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) last two British/Indian battalions in Vietnam. Only a single company of the 2/8 Punjab remained to guard the Allied Control Mission in Saigon, and on May 15 it left, the mission having been disbanded a day earlier as the French became responsible for getting the remaining Japanese home. The last British troops to die in Vietnam were six soldiers killed in an ambush in June 1946. For Britain's involvement in the First Vietnam War, the officially stated casualty list was 40 British and Indian soldiers killed and French and Japanese casualties a little higher. An estimated 2,700 Viet Minh were