Word: tuong
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...marines' death toll, although the heaviest yet suffered by any U.S. unit in Viet Nam, was less than 1% of the attacking forces. In all, some 50 marines were killed in the battle for Van Tuong, and another 150 wounded. And, reported one marine commander, "nearly 75% of them were shot in the back" from hidden V.C. positions they had passed without seeing...
...weeks the marines had been receiving reports that the Viet Cong were preparing the peninsula as a staging area for an attack on the Chu Lai airbase. Marine patrols had been sent out on almost daily probes around the peninsula's five coastal villages, all named Van Tuong, and last week a recon company brought back word that a large new force of V.C. had just arrived from the south. Within 24 hours, "Operation Starlight" had begun...
Walking Bushes. But the worst was still to come. Less than a mile ahead, directly in the path of Hotel Company, lay the Viet Cong regimental headquarters, just outside the Van Tuong village complex. As the Americans most of them under 20−advanced, they ran into an almost endless tangle of V.C. entrenchments: blockhouses, concrete bunkers, fortified hedgerows and tunnels. "They were all over the place," said one squad leader, "but we couldn't see them due to their camouflage. They had full-sized bushes tied to their backs...
...bitter, bright light of flares fired from the U.S. warships offshore, the battle for Van Tuong continued all through the night. One V.C. company tried to scramble down the cliffs and escape by sea, only to be blown to pieces by the Galveston's guns. Another company tried to break through to the west and was burned to ash by napalm. Finally, shortly after dawn, the leathernecks smashed the Van Tuong stronghold and slogged ahead toward their final goal, the beaches at the eastern end of the peninsula...
...Mekong Delta 35 miles south of Saigon, South Vietnamese troops overran the Communist-held village of Tan Hiep, surprised and killed seven Viet Cong provincial officials in the midst of a meeting; the dead included the Reds' Dinh Tuong province chief and the political commissar of the Viet Cong's 261st Battalion. Later in the same operation, air-supported South Vietnamese soldiers killed an estimated 255 Viet Cong, whose unit had been spotted along a canal...