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U.S. Marine Corps Helicopter Unit Arrives in Vietnam

April 9, 1962

1962-04-09_OpShufly3_1962
1962-04-09_OpShufly3_1962
HUS-1 Seahorses from Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron (HMM) 362 land South Vietnamese Army troops during Operation SHUFLY, April 15, 1962. (National Naval Aviation Museum)

The headquarters element of U.S. Marine Corps helicopter Task Unit 79.3.5 begins arriving at Soc Trang in the Mekong Delta. Much of the squadron itself arrives aboard the amphibious assault carrier USS Princeton on April 15. Codenamed SHUFLY, the helicopter unit provides air support for MACV and the South Vietnamese military in the campaign against Communist guerrilla forces.1

1Robert H. Whitlow, The Advisory and Combat Assistance Era, 1954–1964, U.S. Marines in Vietnam (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Marine Corps History and Museums Division, 1977), 57, 59–62. See also Chet Decker, “Operation Shufly,” Marine Corps Gazette, 85, no. 4 (April 2002), 36–40.