Byline; Haiphong Bombing

I should like to report to you. Upon the. Air attacks on the petroleum facilities in North Vietnam. So you've worked that out this morning. 546 Navy an Air Force strike aircraft. They inflicted heavy damage on. Three North Vietnamese petroleum facilities the facilities located at high. I know I. Don't sign. Together they represented over 60 percent. Of North Vietnamese remaining oil storage capacity. The Navy aircraft. Are dissipating the strike operated from the carriers Ranger and Constellation. The attacks on the three targets were achieved with the loss of one aircraft. And F 1 0 5. Pilots report that while attacking a surface to air missile site. In the vicinity of Uno I. May get cracked or encountered. One may get 17 was probably destroyed as a result of this encounter. No

U.S. aircraft were lost in the air and gauging it. At high bond. After the attack heavy smoke rose to. An altitude of more than five miles. And eliminated pilot reports indicate. An estimated 80 percent destruction of the target area. At annoying. Pilots report heavy damage to the target. Fires were observed in all four sectors of the petroleum storage area. At those on. Heavy damage was also reported by the pilots. Both the Navy and the Air Force pilot said that anti-aircraft fire range from light to heavy it was heaviest in the vicinity of annoy. The strikes against the petroleum facilities. Were initiated to counter a mounting reliance by North Vietnam on the use of trucks. And powered junks. To facilitate the infiltration of men and equipment

from North Vietnam to South Vietnam. As a matter of fact enemy truck movement in South Vietnam. Has doubled during of course five months of 1966. Compared to the first five months of 1965. In addition the inventory of trucks in North Vietnam. Has grown very rapidly. And by the end of 1966 it's expected to be about double that. Of the end of 1965. Furthermore the daily tiny age of surprise moved overland from North Vietnam into South Vietnam. Has increased about 150 percent in the past year. And the infiltration of. Armored personnel. Has increased about one hundred twenty percent during the same period. Both of these. Changes has. Have led to greater reliance on the use of petroleum and petroleum products. A measure of the intent and I believe of the political decisions of the leaders of North Viet Nam. As

indicated by the fact that the North Vietnamese military units in South Vietnam. Have almost doubled. In the first five months of this year. Today there are approximately twice as many of those units as there were at the beginning of the year. And that increase was accomplished despite very heavy losses inflicted upon those units in combat in South Vietnam. And despite the failure of North Viet Nam to meet their infiltration objectives. The infiltration increases in both men and equipment. Has required a very sharp increase in petroleum imports. Since the first of this year the average monthly imports of petroleum into the north. Have increased 50 to 70 percent of the comparable period in 1965. Stocks on hand prior to the attack resume today represent about two to four months supply. The increased importance of petroleum to the enemy's military effort.

Is further attested. By its action to improve the routes of infiltration. Some of these routes are new. Some of bin white and. Some of them been upgraded for our weather use. Bypasses have been built. And bamboo canopies or trusses. Have been built over the jungle roads in many places in order to inhibit observation of them from the air. AS. A result of the greatly increased movement of men and supplied by truck and by water park junks. Has been a shift from a small arms guerilla type operation against South Vietnam. To equate by conventional military operation which involves major supplies major weapons and heavier equipment. These strikes are aimed at the heart of the petroleum system. The major storage facilities and the distribution apparatus. Together they're intended to achieve the following military objectives.

First to neutralize that high bond. The only existing North Vietnamese shore facility for offloading petroleum directly from tankers. That will poison our Vietnam to seek alternative. That's efficient offloading facilities. And it means slowing down their offloading process and probably substantially restricting it. I've gone through the Saudi attack this morning. It's estimated to handle 95 percent. Of all imports of petroleum into North Vietnam. Secondly we expect to have destroyed the contents. Of the major central storage facility. Those facilities outside of when I. Contain about 20 percent of the total storage capacity of the country and those outside of 5 on over 40 percent. Together the three targets contained over 60 percent of the remaining storage capacity.

Certainly the strikes are expected to cripple the major transcription facilities were to are located in association with the. Petroleum storage dump. Outside of Uno I. Hardly they will require North Vietnam to devote men materiel time and effort. To establish new storage and new distribution facilities. And fitly dealt for say. A high competition for the reduced petroleum supplies and this will require more stringent rationing and will impose a lowered ceiling. On the number of men that could be supported for aggression in South Vietnam. I want to emphasize that every effort was made. To prevent harm to civilians. And to avoid destruction of nonmilitary facilities. This was possible because the two larger facilities. One located two miles from my 5. And 3 miles from and I.

Were separated from built up areas. The smaller target was located 1 1/2 miles from those signs. At an ID patrolling facilities are separated from the city proper by the Red River. All Navy an Air Force pilot participating in the strike. Were specially briefed. By their commanding officers on the importance of avoiding. Civilian in built up areas. They were thoroughly familiarize with the targets and with the surrounding terrain. The strikes were carried out in good visibility. From any clear visual identification of the targets and of the surrounding terrain. And summary then. The decision to strike the target. Was made to respect and to make it more costly. The enemy infiltration average. We believe that's essential to help safeguard the freedom of South Viet Nam. And to save the lives of those out the enemies Americans Australians. And the islanders and Koreans.

Were fighting to ensure that freedom. And I'd be very happy to take your question to them again. And. Who is the you. Know that you ever do saw this occurred in daylight they had the opportunity to be aware of it. There are no civilians as I said in the area of the target for those who listen. There were no ships unloading at the high Fung at the time of attack. On this graphic we have shown the location of the petroleum storage facilities. In the high funk area as you can see there separated from the build up areas of the city by 2 to 3 miles. There is. A pier extending into the river and from the end of the pair. A

floating pipeline that extends still further for the offloading a ship there were no ships at the pier or the offloading facility at the time of the attack. The lesson is why did we wait until now to make this attack. I want to emphasize what I've told you before our policy is to attack in North Vietnam only military targets. And only targets of importance to the support of North Vietnamese aggression in South Vietnam. These targets were becoming increasingly important. In the early parts of this year and have been increasingly and continue to become increasingly important recent days. For example here is a. Picture taken on the 14th of July. 14th of June and this area. On this map I have shown a lines of infiltration running

south through North Vietnam into Laos and out of Laos into south it now. This is an eye. It was that approximately does point that this picture was taken at night on the 14th of July there are 51 trucks in a single convoy. I sure I don't need to emphasize the. Great reliance on truck movement. A very substantial volume of that movement in recent days and the importance therefore the growing importance of petroleum to the infiltration of men and equipment from the north to the south. Out Ed.. The. Decision to strike now is influenced by the fact that in recent weeks. The North Vietnamese have been carrying on a program to disperse and redistribute. Their petroleum storage facilities. And in the ensuing seven photographs I'll show you some evidence of that. This particular photograph. Was taken on the

3rd of March and the same site is shown on the 3rd of April on the 3rd of March you see them beginning to dig excavations in which they planned to put a. Large storage tank you can see here by the 3rd of April they had completed the excavation. And placed the tank. And all but covering them over and later they would plan to camouflage those. They have done so in some instances. And this photo taken on the 8th of May we see 4000 petroleum drop. In placed under the tree camouflaged by the trees. And a large number of tanks. Covered by the foliage. Awaiting installation in these excavations which are are just being completed. This is typical of. The work they are doing to redistribute their petroleum previously concentrated annoyance into other areas of the country. In this photograph.

Taken on the 3rd of June they have distributed about fifteen hundred drums along the edge of this. River again in evidence the efforts they're making to redistribute their petroleum supplies. This photograph taken on the 8th of June about two and a half weeks ago we see just fronts a lot of. Petroleum drums in these rail cars. And dispersal of large tanks for petroleum. These tanks to be placed in excavation. The cars are in the rail yards of annoy. Being loaded to distribute the petroleum supplies and facilities for storage away from an eye. In the outer parts of the their country. This photograph taken on the 11th of June shows a rice field. Outside of hive. In which large excavations are. Being dug. And into those they plan to place these

large tanks. No doubt planning to draw down the highly vulnerable. Supplies in the hype on the storage facility that we struck this morning and redistribute those supplies into these then to be camouflaged and presumably hidden storage facilities. And this photo taken. But a week ago on the 21st of June. We see again outside of life on another story Gerri that is being constructed. The tanks appearing on the ground the excavation being dug here into which those tanks will be put and after which they will be buried. I think you can understand that with the increasing importance to us. Of this target system. And importance based upon the increasing use of trucks and motorized junks. As a means of transporting men and equipment from north to south. And with what I would call a perishable nature of the system resulting from their

plans and it became desirable to attack it now much more desirable to attack and now than it had been earlier one of our thinking statements from bombing Iran on a phone how do you. It was one of them. I can't speculate on. On the inside intentions or Red China. I can only tell you that it has been our policy to follow a program of military restraint. So why would I attack the military target. I will continue to follow that policy. I want to emphasize what I said before. Our object is in South Vietnam are limited. Our objectives are not. To destroy the communist government of North Vietnam. They are not to. Destroy or damage the people of North Vietnam. They're not even to. Provide a basis on which that they may. Become a military ally of the way. They're not even designed to. Develop a set of permanent military bases and.

They're limited solely. To permitting the thousand people. Who have an opportunity to shape their own destiny and select and choose think political and economic institutions under which they propose to live. And I do want to make one one last comment however. And that involves. Our emphasis on. Movement to the peace table. I can't overemphasize to you. The importance that our government places. On. Terminating. Successfully the operations in the south. And our willingness to engage in unconditional discussion. To that end. I want to make a plan to declare. That the attacks of this morning. Are a part of our policy of exercising military restraint.

In the direction of our tact in North Vietnam against military targets. And in particular which is the foundation of the. Campaign of aggression which the North is carrying out again. Like what. No. That again would be hearing speculation I don't want to do a fact right on it I don't want to repeat what I said before our brain dead. And decades of our bombing campaign in the northern three fold. We hoped it would when it was initiated a year ago or a year and a half ago act to raise the morale of the doubt the many forces which are under very heavy. Attack by the Vietcong in the north and these at the time. I think we convert that object. Secondly. The program was designed to.

Reduce the R and reduce the level of infiltration or substantially increase the cost of infiltration of men and equipment from the north of the South. No question but what we substantially increased the cost we have to make that today than I think it may have been forced to divert over 200000 people. From their customary for so to the repair of the lines of communication associated with the infiltration route and darkly and objective of the bombing program was to show the North. That as long as they continue their attempts to subvert. And it's driving. Political Institutions of the South they would pay a price not only in the South but in the north as well. Those were the objective as they continue to be the objectives of arming program like it will. Be.