Tuesday, August 21, 2007
U.S. Marines Combined Action Platoons
Pham Van Thuong had every reason to be confident. Thuong was the veteran leader of a Viet Cong (VC) platoon making its way towards a bridge over the Phu Bai River that was a few miles southeast of Hue. Until the evening of 29 November 1965 the VC had owned the night in this region as in so many others in the Republic of Vietnam. Upon approaching the bridge, Thuong’s platoon was engaged by very effective small arms fire from the far side of the river. Thuong was killed instantly. The VC platoon pulled back and attempted to cross the river at another bridge approximately 200 meters to the south only to be fired upon by more accurate fire from that location. The VC platoon then retreated to the southeast where they were engaged by pre-sighted artillery blocking fire. At least for this evening, the village of Phu Bai would be free of communist guerrillas. Thoung’s platoon had the misfortune of encountering the first of many Combined Action Companies (CAC) [1] that the U.S. Marines would established as their foundation of counter-insurgency. [2]
The Combined Action Platoon was made up of one Marine rifle squad and two to three squads of Vietnamese Popular Forces (PF). Their purpose was to deny the VC access to the Vietnamese population and to train the PFs in effective COIN tactics. 1st Lieutenant Paul R. Ek is credited with creating the first Combined Action Company. By providing security and working closely with the Vietnamese people and militia it was hoped that the VC Infrastructure (VCI) could be eradicated. The VCI was the key to victory in the “other war.” By destroying the effectiveness of the communist political apparatus the villagers would be free of communist coercion and, hopefully, develop loyalty to the GVN.
“Furthermore, the destruction of main force units of the Viet Cong yielded little result. Phoenix-like, new forces arose from the ashes of the old. The Viet Cong infrastructure was the life-giver to destroyed units through its ability to recruit from among the peasant masses…[With the creation of the CAP program] The first fully coordinated effort to defeat the Viet Cong was emerging.” [3]
Besides patrolling and killing VC, or at least denying them access to the people, a very important part of the CAP effort was intelligence gathering. As Bing West has noted, the people themselves would provide information to either the PFs or Marines, but only after trust had been created. The trust of the people had to be earned and crucial to this was proving to the people that Marine and American support was going to be available for the long haul. If the people believe that the VC would be returning to inflict reprisals on those who cooperated with the Marines or GVN they would, of course, not be helpful. And it was this issue that was critical to victory. [4]
CAP Marine Sgt. Carrol P. Soape noted the importance of this same issue:
“He [Sgt. Soape] has spent nearly six months in the village now. Its people appear to like and trust him. ‘They’ve become a great source of intelligence for us…Any time we’ve been hit by snipers, people would be in the compound the next day to tell us where the V.C.’s come from.’” [5]
Marine Corps leaders including MAF III commander General Lewis Walt and FMF Pacific commander General Victor “Brute” Krulak wholeheartedly supported both the CAP program and the strategy of concentrating on pacification. Unfortunately for the people of South Vietnam, the American commander General William Westmoreland disagreed with the Marine viewpoint and decided to re-fight the Battle of the Bulge in the largely uninhabited interior. In a “secret” speech that he gave just before retiring, General Krulak was openly critical of the “big battalion” strategy adopted by General Westmoreland. Krulak defended the Marine Corps record in Vietnam and noted that due to the Corps’ experience in “small wars” they had done a far better job than the Army:
“The Marines ‘recognized very early on that the people in Vietnam are the battlefield…that hills and valleys and bridges and towns and road junctions are of only secondary importance, that the real war is to be fought and won among the people. The fact is,’ he said, ‘the Marines’ approach to the war among the people has been an overwhelming success. It is one of our lasting contributions to the Vietnam war.’” [6]
General Krulak also credited two Combined Action Platoons with preventing Danang from being overrun during the Tet Offensive: “I spoke to a wounded Marine sergeant from one of the platoons after the action…The P.F. stayed in their holes and died. They saved the First Corps headquarters.” [7]
It was General Krulak who wrote a seventeen page paper in December 1965 on both the importance of pacification and the proper method of pursuing COIN strategy. When Krulak went to Washington D.C. to propose the Marine views on the war and how to win it he was blown off. Both the civilian and Army leadership were dedicating to fighting the war in a totally unsuitable manner. [8]
Of course, America’s feckless civilian leadership should not be left off the hook for the way that the war was conducted. One of the reasons the British were successful in putting down the communist guerrillas in Malaya was the guerrillas’ inability to receive outside assistance, the same could be said for the defeat of insurgents in the Philippines on more than one occasion. Another reason for British success was their ability to rapidly adopt an effective COIN Strategy. In the latter case, when Sir Robert Thompson established the British Advisory Mission in Vietnam he was ignored. [9] The politicians contributed to the mess by refusing to let the military isolate the battlefield by closing the “W. Averell Harriman Memorial Highway” aka The Ho Chi Minh Trail. Not only did this allow the communists to infiltrate guerrillas into the south, but also to move NVA main forces into position along the south’s long border with Laos and Cambodia for conventional attacks. This created the situation were the ARVN had to prepare for both conventional and unconventional warfare. Westmoreland over emphasized the conventional struggle and neglected the VC infiltration. The politicians bear a large responsibility by not allowing the military to turn South Vietnam into a peninsula and prevent the communist attacks from a long and almost indefensible border.
1. This unfortunate acronym would be quickly changed to CAP for Combined Action Platoon.
2. Captain Russel H. Stolfi, USMCR “U.S. Marine Corps Civic Action Efforts in Vietnam: March 1965 – March 1966” (Washington D.C.: Historical Branch, G-3 Division, 1968) 1-3
3. ibid, 2-3
4. F.J. West “Area Security” (Santa Monica: The Rand Corporation, November 1968) 12
5. Thomas Buckley “Part-time Troops, With U.S. Guidance, Aid Saigon” The New York Times. 18 December 1966. pg. 2
6. John W. Finney “Gen. Krulak Urges Marines to Resist Detractors in Army” The New York Times. 13 May 1968. pg. 1
7. ibid
8. Max Boot. The Savage Wars of Peace (New York: Basic Books, 2003) 297-8
9. John A. Nagl. Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005) 115
The Combined Action Platoon was made up of one Marine rifle squad and two to three squads of Vietnamese Popular Forces (PF). Their purpose was to deny the VC access to the Vietnamese population and to train the PFs in effective COIN tactics. 1st Lieutenant Paul R. Ek is credited with creating the first Combined Action Company. By providing security and working closely with the Vietnamese people and militia it was hoped that the VC Infrastructure (VCI) could be eradicated. The VCI was the key to victory in the “other war.” By destroying the effectiveness of the communist political apparatus the villagers would be free of communist coercion and, hopefully, develop loyalty to the GVN.
“Furthermore, the destruction of main force units of the Viet Cong yielded little result. Phoenix-like, new forces arose from the ashes of the old. The Viet Cong infrastructure was the life-giver to destroyed units through its ability to recruit from among the peasant masses…[With the creation of the CAP program] The first fully coordinated effort to defeat the Viet Cong was emerging.” [3]
Besides patrolling and killing VC, or at least denying them access to the people, a very important part of the CAP effort was intelligence gathering. As Bing West has noted, the people themselves would provide information to either the PFs or Marines, but only after trust had been created. The trust of the people had to be earned and crucial to this was proving to the people that Marine and American support was going to be available for the long haul. If the people believe that the VC would be returning to inflict reprisals on those who cooperated with the Marines or GVN they would, of course, not be helpful. And it was this issue that was critical to victory. [4]
CAP Marine Sgt. Carrol P. Soape noted the importance of this same issue:
“He [Sgt. Soape] has spent nearly six months in the village now. Its people appear to like and trust him. ‘They’ve become a great source of intelligence for us…Any time we’ve been hit by snipers, people would be in the compound the next day to tell us where the V.C.’s come from.’” [5]
Marine Corps leaders including MAF III commander General Lewis Walt and FMF Pacific commander General Victor “Brute” Krulak wholeheartedly supported both the CAP program and the strategy of concentrating on pacification. Unfortunately for the people of South Vietnam, the American commander General William Westmoreland disagreed with the Marine viewpoint and decided to re-fight the Battle of the Bulge in the largely uninhabited interior. In a “secret” speech that he gave just before retiring, General Krulak was openly critical of the “big battalion” strategy adopted by General Westmoreland. Krulak defended the Marine Corps record in Vietnam and noted that due to the Corps’ experience in “small wars” they had done a far better job than the Army:
“The Marines ‘recognized very early on that the people in Vietnam are the battlefield…that hills and valleys and bridges and towns and road junctions are of only secondary importance, that the real war is to be fought and won among the people. The fact is,’ he said, ‘the Marines’ approach to the war among the people has been an overwhelming success. It is one of our lasting contributions to the Vietnam war.’” [6]
General Krulak also credited two Combined Action Platoons with preventing Danang from being overrun during the Tet Offensive: “I spoke to a wounded Marine sergeant from one of the platoons after the action…The P.F. stayed in their holes and died. They saved the First Corps headquarters.” [7]
It was General Krulak who wrote a seventeen page paper in December 1965 on both the importance of pacification and the proper method of pursuing COIN strategy. When Krulak went to Washington D.C. to propose the Marine views on the war and how to win it he was blown off. Both the civilian and Army leadership were dedicating to fighting the war in a totally unsuitable manner. [8]
Of course, America’s feckless civilian leadership should not be left off the hook for the way that the war was conducted. One of the reasons the British were successful in putting down the communist guerrillas in Malaya was the guerrillas’ inability to receive outside assistance, the same could be said for the defeat of insurgents in the Philippines on more than one occasion. Another reason for British success was their ability to rapidly adopt an effective COIN Strategy. In the latter case, when Sir Robert Thompson established the British Advisory Mission in Vietnam he was ignored. [9] The politicians contributed to the mess by refusing to let the military isolate the battlefield by closing the “W. Averell Harriman Memorial Highway” aka The Ho Chi Minh Trail. Not only did this allow the communists to infiltrate guerrillas into the south, but also to move NVA main forces into position along the south’s long border with Laos and Cambodia for conventional attacks. This created the situation were the ARVN had to prepare for both conventional and unconventional warfare. Westmoreland over emphasized the conventional struggle and neglected the VC infiltration. The politicians bear a large responsibility by not allowing the military to turn South Vietnam into a peninsula and prevent the communist attacks from a long and almost indefensible border.
1. This unfortunate acronym would be quickly changed to CAP for Combined Action Platoon.
2. Captain Russel H. Stolfi, USMCR “U.S. Marine Corps Civic Action Efforts in Vietnam: March 1965 – March 1966” (Washington D.C.: Historical Branch, G-3 Division, 1968) 1-3
3. ibid, 2-3
4. F.J. West “Area Security” (Santa Monica: The Rand Corporation, November 1968) 12
5. Thomas Buckley “Part-time Troops, With U.S. Guidance, Aid Saigon” The New York Times. 18 December 1966. pg. 2
6. John W. Finney “Gen. Krulak Urges Marines to Resist Detractors in Army” The New York Times. 13 May 1968. pg. 1
7. ibid
8. Max Boot. The Savage Wars of Peace (New York: Basic Books, 2003) 297-8
9. John A. Nagl. Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005) 115
# posted by Grant Jones @ 4:49 PM 
