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Part of Using 500 M.P.H. Jets Against the Jungle-Guerrillas

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Using 500 M.P.H. Jets Against Jungle-Guerrillas
By Beverly Deepe
A Special Correspondent

SAIGON.
American jet aircraft are being effectively used to
block the Communist Viet Cong's thrust into the crucial
1
third and .final phase of the war.
"Nobody thought that 500-mile-an-hour jets could be
used against guerrillas-until they were first tried," one
American jet pilot explained. "But on our fii'st skike, there
was a thunder of secondary explosions from the target.
We had hit a Viet Cong ammo depot i-n their jungled
stronghold area."
Reliable military sources say the American jets have
cut in half the reaction time of flying from base to an
outpost or town under attack, compared to the slower propdriven aircraft. The stability of the aircrnft, and not its
speed, is a major factor in determining the accuracy of
the bombing raids; and these sources say that jets a,re more
stable firing platforms than are slower prop-driven aircraft.
Since the jets are considered to fly too fast for spotting
Viet Cong guerrilla targets, they are usually directed onto
the target by slow-moving spotter aircraft, piloted by
forward air controllers.
American jet aircraft were first used within South
Viet Nam on Feb. 19th~when Vietnamese ,airplanes were
grounded or diverted by the "false coup d'etat" which
led to the dismissal of Lt. Gen. Nguyen Khanh as commander-in-chief of the Vietnamese armed forces. Since
then, the most spectacular success of the jets has beenironically-assisting Vietnamese ground forces by pounding
Viet Cong unit~ during the heat of battle.

TURNED THE TIDE
These missions, called close tactical support, have
turned the tide of nip-and-tuck battles in favor of the
government; American generals, speaking in private, admit
that the Communist offensive in the northern mountains
was broken in February and March by the introduction of
American jets Into the war. The question now is how
seriously low-hanging cloud covers during the rainy monsoon season will hamper the air support missions for Vietnamese ground forces-and perhaps for American combat
troops.
The use of American jets to bomb Viet Cong hardcore base areas has been less visibly effective; the difficulty
is In locating the areas that should be bombed. Thousands
of tons of bombs have been dropped on these base areas,
but only occasionally do ground forces push through the
area to assess the results. Ground observers who swept
through bits of the first area hit by B-52 Strategic Air
Command jets from Guam, for example, were not impressed
with the results .
Some American military officials believe the total
number of Viet Cong casualties caused by airstrikes has
jumped from 30 per cent to 50 per cent during recent
months. Other military experts believe the American
jet strikes within South Viet Nam have been much more
important, in terms of increasing government morale,
than .have the air raids in North Viet Nam.
"The Vietnamese Army would have been !1nlshed· long
ago without American a1rpower," one Western mtl!tary
expert explained. "It's the American and Vietnamese aircraft coming to rescue the ground troops that keeps them
going."
An example of a spectacularly successful close air

f

support mission occurred the fifth day the American jets
were used within South Viet Nam. For the first time in
the history of the war, Viet Cong Units, mostly newly infiltrated units from North Viet Nam, established a 30-mile
front line along route 19, leading from the mountain
plateau city of Pleiku eastward to the South China Sea.
After a series of devastating ambushes, the Viet Cong had
succeeded in totally encircling a Vietnamese ranger battalion and a smaller unit of government irregulars, which
had set up a defensive perimeter along a half-mile-long
corridor on the national highway.
The Saigon command ordered the American jets to
salvage the situation. For one hour, eight American-pilot
B-57 Canberras flew in a continuous "racetrack pattern"
on the southern side of the road, blazing out sizzling suppressive fire "to keep the heads of the Viet Cong down."
"Meanwhile, eight F-100 Super Sabres repeated the .same
mission on the northern side of the road. Down the middle
of the road came B-22 unarmed "Huey" helicopters, supported by 14 rocket-laden helicopters. which successfully
landed time and again to heli-lift out the encircled troops.
WithiFl an hour, more than 300 Vietnamese troops had been
flown to safety.
"These troops would have been chewed up and destroyed during the French Indochina war," one high-ranking American ground adviser !,'!Xplained. "But the jets
saved them. The troops .were so happy to be extracted
they were in tears ; the primitive Montagnard natives, who
had never seen jet.s before, were jumping up and down
clapping their hands they were so excited."
In another case, a craclc Vietnamese Marine battallo
was encircled on three sides by Viet Cong regulars and
were about to be over-run.
"The American jets swooped in so close that some of
their bombs wounded five or six Vietnamese Marines,"
one reliable observer said. "But the Marines didn't care
about the handful that were wounded-they thought this
was real close tactical support which save\i them fro
getting overrun ."

A number of the close tactical missions by American
jets are made at night; American pilots jokingly complain
they are becoming so expe1t at night flying they can now
land on runways without turning on their airplane lights.

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"It"s much safer to land without your lights on," one
American jet pilot explained. "We know there are two
battalions of Viet Cong that always fire at us as we make
our approaches to the Saigon runway; by keeping your
lights off y.ou don't give them such a good target."
Many of the jet flights are also accompanied by
"mother ships" which contain a lot of highly classified
electronic equipment designed to spot the enemy and to
make jet flights more effective against the enemy. None
of the electronic gadgetry has been overwhelmingly successful, according to reliable sources. One of the electric
devices, gener.ally contained in the "mother ship" which
directs accompanying jet :fighters and bombers, operates
on the infra-red principle which measures varying differences of temperatures. Hence, cooking fires and squad size
units of men can be detected though they are visibly hidden
under the jungle canopy.
"But the device doesn't tell us whether the people are.
a Viet Cong unit or some of the nomadic Montagnarcl
tribes," one reliable source explained. "We still don't know
whether we should bomb them or not."
The total number of American jets in South Viet Nam
.is classi-fied, but their numbers are known to include the
U. s. Air Force F-100 Series-F-100s, 101s, 102s, 104s and
105s-as well as the B-57 Canberras. Many of the B-57s
which had been based in Viet Nam we1'e destroyed or
dama.ged at the Bien Hoa airbase. 18 miles north of Saigon.
first ·during the Viet Cong mortar attack on Nov. 1 last
year and later at a devastating accidental explosion on
the base in mid-May. In addition to the American jets,
Both the Vietnamese Air Force and the U. S. air commandos operate a number of prop-driven Skyraider fighterbombers.