Operation Masher was a military operation conducted by United States and South Vietnamese forces during the Vietnam War. It took place in the Kim Son and An Lao valleys in South Vietnam, from January 28 to March 6, 1966. Although it was codenamed "Operation Masher," the operation name was changed to "Operation White Wing." Divided in four phases, the objective was to search and destroy communist camps from which Viet Cong guerrilla troops launched attacks on US and South Vietnamese bases, threatening and forcing the peasants to hide weapons in their villages.
Operation Masher (White Wing) successfully ended on March 6, 1966. More than 1,340 communist soldiers had been killed by the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) at the cost of 250 United States’ troops killed and 990 wounded. The South Vietnamese forces killed an additional 808 enemy soldiers. The 3rd North Vietnamese Army Division was completely mauled.
The amount of firepower deployed during Operation Masher was 1,352 strikes coupled with 1,126 fighter sorties unloaded 1.5 million pounds of bombs; 292,000 pounds of Napalm was also used and Operation Masher left over 1884 refugees. By 1967, the amount of Communists captured in Vietnam numbered 17,000 but there were over 1.2 million civilian refugees.
