In accordance with this decree a miscellaneous collection of commando-type units was transferred from the Vietnamese National Army and Navy to the Marine Corps. Except for a naval commando unit, which had conducted amphibious raids along the coastal plains, these forces had operated in the Red River Delta with the French and Vietnamese Navy _dinassauts_ (river assault divisions). First employed in 1946, the _dinassauts_ had evolved into relatively effective naval commands capable of landing light infantry companies along Indochina’s tangled riverbanks. Normally the _dinassaut_ was composed of about a dozen armored and armed landing craft, patrol boats, and command vessels. An Army commando unit, consisting of approximately 100 men, would be attached to such naval commands for specific operations. Thus organized, the _dinassauts_ could transport light infantry units into otherwise inaccessible areas and support landings with heavy caliber automatic weapons and mortar fire. Such operations had been particularly successful in the sprawling Red River Delta of Tonkin where navigable estuaries and Viet Minh abounded.[2-D] Later in the war, as the concept was refined, the French created a number of Vietnamese National Army commando units for specific service with the _dinassauts_. Still attached to the Navy commands these units were sometimes responsible for security around the _dinassaut_ bases when not involved in preplanned operations. A number of these rather elite Vietnamese units, variously designated light support companies, river boat companies, and commandos, were now transferred to the newly decreed Vietnamese Marine Corps (VNMC). [2-D] Of the _dinassaut_ Bernard Fall wrote: “[It] may well have been one of the few worthwhile contributions of the Indochina war to military knowledge.” (Fall, _Street Without Joy_, p. 39) A more thorough analysis of _dinassaut_ operations is included in Croizat, _A Translation From The French Lessons of the War_, pp. 348–351.