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Naval support hadn’t been there. @ 56 enemy losses were difficult to measure but it appeared that we had 48 confirmed VC—possibly another 40 KIA and another 50 WIA had been confirmed.
Hindsight is 20/20 of course but the question will always remain in my mind— why in the hell were we there with a bobtail Battalion and not at full strength Especially, in light of what happened during Operation Harvest Moon a few
weeks earlier just South of Operation Oregon’s battle zone. Col. Utter and the Marines of 2/7 (minus) did the best they could but they were fighting at less than full strength because of the incompetence and poor judgment by the higher echelon resulting in the eventual removal from command of a Marine General! Col. Sullivan and the Marines of 1/4 were also operating without a full battalion and communications with one in reserve from another Division was a disaster. @57
Many of the details I have mentioned I was able to glean from reports made later re. our operations. My memory was pretty good but it helped immensely to have dates, times, units and the sequence of some events verified by official records and reports. I reference these throughout this project.
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