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File: 082696_d50035_005.txt
b. This level of support continued during the Inchon-Seoul
campaign. Marine attack aircraft also staged ashore after the
capture of Kimpo airfield near Seoul. When the 1st Marine
Division went back aboard ships for the planned amphibious
landing at Wonsan on the eastern coast of Korea, the escort
carriers and their Marine aircraft followed. The latter provided
good close air support for the division throughout the subsequent
Chosin Reservoir campaign.
C. Not all Marine aviation activity during this period involved
close air support for the 1st Marine Division. The Air Force
received early in the war the authority to coordinate the
activities of all aviation units based on Korean soil. The night
fighter squadron of the 1st Marine Brigade moved to Korea while
its sister squadrons operated from the escort carriers. The Air
Force integrated this squadron1s sorties into the overall air
campaign.
d. The squadrons which operated from Kimpo airfield after its
capture escaped Air Force control because they were inside the
"amphibious objective area." Another analysis is that the Air
Force simply had not yet moved into the area and established
control. In any event, the Marine squadrons went back to the
escort carriers for the move to the Wonsan area.
1006. VIETNAM
a. The Vietnam War, particularly the years 1965-1970, raised a
number of problems for the Marine Corps in the area of joint
operations. Some of these problems were self-inflicted.
b. The first Marine combat units to enter the Vietnam War were
transport helicopter squadrons support the Army of the Republic
of Vietnam (ARVN). The code name for this support was "Operation
Shufly." It began in 1962 with the squadron first operating in
the Mekong Delta from a World War II Japanese airfield at Soc
Trang, followed later in the year by a shift north to Danang.
Helicopter squadrons rotated in and out of this assignment until
the full-scale deployment of the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing to
Danang in 1965.
C. The senior Marine command in Vietnam during the bulk of the
Vietnam War was the III Marine Amphibious Force (III MAF). Its
major subordinate combat units were the 1st and 3d Marine
Divisions and the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing.
d. The Special Landing Force
(1) There were Marine combat units engaged in the Vietnam
War which were not under the operational control of III MAF.
These forces, normally drawn from elements of III MAF, were under
1-5
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