Word: phnom-penh
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...outward signs of crisis are clear enough. The leafy green capital of Phnom-Penh, its population swelled to 1,500,000 by some 400,000 refugees from the fighting, remains cut off from most of the country. Two convoys of ships from South Viet Nam managed to slip up the Mekong River through heavy Communist gunfire (see next story). About 400 trucks carrying food supplies arrived safely from Kompong Som, on the western seaboard. The blockade has technically been broken, but it may take weeks to determine whether the Communist offensive has been turned back...
...stated aim of the Communist offensive is not to overrun Phnom-Penh itself, a feat that the Communists probably could not accomplish anyway because they do not have the troops to do it. Rather the aim is to bring the war as close to the capital as possible, in the hope that civil unrest will lead to the fall of Marshal Lon Nol's regime...
...just brought his shell-scarred Lucky Star to the dock in Phnom-Penh last week−the 3,500-ton lead ship in a convoy that had to run a gauntlet of Communist gunfire to reach the encircled Cambodian capital. Normally, such ships−manned by Chinese crews that get large, unspecified war bonuses to do the work−set out every ten days from the South Vietnamese port of Vung Tau with cargoes of machinery, machine parts and fuel. The latest convoy, however, was delayed two weeks while U.S. bombers tried to clear a passage through Communist gunners along...
...most dangerous part of the 150-mile run up the Mekong from the China Sea came between An Long, 20 miles south of the Cambodian frontier, and Neak Luong, site of a Cambodian naval base 32 miles southeast of Phnom-Penh. With radios at An Long blaring reports of heavy enemy crossfire ahead. South Vietnamese river pilots refused to guide the ships the last few miles to the frontier while Cambodian pilots declined to cross the frontier into foreign waters. Some captains, deciding to proceed anyway, argued loudly for arms. "Give us some machine guns," demanded one. A South Vietnamese...
...even Phnom-Penh is safe. Last January, the Lucky Star was attacked in the harbor by North Vietnamese frogmen using plastique explosives. A month earlier, the Lucky Star's sister ship, the Bright Star, was holed by plastique and sank. Cambodian soldiers routinely stand lookout duty against frogmen, occasionally lobbing grenades off the piers or spraying the water with machine-gun fire. For the crew of the embattled Lucky Star, however, the guards are simply a nuisance. "I wish they would go away," gripes one of the deck crew. "All they do is keep us awake, smoke our cigarettes...