Word: lon
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...final moment, U.S. warplanes pummeled the area around Phnom-Penh, the Cambodian capital. It was the last day of more than six months of frantic U.S. air support of the Lon Nol regime, during which the U.S. flew 32,000 sorties (including 8,000 by B-52s) and dumped more than 245,000 tons of bombs on Cambodia. This deluge totaled 50% more than all the conventional bombs the U.S. rained upon Japan in World War II. Most of it, of course, was aimed at guerrillas hiding in heavy jungle. As a result, the bombing obviously did not inflict...
Without U.S. air support, President Lon Nol is vulnerable. His army of 180,000 is undertrained and undermotivated. Lon Nol's fledgling air force of 30 World War Il-vintage, T-28 propeller-driven fighters will hardly be a substitute for U.S. airpower. Some of the regime's top generals have already established secret contacts with insurgent officers. With the exception of a few Americans, diplomats in the capital are betting that the Lon Nol regime cannot survive until the end of the year. When the insurgents get ready to attack, Phnom-Penh will fall, they predict...
Despite the incessant American aerial barrage, the Khmer insurgents continue to gain ground-battering Lon Nol's forces at will. Deftly applying pressure first on one major highway leading to the capital and then switching to another, the insurgents have kept the government's forces off balance. In fighting creeping ever nearer to Phnom-Penh, the rebels have inflicted 800 to 1,200 casualties weekly upon government troops. The heavy casualties have diluted Lon Nol's units; the four battalions guarding the bridge at Prek Ho now each contain about 120 men, instead of their normal strength...
...Phnom-Penh-will do next. The initiative is all theirs, military observers agree, and they have a range of options: they could launch a frontal attack on the capital, or cause a slow strangulation by cutting off its supplies, or even stage a Tet-like uprising from within. Although Lon Nol has 75,000 troops in and around Phnom-Penh (with insurgent forces estimated at 20,000), fewer than 12,000 are regarded as battle effective. Thousands of others perform headquarters tasks or serve as bodyguards for Lon Nol and other military and political officials. Therefore a significant counterthrust...
...font of optimism in Phnom-Penh, is now playing a waiting game. It no longer talks of reform governments, reorganization of the army, or bright new pacification measures. Gone too is the hint that substantive negotiations are under way. In fact, U.S. sources now openly worry whether the Lon Nol regime can survive the ending of U.S. bombing this week. If in the weeks ahead it does manage to survive, then the insurgents might be tempted to start negotiations. But for the moment Cambodia's existence depends on the force of arms...