ARVN and Marine operations in the area during the next two weeks failed to locate any large Viet Cong elements. For the most part the Marines busied themselves by destroying a few abandoned camps and some cultivated crops. ARVN units operating around the Marines reported scattered action as they engaged small groups of Viet Cong attempting to escape from the center of the Do Xa. BACH PHOUNG XI concluded in mid-May when U.S. Marine UH-34Ds lifted the VNMC battalions back to Tra My. From there the Marines returned by convoy to Quang Ngai where they staged for the airlift back to Saigon. The statistics for the Marine portion of the operation revealed that only two Viet Cong soldiers had been killed. Khang’s force suffered 36 wounded, most as a result of encounters with booby traps constructed from sharpened bamboo spikes. ARVN forces fared only slightly better, having killed barely a score of Communists. Except for the fact that they had demonstrated their ability to penetrate the most difficult Viet Cong sanctuary, the two week offensive into the Do Xa base area had little impact on the war effort. From the standpoint of training and experience, however, the operation was beneficial. The Vietnamese Marines and their advisors learned a great deal about construction of landing zones and about directing helicopters, fields in which they had received little previous training.[8-C] [8-C] An interesting sidelight to this operation was that it stimulated somewhat of a fad in the offices at MACV and the JGS. Military officials from Saigon who visited the brigade command post, including General Weede, took back large water-smoothed rocks as souvenirs of their trip to the infamous Viet Cong stronghold. Printed on the side of these ornate stones were the words “Do Xa, May 1963.” (_Moody Comments._) In early September Lieutenant Colonel Wesley C. Noren, recently transferred from the 2d Marine Division where he had served as Assistant G-3, arrived in Saigon to replace Lieutenant Colonel Moody as the Senior Marine Advisor to the Vietnamese Marine Corps. Already selected for promotion to colonel, Noren would become the seventh Senior Marine Advisor when Moody left Vietnam in October.