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Part of Viet's 'War of the Prairies'

extracted text

BHerly Deep, photo

After the bat#e of Kannack~Viet Cortf! deml are hauted away.

Viet's 'War of the Prairies'
By Beverly Deepe
A Special Correspondent

· ROUTE 19, South Viet Nam .
Eleven yea,r3 ago the French refetred to it as La
Guerre des Grands Vides- The War of the Wide Open
Spaces. Today, · American advisers call it "The War of the
Prairies."
It is a 20-mile stretch o! dusty red clay road th1;ough
a v.alley of stubby grass. At the eastern end of the An Khe
Valley lies the An Khe Pass, guarded by a. Special Forces
camp and the shell of a mortar-battered roofless villa
which 11 years ago was a French command post. At the
western edge lies Mang Yang Pass.
These two passes control Route 19, a 102-mile road,
paved for portions througn the mountains, but dusty red
in the Valley. Route 19, 250 miles north of Saigon, controls
the flow of traffic and communications on the east from
National Highway 1 and the city of Qui Nhon to route 14
and the II Corps headquarters city of Pleiku on the west.
The sequrity of the strategic high plateau bordering
Laos-through which passes the Communist infiltration.
routes collectively called the Ho Chi Minh Trail-rests on
the securit,y of Routes 19 and 14 and the cities and camps
along the two roads.
Eleven years ago, attempts to secure this plateau cost
the French the major part of the famous Group Mobile
100, which, though composed of 3,500 French troops
equipped with tanks and artillery, was practically annihilated in a series of Communist ambushes.

HISTORY RECALLED
Last month, American advisers on the Plateau began
to recall with a little foreboding the tragedies of Group
' Mobile 100.
The reason: a number of Communist battalions, wellequipped with Soviet-type weapons, infiltrated from North
Viet Nam and began their attacks. The battalions reportedly were composed of North Vietnamese recruits.
So far, the South Vietnamese government forces have
fared much better than Group Mobile 100, despite some
sharp attacks and ambushes.
These are the actions which have brough back to mind
Group Mobile 100:
In an apparent attempt to repeat their 1954 success
of isolating and encircling the high plateau area, a Communist, regiment on Feb. 20 deployed along a five-to-six
mile front from Man Yang Pass on the Western edge of
the An Khe •Valley to the old French villa in An Khe town.
Brig. Gen. Nguyen Huu Co, II Corps commander
ordered all military convoys to stop using the road.
In the next four days, government forces faile-d to
penetrate the Communist frontline. One Special Forces
company was sent out, broke through at one point, continued up Route 19 toward An Khe. only to be ambushed
a second time and almost wiped out. A second company
was sent !n relief and was pushed back. A third company
was ambushed and badly hit.
The II Corps Command then moved an elite Ranger
battalion by helicopters to the An Khe end of the six-mile
Communist line. The landing was made successfully and
the ,following day the . Rangers linked up with ambushed
company. The 220 men of the regrouped government forces
then were besieged by a Communist counter-attack.

It was then, that Gen. Co requested-for the first time
!rt the war- the use of American ,iets "to keep down the

heads of the Communists. Eight B-57 ,iets made passes
down one side of Route 19. eight F-l00s strafed the other
side of the road. In the alley between the jets. American
helicopters "bouncing from the jar of the bombs" slipped
in to airlift the 220-men to safety.

ATTACK RENEWED
After four days of holding a six-mile front line
position, the Communists withdrew.
Nine days later, the Communist troops again assembled ,
and two elite government airborne battalions ··· were
helicoptered along Route 19. At dusk on March 5, the
two .airborne battalions met head on two Communist
battalions and routed them. Communist losses · were
officially listed as 11 dead bodies counted and estimated
200 carried off. The government troops suffered two killed
and 33 wounded.
To g:;tin control of the An Khe Valley, the Communists
had to crush three Special Forces camps defending it.
For this task, the Communists moved in their Battalions
801 and 580, composed mostly of teen-aged North Vietnamese · newly infiltrated from North Viet Nam.
Their first target was the Special Forces camp at
Kannak, five miles off Route 19.
At 2 a. m. March 8, the Comunist battalions launched
a· three-pronged, five-hour attack against Kannak camp.
Snipping the four-tiered outer perimeter barbed wire
with wire-cutters, they sneaked down a gourge and prepared
their home-ma,de bang·alore torpedoes (TNT inside a
bamboo stick) to blow gaps in the second line of barbed
wire.
"It was pretty hairy," an American sergeant explained.
"I was carrying ammunition between mortar positions all
night-but I had to do it on my hands and knees. They
were pouring mortars and recoilless rifle fire in on us."
Af.ter the battle he drove away a truckload of the
30 government dead-wrapped in 11ain ponchos and
rice ma,ts.
But the Communists had suffered more. One
hundred deM were left behind; an estima,ted 200 were
carried a.way.
"But they still have three battalions in this valley
alone," an Americ,an adviser explained. "They can do what
,they want whenever they want."
"This is. the closest thing to Korea I've .ev.e r .seen,"
a,n American adviser and veteran of the Korean war
explained. "This il>attle was just like T-Bone Hill and
Pork Ohop Hill. We held one-half of the position and
they held the other half. We have bunkers and itihey
attack in human waves just like in Korea.
"The Viet Cong are becoming very sophisticated with
Jnf.antry battalion tactics, attacking our reserves, using
mo1tars as supporting fire.
"We a.re getting more Communist uo!t.s in here all
,the time; they a.re better equipped and well led. They
are using orthodox_ infantry tactics- they even have
command posts in the rear and we've captured some of
their telephones they use to call their frontline troops.
"We aren't fighting guerrillas anymore. These are
regular units using regular infantry tactics."
Last week an American military spokesma:n said
Route 19 \\'.RS open. But an American Jdcviser in An Khe
Valley explained, "Sure, it's open fo civilian traffic but
the military would not dare go ,down Route 19 with
anything less than two battalions."