Word: phnom-penh
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...thus just a matter of time before the capital would fall and, as last week began, an insurgent victory was imminent. After the evacuation of the U.S. embassy (TIME, April 21), the Phnom-Penh government stood alone. "We feel completely abandoned," said Premier Long Boret, who stated at the time that he had decided to remain in Cambodia. Any hope of resupplying or defending the capital ended when the U.S. airlift halted the day the embassy closed...
...road between Phnom-Penh and Pochentong Airport was severed; suburbs to the northwest of the city fell; in the south, in the southwest, on the Mekong riverbank across from the capital's east side, insurgents rolled easily over government defenders. Highly accurate U.S.-made 105-mm. howitzers, captured from government forces, were brought within range of the airport to support a punishing rebel ground assault. After a three-day-long seesaw battle, first the control tower and then the airfield fell...
...Khmer Rouge pushed forward, setting fire to houses and refugee camps, thousands of new refugees preceded them. The endless stream, including government soldiers who had shed their uniforms and insurgents who were attempting to infiltrate Phnom-Penh, pressed toward the capital on foot, in oxcarts and by motorbike...
Ghost Town. As the battle moved closer to Phnom-Penh, military police used rifle butts in a futile attempt to control the mobs of refugees flowing into the city. After a disaffected air force pilot bombed the military command headquarters (killing seven), a 24-hour curfew was imposed for one day while police went from house to house to search for infiltrators. Hospitals were crowded to two and three times their capacity. The small French community, anticipating the imminent arrival of the insurgents, began affixing the Tricolor to their houses; Paris had already recognized the Khmer Rouge. Meanwhile, the evacuated...
...midweek, Phnom-Penh radio admitted that the situation "is boiling hotter and hotter." The insurgents had moved their 105-mm. howitzers close enough to shell downtown Phnom-Penh. The army's ammunition was nearly exhausted. "The end is fast approaching," a Cambodian employee of TIME cabled. "All is about to be lost. There will be no more escape...