Page 155 - The Viet-Cong Tet_Offensive_1968

trarly in the rnorning of 5 May a counterattack was
ordered with thousands of governrnent troops trying to elirninate
Viet Cong pockets and prevent other cornrnunist units frorn entering
the city. A Ranger elernent was dispatched to the Binh Thoi area but
as it reached Phu Binh it carne under attack by an unknown enemy
force.
Since the enerny did his best to stick to populated areas
and since quite a few innocent civilians were in the battle Lor,e' an
all day fight ensued without the Rangers being able to dislodge the
intruders. It was in this area that atrasedy happened to four jour-
nalists who sirnply c ornrnitted the rnistake of trying to do their duties
properly.
It was about 0900 hours when a jeepload of foreign jour-
nalists traveling on Road 52 was stoPPed by the insurgents and rnur-
dered, Arnong those who lost their lives on that day were Ronald B'
Lararny and Bruce S. Pigott o{ Reuter s, Michael Y Birch of the
'
Austraiian Associated Press and John L. Cantwell of Tirne Magazine.
Another victim of Viet Cong atrocity was Count Hasso Von Kollenberg
of the Gerrnan Ernbassy, who also was killed on this front'
Just at dawn another government force including a
Marine elernent and sorne riot police was dispatched to the Thi Nghe
area with the task of prewenting enerny troops frorn spreading to
other sections of the suburb. Since rnost houses in this area are rnade
of bricks and concrete, the friendly troops tried to tighten the noose
whlle assaulting house by house' They soon found that their task could
not be cornpleted during the day. It was in this area that Brigadier
General Nguyen Ngoc Loan, Police Director General, was severely
wounded when he led his trooPs in a particularly bold attack'
The insurgents had less chance in towntown Saigon' The
few groups that succeeded in penetrating the area' rtere speedily
elirnlnatea. Most typical of this was a Viet Cong group that arrived
at De Tharn Street from the areas of Cau Kho, Rach Ban' and Ben
Chuong Duong. The De Tharn area is arnong the rnost populated in
Saigon. The enerny group included about ten rnen equipped with AK' 47
autornatic ri{les and grenades. They were engaged in arrned Propa-
ganda when police frorn the Second Precinct arrived on the scene'
i lon" gt.nu-de explosion threw the group into confusion, perrnitting
the polite to kill three of thern, including a woman cadre' take three
prisoners and capture two AK.4?ts and two Pistols'

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