A few months after this initial operation, both VNMC battalions were deployed against the Viet Cong--the 1st again to An Xuyen Province and the 2d to Vinh Binh Province south of Saigon on the seacoast. So deployed, both units came under the operational control of the respective province chiefs. In widely-scattered actions fought during May, the 1st Battalion and a Civil Guard unit claimed to have inflicted over 200 casualties on the Viet Cong. In Vinh Binh Province, one company of the 2d Landing Battalion reported killing 18 guerrillas and capturing over 100 more. Again, U.S. Marine advisors were not present and therefore could not assess the accuracy of these reports. In any case, these were the final combat operations for the Vietnamese Marine Corps as a two-battalion force. Obviously, U.S. and Vietnamese authorities in Saigon were giving increased attention to the growing internal threat. Still, they had yet to initiate any sweeping changes in the orientation of the RVNAF. Indeed, in early 1959, the entire ARVN was in the final phase of a reorganization program which would culminate by midyear in the formation of seven divisions of uniform size (10,500 men each), five territorial regiments, and an airborne brigade (formed from the old Army parachute regiment). Under the new organization the seven standard divisions were to be deployed in or near population centers throughout the country and were to be organized under two corps headquarters, one (I Corps) located at Da Nang, and the other (II Corps) located at Pleiku in the Central Highlands. A third provisional corps headquarters had also been formed in Saigon for activation in the event of a national emergency.[3-E] [3-E] By 1961 the third corps headquarters would be activated and geographic boundaries of all three corps would be delineated to facilitate the coordination of the government’s military efforts against the Viet Cong. These military-geographic subdivisions were termed corps tactical zones (CTZ). One of the MAAG’s reactions to the emerging guerrilla threat was to urge that President Diem transfer the Civil Guard to his Ministry of Defense. This adjustment, General Williams pointed out, would permit the MAAG to train and equip the CG for a mobile counterguerrilla mission. But it also entailed raising the 150,000-man force level ceiling. When both the Diem government and the U.S. Embassy objected to the proposed transfer, the MAAG turned to another alternative: the strengthening and use of the regular units whose assignment to counterguerrilla operations would not seriously disturb the country’s counterinvasion potential. The Vietnamese Marine Corps, whose infantry battalions had already participated in several operations against the Viet Cong, fell into this category of units to be bolstered for the counterguerrilla role.