FRANCE: Battle of the Orange Grove

It was a calm, steamy night in Bone last week, and the residents of Algeria’s fourth largest city (pop. 120,000) slept comfortably in the knowledge that, despite nearly five strife-torn years of war, the F.L.N. had never dared attack a big town. But less than three miles away, bivouacked in a French orange grove midway between the city and Bone’s airport, a commando force of 47 rebels waited tensely for dawn.

The tight French defenses on the Morice Line had been partially flooded, and the rebels had slipped through them the day before from a Tunisian base camp, carrying money and supplies to reinforce rebels hiding in Algeria’s Kabylie Mountains. They obviously hoped, by a bold stroke, to counter the growing impression (TIME, June 22) that the tide had turned against them in Algeria. But at dawn a French armored-car patrol spotted the rebels, and within an hour more than 3,000 French troops had encircled the tiny orange grove.

Thirty green-bereted paratroopers of the Foreign Legion led the first French attack. But the rebels, well dug in behind orange trees and with no place to retreat, put up such steady, accurate fire that the legionnaires fell back. The French commander ordered air support, and for two hours the citizens of Bone from their windows watched wheeling T-6 jets slam rockets into the orchard. Then the legionnaires went back in, this time behind a squadron of tanks, to clean up.

By noon it was all over. In the unequal battle 31 rebels were killed, all but one of the 16 captured were wounded. French losses: 6 dead, 15 wounded. Before capture the surviving rebels destroyed three powerful radio transmitters and 10 million francs intended for isolated rebel units in the Algerian interior.