Word: mekong
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Flying Softeners. Saigon's forces were doing some hunting of their own in the Mekong Delta. After days of tracking, they caught up with a Viet Cong unit known as the "Soctrang Dynamic Battalion," de-dynamized it with air strikes and artillery. The Reds lost 212 dead. Later in the week, the Communists trapped a government battalion 40 miles north of Saigon, killing 151 men (including four American advisers...
...Mekong Delta 35 miles south of Saigon, South Vietnamese troops overran the Communist-held village of Tan Hiep, surprised and killed seven Viet Cong provincial officials in the midst of a meeting; the dead included the Reds' Dinh Tuong province chief and the political commissar of the Viet Cong's 261st Battalion. Later in the same operation, air-supported South Vietnamese soldiers killed an estimated 255 Viet Cong, whose unit had been spotted along a canal...
...fault of the Viet Cong. Outside the capital, the Communists concentrate on cutting supply lines. The railroad to Hue, South Viet Nam's ancient Buddhist center far to the north, has not been used for a year. Route 4, over which most of the rich harvest of the Mekong Delta moves to Saigon, is mined with jolting frequency. The road from mountainous Dalat-source of the capital's vegetables and fruit-can be traversed only by army truck convoys. On back-country roads last week, the Viet Cong coolly halted traffic, confiscated bikes, cars and motor scooters even...
...Sailors. Strangest of South Viet Nam's services is the navy, whose duty it is to patrol 1,000 miles of cove-pocked coastline and almost 3,500 miles of inland waterways-rivers, creeks, canals, irrigation ditches and tidal bayous. In the flat, checkered Mekong Delta, waterways have been the main routes of travel for centuries. The 9,000 officers and men of South Viet Nam's navy keep these arteries open with 600 curious vessels, ranging from sampans and junks to converted landing craft. Armed with 20-and 40-mm. cannon, heavy machine guns, even...
Throughout the Mekong Delta, trunk canals and irrigation ditches are filling, and Viet Cong units will soon be back to a favorite mode of transportation: elusive sampans. The riot of rain-fed foliage in the jungles and swamps provides better concealment for the Red guerrillas, while battle-weary government troops are compelled to slog through waist-deep mud. To both sides the monsoon brings misery: boots and web belts rot, weapons rust even under oilcloth, leeches drop from wet branches, and a thin green slime covers everything...