European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - September 25, 1967, Darmstadt, Hesse                              Page 8 seals fish for trouble in Vietnam by Thomas Cheatham Saigon up Navy seals Are America s guerrillas in Vietnam. We go looking for trouble said it. Jack Macione a 29 year old Seal commander from Norfolk a. Anything the Viet Cong Cando the seals say they can do it better. The seals named for their sea air land capabilities until recently had been the Navy secret. However the shroud of secrecy around their operations has not been completely blow away. We do some things i can Teven Tell you about. Clandestine stuff. What s every Day with us is Silver Star material for others Macio Esaid. Our specially is sneaking around the Jungle gathering intelligence people and equip ment Macione said. Of the three categories gathering people is most important. Take them alive that s of real value Macione said. Killing the does us no Good. Anytime we make a hit we re there to take them  but once we re seen we re compromised. Our primary Mission ceases and we turn tothe secondary Mission killing Viet Cong. We re a cover organization hit and run. We Don t usually stand and  Seal specialities include demolition and reconnaissance work. The stars and stripes monday september 25, 1967 a whistling Jet Bird "tweedy9 bares her Batons first strike three a37 counter insurgency aircraft of det. 1, 3rd tactical Bien Hoa Vietnam up to its Leet of screaming supersonic eagles the . Air Force has added a whistling Little Jet Bird called Tweedy the a37. Tweedy is the baby in the . S Power Ful air strike Force in Vietnam Small and simple slow and agile and most important inexpensive $250,000. It is easy to maintain. It is accurate with a  an Eye toward economizing and improving its bombing efficiency in South Vietnam the air Force brought 25 a37s Here in Early August to test in  May be the air Force s answer to ground commanders complaint about the accuracy of the big fast jets in close support of troops. Slower jets that can loiter Over a target Are More desirable for the men on the  pilots who nicknamed Tweedy say she goes slow enough so they can take careful can float Over the target for maximum bombing efficiency and is agile enough so that three a37s can keep a target almost constantly under  plane is aimed at improving the Cost performance relationship and one of the big factors in that is accuracy says col. Heath Bottomly commander of the fighter Wing lift off at Bien Hoa airbase in route to the unit s first combat task Force testing  the current a37s Are actually 13-year-old t37 Jet trainers converted into strike planes. They stand less than six feet Tallat the cockpit and whistle instead of Roar Down the runway. Top Speed is not much Over 400 Miles per hour with a 25,000 foot ceiling. Compared with her stablemates the f4,f100 and f105"Tweedy" is More econom ical and in most cases More accurate i South Vietnam. She would be no match for surface to air missiles Over North Viet Nam however. The a37 Cost of $250,000 is one tenth the Price of the plane s bigger Brothers and it needs Only eight hours of ground maintenance for each hour in the air com pared with 40-50 required by other air Craft. Tweedy can run on one of her two engines in flight to save fuel and is adapt Able to Small dirt airfields two features her bigger counterparts can t  agility and Maneule ability enable Tweedy to go lower on bomb runs for More accuracy. This plane has surprised us. It can carry Good sized Load As far and do As Good a base in Vietnam taking on stateside look Phan rang Vietnam Spe Cial the opening of five new base facilities at Phan rang airbase is just another step de signed to give the installation stateside appearance according to the base  Overall project is Only 70 per cent finished but already Inuse Are a new base Exchange enlisted dining Hall enlisted openness and base Chapel. Soon to be in use is a new headquarter building. The gain in morale and work ing conditions certainly offsets any additional costs we might have had said col. Lewis r. Riley base commander in an other year Well have the construction  pointed out that almost 5,000 people used the new Bathe first Day. The enlisted men s mess Drew an opening night crowd estimated at 2,500. Much of the construction was handled by air Force personnel and civilian vietnamese workers of the 35th civil engineering Sci and the 554th Ces. We make it As stateside Ashe can Riley said in reviewing what has been accomplished at Han rang and the reason is primarily for the morale of  strike. The plane is the latest addition tothe air Force Arsenal in Vietnam. Of Job As far As bombing accuracy is concerned As the More sophisticated sys tems says it. Col. Louis Weber com Mander of the Tweedy Squadron. Capt. A. D. Mcconnell a spotter Pilot who Marks targets for the entire family of jets says the a37 s accuracy has been better than any other plane i be controlled. In fact i be asked for them specifically when we need More  maj. Don Dalton a Tweedy Pilot says other planes he s flown were either too fast or too slow. This one s just right a step toward More accurate pinpoint bombing at the request of  say a Bird like Tweedy has been needed in Vietnam As Long time. The sky Raider a world War ii propellor Job was brought out of Mothballs to fulfil part of the need but it has been out of production for years there Are no  is now turning out new Tweedie at the rate of one every four  plane has not been without draw backs. It has no radar its superstructures not armoured and its payload and Range Are limited by its size. Although Tweedy is now just an Experiment pilots say she is Here to stay. Cav unit corrals cattle after air of losses fail Phan Tibet Vietnam Spe Cial All they had to do was round up 200 head of cattle an drive pm on into town. Should be no problem for a Bunch of cavalrymen. The soldiers had t brought along their hisses though and that made things a mite difficult. A platoon from the 1st air Cav div s co c 2nd in 7th Cav task Force Byrd and a South vietnamese company of the 3rd in 44th regiment were on Aone Day search and destroy sweep out of song Mao when while following the South vietnamese National Railroad mainline tracks they found themselves advancing Plesku streamlines its phone system Plesku Vietnam special All Telephone numbers at Plesku air base have been changed Asa result of a More streamlined 2,000 line capacity now being in stalled. About 32 Miles of new Tele phone lines Are being Laid throughout the base by members of the 485th ground electronics and engineering and installation Agency gee a to increase the base s capability from the former200-lines to 2,000 lines. The new Exchange will be operated an maintained by the 1878th communications so. Through what appeared to be grazing land. Then they noticed cattle Graz ing amid the tall Brush around them. The bewildered soldiers radioed for instructions. Two Bubble scout helicopters attached to the task Force and piloted by 1st it. Clifford. Thomas and to John d. Craig were dispatched to the scene and told to drive the cattle up the tracks to the nearby town of Xam Tuy Viet at the request of the town  Dove their tiny aircraft behind the cattle hoping to frighten them into moving the right Way. This worked All right for about 10 minutes Craig said. Then before we knew what was happening the Herd was breaking up and going in Ever direction. The Mere noise of the choppers was t having the  so Thomas machine gunner staff soil. Jerry Ballantyne and Craig s gunner spec. 4 Gai Shyrock fired a few bursts to the front of groups of scattering cattle to get them headed the right Way and into one  was t Long before they had them Back in one group the problem was the Herd was stampeding at full tilt towards the soldiers who had holed up to wait out the Roundup. As the thundering hooves approached the sky troopers an vietnamese huddled behind Bushes and Trees weapons atthe ready. But the two choppers Man aged to head pm off by firing bursts in front of the  split up again and headed for the Hills which were just Short distance away. The flying cowboys letting Loose a couple of shouts of Gid Dap you doggies and similar encouragements headed them off again and got most of themig hailing into town. Poisonous spiders new Cong weapon Saigon up the guerrillas Are using something new to guard their tunnels against prob ing american soldiers Poison Ous  Tunnel rats comb ing seven Vietcong tunnels about15 Miles Northwest of Saigon found nothing unusual in the first six tunnels. The tunnels were destroyed one by  when one of them went in to Check out the last of the tunnels for guerrillas he ran into the Tunnel s defenders seven poisonous spiders tied by string to the Tunnel s  was Only recently that american infantrymen ran into deadly cobra guarding another Vietcong Tunnel. Mark claimed by lift Crews in 1-Day Effort Saigon special two 19thair commando so Crews claim an All time one Day record forc123 provider Airlift in Vietnam by hauling a combined total of158.2 tons of combat troops and supplies. The Tan son Nhut air base Crews individually hauled 76.2 and 82 tons respectively to to the previous single Crew Mark of 63 tons for a 12-hour  is the first time two Crews have broken the 50-ton Mark on the same Day. The 50-ton Day is a goal sought by most Crews but less than a dozen have reached it in he last year. Lots of Effort after his Crew recorded their 82-ton Day capt. Robert , said it is the result of the hard work initiative ingenuity and skill of the Crews. In addition the aircraft must Bein top notch condition the weather Good and cargo Mustbe waiting at every  the Crews of Carney and  n. Tateishi had started a typical Day at 6 a.m., shuttling supplies from  to base. Both Crews were later As signed the task of shuttling vietnamese troops and supplies to assist  of the Republic of Vietnam troops involved in Amajor Battle outside of Quan Raqi. On the return trips they married spent ordnance casings and other reusable supplies