Combat· Vietnam War
Op MEADE RIVER
Operation Meade River was a large cordon-and-search operation in the lowlands south of Da Nang, a concentrated effort to trap and destroy the enemy forces embedded in the populous, fortified area known as Dodge City, a stretch of hamlets and waterways that had long sheltered Viet Cong and North Vietnamese units. The Marines threw a tight encirclement around the area and then methodically compressed it, sweeping inward to flush out and destroy the trapped enemy in heavy fighting among the villages, bunkers, and hedgerows. The operation marked one of the largest such cordon efforts the Marines had attempted, employing massed battalions and supporting arms to seal off and clear the ground rather than sweep through it and depart. Meade River inflicted significant losses on the enemy and disrupted his hold on the area close to Da Nang, demonstrating the cordon technique on a major scale in the contested lowlands.
Record no. 692