Guerrillas Elude Allies’ Heaviest Offensive

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30956, 12 January 1966, Page 11

Guerrillas Elude Allies’ Heaviest Offensive

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) TRUNG LAP, January 11. Some American officers are badly disappointed with “Operation Crimp,” the biggest United States-Australian operation of the Vietnam war, the Associated press reports.

Elusive Viet Cong guerrillas, melting into the jungles or fading into a vast underground network of tunnels have successfully evaded two major offensives by the Allied troops, says Press International.

Australian troops today continued to uncover deep networks of Viet Cong fortifications in a probing search after the offensive. The maze of tunnels, partially concreted, may prove to be one of the most important Viet Cong underground fortresses in South Vietnam. The results to date have been no better than South Vietnamese operations of similar size in the past. These Vietnamese operations were many times roundly criticised by American advisers because they were too ambitious, and, because of their size, too unwieldly. They invariably failed to nail any sizeable Viet Cong force. The same criticism is being made about “Operation Crimp.” BOLDLY CONCEIVED

Even though the plans for the operation were boldly conceived, secretly developed and skilfully implemented, only a handful of Viet Cong were encountered.

And there seemed little doubt that these Viet Cong had been detailed as a rearguard to keep the Americans and Australians busy while the main Viet Cong troops in the. area made their escape.

By Monday evening, two days after the operation began, the allied force had achieved much less than they had hoped.

The huge tunnel complexes and trenches were known to have been in the area for

years. Finding them was nothing new, and the tunnels withstood the battering by bombs, explosives an' gas.

“We can’t even start to tear up these whole complexes. The job would take weeks, and we are not staying in here that long,” one officer said. ARMS CACHES The arms caches discovered by the Australians were size able and the one high point of an unproductive three days. But many larger caches have been found in Vietnam After three days the allied forces numbering around 8000 knew that they had been outwitted by the enemy but could do little about it.

Although the Viet Cong could not be found in strength, there were numerous snipers in the area. They picked off Allied soldiers throughout the whole three days.

The snipers also played havoc with helicopters. One resupply helicopter was hit 14 times before noon on Monday while taking in food for the troops. Heavy 37mm anti-aircraft fire —the first encountered in South Vietnam—was directed at the helicopters flying over the region.

HOURS LOST The fact that the Viet Cong got away can be attributed to two reasons. The Allies attempted to push quickly through to the river to trap the Viet Cong on one hand, and then burn down every house and destroy every tunnel on the other. The result was that neither objective was satisfactorily attained. Hours were lost tracking the tunnel labyrinths when heavy concentration of riot gas, carried in large quantities by all forces, could have done the trick much faster, some officers believe. These same officers feel that the gas came into its own during the operation, and that dozens of civilian lives were saved.