Anzac Troops Kill Eight

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32199, 19 January 1970, Page 1

Anzac Troops Kill Eight

(N.Z.P.A. Staff Correspondent) NUI DAT (South Vietnam), Jan. 17. New Zealand soldiers serving with the Joint Anzac force in South Vietnam are having all the success in the battalion’s present operation north of Nui Dat.

Since it moved into the jungle for “Operation Napier” last Saturday, the battalion has killed eight Viet Cong and captured two, all but one taken by men of the Ist New Zealand Regiment The Anzacs have also detained a number of Viet Cong suspects and captured arms, medical supplies, packs, and documents.

TJiey are in an area of Phuoc Tuy province, believed to have been an important enemy rest centre on the way to a huge hospital system captured by the Anzac battalion last month. The battalion believes that the enemy is short of food and medicine, that his com; munications have been disrupted, and his hospital system captured, and that his morale is low.

The rate of Viet Cong defection to the South Vietnamese Government has been increasing in Phuoc Tuy province, and intelligence reports indicate that officials of the National Liberation Front —the political arm of the Viet Cong—have been touring the countryside in a bid to rally their forces. Anzac battalion sources believe the enemy they have encountered in the current operation are disoriented groups which have lost theii local contacts. But they suspect that large

unite of Viet Cong or North Vietnamese are still in the region and that major clashes cannot be ruled out Almost all the 250 New Zealanders in Whisky and Victor Companies are out in the field.

Victor Company had the first success in "Operation Napier” when it found an arms cache of grenades and high explosive (which the Viet Cong use for mining roads) on the first day out of Nui Dat

The next day they killed two Viet Cong and wounded an unknown number after finding seven enemy equipment packs in the scrub. Two of the wounded later gave themselves up to South Vietnamese Government officials in the region. The Anzac troops are working closely with Government officials and the national police force, and they surrounded the village of Ap Ngi Faio, nine miles from Nui Dat, while the local forces searched it and interrogated suspects.

The village operation was part of the pacification programme under which the allies attempt to contain enemy activity in the countryside and make Viet Conginfested villages and hamlets safe for normal life to resume.

Aided by daily helicopter airlifts of supplies and equipment, the operation is continuing.