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derivative filename/jpeg
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363-04120 to 363-04129.pdf
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Digital Object Identifier
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363-04120 to 363-04129
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Title
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Article about Cambodian and Loatian roads built by Communists
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Description
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Original title: "roads", Keever's title: "Asphalt Highway from Cambodia, All-Weather Roads Boost Communist Supplies." Article draft about Communist forces improving their logistics in the Vietnam War with a road building campaign. Written for the Christian Science Monitor
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AI Usage Disclosure
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Draft transcripts were automatically generated via Google Document AI and are currently under review. Please report significant errors to Archives & Special Collections at archives@unl.edu.
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Transcript
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zczc sag
ᎩᎩ ljp
roads 1 (normass/deepe)
SAIGON, APRIL 18-Communist forces have built sections of an
HIGHWAY LEADING
asphalt from Cambodia directly into South Vietnam, only thirty
miles north of this capital city, informed sources report.
Further north in the Ashau Valley near Laos, the Communists
are continuing to bulldoze and spread gravel to make all-weather al
roads half-way between the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos and the narrow
coastal cities of Danang and Hue.
These remarkable engineering feats are considered significant-
and exceptionally worrisome to Allied commanders here--for three o
reasons:
more reuter
ZCZC sag
ᎩᎩ ljp
roads 2 (normass/deepe)
for the firt time
1. The Communists now have/all-weather roads for truck traffic
through-out the year, including during the monsoon rainy season, which varies
in time from region to region. In the past, Communist trucks were used
only in the dry season, with bicycles, oxcarts, human porters-and
sometimes a few elephants-moving supplies during the heavy rains.
oc
2. The Communists have established two supply routes into South
Vietnam--the traditional way of moving men and supplies from North
Vietnam into the northern half of the South--and second, supply
"Most of
movements from,
Om
Cambodia into the southern half of the South.
the supplies in the southern half of south victim (Corps Three and Corps
Four (the southern half of South Vietnam),
het is the heavy weapons
have come
and munitions used against Saigon during the Tet offensive,
directly over the high seas
to Sihanoukville (
from Red China
(Cambodian port)--and then in directly into the South,"
one informed
source explained.
===more reuter
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zczc sag
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roads 3 (normass/deepe)
A third supply route that appears to be becoming more pronounced is
seaborne infiltration along the miles of South Vietnam's
swampy or
jungled cusg coastline, the so but the scope of this method is strH
has yet to be established.
3. The Communists' "time-space factor" has improved considerably.
North Vietnamese troops can now be trucked from Hanoi into South Vietnam--
one reliable source
halfway down the length of the South--in one months,
reported.
Before it took them at least three months by foot.
more reuter
zczc sag
ᎩᎩ ljp
roads 4 (normass/deepe)
"By building roads is inside the South and bring larger forces
the
near the Vietnamese cities, it means time and spoupa space-wise,
Communists are in a position to make surprise attacks against the urban
cities," one reliable source said.
"The Communists have a better time factor%3B they have an
..
po improved logistical system.. and they have enough military aid (from
V difficulties."
Communist bloc countries) to overcome their logistical
more reuter
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roads 5 (normass/deepe)
Thirty miles north of Sai gon towards and around the little
village of Song Be, the Communists have built strips of asphalt highways' leadi
into the South from Cambodia, reliable source sources report.
"The Communists were moving truck traffic along these roads--now
it's diminished somewhat since the Allied units spotted the road,"
source explained.
one
Further north, along and in the Ashau Valley, "the Communists
have devio developed what I call a standpipe through Laos, and are now
pushing roads into South Vietnam. They are building a logistical system
that can support larger forces--they are putting gravel on these
these roads, making them all-weather.
"In some cases)
the Communists have done this through
heavy jungle. The Americans first spotted the roads by ground
reconnaissance and heclit helicopter low-flying helicopter flights.
The aerial photos did not pick up the roads under the triple-canopy
of jungle. The Communists are using bulldozers to surface these
roads with gravel. In the Noon northern part of the country,
haven't gone into asphalt yet."
==more reuter
they
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zczc sag
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roads 6 (normass/deepe)
During 1967, the U. S. Marines and S Special Forces
launched a number of unannounced raiding operatin operations into the
Ashau Valley complex, but presumably had little sustained impact on
the road-building projects. In 1968, General William C. Westmoreland had
planned to build a number of Special Forces camps in the area to block
the roads on the ground, but the Tet offensive has stalled if not
eliminated these projects, reliable sources report.
Bec N
In the past several weeks, the Ashau Valley complex has
under intense bombardment by B-52 SAC bombers--sometimes several missions
a day. But, military sources here believe these heavy bombloads will
only slow-down, rather than
the Communists.
stop,
==more reuter
zczc sag
ᎩᎩ ljp
roads 7 (normass/deepe)
The improved Communist logistical system has both allowed and been
necessitated by the escalation of Communist weaponry in South Vietnam--all
the way up to field artillery howitzers.
Since the sur surprise Tet offensive American commanders and
officials have been both appalled and mystified by the Communist supply
system.
"The Communists have
performed the outstanding logistical
"It's the most
feat of all time," one informed source explained.
amazing thing I've ever seen. It will be fascinating to dig into this after
the
war-how the Communists maintained their guerrilla and main force
units dispersed in enemy territory. It will make a fabulous book."
==more reuter
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zczc sag
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roads 8 (normass/deepe)
This
In late 1967, officials here estimated the Communists required
two hundred tons a day to supply for combat their force of 350,000 men
in the South (100,000 political infrastructure; 100,000 guerrillas;
40,000 administrative troops, 108,000 regular and regional forces).
would have averaged two pounds per man per day--but many troops lived
off the land, off the peasantry, or their own ricefields and jobs.
Then, the offii officials estimated the Communists could not sustain
combat for more than thirty
consecutive days, because units
were not given more than 30-day supply of combat necessities.
zcze sag
yy 1jp
roads 9 (normas s
ass/deepe)
=more reuter
Since the Tet offensive,
this logistical estimate has
presumably jumped, but has not been released publicly.
For the Viet Cong, controlling the war in the southern one li
one-third of the country, the logistical command structure is controlled
This supreme headquarters,
directly by COSVN (Central Office, South Vietnam).
has an "economic and finance" section which controlls the whole network
of supply, transport, taxation om the people and production in the
Under this section section operates
areas that are Communist-dominated.
0
several "councils", which were created in 1965,
operate fung fully in 1967.
DESIGNED
supply council"
OILF
but which began to
One of these is the "forward
COMMUNIST
to move sa supplies to their tactical units.
DESIGNED
A second
is the "rear service council" to mass the supplies, organize the taxation
of the population, systematize their transport system,
goods battle-wards.
and expediting the
==more reuter
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yy 1jp 10
roads 9 (normass/deepe)
The logistical command structure for all Communist troops
operating under the direct control of Hanoi in the norther northern
two-thirds of South Vietnam is still unknown, reliable sources report.
Once inside South Vietnam, the supplies move from the bora
border areas generally eastwards towards the major population centers--
and these lateral logistical lines are in turn connected with each other
by vertical corridors.
Starting from the northernmost provinces of the South, the
following pattern emerges.
more reuter
zczc sag
ᎩᎩ ljp
roads 11 (normass/deepe)
Criss Cross
The supply trails moving directly across the demilitarized zone,
mostly clandestinely, or else "around the hook" from North Vietnam through
Laos by truck into the Ashau Valley, south of Khe Sanh, From Ashau Valley,
the Communists are building or re-constructing three roads--one directly towans
Danang,
one road east and northeast towards Hue and one
Fors toward mina
road to end up north of Hue. Two of these roads are being gravelled
a
and all are about 25-30 miles deep inside South Vietnam--roughly half way
between the Laotian border and the South China seacost. In the third case,
the Communists are thought to be simply rebuilding and widening a direct
dirt provincial road between Laos and Hue that was built by the French years
==more reuter
ago.
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zozo sag
ᎩᎩ ljp
roads 12 (normass/deepe)
This logistical corridor system supplies the four North
Vietnamese Army divisions ao along the demilitarized zone--)
---
324B, 341,
e
25 3250, 304-plus two Viet Cong divisisions and two Viet Cong
autonomous regiments, p as well as many sapper and commando units along the
coastal cities of the five northern provinces.
South of the five northern provinces,
in the zone called
the second Vietnamese military corps area, the Communists have established
a number of logistical corridors--schemes of trails-med and networks of
infiltration routes cutting in from Gembet Cambodia and Los into the
provinces of Kontum, Pleiku and Quang Duc.
Inter-connecting
Network
have been built hacked out of the jungle to link these three corridors with
with each other. These three major trunkline corridors in turn link up with
or staging areas, moving eastwards towards the
especially Binh Dinh and Phu Yen provinces on the
bea "bridgeheads"
coastal regions,
sea.
more reuter
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ᎩᎩ ljp
13
roads 12(normass/deepe)
In the second corps area, these logistical corridors supply
four North Vietnamese army divisions--numbers 1, 3, 5 and 10--and a
number of sapper and commando units around Pick Pieku Pleiku, An Khe,
Cam Ranh Bay and Qui Nhơn.
=more reuter
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roads 14 (normass/deepe)
In the elevel pr eleven provinces around Saigon--the Third Vietnamese
military corps--the Communists are known to have improved the considerably
their logistical system between Cambodia and South Vietnam. They
have implemented logistical axis inside South Vietnam, moving later
1 terally in a west-to-east direction. And, these axes in turn link
up with the highland corridors, in a north-south direction, with the
second military corps.
Once inside the Third Corps, the supplies are leapfrogged from
one base area to another--each base in succession moving closer to Saigon
or other major population concentrations. Hence, one unknown pattern
leapfrogs the supplies from the Cambodian border area into War Zone C in
the northwestern quarter of Tay Ninh province,
to D Zone, through the
Song Be area, then to the intermediate base of Long Nguyen, to the Boi
Loi woods, to the Ho Bo woods and then the Rung Sat, the swampy area.
southeast of the capital which control controls the ocean-going shipping
channel into Saigon.
more reuter
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roads
15 (normass/deepe)
In the Third Corps area,
these supplies are necessary for three
main-force divisions--the 5, 7, 9--but and innumerable provincial, commando
and sapper units.
===more reuter
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roads 16 (normass/deepe)
From Cambodia into south Vietnam to the South Vietnam border,
at least two paved highways
are open and in good state of repair.
1 rpeat 1 reuns from the Cambodian capital of Phnom Phe Penh to Wary
Th
Route
Zone C in Tayninh--and when open directly into Saigon. Route 7 repeat 7
runs from Phnom Penh to Mi Mot, north of War Zone C, in a French
rubber plantation spilling over both sides of the us unmarked Camboth
Cambodian-South Vietnamese border. Mi Mot is considered
ill-marked
by many officials to be the headquarters fro COSVN.
more reuter
zczc sag
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roads 17
en (normass/deepe)
and
In the Mekdon Mekong Delta provinces of the Fourth Military Corps,
south of Saigon, the logistical corridor generally runs east-west
slightly northwards, from the provinces of Ang Gian on An Giang on the
the Cambodian border and Kien Giang province on the Gulf of Siam, up
to the Plain of Reeds area, into Long An province and then into Gia Dinh
province, the donut surrounding Saigon. Weapons and ammunition are diverted
and distributed along route through feeder trails and sampan routes
detra delta-wide.
=more reuter
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roads 18 (normass/deepe)
A short-cut route into saigon proper is considered to be developing
with supplies moving directly from Cambodia at the "eagle's beak,"
in Kien Thuong province, through the marshy Plain of Reeds into the
Saigon defense perimeter. American helicopters, flying special night
missions, have recently sunk a number of sampan convoys headed towards
Saigon from the direction of Cambodia. Some sampan routes are known
to lead from Cambodia directly into the outer environs and canals of
Cholon, the Chinese twin-city of Saigon.
more reuter
zcze sag
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roads 19 (normass/deepe)
(Hank:
suggest
While this piece is really a news article,
because of its length you might want to use it as a zeepager.
I don't
see how I can split it into two articles. We couldn't see anything to
file on the Hanoi shifts that the wire stories hadn't already cabled.
Also, in case the Pentagon correspondent is interested, I understand
American troops in South Korean, based north of the Imjun River, are
now receiving combat pay, which would probably indicate the officials
view the situation as worsening significantly there. Regards Bev).
==end reuter
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Date
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1968, Apr. 18
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Subject
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Ho Chi Minh Trail; Logisitcs; Military roads; Vietnam (Democratic Republic). Quân đội
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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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B10, F13
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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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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
