Wednesday, June 7, 1972
C47 Crews Bombing Red Units With Paper
By Capt. Chet Justice
TAN SON NHUT, Vietnam (Special) --U. S. Air Force C47 Skytrain aircrews of the psychological operation (PSYOPS) branch of the 360th Tactical Electronic Warfare Sq. (TEWS) dropped more than six million leaflets in the four military regions of Vietnam in five days last month.The leaflets, addressed to the specific units of North Vietnamese soldiers, discourage fighting and urge them to surrender.Maj. Paul D. Hunter, chief of the 360th TEWS PSYOPS branch, said that three aircrews accomplished the leaflets-dropping missions."Each day we took off with between one and two million leaflets aboard. We flew at altitudes ranging from 2,500 to 9,000 feet. Depending on the velocity of the wind, the leaflets drift two to three miles for each one thousand feet they fall."The leaflets, produced and written by a political warfare unit of the Republic of Vietnam armed forces, play up the successes of ARVN forces and U.S. tactical fighter-bomber aircraft since March 30. These include destroying more than 200 Russian tanks and killing thousands of enemy combatants.The slips tell that all North Vietnamese ports have been mined and of extensive air war over the North.The leaflet is a safe conduct pass in the Chieu Hoi Program (Open Arms). The program offers amnesty to enemy soldiers who rally to the side of the RVN government.During 1971, more than 20,000 NVA and Viet Cong soldiers rallied to the RVN cause. From 1963, when the Chieu Hoi Program got underway, through December 1971, 193,412 Communist troops have come over to the side of the Saigon government, according to figures release by the Chieu Hoi division of the Military Assistance Command's Civil Operations and Rural Development Agency."C47 Crews Bombing Red Units With Paper", by Capt. Chet Justice, published in the Pacific Stars and Stripes, Wednesday, June 7, 1972 and reprinted from European and Pacific Stars and Stripes, a Department of Defense publication copyright, 2002 European and Pacific Stars and Stripes.