South Viet Nam: Find 'Em & Fight 'Em

Laughing and talking as they put the bloody battleground of Plei Me behind them, the retreating North Vietnamese column was breaking every rule of si lent guerrilla withdrawal. After all, only three more miles of moonlit jungle trails lay between them and "neutral" Cambodia, where they could rest and lick their wounds. When the Reds reached an open patch of elephant grass, their tactical sins caught up with them: grenades and rifle fire cut their laughter short, and steel pellets from ten carefully planted anti-personnel mines chopped down the center of the column.

The ambush had been neatly laid by Bravo Troop of the U.S. 1st Cavalry (Airmobile), and in three minutes, according to reports from the scene, 20 North Vietnamese lay dead, dozens more wounded. The remaining Viet Minh, pinned down by Aircav fire, regrouped and slammed back in four vicious charges that threatened to overrun the dug-in Americans. Then came the hammer blow of a helilifted night assault. American cavalrymen and Communist Viet Minh fired at one another's muzzle flashes, while rockets from hovering Hueys set the jungle darkness sporadically ablaze. In the week of post-Plei Me sweeps, fully 110 Reds had been killed (as opposed to "moderate" American casualties). The

U.S. troopers had more than lived up to their commanding officer's orders: "Get on the Cambodian border, find 'em and fight 'em."

Contacts & Kills. Americans in Viet Nam have been finding them and fighting them with ever greater efficiency lately. Last week the regular month's-end statistics issued from Saigon showed record after record for U.S. troop actions. The most significant of all concerned small-unit actions (one company or less). During October, Americans averaged 1,287 a week, of which 131 made contact—a whopping 70% increase over September.

And during October's last week, Americans made contact with the Reds 175 times v. 113 for the South Vietnamese troops. That meant that in terms of the deadly little actions that spill most of the blood in Viet Nam, the U.S. was fighting more than half the war. But contact means nothing without kills, and during October the Viet Cong suffered a 3.5 to 1 kill ratio. The Red death toll in the last week of the month was 1,264—third highest of the war.

SAMs & Airedales. In the air as on the ground, U.S. fighting men were ever more effectively coming to grips with their enemies. The nemeses of the North —those 20-odd surface-to-air missile sites supplied by Russia—took a heavy pounding last week. One site was destroyed, three more put out of action. As a flight of Navy Skyhawks from the carrier Oriskany swept in on the Kep Highway Bridge, 35 miles northeast of Hanoi, a covey of SAMs came whistling skyward. "Time is compressed in a situation like that," said the flight commander later. "Five seconds seem like eternity." But above the "airedales" circled a flock of Air Force F-105 Thunderchiefs, led by an electronically sensitive A-4E "Pathfinder," especially designed to snoop out missile sites.

The Pathfinder quickly pinpointed the