40 YEARS AGO 

Vietnam: Protest Against US Reinforcements

MORE than ten thousand US troops landed in South Vietnam within a little over a month after US President Johnson announced in his July 28 statement the decision to send 50,000 more troops there. This increased the total number of US troops now in South Vietnam to more than 90,000.

The Liaison Mission of the High Command of the Vietnam People’s Army on September 8, 1965, protested to the International Commission in Vietnam against this act of the US.

This act of US imperialism was a gross encroachment on the independence and sovereignty of Vietnam and trampled on the 1954 Geneva Agreement on Vietnam.

About 1,800 flags of the South Vietnam National Front for Liberation and thousands of anti-US slogans appeared in the streets and residential quarters of the labouring people of Saigon in the late July and August, according to the South Vietnam Liberation Press Agency.  

In the same period, 30,000 leaflets were distributed. They called on the people of Saigon to step up their struggle to overthrow the puppet authorities and drive the US aggressors out of South Vietnam.

Hundreds of thousands of residents in the city and its outskirts took part in meetings, denouncing the US aggressors and their henchmen.

The South Vietnam guerrillas intensified their attacks on the US aggressors and puppet troops in August inflicting heavy casualties on them, the South Vietnam Liberation Press Agency reported.

On August 9 and 10, the guerrillas in Nghia-Ky, Nghia Thuan and Nghia Trang villages, Quang Ngai province, repulsed an enemy raid. They killed or wounded 18 puppet troops.

The guerrillas in Nghia Hoa village on August 12 annihilated 92 puppet troops during a counter-raid.

On August 27, the guerrillas in Bang Long village, My Tho province, beat back four consecutive attacks mounted by five battalions of enemy troops supported by 34 M-113 amphibious cars, landing boats, 21 aircraft and ten cannons. According to preliminary reports, over 50 enemy troops were killed.

The guerrillas in Tap Binh district, Gia Dinh province, on the night of August 18 launched a surprise attack on the puppet marines in Vinh Loc “strategic hamlet.” Twenty-four puppet troops were killed or wounded and a number of weapons were captured.

More than 150 enemy troops including five Americans were wiped out by the guerrillas in Tan An, Cholon province, in an operation from August 5 to 21. The guerrillas in Hiep Hoa village destroyed one M-113 amphibious car and downed a helicopter with mines and rifles.

Several hundred Finish youth demonstrated on September 6, 1965, in front of the US embassy in Helsinki in protest against US aggression in Vietnam.

The demonstrators carried posters reading: “Americans! Get out of Vietnam!” “Americans, Leave Vietnam alone!”

“US military planes are using bases throughout Japan for missions to Vietnam via Okinawa and the Okinawa-based US marines, paratroopers and Special Forces are also being sent to Vietnam, said an article in the October issue of the magazine Sekai.

Okinawa, under the Japan-US Security Treaty, is being used to sustain the Vietnamese war.

This policy “clearly formulated by the Sato Cabinet” “completely conforms with the US policy in the Far East” but “runs counter to the Japanese people’s movement for the return of Okinawa.”

Okinawa has become a US base for local wars in Asia, for the war in Vietnam. This means that US military planes could fly from any place in the Far East to the bases in Japan proper and from there engage in war operations. This is tantamount to making all bases in Japan available to the US forces.

Seventeen US piratical planes were shot down and several others damaged by the armed units and people in Thanh Hoa, Nghe An, Ha Tay and Quang Binh provinces on September 10 and 11, 1965.

The new victories on these two days of September brought the total of US aircraft downed in North Vietnam since August 5 of last year to 544.

--- People’s Democracy, September 26, 1965