Word: 52s
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Whether constitutionally legitimate or not, U.S. bombing was unquestionably helpful in keeping the shaky government of Marshal Lon Nol alive. Night after night, the windows of Phnom-Penh rattled as B-52s and F-111s dropped their loads a few miles away. For the moment, following their recent victories, the Khmer insurgents seemed to have halted their attack on the capital-partly because of the U.S. bombing but also to give their overextended supply lines a chance to catch up with them...
...some nights, Phnom-Penh residents were kept awake until dawn by the rumble of high-flying B-52s and the boom of F-111s dropping their bombs only four or five miles distant from the city. Communist gunners fired at least ten rockets at the capital's only airport, killing 19 people and wounding 62, but the airport remained open...
...There were hints that B-52s-which last week hit Laotian targets for the first time since late February -mightsoon be in action over South Viet Nam once again. For the U.S., that would be an exceedingly risky tactic; in addition to troops and materiel, the Communists have moved SAM-2 missiles down the Ho Chi Minh Trail into territory they control...
...resumption of U.S. bombing in Laos was described by Defense Secretary Elliot Richardson as a response to "a flagrant violation" of the Laotian cease-fire by the Communists. Washington officials said that the B-52s went into action after a North Vietnamese regiment led an attack on the Tha Vieng area in the Plain of Jars. U.S. embassy sources in Saigon, however, dismissed the attack as a minor action-"perhaps a squabble over rice." After two days the raids halted, which suggested that the B-52s were used more to dramatize U.S. dismay over the deteriorating situation in Indochina...
Refugees swarming into the capital from target areas report dozens of villages, both east and southeast of Phnom Pehn, have been destroyed and as much as half their populations killed or maimed in the current bombing raids by B-52s and F-111 tactical fighter-bombers...