The Vietnam War This Week, The Evening Sentinel, Carlisle PA

Vietnam War Weekly Front Pages

 13 August 1966 – 20 August 1966

The Evening Sentinel, Carlisle PA

Better than 14 to 1.

*****

North Vietnam’s anti-aircraft defenses knocked down two more US jets late in the preceding week raising to 13 the number of American planes lost in the costliest week of the two-year-old air war on the Communist north. The losses came as US pilots eluded Soviet-supplied surface-to-air missiles and battled with Communist MIG-17s during 121 missions against radar sites, oil depots, and supply and communication lines in North Vietnam. The news grew worse: it was reported that an entire US Air Force F-105 Thunderchief squadron – 25 planes – had been lost over Communist North Vietnam in the past month. The disclosure came as US military spokesman announced that two F-105s were lost over the North Sunday during 108 missions. Seventeen US planes had been shot down since 7 August, when seven aircraft failed to return from raids over Communist territory. That was the worst one-day total of the war. On Tuesday Communist MIG-17 fighters attacked a flight of US Navy A4 Skyhawks as they were bombing a North Vietnamese supply train 20 miles northeast of Thanh Hoa. The Navy flyers eluded the MIGs but were forced to end their mission. The MIGs had attacked with 20 mm cannon fire. Laden with bombs and not equipped for aerial combat, the Skyhawks “took evasive action,” a spokesman said, and flew back to their 7th Fleet carrier in the South China Sea.

On Thursday, US Air Force B-52 bombers unloaded hundreds of tons of explosives on a suspected Viet Cong tunnel complex, arms factory, and base camp 325 miles north of Saigon. American planes also battled again with Communist MIG jets over North Vietnam. The weekly American casualty report issued in Saigon showed US combat deaths moved toward 5,000. Spokesmen said 101 Americans were killed in action last week and 593 wounded. The US death toll in Vietnam now stood at 4,700. Spokesmen said the ratio of Communist dead to Americans killed last week was better than 14 to 1.

A bomb-laden US Marine fighter-bomber, taking off from the Da Nang airbase, crashed and exploded in a South Vietnamese village on Wednesday, killing 24 persons. Many others were reported injured. The Marine F8 Crusader had reached an altitude of barely 150 feet when it faltered and crashed into the village 1,000 yards from the end of the runway. A spokesman said the pilot ejected from the stricken aircraft just before impact; his parachute opened a split second before it hit the ground and he escaped injury. The plane was carrying two 1,000-pound bombs and 400 rounds of explosive 20 mm cannon shells. One of the bombs exploded when the plane crashed and the shells continued to detonate in the smoldering wreckage for 30 minutes afterward.

In Saigon and Hue, Viet Cong terrorists struck, killing 20 persons. Communist guerrillas attacked the US Tan Son Nhut airbase just outside Saigon, killing one person and injuring 12, including three Americans. They hit a motor pool with mortars and shot at the US nurses’ quarters, but no nurses were hit.

Australian troops turned a Communist ambush into the biggest Aussie victory since World War II, killing 193 Viet Cong in a three-hour battle on a Mekong Delta rubber plantation. The Aussies, members of the Sixth Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment, sustained moderate casualties themselves in the fighting Thursday. A clinging monsoon rain pounded the region 42 miles southeast of Saigon throughout the fighting.

(Photo courtesy newspapers.com, Carlisle Evening Sentinel)