Saturday, June 3, 1972
Drive To Trap Red Regiment North Of Hue
SAIGON (AP & UPI) --More than 1,000 South Vietnamese paratroopers launched a sweep with tanks 25 miles northwest of Hue Thursday, trying to trap a North Vietnamese regiment.Enemy artillery caused light casualties, and by late afternoon two government task forces were battling North Vietnamese units of 100 or more men each.In the air war, U.S. Air Force F4 Phantom jets flying cover for other American planes bombing targets near Hanoi shot down two North Vietnamese MIG21 jets with air-to-air missiles, military spokesmen said Thursday.The 1,300-mile-an-hour MIGs were downed 25 minutes apart near the major MIG base at Kep, 30 miles northeast of Hanoi, late Wednesday afternoon. The Phantoms were on missions protecting other jet bombers, who struck more than 200 targets inside North Vietnam Wednesday, the Air Force said.Spokesmen said a Phantom returning from one of the strikes crashed in Thailand but the two crewmen parachuted to safety. Cause of the crash was unknown.One of the MIGs was downed by Capt. Edward S. Ritchie, 29, and Capt. Lawrence H. Pettit, 31. The other "MIG killers" were Capt. Bruce Leonard, 29, and Capt. Jeffrey Feinstein.It was Ritchie's second MIG in three weeks and also the second for Feinstein. It brought to 145 the number of MIGs shot down over the North during the war, 34 of them this year.North Vietnam also was hit from the sea. The heavy cruiser Newport News and the destroyer Waddell ranged for 100 miles along the coast, firing more than 700 eight-inch and five-inch shells at more than 30 targets. The Navy said one fuel depot was left in flames and more than 20 secondary explosions were observed at an ammunition dump.Accompanying the ground sweep, Associated Press correspondent Holger Jensen reported that more than 1,000 paratroopers with scores of tanks and armored personnel carriers advanced through a North Vietnamese artillery barrage in the foothills northwest of Hue.A blocking force of several hundred marines is also taking part in the operation.Jensen said the paratroopers repeatedly took cover as the shells from long-range North Vietnamese 130mm artillery and 82mm mortars slammed in. But the initial advance did not stop. Most of the shells appeared aimed at the tanks and armored personnel carriers."We think there's an enemy regiment out there, that's the target," one U.S. adviser told Jensen. "First we're going to use our loudspeakers and pamphlets to try to make them defect. We're going to try to exploit their low morale. All the prisoners we've talked to say they are ready to defect. If they don't come out, we'll go in and get them."More than 30 U.S. B52 bombers dropped 750 tons of explosives on the area in advance of the South Vietnamese ground troops. An overcast set in later, hampering support by smaller fighter-bombers, but South Vietnamese artillery was countering the enemy barrage with heavy fire.South Vietnamese forces were reportedly slowly clearing out the enemy pockets remaining in Kontum. They claimed 237 North Vietnamese killed Wednesday and said they found the bodies of another 128 in mass graves on the northern outskirts of the city.Thirteen South Vietnamese were reported killed Wednesday and 44 were reported wounded.John Paul Vann, the senior U.S. adviser in the highlands, said 3,000 North Vietnamese have been killed in the Kontum fighting in the past nine days, most of them by air and artillery strikes. He said at least 1,000 South Vietnamese were killed and wounded.The MIG downed by Ritchie, a 1964 Air Force Academy graduate, was one of two sighted about 17 miles west of Kep. He has flown 287 Vietnam missions.Ritchie got his first MIG21 on May 10, also piloting a 1,600-mile-an-hour Phantom which can reach 48,000 feet.Two other MIGs were intercepted 25 minutes later by Leonard and Feinstein about 30 miles west of Kep. The two also are Air Force Academy graduates. The Air Force said Feinstein, who shot down a MIG April 16, got his second with a single missile on his 86th mission."Drive to Trap Red Regiment North of Hue", by (AP & UPI), published in the Pacific Stars and Stripes Saturday, June 3, 1972 and reprinted from European and Pacific Stars and Stripes, a Department of Defense publication copyright, 2002 European and Pacific Stars and Stripes.