PAGE TEN THE MICHIGAN DAILY THURSDAY, DECEMBER 7. 196 PAGE TEN TIlE MICHIGAN DAILY THURSDAY, DECEMBER 7,1967 Flamethrowers Scorch Viet Village Seniors ... the next time you're in Chicago... By PETER ARNETT Associated Press Staff Writer DAKSON, Vietnam -The sim- ple 'Montagnards of Dakson had only recently learned how to use matches, and, flame throwers were beyond their imagination. Then, in one horrifying hour. these weapons of fire wrecked death and destruction amongst them. "They threw fire at us," was how the survivors described the attack one of the most vicious of the war against Vietnam's civilian population. ' Sixty thatched roof houses, built in four neat rows late last year, were razed just after last Monday midnight. The ashes blew across carcasses of water buffalo slaughtered near the ham- let's bamboo fence. A day later rows of bodies of women and children were lying under the one shady tree on the hill. On the lid of a basket were the bodies of a tiny brother and sister, stlil clinging to each other. Like all the other bodies at Dak- son, they were blistered by the flame throwers. By late Wednesday, 63 bodies had been dragged from the bunk- ers where the population hid when the Viet Cong forces first launch- ed their attack. More were ex- pected to be dug up. At least 47 were wounded, 33 burned seriously. Four hundred villagers were missing, presumab- ly driven into the jungled coun- tryside by the Communists. Scores more of the 2,008 popu- lation of Dakson are probably in- jured. Some were dragging them- selves into the provincial hospital at Song Be yesterday. The people are from the Steng tribe, a 20,000 strong Montagnard group that comprises nearly half the population of Phuoc Long Province. The Saigon government late in 1966 won several thousand Stengs to its side and these people settled in "New Life" hamlets around Song Be, the province capital that sits lonely and vulnerable in the Vietnamese piedmont 80 miles northeast of Saigon. "The Stengs are pawns in this war," one American refugee of- ficer commented. The Viet Cong has made it clear this year that it wanted them all back under Communist control. Emissaries visited the new hamlets, warning inhabitants that their houses would be burned un- less the Montagnards returned to the jungles. Dakson was singled out as an example. This week's attack was probab- ly by more than one battalion, American officers say. The de- fense force of 120 men retreated to the southern edge of the ham- let. According to survivors the Viet Cong shouted through bull horns: "Evacuate your houses, you must return with us. Evacuate your houses." Some of the people fled in the darkness. Others cowered in the flimsy bamboo houses. Many crawled into the deep bunkers dug into the houses' earthen floors. The Viet Cong moved with pre- cision, according to one of the wounded survivors, a man named Duot. He heard them shouting in his language for him to get out and leave, but he was too fright- ened to move. He saw a shadow in his door- way, then a jet of flame shot out, searing his back and shoulders. As his house began to burn he crawled out. All around him, he said, men were running and "flames were shooting in the air." Americans at Song Be across the valley said the hamlet seemed to be ablaze in minutes. Some of the dead were charred in the houses. Most appeared to have died as the jets of the flame throwers shot into the tiny houses and into the openings of the bunkers, asphyxiating those not killed in the thrust of flame. The Communists made little attempt to chase the defense force that had retreated to the south. Instead they melted back into the jungle. The wounded began dragging themselves into Song Be within a few hours. They crawled or were carried down the valley and across the river. Nurse Linda Mudge, from Mans- field, Pa., said: "I have never seen people so filthy. They had been crawling around in the mud all night. Their wounds were packed in mud." Dr. Herbert Rosenbleeth, from Flemington, N.J., added: "I pick- ed up a little girl to move her from a litter to a bed. Her flesh came away in my hands. She was dead." Dr. Henry Wirts, from York, Pa., another American surgeon at the hospital, said: "It was awful. Even a big U.S. hospital would have been taxed to the limit to treat the 33 serious burn patients that came in here." The doctors ran out of petro- leum jelly and intravenous fluids, and fresh supplies were flown from Saigon. A boy named Dieu Do, age 3, his head, chest and arms band- aged, clung to his sister. His mother lay back in the hospital bed with her forearms bandaged. "We have to rebuild Dakson and get the people back in there," said province chief Huy. "It is important that we show the Viet Cong that the people will not be driven out. Right now the Mon- tagnards are a little frightened. But they want to go back and build." He named several other "New Life" hamelts in the region. "If Dakson is not rebuilt, then the people in these hamlets will de- cide that we cannot help them. They might return to the Com- munists. We would lose them." Dakson and the other hamlets, he said, need "more barbed wire. mor-e guns." But at the ravaged community yesterday one man was talking about losing 12 of his 13 children. An old woman flailed at herself and wailed over the body of a son.: An old man picked at the rub- bish of his burned house. 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