A special combined unit called Task Force Tango was organized, consisting of the 3rd, 4th and 5th Marine Battalions and elements of the 1st Armored Brigade.

[2]: 134  Besides ARVN firepower, U.S. and naval gunfire of the United States Seventh Fleet was used to soften the target and hinder PAVN reinforcements.

Both crewmen ejected, the radar intercept officer (RIO) was captured and released on 27 March during Operation Homecoming, while the pilot Commander Harley Hall was killed.

At 07:45 the USS Turner Joy, one of the two destroyers involved in the Gulf of Tonkin Incident in August 1964, fired the last U.S. naval gunfire support in the Vietnam War and pulled off the gun line.

[2]: 135  On the evening of 29 January, the PAVN launched a counterattack against Task Force Tango, and by the next day had succeeded in cutting off its lines of communication and began bombarding the encircled Marines.