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Part of Hanoi Unit 40 Miles From Saigon

extracted text

2-New York Herald Tribune, Paris, Thursday, March 24, 1966

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Hanoi Unit 4.0 Miles From Saigon
Bv Beverly Deepe
Special to the Herald Tribune

SAIGON, March 23.-Inte:ligence
sources confirm that North Vietnamese troops are roving only 40
miles north of tl:is capital rity
Two separate pieces of evidence
-either prisoner interrogation and
a . document or two documentsare required before American a1Jd
Vietnamese intelligence sources
are able to confirm thei~ :.'1f,1nnatic:n
In this case captured documell1S
and a wounded prisoner, \Vno reported 90 percent of his ·4u0-man
battalion to be North Vietnamese.
confirmed the evidence. lt ind1ca.tes ' a likelihood of stiff fighting
in the future on the outskirts of
Saigon.

The confirrr,ation is viewed a<'
significant since this was t he first
official evidence that North Vietnamese troOGJ,S had moved so far
south-and so c:ose to the capital
of Saigon.
The official evidence was gathered following a dramatic victriry in
which the U.S. Army 173d Airborne Brigade killed 303 r.!:' the
Comrr,unist troops only 40 mi:es
north-northeast of Saigon last
Thursday,
American
ai!'borne
casualties were light.
Other evidence gathered frorr,
the battle was:
1-The Communist commanders
issued some of their instructions
to their troops in "excellent" English. This was presumably done to
confuse American troops or Viet-

namese government troops who
might be monitoring enemy radiocasts.
2-The attacking Communist
units of at least two-and possib'. y
three-battalions were mixed between southern-born local Viet
Cong ("hardcore" troops) and "imported" North Vietnamese soldiers,
who were in the majority.
While the majority of the captured wea.i,ons were Communistbloc, including Chinese Communist, Czech and Russian items,
several of the lethal machine guns
were American-made, of World War
II vintage.
This has created the susoicion
among some of the American
troops that American-made weapons
and military equipment issued to
Western allies or former allies ls
being black-marketed and sold to
the Communist side to be used
against them.
In the past, American troops
have picked up a number of M-16
rif:es and submachine guns-without serial numbers-which would
not have been issued to either
Vietnamese or American troops in
this theater.
3-A number of the dead Communist troops carried Communistissued passes for the soldiers to
take leave in Saigon or in Bien
Hoa, a small town 18 miles from
Saigon where a major Americanprotected air base is situated.
4-Captured documents also included Communist plans to attack,
"at all cost" and overrun an Ameri-1
can brigade headquarters, plus several other American-protected installations.
6-Intelligence sources also reported that an increasing flow of
.75-mm. pack artillery is being
brought into South Vietnam by
the Communists.
This lethal
weapon has a range of three to
four miles, which indicates that
the Communists from a long distance could pound Important airfields, installations and the city of
Saigon if they choose.

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