SAIGON — When the communist guerrilla attack on Camp Holloway near Pleiku broke out Sunday morning, cartoonist Bill Mauldin was among the Americans who tumbled out of their bunks to escape the mortar fire.

Mauldin was visiting his son, Warrant Officer Bruce Maudlin, who is assistant adjutant of the 52d U.S. Army Aviation Bn.

Mauldin was sleeping in the same room as Col. John C. Hughes, the battalion commander.

"Hughes went out the front door to take care of his battalion, and I went out the back door to take care of myself," Mauldin said.

He ran outside in his shorts and saw some of the wounded men being carried to the infirmary. Mauldin said the thing that impressed him was the orderliness of the evacuation of the wounded despite the chaos of the Viet Cong mortar bombardment.

In the infirmary, Mauldin said, "blood was all over the place."

"There are a lot of reporters in Saigon," he said. "What a hell of a note that it had to he a cartoonist who was in Pleiku."

Mauldin was the only newsman in Pleiku when the attack was launched.