The first Americans who served in Indochina and Vietnam were political, economic, and military advisers to the French, who returned to Indochina at the end of World War II. Their involvement was largely economic in nature and moved gradually, during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, toward deeper commitments. The chief means of American involvement, during the First Indochina War, was through the advisory apparatus known as Military Assistance and Advisory Group (MAAG), first known as MAAG Indochina, and through the military's volunteer forces known as Special Forces. All involved were "advisers" rather than combat troops. In 1955, the first direct shipment of U.S. military aid to Saigon arrives. The U.S. also offers to train the fledgling South Vietnam Army. In July, 1959, two U.S. military advisors, Maj. Dale Buis and Sgt. Chester Ovnand, are killed by Viet Minh guerrillas at Bien Hoa, South Vietnam. They are the first American deaths in the Second Indochina War which Americans will come to know simply as The Vietnam War.