Role of the United States in the Vietnam War the presidency unopposed. With the installation of the Thieu and Ky government (the Second Republic), the U.S. had a pliable, stable, and semi-legitimate government in Saigon with which to deal. With the advent of "Rolling Thunder", American airbases and facilities needed to be constructed and manned for the aerial effort. On March 8, 1965, 3,500 United States Marines came ashore at Da Nang as the first wave of U.S. combat troops into South Vietnam, adding to the 25,000 U.S. military advisers already in place. The US Government deployment of ground forces to Da Nang had not been consulted with the
War in Vietnam (1945–46) War in Vietnam (1945–46) The War in Vietnam, codenamed Operation Masterdom by the British, and also known as Nam Bộ kháng chiến () by the Vietnamese, was a post–World War II armed conflict involving a largely British-Indian and French task force and Japanese troops from the Southern Expeditionary Army Group, versus the Vietnamese communist movement, the Viet Minh, for control of the country, after the unconditional Japanese surrender. The Indochina Wars are generally numbered as three: the first being France's unsuccessful eight-year conflict with the Vietminh nationalist forces (1946–1954); the second being the war for control of South Vietnam, featuring