COURT MARTIAL FOR AIR ERROR

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30897, 2 November 1965, Page 19

COURT MARTIAL FOR AIR ERROR

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) SAIGON, Nov. 1. A Vietnamese lieutenant faces court martial for a mapping error that cost the lives of 48 innocent civilians in a bombing raid on a friendly Vietnamese village by two American planes.

It was learned that the tragic accident that destroyed much of the village of De Due on Saturday was caused b a mix-up in the map co-ordin-ates given to pilots of two Skyraiders by Vietnamese military officials who ordered the strike. The unidentified Lieutenant is accused of being respon-

sible for the reversing of two figures in a six-figure map coordinate.

The target the Government wanted the' American pilots to hit was a Viet Cong concentration six miles from the village. Instead, the innocent village was blasted by white phophorous bombs and 2501 b fragmentation bombs. Besides the 48 killed there were 55 injured, many of them believed to be women and children.

United States military civic action teams moved into the bombed village today and started an investigation on which to base a "crash programme” of rebuilding.

The American air controller had called for confirmation of the target because “everything looked so friendly.” One of the American pilots said that when he went in to attack the village he could see people standing around in the street. “But that was not unusual. I have seen people before in similar attacks,” he said. It was the second serious bombing mistake in six weeks. On September 17 two American jets killed more than a score of South Vietnamese policemen and their dependents when they inadvertently bombed a police post near the I North Vietnamese border.