Word: mortaring
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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This was the start of a Viet Cong raid against Danang last week. Under heavy-mortar-fire cover, the raiders stole out of a graveyard toward a sector of the base perimeter patrolled by South Vietnamese troops. The guerrillas snipped one barbed-wire fence, stepped through a dozen holes cut in another fence by defensive troops to facilitate their own movements, and let go with a barrage of grenades, satchel charges and recoilless rifle fire. The Reds ran into no outer guards, were on Danang's runway before they met their first challenger. Carrying coffee to a guard...
Before they fled under a hail of Marine mortar and small-arms fire within minutes after they had come, the raiders destroyed one Delta Dagger jet and two four-engine C-130 Hercules transports and damaged two Delta Daggers and one Hercules. Estimated total cost: $5,000,000. The Viet Cong left behind them trails of blood indicating that several had been wounded. One was captured, turned out to be a North Vietnamese soldier named Do Xuan Hien, 29, who under questioning said that he had infiltrated into South Viet Nam three months ago with his entire battalion...
...fortress admitted to U.S. newsmen that there were neither women, children nor Red Cross in the fortress. Caamaño bitterly accused the OAS troops of firing first. Answering that, Brazil's General Alvim angrily insisted: "More than 1,000 rounds of small-arms fire and a few mortar shells were received before we returned the fire. My troops fired back to defend themselves...
...were resting after a hard day's work building a Special Forces fort. Suddenly the radio in the darkened home of the district chief crackled, and a sentry on Dongxoai's unfinished airstrip blurted: "The Viet Cong are all over." In an instant, everything came unbuttoned: Communist mortar fire sent hot shrapnel up the village streets, recoilless-rifle shells slammed home, the night air buzzed with bullets. Then out of the ground fog swarmed wave upon wave of Viet Cong shock troops-some clad incongruously in breechclouts and steel helmets, all armed either with grenades, automatic rifles...
...miles southeast of Saigon. At night the capital's lights loom on the horizon, but none of the 14 men on duty can afford to look at them: the Viet Cong snipe constantly. The Tanlong outpost consists of six foxholes, all half-full of slimy water. A mortar pit, with its precious weapon covered carefully in canvas, stands near by, flanked by four ancient Vietnamese graves whose massive headstones provide the outpost's only cover...