South Viet Nam: Closer Than Ever to Hanoi

Now that riflemen's foxholes were dug and mortar positions neatly sand bagged, the 800 U.S. Marines on Hill 327 overlooking Danang airbase were chafing under guard duty and itching for action. Thus it was with considerable relief that the Marines got word that one company could move out to probe the nearby ridges and ravines. Cautiously the company fanned out in separate platoons to begin a 2½ day search for nesting Viet Cong. The first flush was not long in coming: that night one platoon startled some seven V.C.s, who took off running as the Marines fired after them, winging at least one.

By day or night, the leathernecks, newly arrived in a strange land, faced a knotty problem of identification: how to distinguish between the Viet Cong and the loyal South Vietnamese. When a large group of Vietnamese, carrying the caskets of 20 air-raid victims, approached the Marine defense zone around the base in a protest demonstration, confused Marine officers had to call in Vietnamese air-force police to help with the identification problem lest the marchers turned out to be V.C.s in disguise.

Pips & Cows. There were other reasons for confusion. In the darkness, every pip on the portable radar screens and every shadow under the periodic flares that burst over Hill 327 was suspect. One night a cow wandered innocently into range and was gunned down. Three Marines returning from a night patrol approached a sentry in the dark, and two were tragically killed when the nervous guard challenged and fired on them in a single, startled motion.

Marine General Karch makes no secret of the fact that he wants more men to add to the 3,500 Marines already around Danang. He has applied for another infantry battalion, and at least one squadron of Marine air cover not only for tactical infantry support in case of Viet Cong attack, but also for low-level bombing should the V.C. install long-range artillery. Lacking such additional firepower, Karch depends on the U.S. Seventh Fleet destroyer that cruises just off Danang ready to use its 5-in. guns as artillery support of the Marines.

Ten Percent Down. Early last week from the Seventh Fleet's carriers 250 miles away, Phantom jets and Skyraiders whooshed into the air for yet another in the latest series of U.S. strikes at North Viet Nam. This time the target was closer than ever to North Viet Nam's capital. It was a vital Viet Cong ammunition depot near Phuqui, a bare 120 miles south of Hanoi. Because the ammunition caches were dispersed over an area a mile square, each plane was allotted a predetermined bunker or corrugated-iron building. Two hours later, as the Viet Cong were combing through the wreckage, another wave of Air Force F-100 and F-105 fighter bombers swept in over Phuqui to plaster the surprised V.C. again. Phuqui was the repository of 12% of all North Viet Nam's ammunition—and fully half of it was destroyed in the one-two punch, bringing to 10% the total of Viet Cong arms stores destroyed since U.S. retaliatory air strikes began last month.

Ground fire against the raiders was minimal, because low-flying jets had swooped in ahead with napalm to burn out the enemy ack-ack.