Word: cambodians
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...hour-long NSC meeting that morning, Ford ordered F-4 Phantoms, A-7 Corsair light-attack planes and F-111 fighter-bombers from Utapao to try to keep any Cambodian boats from moving between Koh Tang and the mainland. When the gunboats moved, the U.S. planes circling overhead fired 20-mm. machine-gun bullets into the water off their bows. At one point, the Cambodians?their force now grown to eight gunboats?fired back with antiaircraft machine guns and small arms. One bullet struck a reconnaissance plane's vertical stabilizer, but the craft made it safely back to Utapao...
Three hours later, the U.S. planes reported that the gunboats were headed toward the mainland. Following Ford's instructions, the warplanes first fired across the boats' bows. When that failed to stop the Cambodian craft, the planes attacked with rockets and machine-gun fire, sinking five boats and hitting two others. A U.S. helicopter dipped down to pick up Cambodian survivors, but lifted off without any after it came under Cambodian fire. On Ford's orders, the eighth gunboat was allowed to proceed toward Kompong Som because a pilot reported seeing eight or nine men with "Caucasian faces" on deck...
...operation, as well as bomb selected targets on the Cambodian mainland...
Back at the Pentagon, events were unfolding that would later create the biggest controversy of the rescue operation. At 7:07 p.m. Washington time, the Cambodian radio broadcast that the government was prepared to release the ship, but made no mention of the crew. Monitored in Bangkok, the message was relayed at 8:16 p.m. to Washington, where the President was donning black tie in preparation for a working dinner for The Netherlands' Prime Minister Uyl. After reading the text of the Cambodian broadcast, Ford told Kissinger to tell Phnom-Penh in a radio broadcast, to be transmitted internationally, that...
...while the President and his guests were sipping after-dinner drinks in the Red Room, sailors aboard the Wilson observed the approach of a Thai fishing boat, which had been seized by the Cambodians in March. Its passengers, including the Mayaguez's crew, were frantically waving white handkerchiefs. Minutes later, the U.S. planes began bombing Ream Airfield, destroying 17 Cambodian aircraft, mostly U.S.-built T-28 trainers that Cambodia's deposed Lon Nol government had got from the U.S. In a second raid about an hour later, U.S. jets bombed and destroyed an oil depot near Kompong...