Victoria Charlenes

Hard-hit by mounting battle losses and a dwindling supply of young men to conscript, the Viet Cong are finding it difficult to keep their ranks well filled. As a result, they are turning more and more to women to help the war effort. Backing up Victor Charlie--the G.I.s' name for the Viet Cong--are the female Victoria Charlenes, some of whom actually fight. The V.C.'s attractive, much-advertised heroine, Ta Thi Kieu, packs four rifles at a time and boasts that she has participated in 33 battles. The vast majority of the Victoria Charlenes perform the myriad tasks that are needed to aid a guerrilla army operating in a hostile countryside without modern systems of supply, transport or communications.

Little Old Ladies. Distaff Communists cut and stitch uniforms for the Viet Cong in jungle-hidden factories replete with Singer sewing machines. They assemble rifle grenades and Claymore mines and devise booby traps. Carrying double baskets, they act as the Viet Cong's trucks, toting rice and ammunition to the front lines. Once there, they help dig trenches and fortify bunkers, nurse and evacuate the wounded, bury the dead. They operate radios and typewriters, handle the blizzard of paper work required by the meticulous V.C. bureaucracy. Allied troops have recently captured several of the sullen, sloe-eyed Victoria Charlenes.

Women are also a vital part of the enemy's recruitment program. In a fetching ceremony of farewell to village life, V.C. maidens drape departing youths with flowers. Women are also entrusted with keeping in line those villagers who remain behind. Song-and-dance teams ride the circuit of V.C.-held territory to help in the task, crooning the latest political messages. The enemy has not overlooked the immemorial value of women in espionage. In smaller towns, nearly every market has a sharp-eyed little-old-lady vendor who is not what she seems. In Saigon the seamstresses in tailor shops often provide convenient message drops for the Viet Cong.

For the younger set, a chance for action is provided through the Viet Cong's "assault youth companies," composed of teen-age girls and boys. The companies carry supplies and help police battle fields. They earn 30-c- a month. If the girls, who are 17 and up, become pregnant while on active duty, they get two months' leave and a maternity benefit of $2.25. Eventually they are expected to graduate into the ranks of the Viet Cong proper, an estimated 10% of whom are women. Last week U.S. Marine Lieut. General Lewis W. Walt reported that in some parts of South Viet Nam, as much as 29% of the Viet Cong guerrilla force is female.*

"New Morality." Lately, the Viet Cong have been trying to recruit more women. Their propagandists argue that the size of guerrilla and hamlet forces could be increased 50% overnight with the proper infusion of womanpower in the fetch-and-carry job echelons. The National Liberation Front has its own civilian association for women, with a complete program of awards, honor rolls and instant good-conduct guides.

Chief exhorter of the Victoria Char lenes, Mme. Nguyen Thi Dinh, is the Viet Cong's deputy commander in South Viet Nam. The author of the "new morality" for women in arms, Mme. Dinh tried to instill a "Three Post ponements" campaign: Postpone love, marriage and childbirth. It was not a no table success. Viet Cong men in one area even organized a "Three Struggles" countermovement: Find a mistress, fall in love -- and prevent Mme. Dinh's precepts from becoming the law of Viet Cong lands.

*The South Vietnamese government also uses women, but not nearly so many. Saigon recently stopped the practice of recruiting women for rural pacification teams, ruling that the job has become too hazardous. The 2,400 women in the South Vietnamese army serve only as clerks and interpreters.

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