Word: mortar
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...north of Saigon, the government scored its second big kill of the week. Pushing north from Bongson, the pivotal hamlet on north-south Route 1, which almost fell to the Communists early last month (TIME, March 12), a battalion of South Vietnamese marines was hit by mortar fire and three battalions of Viet Cong shock troops. Falling back on a tenuous perimeter, the marines fought off ten "human wave" attacks over an eight-hour period before they were reinforced by a heavy-weapons company and air support. When it was all over, 137 Viet Cong were dead, v. five...
...that riflemen's foxholes were dug and mortar positions neatly sand bagged, the 800 U.S. Marines on Hill 327 overlooking Danang airbase were chafing under guard duty and itching for action. Thus it was with considerable relief that the Marines got word that one company could move out to probe the nearby ridges and ravines. Cautiously the company fanned out in separate platoons to begin a 2½ day search for nesting Viet Cong. The first flush was not long in coming: that night one platoon startled some seven V.C.s, who took off running as the Marines fired after...
Peaceful as the reception was, however, nobody was taking any chances, Navy frogmen combed the beach before the marines landed. Two battalions of Vietnamese soldiers patrolled the area while rocket-armed U.S. helicopters skimmed just above the treetops. Marine security squads began digging foxholes and mortar emplacements as soon as they landed...
...soon as they picked up "pips" on their radar screens, the marines: called on a nearby howitzer battery for flare shells to illuminate the area, then swept the slope with a barrage of machine-gun and mortar fire. Though there were no signs of bodies the next morning, the marines were delighted with the radar's performance in its first combat tests. Chuckled one machine gunner: "I'll bet they wondered how we knew they were out there...
...gentle hillock near the midfield stripe of South Viet Nam, balanced like a football waiting for the kickoff. From the Kannack compound and its adjacent dirt airstrip, some 400 American and montagnard defenders oversee dense jungle, slippery slopes and the crumpled folds of ravines ideally suited for enemy mortar attack. A single ribbon of road leads south toward embattled Route 19, the east-west highway where government convoys are frequent prey for Viet Cong ambushes. Last week the Communists hit Kannack...