KHMER REPUBLIC: GOVERNMENT TROOPS LAUNCH NEW SWEEP ALONG HIGHWAY SIX DESPITE RECENT DEFEATS.

Record ID: 647819

  • Title: KHMER REPUBLIC: GOVERNMENT TROOPS LAUNCH NEW SWEEP ALONG HIGHWAY SIX DESPITE RECENT DEFEATS.
  • Date: 23rd December 1971
  • Summary: 1. Troop carriers along Highway Six 0.10 2. Troops off and begin sweep through paddy fields (3 shots) 0.27 3. Girl soldiers carrying ammunition boxes 0.34 4. Commander studies map 0.40 5. Spotter aircraft overhead 0.43 6. Officer on field telephone 0.46 7. Khmers mortaring suspected Communist positions (2 shots) 0.54 8. Troops run across paddy 1.00 9. Khmer camp 1.04 10. Mortars mounted on armoured carrier fired 1.12 Initials OS/001 OS/010 Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 7th January 1972 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: NORTH-EAST OF PHNOM PENH, KHMER REPUBLIC
  • Country: Cambodia
  • Reuters ID: LVA4KDGW0EU0RYQNRQ3SGGEFRHRK
  • Story Text: Khmer Government troops today (Wednesday) broke the ten-day communist siege of a garrison at Taing Kauk, a village 60 miles (95 kms) north of Phnom Penh. This latest success is part of a major new operation along Highway Six, where government forces suffered a crushing defeat earlier this month.

    Visnews cameraman Lee Yosep was in at the beginning of the operation on Monday (December 20), as troops moved towards their primary objective -- the village of Prakham, where another garrison of 500 men had been under siege for nearly a week.

    SYNOPSIS: A further chapter in the fiercely contested battle for Highway Six started on Monday, as Khmer Government troops swept into a new operation. This is the same area where a prestige Government sweep ended in a disastrous defeat earlier in the month. The Khmer High Command said the new operation was on a large-scale, with several battalions of troops backed by armour. Girl soldiers were among the personnel who set off on the sweep on Monday.

    The first objective was the village of Prakham, where a government garrison of nearly five-hundred men had been cut off for a week. When the relieving forces broke through the day after this film was shot, they found that a third of the men in the garrison were casualties during an intensive five-day communist attack. The soldiers swept on to relieve a second garrison village of Taing Kauk, where as many as six-thousand government troops were thought to be pinned down by communist forces.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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