Word: pochentong
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Hoarding Food. Another objective of Minh's noisy operation is to counter a Communist campaign against Cambodia's capital. For a month, enemy rockets have repeatedly slammed into Phnom-Penh and nearby Pochentong airport. One theory is that the Communists are trying to force the Cambodians to pull back for the defense of the capital the troops that are harassing them in northern and eastern Cambodia. Phnom-Penh's residents are so worried that a Communist invasion is imminent that they have begun to hoard food. Obviously, Minh is not the only one who knows...
...would come under intolerable pressure. In skirmish after skirmish, the Cambodian regime's 160,000-man army has proved unable to hold its own against Communist forces without American support in the air and help from the South Vietnamese on the ground. After the spectacular raids on Pochentong airport and targets in Phnom-Penh, Premier Lon Nol was described by his aides as "depressed." He could not have been particularly heartened either by exiled Prince Norodom Sihanouk's remark that in a year or two Cambodia will "fall by itself like a ripe fruit...
Despite White House assertions that there is no U.S. commitment to ensure the survival of the Lon Nol government, the Administration seems determined to prove Sihanouk wrong. Soon after the Pochentong disaster, the Pentagon sent two new UH-1 ("Huey") helicopters to Phnom-Penh-a start at rebuilding the broken Cambodian air force. Within the limits imposed by Congress, the Administration is sending in military specialists. An American demolition team has arrived in Phnom-Penh, much to the relief of Cambodian demolition men, who have been sighted in the capital, standing over unexploded terrorist grenades and bombs while puzzling through...
...Cambodia is a sense of urgency. Before the recent sapper attacks, U.S. experts repeatedly pointed out the vulnerability of fuel-storage areas, electric-power utilities and other facilities in Phnom-Penh. Last week the Cambodian government blandly revealed that it had known eight days beforehand that an attack on Pochentong was coming. Nothing was done, because there was just not enough barbed wire on hand...
Walls of Flame. The Communists gutted Pochentong with scandalous ease. When the first rockets and mortar rounds came pounding in on the airfield and a nearby army camp at 2:30 a.m., some of the Cambodian guards were killed and the rest took off in fear of their lives. Then one sapper squad of about ten men simply strolled into the main terminal building while another cut its way through the barbed wire on the airfield periphery. At their leisure, the Communists carried powerful satchel charges to nearly every building, hangar and operational aircraft on the field...