July 12, 1964 - Communist Viet Cong guerrillas (pictured) inflicted a staggering defeat on South Vietnamese Government troops in a two-day battle just ended, U.S. military sources reported today.


July 12, 1964 - Communist Viet Cong guerrillas (pictured) inflicted a staggering defeat on South Vietnamese Government troops in a two-day battle just ended, U.S. military sources reported today. 

The Viet Cong killed, wounded, or captured 200 South Vietnamese soldiers. During the fighting, the Communists ambushed and battered a major Government relief force sent to the rescue of the Vinh Cheo outpost, 120 miles southwest of Saigon.
It was the second major battle in Chuong Thien Province in which the Viet Cong demonstrated massive strength by assembling as many as three battalions in offensives that held captured ground for as long as two days.

A force of more than 1,000 Viet Cong guerrillas attacked this small Mekong Delta outpost — one of the Government’s last remaining footholds in Communist-dominated Chuong Thien Province — and all but destroyed the village of Vinh Cheo. 

The provincial chief, Lieut. Col. Ly Ba Pham, said today that the Communists also had seized more than 100 weapons from the Government troops.
Surveying the ruins of what had been a prosperous village adjoining the outpost, Col. Pham said bitterly: “The guerrilla war is over in my province.”

Government relief columns, reinforced after being beaten back and battered yesterday in a six-mile-long Viet Cong ambush, finally reached the outpost around noon today after a running battle with the guerrillas, who faded before their advance.

The relief troops found the village in ruins. The guerrillas had burned 42 houses and shops in the center of town. Virtually every house that remained standing was pock-marked by bullets.

U.S. advisers at the scene could testify to the deaths of only 10 Communist soldiers, whose bodies dangled from the barbed wire surrounding the mud-walled fort. 
Vietnamese military sources said the Viet Cong dead and wounded were carried away when the main Communist force broke contact last yesterday or early today.

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