Stanley Larsen
Stanley R. "Swede" Larsen was Lieutenant general of the U.S. Army, who commanded II Field Force of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, a corps-sized unit in the Central Highlands, during the buildup of U.S. ground forces in the Vietnam War. He later commanded the Sixth United States Army in the Presidio of San Francisco.
II Field Force
After the Lyndon B. Johnson presidential victory and the buildup of U.S. ground forces in South Vietnam, it was necessary to have intermediate tactical headquarters below the level of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam. Since the Army of the Republic of Vietnam called its geographic commands "corps" or "corps tactical zone," or sometimes "military region", the usual U.S. designation of a large tactical command as a corps would be ambiguous. To avoid confusion, U.S. corps were called "Field Forces".
Larsen commanded II Field Force, which, while not strictly tied to geographic boundaries, generally was the counterpart to to ARVN II Corps in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. It was activated in January 1966, and was considered to have have the lineage of the XXII Corps, which fought in the Second World War, European Theater. II Field Force was not a renaming of U.S. II Corps, which, at the time, was the II Reserve Corps, a headquarters for U.S. Army Reserve units in the eastern United States.
When created, the units under II Field Force were:
- Infantry
- 173rd Airborne Brigade
- 12th Combat Aviation Group
- 23rd Artillery Group.
Over the next three years, it took control of:
- 1st Cavalry Division (Aimobile)
- 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment
- 1st Australian Task Force
- Royal Thai Black Panther Regiment
- Capitol Military Assistance Command (CMAC)
- 199th Light Infantry Brigade
- 3rd Brigade, 9th Infantry Division
- 54th Artillery Group
- 20th Engineer Brigade
Operations in Vietnam
Larsen's II Field Force controlled 1 Cavalry Division (airmobile), the first air assault division, during the Battle of the Ia Drang and Battle of Bong Son. During the Ia Drang campaign, Larsen investigated a possible cover-up of casualties at LZ Albany, and offered to court-martial several senior officers for lying. GEN William Westmoreland, commanding MACV, according to an affidavit given to Joe Galloway, a journalist highly respected for his actions and reporting in combat, told Westmoreland to "let it slide".