N.Z. Doctors In Vietnam Worried

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30830, 16 August 1965, Page 13

N.Z. Doctors In Vietnam Worried

(N.Z. Press Association —Copyright?

SAIGON, August 15.

New Zealand doctors at a hospital at Qui Nhon see regular evidence of a new, and worrying turn in the Vietnam war, the “New York Times” news service reports.

They frequently treat villagers burned by napalm or injured by shrapnel. But as professionals, the New Zealanders did not publicly challenge the bombing by Americans that surrounded their hospital and filled its wards.

The news service said that American troops were now being criticised for this indiscriminate wounding and killing of villagers.

Since the United States marine and army battalions arrived in South Vietnam, they have been under criticism that their predecessors, the American advisers, did not experience in the early years of war.

Occasionally in the past the advisers were photographed looking on while the Vietnamese tortured or abused a Viet [Cong suspect. Now, however, the American forces have found themselves charged with exceeding the prescribed limits of warfare. Civilian Killed

During a recent operation in the Da Nang area, United States marines inadvertently killed a civilian. A few days later they stirred up public resentment by setting fire to huts in a village known to have harboured Viet Cong guerrillas. The commander of the marines at Da Nang, General Lewis Walt, expressed his personal regret for the episode, but no-one familiar with the 'methods of any army doubts

that similar incidents will happen again, the news service said.

Even more distressing to many civilian and military observers in the country has been the incessant bombing of South Vietnam by American jets. The average villager in the North, they believe, is often safer from bombing attacks than the Vietnamese of the South. In South Vietnam a villager may live in an area along the Cambodian or Laotian border designated as a free strike zone. The hill sections of central Vietnam are sparsely populated and wide areas are considered to be under Viet Cong control. Without Authority A pilot, returning to base without having found a suitable combat target, may drop his bombs in that area without authorisation. For raids outside these zones, approval generally comes from the Vietnamese province chief. Pilots experience in the air the same problems that the marines run into on the ground. They are trying to hit only enemy soldiers. But the enemy hides among the people, sometimes with their connivance, often against their will. . A bullet often strays, and a bomb is far less selective than a bullet.