honor" of the United States. The New York Herald Tribune (European edition) printed it under the headline: "Civilians, Too. Kill Them All, Charging Marine Shouts."]
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American Marines and Vietnamese troops launched their first regimentalesized joint operation today and claimed a toll of 25 dead -= including five civilians,
Marine artillery poured nearly 1,000 rounds into the area where helicopters disgorged the Marine infantry, ten miles south of the key U.S. airbase at Da Nang.
A U.S. military spokesman said Vietnamese troops accounted for 15 Viet Cong dead and the Marines killed nine and one fell before helicopter guns. In addition, he said, 80 Viet Cong suspects were rounded up.
Civilian casualties were few, A few Marines, who were fired at by snipers as they swept into Chan Son, showed little inclination to differentiate between civilians and enemy troops.
A Vietnamese speaking over loudspeakers: had warned the civilians to leave the village before the assault. But survivors said
later they feared to do so because of the possibility of air or artillery attack.
At the end of the village a woman lay gasping as blood poured from a wound in her side. Around her were clustered terrified ohil~ dren, wailing and alternately staring in fear at the Marines and. turning to clutch the dying woman. One child had a wound in the arm,
Fifty yards inside the village a Marine threw a grenade into a bunker used by Vietnamese villagers as an air-raid and artillery shelter. Moments later the shattered bodies of two children, one with half his head blown away, were pulled from the bunker and thrown on the ground,
The Marines burned down nous es from which they believed the :
Viet Cong had fired, A sergeant said they had orders to do S06
A Marine said several persons were burned seriously when one of the houses was touched off while its inhabitants were hiding in a bunker built. into its floor.
"Kill them, I don't want anyone moving," a Marine said as he moved through the Viet Cong-dominated village.
Not all the Marines approved of the actions of a few, who, one Marine said, had gone on a rampage. -Marines are under orders not to handle civilians roughly.
"It was a stupid thing to do, all for a couple of sniper rounds," said a senior Marine sergeant.
In one part of the village, some ten women and children sat tightly huddled together. One of the Marines grabbed one of the children to force him into a tunnel where it was suspected that Viet Cong might be hiding.
Vietnamese troops for a long time have been using villagers to draw fire from Communists hiding underground.
The Viet Cong like to use civilians as shields, and casual-~ ties among these noncombatants remain a sensitive issue for U.S. and Vietnamese forces seeking to win the loyalty of the people. The issue has been raised often in the past.
A veteran U.S. adviser once put the problem this way:
"This is a political war and it calls for discrimination in killing. The. best weapon for killing would be a knife, but I'm afraid we can't do it that way. The worst is an airplane, The next worst is artillery. Barring a knife, the best is the rifle -- you know who you're killing,".