Reporter’s Impressions Of Bombing Of Hanoi

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31655, 16 April 1968, Page 18

Reporter’s Impressions Of Bombing Of Hanoi

(N.Z. Press ASSn.—Copyright) HANOI (North Vietnam), April 13. The first impression acquired by a reporter returning to Hanoi 14 months later is that a kind of mutual escalation prevails over this war in North Vietnam. Bill Baggs, editor of the “Miami News” reported in a copyright article carried by the Associated Press. In Hanoi almost incidentj ally, but conspicuously in the countryside, you see the violent wake of the American I bombers. The damage from aerial bombardment is much I greater than when this writer (visited North Vietnam in January, 1967. However, as the air raids have proliferated, the North Vietnamese have “escalated" their defences and their competence to survive a more intense war from the air. The Hanoi area, for instance, must be nested in one of the most sophisticated and effective warning systems in the world. Through the metallic voices of hundreds of loudspeakers across the city, the people are alerted when United States planes are headed toward Hanoi. The warning may be repeated two or three times as the planes approach. The siren is sounded, when the bombers are within| 19 to 25 miles of Hanoi, and 1 at this signal the people hustle to the thousands of ■shelters here. I The efficiency of the warning system may be measured | by the fact that several i American aircraft flew over I or near Hanoi 11 times during this reporter’s first weekend in the city—March 29. 30. 31. Bombs were dropped not in the city but in the suburbs on several occasions and only once was there not enough time given the people to hotfoot it to a shelter. The exception was when a reconnaissance plane sneaked through the radar web and was in the city’s air space before it was discovered. Here again, however, you observed other evidence of the heightened competence of these people to defend themselves. The plane had not crossed over Hanoi before the anti-aircraft gun made itsugly, staccato announcement, and you could hear the busy reports of ground-fire from south-west of the city, out beyond Hanoi to the east, along the banks of the Red River. Thus, the response of the anti-aircraft fire was quick and in a pattern, although it was not accurate enough on this occasion. The reconnais-

sance plane slipped in and out without apparent damage. Now it is apparent that North Vietnam has invested much of its line of credit zith the countries of the Soviet Union and what they call their “Socialist compatriots” in Eastern Europe for rolling stock. The return is in large trucks, some in the region of two tons and a half, and they are new and well kept. On the road which leads to the port of Haiphong, this writer counted 157 of these large trucks and then gave up the arithmetic. Seemingly twice as many as counted were moving along the road. 1 Again another sign of what 1 might be described as “the (escalation of defence" is the common sight, out in the countryside, of modern ingredients for carrying on a war. In one short stretch of the road, there were seven tractor-drawn rocket launchers and more than 30 gasoline tank trucks and four heavy artillery pieces . . . and every one was new to the extent that each appeared almost unused. It is at least a little strange, so many hundreds of miles behind the enemy lines, to bear the voices of your adversary compliment you on the brute force and competence of the American bomber, and the brute force an the competence is starkly visible. For example, the long bridge, which once spanned the mile width of ; the Red River and its ap- ■ proaches, just outside Hanoi is ’now a silent and grotesque 1 monument to the precision of the United States Air Force But once more you see the tenacity and invention of these people. Only a short distance south of the long bridge is a new span across the vital river, hastily composed of pontoons, and on down the river are other new bridges, largely made of bamboo: piles of bamboo are stacked on both sides of the river in preparation for the possibility that the bombers come and quick repairs are needed. Something which appears to be a purely Vietnamese invention is the “one-person bomb shelter.” This consists of a concrete pipe, planted in the ground, about 3ft in diameter. It comes with a lid of concrete or woven bamboo, which you slap on after you jump into it. These are remarkably effective shelters, and there are now tens of thousands of them in Hanoi, or many, many more than when this reporter last visited here. The primary caution, which becomes the companion of a newspaperman in North Vietnam, is that you should re port only what you can see or confirm or believe within very strict boundaries.

So you live with this caution as you report from North Vietnam. Much has been reported and rumoured of the bombing of Hanoi, and the leaders here tell you that the city was bombed 50 times in 1967. The sum of aerial raids, they say, was only 19 the year before. But Hanoi is not really a blitzed city in the traumatic style of Rotterdam, or even London, in World War 11. Rather, it has been sort of nicked at. Or perhaps they were nuisance raids or those punishing mistakes common to the making of war. This may be a cruel way to express an impression of the bombing of Hanoi, because quite a few people were killed and injured when bombs fell last August on Hue Street, no’ far from the centre of the city. This writer was able to confirm that the movie house on Hue Street was crowded when the bombs fell and several died.

One block away, on Mai Hac De Street, a string of homes is missing since bombs fell there. There is really no sense in this kind of bombing, and you can only believe it was either a case of nuisance or error by the airmen. Such are the evidences of bombing in Hanoi. There is not even a hint that the American strategy has been to obliterate Hanoi. Surely, with the competence of the United States Air Force, all of this city could be reduced to broken bricks and scattered glass on any afternoon. There has been a sort of unselective restraint in the bombing of Hanoi, but from one end to the other is the sign that one or two random bombs have fallen, that people have been killed, and you are often introduced in sidewalk conversations to the fear among these people that they never know where the next stray may strike.