The Fighting Resumes

For two months, the battlefields of South Viet Nam had been unnaturally quiet. There were those who argued that Hanoi was purposefully scaling down the war and that the U.S. should reciprocate by ending all bombing of North Viet Nam. The allied command insisted that the Communists had mere ly paused to regroup and resupply. Last week Hanoi ended the argument as Communist forces came out fighting the length of the narrow country, mounting as many as 50 coordinated assaults in a single day. Even so, the Communist campaign was weaker than the Tet offensive or the second wave of at tacks in May and June. As a result, the allies were reluctant to identify the new push as the long-expected third Communist offensive.

The first heavy fighting erupted along the Cambodian border to the west of Saigon, where the equivalent of a Viet Cong division moved on the provincial capital of Tay Ninh. Hints of a major buildup there had been drifting in for about a month. Confirmation came when a South Vietnamese armor specialist showed up at a Chieu Hoi center for defectors. He reported that the Communists had tried to recruit him to drive one of the armored personnel carriers that they expected to capture in an attack on the town.

Beehive Rounds. After that, it was simply a question of waiting. An ambush patrol from the U.S. 25th Infantry Division was the first to make contact. Before dawn one morning, it suddenly found itself looking at a well-ordered, 500-man column coolly marching down Route 13 northeast of Tay Ninh. The ambushers let most of the Communist troops pass by, then called in artillery to blast them.

A second Communist drive pressed on Tay Ninh from the North. A Viet Cong battalion tried to storm the 25th Division's fire base "Buell." The U.S. ar tillerymen depressed their 105-mm. and 155-mm. tubes, firing pointblank "beehive" rounds of metal slivers that turned back the assault. In only one sector of the town were the Communists tem porarily successful, as they infiltrated almost two battalions into the southern fringes of Tay Ninh. In the ensuing battle, the allies were sorely tempted to use heavy weapons on dug-in Communist forces. Bomb-laden jets actually circled over the town at one point. But, in contrast to Tet and the May offensive, when whole blocks of cities and towns were knocked down, artillery and bombs were not used in Tay Ninh, and the Communists finally pulled out--after telling the population that they would be back.

East of the town, the Viet Cong tenaciously clung to a stretch of strategic road that could be used as an approach to Saigon. The Viet Cong fought mechanized U.S. troops to a standstill for three days. So furious was the fighting that the Americans burned out barrel after barrel of their .50-caliber ma chine guns.

At midweek, Saigon was hit, suffering its first rocket attack since June 21. The rockets whooshed in during the early morning hours, and 19 of the 122-mm. projectiles hit in two salvos. Seventeen Vietnamese civilians and a Japanese correspondent were killed. The National Assembly building took two hits, but damage was so slight that the deputies met as usual.

Coordinated attacks also hit the oth er corps areas. Communists fired rockets and mortars on 18 Delta towns and bases and attempted ground attacks in six spots. In the Highlands and II Corps, they launched 20 assaults in a single night. But nowhere did the Communists sustain their offensives for long.

The Main Target. More serious was the Communist drive in I Corps in the north. Riflemen infiltrated Danang, South Viet Nam's second largest city, and wreaked havoc with sniper fire. They tried unsuccessfully to take the local radio station, the Danang Special Sector command, and a strategic bridge. Vietnamese Rangers and American Marines finally drove them out of town, again without calling in heavy artillery and air support, which would have devastated the city.

Despite pressures virtually everywhere, the allies still felt that the Communists' biggest blows--with Saigon the main target--had yet to fall. Major units that could launch such an attack were still deployed near the Cambodian border at week's end--too far away to mount an assault, but still a potential threat.

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