Word: koh
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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TUESDAY. At 2:25 a.m., Scowcroft awakened the President to tell him that the Cambodians were towing the Mayaguez toward the mainland. By morning, however, Ford learned that the Cambodians had anchored at Koh Tang, a 3-mi. by 2-mi. jungle islet about 34 miles off the port of Kompong Som (also known as Sihanoukville). That was encouraging news to Ford; rescue would be more difficult if the crew had been taken to the mainland...
...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...
...head off trouble with the neighboring Cambodians by refusing the U.S. permission to launch attacks from Thailand. Prime Minister Kukrit Pramoj of Thailand ordered the Marines to leave by Thursday morning or face unspecified "serious and damaging" circumstances. Meanwhile, the Holt and the Wilson had closed in on Koh Tang; the Coral Sea was still more than one day's steaming away, but its fighters would soon be within striking range...
Shortly before 4 p.m., Ford held a crucial NSC meeting that lasted for nearly two hours. At 4:45, the President issued the final orders to begin the rescue operation at Koh Tang and to board the Mayaguez. Two hours later, Ford entered the Cabinet Room to brief congressional leaders on the crisis and the rescue attempt?and they gave him a standing ovation...
...explained this second air attack on unused oil refineries as an effort to "absorb their [Cambodian forces'] energies in other things than attempting to intervene with our disengagement efforts." Kissinger was probably concerned about protecting the lives of Marines he and Ford had already committed on the island of Koh Tang, but the second bombing seemed only a useless attack on Cambodian resources to emphasize this point to the American people, and to emphasize to the world that the United States will continue to recklessly bomb other cities in other lands--just as it did in North Vietnam--to protect...