Saturday, May 6, 1972
Red End Run To Hue Feared
MY CHANH, Vietnam (AP) --U.S. advisers on the new northern front expressed concern Thursday that enemy troops might roll around the remaining South Vietnamese defenders and punch toward Hue behind their backs."They're trying to make an end run on us at the foot of the mountains," a U.S. Marine adviser, Maj. Don Price of Flagstaff, Ariz., said at a command post along the My Chanh River about 20 miles north of Hue and 12 miles south of the fallen city of Quang Tri."If they can separate us, cut us off, we'll have problems. But I don't think they can do it," Price said. "The morale is high here and the situation is well in hand."U.S. officers said the front was holding firm and the extent of the enemy's flanking attempt remained unclear. South Vietnamese marine units probing to the west had no sizable contact and considered the threat was not immediate, they added.However, sources said seven to 10 tanks were reported south of the front in an area 17 miles north of Hue and informants said nearby Camp Evans took about 20 rounds of 130mm artillery fire from the northwest.Maj. Robert Sheridan of Burke, Va., another adviser with the marines, said the enemy is "spread pretty thin now."I'll bet that for the last couple of days, they've been eating everything they could find up at Quang Tri," he added."I don't think they expected to get Quang Tri. I think it was a shock to them. As soon as they get themselves together I suppose they'll be ready to go after Hue."At the My Chanh River front, Capt. Richard Hodory of Corvallis, Ore., said he was not concerned about being among the northernmost Americans in Vietnam."The marines will hold them," Hodory said. "That's a pretty wide, pretty deep river. We"ve got the assets here to knock them out."Hodory called in U.S. air strikes against tanks and troops near the road about a half mile north of his position. There was one secondary explosion."A straggler who crossed the river this morning said he spotted five tanks well camouflaged in the trees by the road." Hodory said. "You can imagine if he spotted those, how many more there are."Artillery Cpl. Nguyen Trung Chanh, who escaped from North Vietnamese captors on Tuesday and walked into South Vietnamese positions Wednesday night, told of seeing about 100 enemy bodies and 10 destroyed tanks during his escape."Red End Run to Hue Feared", by Richard Blystone, published in the Pacific Stars and Stripes on Saturday, May 6, 1972, and reprinted from European and Pacific Stars and Stripes, a Department of Defense publication copyright, 2002 European and Pacific Stars and Stripes.