Word: som
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Since the Cambodian port of Kompong Som (formerly Sihanoukville) was closed to them last spring, the Communists have had to rely solely on the Ho Chi Minh Trail to move men and supplies down to South Viet Nam and Cambodia. With the advent of the dry season, they have made fuller use of the trail than ever before (see box. page 28). American commanders have longed to cut the trail ever since the U.S. entered the war. Contingency plans providing for everything from hit-and-run attacks to a permanent troop barrier across the route were drawn...
...main U.S. concern is the increasing flow of rice, fuel, ammunition and other supplies down the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which became more important to the Communists than ever when the Cambodian port of Kompong Som (Sihanoukville) was closed to them last year. In December, a U.S. bomber hit a jungle-covered truck depot 700 yards off the trail. Subsequent raids caused 7,000 secondary explosions and ignited fires that sent smoke rising 6,000 ft. That find and others like it have strengthened Washington's belief that the Communists are scrambling to restock the sanctuaries along the South...
...Doctrine. The rescue operation involved 8,000 Cambodian infantry and 5,300 South Vietnamese troops, backed by artillery and no fewer than 200 tanks. One force, predominantly Cambodian, drove south from Phnom-Penh along Route 4, the key, 125-mile link with Kompong Som, Cambodia's one deepwater port and site of its only oil refinery. Another force, combining Cambodian infantry and South Vietnamese armor, pushed north from Kompong Som. The pincers closed on the rugged, heavily jungled Elephant Mountains, where 1,000 North Vietnamese regulars from the crack 101st Regiment had been blocking a 25-mile stretch...
...have hit each often enough to make highway travel risky at best. Northwest of Phnom-Penh on Route 5, rice-laden trucks bound for the city are waylaid fairly frequently. The closing of Route 4 spelled an end to the petroleum supplies that had come by truck from Kompong Som. Some fuel comes up the Mekong by tanker, but not enough to prevent shortages...
Thus Phnom-Penh is not exactly on the ropes. Gasoline prices have risen, rice is up 50%, domestic sugar has disappeared from store shelves, and the supply of Cambodian beer has dried up, because the only brewery is situated in Kompong Som. Still, champignons a la Grecque, cóte de boeuf and a respectable Beaujolais can still be had in the city's good French restaurants. Because of a curfew-and power shutdowns to save generator fuel-Phnom-Penh's bars now close by 8 or 9 p.m. As a result, the capital's numerous ladies...