Word: phanom
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...however, a reconnaissance aircraft accidentally strayed off target and happened to photograph Sap Nao. A routine chick of the film revealed that the village had been obliterated. Unofficial investigations showed that CIA personnel on their own initiative had instructed AIE pilots of the 56th Special Operations Wing at Nakhorn Phanom Air Force base in Thailand to bomb Sap Nao. The pilots, unaware that the Ambassador had not approved the target, had made the strikes. It was later established as well that in fact no ammunition had been stored in the village...
...raiders set off from Nakhon Phanom, a search-and-rescue base in Thailand. They approached their objective overland across Laos and mountainous inland North Viet Nam, a route that avoided the enemy's heaviest radar and antiaircraft defenses. When they returned emptyhanded, Nixon telephoned both Laird and Moorer. He had no regrets, he said; it had been a good plan, the right thing to do. If nothing else, the raid had clearly embarrassed Hanoi by pointing up the holes in the North Vietnamese air defenses...