VIETMINH BASE RAIDED

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27097, 21 July 1953, Page 9

VIETMINH BASE RAIDED

French Paratroops

Successful

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 10 p.m.) NEW YORK, July 20. French paratroops who jumped in an airborne attack on the Vietminh«held border town of Langson last week, have made a successful overland withdrawal, says a report from Saigon published in the “New York Times” today.

Announcing the withdrawal, the French High Command said the raiders negotiated 60 miles of Vietminh territory without opposition to reach the French base of Tienyen, on the Gulf of Tonkin, yesterday.

French military officers in Saigon are elated at the spectacular success of the Langson attack, the report says. The raid is held to have been a severe blow to the Vietminh supply position, and to have been gratifying proof of the accuracy of French information about occurrences in the Vietminh areas.

It is believed that the Langson raid, with its evidence of the ability of the French to make similar attacks on other Vietminh installations, will cause the Vietminh forces to redispose their rear troop concentrations.

Such a redistribution will disturb the intensive training programme now under way in the Vietminh hinterland. Information gained by the French in their foray to the China border is expected to prove of great value. For one thing, it has confirmed that a great stretch of Vietminh territory in north-eastern Tonkin is virtually undefended.

A French military spokesman revealed that the parachute force totalled more than 3000 men. He said only two deaths occurred among _the French forces in the entire operation. One man was killed when parachuting to earth, and another died of a heat stroke during the withdrawal. About 20 men were injured at Langson or were incapacitated by the heat on the way to Tienyen. The parachutists left flaming wreckage round Langson, where they were dropped on Friday morning to destroy concentrations of Vietminh supplies received from Communist China. Early on Saturday morning, they made contact with a group of parachutists who had been dropped at Locbinh, 12 miles along the highway east of Langson, to guard the withdrawal route.

The combined force marched all day Saturday and through Saturday night to reach Dinhlap, 30 miles from Langson. Thence they went to Tienyen by motor transport.