TRUTH ABOUT BEN TRE
The February 16 issue of Time magazine included the following paragraph in a roundup of the situation in Vietnam:
"The problem likely to plague South Viet Nam the longest is the widespread destruction of its cities, its towns, its homes. It was the Viet Cong's decision to bring the war into the midst of the cities, and the initial damage was wrought by Communist guns and mortars. But the bulk of the actual destruction occurred during the allied counterattacks to oust the Viet Cong. For allied commanders, these posed a grim dilemma that was summed up bluntly -- and injudiciously -—by a U.S. major involved in the battle for Ben Tre. 'It became necessary to destroy the town to save it,' he said. The Viet Cong had nearly the whole town under their control. The ARVN defenders were pinned down in their barracks, the U.S. advisory compound was in danger of being overrun, and the Viet Cong were within 50 yards of the provincial tactical operations center. ‘They are our friends in there,' said one of the Americans ruefully. 'We waited until we had no choice.'"
Other journals also quoted the injudicious U.S. major. Often the quotation was given an inch or so of space with a small heading, like a feature item about the latest penguin count in Antarctica.
Even the New York Times, which
boasts that it provides "All the news
that's fit to print," merely mumbled: "In
towns such as Hue, Vinhlong, Bentre and
Mytho, appalling destruction was wrought
when encircled allied forces took the de-
cision to destroy the attacking Vietcong
forces by destroying the places they had
occupied."
The American press had available
details about what happened in these
towns but, through the operation of some
mysterious judicious consensus, decided
not to report them to the American people.
To get an idea of the truth, it was nec-
essary to rely on the press of other coun-
tries. As an example, we have translated
the following article, consisting in the
main of an Associated Press dispatch, as
it appeared in the Paris daily Le Monde
of February 9:
"Can-Tho, My-Tho, Chau-Doc, Ben-
Tre...So many towns of the Delta which
the Americans have bombed to drive out
the Vietcong, who occupied them in a few
hours, sometimes even in a few minutes.
As the reports come in, the list of civil-
ian victims and destruction gets longer.
At Ben-Tre, a small town of 35,000 inhab-
itants, the special AP correspondent,
Peter Arnett, estimated the number of
civilians killed at a minimum of 500.
According to the UPI, the population suf-
fered a thousand dead and 500 wounded.
‘It was necessary to destroy the town to
save it,' an American commander declared.
"Ben-Tre, February 8 (AP) -- At what point must you aim your heavy guns and use your fighter-bombers against your own town? An answer to that question was given in the first hours of the battle of Ben-Tre, up until then a peaceful town of 35,000 inhabitants in the Delta, 75 miles south of the capital.
"The destruction of this provincial capital took 50 hours. A Vietcong force of around 2,500 men had invaded the town and its suburbs. They were finally driven out. All the government forces held up well. But the civilian casualties were very high -- between 500 and 1,000. 'We will never know exactly,' an American officer declared. 'Many families were literally buried in the ruins.'
“Among the arms utilized by the American and government forces were 500pound bombs, napalm, rockets, various antipersonnel bombs and 105 and 155 millimeter mortars.
"The decision to employ these arms was not taken lightly, the American officers affirmed. 'They are our friends in there,' one of them said, indicating the American advisory compound. 'We waited until we had no choice.'
"The defenders of Ben-Tre stated that the Viet Cong attackers had occupied most of the town, had succeeded in containing the American and government forces and were preparing to dig them out, when it was decided to resort to these arms.
"'We had to plead our cause at headquarters in Can-Tho,' an American captain explained. 'They didn't like the idea. But they were finally convinced when we explained to them that it was either rockets and bombing or the end for us.'
"The bombers dumped napalm on two miles of the residential districts where the houses are thatched with straw. These
were reduced to cinders. Helicopters
carried out a number of raids on the
market place, at the center of the town,
destroying the walls and transforming
the roofs intd heaps of scrap iron. The
Ben-Tre radio station, occupied by the
NLF, which had begun broadcasting, was
destroyed by the American bombers.
"The poor neighborhoods in the
north and west of the town suffered from
gunfire. Artillery continued to fire on
the town from the American base at Dong-
Tam, a few miles to the north. 'The only
places left untouched were the headquar-
ters of the American advisers, the head-
quarters of the provincial chief and the
hospital. All the rest came under artil-
lery fire,' an officer said.
"Commander Chester Brown, who flew
over the town for several hours in a
small plane, directing the artillery fire,
declared:
"'T utilized the main street as a
base point during the night. The lights
had been left on in the streets. We de-
stroyed the radio station, and the heli-
copters' guns did a good job on the other
targets. The civilians are always hurt.
In general confusion of that kind, people
don't know where to hide. Some of the
arms we used were arms designed for zonal
attacks instead of specific targets. That
was how people got wounded.'
"The Americans stressed that the
use of heavy fire power was imposed by
the fact that half of the troops of the
two government battalions guarding the
town were off duty or on leave at the
time of the attack. The NLF succeeded in
taking over the town in a few hours. The
government defenders were nailed down in
their barracks. The Vietcong likewise
launched a violent assault against the
provincial tactical command center. The
Communists were within 50 yards when
massive fire power was resorted to. Ac-
cording to the government authorities,
the Vietcong losses totaled 451 dead.
About fifty government troops and twenty
Americans were killed."
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