Word: danang
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Target: Elephants. The steady Communist pressure in the Bongson area was beginning to be felt at Danang-only 120 miles to the north, and the site of the airbase from which most of the U.S. air strikes into North Viet Nam are mounted. At week's end, Viet Cong main-force units attacked in strength just 40 miles southwest of Danang, pinning down three battalions of South Vietnamese and killing a regimental commander. He and five aides were found burned to death in an ambushed armored personnel carrier...
...Danang, with its airfield, deep-water port facilities and 100,000 population, its U.S. and Vietnamese attack bomb ers, assault helicopters and transports, is a prime target. The three Hawk antiaircraft batteries clustered at Danang since February, with their 36 antiaircraft missiles, add to the target potential of the Danang aviary. From their own strongholds on Monkey Mountain, just west of the base, the Viet Cong are in a good position to clip the claws of those raptors...
...Danang's 25-mile perimeter is patrolled by the so-called "Special Sector," made up of Vietnamese Rangers and U.S. Special Forces, which on two occasions in the past month has surprised Viet Cong units within mortar range of the airstrip. Last week one flustered patrol reported "enemy" activity, and Danang's artillery opened up-on a herd of 15 wild elephants...
...Doom Club. Danang itself is ominously quiet. The white sand beaches on Tourane Bay are deserted; pedicabs and taxis have given way to Jeeps and deuce-and-a-half trucks. Danang's populace doesn't bother to look up at the Skyraiders and jets bellowing off the runways en route to another strike north. Military men stick to their posts. Bars and brothels go dead at night, leaving girls to play cards and dance with each other; little children with wild eyes pick one another's pockets. Even in the "Doom Club," a hangout for U.S. officers...
...main topic of conversation in Danang last week was the impending arrival of two battalions of U.S. marines to help defend the airbase perimeter. But with the stepped-up Viet Cong offensives throughout the country, especially around Bongson and Danang, even they may not be enough to keep the strategically vital northern third of the country from falling to Communist arms. The U.S. air strikes to the North -no longer tit-for-tat but now steady, measured assaults on Viet Cong supply lines-must be backed up by success on the ground within South Viet Nam if Washington...