Tuesday, May 23, 1972
Cambodians Get Set For Angkor Wat Push
PHNOM PENH (UPI) --Government forces are poised on the outskirts of Angkor Wat for a major push to recapture the temple complex, military sources said Sunday.Western military intelligence indicates there are "certainly no more than 300 Communists remaining in the area of Angkor Wat." The rest are believed to have joined other forces moving south for the current Vietnamese offensive.Several thousand Communists occupied the fabled temples, 150 miles northwest of Phnom Penh, in June 1970.According to military sources, President Lon Nol has asked that the temples, which appear as the national emblem on the Khmer Republic flag, be retaken before the June 4 presidential elections.The Cambodian Air Force has been conducting heavy napalm bombing raids around the temples, and some of the government's crack units have moved into the area as reinforcements.The high command Sunday reported a fierce clash just west of Angkor Wat but the exact location and outcome were not revealed.A high command spokesman also reported the fall Sunday of three more government positions southwest of the province capital of Kompong Thom. A fourth position fell early Saturday.Kompong Thom, 102 miles north of Phnom Penh, lies in the path of a major Communist infiltration route into South Vietnam.A grenade thrown into the Phnom Penh central market by a soldier Sunday wounded 14 persons, two seriously. The soldier was arrested, but it was not known immediately why he threw the grenade."Cambodians Get Set For Angkor Wat Push", by (UPI), printed in the Pacific Stars and Stripes Tuesday, May 23, 1972 and reprinted from European and Pacific Stars and Stripes, a Department of Defense publication copyright, 2002 European and Pacific Stars and Stripes.