Word: phnom-penh
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That was the official American account of the damage inflicted after a B-52 Stratofortress last week mistakenly emptied its 20-ton load on Neak Luong, 38 miles southeast of Phnom-Penh. But when reporters later visited Neak Luong, a sleepy town of 5,000, they wondered whether they and Colonel Opfer were talking about the same place. Instead of "minimal" damage, as Opfer had described it, they found horrifying devastation-enough to make it the worst bombing error of the long Indochina war. At least 137 Cambodians were killed and 268 wounded. A mile-long string of more than...
...from the American bombs, and from the government ammunition dumps ignited by them, strewed a gruesome debris of human limbs and bloody bedding all over the town. For acres, trees were denuded and charred. Days later, survivors still searched the rubble for missing family members. Many turned up in Phnom-Penh's overcrowded hospitals with arms and legs missing, puzzled as to why the U.S. had bombed them. A woman whose family had been wounded kept asking, "Why do the Americans want to continue the war?" A marine whose young son had been killed moaned...
...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 of at least 400. Morale...
...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 by the government remains out of the question...
...diplomatic community has already abandoned the Lon Nol ship of state. One group after another has evacuated dependents and unnecessary personnel: the Japanese, the British, the Malaysians, the Australians and so on down the line. The U.S. embassy is still at its congressional limit of 200 staffers. Phnom-Penh has only about 65 other American residents, plus about 30 to 40 journalists. They all have been notified of evacuation stations and advised by the embassy that they will be allowed to bring only one small suitcase; the embassy notice suggested that the bag best be packed in advance...