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derivative filename/jpeg
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363-04776.pdf
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Digital Object Identifier
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363-04776
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Title
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A Red Attack the Viets Had to Admire
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Description
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Article published in the New York Herald Tribune about a major Việt Cộng attack on Tan Buu, page unknown
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Date
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1965, Jan. 17
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Subject
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Mặt trận dân tộc giải phóng miền nam Việt Nam; Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Campaigns
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Location
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Tân Bửu , South Vietnam
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Coordinates
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10.6848; 106.5172
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Container
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B4, F6
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Format
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newspaper clippings
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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
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extracted text
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A Red Attack the Viets -Had ·to Adm-ire
By Beverly Deepe
A Special Correspondent
TAN BUU, Viet Nam ,
Only 10 miles from Saigon's gleaming white Presidential Palace, a Viet Cong Communist unit momentarily
adopted Korean War-style tactics of a miniature invasion
instead of following their usual elusive guerrilla tactics,
The Viet Cong unit, part of a 500-man reinforc ~d
battalion scampered over rice-paddy dikes only 500 feet
from the small outpost, dug dozens of foxholes and set up
captured, American-made ,57-millimeter recoilless rifles
and ,75-1;nillimeter Chinese Communist recoilless rifles,
A iovernment local militia squad, seeing the Viet Cong
moving across the fields, fled into the outpost- a landowner's old French-style villa-only minutes before a predaw,n onslaught of shelling, which tore great gaps !n two
barbed-wire fences, ripped through a concrete wall dnd
smashed the villa's front door,
Minutes later the Viet Cong troops ~dvanced through
the gaps, sending the defenders "retreating in blood," as
one of them described it,
An American officer was killed near a foxhole not far
from the front gate, after expending four boxes of machinegun ammunition to delay the Viet Cong advance. An
American sergeant, one of the 20 wounded, escaped by
jumping into the river and hiding until the Viet Cong
retreated two hours later.
Simultaneously, other elements of the Viet Cong re- , ·
inforced batallion launched three other, diversionary
attacks, More than 100 Viet Cong attacked another hamlet
north of Tan Buu, Others harassed with mortar fire two
outposts to the south and fired 25 .81-mm. mortar shells
into an artillery position in the neighboring Binh Chann
district headquarters.
One round crashed through the roof of the district
headquarters, and one exploded outside police heaqquarters,
where 10 district police officials barely escaped injury.
Several landed only 20 yards from the hut of a five-man
American district advisory team,
The operation, little over a week ago, was "a very bole!,
very well-co-ordinated plan," an American field adviser
said, "You can't help but admire it,"
Before retreating from Tan Buu, the Viet Cong stole
,all the weapons from the armory (an unknown number).
carried away so much ammunition they could not paddle
it all down the river, and even swiped the Vietnamese company commander's boots and uniforms.
They captured four heavy weapons and enough rifles
to equip a new company; three American-supplied radios,
which enables them to listen to radio communications of
government forces; classified documents, and even a government trooper's hammock.
While porters loaded the loot on river rafts and paddled
off other members of the Red battalion beat on the doors
of 'the villagers. "But we were too terrified to open the
door," the village barber said.
"The Viet Cong now has the same weapons that we
have," an American adviser lamented after the attack.
"It appears we are equipping both sides."
