Unconsolidated Victory

A small South Vietnamese observation plane circled over a marshy checkerboard of wild rice fields 60 miles southwest of Saigon. Below, two companies of Communist Viet Cong guerrillas, flushed into the open after sporadic fire fights, were trying to escape across the paddies in shallow-draft sampans. Alerted by the observation plane, ten huge grey U.S.-supplied amphibious personnel carriers raced to the scene, ran head-on into the Reds. Churning through the sampan fleet, the amphibious ducks ground whole boatloads of Communist guerrillas under their steel treads. Shielded behind armor plating, army troops machine-gunned the survivors. The toll: 154 Viet Cong troops killed and 38 captured, to twelve government soldiers wounded.

One of the biggest government victories this year, the battle once again proved how much U.S. equipment and training have improved the Vietnamese army. Since January, government forces in the five-province area southwest of Saigon known as the 32nd Tactical Command have killed 5,000 Viet Cong troops. But the government has been unable to consolidate its military successes into a political victory. Under the nose of government officials, the Viet Cong have continued their recruiting campaign among the peasantry. Despite the heavy losses, Viet Cong strength in the area is the same as last January: some 6,000 men.

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