S. Vietnamese Relief For American Troops

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31655, 16 April 1968, Page 16

S. Vietnamese Relief For American Troops

(N .Z .P .A .-Reuter—Copyright) SAIGON, April 15. The United States Command in Saigon is making further preparations to replace American troops along the Demilitarised Zone by South Vietnamese forces.

It is learned from reliable sources that the move will be implemented as soon as the Ist South Vietnamese Division has finished retraining and reoutfitting after suffering heavy casualties during the Viet Cong’s Tet offensive on the city of Hue. The division, comprising about 12,000 men, is equipped with the modern, rapid-firing Ml 6 rifle—the standard weapon of American infantrymen. It has not been divulged where the American troops who will be relieved from the “permanent” combat bases along the Demilitarised Zone will be re-deployed. It seems as though the South Vietnamese troops will take over the defence of the outposts of Con Thlen, now manned by more than a battalion of United States | Marines, and Khe Sahn, now defended by a battalion of American air cavalrymen. Two battalions of the 2nd Regiment, Ist South Vietnamese Division, have just completed a two-day sweep around the allied outpost of Gio Linh, which anchors the eastern end of the Demilitarised Zone, and Government spokesmen say 125 enemy troops and 29 South Vietnamese soldiers were killed in a two-day operation which ended yesterday. Government forces also suffered 26 wounded. In another action along the northern frontier yesterday. United States Marines of the 26th Regiment recaptured Hill 881 North, about five miles north-west of the Khe Sanh combat base. It is reported from the United States Marine Headquarters at Da Nang that 108 North Vietnamese troops were killed, most of them by artillery and air strikes preceding the assault. Marine casualties were put at six killed and 12 wounded. The hill is one of three peaks on which the marines

lost 300 men killed in two weeks of heavy fighting in April and May last year. Early this year, as the North Vietnamese tightened their cordon around Khe Sanh, the marines were forced to relinquish their hold on the hill. Night Attack In another battle, six miles south-west of Khe Sanh, yesterday. a North Vietnamese company charged the night camp of two United States Air Cavalry companies, killing eight Americans, and wounding six after a barrage of fire from mortars and antitank rockets. The attacking enemy forces withdrew after 15 minutes and it is not known if they suffered any casualties.

United States jet aircraft on bombing missions over North Vietnam yesterday again confined their strikes to targets below the 19tb Parallel, attacking only as far as 160 miles beyond the South Vietnam border. The primary targets were North Vietnamese artillery positions and troop concentrations. American B-52 Stratofortresses attacking Communist positions in South Vietnam late yesterday and early today, bombed a valley supply line, troop concentrations in the Central Highlands near the Laos and Cambodian borders, and North Vietnamese forces threatening Hue, 400 miles up the coast from Saigon. Military observers say that the North Vietnamese, beaten at Khe Sanh by American air power and artillery, are probably shifting their main effort in South Vietnam’s northern provincies to the area of Hue. In Action Again The controversial swingwing Fill fighter-bombers of the U.S. Air Force yesterday flew strikes over North Vietnam for the third successive day since they resumed combat missions last Friday. They had been grounded since March 30 after two were lost during the first week of combat operations. The top-secret, radar-guided aircraft attacked an enemy bivouac area and truck park north-west of the city of Dong Hoi, 40 miles north of the Demilitarised Zone, but overcast skies prevented bomb damage assessment. On the southern tip of South Vietnam, the Viet Cong shelled a Vietnamese subsector late yesterday and again this morning, but casualties are said to have been “very light.”