Word: pleiku
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...sentry, SP5 Jesse Pyle of Marina, Calif., spotted them and opened fire, killing one guerrilla. The noise roused the sleeping Americans, saved many from certain death had the Viet Cong slipped inside. As it was, the attack force riddled Pyle-the eighth American to die at Pleiku-tossed homemade grenades wrapped in bamboo or placed in beer cans at the barracks, wounded 25 Americans...
...hamlet 1,000 yds. from the camp poured 55 rounds from 81-mm. mortars smack into the compound where 400 U.S. advisers lived. They were right on target. Fifty-two billets were damaged, including some totally destroyed. In one, Cartoonist Bill Mauldin, who happened to be in Pleiku visiting his son Bruce, a 21-year-old U.S. Army warrant officer, leaped up at the first mortar blast, scampered outside in his underwear (see THE PRESS). Within 15 minutes, the guerrillas pulled back, covering their retreat with recoilless rifles and rifle grenades. Seven Americans died, more than 100 were wounded...
...White House Aide McGeorge Bundy. The three hurried to Westmoreland's headquarters, two blocks away. There they joined Bundy, Ambassador Taylor and other top U.S. officials for an emergency early-morning conference. Their recommendation to Washington: strike back. A few hours later, when Westmoreland inspected the damage at Pleiku and flew to a field hospital where Pleiku's wounded were being treated in five operating rooms, he felt completely certain that his decision had been the right one. "This is bad," he said, "very...
...Pleiku attack was undeniably aimed exclusively at Americans; there was not a single casualty among the 4,300 Vietnamese there. It was early afternoon when details about the Pleiku disaster arrived in Washington. Until nearly nightfall, President Johnson stayed on the phone with his security advisers, among them Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, home in bed with viral pneumonia...
Just twelve hours after the Pleiku attack, 49 U.S. A-4 Skyhawks and F-8 Crusaders streaked off the decks of the U.S. aircraft carriers Ranger, Hancock and Coral Sea, all steaming about 100 miles off South Viet Nam in the South China Sea. The jets headed for Donghoi, 160 miles above the 17th parallel, a major staging point for Red guerrillas en route south. The bombers inflicted "considerable" damage, said McNamara, up from his sickbed. One plane was shot down, but its pilot was plucked from...