See how it looked in 1965

Marines in Vietnam

By John Hughes | Staff correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

Hong Kong

At dawn they came. Americans. Slipping through the water in the mist from the landing craft that brought them inshore.

It was, as somebody pointed out, the first landing of American Marines in a war zone since Korea.
For security reasons the Marines who landed near Da Nang in South Vietnam Monday came quietly. But there is no hiding or glossing over the implications of their presence.

Once again, for the United States, the war in Vietnam has escalated a little.

The United States now for the first time committed complete fighting units in Vietnam. Until now the American soldiers in Vietnam have been advisers.

Guards for base

They have been fighting. But they have been fighting alongside South Vietnamese officers and men.
Now, however, self-contained American Marine battalions are stationed not far from the border with North Vietnam.

The official story is that the Marines will free South Vietnamese troops, currently guarding the big base at Da Nang, for combat duty.

What is much more likely is that the United States fears a Viet Cong assault on Da Nang. If that comes, the Marines will be there to beat it back.

Da Nang is the key air base from which air strikes against North Vietnam are launched. It is entirely possible that the Viet Cong plan to hit it. In the past few days there have come ominous reports of clashes between Viet Cong guerrillas and government troops not far from the base.

Reds irate

Security on the base is supposed to be tight, especially since the catastrophe at Bien Hoa Air Base near Saigon last year. There Viet Cong mortarmen knocked out a United States B-57 bomber fleet with fire from just outside the air base perimeter.

Security officials at Da Nang say that could not happen there. But even so they will surely breathe more easily now that the Marines are installed.

The Communists, of course, are portraying the Marines’ arrival as a new act of American aggression.
North Vietnam has protested to the International Control Commission. “An intolerable provocation” it calls the landing of the Marines.

Peking’s official New China News Agency says this is another step by the Johnson administration to widen the war of aggression gradually and by stages.

Publicity shunned

Most Western observers, however, believe that at least the initial role of the Marines is a garrison one. Their arrival was signaled unofficially some days ago then canceled after publicity. Observers believe, however, that the closeness to Da Nang of fighting in the last few days moved President Johnson to order them in.

However fighting men are trained to fight. And nobody guarantees that the Marines will spend their stay in Vietnam basking in the sun. Their involvement in combat is one of the risks the United States is clearly prepared to take.

[Over the weekend Secretary of State Dean Rusk told a radio-television audience in the United States that the Marines landed at Da Nang would "shoot back if they are shot at."
[But he made it clear their mission is the clamping of a tight protective security ring around the strategic air base.]