FIGHTING ERUPTS IN SAIGON’S OUTSKIRTS

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31597, 7 February 1968, Page 13

FIGHTING ERUPTS IN SAIGON’S OUTSKIRTS

(N.Z. Press Association —Copyright)

SAIGON, February 6.

Heavy fighting erupted on the edge of this embattled capital today while thousands of Vietnamese civilians fled alleys and streets—swelling the ranks of the homeless, the Associated Press reported.

As the battle for Saigon blazed into its seventh day, swarms of residents clogged the streets in the southern side of the city.

Desperate, they sought the greater security of the central part.

They carried pots, pans and other household utensils and clothing.

Many claimed police were unable to give them protection from marauding bands of Viet Cong guerrillas. Hundreds of ramshackle homes and huts in the south-

ern part of the city were on fire or in burned-out ruins. Even before the exodus from the city’s south-side, authorities reported more than 47,000 homeless were being given shelter in 33 hast-ily-organised refugee centres round the city.

The temporary shelters were set up in schools, Buddhist pagodas, churches and hospitals.

Less Than A Mile

The heaviest fighting today in the capital district was reported in progress less than a mile from Saigon. South Vietnamese paratroopers engaged an estimated battalion (400 men) of Viet Cong in fighting that continued into the afternoon. Some idea of the type of fighting in Saigon could be seen in part of the United States log of incidents inside the city after midnight on Monday: In the early morning hours, a United States military police utility vehicle received enemy fire which killed one enlisted man and wounded another. Two United States officers, riding in the rear of the jeep, were missing. At 9.25 a.m., two Vietnamese trucks were fired on and burned near the main fish market in Cholon, the Chinese quarter.

last night, before these incidents, the Viet Cong seized a police sub-station and a preeinct headquarters in the southern part of the city where numerous houses went up in flames, most of them tin or wooden huts.

Elsewhere, allied troops cautiously worked their way through an old French cemetery across a street from the residence of the United States Ambassador, Mr Ellsworth Bunker.

The troops were trying to flush out Viet Cong snipers who had been active for a week, apparently using the cemetery as their base. The soldiers made their way through the graveyard as grieving Vietnamese buried

relatives killed in the street fighting. The food situation in Saigon was described by authorities as serious but not yet critical. Rice and other foodstuffs were available but prices rose two to four times the normal retail price. The city held considerable reserve stocks of rice, but distribution presented officials with a major problem. South Vietnamese troops pushing foot by foot through the ancient imperial capital of Hue reported meeting heavy resistance from Communist soldiers holed up near the south-east wall, of the hard-hit inner-city citadel. United States Marines were reported last night in control of 12 city blocks of Hue—4o per cent of their goal. At that point, the Communists still held two-thirds of the city, 400 miles north-east of Saigon. The thick-walled, moated

citadel—once the seat of kings and recently headquarters of the South Vietnamese Army’s Ist Infantry Division—has been reduced to a two-mile-square pile of ruins by allied ground attacks and shelling from the ground. The South Vietnamese VicePresident, Mr Nguyen Cao Ky, said he expected another Viet Cong attack on Saigon, and announced the formation of an “army of the people" to protect the population. The 600,000 Vietnamese under arms were not enough, he told a press conference after recording a film message to the Vietnamese people. “In the emergency situation which exists today, the people have asked us to arm them in their own defence,” he said.

Mr Ky, now a civilian, added: “It has become necessary to organise such a force of the people to help them in their own defence.

“I cannot say exactly when the programme will go into effect but it will be as soon as possible—within the next few days, or the next week.” Mr Ky told reporters: “We will give the people special training in the use of arms —they will be mainly individual weapons, but if the need arises, we can provide heavier guns.” Klie Sanli Fears Bad weather, possibly restricting United States air power, raised fears that the North Vietnamese might hit again in the Khe Sanh area, where a full-scale offensive by as many as 40,000 troops has been expected for more than a month.

Marines, supported by armoured columns and air strikes by helicopters and dive bombers, were gradually expandr ing their area of control on the south side of the Perfume River at Hue.