(6 of 11)
Not only was the mass-assault third phase in Mao Tse-tung's guerrilla rule-book arrested, but the V.C. found themselves being rooted out of havens they had long considered invulnerable. Twice in the last month—first near Ben Cat in the "Iron Triangle" north of Saigon, then last week in Operation Concord in Binh Dinh province—rhas-ciwc allied sweeps penetrated preserves lethally off limits to anyone but Communists for 15 years.
The Sleepless Enemy. Sweep forces usually encountered few Viet Cong but often found supplies, such as enough rice in the Triangle to feed a V.C. regiment for four months. They also uncovered dirt-fresh evidences of the Communists' long-famed trenching arts: tunnels up to 40 feet deep and several hundred yards long, with angled corridors and galleries to reduce blast effects, air vents and emergency exits.
Even the deepest tunnels are not safe from the 1,000-lb. bombs of the Guam-based B-52s, falling in sticks neatly bracketed to decapitate a small mountain. When the big bombers, converted from carrying nuclear weapons, first began making the 5,200-mile round trip from Guam to Viet Nam, critics snorted that it was overkill run riot, using elephants to swat mosquitoes. But the point was to hit the V.C. without warning (the B-52s fly so high that they are seldom seen or heard by their targets) in the heart of their eleven major strongholds, keep them edgy and off balance. The SAC planes have hit such strongholds as the Iron Triangle hard and often, and it is now so pitted with B-52 bomb craters and caved-in V.C. tunnels that wags call it the "Gruyere Triangle." Airpower may well prove to be the guerrillas' worst enemy. The Reds are less and less welcome in villages, since the villagers are learning that their presence may well bring the planes. Forced to move oftener, the guerrillas are getting less and less sleep. Captures and desertions are rising. Recently captured in the Gruyere Triangle: a V.C. battalion commander's order that his troops eschew, among other things, "collective singing of folk songs" and handclapping for fear of detection.
It once was a rare day when more than a handful of Viet Cong weapons was left on a battlefield, but of late the V.C. have become quite untidy: Operation Starlight netted 614 dead V.C. and 109 weapons. More recently, Vietnamese troops killed 34 of the enemy—and captured 34 weapons—on an operation. Government figures showing a 300% increase in the number of Viet Cong defecting under the "open arms" amnesty program may be exaggerated, but the curve is definitely up.
Though harassed, the Viet Cong are far from beaten. Despite their heavy losses and their loss of tactical momentum, they still hold vast chunks of South Vietnamese real estate. Thanks to an infiltration rate still running at an all-time high of 1,000 men a month from the north, the Communists have actually managed to increase their strength, now have in South Viet Nam an estimated 65,000 main-force and regional troops, 80,000 to 100,000 guerrillas, and perhaps 40,000 fellow travelers in logistical and political cadres.