Nearly All War Cases

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31003, 8 March 1966, Page 15

Nearly All War Cases

GV.Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND, March 7. Nearly all the patients dealt with at the Qui Nhon Hospital in Vietnam last year were accidental bombing or battle casualties, said Mr P. F. Howden, who was in charge of the New Zealand surgical unit at the hospital. Mr Howden, who was speaking at the tenth annual Rotary conference on Saturday. returned from Vietnam in December after spending a year there. He said the hospital dealt with 700 patients a month. He said three Viet Cong regiments had been “up the valley” from the hospital. “We treated Viet Cong casualties,” he said. “I don’t think the Viet Cong would have shot us up or done anything to us. The only thing I was worried about- was the possibility of them budling us off and making us work for them.” The New Zealand image in Vietnam, he said, stood very high. “The Vietnamese liked us

being there and they gave us their help.” He thought the arrival of New Zealand troops in the country had not changed the attitude of the people toward New Zealanders. He said the peasants in the country could not care less who was in power—all they wanted was protection. Attitude to Chinese Of Ho Chi Minh, Mr Howden said he was a man who had fought for his country and believed him to be a “nationalist Communist” who wanted Vietnam, Thailand and Laos as a bastion against the Chinese.

"They don’t like the Chinese. The North Vietnamese are just as well aware that they might be swallowed up by the Chinese as the South Vietnamese.” Mr Howden said he thought the Viet Cong were fighting for the nationaisation of Vietnam and that Communism was the vehicle of that desire. He thought the politicallyminded Vietnamese in Saigon were fighting for their own skins but the country people were fighting for security. “I don’t think there is any way the Americans can withdraw with honour,” he said.