World: Grappling for Normalcy

Giap’s new barrages came while South Viet Nam was grappling to regain a measure of normalcy amid the death and devastation from the first at tacks on 35 population centers. Though some fighting still went on in Saigon’s environs and even heightened in the old imperial capital of Hué, the roar and whine of bombs and bullets had faded from most other cities before last week’s assault. As the toll of the first attack continued to rise day by day—nearly 4,000 civilians dead and another 337,000 made homeless—the allies stepped up relief and rehabilitation efforts while waiting for General Giap’s next move.

Crowded Streets. Continuing skirmishes in the capital failed to root out stubborn—and embarrassing—pockets of Viet Cong guerrillas holed up in the honeycomb hovels and alleys of the Chinese quarter of Cholon. But Communist resistance had slackened to the point where Saigon resumed relatively routine patterns. Nightmarish traffic again snarled streets nearly empty for two weeks, and patrolling soldiers no longer had the wary, Gary Cooper glint in their eyes.

An estimated 200 V.C. commandos held out in Cholon and near the Phu

Tho race track, apparently mixing with civilians to avoid detection. Allied mopping up around Saigon may have yielded an important catch. The government professed “80% certainty” that one enemy body found was that of North Vietnamese Major General Tran Do, 48, political chief and second deputy commander of the Liberation Army. A final fingerprint check was awaited to determine if it really was Do.

Tattered Treasures. Writhing in the agony of prolonged battle, once-lovely Hue remained the only city in South Viet Nam where the V.C. flag still flew. Ten days of bitter street fighting cleared —at least temporarily—the modern residential section south of the Perfume River, but the battle raged with full fury in the rubble-strewn Citadel, the early 19th century imperial fortress that holds much of Viet Nam’s architectural and cultural treasure. As thousands of refugees huddled under a grey pall from countless fires, 1,000 U.S. Marines crossed the river to help the 2,500 South Vietnamese infantrymen and Marines fighting to recapture the former royal enclosure, once known as “the Forbidden City.”

Their heavily entrenched quarry-some 500 regulars of the 6th NVA Regiment and Viet Cong units—seemed almost as much hunter as prey because of its formidable position. With their backs to the river at the Citadel’s south ern end, the Communists fought from ramparts and arches protected by massive stone walls more than eight feet thick. Because of the Citadel’s symbolic value to the Vietnamese, the allies first tried to retake it without the fire power punch of artillery and air strikes, but the dug-in Communists repelled wave after wave of assaults.

Rocky Debris. Finally, all restrictions were lifted last week, and jet fighter-bombers, artillery and naval gunfire began slowly shattering the walled complex into rocky debris. Even so, progress could be made only yard by bloody yard. “It’s just like Iwo Jima,” said Marine Captain Myron Harrington, 29. The Communists were using Hue’s underground sewers to infiltrate behind allied lines, and those making a stand in the Citadel still held some hope for reinforcement or escape via the river. But they showed no signs of fleeing. In fact, renewed fighting flared in Hue’s southern section at week’s end, when some 700 enemy troops suddenly appeared in an area thought secure. How they got there was a mystery, since allied officers had declared the city sealed off.