Mining Haiphong Favoured

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31448, 15 August 1967, Page 15

Mining Haiphong Favoured

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

HONOLULU, August 14.

The United States military commander in the Pacific says that the closure of Haiphong harbour, North Vietnam’s main port, would be “a very fine military move,” the Associated Press reported.

Mining would be one rather easy way to block the port, said Admiral U. S. Grant Sharp in an interview taped on Friday for A.8,C.-TV and broadcast yesterday. Admiral Sharp made his

comment before the week-end extension of bombing and the attack on a bridge on Hanoi. He testified on the subject before the Senate Preparedness Sub-committee on Wednesday and Thursday. Admiral Sharp conceded that there were “international political complications.” He said he was satisfied with present “lessened” restrictions on bombing targets, but hoped for more targets in the future.

United States bombing, he said, had forced North Vietnam to quadruple its imports by shipping in the last year. Admiral Sharp said Haiphong could be mined “with relatively few sorties.” “As a matter of fact, in 1943, during World War 11, two 824 Liberators and one United States submarine put about 38 mines, I believe it was, in the entrance to the Port of Haiphong. “These mines sank three or four Japanese ships and damaged quite a few others, and as a result of that mining the Port of Haiphong was closed to the Japanese for the rest of the war,” he said.