Word: kompong
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...nearly two weeks, Kompong Cham−Cambodia's third largest city−has been besieged by Khmer insurgents. During the initial onslaught, government forces were split in two and Communist-backed troops invested more than half of the T-shaped Mekong River town. Late last week the tide of battle turned. The besiegers began to drift away, and the Phnom-Penh government claimed a significant victory. TIME Correspondent Barry Hillenbrand rode a Cambodian helicopter into Kompong Cham, left the scene two days later with a convoy of wounded for the 75-mile voyage downriver to Phnom-Penh. His report...
...soldier for 20 years, first for the French, then for U.S. Special Forces in Viet Nam, now with the Cambodian army. He speaks loud, brash G.I. English sprinkled with obscenities, leads his team on special missions and helps direct the local forces. He is one of the heroes of Kompong Cham's defense...
Last week more than 5,000 insurgents laid siege to a comparable force of government soldiers defending Kompong Cham, Cambodia's third largest city (peacetime pop. 125,000, now about 65,000), approximately 50 miles northeast of Phnom-Penh. Lon Nol vowed that he would not let Kompong Cham fall and dispatched Major General Sar Hor, the highly regarded Minister of Veteran Affairs, to take charge of its defenses. Nonetheless, the insurgents steadily advanced. Using American 105-mm. howitzers captured last month from fleeing government troops, they massively shelled the city, rendering Kompong Cham's airport useless. Government...
...Khmer insurgent offensive slowed, but in June the attacks began again, this time concentrating on the area to the south and southwest of the capital. Village after village was held briefly, then abandoned after air strikes and artillery duels. For the government forces, disaster follows disaster. When Kompong Kantuot near Phnom-Penh was abandoned, the government troops were forced to swim the Thnot River because insurgents had blown the bridges. Some of the soldiers-boys aged twelve to 15-drowned. Those who escaped heard others, left behind and afraid to swim, weeping in fear and despair...
...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...