Trouble at Danang

So bad did Viet Nam's confused political situation become last week that at one point it nearly produced civil war. Flown from Saigon by Premier Ky to "liberate" the northern town of Danang, three battalions of Vietnamese marines at Danang Air Force Base showed every sign of marching into the city. When he heard of this, Colonel Dam Quang Yeu, commander of Vietnamese army troops at Hoi An, 15 miles to the south, decided to march on Danang to block the paratroopers. With several hundred men, 13 armored carriers, four 155-mm. howitzers and enough ammunition to blow up a city, he set up a command post four miles outside the Danang air base and trained his guns on it.

Inside the base, where TIME Correspondent Don Neff walked in on the crisis, the U.S. Marines had to make some quick decisions. If Yeu shelled the base, he would not only precipitate civil war between Vietnamese units but would almost surely kill or injure some of the 30,000 Americans stationed there. Since there were no ranking Vietnamese officers around, Lieut. General Lewis Walt, commander of the 3rd Marine Amphibious Force at the base, decided to move fast. He ordered a detail of 60 marines to cut Yeu's still advancing column in half by stalling a big truck on a bridge behind Yeu's forward command post, then claiming that the truck had broken down. When the Vietnamese troops caught on to the ruse, their commander demanded passage, declaring, "I am a brave man." Replied U.S. Marine Captain Carl Wreckwell: "I'm not saying you're not brave. It's just that I'll destroy you and your guns if you fire." The commander stormed back to his howitzers, ordered their gaping barrels pointed directly at the truck and Captain Wreckwell. Says Wreckwell: "I always thought the hole of a .45 automatic was the biggest thing in the world until I looked down a 155." Wreckwell and his men held fast behind their own recoilless rifles, ordered circling U.S. jets to make threatening low passes over the Vietnamese. After a few passes, the Vietnamese decided to pack up and pull back.

Back at Colonel Yeu's forward command post, Yeu was angered by the harassment of loyal Vietnamese air force planes, loudly threatened to shell the airfield immediately. The marines first ordered the Vietnamese airmen to stop their flights. Then Colonel John Chaisson jumped into an armed helicopter, flew to Yeu's command post and had his chopper put down directly in front of the howitzers. In hard Yankee accents, he delivered an ultimatum: "If you make one menacing move toward those artillery pieces, we must consider you hostile. We will annihilate you." By now, five batteries of marine artillery were zeroed in on Yeu's command post. Armed helicopters and napalm-laden Phantom jets circled overhead.

The Americans finally persuaded Yeu to meet with Danang's new commander, General Ton That Dinh, who had arrived from Saigon. The two officers talked, slapped each other's back, seemed to reach an agreement for the removal of the howitzers. But Yeu kept them trained on the Danang base, demanding the removal of the Vietnamese marines. For three days, the marines and Yeu remained eyeball-to-eyeball, gun-to-gun. Finally, last week, the central government ordered the Vietnamese marines to leave the base, and Yeu abandoned his position.

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