South Viet Nam: Quiet on the Other Front

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Even as Viet Nam became known as "that other war" last week, ground action there slackened off notably. U.S. casualties—214 killed and 1,161 wounded—were the lowest in more than a month. What action there was followed familiar scenarios. Near the DMZ, U.S. Marines fought a fierce 5½-hour fire fight with North Vietnamese regulars, and U.S. Army troopers fended off Viet Cong mortar attacks on their compounds at Pleiku and Hué.

Buried in the rush of news from the Middle East were reports of the outstanding success of a grab-bag unit of U.S. Army troopers operating under the unusual designation of "Task Force Oregon," after the home state of its commander, Major General William B. Rosson, 48. Pieced together six weeks ago, the task force is General Westmoreland's answer to a rapidly deteriorating situation in Quang Ngai, a Communist-infested province in the troublesome I Corps. The four South Vietnamese battalions in Quang Ngai were far too weak to cope with 12,000 local Viet Cong, who had been bolstered by two newly arrived North Vietnamese divisions. The U.S. Marines, who usually policed the province, were rushing to the North to fend off a threatened invasion across the DMZ.

Pile-On Tactic. Lacking a spare division to meet the challenge, General Westmoreland pulled together paratroopers from the 101st Airborne Division, tanks from the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, riflemen from the 25th Division and the 196th Light Infantry Brigade. Last month the division-strength hybrid moved north into the thickly covered foothills and verdant coastal plain of Quang Ngai.

Almost every place the new outfit went, it found the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese waiting in ambush or entrenched in deep, multitunneled bunkers. Employing a "pile-on" tactic—to find the enemy and then pile on more men and firepower until Charlie or his Northern neighbors were crushed—Oregon's troopers proved to be bruising hunters. Last week, as elements of the 101st Airborne began a new sweep through central Quang Ngai, the task force had killed 1,520 enemy while suffering only 134 losses itself, for one of the highest kill ratios of the war.

Back to Hanoi. Only in the air were other U.S. forces as busy as the Oregonians. Weather over North Viet Nam was bad, but not bad enough to prevent Navy flyers from the carrier Constellation from paying the seventh visit in as many weeks to the North Vietnamese MIG base at Kep, 40 miles northeast of Hanoi; their bombs tore gaping craters in the runway, destroyed one parked MIG, and damaged at least four more. Navy and Air Force pilots also struck at industrial and military targets in North Viet Nam's panhandle. At week's end, U.S. planes returned to Hanoi for the first time in three weeks to bomb near the center of the city; they hit the generating plant that provides the bulk of the capital's electricity. Once again, MIGs last week rose to challenge the U.S. raiders, and in ensuing dogfights, three more were shot down, bringing the toll of downed MIGs to 77. The U.S. lost no planes in air-to-air combat, but North Viet Nam's massive ground fire brought down five.