V. Cong Wives Used In Surrender Plan

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31269, 16 January 1967, Page 13

V. Cong Wives Used In Surrender Plan

(N .Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) LAI KI IE (South Vietnam), January 15. Two hundred women refugees slipped back into the devastated “iron triangle” jungle zone yesterday as shells blasted the woodlands, trying to save the lives of their Viet Cong husbands.

American troops are using bulldozers, dynamite and napalm in this area north of Saigon to destroy the jungle itself in what appears to be the ultimate form of jungle warfare.

The women, who were evacuated earlier, returned to find their husbands—hiding too frightened to move in the tunnels which honeycomb the former Viet Cong stronghold —to persuade them to surrender.

They were instructed to advise their husbands to wait on a highway with their hands over their heads until American troops appeared. Then they should lead the Americans to where they had left their weapons. A total of 28 combat battalions are now committed to the operation, called “Operation Cedar Falls,” described in Saigon as the biggest of the war.

The area being obliterated, the iron triangle, is a dagger of jungle and scrubland pointing at the heart of Saigon, 30 miles to the southeast.

Six thousand refugees have already been sent south with their livestock and household wares to a hastily-constructed refugee centre near Phu Cuong, 15 miles north of Saigon. They leave behind burning homes, fired with napalm jelly by advancing American infantrymen and engineers whose orders are to devastate larg.: areas, thus creating a vast checkerboard of clearings to deny the Viet Cong future freedom of movement and creating zones for quick American landings. Late last night American

First Division infantrymen found what may turn out to be the biggest Viet Cong camp they have yet discovered in their sweep. The camp, with heavily fortified bunkers, was discovered in the Hanh Dien forest north of the triangle. Some 60 huge Army bulldozers are being used in the triangle uncovering tunnels and toppling trees. The tun-

nels and bunkers are blasted with dynamite, the trees are burned. The bulldozers have uncovered two underground hospitals and some 600,000 ampoules of penicillin—onethird of it usable. The Americans have also found printing presses, Viet Cong uniforms, arms and military equipment and large caches of rice.