Word: mekong
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...ordered all North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops to give up their Cambodian sanctuaries and leave the country. Moving westward so as to put pressure on Lon Nol not to interfere with their refuges and their supply lines, the Communists started seizing territory on the way to the Mekong River. In effect, they turned their backs on South Viet Nam; as Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird has acknowledged privately, the Communists' thinned-out ranks suddenly lowered the risk of American casualties in border raids. His clear implication was that the U.S. was not moving against any major new enemy...
...down to about two weeks' supply of fuel. Another serious setback was the temporary severing of Route 1, which runs between Phnom-Penh and Saigon and is thus one lifeline to Cambodia's most likely source of quick military help. The only other surface route, the Mekong River, was still open, though ships were subject to scattered attacks from the river's banks...
Rocket and mortar attacks have become almost a rarity. In the Mekong Delta (IV Corps), enemy gunners during the month of May loosed not a single round of 122-mm. rocket fire (v. 25 rounds normally) and only two rounds of 107-mm. rockets (v. an average of nearly 100). Says one U.S. officer: "I don't know whether the enemy is short of ammunition, but he certainly seems to be firing less...
...ARVN troops on Operation Pacify West III rode tanks and helicopters into a North Vietnamese base opposite the Central Highlands. Far to the south, another 10,000 ARVN soldiers headed into Cambodia's delta region in "Operation Nine Dragons," so named because it is there that the brown Mekong splits into nine branches...
...worst foul-up occurred at the Mekong town of Kompong Cham, where Communists and Cambodians had been battling for several days. During the fighting, South Vietnamese A-l Skyraiders swooped down on the wrong side, killing ten Cambodians...