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derivative filename/jpeg
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363-07960 to 363-07968.pdf
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Digital Object Identifier
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363-07960 to 363-07968
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Title
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Article about conditions at the Ashau outpost on the South Vietnamese-Laotian border
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Description
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Keever's title: "Ashau Outpost: Jungle so Lush 'Hollywood would Love to Import it for a Set'", Article draft about conditions at the Ashau outpost on the South Vietnamese-Laotian border, for Newsweek Magazine
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Transcript
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- Page 1
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Bev. Deepe
101 Cong L
Page 1
Saigon, Viet Nam
Ashau, a starkly austere operational base shaped in equilateral
triangle 300 foot on a side, lies at the southern end of the Ashau valley
(20 miles long and 4 miles wide on the Laotian border--but even
engineers are unsure which side of the ill-defined and unmarked border
it is on.
Within the post's perimeter surrounded by beds of thousands of
"Bouncing Betty" landmines, lies an old Frontier-styled log cabin used for
storing ammunition and five thatch-roofed grass shacks # of "walls so
thin they wouldn't stop a flea." Interiors of the shacks are a papered
with American Sunday comics and Budweiser beer cartons to hold in light
which would become a Communist Viet Cong target. The grass huts house the
headquarters battalion of the Third Regiment, First Inf. Div. in that rugged
five-province northern third of the country known as I Corps.
corner
Asah Ashau
is situated 360 miles north of Saigon, only 45 air miles from the
of Laos, North Viet Nam and South Viet Nam and only 60 air miles from the large
Communist depots of Tchepone.
live within the walls of earth-
The Army of Viet Nam (ARVN) soldiers
banked logs forming the sides of the triangle and the four to six American
advisors and Vietnamese officers live in the grass shacks where "rats
are safe as in a church" and are so daring at night as "to play a baseball game
in the middle of the floor."
(More)
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Deepe--2
The A
The American advisors were jubilant last week when they received a short-
wave radio-only an airstrip and two-way radio communications had previously
connected them to the outside world.
To the north nine miles up the Ashau Valley lies an even more isolated
outpost of Tabat, where live pigs are airdropped in wicker baskets and U. S.
mail is delivered in circular mortar shell cartons via parachute. Five miles
further north lies Aluoi. Though a red clay road connecting the three
posts was complated several months ago, it is never used except by large,
well-armed convoys.
Around this bubble of Vietnamese government control lies the 3000 to
5000-foot mountainous peaks so thickly covered with dense jungle that
only a green-on-green landscape of peppermints, pistachos and olives exists.
The jungle is the three dimensional--a tall layer of trees reaching
500 feet; a second layer of lower trees--both of which form a natrual
natural canopy preventing effective air reconnaissance--and the lowest
layer of ferns, bushes, vines, shribs, and bushy-tailed but razor-sharp
saw grass" so lush that "Hollywood would love to import it for a set. "
Wild animals and mountaineer tribesmen have burrowed trails and tunnels
under the treetops, some of them being so large a human being can walk
upright.
"You could hide a full division of 10,000 men in a 36 square mile
"And you could never see or smell
"
area, one American advisor explained.
them."
(More)
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Deepe--3
During Christmas season of 1960, the Vietnamese government lost in the
mountainous jungle region a helicopter carrying welfare workers distributing
candies. It still has not been found.
This 250-miles of impenetrable jungle forming common border between
Laos and South Viet Nam has posed a big question in the Pentagon, State
Among
Department and Saigon military brass in view of the October 6th troop
withdrawal deadline from Laos.
Are the 6,000 to 10,000 North Vietnamese presumed to be left in Laos
infiltrating across the border to add dynamite to the war in battle-weary
South Viet Nam?
Best American and Sek Vietnamese military sources here admitted
they didn't know the answer.
why.
Majormimmjomba Rusiaminim
As regimental advisor at Ashau, Major Benjamin Rush III could understand
"Where do they expect us to get intelligence?" he barked, smashing his
vigarette butt into C-ration can. "It's not like talking to a man in a bar.
Who should we talk to? The Viet Cong."
Everyone outside the front contessa-wire gates of Ashau is
consdie considered the "enemy. " And the enemy is so effective U. S.
helicopter pilots have nicknamed Ashau Valley "Shotgun Alley." Several
months ago on a flight of five helicopters, four were hit.
aircraft on scheduled Monday-Wednesday-Friday "milk run"
booze and mail are regularly shot at.
Other light
brining in food,
(More)
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Deepe
--4
157
"Anyone here must be considered unfriendly,"
150-pound Philadelphian continued.
the six-foot-one,
"Why should our soldiers go up to anyone
and run into an ambush? The people run when the soldiers approach. If
they're interrogated, they're growing crops for the V. C. (Viet Cong).
There are no established villages--just a house here and there and when
we go there, they are empty."
Major rush heard an airplane airplane engine and ran outside,
looking into cloudy, rainy skyl
"But
"It's a jet--we hear jets all the time," he explained.
they're too high to tell whose. We assume its U. S. effort in support
of Laos.
"But you could fly an F-101 (air reconnaissance jet with modern
cameras) at 500 feet over this jungle and they wouldn't see a thing."
After a Vietnamese dinner of rice, fish sauce, meat and vegetable mixture
mixture on the even of troop withdrawal, Major Rush took his pet
nameless squirrel from the cage and stuck him in his shirt pocket.
SFC John W. Gundrum, 42, of Jonestown, Pa., who calls himself
a "Pennsylvania Dutch Boy," took a cold beer from kerosene refrigerator
in which the flame goes out
each time a mortar round is fired. He
brought in from outdoors his 15-piastres (U. S. two cents) parrot,
named Tweetie, with green feathers clipped so that it flopped off the
roof when started to fly.
SFC John S. Bryant, 31-year-old radio repariman from Zephyrhills,
Florida, carefully closed the door to keep in the light from gasoline lamp.
(More)
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Deepe--5
Major Rush moved his .45 pistrol to his besdie bedside.
"I predict no attack tonight," Saga Sgt. Gundrum volunteered.
"We have patrols out and it's moonlight."
"I'll bet a dollar they do when the moon goes down," Sgt. Bryant
wagered.
Major Rush continued his discussion on infiltration.
"We know the Viet Cong are infiltrating from Laos now-we've captured
"But is there an increased?"
prisoners and documents," he explained.
He shrugged.
"If they (Communists)
m/across
com across in N big groups,
we fight.
If they come in small groups, we try to find them," he said petting
nameless squirrel. "If they come in those sugarloafs sugarloaves south
of us--What can we do? Wave at them! We wouldn't even know they're
there. What can we do? We can'd do a damn thing," he explained with it
desperate wave of the hand.
He patted nameless squirrel good night and put it into cage.
Rhamannaymmixbabaihanh The night was quitt and the.
"Pennsylvania Dutch Boy" lost the bet.
High-ranking military authorities realize Major Rush's problem in the
jungle.
"It's impossible to say how many people can cross the border from Laos
to South Viet Nam," explained three-star Maj. Gen. Tran Van Don, former chief of
staff of Vietnamese armed forces. "They can cross everywhere because it is not
a border like a wall. If we know how many and where they cross, we
won't stop to count each one. We'll try to destroy the route of infiltration."
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Deepe--6
Before October 6, Laotian crossings were of two types: regular
black-uniformed units of 425-man battalions which included North Vietnamese
cadres, political agents and propagandists and former South Vietnamese
soldiers who went north after 1954 armistice and infiltrated to native
district for recruiting local population. The second group was individuals
or small groups of political agents infiltrating back to hometown areas
to work as lone wolves--not in a unit.
In I Corps at the end of 1961, Viet Cong strength gradually increased
from company to battalion-sized units--and the Vietnamese government
improved its methods of gathering intelligence, but did not change their
methods Yet, high-ranking military authorities say there is no known
increase in Viet Cong battalion-strength in I Corps during past several
months--and no noticeable increase in Viet Cong activity.
government
Current Vietnamese
tactic is to have "fire brigade" force ready to pounce on large
groups of Viet Cong at any time, to conduct air strikes and mobile
raids destroying the Viet Cong basis making resupply more difficult for
them in the approaching rainy season.
The flow of information, like most things in Viet Nam, moves slowly.
Information from paid informers-one half of them in I Corps are "doubles"
working for both the Vietnamese army and the Viet Cong--takes weeks to
reach the corps headquarters.
AVI
Information from local population of
primitive mountaineers is often unreliable, though U. S. Special Forces
are giving selected groups of them special intelligence training.
(More)
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Deepe--7
"Information from the population is never correct," one military
official explained. "The mountain people can't distinguish time, space and
numbers. They don't know how many years old they are--but how many harvests
they are. Many of them can't count above ten. If they they saw 200
people, they'd say 1000."
In some cases, good intelligence information must also dision
include the number of weapons carried--without regard to the number of people.
"I've seen one or two hundred mountaineers forced to attack with a Viet
Cong platoon, " one military official explained. "But only the platoon
had weapons.
1
U. S. MAAG intelligence ohnall channels pyramid from Saigon to the three
Corps headquarters in the country to the seven division headquarters and
finally to a Leica-equipped team of one sergeant and one captain, who
received only six weeks intelligence gourse in U. S., assigned to each of
the 41 provinces. The provincial MAAG teams were stymied their first
Yet, this
weeks here until President Diem issued order authorizing them.
MAAG network relies heavily on Vietnamese intelligence reports--and some
Vietnamese reports are withheld from American eyes. Only one MAAG
person in I Corps speaks or reads enough Vietnamese for complext
subjects.
Communist bases miten are known to exist on the Laotian side of the
border. "But their bases look just like a village with mountaineer
ween women and children running around," a Vietnamese officer explained.
"The Communists can live their meny there many years and say they're
peasants--and not soldiers."
(More)
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Deepe-9
Most military officials in I Corps believed that the question of infiltratio
could be answered only after prisoners and documents were captured or a
H
Viet Cong defected.
In the October-May rainy season now sweeping through mountainous
jungleland,
one American advisor laughed, "Until we get a prisoner,
buy a bargain-sized crystal ball--and waterproof it."
-30-
FYI-After their return from Honolulu conference, Gen. Harkins and
Ambassador Nolting are expected to hold a background, off-the-record
press conference.
pertinent.
Will add to this story by cable if they say anything
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TO:
PHOTOS
DATE: OCTOBER 10, 1962
FROM:
DEEPE, SAIGON
RE:
PHOTOS WITH BORDER COPY
Enclosed negatives illustrate the heavy three-layered expanse
of jungle covering the 250 miles of common border between Laos and South
Vietnam. From the air, jungle is so dense it looks like an everpresent
gigantic everpresent head of cauliflower. The other negatives I show
the life and structure of the gimdy grimly austere operational base of
Ashau situated on the Laotian border 360 miles north of Saigon
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Date
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1962, Oct. 10
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Subject
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Vietnam War, 1961-1975; Fortification; Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Campaigns--Laos; A Shau Valley (Vietnam); Military camps
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Location
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Saigon, South Vietnam
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Coordinates
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10.8231; 106.6311
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Size
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20 x 26 cm
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Container
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B2, F4
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Format
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dispatches
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Collection Number
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MS 363
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Collection Title
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Beverly Deepe Keever, Journalism Papers
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Creator
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Keever, Beverly Deepe
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Collector
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Keever, Beverly Deepe
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Copyright Information
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These images are for educational use only. To inquire about usage or publication, please contact Archives & Special Collections.
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Publisher
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Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries
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Language
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English
