INDO-CHINA: Raids in the Night

INDOCHINA

Barefoot Communist guerrillas crept through damp grass one night last week to the edge of Hanoi's civil airfield, one of the two biggest in Indo-China. They cut a silent path through the barbed wire, split into teams of two, and made unnoticed for the DC-35 and Bristol Type 1705 on the runway.

It took the raiders half an hour to fasten stick bombs to fuselages, landing gears and engines.

The explosions shook the city and French general headquarters, less than 5,000 yards away. "A thunderstorm," said one Frenchman. "Fireworks," said another. But telephones soon brought the facts: the Communists had knocked out twelve transport aircraft, perhaps one-tenth of France's airlift fleet in Indo-China.

Three nights later some 40 black-garbed Communist night raiders struck at another base near Haiphong, where 44 U.S. Air Force technicians are stationed. This time French guards stopped the Communists, not far from the U.S. billets, before they could fix their bombs (Cointreau liqueur bottles filled with incendiary liquid) to some C-119s.