Nov. 2, 1964 - Viet Cong guerrillas yesterday followed up their audacious, devastating raid which crippled have the U.S. jet bomber fleet in South Vietnam by shelling a Government outpost and adding a fifth U.S. victim to the death toll.
The mortar attack on the outpost in Phouc Thanh Province, 22 miles northeast of Saigon, took the life of a U.S. Army officer and wounded another. Fifteen Government soldiers were wounded.
It came a few hours after the daring attack on the U.S. air base at Bien Hoa, 15 miles from Saigon, in which 28 aircraft were damaged or destroyed and four Americans were killed.
Grim-faced U.S. Ambassador Maxwell Taylor and Gen. William Westmoreland, U.S. commander in Vietnam, flew to inspect the carnage at Bien Hoa. They ordered reinforced security precautions at all airfields and bases to prevent any repetition.
Throughout the country, U.S. warplanes were being parked in areas regarded as safer, but one officer remarked: “There’s really not much you can do to really secure big planes at an airport. The only way you can be sure is by securing the whole area around the base, and in Vietnam — even at Saigon airport — that’s impossible.”
Bien Hoa lies only 10 miles from a Viet Cong jungle base which the Government has so far found impossible to eradicate.
Westmoreland said the Americans behaved “magnificently” during the ordeal.
Reliable sources said Taylor had cabled the White House, urging a firm stand in the face of yesterday’s mortar blitz.
More than 30 Americans were injured in the attack, which came on the first anniversary of the overthrow of the Diem regime. One survivor said, “It was Halloween in hell with all witches flying.”
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