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[sabo]tage and guards periodically threw concussion grenades over the sides to discourage enemy underwater swimmers. A scuba team periodically checked the hull. On 21 September 1966 the Corpus Christi Bay moved out of Cam Ranh Bay and sailed to the harbor at Qui Nhon to be near the 1st Cavalry, the unit it primarily supported.

While the Floating Aircraft Maintenance Facility was a useful and unique addition to the U.S. Army's helicopter support capability, the more important, if less dramatic, support was performed in the open rice paddies and jungle clearings. There the maintenance personnel lived in constant danger, with practically none of the amenities, and performed daily, casual miracles on the complex aircraft. Never sure when the necessary bright lights would become an aiming point, they used the knowledge gleaned from Fort Rucker and Fort Eustis classrooms under the most primitive conditions. As one supervisor gruffly understated, "They done good!"

During the first half of January 1966 the 1st Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division conducted Operation MATADOR to find and destroy the enemy in Pleiku and Kontum Provinces. During this operation, the 1st Cavalry saw the enemy flee across the border into Cambodia, confirming that the enemy had well-developed sanctuaries and base camps inside that country.

After Operation MATADOR, the 1st Cavalry Division shifted its weight towards Binh Dinh Province. Some of its forces had been committed into this area soon after its arrival in Vietnam in the summer of 1965, but the major effort in the Ia Drang Valley occupied most of the 1st Cavalry's attention throughout 1965.

The heavily populated rice plains in this area had a population of nearly half a million people of which at least 200,000 or more were still under the domination of the Viet Cong infrastructure. The South Vietnamese Government was attempting to extend its control north from Qui Nhon, along National Highway One, through the rich plains area up to Tam Quan in northeastern Binh Dinh. In this effort, the 22d Army of the Republic of Vietnam Division was being assisted by the Capitol Republic of Korea Infantry Division based near Qui Nhon. Only the southern part of the area was truly under government control.

Beyond the northern border of the Phu My District, and as far as the edge of the abrupt mountain range which walled off the plains on the north and west, there were only isolated islands of