This Month in Vietnam - February 1965

4th - McGeorge Bundy, American Special Assistant for National Security, arrives in Saigon for talks with US ambassador General Maxwell Taylor.

6th - Soviet premier Alexei Kosygin arrives in Hanoi. He pledges support for forces working towards the unification of Vietnam and condemns American policy.

7th - Viet Cong make combined attacks on US bases, the most effective of which are against Pleiku in the Central Highlands where eight Americans are killed and 126 wounded. Losses in material include 10 aircraft destroyed and 15 damaged.

7th - Retaliation for the Viet Cong attacks includes air strikes into North Vietnam.

13th - President Johnson decides to give the go-ahead for the sustained bombing campaign against North Vietnam - Operation Rolling Thunder.

19th - Beginning of a coup attempt in South Vietnam that ends with the removal of the head of state, General Khanh.

22nd - General William Westmoreland requests US Marines to protect the base at Da Nang.

26th - The first South Korean troops arrive in Vietnam.

PRESS COVERAGE

"I've gone far enough. I've had enough of this."

To the members of the National Security Council, seated around the coffin-shaped table in the Cabinet Room of the White House, the President of the U.S. said with quiet anger: "I've gone far enough. I've had enough of this." And so, in response to a murderous series of Communist attacks against U.S. military forces and installations in South Viet Nam, President Lyndon Johnson gave the orders that on three different days last week sent American and Vietnamese warplanes smashing north of the 17th parallel at Red supply dumps, communications systems and guerrilla staging areas.

Cover Article, Time Magazine, 19th February 1965

Jerseyan's Ordeal: 35 Hours in Rubble of Quinhon Billet

QUINHON - The roof fell in on Specialist 4 Arthur G. Abendschein at 8.05 pm on Wednesday as he frantically reloaded his carbine. Specialist Abendschein, a 30-year-old resident of Almonesson, NJ, south of Camden, had stood on a second floor balcony and had fired a magazine of bullets at a squad of Viet Cong attackers. For 35 hours he did not stand again.

Three explosive charges collapsed the four-storey barracks around him and 42 other soldiers. The specialist, known as the jokester of the 140th Maintenance Detachment, which works on the planes at Quinhon, had only "20 days to zero" - 20 days left before he was to go home.

He found himself flat on his back in a splintered cavern measuring about 6 feet by 2 by 2. Broken masonry was stacked for 15 feet above him and to a greater distance on each side. There was a three-inch gash in his head. For hours, no one knew he was caught in the wreckage. Trapped and maimed men nearer the rim were helped first. The cries of the wounded drowned out Specialist Abendschein's calls, but a voice contact was finally established.

Recuers started tunnelling for him yesterday at 3.30 pm. They were confident that he would be pulled out of the hole by 6 pm, but they soon struck trouble. A slight Hawaiian, Specialist 5 Pedreno Ebos, volunteered to burrow through the debris. He accidentally started a small landslide, which cascaded rubble on the entombed man's bare back. "Get the hell out of here and leave me," Specialist Abendschein called. "Don't get caught." But Specialist Ebos stayed.

The trapped man called out, "Send me down a hammer and chisel and I'll dig my own way out." The rescuers obliged, and he started picking at the concrete, swinging in short thrusts over his head. At one point, the specialist fell asleep. An officer dashed coffee in his face through the widening hole. Finally, two young mountain tribesmen from a Vietnamese Special Forces company guarding the wreckage came to the rescue. Peeling off their fatigues, they climbed into the tunnel at 5.30 am and began digging. They were Siu Alam and Ksor Gong, members from the Jerai tribe. They emerged with Specialist Abendschein at 7.40 am. The specialist smiled and did a dance. The New York Times

American-Piloted U.S. Jets in Viet Combat for 1st Time

SAIGON - The United States disclosed Wednesday that U.S. jets piloted by Americans have gone into combat action inside the Republic of Vietnam for the first time to give "maximum assistance" to the Vietnamese in the war against the communists.

A U.S. spokesman said twinjet B-57 bombers first went into action last week against communist Viet Cong forces in Phoue Tuy Province, about 40 miles southeast of Saigon.

The B-57s and American F-100 jet aircraft from two jet bomber bases in South Vietnam blasted the communists anew Wednesday to help rescue Vietnamese troops trapped by a Viet Cong offensive 240 miles north of Saigon. Stars and Stripes

Under Cover of Night

PLEIKU - It was 2 am on the morning of Feb. 7, only hours after Kosygin had assured a cheering crowd in Hanoi that Russia would "not remain indifferent" if "acts of war" were carried out against North Vietnam, that Sp/5 Jesse A. Pyle of Marina, Calif., noticed dark shadows moving near the perimeter wire 100 yards from the US advisers' barracks in a Vietnamese Army headquarters at Pleiku in Vietnam's central highlands. Pyle opened fire. It was the last act of his life. The shadows, materializing into Communist Viet Cong guerrillas, fatally wounded Pyle with their grenades. But his quick action had awakened the men located inside the compound. As a result, the Viet Cong were forced to set off their explosive charges which were improvised from beer cans wrapped in bamboo cord prematurely or not at all.

Four miles away at Camp Holloway, a US helicopter base, the Viet Cong had better luck. A handful of demolition experts, again penetrating an outer perimeter guarded by American sentries, audaciously attached demolition charges to helicopters parked on the 4,500-foot air strip. The moment the first charge exploded, mortar shells rained in from the outskirts of a "friendly" village. (To add to the irony, the mortars and shells were captured US equipment.) Newsweek