Blood All Over

"They are swinging wildly," said President Johnson last week in an apt description of the latest, desperate meat-ax assaults by the Communist Viet Cong. With the monsoon season well under way, the Reds were gambling on the combined effects of weather and surprise to nullify the superior power of the U.S. and its South Vietnamese allies.

Pouncing on the government outpost at Ba Gia, a Viet Cong battalion killed 30 South Vietnamese and captured two 105-mm. howitzers. Ba Gia's defenders quickly snapped back, drove the Reds out and pinned them down while U.S. planes came in, inflicting heavy casualties. A second Communist blow fell farther to the west, where Viet Cong raiders overran the district capital of Dak To, then ambushed a relief column corning in by road from Kontum. Again the Reds could not hold onto what they had taken: after two days of fighting, the Viet Cong pulled out.

Flying Softeners. Saigon's forces were doing some hunting of their own in the Mekong Delta. After days of tracking, they caught up with a Viet Cong unit known as the "Soctrang Dynamic Battalion," de-dynamized it with air strikes and artillery. The Reds lost 212 dead. Later in the week, the Communists trapped a government battalion 40 miles north of Saigon, killing 151 men (including four American advisers).

For the second week in a row, American and Australian troops probed the Red redoubt of Zone D, but this time the Communists did not fade back into the jungle. After B-52 bombers from Guam had softened the zone with two bomb runs, the Reds made a stand in a fortified village, catching a company of U.S. paratroopers under crossfire with two machine guns. The Americans took out one gun with rifle grenades, then charged the second. The Reds broke and ran, dragging bodies with them through their escape tunnels. "There was blood all over that trench," said an American first lieutenant. "We figured we killed about 16, and their total casualties must have been close to 50."

Hitting the Junks. The week's most spectacular fight came near Chu Lai, the coastal airbase defended by 2,500 U.S. Marines. There the Viet Cong overran an island headquarters of the South Vietnamese "Junk Fleet" (TIME, May 7), but before they could retreat, the marines stormed ashore to trap them. Many Viet Cong swam to safety, but eight were killed and 45 captured.

That's the kind of war it continues to be in Viet Nam. Since the monsoon began, the Viet Cong have lost some 4,500 dead to about 1,900 on the government side. Last week 8,000 more marines landed at Danang, raising the total of Americans in South Viet Nam to 63,000, and President Johnson told a press conference that another 10,000 U.S. troops will soon arrive. Experts in Saigon foresaw 150,000 men by year's end. While last week's frenetic activity may have reflected a certain Communist desperation, the President was blunt about what the built-up U.S. forces face. Said he: "We expect it will get worse before it gets better."

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