The Odds of March

Battle statistics in South Viet Nam's war against the elusive Communist Viet Cong are often as illusory as the enemy--but there is always a whiff of truth in numbers. Last week it was a faint whiff of success for Saigon's government, compounded of cordite and napalm, corpses and canal water.

In two major actions, government forces killed at least 475 Viet Cong "hardcore" regulars while losing only 50 troops of their own. Communist losses for March were 1,625 v. 730 dead on the Saigon side. More important, the government won 13 of 18 major engagements, lost only half the number of weapons (1,280) and half the deserters (725) that it had lost in February. All the success has come since U.S. planes began striking directly at the Reds-not only within South Viet Nam but also in the north. The odds of March were clearly on the government's side.

Forest of Darkness. Saigon's biggest victory last week came in the Mekong Delta, where government troops set an elaborately bloody trap for the Viet Cong. Since 1945 the Communists had held sway over the delta's mangrove-choked Uminh ("Forest of Darkness"), which Vietnamese legend said was inhabited by werewolves. Not even the French were able to penetrate it. Managing to lure two Viet Cong battalions out of the forest and into a "hollow square" defense perimeter, government infantry pounced, as "Cobras"--armed U.S. helicopters--moved in with close support. While naval support craft slammed away with cannon from a nearby canal, the helicopters herded Viet Cong prisoners out of paddies like so many sheep. Then in swept U.S. Skyraiders and B-57s, splashing napalm and shrapnel clusters over the enemy emplacement. Gunfire from South Vietnamese Rangers did the rest.

Six Americans died in the effort (four in a flaming chopper, one on the ground, and another--the first U.S. Navy casualty--in the river craft), as well as 23 South Vietnamese. But probably 400 Viet Cong died in the biggest victory in the delta since the U.S. became engaged in Viet Nam.

Sparks in Saigon. Far to the north of Saigon, the government scored its second big kill of the week. Pushing north from Bongson, the pivotal hamlet on north-south Route 1, which almost fell to the Communists early last month (TIME, March 12), a battalion of South Vietnamese marines was hit by mortar fire and three battalions of Viet Cong shock troops. Falling back on a tenuous perimeter, the marines fought off ten "human wave" attacks over an eight-hour period before they were reinforced by a heavy-weapons company and air support. When it was all over, 137 Viet Cong were dead, v. five for the government (none American).

The government victories over the past month can be credited largely to the application of U.S. air power within South Viet Nam proper. Kills by air strikes mounted from 30% of 1964's Viet Cong toll to a remarkable 87% last month. Greater U.S. involvement has also boosted South Vietnamese morale. Still, no U.S. or South Vietnamese officials were naive enough to believe that the tide had yet turned in the overall battle. Political instability is still rife in Saigon, where last week a brief mutiny threatened Admiral Chung Tan Cang, boss of the South Vietnamese navy, and set the capital aquiver with coup rumors. The mutiny died away, but no sparks are ever totally extinguished in Saigon. And for all the government success on the ground, Hanoi, with its great reserves of manpower and stubbornness, still calls the final shots from the north.

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