The Cost Goes Up Again

Every time a U.S. plane strafes a truck convoy or bombs out a bridge, the cost of Hanoi's involvement in South Viet Nam goes up another notch. Still, the U.S. has shown remarkable restraint by sparing a long list of choice and vital targets. The roster of restricted areas includes the docks of Haiphong harbor, the MIG jet fighter bases that ring Hanoi and the 25-mile zone bordering Red China, which is increasingly used as a sanctuary for truck convoys bringing supplies from China. Last week the U.S. decided to raise the North's costs considerably by striking hard at a target that had hitherto been spared: the huge Thai Nguyen iron and steel complex 38 miles north of Hanoi.

Thai Nguyen was Hanoi's much-publicized pride and joy, symbolizing its hopes for an industrialized future. Built with Chinese aid, equipment and technicians, its 48 large buildings were scattered over nearly three square miles. It employed 200 engineers, 2,000 technicians, and some 12,000 workers on three shifts. Destined to be the most modern metalworks in all of Southeast Asia when completed in 1969, Thai Nguyen was already turning out 200,000 tons of cast iron, supplying 80% of North Viet Nam's iron and steel alloy needs. It also had a vital role in Hanoi's war effort, fabricating "instant" bridges, cargo barges and oil drums.

The Granddaddy. The Pentagon had long wanted approval to bomb Thai Nguyen. But not until the failure of peace probes during the Tet holiday truce did Lyndon Johnson give the scramble signal to the Air Force. Reconnaissance of the target and bad weather, which has limited strikes over North Viet Nam since January, held up the attack until last week. Then, as the monsoon clouds began to break up, U.S. Navy A-4 Skyhawks from the carriers Kitty Hawk and Ticonderoga began hitting the usual railyards and petroleum dumps while U.S. Air Force fighter-bombers based in Thailand got ready for what Flight Leader Captain Charles G. Murphy described as "the mission I'd been waiting for, the granddaddy of them all." Coincidentally, Thailand finally made official and public what everyone has known all along: 55% of all U.S. bombing of the North originates from the four U.S. airbases leased from the Thais, where the bulk of the 35,000 U.S. personnel in Thailand are stationed.

Scrambling from Korat, Takhli and Ubon bases in Thailand, 56 Air Force F-105 Thunderchiefs and F-4C Phan toms headed for a mid-air refueling rendezvous with their KC-135 tankers, then zeroed in on the giant steelworks. Despite "extremely heavy" flak and ground fire that brought down one F-105 (the 480th plane lost over North Viet Nam in the air war), the U.S. jets unloaded more than 80 tons of bombs, mostly 750-pounders, on the target. Smoke billowed 5,000 ft. into the air, preventing a damage assessment. Next day the planes went back to Thai Nguyen again, with a second 80 tons of high explosives. At about the same time, carrier-based bombers hit a surface-to-air missile storage base, a power plant and an ammunition depot near Hanoi and Haiphong.

Shrinking Sanctuaries. No MIGs showed up over Thai Nguyen, but as the first day's mission was returning to Thailand, Captain Max C. Brestel became locked in what he called "an old-fashioned dogfight" with four MIG-17s. Brestel damaged one MIG and shot down another. The confirmed kill brought to 37 the number of enemy jets downed by U.S. planes (against ten U.S. losses in air combat), and represented the first MIG nailed since January.

The bombing of Thai Nguyen was the second major increase in the cost of aggression for Hanoi in two weeks, following the decision to mine North Vietnamese rivers and bombard the Red homeland from naval guns at sea and long-range artillery firing across the border (TIME, March 10). It was by far the most serious warning yet administered to Ho Chi Minh that American restraint has its limits. Unless Hanoi's supply and infiltration of South Viet Nam slows, its sanctuaries are likely to continue to shrink and the roster of fresh targets to grow ever longer.

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