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8 March 1965Reputable source · 2 sourcesWell documented

Rolling Thunder and the First Combat Troops

The war becomes America's own: sustained bombing of the North begins, and Marines wade ashore at Da Nang.

On the timeline · around 8 March 1965 · The American WarThe American BuildupThe American WarRolling Thunder and the First Combat Troops196419651966

Quick facts

Rolling Thunder begins
13 February 1965
First combat troops land
8 March 1965, Da Nang
Initial force
about 3,500 Marines
MACV commander
General William Westmoreland

What happened

In February 1965, after a Viet Cong attack on a US base at Pleiku killed eight Americans, President Johnson ordered Operation Rolling Thunder, a sustained bombing campaign against North Vietnam that began on 13 February 1965 and would run for three years. On 8 March 1965 the first US ground combat troops, roughly 3,500 Marines, landed at Da Nang to defend the airbase there, the first American combat units committed to Vietnam rather than serving as advisers. Hundreds of thousands more troops followed within two years. General William Westmoreland, commanding MACV, pursued a strategy of attrition, seeking to kill more enemy fighters than Hanoi could replace.

Why it matters

This was the moment Vietnam became, in American terms, a war the United States was fighting rather than funding. The scale of the commitment, and the draft that sustained it, changed the war's politics at home as much as its conduct in the field.

How we know

The Office of the Historian's account, drawn from State and Defense Department records, dates Rolling Thunder's start and the first Marine landings precisely.

Sources

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