The Vietnam War, This Week, The Inquirer, Philadelphia PA

Vietnam War Weekly Front Pages

27 June 1965 – 3 July 1965

The Inquirer, Philadelphia PA 

Search and destroy.

*****

The Vietcong had placed the US ambassador and other top US officials in South Vietnam on a death list. A North Vietnamese broadcast said the death list was drawn up Friday, the day a captive US Army sergeant was executed by the Vietcong and a floating restaurant on the Saigon river was blown up, killing 42 persons, including 12 Americans. Other targets for death included the South Vietnamese premier and the commander of US forces in Vietnam. The Vietcong said “We do what we say. We have enough strength to compel the US imperialists and the Thieu-Ky clique to pay for their crimes after they shot Tran Van Dang in cold blood.”

On Sunday South Vietnamese troops killed seven Vietcong provincial and local officials in a lightning raid on a Mekong Delta jungle village 35 miles south of Saigon. It was called the biggest single bag of Vietcong officials in the war. The Red guerrillas struck back Monday with a mortar barrage on an airfield and district headquarters at Mha Trang, an old China Sea resort town 200 miles northeast of Saigon.

At least 16 persons were killed in the crash of a C-123 transport hit by Vietcong fire 13 miles east of Saigon. US spokesmen confirmed a US Air Force officer and an enlisted man were dead. The twin engine plane plowed into a farmhouse Sunday night. Nationality of the other victims and such details as the total number of casualties were veiled by official secrecy, although ne military source reported that he understood there had been 20 Americans aboard. The crash was similar to one last December, when another C-123 hit a mountain near Da Nang on a classified night mission. That crash killed 38, including two Americans.

American paratroopers, South Vietnamese troops, and Australian soldiers slogged through a Vietcong-infested jungle and swamps 30 miles north of Saigon Wednesday in an attempt to force the Communists into a major battle. But in this first major combat offensive by American troops in the Vietnam war, the guerrillas appeared to have eluded the pincer attack, and only light contact was reported. In fighting Tuesday, four US Marines were killed in a battle with Communist guerrillas near Da Nang. US jets flew to within 65 miles of the Communist Chinese border in their deepest probe yet into North Vietnam. US military spokesmen said the planes bombed the Thuan Chau barracks supply depot, 155 miles northwest of Hanoi.

The State Department said that the use of US combat troops in a "search and destroy" mission in South Vietnam was consistent with policy announced by the White House on 9 June. Asked about policy implications of the US-South Vietnamese military operation in “Zone D” northeast of Saigon, the state department said “As reported from Saigon there is a coordinated US-South Vietnamese search and destroy operation now in progress in the Bien Hoa area. Units of the 173rd Airborne Brigade are participating. US and Vietnamese commanders are in charge of their own troops in their respective areas of responsibility. They work out their coordination and cooperation as called for by the situation.”

Late in the week Communist guerrillas bombarded the heavily guarded US airbase at Da Nang with a surprise mortar attack and commando raid. Base officials said one US servicemen was killed, five wounded, and an estimated $5 million worth of American aircraft were destroyed or damaged in the brief attack. The same day, Communist guerrillas hit the US airfield at Soc Tran in the Mekong Delta with mortar fire, forcing evacuation of American helicopters. The Vietcong dropped 17 mortar shells among the parked helicopters and damaged some of them. One man was reported wounded in the brief attack 90 miles southwest of Saigon. In an apparent quick reaction to the mortar and grenade attack on the US airbase at Da Nang, more than 500 US Marines came ashore from US Seventh Fleet ships at Qui Nhon, in central Vietnam between Saigon and Da Nang.

(Photo courtesy newspapers.com, Philadelphia Inquirer)