Friday, May 5, 1972
Thieu Fires 2 Key Generals
SAIGON (UPI) --Two generals blamed for the defeat of South Vietnamese forces on the far northern front were fired Wednesday night as government troops abandoned another forward base and retreated closer to the old capital of Hue.Field reports said gangs of drunken, leaderless troops from the government"s 3rd Div., routed from Quang Tri Province to the north, roamed the city of Hue looting and burning. Tens of thousands of refugees tried to flee the city 400 miles north of Saigon."It's getting so I don't know whether I'm in northern South Vietnam or southern North Vietnam," declared an exasperated American adviser at the front.A communiqué from the office of President Nguyen Van Thieu said the president, after an urgent conference with cabinet officials and ranking military commanders, had:-Dismissed Lt. Gen. Hoang Xuan Lam, the pudgy officer who has been commander of South Vietnamese forces in the northernmost provinces since 1966-longest tenure of any government commander. Lam, a native of Hue, is a longtime friend of Thieu.-Fired and ordered held "under investigation" Brig. Gen. Vu Van Giai, commander of the 3rd Div., who had held himself fully responsible for the loss of Quang Tri Province to the North Vietnamese.Communist gunners just after 11 p.m. Wednesday fired at least five 122mm rocket rounds into the Phu Bai airbase six miles south of Hue, UPI correspondent Donald A. Davis reported. He said there appeared to be no damage or casualties.About 2,000 Americans are stationed at Phu Bai. It had not been rocketed since April 12, Davis said. South Vietnamese artillery later pounded the suspected rocket launching sites.The South Vietnamese earlier Wednesday withdrew Marine and armored units from Artillery Base Nancy, just inside Quang Tri Province at the border with Thua Thien (Hue) Province. The base had been set up only 24 hours earlier and came under almost immediate attack by Communist troops and tanks.Field reports said the government forces at Nancy pulled back five miles south along Highway 1 to Phong Dien, about 15 miles from Hue. A third South Vietnamese defense base, Camp Evans, is three miles farther south.Thieu named as Lam's replacement Lt. Gen. Ngo Quang Truong, who has been the government commander in the Mekong Delta below Saigon. Truong formerly headed the 1st Div. in the northern sector and knows the area well. No replacement was named immediately for Giai, considered one of South Vietnam's most promising -but outspoken -young generals.Giai's 3rd Div. was formed only fast fall, a rag-tag outfit of castoffs from other units that even included former draft-dodgers. It virtually disintegrated in the first month of the North Vietnamese offensive, which Wednesday was in its 35th day.On another front, government troops Wednesday evacuated Landing Zone English in Binh Dinh Province on the central coast. The loss of English, whose defenders were evacuated by sea, gave the Communist full control of the northern third of Binh Dinh, most populous but least secure of South Vietnam's 44 provinces.The U.S. command said at least 618 air strikes were flown by American planes -320 of them in the Quang Tri-Thua Thien sector --in the 24 hours ending at noon Wednesday. Heavy B52 bombers flew 24 missions in the same period. Fourteen of the Stratofort strikes were in the far north.Three American planes and a helicopter were shot down in the northern quarter but all crewmen escaped injury.North Vietnam's Foreign Ministry, in a statement broadcast Wednesday night over Radio Hanoi, charged that American planes Tuesday and Wednesday struck populated regions of the North. The Foreign Ministry demanded an "immediate and indefinite cessation of U.S. air and naval attacks on North Vietnamese territory."The same broadcast said three American planes were shot down over North Vietnam Wednesday in continued air strikes.UPI correspondent Stewart Kellerman described the city of Hue, its normal population of 150,000 more than doubled by refugees and Army stragglers, as "a madhouse."Soldiers Tuesday night set fire to the big Dong Ba marketplace and held firemen off at gunpoint. A cement plant built with American aid was burned to the ground and police said drunken troops with no money or food were responsible.Loudspeaker vans moved through the streets of Hue ordering soldiers to regroup and said that beginning Thursday they would be picked up as deserters.Continued fighting was reported Wednesday around the abandoned Artillery Base Bastogne and the nearby Birmingham and King bases near Hue. The Communists have moved 130mm artillery -with which they pounded Nancy with more than 140 rounds -within distance of Hue.Meantime, John Paul Vann, the senior American adviser in the central highlands (Military Region II) declared Wednesday night the situation in that sector was "critical." Vann, a former lieutenant colonel, said the provincial capital of Kontum, 260 miles north of Saigon, was under heavy Communist pressure."It's quite critical," Vann said at Pleiku, 30 miles south of Kontum. "But Kontum will not fall. To hold it is the key to the highlands. There are competent commanding officers and the situation is getting better.Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Bowen, deputy senior U.S. adviser in the north, said at Hue Wednesday night that Quang Tri City should have been held and the orders to evacuate it came as a "surprise."Bowen said the United States was replacing tanks and artillery pieces lost by the South Vietnamese in Quang Tri. The artillery was being flown from the United States and the tanks shipped from Japan, Bowen said."Thieu Fires 2 Key Generals", by (UPI), published in the Pacific Stars and Stripes on Friday, May 5, 1972 and reprinted from European and Pacific Stars and Stripes, a Department of Defense publication copyright, 2002 European and Pacific Stars and Stripes.