Word: peninsulas
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...weeks the marines had been receiving reports that the Viet Cong were preparing the peninsula as a staging area for an attack on the Chu Lai airbase. Marine patrols had been sent out on almost daily probes around the peninsula's five coastal villages, all named Van Tuong, and last week a recon company brought back word that a large new force of V.C. had just arrived from the south. Within 24 hours, "Operation Starlight" had begun...
...trap the enemy between the river (see map) and the sea, and they used every trick in the book to pull it off. One company of leather necks crossed the river in LTVs to form a blocking force from the north.Two more companies made an amphibious landing on the peninsula'ssouthern most coast, blocking off the south. At the same time, three other companies were landed by helicopter in paddy-fields at the back of the peninsula to the west. With their backs to the sea, the Viet Cong were trapped...
...pieces by the Galveston's guns. Another company tried to break through to the west and was burned to ash by napalm. Finally, shortly after dawn, the leathernecks smashed the Van Tuong stronghold and slogged ahead toward their final goal, the beaches at the eastern end of the peninsula...
...caves. By week's end the marines had counted 567 Viet Cong dead, believed hundreds more were entombed in tunnels sealed with flame and explosives. U.S. Air Force planes killed an estimated 55 others when they attacked a band of 400 V.C. trying to sneak away from the peninsula...
...North Korean Reds invaded the South-just as Rhee had predicted. By this time, the U.S. had got militant, too, and Harry Truman sent U.S. troops in defense of South Korea, rallying the U.N. to join the fight. As the fighting raged up and down the peninsula, it became clear that the eventual result was to be a military standoff near the 38th parallel. That was not good enough for Syngman Rhee, who publicly and furiously argued that unless all of Korea was reclaimed, the U.S. would be doomed to perpetual piecemeal containment of Communism. When the treaty of Panmunjom...