Viet Cong Abandon Grazing Code

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31061, 17 May 1966, Page 9

Viet Cong Abandon Grazing Code

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) SAIGON. Cows and rubber trees have played a part in the Viet Cong’s battlefield intelligence system, according to American soldiers fighting in Vietnam. The cups for catching fluid on the side of rubber trees were used by the guerrillas to pinpoint the position of American infantrymen dug into a rubber plantation north of Saigon recently. As they patrolled the area, the American soldiers noticed that the cups were turned away from the trees in front of each of their main dug-outs —probably by local workers enlisted by the Viet Cong. “They couldn’t catch any rubber in those cups but they were just fine as markers,” said one American cervice-

man. “One night we went out and smashed them all up and the Viet Cong hadn't got an idea where we were any more.”

In central Vietnam, men serving with the United States First Air and Cavalry Division said they found the Viet Cong were instructing villagers in coastal Binh Dinh provinces to graze their cows in certain fields to indicate American dispositions.

Two cows in a field on the right of the road might, for example mean that two American convoys had passed northwards. After the Americans had hit back by telling the villagers to graze their cattle in different, arbitrarily chosen, fields the Viet Cong abandoned their grazing code.

H»l«-en-On«.—At the Waitiklri course, Mrs A. W. Bishop holed in one at the 115 yd third hole. us<n( a No. ( Iron.