Chulai, Vietnam
16 August 1965. Afternoon.
Major Andy Comer
At about 1330 on August 16, 1965, Maj Andy Comer, the executive officer of the 3d Battalion, 3d Marine Regiment (3/3), was summoned by his commander LtCol Joe Muir, to the 4th Marine Regiment command post at Chulai. Muir told Comer that the amphibious assault on the Van Tuong peninsula, which they had frequently discussed and partially planned for, was to be executed. The 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, would make a landing from the sea while LtCol Joseph R. “Bull” Fisher’s 2d Battalion, 4th Marines (2/4), would be inserted inland by helicopter. The operation was Top Secret, and information was passed out in hushed tones and on a strict need-to-know basis.
When Capt Cal Morris, the commander of Mike Company, 3/3, was called into Lieutenant Colonel Muir’s tent to be briefed on his company’s role in the operation, he was admonished to not even tell his company officers their mission or destination.
16 August 1965. Evening.
Colonel Oscar F. Peatross
The commander of the landing force, Col Oscar F. “Peat” Peatross, worked the Marine units all night long to get the operation up and going. About midnight, he sent his logistics officer, Maj Floyd Johnson, out to talk to Capt William R. McKinney, United States Navy, who would be the commodore of the amphibious component of the operation, to tell him to hold his ships, because at that very moment some of them were about to leave for Hong Kong. One ship had already departed and another was up in Danang to unload elements from the 9th Marines just in from Okinawa. The commodore said to Johnson, “Now this is an unusual way to run an operation. In all of my career, I’ve never heard of an operation run this way before.” Johnson replied, “I got it direct from Colonel Peatross, who got it direct from General Walt. We’re going to use your ships, and you’ll get some sort of [written] directive for the operation later on.” McKinney agreed and set his commanders and staff in motion.
16 August 1965. Evening.
Corporal Bob Collins
Corporal Collins was on the U.S. Naval Base at Subic Bay in the Philippines when the call came. His unit, the 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, (3/7), was on liberty. Collins had just finished eating dinner at the enlisted club with his Filipina girlfriend and was walking to the base theater to see a movie when he heard trucks with loudspeakers mounted on them calling for all 3/7 Marines to return to their ships. Collins quickly took his girlfriend to the main gate, signed her out, and went back to the ship, wondering what all the fuss was about.
16 August 1965. Afternoon.
Secrecy was the watchword. From the very beginning until all the units were underway, the Marines operated by word-of-mouth, and even then details were given to only a select few. Because the operation was so hush-hush, nothing was put to paper, and the operation wasn’t named until word of it reached the 3d Marine Division headquarters. Once the division staff was briefed by Colonel Peatross’s officers, Col Don Wyckoff, the operations officer for the 3d Marine Division, picked the name Satellite. He did so for two reasons: because NASA was about to launch a Gemini spacecraft the same week as the operation, and because of the unusual manner in which two battalions from different regiments, 3/3 and 2/4, would be “satellites” of the 7th Marines headquarters during the operation. As the clerks labored late into the night typing the official orders, a generator failed, and the chore was finished by candlelight. In the shadowy bunker a clerk misread the handwritten instructions and typed in “Starlite” instead of Satellite. It has often been mistakenly spelled as “Starlight” by the press, and even in some official accounts.
16 August 1965. Afternoon.
Gunnery Sergeant Ed Garr
Over in 2/4, GySgt Ed Garr figured this was not to be an ordinary operation, so he dug out a brown army-issue T-shirt that he had worn on a previous operation and which he considered to be lucky. Marines who have seen a lot of combat can be very superstitious, and many will wear favored gear or go through certain rituals when they figure something big is in the offing.
17 August 1965. Morning.
Lieutenant Burt Hinson
On August 17, 1965, Lt Burt Hinson got word from Capt Jay Doub, the skipper of Kilo Company, 3/3, to meet him at the battalion command post. Hinson was about two-and-a-half miles away. The terrain was soft sand, and being a mere lieutenant and without transportation, he was forced to hoof it, cursing Doub all the way. Once he got there, and because of the secrecy involved, Doub simply told Hinson that he wanted his platoon at the beach at a certain coordinate at a certain time, ready to board ship early that afternoon. Then he sent the lieutenant walking back across the sand once more, swearing at every step. Hinson had a love-hate relationship with Doub. “Jay Doub and I had a chemical dislike for each other. But he was the toughest man I ever met… tougher than a boiled owl.” And … “If I ever had to go into combat again, I would like to go with Jay Doub. If there was one person I modeled myself after later in my career, it was Jay Doub.”
17 August 1965. Early Evening.
Lieutenant Colonel Lloyd Childers
Lieutenant Colonel Childers and his pilots sat through a sketchy briefing about the operation. Helicopters from two squadrons were to support the initial insertion of 2/4 into the battle. The second squadron was to leave for other commitments after that, so the brunt of helicopter support was to be borne by Childers’s Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron-361 (HMM-361). It was a squadron new to Vietnam but long in élan.
Colonel Childers was a U.S. Navy veteran of the Battle of Midway in World War II. He had been a tail gunner on one of two TBD torpedo bombers that had remained out of thirty-six TBDs launched against the Japanese during the battle. When his plane was fatally damaged, too, the pilot ditched the aircraft next to a U.S. Navy destroyer. Childers was badly wounded and barely conscious. Machine-gun bullets had ripped through both legs. Childers had been dragged first into a whaleboat, and then onto the destroyer, where the ship’s doctor operated on him atop the dining table in the officers’ mess. He was told he would never fly again. Nevertheless, by 1965 he commanded a Marine helicopter squadron and was widely regarded as an absolutely fearless and inspiring warrior. His squadron pilots and crews were proud of their daring and skill.