Operation Starlite: first major battle and regimental size clash between U.S. and enemy forces during the Vietnam War

Operation Starlite was the first major battle and regimental size clash between U.S. and enemy forces during the Vietnam War. Over the course of six days, between Aug. 18-24, 1965, units from the 3rd Marine Division, 3rd Marine Amphibious Force, clashed with the 1st Viet Cong Regiment south of the newly established Marine base at Chu Lai in the I Corps area of responsibility. Being no unit of part-time farmers, the 1st Viet Cong Regiment was a thoroughly professional organization of battle-hardened fighters. It was commanded by Col. Le Huu Tru, who had led a battalion at the iconic battle at Dien Bien Phu against the French in 1954.

The operation was the opportunity for Marines to test a combat doctrine they had long practiced in peacetime—that of combined amphibious assault and simultaneous vertical envelopment. That is, a landing of Marines on a beach on one side of the enemy and inserting Marines by helicopter on the other in order to trap the enemy between them. Secondly, it was the first Marine search and destroy operation of the war. For the first time, the Marines left the defensive enclave they had been ordered to man since landing in Da Nang in early March and carried the fight to the enemy. Lastly, it was a win for SigInt, or signal intelligence—the exploitation of the enemy’s electronic communications through intercept or direction finding.

On August 15th, Maj. Gen. Thi, the South Vietnamese Army Commander in I Corps, informed Lt. Gen. Lewis Walt, the senior Marine in Vietnam, that he had urgent news. He had an enemy defector, a seventeen year old who had been drafted into the Viet Cong the previous spring. The young man told Major General Thi that the 1st Viet Cong Regiment had moved onto the Van Tuong peninsula just south of the new Marine base at Chu Lai. Until this time, the Marines had received agent reports among other sources, that placed the unit in multiple locations and they weren’t sure how credible the defector’s information was. Then they received a lucky break. A National Security Agency SigInt analyst in Saigon pouring over direction finder reports, found several that located the radio known to be used by the headquarters of the 1st Viet Cong Regiment on the Van Tuong peninsula. Recognizing a threat to the base at Chu Lai and an opportunity to destroy an important enemy unit, Gen. Walt immediately set in motion a major operation. Time was of the essence: he was determined to act before the enemy either attacked the Marine base at Chu Lai or melted away into the western hills. The units had two days and three sleepless nights to prepare and launch an attack. The operation was to be named Operation Satellite but a generator failure caused a clerk to misread the handwritten instructions and the operation became known as Starlite.

CHARLIE FINK REMEMBERS VIETNAM, OPERATION STARLITE 50 YEARS AFTER

By Sgt. Melissa Karnath, Marines.mil

Charles “Charlie” Darrow Fink never imagined that his good friend would be shot dead right next to him during a firefight in Vietnam during Operation Starlite. When Fink enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1964, the United States had increased its involvement in Vietnam. He realized that being deployed to a war was a very likely possibility. However, nothing was going to deter Fink from becoming a Marine.

After recruit training at Mairne Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, South Carolina, Fink reported to the Infantry Training Regiment at Camp Geiger, North Carolina. While at ITR, Fink missed some important training due to illness.

“I got an upper respitory infection an spent time at the sick bay. I missed Amphibious Tractor training. During training we learned quick.”

During the summer of 1965, Fink arrived at Chu Lai, Vietnam where the Marines learned the Viet Cong were planning to attack their position. Operation Starlite, also known as the Battle of Van Tuong, was quickly devised to assault the Viet Cong first. Fink was with 3rd Squad, 3rd Platoon, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division.

“The beach landing was the largest amphibious operation since Inchon in Korea. Just before my unit was supposed to debark from the ship, our squad was told we’d be in reserves, so we didn’t get to make the initial landing. We went in at about 8 p.m., August 18.”

Fink realized how important it is to never miss training as soon as he arrived in Vietnam.

“Everyone from my unit got on the AMTRAC [as] it was loaded off the ship. As the AMTRAC made the way to the beach, I turned around and started facing the back, because I thought we were going to get off from the back end. Everyone else was facing forward, and I’m thinking ‘something isn’t right here.'”

Fink noticed a crack of light coming over his shoulder as the front of the AMTRAC rose up as it landed on the beach.

“I thought ‘I’m not going to be the last one off this puppy. I’m going to be the first one off of it.’ In Vietnam, you either learn fast or die.”

As Fink ran off the AMTRAC, he saw the beach was covered with dead Viet Cong.

“I ran as fast as I could to the tree line where I thought I was going to get cover. We were told going into Starlite, “If there are people not wearing Marine Corps green, shoot them.’ Landing on the beach, the first thing I saw was an old man dressed in all white with his bamboo straw hat and a cane. He was running away as fast as an old man could, which wasn’t real fast. I couldn’t shoot him, his cane was not a rifle.”

Fink and the Marines made their way across the beach to the jungle. While in the jungle, Fink’s unit caught up to the rest of the Marines who had made the initial assault.

“The Marines who were ahead of us were so shot up it was really, really bad. John Jamison, our grenadier and my best friend in the unit, and I scouted out where a machine gun was located. It was about 50 yards away from where we were.”

Fink saw the machine gun but Jemison didn’t see the weapon system since it was heavily camouflaged. Fink shot under the machine gun, which caused a big cloud of dust to rise up from the ground.

“Jemison fired a round that flew and landed right on the enemy’s head. Another enemy Vietnamese jumped on the gun. They saw us. The second gunner fired off rounds and caught John right here [in the forehead.] We were literally shoulder to shoulder when that happened. I got really angry.”

Fink shot the enemy Viet Cong who was firing the gun. The other fighters got up and ran and Fink shot them dead too.

“As soon as I fired my last round at the VCs there was an explosion that flipped me over onto my back. I looked down at my arm and there’s blood sqirting out of it. I had shrapnel in my face, shoulder and arm. My fire team leader came over to put a bandage on, and he was shot in the shoulder. I had to crawl over John’s body.”

Fink was evaculated for recovery, and moved to a naval ship.

“The Navy sent me to the hospital for two weeks and fed me ice cream. I came back to my unit. We were licking our wounds. We were shot up real bad. We couldn’t do anything.”

After his deployment, Fink was stationed at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, North Carolina as the noncommissioned officer in charge of all the pools and aquatics training.

“I really loved being a Marine. I had applied for Marine Corps Enlisted Commissioning Education Program and was going to attend college to get my degree. Then I got orders to go back to Vietnam. I had a wife and a daughter at this time. My daughter was about six months old. I started thinking about what happened in Vietnam. I thought a lot about Starlite. I thought about all the Marines who were injured and died in Vietnam. I just couldn’t do it. I felt my responsibility was to my wife and my daughter.”

When Fink ended his active duty service, he didn’t have much direction and wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with his future.

“I had post-traumatic stress disorder after I was discharged, but I didn’t know it. I thought it was totally normal to punch holes in walls. I finally went to the Veteran’s Administration; I was told I didn’t have any problems. I went home and kept punching holes in the wall.”

One day Fink broke his finger after he punched a wall with a stud behind it.

“My parents told me, ‘You obviously have problems from Vietnam. We’re going to pay for a private doctor.'”

After Fink visited with his new private doctor for about 10-15 mintues, the doctor told Fink to go back to the VA.

“I was waiting for the examiner [at the doctor’s office], and my civlian doctor walked in. She took care of everything, and I started to get treatment. The VA did a good job for me. PTSD doesn’t go away, they teach you ways to deal with it.”

Fifty years after Operation Starlite, Fink still remembers his four and a half years as a Marine with a smile on his face.

“If you want to be the best you join the Marines. The Marine Corps is a brotherhood like no other. I am so proud of each and every one of the Marines. It makes me so proud to see the young Marines [today].”

This story is part of an ongoing series of Marines who participated in Operation Starlite in Vietnam, 1965.

MIKE JENKINS REMEMBERS VIETNAM, OPERATION STARLITE 50 YEARS AFTER

By Sgt. Melissa Karnath

Homer “Mike” Kesler Jenkins actively participates in military ceremonies for holidays and funerals throughout his hometown community wearing the same Marine uniform he wore in the 1960s. However, after more than six decades, memories of battles in Vietnam are still active in his mind.

“It’s an emotional trip to be a survivor. ‘Why me? Why did I survive?’ I wonder every day why I’m still alive. I still wonder. I don’t know why, but I am. I think about it a lot, still do. Somethings are still very vivid.”

Friends and finances influenced Jenkins to join the Marines in 1960. He attended officer candidate school at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, earning $220 a month.

“It was a tough program. When I went in, the Corps wasn’t looking for officers. The platoon sergeant told us the first day, ‘We’ve got too many of you guys, so we are going to weed you out.’ You were washed out if you couldn’t handle it physically, mentally or if the drill instructors didn’t like you. A few of us made it, and I guess I was one of the lucky ones. Sometimes I wonder if it was luck or not.”

After graduating, Marines got their choice of duty stations based on placement in the class. Jenkins chose Hawaii, spending two years there as an infantry officer. When the United States became more involved in Vietnam and began to send Marine Corps officers as advisors, Jenkins was interested in going.

“I went to see my lieutenant colonel, Joseph “Bull” Fisher. I told him I heard Marine Corps officers were being sent to Vietnam as advisors and I’d like to go. He said, ‘I don’t have a quota, and if I did have a quota you couldn’t go.’ He was not a guy to question, so I didn’t say anything and started to leave. He said ‘do you know why I wouldn’t let you go?’ I said ‘no sir I don’t.’ He said ‘because you are a reserve officer. Now get out of here.’”

Jenkins left Fisher’s office but went back again the first day of the next month and asked again. Fisher offered Jenkins the opportunity to transfer from regular reserve. If Jenkins transferred, Fisher said he would consider him. Jenkins didn’t accept the offer.

“The first day of the next month I went to see him. I said I wanted to go to Vietnam as an advisor. He pushed the same paper work across his desk to me. I pushed it back and left. No conversation.”

Jenkins went back the first day of every month at 9 a.m. for six months.

“The seventh month when I went to see him, he pushed a stack of papers across. It was paper work to be an advisor in Vietnam. He said ‘you leave Sunday morning.’ In less than a week I left to go to Saigon as an advisor.”

Jenkins spent six months as an advisor in Vietnam. He spent his time in the jungle with the Vietnamese troops to gain combat experience. Jenkins called in helicopters for the evacuation of wounded, called in weapons fire and air support.

“As advisors, we didn’t do decision making as to what position to take or attacking a position.  The reason was because the company commander couldn’t speak English and we couldn’t speak any Vietnamese. The only person in my company I could talk to was the corpsman who spoke some English. There were about 175 in the company I was attached to. I saw a lot of combat, a lot of blood. A lot of people were shot. I saw a lot of mistakes. I saw a lot of good things.”

After his tour, Jenkins returned to Hawaii and was interviewed by Fisher. Fisher wanted to know everything that Jenkins had done.

“Lt. Col. Fisher told me there were three of us in the battalion who had seen combat, myself, the sergeant major and him. So effective right now, you are the H company commander. Go down and relieve the major.”

Jenkins, who was recently promoted to first lieutenant, questioned his instructions to relieve a major.

“I said ‘colonel, you want me to go down and tell him I’m his relief?’ He answered ‘you’re the company commander, go take care of your company. Now get out of here.’ So I went to see the major and told him that I was relieving him of his command. He was sitting at his desk and slammed his chair against the wall. He didn’t say a word and stormed out of there to see [lieutenant] colonel Fisher.”

Five days after assuming command, Jenkins and the Marines with 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment deployed to Okinawa for intensive combat training. After a month, he and his Marines were in Chu Lai, Vietnam.

“I had the best company in the battalion for about a year. We had more kills than any other company. We got all the tough assignments. I asked Lt.Col. Fisher one day why we got all the tough missions. He said, ‘because you can handle it. Now get out there and take care of it.’”

Soon after arriving in Vietnam for his second tour in early 1965, Jenkins and his company were preparing for what would become a very deadly battle. Operation Starlite took place in order to attack the enemy before they could attack the Marines.

Jenkins and another company commander conducted a reconnaissance mission two days before the operation to scout out their landing zones.

“We were flying pretty low and pretty fast in a helicopter. We were sitting in the door of the chopper side by side. The VC stepped out from behind a bush and shot at us with a weapon. Three rounds went right between us and bounced off the back of the chopper and rolled back. I picked up one, put it in my pocket and carried it with me for a long time. I was pretty confident this was going to be a hostile landing zone. I didn’t realize how hostile it was going to be.”

Jenkins landed with his Marines in a rice paddy of a village where the enemy had their headquarters. The day was August 18, 1965.

“When my company landed we were totally surrounded immediately. We fought for several hours and never moved 50 feet. Our tanks were being disabled. On one occasion I was giving direction to the tank commander on where I wanted to be for an assault and the telephone was shot out of my hand. The telephone was ruined, so I had to get on top of the tank to talk to the commander then a 82 mm mortar hit the front of the tank.”

Jenkins had been on the back of tank on the engine compartment talking to the commander. The impact from the artillery piece blew Jenkins off the tank and into a rice paddy approximately 15 feet away. The rice paddy had about 12 inches of water in it.

“I remember it like it was yesterday. I was lying in that water and I looked up, it was muddy water. I thought this is what it’s like to be dead. My family and our farm, 25 years worth, all went by in about less than five seconds. I could feel I had both legs and both arms, for some reason I sat up. The water was about chest deep. I looked around and there was no blood in the water. ‘Hell I’m not dead!’ but I was totally deaf. I couldn’t hear anything. It was total silence.”

Jenkins crawled out of the rice paddy and found his radio operator. He explained to the radio operator that he couldn’t hear anything. Since Jenkins considered himself inoperable, he took cover for approximately an hour until he could finally hear. Then he went back to battle.

“We fought them all day into most of the night. It was getting late, probably an hour before dark. The only protection we had were rice dikes and a big ravine that ran through the position probably six feet deep. In the ravine we’d had hand-to-hand combat two or three times that day. We’d be in the ravine and they’d attack us in groups of 50 to 100. We just couldn’t kill enough of them and a bunch would end up in the ravine with us.”

Before dark, Jenkins had all the tanks placed in a circle facing outward. All the weapons faced outward and the Marines dug in underneath the tanks.

“I landed that morning with 200 people, at this time I had 50 left. We’d already evacuated 50 killed in action and about 100 wounded in action. They hit us one time after dark and we tore their heads off because we had plenty of protection. They hit us with mortars as they usually did before an attack. We had overhead protection unlike what we had all day. We had machine guns, heavy armor and us under the tanks. They hit us one time about an hour after dark and didn’t hit us again. They must have realized we were dug in pretty tight, and we were. We were there to stay.”

The next morning Jenkins and his Marines were relieved and they got on a ship to head back to Chu Lai. In early 1966, Jenkins’ replacement for his company arrived. Jenkins decided to spend three weeks with his relief to orient him to the situation and what to expect in Vietnam. They did everything together.

“The first patrol the new commander took the company on alone, I had three days left in country. During the night, he set the company up in a text book defensive position on top of a hill. When you had been there as long as I had, you know that perfect position is a terrible position. The bad guys know you’re going to set up there. They’re going to lay down artillery or mortars on you, or in this case there were mines. One of my former radio operators was digging in for the night with the whole headquarters group and was killed along with the first sergeant, new company commander and a medic.

Jenkins left Vietnam February, 1966 and was discharged two days after he left the country. After two tours in Vietnam he didn’t want to return.

“I didn’t want anymore. I turned down purple hearts. I got a lot of shrapnel at different times. A lot of Marines, including myself, thought it was a bad omen to take a purple heart if you still had your entire faculty together. I wrote up a lot of awards.

Jenkins’ company had 125 personal decorations awarded. He was awarded a Silver Star Medal for his actions.

“The most difficult thing was writing more than 50 letters after Starlite. Writing to families about how their Marine died took me weeks to get those things done. One of the difficult things was that I didn’t witness all of it. I had to go out and talk to witnesses that did see it and then even more difficult people wrote letters back asking for more details. That was the most difficult thing telling a mother why and how her son got killed. I’ve tried to erase that from my memory.”

Jenkins thinks it took seven years to overcome experiences from Vietnam after he was back at his family’s farm near Hughes Springs. The farm had been neglected, so Jenkins spent the next three years working the farm alone.

“I was right in front of the house trying to recover some of the pasture land, and I saw a rifle barrel reflection about a quarter mile in the woods in front of me. I stopped the tractor and bailed off because I thought there was a sniper over there. After a few seconds, I realized this is east Texas not Vietnam. Another time when I had my daughter, I got up in the middle of the night after hearing something in the house making a strange noise. I rolled out of bed, crawled into the kitchen to get a butcher knife. I didn’t want to use a gun because my wife and daughter were in bed. The noise was near my daughter who was less than a year old in her crib. I crawled under her crib and realized that the noise was the springs under her crib. I had a tough time getting over it.”

BEN PALERMO REMEMBERS VIETNAM, OPERATION STARLITE 50 YEARS AFTER

By Sgt. Melissa Karnath

Benjamin “Ben” Palermo loved traveling the world and seeing new places as a Marine. Palermo never imagined that when he volunteered to go to Hawaii that he’d soon be experiencing combat in Vietnam. During Operation Starlite, he was fired at from every direction as he saw helicopters shot out of the sky. Fear stirred up inside him as he realized there was an enemy who wanted to kill him.

Palermo intended to enlist into the Navy but ended up joining the Marines. Palermo saw many places around the world as a Marine.

“After leaving my physical for enlisting in the Navy, I saw recruiters from the different service branches. The Marine recruiter yelled to me, ‘you look like you want to be a Marine! Get over here! Let me see your documentation.’ The Marine took my paperwork and stamped all of it with ‘USMC.’ That is how I joined the Marine Corps, and I’m proud to say that.”

After completing recruit training at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, South Carolina, Palermo attended training at Camp Geiger in North Carolina with Infantry Training Regiment in 1963.

“I enjoyed the training; it was fabulous. I was assigned to 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, North Carolina for approximately 18 months. We went on a Mediterranean cruise while I was stationed there. Some of the countries I saw were Egypt, France, Italy, Iran and Spain.

After returning from the Mediterranean deployment, Palermo was offered the oppurtunity to change duty stations.

“Our first sergeant had us in formation and asked, ‘who wants to go to Hawaii?’ I had my hand way up in the sky. The first sergeant said to me, ‘are you sure you want to go?’ I answered; of course I wanted to go to Hawaii! No one else raised their hand, they knew something I didn’t obviously.”

Within weeks, Palermo found himself at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California for training before arriving in Hawaii with the 4th Marine Regiment.

“We were training in the mountains and I was wondering, ‘why are we training?’ Finally we got on a troop carrier and went to Hawaii. We weren’t stationed there; we were just aboard ship there for about two weeks. I was able to explore Hawaii and it was fabulous. Then we went to Okinawa by ship in 1965. I was excited I was seeing the world. We trained there for about a month. I wondered, ‘why are we training so much?”

One evening on Okinawa, our colonel pulled all the Marines of the 4th Marine Regiment together.

“The colonel said we were going to do a little police action. As he’s talking, new gear is being issued. Brand new M14 rifles still wrapped were handed out, wow, brand new! Only my hands have touched my new rifle. I felt like a kid. I was excited. I heard the other Marines saying, ‘we’re going to war!'”

During May 1965, Palermo arrived with his Marine brothers in Vietnam.

“We landed in Vietnam from helicopters, and I thought ‘what country is this again?’ We were in outposts in the country and were being attacked by Viet Cong coming in from rice patties. That was a frightening experience. My sergeant was shot and stabbed by a VC, but he was able to kill the attacker in hand-to-hand combat. From that point on we realized that this was very serious. We realized that there is an enemy out there who wanted to kill us. It was scary.”

Palermo and his Marines set up firing positions with sand bags to form a front line. The positions were approximately every 30-40 feet. They also went on a lot of patrols in the area.

“We were patrolling south of Chu Lai, and I had the rear guard with a buddy. We heard fire and realized we were being ambushed. After the shooting stopped, the colonel and the company commander had us walk by the dead VCs to see who we were fighting. I’ll never forget looking at this dead VC with his brains scattered.”

The Marines continued to patrol and a couple of hours later they were under fire again from a machine gun. There were approximately 240 Marines on the patrol and they fired back in the direction of the enemy fire.

“Another Marine and I had to go examine the site where the fire was coming from. We found the weapon, but we didn’t see any VC. Then we saw what looked like pieces of meat, so we knew we had killed them.”

Palermo didn’t know what Operation Starlite was until it was happening during August 1965.

“Our colonel pulled the entire 4th Marine Regiment together and said we were going on an operation at 0500. I’ll never forget his words. He said, ‘we are going to be fighting an enemy that’s had 20 plus years of fighting experience. They are called the Viet Cong, but you are Marines. You are better trained. You can deal with this. I expect all of you to come home.”

The next morning Palermo boarded a helicopter with his Marines and landed in a command post of the enemy fighters on a ridge.

“As soon as we landed all we saw were explosions and heard weapons firing. I saw the VCs coming out of holes. I saw more of them coming. I thought, ‘our guys were getting slaughtered.’ I started shooting them. I saw helicopters taken down by mortars. It was a nightmare.”

As Palermo crossed a field, he realized they were taking fire from all directions. The enemy fighters had holes and tunnels that ran under the field. The Marines were walking right over their enemy and didn’t even realize it.

“We were being shot from every angle. We kept advancing. The enemy was everywhere. When we arrived at the village close by, the Marines figured out that the VC had tunnels that connected the village to the surrounding areas. It was scary. The VCs were skilled fighters. We lost a lot of people in H Company, a lot of people. It was sad. The VCs were about 4 foot, 11 inches, 130 pounds. Every VC that we killed or saw had muscles that do not exist in the biology box. Their legs had muscles like footballs and their arms were large. They were strong little suckers.”

Operation Starlite lasted a total of three days for Palermo. He was in Vietnam for about 15 months and left during August 1966. He landed at Los Angeles International Airport directly from Vietnam.

“A woman at LAX saw us at the airport after we had just gotten back from Vietnam. She spit on us and called us baby killers. I went after her, and two Marines restrained me. That happened to a lot of Marines at airports and bus stations. We were so rejected that I had a very bitter taste toward America.”

Palermo was then assigned to Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia.

“My first sergeant asked me if I wanted to re-enlist. I asked, ‘will I have to go back to Vietnam?’ He answered that he couldn’t guarantee it. I didn’t re-enlist. I didn’t want to go back to that kind of environment, so I got out.”

When Palermo was discharged from the Marines, he went to work for a finance company in Manhattan. As he relfects about Operation Starlite, Palermo emphasizes how Marines are special.

“Operation Starlite was the first operation to give oppurtunity for both sides to learn who is who, who has what and what we were up against. I know that because of Starlite, the VC changed their tactics in doing battle with us; we weren’t like the French. Marines particularly have a special brotherhood, a special bond. We stick together and look out for each other.”