On 19 September, the day after their initial combat support assignment in I Corps, the Marine helicopter crews were called upon to conduct an operation which they would repeat often in the coming months. They were ordered to evacuate a threatened government outpost from the mountains 18 miles west of Da Nang. That day the HMM-163 pilots lifted an odd cargo of troops, dependents, personal belongings and an assortment of pigs, cows, chickens, and ducks to a secure area on the coastal plain. Unfortunately, helicopter evacuations of encircled or endangered South Vietnamese outposts would become almost routine for Marine helicopter squadrons assigned to Vietnam during the period between 1962 and 1965. As the North Vietnamese stepped up their support for the Viet Cong, the isolated government outposts along the infiltration routes became particularly vulnerable. The increased number of helicopter evacuation missions during the next three years would be grim testimony of the trend of warfare which was unfolding in the South. Reinforced with more and more North Vietnamese and growing amounts of Communist bloc and captured U.S. equipment, the Viet Cong would press the initiative even in South Vietnam’s most isolated areas. The Communists operating in I Corps lost little time in challenging the newly arrived Marine unit. HMM-163 suffered its first battle damage while lifting elements of the 2d ARVN Division into a landing zone southwest of Tam Ky on 26 September. One of 22 helicopters involved in the mission was struck in the fuselage by small arms fire despite the use of preparatory air and artillery strikes on the landing zone. The day after this incident another of the squadron’s helicopters was hit by enemy fire while attempting to evacuate wounded ARVN soldiers from the battlefield. On the 29th two more aircraft were damaged by ground fire while participating in another troop lift. One round passed through the windshield and exited at the rear of the cockpit, missing the copilot’s head by inches. During the first week of October another HUS was struck while landing at Tien Phuoc, a government outpost about 15 miles southwest of Tam Ky. In this incident two ARVN troops were killed and the Marine crew chief, Lance Corporal James I. Mansfield, was wounded before the pilot could fly the aircraft out of the danger area. In each of the instances the helicopters were able to return to Da Nang where necessary repairs were made.