Waiting for the Bugles

It was a time of waiting, watching and wondering along the DMZ. In their foxholes and fortified villages, from behind hedgerows and under the cover of banana plantations, the tough troops of three North Vietnamese divisions --the 324B, 325th and 610th-- were dug in and waiting, listening for the bugle calls that would order them south. On the Rockpile and the Razorback and scores of other hilltops from the South China Sea to the Laotian border, seven battalions of U.S. Marines, backed by eight South Vietnamese army battalions, were dug in and watching, wondering when the attack would come.

The view at night was spectacular. From offshore, the 8-in. guns of the cruiser St. Paul flashed out barrages of shells up and down the enemy lines. U.S. warplanes, dropping parachute flares that hung in the sky like chandeliers, swooped in on their targets with bombs and bright orange seas of napalm. From the far distance, across the DMZ in the panhandle of North Viet Nam, came the winks and streaks of antiaircraft fire aimed at American jets blasting the enemy's supply dumps. On a knoll less than two miles from the zone, the Communists have remilitarized, a Marine officer stood fascinated by the spectacle for a while, then turned to his companion. "It beats the Ed Sullivan show, doesn't it?" he said.

Probes in Force. There was daylight action as well. Every day, Marine patrols accompanied by agile M-60 Tiger tanks probed at the enemy in force, measuring his strength, assessing his movements, identifying his units, trying to, lure him into battle. But the Communist troops stayed in their foxholes. The bugles did not blow last week.

He Chi Minh's army has been trying to mount the attack since July, when the 324B became the first northern division to infiltrate across the narrow Demilitarized Zone--and, thanks to quick Marine action, the first northern division to be driven back across the border of the DMZ. In the beginning, according to U.S. intelligence reports, the Communists planned an outright invasion of the border province of Quang Tri. But the aggressive probing of Operations Hastings and Prairie has apparently thrown Hanoi's timing off. In the past month, more and more Marines have been shifted northward to the immediate area of the DMZ; last week, U.S. strength in the far north was beefed up by two additional Marine battalions and two battalions of Army artillery. The commanding generals of both Marine divisions in Viet Nam have moved their headquarters northward as well.

The presence of massive allied forces may have forced Ho Chi Minh to change his whole objective. Marine commanders now believe the Reds plan to concentrate their attack on a single American unit, overwhelm it, and if possible, wipe it out. The strike would be launched just before next month's U.S. elections, in hopes of convincing American voters that the price of the war is too high to continue. Besides, the Communists are in desperate need of a military victory. They have not had one for more than a year.

Khakis & Desert Boots. For the present, however, a victory of any kind seems beyond Hanoi's grasp. The Americans from their hilltop positions control all the major corridors to the south. The North Vietnamese, says one high-ranking Marine officer, are "no better at running these damned hills than we are, and they don't know the country any better. Once they commit themselves en masse down one of these draws, we can bomb them and shell them night and day."

With action still sporadic, the Leathernecks found time last week to receive Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, who had flown to South Viet Nam for his eighth inspection trip since the war began heating up in 1962. As usual, McNamara spent the first two days in the briefing rooms of Saigon. Then, again as usual, he climbed into khakis and scuffed brown desert boots for a two-day whirl through American units stationed all over the country. He listened to reports on Operation Irving from Air Cav officers in the central swamplands, watched A-4 Skyhawks being catapulted off the deck of the carrier Oriskany, paid brief visits to Danang, Cu Chi and the rapidly building military port of Cam Ranh Bay. But the highlight of his trip was the 3rd Marine Division's forward command post at Dong Ha, where he got an on-the-spot briefing of the northern battle lines. Included in the briefing: a helicopter flight over enemy positions in the DMZ.

Encouraging Report. McNamara's last previous trip to Viet Nam had been eleven months ago, when the American buildup was just getting under way and the military effort against the Communists was stalled. This time he found much to be encouraged about. Noting that the Americans have now seized the initiative, he reported that "the pressure on the Viet Cong, measured in terms of the casualties they have suffered, the destruction of their units, the measurable effect on their morale, has been greater than we anticipated."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.