‘VIETNAM TO GET WORSE’

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30914, 22 November 1965, Page 15

‘VIETNAM TO GET WORSE’

GV.Z P.A. Reuter—Copyright'

IA DRANG (South Vietnam), Nov. 21. Worse battles may lie ahead in the west central highlands, where the last eight days have seen the bloodiest fighting of the war in South Vietnam, United States Army officials have warned.

South Vietnamese paratroopers, supported by United States-South Vietnamese air strikes, were reported to have killed between 180 and 220 enemy troops in an action there yesterdav lasting three and a half

The paratroopers’ own casualties were said to be “light.” The fighting in the la Drang valley, where units of the United States Ist Air Cavalry Division have killed more than 1000 Viet Cone guerrillas and North Vietnamese Army Regulars, died down today. General William Westmoreland. the United States commander in Vietnam, described the action of the last eight days as an “unprecedented victory.” But other United States military officials said heavier fighting may be yet to come. DUG IN

Massed battalions of allied troops have consolidated their petitions in scrubland on the valley floor. They face an estimated division of North Vietnamese Army regulars dug in along the Chu Prong Hills, a rugged chain lying across the other side of the valley and extending east into Cambodia. So far most of the fighting has fallen to the United States Ist Cavalry Division, which has suffered heavy casualties. But American commanders say the losses of the North

Vietnamese have been much heavier. Supply columns loaded with food, ammunition and medical supplies for the allied forces yesterday rolled into Pleiku. 35 miles north-east of the battle area. The Ist Cavalry Division began operating in the central highlands in late October. Official United States estimates of North Vietnamese dead since then have run as high as 2000. BODY FOUND Near Pleiku and near a spot where there had been heavy fighting earlier this week. villagers yesterday found the body of a man later identified as Mr Jean Bion, the French Deputy Consul in Saigon. He had been missing ever since he was kidnapped by armed men—presumably Viet Cong—on September 21. A French spokesman said Mr Bion, who was 42. had apparently died of an illness last Saturday. No details were immediately available.