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THE CHANGING WAR AND CAMBODIA
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supporting the Army of the Republic of Vietnam operations in the IV Corps Tactical Zone. In several ways, their contributions were unique, Brigadier General George W. Putnam, Jr., who took command of the 1st Aviation Brigade on 6 January 1970 from Major General Allen M. Burdett, Jr., was to remark:

...The real story of the Aviation Brigade is in the 164th Group in the Delta. Elsewhere it was, 'give so many helicopters here; and so many there.' The CG, 1st Aviation Brigade, exercised very little control over the assets of the Brigade in the I, II, and III Corps. But the 164th Group was not precisely controlled. Its commander could move assets; organize task forces... They had an organization for combat which permitted a diversity of aviation assets to support three ARVN divisions.

In December 1969 Colonel William J. Maddox, Jr.,[1] was assigned as Commanding Officer of the 164th Aviation Group, after commanding the 3d Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division. It was a fortuitous choice since Colonel Maddox had had extensive experience in the Delta—first, as Commanding Officer of the 13th Aviation Battalion, from July 1965 to August 1966; and, second, as Senior Advisor to the 21st Army of the Republic of Vietnam Infantry Division, from September 1966 to June 1967. Besides the unique geographic features, the big difference between the operations in the IV Corps Tactical Zone and the other areas of Vietnam was the lack of any long-term division-size U.S. troop commitment. This made the aviation group commander in a very large sense the "airmobile commander" in the Delta.

When Colonel Maddox returned to the Delta in 1969 he found that the allocation of the Group's 570 aircraft had not changed materially since the time he had been the Commanding Officer of the 13th Aviation Battalion, and he instituted major organizational changes to make airmobile support more responsive. The key change was the decentralization of the aviation assets into task forces—flexible organizations built around the assigned battalion and squadron headquarters. The 13th Aviation Battalion became Task Force GUARDIAN in support of the 21st Army of the Republic of Vietnam Division. Task Force COUGAR was built around the 214th Aviation Battalion and supported both the 9th and 7th Army of the Republic of Vietnam Divisions. The Army of the Republic of Vietnam forces in the border provinces, which had been desig[nated]


  1. ↑ Colonel Maddox, one of the most decorated officers in the United States Army, was to be promoted to Brigadier General in July 1970 and become Director of Army Aviation on 18 September 1970.
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