Word: outposts
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Harrowing Operation. Some 5,000 North Vietnamese troops closed in on the Kham Due outpost astride Route 14 about 70 miles from Kontum. The post was defended by 1,300 allied soldiers; most of them were civilian irregulars, reinforced by a U.S. Marine artillery platoon and an element of the U.S. 196th Light Infantry Brigade. Kham Due shaped up as the kind of set-piece battle that General William Westmoreland yearned for in the early days of the massive U.S. presence in Viet Nam, when so much of his military force was expended in fruitless hunts for an enemy refusing...
...battlefields, the allies have once more moved out to the offensive. Operation Pegasus, in the northernmost I Corps area, opened vital Route 9 for the first time since last August, relieved Khe Sanh, and last week recaptured the outpost of Lang Vei, which was overrun by the North Vietnamese in February. Last week, too, in the eleven provinces around Saigon, the allies mounted the largest campaign of the war, which consisted of some 100,000 men in an operation ambitiously called Complete Victory...
Nearly half the ten U.S. combat divisions in Viet Nam are jammed into I Corps, the northernmost provinces of South Viet Nam, facing a potent concentration of Communist regulars (see overleaf). There is growing concern that the 5,000 Marines at the besieged outpost of Khe Sanh can be overrun by the North Vietnamese infantry divisions that are inexorably tightening the circle around them. Warned Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Richard Russell: "I am afraid this position may be difficult to defend. I hope we will be able to reinforce our troops there sufficiently." Even South Viet...
...Short Month. Menacing as the situation appeared around Saigon, the main enemy threat still hung over the northern provinces below the DMZ. The siege around Khe Sanh closed tighter than ever; the outpost is now surrounded by two divisions and a regiment. As the NVA crept closer and closer to the camp's perimeter, one probing patrol of South Vietnamese Rangers hardly got outside the camp when they came under heavy enemy attack and had to retreat. In a way, the entire northern edge of South Viet Nam has come under the same sort of siege. Allied strength...
...part of one of the most massive aerial support and attack campaigns ever mounted, U.S. pilots struggled to sustain and shield Khe Sanh. Air Force and Marine transport pilots last week flew 79 supply sorties, delivering nearly 1,200 tons of food, water, medicine and ammunition to the besieged outpost. Fighter-bombers and giant B-52s flew some 2,000 sorties over enemy positions, plastering the jungle and hills around Khe Sanh with some 7,000 tons of bombs...