Thursday, June 1, 1972
Bombing Forces Hanoi To Recall Its SAMs
WASHINGTON (AP) --Pentagon sources say the North Vietnamese appear to have shifted surface-to-air missiles back into the Hanoi-Haiphong region to strengthen defenses against heavy U.S. bombing.Early this year, Hanoi concentrated nearly two-thirds of its 44 antiaircraft-missile battalions in the North Vietnamese panhandle, between the 20th Parallel and the Demilitarized Zone, in preparation for the invasion of South Vietnam across the DMZ.Some of those SAM battalions harassed American warplanes when they tried to stem the North Vietnamese advance. One of the battalions was moved into South Vietnam.Pentagon sources say the redeployment of SAM battalions northward began after big U.S. air raids on targets close to Hanoi and Haiphong in mid-April, which marked a return to the type of bombing campaign carried on by the United States against North Vietnam before the Johnson administration ordered it halted in late 1968.By early May, sources said, five battalions had been moved from the panhandle into the heavily populated Red River delta region which includes Hanoi and Haiphong. And the battalion which had been pushed forward into South Vietnam was pulled north of the DMZ once again.More recently, as U.S. air attacks ranged widely across the North, more SAM units appeared to have been redeployed from the panhandle, sources said. Specific numbers were not available, indicating that military intelligence still was analyzing its information."Bombing Forces Hanoi To Recall Its SAMs", by (AP), published in the Pacific Stars and Stripes Thursday, June 1, 1972 and reprinted from European and Pacific Stars and Stripes, a Department of Defense publication copyright, 2002 European and Pacific Stars and Stripes.