As 1969 began, the military situation in the northern I Corps tactical zone of South Vietnam—the closest to the Demilitarized Zone—appeared relatively quiet. The previous year had been the bloodiest of the war, and the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong had both suffered losses that would be difficult to replace. Still, appearances were deceiving. Each year, the Communists had launched a spring offensive in I Corps, and the pronounced lack of combat activity at the very start of the year suggested to the U.S. command in Saigon that 1969 would be no different.

Evidence of enemy intentions began to accumulate. Reconnaissance uncovered road work being done on Route 548 in the A Shau Valley and its extension, Route 922 in Laos. As January progressed, as many as 1,000 trucks a day were observed on these roads, moving supplies south and east toward vital objectives inside South Vietnam. Activity at North Vietnamese Army Base Area 611 in Laos suggested that major elements of the NVA’s 6th and 9th Regiments were moving east through the A Shau Valley. In response, American and South Vietnamese forces probed farther into the mountains of western Quang Tri Province and near the DMZ, seeking to upset the enemy’s plans.

The U.S. 3rd Marine Division was responsible for defending Quang Tri Province. An element of the division, Task Force Hotel, operated out of Vandegrift Combat Base in western Quang Tri. Major Gen. Raymond G. Davis, a veteran of World War II and Korea, and a Medal of Honor recipient for his actions at Chosin Reservoir in 1950, commanded the division. He had taken charge in May 1968, and immediately set out to improve the unit’s combat effectiveness. “We had something like two dozen battalions up there all tied down (with little exception) to these fixed positions, and the situation didn’t demand it,” he later stated. “The way to get it done was to get out of these fixed positions and get mobility, to go and destroy the enemy on our terms—not sit there and absorb the shot and shell and frequent penetrations that he was able to mount.”

The 9th Marines, commanded by Colonel Robert H. Barrow, was the division’s swing regiment, the one most easily redeployed to meet any contingency. Barrow noted that the enemy’s first requirement was to “move all the things of war; all of their logistics forward from the sanctuaries of North Vietnam, just across the DMZ, or from Laos....We must do everything we can to find that stuff, wherever it exists, and obviously destroy it. And if we miss any of it, we must attempt by vigorous patrolling, radio intercept, signal intelligence, recon team inserts, and whatever else, to find out when any troops were moving in.”

The Communist technique was to pre-position supplies, then move in quickly with troops at the appointed time to marry up with the supplies and launch an attack. Clearly, as the Marines observed the increase in pre-positioning of supplies in forward areas, the need to preempt a Communist attack was becoming paramount. As the Marines’ official history notes, “A victory, even against one or more limited objectives of minor or temporary tactical value, could have significant impact upon the civilian population, and a more far-reaching effect upon bargaining positions at the ongoing Paris Peace Talks. The enemy’s jungle logistics system therefore would have to be destroyed before it could be used.”

At the time, General Davis was more direct about the situation: “It makes me sick to sit on this hill and watch those 1,000 trucks go down those roads in Laos, hauling ammunition down south to kill Americans with.”

Air interdiction of the supply routes had yielded only limited success, and the growing volume of anti-aircraft fire along the routes further indicated that the NVA was protecting something important. On January 14, General Davis ordered Brig. Gen. Frank E. Garretson, commander of Task Force Hotel at Vandegrift, to plan for a regiment-size search and clear operation into the Song Da Krong Valley, just northwest of the A Shau Valley, and north of NVA Base Area 611 in Laos. This would become Operation Dewey Canyon, whose primary purpose was not only to kill the enemy and deny him supplies, but also to block his access to the densely populated areas of the coastal lowlands.

The 9th Marines were well prepared to launch this operation, as they had spent the previous eight months honing their mountain warfare skills in combat in Quang Tri Province. However, the operational planning was a hurry-up affair. As Barrow remarked later, “Dewey Canyon was planned, including command reconnaissances and support arrangements, and launched in five days.” Nevertheless, he said, “The force that entered Dewey Canyon was about as ready as any force could possibly be.”

Dewey Canyon would be a three-phase operation. In Phase I, the regiment would move into the area of operations and establish fire support bases for the supporting artillery of the 2nd Battalion, 12th Marines (2/12). Phase II would consist of patrolling near the fire support bases and aligning the infantry units for a jump-off into the next phase. Phase III called for a conventional three-battalion advance southward, with the infantry units moving overland rather than by helicopter because heavy anti-aircraft defenses in the area of the Phase III objectives made movement by foot preferable to General Davis’ usual concept of high-mobility heliborne operations. But because the area was in the remote southwest corner of Quang Tri Province, helicopters would still be critical in the early phases and in resupplying the troops on the ground.

The upper Song Da Krong Valley is 62 kilometers west of Hue and 48 kilometers southwest of Quang Tri City, and the 9th Marines would be operating some 50 kilometers south of their main supply depot at Vandegrift Combat Base. The valley follows the course of the winding Da Krong River (Song Da Krong) and is surrounded by high mountains and ridgelines. Between it and the neighboring A Shau Valley to the south are two large hill masses, Tam Boi (Hill 1224) and Co A Nang (Hill 1228), the latter better known as Tiger Mountain. On the western edge of the valley stands a 1,500-meter-high razorback ridge named Co Ka Leuye. The eastern half of the valley is covered with dense jungle, while west of the river it is dominated by tall elephant grass and brushwood. The river itself runs east to west, then makes a sharp turn to the north.

Phase I began on January 19 with the reopening of Fire Support Base Henderson, eight kilometers southeast of Ca Lu. The next day, fire support bases Shiloh and Tun Tavern, which had been used by the 9th Marines in earlier operations, were reopened. On January 22, 2nd Battalion, 9th Marines (2/9) air-assaulted into the northern sector of the Dewey Canyon area of operations to establish Fire Support Base Razor, eight kilometers south-southeast of Shiloh, near the Da Krong River. In order to construct Razor, large trees had to be felled and bulldozers were brought in by helicopter to clear the area and prepare it for the insertion of artillery. On January 24, the 3/9 air-assaulted onto a razorback ridgeline about six kilometers south-southeast of Razor to build Cunningham and begin patrolling in the vicinity. Cunningham became the center of the Dewey Canyon operation as two batteries of 2/12 moved into it to complete Phase I. The Dewey Canyon area of operations was now well covered as the effective range of the artillery at Cunningham was 11 kilometers. Eventually the 9th Marines’ command post and that of the 2/12 moved to Cunningham to take advantage of its central location.

Enemy opposition to Phase I had been light. Accordingly, Phase II began without difficulty on January 24-25, when the 2nd and 3rd Battalions started intensive patrolling north of the Da Krong River. Almost immediately, 3/9 uncovered a four-strand North Vietnamese Army telephone line strung between trees running from Laos into enemy Base Area 101 farther east within South Vietnam. A special communications intelligence team was quickly brought in to tap the wires and break the code. A North Vietnamese hospital consisting of eight large permanent buildings—Field Hospital 88—near the Da Krong River, was discovered by 2/9. The complex, abandoned just a day before the Marines found it, contained large quantities of Russian-made surgical instruments and antibiotics.

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