Word: mekong
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...against Communist base areas. Elsewhere, the new war reached far beyond the sanctuaries. In the Gulf of Siam, U.S. and South Vietnamese patrol craft extended their coastal quarantine to a 70-mile stretch of the Cambodian coastline. At Neak Luong, South Vietnamese Marines and heliborne troops recaptured the vital Mekong River ferry crossing in a battle that left 139 Communists dead. Farther up the Mekong, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops were making determined stands. And north of the border, the Communists were putting so much pressure on Laos that a spokesman in Vientiane said it might become "a necessity...
...Communist sanctuaries involved 20,000 allied troops operating in two areas, the Parrot's Beak and Fishhook havens northwest of Saigon. By week's end, as half a dozen new task forces were hurled into the border war, the sweeps had spread south as far as the Mekong River and north to the highlands near the Laotian border. What started as a two-front foray was now a campaign engaging 40,000 troops along 600 miles of the frontier...
...under no such restrictions, and may well drive deeper and stay longer. In fact, a South Vietnamese naval force was on its way toward the very heart of Cambodia at week's end. Accompanied by 30 U.S. craft, a flotilla of 70 South Vietnamese gunboats headed up the Mekong, bound for Phnom-Penh. Ostensibly, its mission is to evacuate South Vietnamese from the Cambodian capital. Along the way, however, the heavily armed boats did not hesitate to engage Communist troops occupying the key Cambodian river town of Neak Luong (see following story...
Communist forces seem ubiquitous and unbeatable in the entire third of the country east of the Mekong River. Last week they launched a major thrust west of the Mekong as well, when a force of up to 600 Viet Cong and North Vietnamese seized the ferry crossing at Neak Luong, then drove up densely forested Route 1 to within 30 miles of Phnom-Penh...
Within a few weeks, seasoned North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops had gained an upper hand in most of Cambodia east of the Mekong River. Moreover, there were signs that they hoped to link their five major sanctuaries into a continuous fortified buffer, leaving South Viet Nam's entire western flank exposed. The threat of wide Communist gains began worrying Nixon. After his April 20 speech, the President flew back from San Clemente to Washington to be greeted with the news that Communist troops had attacked two key Cambodian towns. In the next four days, they attacked and occupied four...