“Air Threat Taken Seriously In Hanoi”

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31255, 30 December 1966, Page 6

“Air Threat Taken Seriously In Hanoi”

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

HANOI, December 29.

Just before 2.25p.m. on Monday there was a muffled distant roar. The 10-foot-high windows in this old French hotel rattled and the heavy grey curtains gently swayed inward, reported Harrison Salisbury, of the “New York Times.”

At a count of three there was another tremendous distant rumble and again the windows shook and the curtains swayed. A moment later came a third muffled roar.

The wail of a siren sounded the alert and the hotel defence staff scrambled for their tin hats and rifles as guests emerged from their rooms and hurried down the great marble staircase, through the long lounge with its slightly bedraggled tropical Christmas tree, its bar with its remarkable collection of liquors of all lands, including vodka from Moscow, rice wine from Peking and gin from London, and out across the interior courtyard where the shelters are situated.

By the time the guests began to descend into the sturdy concrete bunker, little waitresses wearing black sateen trousers and white blouses stood ready with rifles to fire at any low-flying plane that might appear over the hotel.

Inside the shelter, Americans, by curious coincidence, found themselves in the majority—four women who are members of an American peace delegation, and this correspondent But the gathering in the shelter was an international one that ineluded the deputy director of “Tass,” the Soviet press agency, a correspondent of the Italian Communist publication, “Unite,” members of a Soviet trade union delegation, two Cubans and an East German. There were no Chinese. v

The foreigners chatted a little excitedly about what was for most of them a new experience, but the Vietnamese did not join in. Air alerts and air raids are no novelty and no thrill to them. They are a deadly serious business. The waitresses with rifles are part of this serious business. Probably not many United States planes are brought down by rifle fire, but the population is trained to man posts and to throw up a hurricane <rf small-arms fire in support of the conventional anti-aircraft and surface-to-air missile defences. The small-arms fire has two purposes. First, it is designed to make United States lowlevel attacks increasingly hazardous. According to Hanoi residents, low-level bombing is frequently employed by United States planes in an effort to circumvent the radar and missile systems. Second, rifle fire gives the populace a feeling of participation and of fighting back. Yesterday’s alert was only six or seven minutes long. It resulted from the appearance of a pilotless American reconnaissance craft near the city. North Vietnamese officials said. The three tremendous blasts presumably were surface-to-air missiles. The same kind of robot plane, it was disclosed, had caused an alert on Christmas Day at almost the same hour. Camouflage

Today the foreign press corps was taken to see the site of what was said to be the aircraft shot down on Christmas Day. A convoy of half a dozen cars, most of them covered with camouflage fishnet into which leaves and greenery can be slipped in a matter of minutes, set out to visit the site. Hardly a car or truck moves outside Hanoi without camouflage, and most cars in the city are permanently bedecked. So, for that matter, are many persons, who wear sprays of leaves and branches in their helmets or straw hats. The convoy made its way north-east across the Paul Doumer bridge. It appeared clear, when observed from the bridge, that in a raid on December 14 bombs had been directed at the approaches to the bridge but had fallen short into the residential quarters of Hoan Kiem, Gia Lem and Yen Vein. In the Yen Vein attack the target was the railyards, according to the United States communique. Some bombs certainly fell along the railway line. However, there

are many apartment houses close by, and one residential building after another has been blasted out. Because of highly-organised repair facilities, rail traffic appears to be moving normally. Common Event

Officials said the American plane shot down on Christmas Day fell 12 or 13 miles northeast of the city, in the Tien Son district of Ha Bac province. The craft proved to be a Ryan Drone with a wingspread of about 18ft It is the type the Vietnamese call a “firebee.”

The wing and fuselage, somewhat crumbled, lay in a pile on the ground as eight or nine Vietnamese girls dug in mud about 7ft deep for the motor, which was gradually being uncovered. The appearance of robot planes over the Hanoi area is said to be a common occurrence. They transmit photographic intelligence back to American air reconnaissance centres.

The aircraft was reportedly shot down adjacent to the main rail line that links Hanoi to China, and is presumed to have been despatched to report on rail conditions and traffic movement According to the girls digging out the motor, the plane was at an altitude of only about one mile when it was shot down. The seriousness with which the Vietnamese take the air threat has undoubtedly kept civilian casualties lower than might be expected In the light of the huge damage to living quarters and the destruction of small towns and villages. A key to this is a man-hole concrete shelter that seems to be a Vietnamese invention. There are hundreds of thousands of them along every highway and every city street, and they are still being constructed by the thousands. At 5 a.m. the other day one lonely man was observed patiently digging one in.

The shelters are made largely by hand. They look like drain-pipes and with their two-inch-thick concrete covers appear to be impervious to anything but a direct or very close hit Another factor that has reduced casualties and bomb damage is that everything dispersable has been dispersed. The countryside is literally strewn with dispersed goods and supplies. The same is true of people. For instance, two-thirds of the machinery and workers at the big textile plant near Gia Lem have been sent out to the countryside.

Harrison E. Salisbury, an assistant managing editor of the “New York Times,” flew on December 23 to Hanoi, the capital of North Vietnam, aboard an aircraft of the International Control Commission.

A veteran correspondent who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1955 for a series of articles on the Soviet Union, he applied successfully for a North Vietnam visa while visiting Phnompenh, the capital of Cambodia, where Hanoi has a diplomatie mission. His passport had been validated earlier by the State Department for travel to North Vietnam.