Air Force Jets Bomb Military Complex in North Vietnam

May 22, 1965 - Ninety U.S. Air Force jet planes flew within 55 miles of Hanoi today to bomb a military complex. It was the closest the air strikes have come to the North Vietnamese capital since they began Feb. 7.

The target was Quangsoui, just south of Ninhbinh, where American jets dropped anti-Communist leaflets Thursday.

Military spokesmen in Saigon said 37 buildings had been destroyed. They said the base consisted of 40 one-story barracks, 10 warehouses, and an ammunition building.

No enemy aircraft were sighted, and all the American planes returned safely.

While it was the most significant of the day’s raids, the 45-minute attack on Quangsoui was only one of eight strikes on Communist territory. 

Returning from Quangsoui, the 90 planes also hit an ammunition depot at Phuqui, 120 miles south of Hanoi, leaving six buildings destroyed and four damaged.

Ten propeller-driven planes from the South Vietnamese Air Force staged a raid in which they dropped 400,000 leaflets over Ron and Badon in North Vietnam. The messages, the same as those dropped on Ninhbinh, urged North Vietnamese soldiers to end their participation in the war in South Vietnam.

In ground action today, the Viet Cong guerrillas showed themselves prepared to take the advantage given them by the advent of the rainy season throughout much of South Vietnam.

They attacked a Vietnamese Special Forces patrol near Laikhe, in Bilhduong Province, about 28 miles north of Saigon.

The Communist troops killed two American advisers and 57 Vietnamese special forces soldiers. Another American adviser was reported missing.

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