Fierce Battle In Vietnam

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31767, 26 August 1968, Page 13

Fierce Battle In Vietnam

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

SAIGON, August 25. United States troops and helicopter gunships killed 177 North Vietnamese in a savage eight-hour battle only four miles from Tam Ky City in the upper half of South Vietnam, a United States military spokesman said today.

The spokesman said that during the fighting, which raged throughout yesterday afternoon and evening to the west of Tam Ky, the rapidfiring helicopter gunships pounded again and again on the North Vietnamese positions.

Other reports received by the United States military command in Saigon said 600 Vietnamese militiamen and their American advisers at the lonely Due Lap border post, only three miles from the Cambodian border, were still under siege from about 2500 North Vietnamese. A Communist assault force overran one-third of the United States special forces camp at Due Lap and according to the latest report were pressing forward to seize the main command bunker manned by surviving American Green Berets. 50 Killed Vietnamese military sources said two American special forces men were killed in the fighting, which broke out three days ago, and four others were wounded. Vietnamese and Montagnard casualties were given as 48 killed and 26 wounded, an unusually high proportion of killed to wounded. A Communist regiment backed up by an artillery unit is involved in the attack on the camp, which is on a national route leading to Ban Me Thuot, the southern capital of the highlands and Montagnard region.

According to last reports Communist infantrymen were

only 200 yards from the camp headquarters. Heavy air strikes by United States jets have not been successful in breaking up the Communist assault.

United States troops overran North Vietnamese bunkers 19 miles south of Hue, killing 14 soldiers, an American spokesman said. The Americans also captured 1200 North Vietnamese army uniforms and 10 radio sets, the spokesman said. Troops of the 82nd Airborne Division attacked and overran the bunkers, manned by a North Vietnamese platoon—about 30 men—yesterday afternoon.