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the hell they were doing! ‘Task Force Delta’ was a good example of the inept leadership that resulted in Marines being killed. My old outfit ( 2/7 ) was pulled into Operation Harvest Moon’ by a loosely strung together ‘Task Force’ led by General Henderson—a respected veteran of WWII and Korea but he had never commanded a large, regimental sized unit. @ 42 The Task Force pulled in units from two different Regiments and Two different Divisions, ( 2nd. Bn, 7th. Marines, 3rd. Bn., 3rd. Marines and 2nd. Bn. 4th Marines ),The ARVN, Navy Amphibious artillery and air support, Air Force air support and artillery support from the 12 th. Marines. Neither of the aforementioned battalion commanders had their full battalion contingent with their own artillery support in this operation. This is important because battalions train together—develop communications networks, call signs and know what to do when confronting a given situation. The coordination and communications issues with this pieced together regiment proved to be a disaster! Marine units couldn’t communicate due to radio ‘interference’ from the helicopter support units who were inadvertently interfering with the ground to ground communications. 43@ As every one now knows our Marines, including 2/7 overcame the miscues of higher command and fought bravely thru their objectives —turning an assault into a rescue mission for it’s own units and the units from participating Battalions—The Task Force Commander—General Henderson was relieved during this operation by general Walt.@44
I had great empathy for our Company commanders in 1/4 when I would brief them in our staff briefing sessions. These Marine officers were the ones who
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