Charlie One Five: A Marine Company's Vietnam War

Notes

303 Notes About the Maps 1. Active-duty Marine infantry regiments during the Vietnam War were the 1st through 9th and the 26th through 28th; the artillery regiments were the 10th through 13th. Units from all of them except the 2d, 6th, 8th, 10th, and 28th Marines saw combat service in Vietnam. Foreword 1. The abbreviation NVA is for North Vietnamese Army, the name the United States used at the time. The actual name of this force was People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN), but the Marines always referred to them as NVA. Chapter 2 1. A save-a-plane area was a designated no-fly zone where mortars, artillery, and naval gunfire dominated the battlefield. Chapter 3 1. Gerald Turley later served with distinction as an advisor to the ARVN in the spring of 1972 and wrote a fine book about his experiences during the NVA’s notorious Easter Offensive late in the war. Chapter 6 1. Rural settlements in Vietnam are organized in districts, which contain villages comprised of hamlets. Districts and villages are named, but hamlets use the name of the village followed by a number. Thus, Nghi Thuong (4) is the fourth hamlet in the village of Nghi Thuong. Notes: 304 2. The Snake Eye is a 250-pound high-explosive fragmentation bomb, equipped with popout fins that slow the bomb’s rate of descent, allowing the delivering aircraft to avoid selfinflicted damage. 3. The military crest is an area on the forward or reverse slope of a hill or ridge just below the topographical crest. From the military crest maximum observation and direct fire covering the slope down to the base of the hill or ridge can be obtained. 4. Air panels are colorful cloths that ground troops lay out to signal aerial observers and attack aircraft, indicating the troops’ location and proximity to the enemy forces the aircraft are about to attack. Chapter 8 1. A punji pit is a pit dug with sharpened sticks in the sides pointing downward at an angle. A Marine stepping into the pit would find it impossible to remove his leg without doing severe damage, and injuries might be incurred by the simple fact of his falling forward while his leg is in a narrow, vertical, stake-lined pit. Such pits would require time and care to dig the soldier ’s leg out, immobilizing the unit longer than if the foot were simply pierced. Chapter 9 1. A short round is an artillery or mortar round that falls short of its target. 2. A frag order is an abbreviated form of an operation order (verbal or written), usually issued on a day-to-day basis, that eliminates the need for restating information contained in a basic operation order. 3. Maj. C. H. Black, USMC, the 1/5 operations officer, received the Silver Star for his acts of courage during Operation Swift. Chapter 11 1. On 11 March 1965 the US Navy created a combined force, the Coastal Patrol Force, later designated as Task Force 115, and launched Operation Market Time with the objective of interdicting enemy efforts to move supplies to South Vietnam by sea. The Junk Force was the South Vietnamese Navy’s component in the US Navy’s Coastal Patrol Force; they were considered to be one of the most effective counterinsurgency units in South Vietnam’s armed forces. ...