This Military Service Page was created/owned by
Cpl Elizabeth Davis
to remember
Marine SSgt Leonard John Lewandowski, Jr..
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DISAPPEARED WHILE SWIMMING, MOUTH OF CUA VIET RIVER 19661019, UTM grid reference is YD344698, 06/18/1975, Body not recovered..
Notes from The Virtual Wall On 19 Oct 1966, Delta 1/4 Marines were on a brief R&R break before heading out for a patrol. They were located in a Regimental area near the mouth of the Cua Viet River in Quang Tri Province, about 7 miles south of the DMZ. In mid-morning, PFC Richard E. Mishuk and LCPL Michael J. Burke asked for and received permission to go swimming in the river. Shortly thereafter they were joined by a third Marine, PFC Leonard J. Lewandowski. When the three Marines did not return for lunch, a LCPL Ronald A. Rihaly took a look for them and spotted three men - dressed as Burke, Mishuk, and Lewandowski had been dressed - playing with a dog near a landing craft. About three hours after the men had gone for swim call, it was noted that they could no longer be seen and that they were not in the company area. By 1400 informal search efforts had extended along the north bank of the river, and at 1530 LCPL Rihaly reported to his Company Commander that the three were missing.
A search party was sent to the south bank and an O-1 Bird Dog aircraft launched for an aerial search. The three men were not located by nightfall. Formal search and rescue operations were begun at daybreak on 20 October, with several O-1s and ground search parties involved. The searchers were unable to locate the men or any local villagers who had seen them. Formal search efforts were terminated on 22 October and Burke, Mishuk, and Lewandowski declared Missing in Action. There were two obvious possibilities - that the three drowned in the Cua Viet River and were carried out to sea, or that they had been captured or killed by local Viet Cong forces (the area was not totally secure). No evidence was found to support either possibility; the three men had simply disappeared. On 23 April 1975 the Secretary of the Navy approved a Presumptive Finding of Death for Richard Mishuk. The remains of the three men have not been recovered.
This Veteran has an (IMO) In Memory Of Headstone in Courts of the Missing at the Honolulu Memorial, Hawaii with another memorial in Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, VA.
Vietnam War/Counteroffensive Phase II Campaign (1966-67)
From Month/Year
July / 1966
To Month/Year
May / 1967
Description This campaign was from 1 July 1966 to 31 May 1967. United States operations after 1 July 1966 were a continuation of the earlier counteroffensive campaign. Recognizing the interdependence of political, economic, sociological, and military factors, the Joint Chiefs of Staff declared that American military objectives should be to cause North Vietnam to cease its control and support of the insurgency in South Vietnam and Laos, to assist South Vietnam in defeating Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces in South Vietnam, and to assist South Vietnam in pacification extending governmental control over its territory.
North Vietnam continued to build its own forces inside South Vietnam. At first this was done by continued infiltration by sea and along the Ho Chi Minh trail and then, in early 1966, through the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). U.S. air elements received permission to conduct reconnaissance bombing raids, and tactical air strikes into North Vietnam just north of the DMZ, but ground forces were denied authority to conduct reconnaissance patrols in the northern portion of the DMZ and inside North Vietnam. Confined to South Vietnamese territory U.S. ground forces fought a war of attrition against the enemy, relying for a time on body counts as one standard indicator for measuring successful progress for winning the war.
During 1966 there were eighteen major operations, the most successful of these being Operation WHITE WING (MASHER). During this operation, the 1st Cavalry Division, Korean units, and ARVN forces cleared the northern half of Binh Dinh Province on the central coast. In the process they decimated a division, later designated the North Vietnamese 3d Division. The U.S. 3d Marine Division was moved into the area of the two northern provinces and in concert with South Vietnamese Army and other Marine Corps units, conducted Operation HASTINGS against enemy infiltrators across the DMZ.
The largest sweep of 1966 took place northwest of Saigon in Operation ATTLEBORO, involving 22,000 American and South Vietnamese troops pitted against the VC 9th Division and a NVA regiment. The Allies defeated the enemy and, in what became a frequent occurrence, forced him back to his havens in Cambodia or Laos.
By 31 December 1966, U.S. military personnel in South Vietnam numbered 385,300. Enemy forces also increased substantially, so that for the same period, total enemy strength was in excess of 282,000 in addition to an estimated 80,000 political cadres. By 30 June 1967, total U.S. forces in SVN had risen to 448,800, but enemy strength had increased as well.
On 8 January U.S. and South Vietnamese troops launched separate drives against two major VC strongholds in South Vietnam-in the so-called "Iron Triangle" about 25 miles northwest of Saigon. For years this area had been under development as a VC logistics base and headquarters to control enemy activity in and around Saigon. The Allies captured huge caches of rice and other foodstuffs, destroyed a mammoth system of tunnels, and seized documents of considerable intelligence value.
In February, the same U.S. forces that had cleared the "Iron Triangle", were committed with other units in the largest allied operation of the war to date, JUNCTION CITY. Over 22 U.S. and four ARVN battalions engaged the enemy, killing 2,728. After clearing this area, the Allies constructed three airfields; erected a bridge and fortified two camps in which CIDG garrisons remained as the other allied forces withdrew.
