Word: phnom-penh
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Over in Cambodia. Hong Kong Bureau Chief Roy Rowan, who covered the collapse of Chiang Kai-shek's army for LIFE in 1949, reported that table talk among journalists in Phnom-Penh has turned abruptly and urgently to plans for escape...
...March 18 five years ago, President Lon Nol led the coup in Phnom-Penh that forced neutralist Prince Norodom Sihanouk into exile. Last week rockets fired by the Khmer Rouge insurgents kept raining down on the besieged capital, more embassies closed, students demonstrated and a unit of loyalist troops went on strike, but somehow the government survived for another week despite a growing awareness that the U.S. Congress was not about to authorize any more military aid. Meanwhile, there were speculations that Lon Nol may be quitting as President within the next two weeks...
Airport Attacks. Weary government troops continued to fight for survival against the relentless Khmer Rouge (see following story). The Cambodians struggled to retake the village of Tuol Leap, six miles to the northwest of Phnom-Penh, which the enemy had been using as a site for launching rockets against Pochentong Airport. As the fighting swayed back and forth, Khmer Rouge attacks on the airport lessened, and as many as 49 cargo planes flew in daily from Thailand and Saigon with tons of food, oil, medicines and arms...
...pieces and sent shell after shell screaming through the city on flat trajectories. Hundreds of civilians were killed or wounded every day, and many bodies were left to decompose in the streets. The attacks destroyed a naval ammunition dump, a fuel depot and a floating naval base. Helicopters to Phnom-Penh were the only means of escape; they were reserved for wounded soldiers and wealthy Cambodians who could afford the price of a ticket...
...Khmer Rouge kept up their determined attacks, Israel, Poland and Singapore joined Australia and Britain in closing their embassies in Phnom-Penh. The French downgraded their embassy to a consulate and began to evacuate their staff and any French citizens who wanted to leave. Last Monday morning, reported TIME Correspondent Roy Rowan, a large group of French and Métis (French Cambodians) gathered in front of the old embassy and stared at the bright travel posters picturing the Eiffel Tower, Mont Blanc and the stained glass windows of the Chartres Cathedral. Many of the evacuees had never been...