CHAPTER 2

The Formative Years

_Military Assistance Advisory Group, Vietnam--Origins of U.S. Marine Assistance--Political Stabilization and Its Effects--Reorganization and Progress--Summing Up Developments_

_Military Assistance Advisory Group, Vietnam_

When the Geneva cease-fire went into effect in the late summer of 1954, the machinery for implementing the military phase of the American assistance program for South Vietnam already existed. President Truman had ordered the establishment of a U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group (USMAAG or MAAG) in French Indochina in mid-1950 as one of several reactions to the North Korean invasion of the Republic of Korea. Established to provide materiel support to the French Expeditionary Corps, the MAAG constituted little more than a logistical funnel through which U.S. military aid had been poured.

Lieutenant General John M. (“Iron Mike”) O’Daniel, U.S. Army, had been assigned to command the MAAG in the spring of 1954. O’Daniel’s selection for the Saigon post anticipated a more active U.S. role in training of the Vietnamese National Army. He had been chosen for the assignment largely on the basis of his successful role in creating and supervising the training programs which had transformed the South Korean Army into an effective fighting force during the Korean War. Now, in the aftermath of the Geneva settlement, he and his 342-man group began preparing for the immense task of rebuilding South Vietnam’s armed forces.

The entire American project to assist the South Vietnamese in the construction of a viable state was delayed during the fall of 1954 while the necessary diplomatic agreements were negotiated among American, French, and South Vietnamese officials. President Eisenhower dispatched General J. Lawton Collins, U.S. Army (Retired), to Saigon in November to complete the details of the triangular arrangements. Collins carried with him the broad powers which would be required to expedite the negotiations.

By mid-January 1955, the president’s special envoy had paved the way for the transfer of responsibility for training, equipping, and advising the Vietnamese National Army from the French to the USMAAG. He and General Paul Ely, the officer appointed by the Paris government to oversee the French withdrawal from Indochina, had initialed a “Minute of Understanding.” In accordance with this document, the United States agreed to provide financial assistance to the French military in Vietnam in exchange for two important concessions. First, the French pledged to conduct a gradual military withdrawal from South Vietnam in order to prevent the development of a military vacuum which might precipitate a North Vietnamese invasion. Secondly, they accepted an American plan to assist in a transition stage during which the responsibility for rebuilding the Vietnamese military could be transferred to the MAAG in an orderly fashion. General Collins, in addition to engineering the understanding with General Ely, had advised Premier Diem to reduce his 210,000-man military and naval forces to a level of 100,000, a figure which the U.S. State Department felt the United States could realistically support and train.

The American plan to begin assisting South Vietnam encountered further delay even after the Ely-Collins understanding had been reached. Ely’s government, arguing that the United States had agreed to provide only one-third of the amount France had requested to finance its Indochina forces, refused to ratify the agreement. The deadlock was finally resolved on 11 February 1955 when French officials accepted the terms of the Ely-Collins arrangement in a revised form.

A combined Franco-American training command, designated the Training Relations Instruction Mission (TRIM), became operational in Saigon the day following the French ratification of the Ely-Collins understanding.[2-A] Headed by Lieutenant General O’Daniel but under the “overall authority” of General Ely, TRIM was structured to prevent domination by either French or Americans. The training mission was composed of four divisions, Army, Navy, Air Force, and National Security, each of which was headed alternately by either an American or a French officer. The chief of each division had as his deputy an officer of the opposite nationality. U.S. officers, however, headed the divisions considered by MAAG officials as the most important--Army and National Security. Operating through TRIM and assisted by the French military, the USMAAG was tasked with implementing the U.S. Military Assistance Program in a manner that would help shape the Vietnamese national forces into a cohesive defense establishment prior to the withdrawal of French forces.

[2-A] The combined training mission originally was designated the Allied Training Operations Mission. This designation was changed prior to the time the mission became operational.

_Origins of U.S. Marine Assistance_

Only one U.S. Marine was serving with the USMAAG in Saigon when TRIM became operational--Lieutenant Colonel Victor J. Croizat.[2-B] Croizat’s assignment to the U.S. advisory group had resulted when General Lemuel C. Shepherd, Jr., Commandant of the Marine Corps, nominated him to fill a newly created billet as liaison officer between the MAAG and the French High Command during the latter stages of the Indochina War. Largely because of his French language fluency and his former association with many French officers while attending their war college in 1949, Croizat was chosen for the assignment.

[2-B] Other Marines, however, were present in Saigon at the time. They were those assigned to the American Embassy. One officer was serving as Assistant Naval Attache/Assistant Naval Attache for Air, and 12 other Marines were serving as security guards.

Lieutenant Colonel Croizat, however, did not arrive in Vietnam until 2 August 1954. By then the cease-fire agreement had been signed at Geneva and the need for a liaison officer with the French High Command no longer existed. General O’Daniel, therefore, assigned the newly arrived Marine officer to serve on the General Commission for Refugees which had been created by the South Vietnamese Government immediately after the cease-fire. In this capacity Croizat became directly involved in the construction of refugee reception centers and the selection and development of resettlement areas in the South. When U.S. naval forces began assisting in the evacuation of North Vietnam, Lieutenant Colonel Croizat was sent to Haiphong, the principal seaport of Tonkin. There he headed the MAAG detachment and was responsible for coordinating U.S. operations in the area with those of the French and Vietnamese. When the so-called “Passage to Freedom” concluded in May 1955, 807,000 people, 469,000 tons of equipment and supplies, and 23,000 vehicles had been evacuated from Communist North Vietnam.[2-C] It was not until February 1955 that the Marine returned to Saigon.

[2-C] The French moved 497,000 people, 400,000 tons of equipment and supplies, and 15,000 vehicles. The U.S. Navy moved the balance.

During Lieutenant Colonel Croizat’s absence, Premier Diem had acted on a long-standing proposal to create a small Vietnamese Marine Corps. The issue of a separate Marine force composed of Vietnamese national troops had surfaced frequently since the birth of the Vietnamese Navy in the early 1950s. Although the proposal had been heartily endorsed by a number of senior French Navy officers, the downward spiral of the French war effort had intervened to prevent the subject from being advanced beyond a conceptual stage. Largely as a result of earlier discussions with Croizat, Premier Diem acted on the matter on 13 October when he signed a decree which included the following articles:

ARTICLE 1. Effective 1 October 1954 there is created within the Naval Establishment a corps of infantry specializing in the surveillance of waterways and amphibious operations on the coast and rivers, to be designated as:

‘THE MARINE CORPS’

* * * * *

ARTICLE 3. The Marine Corps shall consist of various type units suited to their functions and either already existing in the Army or Naval forces or to be created in accordance with the development plan for the armed forces.[2-1]

In accordance with this decree a miscellaneous collection of commando-type units was transferred from the Vietnamese National Army and Navy to the Marine Corps. Except for a naval commando unit, which had conducted amphibious raids along the coastal plains, these forces had operated in the Red River Delta with the French and Vietnamese Navy _dinassauts_ (river assault divisions). First employed in 1946, the _dinassauts_ had evolved into relatively effective naval commands capable of landing light infantry companies along Indochina’s tangled riverbanks. Normally the _dinassaut_ was composed of about a dozen armored and armed landing craft, patrol boats, and command vessels. An Army commando unit, consisting of approximately 100 men, would be attached to such naval commands for specific operations. Thus organized, the _dinassauts_ could transport light infantry units into otherwise inaccessible areas and support landings with heavy caliber automatic weapons and mortar fire. Such operations had been particularly successful in the sprawling Red River Delta of Tonkin where navigable estuaries and Viet Minh abounded.[2-D] Later in the war, as the concept was refined, the French created a number of Vietnamese National Army commando units for specific service with the _dinassauts_. Still attached to the Navy commands these units were sometimes responsible for security around the _dinassaut_ bases when not involved in preplanned operations. A number of these rather elite Vietnamese units, variously designated light support companies, river boat companies, and commandos, were now transferred to the newly decreed Vietnamese Marine Corps (VNMC).

[2-D] Of the _dinassaut_ Bernard Fall wrote: “[It] may well have been one of the few worthwhile contributions of the Indochina war to military knowledge.” (Fall, _Street Without Joy_, p. 39) A more thorough analysis of _dinassaut_ operations is included in Croizat, _A Translation From The French Lessons of the War_, pp. 348–351.

By the time Lieutenant Colonel Croizat returned to Saigon in early 1955 these units, which totalled approximately 2,400 officers and men, had been evacuated from North Vietnam. Several of the commandos had been assembled at Nha Trang on South Vietnam’s central coast where the French still maintained an extensive naval training facility. There, under the supervision of a junior French commando officer, several former commandos had been organized into the 1st Marine Landing Battalion (or 1st Landing Battalion). The balance of the newly designated Marine units, however, were scattered in small, widely separated garrisons from Hue to the Mekong Delta. These units included six river boat companies, five combat support light companies, and a small training flotilla. Diem had appointed a former Vietnamese National Army officer, Major Le Quang Trong, as Senior Marine Officer. But because no formal headquarters had been created and because no real command structure existed, Major Trong remained relatively isolated from his far-flung Marine infantry units.

Upon returning to Saigon, Croizat was assigned to the MAAG’s Naval Section and subsequently to TRIM’S Naval Division as the senior U.S. advisor to the newly created Vietnamese Marine Corps. In this capacity the Marine officer quickly determined that the small Vietnamese amphibious force was faced with several serious problems. First, and perhaps its most critical, was that despite Premier Diem’s decree, the Marine Corps continued to exist essentially on an informal basis. “The Marine Corps itself had no real identity,” its U.S. advisor later explained. “It was a scattering of dissimilar units extending from Hue to the Mekong Delta area.”[2-2] The fact that its widespread units were still dependent on the French Expeditionary Corps for logistical support underscored the weakness inherent in the VNMC’s initial status.

Other problems arose from the continuation of French officers in command billets throughout the Vietnamese naval forces. Under the Franco-American agreement which had created TRIM, a French Navy captain doubled as chief of the combined training missions’ Naval Division and as commanding officer of the Vietnamese naval forces. This placed the French in a position to review any proposals advanced by the U.S. Marine advisor. Complicating the situation even further, a French Army captain, Jean Louis Delayen, actually commanded the 1st Landing Battalion at Nha Trang.[2-E]

[2-E] Delayen, described by Croizat as “an exceptionally qualified French Commando officer,” later attended the U.S. Marine Corps Amphibious Warfare School at Quantico. (Croizat, “Notes on The Organization,” p. 3.)

Demobilization presented another potential difficulty for the Vietnamese Marine Corps in early 1955. Under the U.S.-Vietnamese force level agreements, the Vietnamese naval forces were limited to 3,000 men. The Marine Corps, which alone totalled a disproportionate 2,400 men, had been instructed to reduce its strength to 1,137 men and officers. With no effective centralized command structure and so many widely separated units, even the relatively simple task of mustering out troops assumed the dimensions of a complex administrative undertaking.

In short, the very existence of the Vietnamese Marine Corps was threatened in a number of inter-related situations. The continuation of a separate and distinct Marine Corps hinged ultimately, of course, on the overall reorganization of the Vietnamese armed forces and their support structure. Essentially it would be necessary to establish a requirement for such an organization within South Vietnam’s future military-naval structure. Croizat personally sensed that this would be the pivotal issue in determining the VNMC’s future. “There were numerous representatives of the three military services from each of the three countries concerned with the fate of the Vietnamese Army, Navy, and Air Force,” he pointed out. “But, there was no champion from within the Vietnamese Marine Corps since no Corps existed except on paper.”[2-3] Thus, it was left initially to a French captain, a Vietnamese major, and a U.S. Marine lieutenant colonel to keep alive the idea that South Vietnam’s defense establishment needed a separate Marine Corps.

_Political Stabilization and Its Effects_

During early 1955 the entire South Vietnamese government was engulfed by a crisis which threatened to disrupt the American plans to help build a viable anti-Communist country. The crisis occurred not in the form of an overt North Vietnamese attack but rather as a result of the South’s political instability. In February the leaders of the Hoa Hao, the Cao Dai, and the Binh Xuyen, dissatisfied with Premier Diem’s refusal to accede to their various demands, formed the United Front of National Forces.

By mid-March the disaffected leaders of these organizations felt strong enough to test the premier’s strength. Trouble began late that month when the Hoa Hao began undertaking guerrilla-type activities against Diem’s National Army units in the sect’s stronghold southwest of Saigon. On 28 March Diem ordered a company of paratroops to seize the Saigon Central Police Headquarters which the French had allowed the Binh Xuyen to control. Fighting erupted throughout the capital the next day as Binh Xuyen units clashed with loyal government forces. A truce was arranged finally in the city on 31 March after three days of intermittent but fierce fighting. That same day the Cao Dai broke with the United Front and accepted a government offer to integrate some of its troops into the National Army.

An uneasy peace prevailed over South Vietnam until 28 April when new fighting broke out. By the middle of May, government forces had driven the Binh Xuyen forces from Saigon, fracturing their organization. Remnants of the bandit group, however, escaped into the extensive Rung Sat swamps south of the capital where they continued fighting individually and in small groups. In the countryside south of Saigon, 30 of Diem’s battalions, including the 1st Landing Battalion, took the offensive against the Hoa Hao regular and guerrilla forces.

The national crisis, for all practical purposes, ended in the last week of June when a Hoa Hao leader surrendered 8,000 regulars and ordered his followers to cease all anti-government activities. Sporadic fighting continued, however, as Diem’s forces sought to mop-up Hoa Hao splinter groups fighting in the western Mekong Delta and Binh Xuyen elements still resisting in the rugged mangrove swamps south of the capital. In August the Marine Landing Battalion fought a decisive action against the remaining Hoa Hao in Kien Giang Province about 120 miles southwest of Saigon, destroying the rebel headquarters. Later in the year the 1st Landing Battalion, joined by several river boat companies, reduced one of the last pockets of Binh Xuyen resistance in the Rung Sat. As a result of these and similar actions being fought simultaneously by loyal Army units, organized resistance to Premier Diem gradually collapsed.[2-F]

[2-F] Some sources contend that remnants of the Hoa Hao and Cao Dai armies survived to operate alongside the Viet Cong guerrillas who began threatening the Diem government in the late 1950s. (Kahin and Lewis, _The U.S. in Vietnam_, p. 111.)

The sect crisis of 1955 proved to be the turning point in Diem’s political fortunes. At the height of the crisis, Emperor Bao Dai attempted to remove Diem as premier by ordering him to France for “consultations.” Electing to remain in Saigon and direct his government efforts to quell the rebellion, the premier declined Bao Dai’s summons. The Vietnamese military forces proved loyal to the premier, having faithfully executed Diem’s commands throughout the emergency. Having successfully met the armed challenge of the sects and the Binh Xuyen and having openly repudiated Bao Dai’s authority, Premier Diem had imposed at least a measure of political stability on South Vietnam.

An epilogue to the sect crisis was written on 23 October when a nationwide referendum was held in South Vietnam to settle the issue of national leadership. In the balloting, since criticized as having been rigged, Premier Diem received 98.2 percent of the total vote against Bao Dai. Three days later, on 26 October, South Vietnam’s new president proclaimed the Republic of Vietnam (RVN).

The Vietnamese Marine Corps benefited greatly from Premier Diem’s successful confrontation with his political rivals. On 1 May, in preparation for the 1st Landing Battalion’s deployment to combat, Major Trong had established a small Marine Corps headquarters in Saigon. Shortly thereafter, Diem had appointed a Vietnamese officer, Captain Bui Pho Chi, to replace Captain Delayen as commander of the landing battalion. The French commando officer, who was a member of TRIM, remained at Nha Trang as an advisor to the VNMC. Then, on the last day of June, Diem removed the remaining French officers from command positions throughout South Vietnam’s naval forces. The combined effect of these actions was to reduce French influence throughout the nation’s naval establishment while making the Vietnamese Marine Corps more responsive to the central government.

The burdens of demobilization also were lightened somewhat as a result of the sect crisis when a new force level was approved by the United States in mid-summer of 1955. The new agreement, dictated in part by the requirement to integrate portions of the sects’ armies into the national forces, raised the force level to 150,000 men and placed the personnel ceiling of the Vietnamese naval forces at 4,000 men. This revision enhanced the prospects for a corresponding increase in the authorized strength of the VNMC.

The 1st Landing Battalion’s performance against the sect forces in the Mekong Delta and the Rung Sat, moreover, tempered much of the previous opposition to a separate VNMC. Heretofore, U.S. and Vietnamese Army officers had opposed the existence of a Vietnamese amphibious force apart from the National Army. Until the sect uprising, Lieutenant Colonel Croizat had used the influence afforded by his position as naval advisor to the general staff to advocate the continuation of the VNMC. But during the sect battles the Vietnamese Marines had firmly established their value to the new government. By displaying loyalty, discipline, and efficiency in combat, they had spoken out in their own behalf at a critical juncture in their corp’s existence.

Shortly before the 1st Landing Battalion deployed to fight the rebellious sect forces, two additional U.S. Marine advisors--an officer and a noncommissioned officer--arrived in South Vietnam for duty with the MAAG. Both Marines were assigned to TRIM. Croizat dispatched the officer, Captain James T. Breckinridge, to Nha Trang where he soon replaced Captain Delayen as advisor to the 1st Landing Battalion. As State Department policy prohibited U.S. military personnel from participating in combat activities with indigenous forces, Breckinridge was forced to await the battalion’s return from the field. During its absence he divided his time between Nha Trang and Saigon where he assisted Colonel Croizat with planning and logistics matters. The noncommissioned officer, Technical Sergeant Jackson E. Tracy, initially remained in Saigon but later moved to Nha Trang. There, serving principally as a small unit tactics instructor to the Vietnamese Marines, Tracy impressed Breckinridge as a “first-rate Marine ‘NCO’--one who could carry out the most complex assignment with little or no supervision.”[2-4]

[Illustration: _Lieutenant Colonel Victor J. Croizat, first U.S. Marine Advisor to the Vietnamese Marine Corps, translates during discussions between Lieutenant General John “Iron Mike” O’Daniel, USA, Chief, USMAAG, Vietnam, and Premier Ngo Dinh Diem. (Photo courtesy of Colonel Victor J. Croizat, USMC (Ret.))._]

Soon after 1956 opened, President Diem appointed a new officer to head the Vietnamese Marine Corps. On 18 January Major Phan Van Lieu assumed command of the VNMC, and thereby became the second Senior Marine Officer.

_Reorganization and Progress_

The 1st Landing Battalion remained in action against the Binh Xuyen remnants until February 1956. During this period Lieutenant Colonel Croizat reviewed the entire organizational structure of the Vietnamese Marine Corps. By now the size of the service had been reduced to roughly 1,800 officers and men although it retained its original organization of six river boat companies, five light support companies, a landing battalion, a training flotilla, and a small headquarters.

This organization, with so many dissimilar units existing on one echelon, influenced Croizat to suggest that Major Lieu restructure the service. Assisted by Croizat, Captain Breckinridge, and Technical Sergeant Tracy, Lieu and his small staff spent several months developing and refining plans for the comprehensive reorganization of the Marine Corps. Lieu submitted this package to the Vietnamese Joint General Staff (JGS) on 21 December 1955. The salient feature of the plan was to create an additional landing battalion without increasing the 1,837-man ceiling which then governed the size of the VNMC. Significantly, the plan contained a clause proposing that the Vietnamese Marine Corps be expanded to regimental size in the future.[2-5]

[Illustration: VNMC TABLE OF ORGANIZATION AS OF 18 FEBRUARY 1956

AUTHORIZED STRENGTH, 1,837]

[Illustration: LANDING BATTALION TABLE OF ORGANIZATION AS OF 18 FEBRUARY 1956

AUTHORIZED STRENGTH 728]

The Vietnamese Joint General Staff approved the new structure, and reorganization of the VNMC was begun when the 1st Landing Battalion finally returned to Nha Trang in February. The old river boat and light support companies were disbanded and three new units--a 4.2-inch mortar company, a headquarters and service company, and a new landing battalion--were formed. Designated the 2d Landing Battalion, this new unit formed about 25 miles south of Nha Trang at Cam Ranh Bay where the French had trained amphibious forces during the latter stages of the Indochina War.

As a result of the 1956 reorganization effort, the tables of organization and tables of equipment for the Vietnamese Marine battalions were completely revised. Three infantry companies, a heavy weapons company, and a headquarters and service company now comprised a landing battalion.[2-G] Each infantry company was organized into three rifle platoons and a weapons platoon. In turn, the rifle platoons each consisted of three 10-man squads (three 3-man fire teams and a squad leader). The individual Vietnamese Marine rifleman was armed with the .30 caliber M-1 carbine, a weapon formerly carried by many French and Vietnamese commandos. It had been retained for use within the VNMC because it was substantially shorter and lighter than the standard U.S. infantry weapon, the M-1 rifle, and was therefore better suited to the small Vietnamese fighting man. The automatic rifleman in each Vietnamese Marine fire team carried the Browning automatic rifle (BAR), a heavier .30 caliber automatic weapon. The weapons platoon of the rifle company was built around six .30 caliber light machine guns. Within the heavy weapons company of the landing battalions was a mortar platoon, equipped with four 81mm mortars, and a recoilless rifle platoon.

[2-G] Whereas U.S. Marine infantry companies were designated by letters (A, B, C, D, etc.), the Vietnamese Marine infantry companies were given number designations.

While this reorganization was underway, Lieutenant Colonel Croizat initiated a search for acceptable means of expanding the Vietnamese Marine Corps to regimental size. A staff study produced by the Senior Marine Advisor a month before the first phase of the reorganization effort had begun included several important recommendations. Croizat proposed to General O’Daniel that authorization be granted to raise the ceiling on the VNMC from 1,837 to 2,435 officers and men. This, the Marine advisor pointed out, could be accomplished without affecting the overall ceiling on all South Vietnamese military and naval forces. By reassigning to the Vietnamese Marine Corps an amphibious battalion still organized within the National Army, the 150,000-man force level would not be altered. This would transform the Vietnamese Marine Corps into a three battalion regiment and would unify all South Vietnamese amphibious forces under a single command. Croizat’s study further recommended that the Vietnamese Marine Corps be designated part of the general reserve of the nation’s armed forces and that it be controlled directly by the Vietnamese Joint General Staff. Although no immediate action was taken on these recommendations, they were to serve as a blueprint for the future expansion of the VNMC. Equally important, they bore the seed that would eventually make the Vietnamese Marine Corps a fully integrated component of South Vietnam’s defense establishment.

During the ensuing three years, several apparently unrelated occurrences impacted either directly or indirectly on the U.S. Marine advisory effort in South Vietnam. The French completed their military withdrawal from South Vietnam and dissolved their High Command in April 1956, slightly ahead of schedule.[2-H] In conjunction with this final phase of the French withdrawal, the Training Relations Instructions Mission was abolished. Thus, it was no longer necessary for the MAAG programs to be executed through the combined training mission.

[2-H] A few French naval officers and noncommissioned officers remained at Nha Trang as instructors until late May 1957.

Shortly after the departure of the last French troops, Lieutenant Colonel Croizat ended his assignment as Senior Marine Advisor. He was replaced by Lieutenant Colonel William N. Wilkes, Jr., in June 1956. A veteran of the Guadalcanal campaign, Wilkes came to Vietnam from Washington, D.C. where he had recently completed a French language course. Like his predecessor, the new Senior Marine Advisor was scheduled to serve in Vietnam for two years.

In August, less than two months after Lieutenant Colonel Wilkes’ arrival, President Diem appointed a new officer to head his Marine Corps. This time Bui Pho Chi, the captain who had commanded the 1st Landing Battalion during the sect uprising, was selected for the assignment. Chi’s appointment was only temporary, however, for in October Diem ordered Major Le Nhu Hung to assume command of the Marine Corps. Major Hung, who became the VNMC’s fourth Senior Officer, was to hold the position for four years.

An attempt to abolish the Vietnamese Marine Corps coincided with the series of changes in its leadership and the departure of Lieutenant Colonel Croizat. During the summer months, the Vietnamese Minister of Defense proposed that the VNMC be made a branch of South Vietnam’s Army. Fortunately, the recent combat record of the 1st Landing Battalion outweighed the minister’s influence and the effort to disestablish the Vietnamese Marine Corps was thwarted.

Another noteworthy incident in the record of the early relations between the U.S. and Vietnamese Marines occurred when the Marine noncommissioned officer billet within the MAAG was upgraded to an officer position. This adjustment, which anticipated the creation of the 2d Landing Battalion, had the effect of making a U.S. Marine officer available to advise individual VNMC battalions on a permanent basis. Thus originated a plan whereby a U.S. Marine officer would advise each Vietnamese Marine battalion--a concept abandoned only temporarily between 1959 and 1962.

The Vietnamese Marine Corps continued as a two-battalion regiment under the command of Major Le Nhu Hung from mid-1956 through 1959. During this period Lieutenant Colonel Wilkes and his successor, Lieutenant Colonel Frank R. Wilkinson, Jr., a Marine who had served as an aide to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, instituted a variety of programs intended to provide the Vietnamese Marines with a common base of experience and training.[2-I] Perhaps the most important of these was one implemented in 1958 whereby Vietnamese Marine officers began attending basic and intermediate level schools at Marine Corps Schools, Quantico. Other formal schools for noncommissioned officers were established by the Vietnamese Marine Corps in South Vietnam. In an effort to build _esprit de corps_ among the lower ranking Vietnamese Marines, the U.S. advisors encouraged voluntary enlistments. They also persuaded their Vietnamese counterparts to adopt a corps-wide marksmanship training program similar to the one then in use by the U.S. Marine Corps.

[2-I] See Appendix A for complete listings of VNMC Commandants and Senior Marine Advisors to the VNMC during the 1954–1964 period.

In conjunction with the reorganization of the VNMC and the stress being placed upon small unit and individual training, much of the U.S. advisory effort during this period was devoted to logistics. The Marine advisors soon discovered that the Vietnamese officers, who had not been directly concerned with supply matters under the French, tended to ignore this important area. “The real problem,” explained Captain Breckinridge, “was the newness of it all. The Vietnamese officers simply possessed no base of experience or training in logistic matters.”[2-6] This shortcoming dictated that the American advisors not only design a workable logistics system but closely supervise its operation as well. Wilkes and Wilkinson instituted intensive schooling of supply and maintenance personnel and emphasized the value of command supervision to the Vietnamese leaders. The Marine advisors, for example, taught their counterparts that equipment shortages could often be prevented if command attention were given to requisitions. Still, even with constant supervision and formal schooling, the Vietnamese Marine Corps continued to experience problems in this area throughout the 1950s and well into the next decade. Breckinridge, who returned to serve with the Vietnamese Marines again as a lieutenant colonel in the late 1960s, recalled shortages of such vital and common items as small arms ammunition even then.

The years between 1955 and 1959 also saw the Marine advisors working to overcome a potentially more serious problem, one that also dated from the French-Indochina War. From the outset of their experience with the Vietnamese Marine Corps, the Marine advisors perceived that a strong defensive orientation seemed to pervade every echelon of the small service. Most Americans, including U.S. Army advisors who were encountering similar difficulties with the Vietnamese Army, agreed that this “defensive psychology” was a by-product of the long subordination of the Vietnamese National forces to the French High Command. Indeed, a criticism frequently voiced by USMAAG officials during the Indochina War had been that the French tended to frustrate the development of the Vietnamese military forces by assigning them static security tasks rather than offensive missions. Even though the forerunners of the Vietnamese Marine battalions had operated as commando units, they too had seen extensive duty protecting _dinassaut_ bases and other French installations. Now this defensive thinking was affecting the attitude of the Vietnamese Marine toward training. Moreover, it was threatening the American effort to transform the service into an aggressive amphibious strike force.

[Illustration: _First group of Vietnamese Marine officers to attend U.S. Marine Officers Basic School, Quantico, Virginia, pose with Lieutenant Colonel Frank R. Wilkinson, Jr. (second from right), and Captain Michael Gott (extreme right). At the extreme left is Captain Le Nguyen Khang, a future Commandant of the Vietnamese Marine Corps. To his immediate left is Major Le Nhu Hung, a senior officer of the VNMC. (Photo courtesy of Lieutenant Colonel Michael Gott, USMC)._]

By nature this particular problem defied quick, simple solutions. The Marine advisors, therefore, undertook to adjust the orientation of the entire Vietnamese Marine Corps over a prolonged period through continuous emphasis on offensive training. The advisors consistently encouraged their Vietnamese counterparts to develop training schedules which stressed patrolling, ambushing, fire and maneuver, and night movement. In this same connection the Marine advisors translated U.S. Marine small unit tactics manuals into French, whereupon the same manuals were further translated by Vietnamese Marines into Vietnamese. This process assured that adequate training literature was made available to the individual Marine and his small unit leaders. The offensively oriented training programs and the translation project complemented one another, and combined with continuous supervision by the U.S. advisors and the return of young Vietnamese officers from Quantico, gradually helped impart a more aggressive offensive spirit to the entire Marine Corps.

_Summing Up Developments_

The years between 1955 and 1959 constitute perhaps the most critical and challenging span in the chronicle of the Vietnamese Marine Corps. Born out of the confusion which dominated South Vietnam in the aftermath of the Geneva Agreement, the embryonic Marine Corps had survived against heavy odds. Even before its scattered components could be drawn together under a centralized command, the Corps had been hurled into combat against the rebellious sects. Over the course of their commitment the Vietnamese Marines had strengthened their own cause through demonstrations of their fighting capability and loyalty. In terms of the VNMC’s continued existence, equally critical battles were being waged in Saigon where the Senior U.S. Marine Advisor and the Vietnamese Senior Marine Officer struggled to gain support for the infant service. It was there, ironically, that the destiny of the Vietnamese Marine Corps ultimately had been decided.

On balance, the interval between 1955 and 1959 was characterized by uncertainty, transition, and problem solving. Never sure of the Marine Corps’ future, the Senior Vietnamese Marine Officer and a handful of U.S. Marine advisors had carried forward their efforts to transform scattered French-inspired river commando units into a coherent and responsive American-style amphibious force. While this transformation was only partially realized, definite progress was apparent. Vietnamese officers had replaced French commanders, and with American guidance, had given their service a strong interim structure. Many of the more serious problems which had plagued the struggling organization since its inception had been identified. With American assistance, solutions to those problems were being developed and tested. So, despite a stormy beginning and a threatened early childhood, the Vietnamese Marine Corps lived.