MILITARY POST UNDER ATTACK

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31768, 27 August 1968, Page 17

MILITARY POST UNDER ATTACK

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

SAIGON, August 26.

Troops defending the Due Lap military post against infiltration by the North Vietnamese recaptured part of the camp and beat off a fresh ground assault overnight.

As the battle for the post, which is close to the Cambodian border, continued, United States and Government troops reported killing about 500 Communist troops in fighting elsewhere.

Due Lap is being held by about 600 South Vietnamese soldiers and a group of American advisers against a North Vietnamese force estimated to be 3000 strong. 852 bombers struck again during the night at North Vietnamese positions less than a mile from the camp, and smaller jet aircraft, trying to break up the enemy formations, knocked out five machine-gun nests and set off several explosions among ammunition stores.

Details of the final phase of the battle are sketchy, but reports say the enemy hit the camp and the district headquarters with a savage mortar, artillery and rocket barrage. Casualties are not yet known, but United States military sources said yesterday that at least 58 Government troops and two American advisers had been killed and 91 Government soldiers and nine.

Americans had been wounded. More than 200 enemy bodies were counted along the barbed-wire perimeter of the outpost.