Word: mortars
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...seven million South Vietnamese- nearly half of the population of the country- now live in concentration camps. Some of the camps are near the major cities, but many are placed around American army bases to absorb the NLF mortar attacks. Saigon now has 2,800,000 people in it, making it the densest city in the world- twice as crowded as Tokyo...
...battle, he reported, involved a Viet Cong attack on the high school, where more than 200 recently inducted 16-and 17-year-old boys and girls were garrisoned. A Cambodian officer who remained in radio contact with the group throughout a night filled with thundering mortar fire and the clatter of machine guns, said the terrified students cried into the radio "like a baby crying at night for its mother." But they were ordered to hold out, and they did. Two of their number, a 17-year-old girl and a teacher, were killed, but the youthful recruits drove back...
...Communist attack opened suddenly with a fiery burst of 60-and 81-mm. mortar fire that jolted the residents of Thanh My and two nearby hamlets out of their sleep at 1:30 a.m. one night last week. Many of the shells were white-phosphorous ones that set fire to the flimsy huts...
...Marines and one of the Popular Forces that were on night ambush duty near by. A Regional Forces platoon was trapped inside its compound near the village's only military target, a bridge across the Ba Ren River. After pounding the three hamlets with some 200 mortar rounds, enemy troops slipped into Thanh My. By then, many of the residents, trying to escape the mortar explosions, had taken refuge in bunkers. They soon became graves...
Rocket and mortar attacks have become almost a rarity. In the Mekong Delta (IV Corps), enemy gunners during the month of May loosed not a single round of 122-mm. rocket fire (v. 25 rounds normally) and only two rounds of 107-mm. rockets (v. an average of nearly 100). Says one U.S. officer: "I don't know whether the enemy is short of ammunition, but he certainly seems to be firing less...