Word: deltas
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...heartland of South Viet Nam is not the barren highlands and bamboo valleys north of Saigon, where U.S. forces have fought the war's fiercest battles, but the swampy southern tip that is sluiced by the Mekong River. The Delta is the dwelling place of more than a third of the country's population, the rice basket for half of its food-and the Viet Cong's prime source of men, money and supplies. The Communists very nearly seized it all in the grim months of late 1964 and early 1965 before the U.S. buildup. District towns...
...Delta did not go under. Though no U.S. combat units were sent in, the American arrival elsewhere stiffened Vietnamese army morale all along the line. With the help of some 5,000 U.S. military advisers, government troops stemmed the rout and fought back to what is now essentially a military stalemate in the Delta. Given the increasing U.S. mastery of the battlefields to the north, stalemate in the Delta is no longer good enough. Last week Premier Ky announced the long-anticipated news: within a month, American combat units for the first time will move into the Delta in force...
Smelly Mud. D-day in the Delta will bring the American fighting man a set of challenges unique even in Viet Nam. The principal fact of the Delta is water, water everywhere: drowning the great, flat expanses of paddyfields that reach to the horizon, running in brown, lazy fingers through 2,500 miles of navigable canals, tributaries and the Mekong itself. Only long, lush tree lines and the populous villages they shelter break the landscape's monotony, and it is in the tree lines and villages that the Viet Cong are most often found...
Then Ky, for good measure, shifted some senior officers, notably flamboyant Lieut. General Dang Van Quang. Quang had headed the IV Corps area in the Mekong Delta, where the Viet Cong are still thriving and where no U.S. troops yet operate. Quang had resisted sharing the Delta war with the Allies, so his removal might prepare the way for the U.S..to make a major move into the Delta...
Much of the thrust has come from the airlines' aggressive selling of what Delta Executive Vice President Thomas Miller calls "the total-distribution-by-air concept." Because of cheaper insurance, lighter crating, fewer warehouse charges and, most important, jet-quick delivery, air freight is often less costly than water, rail or road transport-even though air rates are considerably higher. Using air shipment for most of its electronics products, increasingly diversified Raytheon has cut delivery time from ten to twelve days to 48 to 72 hours-and therefore is selling off its field warehouses in the bargain. Sears...