Word: airstrips
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...Well aware of the Marines' dependence on air support, the North Vietnamese are doing everything they can to make the skies over Khe Sanh unsafe. So far, they have managed to destroy only one American C-130 transport and temporarily disable another, but they keep the airstrip under constant fire whenever a plane lands. They are also adding 37-mm. flak to the hundreds of machine guns that already ring the Marine base. U.S. flyers even fear that SAMS and MIGS may soon be used around Khe Sanh; in fact, B-52s are now escorted on their daily raids...
Despite such problems, a furious remodeling program has added manicured new gardens to the academy, as well as indoor plumbing for the six guest bungalows and electric light for all the buildings. An airstrip is being built nearby for the Maharishi's new twin-engined Beechcraft Baron, the gift of the International Meditation Society, and a rough helipad has been cleared away on the hillside. Most of the improvements have been bankrolled by the initiation fee of the Maharishi's move ment-a flat donation of the pilgrim's salary for one week, which...
...protective sandbags and runway matting rise higher on bunkers. Even so, the bunkers cannot withstand direct hits. A rocket or mortar round will collapse a bunker and likely kill its occupants. The Seabees are finishing strong underground bunkers for the control-tower crew of Khe Sanh's airstrip and the evacuation hospital, rushing to complete the work before the threatened battle erupts. Meanwhile, the doctors must make do in cramped quarters: the operating room is an empty metal box used to ship mili tary goods and measuring only...
...enemy force of at least 700 men tackled the city's most vital military target: Tan Son Nhut airstrip and its adjoining MACV compound housing Westmoreland's headquarters and the 7th Air Force Command Center, the nerve centers of U.S. command in the war. The Communists breached the immediate base perimeter, slipping past some 150 outposts without a shot being fired, and got within 1,000 feet of the runways before they were halted in eight hours of bloody hand-to-hand combat. All told, the Communists attacked from 18 different points around Tan Son Nhut, getting close enough...
...week's end, Saigon was still a city shuddering with the roar of bombs and the splat of bullets. After five days of fighting, the stubborn attackers of Tan Son Nhut airstrip were still entrenched near the field as F-100 jets, Skyraiders and helicopters blasted at their positions. Fighting flared in one part of the city and, when troops moved in with air support to damp it down, broke out in another area. Though the allies claimed 2,000 enemy dead in the city, the U.S. command was worried by the presence of a reserve unit of some...