SAIGON AIR BASE HIT

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31234, 5 December 1966, Page 17

SAIGON AIR BASE HIT

(HZ. Press Association—Copyright)

SAIGON, December 4. Viet Cong forces mortared Saigon’s huge Tan Son Nhut air base early today and then sent a suicide platoon smashing through heavy Allied defences.

Simultaneously, terrorists blasted a billet for transit American servicemen in the heart of Saigon. In a three-hour attack on the air base, the guerrillas—estimated in platoon force—lobbed more than 400 mortar shells into the area. Helicopters and flare-drop-ping aircraft took to the air to engage the attackers. Vietnamese troops engaged the Viet Cong on the ground. Seventeen Viet Cong were reported killed and another captured. Casualties “Light” Allied casualties and damage to the air base were officially reported as light. In Saigon, an explosion shattered a headquarters of a psychological warfare unit, wounding nine Americans, two of them seriously. The explosives apparently placed on a balcony of the converted cinema building, blew the roof off and started a blaze which destroyed the two upper stories of the threefloor building. Office equipment and glass showered into the street and

windows of the nearby main headquarters of the United States aid mission to Vietnam were shattered. Vietnamese and American military police clamped rigid security on the city as the attack on the airport broke out. The attack began as the Viet Cong broke into the vast air base and simultaneosuly began to mortar. Parachute Flares Americans guarding the military aircraft on the base located two Viet Cong mortar positions within 15 minutes of the first shell and hit back with artillery. Parachute flares lit up the area. The attack was the second on Saigon air base. Last April 13 Viet Cong mortar shells killed eight and injured 128 in a 20-minute attack. Thirty-three planes were damaged in the same early morning attack. Aircraft Losses.—The United States lost eight aircraft and 13 airmen over North Vietnam on Friday, the highest number for a single day since the air war began, a United States military spokesman said today.—Saigon, Dec. 4.