Seven More

Keeping the North Vietnamese air force in MIG fighters is turning out to be a losing proposition for Moscow. In a single day's dogfighting last week, Thailand-based U.S. Air Force pilots downed seven MIG-17s, equaling the war's record set on Jan. 2; they probably destroyed two more. Five MIGs were shot down in the previous week and another eight were destroyed on the ground, bringing the two-week total to at least 20 enemy jets. Last week's luckless MIG challenge came while U.S. pilots hit barracks and storage areas four miles from the center of Hanoi for the second time in a week.

Continuing to hit the MIGs' home bases, 36 Thunderchiefs plastered the Hoa Lac MIG field with 750-lb. bombs for the fifth time, this time rendering its new, 7,000-ft. runway "unusable." Carrier-based Navy A-4 Skyhawks struck at Haiphong's two thermal power plants and nearby Kien An airfield, a MIG base that had been previously spared. That leaves only three of North Viet Nam's jet bases as yet unscathed. That is a distinction that is not likely to long endure.