Word: abandoning
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Even if South Viet Nam survives, at best it will be in truncated form, having shrunk to the provinces around Saigon and the Mekong Delta. Even so, it was abundantly clear that Thieu's decision two weeks ago to abandon some outlying hard-to-defend provinces to the Communists had started a rout of his forces...
...reason for this painful loss of precious materiel was the very suddenness of Thieu's decision to abandon several provinces. Soldiers had no time to organize orderly retreats. In northern Quang Tri province, one of the army's best regional defense groups suffered a 15% desertion rate just before the Communist attack on the once lovely Hue; most of the deserters were concerned about the fate of their families. The retreat from Hue reached the frightening proportions of a stampede. Soldiers left behind 105-mm. howitzers and threw away rifles...
...address he urged his countrymen to maintain their "unfaltering anti-Communist determination." But he avoided any direct mention of his decision to abandon large portions of his country-or of the hundreds of thousands of newly created refugees who were already choking the nation's road ways. In previous times, Thieu has sometimes been criticized for postponing decisions. Last week's decision -surely one of the most agonizing of his career-was based on the new realities in both Saigon and Washington, and was made with surprising speed...
...South Vietnamese troops from the northern provinces and the Central Highlands took the world by surprise, and foreign journalists stationed in the country were no exception. Actually, President Nguyen Van Thieu acted with such secrecy that even his Joint General Staff did not know of his decision to abandon the provinces until they read about it in a Saigon newspaper. To find out what was happening, journalistic improvisation was in order...
...Regional Transportation Authority promised to take over service in and out of the city. Meanwhile, the Interstate Commerce Commission summoned representatives from 60 railroads to Washington and indicated that it will dismember the 7,500-mile road. The ice will parcel out some segments to other Western lines, and abandon the remainder of the Rock Island...