Grisly Trophies

LIKE most wars, the one in Indochina has bred an almost casual brutality. At Mien, a small town northeast of Phnom-Penh where bitter fighting raged two months ago, West German Photographer Dieter Ludwig was present when two Cambodian patrols returned from forays into chest-high rice fields. The first patrol brought in a North Vietnamese prisoner for interrogation (above); he talked freely after the second patrol arrived waving some grisly trophies--the severed heads of other North Vietnamese troops. Some of the Cambodians marked their victory by cutting the livers out of the enemy dead.

No side in the war has a monopoly on such horrors. The Communists have committed more than their share of atrocities. At the My Lai trial in Fort Benning, Ga., Radio Operator Robert van Leer told of how the Viet Cong dealt with one captured American soldier. They fitted a bird-cage-like device around his head, said Van Leer, then filled it with live rats.

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