Search and Destroy

Search and destroy was a military, combat strategy which was used extensively and intensively by the US Army and Marines during the Vietnam War. This military tactic entailed putting ground forces in hostile enemy-held territory to search for the enemy. Once the enemy was found and destroyed, the troops had to be withdrawn immediately afterwards.

The search and destroy strategy involved the use of Special Forces, or other highly trained troops, with the support of a new weapon: the helicopter, which was armed with rockets and machine guns. In this new form of warfare, the fielding of air cavalry was extremely important to fight counter-insurgency war in Southeast Asia.

The complementary conventional strategy, which consisted in attacking and capturing an enemy position, then fortifying and holding it indefinitely, was known as Clear and Hold or Clear and Secure. In theory, since the traditional methods of “taking ground” could not be used in this war, a war of attrition would be used, eliminating the enemy by the use of “searching” for them, then “destroying” them, and the “body count” would be the measuring tool to determine the success of the strategy of search and destroy. It is common practice among military forces to enforce strict rules for it to be carried out successfully.

This offensive strategy became an offensive tool, crucial to General William Westmoreland’s second phase. In his three phase strategy, the first consisted of slowing down the Viet Cong Forces; the second was to resume the offensive and destroy the enemy; the third was to restore the area under South Vietnamese government control. The Zippo missions were mainly assigned to the second phase around 1966 and 1967, along with operations “Clear and Secure.”

Search and destroy missions involved sending out units of US troops from a fortified position to locate and annihilate Vietcong units in the countryside. These missions consisted in stealthily hiking out into enemy territory and then setting an ambush in the brush, near a suspected Viet Cong trail. To spring an ambush on the enemy, the use of fixed Claymore Antipersonnel Mines was required, crossing lines of small arms fire, mortar support, and possibly additional artillery support called in via radio from a nearby firebase.

Below, US Marines on the ground during a search and destroy mission.

Below, US Army infantrymen and a H1 Huey helicopter, the most widely used chopper in Vietnam