Vietnam War Pacific Stars and Stripes

Pacific Stars and Stripes information

For date 700406

Primary service involved, US Army
South Vietnam
Location, Saigon
Description: The following is an edited version of an article titled "Enemy Drive Fading - 3 U.S. Copters Fall to Red Guns" SAIGON (S&S Vietnam Bureau) - Communist gunners downed three U.S. Army helicopters Friday but the enemy's four-day action splurge appeared to be waning, a spokesman for the U.S. Command said Saturday. All three helicopters were UH1 Huey models. Two choppers were shot down within seven and nine miles of the Ben Het Special Forces camp in the northern half of Kontum Province in Vietnam's Central Highlands, a spokesman said. The third UH1 went down near Vi Thanh in the Mekong Delta, 101 miles south-southwest of Saigon. Two Americans were wounded in the three crashes, according to the U.S. Command. In the Seven Mountains region of Chau Doc Province, Tri Ton district town 110 miles west of Saigon and two nearby Regional Forces and Popular Forces outposts absorbed more than 30 rounds of 82mm mortar fire and 57mm recoilless rifle fire in several shelling that started in mid-afternoon Friday, a Vietnamese spokesman said. Friendly casualties were said to be "light." Late Friday afternoon, troops from the ARVN 2nd Armored Cav. Regt. mowed down 23 Reds four miles southeast of Tri Ton, but lost 16 killed and 35 wounded, military sources said. Around dawn Saturday, Communist guerrillas mauled a Popular Force outpost only one mile from Tri Ton, destroying 75 per cent of the base, an official spokesman said. Informed sources reported five persons were killed and seven wounded in the attack. Military officials in Saigon reported that the number of indirect Communist fire attacks - 36 reported in the 24-hour period ending at 8 a.m. Saturday - dropped sharply from a total of 60 attacks staged the previous day. Fourteen shellings against U.S. troops left four wounded, an official spokesman said. Three ARVN soldiers from the 21st Div., based at a regimental command post near the edge of the swamp-like Communist-infested U Minh Forest 115 miles southwest of Saigon, were killed and 16 wounded Friday afternoon when Communist gunners fired 30 rounds of 82mm mortar fire into the command post, informed sources said. One mile south of the Demilitarized Zone, American mechanized infantrymen from the 5th Inf. Div., backed by artillery and helicopter gunships, ran off defenders of a hilltop North Vietnamese Army command post late Friday after eight hours of fighting that included repeated ground assaults and hand-to-hand combat, a U.S. spokesman said. Withering NVA mortar and small arms fire drove back the Americans several times, but a final assault on the enemy-held hill with the aid of Sheridan tanks around dusk forced the Communists to pull back, spokesmen said. Twenty-seven NVA died in the day-long fighting that also left six GIs dead and 40 wounded, military officials in Saigon said. Meanwhile, a band of enemy infiltrators captured two Vietnamese Popular force outposts about 29 miles southeast of Da Nang two hours after midnight Friday while the militiamen were out running ambush patrols, an ARVN spokesman said. Nine hours later, after artillery salvos and bomb strikes peppered the outposts, PF troopers recaptured the bases and found 15 enemy bodies. There were no friendly losses in the capture and recapture of the two outposts, an official spokesman said. Nineteen Communists were killed in more than three hours of scattered mid-day battling Friday with ARVN 2nd Div. infantrymen in the coastal lowlands north of Quang Ngai City 66 miles southeast of Da Nang, an ARVN spokesman said. Two ARVN soldiers were injured in the fighting, the spokesman said. Before dawn Friday, ARVN 7th Div. infantrymen aided by artillery and tactical air strikes met up with a Communist unit only 23 miles southwest of Saigon and killed 17 enemy, an official spokesman said. Later in the day, the infantrymen reported killing another 16 Reds in the same area, the spokesman said. ARVN losses in the two fights totaled four killed and 20 wounded, military sources said.

The source for this information was 7004pss.avn supplied by Les Hines 02/02/2000

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Last updated 02/03/2000

Date posted on this site: 05/13/2023