SAIGON -- U.S. jets, dodging a flurry of Soviet-built surface-to-air missiles and heavy conventional antiaircraft fire, pounded North Vietnam with one of the heaviest blows since bombing of the North resumed, a military spokesman announced Monday. Two American planes were shot down by groundfire.
Intensifications of the air war were reported as U.S. marines and South Vietnamese troops pressed a mop-up drive through a small valley 330 miles northeast of Saigon where they killed 1,100 North Vietnamese troops in a weekend battle that was one of the bitterest of the war.
MARINES PRAISED
Discussing the victory, on the first anniversary of the landing of marines in Vietnam, Marine Brig. Gen. Jonas Platt said it shows the present day U.S. fighting man "is just as good as his predecessors of the Second World War and Korea, if not better."
"There is no such thing as a soft American," Platt said. "I knew it before I got out here, and this proves it.
U.S. military spokesmen said U.S. Air Force and Navy pilots attacking North Vietnamese targets saw at least six SAM missiles during 71 strike missions they flew against the Communist North on Sunday in an around the-clock attack.
2 PLANES DOWN
A spokesman said none of the missiles hit their targets. But he reported that two American planes were shot down over the North by Communist ground-fire.
An Air Force F-105 Thunder-chief was shot down 45 miles south of Vinh, but the pilot ejected and was soon rescued by a helicopter. A Navy A-1H Skyi aider was downed while attacking a bridge 49 miles south east of Vinh. No parachute was sighted by other pilots and rescue operations were called off Sunday.
It was the second straight day that missiles were spotted and, for the second day, they reportedly missed all targets. Some came within a quarter of a mile, and one was close enough on course to require the pilot to take evasive action.
HUNDREDS OF TONS
In the 71 missions flown over North Vietnam, Air Force and Navy pilots dropped hundreds of tons of bombs on rail lines, heavy storage areas, communications links with Red China and routes by which North Vietnamese troops are said to infiltrate into the South.
An American spokesman also announced that American planes have dropped 4.7 million propaganda leaflets urging North Vietnamese to surrender if they go South to join the war.
The confirmed number of Communists killed in the fighting in the rice-bowl valley rose to 603 Monday, and the estimates of the total Communist dead reached 1,100. The estimated toll amounted to almost half the entire North Vietnamese regiment the 36th which numbered about 2,300 men before it was trapped and mauled by Allied troops.
Some of the dead were credited to the hundreds of strikes by planes that swooped in on tho 3-by-5-mile valley into which Allied troops poured after receiving intelligence reports that the full Hanoi Government regiment was headquartered in a village there.
COMMUNISTS FLEEING
Only a few rear-guard Communist stragglers sniped at the marines and Government troops that criss-crossed the valley Monday. Field commanders said that during the last two nights, Communists were fleeing in two and three westward through Allied lines.
The 5,000-man Operation Utah began early Friday. Gen. Platt, commander of Marine Task Force Delta, said the North Vietnamese troops may have chosen to fight the larger Allied force that moved in from the valley's ridges for two reasons: Unfamiliar with the area, the North Vietnamese had to wait for local Vietcong guerilla guides to lead them away, or they had to stretch out the battle to gain time for evacuating high-ranking Communist officers.
Once the remaining Communists did move out, they did it with speed, Platt said.
"We found communications equipment, weapons, documents and other things that they would have taken with them if they had time," he said.
Another big American operation, the 1st Cavalry's White Wing, ended Sunday after more than a month in which 1268 Communists were killed by American troops and 216 by South Koreans around Bong Son, 300 miles northeast of Saigon.
In addition, 570 Communists were captured, and 1700 persons rounded up as Communist suspects.
Allied losses were described as light in the operation.
