Operation Masher

Operation Masher (24 January—6 March 1966) was in early 1966 the largest search and destroy mission that had been carried out in the Vietnam War up until that time. It was a combined mission of the United States Army, Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), and Republic of Korea Army (ROKA) in Binh Dinh province on the central coast of South Vietnam. The 3rd Division of the communist North Vietnamese Army, made up of two regiments of North Vietnamese regulars and one regiment of main force Viet Cong guerrillas, controlled much of the land and many of people of Binh Dinh province which had a total population of about 800,000. A CIA report in 1965 said that Binh Dinh was "just about lost" to the communists.

The name "Operation Masher" was changed to "Operation White Wing", because President Lyndon Johnson wanted the name changed to one that sounded more benign. Adjacent to the operational area of Masher/White Wing in Quang Ngai province the U.S. and South Vietnamese Marine Corps carried out a complementary mission called Operation Double Eagle.