Shortly afterward, Admiral Felt advised the Joint Chiefs of Staff that a valid requirement for additional helicopter support did exist in the Mekong Delta region of South Vietnam. He recommended that a fourth U.S. Army light helicopter company be deployed to the area. Included in the admiral’s recommendation was a proposal to support the aviation unit with a composite maintenance, avionics, and medical group.[5-2] Admiral Felt’s recommendations were approved by the Secretary of Defense on 6 March. The Joint Chiefs immediately assigned the responsibility for providing the support package and helicopter unit to the Army. In turn, Army authorities alerted the 33d Transportation Light Helicopter Company at Fort Ord, California for the move. Its departure date was set for 18 April.[5-3] Unknown to the officers and men of the alerted unit, the plans for its deployment to combat were being reconsidered at the time the orders were received. Two days before Admiral Felt’s recommendation reached the joint Chiefs, a proposal to augment Army helicopter units with Marine pilots had been advanced by General Timmes, the MAAG chief. This proposal triggered a brief but eventful debate within U.S. military circles. With General Harkins’ concurrence, Timmes recommended that nine Marine helicopter pilots be assigned to the Army aviation units in Vietnam for periods of 60 to 90 days. This arrangement, he pointed out, would enable the Marine pilots to become familiar with the nature of the combat support operations in South Vietnam and would provide them with transitional training in the Army’s Piasecki-built tandem-rotored H-21 helicopter (nicknamed the “Flying Banana”).[5-4] Admiral Felt turned to the Commanding General, Fleet Marine Force, Pacific (FMFPac), Lieutenant General Alan Shapley, for his comments on the MAAG chief’s plan. Shapley in turn instructed Major General Carson A. Roberts, the Commanding General, Aircraft, FMFPac to study the proposal and to frame a set of recommendations. Roberts, who had been selected for promotion to lieutenant general and was scheduled to relieve Shapley as Commanding General, FMFPac, found the prospect of Marine aviators participating in combat support operations in Vietnam appealing but felt that the proposal under review had some definite disadvantages. He pointed out that under Timmes’ plan the Marine pilots would be flying a type of helicopter unfamiliar to them instead of the ones they would operate if the Marine squadrons were later deployed to Vietnam. Furthermore, General Roberts warned that the piecemeal assignment of his pilots would reduce the combat readiness of the unit from which they would be drawn.[5-5]