The War: Victory in the Valley

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Prowling the Grounds. Meanwhile, the grinding battle in the hills around Dak To continued, as U.S. infantrymen hunted for an enemy ever more reluctant to come out and fight. Some of the toughest combat took place four miles south of Dak To. Fourth Division infantrymen, in a fierce seven-hour firefight, finally blasted the North Vietnamese off Hill 1338, a peak 4,000 ft. above the Dak To valley floor, from which Communist rocketeers could have zeroed in on U.S. emplacements. Ten miles to the southwest, men of the 173rd seized Hill 889, tenaciously defended by the Communists because it supported an antiaircraft gun. And at week's end, heavy fighting erupted anew as a 1st Cavalry (Airmobile) Battalion flushed a force of North Vietnamese Army regulars on a mountain flank hard by the Laotian border.

In nearby Cambodia, three American newsmen—the U.P.I.'s Ray Herndon and the A.P.'s Horst Faas and George McArthur—took Cambodian Prince Norodom Sihanouk up on his offer to prove, if they could, that the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong were using Cambodia as a sanctuary. Armed with specific map coordinates from U.S. intelligence in Saigon, they uncovered a headquarters complex only nine miles from the South Vietnamese town of Loc Ninh, which the Communists unsuccessfully attacked three weeks ago; the complex included a well-stocked dispensary, officers' quarters, storage facilities and huts for some 500 men. Lead ing towards the Vietnamese border was a road paved with six-inch-diameter logs for trucks, and truck tracks were everywhere. Back in Pnompenh, Sihanouk promised a full investigation but said that he found it hard to believe that the camp was permanent. U.P.I, man Herndon, however, had foresightedly prowled the camp grounds and came up with some important Viet Cong vouchers. Their dates ranged from as early as February right up to Nov. 1.