Whatever may happen in Paris, peace seemed a distant prospect last week on the battlefields of Viet Nam, where the war rose to a fighting pitch of intensity unequaled since the Tet offensive. The Viet Cong shelled Saigon and a dozen other cities and attempted ground attacks in some cases, but their assault, far from being a second round on the scale of Tet, amounted to little more than coordinated harassment. Elsewhere, U.S. and South Vietnamese forces scored sizeable victories in heavy fighting around Saigon, in the Delta and, particularly, in northernmost I Corps, where the bloodiest battles of the week erupted.
The shelling of Saigon began at 4 a.m. One mortar round hit near the U.S. Embassy, another close to U.S. Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker's residence. Numerous shells landed in the Chinese section, Cholon. But the main enemy target was Newport, the U.S. dock facilities in the Saigon River, where Communist forces unsuccessfully attempted to follow up a mortar and rocket attack with an assault. Within two hours the city had largely become quiet again. The Communists also shelled, among other cities, Hué, Pleiku, Can Tho, Kontum, My Tho and Quang Tri. Four U.S. Marines were killed and six wounded when five mortar rounds hit the Danang headquarters of Marine Commander Lieut. General Robert E. Cushman Jr.
The shelling of the cities came after a week in which the Communists had undergone little but setbacks. In I Corps' eastern part, allied forces turned back a North Vietnamese attack aimed at overrunning the U.S. Marine supply base of Dong Ha and fought a series of major battles around the city of Hue. In western I Corps, an allied force slashed through the North Vietnamese army's longtime sanctuary and storehouse in the A Shau Valley.
Only eight miles south of the Demilitarized Zone, Dong Ha is the eastern anchor of the entire allied defense line facing North Viet Nam. Across the DMZ, in a swift three-day thrust, Hanoi sent its crack 320th Division to audaciously launch its first division-sized attack of the war. The Communist troops took up positions on the Cua Viet River two miles from Dong Ha, ambushed a U.S. Navy supply ship, and waited for the Marines to respond. They did at once, pouring in five companies to engage the North Vietnamese in the village of Dai Do.
Bamboo Breathing. After two days of fighting, the Marines took the village, only to be driven back by a vicious Communist counterattack. Next day the Marines drove through Dai Do again—and again the North Vietnamese drove them back, supported by 130-mm. guns firing from North Viet Nam. But it was the 320th's last lunge. Under artillery and air strikes, it was forced to retreat northward, leaving 856 of its dead behind, as U.S. jets pursued and pounded its remnants. The Marines lost 68 dead, had 323 wounded seriously enough to require evacuation.