

With the company now receiving heavy fire from nearly 

all directions, the Marines responded aggressively. One squad 

from 1st Platoon attacked Nam Yen (3) to its northwest 

and killed nine Viet Cong who were manning an 81mm 

mortar. Before they could recover the mortar, however, the 

fire became so intense that the squad had to withdraw. In the 

2d Platoon sector, Corporal Richard L. Tonucci’s squad provided other examples of heroism. Corporal Tonucci saw that 

there were several wounded Marines stranded between their 

comrades and the enemy, and that a heavy machine gun was 

pouring devastating fire into the Marines’ positions. Meanwhile, a group of Viet Cong was trying to move toward the 

wounded Marines to finish them off. Tonucci decided to take 

action himself to neutralize the machine gun, and he ordered 

Lance Corporal Joe C. Paul to stay and protect the wounded. 

Paul himself was already wounded. He had just boarded a 

medical evacuation helicopter when he saw the predicament 

his platoon was in, disembarked, and went back to see how 

he could help.

Corporal Tonucci saw another group of Viet Cong traveling along a trench line toward him. The flame tank, which 

The workhorse among Marine Corps helicopters in the early 

part of the Vietnam War was the Sikorsky UH-34D Seahorse,* 

the same aircraft that the Army called the CH-34 Choctaw. In 

Vietnam, its main roles were troop and “very important person” 

transport, medical evacuation, and search-and-rescue missions. 

It typically could carry 12–16 troops or up to 8 casualties on 

stretchers, and was often fitted with M60 machine guns. The 

UH-34D was gradually replaced by the Bell UH-1E Iroquois 

(Huey), with its turbine-powered engine, but still saw extensive 

use by the Marine Corps through 1968. During its service in 

the Vietnam War, the UH-34 gained an excellent reputation 

for being able to absorb a great deal of enemy ground fire and 

still return its crews home safely. The UH-34Ds belonging to 

HMM-163, HMM-261, and HMM-361 played a critical role 

in Operation Starlite in troop transport, resupply, and medical 

evacuation operations, and sustained their reputation for durability and reliability.

The UH-34 Helicopter

*This piston-engine helicopter was designated as the HUS-1 Seahorse 

until 1962, when it became the UH-34.

Defense Department (Marine Corps) A37440
Joe Paul, a 19-year-old Marine who lost his life during Operation Starlight, was awarded 

the Medal of Honor posthumously on 7 February 1967. He was honored by Secretary of 

the Navy Paul H. Nitze, who presented the award to his parents.

Paul was born 23 April 1946, in Williamsburg, Kentucky. He graduated from grammar 

school and attended high school for one year before enlisting in the U.S. Marine Corps 

on 26 April 1963, shortly after his seventeenth birthday. In August 1963, after completing recruit training at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego, California, he was 

transferred to the Marine Corps Base at Camp Pendleton, where he underwent individual 

combat training with the Second Infantry Training Regiment, graduating in October 1963. 

He then joined Company H of 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, 1st Marine Brigade, in Hawaii, 

where he was promoted to private first class in December 1963 and to lance corporal in 

October 1964. With that unit, he sailed for the Far East, arriving in Chu Lai in South 

Vietnam on 7 May 1965, where this unit was redesignated Company H, 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, 3d Marine Division.

On 18 August 1965, while serving as a fire team leader with Company H, Lance Corporal Paul placed himself between his 

wounded comrades and the enemy and delivered effective suppressive fire in order to divert the Viet Cong long enough to allow 

the casualties to be evacuated. He fought in this exposed position until he was mortally wounded. He succumbed to his wounds 

the next day, 19 August 1965. 

Lance Corporal Joe C. Paul

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his 

life above and beyond the call of duty as a Fire Team Leader 

with Company H, Second Battalion, Fourth Marines, 3d 

Marine Division (Reinforced) during Operation Starlite near 

Chu Lai in the Republic of Vietnam on 18 August 1965. 

In violent battle, Lance Corporal Paul’s platoon sustained 

five casualties as it was temporarily pinned down by devastating mortar, automatic weapons, and rifle fire delivered by 

insurgent Communist (Viet Cong) forces in well-entrenched 

positions. The wounded Marines were unable to move from 

their perilously exposed positions forward of the remainder 

of their platoon, and were suddenly subjected to a barrage of 

white phosphorus rifle grenades. Lance Corporal Paul, fully 

aware that his tactics would almost certainly result in serious 

injury or death to himself, chose to disregard his own safety 

and boldly dashed across the fire-swept rice paddies, placed 

himself between his wounded comrades and the enemy, and 

delivered effective suppressive fire with his automatic weapon 

in order to divert the attack long enough to allow the casualties to be evacuated. Although critically wounded during the 

course of the battle, he resolutely remained in his exposed 

position and continued to fire his rifle until he collapsed and 

was evacuated. By his fortitude and gallant spirit of self-sacrifice in the face of almost certain death, he saved the lives 

of several of his fellow Marines. His heroic action served to 

inspire all who observed him and reflect the highest credit 

upon himself, the Marine Corps and the United States Naval 

Service. He gallantly gave his life in the cause of freedom.

Medal of Honor Citation

Official U.S. Marine Corps photo
30 | Marines in the Vietnam War Commemorative Series 

was nearby, scorched the enemy with a blast of napalm. As 

the burning men ran out of the trench, nearby Marines shot 

them down. Then Tonucci, accompanied by Private First 

Class Ronald L. Centers, advanced on the machine gun 

position. Together they neutralized one bunker, and then 

the bunker that actually protected the machine gun. When 

another machine gun crew emerged to replace the one the 

two Marines had killed, Tonucci and Centers killed them as 

well. The two Marines would later receive the Silver Star for 

this action.

Meanwhile, Lance Corporal Paul and the wounded 

Marines he was guarding were receiving fire from small arms, 

recoilless rifles, mortars, and a barrage of white phosphorus 

grenades. Paul decided on a risky gamble to divert enemy 

fire from his wounded comrades. He raced 75 yards across 

the rice paddy toward the Viet Cong, placed himself in an 

exposed position, and began pouring machine gun fire into 

the enemy. He was close enough to the enemy that they were 

lobbing hand grenades at him. He was wounded several more 

times, at least once in the chest, but refused to withdraw until 

all the wounded Marines were pulled to safety. Eventually 

he “collapsed over his weapon,” remembered Corporal Leroy 

T. Hyatt. Paul was finally placed on a medical evacuation 

helicopter, but he died of his wounds. He was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, the second 

Marine from Operation Starlite to receive the nation’s highest award for valor in combat. As another comrade, Lance 

Corporal James H. Myers, wrote in his official statement, “He 

risked his life to save mine, and died in order that his fellow 

Marines could be saved.”

With his Marines in open ground and receiving fire from 

virtually every direction, Lieutenant Jenkins knew that the 

position of Company H was untenable. He called artillery fire 

on the village of Nam Yen (3) and an air strike on the high 

ground to his north, and in response to orders from Lieutenant Colonel Fisher, he began moving the company back 

toward LZ Blue once again. On the way back to LZ Blue, 1st 

Platoon, led by First Lieutenant Christopher C. Cooney, was 

forced to take a detour. Numerous helicopters were attempting to land in an area in its path of march, so it diverted to 

the east. This platoon became separated from the rest of the 

company and found itself with two squads of Company I, 

3d Battalion, 3d Marines, that had been guarding a downed 

helicopter.

The other two platoons of Company H fought their way 

back to LZ Blue, killing Viet Cong and taking casualties as 

they went. In the course of the two-hour movement back to 

the landing zone, two Marines, Lance Corporal Ernie Wallace and Private Sam Badneck, would perform feats that 

would earn them the Navy Cross, and Corporal Edward L. 

Vaughn would earn the Silver Star. Lance Corporal Wallace, 

in particular, was credited with killing more than 40 enemy 

soldiers with his machine gun over the course of the day.

By 1630, the battered remnants of Company H and its 

armored attachments were reestablished on LZ Blue. As they 

were still receiving small arms fire from Nam Yen (3), Lieutenant Jenkins ordered the Ontos vehicles to flatten all the 

buildings in the village, after which the small arms fire ceased. 

The company received resupplies of food, water, and ammunition; was reinforced with a section of 81mm mortars; and 

dug in for the evening. At that time, Jenkins had only 24 of 

his own infantrymen left, along with the mortar section, three 

tank crews, and three Ontos crews. It had been a brutal day 

for Company H, landing in the midst of an enemy battalion 

and receiving fire from multiple directions for much of the 

following eight hours. By the end of the day, the company 

had achieved none of its original objectives, but it had struck 

a blow in the heart of the Viet Cong defenses and inflicted 

massive damage on the enemy as well. And no one would 

question the company’s fighting spirit. Rarely in Marine 

Corps history has one rifle company been awarded one Congressional Medal of Honor, two Navy Crosses, three Silver 

Stars, and one Bronze Star in one day of battle.*

The “Lost Convoy”

By midafternoon, Companies E and G of 2d Battalion, 4th 

Marines, were well on their way to achieving their objectives 

for the day and reaching Phase Line Banana. The same was 

true of Companies K and L of 3d Battalion, 3d Marines. 

Company I of 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, had lost its company 

*The Bronze Star was earned by PFC Robert L. Stipes, who charged across 

a rice paddy and laid down covering fire to allow several of his pinned-down 

comrades to withdraw safely. Later, Stipes helped evacuate casualties under 

fire.

Navy Cross C
The First Fight | 31

commander, Captain Bruce Webb, at An Cuong (2). It had 

regrouped under First Lieutenant Richard Purnell and, 

minus two squads left behind to guard a damaged helicopter 

and assist with medical evacuations, was now moving north 

toward Phase Line Banana. It had also made contact with 

the left flank of Company K so that the line of 3d Battalion, 

3d Marines, was fully intact. Company I’s northerly progress 

was about to be arrested, however, by one of the strangest and 

most remarkable episodes of Operation Starlite—the “lost 

convoy.”

Shortly after noon, Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Muir of 

3d Battalion, 3d Marines, had ordered Major Andrew Comer 

to dispatch a supply convoy, called Column 21, to Company 

I. The column was to carry water and ammunition, both of 

which were badly needed. It departed from the battalion’s 

logistics support area, which was located with the regimental 

command post several hundred meters west of An Cuong (1). 

It consisted of five amtracs of a platoon from 1st Amphibious 

Tractor Battalion and three M67 flame tanks. The platoon 

commander was Second Lieutenant Robert F. Cochran Jr., 

and the platoon sergeant was Staff Sergeant Jack E. Marino Jr. 

Major Comer briefed Lieutenant Cochran on the route and 

the location of Company I, and then Column 21 departed.

Soon after the convoy departed, it ran into a fierce Viet 

Cong ambush somewhere between the villages of Nam Yen 

(3) and An Cuong (2). Staff Sergeant Marino later suspected 

that the convoy had missed Company I and gone too far, and 

another officer intimately familiar with the episode believed 

Ernie Wallace was born 30 January 1944 in Wayne, West Virginia. In 1965, he was a 21-year-old lance corporal, serving as a machine 

gunner with Company H, 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, 3d Marine Division (Reinforced), during Operation Starlite. His fearless 

actions, for which he was awarded the Navy Cross, saved his fellow Marines and helped turn the tide of the battle. After retiring from 

the Marine Corps as a master sergeant, he returned to West Virginia and passed away there on 11 March 2008.

Lance Corporal Ernie W. Wallace

The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy Cross to Lance Corporal Ernie 

W. Wallace, United States Marine Corps, for extraordinary 

heroism while serving as a machine gunner with Company 

H, Second Battalion, Fourth Marines, Third Marine Division 

(Reinforced), Fleet Marine Force, during Operation Starlite against insurgent Communist (Viet Cong) forces in the 

Republic of Vietnam on 18 August 1965. While the platoon 

to which he was attached was temporarily pinned down by 

intense mortar, automatic weapons, and small arms fire, Corporal Wallace and one rifle squad took cover in a trench. Realizing that the enemy was closing in on the squad in the trench 

line, he fearlessly moved into an exposed position and, firing 

his machine gun from the offhand and assault positions at 

close range, delivered such devastating fire into the stunned 

adversary that he personally accounted for twenty-five dead 

enemy, allowing the squad he was with to maneuver to a 

more advantageous area. Throughout the rest of the day he 

was seemingly inexhaustible in his efforts. Time and again he 

fearlessly exposed himself, as he dashed out into the open to 

provide cover by fire for the evacuation of wounded Marines 

in exposed areas. On one such occasion the bipod was shot 

from his weapon; however, he was not deterred as he continued to fire, accounting for the killing of fifteen more of 

the enemy. His outstanding performance of duty undoubtedly 

saved many Marine lives and materially aided the company 

in turning the tide of battle into a virtual annihilation of a 

numerically superior foe. Corporal Wallace’s extraordinary 

heroism and inspiring dedication to duty reflected great credit 

upon himself and the Marine Corps and were in keeping with 

the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.

Navy Cross Citation

Cross Citation
32 | Marines in the Vietnam War Commemorative Series 

that the convoy actually drove by the Marines of Company I 

without realizing it. Travelling fast and “buttoned up” inside 

their vehicles with the lead tank kicking up a great deal of 

dust, the drivers of the convoy likely passed by Company 

I Marines who, because of the presence of other armored 

vehicles in the area belonging to 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, 

did not realize the convoy was looking for them and did not 

stop them. As the lead tank rounded a bend in the path, an 

explosion occurred on or near it. Then, a barrage of mortar 

rounds landed on the column, reinforced by fire from 57mm 

recoilless rifles and rocket launchers. The amtracs repositioned themselves to face to the left, the direction from which 

most of the fire was coming, and the Marines fired back with 

every weapon at their disposal. The flame gun on one of the 

tanks was disabled, and a 57mm round penetrated another 

tank, badly wounding two of the Marines inside. Staff Sergeant Marino was in one of the amtracs firing his .30-caliber 

machine gun, and he was astounded by the scene. A large 

28

28

25

12

14

36

37

32

28 15

14

14

14

3

14 15

6

4

sand sand

5

coral 4

coral reef coral

rock

17

mud

sand

sand

mud

sand coral

rocky

rocky

rocky

19

sand

8 15

rocky

4 sand

sand

7

8

5

13 sand

15

1

1

16

7

8

sand

6 7

10

6

2

2

10

2

6

6

2

Dong L e (1) 1

Phuoc Hoa (2)

Phuoc

Hoa (3)

Phuoc Hoa

Phuoc Hoa (4)

Phuoc Hoa (5)

Phu Long (1) Phu Long (2)

Phu Long (1)

Phu Long (5)

Van Tuong (2)

Phuoc Thuan (2)

Van Tuong (1)

Van Tuong (3)

Phuoc Thuan (3)

Van Tuong (5)

Phu Long (4)

Nui Go Dam

Phu Long (3)

Nam Yen (2)

Nam Yen (1)

Nam Yen (4)

Nam Yen (5)

Nam Yen (6)

Van Tuong (4)

Thuong 

Hoa (2)

Thuong 

Hoa (3)

Thuong Hoa (4)

Thường Hoa (5)

Thuong Hoa (6)

TINH QUANG NGAI

TRUNG PHẦN

Tân Hy(2)

Dong Le (2)

Dong Le (3)

Le Thuy(1)

Le Thuy(2)

Nam Yen (3)

Phuoc Tho(5)

Phuoc Tho(6)

Phuoc 

Tho(3)

An Cuong(2)

An Loc

Thanh Thuy

An Thoi (1)

An Thoi (2)

Lac Son (1)

Nui Pho Tinh

Athletic

Field

Phuoc Thuan (1)

Nui Dam lei

VUNG NHONA

VINH NHONA

BAU CA CAI

An Cuong(1)

)

W M 3

I 3

K 3

L 3

H 4

G 4

X

E 4

III

7

43

L 7

? 4)

0 Meters 1000 N

LZ RED

LZ WHITE

LZ BLUE

GREEN BEACH

PL APPLE 

A

PL BANANA

Map adapted by Marine Corps History Division 

Tactical situation at 1600, 18 August, including the approximate location of Column 21, the “lost convoy” (indicated with a question mark). Company L, 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, has landed by helicopter near the regimental headquarters of 7th Marines.
The First Fight | 33

number of Marines were already wounded or dead, including Lieutenant Cochran, who was killed as he tried to organize the defense. Marino saw Viet Cong in every direction 

and estimated that there were more than 350 of them. As 

soon as the mortar barrage lifted, they began charging the 

convoy. Soon, so many Marines were disabled that Marino’s 

machine gun was the only American automatic weapon still 

firing. Later, he killed four with his pistol, as some Viet Cong 

made it to within 15 meters of the vehicles. Eventually, some 

Viet Cong climbed on top of the abandoned vehicles, only 

to be shot by the machine guns of the vehicles that were still 

occupied by Marines. Within a few hours, Staff Sergeant 

Marino had 5 Marines killed and many wounded, leaving 9 

Marines who could still fight out of an original contingent 

of 30. Some of those 9, including Marino, were wounded 

themselves.* One of the men who had survived so far was 

Sergeant James E. Mulloy Jr., who had not been sheltered 

in the armored vehicles but had been risking his own safety 

to tend to wounded Marines and then, as his medal citation 

stated, conducting a virtual “one-man defense” while lying 

in the rice paddy. Other Marines present credited Sergeant 

Mulloy with personally killing an extraordinary number of 

enemy attackers.

Indeed, while the ferocious fighting around the supply 

convoy had taken a toll on the Marines, it had taken an even 

heavier one on the Viet Cong. Postwar Communist accounts 

indicate that the ambush was made by the 1st Company of 

the 40th Viet Cong Battalion and that company experienced 

*SSgt Marino received the Silver Star for his actions on 18–19 August.

Sergeant James E. Mulloy Jr.

James Mulloy, of Jeffersontown, Kentucky, served 34 years in the Marine Corps. On 18 August 1965, he was a sergeant serving on 

a supply convoy in Operation Starlite. As a result of his valor in defending his fellow Marines when the column was ambushed, he 

was awarded the Navy Cross. Later, he was commissioned into the warrant officer ranks. He spent all his overseas assignments in 

Southeast Asia, including assignments in Vietnam, Japan, Okinawa, the Philippines, and Thailand. He performed in varied Marine 

Corps assignments—infantry, embarkation, Vietnamese language interrogation, and translator—before finishing as a supply officer. 

He completed his education at San Diego State University following his retirement from the Marine Corps in 1984.

For extraordinary heroism while serving with Headquarters 

and Service Company, Third Battalion, Third Marines, during 

Operation Starlite near Chu Lai, Republic of Vietnam, on 

18 August 1965. While participating in a combat resupply 

mission in support of assault units of Regimental Landing 

Team Seven, Sergeant Mulloy was aboard an amphibious 

tractor when his armored column came under intense mortar, 

automatic weapons, small arms, and recoilless rifle fire from 

determined and well fortified insurgent Communist (Viet 

Cong) forces. As he attempted to maneuver through the enemy 

fire his tractor became bogged down in a rice paddy. Quickly 

comprehending the gravity of the situation, he immediately 

responded to the challenge by providing the leadership and 

personal example of exceptional courage, which helped to rally 

the Marines present to the defense of the stricken vehicle. He 

administered first aid to the wounded and inspired them with 

his calmness. Realizing that the armored tractor was especially 

vulnerable to attack due to limited observation from within, 

he left the tractor and assumed a position in the rice paddy. 

For twenty hours he conducted a virtual one-man defense. On 

several occasions Viet Cong guerrillas attempted to penetrate 

his position to get to the vehicle, but he repeatedly drove them 

back and inflicted extremely heavy casualties. When aid arrived 

the following morning he insured that all of the wounded 

were evacuated before seeking relief for himself. His courageous actions, inspiring leadership, and loyal devotion to duty 

without regard for his personal safety undoubtedly saved the 

lives of many of his fellow Marines. Sergeant Mulloy’s heroic 

conduct throughout was in keeping with highest traditions of 

the United States Naval Service.

Navy Cross Citation
34 | Marines in the Vietnam War Commemorative Series 

crippling losses as it attempted to annihilate the Marine 

column. As Sergeant Ho Cong Tham recalled:

The company organized three-man cells equipped 

with sub-machineguns and grenades and sent them to 

try to climb up on the vehicles in order to destroy them 

and kill the enemy troops. When 1st Cell charged all 

of its men were killed. Then 2d Cell charged, and all 

of its men were killed as well. 3d Cell launched its 

assault and suffered heavy losses. The following cells 

continued to run up next to the vehicles, but they 

were unable to climb up onto the vehicles because the 

enemy vehicles were very tall and very slippery. When 

some of our men managed to climb up onto an enemy 

vehicle, they were killed or wounded by machinegun 

fire from the other enemy vehicles.

The next day, more than 60 Viet Cong bodies would be found 

in the immediate vicinity of Column 21.

As soon as the ambush occurred, a radio operator in 

the convoy had alerted higher headquarters that the unit 

was under attack and about to be overrun. Major Comer 

attempted to monitor the traffic, but he could not get a 

clear idea of where the convoy was. Moreover, it had been 

hard to get any information from the convoy for some time 

because the frightened radio operator kept the transmitting 

key depressed, making it difficult for others to transmit to 

him. Comer alerted Lieutenant Colonel Muir to the situation, and Muir ordered Company I to return to the battalion 

command post and join a relief convoy led by Major Comer. 

Colonel Oscar Peatross was also aware of the crisis and provided the regiment’s one uncommitted tank, an M48, for the 

convoy. Another tank appeared at the command post as well. 

The crew chief, a staff sergeant, reported to Major Comer that 

he had been with the lost convoy. The tank’s periscope and 

.50-caliber machine gun were inoperable, and it was out of 

.30-caliber ammunition. Furthermore, two of the crew were 

wounded. The staff sergeant told Comer that he had just 

driven through An Cuong (2) without incident, however, 

and could lead the relief column back to the lost convoy. His 

damaged tank was left behind, and he rode in the M48 tank 

assigned to the column by Colonel Peatross.

Major Comer’s plan was to lead a fast-moving armorinfantry team to the lost convoy and overwhelm its besiegers 

with the suddenness of the assault. Of course, he still did not 

know exactly where the surrounded Marines were, but the 

damaged tank’s crew chief seemed confident he could lead 

him there. Unfortunately, the mission would not turn out to 

be that simple. The relief column set out at 1300 with the 

tank, two Ontos, and four amtracs, and the bulk of Lieutenant 

Purnell’s Company I riding on or in the vehicles. The column 

traveled about 400 meters and crested an area of high ground 

just west of An Cuong (2).* At that point, the lead tank was 

struck by an enemy projectile and began to back up, ramming 

into the vehicles behind it. Heavy and accurate mortar fire, as 

well as small arms fire, hit the convoy. Marines from Company I dismounted, and an Ontos deployed to provide protection and return fire to the front. Meanwhile, several Marines 

were killed and wounded in a matter of minutes. Officers in 

the convoy began arranging the evacuation of casualties and 

the calling of artillery fire on the wooded area to the front. 

In the meantime, Major Comer and Lieutenant Purnell formulated a plan for the latter to continue the relief effort by 

marching on foot. Purnell would leave one of his platoons 

behind under First Lieutenant John A. “Jack” Kelly to secure 

the evacuation site and evacuate the wounded.

Shortly after Lieutenant Purnell and his infantrymen 

departed on foot, they were joined by the two squads under 

Corporal O’Malley that had previously been guarding the 

damaged helicopter. The helicopter had been repaired and 

had taken off, and they were trying to rejoin their company. 

At the same time, they were also joined by Lieutenant Chris 

Cooney’s 1st Platoon from Company H, 2d Battalion, 4th 

Marines, the unit that had become separated from its parent 

company. Lacking a radio operator and carrying its wounded 

and dead, this decimated platoon was told to help secure the 

high ground where the relief column had been ambushed 

and await an opportunity to be returned to its company or 

to the regimental command post. Its wounded were finally 

evacuated.

*Maj Comer’s postwar statement referred to this high ground repeatedly as 

“Hill 30,” and this was repeated in Shulimson and Johnson’s official history. 

It is unclear from a topographical map of the area what he meant by the 

term. The only two obvious locations for a “Hill 30” would have been much 

farther north or west than would make sense from the narrative supplied by 

him or Lt Purnell. Purnell referred to the area where the relief column was 

ambushed as “the top of the ridgeline,” placing the ambush site less than 200 

meters east of An Cuong (2).
The First Fight | 35

Lieutenant Purnell and the remainder of Company I ran 

into more resistance as they approached An Cuong (2). This 

was ground that they had already cleared earlier in the day. It 

was neither the first nor the last time during Operation Starlite that Marines were ambushed or fired upon from terrain 

they thought they had secured, illustrating how skillful the 

Viet Cong were at utilizing camouflaged fighting holes and 

cave and tunnel networks to reinfiltrate behind Marine lines. 

As a result, Lieutenant Purnell called an air strike on An 

Cuong (2). Company I found itself in a heavy firefight among 

the hedgerows and trenches around the village. Its Marines 

pushed into An Cuong (2) and then 600–800 meters past it. 

It was now dark, and they still had not found the lost convoy. 

Staff Sergeant Marino and his handful of survivors with the 

convoy would have to hold out throughout the night.

Committing the Reserve

By early afternoon, it had become clear to Colonel Peatross 

that it was time to commit part of his reserve from 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, which was originally part of the Special 

Landing Force (SLF). The ships of the SLF had arrived off 

the coast of the Van Tuong Peninsula at around 0930. Companies I and L, 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, were on board the 

USS Iwo Jima, a helicopter-landing carrier, while Company 

M, 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, and the battalion’s Headquarters and Service Company were on board the USS Talladega. 

At 0930, it was not yet clear that Company H, 2d Battalion, 

4th Marines, would be unable to reach its objectives, and of 

course the crisis of the lost supply column and ambushed relief 

column had not yet occurred. By early afternoon, however, a 

Viet Cong salient was developing in the Marine front line. 

The rifle companies on the left and right flank were making 

good progress, but in the center Company H was struggling 

to hold on in the Nam Yen (3) area. And Company I, 3d 

Battalion, 3d Marines—having sustained heavy casualties, 

including its captain, and forced to detach two squads to help 

guard a grounded helicopter—was now being diverted back 

to the south to rescue the lost convoy. In fact, 2d Battalion, 

4th Marines, and 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, had not made 

meaningful contact as of yet—there was a gap between them. 

The only physical contact they had was when the platoon of 

Company H, 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, stumbled into the 

lines of Company I, 3d Battalion, 3d Marines. Clearly, more 

combat power was needed in the center. 

Operational control of 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, had 

now been given to Colonel Peatross, and he ordered that unit 

to land by helicopter and sea and placed it under the control of Lieutenant Colonel Muir’s 3d Battalion, 3d Marines. 

Company L, 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, began landing by 

helicopter at a landing zone adjacent to the 7th Marines’ 

regimental command post at 1543. This company received 

orders to advance in support of Company I, 3d Battalion, 3d 

Marines, in the An Cuong (2)–An Thoi area and assist in 

its mission of locating the missing Column 21. The company 

had the support of a section of tanks and one tank retriever.*

Company L encountered a large number of Viet Cong 

soldiers as it traversed the same area that Company I had 

*Shulimson and Johnson state that Company L, 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, 

began arriving at 1730. This time is clearly too late to be accurate according 

to contemporary references. 

Defense Department (U.S. Navy) USN 1117022 

USS Iwo Jima (LPH 2) with helicopters on its flight deck in 

October 1965. In August 1965, as part of the Special Landing Force, the Iwo Jima carried helicopters that landed two 

companies from 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, onto the Starlite 

battlefield. 
36 | Marines in the Vietnam War Commemorative Series 

swept through twice. Some of these enemy soldiers were 

dead, their bodies already decomposing in the intense heat. 

Others were quite alive and peppered the column with sporadic sniper fire, again proving the Viet Cong’s ability to offer 

resistance in areas that Marines thought they had already 

cleared. A flame tank accompanying the unit at least once 

scorched enemy soldiers with napalm. The napalm, as well as 

tracers from the infantrymen’s weapons, set the hedgerows on 

fire, adding smoke to the intense heat and confusion of the 

battlefield. The company also rounded up prisoners and suspected Viet Cong and sent them back to the command post.

At around 1845, Company L arrived at its assigned location just north of An Cuong (2) and immediately found itself 

in an intense firefight. The Viet Cong fired 60mm mortars, 

automatic weapons, and small arms. The Marines responded with their own organic weapons and with another blast 

from the flame tank, which squelched some of the resistance. 

By the time the fight was over, however, 4 of the company’s 

Marines were dead, including 1 of its platoon commanders, 

and 14 men were wounded. Others, having spent weeks on 

board a ship and being unaccustomed to the fierce heat and 

humidity, suffered from heat exhaustion. The Marines found 

5 dead Viet Cong in the area, but estimated that they killed 

16. Clearly, Company L had provided needed combat power 

in the center of the Marine line.

One of the strange facts about the fighting of 18 August, 

however, was the failure of either Company I, 3d Battalion, 

3d Marines, or Company L, 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, to 

bring relief to Column 21. The area in which the convoy 

could conceivably have been located was small enough that 

two rifle companies with their normal frontage should have 

found it. Instead, Company I traversed the area throughout 

the late afternoon and much of the night, but Lieutenant 

Purnell reported that he never made contact with Column 

21. It appears that Marines from Company L did find the 

convoy, yet apparently neither the company’s officers nor 

the staff of 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, realized it had. After 

fighting off the Viet Cong in the area of An Cuong (2), the 

company sent one patrol to the north and another to the 

west to look for the convoy. The first patrol found nothing. 

Two other Marines in the company, however, including Corporal Robert A. Collins, saw some burning amtracs in the 

distance, but enemy fire prevented them from getting close 

enough to investigate. Nevertheless, Corporal Collins and a 

lieutenant were able to get to a tank. They searched it and 

found body parts and some abandoned M14 rifles, which 

they rendered inoperable to the enemy by removing the bolts 

and bending the barrels. They did not find any living Americans, however. Before they left the tank, they heard someone 

walking up behind them. When the person did not answer 

a challenge, they fired, and then returned to their own lines. 

Later, the after action report for Company L reported that 

“there [were] a number of damaged LVT’s at the objective 

area. No U.S. casualties were found.”* In somewhat different 

wording, the 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, after action report 

stated that Company L “located one burning tank and one 

disabled LVT” just southwest of An Cuong (2). It seems 

improbable that the abandoned tank and the amtracs located 

by Company L were not part of Column 21, as there were 

certainly no other amtracs in that part of the battlefield. Yet 

by dusk on 18 August, no one in the regiment believed that 

the lost convoy had been definitively located. By the time of 

day that Company L, 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, was in the 

area, Staff Sergeant Marino and his nine surviving Marines 

in the convoy were “buttoned up” inside a few of the amtracs. 

If Company L found the convoy, Marino and his Marines did 

not see their relief force, and the latter did not see them. Since 

a number of Viet Cong were still in the area and still trying to 

kill the survivors of the convoy, it is possible that enemy fire 

prevented Company L Marines from getting close enough to 

the vehicles to determine that there were still live Marines in 

them. Indeed, Captain Ronald A. Clark, the commander of 

Company L, having just arrived on the battlefield a few hours 

before and having limited information about adjacent friendly units, may not have known there were no other American 

amtracs in that sector of the battlefield at that time.

Due to the uncertain status of the convoy and of Company 

I, Lieutenant Colonel Muir briefly considered closing the rest 

of the battalion with Company L, 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, 

located just north of An Cuong (2). In other words, Company K and Company L, 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, would 

withdraw to their left rear to make contact with Company L, 

3d Battalion, 7th Marines, to consolidate the battalion’s lines 

and provide maximum possible support to Company I, 3d 

*In common parlance, Marines often referred to LVTP5s simply as “LVTs.”
The First Fight | 37

Battalion, 3d Marines, which was still west of An Cuong (2) 

and in enemy contact, and with the supply convoy. After communicating with Company I, however, and determining that 

the company was able to deal with the Viet Cong resistance 

it was encountering, Muir decided such a withdrawal was not 

necessary. Instead, he ordered Company L, 3d Battalion, 7th 

Marines, before dark to leave its current position and establish a perimeter along Phase Line Banana to the left of Company K, the position that originally was assigned to Company 

I. After searching the area in which they had just fought and 

evacuating their casualties, the Marines of Company L, 3d 

Battalion, 7th Marines, moved north to take their assigned 

place after dark on the front line of 3d Battalion, 3d Marines. 

Meanwhile, two tanks previously attached to Company H, 

2d Battalion, 4th Marines, at LZ Blue were sent forward to 

the general area in which the missing convoy was believed to 

be located. Company I, 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, would later 

receive orders to withdraw to the rear of the battalion’s lines.

Fortunately, Regimental Landing Team 7 (RLT 7) had 

the means to bring reinforcements ashore rapidly during the 

evening of 18 August. Company I, 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, 

helilifted in from the Iwo Jima, landed at 1800, and helped 

provide security for the regimental command post during the 

night. Company M, 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, would land by 

sea later in the night. Thus, although Company H, 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, and Company I, 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, 

had been weakened and would soon be pulled out of the fight, 

American amphibious and heliborne capabilities had brought 

another full battalion ashore to take their places.

Situation, Nightfall, 18 August

By nightfall, Colonel Peatross could feel satisfied that RLT 

7 had accomplished all its first-day objectives. Companies K 

and L, 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, had established positions on 

the American right along Phase Line Banana. On the left, 

Companies E and G, 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, had also 

reached their objectives on Phase Line Banana. Company E’s 

left flank was less than 400 meters from the center of Company M, 3d Battalion, 3d Marines. Captain Calvin Morris’s 

Company M had blocked off any escape to the north by constant patrolling. Thus, the Marines had established a cordon 

around the elements of the 1st Viet Cong Regiment that were 

located on the Van Tuong Peninsula. 

In the center, however, that cordon was weak and stretched 

thinly enough to allow many Viet Cong soldiers, perhaps the 

bulk of the regiment’s survivors, to escape. Company I, 3d 

Battalion, 3d Marines, in the center was battered and separated into smaller units. During the night, Lieutenant Purnell would lead the largest component of that company, the 

equivalent of about one and a half platoons, as it searched 

the An Cuong (2) area for the missing convoy and then carried out its instructions to return to the regimental command 

post to be extracted from the battlefield. By that time, one of 

Company I’s platoons had been detached to help evacuate 

casualties in the vicinity of where the aborted relief column 

had been halted north of the command post, and most of the 

two squads that had been guarding the downed helicopter 

had been evacuated. Company I would never take its original 

assigned place on Phase Line Banana to the left of Company 

K. It had lost roughly one-third of its strength due to casualties (detailed casualty figures for Company I are provided 

later in this narrative). Fortunately, Company L, 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, was available to take its place on the left of 

Company K, and by midnight the rest of 3d Battalion, 7th 

Marines, was on the ground in the vicinity of An Cuong (1) 

and the regimental command post as a regimental reserve.

The other company in the center—Company H, 2d Battalion, 4th Marines—had fought just as bravely as Company 

I, 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, but fared even worse. Lieutenant Homer Jenkins had done a remarkable job holding this 

company together as it had landed and attempted to attack 

while in the midst of a Viet Cong battalion. By the end of the 

day, however, the company was dug in at its original landing 

zone, minus one platoon that had wandered into the lines of 

3d Battalion, 3d Marines. Jenkins’s casualties, too, had been 

heavy. One of the most concerning things, especially to Lieutenant Colonel Muir of 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, was the 

fate of the lost supply column, also located somewhere in the 

middle of the battlefield. As far as he knew, the column had 

still not been located. Lieutenant Colonel Lloyd Childers, 

commanding officer of HMM-361, had even flown over the 

area in his helicopter and not been able to locate the column.

Enemy Situation

The Viet Cong had been generally unprepared for the swiftness of the American attack and for the means by which it 
came—by sea and by air. Certainly, they had suffered heavy 

casualties. As Marine infantrymen moved forward on 18 

August, they found hundreds of bodies of Viet Cong soldiers they had killed and were certain that other corpses had 

been dragged away by the surviving insurgents. The howtar 

mission called by the command group of 2d Battalion, 4th 

Marines, alone had killed an estimated 90 Viet Cong. On 19 

August, more than 60 Viet Cong bodies would be found in 

the vicinity of the ambushed Marine supply column. 

After the initial shock of the attack wore off, however, the 

Viet Cong had fought back fiercely. For defense, they had 

expertly employed camouflage and previously fortified positions to maximize the casualties they could inflict on the 

Marines. They had also skillfully used underground tunnels 

to infiltrate areas the Marines had already cleared, forcing the 

latter to clear the same ground again and again. When attacking, the enemy had shown incredible bravery, but less skill. The 

column of 100 Viet Cong moving toward An Cuong (2) and 

38 | Marines in the Vietnam War Commemorative Series 

28

28

25

12

14

36

37

32

28 15

14

14

14

3

14 15

6

4

sand sand

5

coral 4

coral reef coral

rock

17

mud

sand

sand

mud

sand coral

rocky

rocky

rocky

19

sand

8 15

rocky

4 sand

sand

7

8

5

13 sand

15

1

1

16

7

8

sand

6 7

10

6

2

2

10

2

6

6

2

Dong L e (1) 1

Phuoc Hoa (2)

Phuoc

Hoa (3)

Phuoc Hoa

Phuoc Hoa (4)

Phuoc Hoa (5)

Phu Long (1) Phu Long (2)

Phu Long (5)

Van Tuong (2)

Phuoc Thuan (2)

Van Tuong (1)

Van Tuong (3)

Phuoc Thuan (3)

Van Tuong (5)

Phu Long (4)

Nui Go Dam

Phu Long (3)

Nam Yen (2)

Nam Yen (1)

Nam Yen (5)

Nam Yen (6)

Van Tuong (4)

Thuong 

Hoa (2)

Thuong 

Hoa (3)

Thuong Hoa (4)

Thường Hoa (5)

Thuong Hoa (6)

TINH QUANG NGAI

TRUNG PHẦN

Tân Hy(2)

Dong Le (2)

Dong Le (3)

Le Thuy(1)

Nam Yen (3)

Phuoc Tho(5)

Phuoc Tho(6)

Phuoc 

Tho(3)

Thanh Thuy

An Thoi (2)

Lac Son (1)

Nui Pho Tinh

Athletic

Field

Phuoc Thuan (1)

Nui Dam lei

VUNG NHONA

VINH NHONA

BAU CA CAI

W M 3

I 3

K 3

L 3

H 4

G 4

E 4

III

7

L 7

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Escaping

VC Survivors

Escaping

VC Survivors

An Cuong(1)

4

?

(

h

m 

W

H

uo

G

n

hu ngL

(

uo

(

H

U

Hoa (

L 7

m

M 7

Nam Yen (4) Án Cuong(2)

Le Thuy(2)

An Loc

Phu Long (1)

An Thoi (1)

0 Meters 1000 N

LZ RED

LZ WHITE

LZ BLUE

GREEN BEACH

PL APPLE 

PL BANANA

PL CHERRY

Map adapted by Marine Corps History Division 

Tactical situation, night, 18–19 August. All of 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, is now ashore and Company L, 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, 

has moved north to reinforce the lines of 3d Battalion, 3d Marines. Approximate location of the missing supply convoy is indicated by a question mark.
the Marines’ regimental command post—which was struck 

by the air attack called in by 2d Battalion, 4th Marines—

had been jogging in column in full view of Marine observers. And while the enemy had skillfully sprung the ambush 

on the supply column, he had underestimated the firepower 

and marksmanship of American infantrymen by charging 

across open rice paddies in close formations in an attempt to 

kill the survivors of the ambush. As Staff Sergeant Marino 

commented, the Viet Cong “got a bad habit of bunching up, 

because we killed quite a few of them in bunches.”

While the Viet Cong as a whole had fought ferociously, 

interrogations of those who had been captured illustrated 

that the shock of battle had affected their units, too. Nguyen 

Mai, a 17-year-old member of 2d Platoon, 2d Company, 60th 

Viet Cong Battalion, reported that his unit was about to begin 

its usual morning training at around 0700 when American 

helicopters were seen flying overhead. From his perspective, 

his unit was “surrounded” by an American heliborne force. 

After fighting for half an hour, his company “was broken up 

and in disorder, and [Mai] was captured” near Van Tuong (2). 

After fighting resolutely for most of the day, the officers of 

the 1st Viet Cong Regiment decided there was nothing more 

to gain from continuing the battle on the same terms. During 

the day, officers at the regimental level had considered sending the regiment’s two battalions located to the south northward to help their besieged comrades. They finally decided 

that it would be unwise to have these units moving at daylight 

with American aircraft in the area, however. Hence, the bulk 

of the regiment, after having fought the Marines at relatively 

close range, attempted to break contact during the night of 

18–19 August, and it seems that many of the regiment’s survivors were able to do so. After the war, survivors told Marine 

author Otto J. Lehrack that they escaped from near where 

Company H, 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, was dug in. Indeed, 

with Company E, 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, located two 

kilometers to the north, it would not have been difficult for 

the Viet Cong survivors of the fighting in the Nam Yen (3)–

An Cuong (2) area to escape in that direction. They claimed 

that the regiment deliberately left one company in vicinity of 

Van Tuong (1) to continue to harass the Marines and to assist 

civilians with casualties. Based on the number of enemy killed 

and captured in the following days, it is likely that there was 

more than one company’s worth of Viet Cong in the area on 

19 August, and there may have been local-force guerillas as 

well as members of the 1st Viet Cong Regiment. Still, by 19 

August, the Marines would be fighting the remnants of the 

enemy force, not the bulk of it.

Helicopters and Supporting Arms

The determination of U.S. Marine ground troops and Viet 

Cong infantrymen had defined the nature of the battle, 

but the valor of American helicopter crews was notable as 

well, and their contributions to the fight had been immense. 

Twenty-four UH-34D and Huey helicopters from HMM361 and HMM-261, both squadrons belonging to MAG-16, 

brought 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, into the battle. Shortly 

after the landings, the 8 helicopters from HMM-261 departed for other assignments in the Da Nang area, leaving the 

16 aircraft of HMM-361. And that was about the time that 

the work got extremely busy and very dangerous for HMM361. The crews flew constantly, scrambling to meet the urgent 

demands for medical evacuations, water, and ammunition. 

Sometime after noon, Lieutenant Colonel Childers, the 

squadron commander, paused from his flights to assess the 

condition of his unit. His squadron had 14 out of 16 helicopters that had been hit by enemy fire. Around 8 to 10 of these 

craft had suffered “downing hits” but had made it back to a 

place where they could be repaired. Maintenance crews took 

parts from some helicopters to keep others going. Roughly 

half a dozen Marines on the flight crews had been wounded, 

so there was constant shuffling of Marines among aircrews to 

keep the aircraft flying.* By midafternoon, almost half of the 

squadron’s helicopters could not fly at all. One had crashed 

on the beach, and then it was deliberately destroyed by an 

air strike. Another had been forced to land in the vicinity of 

Company I, 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, and was guarded by 

the infantrymen until it could be repaired and take off again. 

The pilot of this aircraft, Major Donald J. Reilly, subsequently 

had two more aircraft disabled by hostile fire. By that time, 

there were no more aircraft available for Major Reilly to fly, 

preventing him from returning to the battle a fourth time.**

Another pilot, First Lieutenant Richard J. Hooten, made 

*By the end of the day, seven Marines from HMM-361 were wounded by 

enemy fire.

**Maj Reilly was recommended for the Distinguished Flying Cross for 

actions during Starlite.

The First Fight | 39
40 | Marines in the Vietnam War Commemorative Series 

several medical evacuations under fire and twice had his helicopter (and his crew, the second time) badly shot up, barely 

making it back to a ship or to Chu Lai. Still, he insisted on 

going out once again. Lieutenant Hooten was not even supposed to be flying because he was assigned to serve as the 

squadron maintenance test officer for that day. When several 

of his fellow aviators were wounded, however, he had jumped 

into the fight.* At around 1600, HMM-361 was relieved and 

allowed to stand down. HMM-163, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Norman G. Ewers, took over resupply and 

medical evacuation duties from HMM-361. HMM-163 had 

been part of the SLF and had arrived via the Iwo Jima. This 

squadron also had brought Companies L and I of 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, ashore during the afternoon. Between 18 

and 24 August, the 23 UH-34 helicopters of the squadron 

would make 2,975 sorties, conduct 197 medical evacuations, 

*Lt Hooten was subsequently awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.

and bring thousands of tons of much-needed supplies, as well 

as reinforcements, to allied ground troops on the Van Tuong 

Peninsula.

The combat engineers and tanks attached to the infantry 

battalions had also been important to the Marines’ success. 

Combat engineers destroyed scores of enemy fortifications, 

especially trenches and caves, and would continue to do so 

over the next several days. The tanks, though proven to be 

somewhat vulnerable to the enemy’s 57mm recoilless rifles 

and to mortar fire, had also brought a great deal of combat 

power to the battlefield. As Colonel Peatross said, “The tanks 

were certainly the difference between extremely heavy casualties and the number that we actually took.”

Naval gunfire, air support, and artillery also played a key 

role in the first day’s battle. After action reports by Marine 

infantry units noted that air support from F-4Bs and A-4s 

flown by MAG-11 and MAG-12 pilots was timely, accurate, and effective. Naval gunfire was also extremely helpful, 

Defense Department (Marine Corps) A801157 

A Marine A-4 Skyhawk preparing for takeoff in Vietnam, September 1965. Marine infantrymen uniformly noted the effective support provided by Skyhawks from MAG-11 and MAG-12 during Operation Starlite. 
The First Fight | 41

though sometimes slow. On the other hand, infantry commanders almost universally complained about the slow 

response of artillery and the difficulty of completing adjustfire missions. These problems almost certainly stemmed from 

the poor communications that aggravated the artillerymen 

as well. Poor, intermittent, and broken communications 

between forward observers, liaison officers, and the artillery 

can make it almost impossible to complete a fire mission, 

particularly when the commands and adjustments have to be 

relayed through third parties, as was often the case. Still, on 

several occasions, infantry officers commented that missions 

fired by the artillery had decisive effects on their targets. They 

were in awe, for example, of the destruction inflicted by the 

howtar battery on the 100 Viet Cong spotted jogging south 

by 2d Battalion, 4th Marines. This fire mission quite likely 

broke up a large counterattack deep into the center of the 

American lines. As Lieutenant Colonel Muir reported in his 

after action report, “Artillery support, while extremely effective once delivered, was slow to the point of being unsatisfactory because of so much traffic on the conduct of fire net.” 

Muir also pointed out that both 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, 

and 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, were attempting to share the 

same conduct of fire net, and non-fire-support personnel 

were improperly trying to use it.*

Part of the communications and fire support difficulties 

bedeviling the regiment resulted from the hasty planning 

that went into a large, complex operation. By the end of the 

first day of the battle, three infantry battalions, a regimental 

headquarters, and several ships and aircraft squadrons had 

come together in an operation without—or almost without—having fought together before. Indeed, it was the first 

American regimental-sized operation in Vietnam against 

a large enemy force, and communications and fire support 

coordination suffered. For example, Muir reported that, while 

naval gunfire support was excellent in terms of accuracy and 

volume of fire, “The time required to obtain the first round 

of naval gunfire was often too long due to the requirement 

of positioning the ship. It is believed this discrepancy will 

not exist in operations where the planning phase is longer 

*“Conduct of fire” nets were specifically reserved for sending and processing 

requests for fire support. Administrative, logistical, and other radio traffic was 

generally not supposed to be communicated on conduct of fire nets.

than thirty-six (36) hours.” As previously mentioned, the fire 

direction officer for the artillery complained that he did not 

even have the frequencies for the infantry regiment, and generally missions had to be relayed to him through third parties. 

Company M, 3d Battalion, 3d Marines—the northernmost 

rifle company serving as a blocking force—was sometimes 

able to relay fire missions from other units to the artillery 

batteries. This arrangement was of course unplanned and not 

doctrinal; moreover, Company M’s own communications 

were not good, either. The lack of communications and fire 

support coordination also affected the helicopters. The after 

action report of HMM-163 explained that although a fire 

support coordination center was established ashore, “Control and coordination of both Naval Gunfire and artillery 

appeared to be inadequate. Several near misses occurred due 

to helicopters not having knowledge of artillery and NGF 

[naval gunfire] that were firing.” Infantry officers also complained of this lack of coordination and prior knowledge of 

incoming fire, and they were stunned when fire they were not 

expecting landed uncomfortably close to friendly troops. As 

the 2d Battalion, 4th Marines’ after action report noted: “This 

Hq [headquarters] was not informed on air strikes and Naval 

Gunfire being used within our area of operations resulting in 

5 rounds of Naval Gunfire being fired into our position and 

2 air strikes, 1 of whose rockets landed 200 meters in front 

of Co. E.”

The level of communications training and discipline was 

also a problem. In this first regimental-sized operation, the 

nets were clogged with a large volume of tactical, logistical, and administrative traffic. Overanxious to communicate 

their information, Marine leaders and their inexperienced 

radio operators communicated traffic that should have been 

labeled “routine” as “priority” or “flash.” At one point, 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, received a message that 26 reporters were 

about to land at a higher headquarters as a priority message, 

though it obviously had nothing to do with the battalion’s 

immediate concerns. Meanwhile, urgent tactical information 

like the transmission of an update to the operations order, a 

fragmentary or “frag” order, was transmitted as “routine.” To 

break through all the clutter on the nets, tactical units resorted to similar upgrading of messages. After 2d Battalion, 4th 

Marines, experienced great delay in transmitting the fire mission on the column of 100 Viet Cong to the howtar battery, 
42 | Marines in the Vietnam War Commemorative Series 

it eventually upgraded its communication to a flash message 

and finally received its fire mission. Ultimately, logistical and 

administrative information about reporters and even resupply 

and maintenance requests should not have been passed on 

tactical nets at all, but on administrative ones. As Lieutenant 

Colonel Fisher insisted in his report, “Administrative traffic 

can not be tolerated on tactical nets.” Finally, the terrain itself 

tended to hamper line-of-sight communications systems 

such as the frequency modulated (FM) radios used. In some 

places, the vegetation itself was so thick that it blocked radio 

signals.

Logistical Challenges

Logistics and supply issues also surfaced during the first 

day of Operation Starlite. Fundamentally, they all revolved 

around the need to keep the rifle companies resupplied with 

water and ammunition with a limited amount of helicopters. 

Colonel Peatross had expected to have 30 helicopters available to him rather than the 24 he got, and those 24 became 

16 after the departure of HMM-261 in late morning. The 

2d Battalion, 4th Marines, was almost totally dependent on 

those helicopters not only for medical evacuations, but especially for water. The temperature on 18 August was over 100 

degrees Fahrenheit, and troops suffered terribly from thirst 

after their two to three canteens were quickly emptied. Company E, 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, along with the command 

group, received no resupply of food and only 30 gallons of 

water over a period of 36 hours. Over the same period, Company G, 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, received no resupply at all 

of food or water. On the following day (19 August), Company G, having still received no water, would suffer eight heat 

casualties. The helicopters struggled to keep up with medical evacuation requests, and when they took off to perform 

them, apparently no one thought to put full water cans on 

board. This was a problem that continued for American units 

in Vietnam, and it was a matter of equipment as well as aircraft or oversights by logistics personnel. The standard way 

to resupply infantry units with water was with 10-gallon 

metal water cans. Once the helicopters delivered them into 

a landing zone, troops had to be detached from their units 

to carry the heavy cans back to their comrades, sometimes 

over a distance of several kilometers. Then, the cans either 

had to be abandoned or carried back; many were damaged 

in the process, and the fighting efficiency of the rifle companies was diminished. Third Battalion, 3d Marines, did 

not suffer as badly in this regard on 18 August since it had 

landed amphibiously and some of its resupply came by sea 

and amtracs, rather than the overburdened helicopters. The 

exception to this was Company I of 3d Battalion, 3d Marines. 

The resupply column that was supposed to replenish its water 

supply was lost and ambushed. The end result was that Company I’s Marines fought for nearly 24 hours with only two 

canteens of water per man. Amazingly, not a single man was 

evacuated for heat exhaustion, though this was not the case 

in some other units. 

Night, 18–19 August

During the night, Colonel Peatross and the officers of RLT 7 

concentrated on securing their perimeters and solidifying the 

Marine lines along Phase Line Banana. Two elements of the 

landing team were either behind enemy lines or in the contested no-man’s land in the center of the battlefield in the An 

Cuong (2)–An Thoi area. The gap in the center was partially 

closed up with the arrival of Company L, 3d Battalion, 7th 

Marines, on the left of Company K, 3d Battalion, 3d Marines. 

Lieutenant Jenkins’s Company H, 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, 

was dug in on LZ Blue and resupplied and reinforced with 

mortars; it would be extracted from the battlefield the following day. Lieutenant Colonel Muir and his staff also decided 

to retract Company I, 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, and bring it 

back to the battalion command post east of An Cuong (2). 

Consequently, sometime during the night, Lieutenant Purnell received the order to withdraw his company to the battalion command post.

The adventures of Company I in trying to carry out this 

mission in darkness were just as harrowing and difficult as its 

experiences of the previous day. As the company attempted 

to return to friendly lines, it was hampered by the continuous 

use of illumination rounds on the battlefield. Throughout the 

night, artillery and naval guns fired illumination rounds over 

the area to reveal any Viet Cong who might be attempting to 

move about the battlefield, either escaping the area or positioning themselves for a counterattack. This was helpful to Marine 

units that were dug in for the night, but it seriously impeded 

the withdrawal of Company I. Its men would take a few steps, 

then hit the deck and remain motionless every time they heard 
The First Fight | 43

an illumination round function overhead so that they did not 

become targets to Viet Cong in the area. There never seemed 

to be more than 10 seconds at a time without illumination.

And there were indeed a large number of Viet Cong in 

the vicinity. In fact, Company I’s column literally became 

intermixed with Communist units that were also attempting 

to withdraw from the battlefield, although in a more southerly or southwesterly direction. This made for some hairraising encounters in the dark. At one point in the march, 

the Marines were fired upon by Viet Cong in a hedgerow 

just 25 or 30 meters away. Fortunately, the Marines had just 

hit the deck to avoid being lit up by an illumination round, 

but they still suffered one man killed and another wounded. 

They quickly made a flanking attack on the hedgerow and 

searched it afterward to find no Viet Cong remaining in it. 

Later, the machine gunner who was the company rear guard 

killed five Viet Cong at point-blank range. The Marine was 

lying beside the path to avoid yet another illumination round 

when four enemy soldiers carrying a wounded comrade came 

close enough that they were about to step on him. He opened 

up and killed all five. Still later, the point man of the company 

was walking along a trench line when he turned a corner and 

came face to face with a Viet Cong, whom he killed.

Company I’s men were now carrying one dead comrade 

and a wounded one, and also assisting a third man who was 

suffering a severe asthma attack. Lieutenant Purnell called 

for an emergency medical evacuation, and a helicopter pilot 

attempted to find him in the dark. When the pilot asked 

Purnell to illuminate the landing zone, Purnell responded 

that all he could do was point a flashlight at the sky. Almost 

immediately, the pilot saw the entire area lit up with flashlights pointed toward the sky, giving the Marines the eerie 

Defense Department (Marine Corps) A185319 

Illumination flares like these were fired throughout the night of 18–19 August and lit up much of the battlefield, making it difficult 

for Viet Cong units to escape or organize counterattacks without being detected and coming under direct or indirect fire. The 

flares also greatly hampered the night movements of Company I, 3d Battalion, 3d Marines. This picture was actually taken during 

Operation Piranha on 7 September 1965, two weeks after Starlite. 
44 | Marines in the Vietnam War Commemorative Series 

feeling, the conviction even, that the Viet Cong were monitoring their transmissions. Purnell’s Marines eventually covered their own flashlight with a blanket and blinked it on and 

off repeatedly. The helicopter made a difficult landing, but 

received no enemy fire and successfully evacuated the casualties. After this event, Company I received no more enemy 

fire, but Purnell reported that he and his men could clearly 

hear the shouting of enemy soldiers all around them. They did 

not reach the command post until 0430, after having fought 

nonstop for nearly 24 hours, inflicting 125 confirmed kills on 

the enemy while suffering 15 of their own killed and more 

than 50 wounded.*

The other unit that was not in a secure position on the night 

of 18–19 August, of course, was the missing supply column. 

Lieutenant Colonel Muir and his staff were extremely concerned about these Marines, but it was hard to know what 

else they could do for them since they still could not figure out 

where they were. The 3d Battalion’s after action report stated 

that the battalion staff were able to get two tanks detached 

from Company H, 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, at LZ Blue to 

move forward to the area in which the convoy was believed to 

be located “to increase the defensive capability in that area.” 

Staff Sergeant Marino requested an air strike and also a medical evacuation, but neither was possible since he could not 

provide his location. The battalion staff still had radio contact 

with the supply column, however, and it was clear they were 

no longer under attack. With great regret, Muir decided that 

he would launch no more relief columns until daylight. The 

next morning, aircraft flying over the area were finally able 

to locate the convoy’s position. The infantrymen of 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, reached the convoy at about 1000. One 

of the disabled amtracs had to be destroyed in place; one of 

the others could move on its own power, and the rest had to 

be towed back. The Marines found that the Viet Cong had 

booby-trapped the corpse of one of their dead comrades and 

left it on the ramp of one of the abandoned amtracs. Inside 

the amtrac, they had rigged another booby trap by placing a 

hand grenade inside an empty C-ration can and placing it on 

*Company I’s after action report gives an original strength of 7 officers and 

177 enlisted. It lists a figure of 14 killed in action and 47 wounded, but this 

apparently did not include attachments, of which 2 U.S. Navy corpsmen were 

wounded and 1 killed, and 3 forward observers attached to the unit were also 

wounded.

the seat beside the driver’s hatch. Both traps were disarmed.

While the Marines focused on shoring up their lines 

during the night, the Viet Cong focused on slipping out of 

the noose the Marines were drawing around them. As related 

earlier, a large number were able to escape to the south and 

southwest around the flanks of Company H, 2d Battalion, 4th 

Marines. Company G, 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, observed 

another group of approximately 40 Viet Cong moving in 

front of its position from east to west, probably in another 

attempt to escape the battle area. The Marine infantrymen 

called an artillery mission, but by the time the first rounds 

arrived 15 minutes later, they assumed that the enemy troops 

were already gone. At least one Viet Cong company stayed 

behind in the vicinity of Van Tuong (1), and the Marines’ 

work over the next few days was to capture or kill the remaining holdouts.

The Fight Continues, 19 August

Colonel Peatross’s concept of operations remained essentially 

the same on 19 August: his goal was to tighten the cordon 

around the enemy and drive him into the sea. The zone of 

action of 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, including its temporarily 

assigned Company L, 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, was narrowed somewhat to the east. Lieutenant Colonel Muir understandably felt that his battalion had had too much frontage 

to cover the day before, with three—and at one point, two—

companies trying to advance over a frontage of nearly three 

kilometers. Third Battalion’s mission on 19 August was to 

drive northeast toward the sea, eliminating enemy resistance 

along the way. Company K, 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, would 

be on the left; Company L, 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, on the 

right; and Company L, 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, in reserve. 

Second Battalion, 4th Marines, would drive toward the east, 

linking up with 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, and also eventually 

reaching the sea. The two remaining companies of 3d Battalion, 7th Marines—Companies I and M—were to drive 

through An Cuong (2), help extract the supply column, and 

establish a blocking position in the An Thoi area to prevent 

the escape of Viet Cong. Company M of 3d Battalion, 3d 

Marines, would continue to serve as the blocking force in the 

north and provide security for the howtar battery. During the 

day, Captain Morris moved one of its platoons two kilometers to the east where it occupied a hill along the coast that 
The First Fight | 45

offered excellent observation of the ground to the south and 

west. While moving to its new position, the platoon spotted 

12 Viet Cong soldiers moving south and fired on them. Upon 

reaching the position, the Marines found five enemy dead. 

The Marines of 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, stepped off at 

0700. As they reached Phase Line Cherry, just a few hundred 

yards from the beach, the front two companies and the command group began receiving intense small-arms and sniper 

fire and some mortar fire. One mortar round killed a Marine 

in Company L, 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, and wounded 

11 others. At that moment, First Lieutenant Richard E. 

Schwartz, the weapons platoon commander, saw smoking, 

unexploded white phosphorus rounds in the area and bravely 

removed them before they could explode and injure others. 

The Marines swept forward to the dune line overlooking the 

ocean as they responded with their own weapons and with 

artillery, naval gunfire, and air attacks. Observers on ships offshore could observe Viet Cong trying to escape by climbing 

28

28

32

28 15

14

14

14

3

14

15

5

coral 4

coral reef coral

rock

17

mud

sand

sand

mud

sand coral

rocky

rocky

rocky

19

sand

8 15

rocky

4 sand

sand

7

8

5

13

sand

15

sand

6 7

10

6

2

2

10

2

6

Phuoc Hoa (2) Phước Hoa

Phuoc Hoa (4)

Phú Long (1)

Van Tuong (2)

Phuoc Thuan (2)

Van Tuong (1)

Van Tuong (3)

Phuoc Thuan (3)

Van Tuong (5)

Nui Go Dam

Phu Long (3)

Nam Yen (2)

Nam Yen (1)

Nam Yen (4)

Nam Yen (5)

Van Tuong (4)

Le Thuy(1)

Le Thuy(2)

Nam Yen (3)

Án Cuong(1)

An Loc

An Thoi (1)

An Thoi (2)

Athletic

Field

Phuoc Thuan (1)

Nui Dam lei

VUNG NHONA

VINH NHONA

Lac Son (1)

M 3

I 3

... M

I 7

G 4

III

7

M 7

L 7

Na

x x

x

x x

x

x

x V

7

K 3 Thanh Thuy

Phú Long (1)

Phu Long (2)

E 4

LZ WHITE

LZ BLUE

LZ RED

PL CHERRY

PL BANANA

W

0 Meters 1000 N

Map adapted by Marine Corps History Division 

Movements of Marine rifle companies on 19 August, including eastward movement of one platoon of Company M, 3d Battalion, 

3d Marines. Xs mark locations from which the Marines received enemy fire during the course of the day.
46 | Marines in the Vietnam War Commemorative Series 

down cliffs to the beach and boarding sampans. Naval gunfire 

literally blew the sampans out of the water and decimated 

the enemy troops on the cliffs and beaches. Company L, 3d 

Battalion, 7th Marines, initially the reserve company for 3d 

Battalion, 3d Marines, encountered resistance as well and 

killed an estimated 10 Viet Cong over the course of the day. 

At around 1700, 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, turned back to 

the south and reestablished its previous positions along Phase 

Line Banana.

The 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, began its sweep about the 

same time as 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, and established contact with 3d Battalion’s left flank at around 1000. Company 

G, 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, found itself in two fierce firefights between 0800 and 0930 with an estimated 40–50 Viet 

Cong. In the second engagement, the company was able to 

kill four of the enemy and capture two. Company G suffered 

no casualties from enemy fire; however, later in the day the 

unit would lose eight men to heat exhaustion due to still not 

being resupplied with water. Company E, on the battalion’s 

right flank, swept through the village of Van Tuong (1). The 

Marines of this company and of the command group found 

abundant evidence of the Viet Cong’s recent presence. There 

were packs, documents, small arms, grenades, and miles of 

communications wire. The underground bunkers and tunnels 

were so numerous that Lieutenant Colonel Fisher did not 

believe he had time to search them all adequately, and he recommended to Colonel Peatross that an ARVN battalion be 

sent in to search the village more thoroughly. Around 1000, 

the company received intense small arms fire from an estimated 20 Viet Cong. The Marines of Company E swept the 

Phuac Thuan Peninsula, killed one Communist and captured 

two, and established a position on Hill 32, where they stayed 

overnight.

Thus, while the fighting on 19 August nowhere near 

matched the intensity of the day before, there was still a 

significant Viet Cong presence in the area. The operation 

was originally scheduled to end on the third day, but Major 

General Lewis Walt apparently decided that it had been successful enough to warrant further sweeps of the area, and he 

extended it until 24 August. On 20 August, 3d Battalion, 3d 

Marines, swept south to Green Beach, where it loaded onto 

ships and returned to Chu Lai. It was replaced by 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, which had come ashore on Green Beach 

hours earlier and been guided into its positions by personnel 

from 3d Battalion, 3d Marines. The 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, 

was extracted on the afternoon of 20 August by helicopter. 

The 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, remained in the area 

until 24 August. From 19 to 24 August, this battalion killed 

a confirmed 35 enemy soldiers and captured 17; dozens of 

other prisoners could not be definitively determined to be 

Viet Cong at the time of capture. During this period, the 

battalion suffered another 21 men wounded, though none 

were killed. Joining 1st and 3d Battalions, 7th Marines, in the 

operation from 20 to 24 August were two battalions from the 

2d ARVN Division—2d Battalion of the 51st Regiment and 

3d Vietnamese Marine Battalion. These ARVN units moved 
The First Fight | 47

overland from the south and patrolled the southern and western edges of the battlefield in order to round up any more 

Viet Cong fugitives from the Van Tuong area. Their efforts 

produced few tangible results.

Operation Starlite officially concluded at 2400 on 24 

August, with all American troops either back in Chu Lai or 

on board the ships by which they had arrived. ARVN troops 

continued to sweep the area for several more days. The feeling was that American forces had inflicted a decisive defeat 

on the enemy. The number of confirmed enemy dead was 

614. Relying on the knowledge that the Viet Cong dragged 

away their dead whenever possible, on the assumption that 

more enemy soldiers were killed when Marines destroyed 

and sealed off underground caves and bunkers, and on the 

reports of ARVN officers and village chiefs that more bodies 

were found, an American intelligence report in September 

estimated that 1,430 Viet Cong had actually been killed. 

Quite likely this latest estimate was too high, considering 

that probably no more than 1,500 enemy soldiers of the 1st 

Viet Cong Regiment had been present; still, there is no doubt 

that enemy casualties had been severe. The Marines captured 

nine confirmed Viet Cong soldiers and hundreds of enemy 

weapons. In comparison to these high Communist losses, the 

Marines lost 45 killed and 203 wounded, although 5 additional Marines later died from their wounds.

Reactions and Lessons Learned

Long before the conclusion of Operation Starlite, it had 

begun to generate intense interest in Washington and Saigon, 

as well as in the American media. Around the world, word 

was spreading that U.S. Marines and Communist troops were 

engaged in a large, violent confrontation and that American 

troops were inflicting a decisive defeat on the enemy. Before 

the operation was 24 hours old, General William Westmoreland’s headquarters in Saigon began receiving a stream of 

messages from Washington with President Lyndon Johnson 

demanding immediate information on its progress. During 

the following days, the president requested detailed summaries listing the units involved, friendly and enemy casualties, 

participation by the ARVN, and when the American units 

would be withdrawn. In turn, USMACV in Saigon demanded frequent and detailed updates from III MAF, which the 

latter dutifully provided.

For their part, South Vietnamese army officers’ reaction to 

the battle was more negative. They were skeptical of reports 

that the 1st Viet Cong Regiment was destroyed, having seen 

supposedly destroyed enemy units spring back to life within 

a matter of months. Moreover, some were resentful at having 

not been informed of the operation before it began and of 

ARVN units being included in it only after the toughest 

fighting was over. On the other hand, Colonel Peatross felt 

that he was able to establish an excellent relationship with 

Brigadier General Lam, the commander of the 2d ARVN 

Division. His staff and General Lam’s staff began working 

together on 19 August. Peatross felt that the staffs cooperated 

well and that he and Lam had great mutual trust for as long 

Defense Department (Marine Corps) A185824 

Troops from 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, search a village on 

the Van Tuong Peninsula for Viet Cong during Operation 

Starlite. 
48 | Marines in the Vietnam War Commemorative Series 

as he served in Vietnam. On the whole, though, there was 

considerable grumbling among South Vietnamese officers, 

although General Thi’s own insistence on secrecy was probably the main reason the ARVN had no prior knowledge and 

only limited participation in the operation.

The American news media was also interested in the largest battle yet fought by U.S. troops in Vietnam. The reporting 

indicated the beginning of a rift between the news media and 

the military, however, one perhaps involving the White House 

as well. No reporters were with the Marines on the first day of 

the battle because the operation had been launched in secrecy. Once news of its size and importance got out, however, 

there was a surge of media attention. On 19 or 20 August, 21 

journalists boarded three helicopters and landed at the RLT 

7 command post virtually unannounced. By the evening of 

19 August, Washington time, their stories were appearing in 

evening editions of newspapers in the United States. In some 

articles, the reporters seemed duly impressed with the successes achieved in the battle, including the large number of 

enemy casualties. Yet, at least one reporter, who later became 

very well known to American audiences, chose to focus on 

what was more tragic and less flattering. He wrote an article 

on the lost supply column that appeared in a number of large 

newspapers under various titles: “Marine Supply Trip Runs 

into Disaster,” “Death Overtakes a U.S. Supply Unit,” and 

“Marine Supply Column Lumbers to Death.” A number of 

statements in the article exaggerated the tragedy of the story, 

which was tragic enough, but also painted a picture of incompetence. The author of the story claimed that the column 

“never returned,” and he gave graphic details on how some 

of the men were killed. Under the subheading, “Amtraks Fail 

to Find Way,” the article reported that the amtrac crews were 

“not trained” to maneuver the vehicles in the terrain and that 

“the huge amtraks flopped from one rice paddy to another, 

Defense Department (Marine Corps) A185829 

During the mop-up phase of Operation Starlite, two Marines from Company D, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, search the area to their 

front for Viet Cong snipers on 22 August 1965. 
The First Fight | 49

unwieldy behemoths unable to find their way.” In another 

version, the reporter stated that as the amtracs “flopped” 

among the rice paddies, the Marines of the convoy were “calling at one battalion and then the next. No one seemed to 

pay much attention to it.” In “Death Overtakes a U.S. Supply 

Unit,” the version printed in the New York Times, the article 

reported that “relief forces counted 18 Viet Cong bodies,” 

not the 60 that numerous Marine witnesses and after action 

reports cited.

On the very day that most of these articles appeared, 

President Johnson referred them to Headquarters Marine 

Corps, and within hours USMACV headquarters in Saigon 

and Lieutenant General Victor Krulak were informed as 

well. USMACV responded in a classified “telecon” message to Washington the same day, providing a more factual 

account. Military officers denied that the amtrac crews were 

untrained for their jobs and objected to the charge that it was 

an “easy” mission gone awry or that the crews “called to one 

battalion, and then another” with no response, pointing out 

correctly that the column was in constant radio contact with 

3d Battalion, 3d Marines. The report ended with the statement that the reporter had been the subject of a background 

investigation in May, and that “he is tempermental [sic], had 

admitted writing slanted stories when displeased by actions 

of the military. In general, he writes sensational type stories.” 

A military officer at Headquarters Marine Corps explained 

in a log entry that “the basis for the President’s concern was 

the flippant attitude taken toward Marines KIA [killed in 

action]. (‘These boys have mothers who will read that article

. . .’).” Clearly, the relationship between the press and the military and national command authority at this early stage in the 

war was already beginning to deteriorate.*

Another aspect of the battle that did not go well for 

the Marines was the attempt to integrate South Vietnamese Popular Forces (PFs) into the battle to liberate the Van 

Tuong Peninsula. The PFs were local village militias organized into platoons that were at least nominally loyal to the 

Saigon regime. During the summer of 1965, the Marines in I 

Corps were beginning their efforts to integrate the PFs into 

*Operation Starlite occurred during the same month as the controversial 

Cam Ne incident, in which a media crew filmed Marines burning huts in a 

South Vietnamese village.

the Combined Action Program. In terms of both military 

effectiveness and loyalty and reliability, the PFs had the worst 

reputation in the ARVN establishment. A number of PF soldiers landed by helicopter with 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, 

and unfortunately they did nothing during Operation Starlite to improve their poor reputation. In fairness, the PF soldiers were minimally trained, and their primary purpose was 

to maintain security in their home villages; they were totally 

unprepared for the scale of violence they would face in this 

operation. Often, they would hide in trenches and refuse to 

follow the Marines as the latter advanced. The battalion’s after 

action report said that “the PF’s would not cooperate. They 

wanted to go to the villages to cook and get water. They were 

instructed several times to remain with the company as they 

might get shot or hurt. They demanded twice the amount 

of food and water as we normally get.” Thus, the battalion’s 

official report testified to the PFs’ ineffectiveness; individual 

Marines later related that the PFs were not only ineffective 

but a threat to their supposed allies. During the hottest part 

of Company H’s battle in the Nam Yen (3) area, a handful of 

PFs allegedly concluded that the Marines were losing, decided to join the winning side, and fired on the Marines. Several 

Marines angrily responded in kind and killed the PFs that 

were firing on them.**

The U.S. Marines who fought on the Van Tuong Peninsula, along with their Navy and Army brethren, effectively 

capitalized on the strengths of the U.S. military, especially its 

overwhelming firepower, relatively sophisticated equipment, 

and ability to coordinate multiple sources of fire support. 

With less than three days’ planning, American servicemen 

were able to bring naval gunfire, fixed wing, rotary wing, and 

artillery support to a complex operation that combined vertical envelopment with an amphibious landing. Two destroyers 

and one light cruiser of the U.S. Navy fired a total of 1,562 

rounds during Starlite, including high explosive, white phosphorus, and illumination. Despite the close calls in which 

**Marine units’ after action reports do not indicate exactly how many PFs 

accompanied 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, for Starlite. Apparently, Companies 

G and H had PFs with them, and it is possible that Company E and the 

command group did as well. Nor do reports indicate how many became 

casualties. Cpl Robert Collins, a Marine with Company L, 3d Battalion, 7th 

Marines, was on board the Iwo Jima shortly before boarding a helicopter to 

enter the fight when he saw a PF soldier on a stretcher, recently evacuated 

from the battlefield. Collins was amazed at the stoicism of this PF soldier 

whose foot had been severed and was still in his boot.
50 | Marines in the Vietnam War Commemorative Series 

naval gunfire rounds landed among or dangerously close to 

friendly troops, officers in 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, and 2d 

Battalion, 4th Marines, universally acknowledged the effectiveness of naval gunfire during the battle.

The Marines, who had pioneered the development of 

close air support techniques in the 1930s and 1940s, proved 

they could still execute them well during Operation Starlite. 

Throughout the day on 18 August, aircraft from 1st Marine 

Aircraft Wing flew 78 sorties in support of the Marines 

on the ground, with some strikes called within 50 yards of 

friendly positions. These air attacks were extremely valuable 

to Marine ground troops. There is no doubt, for example, 

that they aided Company H, 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, in 

its attack on Hill 43, and later helped the company give as 

good as it got as it spent much of the day virtually surrounded 

and probably outnumbered by a well-armed and determined 

foe. General Walt was with 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, on 

19 August, and he personally witnessed several air strikes 

that confirmed his confidence in Marine close air support. A 

veteran of World War II and Korea, Walt saw firsthand that 

Marine air had not forgotten how to support the infantry. 

“Hour after hour,” he recalled, A-4 Skyhawks loaded with 

bombs and napalm supported Marine rifle companies as 

they advanced from hedgerow to hedgerow, striking enemy 

positions within 100 meters of the Marines they were supporting. “It was,” Walt claimed, “one of the most fantastic 

demonstrations of close air support that I have ever seen.”

American use of air superiority was not limited to attack 

jets. Army Grumman OV-1 Mohawk reconnaissance aircraft provided 24-hour aerial observation of the battlefield, 

aided by observation planes from Marine Observation 

Squadron 2. And, of course, the performance of the workhorse helicopters of the operation, the UH-34Ds, along 

with the Hueys, helped validate the tactic of vertical envelopment for the near future. The first day of the operation 

saw more than 500 helicopter sorties flown by these aircraft, 

which brought 600 Marines and 20 tons of cargo into the 

battle, as well as the evacuation of casualties. Eight other 

Hueys belonging to the U.S. Army had provided useful 

fire support during the initial helicopter landings. Colonel Peatross considered Starlite a test that the Hueys and 

UH-34s had passed. Despite the fact that logistics were 

strained at times, Peatross believed the battle showed that 

the helicopters generally could keep up with the demand 

of resupplying troops in the field. There had also been concerns prior to the battle about the helicopters’ survivability 

against small arms while conducting medical evacuations. 

Despite the hits sustained by the aircraft of HMM-361, or 

perhaps because of them, those doubts largely disappeared.

Marine infantry commanders were generally very pleased 
The First Fight | 51

with the naval gunfire and air support they received during 

the battle. This was despite the fact that the number of close 

calls due to friendly fire from naval gunfire and American 

aircraft were almost too numerous to count. Time and again 

during the first three days of Operation Starlite, rounds from 

friendly aircraft or naval guns landed among or dangerously close to Marine positions, and no one could figure out 

who called the mission. One friendly-fire incident certainly 

occurred in the usual way; that is, one unit spotted a friendly 

unit and, being confused on its actual location, assumed it to 

be an enemy force. This occurred on 19 August when Company G, 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, accidentally called an air 

strike on elements of its adjacent unit, Company M, 3d Battalion, 3d Marines. Fortunately, Company M’s commander 

was able to get the mission stopped before more than three 

bombs were dropped, and no Marines were injured.

Other close-call missions, however, seemingly came out 

of nowhere, and fueled suspicion among some Marines that 

clever Vietnamese Communists were using American radio 

nets to call some of the fire missions. Given the confusion 

reigning on the conduct of fire nets, that hypothesis is not out 

of the question. During the night of 19 August, five rounds of 

naval gunfire passed directly over the heads of the command 

group and Company G of 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, flying 

low enough to hit the treetops above them and potentially 

cause casualties. This mission was neither called nor controlled by anyone in 2d Battalion; fortunately, its personnel 

were able to stop the mission after sending several flash messages. Two hours later, both elements were hit with an air 

strike, with rockets and bombs landing within 200 meters of 

their troops. Incredulous that they were once again receiving 

close-in friendly fires that they had not requested, officers in 

2d Battalion again sent a flash message to halt the attack. In 

all, 2d Battalion endured one bombardment of naval gunfire 

and two air attacks, and 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, received 

two naval gunfire attacks and several air attacks.

Miraculously, no Marines were injured in any of these 

friendly-fire incidents, but they were at least as unsettling 

as the case in which the Viet Cong seemingly intercepted 

the transmission between a helicopter and Company I, 3d 

Battalion, 3d Marines, and lit flashlights to confuse the pilot. 

Company M, 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, was the victim of so 

many friendly-fire missions that Captain Morris considered 

that aspect of the battle, along with communications difficulties, to be the most serious challenge his Marines faced. 

In addition to the air strike mistakenly called on his unit by 

Company G of 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, Company M was 

also fired on by naval guns during the evenings of 18 and 

19 August. Somehow, none of the rounds exploded. Captain 

Morris knew that some of these incidents were due to poor 

Defense Department (Marine Corps) A186281 

U.S. Marines being resupplied by helicopter in Vietnam, 

1965. The aircraft pictured is the UH-34 Seahorse, which 

played a critical role in troop transport and resupply in 

Operation Starlite and allowed for vertical envelopment 

tactics. 
52 | Marines in the Vietnam War Commemorative Series 

communications and the fog of war in general, but he remains 

convinced that enemy soldiers who could speak English were 

infiltrating American conduct of fire nets and calling in fire 

on Marine positions. “I swear to you today,” he says, “that 

some very fluent Vietnamese were calling them in also.”

Although hampered by poor communications and incomplete fire planning prior to the battle, the artillery made an 

important contribution to the battle as well. The howtar 

battery and Battery K of 3d Battalion, 12th Marines, fired 

a majority of the rounds, though the infantry also received 

some long-range fires from batteries located at Chu Lai. 

Altogether the artillery fired 2,446 rounds during Starlite, 

and aerial observers or those with the infantry credited that 

arm with killing 116 Viet Cong and wounding 13.*

Certainly another element of the American war machine 

that proved its mettle in Operation Starlite was the individual 

Marine himself, along with his small unit leaders. The division, regimental, and battalion commanders in the operation 

were veterans of World War II and Korea, while the younger 

men they commanded had never faced determined Japanese, 

North Korean, or Chinese adversaries. Starlite reassured the 

older generation of officers and staff noncommissioned officers that the new generation could be counted on to fight. 

The heroics of Corporal O’Malley, Lance Corporal Paul, 

and a host of others served notice that the Marines of the 

mid-1960s would uphold the legacy of valor passed on to 

them. First Sergeant Art Petty of Company I, 3d Battalion, 

3d Marines, marveled at the three wounded Marines of his 

company who defied doctors’ orders in Chu Lai, checked out 

new rifles, and hitched rides on a helicopter to rejoin their 

company. Lieutenant Colonel Muir nearly became emotional 

when speaking of Marines who had refused evacuation for 

their wounds until after the battle was over, relating, “This 

morning (the day after the battle) we had half a dozen men 

report to sick call to have shrapnel taken out of them. They 

hadn’t reported they’d been wounded until they were sure the 

battle was over.” Moreover, the small unit leaders at the company, platoon, and squad level proved they were tough and 

smart and that they could be counted on to take the initiative 

*A report by USMACV headquarters in Saigon gives the same Viet Cong 

casualty figures but says that the artillery fired 3,048 rounds. The author has 

chosen the lower number of rounds provided in the command chronology 

prepared by 3d Battalion, 12th Marines. 

and make hard decisions on their own. Asked eight years 

later about the quality of junior officers in Vietnam, Colonel 

Peatross insisted that the Vietnam generation was actually 

better than he and his contemporaries had been in World 

War II and Korea—and his first opportunity to observe them 

in action had been during Operation Starlite.

Another aspect of the American effort on the Van Tuong 

Peninsula that demands evaluation is the rapid and complex 

planning that went into the operation and whether or not the 

secrecy and speed in the planning actually helped achieve the 

element of surprise. American officers believed for years after 

the battle that they had surprised the Viet Cong. Vietnamese 

sources published later and interviews with former Viet Cong 

officers by Marine veterans and historians have modified this 

view somewhat. It was virtually impossible for the French in 

Vietnam, and later the Americans, to conceal daytime troop 

movements from the Vietnamese population, which meant 

that sooner or later that information would reach the Viet 

Cong. Reconnaissance overflights by fixed-wing aircraft and 

helicopters and the shuffling of units within the Chu Lai cantonment probably attracted notice. Former Viet Cong officers 

claim they knew an American attack was coming on the Van 

Tuong Peninsula.

What they clearly failed to anticipate was the means by 

which the attack would come and how soon. The Viet Cong 

leadership was expecting an attack from the north or west, 

but not from the south (particularly not an amphibious one) 

and expected that the bulk of the attacking force would travel 

overland, not by helicopter or sealift. Thus, the enemy greatly 

underestimated the Americans’ amphibious and heliborne 

capability at this early stage of the war. In an analysis that was 

unusually candid for postwar Communist Vietnamese battle 

studies, one account, republished in Warren Wilkins’s study 

of the Viet Cong, admitted:

Even though we had detected the enemy’s planned 

operation ahead of time and had prepared a plan to 

counter the enemy operation, perhaps because the 

regiment was ready to move out of the area to carry 

out a new mission, the plan that we developed was too 

simplistic and failed to anticipate the enemy’s ability 

to conduct an amphibious landing operation from the 

sea. . . . [The Viet Cong officers at Van Tuong] concluded that the enemy’s primary effort would be an 
The First Fight | 53

attack mounted overland, but in fact the enemy’s primary effort was helicopter assault landings combined 

with an amphibious assault from the sea.

This failure to account for American helicopter and amphibious lift capability partly explains the Viet Cong response in 

the opening hour or two of the battle. Though Nguyen Dinh 

Trong was eventually able to organize a stubborn resistance 

just inland from the beach, the initial Viet Cong defense 

of Green Beach was anemic, consisting mainly of an ineffective line-charge detonation and scattered small-arms 

and machine-gun fire. The stiffest resistance came from the 

western portion of the battlefield, one of the directions from 

which the attack was expected.

Viet Cong activity just prior to and during the attack 

indicates that enemy officers did not expect the attack to 

come as soon as it did. If they had, the 1st Viet Cong Regiment 

could have either quickly evacuated the peninsula before the 

landings of 18 August or reinforced it with its remaining one 

and a half battalions and its regimental and battalion commanders. The regiment attempted neither of these courses of 

action until it was too late to avoid a serious tactical defeat. 

The Viet Cong assumption that the attack was not imminent 

also explains the universal testimony of captured soldiers that 

when it came, their units had just finished breakfast and were 

beginning routine training exercises. They were not manning their defenses in expectation of attack, which perhaps 

explains the lack of resistance to the landing in LZ Red and 

the initially weak resistance at LZ White.*

Communist Reaction

The official Communist response to the Van Tuong battle 

years later was to hail it as a glorious victory. The Hanoi 

regime’s official history of the war claimed that the Americans 

had 100 tanks and armored personnel carriers in the operation, and that their troops outnumbered the Viet Cong by a 

ratio of 20 to 1. In another wild exaggeration, it stated that 

local Viet Cong militia and the 1st Viet Cong Regiment killed 

*A common Viet Cong tactic was to let the first wave of helicopters land 

without firing in order to shoot down others and leave the first wave of 

troops stranded. It is possible that some Viet Cong leaders were thinking 

along those lines on the morning of 18 August; however, postwar accounts 

quoted in this text seem to indicate that the enemy was initially unprepared 

for American helicopter landings that day.

or wounded more than 900 American soldiers, destroyed 22 

tanks and other armored vehicles, and shot down 13 aircraft. 

Another source gave similar figures and said that the “American imperialists” had been defeated, though they “selected 

the battlefield, . . . chose the timing of the attack, and . . . 

held absolute superiority in both manpower and firepower.” 

A third claimed that eight Marine battalions had attacked 

on 18 August, not the two (or three, if one counts the belated 

arrival of 3d Battalion, 7th Marines) that were ashore that 

day.

Clearly, Communist propaganda greatly distorted the 

truth, and it is undeniable that the 1st Viet Cong Regiment

was defeated in mid-August 1965. Suffering very heavy casualties, it was forced to withdraw from an area that had served 

as a staging area and source of supplies for some time, after 

which U.S. Marine and ARVN forces destroyed hundreds of 

caves, bunkers, fighting holes, and trench lines, and captured 

hundreds of weapons. The Marines had captured a Viet Cong 

stronghold. Beneath Hanoi’s exaggerated claims, however, the 

fact remained that the Viet Cong soldier had performed well 

and could no longer be safely dismissed with the stereotype 

of a sneaking, cowardly guerilla. The Americans saw that the 

1st Viet Cong Regiment, which had already humiliated ARVN 

units on several occasions, was skilled in defensive fighting 

and in the preparation of defensive positions. Its soldiers were 

experts at using trenches, bunkers, caves, and tunnels to slow 

an enemy advance and reinfiltrate areas that American troops 

had already secured or “cleared.” Moreover, the Viet Cong 

soldier was not cowed by American tanks. When dug in, he 

could withstand heavy air and artillery attacks and continue 

to fight. When the Viet Cong infantryman attacked, he did 

so boldly, as in the case of the trapped supply convoy. With 

determined resistance and skillful use of firepower, Americans could repulse enemy attacks with heavy casualties, but 

the insurgents were likely to inflict at least some American 

casualties in the process.

Operation Starlite was a learning experience for the 

Viet Cong. First, having gained a new respect for American 

amphibious capability, never again would they leave a unit 

situated so close to the coast that it was vulnerable to an 

attack from the sea. The coastline, they learned, was not a protected flank, but an avenue of attack for the Marines. Second, 

Communist forces, which were already somewhat exposed 
54 | Marines in the Vietnam War Commemorative Series 

to American vertical envelopment tactics, further developed 

their techniques and tactics for opposing helicopter landings, 

or “antiairmobile doctrine.” Finally, at the operational or strategic level, the Viet Cong did not yet give up their attempts 

to fight big-unit battles against the ARVN and U.S. forces, 

something that Lieutenant General Krulak had prematurely 

predicted in a report on Starlite in September 1965. Despite 

the losses suffered at Van Tuong, General Nguyen Chi Thanh 

of the People’s Army of Vietnam, who was the senior Communist military officer in South Vietnam, concluded that the 

battle showed that even with overwhelming firepower and 

the advantage of selecting the battlefield, the Americans had 

not been able to annihilate a main-force Viet Cong regiment; 

it would live to fight another day. As early as December, in 

fact, U.S. Marines would square off against a rebuilt 1st Viet 

Cong Regiment in Operation Harvest Moon. Still, Starlite 

was the first of a series of big-unit battles between American 

and Viet Cong forces in 1965 and 1966 that stemmed the 

tide of military defeats that the latter had been able to inflict 

on the ARVN. The Communists’ desire to crush the ARVN 

before the large-scale involvement of American ground 

troops would not be fulfilled.

American Reaction

The initial American reaction to Operation Starlite was 

enthusiastic. President Johnson eagerly hailed the good news 

as evidence of growing success in Vietnam. In an official, 

public message to General Westmoreland on 19 August, 

he extended his “heartfelt thanks and congratulations—and 

those of the American people—to the military units under 

your command which have achieved clearcut victory against 

the 1st Viet Cong Regiment at Chu Lai. This nation is deeply 

proud of its fearless fighting sons. They will have the continued, united, and determined support of their people at 

home.” Marines in Vietnam, as well as senior Army officers 

in Vietnam, shared some of this enthusiasm and were glad of 

the opportunity to engage the enemy in open battle rather 

than in platoon-sized patrols and ambushes. General Walt, 

for example, said that “Operation Starlite was the first opportunity where we fought the Viet Cong on our own terms.”

Walt’s comment suggests several things about the future 

of the American war effort in Vietnam. First, the success 

of Starlite partially validated Westmoreland’s conventional 

approach to fighting the war. Even General Krulak, who 

refused to de-emphasize the pacification approach, stated 

that the Americans had performed well in doing what they 

best knew how to do. The intelligence had been timely and 

useful, and the “Marines, ground and air, just behaved like 

they were supposed to behave.” In other words, the Marines, 

soldiers, and sailors had performed well in what they had 

been trained to do: effectively utilize firepower, coordinate 

the use of combined arms, and kill enemy soldiers and “liberate” territory from enemy control. Second, there was a sense 

among most American military men and civilian leaders in 

Washington that this was the way the war should proceed—

fighting conventional battles was what the American military 

Official U.S. Marine Corps photo 

LtGen Victor H. “Brute” Krulak was a veteran of World War II 

and the Korean War. From 1964 to 1968, he served as commanding general of FMFPac and was the highest-ranking 

Marine in the Southeast Asia theater during that time. In 1984, 

15 years after his retirement, he published First to Fight: An 

Inside View of the U.S. Marine Corps. In this book, Krulak continued to argue that the U.S. military should have placed more 

emphasis on a pacification strategy in Vietnam rather than an 

attritional strategy utilizing the traditional application of firepower and large, conventional battles. 
The First Fight | 55

was most comfortable and effective in doing, and ultimately 

it would bring success.

Still, General Krulak and other senior Marine leaders 

insisted that the big-battle war must coexist with and reinforce efforts at pacification in the countryside. In a key report 

prepared by his FMFPac staff, Krulak contended that one of 

most significant facts about Starlite was not the number of 

Viet Cong soldiers killed, but that “it exhibited once again 

the great value of intelligence, particularly that which comes 

from the people as a result of our civic action efforts.”* In a 

long message to the Commandant of the Marine Corps in 

*The report stated that the second significant lesson from Starlite was that 

it “exhibited that a firm, sea-based position, such as Chu Lai, which cannot 

be outflanked, possesses dual virtue. First, as in this case, it posed a threat 

which obliged the VC to mass to destroy it frontally. [At the time, it was still 

believed that the 1st Viet Cong Regiment was planning an attack on Chu Lai.] 

Second, it provided us a secure base for an air/sea attack on the VC force.”

September, Krulak argued that the success of Starlite and the 

relative inactivity of large Viet Cong units since then showed 

that the enemy was abandoning “direct engagement of their 

organized units with our forces” and would probably revert 

to an emphasis on guerilla activity. The top Marine commander in the Pacific maintained that what had been just as 

important as Starlite’s success were the “combined militarycivic action programs” in the Da Nang, Phu Bai, and Chu Lai 

areas that had brought much-needed security and economic 

opportunity to scores of villages. Krulak did not want to miss 

opportunities to trap and destroy large Communist units 

when they arose. But, he insisted, “The real victories are to be 

won in the villages, and it is really our clear-hold-civic actionpeacemaking-domestic tranquility efforts that have paid off; 

and this is what is hurting the Viet Cong.” 

In one sense, General Krulak was mistaken. The Vietnamese Communists had not yet given up trying to defeat 

Defense Department (Marine Corps) A185791 

On 9 October 1965, PFC Charles A. Morley, a radio operator 

with Headquarters and Service Company, 3d Battalion, 9th 

Marines, carries a Vietnamese girl to a medical corpsman. 

One means by which U.S. Marines hoped to succeed in pacification efforts was by winning the trust of the population by 

providing medical care and other humanitarian aid. 

Defense Department (Marine Corps) A184979 

On 17 August 1965, Marines deliver 15 tons of supplies to 

the village of Tra Kieu near Da Nang. 1stLt William H. Gibson 

(left) and Lt Paul Toland, USN (right), the Catholic chaplain of 

MAG-16, made initial contact with the village priest, Father 

Hao, to determine the needs of the orphanage, schools, and 

old folks home in the village. 
56 | Marines in the Vietnam War Commemorative Series 

American units in set-piece battles. During the subsequent 

Operation Piranha (7 September 1965), the Marines tried 

to duplicate the results of Operation Starlite by using an 

amphibious landing and helicopter landings to trap a Viet 

Cong unit in a coastal area. The Viet Cong lost 178 killed 

in the operation but generally attempted to avoid battle. 

Such was not the case in other areas of Vietnam throughout 

1965 and 1966, and the Communists never completely abandoned the big-unit war even as they conducted insurgency 

operations as well. Indeed, the Marines would have to fight 

the 1st Viet Cong Regiment again in December during Operation Harvest Moon. Hauntingly, that battle also took place 

near Chu Lai, and one of the Marine units involved was 3d 

Battalion, 3d Marines.

Nor were General Westmoreland and national leaders 

in Washington won over to Krulak’s approach. Marines in 

the I Corps area would continue their pacification efforts 

with some success, and the Army would attempt to establish 

Defense Department (Marine Corps) A185694 

The war continued for the Marines who survived Starlite. This picture of Marines from Company I, 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, was 

taken on 19 September 1965, one month after the operation. Company I had seen some of the fiercest fighting on 18–19 August 

and was now back in action. Here, Sgt Muliman Tela, squad leader of 1st Squad, 3d Platoon, Company I, briefs his fire team leaders in the rain. Left to right, they are PFC Jose Pacheco, Sgt Tela, LCpl Charles Landaur, and Cpl Richard Milton. The Marines are 

armed with the M14 rifle, which was still the standard infantry weapon for U.S. forces in 1965. Landaur and Milton are wearing 

ponchos, which Marines usually found offered only limited protection from the rain. 
The First Fight | 57

similar programs elsewhere. Overall, though, General Westmoreland and his headquarters in Saigon demanded evidence 

from both Army and Marine units that they were taking the 

fight to the enemy in the form of major combat operations, 

the destruction of enemy units, and enemy body counts. 

Generally, the U.S. military, arguably including the Marines 

as well, focused on fighting a conventional war in Vietnam.

The rebuilding of the 1st Viet Cong Regiment after Operation Starlite was another sobering lesson to the Americans, 

who did not realize that they had only fought part of the regiment at Van Tuong, not the entire force. It is unclear whether the regiment’s ranks were mainly replenished from new 

local recruits or from personnel sent from North Vietnam, 

as at least one senior Marine officer suspected. It does seem 

that the regiment benefitted from the attachment of a North 

Vietnamese Army unit, the 195th Antiaircraft Battalion, in 

October. Regardless of how the unit was reconstituted, however, its recovery illustrated the resiliency of the Viet Cong. 

Several times during the war, American intelligence would 

write off the 1st Viet Cong Regiment as a credible force, only 

to see it reappear. One junior officer, Kenneth P. Sympson, 

later wrote that “it took some months before I had any sense 

at all of the staying power of the Viet Cong. . . . We could 

destroy the 1st Viet Cong Regiment only to find it reincarnated 

a few months later. . . . So we would continue to fight and kill 

the same enemy, often in the same place.” As historian Otto 

Lehrack notes, “Many thousands of Viet Cong who belonged 

to this unit were killed over the years, but the unit always 

bounced back.”

Though the reappearance of the 1st Viet Cong Regiment

after Starlite mystified the Marines, the hard-fought battle 

on the Van Tuong Peninsula bolstered their confidence that 

American firepower and fighting ability would eventually 

vanquish the enemy. Thus, in many ways, the operation epitomized much of the war and set the stage for much of what followed. First, in the short term, it was the first of several large 

battles in which American ground troops were able to stem 

the tide of Communist military success in 1964–65 and buy 

time for the stabilization of the South Vietnamese government in Saigon. Although the opinion was not unanimous, 

many American military and political leaders concluded that 

they could win a war of firepower and attrition against Communist insurgents in Vietnam. Starlite therefore signaled 

that the United States and its South Vietnamese allies would 

continue to use conventional tactics and firepower to achieve 

victory. Finally, as warriors, the U.S. Marines and the mainforce units of the Viet Cong learned a great deal about each 

other in Operation Starlite. Carefully assessing the other’s 

strengths and weaknesses, each side was forced to concede 

that their enemy was a formidable foe. This was the first time 

each would take the measure of the other in open battle; it 

would not, however, be the last.

Defense Department (Marine Corps) A186108 

Marines of Company L, 3d Battalion, 3d Marines—another 

unit that saw heavy action in Operation Starlite—cross a river 

to make a sweep on a Vietnamese village. This photo was 

taken on 17 November 1965, during the second phase of 

Operation Blue Marlin. 
58 | Marines in the Vietnam War Commemorative Series 

Sources

This work is based largely on unit documents, such as after 

action reports and command chronologies submitted after 

Operation Starlite, and on interviews of participants conducted shortly after the battle. All of these are located at the 

Gray Research Center at Marine Corps University in Quantico, Virginia. These are supplemented with two more recent 

interviews of Operation Starlite participants and email correspondence with them. Additionally, several participants in 

the battle submitted very helpful comments on a draft manuscript of the work by Shulimson and Johnson mentioned 

below. These are located at the Gray Research Center and the 

National Archives in College Park, Maryland. The National 

Archives also has reports of interrogations of Viet Cong prisoners during the relevant time period, as well as daily reports 

by the J-3 section of USMACV, in Record Group 472.

The most useful official secondary source is Jack Shulimson and Major Charles M. Johnson, U.S. Marines in Vietnam: The Landing and the Buildup, 1965 (Washington, DC: 

History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine 

Corps, 1978). For broader context on U.S. strategy in the 

Vietnam War, see William S. Turley, The Second Indochina 

War: A Short Political and Military History, 1954–1975 (New 

York: Mentor Books, 1987); and Allan R. Millett, Semper 

Fidelis: The History of the United States Marine Corps (New 

York: Free Press, 1991). The best popular study of the battle 

itself is Otto J. Lehrack, The First Battle: Operation Starlite and 

the Beginning of the Blood Debt in Vietnam (New York: Ballantine Books, 2006). For a perceptive study of Viet Cong doctrine and tactics, see Warren Wilkins, Grab Their Belts to Fight 

Them: The Viet Cong’s Big-Unit War against the United States, 

1965–1966 (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2011). Other 

sources quoted or consulted for this work include Michael 

E. Peterson, The Combined Action Platoons: The U.S. Marines’ 

Other War in Vietnam (New York: Praeger, 1989); Merle L. 

Pribbenow, trans., Victory in Vietnam: The Official History of the 

People’s Army in Vietnam, 1954–1975 (Lawrence: University 

Press of Kansas, 2002); Kenneth P. Sympson, Images from the 

Otherland: Memoir of a United States Marine Corps Artillery 

Officer in Vietnam ( Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1995); James 

W. McCoy, Secrets of the Viet Cong (New York: Hippocrene 

Books, 1992); and Otto J. Lehrack, No Shining Armor: The 

Marines of Vietnam; An Oral History (Lawrence: University 

Press of Kansas, 1992).
The First Fight | 59

Acronyms and Abbreviations

ARVN ...................................................................................................................................Army of the Republic of Vietnam 

FMFPac ...........................................................................................................................................Fleet Marine Force, Pacific 

LVTP ................................................................................................................................Landing Vehicle, Tracked, Personnel

LZ ......................................................................Landing Zone (used only with formally named landing zones, e.g., LZ Red)

LSA........................................................................................................................................................ Logistics Support Area 

MAG ..................................................................................................................................................... Marine Aircraft Group 

MAF ................................................................................................................................................Marine Amphibious Force 

MEB ..........................................................................................................................................Marine Expeditionary Brigade 

HMM ........................................................................................................................... Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron

RLT...................................................................................................................................................Regimental Landing Team

PF...........................................................................................................................................South Vietnamese Popular Forces

PL.............................................................................................................................................................................. Phase Line 

SLF ..........................................................................................................................................................Special Landing Force

USMACV ...........................................................................................................U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam 
Acknowledgments

Several participants in Operation Starlite provided invaluable 

assistance to the author. Retired Marine Lieutenant Colonels 

George A. Baker III and Calvin M. Morris gave very useful 

interviews, and Lieutenant Colonel Morris also donated photographs from his personal collection that were used in this 

study. The late Captain Edward Garr provided necessary factual details and clarifications through an exchange of emails, 

and he also graciously allowed use of the operational map 

that he himself used during the battle when he was a gunnery sergeant and acting battalion operations officer. Retired 

Marine Otto J. Lehrack, author of a book on Operation Starlite, offered valuable assistance. Professor Carol Reardon of 

Pennsylvania State University helped put the author in contact with Lieutenant Colonels Baker and Morris. Professor 

Edwin E. Moise of Clemson University pointed the author 

to additional sources and identified factual errors in an earlier 

draft.

Numerous individuals at Marine Corps History Division 

provided excellent professional assistance and advice. Mr. 

Charles D. Melson, chief historian, offered excellent advice 

in the early stages of the project, particularly by providing 

historical context and pointing out likely sources. Ms. Angela 

J. Anderson, Mr. Shawn H. Vreeland, and Dr. Stephen S. 

Evans were helpful in their editorial roles. Dr. Fred H. Allison assisted in locating recordings of interviews, and Mr. 

Robert A. Kocher provided expertise and patience in his role 

as graphic designer.

60 | Marines in the Vietnam War Commemorative Series
The First Fight | 61

Colonel Rod Andrew Jr. is a professor of history at Clemson University. He earned his doctorate at the University of Georgia in 

1997. He has served nearly 4 years as an active duty officer and 

more than 22 years in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, and he currently serves as officer in charge of the Field History Branch, U.S. 

Marine Corps History Division.

Rod Andrew Jr.

Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve

Photo courtesy of the author