Friday, June 2, 1972
100 Reds Offer To Surrender
PLEIKU, Vietnam (UPI) --About 100 North Vietnamese troops inside Kontum Province capital negotiated for their own surrender on a field radio Wednesday, according to the area's senior adviser, John Paul Vann.Vann told newsmen that the day-long negotiations were still going on at dusk between the Communists and the South Vietnamese defenders of the highlands town of 27,000.The surrender offer -first ever in the war by a North Vietnamese unit -came at what appeared to be the tail end of a week of heavy fighting in Kontum, 260 miles north of Saigon."I do not think the battle for Kontum is over," Vann told newsmen at his headquarters here, 30 miles south of Kontum."Phase one may be over, and it has been characterized by the failure of the North Vietnamese to achieve any objectives." Vann said the Communists lost 3,000 soldiers killed during the first phase and came close to overrunning Kontum. He put South Vietnamese casualties at 1,000 killed, wounded and missing."100 Reds Offer To Surrender", by (UPI), published in the Pacific Stars and Stripes Friday, June 2, 1972 and reprinted from European and Pacific Stars and Stripes, a Department of Defense publication copyright, 2002 European and Pacific Stars and Stripes.