Bomb Blast In Saigon, Hue Shelled

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31983, 9 May 1969, Page 11

Bomb Blast In Saigon, Hue Shelled

(N.ZP.A.-Reuter—Copyright) SAIGON, May 8. Viet Cong struck at the heart of Saigon and at the former Imperial capital of Hue today in attacks apparently timed to coincide with the anniversaries of two big Communist successes.

At least seven people died in the two cities—four in a bomb explosion which shattered Saigon’s main Post Office and three in a rocket barrage on Hue.

Military spokesmen reported another 25 wounded, several seriously, in the incidents and another, all of which came only a few hours after terrorists killed a woman and injured 14 other people in three hit-and-run grenade attacks in Saigon. Two buses were damaged in one of the grenade explosions.

The huge rocket attack and the Saigon blasts come on the fifteenth anniversary of the French defeat by the Communist Viet Minh at Dien Bien Phu. During the IndoChina war the Geneva peace talks which ended that war and partitioned Vietnam started on May 8, 1954—the day after Dien Bien Phu fell. This week also marks the anniversary of last year’s Viet Cong May offensive when between May 4 and May 11 a record number of 562 American troops were killed. The explosion in the big main hall of the Saigon Post Office caused chaos. Customers ran screaming to the road outside, slipping on glass and knocking each other over in their haste. Police were wounded. Inside, dead and wounded lay in pools of blood on the marble floor. One of the dead was an army lieutenant.

Witnesses said two men walked into the post office with parcels under their arms, dumped them on a counter and then dashed out before the explosion. No arrests have been made so far. The blast occurred 15 minutes after the post office opened. It shattered windows and clocks inside the hall and gouged pieces of wood from counters.

Within minutes, police and other helpers were doing their best to comfort the wounded as ambulances with sirens wailing cut their way through the early morning traffic to the post office in John F. Kennedy Square.

The attack- was the third on big post offices in Saigon in the last two months. Seven persons were wounded in a bomb blast in a main post office in the capital’s Gia Dinh district on April 25. An attack damaged a post office jn the Chinese Cholon area in March, but injured no-one.

In the second Saigon incident today, two Viet Cong terrorists riding a motor-cycle hurled an explosive at a parked South Vietnamese

Navy truck in central Saigon this morning, wounding four ratings, police said.

The attack took place outside a navy training centre next to the Brazilian Embassy in Duy Tan Street, 800 yards from the Central Post Office.

The truck, parked on the pavement of the tree-lined street, was badly damaged. The terrorists escaped. Police said the pillion rider threw a satchel containing an explosive charge at the cabin of the truck. In Hue, in the north, a five-year-old child was one of three civilians killed in the rocket barrage, which narrowly missed a hospital and high school in the centre of the city. Two were wounded. Hue, which lies alongside the Perfumed River, has been

relatively unscathed during the recent North Vietnamese and Viet Cong offensive. The city was occupied by guerrillas for 24 days during the February Tet lunar New Year, offensive last year. The headquarters of the United States Ist Infantry Division at Lai Khe, near Saigon, was hit by five 107 mm. rockets. But no casualties were reported and there was only light damage. Heavy 852 bombers of the United States Strategic Air Command made seven raids against suspected Viet Cong installations overnight in Tay Ninh, Binh Long and Kontum provinces near the Cambodian border.

In Tay Ninh, United States troops reported killing 15 North Vietnamese in a small clash.