Monday, May 1, 1972
New Red Drives Rock Quang Tri
SAIGON (UPI) --North Vietnamese forces overran a district capital on the central coast Saturday and sent tanks and troops in new assaults against the province capital of Quang Tri city below the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) border, field reports said.The Communists also pushed South Vietnamese defenders from two bases guarding the western approaches to Hue, the former imperial capital 35 miles south of Quang Tri, and moved heavy 130mm artillery within range of the city.Freelance photographer Ennio Iaccobuci, the only journalist still in Quang Tri, described the situation there Saturday night as "chaotic". He said fighting raged around the city through-out the day but that a small garrison of American advisers remained in the U.S. compound there.Iaccobuci said the South Vietnamese units in Quang Tri, 18 miles south of the DMZ, seemed to have "disappeared." He said things were "so chaotic that nobody knows where they have gone or where they are right now."Ground fire around the country's northernmost city was so heavy Saturday that no helicopters could land at Quang Tri. U.S. Air Force and Marine F4 Phantom jets struck Communist positions around Quang Tri throughout the day in clear weather.Government Marines claimed to have killed at least 150 Communist soldiers and knocked out a least seven tanks in fighting at Quang Tri Saturday. Field officers would not disclose South Vietnamese losses.The Communists Saturday captured the district capital of Bong Son, 280 miles northeast of Saigon in Binh Dinh Province.Bong Son, the 12th district capital seized by the Communists as their offensive entered its second month Sunday, was defended by about a battalion of Regional Force (RF) militiaman, about 600 men. It had been under attack for three days by more than 1,000 Communist troops.Field reports said most of the militiamen apparently fled from Saturday's fighting. Five climbed aboard a U.S. helicopter which had landed to pick up a wounded American adviser. The chopper pilot was ordered to fly to the nearby government base at Phu Cat and the five militiamen were placed under arrest."They had all the air support they could want," one American adviser told reporters at Qui Nhon, 30 miles to the south."They had daisy chains (strings) of helicopter gunships and jet fighters and facs (forward air controllers)."Another district capital in Binh Dinh Province, Hoai An about six miles south of Bong Son, was captured by the Communists 10 days ago.The Communists pushed the South Vietnamese from their Bastogne and Checkmate artillery bases in an area about 12 miles southwest of Hue. Military sources said Bastogne was evacuated Friday night after a shell made a direct hit on the base command post and killed a major and several captains.Checkmate was abandoned as well because its mission had been only to guard Bastogne.Lt. Gen. Hoang Xuan Lam, the government commander in the five northernmost provinces, told reporters Saturday his troops were facing as many as five divisions -some 50,000 men -of Communist troops in the far north.Lam said the Communists were "throwing everything they have against us, but we"re still in "Quang Tri. They've been trying for four weeks and we still have it. I think we'll be able to stay there."Far to the south, a government ammunition and supply convoy of 100 trucks late Friday pushed through to the highway 13 town of Chon Thanh, 40 miles north of Saigon, after being stalled for five days by heavy fighting along the road.Chon Thanh is 20 miles south of the Binh Long province capital of An Loc, which has been under almost constant fire since April 6. President Thieu has ordered that it be held at all costs."New Red Drives Rock Quang Tri", by (UPI), published in the Pacific Stars and Stripes on Monday, May 1, 1972 and reprinted from European and Pacific Stars and Stripes, a Department of Defense publication copyright, 2002 European and Pacific Stars and Stripes.