Efficient Thunder

While the Marines fought their way to victory on the hilltops, the planes of Operation Rolling Thunder, code name for the U.S. air campaign over the North, continued to cripple the North's military potential. Having already knocked out the 738-ft. Canal des Rapides bridge, over which all supplies coming by rail from Red China funnel into Hanoi, U.S. pilots went to work last week chewing up the spider web of rail yards and lines north of the bridge. Time and again they hit other key targets on Hanoi's outskirts, including the Ha Dong army barracks, which had previously been immune from attack. U.S. planes knocked five MIG's out of the sky and smashed at least eight more at their bases in persistent attacks that in two weeks have accounted for the destruction of nearly one-sixth of the North's 120-MIG fleet.

In phrases reminiscent of World War II movies, North Vietnamese pilots began shouting "You die, Yankee dog!" over their radios as they closed with U.S. planes. It did not do much good. The dogfight score to date: 49 kills for the U.S. v. 17 for the North Vietnamese.

Colonel Robin Olds, 44, a 23-kill ace in World War II (TIME, Jan. 13), became the first U.S. pilot to destroy two MIGs over Viet Nam, downing a fast MIG-21 in a swirling, 20-minute aerial free-for-all near Hanoi.

Three U.S. planes were shot down near Hanoi by antiaircraft fire, which is the heaviest ever experienced in any war. The pilots were Colonel James L. Hughes, 40, of Iowa, Lieut. Colonel Gordon A. Larson, 40, of Minnesota, and Lieut. James R. Shively, 25, of Texas. According to the Russian news agency Tass, they were paraded through the streets of Hanoi, where they were greeted by "shouts of anger," then forced to appear at a press conference. The treatment was a clear violation of the Geneva Convention, which prohibits the humiliation of prisoners.

The pressure on the North has become so great that Hanoi has evacuated more than half of its 600,000 population to the countryside, dismantling factories and reassembling them in dispersed locations. Last week the Czech news agency Ceteka reported that Haiphong has appealed to its citizens to speed up their evacuation; it plans to leave behind only 150,000 of its 350,000 inhabitants. That is enough to man essential industries, operate aircraft guns and keep the big docks in Haiphong harbor going. If the U.S. decides to mine Haiphong harbor, the dock workers will be able to go to the country too. Few ships are likely to knowingly run any such blockade.

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