Victory in the Valley

Of all the varied and difficult terrain in South Viet Nam, the jungled peaks and malarial valleys of the Central Highlands would seem least worth winning. Scant crops grow there, and scarcely any Vietnamese live there. The triple canopy of jungle foliage shadows the ground in a perpetual, skyless twilight. But, on the Highlands border where Laos and Cambodia meet, there is a valuable piece of real estate: a natural valley that funnels through the worst border mountains out into the gentler highland countryside rolling down to the sea. Astride the valley sits Dak To, until three weeks ago a dusty airstrip guarded by one U.S. battalion and a 500-man Vietnamese paramilitary unit in a Special Forces camp.

Flares Like Fireworks. The North Vietnamese obviously saw Dak To as not much of an obstacle to their plan to sweep down through the valley to overrun the town of Kontum, then turn eastward for a damaging drive into the Highlands' heart (see map). Four regiments of North Vietnamese, some 10,000 men strong, began positioning themselves in the hills around Dak To.

The U.S. watched the buildup carefully, monitoring it with infrared body-heat detectors mounted in planes, "sniffer" helicopters able to locate hidden groups of men by their sweat, and covert, long-range reconnaissance teams operating in the jungles. Three weeks ago, the U.S. began pouring reinforcements into Dak To, joining the battle for access to the Highlands before the North Vietnamese were ready. By last week, as the fighting went on, some 10,000 allied troops had entered the battle and in 18 days had killed 764 Communist soldiers v. 136 U.S. dead. It became clear that the Communists were not going to get a military victory at Dak To.

A few accurate North Vietnamese mortarmen did manage to inflict some spectacular damage on Dak To before pulling back. Firing 82-mm. mortars from less than two miles away, the Communists destroyed two big C-130 transport planes sitting on the Dak To airstrip. Then, in a second attack the same day, they scored a direct hit on the hastily built-up Dak To ammunition dump. For the next eight hours U.S. soldiers in and around Dak To cowered in their bunkers while tracer bullets arced in all directions, flares popped like fireworks and shells exploded. Seven tons of C-4 plastic explosive went off simultaneously, producing the largest blast of the Viet Nam war. A 1,000-ft. ball of fire shot upward, lighting the whole valley and billowing into a mushroom cloud. The shock wave knocked men off their feet half a mile away and all but destroyed the Special Forces camp. Astonishingly, no one was killed, and only three men were injured in the holocaust.

Prowling the Grounds. Meanwhile, the grinding battle in the hills around Dak To continued, as U.S. infantrymen hunted for an enemy ever more reluctant to come out and fight. Some of the toughest combat took place four miles south of Dak To. Fourth Division infantrymen, in a fierce seven-hour firefight, finally blasted the North Vietnamese off Hill 1338, a peak 4,000 ft. above the Dak To valley floor, from which Communist rocketeers could have zeroed in on U.S. emplacements. Ten miles to the southwest, men of the 173rd seized Hill 889, tenaciously defended by the Communists because it supported an antiaircraft gun. And at week's end, heavy fighting erupted anew as a 1st Cavalry (Airmobile) Battalion flushed a force of North Vietnamese Army regulars on a mountain flank hard by the Laotian border.

In nearby Cambodia, three American newsmen--the U.P.I.'s Ray Herndon and the A.P.'s Horst Faas and George McArthur--took Cambodian Prince Norodom Sihanouk up on his offer to prove, if they could, that the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong were using Cambodia as a sanctuary. Armed with specific map coordinates from U.S. intelligence in Saigon, they uncovered a headquarters complex only nine miles from the South Vietnamese town of Loc Ninh, which the Communists unsuccessfully attacked three weeks ago; the complex included a well-stocked dispensary, officers' quarters, storage facilities and huts for some 500 men. Lead ing towards the Vietnamese border was a road paved with six-inch-diameter logs for trucks, and truck tracks were everywhere. Back in Pnompenh, Sihanouk promised a full investigation but said that he found it hard to believe that the camp was permanent. U.P.I, man Herndon, however, had foresightedly prowled the camp grounds and came up with some important Viet Cong vouchers. Their dates ranged from as early as February right up to Nov. 1.

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