GO DEN, South Vietnam, April 9—Communist guerrillas have stepped up their aggressive activities in the northern region of the vital Mekong Delta in the last two days.
About 300 Vietcong rebels struck from ambush this afternoon against about the same number of South Vietnamese soldiers who were convoying supplies to an outpost in Kien Hoa Province, 50 miles southwest of Saigon.
The ambush came less than 36 hours after two companies of guerrillas raided a Government militia school in this village, 15 miles southwest of Saigon.
The rebels inflicted 91 casualties on students and faculty of the center. They took 115 of the school's weapons with them when they formed into orderly ranks in the yard and marched off into the predawn darkness.
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Raid Illustrates Strength
Observers said that the boldness of the attack on the Government post, situated only 100 yards off the main highway south from Saigon, and the audacity of the ceremonial withdrawal illustrated the relative freedom of operation the Communists have in most of the densely populated rice bowl from Saigon south to the Bassac River.
The guerrillas' control of the local population gives them advantages in the gathering of information and in troop concealment. These advantages negate to a large extent the benefits the Government troops derive from United States‐supplied communications and transportation equipment.
The boldness and daring shown by the Vietcong in the delta region was said to have more than counteracted the psychological gain the Government won with its destruction yesterday of a Communist base near the Laotian border.
The destruction of the militia school in Go Den is expected to have an impact far greater than an attack in some out‐of‐way place would have. Go Den is on one of the most heavily traveled highways in South Vietnam and its police checkpoint, protected by thick walls and barbed wire, was familiar to thousands of people who passed through here each day in buses, automobiles and animal‐drawn wagons.
The checkpoint no longer exists. The attackers demolished it with explosive charges.
The training center was so well protected by a thick mud wall, a moat and a double barricade of barbed wire that military men wondered how it could have been seized by only two companies of guerrillas.
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The officers said that almost any sort of determined defense, provided there had been even a few moments' warning, would have repulsed the Vietcong forces.
Survivors indicated that the first they knew of the attack was when rifles appeared over the mud wall and opened fire about 3:30 A.M.
Military sources here said that only treason or gross dereliction of duty could have enabled the guerrillas to . get through the barbed wire and across the moat without warning.
At the time of the attack, the school, known as the Phuoc Loi Self‐Defense Corps Training Center, was occupied by 30 instructors and guards, 66 students and a handful of civilians.
The official Government accounting of casualties listed 28 dead, 36 wounded and 27 missing. Two of the dead, and two of the wounded were civilians.
According to the South Vietnamese Government, the Vietcong raiders took three automatic rifles, 11 submachine guns, 52 carbines, 14 rifles, 15 shotguns, 15 pistols and five flare funs.
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