ENEMY CAPTURES A HIGHLANDS POST
SAIGON, South Vietnam, Friday, Nov. 3—Tank‐led North Vietnamese troops overran another border camp in the Central Highlands yesterday as both Communist and South Vietnamese forces fought to expand their territorial control before a cease‐fire.
Ducco, 12 miles from the Cambodian border and 27 miles southwest of Pleiku, reportedly fell before dawn despite roundthe‐clock efforts by United States and South Vietnamese gunships and bombers to turn back the enemy attacks. Ducco was one of a series of frontier base camps set up to counter enemy infiltration.
The Saigon command reported that enemy forces made 142 attacks throughout South Vietnam in the 24 hours ended at dawn. Spokesmen said it was the largest number recorded in any 24‐hour period in several years, but many of them were small‐scale rocket and mortar barrages.
The Hanoi radio said the United States delay in signing the draft peace settlement had left “no other choice than to step up the fight on all fronts.” In the battle for Ducco, at least three enemy tanks were reported knocked out by allied air attacks.
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Government rangers defending the base abandoned it after being pounded by artillery and missiles and assaulted on three sides on the ground. Scores of defenders reportedly broke out to the relative safety of a jungle plateau 500 yards away where, according to reports from the field, they joined other Government troops.
Air strikes ‘on Communist troops in the area continued through the day, it was reported, to prepare for a Government counterattack.
3 Camps Overrun
Ducco was the third border camp to be overrun in the Central Highlands in less than month. Benhet and Dakseang fell in October.
In other action yesterday, North Vietnamese troops were reported to have penetrated a hamlet less than four miles outside Pleiku. Reports from the field said Government troops retook the hamlet, known as Pleiblang 3, yesterday morning, killing four enemy soldiers and capturing a number of documents.
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Officers in Pleiku said the incident indicated that units of the North Vietnamese main forces were breaking into small groups and trying to penetrate as many areas as possible in preparation for a cease‐fire. Similar reports came from Danang, headquarters for the country's northern military region.
Reporting on the fighting near Saigon, a South Vietnamese military spokesman said that Communist troops had been driven out of four hamlets they had seized in the area and that all major highways in the captal region were open.
A communiqué said the reoccupied hamlets ranged from 12 miles northwest of Saigon to 20 miles east of the capital
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