A Round for the South

In Saigon last week, the ever-ready optimism of American and South Vietnamese officials was palpably on the rise. As the Communist offensive entered its third month it seemed to have temporarily ground--or been bombed--to a halt. The North Vietnamese had taken no major new objectives since their capture of Quang Tri and Tan Canh last month. The South Vietnamese army was replacing some of its enormous losses and patching up its shattered morale. Though fresh assaults could reverse the picture, the South Vietnamese were at least holding their own on the three major battle fronts:

P: An Loc, 60 miles north of Saigon, passed its 57th day under siege --surpassing the record set 18 years ago by the French defenders of Dien Bien Phu. The incessant shelling abated, but the South Vietnamese troops have become demoralized by the appalling numbers of wounded in the town and by a lack of medical facilities that renders almost any wound fatal. "They won't get up and fight," one American adviser explained, because "if they get hit, they sure as hell know they are going to die." Increasingly it appeared that An Loc may have become a secondary target of the North Vietnamese, and that their aim is to inflict punishing casualties on a relief column that was sent from Saigon almost two months ago and last week was still cautiously sitting on Highway 13 south of town. Meanwhile, low clouds and rain marking the monsoon season's onset are beginning to hamper the close-in air strikes and pinpoint bombing that have so far staved off disaster for An Loc.

P: Kontum remained surrounded by North Vietnamese, who still occupied all the high ridges overlooking the city. The defenders were being supplied by U.S. and South Vietnamese helicopters that made repeated trips from Pleiku, dodging incoming mortars and rockets as they landed with ammunition and took off with loads of wounded or refugees. TIME Correspondent John Mulliken, who flew into Kontum, reported that "the city, that part of it that is left for some civilian living, is crazily hopped up, on a siege high. Civilians and soldiers stand in groups in front of grilled and padlocked stores, talking, watching and laughing with a silly, frivolous air." Daily house-to-house fighting supported by heavy air strikes dislodges most of the North Vietnamese troops who filter into the city.

P: Hue, the former imperial capital, remained braced for the long-predicted major assault that the Communists had not yet launched. Last week South Vietnamese paratroopers sallied out in brigade strength to tighten a gap in the city's northern line of defense along the My Chanh River. President Nguyen Van Thieu visited Kontum and Hue, and confidently asserted that the Communists "do not have the capacity to do anything more."

If Thieu was right--still a large if --the reason was the unprecedented use of American airpower. Though ARVN troops were technically doing the fighting, and often fighting well, nearly all the damage and casualties were being inflicted on the North Vietnamese by Americans--from the air. The North Vietnamese have lost about 30,000 men killed, as well as more than half of the 500 to 600 tanks--35 so far around Kontum alone--that accompanied infantry south for the Easter offensive.

Replacing the tanks in the face of continued U.S. air attacks will be difficult. One captured tank crew reported that they were followed south for more than three months by a detachment of 25 soldiers whose principal function was to conceal the treadmarks.

Meanwhile, the strategic bombing in the North was proving enormously effective largely because of the U.S.'s new "smart" bombs (TIME, June 5). Navy fighter-bombers knocked out one of North Viet Nam's largest railyards at Uong Bi, near the port of Haiphong, and most of the railway bridges between Hanoi and the Chinese border.

Pause to Rest. On the other side, the North Vietnamese had yielded none of their newly captured real estate. They had badly battered ARVN, shown up glaring weaknesses in South Vietnamese military leadership and managed to launch several important if small-scale attacks along the central coast and in the Mekong Delta. Even if their all-out Easter offensive was apparently blunted, the Communists had shown a capacity for springing surprises before and an ability to continue fighting against all rational odds.

U.S. analysts judged that the North Vietnamese may be able to carry on their large-scale offensive for another few weeks, then pause to rest in Cambodia and Laos for another push in late summer or early fall, providing they are able to bring supplies down from the North. Only a few weeks ago, however, the anxious question was how long the South Vietnamese, not the North Vietnamese, could carry on.

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