ARVN on the Offensive

SOUTH VIET NAM'S Quang Tri province, which was overrun by North Vietnamese forces last April, became a symbol of ARVN's humiliating setback in the early days of the Communists' current Easter offensive. Last week, as forward elements of a South Vietnamese force of 20,000 men fought its way back into the provincial capital, there were signs that Quang Tri might also become a symbol of South Viet Nam's military resurgence.

From a political point of view, the South Vietnamese counteroffensive came none too soon. The possibility that Hanoi and Washington might somehow work out a settlement during the U.S. election year is a source of constant concern to South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu. His best protection against a disadvantageous cease-fire is a successful campaign that could change the military situation. Thus last month he ordered his generals to go on the offensive. The first response came in Military Region I, where his best troops are concentrated. Moreover, these forces are commanded by South Viet Nam's best general, Lieut. General Ngo Quang Truong, who took over the region in May after the defeat at Quang Tri.

Initially, the aim of Truong's thrust appeared to be the relatively conservative one of securing the districts of Trieu Phong and Hai Lang to the east and south of Quang Tri city. Thieu himself implied as much when he told reporters a week earlier that the recapture of the city was a matter of little concern at the moment. Last week, South Vietnamese troops moved closer and closer to the provincial capital. It is possible that Thieu was trying to throw the North

Vietnamese off guard with his earlier statement. But it is also conceivable that the South Vietnamese, surprised by the initial weakness of the Communist resistance, changed their minds in mid-offensive and launched an all-out effort to recapture Quang Tri city, the only provincial capital lost to the Communists in the Easter offensive.

As they advanced along Highway 1, Truong's forces found horrible evidence of the disastrous routing of the ARVN 3rd Division in April. The remains of three separate South Vietnamese convoys that were ambushed and brutally destroyed lay rusting and rotting along the highway; even the military equipment was still in place beside the shriveled corpses of ARVN soldiers and the unfortunate civilians who had hitched a ride in the military vehicles. The area, reported TIME Correspondent Barry Hillenbrand, was "hauntingly quiet except for the occasional report of artillery in the distance. It was like stumbling on the site of a burned-out massacred wagon train left in a remote Wyoming valley."

Resistance. The North Vietnamese still have plenty of firepower in the area. Soon after the ARVN drive on Quang Tri city began, the Communists began shelling the former imperial capital of Hue, 30 miles south, with rockets, mortars and artillery, damaging the string of South Vietnamese fire bases that form a defense line southwest of Hue.

The shelling underscored the greatest risk inherent in the South Vietnamese push into Quang Tri: the possibility that the Communists might outflank General Truong's forces and at long last mount their often predicted attack on Hue. So far there is no certainty that such an attack is coming. The city's defense is primarily in the hands of a single ARVN division, the 1st, which would be hard pressed if the enemy tried a flanking movement that culminated in a sudden jab at Hue. South Vietnamese commanders seemed confident that a Communist attack on Hue could be kept in check by U.S. bombing.

At week's end, the South Vietnamese task force at Quang Tri was inching its way forward, with the help of U.S. air strikes, toward the center of Quang Tri city. One such strike, Hillenbrand reported, transformed a thickly wooded enemy bunker position into a cluster of burnt-out tree stumps, "as if some triple-strength forest fire had passed that way." If past performance is any guide, the North Vietnamese will probably put up a mettlesome resistance before withdrawing--and the NVA still has plenty of long-range artillery in the hills to the west of the city. Nonetheless, even though the battle for the provincial capital has just begun, the counteroffensive has already done wonders for the national morale.

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