Wounded Soldiers In Da Nang Protest

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32349, 15 July 1970, Page 18

Wounded Soldiers In Da Nang Protest

Z Press Association—Copyright)

DA NANG, July 14.

W’ounded South Vietnamese soldiers, angered by a minor traffic accident, blockaded the road in front of the compound in which the United States Army Chief of Staff (General William Westmoreland) was spending last night.

The soldiers, patients in a South Vietnamese Army convalescent centre, halted all but South Vietnamese traffic on Highway No. 13, which runs past the United States headquarters. The blockade began shortly after 6 p.m., when a truck driven by a United States marine, and carrying South Vietnamese civilian workers,

Iran over a parked motor- ! cycle at an intersection, half a mile south of the headquarters. The protest continued until 1 a.m. There were no injuries in the accident and none in the demonstration. The motor-cycle was the property of an out-patient at the convalescent centre. Military sources said that United States officers attempted to make immediate restitution, but that their offer was refused until an aide to the Mayor of Da Nang intervened. During the height of the demonstration, at least two convalescent South Vietnamese soldiers armed with fragmentation grenades sat down in the middle of the road and prevented all but South Vietnamese vehicles from proceeding. When a South Korean civilian attempted to pass the blockade, he was halted and threatened with a .38calibre revolver.