Issue Date: September 17, 1969 - Stanford University



Issue Date: September 17, 1969

Vietnam War:

Military Developments

Communist forces bombarded more than 30 allied installations in South Vietnam with mortar and rocket fire as the three-day truce formally ended at 1 a.m. September 11. Twelve of the attacks caused damage or casualties. Both sides also stepped up ground action in one of the most serious encounters, four U.S. soldiers were killed when an American landing zone about 40 miles south of Danang came under attack. Twenty-eight Communists were reported killed in the skirmish.

Targets struck in B-52 raids resumed September 13 included enemy positions 28 miles northeast of Saigon in the Xuanloc area and near Phucat on the coast, 285 miles northeast of the capital.

South Vietnam reported September 13 that government militia that day had killed 51 Viet Cong in a battle with the Communists, who had kidnaped 13 children from a hamlet in northern Quangngai Province. Eight of the children were said to have been released.

The government reported September 13 that a Communist force that day had leveled 80% of the refugee village of Dienban in northern Quangnam Province. Communist shelling had wounded 18 civilians and set fire to 70 houses.

U.S. military authorities reported September 14 that three-four North Vietnamese battalions had infiltrated into the Mekong Delta from Cambodia in the four weeks since the last U.S. troops had left the region as part of the withdrawal of 25,000 Americans from South Vietnam. The infiltration of a Communist unit into the delta had first been observed in May. It had been identified as the 273d Regiment of the Viet Cong Ninth Division. The elements of the North Vietnamese forces in the delta had been identified as battalions of the 18th Regiment of the First Army. At least two of these battalions were believed to be hiding in caves in western Chaudoc Province.

The U.S. command completed its pull-out from the Mekong Delta September 1 as it turned over the Ninth Infantry Division headquarters at Dongtam to the South Vietnamese army. Two of the division's three brigades of about 10,000 men were among the first of the 25,000 American soldiers withdrawn from South Vietnam between July 8 and the end of August. The third brigade was shifted to Longan Province south of Saigon.

Among major military, developments prior to the truce:

• U.S. military authorities reported September 6 that 935 North Vietnamese had been killed by U.S. troops in the fighting in the Hiepduc Valley 30 miles south of Danang since the outbreak of the battle August 17. [See 1969 Vietnam War: Danang Area Battle]

• The U.S. command reported September 4 that U.S. and South Vietnamese troops had clashed in Cambodia after a U.S. Army helicopter had been attacked and had crashed one mile inside Cambodian territory. The report said that the helicopter, carrying South Vietnamese troops, had crash landed after being fired on by the Viet Cong in South Vietnam, about 55 miles west of Saigon. A South Vietnamese died in the burning wreckage of the 'copter.

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