The following is a report of just one day in Viet Nam. This day will forever live in the souls of those who survived the events of this
day! NEVER FORGET!!!
CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THURSDAY, APRIL 16, 1970
25 Yanks Killed, 54 Hurt in Viet Action
SAIGON,
Viet Nam, April 16 [Thursday] (AP) – The United States command today reported 25 Americans killed and 54 wounded by
enemy action, one of the year’s highest one-day casualty tolls. Viet Cong gunners also fired rockets into Saigon for the second time in three nights.
In
the costliest incident, 14 Americans were killed and 32 wounded yesterday when a dud United States 105mm, artillery
shell, rigged as a Viet Cong booby trap, exploded. It triggered ammunition carried by the American troops, which inflicted
some of the casualties, a spokesman said.
The incident occurred near Duc Pho, 105 miles south of Da Nang.
A mortar attack and ground assault against a 1st. air cavalry
division artillery base, 23 miles northwest of Tay Ninh City and three miles from the Cambodian border, killed 8 Americans and wounded 20, the command reported. Enemy losses were
not known in the two-hour attack on the jungle artillery base.
Enemy troops attacked an element of the 101st. airborne division
17 miles southwest of Hue, killing 3 Americans and wounding two others. One North Vietnamese soldier was known dead.
Twenty-four enemy soldiers were reported killed in air attacks by cruising helicopter
gunships, 12 of them near the Cambodian border, 11 miles north of the 1st. air cavalry artillery base, and the
other 12 near Da Nang.
South Vietnamese units claimed 61 enemy soldiers slain and 4 captured in two
battles in the Mekong Delta.
Sources near Chau Doc, on the border in the western delta, reported that fighting
flared just north of the border inside and Viet Cong forces.
The sources said four Cambodian patrol boats on the Mekong river were involved in the fighting and two
of them were sunk as unidentified propeller-driven fighter bombers flew strafing attacks against the Viet Cong.
Viet Cong gunners hit Saigon with four 122mm rockets, which fell in separate parts of the city, injuring 5 persons. An apartment
building in the downtown section was damaged.
In other action, informed sources reported 2,000 South Vietnamese rangers, infantrymen,
and armored forces plunged a mile into Cambodia, teamed up with Cambodian soldiers, and smashed a North Vietnamese base camp.
It was the first reported instance of Cambodians joining South Vietnamese in
a large operation, although Cambodians recently acted as a blocking force for a South Vietnamese attack on the Viet Cong inside
Cambodia.
South Vietnamese headquarters claimed 179 enemy soldiers were killed and 550
huts and bunkers were destroyed but insisted that the battle was fought a half mile inside South Viet Nam. South Vietnamese
losses were given as 7 killed and 43 wounded.
(Article
courtesy of James Van Hoveln, member of Charlie Company 4th. Bn. 3rd. Inf. 11th. Lt. Inf.
Brgde. Americal division )
