The Vietnam War, This Week, The Daily Republican, Monongahela PA
Vietnam War Weekly Front Pages
6 June 1965 – 12 June 1965
The Daily Republican, Monongahela PA
A new combat support policy.
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Waves of US and South Vietnamese planes bombed several North Vietnamese military camps on Monday. On Wednesday it was announced that two US military advisers had been killed and a third wounded in one of two major battles which claimed more than 460 casualties on both sides. While fighting raged on the ground and American planes bombed targets in North Vietnam, Saigon itself was plagued with a political crisis that threatened to topple the government. Premier Phan Huy Quat asked the military to mediate in a dispute with Chief of State Phan Khac Suu and dissident Roman Catholics.
With the United States embarking on a new policy of permitting American infantrymen to enter into combat in South Vietnam, a US military spokesman announced that 2,500 American combat engineers had landed to boost US military strength to 53,500 men. In Washington, Secretary of State Dean Rusk said the United States “is not going to be chased out” of Vietnam and warned that some sharp engagements could be expected “between the Viet Cong and our people.” He declined to say whether the new combat support policy given American troops would expand the war. The next day 14 Americans were killed, and 10 others wounded, when 1,500 communist guerillas stormed through a US Army special forces camp and captured a district town 60 miles north of Saigon. An air-ground counterattack failed to dislodge the guerillas and heavy fighting raged throughout the day. The 14 American deaths were the biggest US loss in any single battle of the Vietnam War.
By Friday, government troops had driven the Vietcong out of Dong Xoai in one of the bitterest battles of the war and probed northward to try to rescue what was left of a shattered relief column. It was feared government casualties might run as high as 500. Eight more Americans were killed on Friday when their plane crashed in the central highlands far to the north of Dong Xoai. The fighting at Dong Xoai itself cost 31 American casualties, according to a US spokesman – one known dead, 17 missing, and 13 wounded. Viet Cong losses were believed high, but there was no actual count. US military sources in Dong Xoai estimated that more than 100 were killed.
(Photo courtesy newspapers.com, Monongahela Daily Republican)