Combat· Vietnam War
Operation HICKORY
Operation Hickory was the first large-scale allied ground entry into the southern half of the Demilitarized Zone, a major Marine offensive mounted to clear North Vietnamese forces from the buffer strip they had been using as a sanctuary to mass and strike across the border.
Pushing north into terrain that had been off-limits, the Marines drove against entrenched enemy positions in conjunction with related operations along the frontier, fighting through fortified ground and forcing the evacuation of the civilian population from the contested zone. The operation signified that the rules had changed, that the southern DMZ would no longer be a guaranteed Communist haven, and it inflicted significant losses on the enemy while exposing the Marines to hard fighting and heavy casualties of their own. Hickory pushed the war directly into the demilitarized buffer and underscored the grinding nature of the campaign to secure South Vietnam's northern border.
Record no. 677