Word: airlifters
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...become known around the Pentagon as "the litany": a 200% increase in both the number and destructive power of U.S. nuclear weapons; a 45% rise in the number of combat-ready Army divisions; a 51% gain in the number of tactical fighter squadrons; a 100% increase in both military airlift capacity and in naval construction; a tenfold jump in the size of special, counterinsurgency forces...
...towns of Pleiku, Kontum and Ban Me Thuot, they still range at will through the mountainous countryside. Since the Viet Cong blew out three of Route 19's bridges some six weeks ago, the highlands' vital western tier of towns was accessible only by air. Despite an airlift that brought hundreds of tons a week into Pleiku, supplies were growing critically short when Saigon decided that Route 19 had to be reopened at any price...
Isolated Shards. The price came high: some 7,000 South Vietnamese troops deployed in the largest military operation mounted by Saigon since the war began, requiring an airlift that tied up virtually every transport plane in South Viet Nam for days. Though the effort succeeded, and by week's end supplies were rolling daily from Qui Nhon to Pleiku, the magnitude of the effort underscored how thoroughly the Viet Cong have chopped South Viet Nam into isolated shards. Only a fraction of the nation's 4,000 paved miles of road are freely passable; of more than...
...pleasant mountain village of open-air cafés with circus awnings and a population of 14,000. Though only 30 miles from Pleiku, Kontum is surrounded by some 6,000 guerrillas backed up by an estimated 10,000 North Vietnamese regulars, and is still accessible only by airlift, as is nearby Ban Me Thuot. If the Viet Cong attack, as seems almost certain, Kontum's fate and the fate of its 1,000-man garrison, including 150 Americans, may well be decided by the weather-which in the monsoon season determines whether planes can bring relief troops, massive...
...monsoon mud. Moreover, the Laotian anti-Communists now have effective insurgent bands afield in Red territory. They consist mainly of 6,000 American-supplied Meo tribesmen, tough little primitives skilled in the savage techniques of ambush and night assault. Meo loyalty has been sealed by a U.S. airlift of rice ($6,500,000 worth this year alone), which feeds 160,000 tribesmen. Along with the kernels come rifles, grenades and ammunition to replace the traditional Meo crossbows...