Word: lamming
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...shot up. Since the Laotian operation began on Feb. 8, the loss rate of U.S. helicopters -normally about one per 16,000 sorties -has quadrupled. So far during the Laos operation, Communist gunners have knocked out no fewer than 61 helicopters, about 10% of the fleet originally committed to Lam Son 719. More than 160 other birds have been brought down but later hauled back to their bases by other choppers. A total of 31 U.S. crewmen have been killed, 44 wounded, and ten listed as missing...
Alphonse-Gaston Show. It was dangerous all right, and it promises to get more so, soon. After two weeks of small gains and large casualties, the Lam Son 719 forces were at last on the move again. Leapfrogging six miles past a stalled armor column on Route 9, swarms of U.S. helicopters laden with ARVN (Army of the Republic of Viet Nam) troops flapped deep into Laos, settling into landing zones blasted out of the jungle by parachute-dropped 15,000-lb. bombs. From one of the new bases, code-named Sophia, 1,500 crack ARVN 1st Division troops punched...
Already the Lam Son 719 bloodshed has reached a scale that Major General Frederick Weyand, the deputy U.S. commander in Saigon, describes as "worse than Tet." Even so, until last week the Laotian venture in some respects resembled what one Washington official describes as "an Alphonse-Gaston show. The South Vietnamese fought hard, but they also sat back and waited to see what the North Vietnamese would do. The North Vietnamese attacked outposts, but their main forces sat back and waited to see what the South Vietnamese would...
American pilots have already flown an impressive number of helicopter sorties in Laos (more than 26,000), but the 600 choppers assigned to Lam Son have been sorely taxed for several reasons. For one thing, Communist mines and ambushes have upset plans to supply the main ARVN column (10,000 men) on Route 9 by road. In combat, ARVN commanders have often been unable to spell out their needs in comprehensible English when faced with real trouble. Hill 31 was overrun largely because the first Cobra gunships on the scene carried no armor-piercing rockets: the ARVN officer who radioed...
...South Vietnamese commanders hope, most of the kinks have been worked out of Lam Son. Certainly, Saigon has not overlooked anything that might improve ARVN's chances in the fighting to come. Vice President Ky has even commissioned Vietnamese composers to fashion songs celebrating ARVN bravery, nobility and sacrifice. Whether they will be tunes of victory, too, remains to be seen...