More air raids on N. Vietnam

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32589, 24 April 1971, Page 17

More air raids on N. Vietnam

(N.Z. Press Association —Copyright! SAIGON, April 23. United States fighter-bombers struck missile and anti-aircraft sites in North Vietnam and Laos three times yesterday, the United States Command announced today.

One raid, 185 miles into North Vietnam against sites round a MiG base, was one of the farthest missions flown by United States bombers.

This raid, the seventh “protective reaction” strike so far in a week of intensified air action, destroyed or damaged two sites round Quan Lang airfield. A command spokesman said that the base was known to have large aircraft, but that he had no reports of any of the Russian-built jet interceptors being involved in yesterday’s action.

He said that United States Nayy planes fired five air-to-ground missiles at the sites close to the airfield after the North Vietnamese had fired at a navy photographic reconnaissance plane. The reconnaissance aircraft

presumably was on a mission to photograph the MiG base, and the strikes on the nearby missile-sites were carried out by its escorts.

The announcement did not say how many Navy planes attacked the anti-aircraft sites, but it was learned that they included F 4 Phantom jets, A 6 Intruders, and A 7 Corsairs.

Quan Lang is 48 miles north-west of Vinh and about 125 miles south of Hanoi,

It was the twenty-eighth "protective reaction” strike over North Vietnam this year. The seven raids this week were the most in any one week.

In the other raids nearly 30 Stratofortress bombers struck enemy supply and troop-infiltration routes and storage areas in the upper panhandle of Laos, bordering North Vietnam, in eastern Cambodia and along and beyond the Demilitarised Zone.