The Commandant summed up his impressions of the Marine helicopter task element in testimony before the House Committee on Armed Services several weeks after his return to Washington. “I was assured by General Harkins and his officers--and by the officers of the supported Vietnamese units--that this squadron has performed its supporting mission in an outstanding manner,” related Greene. “Everything that I observed,” he added, “certainly attested to the high morale and effectiveness of this unit.”[11-5][11-A] [11-A] A more frequent visitor to the Marine helicopter task element was Colonel Anderson, the MAAG Chief of Staff. An experienced aviator, Colonel Anderson had commanded a Marine bomber squadron (VMB-443) in the latter stages of World War II. While serving as the MAAG Chief of Staff during 1963 and 1964, Anderson participated in a number of combat missions as a pilot with the various squadrons assigned to SHUFLY. Late January and early February saw the normal rotation of several of the task element’s key personnel as well as its helicopter squadron. On 14 January, Colonel Robert A. Merchant, an officer with a diverse military background, assumed command of SHUFLY. Merchant had commanded an artillery battalion on Okinawa in World War II, a Marine attack squadron in Korea, and had served on the joint staff of the Specified Commander for the Middle East in Beirut during the 1958 Lebanon Operation. More recently he had graduated from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces. Having flown with the task element’s squadron while on temporary duty in Vietnam the previous October and since his arrival in early January, Merchant was thoroughly familiar with SHUFLY’s operations. Command of the MABS-16 sub unit changed hands two weeks later when Lieutenant Colonel Samuel G. Beal relieved Lieutenant Colonel Cassidy. Beal, also a veteran of World War II and Korea, came from the 4th Marines in Hawaii where he had served as that unit’s air liaison officer. Lieutenant Colonel Ross’ HMM-361 ended its tour at Da Nang on 1 February. The squadron’s arrival in I Corps unfortunately had coincided with the arrival of the early monsoon rains. The unit’s flight statistics had suffered also from the interruption caused by the political infighting which had deposed President Diem. As a result, its operations never reached the sustained tempo which had characterized the records of the Marine helicopter squadrons previously assigned to SHUFLY. Lieutenant Colonel Ross’ UH-34Ds totalled 4,236 combat flight hours and just under 7,000 combat sorties--figures which, considering the conditions surrounding their accumulation, compared favorably with the number of combat flight hours (7,249) and sorties (11,900) averaged by the four previous UH-34D squadrons to serve in Vietnam.[11-6]