Losing Vietnam (44 page)

Airdrops could provide the eighteen additional sorties required. However, to increase from the current ten airdrop-sorties-per-day capability, the Military Assistance Command, Thailand Support Air Group at Samae San would also require additional personnel and equipment. Since the rice resupply was critical, the most feasible solution was to support airlift requirements from Samae San and U-Tapao. This, however, would require the Thai government's permission to throughput American rice, and that permission was denied.

The major limiting factor for aerial resupply was the potential enemy interdiction of Pochentong, which could result in short- or long-term interruptions of the flow of airland sorties. In any event, planning was ongoing. Recognizing the situation, the JCS had increased the airlift capabilities on 7 February, after TP-114 failed, and again on 27 February, when it became apparent that the Mekong was closed. If the DAO in Saigon or MEDTC in Phnom Penh clearly articulated a problem, they could expect immediate CINCPAC and JCS support (within funding limits or other restrictions laid down by Congress). Higher headquarters were always very supportive in dozens of situations.

The U.S. Air Force supply airdrop had been ongoing since May 1973. At that time, the Khmer military and the civilian population had withdrawn into enclaves, after which the communists systematically cut off land routes, making airlift resupply a necessity for the enclaves' survival. In May 1974, six major enclaves required a total average daily resupply of 144 short tons, two-thirds ammo and one-third rice—which required about ten sorties per day in total. There always were end-of-month shortages of some ammo line items. To optimize the situation, our staff implemented several actions that materially improved the effectiveness of the total system. First, the staff analyzed the ammo calls forward for the major enclaves for the month of June 1974 and determined that 82 percent of the tonnage to be delivered (1,554 short tons) consisted of six major line items (plus fuses). In contrast, 18 percent (341 short tons) consisted of sixteen line items. The 341 short tons was the equivalent of sixty sorties, or two per day. Because the minor line items had low tonnage requirements, the amount of ammo on hand could fluctuate greatly. It appeared that the Khmer Air Force could respond quickly to those requirements to ensure that the enclaves maintained adequate levels. The U.S. Air Force could resupply the six major line items and thus could facilitate the programming and loading of calls forward, thereby improving response times. The requirements for Cambodian and U.S. air support to enclaves could then be balanced between the U.S. and Khmer air forces.
²²⁷

The next step was for the U.S. Air Force to adopt both sixteen- and ten-pallet standard loads. Thus, each sortie would have much greater flexibility when several enclaves were being resupplied, if required to divert from one landing zone or drop zone to another because of weather or tactical situations. The Khmer Air Force–tailored loads could meet ammo imbalances at an enclave.
²²⁸
Again, standardized loads facilitated rigging, loading, accounting, and calls forward. None of the measures resulting from operational analysis were earthshaking, but they greatly facilitated the management of ammunition resupply to enclaves and, more importantly, we realized a cutback in sorties.

The airdrop techniques the C-130 crews used included the adverse weather aerial delivery system, a multipurpose avionics system designed to assist aircrews in performing aerial delivery missions in low visibility or darkness. With this high-velocity system, they were able to drop
from altitudes above ten thousand feet and avoid the antiaircraft defenses of the enemy. At various times, airdrops using these procedures supplied twenty-five different enclaves. The overall drop accuracy was excellent. During the critical period of 1 January through 13 April 1975, out of 5,548 bundles dropped, only thirty landed off the drop zone, indicating the competence of the system and the crews. However, our streamer rate (those bundles whose parachutes did not open) always seemed to hover at about 6 percent.
²²⁹

During these critical periods, all logistical personnel at Samae San and U-Tapao responded in an exemplary fashion to airdrop requirements in Cambodia. Positive response often involved long hours of backbreaking effort by the army and air force personnel, and they met every challenge successfully.

The enemy overran several Cambodian positions and captured equipment and supplies. In fact, it had taken forty-four 105 mm howitzers with a sizeable quantity of ammo, which it then used to shell enclaves—Kompong Cham, Das Kanchor, and Takeo to name a few. The enemy's January 1974 shelling of Phnom Penh with several hundred rounds of 105 mm had caused a near-panic situation. These attacks caused substantial casualties, mostly civilian: When the support troops at Samae San responsible for preparing bundles to be airdropped into enclaves heard of this, they thought of spiking a bundle of 105 ammo, which they proposed to have dropped outside the drop zone so the enemy would recover and hopefully use it. When the spiked ammo was fired, it would explode—destroying the gun and perhaps a few communist artillerymen. The idea seemed enterprising, but I understood that when their headquarters got wind of it they responded, “no dirty tricks.” However, it was a very dirty war. For example, the communists occasionally dressed in FANK uniforms and went into towns to recruit for the army; those who volunteered or expressed interest were liquidated.

In 1974 it had been our goal to reduce airland requirements to the absolute minimum, for safety reasons, and to maximize the use of the Mekong convoys; thus, twice the tonnage had been delivered by airdrop as by airland. However, in 1975, with the Mekong interdicted, it was absolutely essential to increase airlanded deliveries. In 1974 more than 94 percent of all deliveries to Cambodia were by the Mekong,
while from February to April 1975 more than 89 percent were airlanded.
²³²
Careful planning and great execution by all concerned made this dramatic switch possible, as the threat to aircraft landing at Pochentong from rocket and artillery attacks was much greater than ever before. With the turn back of convoy TP-114, Brigadier General Palmer told CINCPAC that Cambodia's resupply had been thrown into great jeopardy, and it was operating on a paper-thin margin.

On 7 February, there were only about seven thousand short tons of ammo in storage at Kantauk. To alleviate the situation, the Bird Air contract was adjusted to increase the daily sortie rate from seven to twenty. Additionally, the Military Airlift Command contracted for three DC-8s to airlift ammo from U-Tapao to Phnom Penh. The planes were piloted by World Airways and Airlift International crews. In February, these assets together transported 12,276 short tons of ammo, which built up stocks only somewhat, since expenditures were still high.

At the end of February, the emphasis on resupply switched to rice, and because of problems obtaining clearance from the Thai government for its import, the DC-8 operation moved to Tan Son Nhut Airfield at Saigon. Between 27 February and 17 April, 2,001 sorties were flown, bringing 56,723 short tons of essential cargo to the besieged city of Phnom Penh.
²³³

Unfortunately, many members of the U.S. Congress refused to acknowledge the importance of aerial support for Cambodia's survival. The
Indochina News
reported that twenty-one Democratic congressmen filed a federal suit to halt all U.S. supply airlift and reconnaissance flights in Cambodia, alleging that such flights were in violation of a congressional ban on U.S. involvement in Cambodia.
²³⁴

The JCS suspended all airlift support to Cambodia on 17 April 1975. The last airlift effort was a rice drop to Kompong Chhnang at 1520 hours. Headquarters USSAG summarized the Khmer airlift shortly thereafter:

Obviously, the airlift was much more expensive than the Mekong convoys. The transportation costs came out of the military assistance funds, thereby reducing the amount available for purchasing ammo. A day of reckoning was coming; however, it was hoped by the GKR that Congress would provide supplemental funding to stave off a catastrophe. By 1 March 1975, the ammo stockage had been replenished and the inaugural flights of the rice airlift from Saigon had gone smoothly, with ten round-trip flights. Consequently, many thought that the airlift could buy the time needed to reopen the Mekong. Ambassador Dean, for instance, said to the press that the military situation was “grim but not desperate.” The major concern was that one of the resupply aircraft might be shot down, which would render the situation untenable for the U.S. airlift.

Adequate logistics are fundamental for successfully waging a war, and the logistical supply of Cambodia was a nightmare. The lack of funding greatly limited supplies, all land routes were cut, thirteen completely isolated population enclaves could only be supplied by airdrop, and the Mekong main supply route was severely interdicted. It was Headquarters USSAG's responsibility to oversee the transportation of critical supplies to Cambodia.
²³⁵
By 1975, out-of-country transportation assets provided half of the Cambodian rice consumption, all of its petroleum products, and all the essential logistics of war. In other words, Cambodia was almost totally supplied by military-supervised airland, airdrop, and Mekong convoys. Internal distributions were the responsibilities of USAID, FANK, and Telakhmer. Except for the Mekong and aerial resupply, Phnom Penh, the heart of Cambodia, was totally isolated. The expensive and dangerous logistical resupply by air, no matter how successful, could only be a short-term solution. Thus,
when the Mekong River, Cambodia's lifeline, was cut, the end of the war was inevitable.

USSAG's review of the Cambodian situation indicated that on 1 March 1975 the military situation was nearly a standoff. The enemy had been seriously attrited. However, FANK had to kindle the will to fight.

Enemy units took terrible losses in their initial attack on Phnom Penh. The intensity of combat in the 1975 dry season was more than double that of any previous offensive. The enemy conducted four times as many attacks, and friendly casualties, which averaged about 71 per day in January 1974, increased to 120 per day in January 1975. Enemy kills jumped from 31 per day in January 1974 to 234 per day in January 1975. Communist prisoners of war and ralliers confirmed the heavy casualties. Personnel replacements for communist combat losses were readily available in the early part of the dry season, but by March they were hard to come by. Enemy regiments that entered combat with twelve hundred troops now had current strengths of only four hundred personnel. Whatever replacements were received were mostly poorly trained second-rate troops. For example, on 2 March the Khmer communist high command of KC Region 405 (southwest of Phnom Penh) issued an order that all men between the ages of sixteen and fifty-five must be mobilized for immediate deployment to the Phnom Penh battlefront. In February, two young prisoners captured by the 3rd FANK Division said they had been sent to the front without any training and had learned to fire their AK-47s on the road from Takeo to the Phnom Penh area. The same month, a rallier stated that many of the 152nd KC Regiment's troops were new and “did not even know how to hold a weapon.” These men ended up as cannon fodder.

Nevertheless, the enemy kept reinforcing the siege of Phnom Penh with these newly formed or upgraded territorial units, so the number of battalions committed kept growing. The joint staff also realized the only way to save Phnom Penh was to pull units from the provincial capitals, but it did not reinforce with sufficient units. Although the number of FANK battalion equivalents in the capital region and lower Mekong increased, the total number of units countrywide decreased
as understrength units were inactivated to build up the ranks of viable units. The force distribution countrywide and at Phnom Penh and in the lower Mekong for both FANK and the KC is shown in
table 24
.

Table 24.
Force Distributions, Battalions

Source
: FANK, EMG, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

FANK's capital region and lower Mekong unit availability increased by fifty-six battalions between 20 December 1974 and 15 April 1975. Forty-one of these came from the six enclaves in MRs 2, 6, and 9, which were nearest Phnom Penh. Four outlying major enclaves in MRs 4 and 8 remained the same, but Battambang (MR 3) and Pursat (MR 9) were unbelievably reinforced by a total of sixteen battalions. (See
map 10
.) On 15 April, these twelve enclaves had 45 percent of all battalions and at least 50 percent of the overall combat personnel, yet by then they faced mostly understrength communist territorials, as the bulk of the enemy's main force battalions were in the capital region, engaged with the intervention battalions. Additional reinforcements for the Phnom Penh area were desperately needed but not forthcoming.