 | This article relies largely or entirely on a single source .(September 2018) |
Operation Keystone Eagle was the withdrawal of the initial units of the 3rd Marine Division from South Vietnam and their redeployment to Okinawa, taking place from 29 June to 30 August 1969.
Following from the policy of Vietnamization, U.S. President Richard Nixon sought to reduce U.S. forces in South Vietnam. After a visit to South Vietnam in March 1969, Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird recommended that planning begin for the withdrawal of 50–70,000 U.S. troops in 1969 with further withdrawals in 1970. MACV began planning for the withdrawal of 50,000 troops or approximately two Divisions plus support units in late 1969. In late May the Joint Chiefs of Staff presented Laird with a plan for the phased withdrawal of 244,000 of the total 549,000 U.S. personnel in South Vietnam with the withdrawal of 50,000 troops in late 1969 comprising one Marine Division and one Army Division. Laird forwarded the plan to Nixon in early June with the recommendation that 20–25,000 troops be withdrawn starting in July. MACV had determined that the first units to be withdrawn would be the 3rd Marine Division and the 9th Infantry Division. On 8 June, Nixon met South Vietnamese President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu on Midway Island and Nixon convinced Thiệu to accept the fact of U.S. force reductions, following the meeting Nixon announced the beginning of unilateral U.S. troop withdrawals. [1]
The initial withdrawal named Operation Keystone Eagle was the withdrawal of one Regimental Landing Team, however the selected Regiment, the 9th Marine Regiment and its supporting units did not meet the 8388-man level mandated by MACV and so additional support and miscellaneous units were added to make up the numbers. [1] : 133
On 14 June the 9th Marine Regiment was notified of its redeployment. On 23 June after completing its involvement in Operation Utah Mesa, the 1st Battalion, 9th Marines stood down at Vandegrift Combat Base. On 14 July following a farewell ceremony at Da Nang, the 1/9 Marines boarded the USS Paul Revere, becoming the first U.S. battalion to be withdrawn. [1] : 133–5
The Keystone Eagle redeployments took place as follows:
| Departure Date | Unit | Strength |
|---|---|---|
| 29 June 1969 | 3rd Anti-Tank Battalion | 19 |
| 13 July 1969 | Companies A, B & C (Reinforced), 3rd Motor Transport Battalion | 167 |
| 13 July 1969 | Company C (Reinforced), 3rd Tank Battalion | 74 |
| 13 July 1969 | Detachment, 3rd Dental Company | 1 |
| 13 July 1969 | 1st Amphibian Tractor Battalion | 135 |
| 13 July 1969 | Battery D, 2nd Battalion, 12th Marine Regiment | 139 |
| 13 July 1969 | Company C, 11th Engineer Battalion | 180 |
| 14 July 1969 | 1st Battalion, 9th Marines | 1166 |
| 14 July 1969 | 1st Searchlight Battery | 116 |
| 15 July 1969 | Company B (Reinforced), 3rd Medical Battalion | 42 |
| 15 July 1969 | Company D (Reinforced), 11th Engineer Battalion | 175 |
| 15 July 1969 | Company C (Reinforced), 3rd Shore Party Battalion | 144 |
| 15 July 1969 | 1st Armed Amphibian Company | 42 |
| 15 July 1969 | Headquarters Battery, Field Artillery Group | 24 |
| 15 July 1969 | Detachment, Marine Air Traffic Control Unit | 23 |
| 30 July 1969 | Company C (Reinforced), 3rd Engineer Battalion | 257 |
| 31 July 1969 | Detachment, Headquarters Battery, 12th Marine Regiment | 21 |
| 31 July 1969 | Battery E, 2/12 Marines | 139 |
| 31 July 1969 | Headquarters Battery, 2/12 Marines | 161 |
| 1 August 1969 | 2nd Battalion, 9th Marines | 1166 |
| 1 August 1969 | Headquarters Company, 9th Marine Regiment | 234 |
| 5 August 1969 | Detachment, Headquarters Battalion, 3rd Marine Division | 354 |
| 12 August 1969 | Detachment, Force Logistics Command | 150 |
| 13 August 1969 | 3rd Battalion, 9th Marines | 1166 |
| 13 August 1969 | Battery F, 2/12 Marines | 139 |
| 13 August 1969 | Battery L, 4/12 Marines | 112 |
| 13 August 1969 | Company C (Reinforced), 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion | 120 |
| 13 August 1969 | Detachment, Headquarters Company, 9th Marine Regiment | 20 |
| 14 August 1969 | Company A (Reinforced), 9th Motor Transport Battalion | 130 |
| 14 August 1969 | HMM-165 | 279 |
| 16 August 1969 | 1st Light Antiaircraft Missile Battalion | 661 |
| 30 August 1969 | VMFA-334 | 388 |
Operation Keystone Eagle concluded on 30 August 1969, it was immediately followed by Operation Keystone Cardinal. [1] : 137
1/9 Marines and 3/9 Marines would return to South Vietnam in April 1972 during the Easter Offensive and in April 1975 during Operation Frequent Wind.
The Tet Offensive was a major escalation and one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War. The Viet Cong (VC) and North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) launched a surprise attack on 30 January 1968 against the forces of the South Vietnamese Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), the United States Armed Forces and their allies. It was a campaign of surprise attacks against military and civilian command and control centers throughout South Vietnam. The name is the truncated version of the Lunar New Year festival name in Vietnamese, Tết Nguyên Đán, with the offense chosen during a holiday period as most ARVN personnel were on leave. The purpose of the wide-scale offensive by the Hanoi Politburo was to trigger political instability in a belief that mass armed assault on urban centers would trigger defections and rebellions.
Vietnamization was a policy of the Richard Nixon administration to end U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War through a program to "expand, equip, and train South Vietnamese forces and assign to them an ever-increasing combat role, at the same time steadily reducing the number of U.S. combat troops". Brought on by the Viet Cong's Tet Offensive, the policy referred to U.S. combat troops specifically in the ground combat role, but did not reject combat by the U.S. Air Force, as well as the support to South Vietnam, consistent with the policies of U.S. foreign military assistance organizations. U.S. citizens' mistrust of their government that had begun after the offensive worsened with the release of news about U.S. soldiers massacring civilians at My Lai (1968), the invasion of Cambodia (1970), and the leaking of the Pentagon Papers (1971).
The Easter Offensive, also known as the 1972 spring–summer offensive by North Vietnam, or the Red Fiery Summer as romanticized in South Vietnamese literature, was a military campaign conducted by the People's Army of Vietnam against the Army of the Republic of Vietnam and the United States military between 30 March and 22 October 1972, during the Vietnam War.
The Cambodian campaign was a series of military operations conducted in eastern Cambodia in mid-1970 by South Vietnam and the United States as an expansion of the Vietnam War and the Cambodian Civil War. Thirteen operations were conducted by the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) between April 29 and July 22 and by U.S. forces between May 1 and June 30, 1970.
The 1975 spring offensive, officially known as the general offensive and uprising of spring 1975, was the final North Vietnamese campaign in the Vietnam War that led to the capitulation of Republic of Vietnam. After the initial success capturing Phước Long Province, the North Vietnamese leadership increased the scope of the People's Army of Vietnam's (PAVN) offensive and captured and held the key Central Highlands city of Buôn Ma Thuột between 10 and 18 March. These operations were intended to be preparatory to launching a general offensive in 1976.
Operation Lam Son 719 or 9th Route – Southern Laos Campaign was a limited-objective offensive campaign conducted in the southeastern portion of the Kingdom of Laos. The campaign was carried out by the armed forces of South Vietnam between 8 February and 25 March 1971, during the Vietnam War. The United States provided logistical, aerial and artillery support for the operation, but its ground forces were prohibited by law from entering Laotian territory. The objective of the campaign was the disruption of a possible future offensive by the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), whose logistical system within Laos was known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Da Nang Air Base (1930s–1975) was a French Air Force and later Republic of Vietnam Air Force (RVNAF) facility located in the city of Da Nang, Vietnam. During the Vietnam War (1959–1975), it was a major base with United States Army, United States Air Force (USAF), and United States Marine Corps (USMC) units stationed there. Air Vietnam also used the facility from 1951 to 1975 for civilian domestic and international flights within Southeast Asia.
The Second Battle of Quang Tri began on 28 June 1972 and lasted 81 days until 16 September 1972, when South Vietnam's Army of the Republic of Vietnam defeated the North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) at the ancient citadel of Quảng Trị and recaptured most of Quảng Trị Province.
Free World Military Assistance Forces was the group of allied nations who sent troops to fight in the Vietnam War under the FWMF banner, assisting the United States and South Vietnam against the Viet Cong (VC), China, Soviet Union, North Korea and People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN). Together with the U.S. and South Vietnamese, the FWMF were often referred to as the Allies.
The Republic of Vietnam Marine Division was part of the armed forces of South Vietnam. It was established by Ngo Dinh Diem in 1954 when he was Prime Minister of the State of Vietnam, which became the Republic of Vietnam in 1955. The longest-serving commander was Lieutenant General Le Nguyen Khang. In 1969, the VNMC had a strength of 9,300, 15,000 by 1973, and 20,000 by 1975.
I Corps was a corps of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), the army of the nation state of South Vietnam that existed from 1955 to 1975. It was one of four corps of the ARVN. This was the northernmost region of South Vietnam, bordering North Vietnam at the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). These five provinces are Quảng Trị Province,, Thừa Thiên-Huế Province,, Quảng Nam Province,, Quảng Tín Province, and Quảng Ngãi Province,.
The Fifth Division of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN)—the army of the nation state of South Vietnam that existed from 1955 to 1975—was part of the III Corps that oversaw the region of the country surrounding the capital, Saigon.
The 21st Division of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN)—the army of the nation state of South Vietnam that existed from 1959 to 1975, was part of the IV Corps that oversaw the southernmost region of South Vietnam, the Mekong Delta. The 21st Division was based in Chương Thiện province, the southernmost province in the whole country, in an area dominated by jungles and swamps.
The year 1968 saw major developments in the Vietnam War. The military operations started with an attack on a US base by the North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and the Viet Cong (VC) on January 1, ending a truce declared by the Pope and agreed upon by all sides. At the end of January, the PAVN and VC launched the Tet Offensive.
The inauguration of Richard Nixon in January led to a reevaluation of the U.S. role in the war. U.S. forces peaked at 543,000 in April. U.S. military strategy remained relatively unchanged from the offensive strategy of 1968 until the Battle of Hamburger Hill in May which led to a change a more reactive approach. The U.S. and South Vietnam agreed on a policy of Vietnamization with South Vietnamese forces being expanded and equipped to take over more of the ground combat from the departing Americans which began to withdraw in late June without any reciprocal commitment by the North Vietnamese. The morale of U.S. ground forces began to fray with increasing racial tensions and the first instances of fragging and combat refusal. The antiwar movement in the U.S. continued to grow and public opinion turned increasingly antiwar when the Mỹ Lai massacre was revealed in November.
The United States continued its unilateral withdrawal of forces from South Vietnam notwithstanding the lack of progress at the Paris Peace Talks. The removal of Prince Norodom Sihanouk from power in Cambodia in March and his replacement by General Lon Nol, began the Cambodian Civil War. South Vietnamese and U.S. forces entered Cambodia in late April to attack People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and Vietcong (VC) bases and supply lines there which had long been used to support the insurgency in South Vietnam. The expansion of the war revitalized the antiwar movement in the U.S. and led to the Kent State shootings and Jackson State killings in May. While U.S. ground forces withdrew from Cambodia at the end of June and legislation was passed to prevent their reintroduction, the South Vietnamese conducted operations in Cambodia for the rest of the year and the U.S. provided air support and military aid to the Cambodian government. Despite this support the Cambodians lost control of vast areas of the country to the PAVN. Within South Vietnam the second half of the year saw a reduction in large U.S. operations with the focus shifting to pacification and population security and supporting Vietnamization. The PAVN/VC generally reverted to sapper attacks and attacks by fire but they fought hard to defend their base areas and infiltration routes.
At the start of 1971 South Vietnamese troops continued operations against the North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and Vietcong (VC) base areas in eastern Cambodia. The ill-conceived and poorly executed Operation Lam Son 719 against PAVN supply lines in eastern Laos showed the weaknesses within the South Vietnamese military command and the limited ability of South Vietnam's armed forces to conduct large-scale combined arms operations. The U.S. continued its unilateral withdrawal from South Vietnam despite the lack of any progress in the Paris Peace Talks and by November U.S. forces had ceased offensive operations. The U.S. withdrawal and antiwar sentiment within the military led to an ongoing decline in morale and discipline within the U.S. forces and growing drug use, particularly of heroin. As U.S. combat units withdrew, security in their former operational areas deteriorated and the PAVN/VC began a series of attacks on ARVN positions in Quảng Trị province and the Central Highlands. In Cambodia the Cambodian government continued to lose ground to the PAVN despite extensive U.S. air support and training and periodic attacks into Cambodia by the ARVN. While the bombing of North Vietnam had ceased in November 1968, U.S. aircraft continued to conduct reconnaissance flights over the North and responded to radar-tracking and antiaircraft fire with "protective reaction" strikes which numbered more than 100 by the year-end and culminated in a five-day bombing campaign in late December.
Firebase Fuller is a former U.S. Marine Corps, Army and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) firebase in central Vietnam.
Operation Keystone Cardinal was the withdrawal of the 3rd Marine Division from South Vietnam, taking place from 30 September to 27 November 1969.
Operation Fulton Square was a joint U.S. Army and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) military operation during the Vietnam War to engage People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) units in the lowlands of Quảng Trị Province.
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the United States Marine Corps .