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U.S. Troop StrengthDrops Below 300,000In South VietnamBy GEORG ESPER Associated Press WriterSAIGON (AP) — American troop strength in South Vietnam has dropped below 300,000 for the first time in more than 4'4s years, the U.S. Command announced today, and a field commander disclosed new tactics to compensate for the further cutback of American forces.A weekly summary said a total of 296,500 American servicemen were in Vietnam last Thursday, a drop of 5,400 during the week. The total included 223,100 Army, 40,500 Air Force, 18,000 Marines, 14,800 Navy and 100 Coast Guard.This was the smallest force since Aug 13, 1966, when a total of 296,000 American troops were in the country. U.S. strength reached a maximum of 543,500 in April 1969.President Nixon has ordered the American force reduced to 284,000 by the end of this month, and he announced last week that another 100,000 would be withdrawn by Dec. 1.Lt. Gen. Michael S. Davison, commander of the U.S. 2nd Field Force, said a total of about 7,500 U.S. combat troopswill remain after May 1 in his area, Saigon and the 11 surrounding provinces.These troops, he said, “will form a highly mobile and powerful reaction force capable of moving anywhere, anytime at a moement’s notice to counter any enemy threat and supplement our Vietnamese allies.“We will continue to provide training, logistical and,air mobile support to the Vietnamese,” he added.Meanwhile, North Vietnamese troops shot down an American helicopter 90 miles south of Da Nang Sunday, then ambushed an infantry force trying to reach the survivors. The U.S. Command said 11 Americans were killed and eight were wounded.Enemy losses were not known.“The helicopter must have been on a visual reconnaissance mission, took ground fire and went down,” said a U.S. spokesman.“Ground troops were sent in on a search-and-rescue mission and the enemy apparently headed the same way for the helicopter.”Perhaps 100 to 150 men from the 11th Brigade of the Amer-ical Division were in the rescue force.The North Vietnamese lying in the jungled hills ripped into the lead column with rocket grenades and small arms fire. U.S. helicopter gunships, fighter-bombers and artillery broke up the attack.The U.S. Command said one helicopter crewman was killed and two others were wounded in the crash, while 10 American infantrymen were killed and six were wounded in the ambush.Three other U.S. aircraft were shot down Sunday whilesupporting South Vietnamese forces. One American was killed and one was wounded in three crashes. The losses raised to 7,71t the number of U.S. aircraft reported lost in the war.One helicopter and an FqOO jet fighter-bomber were shot down near Fire Base 6, the South Vietnamese base in the central highlands that has been under siege for nearly two weeks.Another helicopter was shot down in eastern Cambodia. It was supporting a South Vietnamese task force that claimed200 North Vietnamese troops killed Sunday with the help of U.S. air strikes in a clash with a regimental-sized enemy force. The South Vietnamese said their only casualties were six wounded, dincating that most of the enemy casualties were due to air and artillery action and that the enemy casualty figure was a highly questionable estimate.A communique said the South Vietnamese troops also found 18 antiaircraft machine guns and two 82mm mortars which had been destroyed on the battlefield near Highway 7, about 15 miles from the Vietnamese border.U.S. and South Vietnamese patrol boats sank a 160-foot North Vietnamese trawler, ap-, parently loaded with ammunition, in a sea battle early today off the Ca Mau peninsula 175 miles southwest of Saigon.
Newspaper Details
Wellsville Daily Reporter
Wellsville, New York, US
Mon, Apr 12, 1971
Page 5
Full Page
Clipped by
Papadakis A.
NA, 06 Mar 2019
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